Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Carl the Llama]

3 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

No idea. I’m going on the tweet by the artist which indicates one of them is.

Ok well he also said they aren't all Jews so why's it antisemitic and not simply anti-new world order capitalists?

[Webbo]

2 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Ok well he also said they aren't all Jews so why's it antisemitic and not simply anti-new world order capitalists?

Why are any of them jews?

[Sharpe's Fox]

1 minute ago, Carl the Llama said:

Ok well he also said they aren't all Jews so why's it antisemitic and not simply anti-new world order capitalists?

He’s made it clear that he partially used his art to prompt outrage from the Jewish community. Personally i see that as a line you don’t cross. 

[desertfox2]

1 hour ago, Webbo said:

If Corbyn stamped on the head of a puppy on live TV some of you would say he was promoting animal welfare. 

 

Just remember this when you're telling me I've got entrenched views.

He's Vegetarian maybe even Vegan now so unlikely he would stamp on a puppy but I get your point. I don't think he's antisemitic at all or too anti anything apart from the rich maybe. My worry with Corbyn would be that we would look weak and indecisive and other nations would play on it massively if he was ever PM.  It would be like Christmas come early for Putin. He would absolutely love Corbyn being PM.

Edited 24 March 2018 by desertfox2
Putin

[Carl the Llama]

Just now, Webbo said:

Why are any of them jews?

Obviously because the Rothschild's are a real family at the heart of a lot of the NWO theories.  Distrusting an immensely wealthy and reportedly influential family which happens to be Jewish isn't anti-semitic in of itself.  Distrusting them because they're Jewish would be.  I feel like learning who each figure is supposed to be and their reason for being included would clear up whether or not it's anti-semitic or caricature.

 

4 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

He’s made it clear that he partially used his art to prompt outrage from the Jewish community. Personally i see that as a line you don’t cross. 

Where's that been made clear?  I must have missed it.

[breadandcheese]

3 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Obviously because the Rothschild's are a real family at the heart of a lot of the NWO theories.  Distrusting an immensely wealthy and reportedly influential family which happens to be Jewish isn't anti-semitic in of itself.  Distrusting them because they're Jewish would be.  I feel like learning who each figure is supposed to be and their reason for being included would clear up whether or not it's anti-semitic or caricature.

 

Where's that been made clear?  I must have missed it.

I think that's the main point. It's a NWO Illuminati conspiracy theory, which many believe is a front for Jewish control of the world. It's not anti-capitalism, unless you believe capitalism is a front for Illuminati/Jewish control.

 

With regards your example above, distrusting an immensely wealthy and influential family, who happens to be Jewish, more than one who doesn't would be anti-Semitism. Although I'm not actually sure how influential the Rothschilds are. Maybe in the 1760s but not now. I think it's a myth put out by conspiracy theorists.

[Strokes]

22 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

I do mate, you responded to my post on this 20 minutes ago. I’ve only argued it isn’t immediantly obvious unless you’re an antisemite.

Sorry mate force of habit, I didn’t mean to tag you. I was asking Alf the same question.

[Carl the Llama]

1 minute ago, breadandcheese said:

I think that's the main point. It's a NWO Illuminati conspiracy theory, which many believe is a front for Jewish control of the world. It's not anti-capitalism, unless you believe capitalism is a front for Illuminati/Jewish control.

There's the Elders of Zion stuff but unless all of the figures depicted are Jewish (and going off the artist's own quotes they aren't) then it can't be that.  Basically it seems to me that:  A dude drew some rich people including a couple of Jews; some Jews and your typical SJW crowd interpreted it in the wrong way, got offended and took action; a politician defended the artist on social media; the same crowd as before took this to mean the politician was defending their interpretation of the picture and started a shitstorm a few years later (when the politician was more prominent) with the help of some political opportunists.

 

1 minute ago, breadandcheese said:

With regards your example above, distrusting an immensely wealthy and influential family, who happens to be Jewish, more than one who doesn't would be anti-Semitism. Although I'm not actually sure how influential the Rothschilds are. Maybe in the 1760s but not now. I think it's a myth put out by conspiracy theorists.

