Moggmentum is an online right-wing campaign and

grassroots movement A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or continent movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from volunteers at the local level to imp ...

supporting

Jacob Rees-Mogg Sir Jacob William Rees-Mogg ( ; born 24 May 1969) is a British politician, broadcaster and member of the Conservative Party who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Somerset from 2010 to 2024. He served as Leader of the House o ...

, in a similar fashion to the 2015 phenomena of Milifandom and

Momentum In Newtonian mechanics, momentum (: momenta or momentums; more specifically linear momentum or translational momentum) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. It is a vector quantity, possessing a magnitude and a direction. ...

. The movement includes pressure for Rees-Mogg to become the Leader of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. Comparisons between Moggmentum and the

Tea Party movement The Tea Party movement was an American fiscally conservative political movement within the Republican Party that began in 2007, catapulted into the mainstream by Congressman Ron Paul's presidential campaign. The movement expanded in resp ...

in the United States have been made with regard to their supporting "rightwing ideas, grassroots activism and shaking up the conservative establishment".

History

In May 2017, during the general election campaign, Rees-Mogg posted a picture on

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

of himself and his son standing outside a tattoo parlour in his constituency that was displaying a "Vote Labour" poster alongside a poster reading "Keep sane and don't vote

Tory A Tory () is an individual who supports a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalist conservatism which upholds the established social order as it has evolved through the history of Great Britain. The To ...

"; his picture was captioned: "We shall have to take our business elsewhere". As a result, the hashtag Moggmentum began to trend on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

The hashtag Moggmentum began to trend again in June 2017, as a result of Rees-Mogg interrupting

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North (UK Parliament constituency), Islington North since 1983. Now an Independent ...

during the debate on the

Queen's Speech A speech from the throne, or throne speech, is an event in certain monarchies in which the reigning sovereign, or their representative, reads a prepared speech to members of the nation's legislature when a session is opened. The address sets fo ...

, an act that was criticised by

Speaker of the House of Commons Speaker of the House of Commons is a political leadership position found in countries that have a House of Commons, where the membership of the body elects a speaker to lead its proceedings. Systems that have such a position include: * Speaker of ...

John Bercow John Simon Bercow (; born 19 January 1963) is a British former politician who served as Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom), Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, and Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Pa ...

. Following the speech, a series of

memes A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ...

were created with Rees-Mogg as the subject. A petition was started to make Rees-Mogg Prime Minister; it gained £7,000 in support funding and 13,000 signatures over the next two days. On 7 July 2017, Rees-Mogg gained significant publicity as the potential next Conservative Party leader when major news outlets began releasing articles about the subject. According to Pollstation, at the time, Rees-Mogg had an opinion polling of 60% to take over as Conservative Party leader, with

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He wa ...

following with 12% of the votes. On the same day, betting odds were "slashed" from 50/1 to 16/1 on Oddschecker; this was directly attributed to the campaign. In late July and early August 2017, Moggmentum was featured in a number of foreign media, including prominent publications such as: Belgian '' De Redactie'', American ''

The National Interest ''The National Interest'' (''TNI'') is an American bimonthly international relations magazine edited by American journalist Jacob Heilbrunn and published by the Center for the National Interest, a public policy think tank based in Washington, ...

'' and Polish ''

Wprost ''Wprost'' (, meaning "Directly") is a Polish weekly news magazine published in Poznań, Poland.

Responses

The

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

released a trending subject article on the movement on 3 July 2017, and two days later a two-minute video was added to the BBC website summarising the phenomenon. On 12 and 17 July, the ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

'' and ''

The New European ''The New World'' is a British pan-European weekly political and cultural newspaper and website. Launched in July 2016 as a response to the United Kingdom's 2016 EU referendum, its readership is aimed at those who voted to remain within the ...

'' published articles calling the movement a cult. The latter published another piece on 19 August, penned by

Bonnie Greer Bonnie Greer, OBE FRSL (born 16 November 1948) is an American and British playwright, novelist, critic and broadcaster, who has lived in the UK since 1986. She has appeared as a panellist on television programmes such as '' Newsnight Review'' an ...

, who called Rees-Mogg a "false memory". In 2018, as part of a ''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' investigation into online abuse following comments made by Boris Johnson regarding the

niqab A niqāb, niqab, or niqaab (; ), also known as a ruband () or rubandah (), is a long garment worn by some Muslim women in order to cover their entire body and face, excluding their eyes. It is an interpretation in Islam of the concept of ...

and media controversy regarding alleged Conservative Islamophobia, it was reported that a number of Facebook groups supportive of Rees-Mogg and Johnson were leaving "widespread" Islamophobic and racist comments on Johnson's Facebook page, including: support for

Enoch Powell John Enoch Powell (16 June 19128 February 1998) was a British politician, scholar and writer. He served as Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Wolverhampton South West for the Conservative Party (UK), Conserv ...

and his

Rivers of Blood speech The "Rivers of Blood" speech was made by the British politician Enoch Powell on 20 April 1968 to a meeting of the Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham. In it Powell, who was then Shadow Secretary of State for Defence in the Shadow Cabi ...

, incitement to violence and murder against Muslims, Islamophobic attacks on London mayor

Sadiq Khan Sir Sadiq Aman Khan (, ; born 8 October 1970) is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting (UK Parliament constituency), Tooting ...

and support for far-right activist

Tommy Robinson Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon (' Yaxley; born 27 November 1982), better known as Tommy Robinson, is a British anti-Islam sentiment, anti-Islam campaigner and one of the UK's most prominent far-right activists. Robinson has been active in ...

. In response, Rees-Mogg said he was supporting a

private member's bill A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in wh ...

put forward by Labour MP

Lucy Powell Lucy Maria Powell (born 10 October 1974) is a British politician who has served as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council since July 2024. A member of the Labour and Co-operative parties, she has been the Member of Pa ...

to regulate social media, and added "people who have these types of views should take no solace in using ohnson'scomments as an excuse to take this approach".

References

{{Portal bar, Politics, United Kingdom, Conservatism, Internet Conservative Party (UK) Hashtags Toryism Internet activism 2017 in British politics 2017 in Internet culture

History

See also

References