Homophobia, fraud & payola - Labour Euro leader's shocking past

UKIP had endured several months of attacks - mainly from Labour - after Polish MEP Robert Iwaszkiewicz joined the EFDD Group. This came after European Parliament president Martin Schulz effectively bribed a Latvian MEP into leaving the group in an attempt to cause its collapse by having insufficient nations represented in its membership. Schulz of course is a member of the 'Party of European Socialists' (PES), the group to which Labour belongs. But is everything clean in Labour's garden?

PES is currently headed by Sergei Stanishev, former PM of Bulgaria and leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party from 2001 to 2014 until he was forced from office following a scandal after the appointment of a media mogul as head of the nation's Agency for National Security. Protesters chanted 'mafia' and 'red trash' in a series of demonstrations across the country. In 2011, he was elected unopposed as the President of the PES with the support of 91.5% of their MEPs, including backing from Britain's Labour Party contingent.

Baroness Royall & Stanishev,
showing what they think of
'gays', no doubt

It was no secret even then that Stanishev is a homophobe. In 2008, while he was Bulgaria's Prime Minister, he opposed the first Gay Pride march in the country, saying he did not like the "manifestation and demonstration of such orientations". While this matter of public record would bring howls of outrage from the usual suspects in Hope not Hate and UAF not to mention their Union and big business backers had it been said by anyone in UKIP, when it comes to Stanishev, there is a strange silence over his past indiscretions. In fact, it is the opposite of a silence, as Stanishev expects the backing of Glenis Willmott and the rest of the British contingent of Labour MEPs when he stands for re-election as the PES President in 2015. Will they really back him? Of course they will, homophobia doesn't matter when its their side that says it - if they cared, why was the leader of the Labour opposition in the House of Lords, Baroness Royall, so keen to be photographed with someone with such views? Royall serves as a Vice President of the PES in Stanishev's administration.

And then we have the fraud. There are a lot of allegations, both directed towards Stanishev personally, and against his wife, who if anything has even dodgier connections than him, including links to a jailed drug trafficker.

The first indication of Bulgarian Payola came with the development of a Black Sea resort in the country in an area designated for environmental protection by the EU. The Euro 1bn project was forced through in the face of huge objections - although the EU has remained strangely silent. The Bulgarian partner of the developing consortium is run by George Stanishev, who coincidentally is the brother of Sergei, who was Prime Minister at the time consent was granted. It's not what you know, it's who you know, eh?

This was followed by a bit of mutual back-scratching. Stanishev received the full backing of Commission President Manuel Barroso in early 2009, only for Stanishev to support Barroso's second term as Commission President a couple of months later.

And then we get on to the really serious fraud involving Stanishev's wife, drug traffickers and a payola scandal in Austria. Our apologies, but it makes for hugely complicated reading, so I hope you will bear with us.

Stanishev married his second wife, Monika Yosifova in 2011, although he had been living with her since late 2008. She was a noted PR expert in Bulgaria, and runs a PR company called 'Aktive Group'. In 2013, Aktive was given a contract by the PES under Martin Schultze to create a website explaining the function of the European Parliament to Bulgarians. The grant application had originally been rated 24th out of 111 submissions by the EP communications directorate. Rather than argue the case for the contract - which had been signed in his wife's family name of Yanova - Aktive

Sergei Stanishev and wife Monika - what name
will she be using today to hide her frauds?

promised to return the Euro 30k deposit it had already received.

 

This is not the first time that his wife had been involved in EU website funding scandals however. Between 2006 and 2008, Austrian national Peter Hochegger worked as a lobbyist pushing for Bulgarian accession under a Euro 1.5m contract issued by Stanishev's government. Part of this money was in turn paid to the PR company headed by Stanishev's wife, again under her former name Yanova. Hochegger himself was sentenced to 2.5 years by the Vienna Criminal Court last year for hiding donations to the 'Alliance for the Future of Austria' Party (BZO) during the 2006 Austrian elections - donations were hidden using fake invoices from PR and communications companies. Hochegger himself admitted that Euro 270,000 was paid by his company to Yanova/Yosifova/Stanisheva's company, along with Euro 100,000 to Ernst Strasser, the former Interior Minister of Austria. There were close links between the Bulgarian branch of Hochegger's company and other senior members of Stanishev's party in Bulgaria: Bulgarian branch manager Rositza Velkova was a close associate of Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, and other names close to the ruling party were also found to be connected to the PR business of Hochegger, including Juliana Nikolova, adviser to Prime Minister Borisov on EU funds management and Ivaylo Georgiev, former director of the Arena Armeets sports facility, who is currently in charge of the National Palace of Culture.

Austrian Peter Hochegger - serving 2 1/2 years for his role in
a political payments scandal, and a close associate of
Sergei Stanishev's wife.

 

Stanisheva's links to Austria do not stop with Hochegger. In 2007, a company called Europroject Holdings AG was registered in Vienna. Notionally formed by Austrian citizen Herbert Edlinger and Bulgarian Evelina Gyuderova, by 2010 only Stanisheva (registered in the Austrian registry using her middle name as a surname, ie Monica Lyubomirova, owning 75%) and Aneliya Krushkova (owning 25%) were the beneficial owners. Krushkova was a former Deputy Minister of Trade in the Bulgarian government and was appointed head of the State Tourism Agency in 2007 by the government headed by Sergei Stanishev. Krushkova is also listed as the head of another Austrian registered company, BDZ Holding, related to the Bulgarian state railway company. In July 2007, a company was registered in Sofia called Europrojects Point, with the Austrian 'Europrojects Holdings AG' listed as the sole shareholder. Management of the Bulgarian company was in the hands of Zinaida Zlatnova until the end of 2007, when she was appointed the European Commission representative to Bulgaria. She is currently the Deputy Prime Minster and Justice Minister. Europroject Point was formed specifically (according to its now defunct website) to assist in the application by Bulgarian companies for European Commission grants, and between 2007 and 2010 the company dealt with L1.2m of grants (roughly £500k). Many of these represented clear conflicts of interest with deals having been signed by government members and companies which they owned, and Stanisheva had other business interests with several of them. This included contracts signed by Krushkova in her capacity as head of the State Tourism Agency with Europroject, of which she was also an owner.

