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@docrussjackson
Aug 20, 2025 • 29 tweets • 10 min read • Read on X
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🧵

'Flag Force UK': The “Grassroots” Group With Hidden Think Tank Ties.

Flag Force UK presents itself as a patriotic, grassroots movement “built by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts.” But closer inspection suggests it may be a coordinated #astroturf operation... Image
Supposedly based in York, 'Flag Force UK' self-identifies as a "grass roots" campaign set up by three men who 'just wanted to put England and Union flags up', and which already brands itself as "the UK's premier community network tracking flag raisings across the nation." Image
Rapid Growth, Opaque Origins

Flag Force UK appeared suddenly in August 2025, yet within weeks, its account on @X had amassed a suspicious 12,000 followers — unusually rapid growth for a new, 'volunteer-led' group with little media coverage or on-the-ground activity.
The organisation solicits donations through a vague crowdfunding page (the link is currently broken) but offers no transparency over its financial structure, goals, or leadership on its website, which resembles that of think tanks such as Rob Bates's Centre for Migration Control.
The group’s website mirrors the design style of the anti-migrant think tank CMC, raising suspicion of shared origins or backers.

Such tactics — adopting grassroots aesthetics while masking true funding — are a hallmark of astroturfing.

Image
Flag Force UK’s founder, Joseph Moulton, recently had a very softball interview on GB "News" to promote the group’s flag campaign as a way of 'rekindling community spirit'.

He presents himself as a 'patriotic activist', yet his professional background tells a different story. Image
Moulton's back story on the surface appears to be that of a 'concerned citizen' acting with 'a few mates'. A closer look reveals a suspiciously competent performance on GB "News", his rhetoric littered with phrases like "nanny state" and stats used by #TuftonStreet think tankers: Image
There is little about Moulton online, so I checked LinkedIn.

Matching his profile photo with his GB "News" appearance (note gold cross), his profile reveals a career not in local community organising, but in defence consultancy, commodities, and international business strategy. Image
Moulton is the founder of 'Geocapita', a little-known 'Westminster-based think tank' describing itself as 'a non-profit providing analysis on global trade and resources for decision-makers'.

Its website, , is very revealing. Geocapita.orgImage
Geocapita’s language is steeped in geopolitics, intelligence, and policy advice — a far cry from the volunteer enthusiasm 'Flag Force UK' claims to represent.

Given the sudden rise of 'Flag Force', some of Gecapita's terminology and phrasing takes on an interesting resonance. Image
Geocapita (unusually a 'Registered Society') warns that "the world is entering its most tumultuous and volatile time since the fall of the USSR, Geocapita seeks to empower those in positions of intelligence and perspective to contribute to the proactive class of people." Image
Geocapita declares that "More than ever the world is split between the reactive and proactive, with the war of information resulting in a newfound "fog of war" being created around good intelligence and analysis to inform decision making."

A 'fog of culture war' morelike.
Moutlon's Geocapita also claims it "is founded by individuals with experience working with senior leaders in governance and industry, from presidents to CEOs, allowing all our pieces to synthesise perspectives on policy and commerical aspects".
The sentence I really noticed in the context of "Flag Force', was: "We further intend to act as facilitators for international agreements and understandings to pave the way for mutually beneficial agreements and NATION BUILDING PROJECTS". Is Britain one of their 'projects'? 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Image
There is no specific address or precise location provided for Geocapita, other than its claim to be a "Westminster-based think tank". Its @X account has two followers, one of which is Moulton, who uses a photo that looks like it was taken in Dubai. Moulton has four followers. Image
As well as founding Geocapita, Moulton also founded the 'Oberion Group', described as primarily a defence and supply chain consultancy incorporated in July 2025 — just weeks before Flag Force UK launched. His co-director is 20-year-old Leo Horton, which raises further questions. Image
Image
Oberion's website isn't accessible, but we can see below that it describes itself as "A firm specialised in Exposure Intelligence, Defense Procurement, Renewable Energy, and something called 'Data Erasure', headquartered in Dubai, UAE."

