This post is by Alan Rusbridger, chair of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
In his first 1,000 days in office Donald Trump made 13,435 false or misleading claims, according to the good folk at the Washington Post who painstakingly monitor the president’s habit of bending the truth. How we Brits have smiled at this con man’s Teflon gift. Could never happen here.
But consider the lessons political managers around the world might have learned about our election and how we struggled to negotiate the increasingly blurred lines between truth and falsehood; facts and propaganda; openness and stealth; accountability and impunity; clarity and confusion; news and opinion.
It rather looks as if one or two skilled backroom manipulators (we can guess) studied Trump’s ability to persuade enough people that black is white and, rather than recoil in disgust, came to the opposite conclusion: it works.
One far off day we will discover whether 40 new hospitals will be built, and whether 20,000 new police officers will materialise along with 50,000 “new” nurses. It won’t be long before we learn whether we’ve now finally got Brexit “done” or whether this is just the start of a long and painful process of negotiating our future trading relationships with a greatly weakened hand.
We’ll learn the reality of whether there is to be frictionless trade between the mainland of Britain and the island of Ireland. We will read the truth about alleged Russian interferencein the 2016 Brexit referendum … and much more. But by then life will have moved on, and maybe many of us will have forgotten the promises, evasions and outright lies of late 2019.
Coin one unforgettable message and stick to it. “Get Brexit done” was brilliant, never mind that the meaning of “Brexit” and “done” was far from clear: this is an age of simplicity, not complexity. Even the so-called mainstream media will do far more to amplify that slogan rather than question it. Try this stunt: slap the words on a JCB digger and drive it through a pile of polystyrene bricks … and watch as news editors obligingly clear their front pages for the image.
They are making posters, not doing journalism.
And remember that in most countries, governments have unusual power over public service broadcasters. So, in the event that television journalists seem to be getting too big for their boots, it is often useful to drop a heavy hint there will be a price to pay. Maybe Channel 4 has outlived its usefulness? Possibly it’s time to privatise the BBC? That should do the trick.
Jacob Rees-Mogg was conspicuously missing from the Conservatives election campaign. Photograph: Ian Walton/Reuters
Old-fashioned press conferences should be kept to the minimum. A manifesto should say almost nothing. Gaffe-prone colleagues should be “disappeared”. If in real trouble, make things up. You’ll be amazed how readily even the best journalists will repeat unattributable fictions (see the “row” over the four-year-old boy in Leeds General Infirmary and what “happened” during the subsequent visit of health secretary Matt Hancock). By the time the journalists have corrected themselves and Twitter has spent 24 hours arguing about the truth, the world will have moved on.
So, as Trump has discovered, the liars, myth-makers and manipulators are in the ascendancy – and however valiantly individual journalists attempt to hold them to account (and many, especially at a local level, have tried magnificently) the dice are loaded against them.
The one over-riding thought is that for many years I looked at US newspapers and pitied colleagues there who “just” ran the newsroom, leaving comment pages to others. Pity has turned to envy. I now think it would be cleansing for all British national newspapers to split the responsibility for news and comment. It’s simply too hard for the average reader – especially, but not only online – to tell the difference.
And a hero? After the Yorkshire Evening Post‘s reporting of the Leeds story was questioned, its editor in chief, James Mitchinson, wrote a long and considered reply to a readerwho, on the basis of something she read on social media, thought the story was fake. Mitchinson’s reply courteously asks the reader why she would believe the word of a total stranger (who might not even exist) over a newspaper she had read for many years in good faith.
The fact the paper knew the story to be true was, said Mitchinson, down to “bog-standard journalism”. It was a powerful statement of why good journalism – independent and decently crafted – should matter.
So let’s hear it for bog-standard journalism. There’s too little of it. It may not be enough, but it’s all we have.
Politics and Insight’s independent, measured, authoritative reporting has never been so vital, or in the public interest. These are turbulent, decade-defining times. Whatever lies ahead for us all, I will be with you – investigating, disentangling, analysing and scrutinising, as I have done for the last 9 years.
More people, like you, are reading and supporting independent, investigative and in particular, public interest journalism, than ever before.
I don’t make any money from my research and writing, and want to ensure my work remains accessible to all.
I have engaged with the most critical issues of our time – the often devastating impact of almost a decade of Conservative policies, widespread inequality to the influence of big tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, I believe that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity and the norms of democracy at its heart.
My editorial independence means I set my own agenda and present my own research and analyisis. My work is absolutely free from commercial and political interference and not influenced one iota by billionaire media barons. I have worked hard to give a voice to those less heard, I have explored where others turn away, and always rigorously challenge those in power.
This morning I came across this on Twitter:
I can this morning announce that as government advisor on antisemitism that I will be instigating an investigation this January into the role of the Canary and other websites in the growth of antisemitism in the United Kingdom. https://t.co/e76OcSydZm
Independent journalists are now facing a threat from an authoritarian government, who have successfully managed to distort our mainstream media.
I did expect this promise of a purge on left leaning sites if Boris Johnson was returned to office, but not quite so soon after the event. It’s a case of vote Tory on Thursday, get fascism by Saturday.
John Mann isn’t by a long stretch the only so-called moderate ex-Labour neoliberal extremist whipping upMcCarthyist hysteria and hate. But he has been strategically placed for a while by the Conservatives to destroy independent sites like mine. He’s a particularly nasty individual.
My first step to fight back in the coming year is to join the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). It is an essential protection, now.
It’s not cheap, especially for someone like me, as I’ve no income from my work. I pay WordPress to keep adverts off my site, too. But I am one of those people who often has to make daily choices about whether to eat or keep warm. I am disabled because of an illness called lupus. Like many others in similar circumstances, I am now living in fear for our future under a government that has already systematically and gravely violated the human rights of disabled people, which has resulted in fear, suffering, harm and all too often, premature death.
I hope you will consider supporting me today, or whenever you can. As independent writers, we will all need your support to keep delivering quality research and journalism that’s open and independent.
Every reader contribution, however big or small, is so valuable and helps keep me going.
Disinformation and propaganda can take many forms—from the use of false images, misleading headlines, to social media techniques that create an impression of consensus – that the ‘majority’ understands an issue in a certain way (also called ‘bandwaggon technique’). Polling can be misused, for example, to create an illusion of agreement in a population, and to draw on the conformity tendency or ‘herd mentality’ of the public.
Media agenda setting and framing of events may also contribute to the bandwaggon effect, and even subtle cues such as a broadcast presenter’s attitude and language towards election candidates can also influence voters.
For example, the many times we have heard the phrase “… let Jeremy Corbyn in” from broadcast media over the course of this election sends out a message that a Labour government would not be the norm, or the ‘preferred’ outcome of an election. The phrase also references and amplifies Theresa May’s chilling authoritarian comment that the Tories would “never allow [Jeremy Corbyn to be elected as Prime Minister] that to happen”. That is the intended subtext.
Sometimes, journalists quite openly reveal their own clear biases. This blatant lack of impartiality contravenes the UK’s norms of democracy and dismally fails to uphold public interest.
And here we have a BBC reporter exposing the agenda by way of a Freudian slip and saying “If Boris Johnson gets the victory he SO DESERVES”! pic.twitter.com/XAEPAAbYNA
The comments, attitudes, gestures and facial expressions of presenters may also send out cues about party leaders deemed ‘suitability’ for office. Boris Johnson’s avoidance of difficult interviews was not because of cowardice. It was a tactical measure to avoid scrutiny, and to avoid being seen in a negative light. The interviews he did participate in were friendlier than other party leaders. Johnson had an easier time of it, by and large, during the election campaign.
The PM having a friendly selfie moment on This Morning
Johnson was somehow unable to find time to be interviewed by BBC1’s Conservative but nonetheless formidable Andrew Neil. He had no problem squeezing in a breezy and fawning chat with Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on ITV.
Can’t imagine why. Informative to see what ‘rigorous scrutiny’ from the British media looks like, however.
The media’s complicity in a strategic disinformation campaign
The case of Jack Williment-Barr, the four-year-old boy (pictured above) who was forced to sleep on a hospital floor as he waited in A&E, has brought public focus on the state of the chronically underfunded NHS just days before the election. The story appeared in the Daily Mirror. But it has also put focus on the other key trend of the election campaign: false and misleading claims that have circulated on social media and been amplified significantly by the mainstream press.
The image of Jack lying on a pile of coats has been at the centre of two major controversial disinformation campaigns. Jack’s story and the shocking image that highlighted the shocking state of the NHS have now been subjected to dishonest political re-edits, twice over. It is inconceivable that these re-edits have originated from anywhere other than the Conservative headquarters.
First, journalists who claimed to have been briefed by ‘senior Conservatives’ misreported that Matt Hancock’s adviser had been punched by one of 100 activists who arrived after the health secretary came to the hospital in an attempt to deal with the ongoing story. It turned out that there was no such punch, and that the adviser had simply accidently walked into the hand of one of the very small number of protesters who were at the hospital. He was pointing at something.
Hancock visited the hospital as a ‘damage management’ exercise following Boris Johnson’s earlier refusal to look at a photo of Jack on the floor of the hospital presented to him by Joe Pike, an ITV journalist. He took the phone from Pike, to avoid a difficult discussion about the government’s chronic underfunding of the NHS.
Tried to show @BorisJohnson the picture of Jack Williment-Barr. The 4-year-old with suspected pneumonia forced to lie on a pile of coats on the floor of a Leeds hospital.
In the second re-edit, thousands of people shared a story that claimed to prove the photo of Jack was ‘staged’ by ‘Labour activists’, and that his mother had placed him on the floor specifically to take a photo. Once again, the claim was false; once again, it was amplified across social media by key journalists and political editors before any of them had bothered checking the provenance of the claim, or the facts of the case from the hospital itself.
None of this was true.
So Hancock was sent to Leeds General Infirmary, where the original photograph was taken. “Health Secretary has been despatched to Leeds to try to sort this out after PM’s awkward reaction earlier,” the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg tweeted.
Soon after he arrived, reports came from many of the country’s leading political journalists that Hancock’s aide had been attacked. Reports including ITV political editor Robert Peston, Laura Kuenssberg and others. This certainly looked like a very well co-ordinated disinformation campaign.
There were also reports that claimed “100 activists” had arrived and that their journey had been “paid for by the Labour Party.”
Some indicated that they had been told the news by Conservatives, and later indicated that the claims had been checked with “multiple sources.”
That will be just Matt Hancock, then.
It very quickly became clear that all of those claims were false. A video of the incident appeared shortly after that made very clear that there were only a few activists, and that the punch had not actually happened at all.
A few protesters (maybe 5) shouted at you… and then one of your minders walked into a protester hand, because he wasn’t looking where he’s going..
Then, the same evening, the second misleading narrative took hold. A flurry of tweets began, boosting two stories that were eerily written using the same wording.
The first and most prominent disinformation item claimed to be sourced from a senior nurse who worked at the hospital, though it got the name of it wrong. It said that the photo had been staged by Jack’s mother, and that he immediately got back on a trolley after it was taken.
The second, which appeared to start slightly later, was credited to a “paediatric nurse.” It used a range of seeming medical jargon to definitively suggest that “no child would be treated in such a way,” and that therefore the image was either fake or misleading.
In both cases, a flurry of accounts took the text of the tweet and re-shared it, oddly, as if it was their own comment. It also made its way onto Twitter, where it was similarly shared without context.
Taken together, the story was shared tens of thousands of times onto different social media sites. Many have suggested that bots have been used.
The original viral post on a medical secretary’s Facebook account said, “I am a nurse myself” and cited a “good friend of mine” at Leeds General. It claimed the boy in the photo “was in fact put there by his mother who then took photos on her mobile phone and then uploaded it to media outlets”. The post dismissed the pictures of the ill boy as “another Momentum propaganda story”, despite the fact the hospital had already apologised for his treatment.
She later claimed her account had been hacked.
It didn’t matter that the hospital had confirmed the incident happened and apologised to the family, or that the nurses who supposedly served as the source for either story were anonymous and almost certainly not real. The story was shared as if it was fact and was amplified by Conservative MPs and senior journalists.
