*UNDER CONSTRUCTION* Signal-boosting #ToryBritain truths to the nation. Helping YOU be part of the fightback.
Tory MP for: North East Somerset (SW England)
First elected: 2010
2017 majority over Labour: 10,235 (18.9%)
Seat at-risk ranking: 117th (out of 317 Tory MPs)
Profile: Rees-Mogg is the youngest son of William Rees-Mogg, a former editor of The Times newspaper. Growing up, Rees-Mogg was primarily raised by the family’s nanny Veronica Crook, whom he describes as a formative figure. Crook now looks after Rees-Mogg’s own children, having worked for the family for over 50 years. Rees-Mogg was educated at Eton College. He then studied History at Trinity College, Oxford, and was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association. He worked in the City of London for Lloyd George Management until 2007, then co-founded a hedge fund management business, Somerset Capital Management LLP. Rees-Mogg has amassed a significant fortune: in 2016, he and his wife had a combined net worth estimated at more than £100 million.
[Wikipedia article on Jacob Rees-Mogg]
[Wikipedia article on North East Somerset]
From BBC News: Jacob Rees-Mogg has launched a personal attack on the Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, saying he should not have been in the post for some time.
He told BBC News that Mr Carney was a “second-tier Canadian politician” who “failed” to get a job at home.
From Metro: Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg claims European Union citizens living in Britain will have no more rights after Brexit than those from other countries, and the 1.7m Britons who live in other EU countries will also lose their rights.
‘I do not believe there should be any special terms for EU migrants,’ he wrote to Labour peer Lord Adonis. ‘Once we have left the EU there will be no legal basis to treat them differently from migrants from non-EU countries.’
From Daily Mirror: Jacob Rees-Mogg referred to an African country as “the people’s republic of jam jar or something”, in a speech to Conservative Party Conference.
Video via B Heard Media: Jacob Rees-Mogg claims to be a “champion” for voters who don’t share his privileges in life, on Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine Show. The Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire sets the record straight deliciously.
WATCH: Daily Mirror's Kevin Maguire challenge Jacob Rees-Mogg – who says he's a "champion" of the people – on various #Tory policies, notably bedroom tax."Do you feel guilty you made their lives harsher?"#ToriesMustGo
Posted by B Heard Media on Tuesday, September 11, 2018
From The Guardian: Jacob Rees-Mogg has sparked a fresh row about the status of the Irish border after Brexit after a video emerged in which he suggests a return to checks “as we had during the Troubles”.
The Conservative MP is seen on the footage from the public meeting suggesting the government could “keep an eye on” the border: “Ireland would not be a free for all. It would be perfectly possible to continue with historic arrangements to ensure that there wasn’t a great loophole in the way people can get into the UK, to leave us in as bad a position as we are already in. There would be our ability, as we had during the Troubles, to have people inspected. It’s not a border that everyone has to go through every day, but of course for security reasons during the Troubles, we kept a very close eye on the border, to try and stop gun-running and things like that.”
The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, was sharply critical of his comments. “This man knows nothing of Northern Ireland,” he said.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney, tweeted: “It’s hard to believe that a senior politician is so ill informed about Ireland + the politics of the Brexit Irish border issue that he could make comments like these. We have left ‘the troubles’ behind us, through the sincere efforts of many, + we intend on keeping it that way.”
Rees-Mogg has previously been criticised for saying he did not need to visit Northern Ireland to understand the challenges Brexit posed for communities on the border.
From The Times: Jacob Rees-Mogg’s allies have sounded out public relations firms to help to convert his supporters into votes in a future Tory leadership race, according to industry sources.
[Read article on The Times website…] (paywalled, but free registration allows access to two articles per month)
Via The Daily Politik: Andrew Marr challenged Jacob Rees-Mogg on his company, Somerset Asset Management’s links to Russian oligrachs.
Mogg reckons we should be, “much tougher on Russia. I think we should impose the level of sanctions that America has imposed on Russia” BUT it’s OK for Mogg to make money from people who make money from Russia, “by second degree”.
It's OK to Make Money from Russian Oligarchs –
Marr challenged Jacob Rees-Mogg on his company, Somerset Asset Management's links to Russian Oligrachs this morning. Mogg reckons we should be, "much tougher on Russia. I think we should impose the level of sanctions that America has imposed on Russia" BUT it's OK for Mogg to make money from people who make money from Russia, "by second degree".And he's the bookies favourite to be our next Prime Minister – #ToryBritain
Posted by The Daily Politik on Sunday, May 27, 2018
From BBC News: A 12-year-old Jacob Rees-Mogg asked the BBC to pay him £18 for this interview in 1981.
The interview took place after he went along to the annual general meeting of the then industrial giant GEC – he had been given some shares in the company and was already showing a keen interest in money.