As to this, there are also non-Jewish families represented as figures of distrust, so why are you making that inference?  And that's why it's called a conspiracy theory  

[Buce]

Revealed: the ties that bind Canadian data firm AIQ to Leave campaign in EU referendum

Role of remote data affiliate raises questions over relationship between Brexit groups

 

Cambridge Analytica has undisclosed links to the Canadian digital firm AggregateIQ that played a pivotal role in the official Vote Leave campaign in 2016, which was headed by the environment secretary Michael Gove and the foreign secretary Boris Johnson, the Observer has learned.

Christopher Wylie, the former Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistleblower, has revealed that as well as playing a part in setting up the firm – which is now facing increasing scrutiny from investigators on both sides of the Atlantic over its role in harvesting Facebook data – he was also a central figure in setting up AIQ, which accounted for 40% of Vote Leave’s campaign budget.

The Observer first disclosed connections between the firms a year ago when it published details of an intellectual property licence that linked AIQ and Cambridge Analytica.

In public, the official Leave campaign and Nigel Farage’s Leave.EU campaign were quite separate and appeared hostile to each other. But the connections between the two data firms raise fresh questions about possible overlaps between the two

 

Wylie said that, in 2016, the relationship went far beyond that. Although AIQ and Cambridge Analytica appeared separate, the two were bound by a skein of threads so intimate that some Cambridge Analytica staff referred to the Canadian data firm as a “department” within the company. Wylie said that the two businesses shared the same underlying technology.

“AIQ wouldn’t exist without me,” he said. “When I became research director for SCL [the parent company of Cambridge Analytica] we needed to rapidly expand our technical capacity and I reached out to a lot of people I had worked with in the past.”

That included Jeff Silvester, his former boss, who lived in Wylie’s home town – Victoria in British Columbia. Wylie suggested Silvester should work for the firm in London. “But he had just had a family and wasn’t keen to go on London,” he said.

 

The Observer has seen an email from 11 August 2013 that Wylie sent to Silvester about SCL. “We mostly do psychological warfare work for Nato,” he said. “But a lot of projects involve a socio-political element.”

Silvester replied: “You need a Canadian office.”

He then set up AIQ with his business partner, Zack Massingham, to work on SCL and later Cambridge Analytica projects. “Essentially it was set up as a Canadian entity for people who wanted to work on SCL projects who didn’t want to move to London. That’s how AIQ got started: originally to service SCL and Cambridge Analytica projects,” said Wylie.

Last March, when the Observer started asking questions about the connection between Cambridge Analytica and AIQ, the former removed “SCL Canada” and Massingham’s phone number from its website and said that AIQ was a “former IT contractor”.

Cambridge Analytica is already under scrutiny for its work for Farage’s Leave.EU campaign, and AIQ is also involved in an investigation by the Electoral Commission into Vote Leave.

On Saturday the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham said that “AggregateIQ has not been especially co-operative with our investigation. We are taking further steps in that matter.”

The mystery of how Vote Leave even found AIQ, a firm with just 20 staff that operated 2,300 miles away out of a cramped office above an opticians in the provincial Canadian city of Victoria, was raised by the Observer last May.

Dom Cummings, the chief strategist for Vote Leave, told this newspaper that he found the firm “on the internet”. But cached searches show that AIQ had no internet presence at that time and a new source within Vote Leave has now come forward to say that Cummings had full knowledge of the connections between the two firms.

 

“The idea that Dom had no idea of AIQ’s connection to Cambridge Analytica is complete bullshit,” said the source. “It was a former Cambridge Analytica employee who made the introduction. He knew exactly how the two companies operated together. He knew they’d worked together on the [former candidate for the Republican nomination for president] Ted Cruz campaign and that they shared the same underlying technology,” said the source.

But Cummings told this newspaper: “Vote Leave data never went anywhere near Cambridge Analytica and your repeated attempts to show that Vote Leave and Cambridge Analytica were somehow secretly coordinating is not just without foundation but the opposite of the truth.”

Until 2016, AIQ had no clients other than Cambridge Analytica. The lack of a website, Wylie claims, was because at the time of the referendum it was operating almost as “an internal department of Cambridge Analytica. It didn’t have a website and no contact number. The only public contact number was SCL’s website.” However, AIQ says it has had a website since it was founded in 2013.

