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Apr 28, 2021 20 tweets 11 min read Read on X
I'd never heard of Boris Johnson's senior advisor & one of Carrie Symond's "favourite people" 'chatty rat' Henry Newman, but I've been looking at Andrew Neil's connections to the Orbán regime, &, well, 'it's a small world'...

#THREAD on the Hungarian & British hard right elite.
In 2018, Andrew Neil chaired the #Project28 opinion poll based research event for Viktor Orban's 'Think Tank' the Századvég Foundation - basically the propaganda wing of Fidesz party, set up to spread xenophobia, islamophobia & antisemitism across the EU.

london.mfa.gov.hu/eng/news/szaza…
Andrew Neil Chaired the event, but let's take a look at the other speakers.

First up, keynote speaker & Fidesz party MEP József Szájer, who discussed the #Project28 'findings', basically that the EU population had lost their confidence in their ability to influence leaders.
To build confidence again between the citizens & the elite, Szájer claimed, ideas connected to 'national identity' & 'national sovereignty' must take central role again in decision making processes.

Not a surprising suggestion for a far Right party.

Does it sound familiar yet?
As an MEP, in 2010 Szájer Chaired the drafting committee & wrote the new Constitution of Hungary.
Changes included banning abortion & emphasising the definition of marriage as being between man & woman, in an apparent repudiation of calls for the recognition of same-sex marriage.
Szájer resigned in November 2020 after being caught by Belgian police fleeing a 25-man orgy above a gay bar, in violation of local coronavirus regulations. He exited via a window & downspout. An ecstasy pill was found in his backpack. A memorial plaque was appended to the gutter.
In the #Project28 panel discussion was hard-right Old Etonian Douglass Murray, founder of the hard-right free-market Centre for Social Cohesion, which became part of the Henry Jackson Society, & associate editor of the The Spectator.

In 2016 Murray told us Trump would be fine.
Murray's views & ideology have often been linked to the far-right, he's been accused of promoting far-right conspiracy theories, of being Islamophobic, & linked to the so-called "Intellectual Dark Web", a loosely affiliated group critical of social justice & identity politics.
Murray is a full time fueler of the culture war: his life is spent attacking & demonizing anyone who has the audacity to suggest structural/institutional racism might be real, or more could be done about sexism, or that grotesque wealth inequality might not be good for societies.
Anyway, who else was there? Another Old Etonian crank, David Goodhart, representing hard-right free-market think-tank, Policy Exchange.

Disturbingly, he's one of four new Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) board commissioners appointed in November 2020. 😳
Goodhart says "sharing & solidarity can conflict with diversity", immigration threatens ideals about a welfare state, & dismissed the #Windrush scandal was "an error of over-zealous control" which "must not lead to a radical watering-down of the so-called 'hostile environment'".
Which brings us to one of Carrie Symonds "favourite people", Henry Newman, who also gave a talk about the EU "elite" at the #Project28 event. A former protege of Michael Gove who worked on Cummings’ Vote Leave campaign, Newman is now a senior adviser to Boris Johnson.

So what?
So Andrew Neil, Douglas Murray, Henry Newman & David Goodhart attended the event at the Hungarian embassy, hosted by the @spectator, to discuss "research" conducted by the Századvég Foundation designed to help the Orbán regime.

I fear the UK elite Right may be 'doing an Orbán'.
How?

Economist & ex-Director at Századvég, Tamás Mellár, called the Századvég Foundation a “money-laundering factory.”

The think tank helped Hungarian #EchoTV - a TV channel favored among Hungarian neofascists & designed to shift attitudes to the Right.

budapestbeacon.com/szazadveg-nets…
Orbán's far-right party used think tanks & a TV channel to create a populist nationalist far right narrative.

In the UK, Tufton Street's free-market think tanks have pioneered a @YouTube channel, which pukes out "anti-woke" populist nationalist rhetoric.

I suspect Andrew Neil's new TV channel will explicitly try to facilitate a disturbing shift in British society, taking Britain even further to the right, & even further into an antidemocratic Libertarian deregulated free market capitalist #dystopia.

I believe in free speech, & everyone should obviously do their own research & draw their own conclusions about the real objectives of the polarizing culture war relentlessly pushed by Libertarian billionaires & hard-right Brextremists.
Good people have been sounding the alarm for years.

