I originally read this story about the striking off of the architect Peter Kellow by the Architects Registration Board (ARB) on page 19 of my paper copy of today’s Times. The headline reads “Architect struck off for Jewish ‘cult’ claim”. However an online search of the Times website yields no such story, and no mention of Peter Kellow. Strange. Fortunately, and embarrassingly for both papers, the Daily Mail version is almost word for word the same:
An award-winning architect has been struck off for claiming Judaism is not a race but a ‘cult’.
Cambridge-educated Peter Kellow called for ‘restraints’ to be placed on Jewish people including banning them from holding influential public office.
In a public Facebook post, he said there was ‘no such thing as the Jewish race’ and accused them of creating ‘resentment and suspicion’.
As a result of his behaviour, he was hauled before a disciplinary panel, found guilty of misconduct and kicked out of the profession after 47 years.
The Architects Registration Board hearing was told that Mr Kellow made the comments in April 2019, as then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn faced accusations of anti-Semitism.
He wrote: ‘There is no such thing as the Jewish race. This is one of the many stunts that Judaists have pulled on non-Judaists who have swallowed it whole. There is only the religion/cult of Judaism.
‘There is no doubt that Judaists have suffered from unfair and cruel treatment at many times in history but this was never racially motivated until the late nineteenth century and bloomed in the ideology of Adolf Hitler.
‘It is not far from the truth to say the Judaists were the inventors of European racism for they asserted they were racially different to the rest of us. Judaists have got themselves into a lot of trouble throughout history being subject to pogroms, ghettos and expulsions.
‘I am not saying this was justified, but why do we see this consistent pattern?
‘The problem people have and always have had with Judaism is not about race.. It is because Judaism is a cult.
‘What do I mean by a cult? A cult is a set of people, normally unified by a religion or quasi-religion, who try to create a society within the general society.
Mr Kellow also included freemasonry and Sunni Islam in his definition of cults.
He wrote: ‘Cults work against the interest of the general society as its members, in subscribing to a society within the society favour each other over the rest of us.
‘This naturally creates resentment and suspicion. How can you trust such people?’
‘How should society deal with people who through their cult activity weaken the bonds that the society needs to function well? We must put restraints on their ability to create a society within a society.’
Mr Kellow suggested creating a public register of Jewish people, banning them from public office ‘where they could discriminate’ between Jews and non-Jews and ban from being judges.
He also suggested banning Jewish faith schools and the wearing of religious clothing other than a skull gap.
The Times version really was amazingly similar, although it did say “skull cap” rather than “skull gap”.
You can read the original wording of the offending Facebook post on this archived version of the proceedings of the ARB disciplinary panel.
He began,
This business of “anti-semiticism” [sic] in the Labour party which is held up as racism. What is it all about really?
The Mail and the Times cite the most important points, but I thought it was worthwhile to quote Mr Kellow’s recommended policy towards what he calls “Judaists” and to believers in other religions that he deems to be cults:
First of all there is no question of banning them. I believe in freedom for the individual as a fundamental ideal and so if someone wishes to belong to a cult like Judaism or Freemasonry they must be free to do [sic]. But we must put restraints on their ability to create a society within a society. The main ones should be as follows
1. Registration of the cult in a public register
2. Registration of all adult members in a public register
3. No cult member can hold an important public office where they are in a position to descriminate [sic] between cult members and non-cult members. For instance it is totally unacceptable lo [sic] have a Freemason or Judaist as a judge as their decisions will very like [sic] work in favour of fellow cult members. Their strong bond in their society within the society will ensure this
4. Whereas adults are free to choose to belong to a cult, the same cannot reply [sic] to their children. The assumption that the children of cult members will be “born into” the cult is not acceptable in a civilised society. To this end, no cult can run its own “faith” schools
5. It must be against the law to wear cult clothing in public – except something worn on the top of the head like a hat [eg Sikh turbans or Judaist skull caps]. However, penalties will only be applied when a separate law [such as a driving evidence [sic] or bank robbery] is violated.
