European Farmer Rallies – Far Right Parties – Murdoch – Right Wing Media – Atlas Koch Network – Think Tanks – Putin versus EU – Taxes – Regulation

Interesting article on farmers’ rallies and how Hungarian PM Orban is supporting in their opposition to EU, environmental laws, CAP, competition and taxes, including on fossil fuels, while like others in Poland etc. there’s a whiff of Putin and Russia in the background.

Much of this is confected, in some cases farmers complaining of outsiders taking over and being used for media content, to nudge against the EU, taxes, fossil fuels, environmental laws, science and regulation.

No coincidence that it reflects techniques used in the global anti-Covid lock down and mandate rallies promoted by Atlas Koch Network, also behind Brexit vs. EU; in Australia clear links between Koch think tanks and Murdoch media targeting centrist government e.g. Victorian State Labor government was constantly attacked and dog whistled.

Confected and faux populism of the right to denigrate supranational bodies, liberal democracy, empower youth or working age, science, education, regulation and taxes; see Tea Party movement in the US. 

According to Politico, Orban’s now has plans to influence the EU from the inside, as a majority of EU citizens, including Hungarians, support the EU; developing a Trojan horse to attack the EU from within, on behalf of external agents who also supported Brexit.

‘Orbán-backed Think Tank Courts Farmers Linked to Far Right Ahead of EU Poll

Hardline groups planning June protests accused the EU of “deliberately exterminating its own farmers” at the MCC Brussels event.

By Marta Kasztelan, Clare Carlile and Joey Grostern on May 2, 2024 @ 06:02 PDT

An oil-funded think tank backed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is involved in organising widespread farmer protests in the run-up to the EU elections, DeSmog can reveal.

Hardline farming groups pledged to “sweep away” EU decision-makers at a “lunch and discussion” event, which was hosted by MCC Brussels on April 9.

The think tank is an offshoot of Mathias Corvinus Collegium – an educational institution that in 2020 received more than $1.3 billion in Hungarian state funding. It convened a number of far-right linked farming groups from 10 EU countries in the Belgian capital.

Speakers at the meeting included the hardline Dutch organisation Farmers’ Defence Force (FDF), which hit out at EU environmental and trade policy.

Spokesperson Sieta van Keimpema accused the EU Commission of “deliberately exterminating its own farmers and its own food production”.

She told the audience at the “eco-friendly” Thon Hotel EU that their movement would “take a broom and sweep them away from their Brussels homes, sweep them away from the 6th to the 9th [of June]”.

The group hopes to rally 100,000 people to attend protests on June 4, in what it sees as a critical moment to influence voters. The demonstration would be the culmination of a wave of Europe-wide protests by farmers, which have triggered an unprecedented rollback of environmental measures.

The protest is backed by organisations from Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Spain, according to FDF’s press release.

MCC, which also hosted the controversial “hard-right” NatCon conference in April, has ramped up its hostility to EU-led green farming reforms over the past six months. It is a newcomer to the farming debate, first publicly declaring support for the cause last summer, months before widespread protests that saw tractors block roads in countries across the continent earlier this year.

A report from the Financial Times in February suggested that the think tank had organised farmers demonstrations in January, though it did not name the group directly. An event on the MCC Brussels website appears to corroborate this, inviting farmers to attend a protest on January 24 against “the EU’s overzealous green policies” followed by networking drinks.

Cas Mudde, a professor specialising in the populist radical right at University of Georgia, says MCC Brussels’ support of protests fits with the eurosceptic agenda of Orbán, whose political director chairs the think tank’s parent group.

“The far-right in general, and Orbán in particular, has a strategic reason for supporting the radical farmers in Brussels,” Mudde told DeSmog. “They create the public image of chaos and dissatisfaction with the EU, which helps their anti-EU message for the European election campaign.”

MCC, the parent organisation for MCC Brussels, was contacted for comment prior to publication. MCC Brussels was contacted immediately after publication of the article but has yet to offer a comment.

‘Much More Radical’

Farmers have clashed with police and lit fires outside EU buildings in Brussels in a spate of demonstrations in the past four months. While farmers have protested against an anticipated surge in bureaucracy from proposed green laws, complaints also focused on low prices at the farm gate and lack of protection against increasingly extreme weather. 

The protests have led to the weakening of proposed environmental reforms that were aimed at reducing climate impacts from agriculture, which is responsible for 11 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU.

Led by the right-wing European People’s Party, the EU’s largest political grouping, MEPs last week voted to weaken the majority of sustainability requirements for farmers in return for EU CAP subsidies. 

In some cases, far-right groups have hijacked protests, with authorities in Germany warning that groups there could even be using farmers to trigger an “overthrow” of the government. 

Far-right parties are expected to make major wins at the upcoming EU ballot, riding on rural discontent. 

Speakers at the April 9 event included Thomas Fazi, an author and researcher for MCC Brussels who has criticised the “great net zero lie” and spread conspiracy theories about the World Economic Forum attempting to control the food system through environmental laws. In his address, Fazi praised the farmers protests and warned against the EU’s “decades-long attack on Europe’s small-farming model”, urging farmers to be “much more radical in their analysis and demands”.

Fazi did not respond to DeSmog’s requests for comment. 

Far-Right Attendance

The Brussels discussion was followed by an invitation to a separate meeting held by farmers and a reception in the EU Parliament.

Although a full list of attendees was not made public, YouTube video footage and images posted on social media show that a number of key far-right figureheads participated in the MCC event.

Alongside Fazi, speakers included van Keimpema from Farmers’ Defence Force, who ran as a candidate for the Netherlands’ fringe far-right party Belang van Nederland last year. She told the event: “They are killing farmers and food production, slowly but surely, through land grabbing.” 

In 2019, van Keimpema warned of a “civil war” between farmers and the Dutch government over environmental measures. In a post on X in February, she dismissed climate warnings as “hysterical disaster and fear-mongering”. 

Farmers Defence Force, which was formed in 2019 to oppose animal rights activists, played a key role in protesting the country’s plans to buy out cattle farms in order to address the Netherland’s nitrogen pollution crisis. Its members have been criticised for aggressive tactics such as harassing journalists and intimidating environmental activists. 

The group described the MCC Brussels gathering as “a hopeful day”. In a press release issued after the meeting, it called on the “warriors” to “defend companies and families against the EU Commission’s demolition policy. Together. On June 4.”

Speaking on behalf of FDF, Van Keimpema told DeSmog that the group was not involved in organising any “media meetings” but had been invited as a speaker to the MCC event.

“We accepted, just as we accept invitations to speak at government meetings, TV programmes, papers, universities, schools, political and scientific events and in parliaments, from left to right politically,” she said. 

Van Keimpema added that their quotes had been “taken out of context”.

Another attendee, dairy farmer Bart Dickens from the Belgian Farmers Defence Force, told the Brussels meeting that the only way to win the EU’s “war on farming” was for farmers across Europe to “fight together”. The group, which was formed in 2023, claims to be independent but previously received funding from its Dutch counterpart.

A number of other far-right linked farmers groups were also present at the Brussels meeting.

A member of France’s Coordination Rurale, which has strong links to the country’s National Front party, was photographed outside the hotel in the group’s signature yellow beret. Also present were members of Germany’s hardline farming group Land Schafft Verbindung (LSV). At least one LSV member has had past ties to the neo-Nazi group NDP, now called Die Heimat.

Spain’s Plataforma 6-F, which was set up by a former affiliate of populist party Vox, are also reported to be taking part in the June 4 protests (although their presence at the MCC event is unknown).

“European farmers have made their voices heard and rattled, potentially even panicked, the institutions of the European Union,” MCC Brussels said on its webpage for the event.

DeSmog identified other far-right politicians in attendance. Front-row seats were held by Patricia Chagnon-Clevers, member of the European Parliament from France’s National Rally (formerly National Front) party, who posted on X that she was “delighted to participate”, and Hermann Kelly, leader of the Irish Freedom Party, which campaigns for Ireland to leave the EU.

