Thread by @2019_winston

Nearly 2 years ago, on 31st Jan 2020, there was a dinner at Brown’s Hotel in London, organised by Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson. The assembled guests were jokingly labelled as The Brexit Batallion.

A short🧵

When I first heard about this I was intrigued to see who had been invited. Some of the names we’re familiar to me, but many of them were not. I’ve been meaning to look into this for some time. Now I have. Let me share with you what I’ve found out. #GaslitNation

As that Orwell bloke pointed out, if you want to control a population, it helps to control the narrative. If all we see & hear, from multiple sources, is the same information, then it can only reinforce the feeling that “it must be right” & a majority will go along with it.

I suspected that, on top of their billionaire bosses interests, there may be other forces at play. It was clearly the case that some media influencers were already active in 55 Tufton Street but also with US “Think Tanks”: Heritage, ATLAS, Cato Institute, TPA etc. I wondered if..

..they might also work for the UK versions of US think tanks, which have been so successful at delivering legislation for the rich in the USA and are busy shaping policy as charities in the UK. The Charities Commission decides on their status. Meet guest no.50, William Shawcross.

William is a former Charities Commissioner. These lobbyist think tanks, sorry, charities, were formed on his watch. His wife is guest no.45, Olga Polizzi, a Tory councillor on Westminster Council & sister of guest No.12, billionaire donor Sir Rocco Forte of hotel fame. Eleanor..

.. is their daughter. Eleanor Shawcross (Oxford) ran Johnson’s mayoral campaign. Eleanor is married to Lord Simon Wolfson, Next CEO & Tory donor, the son of Conservative life peer David Wolfson of Sunningdale. They also advised George Osborne in no.11 & later in the City.

In July 2020 Eleanor was nominated as a NED on the Board of the Sec of State & Dept for Work & Pensions, responsible for setting policy. So, no direct link to think tanks there, but the revolving door between donors, the City & the Government is alive & well for family members.

Having worked through the guest list, various themes emerged: rich donors, journalists, royal family connections, libertarian lobby groups &, most unexpectedly: the Catholic Church. Hold that thought as I’ll return to it, first journos & think tanks.

Let’s start with the organiser, Allison Pearson, who has written for every RW paper there is. She is also on the Advisory Council of the Free Speech Union set up by the infamous Toby Young. Also on the FSU is Radomir Tylecote of the notoriously dark money IEA & Eric Kaufmann.

Fellow IEA member & guest no.1 Kate Andrews, Associate Director at the IEA & Economics Editor at The Spectator. Also HO Comms at the Adam Smith Institute. The IEA also claims that Telegraph columnist, guest no.15, Madeline Grant is an IEA Editorial Manager. Nothing to see here🤔

Guest no.6 is Janet Daley of the Daily Mail who is also to be found moonlighting at the Centre for Policy Studies yet another RW think tank, where she’s in the company of unHerd’s Tim Montgomerie, guest no.34, & also Harriet Sergeant, guest no.51. More dark money in play.

Tim also founded ConservativeHome website with Jonathan Isaby, guest no.24; Jonathan has his very own RW think tank, Politiea, where he is listed as a Director. Politiea is ancient Greek word meaning City State, which seems appropriate for the course we’ve been embarked upon.

I’ve mapped out all the links in the public domain in the image below (there are too many to list in a 🧵). In a nutshell the Brexit Batallion is a snapshot of today’s elites, supping with their enablers, whilst scheming to engineer a narrative that continues to serve them best.

I mentioned that I’d return to the Catholic Church. Charles Moore converted to Catholicism when the CofE decided to ordain females. It was clearly a step too far for him. He’s one of those rare people who ticks every box: religious, rich, DT, titled, climate denier, regressive.

Baron Moore of Etchingham started working at the Spectator when it was owned by John “Algy” Cluff, owner of Cluff Resources, which specialised in support activities to the Oil & Gas industry. Moore is a Trustee at the Global Warming Policy Foundation (55 Tufton St)..

