INTRODUCTION
When I saw that a group of people were going to start up a movement of ‘Yellow Vests’ similar to that which has convulsed France in recent months, I thought that this could go one of two ways. It could either become a mass movement, akin to the ones that propelled voters to choose Brexit at the 2016 Referendum and the growing civic nationalist / counter Islam movement, or it could descend into a farce that would be ripped apart by the mainstream media and the political classes. Sadly, from what I can see, it is the latter outcome that has prevailed. Not only has the Westminster Yellow Vest lot turned into a bit of a farce, they may also have sprung a trap that was set for them, possibly by their opponents.
I gave the ‘Yellow Vests UK’ a cautious welcome when they first started out, even though I’m not the greatest of fans of James Goddard, the group’s leader, due to his championing of ‘Satanic paedophile’ conspiracy theory guff as he did in a speech in Whitehall last year. Those who believe such shit are not people I would automatically follow onto the streets, or anywhere else for that matter. I thought that Mr Goddard was a flawed individual who had said some stupid things, but because history is littered with flawed individuals who despite their flaws have done good things, I gave his group this cautious and equivocal welcome and a chance.
I was also cautious about this Yellow Vest group because I knew that this organisation could go either to the good or to the bad depending on who became involved in it and what focus it had. I knew it had to attract a lot of people in a very short amount of time in order to be effective and also to dilute any nutcases or extremists who may have become involved in it. This is a danger that all political groups, not just those of the Right, are prey to but which groups from across the political spectrum are at risk of succumbing to. However, the more people, and specifically the more normal decent people who are actively involved in a campaign, the less likelihood there is of it being bent away from its core message by headcases.
As time went on I started to worry about the sort of impression this group was giving of Brexiteers and those of us who are on the side of national sovereignty and civic nationalism to the general public. This was an especial concern at a time when the Remainers would do anything and everything they could to annul the Referendum vote to leave the EU. I knew that any cock up, any stupidity and any hostage to fortune that could be laid at the feet of this group would be exploited by the MSM and the political classes. It is my view that The Yellow Vests UK group, which, in order to distinguish them from other similarly attired groups, I shall refer to as the ‘Goddard group’ did not do things correctly or effectively.
THE GODDARD GROUP’S POOR TACTICS AND FOCUS
When this small (no more than 35 – 50 or so members) group started blocking London’s bridges, I thought that this is not going to end well. It’s one of the basic rules of political campaigning that you do not harm or inconvenience those whom you may wish to later recruit as allies or supporters and stopping people from going about their legitimate business is one of those things that should be avoided. Although the Goddard group denies that they caused problems, there are stories, which may or may not be true but which some have believed, that the Goddard group delayed an ambulance on Westminster bridge. When I heard of this story I thought that this demonstration tactic creates the possibility of spawning hostages to fortune of the worst sort. I knew it would only take one person to lose their job or one self employed person to lose a contract because of the demonstration or worse someone lose their life because of the protest, to provide enough ammunition for the media to destroy this group completely.
The blocking bridges tactic is also extremely unimaginative. It’s been done by everyone from the far right to the far Left and just about every other group in between. It’s a tactic that has been done to death, it’s boring. It doesn’t ‘shut down London’ as some have claimed, but it does inconvenience people who maybe do not deserve to be inconvenienced. Blocking bridges is the ultimate ‘meh’ tactic that achieves nothing apart from pissing people off.
If people are going to plan non-violent direct action happenings or protests, then fair do’s but they’ve got to be imaginative and they’ve got to be backed by a much wider support network than the Goddard group seems to have had. There are good reasons why big publicity stunts such as the 1971 activist theatre invasion of the Festival of Light conference by the Gay Liberation Front are still remembered and still referenced as an example of activist theatre. The GLF action is recalled because it was unusual, imaginative, effective and tapped into the then social zeitgeist of increased sexual freedoms. The GLF action effectively destroyed the Festival of Light as a potent political entity by exposing it to public mockery. Prior to 1971, the Festival of Light was a huge well supported entity but after the GLF’s action, people took FOL increasingly less seriously. This just shows the power of a well organised, well executed stunt protest and something that is the complete opposite of the antics of the Goddard group.