In some cases, those people have taken down those tweets. But worryingly, others are still live, and still being interacted with by readers.
Neither of the claims are remotely factual. Again, the hospital involved has confirmed that the incident happened, and that the event the photograph shows is real.
Responsible and publicly trusted reporters, such as Kuenssberg and Peston have a fundamental duty to make sure the comments they are putting out in the public domain have been verified and fact checked.
The hospital statement had already summed it the situation up – the hospital admitted there was no bed, the expectations of the family fell woefully short of the high standards of the NHS and as such an apology was issued.
The standards of journalism fell woefully short of the high expectations of the UK media. Throughout the election campaign, it’s clearly evident that the mainstream media has demonstrated that we cannot trust it to deliver impartial commentaries or fact checked news.
However, the BBC did address the despicable misinformation campaign, but not during peak viewing hours:
Laura Kuenssberg: “the postal votes, of course, have already arrived. The parties, they’re not meant to look at them, but they do kind of get a hint. And, on both sides, people are telling me that the postal votes that are in are looking very grim for Labour…”.
The Electoral Commission says: 1.9 Ballot papers will be kept face down throughout a postal vote opening session. Anyone attending an opening session must not attempt to see how individual ballot papers have been marked. It follows therefore that keeping a tally of how ballot papers have been marked is not allowed.
1.10 In addition, anyone attending a postal vote opening must not attempt to look at identifying marks or numbers on ballot papers, disclose how any particular ballot paper has been marked or pass on any such information gained from the session. Anyone found guilty of breaching these requirements can face an unlimited fine, or may be imprisoned for up to six months.”
In a statement on Twitter, the watchdog said: ‘It may be an offence to communicate any information obtained at postal vote opening sessions, including about votes cast, before a poll has closed. ‘Anyone with information to suggest this has happened should report it immediately to the police.’
Kuenssberg told viewers on Wednesday – with just hours to go before the polling stations opened – that while parties were not supposed to look at voting papers when they were verified – but not counted – at opening sessions, they did “get a hint” of how they were doing and it was not looking good for Labour.
Her comments, however, came across as a statement of fact, rather than a hint.
She said: “The forecast is that it’s going to bewet and coldtomorrow. The postal votes, of course, have already arrived. The parties – they’re not meant to look at it, but they do kind of get a hint – and on both sides people are telling me that the postal votes that are in are looking pretty grim for Labour in a lot of parts of the country.
“Of course, postal voters tend to skew to elderly voters and people who vote early … but the kind of younger generation who we know skew much more to the Labour party, you might expect to turn out to the polls tomorrow. But in this winter election, turnout is just another one of these factors that we just can’t predict.”
Kuenssberg’s remarks, made during an interview on the BBC’s Politics Live programme, was widely shared on social media on the final day of an election campaign that has seen unprecedented criticism of the media. It led to suggestions that she could potentially have breached the Representation of the People Act, which prevents the reporting of how people voted until after polls close.
A spokesperson for the broadcaster made clear they did not believe there were any issues with the on-air comments. “The BBC does not believe it, or its political editor, has breached electoral law,” they said.
Ballot papers are kept face down while votes are opened and it is forbidden to attempt to see how ballots have been marked or to keep a count. Postal votes are not counted until 10pm on the day of the election.
The broadcasting regulator Ofcom has strict electoral rules around broadcasting or publishing the results of votes or opinion polls on election day before 10pm over concerns that doing so could influence voters’ decisions.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Waltham Forest council in east London has been scrambling to deliver postal votes that should have been out by last Friday, after an administrative error delayed the process.
The problem affected 1,470 voters in three constituencies, including Chingford and Woodford Green, which Iain Duncan Smith won for the Conservatives with a majority of 2,438 at the last election and which is a key target for Labour.
The council could not say how many voters were affected in each constituency but said all but one form had now been delivered.
It said 1,364 forms had been hand-delivered by the end of Monday and 105 more had been couriered to voters outside London on Tuesday and Wednesday.
A council spokesman said the borough had dealt with 27,993 postal votes for this election. He apologised for the error and said the Electoral Commission had been notified.
He added: “Completed postal votes will get to us if they are posted by last post on Wednesday 11 December. They can also be handed to staff at any polling station in the constituency on the day of the general election.”
Given the context of this error, it’s very easy to see why many people have a growing concern that this election may be rigged.
The fake narratives and lies in the Conservatives’ and Liberal democrats’ social media campaigns
Almost all of the Conservative Party’s recent Facebook adverts promote claims labelled as misleading or untrue by one of the platform’s third-party fact-checking partners, a First Draft investigation has found.
Nearly 90% of the ads posted in the first days of December push figures already challenged by Full Fact, the UK’s leading fact-checking organisation. The non-partisan, independent charity works with the tech giant to assess posts which have been reported as misleading or false by users in the UK.
Facebook recently announcedthat posts from political organisations and political adverts are exempt from fact-checking, meaning parties and candidates can promote inaccurate claims without scrutiny.
Online ads have become a controversial central theme of elections, where parties can reach voters with micro-targeted messages that are ‘psychographically tailored’ according to the data held on individuals, concerning their postcode, hobbies, site and online buying preferences and other private information collected by data analysts, but these categories are not in public view in the Ad Library. (See:The government hired several murky companies plying the same methods as Cambridge Analytica in their election campaign.)
The so-called “dark ads” have emerged as a method of advertising that utilises data obtained by the likes of Facebook and Google, among other platforms to ‘customise’ and tailor messages in political campaigns.
They can be served directly to users of Facebook and via Google’s widely used double-click technology which serves ads to millions of websites, including political ads.
It should not be left to US internet companies to safeguard UK elections. Our election laws are decades out of date, and our next Parliament should take urgent steps to secure the accountability and transparency we need to protect our democracy.
Will Moy, chief executive of Full Fact, told First Draft: “Full Fact plays an independent role in Facebook’s Third Party Fact Checking programme, which doesn’t currently cover ads or content from political figures or parties.
“But Full Fact continues to regularly scrutinise claims by all political parties, including manifestos and debates during this election campaign.”
The Conservatives massively stepped up their ad campaign on Facebook, running almost 7,000 ads and spending more than £50,000 between November 27 and December 3, according to the latest figures from Facebook’s Ad Library.
First Draft accessed the Facebook Ad Library API to download all 6,749 ads from the Conservative Party between December 1 and December 4. Some 88% (5,952) of the most widely promoted ads featured claims about the NHS, income tax cuts, and the Labour Party which had already been labelled misleading or untrue by Full Fact.
Not every ad includes the misleading claim directly in its image or caption. At least 54% (3,646) of the total ads served link to a webpage carrying the misleading claims.
When ITV News asked senior Conservative Michael Gove about the ads, he said: “I’m not aware of any adverts that we publish that have been misleading.”
The central Conservative Party press office have not responded to requests for comment.
A Facebook spokesperson told ITV News: “We don’t believe a private company like Facebook should censor politicians. Our approach is instead to introduce unprecedented levels of transparency so anyone can see every political advert and who it’s from.”
The misleading ads include:
A total of 5,132 ads push the claim that the Conservatives will build “40 new hospitals”, either in the caption, image or link. The claim was labelled as misleading by Full Fact on October 3, before the election started, which showed Boris Johnson’s government had actually announced plans to build six hospitals, not 40. A separate Full Fact articleaddressed the same claim in the Conservative manifesto but found the pledge had not been costed and would not be fully delivered in the forthcoming parliamentary session.
The claim that the NHS will receive an extra £34 billion — described as “the biggest increase in a generation” and “the biggest cash boost in history” — featured in the linkof two adsposted more than 1,705 times. It was also addressed by Full Fact, which stated: “if we account for inflation—the meaningful way to look at spending over time—the last time there was a larger spending increase on health in England was between 2004/05 and 2009/10.”
The claim that “Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister would mean £1.2 trillion in reckless spending that would hand an extra £2,400 tax bill to every hardworking taxpayer each year” is pushed 4,028 times within different ads. The figure was already marked as misleading as “the calculations and assumptions behind it have a number of flaws”, said Full Fact.
Moy, director of Full Fact, said: “This election candidates and campaigns on all sides are asking voters for their trust. Serious parties and politicians should not be recycling debunked claims or targeting individuals with bad information – we all deserve better than that.”
Facebook, however, expects that the public will somehow determine for themselves the truth of claims made in adverts. It’s a view that is evidently shared by the BBC regarding claims made in party manifestos.
The Lib Dems have also been accused of using misleading graphs in Facebook ads. First Draft found hundreds of Lib Dem Facebook ads use graphs to falsely claim they are the only party to beat Labour, the Conservatives or the SNP “in seats like yours”.
Facebook does not provide data on where the ads have been targeted but some Twitter users have complained that they have received ads which reflect voting pattern statistics that are inaccurate for their constituency.
At least 16.5% of the Lib Dems 7,295 ads since the campaign began feature such claims.
First Draft has not been able to find misleading claims in Facebook adverts from the Labour Party, which has promoted far fewer ads than the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats.
Fact Check say: “More than three quarters of the supposed “savings” come from just two large costs, rail season tickets and childcare, neither of which comes close to reflecting what an average family actually pays. In England, two fifths of families don’t pay anything for childcare; only 5% of people use a train more than three times a week.
However: “Some of the smaller figures seem fair estimates of savings that might come about if Labour’s policies were implemented, but they overstate the extra costs families have faced since 2010.”
And: “We haven’t seen the workings behind this figure, which Labour says is from a House of Commons Library analysis.”
There’s a world of difference between contested figures and deliberate intent to mislead the public, as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have set out to do.
The Tories’ ambition is a one party state
The Tories have been brazen in their contempt for democratic process and norms. For example, it has been plain from their increasing reliance on statutory instruments (SI) to sidestep debate and voting in the Commons, in order to push through controversial and unpopular draconian policies.
When the House of Lords overturned Osborne’s nasty raid on the working poor’s tax credits (itself enacted by statutory instrument, in case the Commons vote it down), he reacted with the oblique but unmistakable threat to flood the Lords with so many new Tory peers so that such a defiance of his authority could not be repeated.
The Conservatives’ utter contempt for both international and national human rights legislative frameworks is another worrying symptom of authoritarianism. The UK is the first state to have prompted investigation into how it upholds the human rights of disabled people. The inquiry report concluded that the government have systematically and gravely violated the human rights of disabled people via their punitive policies. The government continue to deny this, and in the meantime, the public has tended to look the other way while ill and disabled people die prematurely through neglect, loss of support and other austerity related cuts that were disproportionately targeted at one of the most vulnerable communities.
The way in which the Tories have treated marginalised communities has expressed clearly their traditional prejudices, leading to direct discrimination and oppressive policies, while those with the least need – the millionaires – have been lavished with tax cuts and other hand outs from our public funds.
The highly controversial welfare ‘reforms’ were hammered through the scrutiny stage into legislative process by Cameron’s claim to an archaic Commons proviso: ‘financial privilege’. The public are still waiting to see the risk register following the Health and Social Care bill, despite the government being ordered to place it in the public domain by the Information Commissioner and the court.
Then there was Johnson’s illegal prorogation of Parliament- normally a standard procedure in the calendar of Parliament, but the prerogative was clearly used for controversial political objectives by the PM.
The prorogation was an improper and unlawful attempt to evade parliamentary scrutiny of Johnson’s Brexit plans in advance of the UK’s departure from the European Union on 31 October 2019; individuals and groups who opposed the prorogation included opposition MPs, UK constitutional law scholars, and John Major, the former Conservative Prime Minister. The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, called the decision a “constitutional outrage”.
Page 48 of the Conservative manifesto
Stefan Enchelmaier, Professor of European Law at the University of Oxford, “almost missed” the mention of the Human Rights Act (HRA) in the Conservative manifesto. Probably, most people have. That is probably the point.
Buried on page 48, the 2019 manifesto contains a single mention of the party’s pledge to “update” the 1998 HRA, which brings the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic law. It doesn’t specify what the ‘update’ will look like, or when it will happen (beyond “after Brexit,” which isn’t much of a clue). The language is euphemistic and vague, indicating that the ‘update’ will “ensure that there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our vital national security and effective government.” This is not a pledge intended to draw attention.
