UKC

I am on a Tory Party mailing list. Just got this Goebellesque message. Pure poison.

"Dear MG

Last night I voted to protect the United Kingdom, as any Prime Minister would do.

Unfortunately, I was not joined by a single Labour or SNP MP.

Instead Labour and the SNP chose to side with the EU and their outrageous threats to carve up our Union.

Making it clear we’re the only Party willing to stand up for the United Kingdom.

Which is why MG I’m asking you to stand with us today by joining our Party >>

Become a Member

Last year in good faith I signed the Withdrawal Agreement, believing the EU would stand by their word to be reasonable.

But regretfully, as Labour know, in recent months the EU have suggested they would go to extreme and unreasonable lengths.

Threatening to put up blockades across our own country, divide our own land and change the very economic geography of our own union.

No British Prime Minister, Government or Parliament has ever bowed to such a humiliating and offensive threat.

And I’m proud to say that legacy continued last night.

But appallingly when presented with another opportunity to stand up for the UK, Labour chose not to. Instead they buckled to the EU.

So now MG, faced with this unprecedented situation we must all redouble our efforts to combat Labour.

Will you step up and side with the only Party willing to protect the United Kingdom? Become a member now >>

Stand with Us

With your support I’m certain we will succeed.

Yours sincerely,

Boris Johnson

F*ck me.

Is that genuinely issued by the Tory party?

I don't think, with four years of this government to run, and Brexit and covid to deal with, that Labour is the thing they need to be worrying about at the moment.

Yep - directly copied. That's where we are.

ps. I disliked your post. For the content, not for you posting it.

I wonder who pays for this propaganda.

jcm

Me too. And I have, until this current shower of shit, been a Tory voter...

No worries!

So you joining?

Seriously 1984....straight from the 'ministry of truth'.....could have been written by Winston Smith himself....absolutely shocking!!

Know anyone at the Guardian? Or even the Torygraph, for that matter...

Problem is it seems to work 😟

Why are you on a Tory mailing list?

Is there something that you haven’t told us?  

Know your enemy...

😀

Yike!

Mainly because I foresaw the Johnson coup and joined to vote against him. Didn't work

That must be the most dishonest major statement that's ever been put out by a British Prime Minister. By a very long way. 

Each to their own, politics wise (despite having mismangled things when talking about the area around Curbar being conservative in nature possibly being something to think about when moving there, I wasn't implying that was inherently negative), but it's a serious thing when a party starts painting people who don't follow it's plan as traitors to the country.

There's a lot of youtube comments along the same lines, following the Mail iirc calling those judges traitors of the people. In many people's minds it seems if you don't back Brexit, or the UK's steps whatever they are in negotiating with the EU, you are 'a traitor'. 

This feels like what I've learned from reading about how intolerance takes root, and in worse cases authoritarianism, when democracy suffers.

To be critical of one's own government and country can be a patriotic thing...

Who did you vote for? Off the top of my head I'm trying to think back - were any of them much more palatable?

Did you join the Labour Party to vote for Mr Corbyn?

I did.

At least one of us had some success.

The other candidate was Hunt.

There were only two options for members (MPs narrowed the list), so I voted for Hunt.

Does it still feel like success? 

Seriously? I had contemplated that it would have been a very cheap way for the Tory party to subvert the Labour party to install a weak leader.

Yes. Why wouldn’t it?

Remember, I voted for Mr Corbyn to be Labour leader.

Many people besides me thought that was a good idea.

I don’t know about any Tory party plot but it was a well discussed tactic on various internet forums.

Still a low, dishonest form of politics.

Depends if you voted for Mr Corbyn because you believed he was a weak leader or because you thought that he might do a good job.

Given your posting history, I'm going to guess which you thought...

Yes. And we all know your position.

I actually thought that Mr Corbyn might bring something different to UK politics. Especially when compared to the other leadership candidates. Good old school Labour.

Given that he became Labour leader and put on a decent show in his first election I wasn’t the only one.

Then it all went downhill for him. I can’t claim any credit for that.

See my reply to captain paranoia.

I don't believe you.

Your choice.

But given the choice of candidates for the Labour leadership I think I voted for the best candidate.

If I wanted to see a weak candidate elected I would have voted for Liz Kendall.

Well, I know you’re a conservative and a brexiter, but do you think the country would be in a better state right now if, say, Andy Burnham had been leader of the opposition in 2015? 
If you’re happy with the way the country has been governed for the past 5 years, though, and you’re happy with where we are heading, then yes, it’s been a great success for you. 

For all his failings Mr Corbyn seemed to offer an alternative to the centrist politics of both the Labour and Conservative parties.

Andy Burnham is just a run of the mill politician. He’s more of a Conservative than a Labour politician.

He would have been good at spending the taxpayer’s money and not much else.

You must remember they're talking to people who agree with them, apart from you and I of course, I quite like visiting the discussion on Conservative Home: https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2020/09/why-conservative-mps-...

