David Starkey says activists are 'trying to destroy white culture'

2023-05-17

Outrage as historian David Starkey rants that left-wing activists including Black Lives Matter are ‘trying to destroy white culture’ and are ‘jealous’ of the Holocaust – in controversial academic’s latest outburst

Dr Starkey was speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in London

Historian David Starkey has provoked outrage after claiming that left-wing activists are trying to destroy ‘white culture’ and are ‘jealous’ of the Holocaust.

In a speech to the National Conservatism conference in London, Dr Starkey claimed that groups such as Black Lives Matter were attempting to ‘do exactly what was done to German culture because of Nazism and the Holocaust’.

He said: ‘The determination is to replace the Holocaust with slavery.

‘In other words, this is why Jews are under such attack from the left, there’s jealousy, fundamentally. There is jealousy of the moral primacy of the Holocaust and a determination to replace it with slavery.’

Reacting to his speech, former Labour MP John Mann, the Government’s advisor on antisemitism, branded the academic ‘pathetic’ and said he was using the ‘Jewish community and the Holocaust’ to try to ‘divide’ people.

Left-wing activists are ‘jealous’ of the Holocaust and want to replace it with slavery, historian David Starkey has said. In a speech to the National Conservatism conference in London, Dr Starkey claimed that groups such as Black Lives Matter were attempting to destroy ‘white culture’

Dr Starkey, an expert on Tudor history, has previously been criticised for comments on slavery and the Black Lives Matter movement, including during coverage of the Coronation on GB News when he was accused of racism after claiming that Rishi Sunak was ‘not fully grounded in our culture’.

He later denied his comments were racist, saying he was referring to the prime minister being a ‘typical international liberal’ with no interest in British ‘values’.

And in 2020, Dr Starkey was dropped by his publisher and lost two university positions after prompting outrage by claiming slavery was not genocide because there are ‘so many damn blacks’ in Africa and Britain.

In his speech to the National Conservatism conference on Wednesday, Dr Starkey renewed his criticism of Black Lives Matter, denying that the movement cared about black lives at all.

To applause from the audience, he said: ‘Movements like critical race theory and Black Lives Matter are not what they pretend to be.

‘They are attempts at destroying the entire legitimacy of the Western political and cultural tradition.

‘The idea that they are there to defend black lives is a preposterous notion.

‘They do not care about black lives, they only care about the symbolic destruction of white culture. We have to be absolutely clear about this.’

Labour MP Christian Wakeford waded into the row, branding Dr Starkey ‘deplorable’

He added: ‘The narrative of Black Lives Matter is that Western culture and Anglo-American culture in particular are fundamentally morally defective, they are characterised by the mark of Cain and their strategy is to do exactly what was done to German culture because of Nazism and the Holocaust.’

During the conference’s morning session, the audience also heard from Nigel Biggar, a professor emeritus of theology at the University of Oxford, who argued that the British Empire had a ‘mixed’ moral record and denied there was any reason to pay reparations to former colonies.

He said: ‘As a Christian, Burkean conservative I don’t expect perfection in any human affairs.

‘Those who rule, just like those who are ruled, are creatures and sinners, finite and flawed.

‘Even as I recognise the duty to repent and improve, I expect even the noblest of human efforts to be marred by limited power, moral obtuseness and culpable failure.

‘And so I fear, indeed I loathe, the unforgiving, inhumane impatience of utopian perfectionists, whether they are Maoists or agents of Islamic State or progressive twittering social justice warriors.’

PM Rishi Sunak, whom Dr Starkey described as ‘a man of immense talent and extraordinary skill, but really not fully grounded in our culture’

He added: ‘Much of what our forebears achieved was extraordinary. We need to remember it, we need to admire it, we need to conserve it, and we need to build on it.’

Professor Biggar, the author of recent book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, also criticised Scottish nationalism as based on a false ‘Braveheart’ version of history.

He said: ‘When too many Scots, in my view, align themselves with Scottish independence they do it, most of them, not because they’ve analysed policies.

‘They do it in large part because they inhabit imaginatively a vision of the past that is false, a Braveheart past that excites unjustified nationalist indignation and resentment against the English and against Britain today.’

Previous speakers at the National Conservatism Conference this week have included Home Secretary Suella Braverman (pictured) and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove

Previous speakers at the National Conservatism Conference this week have included Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove.

Former Business Secretary Jacob Rees Mogg had his speech interrupted on Monday by an Extinction Rebellion protestor.

The man, dressed in a shirt, tie and blazer, joined Mr Rees-Mogg at the lectern and told the audience: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you all look very nice people and I’m sure you are fantastically nice people.

‘But I would like to draw your attention to a few characteristics of fascism.’

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