At several general meetings of Europroject Holdings AG, both Stanisheva and Krushkova were represented by a lawyer/banker called Boryana Lindiger who was employed by Euram bank in Vienna. In 2006, Lindiger was involved with a private finance house in Bulgaria called 'Private Finance Union', or PFU. She assumed a board position vacated by a man called Simo Karaychev. Karaychev is the brother of Evelin Banev, nicknamed 'Brando', who was convicted in Italy of cocaine trafficking and in Bulgaria of money laundering. While Lindiger downplays any association between herself and either Banev or Karaychev, the Sofia City Court in its conviction of Banev stated that Lindiger had 'serviced the bank accounts of the defendant', and that the source of funds arranged by Lindiger was from cocaine smuggling between Columbia and Bulgaria. Lindiger was also involved in another company with Edlinger which hit the headlines when the Commission for Establishing Property Acquired Through Criminal Activity was attempting to foreclose a property owned by Ahmed Dogan. Dogan, apart from his sideline as a hotelier, was also leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, which was a minority party in Stanishev's administration. Edlinger's company managed to dispose of the shares in the hotel before the Commission could act. Dogan himself was acquitted of corruption in relation to European funding of hydroelectric power projects in Bulgaria for failing to disclose his links to the company awarded the £300k contract after it was discovered the law he was prosecuted under was not in force at the time: this was alleged to have taken place while he was part of Stanishev's government.

 

There, was that complicated enough for everybody? Our apologies, it is very difficult to write this stuff concisely, as part of the 'modus operandi' of fraudsters is to make things complicated and difficult to follow in the event of a subsequent investigation, although with Stanishev placemen occupying the senior positions at any Bulgarian agency which might have to conduct such an investigation, there would seem little chance of that happening. Our thanks to the researchers on this, and we will add the links to the external sources as time permits: many of them are present on Stanishev's Wikipedia page in any case, so this stuff is hardly a secret. All of which begs the question - why does the Labour Party believe a corrupt homophobe is the best person to represent their interests in Europe?

Merthyr Green PPC defends association with would be arsonist; Labour councillor resigns as admin

Elspeth Parris, the Green PPC for Merthyr Tydfil, commented on our earlier blog posting which pointed out that her group contained people who were advocating the burning down of UKIP's campaign office in Merthyr. She wrote:

We have reproduced this in full lest she consider it 'defamation of character', but to address her points in order:



"I didn't found this group" - perhaps, but you're certainly an admin of it. And fellow watermelon Harriet claims to support the Greens and Natalie Bennett, the UK's least inspiring political leader. And Elspeth (who is a personal FB friend of Harriet) certainly played a leading role in setting it up, explaining to members of the Facebook page which preceded the group the reason why it had switched to group format, with lots of 'we' and no 'Harriet said'.

"Harriet is a Merthyr resident who happens to be at university in Scotland" - if it were true, this

Elspeth says Harriet lives in Merthyr
Harriet says she lives in Edinburgh.
Is Elspeth lying, or does Harriet not
know where she lives?

rather begs the question as to why she is involved with the Radical Independence Campaign in Scotland when she wouldn't have a vote there, but the easiest way to deal with this is a screen grab from the achingly middle class Ms Protheroe-Davis' profile. On her own Facebook profile, she states that she lives in Edinburgh.

"the group has no connection with any suggestion that the shop should be 'burnt down', the person who the article suggests has made such a suggestion has only joined the group very recently" - which is true so far as it goes: the group was only set up last week, so everybody in it only joined the group 'very recently'. Previously, it was a Facebook page under the same name, and Malik Furreed was a member of that group as well. Conveniently for Elspeth, all posts have been deleted from that page, but its alright, we screen grabbed them in case you didn't. So horrified is Elspeth by Malik's suggestion that she has responded instantly by taking no action whatsoever and allowing him to remain a member of the group. Why would any respectable political group want someone who incites political violence as a member, and why would they go to such lengths to defend such views?

'Speeches made were made by UKIP representatives' - We will concede that we have not been able to find video evidence of any speeches, so we'll give Elspeth that one. Although we find it difficult to believe that you can get 40 members of the hard left together without there being several hour long speeches. Perhaps the red flag waving militants were too busy making plans for future arson at the premises they were protesting outside?

Malik Furreed, member of 'Merthyr says NO to UKIP'

What is quite interesting is that somebody seems to have had a word with Cllr David Davies, Labour councillor for Town ward in Merthyr. He is not longer an Admin of Harriet and Elspeth's page, we assume because he's not a complete idiot or at least someone in the Labour Party who isn't a complete idiot phoned him up and told him that his continued role as an admin was associating him with people who wanted to burn down a political opponent's shop and all the people inside it. Clearly this is a lesson Elspeth hasn't learned, as Malik Furreed remains a member of the group, despite the Green's Merthyr PPC knowing he was seeking volunteers to 'fuck up' the shop.

We already knew that the Green Party would consort with criminals in its quest for power. Natalie Bennett, the Green leader, shared a platform with a convicted fraudster and forger so desperate is she to damage UKIP. Thanet Green councillor Ian Driver - himself the proud holder of a criminal record - helped organise the demonstration which saw Nigel Farage assaulted in Thanet by one of his friends.

Elspeth complains that our original article is defamatory, something she repeats on Twitter. The truth is much simpler. We said that a group that she is behind contains people who threatened to burn down the UKIP shop in Merthyr and those inside it. That was and is the absolute truth, and the rest of her protestations are just fluff. If you lie with dogs, you get fleas, Elspeth. The time when the Green Party should be called to account for its association with political violence is long overdue.

PS incidentally, getting your little gang of Welsh communists to flood the comments doesn't address the problems. And you wonder why we're attacking you? We're sure you'd like to think its because you're a political threat to the UKIP vote, but it's not, because you're not. It's because you're condoning the actions of someone who threatened to burn the UKIP shop and those inside it. We don't see what is so difficult to grasp about this - your Labour councillor obviously got it.




Calls to burn down UKIP shop by members of group run by Green PPC & Labour Councillor

A Facebook group run by a Green Parliamentary Candidate, a Welsh Scottish Nationalist and a Labour councillor has members who advocated burning down the UKIP shop in Merthyr Tydfil.

Elspeth Parris, Green Party 'watermelon'
who is happy to associate her group
with instigators of political violence and
intimidation

The group - Merthyr says NO to UKIP - was founded by Elspeth Parris, Green PPC for Merthyr Tydfil. Other admins were David Davies, a Labour councillor in Merthyr and Harriet Protheroe-Davis, a student activist who will apparently join any campaign so long as it features a red star.

Also members of the group are two other Labour councillors from Merthyr, Darren Roberts and Rhonda Braithwaite, a Plaid Cymru PPC, Freddy Greaves, and UNISON managers Dawn Bowden and Dan Beard.

The member we are interested in though is part time musician Malik Furreed. Furreed was so incensed by the operation of democracy that he called for volunteers to 'fuck up' the UKIP shop in Merthyr which was due to open a couple of days later.




