I AM at the Real Left seminar in Islington to hear the ‘case against the World Economic Forum’. The audience is mostly lifelong committed lefties, several of whom I recognise from freedom rallies of the last three years (and some from the Brexit campaign). Previously known as Left Lockdown Sceptics, the organisers and members believe that they represent true socialism, and are disillusioned by their many peers who fall into line with the Covid-19 and climate change agendas.
To the majority of the liberal-left intelligentsia, these dissidents are regressive cranks. Fittingly, the meeting is in an austere non-conformist chapel; above the stage is the message ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (I Timothy)’. The occupants are certainly immoral in the eyes of Covid-19 zealots. On arrival I heard that activists
from an Antifa affliated group had attended a previous anti mandate
meeting held in the church in order to ‘doxx’ speakers and attendees.
On the previous day, Richard Seymour wrote in the Guardian on the left-wing fringe that is getting into bed with the far right through conspiracy theories about the pandemic and 15-minute cities. Why can’t they get on board with the default attack on the Tories for their ‘pile ’em high’ recklessness and for stifling the saintly NHS?
The first theme of the day is the medical case against the WEF and its ‘great reset’. Emily Garcia, a radical feminist and critic of the prevailing allopathic model of medicine, explains how Klaus Schwab’s ‘fourth industrial revolution’ is transforming healthcare by stealth. She recounts how NHS chief Sir Simon Stevens saw Covid-19 as a golden opportunity to move health services rapidly to a digital platform, including data harvesting and virtual clinical appointments. Garcia’s informative alert is followed by video-link to Vikki Spit, who was the first to receive a government pay-out after her husband was killed by the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Next is pathologist Clare Craig, well-known for her Twitter critique of official reports on Covid-19. Craig acknowledges some benefits of artificial intelligence in healthcare, but emphasises that medicine is as much an art as a science; the doctor-patient relationship is built on trust which cannot be replicated by robots. In the pandemic the GP was removed from the diagnostic process. Digitalisation of assessment and treatment may be efficient but it is devoid of empathy and ethics (I have warned on TCW about the new ‘community diagnostic centres’ opening in every town). In the Q&A session Craig is cautious on audience members’ doubts about the existence of viruses and efficacy of vaccines.
The ecological case, the second theme, is made passionately and eloquently by Paul Cudenec, author of numerous tracts against rapacious capitalism. He laments, similarly to Naomi Klein in No Logo two decades ago, that the language and slogans of the left have been pinched by the globalists. On sustainability, for example, the WEF is not really interested in human harmony with nature, but in sustaining corporate hegemony. So far so good, but Cudenec then claims that the Left is the cause of freedom from authoritarianism. This is dubious given the prevalence of puritanical attitudes to free speech, to lockdown and to Net Zero. If the left believes that something is for the greater good, individual liberty is an obstruction. From trade unionists to Guardian readers, a basic universal income would be mistaken as an emancipatory development rather than the road to serfdom.
Cudenec blames capitalism for all of society’s ills, a belief also expressed by Seymour in his Guardian commentary (indeed, Seymour was delighted by lockdown as a reprieve from free-market destructiveness, blissfully ignorant of the largest-ever transfer of wealth from poor to rich and from small businesses to mega-corporations). According to the next speaker, Piers Corbyn, the major oil companies make immense profits from supposedly green policies, but such truths do not embarrass the Brahmin Left – comfortably aloof and unchallenged on the pseudoscientific doctrines that they use for virtue-signalling.
Unlike Cudenec, Corbyn looks beyond the unhelpful political divide. He tells the audience that he received a message this morning from maverick Tory MP Andrew Bridgen (while his brother Jeremy shows no interest). Bridgen remarked that this is a battle not between left and right, but between right and wrong. A few people cheer. Earlier, I’d helped Corbyn stitch his many banners to the church walls (e.g. ‘Break ULEZ, break Sadiq Khan: drive wherever you want’).
Corbyn, needing no microphone (or change of outfit) is the most engaging speaker. He traces back to the Club of Rome, founded in 1968, which began the use of manmade climate change as a stick with which to beat the ordinary people. On the refrain that ‘97 per cent of scientists’ believe in a climate crisis, Corbyn scoffs at a rigged opinion poll passing for objective fact. The scam is based not on scientific observation and analysis but on modelling (a smoke-and-mirrors technique to get the desired result from multi-factorial data) and propaganda.
Fraudulent data show rising temperatures linked to carbon dioxide emissions, but Corbyn likens the extent of human impact to the damage caused by a bird’s dropping hitting the roof of a house. Sceptics are defending science from its manipulation in the service of tyranny. Corbyn appeals for unity, breaking down barriers and taking courage from a gaining momentum of protest in France and the Netherlands. He ends with his customary chant: ‘Resist, defy, do not comply’.
It’s interesting that the event is declared as a gathering for those who still identify as left-wing. This contrasts with the recent, highly successful event held by TCW, which (despite the conservative background) was open to all of sceptical bent. The problem with a rigidly left-wing perspective is that the New World Order is interpreted as fascism, while those stuck in right-wing thinking see it as communism. We need to understand that it’s a combination of both, and that the totalitarian boot stamping on your head hurts – whatever the label.