The attempt at hiding this pledge marks a change. David Cameron’s 2015 manifesto, which also promised the infamous “in-out referendum,” committed—five times over; three in bold—to “scrap” the Human Rights Act (HRA) and introduce a British Bill of fRights. This pledge came despite the failure of the 2010 coalition’s especially set-up Bill of Rights Commission to agree on its content, and by the end of 2015, there was still no British Bill of Rights. In December 2016, it was announced that HRA repeal was delayed until after Brexit; and the 2017 Tory manifesto pledged to remain signed up to the ECHR “for the duration of this parliament.” For now, that is.
During this time, some prominent Conservatives politicised the HRA as “Labour’s.” Others, such as Dominic Grieve defended it.
This is a bit strange given it passed with overwhelming cross-party support in 1998.
Furthermore, the ECHR itself was shaped to a considerable degree by Winston Churchill and Tory lawyer David Maxwell-Fyfe . More recently, the Conservatives have used a narrative of the legal sovereignty issue into the Brexit debate, BUT leaving the EU does not entail leaving the ECHR. They are two different organisations completely.
Tory statements on human rights have often been inflammatory, like Cameron saying he felt “physically sick” at the thought of prisoners’ right to vote. Then there were the lies that were used to portray human rights in a negative light – like the “pet cat” Theresa May said prevented a deportation (in reality, Judge Gleeson had found that the deportee was in a stable relationship, and was therefore allowed to stay under the HRA, and that the couple also kept a cat).
Helen Mountfield, barrister, legal scholar and principal of Mansfield College, Oxford said: “There has really been a populist misrepresentation of what the law is.” She is suggesting that politicians and the populist press have in part intentionally fuelled the perception that the HRA is “a rogue’s charter.”
It’s noteworthy that the Conservatives’ new promise to “update” the HRA is hidden away in a paragraph that,rather worryingly, promises other sorts of constitutional review, including looking at “the relationship between the government, parliament and the courts.” Basically the Tories want to place themselves above the law. It’s usually one of the first acts of a despotic regime when they gain office. Amending existing human rights laws is another
The Tories are being intentionally unclear so that later they can do what they want. Given their past record, we can say that they mean to ‘weaken’ the commitments that we have to the ECHR. Some of Cameron’s plans entailed making human rights ‘relevant’ and relative. It would be down to a minister to decide if a case would be heard, the decision would be on an individual basis. This profoundly undermines the universality of human rights.If only some rights are upheld, it flies in the face of the fundamental principle that everyone has the same fundamental rights
The Tory proposal is likely address when, where and by whom those rights can be enjoyed and who can be held to account for their violation. It won’t be the government.
Whatever the eventual shape of the HRA, the systematic attacks on it are symptomatic of a troubling trend: populist attempts to undermine the perceived legitimacy of the rule of law.
The “Enemies of the People” headline used by the Daily Mail after the case on triggering Article 50 in 2017 demonstrates the government are fine with attacking the independent Judiciary. So this is about destroying the mechanisms of government accountability and operating within the law. It is an attack on our institutions, and the dignity and wellbeing of citizens.
We’ve already seen the government’s utter contempt for the human rights of disabled people and some ethnic communities. Their manifesto promises to confiscate the belongings of Roma, Gypsies and travellers, and to move them from their homes.
The Tories are far worse than ‘anti-progressive.’ They are brutal, cruel authoritarian eugenicists. It’s written between the lines of their narratives of ‘deserving and undeserving’ it’s embedded in their the myth of meritocracy. It drips from their disdain for a public they think can’t spell Pinocchio, or aren’t ‘clever’ enough to escape a burning multi-storey building. They think they are better than others and that gives them the right to rule. On their own terms.
That’s not a democracy, by the way.
Nor is the government’s almost total control over our mainstream media, who no longer serve the public interest.
Update following the election result: Politics and Insight’s independent, measured, authoritative reporting has never been so vital, or in the public interest. These are turbulent, decade-defining times. Whatever lies ahead for us all, I will be with you – investigating, disentangling, analysing and scrutinising, as I have done for the last 9 years.
More people, like you, are reading and supporting independent, investigative and in particular, public interest journalism, than ever before.
I don’t make any money from my research and writing, and want to ensure my work remains accessible to all.
I have engaged with the most critical issues of our time – the often devastating impact of almost a decade of Conservative policies, widespread inequality to the influence of big tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, I believe that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity and the norms of democracy at its heart.
My editorial independence means I set my own agenda and present my own research and analyisis. My work is absolutely free from commercial and political interference and not influenced one iota by billionaire media barons. I have worked hard to give a voice to those less heard, I have explored where others turn away, and always rigorously challenge those in power.
This morning I came across this on Twitter:
John Mann@LordJohnMann
I can this morning announce that as government advisor on antisemitism that I will be instigating an investigation this January into the role of the Canary and other websites in the growth of antisemitism in the United Kingdom. https://twitter.com/supergutman/status/1205296902301990912 …
Marlon Solomon@supergutman
Who’d have guessed that Mendoza – one of the people most responsible for toxifying the British left with racially charged conspiracy theories about Jews – would blame a Jew before anyone else.
Whoever takes control of Labour, from whatever faction, please fuck these people off.
Independent journalists are now facing a threat from an authoritarian government, who have successfully managed to distort our mainstream media.
I did expect this promise of a purge on left leaning sites if Boris Johnson was returned to office, but not quite so soon after the event. It’s a case of vote Tory on Thursday, get fascism by Saturday.
John Mann isn’t by a long stretch the only so-called moderate ex-Labour neoliberal extremist whipping up McCarthyist hysteria and hate. But he has been strategically placed for a while by the Conservatives to destroy independent sites like mine. He’s a particularly nasty individual.
My first step to fight back in the coming year is to join the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). It is an essential protection, now.
It’s not cheap, especially for someone like me, as I’ve no income from my work. I pay WordPress to keep adverts off my site, too. But I am one of those people who often has to make daily choices about whether to eat or keep warm. I am disabled because of an illness called lupus. Like many others in similar circumstances, I am now living in fear for our future under a government that has already systematically and gravely violated the human rights of disabled people, which has resulted in fear, suffering, harm and all too often, premature death.
I hope you will consider supporting me today, or whenever you can. As independent writers, we will all need your support to keep delivering quality research and journalism that’s open and independent.
Every reader contribution, however big or small, is so valuable and helps keep me going.
Sir Richard Dearlove, controversial former head of MI6, who was “senior advisor” to the Monitor Group – a consultancy and private equity firm which has been scandalously implicated in undertaking three million pounds worth PR work for the Libyan regimeand Muammar Gaddafi
The controversial former MI6 chief, Sir Richard Dearlove, claims that Jeremy Corbyn’s “far-left past” and “relationships with extremists” made him “unfit to enter number 10”. He said exactly the same thing just before the last general election.
Dearlove is a signatory of the right wing neo-Conservative Henry Jackson Society principles. He was also a “senior advisor” to the Monitor Group – a consultancy and private equity firm which has been implicated in undertaking three million pounds worth PR work for Libya and Muammar Gaddafi. In April 2013, it was announced that Dearlove joined the advisory board of Ergo, an intelligence, PR and advisory firm.
The Labour party pointed out that Dearlove lacks credibility because his own past raised questions about his judgement.
AndMI6 has a history of interfering in UK elections.
Dearlove wrote in the Mail on Sunday that the Labour leader would pose a “present danger to our country” if he became PM.
But a Labour source said: “As head of MI6 he was involved in the infamous dodgy dossier that helped take us into the illegal Iraq War.
“He has no credibility whatsoever on the subject of security.”
Dearlove wrote almost exactly the same thing in the Daily Telegraph in June 2017 – the day before the last general election. He’s the establishment’s ‘damage limitation’ PR wheel-out.
It’s a well-established fact that the opposition leader has always preferred the use of diplomacy in resolving conflicts, working to broker peace with all sides involved, in much the same way as others who were involved in bringing about the Good Friday agreement, for example.
Dearlove wants to expand NATO and increase its funding. Personally, if we were confronted with a threat, I’d prefer a Prime Minister who understands that the use of nuclear weapons are the VERY last resort, following exhaustive diplomatic efforts. It’s absurd and horrific that party leaders are expected to demonstrate they would press the nuclear button without any hesitation, triggering the mass destruction of millions, and of our environment, as a ‘mark’ of ‘strength’.
Real strength is taking a pause for thought for citizens, for our planet, fostering good diplomatic relations in the first place – you know, talking to people with courtesy and respect, especially those you fundamentally disagree with. That takes strength and courage. Pressing a button while cowering in a bunker, and incinerating millions isn’t ‘strong leadership.’
On 29 November 2018 Dearlove co-signed an open letter, published in a British national newspaper, condemning Prime Minister Theresa May’s negotiated Withdrawal Agreement for the UK from the European Union after the 2016 Referendum on the issue, as the matter was passing through the House of Commons at the time to be voted upon. In its text, Dearlove alleged the Withdrawal Agreement as negotiated undermined MI6‘s nationally independent global intelligence power.
In a published response, dated the same day, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a public “rebuttal” to the letter’s content, singling out Dearlove personally from the named list of several signatories to the open letter, stating the Withdrawal Agreement “absolutely does not” compromise the national independence of the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service’s capacity.
However, in early December 2018, in a jointly authored text, Dearlove and Major-General Julian Thompson, published on the website ‘Briefings for Brexit’ an extensive reply to the Prime Minister’s Office’s statement entitled ‘The Prime Minister is misleading the country on defence and security’, citing a ‘worryingly poor understanding of the issues’ by the Prime Minister’s office.
On 8 January 2019, in an extraordinary intervention in the political sphere by figures from the S.I.S. and the military quarter, Dearlove sent a letter, co-signed by Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, to all Chairs of Conservative Party Parliamentary Constituency Associations with sitting Members of Parliament stating that the passage through the House of Commons of Prime Minister Theresa May’s European Union Withdrawal Agreement contained decisions which fundamentally undermined the integrity of the Defence of the Realm, and requested that they take measures to discourage their parliamentary representatives from voting for it imminently in the Commons.
The letter advocated as an alternative the case upon national security grounds that the United Kingdom should fully withdraw from the European Union without an Intergovernmental relationship between the two persisting after the process.
Senior allies of Jeremy Corbyn have previously suggested that the security services are attacking Corbyn, not out of security concerns, but self-interest in defending the establishment.
Dearlove in 2018, making the same claims about Jeremy Corbyn. He’s certainly persistent.
You can watch John McDonnell’s response to Dearlove’s comments about Jeremy Corbyn last year below. The comment about “every government has been loyally supported [by the Intelligence Services]” is untrue of course. There is a trail of documented evidence of MI6 and MI5 interference in political and democratic processes, from the first ever Labour government and the faked Zinoviev letter to the attempts to destabilise Harold Wilson’s government.
Last year the Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey said he supported the view that “the security forces play an unhealthy role in the democratic processes that exist in our nation, both in trade unions and indeed in our political life”.
McCluskey is absolutely right. There are very good reasons why the public should never trust the pro-establishment interference in our democracy by MI6 or ANY account of ANY Labour party leader, not least because of the fact that the faked Zinoviev letter originated from MI6 and was ‘leaked’ to the Daily Mail, with the sole intention of bringing the first ever Labour party down. It succeeded.
Britain’s most senior security and intelligence officials had discussed the smearing of the Labour party just as it was emerging as a major political force according to previously secret documents.
There is a very long history of the Labour party’s struggle on our behalf against a monstrously ruthless and powerful establishment that is determined to maintain the status quo.
The real threat to our national security and democracy is the Conservative government in office
Dearlove’s comments about the opposition leader emerge as senior government officials are currently furious at “leaks” from the top-secret Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), after details emerged of the committee’s investigation into allegations of Russian interference in UK democracy. The government has been accused of presiding over a cover-up after it emerged that No 10 refused to clear the publication of a potentially incendiary report examining Russian infiltration in British politics, including the Conservative party.