Malik Furreed's barely literate call to violence

His friend Jake Morgan was quite enthusiastic about it, suggesting that they 'burn whatever cunt goes in there as well', an idea that Malik was quite happy with. Similar comments appeared on his Facebook page. Clearly someone has been in touch, as young Malik has deleted the comments. Luckily we have the screen grabs (right).

Had it been a UKIP supporter who'd said such things about a political opponent, UKIP would have expelled them and/or cut all links to them. No such scruples in 'Merthyr says NO to UKIP' though. Although the tweets and Facebook posts have been deleted, Malik remains a member. As do the Labour councillors, the Green PPC, the Welsh Scottish Nationalist and the Plaid PPC.

Perpetrators of the violent attack on the UKIP shop in Penarth

That they would put up with such threatening behaviour is hardly surprising. On the 14th December, a group of youths - one of whom does not look dissimilar to Malik - attacked the UKIP shop in Penarth, a short distance away from Merthyr. On that occasion, a gang of 6 - 5 youths and one older man who stayed safely out of range of the CCTV cameras - urinated in the shop doorway and threw beer glasses and bottles at the shop frontage. This was just 4 days before Malik was appealing for volunteers to do the same to the UKIP shop in Merthyr Tydfil.

Such behaviour in this part of South Wales is hardly new, although it has stepped up a notch since UKIP finished a narrow second behind Labour in this year's European Elections. In July last year, we reported how a UKIP candidate in Llansamlet was forced to withdraw after his wife's UNISON rep at work warned her that if her husband stood as a UKIP candidate, her career would be at an end. It is not surprise then to see two UNISON reps as members of the 'Merthyr says NO to UKIP' group - UNISON's regional manager Dawn Bowden and University of Wales UNISON secretary Dan Beard.

Protheroe-Davis and Merthyr's homeless with a
rather confusing sign

There's plenty of other hate around in the group. David Davies, group admin and the Labour councillor for Town ward on Merthyr council is a Hope not Hate activist who 'likes' Socialist Worker, UAF and In Defence of Marxism among other hard left groups. Double-barrelled class warrior Harriet Protheroe-Davis, another admin, belongs to a veritable smorgasbord of radical, hard left groups including Radical Independence Campaign, the violent Scottish Nationalist group, although her only link to Scotland appears to be as a student at Edinburgh University.

To date, actions directed against the Merthyr shop have amounted to little more than a poorly thought out sign held briefly outside the door by Protheroe-Davis and a number of Merthyr's homeless to judge by their appearance. Some speeches were made, and a lot of people who pretended to be local turned up 'spontaneously', although a significant number went to some lengths to show their affiliation with the hard left of the Socialist Workers Party by staying out of camera shot and covering their faces. A number of 'Stand up to UKIP' signs were also present: the campaign is a strange mish-mash of activists which receives funding from both the trade unions and big business through the 'British Influence' group, but is run by the SWP front UAF. As we have seen elsewhere in the country, how long will it be before they tire of their tactics of intimidation in the face of UKIPs continued rise and resort to the sort of violence advocated by Furreed and seen elsewhere in the country?

Rotherham paper 'apologises' for production error in UKIP ad which hit front pages

News reaches us that the Rotherham Record has issued an apology for incorrectly running a UKIP
advertisement with the phrase 'Say No to the UK'.

The paper today printed the apology on page two, blaming an 'error in the production process'. The error amounted to an employee (believed to be a Labour Party member) deliberately altering the artwork, as it was supplied 'print ready' and in the correct format to be directly inserted in the paper without intervention.

The usual media suspects ran the story about UKIP getting it wrong - we won't link to them here, but the Huffington Post, Metro, etc plus of course Hope not Hate all made merry at UKIP's 'mistake'. Now it appears that it was a dirty trick by a newspaper employee, do you think they'll run that story too?

We should all be prepared for more dirty tricks along the same lines. While UKIP has been hounded by poor headlines this week, the other parties have escaped, despite stories such as these in just the past 4 days:

Ringwood Tory councillor in racism row after using 'n' word in council meeting

Rochdale Labour councillor fails to overturn sentence of homophobic abuse hurled at fellow councillor

Former Tory councillor fined £100 for breaching terms of sex offenders order relating to child porn conviction

English Democrat councillor thrown out for saying Liverpool was cursed for supporting Gay Pride

Cornish Lib Dem councillor alleged to pose 'serious risk to children' could face disqualification for non-attendance

Plymouth Labour councillor faces charges of fraud by abuse of position as executor of will

There are more - see our Facebook page via the link to the right (in a web browser) to see the details. And we repeat - this is just 4 days worth at a quiet time of year!!

From payola to paedophilia, the establishment parties escape the media attention

Labour's Farooq Ahmed - convicted
 of hurling homophobic
abuse at fellow Labour Councillor

It has undeniably been a difficult couple of weeks for UKIP particularly in Essex. The withdrawal from the Basildon & East Thurrock selection process of Natasha Bolter appears to be one of those things about which UKIP could have done nothing: either she was a 'woman scorned', or a deliberate plant by another party, but the release of e-mails and texts she sent to Roger Bird seem to confirm that whatever she was, she was not a victim of sexism. Luckily, her sexism allegations, even if couched in terms deliberately designed to damage UKIP and with the added suggestion of racism thrown in, will have little long term effect upon the party's prospects.


More worrying in our opinion were the events which came afterwards involving Neil Hamilton and Kerry Smith. Both were victims ultimately of their own past actions and as such may not be deserving of too much sympathy. But what we find most depressing is that both were victims not of the media unearthing things which they would prefer to have remained undiscovered, but of fellow UKIP members deliberately releasing information in the furtherance of a personal agenda and regardless of the wider damage it would cause to the party.



Labour's Pauleen Gibson found guilty
of making reckless and
unsubstantiated racism allegations

We know who was responsible, but we have no intention of naming names and prolonging this rather pitiful bout of mud-slinging. We would also caution commenters to not name names below this article, as we will delete them: it serves no purpose to enter another round of recriminations and accusations. A brief look at Labour's social media output is sufficient to gauge the damage that UKIP has inflicted upon itself.

We scan the media every day. We know just how many councillors and officials from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties are hauled up on accusations of homophobia and racism, and as a result, we know just how many of these make it out of the pages of local newspapers and into the pages of the nationals. The answer of course is almost none. The same is true about scandals involving expenses fraud - look at what is happening at Dorset County Council, where the Tory leader is facing criminal charges for failing to declare his interests. But we also know the extent to which UKIP is both particularly targeted for such things, and the propensity of the national media to run any local story which reaffirms UKIPs image as being both racist and homophobic.

We have attached below links to a number of articles which show the problems UKIP face: had any 

Lib Dem Stephen Fenwick (at rear)
was convicted of
racially aggravated assault

of these people been UKIP, the stories would have warranted the front page of the Daily Mail. As they were from the establishment parties, the fall-out was safely contained in the local area.

