How Appalling That Britain’s Future Is Allowed This Terrible Free Speech Stuff

This is something of a pity as Alex Hearn is normally rather better than this. The Observer has one of the usual shock horror pieces about political campaigning on Facebook and the internet. Someone – named as Britain’s Future and who they? – seems to be spending the thick end of £500,000 on advertising in favour of Brexit. Even, shock, a no deal Brexit as opposed to any variation of staying in customs unions and single markets and so on.

This is all very shadowy and perhaps it shouldn’t be allowed.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Obscure no-deal Brexit group is UK’s biggest political spender on Facebook
Britain’s Future has spent £340,000 promoting hard exit – but no one knows who’s funding it[/perfectpullquote]

The obvious point being that we must know who is funding it so that we can go pressure them to stop doing so.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The single biggest known British political advertiser on Facebook is a mysterious pro-Brexit campaign group pushing for a no-deal exit from the EU. The revelation about Britain’s Future, which has never disclosed the source of its funding or organisational structure, has raised concerns about the influence of “dark money” in British politics.[/perfectpullquote]

Dark money eh? Terrors. Except, as they do explain but clearly disapprove of:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]No law is being broken by Britain’s Future’s campaigning. Outside of an election period, it is legal for any individual or campaign group to pay to promote political material without declaring where the funds come from. Britain’s Future is not a political party and does not appear to have any intention of putting forward candidates in elections, so is not regulated by laws requiring large political donations to be publicly declared.[/perfectpullquote]

No law is being broken because people have that right to say what they want, subject to the laws of libel and incitement to violence. People also have the right to spend their own money as they damn well wish. It’s what living in a free country means. It’s the very definition of civil liberty.

Yea, even if what you say and how you spend your money upon it is disapproved of by the likes of those people who write the Observer.

In more political terms, they’re also not getting it are they? The very rise of Ukip, the referendum itself, were triggered by that establishment insistence that we should all shut up and not say anything about these issues. Those in power never do like the proles disagreeing with them, do they?