> A Tory donor, an activist opposed to critical race theory and two “anti-woke” Conservative historians are among candidates being promoted by a right-wing campaign group seeking to wrestle control of the National Trust.
>Restore Trust, the self-styled “anti-woke” insurgents who want to reverse policies such as rewilding and LGBT+ friendly practices, had limited success at last year’s National Trust AGM, when a number of resolutions it supported were defeated.
> However, the group – favoured in the right-wing press – now says it only needs a few thousand former members of the charity to return in order to pass a number of resolutions designed to put pressure on the Trust’s leadership this month.
>Using paid-for social media adverts, it has returned with a strategy of backing candidates for the Trust’s council. They include Philip Gibbs, once regarded as one of Britain’s most talented fund managers, who donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative party between 2009 and 2020.
>He declined to comment when approached by the Guardian but wrote in a statement pitching for votes from Trust members that the charity should be “less political”.
>The other five candidates include Bola Anike, who has campaigned against local authority anti-racism training, which she claimed was based on “critical race theory”. Anike’s campaign against the local authority’s approach to anti-racism training in Brighton has been supported by Don’t Divide Us, a campaign group which organised an event at this year’s Conservative party conference.
> The former head of History Matters, Zewditu Gebreyohanes, is now a Restore Trust director, along with others including Neil Record, a City currency manager and former Tory donor who has given money to a climate denying lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
>Record has also chaired Net Zero Watch, a new campaign group which was launched last year and which seeks to “highlight the serious economic and societal implications of expensive and poorly considered climate and energy policies”.
>Resolutions due to be voted on at this year’s AGM in Bath include one deploring the rewilding of some Trust farmland, which the proposers described as an irresponsible and “fashionable environmental fad”. This is rejected by the charity’s board of trustees, which asserts that the policy is based on scientific evidence.
Alistair Campbell talked about this on his podcast.
Ah so it’s rewilding and LGBT acceptance that are political now. Gosh “teaching people about slavery is communism” didn’t last long as an excuse did it?
This feels really dark, somehow. What’s their long-term aim with trying to do a coup like this?
> Another resolution “deplores” the Trust’s participation in Pride parades, describing it as a “divisive and unaccountable waste of members’ subscriptions”. The Trustees describe the resolution as counter to the Trust’s ethos and assert that they want to foster “a culture of understanding and respect”.
I see absolutely no contradictions in this paragraph
National Trust has always been shit
They kicked me and my family out of a site for seeing the solar eclipse in Cornwall in 1999 because they thought we were gypsies, didn’t change their tune despite my parents launching an official complaint, and my understanding is that antiziganism is still rife in areas even today
Don’t support them, ever
I don’t understand how someone can physically have an issue with rewilding, it’s something with literally no downsides
The National Trust need to stop with their extortionate pricing for parking. If you are not a member, parking charges are outrageous. It’s a scam to boost membership numbers.
Dark funded no doubt. All these think tanks and lobby groups can fuck right off.
Every time the self appointed defenders of British identity open their snouts, they talk like bloody Americans.
So the worst things imaginable to them are equality and an environment that is not artificially managed? Maybe the right should be concerned about corruption in their own party or the climate disasters that threaten all of us (including their precious neoliberalism). Or will that force them to confront reality a little too much?
Wtf is happening to this country, why are we going down the road that the US is?
It must be really tiring being so angry at everything all of the time. Life’s to short to spend it rallying against – for the most part – something that doesn’t harm you or anybody else.
The NT stance on LGBT is one of common sense and pragmatism. LBTQ demographic who enjoy NT facilities often have a high disposable income, many enjoy travel and are culturally aware and well educated.. dragging four disinterested screaming brats around an old building or 18th Century garden is less of an issue for the community…on the other hand there’s nothing there for the right wing in this country to learn other than how to doff their pathetic caps to their ‘betters’ from a bygone age..
Homophobia is stupid obviously.
But particularly painful to see the rise in nuts who are purposefully anti-environment just because the left-eyes say maybe destroying the planet is a bad thing.
Hang about, I understand how a right wing group would be pissed off about the NT talking about LGBT history but what the fuck is their issue with Rewilding?
>Resolutions due to be voted on at this year’s AGM in Bath include one deploring the rewilding of some Trust farmland, which the proposers described as an irresponsible and “fashionable environmental fad”. This is rejected by the charity’s board of trustees, which asserts that the policy is based on scientific evidence.
So they want to keep farmland owned by the Trust as farmland? What the fuck? And they think rewilding is a fad? Like surely rewilding would be good for wildlife rather than keeping things as farmland. It all stinks of the time Right Wingers sent death threats to art historians because they mentioned Marble Statues were once painted.