It may well be that the general public see through what the media is attempting to do, and there is some polling evidence to suggest that is the case. Whether the voting public will continue to make such allowances for UKIP when it is UKIP members who are handing the media the ammunition remains to be seen, but this sort of self-indulgent jostling for position can only serve to make us look exactly like the parties we criticise.

Cllr Pauleen Gibson (Labour, Haringey) (Feb 2014) was found guilty by a standards board of making reckless and unsubstantiated allegations of racism. She was found guilty of bringing the council into disrepute, and announced her decision to not seek re-election.

Cllr Stephen Fenwick (Lib Dem, Sutton) (March 2014) was convicted of the racially aggravated assault of a barman at the pub on Charing Cross station concourse.

Cllrs Sajaad Khan and Pervaz Khan plus three others (Labour, Middlesborough) (May 2014) resign from Labour group following re-selection process which Cllr P Khan described as "treating some of my Asian family and friends in a manner which they perceive to be racist".

Former Cllr Lester Holloway (November 2014) resigns from the Lib Dems after racist remarks, and complains that the party is not doing enough to promote racial equality and is deliberately failing to select Black and Asian candidates for winnable seats

Cllr Paulette Hamilton (Labour, Birmingham) (September 2014) deselected in Labour witch hunt, supporters warn of 'danger of becoming an apartheid city'

Cllr Farooq Ahmed (Labour, Rochdale) (June 2014) resigned from the Labour Party because they failed to give him sufficient support following his conviction of a public order offence after hurling homophobic abuse at a fellow Labour councillor in the street.

David Bishop (Conservative, Brentwood) (May 2014) resigned as a candidate after he made homophobic and racist tweets

Don't worry, there are plenty of double standards at play elsewhere. UNISON - who fund both Hope not Hate and UAF's 'Stand up to UKIP' campaign, were happy to support one of their own shop stewards who told a Polish agency worker that jobs emptying bins in Salford were for 'English people'

This is just a random selection - there are hundreds more examples of this type of behaviour by representatives of the establishment parties posted on our Facebook page which is updated daily, not to mention stuff which is far more serious: criminal offences ranging from firearms to fraud, explosives to expenses cheats, payola to paedophilia.

We accept that sometimes people say or do things which deserve wider exposure. Do these things include the contents of private letters or private telephone conversations between members of the same party? If people find themselves watching what they say when talking to fellow party members, then the true exchange of ideas necessary for political debate is gone, and we are channelling our thoughts down the same road as the establishment. Smith and Hamilton may both have been wrong - we make no judgement on the basis of politically partial leaks - but both had a right to expect their colleagues to keep private matters private.

LaRoche supported 'race play' sex leader of International Socialist Network

Bunny LaRoche - fond of calling people racist, but happy to
support the idea of 'race play' sexual relationships

Long terms readers of this blog will have recognised the shrill, blue haired scold in the Question Time audience last night as professional middle class agitator and Socialist Worker's Party/International Socialist thug Bunny la Roche. La Roche, who hails from Thanet, was a leading organiser alongside Thanet Green Cllr Ian Driver of the demonstration which saw UKIP leader Nigel Farage assaulted in Cliftonville at the beginning of this year. It is no surprise to discover that she is also a personal friend of Andrew Scott, the man convicted of the assault.

More surprising for a woman whose every other sentence involves labelling someone racist is her involvement with the International Socialist Network (ISN). When LaRoche left the SWP she joined ISN, one of the splinter groups formed as the organisation began to break apart following the rape allegations directed towards leader 'Comrade Delta', normally known as Martin Smith. We suspect that she wasn't one of Smith's victims.

The International Socialist Network - of which she became one of the self-appointed leadership clique - was itself almost immediately riven by dissent. Much of this centred on a row about a sexual practise known as 'Race Play', in which partners of different ethnicity ignore social conventions and - basically - call the black one a 'nigger' while shagging. Life doesn't really get more racist if not white supremacist than that. The main proponent of this rather bizarre, counter-revolutionary activity was Richard Seymour, the 'leader' of ISN and a close ally of Bunny LaRoche.

Despite many of ISN's activists departing over the row, LaRoche has stayed loyal to Seymour, and continues to feature him on her website. All of which seems to indicate that LaRoche thinks racism is just fine so long as she decides on who gets to be racist and when. As LaRoche has a face like a slapped arse and a body like two billiard balls in a sock, we haven't dwelt too long on whether she herself partakes in 'Race Play' lest we lose our breakfast at the very thought, but it wouldn't surprise us.

Elsewhere, La Roche is hardly popular even among the self-described 'anti-racist' groups. She is also not averse to a bit of capitalism, as this posting from 'Socialist Unity' outlines: when their Stoke branch received an £2000 donation from the PCS union, she attempted to bill them £1800 for UAF's unwanted assistance. They write,

LaRoche - back on the SWP payroll as a 'Stand up to UKIP'
paid organiser.

" Bunny Laroche, a full timer who previously excelled herself by making the SWP’s name mud in Kent"
"Bunny accused the activist of stealing them from her. She then changed tack and said she was “not allowed” to sell the shirts"
"Bunny came into her unpleasant element again... She went from sweetness and light at the founding meeting... to an aggressive bully at the anti-fascist rally held a few days later"

There is much more, and we really recommend that you read it the Socialist Unity report linked.

It is worth mentioning that LaRoche has rebuilt her links with the SWP while remaining a defender of racist sexual practises, and is now involved with the SWP inspired 'Stand up to UKIP' campaign, the bully boy front of that other union funded organisation, Hope not Hate. We understand she receives a salary in return for her efforts.

It is the left's Orwellian policies on the NHS that are racist

As Hope not Hate continue their infantile attacks on UKIP's attempts to find workable solutions to the chaos which passes for our NHS, our attention has been drawn to an article in the Daily Mail from last August which raises an issue we mentioned several days ago: the fact that the NHS strips doctors from the poorest countries when we are turning away British kids who want to train as doctors from our own universities.

Villagers queue to see a doctor in the Sudan. Hope not Hate
think taking Sudanese doctors to prop up the NHS is an
acceptable way of dealing with the shortage of medical
personnel in the UK.

The Mail article refers to General Medical Council figures on the number of overseas trained doctors who are on the British medical register.

An example would be the 1,415 doctors who trained in the Sudan. According to data from the Henry J Keiser Family Foundation, Sudan has 2.8 doctors for every 10,000 people, or 14 for every 50,000. The British NHS has 138.5 for every 50,000.