The Farmers Defence Force has so far raised over €11,000 euros of a €50,000 euro target for the June protests. The group told news website Euractiv that it hoped the demonstrations would “make people aware of the possibility to vote for a different future” at the EU elections. 

‘War on Farming’

MCC Brussels is widely understood as part of Orbán’s plan to reshape the politics of the continent. The autocrat Orbán – who is in his fifth term as Hungry’s leader – is a major critic of the European Union, and recently declared plans to “occupy” Brussels and put a far-right stamp on policies around migration, climate and gender.

In 2020, the Hungarian government gifted the parent of the think tank, Mathias Corvinus Collegium, 10 percent stakes in the oil and gas giant MOL and in the pharmaceutical firm Gedeon Richter – two of the country’s three most valuable companies. It also provided more than $460 million in cash and $9 million in property. 

The Collegium – which models itself as an educational institute – made $65 million in dividends from the oil company in 2022.

MCC Brussels claims to be a long-term supporter of farmers, who it says have been targeted by “left-wing” green reforms. However, it only began publicly posting about the issue last year.

In a report issued in November titled “The Silent War on Farming: How EU policies are destroying our agriculture”, MCC claimed that the EU was “at war with its own farmers” and accused the bloc of “an environmentalist crusade”.

On an event page for a farmer demonstration and networking event hosted by MCC Brussels in January, the think tank stated: “the fortunes of farmers across Europe suffer from a common problem: the EU’s overzealous green policies and disinterest in, if not disdain for, farmers and ordinary people living in rural communities.”

In the last five years the EU has attempted to curb the polluting impacts of the agriculture industry, which has contributed to sharp decline in bird and bee populations across the bloc. The last Commission tabled a package of farming measures including cuts to pesticide use and steps to protect ecosystems on farmland – proposals which more than 6,000 scientists dubbed “cornerstones of food security and human health” in an open letter last year.

Orbán has embraced the farmers’ protests. In January 2024, his official X account posted a video of him at the demonstrations, accompanied by the words, “We will stand up for the voice of the people! Even if the bureaucrats in Brussels blackmail us.” The following month, his ruling Fidesz party posted a video on Facebook which also used the farmers’ protests to promote opposition to the EU.

“Orbán has carefully crafted his profile as a defender of large scale agriculture,” Balša Lubarda from DAMAR Research Institute, an expert in the far right and sustainability, told DeSmog. 

“The farmers’ protests seem to be an easy opportunity for Orbán to entrench his populist position as ‘the defender of the people against the climate elites’, which will most certainly bring votes.”

The organisations referenced in the article were approached for comment and had not responded prior to publication.

Additional research and reporting by Laura Villadiego, Coen Ramaer, Katharina Wecker and Rachel Sherrington

Editing by Phoebe Cooke and Hazel Healy

Update

Friday 3 May at 2:45pm. We updated the article to clarify that MCC Brussels were contacted immediately after the article was published. Its parent company MCC was contacted prior to publication.’

For more blogs and articles Ageing Democracy, Climate Change, Environment, EU European Union, Fossil Fuel Pollution, Koch Network, Political Strategy, Populist Politics, Russia and White Nationalism click through

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Posted on January 18, 2019

Liberal democracies in western world need to make sure they do not become populist gerontocracies with changing demographics creating elderly ‘Gerrymandering’ where influence and numbers of older voters (with short term horizons) increasing proportionally over younger generations with longer term interests but less voice and influence.

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Posted on November 5, 2021

Plato noted more than 2000 years ago, one of the greatest dangers for democracy is that ordinary people are all too easily swayed by the emotional and deceptive rhetoric of ambitious politicians. We have observed the Anglosphere including the U.K., Australia and U.S., becoming more nativist, conservative, libertarian, extreme and conspiracy minded.  This is not organic.

French Farmers, Truckers and Covid Freedom Rallies Astroturfing vs. Science, Environment and EU European Union?

Posted on March 5, 2024

Farmers protesting in France and probably elsewhere are more about astroturfing by Big Ag to oppose the EU European’s Union Green Agenda, threats to CAP Common Agricultural Policy, pesticides and fossil fuels; does not seem to be a genuine issue of small farmers especially with indirect support of Le Pen?

Further, not only have similar protests occurred on the border of Poland and Ukraine, and other points, with allegations of Russian influence, there seems to be resonance with the US fossil fuel Koch Network ‘freedom rallies’ globally against Covid science, vaccinations and health mandates vs. centrist governments.

Heritage Foundation – Danube Institute – Trump – Hungarian PM Orban – Atlas – Koch Network – Conservatives

Posted on March 18, 2024

The Heritage Foundation has attracted attention of writer Michel in a The New Republic article below for Trump’s admiration of Hungarian PM Orban and how it has become more far right and extreme e.g. anti-Ukraine sentiments.

Additionally, the linked Danube Institute in Hungary is led by former Thatcher aide John O’Sullivan and European contributor for Australian conservative journal Quadrant.

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

Posted on October 19, 2022

Many nations, at least in the Anglosphere, have experienced disinformation whether related to climate science or fossil fuels, Covid science, education or democracy, and of late witnessed ‘Trussonomics’ in the UK, another version of Buchanan’s ‘Kochonomics’ or ‘radical right libertarian’ ideology.

However, where does this disinformation come from?

According to historian Nancy Maclean it’s a ‘deny and delay’ strategy of Koch Bros. or Koch Network which includes astroturfing, ‘Dark Money’, creating research, gerrymandering, SLAPPs, universities, Christians and conservatives.

Conspiracy of Denial – COVID-19 and Climate Science

Posted on August 24, 2020

Some would not be surprised with the doubts and confusion being created round the COVID-19 crisis, especially by those wanting all economic activity to continue and ignore the human costs. 

However, much of this agitprop, astro-turfing and junk science used by non experts has much in common with the information, media and political techniques used by radical right libertarian think tanks funded by the fossil fuel sector and related media, to influence society on climate science to avoid constraints and preserve income streams, with some eugenics in the background.

Russia and Anglosphere – Conservatives and Oligarchs – War vs EU and Future

Posted on July 26, 2023

Very good insight into and overview of Putin’s Russia and the ‘west’ including the Anglosphere from Alexander Etkin (CEU Wien) in Russia’s War Against Modernity.

Following are significant excerpts from Etkind’s analysis from reviewer at Inside Story (Australia) Jon Richardson, on how it endeavours to explain Russia, and one would add many other nations too, mirroring the radical right or corrupt nativist authoritarians with support from fossil fuels & industry oligarchs, consolidated right wing media, think tanks and leveraging ageing electorates.

Mont Pelerin Society MPS – Social Darwinism – Free Market Economics – Atlas Koch Network

The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) another fulcrum of influence for radical right libertarians, climate science deniers and fossil fuels, the less than 1% and Austrian-Chicago School of social-Darwinist economics, with its influence continuing via Atlas or Koch Network and ultra conservatives.

MPS has been behind and influenced a network of think tanks globally via Atlas or Koch to promote climate science denial, fossil fuels, deregulation or lower standards etc. then leveraging right wing media, influencers, advisors and politicians to adopt the same policies, see ‘bill mill’ ALEC.

Members allegedly have included Charles Koch, and supported by notables including Murdochs, Evangelical Christian and related donors, with the GOP Republicans adopting MPS and John Birch Society ideas, themes and actions for Project 2025, being developed with Heritage Foundation support.

Like members of IEA Institute of Economic Affairs and MPS, ‘segregation economist’ James Buchanan, the economic muse of Charles Koch, Atlas and Koch Network.

Objective, beyond low tax, small government and light regulation appears to be implementing a permanent social-Darwinist ideology used to justify corrupt nativist Christian authoritarianism in the Anglosphere, west, Russia and developing world, for the less than 1%?

