If you were still in any doubt about not just how divisive & misguided Laurence Fox is, but also how dangerously irresponsible he is, this might help.
Brextremist millionaire Jeremy Hosking, who funds contrarian libertarian magazine 'The Critic', also funds Fox's Reclaim Party.
Hosking is a multi-millionaire financier with a financial interest in Marathon Asset Management, which is owned offshore in Jersey & operates in the Cayman Islands. Hosking gave over £1.8 million to the Vote Leave campaign & previously donated £700,000 to the @Conservatives.
Like other rich libertarians such as Robert Mercer who funded Breitbart, last year Hosking gave £850,000 to Standpoint magazine - its core mission "to celebrate western civilisation", in particular 'free speech'. Michael Gove is on the advisory board.
In 2017, @GeorgeMonbiot wrote about the anti-democratic nature of Hosking's pledge to spend up to £700,000 on ousting @UKLabour MPs who campaigned against Brexit, thereby reducing parliamentary opposition to a hard Brexit or, as is now likely, no deal.
As @BylineTimes recently reported, Patrick Barrow, Reputation Communications' founder & MD, has a longstanding relationship with Hosking, & now, with a small team behind him, Barrow is 'constructing Reclaim’s foundations.'
Patrick Barrow used to run corporate affairs for the group which encompassed the Sunday Telegraph & The Spectator.
In a June 2020 Critic article about #GE19, he wrote: "Oh, bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, The Daily Telegraph was, quite literally, running the country."
While the article is critical of Johnson & virtually the entire cabinet (not Sunak & Patel) - he also attacks Unions, teachers, broadcast media & the police, & says George Floyd's death ("a race incident") caused "a corrosive attack on Britain’s history, society & rule of law."
As part of the well-funded army of unhinged 'libertarian' cranks, supported by endless think tanks, contrarians, bigots & grifters, he inevitably blames 'Cultural Marxism' for society's ills - since Bannon, the 'go-to' antisemitic conspiracy theory which inspired Anders Breivik.
Barrow knows all about the dark arts: he worked for @BBCNews on Today & The World at One, then as press officer for #BBCQT with Peter Sissons, then Corporate Management at PR giant Ketchum, helping multinational clients such as the World Economic Forum & investment banks.
Why does any of this matter?
Imho, societies across the world are under sustained attack by powerful libertarians, who much prefer a completely deregulated oligarchy to democracy, & who are doing everything they possibly can to divide societies & encourage populist nationalism.
I want to attach two related THREAD:
First, one that makes explicit the links between the dangerously divisive anti-lockdown rhetoric used by Laurence Fox & Nigel Farage, & powerful US libertarian billionaires:
The second THREAD acts as an introduction to the rise of the Far Right across much of the world: we hear a lot about the terms 'populism' & 'nationalism', but what exactly do they mean, what do they refer to, & why should we be concerned?
More than a year since @elonmusk bought @X with a promise to "defeat the spam bots or die trying", the problem is worse than ever, with much of the bot traffic casting doubt on climate science.
In London, 14.9% of people experienced a crime either to their person or household year ending September 2023, compared to 15.7% nationally.
The latest homicide stats position London not as "crime capital of the world", but as having the 237th most homicides/capita of any city.
When it comes to antisocial behaviour, the crime survey shows London has one of the lowest rates. In the year to September 2023, just 26.4% of people said they’d witnessed or experienced antisocial behaviour, compared with 34.2% across England and Wales.
On 16th June 2016, Nigel Farage launched ’s Breaking Point poster. The same day, Jo Cox was murdered by Thomas Mair who shouted "This is for Britain".
Four days later, UKIP Leader Farage spoke at a public meeting in Gateshead under this backdrop: Leave.EU
Current Reform Party leader, multimillionaire Richard Tice, was a founder & co-Chair of & Leave Means Leave. The similarities between the Breaking Point poster & a Nazi propaganda film picturing large streams of Jewish refugees as a threat, are undeniable. Leave.EU
Witnesses testified that during the attack on Jo Cox, Mair had cried out "This is for Britain", "Keep Britain independent", and "Britain first".
Far-right white supremacist Mair was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and an act of terrorism.
I'm old enough to remember when @BBCPolitics shows had serious panelists on, were well chaired by politically savvy people, & were worthy of being taken seriously.
This week on the increasingly clickbaity #bbcqt, for his TENTH appearance in ten years, is Rod Liddle...
The damaged & troubled Rod Liddle has forged a career by using grotesque rhetoric designed to outrage decent normal people.
A young Liddle considered becoming a teacher, but decided against it on the grounds that he "could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids."
Liddle was the Editor of the @BBC's Today programme from 1998 to 2002.
In 2001, BNP leader Nick Griffin was interviewed in the aftermath of the race riots in Oldham. The BBC was fiercely criticized for giving the BNP publicity and credibility it did not warrant.
The UK Government's new definition of extremism is straight out of Orwell's 1984: its focus is ideas - thoughts - not actions.
Effectively, Thought Police will ban from contact with Govt any groups who exhibit Thought Crime (political thoughts unapproved by the régime).
Michael Gove wants to use parliamentary privilege to name groups under his new definition of extremism, despite government lawyers warning him about the legal implications of doing so.
The @Conservatives are the most dangerous extremist group in Britain.
The Govt’s new preferred option for Anti-Muslim Hate Advisor is Haras Rafiq, former CEO of Quilliam, which was funded by pro-Trump donors, & which worked with US-based anti-Muslim think-tanks that promoted the far-right Great Replacement conspiracy theory.
Ever heard of "campaign organisation" "End Mass Immigration"? Me neither. Until an account under the name of 'Dr Alan Jerome Harper' (a character from Two & a Half Men), which asserts the Govt is "left-wing", replied to a tweet.
What's this got to do with #TuftonStreet?
Anyway, in the @X bio of "Dr Harper", there's a link to something called "End Mass Immigration", which describes itself as "a campaign organisation that has been set up by a group of immigration experts from academia, think tanks, politics and the media."