#Democracy is hanging by a thread...

opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-…
According to @socioeurope, Viktor Orbán has cultivated of "a new form of authoritarian & hyper-nationalist neoliberalism", which Plitical Sociolgist Dorit Geva refers to as 'ordonationalist'.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…
This special issue of 'Theory, Culture & Society' explores the question of ‘post-neoliberalism’, reflecting on the nationalist disruption & discrediting of the market ideal & considering what alternative visions of liberty & sovereignty might replace it.

theoryculturesociety.org/blog/special-i…

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More from @docrussjackson

Jul 29
🧵

Voters need to know how right-wing populist nationalist politicians and radical/far-right nativist extremists construct their divisive discourse and rhetoric to exploit the anti-elite climate and fuel violence and division - and what to do about it.

yorkshirebylines.co.uk/politics/the-s…Image
So what can be done to counter divisive narratives and framing and to help Britain to become a more open, inclusive, fairer, less polarised and better multicultural society?

I make several suggestions in the above article, but make more below, Image
Countering the extreme right’s narrative of feeling "attacked" and needing to "defend" national identity requires a strategic, multi-faceted approach that challenges their framing while addressing underlying concerns and emotions.

Read 25 tweets
Jul 28
🧵

The shameless lie that "Britain is lawless" is categorically false, as it contradicts empirical data on crime trends, rule of law metrics, and the functioning of UK institutions. Reform UK often use fearmongering exaggeration and selective framing to create a sense of crisis. Image
Official data from the ONS and Home Office indicate that overall crime rates in England and Wales have fluctuated but do not support the notion of a "lawless" state. The ONS reported a 7% decrease in total recorded crime (excluding fraud) from 2023 to 24.

theconversation.com/most-crime-has…
Violent crime, while a concern in certain areas of the UK, has not reached levels that would justify describing Britain as "lawless."

The cowardly elites that run Reform UK would never dare to describe Trump's USA as "lawless" - despite its significantly higher homiced rate. Image
Read 19 tweets
Jul 21
🧵

#OnThisDay, 21 July, 1969, the Chicago Daily News published: The ‘love it or leave it’ nonsense, by Sydney J. Harris.

It began: One of the most ignorant and hateful statements that a person can make is “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave?”

I reproduce it, below. Image
Harris was born in London in 1917, moving to the US in 1922. A formidable journalist who established a distinct voice integrating incisive social commentary with wit and humour, his weekday column, ‘Strictly Personal’, was syndicated in 200 US newspapers. Image
The ‘love it or leave it’ nonsense, by Sydney J. Harris.

One of the most ignorant and hateful statements that a person can make is “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave?”

That attitude is the main reason America was founded, in all its hope and energy and goodness. Image
Read 16 tweets
Jun 29
🧵

A few thoughts on Bob Vylan leading the #GlastonburyFestival crowd in chants of "Death to the IDF" (Israeli Defence Force), livestreamed by the @BBC, and the mischaracterisation of the chant by some MPs, news media, and activists. Image
In England, where #GlastonburyFestival is located, all of us have the right to freely express our criticism of anyone or anything - as long as there is no intent to provoke immediate unlawful violence or there is a reasonable likelihood it will occur as a consequence.
In England, free speech is protected under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998. However, inciting violence is a criminal offence under several laws which attempt to balance public safety with free expression rights.

There are a number of key provisions in UK Law.
Read 29 tweets
Jun 26
🧵

Socially isolated and radicalised online, Marcus Monzo, 37, was convicted of murdering 14-yr-old Daniel Anjorin and attacking others with a sword.

He was fascinated by violence, far-right extremism, Incel ideology, conspiracy theories and figures like Musk, Tate, and Hitler. Image
UK society is insufficiently concerned about the harms of extreme online material of the kind pushed by the far-right, incels, & conspiracy theorists.

Debate is too often framed as being about free speech, rather than its sometimes horrific consequences.

actearly.uk/radicalisation…
In many countries, especially since Musk bought Twitter/@X, underregulated online extreme content has been used to groom and radicalise vulnerable people.

Too many cowardly politicians are scared to speak up for fear of being branded 'anti-free speech'.

Read 30 tweets
Jun 10
🧵

Some MPs who have been in parliament for many years NEVER appear on any of the @BBC's "flagship" politics shows - but Reform's privately educated shit-stirring 'anti-elite' former Tory Sarah Pochin - an MP for FIVE WEEKS - gets her own special introduction on #PoliticsLive. Image
Politicians using dangerously irresponsible anti-Muslim rhetoric know their comments are normalising Islamophobia and endanger British Muslim women. Islamophobic incidents rose by 375% in the week after Boris Johnson called veiled Muslim women “letterboxes” in 2018.
#PolitcsLive Image
Britain prides itself in NOT being the sort of country that tells women how to dress. States that do dictate women’s clothing (eg Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia) are vilified as misogynistic & ultra-controlling: the antithesis of the enlightened, liberal west.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Read 11 tweets

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