The Conservative government is funding a ‘monitoring group’ that’s carrying out disinformation attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and Labour. The foreign office has now admitted providing £1.96m of public money to the Institute for Statecraft’s Integrity Initiative in the 2018/19 year. Military specialists run the unit, which has posted smears about Jeremy Corbyn and his team on social media.
This UK government-funded, bogus McCarthyite "monitoring group" the Integrity Initiative repeatedly smeared Jeremy Corbyn, while it claims to "defend democracy against disinformation."
These are effectively state-sponsored attacks on Corbyn and the left.https://t.co/a5V00Myw6r pic.twitter.com/sUP3C9SJ1I
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 27, 2018
Anti-Labour propaganda
The organisation’s official account has tweeted the following quote from an article about Corbyn:
His open visceral anti-Westernism helped the Kremlin cause, as surely as if he had been secretly peddling Westminster tittle-tattle for money.
A tweet from the organisation also promoted the claim that:
Unlike Galloway [former MP George Galloway] Corbyn does not scream conspiracy, he implies it
Meanwhile, another tweet quoted a further article which read:
It’s time for the Corbyn left to confront its Putin problem.
As well as Corbyn and his supporters, the Integrity Initiative has promoted attacks on the Labour leader’s communications chief, Seumas Milne:
Milne is not a spy – that would be beneath him. But what he has done, wittingly or unwittingly, is work with the Kremlin agenda
The unit also retweeted a journalist who claimed:
Just as he supports the Russian bombardment of Syria, Seumas Milne supported the Russian slaughter of Afghanistan, which resulted in more than a million deaths.
The Integrity Initiative
As The Canary previously reported, the Integrity Initiative’s stated purpose is to reveal and combat pro-Russian “propaganda and disinformation”, while working with UK government departments that “share our aims”. The organisation aims to run through a network of supportive journalists, academics, and prominent figures across the world.
The Integrity Initiative’s spokesperson is Stephen Dalziel – a former BBC journalist of 16 years. Dalziel claimed he was “not aware” of the attacks on Corbyn, his team, or his supporters, and continued:
If it was criticism of one of our politicians, then that shouldn’t be on there.
Dalziel also confirmed the military backgrounds of a number of Integrity Initiative employees, but denied any secret service involvement.
While running austerity budgets for ordinary people, the Conservative government is putting public money into a group that spreads smears against Corbyn and his supporters. And there’s barely a whisper from the mainstream media.
Featured image via ITV News/ YouTube