Sudan suffers from famine and drought. 20% of the 30 million plus population live below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day. The country receives some £50m of aid from the UK alone every year. The Global Hunger Index ranks the country the 5th hungriest in the world, and states it has an 'Alarming Hunger Situation'. The country ranks 171st on the Human Development Index, making it one of the states with the lowest human development in the world. The Red Cross talks of the 'desperate situation of health care' in the country.

Despite all this, Hope not Hate and their Labour and Union paymasters seem to think that taking 1,415 doctors out of the country is somehow a good idea for the NHS, an damn the poor Sudanese. To put this into perspective, with 2.8 doctors per 10,000 population and a 30,000,000 population, that means there are only around 8400 doctors in the Sudan. If you work out the maths, that means the equivalent of 16% of all Sudanese trained doctors are now in the UK, and yet the UK continues to recruit medical personnel from there to prop up the NHS.

As if taking doctors from the Sudan wasn't bad enough, the NHS also employed doctors from Haiti, Burundi and Liberia, where there are so few doctors that they don't even register on statistics which count the number of doctors per 10,000 of population. All of these nations are so desperate for doctors that much of their healthcare is provided by charitable organisations such as Medecins sans Frontiers. They have economies ravaged by civil war and natural disaster, huge healthcare problems including major epidemics of HIV/AIDS and, in the case of Liberia, Ebola.

Hope not Hate might want to pretend that the NHS is one of the reasons why unlimited immigration is such a wonderful thing. From their point of view, we're sure it is - it hides the abysmal failure of the Labour government between 1997 and 2010 to come up with an educational system which can train the number of doctors we need. It brings relatively poor, non-English speaking immigrants right to the door of the largest unions in the UK. Unions which, coincidentally, fund Hope not Hate.

Whether it is quite so good for the Sudan, Burundi, Liberia, Haiti, Libya, Syria and all the other desperately poor countries is an entirely different question. For that, you'd have to ask the villagers who walk for hours to see one of the ever decreasing number of doctors. Will Hope not Hate do that? We doubt it. The villagers are black, poor and don't vote in UK elections, so why would those right-on, achingly liberal class warriors give a shit?

Are we angry? You'd better believe it. As Lowles, Smeeth and their colleagues in the Labour Party and the unions sit on their arses feeling smug about 'protecting the NHS', the thought that they are depriving millions of desperately needed, life or death medical care doesn't seem to cross their minds. And how are they doing it? By allowing the poorest countries in the world to train medical personnel, and then stealing them with inducements to emigrate to the UK because it is cheaper to throw money at them than it is to train our own doctors. And when UKIP - or anybody else - attempt to have a serious, grown up discussion to ensure that we can create an NHS which is capable of living within our means, they attempt to close down the argument with the sort of 'four legs good, two legs bad' arguments which Orwell would recognise for what it is.

The hard left are fond of labelling stupid statements by individuals racist, fascist and Nazi. They seem incapable of realising that what they are doing is far worse than someone being called by the wrong politically correct term for their colour this week. Their solution is imperialist, racist and breathtakingly cynical, but they see nothing wrong in that, for in their quest for equality, there is one thing they are absolutely certain of: All men are created equal, but some are more equal than others.

The NHS steals desperately needed doctors from Africa, but HnH attack UKIPs health policy

More fundamental dishonesty from Hope not Hate writer 'Simon Cressy' (Carl Morphett's pointless pseudonym) in an attack on UKIP's Neil Hamilton over the NHS. Quite what the NHS has to do with HnH's 'anti-racism and anti-fascism' campaign, we don't know, although possibly it is guilt over the Labour inspired need to import doctors from Sierra Leone (1 doctor per 50,000 people) in order to sustain the NHS administration (142 doctors per 50,000 people). Who knows? Labour doesn't care, Sierra Leoneans don't have a vote here anyway. With the partial privatisation of services introduced under the last Labour government, it probably makes sense to take desperately needed doctors from third world countries rather than train enough at home anyway.


Sierra Leone - Labour and the Unions are happy to steal their
medical personnel to prop up their NHS empires

On the HnH website, Cressy puts his name to an article titled "UKIP Claim NHS is diseased and worse than Taliban". Referring to an article which is over a year old, and coincidentally discovering it on the evening that Hamilton was due to attend a selection meeting for the Basildon constituency (he withdrew), Cressy begins his distortions in the title, and doesn't let up throughout his entirely misleading article.

Take the Taliban claim. What Hamilton actually wrote was, "Since 2001, we have had 450 British fatalities in Afghanistan. During the same period, Mid Staffs hospital alone was responsible for at least 1,200 avoidable deaths....another 14 English NHS trusts ... may be responsible for 13,000 unnecessary deaths".

Neil Hamilton

In other words, what Hamilton said was the same as the original Express article's subtitle - The NHS is a more effective killing machine than the Taliban. However much Cressy's union paymasters may not like this, the statistics are true, which is more than can be said of the gross distortion of Cressy's paraphrasing of Hamilton's words.

Did Hamilton say the NHS was diseased? Yes, it was the title of the article. But what he was referring to - contrary to what Cressy implies  - was not the principle of free, universal healthcare, but rather the dominance of it by Labour and the largest trade unions and the need to break that by genuine democracy - "If we are to retain a state-funded system, it must be more democratic so that patient power counter balances the power of unions like Unison and the BMA."

That Hope not Hate should leap to the defence of the big Unions is hardly a surprise as they are heavily reliant upon them for their funding. And control of the NHS - and the £120bn annual spend and 1.4m employees - is essential if the Union's fat cats are to continue drawing banker style salaries. As Hamilton says, "Labour's shroud-waving has closed down debate on whether this is the best way to provide healthcare free at the point of delivery."

Whether you agree with Hamilton's assessment or not is immaterial, as is whether you have

Carl Morphett - not the first time he's
been caught taking lessons from Goebbels

reservations about Hamilton. Certainly his argument about debate being closed down is correct: what other point is there in deliberately distorting the whole thrust of his argument?

It borders on the obscene that on a day that Hope not Hate is singing the praises of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights they should fall back on the tactics of the totalitarian: to distort with propaganda rather than to argue with facts. The point of a democracy is to hear all sides of the argument. It is not talking about other options for the NHS but preventing those options even being open for debate which is fascist. Perhaps someone will buy Cressy/Morphett a dictionary for Christmas.

HnH supports Human Rights Day by continuing the fight to suppress the rights of opponents

A reasonable Hope not Hate protester standing up for freedom
of speech and human rights. The right to thump coppers.

