How would you like your government? Right, far right, or bats**t crazy? | Six of the likely candidates for PM work closely with the American libertarian right, who are expanding their influence in British politics

40 comments

  1. – Steve Baker: ” belongs to at least ten opaquely funded lobby groups and think tanks mainly based in [Tufton Street](https://www.desmog.com/55-tufton-street/) including the climate change denying [Net Zero Security Group](https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/environment/who-are-the-net-zero-scrutiny-group-and-what-do-they-want/) and the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the anti-EU European Research Group (ERG), the anti-lockdown [Covid Recovery Group](https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/politics/the-covid-recovery-group-threatens-the-uks-recovery-from-covid/), the Libertarian Alliance, Conservatives For Britain, Conservative Way Forward, the Christian Cornerstone Group and the Cobden Centre.”

    – Penny Mordaunt: “A member of the ERG in Tufton Street . . offered up disadvantaged parts of the UK as ‘partners’ in a badly phrased word salad which leaves us none the wiser of her real intentions. She praised the IEA for coming up with the idea, though it has been largely mocked by trade experts such as Peter Ungphakorn as non-binding and essentially meaningless”

    – Sajid Javid: “another Tufton Street acolyte . . . whose [2019] campaign manager was the highly controversial Matthew Elliot. Elliot is a linchpin of the libertarian think tanks, the Legatum Institute and the Tax Payers Alliance, and is husband of Sarah, chair of Republicans Overseas”

    – Suella Braverman: “described by colleagues as “Fu&*ing useless” . . . member of the Triratna Order, a controversial religious sect founded by sexual predator Dennis Lingwood . . . She is heavily involved in, and a former chair of Tufton Street’s ERG”

    – Liz Truss: ” as trade secretary she held several meetings with the IEA. These talks were reclassified as personal discussions and removed from the transparency register in 2020, before an outcry forced her to [reinstate them shortly afterwards](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-politics-truss-exclusive-idUKKBN25U1LA) . . . controversially appointed Mark Littlewood of the IEA and Mathew Kilcoyne of the Adam Smith Institute as official government advisers. . . . [tipped to be the ERG’s favourite candidate](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/conservatives/2022/06/liz-truss-most-likely-next-tory-leader)”

    – Rishi Sunak: “ties to the Tufton Street based Centre for Policy Studies, a climate change denying think tank for which he wrote a report advocating [his freeport evangelist mentor [Paul](https://drive.google.com/open?id=194Kp4jhG6g4cL_d74TNAvaXrsmSAFNpjtviqxA_Nv7Y)] Romer’s ideas”

    – Tom Tugendhat: Pimped a report authored by think-Tankies Matthew Elliot and James Kanagasooriam. “Elliot’s credentials in the [Atlas Network](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Atlas_Network) are well documented. Kanagasooriam is head of a data analytics firm and, like Tugendhat, a board member of the right-wing think tank [Onward](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onward_(think_tank)” Heads ERG-style ‘China Research Group’ with Neil O’Brien, ” previously director of Tufton Street’s Policy Exchange, with whom Tugendhat has very close links”

    – Boris Johnson: “Following Johnson’s 2019 victory, more than a dozen former staff members from different Tufton Street think tanks were allocated influential special adviser roles and 14 IEA alumni were serving in the Cabinet”

  3. “Senior MPs within the UK’s main party on the right, have spoken with groups within the same political sphere on at least one occasion” is not going to be the zinger that YorkshireBylines thinks it will be to the wider public. Sorry it just won’t.

    Their main readership will froth because that’s who these articles are generally written for as it generates lots of lovely clicks, but outside of that it’ll land nowhere.

    Let’s put it another way: If someone published “Labour candidate had meetings with Union officials and representatives from left-wing groups” do you think anyone would really care, or be surprised? Same thing here.

  8. Its quite an impressive race to the bottom and genuinely quite worrying that most candidates pledges wouldnt look out of place at an 90s BNP rally.

    And thats before we consider the fact that the majority of runners are as thick as pig shit.

  11. The growing influance of American libertarian and evangelical lobby groups in the UK goverment under the torys is a scandal that is flying under the radar.

    People would be alarmed if they knew how much stuff groups like there heritage foundation are behind and the groups there funding.

  12. The Libertarian right are anti authoritarian and pro free market, which in my opinion is what we need more of in Britain.

