by Johnny McNeill – ex British Army Sgt Major with 25 years served with operational tours of Iraq and Bosnia. And self-published author of ‘Gaslighting Gilligan‘ (© 2017 – free download – released via Berlin on 25th June 2017).

“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals”. Orwell

(12-15 minutes) The British construct is inescapably a political construct. This is a patently obvious fact. So why do I need to state it?

Well because whilst I’ve written this piece for general readership, I do so with rugby fans, coaches and players in mind and who because of a ‘dismissive culture’ (as inferred by Orwell above) which has been inculcated into the individual and collective rugby mindset, has deemed speaking about politics in rugby circles to be impolite, crass or ‘beneath them’ because – they will argue – “sports and politics shouldn’t mix”.

However not only is the British construct itself a de facto political ideology, so too – by ideological ‘brand’, cultural and sporting extension since 1888 – are the British & Irish Lions.

That’s a key, overarching and inseparable point which no matter how much one tries to avoid, it’s an incontestable truth that the British Lions have served to promote the British political construct on the world stage for a 137 years. In fact there’s hundreds of everyday examples of sports and disciplines which have normalised this ‘red, white and blue’ Union Flag fronted phenomenon to market ‘Great Britain’ and promote the British construct in the Olympics; notable examples include ‘Team GB’ and ‘British’ (aye right!) Curling – which of course uniquely comprises of Scots.

Another more recent example of professional sporting bodies and especially rugby boards being politically active is the drive that’s taken place over the past 6/7 years to promote the LGBT cause – which regardless of view has irrefutably become so politicised and indeed divisive – that for many on all opposing sides, the issue is not merely ideological but has become pseudo-religious dogma.

My point here is that for the rugby family to continue claiming that discussing politics is ‘crude’ or ‘impolite’, when numerous Rugby Boards and affiliated corporate sponsors have long been engaged in politics, is evidently indefensible and reeks of hypocrisy.

And so it’s this hypocrisy that I’ve been been met with since going public with ‘Gaslighting Gilligan’ (©2017) eight years ago when I began trying to warn people British (& US) led fascism was coming, however ignored by these very same people who claim “rugby and politics shouldn’t mix”, they are themselves part of the reason that British fascism gains more of foothold every day both ‘UK’ domestically and globally.

“What I found particularly disturbing was a [British supplied] bomb would drop on a crowded tented area and then the drones would come down and pick-off children. This was not an occasional thing. This was day after day of operating on children who would say; “I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped and a quad-copter came down, hovered over me and shot me”. Dr Nizam Mamode (below) ‘Surgeon breaks down in Parliament explaining how IDF drones target children’.

You can also see that this week UK Declassified’s tweet below challenging Admiral Radakin went viral.

However curiously, UK Declassified’s Phil Miller skirted around his and the British State’s complicity in the Gaza genocide and even ‘trivialised’ Radakin’s role and the ‘interview’ in general asking about the financial costs to the UK taxpayer, with the UK MoD having supplied the Royal Air Force’s A400 heavy-lift transportation of British manufactured weapons and the RAF’s R1 Shadow surveillance aircraft to murder children.

Whereas given the evidence of British contraventions of The Geneva Convention and Statute of Rome which I stated on Caledon Radio’s Norrie Hunter Show in June last year (see tweet and link below) the more pertinent and indeed journalistic question should have been; “Admiral Radakin, are you concerned that you personally will be indicted for war crimes?”

“Actual evidence is often too dangerous politically, financially and psychologically for some people to allow it to become a threat to their interests, or to their own sense of themselves.” Thomas Sowell

“The Geneva Conventions explitly forbids starvation tactics – “It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agriculture areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock.” Also Article 8(2)(b) of the Rome Statutes of 1998 – the international agreement creating the International Criminal Court which is responsible for bringing charges of war crimes – also classifies “Starvation as a war crime, provided the perpetrator intended to starve civilians as a method of warfare”. ‘The Centre for Strategic & International Studies’ – as stated on ‘PODCAST ‘Caledon Media (Ep2): An Empire of History’s Actors’ (2024) https://wp.me/p94Aj4-4DF