‘DeSmog:

The Mont Pelerin Society MPS

Background

The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) was created in 1947 by the free market economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek and advocates “classical liberalism,” an ideology classified by small government and minimal regulation of business. It was named after the location of the group’s first meeting in Switzerland, and the group’s subsequent annual meetings have spanned the globe including Galapagos Islands, Prague (former Czech president Vaclav Klaus is a member), New York, Morocco, Tokyo, Sydney, Buenos Aires, and Stockholm. American economist Milton Friedman was also one of the founding members of the Society….

….. Antony Fisher, a former Mont Pelerin Society Member, established both the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in Europe, and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. IEA’s other co-founder, Arthur Seldon, was formerly vice president of the MPS.

The Atlas Society, not to be confused with the Atlas Network, also includes individuals with affiliations to MPS. According to DeSmog research, Mont Pelerin members have ties to a wide range of conservative think tanks, many which have consistently denied the human influence on climate change. Some of the top groups tied to MPS through affiliations of its members include the Cato Institute, The Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the Reason Foundation, the Foundation for Economic Education, the American Enterprise Institute, the Centre for the New Europe, George Mason University, Fraser Institute, Mercatus Center (George Mason University), and the Heartland Institute.

Membership lists obtained by DeSmog dating to 2010 and, more recently, 2013 show that organizations represented by the MPS have deep ties to the Koch network. Charles Koch himself is a long-standing member of the Society. DeSmog dug into individual member affiliations, and found that Koch foundations have poured more than $100 million into at least 54 groups connected to individual MPS members.

Stance on Climate Change

Some sources have connected the proliferation of climate change denial organizations and think tanks with neoliberalism. A 2013 issue of the not-for-profit magazine Overland put it as follows:

“Neoliberalism is a coherent political movement embodied in the institutional history of the global network of think tanks: the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Institute of Public Affairs (the key Australian node of the network) and their dedicated spin-off counter-science think tanks. All can be traced back to the Mont Pelerin Society, the central think tank of the neoliberal counter-revolution, founded in 1947 by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.”

Overland also equates the tactics of climate science denialism with that of the tobacco industry.

“Each component of the neoliberal response is firmly grounded in neoliberal economic doctrine and has its own special function. Similar to the strategies of tobacco companies, science denialism is intended to quash immediate impulses to respond to the crisis, thus buying time for commercial interests to find a way to profit. The think tanks behind the denial of climate change don’t seriously believe they will, in the long run, win the war of ideas within academic science. But bashing pointy-headed elites lends them a certain populist cachet, while protecting the commercial interests of the oil companies, coal miners and gas drillers.

The project to institute markets in emission permits is a neoliberal mid-range strategy, better attuned to appeal to centrist governments, NGOs and the educated segments of the populace, as well as to the financial sector. […]”

Writing at DeSmog, Graham Readfearn has noted that the Mont Pelerin Society has long been home to some of the most ardent supporters of climate change denial……

Continues here.’

For more related blogs and articles on Australian Politics, Climate Change, Conservative, Economics, Environment, Fossil Fuel Pollution, Koch Network, Libertarian Economics, Political Strategy and Radical Right Libertarians click through:

Adam Smith – Classical Liberal Economics or Conservative Calvinist Christianity or White Christian Nationalism?

Posted on June 21, 2021

We observe many governments, especially Anglosphere and conservative, following the ideology of Adam Smith, promoted through Koch linked think tanks, assiduously. The outcomes include less Keynesian influence on government policy and more Smith, or Hayek, Friedman and Buchanan.

The latter cite ‘freedom and liberty’ for society, and economic policies based round ‘public choice theory’, monetarism and small government. Related there is also much emphasis or attention paid to elections, taxes, government budgets and many sociocultural issues including impairment of workers and unions rights, interfering on university campuses, demanding immigration restrictions, ‘freedom of speech’ and using Christianity as a divisive issue to create an ageing conservative voter coalition, especially in the USA.

CPAC Conservative Political Action Conference and the John Birch Society

Posted on March 14, 2024

CPAC US has been in the news for falling audiences and fallings out between different groups and players, while CPAC Hungary will be held 25-26th April in Budapest.

Recently both The Atlantic and SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center have highlighted the links between CPAC and the anti-communist John Birch Society, founded by Robert Welch, with assistance from others including Fred Koch.

Anglosphere Nativist Libertarian Social Economic Policies or Return of Eugenics?

Posted on October 28, 2022

In the past decade we have witnessed a political shift to the nativist and libertarian right in the Anglosphere, but described as ‘conservative’, appealing to the important above median age voter, less educated, more socially conservative, obedient and monocultural, but e.g. in UK leading to austerity measures?

Most of these ideas come from the classical or liberal economists of the past including Calvin, Smith, Ricardo et al. and also includes old eugenics based ideas of dour Christian men like Malthus on population, Galton on social Darwinism or eugenics, and worse, Madison Grant in the US who influenced Hitler.

Ghosts of Galton and Eugenics Return – Society, Population and Environment in the 21st Century

Posted on November 25, 2021

We have already looked at some other key players of the past related to eugenics, population via Malthus and liberal economics of Adam Smith, now we look at Galton, if not in detail, a broad sketch of his life and later impact on society, especially in the Anglosphere.

This has been exemplified by how eugenics theory never went away, even after the Nazis post WWII, but reemerged via the US using an environmental and climate prism, with a focus upon Malthusian population obsessions; supported by ZPG, UNPD data, Anglosphere media and think tanks to avoid regulation and business constraints, while encouraging xenophobia.

CPAC Conservative Political Action Conference and the John Birch Society

Posted on March 14, 2024

CPAC US has been in the news for falling audiences and fallings out between different groups and players, while CPAC Hungary will be held 25-26th April in Budapest.

Recently both The Atlantic and SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center have highlighted the links between CPAC and the anti-communist John Birch Society, founded by Robert Welch, with assistance from others including Fred Koch.

Anglosphere Oligarchs – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

Posted on March 27, 2023

We have heard much of supposed ‘libertarian’ think tanks or PR outfits in the Anglosphere influencing policy, especially of the right, via media and lobbying, euphemistically known as ‘Koch Network’ or the ‘Kochtopus’ with a fondness for fossil fuels and climate science denial.

New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer investigated several years ago for her book ‘Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right’ (2017) which included insight into oligarch donors Mellon-Scaife, Olin, Bradley, DeVos and Coors.

Further, historian Nancy MacLean in researching her book ‘Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America’ (2017) she stumbled across the economic muse of Kochs, ‘segregation economist’ James Buchanan.

Right Wing Anglosphere – White Nativist Demographic Talking Points – Population – Immigration – International Education

Disjointed analysis in Murdoch’s NewsCorp media across multiple (often seemingly unrelated) factors, bypassing data analysis principles according to Statistics 101 and ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics advice on using the NOM net overseas migration formula, that feeds into estimated resident population headline data; misdescribed as undefined ‘immigration’.

However… 2006, the NOM was inflated, follows the fossil fuel climate science denial techniques used to misrepresent and denigrate climate science research by misinterpreting data, claiming non existent correlations etc. and in the media shooting messengers or centrist government. 

Using a right wing ‘wedge’ and foil to the criticism directed at fossil fuels in Anglosphere, plus parts of Europe, informed by former ZPG Zero Population Growth white nativist Tanton Network. In the US it shares donors with Koch Network think tanks behind the GOP Republican Party and Trump, Bannon, Miller and FoxNews border obsessions including climate science denial; ditto the same networks in the U.K. Tories, UKIP/Reform, Farage, Anderson and GB News for Brexit.

Unvoiced or silent objective? Corrupt white nativist authoritarian autarky like 1930s Italy and Germany, or 19th century America of planters, master servant relationships and ‘segregation economics’, informed by the eugenics movement and the Mont Pelerin Society?

