Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Just how deep does #ToryCorruption run in Britain?

Has the UK Government appointed Ministers based on their knowledge & direct experience of Corporate 'divide-and-conquer' strategy?

What has this got to do with UK Home Secretary Priti Patel?

tobaccotactics.org/wiki/priti-pat…

Priti Patel is one of the most controversial politicians in modern UK history.

She's a hard-right populist nationalist free-market fundamentalist, who has broken the Ministerial Code on at least three separate occasions, including "strong evidence" of bullying civil servants.

Priti Patel is perhaps best known for her relentlessly inflammatory, divisive, toxic & dangerously irresponsible rhetoric, especially around the demonization of asylum seekers & migrants, & those who professionally or otherwise have a responsibility to support or defend them.

In October, it transpired that Priti Patel had ignored warnings from at least two senior colleagues to stop targeting immigration lawyers after a knifeman threatened to kill a solicitor in an attack linked to her rhetoric.

theguardian.com/politics/2020/…

Lord chancellor Robert Buckland and attorney general Suella Braverman intervened after the attack to tell Patel that her targeting of the legal profession was already believed to have inspired an incident that might have left a solicitor dead.

Both asked Patel to cease her attacks on the legal profession, warning that more violence could materialise following the 7 September incident when a man entered a law firm in London armed with a “large, heavy duty knife” & embarked on a “racist, violent attack”.

But Priti Patel chose to ignore the pleas & at the Tory party conference on 4 October intensified her targeting of “do-gooders” & “lefty lawyers”.

Two days later Boris Johnson told the conference the criminal justice system was “being hamstrung by lefty human rights lawyers”.

Later in October it emerged that Priti Patel appeared to have simply dismissed intelligence briefings from counter-terrorism police to the Home Office over an alleged far-right terror attack - at a time of greatly increased far-right terrorism incidents.

theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/o…

Officers from #S015, the Metropolitan police counter terrorism command (CTC), notified Home Office Priti Patel in mid-September that it was suspected that a far-right extremist had attempted to carry out a terror attack at a solicitors’ firm in London.

The alleged far-right extremist accused of attempting to launch a terror attack at a solicitors’ firm will stand trial next March, charged with preparing an act of terrorism by researching Duncan Lewis Solicitors with the intention of killing an immigration solicitor.

He allegedly visited the firm’s offices on 7 September, carrying a large knife, handcuffs as well as Nazi & Confederate flags. During the attack, he allegedly threatened a receptionist, threatened to kill a solicitor & abused staff because of their racial or religious background.

So what has any of this got to do with the strategy of 'divide-and-conquer', practiced for decades by powerful Corporations, such as Big Tobacco & the fossil fuel industries, & UK Home Secretary priti Patel?

First, a VERY brief divide & conquer/divide & rule primer.

Divide & rule policy (Latin: divide et impera), or divide & conquer, is gaining & maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. It's effective, & has been used for centuries.

It was utilised by the Roman ruler Julius Caesar & the French emperor Napoleon

The technique is meant to empower the 'sovereign' to control subjects, populations, or factions of different interests, who collectively might be able to oppose its rule.

Niccolò Machiavelli identifies a similar application to military strategy: a Captain should endeavor to divide the forces of the enemy, achieved either by making him suspicious of his men, or by giving him cause that he has to separate his forces, thus becoming weaker.

Powerful Corporations, think tanks, newspapers - & of course politicians - have been using this strategy for a very long time, often with fantastic or devastating results, depending upon one's moral compass.

Edward Bernays also developed this approach on behalf of corporations.

One of Bernays' campaigns was his work for the United Fruit Company in the 1950s, connected with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan govt in 1954, when he worked on the press to drum up coverage of Guatemala's non-existent "Communist menace".

Patel worked at PR firm Weber Shandwick from 2000 to 2003. In her role as Policy, Media & Campaigns Adviser, she worked, among others, with the Meat & Livestock Commission & The Bar Council, & the focus of this #THREAD, British American Tobacco.