“I remember one Saturday night operating on an eight year old. He was bleeding to death. I asked for a swab and they said there’s no more swabs. I’ve done amputations on people who’ve just had to take paracetamol afterwards. Medical aid is sitting at the border not being allowed in. That’s a deliberate policy.” Dr Nizam Mamode (Surgeon)

“Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true. But many other things are believed simply because they (i.e. ‘British values’) have been asserted repeatedly, and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence.” Thomas Sowell

And as such, blinded by “British values” indoctrination, it’s this unthinking and morally fraudulent “rugby and politics shouldn’t mix” excuse which is trotted-out as the first and last line of ‘defence’ – enabling the British fascist status quo to continue – and is most often deployed by those who are least capable of objective reasoning and critical thought.

Indeed they’re the very same rugby fans who will cite “etiquette” to shut down debate or discussion solely to protect their own ego’s, biases, worldview and view of themselves and by ‘Dunning-Kruger Effect’ extension, make a conscious choice housed in nothing but self-serving ignorance – to help facilitate the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza.

“Hypocrisy is the audacity to preach integrity from a den of corruption”. Wes Fesler

And so for those who will still try to turn a blind eye to the political, military and genocidal reality of ‘Britishness’, to ideologically compartmentalise or separate these historically precedented British atrocities in Gaza just so that they can selfishly support its British & Irish Lions public relations ‘Britwashing’ exercise, and ignore the propaganda omitted slaughter being carried out in their name, then heed this warning; in post-Hard Brexit ‘OPERATION YELLOWHAMMER’ fascist Britain – your children will be next. 

“It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance”. Thomas Sowell

I imagine by this point in the piece I’ve lost many (if not most) of the rugby fraternity already. This will be due to a conditioned-bias combination of indoctrination which has inculcated a perception of ‘Britishness’ being culturally ‘superior’ to three of its four component parts.

This is mixed with a further combination of perfectly natural emotionalised ego-defences, personal insecurities and the very human ‘conformity’ and ‘need to belong’ to established conventions which permit them to conveniently compartmentalise and ‘separate’ what ‘Britishness’ really means in its entirety and what “British values” really are, and thereby permission themselves through weight of numbers i.e. herd mentality to mutually ignore the ruthless reality – regardless of the evidence which demonstrates just how ideologically corrupt those established conventions are.

These indoctrinated and innate traits are no doubt why I was blocked on Twitter/X by a number of professional players in 2021 for writing this piece;

“I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles.” Nelson Mandela

‘Indeed our ‘rugby is above politics‘ culture ridiculously conflates this ‘silence is complicity‘ convention with holding the moral ‘high-ground‘ – simply for shutting down debate. And even celebrates those who fail to engage or participate and moreover, it mutually congratulates those who actively prevent other rugby fans from communicating our inescapable political-fascist reality with one another’. ‘Boycott The British & Irish Lions: Open Letter’ (2021) https://wp.me/p94Aj4-2iX

So for the general audience and those rugby lovers like myself who try to adhere to true rugby values; honesty, courage, integrity and respect for others – thanks for sticking with these uncomfortable but important and inextricably-linked British truths; truths from which a certain 20th century ideology exploited the concept and learned the ‘Gleichschaltung’ lessons to promote itself.

‘Gleichschaltung Gaslight: The Eradication of Scots Historic-Cultural Identity’ (2017) https://wp.me/p94Aj4-ye

“Britishness is a political synonym for Englishness which extends English culture over the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish.” Gwynfor Evans

So it might come as surprise then to learn that whilst sport has been erased from the ‘Gleichschaltung’ definition, it is unequivocally key to capturing emotions and imbuing a sense of ‘superior’ belonging, and as such sport was (and still is) historically exploited by the Nazi’s for ‘public relations’ – aka propaganda – purposes, to promote their particular political-ideological construct. Examples including;

a) the 1935 England v Germany match during which the hosts chose to fly the political Nazi Swastika over White Hart Lane.

b) and again in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin in 1938, when the England team joined their German hosts in giving the political Nazi Salute prior to kick-off.

c) and on the world stage to promote their ‘superior’ ideology as they did in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

And so of course it stands to reason that if a corrupt ideological construct is going to exploit sport to promote itself, then it’s also going to exploit that same apparatus and reach to agitate and divide its ‘subordinate’ threats from within, in order to sell the illusion to the world that Scotland is on the precipice of its own sectarian ‘Troubles’…

“One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard from revolution; one *MAKES THE REVOLUTION* to establish a dictatorship”. Orwell, ‘1984’.