I actually feel sorry for the NT here.
Environmentalist criticise them for destroying the countryside under their management, The left for their celebration of Empire and the aristocracy – and now the Right wing are getting their knickers in a twist about rewilding projects and the trusts LGBT+ stance.
Registration to allow voting in the upcoming AGM is now closed, however, it sounds like it will be worth registering going forward to keep it safe from right-wing nut jobs.
It’s odd, because when rewilding the charities that organise it must get permission from the local authority, and the local authority will only grant it if it gets permission from the locals, farmers in particular.
In recent decades local farmers have overwhelmingly supported rewilding projects, including that of the Eurasian Lynx (which has yet to be reintroduced, but has *near total* local support in the areas where it is planned).
Whoever is in these rightwing groups they are probably not locals, and if they are it’s probably one or two rich people annoyed that their vote still counts as just 1, like everybody else. I can only assume rewilding means less fun for golf courses/fox hunting or potential future profits for things like fracking. No idea what LGBT stuff has to do with it though, that one is a head scratcher.
I hope people don’t read the headline and start blaming ordinary people, because our stance on rewilding is one thing Brits are actually united on, we all want it regardless of party affiliation and local votes on rewilding back this up. These ‘groups’ are probably not even triple figures in size, it’s just their wallets that are big.
These wankers are the sort that would allow fox hunting back on national trust land, cruel hateful people
It’s a very weird combo to have an issue with, I wonder if they misunderstood and think the NT are going to rewild the gays, which I think we can all agree, would be a concern haha
It’s odd to me that people who refer to themselves as conservative are not interested in conservation of nature
This group and others like it have failed totally in their attempt to stop an honest conversation about our history.
The NT and other organisations have been doing great work to confront the history of slavery and empire, and these right-wing cunts are simply on the wrong side of the tide. The membership destroyed them last year.
I actually don’t know how they could be more out of touch!
“How dare yall plant trees and respect other people? Why can’t you just make money like normal folk?”
Dear god, these weirdos just want to bully gay people and stop trees bring planted?
What a hate filled bunch of people
Prefer that they’d target national trust over the exorbitant car parking charges
27 comments
> A Tory donor, an activist opposed to critical race theory and two “anti-woke” Conservative historians are among candidates being promoted by a right-wing campaign group seeking to wrestle control of the National Trust.
>Restore Trust, the self-styled “anti-woke” insurgents who want to reverse policies such as rewilding and LGBT+ friendly practices, had limited success at last year’s National Trust AGM, when a number of resolutions it supported were defeated.
> However, the group – favoured in the right-wing press – now says it only needs a few thousand former members of the charity to return in order to pass a number of resolutions designed to put pressure on the Trust’s leadership this month.
>Using paid-for social media adverts, it has returned with a strategy of backing candidates for the Trust’s council. They include Philip Gibbs, once regarded as one of Britain’s most talented fund managers, who donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative party between 2009 and 2020.
>He declined to comment when approached by the Guardian but wrote in a statement pitching for votes from Trust members that the charity should be “less political”.
>The other five candidates include Bola Anike, who has campaigned against local authority anti-racism training, which she claimed was based on “critical race theory”. Anike’s campaign against the local authority’s approach to anti-racism training in Brighton has been supported by Don’t Divide Us, a campaign group which organised an event at this year’s Conservative party conference.
> The former head of History Matters, Zewditu Gebreyohanes, is now a Restore Trust director, along with others including Neil Record, a City currency manager and former Tory donor who has given money to a climate denying lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
>Record has also chaired Net Zero Watch, a new campaign group which was launched last year and which seeks to “highlight the serious economic and societal implications of expensive and poorly considered climate and energy policies”.
>Resolutions due to be voted on at this year’s AGM in Bath include one deploring the rewilding of some Trust farmland, which the proposers described as an irresponsible and “fashionable environmental fad”. This is rejected by the charity’s board of trustees, which asserts that the policy is based on scientific evidence.
Alistair Campbell talked about this on his podcast.
[Neil Record, one of six people identified on Restore Trust’s online ‘Meet the Team’ page, is also the chair of not one but two bodies operating out of the Tufton Street network.](https://bylinetimes.com/2022/10/27/the-right-wing-bid-to-capture-the-national-trust-exposed/)
Ah so it’s rewilding and LGBT acceptance that are political now. Gosh “teaching people about slavery is communism” didn’t last long as an excuse did it?
This feels really dark, somehow. What’s their long-term aim with trying to do a coup like this?