Downing Street indicated that it would not allow a 50-page dossier from the intelligence and security committee to be published before the election, prompting a string of complaints over its suppression.
The committee’s chairman, Dominic Grieve, called the decision “jaw dropping”, saying no reason for the refusal had been given, while Labour and Scottish National party politicians accused No 10 of refusing to recognise the scale of Russian meddling.
According to the BBC, the ISC took evidence from members of the intelligence services accusing the Kremlin of trying to influence the outcome of the EU referendum in 2016 and the following year’s general election. It also hit the news that Russian oligarchs with links to the Kremlin have been making massive donations to the Conservative party. Fresh evidence also emerged of attempts by the Kremlin to infiltrate the Conservatives by a senior Russian diplomat suspected of espionage, who spent five years in London cultivating leading Tories including Johnson himself. Sergey Nalobin – who has described the future prime minister as “our good friend”– lives in a Moscow apartment block known as the “FSB house” because it houses so many employees from the Kremlin’s main spy agency.
It is understood the dossier had already been approved by the intelligence agencies themselves as part of a long clearance process that began in late March. Downing Street was sent a final draft on 17 October and had been expected to sign off before parliament was dissolved.
Grieve said: “The protocols are quite clear. If the prime minister has a good reason for preventing publication he should explain to the committee what it is, and do it within 10 days of him receiving the report. If not, it should be published.”
Allegations that Moscow money has flowed into the Conservative party via emigres living in the UK making high-profile donations, were also heard by the committee – although the party has consistently denied receiving money ‘improperly’.
Committee members were also briefed on an extraordinary – and for a while an apparently successful – attempt to penetrate Conservative circles by Nalobin, who instigated a pro-Kremlin parliamentary group, the Conservative Friends of Russia.
During his time in the UK, Nalobin went to exclusive Tory fundraising events and met senior Conservatives. In January 2014 he posed for a photograph with Johnson at an event at city hall in London. Nalobin posted it on Twitter, writing in a caption that the then mayor was “our good friend” who said “warm words” about Russians.
Conservative Friends of Russia held its 2012 launch party in the Russian ambassador’s Kensington garden, with about 250 Russian and British guests present, including Tories who went on to play a prominent role in the referendum campaign. One was Matthew Elliott, now chief executive of pro-Brexit group Vote Leave, alongside Dominic Cummings, now the prime minister’s chief strategist.
I have to say that I am almost surprised that Dearlove is so concerned about the ‘security threat” posed by a party leader who is not taking donations from Russian oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin, while remaining supremely unconcerned about the PM who is.
Back in 2016, speaking to reporters at MI6’s headquarters in Vauxhall, central London, Alex Younger used his first major public speech as head of the Secret Intelligence Service to attack the Kremlin for creating a human tragedy in Syria and to warn of the threat to the UK from high tech subversion by Moscow. He said: “The connectivity that is at the heart of globalisation can be exploited by states with hostile intent to further their aims deniably. They do this through means as varied as cyber-attacks, propaganda or subversion of democratic process.
He went on: “The risks at stake are profound and represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty; they should be a concern to all those who share democratic values.”
The role of the Secret Service is supposedly limited to countering genuine threats to national security, and controls are needed to govern how it may use, but not abuse, its powers. The service should not do anything which would favour one political party over another. called into question the Service’s political impartiality
However, MI6 have a shameful history of subverting our democracy and Dearlove’s comments also call into question the Service’s claimed political impartiality. It’s not such a big stride, after all from “protecting democracy” to stage managing it.
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“A great democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon.” former President Bill Clinton.
In the US, civil rights groups opposed voter ID laws because, they say, they discriminate against low-income and minority voters — groups that tend to vote Democratic. About 25 percent of eligible black voters and 16 percent of Hispanic voters did not have photo ID, compared with 9 percent of whites, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
The center says many poor voters can’t afford cars or vacations abroad, and thus don’t have driver’s licenses or passports, and will be unfairly burdened by the cost of obtaining birth certificates and travelling to a government agency to secure a photo ID. In a recent opinion condemning Wisconsin’s voter ID law, US Circuit Judge Richard Posner — a President Reagan appointee — compared the laws to the poll tax implemented to stop blacks from voting in the Jim Crow–era South.
“The only reason to impose voter ID laws”, said Posner, “is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens.” The available evidence indicates that voting fraud in the US was not a problem. In states such as Texas, citizens could apply for a “free election ID card”, but then have to pay for the official documents that are needed to apply for the cards.
Voter suppression is an attempt to reduce the number of voters who might vote against a government. The tactics of voter suppression range from seemingly minor changes to make voting difficult or less convenient for some demographic groups, to psychologically and physically intimidating and attacking prospective voters, which is illegal.
Voter suppression works if a significant number of voters are intimidated or disenfranchised. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the US states most likely to enact voting restrictions were states with the highest African-American turnout in the 2008 election.
Gerrymandering isn’t confined to recognisably despotic regimes. The US – “the land of the free” has shown a proclivity towards making democracy conditional. So has the UK.
Any law that presents reduced choice and bureaucratic barriers to voting in elections for the poorest citizens – in this case, it may mean going without food or fuel in order to fulfil the conditions to vote – is not indicative of a functioning democracy.
Yet the wealthiest citizens tend to vote more frequently. Nonvoters are more likely to be poor, young, or from an ethnic background. Some research also indicates they’re more likely to align with the Democratic Party in the states, and the Labour party in the UK.
Currently in the UK, in order to vote, it is compulsory for members of a household to register before every election. The ‘head of the household’ (a Tory anachronism) is obliged to provide their National Insurance number, name other family members of voting age in the household and provide dates of birth for family members. Individual family members then also have to register to vote individually.
Voters must be on the electoral roll in order to vote in national, local or European elections. A fixed address is also required in order for an individual to vote in an election. To provide for persons who are considered ‘transient’, if an individual lacking a fixed address wants to vote, they may register by filling in a ‘Declaration of local connection’ form. This establishes a connection to the area based on the last fixed address someone had, or the place where they spend a substantial amount of their time (e.g. a homeless shelter).
Those eligible to vote are sent a confirmatory polling card with a voter ID number on it. When that is presented at the polling station, citizens’ details are already on a list there, and each person is ticked off once they turn up to vote, after providing their identifying details.
That is effectively a voter ID system, which is already in place. The card is an ID card, which the council issues when they know that you are authentic and eligible to vote.
The UK government has recently announced controversial plans to prevent people from voting unless they can provide photographic identification, prompting accusations it is attempting to “rig the next election”. These are reasonable allegations, on the premise that any barrier placed in front of the democratic right to vote of some groups in a population is discriminatory.
Current proposals by the Conservative Party to require one of several forms of expensive photo ID in order to vote are likely to reduce the turnout of young and poor voters, who are more likely to vote for the Labour party.
The government was previously told to ditch its controversial voter ID policy after new analysis found that it had stopped “thousands” of people voting in local elections in the limited trials in 2017 and 2018. Bearing in mind that this was a limited trial, that number proportionally replicated at a national level would fundamentally damage our democracy.
Charities including Age UK and Liberty have joined forces with groups such as the Electoral Reform Society to demand that the government stop the “dangerous and undemocratic” policy. The LGC analysis suggests that the number of people turned away could have influenced the election result in some areas. In Mid Sussex, 78 people were denied a vote and there were three cases in which a candidate won by less than 25 votes.
Demanding a rethink of the policy in March last year, a group of 40 charities and academics said Electoral Commission figures showed there were only 28 allegations of impersonation out of almost 45 million votes in 2017, and one conviction.
“Decades of international studies show that restrictive identification requirements are particularly disadvantageous to certain voter groups who are less likely to possess approved ID for a variety of socio-economic and accessibility reasons,” said their letter, sent to the government.
“Voter ID reforms could therefore affect young people, older people, disabled people, transgender and gender non-conforming people, BAME communities and the homeless.”
Darren Hughes, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), said last year: “There is anecdotal evidence emerging from the pilot areas that people have been denied their democratic right to vote because of the voter ID requirements.
“Thousands of people were told they could not vote because of “draconian” ID requirements in five local election areas on 3 May 2018, according to analysis by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS).
Based on figures released by electoral observers at ID trial area polling stations, the ERS estimate3,981 people were denied a ballot paper across the five pilot areas (1.67 per cent of those who tried to vote).
Voter ID trials took place in Bromley, Woking, Gosport, Watford and Swindon in what the campaigners have branded a “dark day for politics.”
Hughes, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said: “Britain prides itself on being a leading democracy – but it is a dark day for politics when thousands of blameless people turn out to vote only to be refused.
“Our estimates, based on evidence gathered by electoral observers, reveal the shocking scale of the problem. These trials have been shown up to be the chaotic, undemocratic mess many predicted.
“This is exactly what we feared: that this draconian measure would result in blameless individuals being disenfranchised.”
The Labour party said the figures proved that the voter ID trial should be “abandoned immediately” and accused the government of frank voter suppression.
In a country without universal, free or cheap access to ID, such a move is dangerous, misguided and profoundly undemocratic. The policy will make it harder for millions of ordinary citizens to vote. A 2015 Electoral Commission report, for example, pointed out that 3.5 million citizens in the UK do not have access to photo ID, while 11 million citizens do not have a passport or driving licence.
The government claims that the introduction of voter ID will tackle fraud and corruption, in particular “personation”. But this is a completely disproportionate response to the extremely rare incidence of personation at the polling station.
Official figures show that of the 266 cases of electoral fraud investigated by police in 2018, personation fraud at the polling station accounted for just eight of the allegations made. No further action was taken for seven of these allegations, and one was locally resolved.
At the last election, several Tory MPs claimed that many young people had voted more than once. However, following over a thousand formal complaints to the Electoral Commission, upon investigation there was no evidence found to substantiate these claims.
Some Conservatives claim very loudly that the Labour party have “double standards” since ID is required to attend Labour party meetings. However, this is a typical Tory diversion strategy. The proof of ID requirement is true of all parties, and a party membership card is issued free of charge to party members.
The request to present membership cards at Labour party meetings is reasonable, in any case, since the Conservatives have a track record of attempting to deceitfully infiltrate Labour party meetings to useillegal entrapment methods to fuel their own smear tactics and propaganda campaigns.
The Tories have created a hostile environment for disadvantaged voters
We may debate whether election results would be different if the entire population voted, but voting determines more than which candidate or party wins or loses. It ultimately influences which policies elected officials enact and whose interests candidates ignore and acknowledge.
Research in the US found that nonvoters are more likely, for example, to support a redistribution of wealth, affordable housing and expanded social safety net programmes, according to a Pew Research Center analysisof Census Bureau data. Many would-be voters face a range of barriers, including: voter ID laws, registration difficulty, being disabled or having criminal records. Hundreds of thousands of nonvoters want to vote, but can’t.
If you think the government’s new emphasis on further ID documentation for voting is a good idea, well, universal credit and the welfare ‘reforms’ were presented as good ideas. But the Tories are never honest about their real aims, and those aims are invariably much less than as honourable as they try to claim.
After all, the last group of people who were asked to provide documentation of their ID – which had been placed in the care of the Home Office, under Theresa May – were the Windrush generation citizens. That didn’t end well.
This move for further costly ID evidence is simply another hostile environment designed to ensure that as few people as possible who would most likely vote for the Labour party will be permitted to do so. Many people with low income can’t afford to drive or pay for/renew their passport.
There will be other as yet unforeseen problems too. The limited trial run at the last election saw thousands of people being turned away without being allowed to vote. At a national level, this would have massive implications for our democracy.
The authoritarianism of the Conservative has become increasingly apparent over the last nine years. From “dark ads”, the development of hostile environments, grubby organisations that spend all their time smearing the opposition to the misuse of psychological behaviourism to alter and micromanage the perceptions of citizens concerning the government’s draconian austerity policies, to the increased use of secondary legislation, in the form of statutory instruments to sidestep democracy and hammer through very controversial legislation without adequate parliamentary scrutiny.
And of course, authoritarians don’t do rights or democracy.
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Interesting that this YouGov study identifies a proportion of the so-called centrist “moderates” as authoritarian populists, too. It’s something I’ve always suspected, making this group the real extremists within the Labour party. It does explain a lot, and I’d bet my sun hat that those “moderates” are also neoliberals, sharing a significant patch of common ground with the Tories.
Media euphemisms have obscured the truth for almost a decade: the Tories are authoritarians.
The BBC report that Boris Johnson “has no respect for the norms of democratic policy” and that he “misled” the queen”.
“Authoritarian” was originally a word to describe one more in favour of obedience to authority than personal liberty. I’ve been pointing out since 2012 that the Tories have all the hallmarks of an authoritarian regime. Conservatism has always been an unprincipled apology for the interests of the ruling class and elite. Conservatism has traditionally favoured authoritarian rule.
In the 1980s, the use of a new academic term became common among some political scientists when describing the neoliberal politics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: “authoritarian populism”. This term was based on the theory that they and their supporters shared a core set of attitudes: cynicism over human rights, anti-immigration, an anti-EU position in Britain, and favouring a strong emphasis on defence as part of wider foreign policy.
Conservatives tend to treat the rule of law with contempt. The Cameron administration hammered the controversial welfare “reforms” through into legislation by citing an archaic law – “commons privilege” – despite the fact that it failed to pass through parliament, and no-one wanted the policy implemented. It was imposed, nonetheless.
The Tories have told lie after lie and got away with it. In the Commons, MPs are not permitted by convention to use the word “liar”. But democratic accountability should matter rather more than convention. It’s about time that changed.
Back in 2010, few people recognised the arrival of anew form of authoritarian nationalismin the UK. By 2012, it was pretty plain to some of us. But we were often dismissed as “scaremongers” at the time.
In 2012, the Conservatives’ Health and Social Care bill was also pushed through legislation at unholy speed. We are still waiting for the government to fulfil the court ruling, and those of the information commissioner regarding the release of the policy risk register to the public. I put in an Freedom of Information request, asking for the risk register to be placed in the public domain, and was told by government that “it isn’t in the public interest” to see the catastrophic risk assessment of the policy.
The Trade Union Bill and the Organised Crime and Police Actaimed at curtailing public protest and was a marked attack on civil liberties. The Tories ensured that private companies made profits from their unprecedented cuts to public services. They, and the vulture capitalist corporations that benefited from the Conservatives’ policies wanted to ensure that strike action and democratic protests were stifled. In short, the Tories have always seen human rights and democratic norms as a political inconvenience – “red tape” – as have the exploitative big business political bed partners.
Let’s not forget the multiple “grave and systematic” human right violations of disabled peoplebecause of draconian Tory policies. The United Nations investigated the impact of policies, because in 2012, I wrote to the UN and presented evidence subsequently – along with many others. We have submitted empirical evidence of the despotic policy framework that has resulted in human rights violations, and the subsequent suffering of ill and disabled people over several years. The UN report was conclusive.
People havedied as a direct consequence of Tory policies, the government should have been removed from office when that finding was reported. Especially when they refused to conduct an inquiry and continued to deny there was any problem with their draconian welfare policy. It seems that theloss of human lifeis considered rather less serious than telling lies to the queen and suspending parliament to avoid democratic scrutiny. However, all of these events are closely connected.
Over the last decade, neoliberals have used what appear to be objective categories of group behaviours and measurement, which seem to fit very neatly with the pre-existing power structure. And reinforce it. Furthermore, the value-laden categories also form the basis of targeted scapegoating and justification narratives, deployed to make very punitive, controversial policies seem somehow reasonable.
Then there is the utterly woeful performance of the media in holding government to account. That’s because the government ‘brief’ commentators and journalists regarding what they may and may not say – they have ideological control of most of the mainstream media.
The Tories do whatever they can get away with. Authoritarianism advances by almost inscrutable degrees– moral and legal boundaries are pushed incrementally.
Until suddenly, everyone sees it for what it is. But once you hear the jackboots, it’s rather too late.
It’s taken a decade of damage and suffering. We must not let this happen ever again.
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The Manchester Observer was a short-lived non-conformist Radical newspaper based in Manchester, England. Its radical agenda led to an invitation to Henry “Orator” Hunt to speak at a public meeting in Manchester. The Peterloo massacre and the shutdown of the newspaper resulted from that Public Meeting.
By 1819, the allocation of Parliamentary constituencies did not reflect population distribution. The major urban centres of Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Blackburn, Rochdale, Ashton-under-Lyne, Oldham and Stockport, had a combined population of almost one million. They were represented only by their county MPs. Lancashire was represented by two members of parliament: John Blackburne of Hale Hall and Edward Smith Stanley, (Lord Stanley). Lord Stanley was a Conservative Whig and member of the “Derby Dilly” – a breakaway group of Conservative Whigs. The name derives from the family title “Earl of Derby” and the name of a stagecoach: the “Diligence” or “Dilly”; The title was bestowed on the Group by Irish Nationalist Leader Daniel O’Connell in a scathing reference to an erratic coach, with Stanley driving the horses.
It was quickly picked up by others, and the name stuck. Stanley’s reputation was as the “Prince Rupert of Debate”: leading his followers to attack but unable to rally them afterwards. As a result, it was difficult to estimate the number of MPs who were actually part of the ‘Dilly’. But the name did highlight the turmoil of the Ruling Classes. Change was very much in the air.
Both Blackburne and Stanley were Oxford educated Landowners whose families had “been in politics” for some time and were not liking the change. Not the Cooperativism and Utopian Socialism of one time Manchester resident Robert Owen – Pioneer of the Cooperative Movement and member of the Manchester Board of Health. As Whigs they were aware of the rising demands of the emerging Working Class. There was something in the air.
Indeed, in 1820, The Radical War burst out in Scotland when A Committee of Organisation for Forming a Provisional Government put placards around the streets of Glasgow late on Saturday the first of April, calling for an immediate national strike. By the third of April there was a strike.
Work stopped over a wide area of central Scotland including Stirlingshire, Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, with an estimated total of around 60,000 stopping work, particularly in weaving communities. Eighty eight men were charged with treason. The leaders – Andrew Hardie and John Baird – were hanged and beheaded. The last beheadings in the British Isles.
The 1819 Peterloo Massacre was normal, not exceptional.
Voting, in 1819, was restricted to the adult male owners of freehold land with a rateable value greater than forty shillings. The equivalent of a rateable value of about £172 as of 2018, which equates, approximately, to owning a Freehold property worth £172,000. The amounts are approximations as the Rateable Value was largely abolished with the introduction of the Poll Tax of 1990. This property qualification resulted in very few people having the Vote. Those who did have the vote numbered around two percent of the population, and, in Lancashire the number was even lower. When 60,000 people turned out to hear Orator Hunt talk, they outnumbered the voting population for the whole of Lancashire.
The imbalance of power was not simply between Men and Women but between Rich and Poor. Indeed, Radicals were demanding that Women get the Vote. Which “moderates” saw as a step too far. Indeed Women – over thirty, of a certain class – only got the Vote after violent confrontation with the Liberals – under Asquith – and Moderates in 1918: almost a century after Orator Hunt stated that Women, who were single, tax paying and of sufficient property should be permitted to vote.
Equality of voting rights only really came about with the 1928 Representation of the People Act. The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 only allowed propertied women to vote and almost all men. The Franchise for all Working Class Adults has only really existed for about ninety years. The Electoral Register for Local and National Elections only became the same register in 1949 and the voting age fixed at 18 in 1969. Every step of the way was fought for.
In 1819 votes in Lancashire could only be cast at the county town of Lancaster, by a public spoken declaration at the hustings. There was no Secret Ballot. Britain’s first secret ballot box, which was used in Pontefract in 1872, was mandated by the Ballot Act of 1872. The Liberal candidate, H.C. Childers was elected MP for the town and the Returning Officer announced the result of the secret ballot in the Town Hall after the votes had been counted.
In 1819, the vote was cast by standing up in public and announcing for whom you cast your vote. The Returning Officer would then record the cast vote. This was of much concern to Chartists who saw the affront to democracy in people being influenced – by drunkenness or threats – at the hustings. Indeed, the specific Electoral Offence of “treating” derives from the practice of candidates providing food and drink at the hustings to induce a favourable vote.
The first automatic secret ballot box was built and patented in Merthyr Tydfil by a former iron puddler, turned grocer, William Gould. Gould was disparaged as a “Chartist Lip” – who served as a Poor Law Guardian – but understood secret ballots prevented industrialists and landowners having influence at the ballot box. The principle behind his ballot box was that each voter had a token and each candidate a ballot box. The voter inserted the token into the box of their choice and the vote was registered onto a clock face on the box. This would reduce the potential for intimidation. Despite campaigning, his idea was not adopted. In terms of secrecy of the vote, it was a huge step up from the spoken declaration at the hustings.
The problem of getting to Lancaster is that most working people would need to walk. Using modern roads, the hike would be about seventeen hours each way at a brisk pace. In addition, time would be needed to be taken away from working; food would need to be carried and accommodation organised. The large scale movement of people was a terrifying prospect for Justices and Politicians and Landowners. An election in which there was Universal Adult Suffrage would have been revolutionary with hundreds of thousands of people moving to Lancaster to cast a vote.
The logistics of voting, alone, would have extended the ballot to weeks if not months. Which would increase the time away from work and the food required and, in no uncertain terms, disrupt the entire economy. The Rotten Boroughs were not simply a symptom of corruption but of the collapse of the practical political and economic life of the Country.
Stockport fell within the county constituency of Cheshire, with the same franchise, but with the hustings held at Chester. This would have complicated the matter further. Both Chester and Lancaster Returning Officers would be obliged to confer and coordinate. Many MPs were returned by Rotten Boroughs such as Old Sarum in Wiltshire, with one voter who elected two MPs. Dunwich in Suffolk had almost completely disappeared into the sea yet returned Members of Parliament. Closed Boroughs with more voters, dependent on a local magnate meant that more than half of all MPs were elected by boroughs under the control of a total of just 154 proprietors. This hugely disproportionate influence on Parliament of the United Kingdom drove calls for reform.
The Manchester Observer was formed by a group of radicals that included John Knight. John Saxton and James Wroe. The popularist form of articles aimed at the growing literate working-class meant that, within twelve months, it was selling 4,000 copies per week to its local audience and more further afield. By late 1819 it was being sold in most of the booming industrialised cities – Birmingham, Leeds, London, Salford – all calling for non-conformist reform of the Houses of Parliament. It was a powerful demand for Democracy to be part of life for everyone and not just the few.
Orator Hunt stated:
“The Manchester Observer is the only newspaper in England that I know, fairly and honestly devoted to such reform as would give the people their whole rights.”
The non-conformist articles, combined with a popularist style, often resulted in the main journalists of T. J. Evans, John Saxton and James Wroe constantly being sued for libel. Being found guilty, particularly for articles critical of Parliament’s structure, resulted in jail which then raised circulation. Despite its popularity, the radical agenda was seen as bad for sales by traditionalist conformist-Whig businesses. Advertising revenue remained low with only one of its 24 columns being filled by adverts. The lack of advertising meant the Observer was always in financial difficulties.
In Early 1819, Johnson, Knight and Wroe of the Manchester Observer formed the Patriotic Union Society. Leading radicals and reformists in Manchester joined the organisation, including members of the First Little Circle. The First Little Circle had formed in 1815, influenced by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham and Joseph Priestley. While the members were Unitarians, the political ideas were practical, utilitarian and resolutely reforming. Members went on to become Editors and Members of Parliament and to be involved in the Businesses of Manchester whose emerging Municipal Socialist, Cooperativist and Feminist movements would have a lasting impact on Britain.
The objective of the Patriotic Union Society was parliamentary reform both locally and, in the longer term, nationally. The Patriotic Union Society invited Henry “Orator” Hunt and Major John Cartwright to speak at a public meeting in Manchester. The national agenda of Parliamentary reform, and the local agenda to gain two Parliamentary Members for Manchester and one for Salford, were to be the subject of the speech but, to avoid the police or courts banning the meeting, the Patriotic Union Society and the Observer advertised only, “a meeting of the county of Lancashire, than of Manchester alone.”
