Three cheers for the booing England fans. By Brendan O’Neill.
The plebs committed their crime against decency at the England-Austria game at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough last night. Before kick-off, the players of both teams performed the borderline religious ritual of bowing down to the politics of identity. That’s what taking the knee really represents — subjugation to the BLM outlook, to the deathly precepts of critical race theory, to the idea that the Western world is so awash with racism that sporting superstars must talk about it constantly in order to shake the scales from the eyes of their dim, probably prejudiced fans.
As has happened at other games since lockdown restrictions were eased and fans were allowed back into the stands, some people booed. And it was pointed booing. They really meant it. They were making a statement, presumably about how pissed off they are that the beautiful game has come to be colonised by the sanctimonious signalling and paternalistic awareness-raising of the woke elites. …
Booing at another recent match, followed by the usual propaganda.
Fingers have been wagged all over the place. The booing was ‘sickening’, said Labour’s John McDonnell. ‘It was racism and should be called out’, he said. How does he know it was racist? Can he see into football fans’ minds? Or does he always presume that large gatherings of noisy working-class blokes are racist mobs in waiting, likely to turn violent at the first whiff of a Sun editorial saying there are too many immigrants? And these snobs masquerading as Marxists wonder why their Red Wall has collapsed. …
The double standard that is never mentioned:
Why is taking the knee so seemingly essential in football — every bloody weekend — but isn’t happening at other big gatherings? Unless I’m wrong and when theatres and opera houses reopen the actors and singers will take the knee every night. Hmm. I doubt it. …
Contrary to the belief of Guardianistas who love football but hate its fanbase, football fans aren’t actually stupid. They know they’re being targeted for woke correction more than any other constituency in the country. They know that their sport has been more BLMed than any other sport or cultural pastime in the land. And they know why — it’s because there is a long-standing hateful prejudice towards football fans that views them as backward, dumb and possessed of prejudices that the rest of us jettisoned long ago. They’re booing that. They’re booing you, the patronising pricks who think the working classes require urgent re-education and that it is ‘sickening’ when they dare to push back against it. …
A working-class revolt against wokeness is exactly what this country needs.
It’s the new class warfare, by the party of the rich and the professionals — along with the various identity groups whose support they buy — versus the rest of us.
