Watch how certain left-wing activists, campaign outfits and politically driven Wikipedia editors describe the Great British PAC, and you learn far more about them than about us. They are desperate to file us under a single, convenient label, no matter how plainly the facts contradict it. We simply do not match the cartoon they have drawn.
Let us be clear about what we are not. The Great British PAC is not a political party. We field no candidates. We impose no ideological loyalty test. We are a fast-growing movement of people drawn from very different political backgrounds, united by a conviction that Britain is worth fighting for and deserves something better than the tired, tribal politics that has run public life for too long.
For my own part, I am a member of the Conservative Party. I hold to common-sense conservatism and I will not apologise for it. Yet I have never accepted that good judgement, love of country or sound ideas are the private property of any single party.
The PAC embodies that conviction. I am lucky to work alongside an advisory board, directors, advisers, campaigners and supporters who come from across the political map. Some are Conservatives. Some have Labour roots. Some back Reform. Some are Liberal Democrats. Plenty have never held a party card at all.
Show me a good idea from a Labour MP that serves this country and I will back it. Show me a Liberal Democrat peer making the right case and I will stand with them. Show me an independent campaigner battling for a cause that advances the national interest and I will happily work at their side.
I am not loyal to a tribe. I am loyal to my country.
That principle runs through everything we do. We weigh ideas on their worth, not on the colour of the rosette pinned to whoever puts them forward. What binds us together is not party allegiance but a shared faith in sovereignty, democracy, free speech, accountability and the future of the nation.
That is precisely why it is so ridiculous to cast the Great British PAC as the property of one narrow faction. What we are building is far wider than that: a gathering of patriots from right across the spectrum who grasp that the United Kingdom faces problems much larger than party rivalry.
The Chagos campaign tells the real story
Our fight against Keir Starmer's disastrous Chagos surrender is the clearest illustration of all. Were the PAC truly the outfit our detractors paint, that campaign could never have got off the ground. The truth is the very reverse. For more than a year, people from across the political divide have joined forces to resist what many see as one of the most astonishing acts of national self-harm by any modern British government.
Conservatives have contributed. Liberal Democrats have contributed. The DUP has contributed. Reform figures have contributed. Even Labour MPs, among them Graham Stringer, have played an important part and offered invaluable backing. Standing with them have been lawyers, military experts, academics, peers and Chagossian representatives, all sharing one belief: that British territory should not be signed away without proper scrutiny, and without the consent of the people who call those islands home.
On a hundred other matters many of us flatly disagree. On Chagos, though, we have stood shoulder to shoulder, because some causes outrank party politics. The campaign has shown exactly what the PAC was built to do — to unite patriots from different traditions in defence of Britain's sovereignty, of democratic accountability, and of the rights of the Chagossian people.
Strip out that cross-party effort and the deal would have been ratified long ago. It might have gone through last summer. It might have gone through again in the autumn. It might have gone through again in March. At every turn, people from different political traditions pulled together to keep pressing awkward questions, tabling amendments, bringing forward legislation and demanding real accountability.
That broad coalition has been priceless. When objections come from every corner of the political spectrum, ministers find it far harder to brush them aside as partisan noise. It lends campaigns credibility, it draws attention, and it helps make sure that issues that matter get the examination they are owed. Again and again this past year, we have seen what becomes possible when people place country above party.
And let me be plain: the Great British PAC does not exist to flatter politicians. We are here for the heavy lifting. We research. We campaign. We draft proposals. We work up solutions. We help build the arguments.
But the politicians who have stood with us deserve real credit, because they were willing to carry those arguments into Parliament, to confront ministers, to table amendments and to keep difficult questions alive when silence would have been the easier path. It has been a true partnership. We have supplied the energy, the ideas and the drive; they have supplied the parliamentary platform and the nerve to act. Together we have managed far more than either side could alone. That is what country before party looks like in practice.
A new legal battle on 15 July
The campaign is far from over. On 15 July another major legal fight opens as Chagossians press on with their struggle to stay on the islands they call home. Once more we find ourselves part of a striking cross-party alliance. Beside an outstanding legal team stand MPs and peers from different political traditions who have chosen principle over party and have been ready to fight for what they believe is right.
Their support has been invaluable, and it shows exactly why our approach works. When decent people rally to a just cause, party labels matter far less than the result. The Great British PAC will go on standing shoulder to shoulder with them, as we have done from day one. Together we will keep fighting for the Chagossian people, for Britain's sovereignty, and for the principle that no government should ever hand away British territory without proper scrutiny and accountability.
These are not the deeds of a partisan movement, still less of an extremist one. They are the deeds of people who care about the United Kingdom and who are ready to work with anyone, whatever their politics, where it serves the national interest.
Labels are not evidence
Which is why I find the rush to slap crude tags on our organisation so extraordinary. Groups such as Hope Not Hate have made a habit of pinning labels like “far right” onto people, organisations and campaigns that unsettle their worldview. Those descriptions are then echoed by activists, campaigners and sometimes journalists until they take on a life of their own. Wikipedia, which many still assume to be politically neutral, frequently becomes part of that machinery. A claim appears in one spot, is repeated in another, and before long it is treated as settled fact rather than the contested political opinion it really is.
The aim could hardly be plainer. If you cannot beat an argument, it is often simpler to discredit the person making it. Instead of engaging with the ideas, you attach a label and hope people stop listening. But labels are not evidence, and facts remain stubborn things.
So I will say it once more. The Great British PAC works with people from different political parties. The Great British PAC draws supporters from across the political spectrum. The Great British PAC has spent the past year helping to lead one of the most significant cross-party campaigns in Britain. None of that vanishes because someone edits a Wikipedia page, swaps out a link or writes a hostile article.
Maybe some activists genuinely cannot see what we are building. Maybe they cannot picture people putting country before party, having spent too long treating politics as a tribal sport. Or maybe they understand it perfectly well and find it threatening.
What really worries them
The Great British PAC is growing. Every week more people sign up. Some are Conservatives. Some back Reform. Some vote Labour. Some vote Liberal Democrat. Many have never been politically active in their lives. What they share is not an ideology but a patriotism — a conviction that Britain is worth defending and that ordinary people deserve a louder voice in public life. That, perhaps, is what unsettles our critics most, because what we are building is not something they can easily explain away.
People have had their fill of being told whom to support and whom to despise. They are tired of being herded into political camps. They are tired of a political class that looks more concerned with party advantage than with the country. More and more of them are realising that you can disagree on some questions while still cooperating on others. You can vote differently and still love your nation. You can come from different traditions and still fight for the same cause.
The activists may dislike that. The smear merchants may dislike it. The Wikipedia warriors plainly do. That is their problem, not ours. We will go on putting country before party. We will go on defending British sovereignty. We will go on standing with the Chagossian people. We will go on working with good people wherever we find them. And we will go on challenging anyone who tries to mislead the public about who we are and what we stand for.
The Great British PAC is not going anywhere. In truth, we are only just getting started. And that, perhaps, is what worries our critics most of all.
By Claire Bullivant, CEO of the Great British PAC