While Hope not Hate and their supporters may not see the irony, HnH owner Nick Lowles blog is full of information on how his organisation is supporting Human Rights Day for the United Nation's Declaration of Universal Human Rights. It is ironic that many countries consider the UDHR to be 'racist' in the sense that it imposes western values on nations where such values and beliefs are not culturally accepted. Who'd have thought that Lowles, Smeeth and all would be supporters of cultural imperialism? Muslim states do not recognise the UDHR as it is considered un-Islamic, and instead support the 'Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam', while Asian states support the Bangkok Declaration on Human Rights because the UDHR's western bias fails to take account of Asian values. Nick Lowles and Hope not Hate supporting something seen as racist? Fancy that.

Still, as he himself says, "Everything we do at HOPE not hate, every ounce of support we seek, is cemented by our faith in the universality of human rights." To celebrate the day, Hope not Hate have continued to do their best to infringe the human rights of everybody who doesn't agree with their point of view, something they do each and every day.

HnH's beliefs include the right to use violence to
suppress political ideas they don't agree with

Hope not Hate's entire campaign against UKIP is based on attempting to suppress the freedom of speech of anybody who dares disagree with their hard left ideology. Needless to say, the right to freedom of speech is enshrined in the pre-amble of the Declaration. When internet campaigns aren't sufficient, there's always the bully boys of UAF and the SWP to hand to take practical action on Hope not Hate's behalf and suppress dissenter's human rights just a little bit more.

We could remind him that using individuals as pawns in his attacks upon UKIP are contrary to Article 12 of the Declaration, which states "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks." Tell that to the private individuals his organisation is happy to label as Nazis just because they don't share his views. Still, they're all grist to his propaganda mill.

Then there is Article 19, which states, "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression;

The Human Right to hit people over the head with placards
if you don't agree with their views - one of HnH's key principles

this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." This right only applies if you agree with Nick and Hope not Hate. If you have a different opinion, be prepared for a bunch of unwashed, hard left activists to descend upon you and troll your social media.

And we shouldn't forget Article 20, which states, "Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.". Unless you're attending a UKIP meeting, when the same unwashed, Hard Left activists will turn up and harass you with the intention of preventing the meeting taking place. If you're really lucky, Hope not Hate's UAF allies will respect your human rights by hitting you over the head with a placard or throwing eggs at you.

What we find most sad is that Lowles can trot out his 'everything we do is in support of human rights' without any sense of irony. We can only suppose that the hypocrisy is so deeply ingrained amongst his organisation and its supporters that they no longer bother with facts or reality. There is a danger in believing in your own propaganda though, and we can only remind him of Noam Chomsky's words - "Propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to the totalitarian state".

HnH activist and Labour MP sought Commons breastfeeding ban

Nick Lowles - not the only one with Photoshop

A story which we missed - or at least didn't get around to mentioning - last week was Hope not Hate's attack on UKIP leader Nigel Farage and his comments on breastfeeding. Farage had been asked about breastfeeding while being interviewed on LBC last week and was heavily criticised by the usual coalition of the professionally outraged for suggesting that organisations should be free to make their own rules regarding suitability and perhaps offering alternative locations for breastfeeding, and that breastfeeding mothers should exercise discretion so as not to cause offence among sections of the population who would not be so keen to see it.

This pragmatic approach did not meet with Hope not Hate's approval, of course. An internet meme rapidly appeared on their Twitter feed which appeared to miss the entire point - no surprise there.

What Hope not Hate appear to have forgotten is that not only is breastfeeding not permitted in the House of Commons, but one of their prominent supporters lead the campaign to keep it out because it was not a suitable place. The Early Day Motion was submitted by Helen Clark, former Labour MP for Peterborough and a noted Hope not Hate supporter (she lists them on her Linked In page) stated that the "Commons Chamber, committee rooms and division lobbies are not the right places for breastfeeding."


 HnH activist and former Labour MP Helen Clark's EDM to ban
breastfeeding from the Commons chamber

In other words, a noted Hope not Hate campaigner actively sought to ban breastfeeding from Parliament. Now, we take no opinion on whether this is right or wrong. What we do have an opinion on is that yet again, Hope not Hate and Nick Lowles' attack on Farage and UKIP is based on blatant hypocrisy.

A final note - Helen Clark was a founding signatory in the creation of Unite Against Fascism.

Hope not Hate: UKIP alleged sexual harrassment worse than Tory rape or Labour child abuse

The bits that Hope not Hate don't want to mention

Hope not Hate have tweeted 3 times this morning on the subject of UKIP general secretary Roger
Bird and his alleged harassment of female former Labour Party activist Natasha Bolter during her selection as a UKIP PPC.

As yet however there is no mention of Bird's response, despite it being carried online in many news outlets and having been tweeted by Channel 4 reporter Michael Crick: Bird states that he has texts and e-mails to prove that Bolter's story is not true, and that they were in a consensual relationship until the 2nd November.

UKIP's Roger Bird - a dignified response

Whichever way you slice it, Bird's response has been dignified and measured: in the Daily Telegraph article, he says, "I'm very sorry that a story like his should have arisen because it detracts from our [Ukip’s] central messages. The party had to respond in a formal way and conduct an appropriate investigation".

Texts from Bird's phone which appear to prove his
version of events is the correct one

We don't pretend to know what the truth of the matter is, although it would be strange if Bird claimed to possess exculpatory evidence which he then could not produce in his own defence. What is certain is that the matter is by no means as clear as it was presented by the Times this morning, although the Times carrying out a vendetta against UKIP on the basis of nonsense is hardly something new. For us, we hope that Bird's version is true and that he is vindicated: if it proves to be untrue, then he deserves whatever is coming to him. UPDATED - Some of the texts are now available on Guido Fawkes website and can be viewed by clicking on this link.Roger Bird appears to have been telling the truth, which begs the question - How could Natasha Bolter have thought she'd get away with it and he'd have no proof, and what game is she playing?




Hope not Hate - all accusation, no defence.

But what of Hope not Hate's newfound enthusiasm for protecting women in politics? A quick look back to their output on the 4th and 5th December shows that they tweeted exactly no times at all about the arrest for rape of Conservative MP Mark Pritchard so concerned are they about equality, women's rights and the repression of women in politics. On the same day as Pritchard's arrest, the former leader of Rotherham council, Labour's Cllr Barry Dodson, was arrested for the sexual abuse of a 13 year old girl. They had nothing to say about that either, while their carefully worded views on the wider Rotherham child abuse scandal managed to not mention the Labour Party even once, although it did spend some time explaining why Tory cuts were responsible.


Every day, Hope not Hate move just that little bit further away from their founding principles, and just that little bit closer to becoming an arm of the Labour Party and their union paymasters.

HnH's 'intimidated' Bradford man is anti-UKIP Twitter troll

Finan's letter, which makes no mention of his foul-mouthed
Twitter rants on behalf of the hard left

Hope not Hate's latest feeble attack on UKIP accuses the party of 'intimidation' by presenting a professionally outraged, foul mouthed anti-UKIP Twitter troll as if he was an ordinary member of the public.

