Read this, & then try to deny the terrifying parallels between many of the techniques, policies & especially the rhetoric deployed by Boris Johnson's @Conservatives, Trump's Republicans & the Bolsanaro, Oban & other right wing regimes, & Hitler's Govt.
Won mass support on the back of a major economic crisis
Offered voters a vision of a better future, one he contrasted with the policies of the parties that had plunged the country into crisis in the first place.
Hitler:
Initially attracted the poorest people to vote for him by demonising opponents.
Emphasised a nationalistic moral restoration of the nation.
Projected purpose and dynamism in contrast to dithering or acting as mere administrators.
Hitler:
Was a master at denouncing existing political & democratic conventions & manipulating the media.
Issued an endless stream of slogans to win potential supporters over: he would 'make Germany great again', 'give Germans work once more' & put 'Germany first'.
Hitler:
Would revive the nation’s rusting industries, laid to waste by the economic depression.
Would crush the alien ideologies—socialism, liberalism, communism—that were undermining the nation’s will to survive and destroying its core values.
Hitler:
Would "use vulgar comparisons" & “not shy away from the cheapest allusions.” Hitler’s language was
Never use measured or careful language.
Mobilise base allegations & vile stereotypes, designed to gain maximum attention from the media & maximum reaction from voters.
Hitler:
Would use sophisticated (& blunt) propaganda techniques taken from the new practice of 'public relations'.
Flaunt his vulgarity & exploited tribal hatreds;
Lied and lied and lied his way to success.
Hitler:
Insisted politicians of the other parties, were hopelessly venal and corrupt and should be put in jail.
Insist Nazi thugs were good people who were victims of a “monstrous blood-verdict”.
Insisted that liberal newspapers that criticized Hitler were the "lying press.”
Hitler:
Imprisoned vagrants.
Deported illegal Polish immigrants.
Demonized & shut down Feminist associations.
Pulled out of international organizations, tore up treaties with cynical abandon, dismantled or emasculated structures of international cooperation erected post WWI.
Hitler:
Triumphantly declared “our departure from the community of nations".
Assured voters he would “rather die” than stay within a community of nations
Gleefully challenged then shut down the country’s democratic institutions.
Destroyed the freedom of its press and media.
Hitler:
Got Goebbels to say: “If the Jewish press still thinks it can intimidate the National Socialist movement with veiled threats, if they think they can evade our emergency decrees, they should watch out! One day our patience will run out".
Hitler:
Made sure that with the disappearance of a free, critical media, & the subordination of law-enforcement agencies, the path was open for a massive expansion of political corruption at every level of the regime.
Nearly forgot: "Leading Brexiters who accuse civil servants of sabotaging Britain’s exit from the EU are adopting dangerous tactics similar to those of rightwing German nationalists between the two world wars, former head of the civil service has warned."
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.
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.
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.
🧵 @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.
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/…
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.
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.”
A reminder of the one, viewed 310,000 times, for which she was jailed, which urged people to burn down asylum seeker hotels after the #Southport attack - which had nothing to do with asylum seekers.
While all these tweets of Connolly's were made before her incendiary post, they don't say which year they were posted.
They can be accessed here, via The Wayback Machine, which has archived more than 916 billion web pages.
Connolly's tweet (top right) was in response to the tweet on the left, which criticised Laurence Fox for posting an upskirt photograph of Narinder Kaur.
The next one (right centre) was Connolly asking Kaur if she had 'flashed her gash'.
Aided by the billionaire-owned UK news media (Mail, Sun, Times, Metro, TalkTV and GB "News"), populist politicians push a cynical, divisive, and dangerously irresponsible false narrative that Britain is 'lawless'.
Founded in 2021 and srongly linked to Nigel Farage's "friend", billionaire Palantir CEO Peter Thiel, US VP JD Vance, and a constellation of conservative media and political figures, Rockbridge presents itself as a vehicle for advancing conservative causes.
The NYT reported in 2022 that Thiel is one of the major donors to the Rockbridge Network, alongside Rebekah Mercer. It planned to spend over $30M on conservative media, legal, policy, and voter registration projects. Thiel’s financial support is a clue.