rise of british alt-left

Its a long article but i enjoyed it…

“…Turner said Evolve Politics is particularly benefiting from The Guardian’s perceived anti-Corbyn tone, which has alienated many supporters of the Labour leader who previously paid to be part of the newspaper’s membership scheme: “I find it incredibly disappointing, but that’s opened up the market for us. People say they used to subscribe [to The Guardian] but now say they actually prefer to give us a tenner a month instead.”

The Canary’s Mendoza agreed that The Guardian’s centre-left politics don’t necessarily suit the online left-wing reader: “I think they’re liberal, not left-wing. They’re centrist, largely middle-class, and white. The gradualism approach doesn’t play so well on the left. It’s not OK to ask people at the bottom of the pile to wait until a convenient time until you guys are comfortable. That’s the key distinction.”.

What terrifies the anti-Corbyn faction within the Labour party is the extent to which the growth of alt-left news outlets leaves them increasingly unable to influence the party’s internal discussion and deludes activists going into the general election.

One anti-Corbyn Labour aide told BuzzFeed News many of the party’s MPs now felt unable to place stories or comment pieces in The Sun or the Daily Mail – where they could potentially reach floating voters – because sites such as The Canary and newcomers such as Skwawkbox will immediately launch a series of attack pieces on the politician for cooperating with enemy media, which then causes trouble with activists at a community level.

There’s also the lack of chumminess in the relationship between alt-left reporters and political staffers. Labour aides point out that even when dealing with political correspondents who work at unfriendly newspapers such as the Mail or the Telegraph it’s still possible to build up relationships and argue that a story is unfair, thereby softening the impact when it finally reaches the public. Alt-left sites are far less susceptible to such influence, since they’re almost entirely run by part-timers outside London who care little for arguing the toss over the story of the day. Instead they view it as part of their mission to criticise these relationships.

“There has to be some link to reality,” despaired the anti-Corbyn aide. “People will always read papers that reinforce their views – you’re a Mirror reader or a Guardian reader. But this is a different order. This is no mechanism by which to correct.”

(Most of the sites mentioned in this article would strongly disagree, insisting they are happy to retract and correct where necessary – The Canary goes as far as to pin corrections to the top of its Facebook page, while Skwawkbox insists it gives equal prominence on its homepage to retractions.)

Multiple Labour MPs have independently told BuzzFeed News they are shocked by the influence the new wave of alt-left news sites is having on the party membership and the frequency with which stories posted on such sites – often featuring interpretations of events that many of the MPs dispute – are mentioned unprompted by local activists in constituency meetings. One staunchly anti-Corbyn Labour MP struggled to control their anger, describing these sites as “propaganda and ideological purity dressed up as news and views and beamed on the internet direct to the politically deranged”. They declined to be named, as they have been a frequent target of several of these sites.

The Labour MP suggested the sites were the modern equivalent of “the six nutters who sell the Socialist Workers Party newspaper in any town centre” but were being boosted by an online echo chamber….see link…