‘From NewsCom:

‘Simply too high’: Australia nearing crucial immigration ‘peak

Aussies have been warned that a current crisis plaguing the country could become “permanent”.

Leith van Onselen

‘ANALYSIS’

Last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the official population statistics for the September quarter of 2023, which revealed that Australia’s population grew by an unprecedented 660,000 people over the year, driven by record net overseas migration (NOM) of 549,000.

In percentage terms, Australia’s population grew by 2.5 per cent, the nation’s fastest growth rate since 1952, during the post-war migration boom.

(No, this defies both direct ABS advice and Statistics 101, NOM definition changed in 2006, cannot compare before and after

Graph from MacroBusiness misrepresents data by ignoring the 2006 expansion and running NOM (red line) uninterrupted from 1900 through 2006 to focus on present and temporary ‘data noise’, described as ‘immigration’.

‘23 Estimates of NOM based on the previous methods and those based on the ‘12/16 month rule’ methodology are not comparable. The key change is the introduction of the ‘12/16 month rule’ for measuring a person’s residency in Australia, replacing the previous ‘12/12 month rule’.’ ABS Explanatory Notes.)

Meanwhile, Australia’s natural population increase was a historically low 111,000 in the year to September 2023, courtesy of a jump in deaths, most likely related to the Baby Boomers beginning to die off and the impacts of the pandemic.

As a result, NOM as a share of Australia’s population increase remained at a record high of 83 per cent in the September quarter of 2023.

Separate annual data released by the ABS for the 2022-23 financial year showed that Australia’s capital cities grew by an unprecedented 517,000 in the year to 30 June 2023.

Melbourne (167,500) led the nation’s population growth last year, followed by Sydney (146,700).

The ABS’ monthly permanent and long-term arrivals data provide a useful proxy for the official quarterly NOM.

Annual net permanent and long-term arrivals hit a record high in January, suggesting that Australia’s official NOM and population growth would have increased further in the December quarter of 2023.

In its December Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Update (MYEFO), the Albanese government forecast that Australia’s NOM would fall to 375,000 this financial year, which would represent the second-highest annual NOM in Australia’s history.

However, given the acceleration of NOM in the September quarter and the stronger-than-anticipated net permanent and long-term arrivals numbers to January, Australia should expect significantly higher NOM this financial year than the government’s forecast.

The good news is that visa data suggests that NOM is at or near its peak.

According to the ABS, there were 402,000 net visa arrivals (excluding visitors) in the year to February 2024, down from a recent peak of 503,000.

This decline in visa arrivals has been driven by foreign students, which fell to 221,000 in the year to February, down from a recent peak of 294,000.

Australian renters are being smashed (source or evidence?)

The migration surge’s impact on the nation’s rental market has been particularly severe since the population boom occurred alongside the collapse in dwelling construction to decade-lows.

According to the ABS, Australia added only 155,600 homes (net of demolitions) to the nation’s dwelling stock in the year to September 2023, against a population increase of 660,000.

Therefore, Australia added only one new home for every 4.24 new residents. This explains why the nation’s rental vacancy rate has collapsed to a record low of around one per cent.

(No evidence simply talking points while ignoring the more unique housing types and requirements of international students and diversity of supply versus first home buyer and families)

Reflecting this demand-supply imbalance, median asking rents across Australia have soared by 38 per cent since the beginning of the pandemic, according to PropTrack, with almost all of this growth occurring after the federal government opened the international border to migration in late 2021.

With Australia’s net overseas migration and population growth to remain historically high for the foreseeable future, and the rate of dwelling construction expected to continue falling, the housing situation will remain fraught.

As a result, Australian tenants should prepare for further tightening of the rental market and ongoing strong rental inflation.

Australia needs a smaller and better-targeted immigration system

Few people would disagree that Australia’s immigration numbers are too high.

While migrants undoubtedly fill important labour market gaps across the economy, the sheer volume of arrivals has placed chronic pressure on the housing market and the nation’s infrastructure.

(No evidence, infrastructure requires healthy budgets from taxes plus skilled personnel and especially skilled migrants; clear issue in regions with population ageing and decline)  

A report released this month by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) showed that “recent migrants earn significantly less than Australian-born workers” (because they are not ‘migrants’ but international student, on low income?) and that “migrants have become increasingly likely to work in lower productivity firms”, earning more than 10 per cent less than Australian-born workers on average.

The CEDA report also showed that the unemployment rates of recent skilled migrants are higher than Australian-born workers.

CEDA’s findings are supported by the latest Graduate Outcomes Survey, which shows that international graduate employment rates, participation rates, and median salaries are well below those of domestic graduates.

(What if the other way round, then there would be complaints that domestic graduates are being usurped by international students in graduate employment?)

Research released in November 2023 by independent economist Gerard Minack showed that Australia’s 8.2 million population increase this century has outpaced the provision of business investment, infrastructure and housing, resulting in what economists call “capital shallowing” and reduced productivity growth.

“Australia’s economic performance in the decade before the pandemic was, on many measures, the worst in 60 years”, Minack wrote in his November report.

“Per capita GDP growth was low, productivity growth tepid, real wages were stagnant, and housing increasingly unaffordable. There were many reasons for the mess, but the most important was a giant capital-to-labour switch: Australia relied on increasing labour supply, rather than increasing investment, to drive growth.

“Australia’s population-led growth model was a demonstrable failure in the 15 years prior to the pandemic. Remarkably, the country now seems to be doubling down on the same strategy. The result, unsurprisingly, is likely to be more of the same.”

(No, wrong as our population was inflated by the NOM expansion in 2006 sweeping up international students who study and work part time, i.e. low income, hence, averaging or per capita does not reflect this).

To add further insult to injury, data compiled by the Grattan Institute shows that a significantly smaller share of migrants work in the construction sector than their Australian-born counterparts.

“About 32 per cent of Australian workers were foreign born, but only about 24 per cent of workers in building and construction were born overseas”, the Grattan Institute wrote in January.

“And very few recent migrants work in construction. Migrants who arrived in Australia less than five years ago account for just 2.8 per cent of the construction workforce, but account for 4.4 per cent of all workers in Australia”.

Therefore, Australia’s immigration system is directly adding to Australia’s housing and productivity problems in two ways.

First, immigration volumes are simply too high, overwhelming the supply side of the economy. 

(No, there is no optimum number but demographic balance for a youngish population, while international students spike data via the NOM, but described as ‘immigrants’ vs. far larger ageing baby boomer bomb)

Second, the migration system is poorly targeted and does not provide the skills the economy needs.

(Evidence?)

The fact that the nation’s population has ballooned by 8.2 million people (44 per cent) this century alone, yet Australia’s skills shortages are worse than ever, is empirical evidence of these facts.

(No, it’s higher churn over as many of those originals were temporary, and are no longer resident in Australia; where is the evidence of skills shortages being worse due to immigrants?)

Australia, therefore, needs a migration system that is much smaller in size and better targeted towards the skills we need.

(Opinion or motherhood statement lacking specifics)

Australia’s migration system must be calibrated to a level below the nation’s ability to supply homes, infrastructure, and business investment while safeguarding the natural environment (including water supplies).

(Opinion or Motherhood statement lacking specifics) 

Otherwise, Australia’s housing shortage will become permanent, and productivity growth and living standards will flounder.

(No, if a shortage why have Sydney house values stagnated for past decade i.e. price only doubled?)’

Leith van Onselen is co-founder of MacroBusiness.com.au and Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.

For more blogs and articles on Australian Immigration News, Australian Politics, Demography, International Education, Media, Tanton Network and White Nationalism click through:

Australian Bureau of Statistics – UNPD NOM Net Overseas Migration Formula – Inflating Immigration and Population Growth

Posted on March 25, 2024

One has written previously on the wilful confusion around immigration and population data used for demographic analysis in the Anglosphere, also to dog whistle refugees, immigrants and population growth.

