On the 11th of March, the Conservative Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, posted a graphic on X (formerly known as Twitter) which claims that “48% of London’s social housing is occupied by people who are foreign”, a claim he described as morally wrong. What on the surface seems to be a conventional politically charged tweet designed to farm interactions on Elon Musk’s Twitter, underneath reveals just how co-opted the Conservative Party have become by the online far-right.
Firstly, the substance of the Tweet is a blatant twisting of facts to suit a political narrative. The 48% claim has been arrived at through classifying anyone who is foreign-born as foreign. This includes those who are British citizens but who were born abroad. One such example is Boris Johnson, famously born in the US. Therefore, including this sub-set as part of a broader definition of foreign increases the size of the population classified as foreign.
This is further exacerbated by the ONS data used referring to the “Household Reference Person” – in other words the head of a household. This further inflates the 48% figure because including other members of the household, more likely to be younger and born in the UK, brings it down further.
Thus, the claim is factually incorrect. The more important question to ask is why the claim was made and the politics this represents. The claim originates from the aforementioned selective use of the ONS dataset by X user @juice8882. This is a “shitpost” far-right account that relentlessly posts racist content, sometimes directly, other times it is indirectly implied through dog whistles and inuendo. Accounts like these have flourished since Elon Musk acquitted Twitter in 2022.
The modern political far-right has increasingly found a home on mainstream social media platforms, supported/allowed to flourish unchecked by lax moderation rules and owners turning a blind eye due to a combination of financial incentives (outrage generates engagement generates ad revenue) and/or aligned political beliefs. This is an environment where juice8882 thrives.
Humour is vital to the modern far-right. This is the edgy humour that liberals like myself wouldn’t understand and revels in the hall of mirrors it creates. After all, so goes the argument, can it be racist if it’s just banter? Hiding behind humour allows juice8882 and others to fall back onto the crutch of plausible deniability when challenged. The far-right used to have shame, now they are loud and proud on mainstream social media platforms revelling at their own perceived intellect and wit.
Yet underneath the humour lies the ideology, every Pepe the Frog is accompanied by a wink to those in the know. For the uninitiated, the jokes are just that and your epistemic defences are lowered against the undercurrent. Over time, they cease to be just jokes.
The graphic created by juice8882 that was shared by Chris Philp looks professional and would not look out of place in a piece of published research. This is by design. Appearing to be proper is a deliberate attempt to deploy a trojan horse – gaming socially accepted standards of credibility to deploy far-right ideological narratives without it being realised. Appealing to the epistemic authority of scientific and statistical fact (setting aside susceptibility to distortion) is an effective tactic to influence views. It is a discursive strategy commonly exploited across the far-right to mainstream and normalise hatred. In this instance, it is a reference to the Great Replacement conspiracy theory – a staple of the white supremacist worldview. If argued more polemically, it would not gather as much traction as it would be deemed too off-putting. Thus, the use of statistics is a façade – they are distorted to suit ideological narratives.
Last week, we tweeted a letter written by Progressive Britain Director Adam Langleben calling out Philp which received a response that is emblematic this dynamic. The response, from a Conservative Party activist, stated “Are you suggesting data from the ONS is dodgy?” The ONS data is not dodgy, it has been deliberately misapplied and distorted to fit a political narrative.
Chris Philp, whether through tacit approval or incompetence at basic due diligence, is now an active participant in this online pipeline normalising the far-right. Philp’s post has been viewed over 2 million times at the time of writing – meaning the graphic has now been seen exponentially more than the sum of the many times juice8882 (~6500 followers) has posted it.
For an elected member of Parliament, let alone one who is an election victory away from occupying one of the great offices of state, to mainstream the far-right is an affront to British values and the values of any democratic society. In reasonable times this would trigger widespread condemnation and pressure for resignation. Yet we do not live in reasonable times. We are now faced with a Conservative Party increasingly out of touch with the real world, siloed into virtual silicon towers. This includes the Leader of the Opposition herself, yet she is a target of juice8882’s racist vitriol.
It could be said that discussing this scandal only gives it greater airtime. However, it is our duty to call this out and the general co-optation of the Conservative Party by the terminally online far-right. Philp’s tweet has not occurred in a vacuum but is the product of a social media environment that amplifies the far-right. The British political right, just under 10 years ago led by the likes of Theresa May, now finds itself enmeshed within the online far-right – singing from the same hymn sheet as the Tories now buy into their underlying premises.
As the Conservatives find themselves slipping further into electoral oblivion, it is clear that they view their salvation as coming from the international far-right. Yet the Tories risk being consigned to the history books if they continue appealing to the artificially inflated online far-right instead of the British public.
