Graham Linehan 📝 From Being Right To Now Being On The Right

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 8-October-2024.

Graham Linehan, has undergone quite a transformation, or perhaps he hasn’t, maybe I just didn’t notice. He started out as a comedy writer, famous for Father Ted and then got cancelled, had his show Father Ted the Musical basically sequestered and work dried up. The reason was his stance on the issue of men’s access to women’s spaces. Yes, the dreaded trans debate, where many fear to tread. He took a brave position at the time and paid a high price. Now he takes very cowardly positions on everything and lines up with the bullies. He is still right about the trans debate, but his tweets on Palestine, genocide, racism are vile. He is no longer concerned about being right, but rather about being on the Right of the political spectrum.

Last year following the commencement of the genocide in Gaza, Linehan came out firmly on the side of Israel. He even repeated lies about video footage, reposting a claim from someone who claimed to have seen Hamas bodycam footage![1] He repeated the nonsense that would soon become standard Zionist propaganda about human shields to justify every hospital bombing.[2] He recently doubled down on this, saying that the 20,000 dead children in Gaza just had the misfortune to be used as human shields by Hamas.[3] But he didn’t limit himself to just supporting Israel, he nailed his colours to the mast with Tommy Robinson and other vile, loathsome racists. One of his most recent tweets on the subject is revolting. He states that he stands with Israel in its bombing of Lebanon because:

They're fighting the men who killed little girls in Manchester, concert goers in Paris, thousands on 9/11 and countless numbers of their own people. Israel is fighting for all of us.[4]

Palestinians did not carry out those attacks, though former CIA agents like Bin Laden did. But the point is not about the nationality of those murderers but his use of those events to justify genocide, in fact anything Israel decides it will do, even going as far as to joke about the pager bombs,[5] which are a violation of International Humanitarian Law.

In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon and people like Linehan stood over that invasion at the time, though he was too young to make any public comment, the same age as myself. But I remember it clearly and I remember the Sabra and Chatila massacre in which 3,500 people were murdered by Israeli proxies with the active support of the Israeli military. The issue led to the resignation of Ariel Sharon, who would forever after be known as the Butcher of Sabra and Chatila, but nevertheless go on to hold various ministerial posts and serve as Israeli Prime Minister (2001-2006). An international commission led by Seán MacBride issued a report on it, finding Israel guilty of a whole series of violations of international law, many of which we have seen in Gaza and now in Lebanon again. On the question of the massacres the Commission stated:

From the evidence disclosed, Israel was involved in the planning and the preparation of the massacres and played a facilitative role in the actual killings.[6]

But Linehan’s whole point is part of the racist clash of civilisations discourse popularised by Samuel P. Huntington, of picking up what Kipling termed the white man’s burden, which was not about Africa. Kipling wrote the poem to back the US invasion of the Philippines as a civilising mission, a force for good, in the face of the indolence of the locals. A common theme amongst racists and imperialists, not to mention men who justify domestic violence “Look what you made me do, I did it for your own good”, a topic a bit closer to Linehan’s heart.

Take up the White Man's burden—

The savage wars of peace—

Fill full the mouth of famine

And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest

The end for others sought,

Watch Sloth and heathen Folly

Bring all your hopes to nought.[7]

Mark Twain wrote a reply to Kipling and others of his ilk in, To the Person Sitting in the Darkness, which is still valid today.

And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one — our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.[8]

Twain’s message was clear that it was an imperialist act of plunder, there was no lofty cause involved, just like Gaza and Lebanon are also acts of plunder, murder and domination. Linehan and Kellie Jay Keen have disgraced the gender critical cause. For a long time KJK said discussions about her links to the right were a distraction from the issue of women’s spaces and so refused to discuss it. Now she runs around saying Vote for Trump[9] and it doesn’t matter that he is an abuser, and points out that she is Not a feminist.

Looking over Linehan’s verbiage on Palestine and Lebanon, it is difficult to see that he was once right about an issue: defence of women’s spaces, just not maternity wards in Gaza if the men doing the violence were Israeli bomber pilots. Now he is just a vile, loathsome individual on the Right. The Posh Boy comes round and the river returns to its source. One day the house of cards that is trans ideology and Cancel Culture will collapse and he will emerge again as a comedy writer and though he was treated badly, it is hard to feel sympathy for a man so bereft of common human decency that he overlooks genocide. I look forward to the day Cancel Culture is no more, but not to the return of the Posh Boy gloating at the misfortune of Palestinians.

[1] See

[2] See

[3] See

[4] See

[5] See

[6] MacBride et al (1983) Israel in Lebanon: Report of the International Commission to Enquire into Reported Violations of International Law by Israel during Its Invasion of the Lebanon. Journal of Palestine Studes, Vol 12. No 3 pp 117-133

[7] See

[8] See

[9] See

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.