Anas Sarwar follows Keir Starmer in refusing to call out Musk salute
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24876071.anas-sarwar-follows-number-10-refusing-call-musk-salute/
Posted by corbynista2029
Anas Sarwar follows Keir Starmer in refusing to call out Musk salute
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24876071.anas-sarwar-follows-number-10-refusing-call-musk-salute/
Posted by corbynista2029
22 Comments
> Responding to the accusations, Musk wrote on X: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”
How long before he starts growing a little moustache?
>Sarwar also opted not to condemn the entrepreneur, insisting he did not want to give him attention.
The right approach in my opinion. Don’t give that twat any more reason to try and meddle in our politics.
The twat did it because he wins either way.
His right wing fans think he’s super cool and edgy. The rest of the world think he’s a tool/fascist and it generates loads of media and news about him. Which he loves.
He can deny it was a satute and claim it’s another example of the woke left trying to come after him. He can start fights with governments who condemn him and set his bitch Trump on them. Putting his companies in a better position to profit.
And all the while the media circus will pussy foot around him, making excuses and keep him in the headlines inflating his ego.
What a shit timeline we live in.
James O’Brien nailed it on LBC. If you started doing that gesture in public, say in the pub or school gates, people would quite rightly call you out. Even if you were excited cos it’s your birthday party or something. The optics are bad whatever way you look at it.
All he had to do was come out and say…oops. of course that isn’t what I mean, sorry!
But he didn’t.
And we all know why.
It’s gross seeing the media and other politicians make excuses.
We all know why. It will be interesting to see who keeps their dignity.
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Sorry but it is not the PMs job to be calling out every insane thing that some American moron does. He wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
I’m torn on this, clearly it was but it is highly likely he wants us to be talking about this and it is the reason he does it.
So would it be better to deprive him of oxygen instead (so to speak)?
Has r/unitedkingdom had a discussion post about banning direct links to X ?
Anybody defending it is just dumb as a rock for so many reasons. Everyone should think back through their entire life and just think when have you or anyone you know ever even come *close* to doing a nazi salute by accident not even once, but twice? It is not a natural, instinctive body movement. It is a conscious decision to do what he did, beat his chest, stretch his arm out, palm down at *that* specific angle. It is plain as fucking day.
There are countless other ways he could have expressed ‘giving his heart out to people’ or whatever bullshit excuse he came up with. Only one of them looks like a fucking nazi salute and he chose that. Fobbing it off as a mental disability is just disgusting and insulting to those with mental disabilities. My brother is autistic and it would never cross his mind to nazi salute accidentally or otherwise.
Never mind the swathes of history of Musk openly advocating for far right political parties, literally platforming Nazis on twitter, unbanning nazis and giving them a bigger audience, supporting the modern German nazi party….
It’s like everybody thinks you’re only a Nazi if you wear an armband and literally goose step Jews to a concentration camp. Fascists and Nazis rarely openly proclaim they are fascists and Nazis because they know when they do they get a well deserved thumping. They are the sneakiest, slimiest people on Earth. Exploiting any and every weakness of people’s fears and prejudices to sneak their way in to power. If they openly announced their fascism then fewer people would vote for them. They have always kept a cloak of plausible deniability around them so gullible idiots can defend them for free. It’s shocking but not surprising that so many idiots fall for it (or there are just way more Nazis out there than I ever imagined which is terrifying).
I actually think it’s wise not to comment from our Politicians at this stage: we all saw the salute social media.
Getting involved in a lengthy spat over this with the guy who owns a huge social media platform and is a part of the new US government who we are always wanting a healthy relationship with politically isn’t the best idea. Musk already has a boner for attacking Starmer and our government as it is- let him fall on his own sword here.
It’s not defending what he’s done, it’s about not getting drawn into it and giving him more oxygen to it in the process. The past 48 hours of the Trump presidency has already been a shit show. And with this government in the US demanding a statement on every stupid action they do will mean we never have time for anything else.
I imagine there’s already been behind closed doors conversations about it, probably just ‘wtf was that?’ And a denial or explanation it was an ‘accident’.
At this stage let it play out with the media and public I’d say. If he continued to use the gesture then it’s clearly not explainable as a mistake say and then the PM should be hammering down with a statement on it.
this is consistent with Starmer generally refusing to acknowledge musk
Hey come on guys, he did say “my heart goes out to you”, awkwardly after two salutes. That gives him total deniability, right?? Who hasn’t heard of the ‘heart goes out to you’ salute. So woke.
Unfortunately the only choice, the gov can’t criticise him if we want our economy to do well
They’re refusing to acknowledge them at all. Musk and Trump are just in permanent dead cat mode. Look how much people are talking about this. They literally have people debating if it was a nazi salute. Sowing discord.
I just hope our government gets on with bringing the country up to scratch. We should be talking about that. Not US bs politics.
Dead cat story. Trump is preparing to fire thousands of politically neutral civil servants if they do not swear personal loyalty to him.
Musk’s cartoonish racist gesture doesn’t actually make as much of a difference as the real things Trump is doing to create loyalty and a cult of personality.
So all that we need to stand against antisemitism doesn’t really apply and only means we won’t criticise Israel, but we won’t criticise actual Nazis.
Musk is an edgelord. He is pissing himself laughing at the reaction he has managed to invoke. Is he actually a Nazi? No more than the morons who go around spraypainting swastikas. Is he doing it for attention? Yes. At the end of the day, he knows fine well what he did and is loving the stir it’s created. Frankly people should just ignore it because he’s not going to suddenly stop being an edgelord.
I remember a time when doing a Nazi salute was the stuff of comedy. Usually with the index finger of the other hand under the nose as a moustache. Schoolkids did it. Freddie Starr did it. Spike Milligan did it. That was at a time when the war was still a relatively recent memory. Milligan fought in the war.
Most people found it funny, I’m sure some were deeply upset by it, and in modern times where we tend to respect people’s feelings a bit more it has become unacceptable. Quite rightly, for obvious reasons.
It isn’t a fascist symbol, it is a German Nazi Party symbol, and a British or American person doing it for any reason other than a joke is a fucking moron.
If someone wants to behave like a moron, the correct response is surely to put them on your list of confirmed morons?
It was a literal nazi salute. Hell, even a half arsed “Actually, he meant to do the Matt Hardy DELETE gesture” wouldn’t be a better excuse.
Do they need to start wearing a certain band over their attires before people go “Fuck, we have Nazis!”
Shameful enabling and cowardly attitude from Starmer and co, not least to all those who’ve lost their lives fighting this evil ideology.
I made a statement they can all use:
“I think he knew exactly what he was doing. Only he can tell us why he did it and perhaps one day soon he will. People in history who have made that gesture haven’t tended to be coy about it.”
I don’t understand why it would be difficult for an elected politician to respond to this prick with some sense of moral fibre.