Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Remember the far-right youth group, Turning Point UK, supported by Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel & Steve Baker & modelled on the #neofascist TPUSA, which tried to infiltrate Universities & poison young people's minds?

They're back, & now called 'Orthodox Conservatives'.

Much of TPUSA's money comes from mining & oil interests, as well as libertarian/far-right thinktanks - its mission is to "identify, educate, train, & organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, & limited government."

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1519949897314848769?s=20&t=CQ2Nl0oXQUbGltvFhJdptQ

TPUSA makes headlines for supposed racist, sexist, & misleading statements, & for having very little transparency in its day-to-day running.

Candae Owens was TPUSA’s director of communications - her & founder Charlie Kirk lie & promote unhinged conspiracy theories.

Until April 2019, Turning Point UK's chairman was ex-Bullingdon hedge-funder & husband of Candace Owens, George Farmer, who in 2016, became the youngest-ever member of the Leader’s Group, who donated a minimum of £50,000 a year in return for access to the Tory Prime Minister.

Back in June 2020, the good people at Ducksoap described the Orthodox Christians as pushing "the same unsubtle bigotry, the same cons, the same misdirection & the same tedious fake victimhood of all new right-wing think-tanks. Another floater in the bowl."
ducksoap.wordpress.com/2020/06/22/ort…

I've tweeted about them for a year, but it's great that @allthecitizens & @VICE have joined forces to expose the troubling 'Orthodox Conservatives' group, & bring it to the attention of the wider British public.

What follows is a summary of this article.

vice.com/en/article/z3n…

The @Conservatives being lobbied by anti-BLM, anti-Islam, anti-abortion, anti-LGBT, anti-green youth group Orthodox Conservatives, which claims to be “grassroots” but which has links to groups such as the Bruges Group & opaquely funded right-wing think-tanks & far-right figures.

Members of the Orthodox Conservatives group make regular appearances in the national press & as guests on broadcasters TalkRadio & GB "News".

The group is part of an influential network which includes MPs & members of the far-right & the Chair says “even the PM has heard of us!”

Orthodox Conservatives strategic director Joseph Robertson is regularly featured on GB News as a political commentator and has been quoted in the Daily Express on several occasions.

Former OCG President Dominique Samuels was invited on to TalkRadio to disparage & demonise #BlackLivesMatter with the absurd claim that a loose global anti-racist movement was merely “a front for communism” during the height of the protests in June 2020.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1500597844327243776?s=20&t=Kxz7MMmTOoVYoFui_dVi1Q

In January 2020, key members of Turning Point UK launched Orthodox Conservatives. The group’s advisory board includes anti-abortion & anti-climate action Tory MP John Hayes, a minister under Cameron, & founder of the insane neofascist Common Sense Group.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1548945849899794433?s=20&t=vv6c8-1fueJaCV3cqtLT2Q

Orthodox Conservative’s Head of Operations, Ethan Thoburn, is another link to the Common Sense Group. He is Communications & Campaigns Officer for unhinged Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, described in the Times as a “flag fanatic & super-patriot”.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1412787040886870022?s=20&t=vv6c8-1fueJaCV3cqtLT2Q

The Orthodox Christian group acts as a bridge between extremist culture-war Tory MPs, & others whose views are too much for even the most unhinged frothing ideological extremists in the crank-wing of the @Conservatives.

For example, Ben Harris-Quinney, Express regular, Chair of the Bow Group think-tank & ex-Tory councillor, is Orthodox Conservatives’ chief advisor. He was expelled from the Tory party in 2015, & claims he was asked by a party candidate to leave for being a “racist & a homophobe”.

Earlier that year, Harris-Quinney had been recorded at an anti-LGBT conference describing David Cameron as being “forced to endure the indignity of legalising gay marriage with only the support of opposing parties”, & has tweeted against the spectre of “Cultural Marxism”.

Founded in 1951, the Bow Group labels itself the “world’s oldest Conservative think-tank”, & in 2020 sponsored the National Conservative Conference in Rome, a meeting of hard-right figures from across Europe.

Attendees at the Bow Group sponsored National Conservative Conference included Ryszard Legutko, a Polish Law & Justice party MEP who said that homophobia was a “totally fictitious problem” & Spanish Vox Party MEP Hermann Tertsch, who said that General Franco was not a fascist.

Orthodox Conservatives & the Bow Group have had several meetings with far-right figureheads. Benjamin Loughnane, a Bow Group researcher & contributor to the Orthodox Manifesto, has spent evenings with British YouTuber & unhinged neofascist conspiracy theorist, Paul Joseph Watson.

Loughnane met Watson at the Reform Club - a private members club in Pall Mall, for which membership costs £1,344 per year. The Reform Club is an exclusive establishment frequented by MPs & party donors - Brexit Opportunities Minister Jacob Rees Mogg has been seen eating there.