“There’s been fewer more successful propaganda constructs deployed to agitate and divide western Scotland, than through Rangers & Celtic”. ‘Caledon Media: Pro-Scotland Radio with Norrie Hunter’ (2024) https://wp.me/p94Aj4-4yH

…and also deploy its ‘dark arts’ influence externally on the international sports stage, to hobble, weaken, demoralise and sap the confidence and self-belief of the most significant threat to its supremacy: an independent Scotland and Wales.

“It is the moral factor which decides the fate of nations: mans spirit can prove greater than the power of Leviathan. A nation is swiftly overcome if its spirit is weak; but with unyielding determination it can vanquish powers that appear to be utterly invincible”. Gwynfor Evans 

‘Caledon Radio (Ep4): The Volksempfänger Capture of Scotland & Beyond’ (2025) https://wp.me/p94Aj4-54y

To summarise; no-one does pomp and pageantry like the British and part of that political theatre is its sporting spectacles, of which, the British & Irish Lions are a significant propaganda force. But it’s all a murderous charade that’s worn mask is fast slipping.

Having served in the British Army myself for 25 years even I now understand – having processed and accepted the evidence – that the British construct has been and continues to be a cancer on humanity. And that the century-long British sports governing-body initiatives designed to indoctrinate a sense of popular ‘unity’ and to sell the ‘One Nation’ mirage on the world stage, are nothing but Britwashing ‘window dressing’ for UK domestic consumption, and used as an emotionalised distraction to gloss-over the British ruling class’s obsession with wreaking carnage for profit across the globe.

Most of those emotionally invested in the love of the game of rugby, I believe, tend to hide behind a veil of convenient ignorance and often with a false sense of ‘moral authority’, when in reality they reek of moral cowardice that maintains the ‘silence is complicity’ status quo that’s still fanning the post-2016 wave of British fascism.

It’s a very British status quo in which the British construct through its political, corporate and military structures continues to pay for and provide weaponry and intelligence to Israel and as such, are complicit in the calculated mass murder of children in the Gaza genocide being perpetrated with British political, military, financial and propaganda machine assistance. 

For those out there with a suspect moral code that can hypocritically and conveniently compartmentalise aspects of ‘Britishness’ to suit their biases, I say that they are some of the most dangerous people on planet because they’re basically saying that the Tories, Keir Starmer, his British Labour Government, the British Ministry of ‘Defence’ and the Head of UK Armed Forces Admiral Radakin all have your ‘Great British’ permission to slaughter children in Gaza.

“The *British* Broadcasting Corporation think Gary Lineker is the problem”.

And so those who promote and participate in this upcoming cycle of the British propaganda PR exercise known as the ‘2025 British & Irish Lions Tour’ – especially fathers and mothers of young children – they do so selfishly and unthinkingly; driven by hypocrisy and a pyrrhic ambition housed in blind obsequience and ego. And as such they do so without conscience and with children’s blood on their hands.

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“The trouble with fiction is that it makes too much sense. Reality never makes sense”. Aldous Huxley

‘Fascism, steeped in pathological hypocrisy, superiority entitlement and inveterate victimhood, is the group-characteristic extension of narcissism. And is the Machiavellian-patriotic, militarised business model extension of joint Government and corporate psycho-social engineered crisis-capitalism’. ‘Characteristics Of An Individual Narcissist & A Fascist State’ (©2017) https://wp.me/p94Aj4-dZ

‘Gaslighting Gilligan’ by Johnny McNeill; a contemporary dystopian ‘fiction’ about the intrinsic, interconnectedness of both personal & State-political domestic abuse, was released from Berlin on 25th June 2017. It is copyright ©️ but is a *free*-to-share public-service PDF download from here.

Twitter: @GasGilligan