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@docrussjackson
Feb 19, 2020 • 13 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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Let's talk about Priti Patel.

She worked for the PR consultancy Weber Shandwick for several years, as part of which she lobbied for big tobacco, & as an MP she voted to overturn the smoking ban.
Patel was critical of the UK's decision to invest funds to support the Palestinian territories & in October 2016 she ordered a review of the overseas funding procedure, temporarily freezing approximately a third of Britain's aid to the Palestinians.
In November 2017, the news broke that Patel had held up to a dozen meetings in Israel in August 2017 without telling the Foreign Office. She was accompanied by Lord Polak, honorary president of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), while Patel was on a "private holiday".
Patel met Netanyahu & the leader of Israel's centrist Yesh Atid party, and reportedly made visits to several organisations where official departmental business was discussed. She initially said "Boris [Johnson] knew about the visit."
But later released an apology for her actions, and corrected her remarks which she said gave the false impression that the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson knew about the trip before it happened. She was summined ti see PM Theresa May, who told her off.
Then details if two more undisclosed meetings with Israeli officials in Westminster and New York in September 2017 emerged, that Patel had not disclosed when she met the Prime Minister.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…
She caused yet more outrage when she questioned the impartiality of the Electoral Commission, & then in February 2019, Patel tweeted supportive messages for the extremely dodgy alt-right group Turning Point UK.

independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…
In March 2019, Patel backed a pamphlet published by the didgy right wing think tank TaxPayers' Alliance which called for the international development budget to be reformed, & for the UK alone to decide what constitutes aid, rather than international organisations.
She caused even more outrage after suggesting the UK use the threat of food shortages in Ireland to get a better deal with the EU.

Starve the Irish into compliance?

thenational.scot/news/17284900.…
And in May 2019, Patel began working for Viasat as a strategic adviser on a salary of £5,000 a month for five hours’ work a month, without seeking prior approval leading to accusations that she has broken the ministerial code for a second time!

theguardian.com/politics/2019/…
Priti Patel has left a trail of disaster everywhere she's been, is seemingly devoid of any traces of compassion, has terrible judgement & no hint of an ethical bone in her body.

She got #Spaffer out of the shit concerning Israel by lying, & now she's Home Secretary.

Terrifying.
And now multiple sources at the Home Office have accused Priti Patel of bullying, belittling officials in meetings, making unreasonable demands & creating "an atmosphere of fear".

No wonder Boris Johnson adores her - she's just like him: a ruthless, selfish bully.

Enough.
#SackPritiPatel

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More from @docrussjackson

GET A GRIP Profile picture
Sep 15
🧵

Tommy Robinson claimed his protest drew “three million patriots”. The Met Police reported 110,000.

Prof Milad Haghani, an actual world-leading expert on estimating crowd sizes, estimates “about 56,000... However I run the numbers, it’s very difficult to make it to 100,000.” Image
Unlike shameless liar and multiply-convicted violent far-right coke-snorting thug Tommeh, Prof Haghani is a world-leading expert on estimating crowd sizes. He leads geospatial transport planning initiatives, and is an expert in crowd dynamics.

Tommeh is a world-leading grifter. Image
Compulsive shameless liar Tommy Robinson made the laughable claim that his 'Unite (Divide) The Kingdom' rally was “officially the biggest protest in British history.” 🤥

In reality, as only about 56,000 people attended, it struggled to scrape the top TWENTY. 😂 Image
Read 7 tweets
GET A GRIP Profile picture
Sep 13
🧵

OK, I'll bite.

The word Fascism isn't 'meaningless'.

To spell out why, we need to unpack both the underlying implication of Andrew Doyle's argument and the reasons why it fails to adequately account for contemporary political dangers. Image
Andrew Doyle asserts that the term "fascism" is misused to the point of recklessness, echoing George Orwell’s 1944 observation that the word had been rendered meaningless. Doyle’s concern is not uncommon—but imho, it’s ultimately misplaced, especially in today’s context.
While it’s true that “fascism” is sometimes deployed rhetorically or hyperbolically (eg by Trump), Doyle’s framing dangerously downplays the genuine resurgence of fascist-adjacent movements across the Western world and undermines the analytical clarity necessary to confront them. Image
Read 23 tweets
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Sep 8
🧵

Boris Johnson appears to have had a secret meeting with billionaire Peter Thiel - perhaps the most fanatical of the libertarian Oligarchs and co-founder of the controversial US data firm Palantir, the year before it was given a role at the heart of the UK’s pandemic response. Image
A month after entering No 10, Johnson and his senior adviser Dominic Cummings had a meeting with Thiel, leaked files suggest.

