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@docrussjackson
Jun 22, 2021 • 38 tweets • 16 min read • Read on X
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'One Britain One Nation' & the DoE is calling for children to stand together behind a flag, like Hitler Youth, & sing 'STRONG BRITAIN, GREAT NATION!" 😳

Now call me cynical, but the term "Great Britain" is used to refer to the nation*S* of England, Scotland & Wales. 🧐
Conflating "Britain" with *ONE* nation is VERY 'one nation conservatism', but chanting "Strong Britain, Great Nation!" is fucking unhinged, & just about as *unBritish* as it's possible to be.

Brave people fought WWII to AVOID this authoritarian populist nationalist bullshit.
Btw, no law has ever been passed making the Union Jack (aka the Union Flag) the national flag of the UK: it's become one through precedent.

The Union Flag has no official status, & there are no national regulations concerning its use, or prohibitions against flag desecration. 🤔
The Chief Exec & founder of 'One Britain One Nation' is ex-Police Inspector Kash Singh.

I endured him being interviewed by Esther McVey on 'Blue Collar Conversations' - the podcast of hard-right pressure group 'Blue Collar Conservatives', founded in 2012 by McVey & Clark Vasey.
It's Board members are a veritable 'Who's Who?' of some of the most unhinged hard-right culture war cranks in the Tory Party, including Esther McVey, Ben Bradley, Dehenna Davison, Scott Mann, Eddie Hughes, John Stevenson, Lee Rowley, Andrea Jenkyns, Andrew Lewer & Gary Streeter.
During the interview, Singh claimed it was him who he came up with, & gave to David Cameron, the grotesquely misleading strapline ""We're all in this together", & he went on to make what were, imho, some bizarre & sinister comments about his vision for 'One Britain, One Nation.'
"Can you imagine everybody standing behind our flag? How good would that look?!" 😳

Seemingly oblivious to the fact that the National Front adopted it as a symbol of racism, he said "The flag of our nation is the symbol of our nation. It stands for pride & unity". 😳

Does it?
He claimed that despite all its well-documented negative connotations for millions of people here & across the globe, the Union Jack "has no negative connotations attached to it", adding that "each & every one of us has a responsibility to make our country great!" 😳

Do we?
#1Britain1Nation's 'Mission' includes the aspiration "to instil a sense of personal pride in all our citizens of being British & create a real sense of collective Identity."

Interestingly, Karl Marx pioneered thinking about 'collective identity' in relation to national identity:
In 2007, a fellow officer brought & lost a race discrimination case, saying he'd been passed over for promotion in favour of Singh.

Singh also founded 'The British Indian Association' - strapline: "Proud to be a British Indian, Proud to be in Britain".

express.co.uk/news/uk/14107/…
The testimonials for #1britain1nation are quite something: some of the usual suspects are there - Brandon Lawbreaker Lewis & Norman On Yer Bike Tebbit - but also Colin Nicholson, British Wrestling Chief Executive, & Andrew Prodger of 'Powerboat GP', who doesn't have a photo. 🤔
Which is a bit weird. Turns out there are only a few Andrew Prodgers, & 'Powerboats GP' Andrew Prodger is probably Andrew Prodger of UK-based technology & engineering company, 'STS Defence', "specialising in mission-critical communications, electronics & intelligent systems." 🤔
I digress.

So what's this all about - apart from the obvious regressive & dangerous populist nationalism that our increasingly unhinged Govt is ramming down British people's throats, supported by GB News & The Spectator, the Telegraph, Sun, Express & Mail, LBC & talkRadio?
Given #1britain1nation's strong links to 'Blue Conservatism', it seems pretty clear to me that this is the latest turbo-charged episode of post-Brexit 'One-nation conservatism' rhetoric, also known as one-nationism - the paternalistic form of British political conservatism.
The phrase 'one-nation Tory' originated with Benjamin Disraeli, who devised it to appeal to the working-class, who he hoped would see it as a way to improve their lives via factory & health Acts, as well as greater protection for workers. It also helped prevent collective action.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the Conservative Party moved away from paternalism in favour of free-market capitalism. Then in the early 20th century, fears of extremism saw a revival of one-nation conservatism. Very little is new - which is partly why history is important.
Thanks to Iain Macleod, Edward Heath & Enoch Powell, after 1950 one-nation conservatism promised support for the working class elements in the Party coalition. Tories have always worked hard to persuade working class people to support them, despite representing elite interests.
The 1970s saw the rise of the New Right, espoused by Thatcher. This strand of conservatism rejected one-nation thinking & misleadingly attributed the country's social & economic troubles to the welfare state & Keynesian policies, leading to sustained attack on the welfare state.
David Cameron favoured a one-nation approach - he named Disraeli as his favourite Conservative.

