‘Left’ hack Mason appointed to position funded by military, arms dealers

Paul Mason, the ‘left’, pro-war hack infamous after saying that leaked chains of emails between showing him chatting with British intelligence assets about ways to undermine left-wing or anti-war media ‘may be’ fake, has been appointed as an ‘associate fellow’ of a think-tank (and limited company) funded by funded by an array of military organisations, hard-right governments and arms dealers.

The so-called ‘Council on Geostrategy’ (CoG) website now lists Mason among its associate fellows:

CoG co-founder Matthew Rogers, who has also worked for the Islamophobia-accused Henry Jackson Society, which has ties to the far-right ‘Gatestone Institute’, has said that among the think-tank’s key targets is countering the ‘threat’ of China and Russia by “discursive, political, military, and economic” means. CoG’s other co-founder has also made speeches against Russia and China and in favour of the western-dominated ‘rules-based order’ – which is far from the same thing as international law and is now thoroughly discredited by its advocates’ collusion in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Paul Mason – failed journalist, failed spook, failed politician – has found a new boss: the military industrial complex.

Journalist Jonathan Cook.

The CoG’s list of funders, unsurprisingly, is replete with military organisations, arms manufacturers, military-linked companies and right-wing governments:

As well as his conversations about how to bring down left news outlets and his regular pro-war pronouncements, Mason has:

• smeared former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in support of war in Ukraine
• been caught smearing rival would-be candidates in support of authoritarian ‘Labour’ PM Keir Starmer and the UK pro-Israel lobby
• tried to have pro-Brexit Labour MPs cancelled and deselected
• attacked Corbyn for refusing to join Boris Johnson in instantly blaming Russia for the Salisbury ‘novichok’ attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Corbyn was subsequently vindicated by evidence presented at the official inquiry into the attack, though of course this has been ignored by UK ‘mainstream’ media:

• participated wholeheartedly in the ‘second referendum’ sabotage of Corbyn’s Labour, lashing out at left-wing Labour figures who backed the successful ‘Labour Brexit’ strategy that saw Corbyn come within a couple of thousand votes of power in 2017

It seems, as journalist Matt Kennard put it, that Mason – serially unsuccessful in securing a parliamentary seat even in Starmer’s party – has found his ‘perfect rest home’.

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