On August 19th 1819, at St Peter’s Field, Manchester, cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000-80,000 Men, Women and Children. As the meeting began, local magistrates called on the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry to arrest Orator Hunt and those on the hustings with him. A Yeomanry charge into the crowd, knocked down a woman and killed a child before detaining Hunt. The 15th Hussars were then summoned by the Chairman of the Lancashire and Cheshire Magistrates, William Hulton. They charged with sabres drawn, killing 18 people and injuring 700 more. The Hussars had been ordered to Manchester by a panicked government who believed an insurrection was being planned on the basis of an intercepted message between the Manchester Observer’s founder – Joseph Johnson – and Orator Hunt:
“Nothing but ruin and starvation stare one in the face in the streets of Manchester and the surrounding towns, the state of this district is truly dreadful, and I believe nothing but the greatest exertions can prevent an insurrection. Oh, that you in London were prepared for it.”
The Local Magistrate, William Hulton, had the meeting declared illegal as the intention of choosing representatives without the Monarch’s Permission was seditious and a serious misdemeanour. This began a series of planned meetings and cancellations with the terms of the meeting being constantly changed to conform to the desire for Members Of Parliament and the repeated escalation of the State against the Radicals. Eventually, the Meeting was policed by six hundred of the 15th Hussars; the 88th Regiment of Foot Cavalry; two six-pounder guns from the Royal Horse Artillery unit; four hundred men of the Cheshire Yeomanry; four hundred special constables; and one hundred and twenty cavalry of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry.
The Yeomanry were described by the Manchester Observer as being, “generally speaking, the fawning dependents of the great, with a few fools and a greater proportion of coxcombs, who imagine they acquire considerable importance by wearing regimentals”.
Subsequent descriptions include, “younger members of the Tory party in arms”, and, by later historians, “the local business mafia on horseback”.
Field Marshal John Byng, 1st Earl of Strafford, rather than supervising events as he had indicated he would, spent the day at York Races – where he had two entries – and left the matter of Manchester in the hands of Guy L’Estrange.
HC Deb 24 November 1819 vol 41 cc228-301
No. 36. REPORT from Lieutenant Colonel l’Estrange, inclosed in the foregoing.
Dated Manchester, August 16, 1819, eight o’clock, P. M.
...I have, however, great regret in stating, that some of the unfortunate people who attended this meeting have suffered from sabre wounds, and many from the pressure of the crowd…
Geo. L’Estrange, Lieut. Col. 31st regiment.
The Military rioted and massacred the Civilians; many, of whom, were wearing their Sunday Best Clothes and had marched from all around Manchester. Carrying banners and organised for a picnic. The imbalance of power was not simply political but of brute force. There were banners for Manchester Female Reform Society – Votes for Women! – “No Corn Laws”, “Annual Parliaments”, “Universal suffrage” and “Vote By Ballot”. Nothing really radical. Mary Fildes (born Pritchard) a political activist and an early suffragette was on the platform with Orator Hunt.
Mary remained a radical and was later arrested, in 1833, as a member of The Female Political Union of the Working Classes. She was arrested for distributing “pornography” – in fact contraceptive advice. The only banner to survive has the words “Liberty and and Fraternity” and “Unity and Strength” carried by Thomas Redford – who was cut down by cavalry. The crowd was dispersed in about ten minutes; but rioting was sparked as far away as Macclesfield and Oldham.
Field Marshal Byng was promoted to lieutenant general in 1825; then advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1828; advancing, again, to Commander-in-Chief of Ireland and then to the Privy Council of Ireland. He was elected as a Whig Member of Parliament for Poole in Dorset in October 1831. One of the few military men to supported the 1832 Reform Bill. His role in Peterloo never once prevented him from enjoying political power.
Wroe, as then editor of the Observer, described the incident at the Peterloo massacre. He took his headline from the Battle of Waterloo four years previously. Subsequently, Wroe wrote pamphlets entitled, “The Peterloo Massacre: A Faithful Narrative of the Events”. They sold out each print run for 14 weeks with national circulation. Saxton, having been on the hustings with Hunt, was arrested and imprisoned. He stood trial with Hunt at York Assizes.
His defence that he was present as a reporter, not participant in the hustings party, was successful. The success of his defence did not sit well with the Government. Hunt was sentenced to five years at Ilchester Jail, fined one thousand pounds and made to find two sureties of five hundred pounds having escaped the charge of High Treason.
The Observer printed an article claiming that, “something was previously arranged”, as Manchester Royal Infirmary had been emptied of patients, on the 15th of August, anticipating the massacre. That all the surgeons had been summoned to attend on 16th. The Board of the infirmary vigorously denied this. The Liverpool Government then instigated repeated prosecutions of the Manchester Observer and those associated with it. Vendors were prosecuted for seditious libel. Fifteen charges of seditious libel were brought against Wroe, his wife and his two brothers resulting in the temporarily suspension of publication. Wroe relinquished ownership of the copyright and resumed under the last proprietor of the Manchester Observer (Thomas John Evans). At trial Wroe was found guilty on two specimen charges.
The other charges against him, his wife and his brothers being given “to lie”. The charges would only lie provided the publication of “libels” ceased. Wroe was sentenced to six months imprisonment and fined £100 with a further six months, and being bound over to keep the peace for two years, to give a surety of £200 and to find two other sureties of £50 each.
The prosecuted charges related not to anything in the Manchester Observer, but to articles in Sherwin’s Weekly Political Register, which Wroe had previously sold. It was clear that the Liverpool Government wished to silence Wroe and took the most certain way of doing so. Prosecuting Richard Carlile, who had been present at Peterloo enabled prosecution on the coat tails of conviction. Carlile wrote an article on the “Horrid Massacres At Manchester”. The Government responded by closing Sherwin’s Weekly Political Register. Carlile responded by changing the name to The Republican and writing:
“The massacre… should be the daily theme of the Press until the murderers are brought to justice…. Every man in Manchester who avows his opinions on the necessity of reform, should never go unarmed – retaliation has become a duty, and revenge an act of justice.”
Carlile was then prosecuted for blasphemy, blasphemous libel and sedition and publishing material that might encourage people to hate the government; for publishing Tom Paine’s Common Sense, The Rights of Man and the Age of Reason. In October 1819 he was found guilty of the blasphemy and seditious libel and sentenced to three years which enabled Wroe to be caught up in the moral panic of atheist Republicanism and prosecuted with impunity.
The sentences were said to have been reduced because of the distressed state of the Wroes. A distress brought about by the Government but which cast the Government in a poor light. It was a delicate balance to secure an effective remedy to the power of Wroes publications. Wroes successor, Evans, was subsequently (June 1821) convicted on one charge of a seditious libel another of libelling a private individual and imprisoned for eighteen months and bound over for three years in the sum of £400 with two other sureties of £200. By then the 11 members of the first Little Circle excluding William Cowdroy Jnr. of the Manchester Gazette had helped cotton merchant John Edward Taylor found The Manchester Guardian.
The Manchester Observer had ceased publication. The Government had driven it into silence by repeated prosecution. The final editorial recommending:
“I would respectfully suggest that the Manchester Guardian, combining principles of complete independence, and zealous attachment to the cause of reform, with active and spirited management, is a journal in every way worthy of your confidence and support.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley was in Italy at the time of Peterloo. In response, Shelley wrote “The Masque of Anarchy: written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester“. Because of radical press restrictions, it was not published until 1832 – the same year as The Representation of the People Act (1832).
The Act introduced a system of voter registration, to be administered by the Overseers of the Poor; and instituted a system of courts to review disputes relating to “voter qualification”. The Act limited the duration of polling to two days – formerly forty days. The reform act increased the number of people able to vote, across the country, to about 650,000 – about ten times the largest estimate of the number of people attending Peterloo.
When Shelley wrote:
“Men of England, heirs of Glory, Heroes of unwritten story, Nurslings of one mighty Mother, Hopes of her, and one another; Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you – Ye are many – they are few.”
He was writing lyrics for punk bands like The Mekons, Scritti Politti and Strike Anywhere. The radical sentiments of Peterloo never vanished regardless of how submerged they were. Indeed Shelley is claimed to be part of the inspiration for the Arab Spring, Ghandi and numerous other radical causes. The truth is closer: “A spectre is haunting Manchester – the spectre of Peterloo. All the powers of old England have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Liberal and Tory, Johnson and Swinson, European Research Group and Big Data-spies.” To paraphrase those later journalists of the Manchester Guardian: Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx.
For a few months following Peterloo it seemed England shook, towards an armed rebellion. Abortive uprisings took place in Huddersfield and Burnley, the Yorkshire West Riding Revolt, the Cato Street conspiracy, the Cinderloo Uprising in the Coalbrookdale Coalfield, the Pentrich rising, the March of the Blanketeers, the Spa Fields, and the Radical War ll made the end of Regency Civilisation more and more vivid. The Government introduced the Six Acts, to suppress radical meetings and publications. By the end of 1820 every significant working-class radical reformer was in jail. Civil liberties were largely gone.
Two hundred years later, the Tories are again splitting and civil liberties are again being rolled back.
Firstly, the authors said that ‘financial measures’ are ‘necessary’ to ensure that major investment houses such as JP Morgan can continue to reap huge profits from their speculative activities in Europe.
Secondly, the authors maintain, it is necessary to impose ‘political reforms’ aimed at suppressing opposition to the massively unpopular austerity measures being imposed at the behest of the banks and financial sector.
The authors write: “The political systems in the periphery were established in the aftermath of dictatorship, and were defined by that experience. Constitutions tend to show a strong socialist influence, reflecting the political strength that left-wing parties gained after the defeat of fascism [following world war 2].
“Political systems around the periphery typically display several of the following features: weak executives; weak central states relative to regions; constitutional protection of labour rights; consensus-building systems which foster political clientalism; and the right to protest if unwelcome changes are made to the political status quo. The shortcomings of this political legacy have been revealed by the [eurozone] crisis.”
Whatever the historical inaccuracies in their analysis, there can not be the slightest doubt that the authors of the JP Morgan report are arguing for governments to adopt authoritarianism to complete the process of social counterrevolution to austerity that is already well underway across Europe.
What JP Morgan is making very clear is that anything resembling ‘socialism’, representative ‘democracy’, collectivism, trade unionism or inclinations towards the left of the spectrum must be removed from political structure: localism must be replaced with strong, central authority; labour rights must be removed, consensus (democracy) and the right to protest must be curtailed.
In short, JP Morgan are calling for extremely authoritarian measures to suppress the working class and wipe out its social gains since the post-war settlement. This is the proto-fascism and reflects the unadulterated antisocial voice of neoliberalism, which is incompatible with human rights, social liberalism and democracy.
JP Morgan are not a lone voice making such demands. In the UK, savage welfare cuts have driven some disabled individuals to fear for their lives. But the austerity programme also has a few winners. Cutting or eliminating publicly funded support programmes that support the poorest citizens, those who fall on hard times, has long been an ideological goal of Conservatives.
Doing so also generates a tidy windfall for the corporate class, as the ‘business friendly’ government services are privatised and savings from austerity pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens. The liberalisation that the financial class demand – what bankers call deregulation – is the process that caused the financial crash.
Many of us have said over the last eight years that austerity is not an economic necessity or ‘in the national interest’ as was claimed in 2010, and it is more like a tool of ‘statecraft’ and radical socioeconomic re-engineering, driven entirely by ideology and not economic requirements.
In a truly nauseating article in the Financial Times (FT) titled How to hedge your finances against a future Corbyn government, financial ‘advisors’ are cowering in outraged ‘fear’ at the prospect of a Labour government. They are very worried that a few millionaires may face a capital gains tax rise, property taxes and other erosions to the generous privileges they have become accustomed to over the last few years.
Gosh, fancy that, having to contribute a fair amount of tax towards maintaining a country that the rich have taken so much from. Yet they don’t want to contribute anything to the society that has benefited them so much.
I can really empathise with their ‘fears’. I mean, that’s almost as bad as having to join the foodbank queue because your wage doesn’t meet the cost of living, or even your most fundamental survival needs. I can see why they would be left cowering in fear behind their hoarded wealth.