But many commentators questioned the degree to which Cameron & his coalition embodied one-nation conservatism, instead locating them in the intellectual tradition of Thatcherism.
Theresa May referred to herself as a one-nation conservative in her first speech as PM, & outlined her focus on one-nation principles. Boris Johnson has made similar assertions.

But imho, it more closely resembles a rhetorical strategy than a real commitment to helping the poor.
Disraeli saw society as naturally hierarchical & emphasised the obligations of those at the top to those below - a continuation of the feudal concept of noblesse oblige which asserted the aristocracy had an obligation to be generous & honourable: the opposite to the current Govt.
To Disraeli, this implied that government should be paternalistic, & he justified his views pragmatically by arguing that should the ruling class become indifferent to the suffering of the people, society would become unstable & social revolution would become a possibility. 🤔
Anyway, in 1997, Jacob Rees-Mogg's dad, William Rees-Mogg wrote the 'The Sovereign Individual: The Coming Economic Revolution & How to Survive & Prosper', in which he shared his prophetic views on capitalism & chaos that have fascinating links to his son’s enthusiasm for Brexit.
The Sovereign Individual opens with a quote from Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia: “The future is disorder.”

He wasn't wrong.

The book predicted that digital technology would make the world hugely more competitive, unequal & unstable. Societies would splinter. Taxes would be evaded.
Govt would gradually wither away, & welfare states “will simply become unfinanceable”.

In such a harsh world, only the most talented, self-reliant, technologically adept person – “the sovereign individual” – would thrive.

Libertarians across the world embraced this worldview.
Alastair Campbell said “After reading it, it is easy to see” why Jacob “so loves Brexit, & the chaos & disorder, & opportunities for disaster capitalism & super-elitism, that it may provide.”

Today, super-elites fuel a culture war that results in discontent, division & disaster.
Rees-Mogg Snr emphasised the importance of “low taxation” & “personal independence” – the two sacred causes of the hard-right at the time & since.

With the decline of the welfare state & public services, 'personal independence' now translates to 'personal responsibility'.
In 1992's 'The Great Reckoning: How the World Will Change Before the Year 2000', instead of warning against social & economic turmoil as a threat to conservatism & the well-off, he now saw it as an opportunity for them, & many British & US Libertarians agreed & followed him.
In 2012, Jacob Rees-Mogg wrote that he was for “the individual against the state”, & against a “society wrapped in cotton wool”.

“The choice” is between “the collective & constant mediocrity”, & “freedom & great peaks of human endeavour”: personal success above all else.
In 'The Sovereign Individual', Rees-Mogg Sr recommended Singapore to readers who were entrepreneurs, as one of several countries that “impose low costs” on business.

The book also advised readers to use tax havens.

Today, globally, *at least* $30 TRILLION is hoarded offshore.
In 2007, Jacob Rees-Mogg co-founded Somerset Capital Management, now a highly profitable London company, investing money for clients in “emerging markets”. The company also operates from Singapore, & has a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands. Both are tax havens. Of course.
The Sovereign Individual prophesied that in the 21st century, “many of the ablest people” would use “cost-benefit analysis” to assess what was in their best interests. They would “cease to think of themselves as party to a nation”: to the super-rich, nations are merely a vehicle.
This is why the populist nationalism trumpeted every day from the hard-right is so sinister, mendacious, & toxic: they demand nationalism & submission to Queen & country for the masses, while Libertarian elites happily lie to the Queen, line their pockets, & royally fuck Britain.
Libertarians should be honest for once, & say what they REALLY want, namely: no welfare; no public sector; no taxes; no consumer, worker or environmental protections; no food or other standards; no limit on Party funding; no lobbying restrictions; no unions; & no human rights.
And here's a #THREAD about flags:

And here's a #THREAD showing some connections between Tufton St Libertarian think tanks, Boris Johnson's new best friend Viktor Orban, Viktor Orban's little helper Andrew Neil, & populist nationalism:

Despite 150,000 largely avoidable deaths, the Tories aren't a Party of genocidal maniacs. However, here's a #THREAD outlining numerous uncanny parallels between many of the UK Government's policies & strategies, & those of the Nazi Party of 1930s Germany:

The UK/US Right practice "Smokescreen trolling” - flooding the zone with (bull)shit & lighting the fuse to every moral panic possible, while obscuring the underlying assaults against pluralistic, multiracial democracy.