In July 2021, Alice Grant, Orthodox Conservatives head of education, attended the annual summer party of Tufton Street's free-speech group the New Culture Forum, which produces short films with all the usual shit-stirrers like David Starkey & Laurence Fox.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1538878103526703104?s=20&t=vv6c8-1fueJaCV3cqtLT2Q

Held at an undisclosed location, the bash was hosted by UKIP MP Peter Whittle. Other guests included Loughnane of The Bow Group & US moronic neofascist grifter & conservative provocateur, Andy Ngo.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1424652652181327873?s=20&t=vv6c8-1fueJaCV3cqtLT2Q

While members of Orthodox Conservatives have claimed that the majority of the group’s work is funded by its members, like all secretive & opaquely funded free-market/libertarian think tanks, institutes, & other organisations, there is no publicly available list of donors.

The Bow Group is based at 71-75 Shelton Street. VICE World News has uncovered eight separate companies currently or formerly run from this address whose directors are members of Orthodox Conservatives, the Bow Group or Turning Point UK.

@PrivateEyeNews - follow up?

Despite most of the many companies registered there having existed for at least two years, predictably few appear to be making any money & many list “activities of political organisations” as their business. Surge Britain Ltd is one of these.

Started in 2021 & listed as a political organisation, Surge Britain is run by Orthodox Conservatives’ strategic advisor Robertson (his real name is Josephmarie Dulston) & Loughnane. As with the other companies, what they actually do is as opaque as their finances.

71-75 Shelton Street also sheds light on Orthodox Conservatives’ proximity to the far-right. The address is also the base of far-right Christian YouTube channel Hearts of Oak. The Hearts of Oak website lists among its contributors a number of controversial figures.

There is ex-EDL leader Tommy Robinson, right-wing blogger David Vance & far-right vlogger Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin. Also among them are Dr Niall McRae, co-author of an Islamophobic & anti-Semitic conspiracy booklet distributed at Conservative Party conference in 2018.

Orthodox Conservatives' strategic director Joseph Robertson told VICE that Boris Johnson is “operating to the left of Blair… we certainly don't see him as a true Conservative leader; that broad lie that brought him to power is being revealed more & more through tax hikes.”

The OCG’s manifesto was created in collaboration with the homophobic Christian legal advisory group ADF Legal, & seeks to “make the case for having an abortion less necessary” & describes BLM as a “divisive, gendered, & artificial ideology that fetishises skin-deep diversity”.

For now, the lobby to reduce abortions, initially by adopting the controversial Hungarian system of financial incentives for two-parent families. This echoes the opinion of Hungarian Families Minister Kaitlin Novak, who met with Jacob Rees-Mogg in 2021.

To the Right of even the Telegraph & Mail, the regressive ill-informed & unevidenced Orthodox Conservatives' manifesto claims educational standards have slipped because “[twenty years ago] teachers began to dress informally" & calls for a return to corporal punishment in schools.

Far-right extremism expert & researcher Julia Ebner, whose book 'Going Dark: the Secret Social Lives of Extremists' documents Ebner's experiences over two years spent undercover, infiltrating far-right networks, describes OCG as “more radical than they look at first sight.”

Regarding the Orthodox Conservatives & far-right similarities, Ebner says both have “a clear focus on aesthetics, cultural purity & traditional family values” noting that “they hijack words like ‘conservative’ & ‘Christian’ but their manifesto is full of alt-right vocabulary.”

“They use sophisticated rhetoric to camouflage radical ideologies [& to] be perceived as legitimate & harmless. They have a much higher potential to provoke radical change in politics, business & culture, as they are more likely to get into influential professional positions”.

The dangerous Orthodox Conservatives have their defenders, among them is a shit-stirrer who misleadingly claims to be 'pro-Unions' & is a representative for the non-union affiliated 'Workers of England Union', Niall McCrae, who attacked the VICE article.

hopenothate.org.uk/2022/03/10/the…

McCrae excuses #neofascism by making the absurd claim that "The problem for Orthodox Conservatives is that faith, flag & family have been so undermined & vilified by the indoctrinating education & media establishment that ideas thought normal three decades ago are now taboo."

McCrae claims the VICE article "is amateurish in its smearing", justifying his defence of Orthodox Conservatives by confessing he's "been on rallies with Alice Grant, & had drinks with Paul Joseph Watson, Ethan Thorburn & Tommy Robinson. And I regularly appear on Hearts of Oak."

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1548661323235467264?s=20&t=vv6c8-1fueJaCV3cqtLT2Q

More on the 'Workers for England Union', which like Toby Young's 'Free Speech Union', has nothing whatsoever to do with genuine unions, & appears to be yet another platform for puking out neofascist rhetoric & supporting divisive far-right characters.

https://twitter.com/ScoutNewsletter/status/1521513882002538496?s=20&t=Dy7_76NzX6sME0a9bDjOzg