Moving on now to the incidents that have propelled the Goddard group into the public eye and public consciousness. To a large extent the outrage about this is media manufactured by Remain supporters, it reminds me a lot of various media driven moral panics of the past, such as those over heavy metal music and video game violence. Despite that however, the Goddard group’s tactic of confronting people in the street was almost certainly going to end badly and as expected has been seized upon and exploited by Remainer politicians and others.
I don’t for a moment believe that the Member of Parliament Anna Soubry was in any real physical danger from the Goddard group during the now infamous confrontation between the two, but it was terrible optics for this group to confront Ms Soubry in this way. All it achieved was to allow Ms Soubry to claim, probably falsely, that she was in danger and for this incident to be exploited by the fellow travellers of the Remain camp and by various authoritarians. I need to say at this point that although I disagree with Mr Goddard on a number of things, he has the right to ask polite but hostile questions to Ms Soubry or any other member of Parliament, a right that we all should have.
I believe that Mr Goddard and his group have a legitimate right to criticise Anna Soubry and it is right to draw attention to her pro-EU views whilst representing a seat that was majority Leave. However, I believe that this was not the way to do it. It may have been far more effective to set up a pro-Brexit ‘anti Soubry group’ in Ms Soubry’s own constituency, build support for it and maybe stand an independent but popular candidate against her, should she choose to stand for this seat at the next General Election. Yes, this tactic does cost in money and patience and it does run the risk that Labour would retake this seat (it’s one that has changed hands quite a few times in the 20th/21st century), but a properly organised campaign that got a good proportion of the 55% of her constituency who voted Leave on board, I believe could have been an effective tactic.
This organising in her backyard tactic could have caused Ms Soubry far more collywobbles than a few twats in yellow vests, as she is holding that seat with a majority of only 839. She’s electorally vulnerable and a well organised local anti-Soubry group may either cause her to fall in line with her electorate’s wishes or cause the Conservative Party to replace her with a more anti-EU candidate in order to hold the seat.
Much of what I’ve said about the inappropriate actions surrounding the Soubry incident also applies to the confrontation which the Goddard group had with the Guardian journalist and Left wing activist Owen Jones. I, like many others, find Mr Jones’ middle class Lefty views odious . He and his kind are often snobbish and refuse to listen to the actual working classes that they purport to represent. I would love to see Jones et al taken down a peg or two. However, the actions of the Goddard group just handed him ammunition that Mr Jones will share with his equally odious middle class lefty mates which will be used to further attack both the Goddard group and other Brexiteers and civic nationalists. As I said in a previous article on the Owen Jones incident, Jones was smiling on the video, he knew he had material he could use to denigrate the Goddard group and other similar groups. It may even have made him feel like he was some sort of revolutionary victim of the far right.
Far from shaking Owen Jones from his views, the Goddard group probably solidified them. Like many others I want to see Owen Jones intellectually and morally spanked, preferably in a similar way to how the left wing activist Laurie Penny was spanked by the historian David Starkey a few years back, but the Goddard group’s way is not an effective way.
I think the way to take Owen Jones on is to get him in a debating chamber with an opponent who is fully conversant with whatever the facts are about the subject of debate and who then proceeds to completely ‘own’ Mr Jones. I’d certainly like to see a public debate at, say Westminster Hall between Mr Jones and for example Sargon of Akkad or Ben Shapiro or Professor Peterson. This would be something worth seeing and may do more damage to Mr Jones’s reputation than anything that the Goddard group managed to achieve. Owen Jones is protected to a large extent by the Lefty Establishment and in order to embarrass him or damage his reputation, it requires something much more well crafted and savvy than what was produced by the Goddard group.