Wylie said that AIQ managed Cambridge Analytica’s technology platform – Ripon – and its databases. “Because AIQ was operating internally, almost as a department of Cambridge Analytica, it didn’t have a website and no contact number. The only public contact number was SCL’s website,” said Wylie.

 

He said AIQ also had its intellectual property owned by Cambridge Analytica. “AIQ often traded as SCL Canada for ages and although a technically separate company, the IP [intellectual property] was retained by Cambridge Analytica and SCL.

“They were the ones that took a lot of data that Cambridge Analytica would acquire and the algorithms they build and translated that into the actual physical targeting online, they [AIQ] were the bit that actually disseminated stuff. AIQ managed the Ripon platform, which is Cambridge Analytica’s platform, and built a lot of the tech that would connect the algorithms to social and online advertising networks.”

Wylie claims that the two entities, certainly during the time of the referendum campaign, were operating closely. “Among internal CA staff AIQ was referred to as ‘our Canadian office’. They were treated as a department within the company,” he said.

Cummings would later say: “Without a doubt, the Vote Leave campaign owes a great deal of its success to the work of AggregateIQ. We couldn’t have done it without them.” His quote, emblazoned on the AIQ website for more than a year, disappeared on Thursday.

Silvester said that Cambridge Analytica was not in contact with AIQ during the referendum campaign. “AIQ never worked or even communicated in any way with Cambridge Analytica or any other parties related to Cambridge Analytica with respect to the Brexit campaign. Any claim that we shared Vote Leave data with Cambridge Analytica or anyone else in any way is entirely false.”

He added: “AggregateIQ has always been 100% Canadian owned and operated.”

[Buce]

Revealed: Brexit insider claims Vote Leave team may have breached spending limits

Whistleblower alleges that electoral spending rules could have been manipulated over controversial donation and that Vote Leave ‘tried to delete key evidence’

 

A whistleblower who worked for the official Vote Leave campaign has broken cover to raise concerns that the masterminds behind the 2016 vote – including key figures now working for Theresa May in Downing Street – may have flouted referendum spending rules and then attempted to destroy evidence.

The allegations, from former volunteer Shahmir Sanni, are detailed in an interview in the Observer and supported by a mass of documents and files that he has passed to the Electoral Commission and the police.

 

Sanni’s central claim concerns a donation of £625,000 that Vote Leave ostensibly made to an independent referendum campaign organisation called BeLeave. He claims the money, channelled to a digital services firm linked to the controversial Cambridge Analytica firm, violated election rules because it was not a genuine donation.

The money was registered by BeLeave with election authorities as a donation from Vote Leave to an independent youth operation. Sanni says BeLeave shared offices with Vote Leave – fronted by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – which in practice offered advice and assistance to the group and helped them to decide where their cash would be spent.

British electoral law prohibits co-ordination between different campaign organisations, which must all comply with spending limits. If they plan tactics or co-ordinate together, they must have a shared cap on spending. Vote Leave strongly denies any such co-ordination.

Sanni says that after the commission opened an investigation last March, Victoria Woodcock, the operations director for Vote Leave, deleted herself, campaign director Dominic Cummings and Vote Leave’s digital director, Henry de Zoete, from dozens of files on the drive Vote Leave shared with BeLeave to hide the fact of co-ordination. On a blog post on Friday, Cummings said this was “factually wrong and libellous”. Vote Leave say staff acted “ethically, responsibly and legally in deleting any data”.

 

Most of the £625,000 donation went to a Canadian data company called AggregateIQ, which has links to Cambridge Analytica, the firm that used harvested Facebook data to build a political targeting system in the US. Christopher Wylie, the former CA employee turned whistleblower, said that at the time of the referendum, the Canadian firm was operating “almost as an internal department of Cambridge Analytica”.

AIQ would eventually soak up about a third of all Vote Leave’s official spending, receiving £2.7m from the group in addition to the money that came via BeLeave. The firm also received £100,000 from Veterans for Britain and £32,750 from the DUP. After the referendum, Cummings stated on AIQ’s website: “Without a doubt, the Vote Leave campaign owes a great deal of its success to the work of Aggregate IQ. We couldn’t have done it without them.”

