#Leave.EU

[coolfayebunny]

This is a conspiracy, a coup and the sign of a crime in plain sight!

We have to stop Brexit

[stillunusual]

Of course they won’t....

[unknownpoliticalobject]

Interesting fact: Any large scale trade deal between two countries or trade blocks contains a clause that any new trade deals also need to be agreed with the existing partners. 

I.e. if the UK would want to do a trade deal with Japan, the EU can veto that and Japan would have to make a decision if it rather trades with the EU or the UK. Same way round, if UK wants to do a FTA with the EU, Canda will have the same say. 

This makes sense if you think about it, as every FTA includes regulatory alignment, so if one of the partners would open its market to a less regulated market, this would endanger all existing relationships.

[ailedhoo]

...the electoral challenge of the extreme right in the west: to find a plausible balance between how racist it actually is, in its policies, and how racist it can appear to be in its pronouncements. Its raison d’etre is to promote and project a mythical sense of national and racial purity; its conundrum is how to simultaneously attract racists and xenophobes to that project while denouncing racism and xenophobia. In short, to deny any connection between its agenda and the intended effect.

Gary looks at the far right and a practice of coded racism, examining cases such as the editing of Milo Yiannopoulos work by Simon & Schuster to the case of Jo Marney to attempt by France’s Front National and Germany’s AfD to give a more mainstream presentation.

As Younge states:

For too long we have pretended we are tolerant societies in which racism is not a system of oppression but the marginal obsession of the uncouth. In reality we have simply become more sophisticated about our prejudices. We have plenty of racism, but apparently very few racists.

[dragoni]

"So, it seems the shutdown may be less a business catastrophe than a marketing exercise.“

‘Investigators warn Cambridge Analytica bosses that they can run, but they can't hide’

How many of Cambridge employees will join Emerdata? Or have they already been doing work for Emerdata? Transition work?

Is Emerdata using Cambridge’s software and IT infrastructure?

There are no coincidences!

“The UK's official registrar of businesses and organizations, Companies House, lists an active company called Emerdata Limited, headquartered at the same offices as SCL Elections and run by much of the same management and investors as Cambridge Analytica.”

It even describes itself as a "data processing, hosting and related activities" organization.

For instance, Dr Alexander Taylor was appointed a director of Emerdata on March 28. That's Cambridge Analytica's acting CEO and data wizard Dr Alexander Taylor. Julian Wheatland is an Emerdata director who is also a director within the SCL network of organizations.

Jennifer and Rebekah Mercer are directors of Emerdata, and are the daughters of ultra-wealthy businessman Robert Mercer who created and bankrolled Cambridge Analytica. Billionaire Bob has given tens of millions of dollars to rightwing political efforts. Jennifer and Rebekah also had a hand in Cambridge Anal.

Emerdata was founded in mid-2017, but has been rather active since Cambridge Analytica hit the headlines earlier this year, including official filings as recent as yesterday.

From the NYTimes

In recent months, executives at Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group, along with the Mercer family, have moved to created a new firm, Emerdata, based in Britain, according to British records. The new company’s directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Erik Prince. 

Mr. Prince founded the private security firm Blackwater, which was renamed Xe Services after Blackwater contractors were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians.

Cambridge and SCL officials privately raised the possibility that Emerdata could be used for a Blackwater-style rebranding of Cambridge Analytica and the SCL Group, according two people with knowledge of the companies, who asked for anonymity to describe confidential conversations. One plan under consideration was to sell off the combined company’s data and intellectual property.

An executive and a part owner of SCL Group, Nigel Oakes, has publicly described Emerdata as a way of rolling up the two companies under one new banner. Efforts to reach him by phone on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

From Business Insider

"The ICO will continue its civil and criminal investigations and will seek to pursue individuals and directors as appropriate and necessary even where companies may no longer be operating."

- Britain's Information Commissioner's Office

[angelholme]

Was ANYONE on the Leave Campaign not lying?

Good gods above.

The official campaign broke the law.( £61,000 fines))

Farage’s campaign broke the law.( £70,000 fines)

BeLeave broke the law.(£20,000 fines)

Veterans for Britain broke the law.( £250 fines)

Was the case for leaving that crap - that shitty - that they couldn’t convince people without lying and breaking the law?

Although - to be fair - the Official Remain campaign was fined  £1,250 for bad accounting. Which - no doubt - the lying shit Farage will tell you means they are equally culpable for lying.

Because £1000 of fines is clearly equal to £70,000 of fines. Anyone can see that.

[pazzoincasamatta]

Wired Italia: Leave.eu, il sito della campagna pro-Brexit, ha dovuto cercare riparo in Europa

Wired Italia: Leave.eu, il sito della campagna pro-Brexit, ha dovuto cercare riparo in Europa.

se mi lasci non vale

[ianchisnall]

The combined Leave.EU and Brexit Party need to review their strategy to communicate in a more coherent sense and if they want a Brexit alliance, they will need to consider not fighting for all 650 seats on their own! Its fascinating to look at the Leave.EU tweets and try to understand what is going on behind the words.

[2minutesleft]

come sempre non sono un fan del complottismo de delle “fake news che turlupinano i poveri scemi”, ma quando la fiction è fatta in maniera così palese passa la tristezza e ti sale il bestemmione.

[moneyhealthfinance-blog]

Brexit: Leave.EU and Arron Banks' firm fined £120,000 over data breaches Image copyright ReutersImage caption Mr Banks founded Leave.EU and owns Eldon Insurance Leave.EU and an insurance company owned by its founder Arron Banks have been fined £12... BBC News - Technology

[luimnigh]

Leave.EU, a pro-Brexit campaign website, has re-registered itself in Ireland in order to keep it's .eu domain.