Now I move on to the issue of how focussed the Goddard group has been. To be quite frank it has not been focused on Brexit, which is what it should have been, bearing in mind that this is what the group apparently claimed they were campaigning for. There was, as I have pointed out before on here, no proper branding or banners, or even custom printed Yellow Vests. This resulted in the Westminster Bridge incidents just looking like it was being done by randoms in yellow vests on the bridge. These people could have been campaigning for or against anything and were not an identifiable and effective pro-Brexit protest.
This lack of focus and of a coherence of image was compounded by the high profile involvement by some of those from the Justice for our Boys campaign. This campaign, for those who do not know about it, is one that is calling for the drink driver who killed three teenagers in West London in January 2018 to be subjected to a private prosecution for murder. Whilst I feel immense sympathy for the families who have suffered from this appalling loss and do believe that the police made some errors whilst investigating the case, such as allegedly not searching the suspect’s home, I think that they are on a hiding to nothing with this campaign. I think the families are correct to call for harsher sentences for drivers who kill whilst intoxicated like this, but there seems to be zero grounds for treating this case as murder. That said, the original 13 year sentence which was reduced to 10.5 years on the grounds that the original trial judge had not given sufficient sentence discount for the drink driver’s guilty plea, should have been longer, but it is up to Parliament, not judges to decide maximum sentences for criminal offences.
To prove murder requires the proving to a jury, to a standard of beyond reasonable doubt, that there was an intent by a sane defendant to kill the victim or victims. I do not believe that there is sufficient evidence for this in the Three Boys case. There are cases, such as the Darren Osborne case, where there was sufficient evidence to prove intent to kill, but I see little evidence that could be termed reliable to suggest that intent to kill would have been provable in the Three Boys case. The high profile involvement of the Justice for our Boys group muddied the waters with regards the public image of the Goddard group’s protest. It made it less of a Brexit protest and much more about the Justice for our Boys protest along with other bits and pieces, such as those who promote the wholly unwholesome ‘Q’ conspiracy theory.
The situation as I saw it, was that the Justice group’s campaign identification was much more visible than almost anything else on these Goddard group demonstrations. This was not good for the visibility of the ‘Brexit’ aims of the Goddard group and swamped any other campaign identification. Several mainstream journalists, I believe one in particular from the Metro newspaper at the time, got confused as to whether this was a ‘Justice for our Boys’ demo or a Brexit demo. If a journo is confused about demonstration motivation, then it is much more likely that the public will also be confused. Image-wise the Goddard group’s protest on the bridges and elsewhere were a dead loss.
As many will know, I used to be a man of the Left until I realised that Marxism is a pretty piss poor way of running a society. Because of that I’ve been on hundreds of demonstrations over the years for various left wing and libertarian causes. I’ve also, when I worked for the press, photographed demonstrations for work. I’ve been on anti-nuclear and anti-war marches, marches against the Poll Tax and the National Front, I’ve marched down Whitehall for the right of freedom of speech, fully funded higher education and even for the right of adult men to nail their scrota to the floorboards in the name of Liberty and of freedom of choice.
I’ve been around the protest block so to speak and because of that I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. I don’t think that the Goddard group’s protests were that effective really and it was a wasted opportunity from a group that was badly led, badly organised, without a coherent image and one with not just ineffective tactics, but ones that have badly backfired. There is a reason why charity groups and lefty groups splash out the cash on things like t-shirts or banners or flyers that they can give to members of the public in the vicinity of a demonstration whilst it is going on. There’s also a reason why some groups approach those with power in more subtle ways than accosting them in the street. They do this because publicity works and not antagonising too many people gets the message over and advances a cause better than behaving otherwise would do. Maybe these are considerations that other groups on the civic nationalist / Brexit side need to take on board?