They made an arse of the treaty and now have to get the toothpaste back in the tube. They've decided to frame this as plucky Boris doing everything necessary to stick up for our interests.

It is a long time since I read George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” but I believe that Winston Smith was an anti-establishment rebel. Or are you referring to his early scenes doing his job at MoT ?

Read 1984 again, too much of it is shockingly contemporary.

Also, "popular" politicians on both sides of the pond are exhibiting Animal Farm behaviour.

In response to the op...

If "Labour" had been replaced by an individual's name, then that statement would almost certainly lead to a libel case.

I wonder if they got Farage to write that?

If it sticks, we all do.

Russian oligarches seem to be high on the list. Although since it is a recruiting drive I assume it is intended to pay for itself.

My MP (red wall Tory, couldn't find the constituency on a map) posted a rehashed version of this on Facebook, whilst a few rabid flag shaggers were buying it, he was getting a pretty hard time from most.

The first thing I said to my wife yesterday when I read Priti Patels comments was it felt like we are back in 1930's Germany, government trying to encourage the population to snitch and sneer at each other.

Уважаемый MG

Вчера вечером я проголосовал за защиту Соединенного Королевства, как поступил бы любой премьер-министр.

К сожалению, ко мне не присоединился ни один лейборист или депутат от SNP.

Вместо этого лейбористы и SNP предпочли встать на сторону ЕС и их возмутительных угроз разделить наш Союз.

Дать понять, что мы единственная партия, готовая встать на защиту Соединенного Королевства.

Вот почему М.Г. Прошу вас поддержать нас сегодня, вступив в нашу партию >>

Стать членом

В прошлом году я добросовестно подписал Соглашение о выходе, полагая, что ЕС сдержит свое разумное слово.

Но, к сожалению, как известно лейбористам, в последние месяцы ЕС высказал предположение, что они пойдут на крайние и необоснованные меры.

Угрожая установить блокаду по всей нашей стране, разделить нашу землю и изменить саму экономическую географию нашего собственного союза.

Ни один британский премьер-министр, правительство или парламент никогда не поддавался такой унизительной и оскорбительной угрозе.

И я с гордостью могу сказать, что это наследие продолжилось прошлой ночью.

Но, к ужасу, когда им представилась еще одна возможность встать на защиту Великобритании, лейбористы предпочли не делать этого. Вместо этого они присоединились к ЕС.

Итак, теперь MG, столкнувшись с этой беспрецедентной ситуацией, мы все должны удвоить наши усилия по борьбе с лейбористами.

Вы встанете и встанете на сторону единственной партии, желающей защитить Соединенное Королевство? Станьте участником сейчас >>

Стоять с нами

Я уверен, что с вашей поддержкой у нас все получится.

Искренне Ваш,

Борис Джонсон

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-report-donors-boris-johnson-conserva...

Much clearer. Thank you.

Utterly terrifying. One of the rules of fascist propaganda is that your enemy is both weak and strong. This is exactly the shit that I've been warning about and losing sleep over for the last 4 and a bit years.

Even better for them, then; they just put a few 'influencers' on those forums, sew the seed, and it's done for them. No cost, and plausible deniability.

You tell me your motives were honourable. Do you think the motives of those influencers were equally honourable?

How did you manage to do that? I made a similar joke last year and the automated bot detection systems embedded in to UKC banned me from posting, until I could contact a human.

I’m sure that the idea was to help elect the worst possible candidate as leader so that the Labour Party wouldn’t win the next election. I’m sure because that was the stated aim of these ‘influencers’.

Personally I saw Mr Corbyn as an alternative to what the Labour Party had become - Conservative lite.

If political parties want to reduce the effect of influencers then opening up your leadership elections to recently enrolled party members probably isn’t a good idea even if done with good intentions.

It doesn't put it into actual words but it is very close to saying anyone who doesn't agree with this is anti-British, very like some of Trump's statements.

Dave

Yep, push through an agreement as fast as possible and with as little scrutiny as possible just so you can, apparently show you are 'Getting Brexit Done' and you end up with a pig's ear.

Ii reminds me of a comment made more than once by the government lawyers I used to deal with when I worked in central Government - quick legislation is almost always bad legislation.

Dave

I'm on it too, a mate of mine thought it would be funny for me to receive emails from the bastards.

It's amazing their priorities and what utter bullshit they email people about, I'm sure they believe it all, as will most of the recipients.

Agreed. I thought at the time that it was a bad idea. But the Labour Party seemed only to be thinking that their supporters (specifically, Momentum-inclined supporters) would sign up. Naive. Not that I don't see Momentum as also being a similar, if a little more overt, subversion of the Labour Party.

I think you're right on this. Although in the 2015 Labour contest, the outcome was inevitable the moment the other candidates followed the party line in abstaining on the Welfare Bill while Corbyn voted against it.

Junk emails are cheap to send

The compromises that work will all lie somewhere near the centre and having 2 sets of anuses fostering division in order to try and further their own careers at opposing ends of the political spectrum does nothing but harm.