However, requires the misrepresenting of data and research using climate science denial techniques used by entities linked to both Tanton Network and Koch Network, deflecting from carbon or fossil fuels and promoting eugenics; in Australia and US using proxies to replicate previous race based immigration restrictions.

Anglosphere Antipathy To Refugees, Immigrants and Sovereign Nations – White Nativism, Autocracy and Eugenics

Posted on March 11, 2024

Late news is that the former Labour MP, then Conservative MP and now Reform, Lee Anderson, has quite xenophobic views on both foreigners and fellow citizens, the new normal that is being actively promoted?

Repost from ByLine Times of AC Grayling article on Anglo, western and other nations negative attitudes that lack empathy, shared experience or understanding of refugees, asylum seekers and immigration history.

Nowadays with above median age voter dominated by less educated, less diverse, low info and more often regional voter, they are targeted by right wing nativist or white nationalist talking points for suboptimal outcomes e.g. Brexit, Trump, The Voice and those demanding no support for Ukraine vs. Russia’s invasion or ‘special operation’.

Mainstreaming of the Far Right

Posted on January 2, 2024

The far right did not emerge from a vacuum, but ignorance of the history of eugenics, authority, slavery, colonialism, Nazi Germany and post WWII, white nativists, especially in the US, and nowadays ageing democracies and right wing media which adopt the same.

Both Malthus and Galton are central to narratives around population control, identity and eugenics, with strong undercurrent of socio-Darwinism. By post WWI eugenics became a major area of research, not just in Germany via Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, but the US too with slavery, Madison Grant and AES American Eugenics Society.

Due to the holocaust and Nazis treatment of Jews, Gypsies and minorities, including the ‘left’ i.e. being exterminated, eugenics had to be rebranded post WWII as a quasi ‘environmental’ movement, with strong support of same fossil fuel Rockefellers (Standard Oil & Exxon) and auto oligarchs (Fiat & VW) via Club of Rome and ZPG Zero Population Growth. 

Environment – Fossil Fuels – Climate Science Denial – Populationism – Anti-Immigration – Far Right – Tanton Network

Posted on November 30, 2023

Jeff Sparrow in Overland rebuts a counter critique of his book ‘Crimes Against Nature’ by a faux expert Edward Smith who appears to be au faire with faux environmental and anti-immigrant arguments promoted by the US Tanton Network linked NGO Sustainable Population Australia.

One would not bother using high level analysis to rebut low level faux science nativist agitprop inspired by former ZPG Zero Population Growth types, namely deceased white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton whose colleague was Paul ‘Population Bomb’ Ehrlich, with support from the Rockefeller Bros., ‘limits to growth’ PR constructs promoted by Club of Rome and drawing on Malthus, Galton and Madison Grant.

However, it does show some of the influence that proponents aspire to, whether in media, NGOs, think tanks or politics, constantly reinforce old nativist and white Australia policy tropes masquerading as environmental science, greenwashing both fossil fuels or carbon emissions and eugenics; targets old white Australia sentiments and younger mistaking the movement and proponents as experts.

Australian Migration Review 2023 – For Immigrants and Nation or a Nativist Trap?

Posted on May 10, 2023

The Australian Migration Review Report has been published, based on narratives and submissions, but little meaningful grass roots feedback or data to support any grounded analysis for good future reforms?

This post will focus on NOM Net Overseas Migration and major source or factor i.e. international education and students, but for now, not the other main factors including WHV Working Holiday Visas (2nd year) and temporary workers.

There are generic review report issues e.g. lack of direct support for many narratives and recommendations, does not explain budget issues of ageing i.e. more low or no tax payers in retirement as baby boomer bubble transitions vs. decline in working age cohort of PAYE taxpayers, to support more Australian retirees.

Immigration to Australia – More Opportunities for Temporary Residents?

Posted on March 7, 202

Interesting analysis from Grattan Institute in Melbourne on how to improve Australia’s migration system, especially for temporary entrants. 

However, although one agrees with the broad argument and sentiments, many assumptions and factors cited including the need to make more temporary residents permanent, would require raising, for now, the modest permanent cap, guaranteed to kick off a negative media campaign.

Further, one thinks it overestimates the desire for ‘temporary migrants’, caught under the ‘nebulous’ (Ian Dunt UK) NOM net overseas migration, to remain in Australia permanently after studies, travel, work etc.?

Tanton Network Migration Watch UK criticised for misleading UK immigration reports.

How Conservatives Admire Corrupt Dictators and Authoritarians – Trump and Putin

Article from Michel in TNR The New Republic on the right’s obsession with, respect and desire for authoritarians and dictators, even if corrupt and nativist including Trump and Putin.

While ‘free market’ think tanks, especially US fossil fuel Atlas or Koch Network promote right wing policies for the 1%, and related white nativist Tanton Network entities promote eugenics and the great replacement.

Further, two other central elements include media and ageing citizens; hollowed out legacy media including ‘news deserts’ and now social media being colonised or flooded with far right nativist agitprop to increasing numbers of ageing and/or disadvantaged voters who are less urban, less diverse, less educated and less informed.

Right wing parties, nativists and populists are being used to support both eugenics and corporate friendly policies for the 1% versus 99%, even if against the latter’s interests; see Brexit, Trump and Putin.

From TNR The New Republic:

How the American Right Fell in Love With Dictators, Over and Over Again Trump and Putin are nothing new.

By Casey Michel

For years, an imperialistic, hard-right European dictator unleashing bloodshed across the Continent cultivated supporters across the U.S. This despot claimed he was leading a “unique, anti-Western culture,” and, in so doing, cultivated allies and fellow travelers among conservatives across America, all of whom were disgusted by “corrupt Western liberal values” and who “scorned Western liberalism as a bankrupt ideology.” Nor was this appeal just rhetorical; as investigators later discovered, this right-wing revanchist bankrolled both propaganda efforts and agents on the ground, successfully turning Americans, especially on the right, to his cause.

To modern readers, the story is a familiar one — not least as it pertains to Donald Trump’s affections for Vladimir Putin, to say nothing of how Russian forces have cultivated conservative Americans from Tucker Carlson to the National Rifle Association and beyond. But the aforementioned case has nothing to do with Putin or with Trump. Instead, it took place a century ago, when conservatives across the U.S. flocked to the cause of Germany’s militarist tyrant, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

In so doing, as Jacob Heilbrunn successfully argues in his new book, America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance With Foreign Dictators, they created a blueprint for how foreign dictators even decades later could cultivate conservative communities to their cause — and could, by the early 21st century, help propel one as far as the presidency. The story of the Americans who worshipped Wilhelm is just one of a range of pro-dictatorship efforts that Heilbrunn excavates, threading a century-long conservative infatuation with right-wing dictators. It’s not only a corrective to the voluminous (if also accurate) investigations on how communist tyrannies fostered leftist supporters in the U.S., but also an able — and wildly timely — effort to stitch together nominally disparate views, from different epochs and eras. 

It all adds up to a convincing conclusion: that Trump, in “lavishing praise on Putin and other dictators … wasn’t creating a new style of right-wing politics,” Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest and author of a previously acclaimed book on the history of neoconservatives, writes. “Instead, he was building on a long-standing tradition.”

It’s a tradition that has seen surprisingly little scrutiny, allowing Trump’s treacly fealty to Putin to seem like an aberration. To be sure, there are elements unique to Trump’s personal predilections — not least his history as a luxury real-estate developer, an industry that profited arguably more than any other from the illicit, kleptocratic flows linked to foreign dictators, laundering untold millions of dollars (and potentially more) in the process. Never before could foreign despots so easily, and so effectively, patronize the company of a sitting American president.

