If you don’t examine what Daniel Hannan says too closely, he can appear quite articulate and reasonable. Delve deeper, and his libertarian outlook could be classed as very odd. Many of his views, such as abolishing the NHS and removing food safety laws align closely with the demands of non-UK billionaires, such as the Kochs.
It’s been announced today that Daniel Hannan is to become a life peer in the UK’s House of Lords. He will become “Lord Hannan”.
The Lords “is the second chamber of UK Parliament. It plays a crucial role in examining bills, questioning government action and investigating public policy.”
Who is Daniel Hannan?
Hannan is a former MEP, and was one of the founders of Vote Leave, a group that campaigned for Brexit. He cites Enoch Powell, Ron Paul and Ayn Rand as influences.
Otto English describes Hannan:
“The more I study politicians like Hannan or old sparring partner Jacob Rees-Mogg or Douglas Carswell, the more I sense that their much vaunted intelligence and learning is little more than an academic veneer.”…
“Ladybird Libertarians like Mogg, Hannan, Carswell and Farage seem driven by a desire to get back the pastel Britain presented in the books; the one where to be British was to be respected and we ran an Empire on which the sun never set. All three were ‘young fogeys’ whose political vision seems to have been formed at school and remained rigidly and defiantly unchanged ever since. None of them has been on a ‘journey’ in any meaningful way, shape or form since they left the nursery behind.”
Source: Ladybird Libertarians: Dan Hannan, Paddington and the pernicious impact of 1970s children’s literature on Brexit thinking.
Will Davies describes Hannan:
“As Ian Jack pointed out in these pages last year (15 June 2017), the expat perspective seems to play an important role in the psychology of Brexit. Hannan and Carswell both had expatriate childhoods. Astute observers, such as the writer Gary Younge, have argued that Brexit rests more on an imperial imaginary than on a national one. But as much as anything the expat is in a position to see ‘Great Britain’ from a perspective other than that of government. Such things as statistics, macroeconomics and policy itself fade into insignificance compared to the way the nation is seen from afar, alongside its historical rivals. Ignore ‘official Treasury forecasts’ and focus on the atlas instead.”
Source: What are they after? William Davies writes about the Tory Brexiteers
Sam Knight writes about Hannan:
“Parris… has known Hannan since the mid-1990s, and later accused him in the Spectator of being willing to exploit xenophobia in order to pursue his own, more abstract goals. “He has ridden a tiger, and knows the tiger he rides,” Parris wrote. “I find him a bit scary,” he said, when we spoke. “I don’t think he sees himself in politics to give effect to what the public thinks, but to what the public ought to think, which is quite different.””
Source: The man who brought you Brexit
Who funds Daniel Hannan?
Hannan and the US Atlas Network think tanks
Facts Central has attempted to list the organisations that fund Hannan:
“ERG-founder Daniel Hannan was the ACRE (Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe) Secretary-General until recently. The ACRE is affiliated with the European Conservatives and Reformists Parliament group (that used to have United Russia (Putin’s party) MPs as members).
“He gave the “Chlorinated Chicken is just great” toast at an Atlas Network event.
“Hannan has also worked for US Atlas Network think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute – a lot.”
The Guardian reports that Hannan’s MEP group has been told to repay €535,000 in EU funds:
“British conservative sources sought to distance themselves from Acre, an organisation they helped to create, which has been described by some party insiders as ‘“Daniel Hannan’s travel agency”.”
Source: Daniel Hannan’s MEP group told to repay €535,000 in EU funds
What do Hannan and his associates / funders want?
The Guardian reports that a “think tank” founded by Hannan has prepared the text of a US-UK Brexit trade that proposes foreign competition in NHS and regulations bonfire:
“A radical blueprint for a free trade deal between the UK and the US that would see the NHS opened to foreign competition, a bonfire of consumer and environmental regulations and freedom of movement between the two countries for workers, is to be launched by prominent Brexiters.
“The text of the new trade deal has been prepared by the Initiative for Free Trade (IFT) – a thinktank founded by the longtime Eurosceptic MEP Daniel Hannan, one of the leaders of Vote Leave – and the Cato Institute, a rightwing libertarian thinktank in the US founded and funded by the fossil fuel magnates and major political donors the Koch family.”
Source: Rightwing thinktanks unveil radical plan for US-UK Brexit trade deal
Daniel Hannan NHS statements
The Independent reports on a video of Hannan saying that US healthcare is better than the NHS:
“overall it is not nearly as good as a system as it would be if we had the kind of consumer choice, the opportunity for redress that you have in your [US] system.”
On Fox News, Hannan described the NHS as a mistake.
Source: Dan Hannan MEP rubbishes the NHS on Fox News
Trans-Atlantic network of Conservative and Libertarian think tanks
DeSmog reports on Hannan’s involvement in a trans-Atlantic network of Conservative and Libertarian think tanks that create ‘shadow trade deals’ which deregulate in favour of food and drug lobbies during Brexit:
“Surrounded by a room full of ‘freedom champions’, Hannan used his speech [at Atlas Network’s Freedom Dinner 2017] to attack EU regulations which prevent US food staples such as chlorinated chicken, hormone fed beef and Genetically Modified (GM) foods from sale to the UK.”
“… the Atlas Network is a powerful libertarian group funded by, amongst others, Exxon Mobil and the Koch Foundation (belonging to the billionaire Koch brothers).
“Its overarching goal is ‘defeating socialism at every level’ according to SourceWatch, through the export of its business-friendly rhetoric and government-limiting ambition worldwide. Its history reveals a ground and state-level war in the name of market liberalisation employing dark money, astroturf groups and think tanks to create a common sense environment in favour of profit, deregulation and absolute corporate freedom.”
Source: Exposed: The Tory-Trump Plan to Kill Food Safety with Brexit Chicken
Elsewhere
How to explain Jacob Rees-Mogg? Start with his father’s books
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