Analyst caught comparing Trump campaign with Hitler’s
He has been dubbed the 007 of data analytics and was once pictured in society pages as the boyfriend of Queen Elizabeth’s cousin.
Nigel Oakes has a track record of working in politics, psychological operations and media campaigns that stretch from post-Asian financial crisis Indonesia to conflict zones, African democracies and the last United States presidential election.
The British corporate register at Companies House lists Mr Oakes as based in the UAE, from where he has given addresses for subsidiaries of the Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) enterprises he founded.
Mr Oakes was thrust into the spotlight yesterday in a new twist to the running saga of Cambridge Analytica, an SCL venture, which is alleged to have used Facebook data to assist the campaign that put Donald Trump in the White House.
Emma Briant, an academic at University of Essex, submitted recordings to a House of Commons committee of discussions with Mr Oakes and Andy Wigmore, a British political campaigner, in which the parallels between Mr Trump’s campaign and methods used by Hitler were discussed.
“It’s the things that resonate, sometimes to attack the other group and know that you are going to lose them is going to reinforce and resonate your group,” Mr Oakes said. “Which is why, you know, Hitler, got to be very careful about saying so, must never probably say this, off the record, but of course Hitler attacked the Jews.
“He didn’t have a problem with the Jews at all, but the people didn’t like the Jews. So he just leverage[d] an artificial enemy. Well that’s exactly what Trump did.
“He leveraged a Muslim – I mean, you know, it’s – it was a real enemy. ISIS is real, but how big a threat is ISIS really to America?
“Really, I mean, we are still talking about 9/11, well 9/11 is a long time ago.”
Mr Wigmore, who was one of the so-called “Bad boys of Brexit” with the insurance salesman Arron Banks and Nigel Farage, the former leader of Ukip, and others, also brought up the topic.
“The propaganda machine of the Nazis, for instance – you take away all the hideous horror and that kind of stuff – it was very clever, the way they managed to do what they did,” he said. “In its pure marketing sense, you can see the logic of what they were saying, why they were saying it, and how they presented things, and the imagery.”
Damian Collins, chair of the committee, said the messaging was extreme around immigration.
“These statements will raise concerns that data analytics was used to target voters who were concerned about this issue, and to frighten them with messaging designed to create ‘an artificial enemy’ for them to act against,” he said.
Mr Oakes did not comment on the material but Mr Wigmore said the discussion had been stripped of its historical context. He took to Twitter to demand a right of reply.
A product of the elite English school, Eton College, Mr Oakes moved into broadcasting and then campaigns. His dalliance with Lady Helen Windsor, the daughter of the Duke of Kent,
the cousin of the Queen, was reported in the 1980s.
A LinkedIn page under his name described him as an industry pioneer.
“Nigel Oakes is a British political scientist whose ideas have laid the foundation for many significant developments both in military influence and population analysis,” it said.
Brittany Kaiser, a former SCL employee, described the techniques as a crossover between military methods and politics, before the Commons digital, culture, media and sport select committee yesterday. She said the company had told the British government it was using the tactics overseas.
“The methodology was considered a weapon, weapons-grade communications tactics, which means that we had to tell the British government if it was going to be deployed in another country outside the United Kingdom,” Ms Kaiser said.