The plot thickens! oberiongroup.comImage
Oddly, despite claiming Oberion is based in Dubai, Moulton's LinkidIn profile suggests he and it have since Febraury 2024 have been based in Limassol, Cyprus, yet his previous ventures suggest he's been in Dubai since April 2022.

GB "News" co-owner, Legatum, is also Dubai-based. Image
Astroturfing?

The timing is striking: Oberion’s incorporation in July, followed by Flag Force’s explosive debut in August.

Moulton’s presence in think tank and defence networks contrasts with the “accidental” “ordinary enthusiast” image presented here:
youtube.com/shorts/L6fO8ci…
Astroturf campaigns are designed to create the illusion of grassroots support while being orchestrated by well-connected professionals.

Flag Force's astroturf attributes:

Opaque finances
Instant platforming
Rapid online follower growth
Leadership tied to defence and think tanks Image
Flag Force UK is positioning itself as a patriotic movement, but its foundations suggest something more manufactured — a vehicle for shaping public debate under the guise of popular enthusiasm during a time of numerous "patriotic" anti-migrant campaigns.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Unless its founders disclose funding sources and organisational ties, and GB "News" and no doubt numerous other partisan news media, disclose the founder's links, any claims of Flag Force being a genuine grassroots movement should be treated with caution.

GB "News" has a habit of platforming orchestrated astroturf groups: the channel may be a front for billionaire-funded geopolitical machinery designed explicitly to protect the wealth and power of the rich and powerful from democracy using Divide and Rule.

In other flag-raising news...
As Migration Minister, Jenrick slowed down the processing of asylum claims AND procured hotels to house them. Last week, the liar attended a hotel protest organised by the far-right, met JD Vance, and lied about sex offences committed by foreign nationals.
Image
Other right-wing 'news' media are pushing the claim that 'Flag Force' is a 'grassroots' campaign.

The bandwagon effect is a psychological phenomenon where people tend to adopt certain behaviors, follow trends, or agree with opinions simply because they are popular. The Express: Image
Have you heard of the #RockbridgeNetwork yet?

You'll be hearing a lot more about them if politicians and journalists that genuinely care about Britain and our democracy ever grow spines...

So what can be done about all this?

Here are a few suggestions.

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More from @docrussjackson

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Feb 6
🧵

Tice amplifies this article by Allison Pearson, which is riddled with factual errors, misleading claims, selective omissions, and hyperbolic sensationalism which attempts to recast Lucy Connolly not as a bigot lawfully convicted of inciting racial hatred, but as a victim. Image
The Telegraph piece isn’t news reporting or balanced commentary - it’s propagandistic advocacy: a highly opinionated defence that relies on cherry-picked extracts from Connolly’s subject access request (SAR), filtered through anonymous barrister commentary and Pearson’s biases.
Where this narrative collides with or contradicts published court judgments, sentencing remarks, and appeal outcomes, attention-seeking propagandist Pearson predictably either downplays, distorts, or completely ignores them.

I've got 10 minutes, so here are the main problems...
Read 45 tweets
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Jan 12
🧵 Musk’s ‘Fascist Britain’ Claim Is False

@elonmusk isn’t offering his 200M followers serious political analysis: he’s amplifying repeatedly debunked far-right disinformation and presenting it as evidence that a democratic state is illegitimate. He’s dangerously out of control. Image
The claim about arrests for online comments that Musk boosted originated with anonymous far-right disinformation superspreaer account, “Basil the Great”, well known for passing off unverified rumours as fact when there is zero supporting evidence.

Musk’s latest misleading post centres on a striking but deeply misleading graphic asserting that the UK has “the highest number of arrests for online comments in the world”.

I debunked it September and will now do so again today.

Read 37 tweets
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Dec 12, 2025
🧵

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, 2025
🧵

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, 2025
🧵

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, 2025
🧵

‘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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