Johnson is now likely to face questions about whether the non-disclosure amounts to a breach of the ministerial code.

theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/s…
The hour-long afternoon meeting on 28 August 2019 was marked “private” in a log of Johnson’s activities that day and was not subsequently disclosed on the government’s public log of meetings.

Read 12 tweets
GET A GRIP Profile picture
Aug 31
🧵

Elon Musk has been amplifying far-right accounts again, including Tommy Robinson, Rupert Lowe, and numerous anonynmous known #disinformation superspreader accounts like 'End Wokeness'.

Let's examine the context for yesterday's march in Richard Tice's constituency, #Skegness. Image
After decades of neglect, Skegness (pop 20K), stands out on key socio-economic markers on national averages: residents are older; whiter; lower full-time employment; higher rates of few/no qualifications; and concentrated deprivation - it's far-more deprived than most of England. Image
History repeatedly teaches us that burdening already struggling communities is a recipe for disaster.

These communities have been crying out for help for DECADES, but successive UK Govts have largely ignored their pleas, and continued to increase inequality, which harms us all. Image
Read 60 tweets
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Aug 28
🧵 @Rylan Asylum seekers coming here aren’t technically "illegal." International law (the 1951 Refugee Convention) allows people to seek asylum in any country regardless of how they arrive or how many countries they pass through, as long as they're fleeing persecution or danger.
Allow me to explain why asylum seekers aren’t “illegal”, and how misinformation and nasty demonising and scapegoating rhetoric by certain politicians and media, including news media, has made some British people less welcoming of asylum seeekers.

@Rylan
People fleeing war, torture, or persecution have the legal right to seek asylum.

The 1951 Refugee Convention, which the UK helped write, says anyone escaping danger can apply for asylum in another country no matter how they arrive: claiming asylum isn't a crime.

@Rylan
Read 23 tweets
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Aug 27
Farage's illiberal, immoral, & unworkable authoritarian plan involves ripping up human rights laws forged after WWII, which protect British people, & wasting £billions of UK taxpayers' money, giving some of it to corrupt misogynistic totalitarian regimes.
theguardian.com/politics/2025/…Image
Image
Leaving the #ECHR, repealing the Human Rights Act and disapplying international conventions

The UK would be an outlier among European democracies, in the company of only Russia and Belarus, if it were to leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Opting out of treaties such as the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, the UN Convention against torture and the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention would also be likely to do serious harm to the UK’s international reputation.

It could also undermine current return deals, including with France, and other cooperation agreements on people-smuggling with European nations such as Germany.

The Society of Labour Lawyers said the plan would “in all likelihood preclude further cooperation and law enforcement in dealing with small boats coming from the continent and so increase, rather than reduce, the numbers reaching our shores”. 

Farage said he would legislate to remove the “Hardial Singh” safeguards – a reference to a legal precedent that sets limits on the Home Office’s immigration detention powers – to allow indefinite detention for immigration purposes. This would be highly vulnerable to legal challenge.

Many of the rights protected by the ECHR and the Human Rights Act are rooted in British case law, so judges would still be able to prevent deportations, even without international conventions.

x.com/docrussjackson…
Reform UK’s grotesque far-right mass deportation plan is not just economically and socially illiterate (Britain an ageing population and low birth rate) rely on striking “returns agreements” with countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea and Sudan, offering financial incentives to secure these deals, alongside visa restrictions and potential sanctions on countries that refuse.

These are countries where the Home Office’s risk reports warn of widespread torture and persecution.

It would risk the scenario of making payments to countries such as Iran, whose regime the UK government has accused of plotting terror attacks on British soil.

The Liberal Democrats called the payments “a Taliban tax”, saying the plan would entail sending billions “to an oppressive regime that British soldiers fought and died to defeat”. They said: “Not a penny of taxpayers’ money should go to a group so closely linked to terrorist organisations proscribed by the UK.”
Read 13 tweets

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