 

Other senior figures in Vote Leave included Stephen Parkinson, now Theresa May’s chief adviser. Parkinson said in a statement: “I am clear that I did not direct the activities of any separate campaign groups. I had no responsibility for digital campaigning or donations during the referendum and am confident that Vote Leave acted entirely within the law and strict spending rules at all times”.

Sanni, who was treasurer and secretary of BeLeave at 22, is still a committed Eurosceptic and works at the TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign group. He says he decided to go public because he did not want Brexit to be tainted by possibly illegal activities.

 

He was also alarmed by the fact that his friend, Darren Grimes, the former head of the BeLeave youth group, is a focus of an Electoral Commission investigation into breaches of spending limits.

Sanni said Vote Leave “didn’t really give us that money. They just pretended to. We had no control over it.”

He believes Vote Leave’s senior officials may have taken advantage of the group’s youth and the political inexperience of Grimes to ramp up their own spending. He emphasises BeLeave was a small Brexit-supporting outreach group run by twentysomethings with no real experience or background in campaigning or finance.

He says that it was helped by Vote Leave staff to set up its own constitution and bank account so that it could accept donations of its own. Vote Leave’s lawyers did the legal documentation, he said.

“We were advised every step of the way by Vote Leave’s lawyers. They told us what to do and where to sign.”

The payment to AIQ was ostensibly made by BeLeave as the referendum campaign drew to a close. But Sanni claims BeLeave didn’t have any choice about where the cash would be spent, didn’t sign a contract with AIQ, and did not direct what the data firm did with the funds. The money never even passed through the group’s own bank account.

 

“There was no contract in front of me, as treasurer and secretary,” Sanni said. “I didn’t see any contract.” This process was repeated with a further £50,000, from an outside donor.

Vote Leave said: “It was Darren’s decision to hire AIQ, agreed with and confirmed by Shamir Sanni.”

Venner Shipley, Vote Leave’s lawyers, said: “We have never been instructed by, nor have we ever provided advice to BeLeave.”

Sanni has shared emails with the Observer and the authorities which appear to show the young campaigners seeking advice from top Vote Leave figures, an invoice to VoteLeave covering work on the BeLeave campaign and messages from Vote Leave lawyers and accountants about the practicalities of establishing it as an independent group.

Sanni explained that Vote Leave also set up and managed a shared BeLeave computer drive with the youth campaign’s messaging, information and other documents.

The emails reveal other senior figures were in regular contact with BeLeave. Cleo Watson, who was head of outreach for Vote Leave and is now a political adviser alongside Parkinson in Downing Street, was in touch with the organisation and was a member of a closed Facebook group for BeLeave contributors. In a statement to the Observer, Watson said: “I absolutely deny the claims being levelled against me.”

This weekend Parkinson was at the centre of a political storm after revealing in a statement delivered without Sanni’s consent that they dated each other for a year and a half, including the period when Parkinson was at Vote Leave and Sanni worked as a volunteer.

Parkinson said he only gave Sanni advice and guidance in the context of that relationship. In a statement released on Friday night, lawyers for Sanni said: “We believe this is the first time a Downing Street official statement has been used to out someone. My client is now having to come out to his mother and family ... and members of his family are being forced to take urgent protective measures to ensure their safety.”

In one email to Vote Leave’s lawyer, Watson acknowledged that BeLeave did not have the experience needed to handle the funds that would be spent in their name, stating: “Darren and the rest of the group (all between 18 & 22) don’t feel comfortable handling the money side of things, having no experience beyond their student loans.”

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Webbo said:

Whataboutery  It was you who tried to change the subject. You have nothing to say about Corbyn and then you accuse me of ignoring awkward subjects?

I've already said what there is to say.

The labour statement pretty much covers it.

It was a simple mistake by Corbyn.

There's nothing else to discuss.

 

So, back to the important issues.....

[Webbo]

4 minutes ago, toddybad said:

I've already said what there is to say.

The labour statement pretty much covers it.

It was a simple mistake by Corbyn.

