Leaked Attack Document Reveals Tory Candidates Told To Say Lib Dems "Are Not Proud To Be British" [View all]

[Denzil_DC]

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Boris Johnson has been accused of stoking "the politics of division and nationalism" after Conservative election strategists urged their candidates to tell voters the Liberal Democrats “are not proud to be British” and would “make our country more vulnerable to terrorist attacks”.
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The Conservative party is under pressure from Liberal Democrat challengers in a host of Remain-voting seats across the country. Five former Tory MPs have defected to the Lib Dems in recent weeks, and internal Tory polling has shown that several incumbent Leave-supporting Conservative MPs are likely to lose their seats to the anti-Brexit party.

In a sign that the Tories will be employing an increasingly aggressive strategy to try to hold onto these seats, their private briefing note laying out the “lines to take” for Tory candidates in Lib Dem marginals is headed: “The Liberal Democrats don’t share people’s values."



Another page of the document urges Tory candidates to make a series of dubious and controversial allegations about Liberal Democrat policies.



https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexwickham/conservatives-attack-lib-dems-jo-swinson-election

This is just what's been leaked today: I doubt any party or politician posing a credible threat to the Tories will escape this sort of rabble-rousing rhetoric, and this strategy will no doubt endanger further any candidates who don't sound or look or act "British".

Dominic Cummings has supposedly handed over the reins of the party to Lynton Crosby's right-hand man Isaac Levido, who, like Crosby, is an Australian political strategist - just to add to the irony of accusations of "non-Britishness".

Crosby has a long track record of running horribly divisive election campaigns full of dogwhistles and not so veiled attacks on selected outgroups, and it appears that Levido's a chip off the old block. Such campaigns haven't always led to electoral success, but they always turn up the heat on already inflamed situations.