But in other far more conspicuous ways, Trump is simply building on a legacy long predating his rise. There were, for instance, the early devotions to the Ur-Fascist himself, Benito Mussolini. Il Duce presented himself not only as a guarantor of order and stability — and a bastion against left-wing forces in Italy and beyond — but as someone who posed “as a defender of whites,” Heilbrunn notes, who prioritized “family values” and who, “in stark contrast to hedonistic America, cherished manliness.” (He also cherished Wall Street with JP Morgan organizing a loan for the Fascist government worth nearly $2 billion in modern currency.) Conservatives in America lapped it up, fêting not only Mussolini but salivating for a similar leader in the U.S. One conservative writer, Irving Babbitt, bleated that circumstances “may arrive when we may esteem ourselves fortunate if we get the American equivalent of a Mussolini; he may be needed to save us from the American equivalent of a Lenin.”

So, too, did plenty of conservative Americans view the rise of Mussolini’s younger brother, ideologically, in Berlin. While the organization of pro-Nazi sympathizers in America has seen more detailed treatments elsewhere, Heilbrunn ropes in other conservatives who freely platformed Adolf Hitler. Germany’s dictator was freely supported by conservatives such as William Randolph Hearst, who “not only admired the Fuhrer, but commissioned him and Mussolini to write for his newspapers for handsome fees.” Later investigations revealed that Hitler’s regime picked up on the kaiser’s previous model, not only covertly funding agents in the U.S. but even slipping pro-Nazi propaganda into official congressional mailings, recruiting some of the U.S.’s most conservative representatives of the time.

The postwar smothering of fascism didn’t seem to slow conservatives’ lust for right-wing strongmen. By the 1960s, the primary home for such reverence was found not necessarily in Washington but in the pages of National Review, where founder William F. Buckley and his claque of writers apparently never found a hard-right despot they couldn’t support. There was Spain’s Francisco Franco, whom Buckley dubbed an “authentic national hero,” Heilbrunn writes. There was Portugal’s Antonio Salazar, who wrote in the magazine that he was “fighting for Western civilization and Christian values.” There was Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, whom Buckley viewed as a “bona fide leader who knew how to exercise power.” (After Pinochet used a car bomb to assassinate a political opponent in Washington, D.C., Chilean officials turned directly to Buckley for advice on how to “sanitize Pinochet’s reputation,” for which Buckley happily obliged.)

Soon, though, such sentiments swelled back into the White House. By the Reagan era, American affections for right-wing despots during the late Cold War blossomed into official policy. The architect for such fondness was Reagan’s foreign-policy adviser, Jeane Kirkpatrick, who served as an “unabashed defender” of right-wing regimes throughout her tenure. Nor was she picky about the form. Militarists in Argentina, those running death squads in El Salvador, the authors of apartheid in South Africa: Kirkpatrick, with Reagan in tow, succored them all.

But then, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and a few years later, the Soviet Union shattered. America — and liberalism — stood triumphant. Supporting such regimes was suddenly gauche, out of step with this American moment. And the patterns and preferences that propped up American backing of right-wing dictators slunk back into the shadows.

But it never disappeared entirely. As with so much of the paleoconservative architecture of Trumpism — the nativism and the racism, the suspicion of the federal government and the amorality undergirding it all — Heilbrunn identified Pat Buchanan as the figure who kept the flames of such fawning for right-wing dictators alive. Not only did Buchanan refer to leaders like Hitler as “an individual of great courage,” but Buchanan whipped up opposition to American intervention in the Balkans, calling time and again to let Serbian tyrant Slobodan Milosevic have his way and commit genocide.

As Heilbrunn writes, Buchanan — who would later turn his affections toward figures like Putin, even before Trump entered the White House — “longed for a kind of internationalism rooted in those small towns and conservative values and in whiteness, whether in the U.S. or in Serbia or Russia or South Africa or elsewhere.” For years, Buchanan “seemed like a Cassandra,” but as Heilbrunn added, “One prospective candidate for the presidency who picked up on … Buchanan’s unusual history lessons was a loudmouthed Manhattan real estate mogul” — a figure who gave Buchanan’s views the biggest platform yet, carving an entire political movement out of a conservative tradition few Americans had any idea existed.

Thanks to Heilbrunn’s book, however, that confusion is no more. And while the book’s actual writing verges on the overwrought — words like oneiric and pursuivant belong in spelling bees, not mainstream political analysis — Heilbrunn correctly identifies the core of this conservative strain. Trumpists, and those who came before, “are advocating ethno-nationalism in the guise of a set of principles.” Just as the white supremacist Redeemers before them claimed they were simply advocating a restoration of democracy, so, too, do the Herrenvolk reactionaries of the MAGA world claim they’re simply restoring supposed American greatness — and that right-wing despots abroad should be allies in the fight.

If there’s a fault in Heilbrunn’s writing, it’s that there might be too much emphasis on such ideological affinity. After all, dictatorships’ abilities to inflame and inflate American conservative support can’t operate without a latticework of supporters. And as we’ve learned in recent years, those operatives — the lobbyists and the PR specialists, the law firms and the consultancies, the former congressional officials who leave office and immediately transform into mouthpieces for foreign regimes — don’t require any ideological overlap with their despotic clients. All they need is to get paid, and they’ll be happy to transform into foot-soldiers for tyranny.

Just look, for instance, at the network that serviced Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian thug who ruled Ukraine until Kyiv’s democratic revolution a decade ago. There was Paul Manafort, who later became Trump’s 2016 campaign manager. But there was also Tony Podesta, who until the mid-2010s oversaw arguably the leading Democratic lobbying shop in Washington. There was even Tad Devine, who helped Yanukovych grab power in 2010 — and who then steered Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. It was an ideological potpourri, all working at the behest of an autocrat who tried to cement pro-Russian rule in Kyiv — and whose ouster lit a fuse that detonated stability in Europe and that now risks far more devastation.

But that’s all the subject for another book (mine, called Foreign Agents, will be hitting bookshelves in August). In the meantime, Heilbrunn’s analysis of this glorification of right-wing dictatorships is a warning — as if more were needed — of what a potential Trump second term could look like. Whether it’s Putin’s Russia or Orbán’s Hungary, or even the echoes of Wilhelmine Germany, the conclusion is clear: “Aggrieved … by what they perceived as their own society’s failings — its liberalism, its tolerance, its increasing secularism — conservatives have searched for a paradise abroad that can serve as a model of home.” The kaiser would be proud.

For more articles and blogs on Ageing Democracy, Conservative, Demography, Eugenics, Evangelical Christianity, Media, Political Strategy, Radical Right Libertarian, Russia and Younger Generations click through:

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Posted on November 5, 2021

Plato noted more than 2000 years ago, one of the greatest dangers for democracy is that ordinary people are all too easily swayed by the emotional and deceptive rhetoric of ambitious politicians. We have observed the Anglosphere including the U.K., Australia and U.S., becoming more nativist, conservative, libertarian, extreme and conspiracy minded.  This is not organic.

Narcissistic Political Leaders – NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Collective Narcissism – Cognitive Dissonance – Conspiracy Theories – Populism

Posted on April 13, 2022

We have observed the rise of neo authoritarian conservative leaders using nativism and sociocultural issues with media PR support to inform the public, especially voters, suboptimally, including east and west.

However, there are pitfalls for democracy in manipulating access to information by the public or electorate, not just feeding the needs of narcissistic leaders (see article ‘Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons’), but developing societal collective narcissism for populism and electoral advantage aka Brexit, also observed in Hungary, Turkey and Russia.

Nationalist Conservative Political Parties in the Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Ideology and Populism for Votes

Posted on May 31, 2021

Interesting article from CARR reflecting conservative parties across the world dealing with demographic change, and especially the Anglosphere of the UK, US and Australia where they have been beholden to corporate supporters from the old economy i.e. fossil fuels, agriculture and industry including assembly lines and construction.  Nowadays the new economy of Big Tech, innovation, services and government with more educated and empowered citizens is problematic for the Kochs, Murdochs, DeVos, Scaife et al.