Criticised for its bias & flagrant misinformation, GWPF was forced to create a non-charitable subsidiary, Global Warming Policy Forum, to continue the #Gaslighting. (A major donor is Michael Hintze whose dodgy advisor Oliver Hylton caused Liam Fox to resign as Sec for Defence.)

Finally, Moore is a former Chairman of the Policy Exchange think tank & is now listed on their website as being a visiting academic. Various articles talk about Britain’s new place on the world stage, a major maritime force etc. Lots of wishful thinking by avid Brexit believers.

Moore is also Founder-Chairman of the Rectory Society & patron of the Latin Mass Society, which is literally trying to make Catholic mass available in Latin. On that regressive note, I think we’ll move on from Baron Moore of Etchingham, enobled by Johnson, a former DT columnist.

This collection of professionals is literally conspiring to stop any progressive activity that they or their bosses disagree with, from gender equality to taxing the hydrocarbon industry. So far they’re winning. #GaslitNation

It’s been brought to my attention that Steve Bannon is also Catholic & met with Rocco Forte, the latter being also the owner of Catholic Herald Magazine which he hoped to turn into a “Catholic Spectator”. #GaslitNation

IEA transparency rating👇#JaneMayer explains why they refuse to reveal who funds them in her excellent book Dark Money

The plot thickens. Lo & behold Shankar Singham (for it is he) in the Catholic Herold, owned by Rocco Forte. Thanks to @fascinatorfun for the link

And, inevitably, many are also connected to Legatum, where Tim Montgomerie is a Fellow & Legatum CEO is on his Think Tank.
I wonder if people get it yet.
#AssetStrip

So Steve Baker is also a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), lobbying against green energy & carbon tax & supporting fracking near you. Don’t remember that on a bus. What a coincidence that he’s linked to Robert Mercer (Sunak’s former boss). #ClimateCrisis

Once again it’s not about moderate, normal Catholics, it’s about extremist networks colluding together in the shadows, but this is interesting 👇

Dark money, secret cliques nobody voted for (yet who use our money). The #ERG is a crime syndicate so it’s great to hear the person in charge of the law of the land explaining who they are👇

https://twitter.com/brexit_sham/status/1479505871663157250

If you want an idea of just how big & well organised this is, nobody has explained it better than @StillDelvingH 👇

https://twitter.com/StillDelvingH/status/1061574387017621505

And here he is again, pretending everything’s just fine, so his billionaire hydrocarbon donors can carry on their business as usual. I don’t know how these people sleep at night👇 #GTTO

The inside cover text is also quite revealing…

https://twitter.com/digitas_media/status/1522835666849210368

Interesting… so it’s not new at all, then, at least not for the Steve Bannon Opus Dei sect:

https://twitter.com/StringwallApp/status/1528528349903081472

Once again a far right, 90 year old, white, religious billionaire donates money to a Trust whose aims are to roll back the clock. The biggest political donation in history goes to the man who gave the US Supreme Court its power to upend Wade & Roe👇#HandMaidsTale

https://twitter.com/eisingerj/status/1561786820639203330

More on Leonard Leo & what he & his pals are up to👇 gregolear.substack.com/p/leo-the-canc…

Interesting additional input on William Shawcross & how he got to Charities Commissioner in a paper from the University of Bath (Griffin et al). Thanks to Marcus for the link:

https://twitter.com/marcusfitzsimon/status/1608782564986335234?s=46&t=NYXNsSvmr-U07xcDun8GMQ

Also William Shawcross 👇
Thanks @docrussjackson

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1618677605242388481

As climate change enters its “boiling” stage, the hydrocarbon industry is going into full propaganda mode, with the gaslighter-in-chief herself now named as a Director of GWPF. With this huge network of lobbyists behind them, it’s going to take a superhuman effort to stop oil.

The unholy alliance of theocrats & the fossil fuel lobby #KochNetwork continue to subvert democracy in the US. The UK needs to be very vigilant:

https://twitter.com/tentoads4truth/status/1728212410081939599