> Another resolution “deplores” the Trust’s participation in Pride parades, describing it as a “divisive and unaccountable waste of members’ subscriptions”. The Trustees describe the resolution as counter to the Trust’s ethos and assert that they want to foster “a culture of understanding and respect”.
I see absolutely no contradictions in this paragraph
National Trust has always been shit
They kicked me and my family out of a site for seeing the solar eclipse in Cornwall in 1999 because they thought we were gypsies, didn’t change their tune despite my parents launching an official complaint, and my understanding is that antiziganism is still rife in areas even today
Don’t support them, ever
I don’t understand how someone can physically have an issue with rewilding, it’s something with literally no downsides
The National Trust need to stop with their extortionate pricing for parking. If you are not a member, parking charges are outrageous. It’s a scam to boost membership numbers.
Dark funded no doubt. All these think tanks and lobby groups can fuck right off.
Every time the self appointed defenders of British identity open their snouts, they talk like bloody Americans.
So the worst things imaginable to them are equality and an environment that is not artificially managed? Maybe the right should be concerned about corruption in their own party or the climate disasters that threaten all of us (including their precious neoliberalism). Or will that force them to confront reality a little too much?
Wtf is happening to this country, why are we going down the road that the US is?
It must be really tiring being so angry at everything all of the time. Life’s to short to spend it rallying against – for the most part – something that doesn’t harm you or anybody else.
The NT stance on LGBT is one of common sense and pragmatism. LBTQ demographic who enjoy NT facilities often have a high disposable income, many enjoy travel and are culturally aware and well educated.. dragging four disinterested screaming brats around an old building or 18th Century garden is less of an issue for the community…on the other hand there’s nothing there for the right wing in this country to learn other than how to doff their pathetic caps to their ‘betters’ from a bygone age..
Homophobia is stupid obviously.
But particularly painful to see the rise in nuts who are purposefully anti-environment just because the left-eyes say maybe destroying the planet is a bad thing.
Hang about, I understand how a right wing group would be pissed off about the NT talking about LGBT history but what the fuck is their issue with Rewilding?
>Resolutions due to be voted on at this year’s AGM in Bath include one deploring the rewilding of some Trust farmland, which the proposers described as an irresponsible and “fashionable environmental fad”. This is rejected by the charity’s board of trustees, which asserts that the policy is based on scientific evidence.
So they want to keep farmland owned by the Trust as farmland? What the fuck? And they think rewilding is a fad? Like surely rewilding would be good for wildlife rather than keeping things as farmland. It all stinks of the time Right Wingers sent death threats to art historians because they mentioned Marble Statues were once painted.
I actually feel sorry for the NT here.
Environmentalist criticise them for destroying the countryside under their management, The left for their celebration of Empire and the aristocracy – and now the Right wing are getting their knickers in a twist about rewilding projects and the trusts LGBT+ stance.
Registration to allow voting in the upcoming AGM is now closed, however, it sounds like it will be worth registering going forward to keep it safe from right-wing nut jobs.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/annual-general-meeting
It’s odd, because when rewilding the charities that organise it must get permission from the local authority, and the local authority will only grant it if it gets permission from the locals, farmers in particular.
In recent decades local farmers have overwhelmingly supported rewilding projects, including that of the Eurasian Lynx (which has yet to be reintroduced, but has *near total* local support in the areas where it is planned).
Whoever is in these rightwing groups they are probably not locals, and if they are it’s probably one or two rich people annoyed that their vote still counts as just 1, like everybody else. I can only assume rewilding means less fun for golf courses/fox hunting or potential future profits for things like fracking. No idea what LGBT stuff has to do with it though, that one is a head scratcher.
I hope people don’t read the headline and start blaming ordinary people, because our stance on rewilding is one thing Brits are actually united on, we all want it regardless of party affiliation and local votes on rewilding back this up. These ‘groups’ are probably not even triple figures in size, it’s just their wallets that are big.
These wankers are the sort that would allow fox hunting back on national trust land, cruel hateful people
It’s a very weird combo to have an issue with, I wonder if they misunderstood and think the NT are going to rewild the gays, which I think we can all agree, would be a concern haha
It’s odd to me that people who refer to themselves as conservative are not interested in conservation of nature
This group and others like it have failed totally in their attempt to stop an honest conversation about our history.
The NT and other organisations have been doing great work to confront the history of slavery and empire, and these right-wing cunts are simply on the wrong side of the tide. The membership destroyed them last year.
I actually don’t know how they could be more out of touch!
“How dare yall plant trees and respect other people? Why can’t you just make money like normal folk?”
Dear god, these weirdos just want to bully gay people and stop trees bring planted?
What a hate filled bunch of people
Prefer that they’d target national trust over the exorbitant car parking charges