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| Banks and Wigmore of Leave.EU |
Folks, to me it looks like there is zero chance of Leave.eu getting its act together. The pleasing reassurances we have had seem entirely disingenuous, and they are simply buying off resistance with crumbs from their table. Were they serious about listening to a single thing we have said, we would have seen some evidence of it by now - or would at least have put the rampant stupidity on pause.
Tonight demonstrates no such thinking has gone on, there is no safety mechanism to prevent them publishing stupidity and they have no intention of deferring to our expertise. Say what you like about our overall output, the one thing you can say is that when it comes to regulation we have more of a clue than most. They didn't even ask us about that.
Andy Wigmore, so-called Head of Communications for Leave.eu excuses himself by saying "Mate its a very detailed survey that's all - judge it for yourself - I want you to see it so you understand the findings that we publish."
I don't need to see the numbers. I know a crap argument that won't stand up when I see one and I know what can be inferred from the "bonfire of regulations" nonsense. How many times have I written about that?
I am sick of the "look at the numbers" excuses. Our role as a leave campaign is to set the agenda, to inform, educate and to control the debate - to shift it into our killzone. Feeding pleasing message to various cohorts without any coordination with a message is just scattergun campaigning and is not viable for fighting a referendum. Again, we have written about that ad nauseam.
In truth, Wigmore has zero experience or ability in communications and is largely a skivvy for Banks - an apologist for a campaign he has little influence over. To Banks though, this is just an empire building turf war, akin with Marlo Stanfield on The Wire - cutting through the competition to become the big cheese with no competition. This is 100% an ego venture for a bored middle-aged insurance salesman.
Moreover, the pair of them are unable to let go of the penchant for Kipperism, foolishly attaching themselves to Breitbart which at times crosses over into naked xenophobia. We note that Farage has been nicely quarantined in a different branch of the campaign, but that is largely redundant if Leave.eu is going to waffle on in the same ill-judged fashion.
Now I know all this was hugely predictable and many who have already been through the Banks mill warned us in advance, but we had to go through the motions just on the off chance. Personally I was sceptical from the beginning - and though Wigmore still maintains he would go with Flexcit were it up to him, his justification for the idiotic meme about regulation tells me that he hasn't understood it even if he has read it.
Against the backdrop of all the other deceptions I would say that Wigmore has been lying and stringing us all along, just to take a bit of the heat off. Certainly the unequivocal tweets from Banks, distancing himself from Flexcit, show that he is less than genuine.
It rather looks like he's bottled it after getting a hard time from the Kipper zealots, who would rather lose than stop grunting about foreigners. I watched with interest as he backed away from Flexcit, making a point of retweeting the more vocal Ukipper critics, particularly this one, and ones of her ilk; Farage worshipping, Muslim obsessed lunatics who would even be expelled from Ukip if it ever managed to develop a functioning vetting system.
These are the people who Arron Banks is allowing to set the agenda without even bothering to check if they represent Ukip values. When the anti-racists start the digging on Leave.eu Twitter bedfellows, they will have a field day. Frankly, I will take some persuading not to show them where to look. Personally, I could not find a home in any party that tolerates such people even if I subscribed to Farage's ideas.
The irony is that Leave.eu hand out mugs with the words "I'm not being taken for a mug" but it very much feels like I have, and we are actually starting to wonder if this isn't some sort of private joke between the pair of them in that they are taking all supporters of leave.eu for mugs. It reminds me of the Wildhearts who managed to sell their entire crowd identical black t-shirts with the words "demand the right to be an individual".
As to Richard North's supposed consulting for Leave.eu, consulting is when the client listens. By the output from Leave.eu we can say with some justification that every single piece of advice has been rejected outright. At this point, Leave.EU might as well go full kipper and start ranting about Muslims and the EUSSR because there is little to distinguish them from that cohort anyway. Certainly the original Banks strategy of "bait and switch" has little chance of working now that his brand is so inextricably linked to the lunaKips.
As to where that leaves Richard North, it is entirely up to him. I'm not going to be pissed around by these losers a moment longer - nor can I expect fellow bloggers to give Leave.eu an easy ride when all the while they are pissing on our work. So I say fill yer boots lads. Stick the blade in as deep as the knife will go.
As to where we stand, we started our activity on the base assumption that the lead Leave campaign would be utterly pathetic so really we are just continuing with Plan A, trying to do our best to win the intellectual argument and shoot the Leave.eu dog if it shits on our lawn.
Naturally that means we are on our own, so, as discussed, recruitment of more bloggers is our priority number one. Also since there is now zero chance of finding any funding, I won't be doing this much longer and will have to find myself some sort of bullshit day job to to pay the bills.
My personal recommendation to Richard North is that unless there is a very very significant gesture from Banks in the next week then he should stop wasting his time and we will instead go ahead with our appeal for funds independently through the main blog. Leave.eu has done nothing but offer empty promises, and have continued to bullshit us, and will likely drop us like a stone once they have won the designation. Arron Banks likes to play the eurosceptic Father Christmas, but he doesn't deliver.
As it stands I think Leave.EU have no more chance of winning this than Vote Leave, so who wins the designation is now a matter of supreme indifference. All we can do is try our best to make our voice cut through the noise by doing that which we do best - coherent, solid, factual arguments. I'm through being lied to by these total amateurs and I am not surrendering to the Ukipper zealots either. I am not going out without a fight.
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