Across the UK there is growing anger towards public bodies, executive and authorities that have assumed unelected responsibility for overseeing great swathes of national life with a seemingly never-ending barrage of pettifogging interference.
Nowhere is this more true than among those organisations tasked with looking after our environmental affairs. And there is no greater example of the hard left socialist agenda that has captured these public bodies than that epitomised by young Adam Barnett, the RSPB’s cub Parliamentary Officer and Corbyn-supporting firebrand.
[Adam Barnett, the left wing extremist in charge of the RSPB's political wing]
This young firebrand benefited from an education at both Bristol University and LSE. In 2018 he started his career in politics, working for the Corbyn-supporting Labour MP for Bristol East, Kerry McCarthy – a former shadow Defra secretary, a vegan and an ex-Vice President of the League Against Cruel Sports.
McCarthy demonstrated her qualifications for the role of Shadow Defra Secretary, and exemplary knowledge of moorland management, by claiming in parliament in March 2020 that ‘grouse are imported into the UK in their millions’.
We’ll come back to McCarthy shortly. For now, let us focus on the young Corbynista, Adam Barnett, who is leading the charge on the RSPB’s political direction, much to the discomfort of many of their members.
Barnett campaigns for his crazed political agenda by regularly posting tweets criticising every aspect of any non-hard left political views, which he has done since he joined Twitter back in 2012.
He fits the mould of many of Corbyn’s young bear-cubs, counting amongst his interest groups ‘Friends of the Earth’, ‘UK Youth Climate Coalition’, ‘LSE Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transsexual student club’ and, of course, he has more recently become an avid promoter of ‘Black Lives Matter’.
Barnett is the epitome of the hard-left characters that the overwhelming majority of Black Lives Matter supporters talk about as the force that has hijacked their well-intended cause and driven it to the extreme political left.
It is because of people like Barnett that vast numbers of the public, as well as organisations, are now being driven away from it, having been supportive until recently. This is a travesty for the victims of racism. But there is no cause these people will not hi-jack for their own agenda.
It will likely only be a matter of time before the more rational and straight-thinking members of the RSPB and their board realise that if they do not do something about this firebrand, their once-respected institution will continue to rapidly lose support as it gets pulled further and further to the extreme left.
Barnett’s latest effort to drive his political agenda and attack people he believes to hold a different political view to him is through his attempts to have grouse shooting banned.
[RSPB's Jeff Knott, with Mark Avery, who is married to an online Labour campaigner and convicted criminal, Luke Steele]
This week he circulated an appallingly prejudicial and partisan letter to The Rt Hon. Alok Sharma, in his capacity as COP26 President, making up delusional statements about how the UK should ban controlled burning – despite almost every fire-service in the world warning that controlled burning is an absolutely essential tool to prevent wildfires.
The letter contained a whole host of other utterly ridiculous allegations which have been dismissed immediately by the scientific community.
Despite his elitist education at not one but two top universities, Barnett’s letter is riddled with mistakes, grammatical errors and demonstrates a lack of knowledge of the subject.
However, the concern is that many of those other leaders of organisations who Barnett has approached to sign the letter may not realise the absurdities of his claims when he asked them to send it on to the Secretary of State in their own names, using the plausible cover as a ‘Political Officer’ from the RSPB.
Being as intelligent and widely educated as Barnett is, he managed to leave his electronic signature on the document being circulated. It's therefore clear that this is not a genuine letter to the Secretary of State from leaders of other organisations, but instead further evidence of attempted hijacking of independent organisations, who are most likely oblivious to the real agenda at play, to fulfil Barnett’s hard-left objective.
[Properties demonstrating who authored the anti-burning letter to Alok Sharma]
What is even more concerning is how Barnett and his hard-left ideology continue to be able to mobilise the remaining Corbyn-supporters in government to support him.
Only this week we saw Chris Packham allowed to provide a full session declaring why he wanted grouse shooting banned, without any sort of response or questioning of his allegations from the MP in question. This is a move that is entirely unprecedented, and should deeply concern the heart of Westminster.
Can you imagine the public uproar if, say, a property developer or FTSE 100 CEO had been given this access to publish their entirely baseless agenda driven opinion unquestioned, which was then circulated to all parliamentary colleagues?
It beggars belief that this has been allowed to happen. And guess who enabled it to happen? The same Corbyn-supporting Labour MP for Bristol East, Kerry McCarthy, who just happened to be Adam Barnett’s first boss and is in constant touch with him.
[Kerry McCarthy MP, pictured at a campaign with Luke Steele and Adam Barnett, to ban grouse shooting on Ilkley Moor]
The deeply cynical tentacles of the hard left in this country continue to push their communist agenda into every public body and civil service throughout the halls of Westminster – until now entirely unchecked.
If we want to talk about burning, the sooner we can have a much overdue bonfire of the quangos, the better.
There is some hope that Downing Street are starting to wake up to the realisation of what has happened in recent years across our civil service and trying to take appropriate action. Our advice is that they start with the political wing of the RSPB – unless of course its more rational thinking Chairman, Kevin Cox, takes the necessary action first.
For a genuine scientific review of controlled burning please see the following reports by the esteemed and most importantly, independent scientist, Mark Ashby, at the University of Lancaster: https://www.farminglife.com/country-and-farming/key-scientific-reports-shine-new-light-value-heather-burning-2901990
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Note: Correction - an earlier copy of this article suggested Mark Avery's wife was a Labour Councillor. This is incorrect. She has been an official assentor to Labour councillor applicants in the past in herlocal Raunds Saxon Ward and an active online Labour campaigner. We are happy to put the record straight and apologise to Mrs Cockerill.