A MAJOR SECURITY FAIL AND AN OWN GOAL
It appears, or is rather being alleged, that the Goddard group may have been compromised to some extent. There is video going round that purports to be of an unidentified male acting like he is stirring things. This gentleman was then shown on video to be acting as if he was placing something in the pocket of a man alleged to be Anna Soubry’s chief of staff. Who this man is and what he may have handed over to Ms Soubry’s man, is at present unknown to me. There is also much speculation about who this person is and what he was doing. He could have been an undercover police officer, but the clumsy way the man made the alleged transfer, makes it less likely to be the case. It’s piss poor trade-craft to be frank. I’d expect much better trade-craft from an undercover police officer or even a spook than this. To allow themselves to be filmed apparently drawing attention to themselves in these ways is, or rather should be, a ‘no no’ for a professional from either New Scotland Yard or Thames House.
If not a police officer or a spook, he could have been an agent provocateur Lefty or Remainer or someone who works on the Parliamentary Estate whose has had enough of the Goddard group. He could even have been a journalist who believes there is a good story in the Goddard group and who has had enough contact with Ms Soubry and her security team to pass close by without arousing any suspicion. At present we do not know who he is, where he came from or what he was doing. What we do know is that he was allowed quite close to the Goddard group and allowed to behave in the attention-seeking manner that he did, for far too long without being checked up upon. The behaviour of this guy at Speaker’s Corner was so attention seeking that it should have rung alarm bells with organisers of any protest? Maybe time will reveal what exactly happened here with this guy and he might just be a common or garden fraggle, or maybe the Goddard group has been compromised in some way?
I’m afraid James Goddard also scored a major own goal and one that is evident in the hit piece that was written by James Farrell and published by Sky News. Mr Goddard made the risible and provably false claim that Sky and the rest of the mainstream media had covered up the case of the Islamic Rape Gangs in Telford. This was very easy to disprove as a basic quick web search for ‘James Farrell’ and ‘Telford’ does indeed throw up a number of stories about the Telford case complete with Mr Farrell’s byline. As expected Mr Farrell used this slip-up and Mr Goddard’s complaint that an interview between Mr Goddard and Mr Farrell had been cut short in the edit suite, as very effective sticks to beat Mr Goddard with. Mr Goddard should have not made the false claim that Mr Farrell had not reported on the Telford case and neither should he have made the complaint about not using his whole interview with Mr Farrell. If Mr Goddard was worried that his words may be taken out of context or be subjected to hostile editing to give a false impression, then he should have kept an independent and contemporaneous record of any conversation with Mr Farrell.
Although back in the 1980’s I used to work for the press, I later found myself for a while on the other side of the counter, writing press releases for some community conferences. I know that not every journalist is to be trusted, or is sympathetic to a particular cause, just as not every publication can be trusted or is sympathetic to a cause. Every journalist and publication has a viewpoint of their own and I swiftly learned that every publication is looking for the angle that will make it most likely to appeal to their consumers. The Guardian is, for example, never going to buy a piece sympathetic to UKIP, just as the Daily Mirror is unlikely to run a series of articles calling on its readers to vote Conservative. It’s horses for courses. Mr Goddard was dealing with a journalist and an outlet that was bound to be hostile and should have taken more care not just with how he dealt with Mr Farrell specifically but also how his demeanour and words would be reported by others in the media. There are a whole lot of people who now believe that Mr Goddard is some sort of moron level creature because of the Sky hit piece and I’m afraid that some of the blame for how Mr Goddard is being portrayed is the fault of Mr Goddard’s own goal.
This hit piece was apparently a very long time in the making and Mr Farrell first encountered Mr Goddard during a demonstration against Islamic Rape Gangs on Tyneside. It is possible that Mr Farrell and Mr Goddard really didn’t hit it off when they had their first encounter and it seems to me that Mr Farrell has been keeping a close eye on the progress of Mr Goddard and just waiting for him to screw up. At that point of screw up, in this case the confrontation with Anna Soubry, he could run a detailed hit piece story containing much of what he had gathered and found out about Mr Goddard.
