Last weekend, Labour MP – and according to many, would-be leadership challenger – Yvette Cooper gave a speech to the Fabian Society that fit perfectly with number four of the six ‘desperation tactics’ that leading Labour sources told the SKWAWKBOX were likely to be used by ‘moderates’ to try to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.
Since those tactics were predicted 3 weeks ago, we’ve now almost seen the full set.
After her speech, Ms Cooper tweeted about her speech and the supposed abuse it had generated:
The tweet, which was widely shared, also fit perfectly with tactic number four, i.e:
The SKWAWKBOX makes no assertion that Ms Cooper did any of this with the intention of following such a plan, but the net effect was a perfect fit with the tactics that senior Labour sources predicted.
In her article, Ms Cooper linked to three screenshots of tweets to her or about her speech. One – the only one sent in direct response to one of her tweets, as the others were about rather than to her – stood out as being particularly offensive, especially in the context of a revival of last year’s unevidenced antisemitism smear:
‘Final solution’ was, of course, the euphemism used by the Nazis for the holocaust and is therefore extremely disturbing.
If it’s real.
But as Twitter user @I_Sharajsha pointed out, the account that made that tweet is what is known as a ‘sock puppet’ – a fake account set up for the purposes of creating a false impression:
And it’s a well-known one.
‘Wesley Brown’, the supposed sender of the deeply offensive tweet, does not exist – at least not the person the Twitter account claims to represent. The account purports to be that of an aide to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn:
Corbyn has no such adviser.
This is not the first time ‘Wesley Brown’ has been used to create a false impression of antisemitism. On one occasion, its earlier manifestation even fooled the Israeli government:
That article dates back to November 2015, while account highlighted by Ms Cooper was set up in May 2016. It appears that when it was exposed, the account was deleted and then subsequently recreated. But it has a persistent and very repetitive history, across a significant time-period, of making the same antisemitic tweets to try to create the false impression that a Corbyn adviser is doing it:
Occasionally there are variations, among other seemingly-innocuous tweets clearly designed to make the account appear real. This one appears more than once:
Nor is ‘Wesley Brown’ its only manifestation. It is also linked to an account variously named ‘Darren Grintz’ or ‘Dennis Grintz’. The two retweet each other and tweet identical antisemitic messages:
The ‘Grintz’ account follows a similar pattern to ‘Brown’ – this time claiming to be an aide to Corbyn ally and leader of the Unite union, Len McCluskey:
Unite have confirmed that McCluskey has no such aide. The gentleman in the profile image, as far as can be ascertained, is a beard enthusiast from Portland, Oregon. The ‘Darren’ manifestation of the fake account uses a picture of a similar but different red-bearded man.
These are fairly sophisticated fakes, with innocuous tweets mixed with the inflammatory ones, over a long period of time.
Did Yvette Cooper know she was using ‘fake news’ to attack left-wing Labour supporters? The SKWAWKBOX tends to think not, as it would be foolish to use a known fake account if you knew it was fake.
But while she may not have realised that she was using a fake account, it is nonetheless a very pertinent example of the effort being expended to set up and populate carefully-constructed fake accounts with the clear, specific and premeditated intention of smearing the left with allegations of antisemitism, misogyny and other evils.
And all with virtually zero attention or mention by mainstream media that seem more than ready to treat them as real.
Yvette Cooper’s office was contacted for comment. A spokeswoman said,
Yvette’s challenging abuse and aggression wherever it comes from – that’s the point.
It doesn’t matter who they are, we should oppose them and call them out. Deliberate and anonymous trolling is part of the problem.
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