A Jeremy Corbyn supporter has produced a remarkable video demonstrating how to spot a ‘soft coup’ plotter on Twitter.
The clip, accompanied by sinister music, carries a warning that the new battleground for information is on social media and a new breed of “trolls” that are “polite and seem nice” are out to discredit the Labour leader.
It that these alleged plotters say things like “he’s a nice man, just a terrible leader” and “you don’t think he can actually win?”
The video then goes on to show how you can spot one of these accounts:
- Sometimes these accounts have a recent join date - but not always
- [They have] a low number of likes, tweets and followers
- Lastly, a timeline of tweets that seek to undermine Jeremy Corbyn
- Often these users seek out positive threads and hijack them
- These accounts are here to sow doubt, confuse and exhaust the Corbyn camp
- They’re part of an orchestrated attack on Corbyn and his support base
Research shows that the average Twitter user has 208 followers, not too far off the 133 of the account highlighted in the clip.
Added to this the fact they may or may not have joined Twitter recently the only discernible difference between a soft coup plotter and a non-soft coup plotter is whether or not they support Jeremy Corbyn.
According to the latest polling this is approximately 78% of the UK population.
Inspiration for the video came earlier this week when an article by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell warned party members that “the soft coup is underway” against Corbyn was widely circulated.
The sinister conspiracy is allegedly being “planned, co-ordinated and fully resourced” by an alliance between party plotters and “the Murdoch media
McDonnell almost immediately disavowed the comments with a spokesman saying it no longer represented his “current view”.
Despite this the idea had already taken hold with Corbyn supporters.
Outside of the Corbynista bubble the “soft coup” idea was largely ridiculed, particularly in the wake of Labour’s disastrous performance in the Copeland by-election.
Corbyn supporters have sought to blame anything but the Labour leadership for the defeat with Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti pinning it on previous leaders.
She was ridiculed by MPs over her refusal on the Andrew Marr Show to apportion any blame for the defeat to Corbyn’s leadership.
Polls have suggested Labour is losing support among the working class.
Last year an internal analysis of the party’s rising membership found a disproportionate number were “high-status city dwellers” pursuing well-paid jobs.
In fact Labour is now the third most popular party amongst working class voters, behind Ukip and the Tories for what could be the first time in its history.
Writing for The Huffington Post UK last week, Labour MP Lisa Nandy, wrote:
“This poses a profound challenge for Labour whose membership is increasingly unrepresentative of the country as a whole. This has got worse in recent months, with new members more likely to come from cities, often home owners in well-paid jobs. With five times more members in Islington than a town like Wigan, there is a risk that Labour’s perspective will be skewed away from the needs and aspirations of people in towns across the country.”
Corbyn has dismissed any suggestion that he is to blame for Labour’s historic by-election loss in Copeland.
The Labour leader was asked this morning by Chris Ship from ITV News whether he had “looked the mirror and asked yourself this question, ‘could the problem actually be me?’.”
Corbyn replied simply: “No. Thank you for your question.”