Hit pieces happen, they are part and parcel of journalism (especially the Grub Street end) and have been so for centuries, at least to my knowledge, even prior to the infamous attacks on King George III by the ‘North Briton’ newspaper and going back to before the Civil War. It is almost impossible to stop hit pieces, especially if you do not have the funds for a good libel lawyer and are not absolutely certain of the ground on which you stand. Far better to mock and otherwise counter such pieces when one is able. However it is possible to avoid providing foundations for such hit pieces in the form of injudicious words or actions, something that Mr Goddard may have failed to do. Although Mr Goddard may have been quoted out of context in the piece by Mr Farrell, it certainly looks to me like Mr Goddard provided enough ammunition to Mr Farrell to allow him to construct this hit piece. Maybe it’s time for a lot of us to remember the words of the bit of doggerel by Humbert Wolfe who wrote in 1930:
You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.
But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there’s
no occasion to.
When we speak in public, we all need to remember that we are not just speaking to our friends or to our supporters, but our words also reach those who are ambivalent about what we have to say, are opposed to what we say or even have ill intent towards us. Maybe people, especially those of us on the civic nationalist Right or who are centrists or others who hold views that are unacceptable inside the lefty group-think media bubble, should keep that thought in mind when speaking in and to the public. Words that may make sense to some may be interpreted differently or even be twisted by others for their own ends. Although I disagree with some of Mr Goddard’s views, I do support the right of Mr Goddard and others to freely speak whatever bollocks they choose in public. It is for this reason that I would unequivocally support the idea of a ‘British First Amendment’ Unfortunately neither Mr Goddard nor his group seem to have been aware that saying the sort of things that he is alleged to have said may come back to haunt him and become weapons in the hands of his opponents. The result of Mr Goddard not thinking about how his words, especially his words about ‘war’ would be perceived and used by his opponents, is that he is being widely mocked as some sort of Pound Shop Spode. That’s not a good look for anyone who believes in Brexit, believes in political accountability or believes in national sovereignty.
CONCLUSION
The Goddard group was, I’m afraid, a disaster waiting to happen. Poor leadership, poor focus, poor political savvy, poor public image and poorly executed and planned demonstrations, along with crap tactics has done for this group. Although the press coverage and the political exploitation of this group’s actions has contributed to the failure of this attempt to build a British Yellow Vest movement, not all of the blame for this failure can be laid on this group’s enemies. This group need to take some of the blame for this failure upon themselves.
The choice of tactics that should have been seen as ones that could be easily countered and exploited, such as bridge blocking and the mobbing of Soubry and Jones, was a huge mistake and one that has contributed greatly in this group’s failure. It hasn’t picked up members in sufficient numbers that it needed to grow and neither has it attracted anything like the number of non-political types that it needed to be able to inspire. I think the reason that it has not inspired normies to join (something that is vital for any political group if it is to break out of a small bubble of activists) is because of the way that this group was organised and run. To be quite frank this group are so full of themselves that they probably walked right into trap that was sprung the moment they gave Anna Soubry something to cling onto an to whine about.
If a political movement is to be successful, it needs to get people involved who are outside the normal activist bubble. The left are able to do this because they have influence over groups like students, who can often be guaranteed to turn out for almost any left-leaning demo, providing it’s not too early in the morning of course. Sensible nationalist and patriot groups need to reach out to the normal people with jobs and families, the often struggling people who are outside the activist bubble and bring them in. That, as many have found out, is much more difficult than rounding up a few bored and naive students. To get people in, successful protest groups or political groups need to attract people and I’m afraid there is not that much to see that is attractive in those who promote easily debunked ‘Q’ and Satanic conspiracy theories. This sort of thing is not going to get the normies joining in, and political movements need the normies for political and electoral clout.
I truly want to see a vital, effective, honest and well run civic nationalist political grouping and protest movement. Such an entity, especially if it could gain representation in the House of Commons, may well go a long way to addressing some of the genuine grievances and concerns that many Britons, of all races and faiths, have about the way that Britain is currently being run. Unfortunately as we’ve seen recently, it looks as if Goddard’s Yellow Jackets are not the sort of group that can be that entity, or help to bring about such an entity.