There's nothing else to discuss.

 

So, back to the important issues.....

You've just decided it was unimportant? 

 

If you don't want to talk about that, whatabout the sacking of Owen Smith for wanting another referendum?

[Alf Bentley]

43 minutes ago, Webbo said:

I did answer that section but to expand on your other points. If the cartoon is about Dianne Abbot then obviously the caricature would depict her as a black woman. If you have a cartoon about a random mugging and the mugger is depicted as black then it can obviously give racial connotations.

 

1 hour ago, Webbo said:

What percentage of the population is Jewish? Less than half or a third I'm sure.

 

Honestly Alf, I don't know how you can make excuses for him. The artist said he did it to upset the jews, Corbyn's admitted it's anti semitic, what is there to argue?

 

6 hours ago, Webbo said:

From the article in the Jewish chronicle.

 the artist himself confirmed they were intended as such, writing: “Some of the older white Jewish folk in the local community had an issue with me portraying their beloved #Rothschild or #Warburg etc as the demons they are.”

 

Sorry, I didn't read that second comment properly.

 

The point is that he wasn't depicting the general population, in which case depicting a third as Jewish would have been disproportionate. He was depicting top businessmen/financiers - at least some of whom were supposed to be real people, a couple of them Jewish. I've no idea what proportion of top businessmen/financiers are of Jewish origin, but do know that a number have been - which doesn't mean that I subscribe to some antisemitic nazi conspiracy theory! If he is depicting specific people, some of whom are Jewish - or even a category of people (businessmen/financiers) some of whom are Jewish - is he supposed to pretend that they're not Jewish and depict them all as Anglo-Saxons?!

 

I've looked again at the image - and would encourage others to do the same (if they've nothing better to do!). I genuinely don't know if there's any antisemitic element at all, but think it's very minor, if it exists. The bearded bloke on the left looks a bit too much of a stereotype for my liking. Of the others, 3 do not look identifiably Jewish, 2 look like they might or might not be (3rd left & far right). It should be possible to depict someone as looking Jewish - and to do so while being hostile to them - without that constituting antisemitism. The overall content of the work and the fact that the artist has depicted non-Jews and Jew(s) suggests his hostility is directed at them being "exploitative capitalists", not "filthy Jews".

 

Even if Corbyn genuinely believes that the mural is antisemitic (he may just be saying that to quell the media furore), I'm entitled to take a different view. I think the main focus is anti-capitalist, not antisemitic; if there's any antisemitic content, it's very minor and doesn't justify all this posturing.

 

As for the artist, even going by your own selective quote (3rd quote above), you are misrepresenting his words. He did NOT say that "he did it to upset the Jews". It is the Jewish Chronicle, not the artist, that claims he "intended" the images to be caricatures of Jews. The artist said that the mural upset some Jews (as per your quote). He also said that there was no racist intent, that the mural depicted "Jews and white Anglos" and targeted "class and privilege" (as per my Wiki quote).

 

As an aside, did you know what became of Lutfur Rahman, the (independent, previously Labour) mayor who got the mural removed? He was found guilty of corrupt/illegal practices, disqualified from office and struck off as a solicitor! 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Webbo said:

You've just decided it was unimportant? 

 

If you don't want to talk about that, whatabout the sacking of Owen Smith for wanting another referendum?

Now this is a proper issue. 

I'm more than happy to discuss.

I don't think he should have been sacked.

Saying that, there is a strange irony that Corbyn, famed for voting against his party for most of his career, is suddenly keeping a tighter ship message wise than the Tories!

But I think it was a mistake.

 

So, homelessness webbo?

Edited 24 March 2018 by Guest

[Webbo]

Just now, toddybad said:

Now this is a proper issue. 

I'm more than happy to discuss.

I don't think he should have been sacked.

Saying that, there is a strange irony that Corbyn, famed for voting against his party for most of his career, is suddenly keeping a tighter ship message wise than the Tories!

But I think it was a mistake.

You've previously said that it'll be a disaster to leave the single market and Corbyn has said we've got to leave the single market so will you still vote for him/

[Carl the Llama]

14 minutes ago, Webbo said:

You've just decided it was unimportant? 