This despicable class of people, who regard most of their fellow human beings as disposable commodities, have had their own way for far too long. They have institutionalised their power through law, media, and corrupt political rituals, and have become habituated to the status quo.
The FT says “They might be considered unlikely to vote for Jeremy Corbyn, but the rising popularity of the Labour leader is rapidly moving up the agenda in conversations between the UK’s wealthiest and their financial advisers. In the event that he came to power, what impact might future Labour policies have on their wealth? And secondly, what financial planning measures — if any — could be considered to mitigate these?
Well you could be less controlling and anally retentive. Less pathological about wealth defense. You just let go and stop hoarding obscene amounts of money. You could care about the suffering inflicted on others so that you can stash your cash offshore, leaving a black hole in the economy and our public services on the point of collapse, because of ever-circling vulture capitalist parasites like you.
George Bull of RSM, the accountancy firm, says: “these fears are well-founded, as Labour’s 2017 manifesto mentioned wealth taxes as one option for easing the care cost crunch.”
Oh, the sheer horror of it. I mean fancy having to give a shit for the people who have been brutally dispossessed by the state in order to fuel the accumulation of even more wealth for the already very very wealthy. How outrageous.
The article goes on to say: “Should a mis-step in the Brexit negotiations topple the existing administration, this could prompt a fresh election which many believe Mr Corbyn could win.”
Yes, and your very worst fear has been realised. The PM’s Brexit deal was rejected by 230 votes – the largest defeat for a sitting government in history. It takes a very special sort of skill to unite so many people against your proposals. Dis may.
Yet curiously, despite the vote of no confidence tabled by Corbyn, the BBC are claiming that the Pound rises after ‘meaningful’ Brexit vote and crashing defeat for the PM.
The BBC then claim the “vote opens up a range of outcomes, including no deal, a renegotiation of May’s deal, or a second referendum.” However, the BBC don’t mention the rather obvious other possibility – a General Election, which is more than a little short sighted of them.
Even if we assume that a no confidence motion may not force an election , it would be prudent to consider Wednesday’s vote as the start of a process. The shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner has suggested the PM could face a series of confidence votes in the coming weeks. In fact that is highly likely, since she does not command a majority and will struggle getting anything through parliament.
Apparently, sterling rose 0.05% to $1.287 after declines of more than 1% earlier in the day. The currency slumped 7% in 2018 reflecting uncertainty about the terms of the UK’s exit from the European Union.
“A defeat has been broadly anticipated in markets since the agreement with the EU was closed in November 2018 and caused several members of the government to resign,” said Richard Falkenhall, senior FX strategist at SEB. The BBC says that “business groups said their members’ patience was wearing thin.”
On Friday, hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, a major donor to the Brexit campaign, said he now expected the project to be abandoned altogether and that he is “positioning for the pound to strengthen.”
The real culture of entitlement
The very wealthiest are likely to find ways to circumvent increased taxes on those on the highest incomes. I guess rich people don’t like ‘progressive’ tax , well-funded and functioning and effective public services
Bull continues: “There is no certainty as to what people might do.
“However, we hear far greater interest about lifetime tax planning — for example, gifts of assets to children being made sooner rather than later — so that parents’ asset values are reduced before a wealth tax or land value tax takes force.”
“The favourable inheritance tax status of defined contribution pensions, which can currently be passed tax free to heirs in some circumstances, is something many advisers fear the current government will scrap, let alone a Labour one. Higher-rate tax relief on pensions contributions is another obvious area of vulnerability, advisers say.”
Vulnerability? I guess that’s pretty relative. Ask those people targeted by austerity policies from 2010, which saw them lose their lifeline support while at the same time, the chancellor handed out £107,000 each per year to millionaires in the form of a tax cut. People have died because the government’s austerity policies. Get a grip.
My favourite part was this:
“The Labour party has also signalled its intention to close various loopholes and tax breaks, as well as ending “the social scourge of tax avoidance”. It has signalled that it would make public the tax returns of those earning more than £1m a year and double the number of HMRC staff investigating wealthy tax avoiders.
“It might also increase the insurance premium tax on private healthcare. The rate of corporation tax would be restored to 26 per cent. In addition, a Labour government might tackle tax planning that takes advantage of the gap between income and corporate tax rates, such as the practice of holding investments within a company.
“One possibility is that the undistributed profits of “ close” companies— those controlled by five or fewer people — could be taxed as though they had been distributed to shareholders.
“Labour has said it wants to see the public disclosure of trusts, which it describes as “a key vehicle for tax avoidance and illicit financial flows”. The industry says HMRC already has access to this information and making it public would put beneficiaries in a vulnerable position.
“People avoiding tax by using trusts would fear “trial by media”.
“It would be a witch hunt. People might want to consider unwinding those structures.”
My heart bleeds. Like the ‘trial by media’ that unemployed and disabled people faced in the run up to the brutal and uncivilised cuts to the social security that the overwhelming majority of them had paid into via taxes? And all to justify a transfer of wealth from public funds to a few private bank accounts, a proportion of those being offshore.
The hysteria continued: “Labour’s plans to nationalise railways, water, energy and Royal Mail would take a toll on those segments of the market. And Mr Corbyn’s aim to intervene more heavily in areas such as energy could drag on the dividends paid by those companies and investment funds.”
But it would benefit the public. You know, the many, not the few.
Job Curtis, a Henderson fund manager, says: “We are already beginning to see weakness in companies involved in passenger transport and water utilities. United Utilities — a water company covering the north west of England, has experienced a large share price fall in the last year partly because of the increased likelihood of a Labour government under Corbyn.”
“Sectors including utilities and energy companies are high dividend payers and whether it’s nationalisation or increased regulation and price caps, the outlook for higher and sustainably high dividend incomes looks under threat under a Corbyn government,” says Mr Stevenson.
But many of us will be able to afford our utility bills.
Henry Pryor, an independent buying agent, whines the prospect of a Labour government is “frightening” for the owners of large, expensive assets. I think Henry should really try to expand his understanding of the word “frightening”.
I suggest he asks citizens for some insights, perhaps those with severe illness who are forced to claim disability support after a lifetime of working and paying social insurance via taxes, then he should go through mandatory review and the appeal process. That’s fear. Or perhaps he should spend a year on the streets, without the safety of his wealth and assets.
That said, perhaps the pitchforks really are coming…
Nick Hanauer is a rich guy, an unrepentant capitalist — and he has something to say to his fellow plutocrats: Growing inequality is about to push our societies into conditions resembling pre-revolutionary France.
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Inside the Integrity Initiative, the UK gov’s information war on the public with Journalists Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton and Professor David Miller.
The Institute for Statecraft and its offshoot, the Integrity Initiative, constitute a secret propaganda network tied to the UK security services. They bring together high-ranking military and intelligence personnel, journalists and academics to manufacture and disseminate propaganda serving the geopolitical and economic aims of the UK and those of its allies.
The Integrity Initiative is a self declared ‘charity’, funded by the UK Foreign Office, British Army and Ministry of Defence, which has been described by the Sunday Mail as a right wing infowars unit.
The Institute for Statecraft, which “led” the Integrity Initiative, was traced to this mill in Fife (Image: Sunday Mail.)
Created by the NATO-affiliated, UK-funded Institute for Statecraft in 2015, the Integrity Initiative was unmasked in Novemberafter Anonymous hackers released a volume of documents detailing a web of politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics involved in purportedly fighting ‘Russian disinformation.’
The highly secretive, government-bankrolled “network of networks” has found itself under scrutiny for smearing Her Majesty’s opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn as a ‘Kremlin stooge’ – ostensibly as part of its crusade against ‘Russian disinformation.’ The Initiative has received more than £2.2million from the Foreign Office in two years to – in one minister’s words – “defend democracy against disinformation.”
The latest leaks indicate that the organisation played a central role in shaping media narratives after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were mysteriously poisoned in Salisbury last March. It’s notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its blame frame with evidence.
Within days of the Skripal poisonings, the Institute solicited its services to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), offering to “study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived” in a number of countries.
After receiving the government’s endorsement, the Integrity Initiative launched‘Operation Iris,’ enlisting the “global investigative solutions” companyHarod Associatesto analyse social media activity related to the Skripal incident.
The latest release of hacked documents also revealed a curious link between the Integrity Initiative and Skripal himself – a connection made all the more suspicious by the group’s central role in coordinating a determined and evidence-free campaign to implicate and punish Moscow for the alleged nerve-agent attack.
One document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal’s MI6 recruiter, handler and (conveniently) neighbour in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute. The plot sickens.
I have wondered what happened to Yulia Skripal. Worryingly, she has dropped off the media radar.
I have never heard of any of these three exotic entities. I think you've been hoaxed.
David Miller, Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol School for Policy Studies, has said that despite being ignored by the media, leaks from Integrity Initiative have paralysed the operations of this UK-funded covert influence network, and could ultimately lead to its dismantling.
Miller also believes that: “People have a right to know how the Government are spending their money, and the views being promoted in their name.”
I agree. I think it’s obscene that our money is being spent on covert military grade psyop operations designed specifically to micromanage our perceptions of reality and to stage-manage our democracy.
He adds: “This [leak] has made a mess of [Integrity Initiative’s] operations, they are spending most of their time now trying to fire-fight on the coverage this is getting. And they are not doing essentially what they are being paid to do, which is to counter the Russians.
“The British government is getting bad value for money, if it was ever getting ‘better’ value.”
As part of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, which studies Western attempts to control media coverage of key international events, Miller has played a crucial role in studying the four tranches of data anonymously uploaded and sourced from the previously little-known group, which has been backed by the UK Foreign Office, NATO and Facebook, to the tune of over £1 million per year.
The documents, whose authenticity has not been denied by government, contain details of psyops against public figures, of the manipulation of media coverage from leading outlets, and have also revealed worldwide networks of prominent journalists and academics, secretly engaged to discredit, at every turn, pro-Moscow points of view and left wing political developments.
Despite the refusal by all of those named to either admit their connection or to say that there was nothing untoward in their activities, Miller believes that the exposure has made it more difficult for them to push and publish anti-Russian content.
The Integrity Initiative has waged an information and propaganda war on the public. Yet nothing has been done to address the scandal surrounding this McCarthyist UK government-funded think tank, which has attacked Jeremy Corbyn and the anti-war left and laundered disinformation through the corporate media under the guise of ‘countering Russia’.
“Most of the people named are trying to pretend that this is not all of great significance, but the revelation of the involvement of the government in manipulating other countries, and the political process in the UK, is extremely damaging for them,” Miller says.
Miller has also said that Parliament needs to conduct a more sustained inquiry into Integrity Initiative, and Jeremy Corbyn smears.
For Miller, the “cardinal sin” from a UK perspective was the smearing of the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, as a potential ‘Kremlin ally’ in Whitehall, which means that a state-paid intelligence operation has been manipulating domestic politics.
Miller also points to the absence of coverage of what he calls a “real, genuine scandal” in top news sources, which, he says, are themselves implicated in the scandal fallout.
Miller also sates that, at the very least, this exposure should lead to a crucial national dialogue about the role intelligence agencies should play in public life and in influencing politics.
Why, it’s as if the role of MI6 in the faked Zinoviev letter has habituated the Establishment to maintain the status quo at all cost, including the stage-managing of our democracy, using anti-Russian sentiment as a template. It’s also apparently become such normalised behaviour that it’s hiding in plain view.
“Integrity Initiative are beyond the realms of sense. The activities they are engaged in are morally and ethically dubious, and will certainly – as we can see already – backfire on them,” Miller continued.
“This will result hopefully in the ending of this operation, and if we are lucky, a sensible discussion in parliament about controlling the future of British covert operations.”
Funding shot up to £2.6 million in 2018-19, with £1.96 million from the FCO and the rest from the US State Department, NATO and the American neoconservative Smith Richardson Foundation. Facebook, which plays in integral role in imposing censorship on behalf of the US, donated £100,000. See: UK Integrity Initiative heavily involved in Skripal affair.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry has said: “It is one of the cardinal rules of British public life that official resources should not be used for party political purposes.
