As election fever ramps up, the fortunes of one political party is unknown until all the votes have been finally counted in May. Simon Cressy takes a look at one of UKIP’s loudest supporters online, Breitbart London.
UKIP are the unknown factor in the 2015 general election, and the predictions of various media outlets vary greatly. Some newspapers predict UKIP will become kingmakers whilst other suggest Farage and co will turn out to be little more than the proverbial flash in the pan. We will find out sooner rather than later.
Whatever the outcome, Farage and the UKIP propaganda machine are working overtime, attempting (with some degree of success) to receive as much favourable media coverage as possible.
In the mainstream press, The Daily Express has become UKIP’s primary mouthpiece, with owner Richard Desmond donating over £300,000 to Farage and his party, not to mention almost complete unfettered and uncritical coverage in the political pages of the right wing newspaper.
Online, the propaganda game is very different for UKIP, with one name coming to the foreground when it comes to promoting UKIP and its Euro sceptic message.
Andrew Breitbart
The Breitbart News Network is a right wing news website formed in 2007 by the late American conservative publisher and darling of The Tea Party movement Andrew Breitbart.
Andrew Breitbart died suddenly at the age of 43 in 2012 of heart failure. His legacy following his death was the Breitbart website and in 2014 Breitbart launched a London site in parallel with the US equivalent.
James Delingpole
Breitbart London is run by executive editor James Delingpole. Columnist and well known climate sceptic, Delingpole is also a UKIP member and put his name forward to stand as a UKIP candidate for the European elections in 2014, however he was rejected at the interview stage and deemed unsuitable.
The acerbic Delingpole was forced to apologise to fellow journalist Suzanne Moore in 2013 after making a sexist comment to her on Twitter in support of his friend Toby Young which alluded to her being raped. Delingpole later apologised, an apology that was to be rejected by Moore.
Raheem Kassam
Managing editor of Breitbart London was originally Raheem Kassam. With his fingers in many pies, most of them of the dubious type, Kassam was an organiser for The Tea Party in the UK and has been the Campaigns Director at the neo Conservative Henry Jackson Society since 2010.
Former Conservative, Kassam is also formerly the Executive Editor of The Commentator, a political news and commentary website linked to the Henry Jackson Society. He was sacked by them in 2013 for gross and extreme misconduct following a fall out with Commentator owner Robin Shepherd. The feud between Kassam and Shepherd continues today with the pair still engaged in a bitter war of words on Twitter even as I write this article.
A controversial figure, Kassam has often been described as ‘troublesome’, ‘wildly self-important’ and ‘a professional wind-up merchant’.
Raheem Kassam outraged members of the ethnic minorities by backing racial profiling, claiming that the Security Services should be allowed to single out those who look as if they might follow Islam, on the grounds they are more likely to be involved in terrorism. In an article, he said: ‘Once people who look like me stop blowing themselves up, then I’ll get upset at being profiled. Not before.’ On another occasion, after being accused on social media of ‘flirting with anti-Muslim bigotry’, he responded: ‘I’m a flirtatious kind of guy.’
Raheem Kassam left Breitbart in October 2014 and became a senior aide to UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
A quick search for UKIP articles on the Breitbart website reveals that a large number of the recent stories uploaded is by Beatrice Sanderson.
An relatively unknown name to most people, we can reveal that Beatrice Sanderson is really an alias for Annabelle Fuller, former UKIP press officer and alleged mistress of Nigel Farage.
This is the same Annabelle Fuller that is currently subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation following claims made by the former UKIP spin doctor that she was groped on the balcony of the Westminster flat belonging to the Tory MP Andrew Bridgen.
The North West Leicestershire MP was held in police custody for 10 hours and had his fingerprints and DNA taken, however, police investigating the matter soon established that there was no case and even less evidence and the focus has now been switched onto Fuller, with the prospect of prosecution for perverting the course of justice should the case against the press officer be proven. Metropolitan Police confirmed they interviewed Fuller under caution at the start of 2015 and told the media: ” The Metropolitan Police received information relating to an alleged false claim of sexual assault. The man who was the subject of the allegedly false claim was informed that this has now moved forward into a formal police investigation.”
Bridgen has claimed that the case has wrecked his marriage and has left him with limited access to his young children.
Fuller has denied that she was the mistress of Nigel Farage, despite the fact that former UKIP MEP Nikki Sinclaire used parliamentary privilege in the European Parliament to claim that Fuller was Farage’s lover.
Donna Edmonds
Breitbart London’s European correspondent is Donna Edmunds, a name well known to UKIP watchers. Edmunds is a UKIP councillor on Lewes District Council and is the founder and editor of UKIPDaily.com.
Edmunds, who was also a European candidate in the South East region for UKIP was forced to issue a grovelling apology last year after she made comments online where she said that business owners should have the right to be able to refuse service to homosexuals and women.
She said ” I believe that all business owners, Christian, Muslim, gay, straight, should be allowed to withhold their services from whomever they choose whenever they choose. It’s their business. Why should they be forced to serve or sell to anyone?”
“I’m a libertarian so I don’t think the state should have a role in who business owners serve.”
However, Edmunds received a “slapping down” from her own party chairman, Steve Crowther, who said: Whilst we are a libertarian party this kind of ultra-libertarianism really goes beyond what is acceptable,”
“Society has to have rules and it is certainly not UKIP’s policy to allow people to refuse service to each other on the grounds of race, sexuality etc. This debate has been unhelpful. It is a matter that will be discussed by our NEC.”
Edmunds is no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to posting comments online. In 2011 she was forced to resign her role as lead councillor for communications in Lewes after she called one of her constituents a “village idiot” on social media. She also received criticism after telling another of her constituents to “pay your taxes to die of cancer if that’s what you want” during an online row about the NHS.
Tom Burnsall
Another regular on Breitbart London is Tom Bursnall, a UKIP NEC member and councillor who sits on Windsor and Maidenhead council. Bursnall hit the headlines after he claimed that the rich should be entitled to more than one vote as they pay more tax.
Writing on his blog, Bursnall said:
“Should people on benefits be allowed to vote? It would be terribly ‘unfair’ of you to give equal representation rights to the chap who contributes 50 times more than the next person. In the same way as if you own 60% of shares of a company, you’ll get 60% of the voting rights at the Annual General Meeting.”
Another controversial name on the Breitbart London roster is chief political correspondent Andre Walker, once a high flier in the Conservative Party and former Chief of Staff to David Morris MP, Walker was forced to resign his position of political advisor at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead after he was recorded plotting a smear campaign against his Tory colleague Alison Knight, deputy leader of the council. Walker’s conversation was recorded by a fellow passenger on a London commuter train that Walker was travelling on and uploaded to Youtube.
A number of UKIP officials regularly contribute pro UKIP articles to Breitbart London including Paul Nuttall MEP, Jane Collins MEP and Micheal Heaver. Other names of note include: Nick Hallett, a former Research Fellow from the Young Britons’ Foundation, Ben Harris-Quinney chairman of The Bow Group and Alex Wickham from the Guido Fawkes blog.
With so much UKIP/right wing influence, Breitbart London has become the voice of UKIP on the internet. It’s just not a voice I would want to pay any attention to.
Greg Lance - Watkins (Greg_L-W)
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