It is clear that Mr Kellow adheres to most of the usual tenets of twenty-first century Corbynite anti-semitism, given the customary veneer of progressive respectability by being anti several other religions as well – though he would have done better on that score to include Christianity in the list of “cults” to be restricted by law. To advocate that faith schools be banned is now fairly mainstream in left wing circles, and not only among them. The way he presented laws against Jews holding public office as being an anti-discrimination measure was clever. He only really slipped up by advocating that a register of Jews be compiled. That bright idea carried an overtone of Nazism too strong to ignore.
Peter Kellow has some nasty opinions. But should they stop him practising as an architect?
I don’t think they can stop him.
Practicing as a struck off doctor –they can claim you are dangerous. Defrocked Priest –you can’t legally do marriages anymore etc.
But if someone gives him a commission ? He wasn’t struck off for building something that fell down or was unsafe. If someone gives him a Commission –then what?
Much of 21st century Britain appears to acknowledge the existence of “hate crimes” on a frequent basis whenever tweets, Facebook posts, YouTube videos etc mention certain groups. If specific laws must exist against such behaviour they should be applied evenly by our zealous constabulary. The consequences of such behaviour to an individuals (extended to his/her family in recent instances) continuing employment and right to practice their chosen trade should likewise be applied across the spectrum.
I am guessing Mr Kellow is white and thereby capable of being racist.
Mr Kellow should be thrown out of polite society – i.e. dis invited from dinners, seminars, or any meeting or social gathering.
As to the ARB – if they have some regulation or law covering the case – should act accordingly.
No Peter Kellow should not be struck off as an architect for his unpleasant opinions on non-architectural matters. We are already well along the road to where the practice of any trade, profession or licensed activity in the private sector in Britain requires the same actively expressed adherence to cultural Marxism as working in the public sector.
If Kellow has broken the criminal law, it is a matter for the police. If he hasn’t then people are free to hire other architects with more pleasant views. The role of the ARB should be restricted to architectural and related building matters. It should be none of their business whether an architect is an anti-semite, or a satanist, or an admirer of Nicola Sturgeon, or whatever.
The notion behind this behavious by the ARB is that the state is all good and trustworthy, and it and its parastatals are entitled to audit and control individuals in their private beliefs.
If we don’t stand up for the rights of someone like Kellow to practice his profession regardless of his religious / political opinions, they will come for us shortly for our very different, but to cultural Marxists even less popular and acceptable views.
Mr Kellow’s demand that Jews be banned from certain jobs leaves him ill-placed to complain if he himself were banned from any job. He would also seem ill-placed to complain if his name were added to some register of some ‘cult’ who had to be banned from public offices ‘where they could discriminate’.
We, by contrast, are well-placed to complain about cancel culture’s shrinking of the public space. Reversing it is another matter. Spending my tiny tiny mite of time and influence on e.g. helping Titania McGrath get back on Twitter might just take precedence for me.
As Mr Ecks points out, presumably the Labour party or Momentum or the Iranian embassy or your local mosque could hire him to design them a new building if they wished. He’ll have endeared himself to a certain kind of client. But ‘struck off’ may mean that a good deal of UK work (requiring government permits and/or certain insurance policies) is now barred to him – and ‘architect’ isn’t the easiest line of work in which to try and be a gray man.
“even less popular” – to the PC I suspect they are very, very much less popular. As Natalie notes, Kellow did the usual job of defining his racism as anti-racism. He was just a bit more crude.
So the Architects Registration Board is a part of the UK Government or an executive agency thereof?
Nope. Certainly doesn’t seem that way, just a legally sanctioned register of those who can ponce about calling themselves an “Architect”. Clearly “The Fountainhead” was completely lost upon this miserable bunch of statist rent-seekers.
So if I choose to solicit Mr. Peter Kellow for some architectural work out of my own tax-paid income, I shall continue to do so. Not that I will, because he sounds like a prick, but I reserve the option to do so.