 

If you don't want to talk about that, whatabout the sacking of Owen Smith for wanting another referendum?

Ikr, we still haven't got to the bottom of what makes it a fundamentally antisemitic image. Is it something like drawing Mohammed perhaps?

[Alf Bentley]

1 hour ago, Strokes said:

 

Now the same question to you as to @Sharpe's Fox if you don’t think it’s antisemitic, why do you think JC now accepts it is?

Im not pushing an agenda but I’m trying to understand why this is a mudslinging contest instead of something more conclusive.

 

 

2 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

So, having just denounced Corbyn as a "liar" and an "anti-semite", you're now solemnly accepting his word for everything - particularly his definition of anti-semitism? 

I'd assume that he now realises that he was a bit silly to make a throwaway comment on Facebook 6 years ago, and knows that this will just drag on as a media shitstorm unless he apologises (whether or not he now thinks the image is antisemitic). Given previous issues over "Labour antisemitism" (including some uncomfortable elements of truth, as well as a lot of mud slung by opponents) he'll want to say whatever it takes to get media debate back onto public services and the economy.

 

 

I did give my opinion about Corbyn accepting that the mural was antisemitic - bold section above.

 

Maybe he now genuinely thinks it was antisemitic, maybe he doesn't, but he has good tactical & strategic reasons not to allow this to drag on, even if he doesn't see it as antisemitic: getting media onto more favourable issues, avoiding alienating Jewish voters & avoiding needless splits in party, to mention just three.

 

Maybe I'm naive, but I cannot see much in the way of antisemitic caricature in the mural....a tiny bit, maybe.

Have a proper look yourself, Strokes. I'd be interested in your opinion, as one of the more open-minded people on here (flattery is under-rated... ).

I see 1 rather stereotypical Jew, 2 maybe/maybe not Jews & 3 probable non-Jews in an anti-capitalist mural.

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, Carl the Llama said:

Ikr, we still haven't got to the bottom of what makes it a fundamentally antisemitic image. Is it something like drawing Mohammed perhaps?

The big noses, the beard,glasses all common themes in caricatures of jews.

[Carl the Llama]

Just now, Webbo said:

The big noses, the beard,glasses all common themes in caricatures of jews.

Should I be offended that he's drawn caricatures of anglo people then?

[Webbo]

Just now, Carl the Llama said:

Should I be offended that he's drawn caricatures of anglo people then?

Sorry, are will still trying to pretend that this isn't anti semitic even though the artist has admitted it?

[Alf Bentley]

1 hour ago, breadandcheese said:

The issue is why include Jews in it at all? 

 

Of course it's possible to caricature Jews. But can any artists think of ways to do it that don't borrow from anti-Semitic stereotypes of last century?

 

First point: Because some people are Jewish, including some top businesspeople. I presume you wouldn't want all footballers in a cartoon depicted as white to avoid caricatures of black people?

 

Second point: You have a point here - the depiction of the bloke on the left of the mural makes me queasy for that reason, as I've said (possible stereotype too close to antisemitic images of the past).

[Webbo]

 

I'd say 1,3 and 6 are meant to be jewish possibly 4 and 5

[Carl the Llama]

Just now, Webbo said:

Sorry, are will still trying to pretend that this isn't anti semitic even though the artist has admitted it?

He's confirmed that the goal of his piece was to spread hatred of people for being Jewish?  I was under the impression that he'd confirmed he was demonising profiteering capitalists who he believes to be part of a shadow government.

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, Carl the Llama said:

He's confirmed that the goal of his piece was to spread hatred of people for being Jewish?  I was under the impression that he'd confirmed he was demonising profiteering capitalists who he believes to be part of a shadow government.

Are you trying to convince me or yourself? Corbyn himself has admitted it's anti semitic, why are you arguing? And people say I can't admit when I'm wrong.

[Carl the Llama]

2 minutes ago, Webbo said:

 

I'd say 1,3 and 6 are meant to be jewish possibly 4 and 5

1 and 6 I'd agree with.  2 and 5 look like typical old white man establishment figures and 4 looks to me like he's supposed to be Indian or Middle-Eastern.  3 looks like the Dolmio guy.