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Posted on January 18, 2019

Liberal democracies in western world need to make sure they do not become populist gerontocracies with changing demographics creating elderly ‘Gerrymandering’ where influence and numbers of older voters (with short term horizons) increasing proportionally over younger generations with longer term interests but less voice and influence.

AC Grayling on the Need for more Educated and Informed Citizens

Posted on September 1, 2023

When people question seemingly uninformed voter choices averting their gaze from politicians of the right, right wing media and related who are desperate to keep or put right wing parties in power, by attacking the centre and sensible legislation, why or how?

Across the Anglosphere and Europe many mostly ageing dominant voters, politicians, media and influencers, who are less educated and less diverse than younger generations, backed up by ‘collective narcissism’ and ‘pensioner populism’; see Brexit, Trump, Meloni, Orban et al.

British Young People Thrown Under a Bus for Votes in Ageing Demographics

Posted on September 21, 2023

Relevant article from John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde on how age determines divides in British politics, and not class in Conversation article ‘Age, not class, is now the biggest divide in British politics, new research confirms’.

Radical Right Takeover of Conservatives

Good article on Conservative far right by Claire Jones in the West England ByLine Times; ByLine Times is worth subscribing to.

The ‘new Conservative far right’ may not be ‘new’ when one recognises the themes, talking points, media dynamics and ideology hiding behind; nor is it unique to the U.K., but transnational, even if the roots were centuries ago in the U.K..

Underpinning the right’s strategy and tactics are ageing demographics whereby above median age vote, more likely to be conservative, especially in regions, and dominates the above median age, but often low info or not educated, angry or narcissistic, and less diverse than urban centres as demographic change rolls on. 

Firstly several US fossil fueled Atlas Koch Network think tanks or outlets at Tufton Street, behind media and Tory used in lobbying and PR on preferred policies, are cited especially ‘climate science denial’, low taxes and small government; also behind Brexit and in the US the GOP, FoxNews etc., Donald Trump, and also Argentina, Australia, New Zealand etc..

Further, U.K. media landscape, has been complicated like elsewhere by digital and social media, which was preceded by hollowing out and dilution of regulatory constraints by Murdoch led media, leading to now pro-Brexit and pro-Putin Legatum’s GB News adding to curation of content and promotion of talking points for a more substantive or dominant right wing media landscape.

Many of the nativist, Brexit and anti-immigrant talking points are also imported, though originated with Malthus and Galton, from the network of dec. white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton of ZPG Zero Population Growth and groups lobbying previous GOP leaders, up to advising on Donald Trump’s immigration and border policies.

Although Tanton’s network flies under the radar, their talking points do not, and are personified by Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson, UKIP now Reform, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Marie Le Pen, Hungarian PM Orban, UK Trade Advisor Tony Abbott, Migration Watch etc.

From West England ByLine Times:

Mad, bad and dangerous – the new Conservative far-right

A post-election far-right power grab is looming. In 2024 we have a unique, possibly last, opportunity to prevent it

By Claire Jones 28 February 2024

With a Labour win now allegedly ‘baked in’, it’s fashionable to mock the Conservative Right (or ‘far-right’). But should we?  

The Conservative Right is a loose alliance that includes the Institute for Economic Affairs, (IEA) European Research Group ,  Popular Conservativism, (PopCon), The New Conservatives, The Common Sense Group and National Conservativism.

Notable members are Liz Truss, Jacob Rees Mogg, Suella Braverman, Lee Anderson, Andrea Jenkyns, Miriam Cates and Robert Jenrick. Common alliance themes are euroscepticism, climate scepticism, cultural conservativism, anti-immigration and economic neo-liberalism.

Some use these themes selectively, strategically even, to woo voters. But many, like Jenrick, eraser of children’s murals, are ‘full believers’, wholeheartedly committed to the entire box of ideological tricks.

‘Putting nanny to bed’

Two broad principles underpinning the alliance are libertarianism and  suppression. High on the ideological bucket list for the IEA and PopCon is economic libertarianism: financial deregulation and low taxation in free markets operating unfettered by the ‘nanny state’. 

Undeterred by her cataclysmic experiment with this idea during her brief tenure as PM, Truss recently returned, without shame, to re-present it at PopCon’s inaugural conference.

PopCon and other groups extend libertarianism to individual freedoms. We must be free to make our own choices, unconstrained by the state, they say. Measures to reduce air pollution and increase road safety are deemed an affront to driver freedom. Paying green levies, driving petrol cars, vaping, and overdosing on sugar, etc should all be matters of individual choice. Some regard the Covid lockdowns as a particularly invidious example of state control. Freedom from the nanny state apparently equates with freedom to kill oneself, others and the planet. But libertarians are seemingly untroubled by the ‘death wis’

 accompanying their vision.

Jiggery wokery

While individual liberty is celebrated, wokery requires suppression. ‘Woke’ is an elastic term applied to a diversity of groups:  “left-wing extremists”, “environmentalists”, lawyers (for criticising the Rwanda scheme), civil servants (for ignoring “the peoples’ bidding”), the RNLI (for providing ‘migrant taxis’), the Premier League (for ‘taking a knee’), and the National Trust (for giving imperialism a bad name by providing honest histories of their artefacts). In line with Georgia Meloni, Truss and others also include “supporters of LGBT people”.

But there’s a tension here between libertarianism and repression. Isn’t there a flagrant double-standard in saying we should be free to e.g. pollute the environment, but not to protest about it? That we should unshackle ourselves from the European Court of Human Rights, but tighten government control over our own supreme court?

Truss ‘fixes’ this conundrum by explaining that citizens are made to feel prohibited from speaking out. Militant, purist wokerati are trying to “drown us out” and must therefore be silenced. This ‘solution’ is buttressed by appeal to ‘the will of the people’, a fantasy consensus, concocted to justify populist policies (such as the Rwanda plan). Wokery must be suppressed because it obstructs the freedoms of ‘the majority’.

Getting bolder

The UK Conservative Right echoes the far-right thinking stealing across Europe (the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Greece, Sweden and elsewhere). Opposition to immigration is a shared theme and was the hand, dressed in racist rhetoric, that guided Brexit.

Our mainstream press is traditionally coy about describing Conservative factions as ‘far-right’. But last week, Lee Anderson claimed that “Islamists have got control of Kahn and London”. Oliver Dowden, deputy prime minister, failed to condemn this bald-faced Islamophobia. Instead, he insisted an apology would be sufficient to avoid a penalty, thus neatly priming the political airspace for further racism. Here Anderson and Dowden displayed a striking new boldness that crashed straight past our media barriers, laying bare the Right’s true colours.

With equal verve, Truss, the US far-right’s latest useful idiot, gave a presentation last week at CPAC in which the mask of Conservative moderation vapourised in the heat of MAGA enthusiasm. With cult-grade paranoia, she railed against “agents of the left”, including trans activists, whom she accused of infiltrating the civil service. On she ploughed, attacking the deep state “wokeonomics” that had thwarted her premiership, and calling for anti-woke Conservatives to unite globally.

And this is happening. The UK Conservative Right is strengthening its links with global far-right networks via mediators such as Truss, Farage and Steve Bannon, via the party’s numerous other Trump apologists, who deploy tactics straight from the Trump playbook, and via an increase in new far-right press and media channels. GB news founder, Sir Paul Marshall, a ‘liker’ of tweets supporting the ‘great replacement theory’ and expulsions of “fake refugee invaders”, is now a prospective purchaser of the Daily Telegraph. Our centre-ground commentariat expresses its revulsion but the network-building continues.

Mad as a box of frogs?

The Conservative Party is in for a hammering at the next election, with many of its right-wing MPs poised to lose their seats. So, why worry? Can’t we just sit back and enjoy the spectacle of a bunch of crackpot cultists shouting into the wind? Labour is coming, so ‘what’s to fear’?