How we respond is VERY important.

wired.com/story/far-righ…

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More from @docrussjackson

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Dec 12
🧵

Reform UK’s slick, stage-managed launch of a Christian Fellowship in St Michael’s Church is not some harmless Christmas-season publicity stunt. It is a clear and brazen step towards the Trumpification of UK politics, where religion is weaponised as a tool for cultural warfare and political mobilisation.

This is not organic Christian revival. It’s strategic political engineering.

Behind this development sit figures who have spent years trying to inject a US-style fusion of right-wing politics and religious identity into British political culture:

• Paul Marshall

A billionaire media financier with a clear ideological project: to build a hard-right cultural and religious counter-establishment. Through GB “News”, The |Spectator and UnHerd and other platforms he has amplified narratives about “woke attacks” on tradition, identity, and Christianity. The Islamophobic tweets he liked are disgusting. His network provides the media oxygen for precisely the kind of politicised Christianity on display at the Reform launch.

• James Orr

A Cambridge academic and prominent Anglican conservative intellectual, closely connected to the “post-liberal” movement and hard-right US conservative and Hungarian organisations. Orr openly promotes the idea of restoring Britain’s “Christian identity” through politics — a framing that sits uncomfortably close to the Christian-nationalist rhetoric of the US right. His advisory role to senior Reform figures is a clear sign of the ideological hardening underway.

• Danny Kruger

Long known for advocating a more “muscular” Christian politics, Kruger has repeatedly argued that the UK should explicitly root its laws and social policy in “Judeo-Christian values” - a dog whistle I explain in the next tweet.

This is the British echo of US culture-war evangelicalism: turning religion into a political badge, not a spiritual or moral tradition. His involvement in shaping Reform’s policy direction cements the party’s shift toward faith-infused populism.

• Calvin Robinson

Though no longer in the Church of England, disgraced former GBN presenter and political extremist Robinson remains one of the most prominent voices pushing an aggressive “anti-woke, anti-liberal” form of Christianity in the media — including endorsing narratives that paint inclusive or progressive churches as heretical. His alignment with Reform’s messaging shows how the party is deliberately courting polemical, grievance-driven Christian activism.

Together, these figures represent a new coalition: a British attempt to import the US religious-right model, with all its corrosive social consequences.

Using St Michael’s Cornhill — a church rooted in the conservative evangelical network — as the backdrop for this political spectacle is shocking in a UK context.

This is not merely a “religious event attended by politicians.” It was a political rally held in a church, wrapped in Anglican aesthetics.

The Church of England has historically avoided such political entanglement precisely because it knows how dangerous it is to let a religious institution become a vessel for partisan identity politics.

Britain is not America — but Reform UK wants to change that

What we are seeing is the deliberate construction of a political identity rooted in far-right themes lurching toward a contemporary form of Christofascism:

grievance Christianity
nostalgia for a mythic “Christian Britain”
hostility to minorities and multiculturalism
anti-LGBTQ+ theology rebranded as “family values”
anti-immigrant populism framed as moral duty
and a narrative of cultural siege identical to the US evangelical right

It is the Trump playbook, translated into British idiom.

This is disturbing, because once a political movement fuses religious identity with national identity, democratic debate changes: Opponents are no longer wrong — they are heretical. Policies are no longer argued — they are sanctified. Compromise becomes betrayal. And politics becomes a zero-sum culture war.

Britain has largely avoided this polarising poison. Reform UK is now trying to inject it directly into the bloodstream of national politics.

Reform UK’s “Christian Fellowship” is not about faith. It is the public unveiling of a British Christian-nationalist project — backed by wealthy ideologues, amplified by culture-war media, and borrowing heavily from the most divisive elements of the US right.