“So, it is simply outrageous that the clearly mis-named ‘Integrity Initiative’ – funded by the Foreign Office to the tune of £2.25 million over the past two years – has routinely been using its Twitter feed to disseminate personal attacks and smears against the Leader of the Opposition, the Labour Party and Labour officials.”
Andrew Fisher, an aide to the Labour leader, said: “This astonishing story really deserves attention.”
Labour MSP Neil Findlay said: “Such clear political attacks and propaganda shouldn’t be coming from any charity.
“We need to know why the Foreign Office have been funding it.”
Isn’t it obvious?
Surveillance capitalism: citizens as a means to an end
As soon as the Conservatives casually announced their ‘behaviour change’ agenda back in 2010, and instituted the ‘Nudge Unit’, a scandal of the type surrounding Cambridge Analytica/SCL was inevitable. How could anyone expect that an increasingly authoritarian government, somewhat defined by resistance to change, would resist the temptation to draw on ‘behavioural science’ techniques to manipulate citizens’ perceptions, cognitions, behaviours, choices, and ultimately, their voting decisions?
‘Surveillance capitalism’ was the term coined in 2015 by Harvard academic Shoshanna Zuboff to describe this large-scale surveillance and modification of human behaviour for profit. It involves the predictive analysis of big datasets describing the lives, choices and behaviours of tens or hundreds of millions of people, allowing correlations and patterns to be identified, information about individuals inferred and analysised, and future behaviour and decisions to be predicted. This is then used to influence behaviours through personalised and ‘dynamic’ targeted advertising.
This whole process is refined by an experimental approach – testing a range of variations of adverts on different demographics to determine what works best. Every time we log on we potentially become the unwitting and thus non consenting subject of trials designed to determine how to most effectively extract money from us or to persuade us of something. The common denominator is the covert use of powerful behavioural modification strategies: psyops.
Our personal data is being used to construct ‘persuasion profiles’, using sets of estimates – based on probabilities – on the effectiveness of particular influence-strategies on individuals, which are also based on past responses to these strategies. Some of these companies are also experimenting with biometrics.
We are led to believe that it is other states that seek to meddle in the UK’s elections. The use of data analytics and psychological profiling to target people on social media with political content, has had a profound political impact, but it remains largely unappreciated. Political campaigning has shifted from being a public process to being a private, personalised series of micro-monitoring strategies, enabled by access to the apparatus and mechanisms of surveillance capitalism. It’s a process that has led to the government regarding citizens as a means to an end – that being simply maintaining power, upholding the status quo.
Data sharing between surveillance companies and state security and intelligence agencies is well established. In the US, tech companies have been forced to hand over data about their users to the NSA for some time. When Yahoo refused, they were threatened with a $250,000 fine, every day, with the fine doubling every week that their non-compliance continued, faced with the prospect of financial ruin, they acquiesced.
Clearly, monitoring and surveillance practices have changed the relationship between the citizen and the state, shifting the balance of power and distorting democracy.
It cannot be right for either private companies or governments to use citizens as Pavlovian dogs. Such personalised psychological persuasive strategies seriously undermine the human autonomy that is central to human dignity and democracy.
I don’t make any money from my work. I have a very limited income. But you can help if you like, by making a donation to help me continue to research and write informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others affected by the Conservative’s welfare ‘reforms’. The smallest amount is much appreciated – thank you.
Yesterday I wrote two articles about the Conservative’s latest grotesque dead cat strategy. The second was concerning an email I got in the early hours from the Conservative Party’s Vice Chair, Helen Whatley, which gave the whole series of ever-complicit mainstream media commentaries and events in parliament a staged and an “integrity Initiative” kind of feel to it. I wrote a very angry and swift response. The bloomin’ cheek and brass neck of the Tories, asking ME to join their party to “show” Jeremy Corbyn. Needless to say I told them exactly what I thought of their psyop-styled invitation.
The Conservatives turned parliament into a spite-riddled pantomine yesterday, despite the fact that a homeless man who had collapsed outside the houses of parliament died hours before. He is the second homeless person to die after falling ill outside parliament this year. True to form, the heartless government refused to see this as a wake-up call, and instead, unabashed, they indulged in disrespectful and vindictive performances to attack HMs opposition leader.
Data released on Thursday by the Office for National Statistics shows nearly 600 homeless people were found dead on the streets or in temporary accommodation in England and Wales in 2017. They are the first official government figures and show a 24% increase in deaths over five years.
Deaths have risen every year since 2014, increasing from 482 to 597 last year, according to the figures. The average age of a rough sleeper at death was 44 among men and 42 for women. Eighty-four percent of the homeless people who died were men. London and the north-west had the highest mortality of homeless people in England and Wales.
The trials, tribulations and triumphs of Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn has done more to increase his party’s vote share since Clement Attlee in 1945. Corbyn has remained calm, measured, rational and reasonable despite the general hatred directed at him by the Conservatives, from some of the ‘moderate’ left and of course, the far-right. Despite being targeted by truly evil and relentless propaganda and smear campaigns which a amplified by the media, he has, nonetheless seen considerable electoral success in spite of it all.
A whistleblower, Peter Francis, revealed in 2015 that the Special Branch were ordered to put Corbyn under surveillance, and they compiled secret files on the political activities of Corbyn and nine other MPs, even after they had been elected to the House of Commons. Francis disclosed that he had read the files on the 10 MPs while he worked for the Metropolitan Police’s special branch.
He added that he had personally collected information on Corbyn, and two other MPs, while he was working undercover infiltrating anti-racist groups in the 1990s.
In March 2015, Francis named the other Labour MPs whom police had kept files on – Harriet Harman, Diane Abbott, Joan Ruddock, Peter Hain, Dennis Skinner, Jack Straw, Ken Livingstone and the late Bernie Grant and Tony Benn.
The revelations prompted criticism from some of the MPs who swiftly went to the Commons and demanded answers from the police. (This is a transcript of the parliamentary debate, and Guardian articles here and here).
John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, has told MPs that the revelations were “extremely serious”, warning: “This matter will not go away”.
Hain, a former cabinet minister, (here) wanted to know why he was being watched by the police when he was an MP, adding that the revelations raised “fundamental questions about parliamentary sovereignty”. Two politicians have established that the police maintained files on their political activities in recent years. Neither of them – Jenny Jones, a Green Party peer, and Ian Driver, a Kent councillor who stood against ex UKIP leader Nigel Farage at this year’s general election – have a criminal record.
It’s an utter outrage, and clearly demonstrates the sheer unaccountability and contempt for democracy that the establishment have and hold. Yet the despicable prop and propaganda mouthpiece for a profoundly antidemocratic establishment, the Daily Telegraph, reported that undercover police officers had monitored Jeremy Corbyn for two decades. It was claimed that he had been put under surveillance “amid fears that he was attempting to undermine democracy”.
It was part of a barrage of stories from the rightwing press intended to damage his attempt to win the election.
But those of us with more sceptical (and less cynical) minds are asking a different question – why were the police spying on an elected MP who has been committedto nonviolent protest?
As Corbyn has previously said: “I am a democratically elected person and it turns out I was put under surveillance for a long time because I campaigned on human rights issues and was involved in justice campaigns.”
Meanwhile, the Conservatives see universal human rights as an inconvenience to be disregarded for those who can’t afford the privilege. They think social justice is about property rights, the right for employers to exploit workers, the right for the state to coerce ill and disabled people into exploitatively low paid jobs, regardless of whether or not they are well enough to work.
It’s high time the UK public asked itself what kind of leader isthe best kind for the majority. Authoritarian leaders seem to conventionally appeal to historically stereotypical notions of “strength”, but who genuinely believes that this bunch of arrogant, sneering, narcissistic bunch of public school bullies has any real strength? And why does anyone imagine they give a toss about the majority of people’s lives?
It’s time for us to emancipate ourselves from the conventional, overbearing authority, hierarchy and other forms of centralised, commanding domination of government. A collaborative, facilitating kind of leadership and political organisation is the only one with which we can genuinely engage and be engaged.
I’ve spent quite a bit of the last few years reflecting on the baleful influence of shadowy pressures coming from the establishment – ‘the permanent state’ – who quite simply will go to any lengths to prevent a thoroughly decent democratic socialist who means what he says, to be Prime Minister.
And that in itself shows just what a flimsy facade democracy has become, serving as little more than a fact-proof screen erected around a very nasty long standing authoritarianism embedded in a deepest, darkest state. It’s time to knock it down and rebuild an accountable responsive government that serves the people, rather than simply enduring one that thinks we should serve it.
I’ll leave you with Jeremy Corbyn’s comment on yesterday’s shenanigans in parliament.
Yesterday the Tories and much of the media created a phoney row about something I didn't say.
I don’t make any money from my work. If you want to, you can help me keep going by making a donation to support me in continuing to research and write informative, insightful and independent articles, and to continue to provide support and advice to others affected by the Conservative’s punitive welfare ‘reforms’.
What the hell is going on? I tabled a parliamentary question recently and discovered the Foreign Office has given £2m of public money to a shady organisation that's indulging in black propaganda against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.https://t.co/wDbQwCMqnD
I recently wrote an article related to the tweet above, about the covert government-funded unit which has been systematically and strategically attacking the official opposition, seriously undermining democracy in the UK.
Last month (5 November), Anonymous Europe obtained a large number of documents relating to the activities of the ‘Integrity Initiative’ project, which was launched back in autumn, 2015. The project is funded by the British government and has been established by the Institute for Statecraft.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that the hack has had zero substantive coverage in the UK, US or European press since a number of journalists were also implicated in playing a role to fulfil the project’s aims, but it was picked up by Russian media.
The Institute for Statecraft is affiliated with the NATO HQ Public Diplomacy Division and the Home Office-funded ‘Prevent’ programme, among other things. Statecraft’s Security Economics director,Dr Shima D Keene, collaborated with John A. S. Ardis on a paper about information warfare. Anonymous published the documents, which have unearthed the massive UK-led psyop to create a ‘large-scale information secret service’ in Europe, the US and Canada.
The declared goal of the project is to “counteract Russian propaganda” and Moscow’s hybrid warfare (a military strategy that employs political warfare and blends conventional warfare, ‘irregular’ warfare and cyberwarfare with other influencing methods, such as fake news, diplomacy, lawfare and foreign electoral intervention).
The Integrity Initiative consists of representatives of political, military, academic and journalistic communities with the think tank in London at the head of it.
On 26 November, Integrity Initiative published a statementon the Russian media coverage of the hack. In it they said:
“The Integrity Initiative was set up in autumn 2015 by The Institute for Statecraft in cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to bring to the attention of politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed by Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North America.”
“The Integrity Initiative aims to unite people who understand the threat, in order to provide a coordinated Western response to Russian disinformation and other elements of hybrid warfare.”
In the wake of the leaks, which also detail Government grant applications, the Foreign Office have been forced to confirm they provided massive funding to the Integrity Initiative.
In response to a parliamentary question by Chris Williamson, Europe Minister Alan Duncan said: “In financial year 2017-18, the FCO funded the Institute for Statecraft’s Integrity Initiative £296,500.
“This financial year, the FCO are funding a further £1,961,000. Both have been funded through grant agreements.”
Apparently, the Institute launched the Integrity Initiative in 2015 to “defend democracy against disinformation.” However, the evidence uncovered strongly suggests that it’s rather more of an attempt to defend disinformation against democracy.
In the Commons yesterday, Emily Thornberry asked Alan Duncan why taxpayers money had been used by the so-called ‘Integrity Initiative’ to disseminate political attacks [on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party] from its Twitter site.
Duncan insisted that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) funding did not support the Integrity Initiative’s Twitter operation, which raises some interesting questions. See Thornberry’s letter demanding answers below:
In the Commons earlier, I asked Alan Duncan why taxpayers money had been used by the so-called 'Integrity Initiative' to disseminate political attacks from its Twitter site (1/2). pic.twitter.com/zQNOPeQOMn
I don’t make any money from my work. I am disabled because of illness and have a very limited income. But you can help by making a donation to help me continue to research and write informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others. The smallest amount is much appreciated – thank you.
Politics and Insights 