Details: tobaccotactics.org

Priti Patel was one of seven people Shandwick employed on the BAT account.

In late summer 2000, Patel attended BAT’s ‘Operational Planning Meetings’, & in October 2000, she provided summaries of media articles on BAT’s involvement in tobacco smuggling.

web.archive.org/web/2020100508…

A memo from Shandwick to BAT in October 2000 set out roles on “Project Sunrise” & said that Patel was responsible for “day to day account co-ordination, project management” and “assists on media relations”.

So what was 'project Sunrise'?

While documentation is carefully unclear about exactly what this project was, Priti Patel is named as as “day to day Account Co-ordinator, project management, assists on media relation & responsible for “UK media”, as part of Project Sunrise.

Philip Morris ran a "Project Sunrise" which “laid out an explicit divide-and-conquer strategy against the tobacco control movement”.

Patel helped send a strategy about how BAT could influence the outcome of the WHO’s negotiations on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Patel was part of a group that sent a letter lobbying MEPs on the proposed EU’s Tobacco Control Directive. Documents suggest Patel was integral to BAT’s lobbying on the Directive: “Our campaign on the proposed EU tobacco control directive is reaching a critical stage”.

A letter from Weber Shandwick to BAT in January 2001 stated: “Priti will be responsible for day-to-day activity on the account... She will also provide strategic advice on the account, with a particular focus on the #Conservative Party.”

industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#…

A memo from March 2001 shows Patel “working with BAT External Communications Team” & other duties.

In 2001, documents show Shandwick created plans to invoice BAT for 279 hours of work/month, of which Patel contributed 100 hours. Patel’s work was charged to BAT at £165 per hour.

Documents suggest that Patel may have been seconded to BAT’s press office in 2000:

On 30 October 2000, the DTI announced an investigation into BAT’s involvement in tobacco smuggling. Patel’s name appeared in a BAT media release about the investigation as a contact.

On 6 December 2000, Patel's name appeared again as a media contact on a BAT press release about the Government’s Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill.

industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#…

On 13 March 2001, Colin Byrne from Weber Shandwick wrote: “Priti is now working with the communications team as an integral part of the team … working on developing communications ideas for projects... and also sharing information/insights with the team on overall issues..."

Since she was elected as an MP in 2010, Priti Patel has publicly supported tobacco industry positions in Parliament on various occasions.

In 2010, Patel voted for the smoking ban to be overturned & signed a letter demanding the government reconsiders the tobacco display ban.

Patel is on record calling plain packaging a “completely mad” policy which is “a blunt instrument which will have a disproportionate impact on independent retailers.”

"Plain packaging will serve to harm the very businesses that are best-placed to prevent underage sales & fight back against illegal & illicit supplies" & “new plain packaging rules that go further than this would only serve to be another nail in the coffin for many newsagents.”

After the Chantler review into plain packaging was published, Patel wrote to the chair of the Petrol Retailers Association, appealing for its members to lobby their MPs to object as she was concerned about the implications of plain packs for small shops, tax revenues & smuggling.

Patel is a member of the Free Enterprise Group, an association of free-market orientated Tory MPs emphasising free enterprise values against the backdrop of a loss of confidence in free market economics following the 2008 global crash, founded by Liz Truss.

The Group reveals that “Administrative support for the group is supplied by the Institute of Economic Affairs” - part of a global network of powerful think tanks, in Britain based in & around Tufton St. The IEA receives financial support from the tobacco industry.

The Free Enterprise Group published a report, ‘The Business of Small Enterprise’. In the report the Group recommended that the Government “drop proposals for plain packaging”. The Government announced it would reconsider plain packaging in November 2013.

tobaccotactics.org

Linking to a previous #THREAD, which picks up on Priti Patel's "progress" from being a lobbyist working on behalf of Big Tobacco influencing Tory MPs, through seamlessly becoming a Tory MP in 2010, to holding many unauthorised meetings in Israel in 2017.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1230054593318526977