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The mysterious, relentless rise of members of the fake left/extreme right RCP network, at least one of whose outlets has been funded by Charles Koch, continues. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/15/dismay-over-adviser-chosen-set-up-uk-race-inequality-commission-munira-mirza
The RCP network appears to be highly coodinated and highly secretive, especially about who funds it. It was a reader of mine who stumbled across the Koch money, buried in some obscure filings. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/07/us-billionaires-hard-right-britain-spiked-magazine-charles-david-koch-foundation
As far as I can see, it uses Trotsky’s entryist tactics to pursue an extreme rightwing agenda. It began in 1970s as an obscure splinter group disrupting leftwing protests and strikes. In the 1990s its members moved en masse into the mainstream media: BBC, Channel 4, The Times.
In the early 2000s they suddenly switched to science communication, achieving a near monopoly in advocacy groups and public bodies. An extraordinary thing to witness: the simultaneous swarming and capture of an entire sector. How and why did they do it? https://www.monbiot.com/2003/12/09/invasion-of-the-entryists/
Throughout this time, they’ve been used, especially by the BBC and Sky News, as favoured pundits, however preposterous and repulsive their claims and opinions might be (Brendan O’Neill and Claire Fox are leading members of the network). As @NickCohen4 remarks:
Over the past 4 years, they have infiltrated the Conservative and Brexit parties in a similar fashion, still rising without trace. To me, it looks like a long march through the institutions, using the methods of the far left to promote the ideology of the far right.
Now, with Munira Mirza sitting beside Dominic Cummings in Number 10 Downing Street, they are right at the heart of power. It looks to me like a classic example of what Trotsky called the French Turn.
The media, falling for the simplest of deceptions (ie the names they gave their organisations), continue to describe the RCP/Living Marxism network as leftwing, accepting Mirza's account that she used to be on the left, but became "disillusioned".
The BBC and Sky even use them for “balance” in discussions with conservatives, apparently unaware that they are pitching the right against the extreme right.
Sometimes I feel there is no profession as gullible as journalism.
Sometimes I feel there is no profession as gullible as journalism.
