I wrote about how children were being encouraged to sing a bizarre ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ kind of song for new holiday ‘One Britain One Nation’ day this Friday, but there was some confusion over whether this was a government campaign or just something that someone had made up once for some reason.
Featured Image VIA
Turns out that it’s kind of a bit of both. The organisation/campaign was originally dreamt up back in 2005 by a guy called Kash Singh, but it’s recently gathered a bit of momentum thanks to his politician friends bringing it up with Boris Johnson and Gavin Williamson.
Here’s a helpful thread detailing its history compiled by Dan Barker:
Various Twitter commentators positioned it as “Boris Johnson’s” strategy, and claimed it was organised by the “Union Unit”.
It is not Boris Johnson’s strategy, and the overall idea has been around since 2005, so obviously not created by the (2019/20 founded) Union Unit. pic.twitter.com/gBxZcegwPE
— dan barker (@danbarker) June 22, 2021
This year, Esther McVey brought it up at Prime Minister’s Questions, asking if Boris Johnson would support Kash Singh and OBON. pic.twitter.com/2lOeIHBBOZ
— dan barker (@danbarker) June 22, 2021
Obviously, Boris Johnson had already given it a nod at PMQs, so Gavin Williamson would have to also support it when asked.
Gavin is Education Minister, which is why, a day later, the Dept for Education twitter account would put out this (now heavily ratiod) tweet. pic.twitter.com/xw1LeTy2yj
— dan barker (@danbarker) June 22, 2021
As an add-on, a few have noted OBON had an all party parliamentary group. It *seems* that was fairly short-lived, though I guess could be reborn.@andreajenkyns (another West Yorks MP) launched it with Kash in 2018, but it had already gone from the register of APPGs by Sep 2019 pic.twitter.com/h9weiu9tUn
— dan barker (@danbarker) June 23, 2021
Well there you have it – glad that’s all cleared up. Not really sure about it actually becoming an annual event even if it’s one solely revolving around its ridicule. Would kinda prefer if we all just forgot about it and it came up once a decade for a bit of a cheap laugh rather than a yearly event. The way things are going in this country, it will probably be less than a week before something stupider comes out so I guess there’s that. Not sure if that’s the solution we want though.
For more of the same, check out Dan Barker’s takedown of Orlando Bloom’s daily routine. Very very good.