Here in the US, at least, blueprints must be certified by a properly credentialed person before government will let you turn them into an actual building. So, if y’all do things similarly, they’re your government gatekeeper.
Seems the same as that Professor who said in a gathering in Tokyo not many years ago
“Pretty girls in the laboratory fall in love with you and then they cry”.
Drummed out of the profession of which he was at the top, lost his job…
Or more recently Roger Scuton, happily de-cancelled before his death.
How about the woman who lost her job because her husband commissioned an aeroplane banner saying White Lives Matter?
We defend the rights of individuals to behave abominably while the practitioners of double standards laugh at us.
I’ve never understood the particular implementation of “The License Raj” in the US. As I understand it, things like requiring a license for your barmaid or hairdresser and some form of credentials from an appropriate institution seem positively Orwellian. Albeit this seems to vary by state (some requiring hundreds of hours of training for their beauticians and others requiring none). Strange.
As for Mr. Peter Kellow, he’s perfectly qualified / credentialed as far as that sort of thing goes, he just can’t wander around calling himself an “Architect”. Idiotic and retarded in the extreme.
@ John Galt, who wrote
‘I’ve never understood the particular implementation of “The License Raj” in the US. As I understand it, things like requiring a license for your barmaid or hairdresser and some form of credentials from an appropriate institution seem positively Orwellian. Albeit this seems to vary by state (some requiring hundreds of hours of training for their beauticians and others requiring none). Strange.’
Outside the actual professions, most of this licensing nonsense is driven by trade groups and associations, either a) to protect their existing businesses from competition or b) to profit by training people to pass the licensing exams. There are also deep historical roots of racism in many occupational-licensing regimes.
I don’t have a problem with requiring building plans to be signed off by an engineer who’s qualified to ensure that the building won’t fall down (and who will be criminally liable if it does), or requiring that electrical work be performed by a qualified electrician so that the building doesn’t burn to the ground. But, of course, the time that it takes for the idea of occupational licensing for the public safety to be co-opted by rent-seekers can be measured with an egg-timer.
llater,
llamas
From the article, he is quoted:
So freedom is, in this view, within the grant of the law maker, or really the State. And he finds himself hoist by a similar pétard as his grant of freedom is revoked under the aegis of legislation.
Would he be amenable to the idea that the problem with ‘cult members’ in government jobs is not the cult members, but the government jobs themselves? Somehow I doubt it, he sees the State, AFAICT, as a perfectable instrument of control, whilst (in part rightly) proclaiming the perils of the State being guided by wrong ‘uns. All would be fine if the right people were in charge, in his book, by my reading of it.
We just need the right Leader, no doubt he is furiously searching for just that Leader.
Socialism is a cult and Communism is the extremist version of it.
In Ayn Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead” the evil characters briefly discuss creating an architect union with the power to exclude people whose politics they do not like.
Note it is the EVIL characters who want to do that – because it is an EVIL thing to do.
As for Mr Kellow.
Well the DNA test I had done (on a whim – it was a Boxing Day sale) came back with the result mostly “Jewish”, so perhaps it is a race (hard to see how culture or a cult can be detected by a DNA test).
Does Mr Kellow want me dead? I DO NOT CARE.
Lots of people want me dead – for example Congresswoman Omar wants me dead, and the media love her. The lady just won her Primary. And it is people who try and expose Congresswoman Omar (such as Laura Loomer) who get kicked off Twitter and the other Social Media platforms.
Has Mr Kellow actually excluded me from any jobs – NO. Some people have (Hello “Central Office”), but he has not.
This man has done nothing to me, or to anyone else.
All he has done is express his demented opinions – and he has a right to that.
At least he would have – in a free country.
One is obviously appalled, in theory, at Mr Kellow and his proposed anti-cult remedies, but as Fred Z hints, his proposals to ban cultists from offices of power and influence seem strangely attractive.
Yes, all we need now is a Party badge required for employment above ditch digger and it’ll be full USSR.
Except given our 2020 sensibilities it would be something like a Twitter blue tick.