In brief, a bloke in Bradford by the name of Peter Finan wrote to the Bradford Telegraph and Argus. Despite his local UKIP MEP being Amjad Bashir, and despite the highly publicised recent defections from Labour to UKIP of a number of British Asians, Finan trots out the old 'UKIP is racist' line. As 'proof', he cites a Facebook posting from that master of probity Nick Griffin urging people to vote UKIP, and mentions that Britain First - who polled 54 votes - urged people to vote UKIP in the Rochester & Strood by-election. He goes on to assert that Bradford will reject UKIP, a statement not entirely born out by last year's local election results in the city which saw UKIP narrowly miss taking a significant number of seats from Labour. Regular readers may recall Nick Lowles personal support for former BNP councillor (and friend of Nick Griffin) Paul Cromie after he narrowly held his seat against a strong UKIP challenge, such is Lowles' commitment to anti-racism.

Finan goes on to complain of 'intimidation' because the following day there was a letter in the Argus from Jason Smith, UKIP's hard-working Bradford chairman, pointing out the idiocy of Finan's position. The day after that, there was a letter from a UKIPper of Bradford origin who now lives in Southampton also criticising Finan's tired arguments. On the same day as the second letter was published in the Argus, Finan received a letter from one of Bashir's staff, accompanied by a polite letter and a couple of UKIP leaflets and inviting him to a UKIP meeting to hear what UKIP is really about. And that's it. This is what Finan considers intimidation, and he is now 'seeking legal advice' because he was accused of a smear. Finan denies it is a smear when he talks of 'the sort of people UKIP attract', but he's not talking of Amjad Bashir, Winston MacKenzie, Mohammed Islam or Owais Rajput, is he?


Peter Finan

So who is Finan? To read his complaint which is lovingly reproduced on Hope not Hate's website, you'd be forgiven for thinking that he was just a political innocent who was strangely horrified by people disagreeing with him. In fact, Finan is a well known anti-UKIP twitter user as Chemical Punnage - @uncleskinny -  noted for his foul mouthed tirades against UKIP and his close association with the watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside) tendency of the Green Party. His exchanges with hard left anti-UKIP campaigners, his intimidatory tweets towards any who dare support UKIP, his ready use of epithets like 'racist' & 'fascist', his unquestioning support for convicted forger and fraudster Jasna Badzak's increasingly insane campaign against UKIP are all a matter of public record for any who care to look at his Twitter. Or you would be able to, except he's suddenly locked down his Twitter account (it's alright, we'd saved the worst already) presumably to hide the more shameful of his tweets and to maintain the fiction that his complaint is genuine and he is the wronged innocent persecuted by two letters disagreeing with him in a local newspaper and a polite letter. 

Do Hope not Hate know who Finan is? Of course they do. Its just another of the increasingly clumsy set-ups Lowles organisation has been reduced to in the face of UKIPs rise. Its a pretty sad day when an organisation which is supposed to be anti-racist supports the sort of white, middle class 'class warrior' who would allegedly call Amjad Bashir and his fellow British Asians 'coconuts' for supporting UKIP. But then there's a lot of that around Hope not Hate's offices.

A final twist of irony. Finan appeared on Mastermind a in 2003, making it through to the quarter-finals. His specialist subject was Indie band 'The Smiths', describing frontman Morrissey as 'superb' in an article in the Argus. We wonder if he is still as enthusiastic nowadays. In Morrissey's words last May, "I nearly voted for Ukip. I like Nigel Farage a great deal. His views are quite logical – especially where Europe is concerned". Bloody racist. That's the sort of people UKIP attract.

Labour join Tories with the 'dog whistle' racism in Thurrock: Hope not Hate silent

Tory leaflet condemned as 'diving head first into the gutter'

We posted a link on our Facebook newsfeed to stories in the mainstream media concerning Tory
racism in the council by-election battle for the Aveley ward in Thurrock last week. To recap, the Tories had put out a leaflet referring to the UKIP candidate, MEP Tim Aker as 'Timür' in order to draw attention to his half-Turkish parentage.

Jackie Doyle-Price, the shockingly dim-witted local Tory MP, dismissed the row as nonsense, saying it 'did him a favour' in a multi-cultural area, although this was not a view shared by the Tory supporting Mail on Sunday, which condemned the Tories for 'diving head first into the gutter'.

Hope not Hate's complaints were muted compared to the invective that would have broken lose from then had UKIP done such a thing. Deafening silence came from the Thurrock Labour Party, despite the leaflet also screaming in large headlines 'Labour Soft on Travellers'. As the travelling community is now a protected minority under the terms of current racial equality legislation, this is akin to saying 'Labour Soft on Muslims', but nobody seems too bothered about that as the prime purpose of the leaflet was to stop UKIP, not to worry about protecting minorities. We assume that it could have said 'Labour soft on Blacks' and Hope not Hate wouldn't have complained too much.

Scott Nelson proves just how desperate Labour are to halt
UKIPs advance: Use overt racism on the people of Aveley

Another reason has come to light for Hope not Hate's lack of outrage though. One of their leading activists in Thurrock is also a Labour Party activist called Scott Nelson. Nelson, who tweets under the user-name @TheMockneyRebel, is vociferously anti-UKIP and clearly didn't believe in casual references to Aker's Turkish father. The subtle call of Tory 'dog whistle' racism wasn't good enough for an anti-racism campaigner. No, better to go the whole hog and not just label Aker Turkish, but accuse him of wanting to bribe the electorate too simply because as part of his campaign he had promised to donate his councillor allowances to local causes as he considers his MEP salary sufficient.

In the end, neither the Tory's nor Labour's racism helped them. Tim Aker won the seat by a considerable margin, holding it for UKIP with a considerable majority following the sad death of Cllr Maggie O'Keefe Ray in September.

What is clear is the extent to which both main parties are prepared to suspend the 'normal rules' of politics in their fear of UKIP's advance. Tim is UKIP's parliamentary candidate in Thurrock, and whith Doyle-Price defending a majority of just 96, he could well find himself in the first tranche of UKIP MPs returned at a general election after next May's polls.

