Brexit has provided a spurious opportunity for centrist opponents of socialism. Using the pretext of campaigning against Brexit, the intrinsically dishonest opportunists attack left-leaning politicians and activists relentlessly.
As a ruse to grab more media time some of these opportunists have made up some lobby groups.
Our Future, Our Choice (OFOC) is supported by and shares an office with The European Movement, a think-tank chaired by former Tory minister Stephen Dorrell and peopled by many other anti-socialist MPs, former MPs and peers: TEM People. (It isn’t known how much of the aforesaid support is financial support.)
OFOC was “founded” by law graduate Femi Oluwole. He described it as a “grassroots” movement; however, as soon as he had “founded” OFOC he was popping up on TV and radio being interviewed and engaging in debates with politicians. That is remarkable access and remarkably quick access to a huge audience for a “grassroots” movement that had just been “founded.” Thus, it might be assumed that OFOC has a good Communications Director who was able to
“coordinate the press operation of national pressure group aimed at altering the course of Brexit in favour of a ‘People’s Vote,’ to ensure local, regional, and national coverage of events and speakers associated with the campaign, and to liaise with other pro-EU groups to promote a unified message.”
They do have exactly that sort of expert, namely Alastair Pearson (see below). Does Pearson have a good CV? Of course he does: He worked for Donald Trump’s State Department where he “supported remote computational propaganda research.”
In addition to Pearson, OFOC has also had the assistance of Felix Marquardt, of Marquardt & Marquardt, who was described as ‘Global Founding Chair, OFOC! UK’ on the OFOC ‘About’ page before his details were mysteriously removed when being “grassroots” became an important part of OFOC’s PR. “We were lucky enough to begin this adventure with Felix Marquardt, who leant us his expertise on youth,” exclaimed OFOC (before removal). So, a “grassroots” youth movement needed an “expert on youth” to help them? A taste of Marquardt’s political stance and honed deliberate misrepresentation was displayed in an article for right-wing think-tank CapX last year wherein he praised arch Thatcherite and vehemently anti-socialist French president Emmanuel Macron: Marquardt on Macron.
OFOC’s stated reason for its existence is to reverse, stall or modify Brexit. That seems a sensible objective. So, presumably, OFOC’s focus must be to attack the Tories’ plans (or lack of them), to expose the motives of the Tory brexiteers and their direct connections to the salivating disaster capitalists and to try to explain why Brexit has no benefit to people in Britain who are not wealthy? If that is its focus than OFOC has failed miserably.
“We have been campaigning for months to persuade Tory MPs to rebel against the government on important Brexit votes like the meaningful vote amendment. But today, many flipped after having given us their word. Our generation were relying on you today, and you let us down.”
This “grassroots” movement, housed in the same office as a Tory-chaired think-tank with a Communications Director who used to work in the Trump administration on “computational propaganda research” and a founder with years of experience in lobbying, was unable to persuade any Tory MPs to vote against or abstain on the EU Withdrawal Bill despite “campaigning for months to persuade them.” What an utterly useless bunch OFOC is. Abject failure. But, that failure has used up a lot of media airtime that could have been used by intelligent and honest opponents of Brexit.
OFOC said they were relying on Tory “rebels.” But, there are no Tory “rebels.” There are liars, con artists and confidence tricksters in the Tory party who will fool impressionable idiots. There are also liars, con artists and confidence tricksters outside the Tory party who will pretend that they believe what Tory “rebels” tell them. It’s a pantomime. Duonanistic fraud.
OFOC’s real focus is to criticise the Labour leadership. OFOC’s campaigning style and substance are demonstrated by their recent billboard adverts attacking left-leaning Labour MPs.
OFOC has pretended to justify its campaign against the Labour leadership by claiming it is a campaign to persuade Corbyn to be opposed to Brexit. OFOC choose to feign no knowledge of simple mathematics. The Tories and DUP have a combined majority in the House Of Commons; therefore, and concentrate now because this is where the scary mathematics comes into the discussion, they have more votes meaning they can win parliamentary votes regardless of how strong the opposition arguments are. It seems odd to blame Corbyn for how the Tories and DUP vote. The image in the advert above is false, intentionally deceptive and intentionally distracting.
Dishonesty, or to be more precise, blatant lying, have been features of OFOC’s campaign against the Labour leadership. A stunt at Labour’s music and politics festival last week by a handful of OFOC members and like-minded others was followed by carefully rehearsed claims of ejection from the event by “security.” This was a blatant shameless lie; they were not ejected. This type of lie is typical of the tactics of right of centre activists in Labour. For example, Progress MPs and activists are keen on pre-planned orchestrated lies to discredit opponents. In other news, prominent Progress activist Jasmin Beckett was part of the stunt at the festival.
For Our Future’s Sake (FOFS) is a collection of Wes Streeting clones who, having taken advantage of students’ political apathy, got elected to a variety of posts in NUS bureaucracy. In these unearned roles they have access to NUS funds and access to the media.
FOFS claims to be campaigning for a “People’s Vote” on any Brexit deal the Tories might finally agree to. That is, FOFS wants a second referendum. That is a reasonable campaign objective but there are only two scenarios where such a vote could happen.
1) The Tory/DUP government calls a second referendum on Brexit
2) A general election ousts the Tories
The first scenario won’t happen because Tories will vote how they are told by those who really employ them. Like OFOC, FOFS embarrassed itself with its support for Tory “rebels” who then didn’t rebel. How much were FOFS genuinely fooled by slimy Tories and how much were they willingly fooled? It is clear that FOFS have no interest in the second scenario: They assume that there won’t be an election until 2022.
The focus of FOFS’s campaign for the “People’s Vote” is to pretend to be trying to convince the Labour leadership to support it. But, as some simple arithmetic revealed above, Tories and DUP have a majority in the House of Commons. Thus, if the Tories and DUP don’t want a second referendum then there won’t be one. Therefore, the campaign by FOFS to demand Labour supports a second referendum is pointless in the context of fighting against Brexit.
The effect of such a campaign is to shift media and public focus from the Tories onto the Labour leadership. Is FOFS knowingly trying to damage the Labour leadership and its politics or is everyone in FOFS as thick as mince? It is difficult to believe that they haven’t realised that the willingness by the media to give them airtime is because it is another opportunity for the media to attack Labour. In other news, FOFS’s co-director Richard Brooks appeared recently on Sky TV in cahoots with Progress activist Jasmin Beckett.
Pointless, distracting and with dubious intent
Both FOFS and OFOC have achieved nothing despite their corporate assistance. They have had no effect on votes in the House Of Commons and have not expanded the debate about Brexit. Their respective antics have been a distraction from necessary discussion and debate. Their focus on Labour has been welcomed by Tories and by other right-wing supporters of Brexit. If their intent was supposed to be to campaign against Brexit then the attacks on Labour have been absurd and counter productive; it is difficult not to assume dubious intent.
ducksoap 
[…] OFOC, FOFS: Centrist opportunists […]
Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating.