ARTICLE UPDATED at 17:35 6/01/25 – SEE BELOW
Many readers will already have some knowledge about the various tenants at 55 Tufton Street. A network of right-wing groups work together there and in nearby offices, lobbying governments and feeding the media with misinformation, incessantly promoting free market and climate denial agendas.
Activists from a group called Shut The System claim to have cut through fibre-optic telecoms cables over the weekend, with the aim of cutting off telephone and internet services and disrupt what they characterise as ‘the lobbyists’ malignant work undermining democracy’.
During the Brexit campaign, Vote Leave worked alongside several other interconnected groups pushing for a hard Brexit – many of those key players are now pushing anti-immigration and Islamophobic propaganda with strong connections to Reform UK.
What makes these groups deeply undemocratic is the close association and unhindered parliamentary access provided by people like Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom and many others, along with the opaqueness of funding streams, much of it from the United States.
Researchers at Greenpeace revealed in 2018 that the Institute for Economic Affairs (one of the lobbyist/think tanks closely associated with Tufton Street) received a constant stream of funding over the years from BP. Its director Mark Littlewood regularly criticises 2050 net-zero policies, railed against the fracking moratorium, and boasted that many of Liz Truss’s policies were designed by the IEA. In 2023, Open Democracy revealed that the IEA received £2.4 million in anonymous donations the previous year, and that it boasted that it had secure access to 75 cross-party members of parliament.
After carrying out their action, activists left a letter under the door blaming the Tufton Street networks for millions of deaths. Entitled “No ethics? No wi-fi”, the letter accuses the occupants of silencing warnings about the lethal risks of climate change, and sowing hatred and division “to prop up wealthy corporate friends and funders”.
Shut The System’s campaign of non-violent direct action began last year and they claim major successes such as pressuring Barclays to make new climate finance pledges and their collaboration with Palestine Action appears to have forced the bank to announce its divestment from Israeli arms company Elbit Systems. The group also targeted finance insurers Probitas, who have since announced an end to their cover for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.
Among the groups likely to be affected today are Global Warming Policy Foundation, Net Zero Watch, Civitas, TaxPayers’ Alliance, and New Culture Forum.
UPDATE: Real Media reached out for comment and verification, but switchboard numbers at Tufton Street appeared to be down. No response to emails. We were in touch with TaxPayers’ Alliance press team but they did not comment. We visited 55 Tufton Street, where a manager there also declined to make any comment. Several Openreach vans were outside the property, and workers said the comms would take several hours to re-connect. There has been no further communication from ‘Shut The System’.
In a press statement, Shut The System emphasised that their actions are always non-violent and “unlike the corporate murderers at Tufton Street…will never physically harm a person or living being”, but they warn of escalating tactics over “the failures of the wealthy elites”, and point out that “the crooks at Tufton Street represent a tiny minority – we are the 99%.”
More than six years ago, in a collaborative film with Open Democracy, DeSmog and Byline, Real Media first exposed how Tufton Street hacks our democracy. Watch that original film below.
We also updated that story in a further investigation in 2022 – Hidden Forces Pushing Change In Our Democracy And Rights – which exposed how the Tufton Street nexus influenced our laws, judicial system and public policy. This has led directly to a massive clampdown on the right to protest, which has seen an unprecedented number of peaceful protesters sent to prison in the past year.
2018 film – The Tufton Street Networks – Real Media