More surprising perhaps is the extent to which Hope not Hate are prepared to ditch their founding

Ford's UKIP leaflet - unauthorised by UKIP, but now worse
than racist Tory & Labour smears against UKIP MEP Aker.

principles in the interests of electoral politics. Earlier this evening, they were feigning outrage over a UKIP leaflet allegedly issued by Martyn Ford, UKIP's PPC for Swansea West, who supposedly issued a leaflet condemning multiculturalism. Despite this story being almost 2 months old, HnH writer Simon Cressy (Carl Morphett under a pointless pseudonym) builds himself up into a proper fit of righteous indignation over its 'shocking racism', despite the target of the leaflet's wrath being a religion as opposed to a race. Such distinctions are lost on Hope not Hate. They have no real problem with the leaflet's contents, just with the leaflet's author: he's UKIP. As we have seen in Thurrock, the political establishment can be as racist as they want, and as long as the target is UKIP, Hope not Hate will condone it by their silence.

A final point: of these three 'racist' communications, which one do you think has seen it's author face party disciplinary action? That's right, only UKIP. Martyn Ford is currently facing a disciplinary hearing for issuing a leaflet without central party authorisation. The Tories and Labour are taking no action against their much more obvious racists.

UAF, Unions & Labour in Portsmouth and their links to a convicted ISIS terrorist

Regular readers may recall that earlier this week we looked at Unite Against Fascism's thinly disguised 'anti-UKIP coalition' in Portsmouth which largely comprised people who stood to lose financially in the event of further UKIP advances: Labour and Lib Dem politicians, trade union activists who haven't had a proper job in years and 'community activists' who have long been supported on the Council payroll while genuine public services went down the toilet.

You may recall that we mentioned Zuber Hatia, who is invariably described as 'a prominent figure in Portsmouth's Muslim community and a community activist' in newspaper reports covering UAF's demonstrations in the south coast city - a helpful description which makes it sound like the Muslim community is steadfastly behind UAF's efforts.

Zuber Hatia urging attendance at a UAF event on the
Portsmouth UAF Facebook page

The truth is rather different. For a start, Hatia is a member of the local UAF branch, and has helped
with the organisation of events in the past: the screen grab shows Hatia talking about 'we STILL need' and 'more of us' as he exhorts people to sign up for a UAF march in Portsmouth last month on the event page.

All of this begs the question 'to what extent is Hatia representative  of the local Muslim community'? While genuine Muslim community leaders in Portsmouth such as Abu-Suyeb Tanzam condemned the young men who had travelled to Syria and said, "If anyone belongs to those groups they should be punished’, Hatia was nowhere to be seen or quoted, certainly not in the local newspapers. When news broke that 6 men from Portsmouth had travelled to Syria in November 2013, the Portsmouth News ran an article entitled 'City's Muslim leaders condemn Syria fighters'. The article named the leaders, and said,

"Speaking yesterday, leaders from the city’s Jami Mosque said the men had made the journey without the knowledge of their parents, the mosque, and the Muslim community.
Jami Mosque committee members Abidur Rahman Chowdhury, Mosud Ahmed, Aziz ur Rahman, Abu-Suyeb Tanzam and chairman Abdul Jalil said the mosque has been working with the police after it emerged the group of men had made the journey.’

The advert for the 'Stand up to UKIP' rally - all allegedly
knew convicted ISIS terrorist Mashadur Choudhary

You will note that Hatia is not mentioned in the article despite being a self-proclaimed 'prominent figure in Portsmouth's Muslim community and community activist'. He is not mentioned in another article on the 29th October this year 'Leaders condemn those radicalising young Muslims' either. In an article in the Guardian, local mosque leaders said,

"Choudhury had been under pressure from within his community because he was being blamed for encouraging the group to travel to Syria. Leaders of the Jami mosque in the city feared that as Choudhury was a youth worker, his actions might overly influence vulnerable young people."

So what did Zuber Hatia have to say about Mashadur Choudhary, the man sentenced to 4 years yesterday for travelling to Syria to fight for ISIS? In May this year, he was complaining on Facebook - reposted on the 'Portsmouth Anti-Fascists' blog - about how unfair Choudhary's conviction was as he hadn't done anything:

"There is no reason to assume that with such convictions in British courts as Mashudur Choudhary’s – who clearly went to Syria as plenty others have done so and who clearly did not join any combatant group and returned back to the UK having committed no crime, either abroad or here"

Hatia - knew Choudhary
through 'community
activism'

In other words, in spite of long-standing fears amongst genuine leaders of the Muslim community in Portsmouth that Choudhary was radicalising young men with a view to encouraging them to join ISIS, Hatia feels he 'has committed no crime'. We have spent some time attempting to find anyone in the Portsmouth Muslim community who agrees with Hatia, but without success. His view is emphatically not representative of the local mosque or the local Muslim community, and it is clear that while he is prominent, he is hardly an acknowledged mouthpiece for anything or anybody other than the hard left.

So what of his links to Mashadur Choudhary? Choudhary had worked previously as a racial harassment case worker for the local authority, which regularly brought him into contact with Hatia's self-appointed status as a 'community activist'. Sources in the Portsmouth Muslim community tell us that Hatia and Choudhary were 'not close, but knew each other fairly well and worked together on various causes'.

Woods - knew Choudhary through
union activities

So what of the other UAF people involved in the 'Stand up to UKIP' event?  Choudhary was a trade union member, which brought him into personal contact with Portsmouth Trades Council president and UAF activist Jon Woods, the organiser of last weeks anti-UKIP protest and the local chairman of UNISON, the union to which Choudhary belonged. A UNISON member in Portsmouth who didn't wish to be named because of career repercussions accused Woods of 'cosying up to the most radical views he could find' and said Woods 'had no wish to be associated with Choudhary now, but didn't have that problem when he thought that Choudhary could help sign up new members to Woods' various causes a few years ago'. Woods is also the Portsmouth North PPC for the TUSC, and previously was closely associated with the SWP in Portsmouth.



Labour PPC Sue Castillon - knew
Choudhary through youth work
in Portsmouth

Finally, of the advertised speakers, we have Sue Castillon, Labour's PPC for Portsmouth North and a Hope not Hate activist. Castillon previously ran two youth schemes in Portsmouth which brought her into frequent contact with Choudhary during his time as a council youth worker. At least 2 of the other Portsmouth men who travelled to Syria to join ISIS may have been known to her, according to our source. Using the Twitter handle @eurosue, she has also frequently shared a platform with both Woods and Hatia as part of their anti-UKIP campaign.

A final twist of irony is that for 6 months, Choudhary was employed as an outreach worker as part of the government's 'Prevent' strategy designed to halt the radicalisation of young Muslims by groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS. Choudhary, who is in his 30's, travelled to Syria with a group of young Muslims who, according to media reports, he had encouraged to sign up with ISIS and travel to Syria. His secondment to the Prevent group was organised by the then Liberal Democrat controlled Portsmouth City Council. Former Lib Dem council leader and Portsmouth South PPC Cllr Gordon Vernon-Jackson also attended the launch of the anti-UKIP group.