Active Agents of the Conservative Party

How parts of the British press became incorporated into the Conservative party's own disinformation campaigns

‘Astroturfing’ is the term used to describe any attempt to create an impression of widespread grassroots support for a political party, policy, or product, where little such support actually exists.

It commonly involves the creation of multiple online identities and fake pressure groups, which are used to mislead the public into believing that the position of the ‘astroturfer’ is the commonly held view.

A good example of this occurred this week in the town of Yarm, North Yorkshire, where multiple publications reported that Labour’s Deputy Leader Angela Rayner had been subject to a “protest” by tax “activists”.

The reports included video footage from the supposed protest and were used by other commentators as evidence of the supposed public outrage at Rayner.

However, what none of these publications bothered to mention, was that this protest was in fact not a real protest at all, and the protesters were not real protesters either.