You think that someone with his education would at least know the difference between regretfully and regrettably.  Especially given how often he must have had to use both. 

That's incorrect - the change to allow 'registered supporters' to vote in leadership elections was made under Miliband's leadership. It was a stupid change - but had nothing to do with Momentum, which it predates.

Fluent Russian!

Alternatively copy & paste from from Google Translate just worked first time so I have no idea.

I'll let you guess which

Yep....me too I read it in English O Level...I recalled his job in creating the 'truth'!!

I meant avoiding the ban, maybe the UKC bot robots are only turned on at night.

Thanks for the correction. Maybe it's just that I recall it being discussed as open to exploitation at that time.

I'm on the list too since I answered a survey to tell them exactly what I thought of them.

The material they're sending out has me so annoyed I'm tempted to unsubscribe, but so far I've felt perhaps it was better to know what they're telling their supporters. For example, this recent survey:

"1. Do you agree that there should be no barriers to trade within the United Kingdom?
Yes/No
2. Do you think UK businesses should enjoy seamless free trade across the home nations?
Yes/No
3. Do you agree that all Parties should work together as one union, so we can boost our recovery and create jobs?
Yes/No
4. Do you think the SNP should stop playing politics and support the Internal Market Bill?
Yes/No"

Talk about leading questions! Most people, even staunch Labour voters, could probably agree to the first two at least, but there's absolutely no space to point out to them that their own actions have made those impossible and that their suggested solutions are illegal. And you can bet they'll take a "yes" to those questions as an expression of unqualified support. I'm not sure I've ever seen a more dishonestly designed survey.

"Do you believe that the government has a duty to respect the rule of law? Yes/No"

and

"Do you believe that solemnly agreed and signed treaties should be kept? Yes/No"

appear to be missing.

Their capitalisation is almost as bad as their policies.

I find section 45(4) of the bill that got passed absolutely stunning.  I have no idea how they expect to negotiate any trade agreements at all after passing a law which makes them unenforceable in UK courts. 

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-01/0177/20177.pdf

The following have effect notwithstanding any relevant international or domestic law with which they may be incompatible or inconsistent— (a) section 42; (b) any regulations made under section 42(1); (c) section 43; (d) any regulations made under section 43(1); (e) this section; (f) any other provision of this Act so far as relating to the provisions in paragraphs (a) to (e).

(4) In this section— “relevant international or domestic law” includes— (a) any provision of the Northern Ireland Protocol; (b) any other provision of the EU withdrawal agreement; (c) any other EU law or international law; (d) any provision of the European Communities Act 1972; (e) any provision of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018; (f) any retained EU law or relevant separation agreement law; (g) any other legislation, convention or rule of international or domestic law whatsoever, including any order, judgment or decision of the European Court or of any other court or tribunal;

The weirdest thing is that to vote for them as government and support their policies you have to say No to each question!

Brexit is of course putting up barriers where none existed before.

The Brexit policy will create barriers within the UK, which is the last thing Scotland and N Ireland wanted.

Working with the Conservatives to pursue their evil madness will destroy our recovery from Covid and result the loss of 100s of thousands of jobs.

The only people 'playing politics' are Johnson's Conservatives. Who have not listened to what a very large majority of the people of Scotland and Northern Ireland and London voted for. The most undemocratic thing I've seen in my lifetime. They are playing politics by not allowing another referendum.

Yes, exactly.

Traitors.

Remove them

So far!!

Don't make me more depressed.

Il Duce.  Ruled by Slogan and Blame Enemies.

Look how well the navy and army fared when faced with modern opponents in the Mediterranean and the Western Desert and you see how our pompous dictator's deeds (rather than words) measure up when contact is made with reality.

I measure him by his stupendous progress (starting with bungles before his appointment as chief Brexist) in his time of Foreign Messer-Up) in the case of poor Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Nothing he says is true, He's sold the country for a mess of pottage and a bundle of lies.

I was born in the year of Suez so I've seen PMs come and go, and I think even allowing for that debacle we have descended into depths unseen in post war Western Europe.  Even compared to Bliar.

Yes, excellent questions.

Can't see them asking those any time soon, though.

I don't know if it is about getting a measure of support. My suspicion is that they couldn't care less what people answer to the survey, but they just want people to walk away with certain questions planted in their mind rather than leaving people alone to potentially apply their own critical analysis of the situation.

Doing it this way, rather than by making overt statements, might make people think that the questions are their own ideas, which in turn would make them much less likely to be questioned and challenged than an explicit message received from another person.

Yes, the whole thing is rather paradoxical. And highly annoying.

As for the bill itself, it's appalling.

There's something in what you say.

After all if they tried to build policy from the replies to those questions they'd find it full of logical impossibilities. I was just assuming they'd use it as an indication of support, not to use in planning, but to use in propaganda. But as a means of subtly shaping opinion...yes, it could be.