Advance Together has registered as both a political party and a non-party campaign – a clear abuse of the law. The pro-LibDem pretend political party has bragged about this allowing them to effectively double their national spending limit. It appears that Advance Together have fielded five paper candidates to extend their spending limit in five selected Tory-LibDem marginal constituencies. Regular non-party campaigners are limited to spending just £700 per constituency when campaigning against a specific candidate, by virtue of standing fake candidates, Advance Together has extended its spending limit to £12,000. They’ve even gloated about this…
If only there was a campaign legally allowed to spend £12k against him in his constituency… oh hang on…. https://t.co/qNaqxMzHAE
— advance (@advanceGE2019) December 3, 2019
As Guido has previously reported, their campaign literature in these seats only attacks Conservative candidates – it doesn’t even promote their own candidates. They have also confirmed their candidates aren’t standing to win…
Nope. Our candidates are there to be tactical. Not to win. It’s important.
— advance (@advanceGE2019) November 27, 2019
Every single one of their 600 microtargeted adverts on Facebook is an anti-Tory advert. The Advance Together team is suspiciously made up of ‘former’ LibDem activists…
It’s not just Dominic Raab who is facing mysteriously un-branded attack leaflets. The leaflets, paid for by a new party called ‘Advance Together’, all attack the Tory incumbent and do nothing to mention their nondescript party. In total, five ‘Advance Together’ candidates are standing, all in Tory-held Lib Dem target seats…
- Wokingham (John Redwood)
- Mid Sussex (Mims Davies)
- Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami)
- Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab)
- Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers)
‘Advance Together’ looks more and more like a Lib Dem front than a legitimate political party. The leader of the party stood as a top LibDem parliamentary candidate in the last election, and the ‘campaign director’ worked for Simon Hughes.
An election expert tells Guido these are not cheap leaflets. The quality and quantity of the leaflets which have flooded constituencies has led teams on the ground to believe that they have been delivered by Liberal Democrats and have serious experience behind them. One source in Chipping Barnet tells Guido:
“They have to have been delivered by Lib Dem leafleting teams. ‘Advance Together’ doesn’t have a ground game.”
Annabel Mullin, the ‘former’ Liberal Democrat who runs Advance Together has said explicitly on her company’s website that “our objective is to syphon Tory votes to the Lib Dems.”
These fake candidates supporting the Lib Dems effectively doubles the Liberal Democrat spending limit in each seat…
Esther and Walton residents today found leaflets being pushed through their letterboxes attacking Dominic Raab’s handling of the Harry Dunn case. It even came with a lovely poster…
The leaflet comes from candidate Kyle Taylor who is standing for ‘Advance Together’. It includes a number of blunt low-blows as well as certain fonts that are reminiscent of a Lib Dem leaflet – so what is ‘Advance Together’?
Advance Together is a party led by Annabel Mullin (who promotes the anti-Raab leaflet) – a former Lib Dem candidate for Kensington and Change UK candidate in the EU elections.
Kyle Taylor – the candidate putting the anti-Raab leaflet out – is also a former Lib Dem, having worked as Chief of Staff to Simon Hughes MP for three years and his campaign manager in 2017. He also worked for Best for Britain.
Kyle also ran the ‘Fair Vote Project’ – a failed campaign established by Guido’s friends Zoolander Shahmir and Chris Wylie.
Kyle’s leaflets make no mention of his new ‘party’ and only mention his name once in a small font. It’s unlikely voters will remember the name Kyle Taylor or Advance Together when they get to the ballot box. They will remember the attack on Raab.
This kind of kamikaze candidate attack will only help the Lib Dems and Kyle gets an extra £30,000 to spend to help his real favoured party out, while keeping the Lib Dems ‘clean’ of such extreme negative campaigning. Expect even more dodgy tactics from Lib Dems as election day approaches…