In a letter unearthed by The Sun, the young Rees-Mogg wrote: “Dear Today programme, you are in a debt of £18… If it is not received within 10 days I shall take legal advice. I hope it does not come to that for I have no desire to prosecute the BBC.”
From the New Statesman: Edwardian vampire prince of Brexiteers Jacob Rees-Mogg took a break from his permanent residence at the BBC to do a slot on Channel 4 discussing the Irish border issue.
During a live interview with presenter Jon Snow, Rees-Mogg asserted that Jeremy Corbyn voted against the Good Friday agreement, saying: “I’m unaware of any Brexiteer who is in favour of abandoning the Good Friday Agreement – it was Jeremy Corbyn, incidentally, who voted against the Good Friday Agreement when it came to Parliament.”
Channel 4 News later made what it admitted was a “mangled” correction, and clarified that Corbyn did vote for the Good Friday Agreement.
Rees-Mogg also apologised – partly in Latin, but your mole supposes it still counts. “Mea culpa,” the Tory MP tweeted. “I was wrong to say that Mr Corbyn voted against the Good Friday Agreement. He did not.”
From BBC Two: The Mash Report takes a look at Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Rachel Parris on Jacob Rees-Mogg – The Mash Report
Even if you're not into politics, this is the funniest thing you'll see today… 😂 #TheMashReport
Posted by BBC Two on Sunday, February 18, 2018
From Political Scrapbook: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow Chancellor John McDonnell have published their tax returns for the third consecutive year today. They showed Corbyn earned £136,762 from MP’s pay, his salary as leader of the opposition and pension, while McDonnell made £87,353 from MP’s pay and pension.
The amount earned by the leaders of the opposition pale into insignificance when compared to the sums raked in by top Tories from their side jobs alone. The register of MPs’ interests shows:
From The Guardian: Jacob Rees-Mogg had a private meeting with former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon in London on Thursday to talk about how conservative movements can win in the US and UK, the Guardian has learned.
Rees-Mogg, a favourite among Conservative members to be the next party leader, spent more than an hour at the meeting in a Mayfair hotel with Bannon, who was at one point seen as Trump’s most influential adviser.
The American also met Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, and another Conservative MP during a short trip to the UK.
The meetings took place on the day of the diplomatic spat between Trump and Theresa May, after the US president retweeted anti-Muslim material from the far-right fringe group Britain First. Read more
#JacobReesMogg #FromTheArchives: Oxford University student newspaper Cherwell reported on Jacob Rees-Mogg's arrival at…
Posted by Stop The Tories Channel on Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Oxford University student newspaper Cherwell reported on Jacob Rees-Mogg’s arrival at Oxford in the late 1980s:
“Jacob is one of the new breed of ‘serious’ students intent upon the maintenance of good old fashioned values and standards.”
“Whilst at Eton, Jacob maintained his decent and respectable status by employing other students to clean his shoes, or to hold an umbrella over him whilst running in the under fourteens.”
“Now at Trinity [College, Oxford], Jacob has yet to find time to take his suit off, so busy is he in his pursuit of uprightness.”
From Huffpost: Jacob Rees-Mogg has called abortions after rape a “second wrong”, while reiterating his strict anti-abortion stance. He had a heated exchange with the BBC’s Emma Barnett.
[Read full article on Huffpost website…]
From The Independent: Jacob Rees-Mogg, who recently said he was against abortion even for pregnancies resulting from rape, has admitted that his investment firm profits from pills used in abortions.
From The Independent: Conservative leadership favourite Jacob Rees-Mogg has said the growth of Food Bank Britain is “rather uplifting”, showing what a “good compassionate country we are”.
[Read article on Independent website…]
#JacobReesMogg #ToryHomophobia #ToryMisogyny #ToryDoubleStandards
Posted by Stop The Tories Channel on Sunday, September 10, 2017
In 2006 Jacob Rees-Mogg compared people who were not privately educated and did not go to Oxbridge to “potted plants”.
He went on to give the impression he thinks that anyone educated in the state sector is incapable of writing an “articulate” letter.
He also warned against having too high a proportion of ethnic minority candidates.
From The Guardian: Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative grassroots’ favoured candidate to succeed Theresa May, has said he is against same-sex marriage and opposes abortion even in cases of rape.
Rees-Mogg, who is a father of six, said he was “completely opposed to abortion” and said he believed life began at the point of conception. “With same-sex marriage, that is something that people are doing for themselves. With abortion, that is what people are doing to the unborn child,” he said.
Asked whether he would be against terminations in all circumstances including rape, he replied: “Afraid so.”
From The Independent, December 2014: A leading Conservative backbencher was reported to Parliament’s standards watchdog after speaking in four Commons debates in support of the tobacco, mining and oil and gas industries without declaring that he is a founder and director of a firm with multimillion-pound investments in the sectors.