But the question is: how good would we actually be at defending ourselves from the extremist ideologies menacing Europe?

The Conservative centre-ground is losing influence just as the party is trying to re-absorb ReformUK interest. So, in line with Europe, as the party re-assembles during Labour’s difficult first term, it is likely to morph rightwards on immigration, anti-woke cultural conservativism, the suppression of judicial independence, and our right to protest. If Trump is re-elected this will give further succour to fledgling UK ideological variants. And if these new iterations decide that it’s expedient to pose as ‘centre-ground’, voters (and Ofcom) may be slow to notice.

Labour travail

The good news is that the UK has a progressive majority, concealed by first-past-the-post (FPTP), but clearly there in attitude surveys. Our progressive values ought to protect us from a far-right incursion.

The less good news is that we thought the same, until recently, of parts of Europe. Wilders’ Freedom Party seeded in a famously egalitarian, socially innovative, ‘high trust’ society with “low corruption, press freedom and moderation”. But he ramped up anti-immigration rhetoric whilst tapping into feelings of economic and cultural neglect and, like Meloni, attracted strong youth support.

In broken Britain, we share many ailments that have driven European countries into the arms of the far-right. Every aspect of our well-being has been ravaged by 14 years of Conservative decimation: our physical environment, economic prospects, health and social services, trading relationships, and cultural life. The Office For Budget Responsibility forecasts that continuing falls in average household disposable incomes will profoundly impact living standards for many years.

Truly, Labour will inherit a ‘very sick patient’. The challenge posed by the Conservative legacy is so huge and Labour’s approach so timid and so hard to distinguish from its predecessors, that it’s difficult to avoid the prospect of voters falling out of love with Labour fast.

Here’s a realistic scenario: at the next general election, the country makes a final leap of faith to Labour, only to find that (through inexperience, narrowness of vision, impossible fiscal constraints, or global events) Labour cannot repair Blighty sufficiently (or fast enough) to retain support.

The message will, at this point, be the same as elsewhere, that centre ground politics (right and left) has failed. And it’s in such desperate times that countries lean towards extreme solutions. The toxic cocktail of poor living standards, widening inequality and political cynicism creates a vacuum where extremism steps in.

Other drivers

In the UK, currently just one in five under 40s trust their MPs. Also, despite our prized progressive majority, we are increasingly polarised. Note to the complacent: polarising anti-immigration rhetoric worked its magic sufficiently to land us with Brexit.

Other potential drivers are global events: climate change will keep migration, and hence anti-immigration anxiety, alive. The Ukraine war is driving voter disenchantment with progressive government and high energy prices which hinder prosperity. If destabilising wars in the Middle East and Ukraine escalate, the UK could retreat to a Blitz mindset that’s super-receptive to the Churchillian call for strong, authoritarian leadership. Another Trump apologist, Paul Goodman, editor of Conservative Home, reassures us that Trump is “able to project strength and be prepared to wield it if necessary in a perilous world”.

Lastly, FPTP traps UK politics in a duopolistic cycle of power, endlessly relayed between the two main parties and in which the Conservative Right:

 “…will be incentivised to take back the keys fast from a disorientated Labour party … Left and Right parties conduct a dance of disappointment as, in turn, one fails to meet the challenges of a poly-crisis world, leaving the other to fill the void. But the direction of travel points to the populist Right and the triumph of strong leaders over weakening democracies.”

Lawson on Radical Pragmatism

A precious moment

Let’s hope Labour can overcome these vulnerabilities. But rather than waiting with fingers crossed, isn’t it wiser to act now to head off a future far-right power-grab?

Regardless of the size of Labour’s win, the immediate imperative is to maximize a Conservative defeat at the general election by voting tactically. Tactical voting is a crucial insurance policy. We insure things we value by rating, not just the statistical likelihood, but also the seriousness, of potential damage. We need tactical voting to cut the Conservative Right’s blood supply now because their future return could be catastrophic.  This year we have a unique (possibly last) opportunity to step in, use our progressive muscle, and seize the narrative.’

For more blogs and articles on Ageing Democracy, Climate Change, EU European Union, Koch Network, Nativism, Political Strategy, Populist Policies and Tanton Network, click through:

British Young People Thrown Under a Bus for Votes in Ageing Demographics

Posted on September 21, 2023

Relevant article from John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde on how age determines divides in British politics, and not class in Conversation article ‘Age, not class, is now the biggest divide in British politics, new research confirms’.

Climate Change Science Attitudes Australia and Koch in USA

Posted on July 7, 2020

Climate science or climate change denialism have been apparent for some decades since the 1970s with Koch Industries being central along with ‘big oil’ of Exxon Mobil etc. in funding through ‘Dark Money’ academia, research, think tanks, media, politicians and PR techniques to influence society.  Now we see the results including wide-spread climate denialism, avoidance of environmental protections and negative media PR campaigns; meanwhile the roots of this strategy have become more transparent with legal action following.

Brexit, Conservatives, Nativism, Libertarian Strategy, Single Market and the European Union

Posted on June 9, 2022

US or Anglo led nativism operates in a parallel universe with the, often fossil fueled, libertarian socio economic ideology promoted by The Republican or GOP, UK Conservatives or Tories and Australian LNP Liberal National Conservative Parties, along with many others in media and/or have influence e.g. climate science denial and blaming ‘immigrants’ for environmental ‘hygiene’ issues.

Radical Right in the West – Fossil Fuel Atlas Koch Network – Nativist Tanton Network – Murdoch Media – Putin’s Russia – Brexit – Trump

Posted on March 6, 2024

Radical right in Anglosphere and Europe is cited here by Scott in Politico, including the ‘great replacement’ and Renaud Camus, climate science and Covid 19 scepticism. 

Symptoms of fossil fuels, oligarchs and <1% supporting corrupt nativist authoritarianism found around (mostly) right wing parties with ageing and low info constituents, informed by talking points prompted by mainstream media, social media and influencers

CPAC Conservative Political Action Conference and the John Birch Society

Posted on March 14, 2024

CPAC US has been in the news for falling audiences and fallings out between different groups and players, while CPAC Hungary will be held 25-26th April in Budapest.  

Recently both The Atlantic and SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center have highlighted the links between CPAC and the anti-communist John Birch Society, founded by Robert Welch, with assistance from others including Fred Koch.

Fred Koch was the father of Charles Koch who in turn helped create the Atlas – Koch Network of global think tanks, along with Tanton Network nativism or eugenics from the old Rockefeller supported ZPG Zero Population Growth; underpins the threat of the ‘great replacement’ of the WASP 1% by lower orders and ‘other types’.

Heritage Foundation – Danube Institute – Trump – Hungarian PM Orban – Atlas – Koch Network – Conservatives

Posted on March 18, 2024

The Heritage Foundation has attracted attention of writer Michel in a The New Republic article below for Trump’s admiration of Hungarian PM Orban and how it has become more far right and extreme e.g. anti-Ukraine sentiments.

Additionally, the linked Danube Institute in Hungary is led by former Thatcher aide John O’Sullivan and European contributor for Australian conservative journal Quadrant. 

Brexit and UK Political Interference by Putin, Russia and Anglo Conservative Allies

Posted on March 12, 2024

Still, there is discussion and analysis of Brexit versus the EU and Trump versus Biden’s Democrat administration, with accusations and allegations being made against Conservative MPs, Ministers, some Labour, media, Anglo right wing grifters, US fossil fueled Atlas – Koch Network think tanks at Tufton, related nativist Tanton Network and Russians, including FSB, diplomats, media and oligarch types.

Immigration Restriction – Population Control – Tanton Network

Posted on September 1, 2022

Excerpts from an article by Brooke Binkowski in Unicorn Riot outlining the history of the population control movement of Tanton Network which informs immigration in the Anglosphere and parts of Europe.