UK government hires M&C Saatchi to fight far-right threat
|
Version 0 of 1. The advertising giant M&C Saatchi is working with the UK government to tackle racist myths perpetuated online by the far right. The dangers posed to Britain by continental Europe’s growing far-right movement are also being monitored by a secretive anti-subversion section of Whitehall, as part of Theresa May’s £60m fight against extremism, the Times reports (£). The Times uncovered evidence of the government’s crackdown on rightwing extremism following freedom of information requests. It quoted an insider as saying that the government would challenge “people who read Breitbart and stuff like that, the conspiratorial media”. Breitbart, the US news outlet, has become a gathering point for extremists from the “alt-right”. Fears that conversations previously conducted on the fringes might enter the political mainstream multiplied after Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart CEO, was appointed as Donald Trump’s chief strategist and now plays a fundamental role in the president’s administration. Anti-hate speech experts said the Home Office would challenge propaganda from the far right by using social media. Mosques in need of protection from far-right extremists are likely to be key beneficiaries from a £2m security programme for places of worship. Data recently released by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) showed that the number of far-right referrals in England and Wales had increased by 74%, from 323 cases in 2014-15 to 561 in 2015-16. About 292 cases, or 52%, involved under-18s. Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said the figures showed that the government’s controversial counter-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, had failed to change the attitudes of those on the far right. Authorities have also highlighted concerns that the threat from the extreme right could be growing in the UK following the conviction of Thomas Mair for the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox. Mair killed Cox as she arrived to hold a surgery in her West Yorkshire constituency during the EU referendum campaign, while saying: “This is for Britain”, “keep Britain independent”, and “Britain first”, a court heard. It was first reported last year that M&C Saatchi had won a Home Office contract to produce up to 10 campaigns a year to tackle extremism. It is not the first time the agency has become involved in the political sphere, having first achieved prominence with a poster campaign that helped bring Margaret Thatcher to power. M&C Saatchi was also behind the “Tax Bombshell” posters that helped John Major win in 1992, the less successful “New Labour New Danger” campaign in 1997, the “Better Together” campaign in the Scottish independence referendum and worked for the remain camp in the EU referendum. A branch of M&C Saatchi also produced images using swastikas to undermine the British National party during the 2010 election. The British government’s battle stands in sharp contrast to that of the Trump administration, which is trying to exclude violent white supremacists from a government anti-terrorism programme to focus efforts solely on Islamic extremism. The proposed revamp, reported by Reuters, would rename the multi-agency “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) taskforce to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism,” and eliminate initiatives aimed at other violent hate groups in the US. According to the Times, another strand of the the May government’s strategy involves studying links between British radicals and vigilantes hunting asylum seekers on the borders of eastern Europe. An internal message seen by the Times revealed that a “strategic assessment of the European far right and the UK” had been prepared and set up by the Extremism Analysis Unit, a Whitehall body created in May’s time as home secretary. The unit contacted the British embassy in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, after reports that there had been visits to provide “supplies” to militia-style border patrols in the Balkans. In a statement, the Home Office said the government was “determined to challenge extremism in all its forms including the evil of far-right extremism and the terrible damage it can cause to individuals, families and communities”. |