    Please don’t confuse the libertarian right with the religious fanatical right that repealed the right to abortion on the US, they’re the opposite of each other.

    Libertarianism (or classical liberalism as it known here) is a wonderful political viewpoint. It basically promotes freedom of speech/expression as its founding right on top of which all rights are built on.

    Property rights is a big one, as well as the right to exist in a free market without pressure or intervention from government. Any government.

    It’s not the same as Anarchism, which promotes no government at all and believes that the world would be fine without any order. This is not the same as Libertarianism.

    I encourage anyone who’s read this far to read up works by John Locke, Adam Smith and Hopper as more modern approach to Libertarianism.

  14. Can they please at least pick the leader via a Squid Game style competition?

    They’re all basically as bad as each other. At least this way we’ll get rid of a few of them.

  16. Even if you ignore all that, they are just grossly incompetent or only looking out for themselves and their mates. Whoever wins, it will not be someone who is going to fix the issues facing the average Brit.

  18. Let me bookmark this (alongside the roe vs wade overturn) so I can post them both anytime someone asks why I want independance.

  19. There is, of course, a longstanding British tradition of political liberty; if we find ourselves needing to import a more virulent American strain, there will be nothing to blame but our similarly ancient habit of putting up with almost any imposition, so long as ‘those good-for-nothings across the road’ have to put up with it too.

  20. This is no late news. A few years ago, breitbart steve alt right fucker / scammer / liar steve bannon was so much welcome by ERG group, gove, farage and bojo. Lol

  21. We can note how in the USA the introduction of ‘Not Donald Trump’ has not in any way removed the threat from their far right.

    This is because the root of the rise of all such extremism is down to hardship/resources and the quality of life that ordinary people enjoy.

  23. If there was ever a time to turn the “they’re all as bad as each other really” rhetoric back around on them, it would be now

  24. > on democracy in an interview for High Profiles, he declared that “God is a Libertarian as well as an absolute monarchist”. He concludes that we are not supposed to be living in a democratic system, rather “under God as King obeying his laws”

    Wtf Steve

  26. Problem is that a lot of that Libertarian nonsense is very unpalatable to the majority of the British public.

  29. Abortion rights, human rights, health & safety, employee rights – some will say we don’t have to worry as the UK is essentially different than the US. May I laugh?

  32. Urgh. How many people will have to die before these people realise how utterly idiotic libertarianism is as a political ideology?

    “Libertarians are like house cats: Completely dependent on others but fiercely convinced of their own independence.”

  33. Always annoys me how “libertarian” in the US sense is basically batshit insane far right, the “I do what I want, fuck everyone else, and I’ll gladly see people suffer and die to get my views in place”.

    In reality, a “true” libertarian is basically a far left socialist.

  36. The Sri Lankans have the right idea and the balls to carry out out, unlike the Daily Fail reading, Bozo Broadcasting Corporation watching Brits happy to deny reality because it continually confronts them with the fact they’re shit at pretty much everything.

  37. You just have to look at the shit Nadine Dorries is spouting to know how much US style politics is transitioning over here. Today she said the leadership election was *rigged.* She’s well and truly of the Trump style of politics.

  38. ‘Libertarian’ right wingers have been on the rise for a while now, shame to see its actual impact on British politics now but at least we have less ‘anarcho’ capitalists than the USA has

  39. The other day a load of British people was blaming Russia for all of our problems included this.

    I do think that Russia did influence the UK somewhat specially the housing market.

    But this batshit crazy behaviour, nahhhh that is all the US.

    The UK even stepped away from europe so it could become closer to the US. The cultural view of the world that the UK is starting to hold currently is getting closer and closer to the one in the US, that included race too.

    I think the only way we can fix it, is getting back on a good relationship with our neighbours and distancing ourselves from american capital for a while, the best way to do that : just tax them.

    They will run away from this country pretty fast, once the word tax is brought up.

  40. Normal people who support the libertarian right have got to be some of the most block-headed people going. They treat ‘the Market’ like it is an Aztec Sun God and if we just sacrifice enough to it, it’s benevolent hand will guide us to prosperity. And then spend so much time focusing on the idea of ‘freedom’, but then fully entrench the power system of capital which is by far the element of modern life that limits freedom the most.

    They are just a brainwashed herd that have been manipulated by the ultra-wealthy who want to become kings. It is so frightening.

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