No one appointment shows more starkly the influence of white supremacist Steve Bannon on London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, in going his own way while giving anyone to the left of Genghis Khan the finger, than that of a 10 Downing Street “digital adviser”. It is an appointment that shows when it comes to migrants, some are distinctly more equal than others.
Chloe Westley ...
Although the news was broken by Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham, his connections suggest the news “Boris Johnson set to hire Chloe Westley from the Taxpayers' Alliance as his digital adviser in No10” is genuine. Ms Westley is unapologetically large-C Conservative.
Gone are the days when her TPA predecessor Susie Squire could tell LBC host Nick Ferrari, in response to the suggestion that she was “a secret Conservative”, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t have that – that’s outrageous! That’s just absolutely outrageous! Because we’re totally independent, we talk to everyone ... We talk to everyone who wants to talk to us ... We don’t have a party preference”. They have one now.
And although Ms Westley may be a familiar face to politics watchers, as Wickham has suggested, she is not British. But speaking English and being white goes a long way in covering those tracks. Whether it will cover her far-right sympathies and perceived propensity for dishonesty is another matter entirely.
Whistleblower Shahmir Sanni knew all about the dishonesty part: “Chloe Westley set up the BeLeave MailChimp account and then pretended (along with Johnson, Elliot, Patel and all of Vote Leave) that BeLeave was never a part of Vote Leave. Her emails are PRIME evidence in the Metropolitan Police investigation. I feel fucking sick”. No comment.
Peter Walker of the Guardian, meanwhile, had latched on to the far-right element of Ms Westley’s back story: “Westley is linked to the UK branch of the unsavoury US pro-Trump group Turning Point. She is, incidentally one of about three people I've ever had to block on Twitter (she invited US rightwinger Ben Shapiro to sue me after I called him prejudiced)”. And she’s so good at playing the victim, too.
But it was her endorsement of Anne Marie Waters, the screamingly Islamophobic leader of the For Britain movement, that will have the alarm bells ringing longest and loudest. Ms Westley told her followers, in July 2016, “Please vote for her work to be published. [Anne Marie Waters] is a hero”. One Tweeter picked out some Waters highlights.
These included the assertions “The EU agreed to turn Europe into an Arabian Islamic continent”, “My thinking is we need to reduce their birthrates now” and “The idea that these fuckers can just come along and take it all”. Otto English observed “In 2016 Boris Johnson's new digital adviser Chloe Westley enthusiastically backed renowned racist Anne Marie Waters who had just set up Pegida UK with one Tommy Robinson. I see Westley has been deleting old tweets including this”. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
... and her kind of endorsement
And Ms Westley will just put it down to more of those imaginary “haters” who bedevil her saintly efforts to spread her mythical gospel of low taxes and more freedom. Meanwhile, the lurch of Government towards the far right is confirmed once more.
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16 comments:
Yet another far right propaganda clerk.
Next appointment likely to be somewhere in the Murdoch/Rothermere axis.
It's all so tediously predictable.
Wallace and Gromit have the BunVac6000, but Piffle and Vomit have the RatVac2019. Coming out at all major sewers. Cert U sir.
Not as tediously predictable as your ill-judged knee -jerk responses, Anonymous 11.42.
Aren't they all far-right propaganda clerks to you? And doesn't that make it a bit difficult for you to find an appropriate vocabulary for people like this when you've already used up all of your lexicon of disgust on all the reasonably decent journalists who've ever appeared on tv or written for relatively honest newspapers?
If Viner, Toynbee, Freedland, Snow, Peter Walker et al are all right-wing crypto-Tory bastards, what words are there left to distinguish Waters and her kind from them?
You don't help with these one-note diatribes.
@Burlington Bertie From Bow - Hear Bloody Hear!!
Except they didn't say that 'Viner, Toynbee, Freedland' etc were that, she said it about westley who, by almost any standard, is.
She's "foreign"?!
Does that mean she's "meddling" and/or "interfering"?
Anon at 15:36
coz theys 'ates forrins innit
Whoever it is (they used to comment as Alan Clifford), they've been copy/pasting the same rant for the last few years.
If you want to play the drinking game, look out for:
Far right propaganda clerks
Bomber Benn (optional Mann and Umunna)
M25 hellhole
Barrow boys
Thieves kitchen
Blair/Brown gang
Red Tories
Langley/Vauxhall Cross "friends"
Mark my words
Bad meff
Physical slurs about female journalists, sorry, right wing propaganda clerks
Its going to get worse
You ain't seen nothing yet
Bonus points for collar felt and Sweet Pants in the Scrubs.
With 15:36.
And if she is "meddling and/or interfering" at whose behest will it be?
Let me hazard a guess......The Scots? The Welsh? The Irish?......Who could I possibly have missed out?
Digital adviser:
Great, I'll expect that technical Irish border to be sorted as quick as you can uppack a coule of computers from PC world.
What's that Skippy? Not that type of digital? Lotsa digit paycheque.. Makes sense now.
Tether
1. I don't know how long you've been following this. Anonymous with big spaces between paras is very often the first comment on here and has been for a few years. The style is instantly recognisable as is the ridiculously hyperbolic condemnation of absolutely every media commentator in existence. S/he has an obsession with M25 dwellers/cockneys/Londoners/people from the SE who s/he seems to assume all went to private schools, vote Tory and love Tony Blair. Look out for 'and it will get worse' as a sign off. I suspect s/he is actually a trolling mole out to discredit Tim's excellent blog.
2. You've missed my point heroically
How does a foreign national get the required security clearance to work in Downing Street?
I get your point fella, it wasn't a muddy one. There is a world of difference between centrists and the likes of For Britain and Westley. But he was referring to the latter two, so, in isolation, my point stands.
Been reading Tim's blogs for five years, I'm a daily visitor, but I'm new to the comments as I try to avoid such stuff. If he really is a troll, I am happy to retract.
Oh dear.
The troll comment was also not meant to be taken seriously.
You're not American by any chance.
Westley & Priti posed for a selfie in No 10 earlier. The clues are there.
Distractions galore...strange and unbelievable appointments of ' Fringe' characters nudging the into the True zealots in the cabinet.
It's fucking Cummings playing with our heads.😂
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