The Communications Regulator in Ireland has been asked by a politician to investigate whether this registration in legitimate.

When contacted by the Guardian, Sean Power, the Waterford businessman who is now listed as the owner on the domain registration, insisted that he hadn't heard of Leave.EU before and that he was speaking with his lawyers.

[unknownpoliticalobject]

Apparently people in the UK are shocked to discover that shop shelves will be empty after only a few days. 

This comes to no surprise to me, and it should’t to anybody else. Below some pictures I took of what supermarkets in Scotland looked like last winter, when slightly heavier than usual snow interrupted the just in time supply chain for only 3 days:

The difference is that snow melts, Brexit doesn’t.

So if you support hard Brexit, months if not years of food and fuel shortages is a price you must be willing to pay. And this is not fear-mongering, just an inevitable consequence:

[royal-confessions]

“Congrats Edward and Sophie! Everyone is mocking you, but at least you have right wing Leave.EU on your side!” - Submitted by Anonymous

[dragoni]

“Wylie said he decided to go the press with his story  — after seeing Trump become president and the rise of the alt-right.”

"It really made me reflect on the impact that Cambridge Analytica has had.”

"I reflected on it... I said to myself that I need to speak out now because I have seen the impact that this company has had and I think people should know about how it works."

"I am accepting my share of responsibility in what happens with Cambridge Analytica,"

"I think that Facebook should also accept some share of responsibility as to what happened."

[melissabowden1089]

Profile: UK Populist Leader Nigel Farage

"Nigel Farage at CPAC 2017 February 24th 2017" by Michael Vadon is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Nigel Farage is a British activist, political commentator, broadcaster, and former politician who’s also a well-known populist leader in the United Kingdom. He served as the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) from September 2006 to November 2009 and was a strong and outspoken advocate for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union during Brexit. Nigel Farage endorsed and supported the leave campaign known as Leave.EU as it went head to head with Vote Leave, which ended up receiving the designation. In addition to these aspects of his political career, Nigel Farage has also faced criticisms for the way he portrays himself both on social media and in real life, much like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.

Nigel Farage and Populism

Many refer to Nigel Farage as a political force and the father of Brexit. He’s actually the one who pushed former Prime Minister David Cameron into promising the 2016 Brexit referendum. Much like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage has faced criticisms and received backlash for some of the outlandish and bigoted comments he’s made. In addition, Farage has been known to support Donald Trump and agree with his ideas. Trump, as we know, is another classic example of a populist leader in today’s world so it’s no surprise that him and Farage get along well. Both Trump and Farage seem to constantly be in hot water and stirring the pot amongst their opponents. Farage has defended Trump’s racist comments and even called them genius. UKIP has also been called a racist organization in the past as well, which Farage denies.

Nigel Farage isn’t just another politician. He thinks in his own ways and makes decisions in the spur of the moment instead of thinking strategically. Some have even referred to him as the most influential politician of the modern era. Much like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage fashions himself as the ‘Vox Populi’, or voice of the people, by attempting to appeal to his supporters who are often working-class people and middle-class Eurosceptics. He presents himself as a man of the people who distinguishes himself from the political establishment. He claims that politics is broken and that there’s a detachment between Westminster and ordinary people. He hopes his policies and ideas can fix this divide that he claims is happening in the United Kingdom. This reminds me of Mudde and Kaltwasser’s definition of Vox Populi in their book titled Populism: A Very Short Introduction. They say that Vox Populi “consists of two distinct but interrelated processes: (1) separation from the elite and (2) connection to the people” (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017). Farage wants to connect to the ordinary people by criticizing and attacking the elite, which in this case would be Westminster.

Another common populist idea is a disagreement with the status quo and a general dislike, or even hatred, for the establishment. This rings true for Nigel Farage as he openly goes against the establishment of Westminster and the status quo of UK politics. After the UK voted to leave the EU, Farage said, “After tonight there is no going back, we the leavers now own the status quo.” Farage has always had a grievance with Westminster which probably has to do with his inability to win a seat in the UK Parliament seven times. Nigel Farage’s resistance to the status quo reminds me of Populism in History by Finchelstein where he says “Populists have historically regarded their critique of the status quo as a radicalization of democracy by way of returning power to the people.” I think this is exactly what Farage believes he’s doing, just like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.

Nigel Farage and the Media

Much like other populist leaders, Nigel Farage is very outspoken and opinionated. He has a lot of controversial ideas and isn’t afraid to say them in person or on social media. With this comes a lot of incorrect statements and outbursts. One example of this would be when Farage wrongly claimed that twelve migrants arriving in Dover had tested positive for coronavirus. Home Office fact checked Farage’s tweet and stated that none of the twelve people Farage had mentioned tested positive. This reminds me a lot of Donald Trump and all the false claims he’s confidently made on Twitter in the past before his account was suspended.

Nigel Farage has also made his mark on social media by making sure that the Brexit Party - which he’s part of - has a strong social media presence. In 2019, it was announced that the Brexit Party was launching a YouTube channel called BrexBox in order to reach supporters of the party without needing to go through the mainstream media. Described as compelling and innovative, BrexBox and the Brexit Party are the clear leaders when it comes to social media policy. In fact, during the EU elections, the Brexit Party accounted for 51% of all shared content on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, BrexBox has received more interactions than any other major UK political party.

Nigel Farage’s Twitter account is where he speaks his mind and gains a lot of his supporters. However, it’s recently been exposed that a large portion of his Twitter followers were actually QAnon members. QAnon is an American far-right conspiracy theory group who believe that elite politicians are cannibalistic pedophiles who worship Satan. After Twitter suspended QAnon accounts on its platform, Nigel Farage lost 50,000 followers in that single week. This just goes to show what types of people support Nigel Farage and agree with his beliefs. It’s definitely something to think about.