It is a serious warning sign of where Reform UK intends to take the country: toward a politics defined by religious grievance, cultural division, and the erosion of the pluralistic norms that have protected Britain from the worst excesses of American political extremism.
Concerning Paul Marshall:
Concerning James Orr:
Read 10 tweets
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Dec 9
🧵

How have populist UK politicians and Britain’s right-wing press and broadcasters got away with repeating — day after day, year after year — the brazenly false and wildly misleading claim that we live in a “high-welfare, high-tax” country? Image
Why the “High-Welfare, High-Tax” Myth Persists.

The claim that Britain is a “high-welfare, high-tax” country is a shameless lie—brazenly false—as OECD and OBR data consistently show: the UK's tax take is ~36% of GDP (mid-table globally, and well under the EU average of 40.5%). Image
The UK's total tax take of 36% is far under France's 45% or Denmark's 46%. Welfare benefits spending (including state pensions) is a modest ~11% of GDP—among the lowest in the OECD, well below the EU average of 17.5%, and just under half that of France (20.5%) and Italy (20%). Image
Read 31 tweets
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Dec 8
🧵

Not only has Nigel Farage shamelessly normalized far right discourse, but Reform UK have welcomed a new generation of young, radicalised, Andrew Tate fanboys who think it's acceptable to spread divisive bigoted lies and disinformation, and to make crass bigoted 'jokes'. Image
Joseph Boam is a radicalised 22-year-old Tate fanboy who started out as a Tory, running as a district councillor, then switching to Reform UK in 2024 and becoming a councillor in May 2025 representing the Whitwick division on Leicestershire County Council for the Reform UK party. Image
A former KFC worker, who has worked with his dad on sheds and property renovation, despite his total lack of any relevant experience or knowledge of the area, he was appointed Council deputy leader and cabinet member for adult social care—which ispatently absurd. Image
Read 14 tweets
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Dec 5
🧵

‘The Psychology of the New Far Right: Privilege, Fear, and Media Power in the Rise of Authoritarianism.’

Fear, belonging, and power are being manipulated into a frightening new age of populist outrage and algorithmic media, argues Dr Russell Jackson.

bylinesupplement.com/p/the-psycholo…
I've reproduced the article in 🧵 form, below, because its a subscriber only article from @BylineTimes.

You can subscribe here, and I would encourage you to - Bylines tells the stories and undertakes investigations many national news media fear to.

subscribe.bylinetimes.com
Across the West, figures such as Trump, JD Vance, Farage, Johnson, Tice, Kruger, and Lowe helped normalise far-right populist rhetoric within mainstream politics. Their appeal is anti-elite—yet they themselves embody the privilege they claim to challenge.

populismstudies.org
Read 91 tweets
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Nov 21
🧵

In May, Reform UK became the UK’s first party to accept crypto donations; experts warned of major money-laundering and foreign interference risks.

The NCA says Tether—backed by Reform’s £13.7M donor Christopher Harborne—has been used by Russia to fund its war in Ukraine. Image
A multibillion-dollar scheme that exchanges cash from drug and gun sales in the UK for crypto—digital tokens hiding users’ identities—has enabling “sanctions evasions and the highest levels of organised crime, including providing money-laundering services to the Russian state”.
theguardian.com/politics/2025/…Image
In 2023, the hedge fund co-founded by GB "News" owner Paul Marshall, who employs 60% of anti-Net Zero Reform UK's MPs, had £1.8 BILLION invested in fossil fuel firms.

Harborne (who has Thai citizenship under the name 'Chakrit Sakunkrit) also makes money from fossil fuels.

Read 17 tweets
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Nov 19
🧵

I and countless others are sick to death of the billionaire-funded Reform UK propaganda machine, GB “News”, and their decontextualised ‘facts’ that would make Goebbels blush.

Let’s examine the claim that “one quarter of foreign sex offenders come from just five countries”.
Yes, the raw data comes from a genuine Ministry of Justice (MoJ) prison census, but the way it’s being weaponised is deeply misleading.

The statistic sounds explosive, and deliberately so: a factoid engineered to sound like a revelation of hidden danger.
The right-wing information pipeline: a cherry-picked fragment of official data stripped of context, laundered through an opaquely funded “think tank” that isn't a think tank, amplified by billionaire-funded media, and weaponised by opportunistic politicians for electoral gain.
Read 38 tweets

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