Comedy death threats from Lowles friend Ian Austin MP?

Today's Wolverhampton Express and Star carries the story "Death threat claim by Labour MP Ian Austin over challenge to UKIP's NHS policy".

In it, Mr Austin makes a number of outlandish, not to mention unsupported, claims that he was sent an anonymous death threat after criticising comments by UKIP leader Nigel Farage regarding

So terrified, he hasn't reported it to the police. Austin has form with HnH
director Nick Lowles, and there are few depths to which he wouldn't stoop.

privatisation of the NHS. Mr Austin, who is currently running a campaign to save Dudley Police Station from a program of cuts which the Labour Party is responsible for, makes no mention of his intention to report this death threat to the police, and in fact offers no evidence for its existence beyond his own tweet. Even the local newspapers hedges its bets on this one by saying he claimed it rather than that it had seen it. We presume that had it existed it would have been sent immediately to the local newspaper. The problem with doing so, we assume, is that had he done so then the police would have investigated.

UKIP Cllr Dean Perks, a previous
victim of Austin's ethics

We are currently seeing a huge number of comments and messages posted across social media and on news websites which purport to come from UKIP members. This follows on from the claims made by a Labour campaign team that their stall was overturned by 'UKIP thugs': it is worth noting that the claims that they identified themselves as UKIP was missing from the first reports of the story.

Of course, any fool can set up an account and pretend to be a UKIP supporter, voter or member. Increasingly, we are seeing these picked up as evidence of UKIP racism/sexism/homophobia/extremism etc, particularly by people like Ian Austin. How convenient! Of course, all parties have their idiots: this is not true of UKIP alone. Even as you read this, there is a village somewhere lamenting the loss of Mr Austin. There are several truths we should remember about him particularly.

Mr Austin is a friend of HnH director Nick Lowles. To quote Lowles, "Ian is a long-time friend of Searchlight, and by that I mean since he was in his mid-teens, but today he is more helpful advising us on a media strategy". What better media strategy than to use his position to lend spurious credibility to internet nonsense than by publicising dubious threats from Labour Party sockpuppet accounts?

Mr Austin also has form on the anti-UKIP front: we covered earlier this year his role in a widely publicised story regarding local UKIP chairman and councillor Dean Perks - Did Labour MP release confidential constituency mail to damage UKIP candidate in Dudley?.

Ian Austin MP. Somewhere in England, a village has lost
its idiot and is desperately searching for him.

One thing we can be quite certain of. There is a campaign underway to create false accounts of
imaginary UKIP-supporting people and to then use those accounts to blacken UKIPs name. Austin, who by Nick Lowles own admission used to hang around NF demonstrations - "Ian is a long-time friend of Searchlight, and by that I mean since he was in his mid-teens, but today he is more helpful advising us on a media strategy than hanging round National Front demonstrations gathering intelligence" - is no stranger to underhand methods and outright dishonesty. His claims should be read in that light.

On the wider point of false UKIP accounts on social media and elsewhere, we can all play a part in minimising their effect by following a few simple guidelines:

1. Be careful who you accept as a friend on Facebook. If it is brand new account with nothing but UKIP related friends, be wary of accepting any requests
2. Be careful what you say on social media. Labour and their puppets at Hope not Hate have teams of people who do nothing but trawl comments looking for something they can use against us. Bear this in mind when commenting.
3. Remember that even innocuous comments and jokes can be used against us when taken out of context.
4. Do not get suckered into arguments by trolls - they are trying to make you lose your temper and type something in the heat of the moment which you will later regret.
5. Warn your friends if you are concerned about an account, or if they say something which goes beyond the pale.

Most importantly, remember that there are no depths to which either Labour or the Tories would not stoop in order to maintain their hold on power. Councillors, MPs, MEPs - these all represent considerable influence and millions of pounds worth of financing to the people and parties which control them. We are engaged in a high stakes game against entrenched interests at the highest levels of the establishment. UKIPs 'People's Army' can win, but only if we keep our eye on the ball at all times.

Did Labour MP release confidential constituency mail to damage UKIP candidate in Dudley?

UKIP Dudley chairman Dean Perks
Did his local MP release details of a problem he had asked for
help with before he was UKIP to Hope not Hate?

We don't know Dean Perks, the chairman of UKIP's Dudley branch. We were though interested to see
that he is the subject of Hope not Hate's latest attack upon UKIP in a post entitled "UKIP candidate owes thousands in missed VAT payments". Included in the story is a link to a judgement by the First Tier Tribunal Tax Chamber which gives an official record of an appeal by Dean Alan Perks against a decision by HM Commissioners for Customs and Excise relating to VAT assessments.

All of which is rather rich given that Hope not Hate Ltd have evaded over £70,000 of VAT which their (and the Labour Party's) consultants Blue State Digital failed to charge them.

So, does Mr Perks owe thousands? We have no idea, and neither can Hope not Hate. While the judgement went against him, there is nothing to indicate that he did not pay the full amount due, while his statement to the local newspaper would seem to indicate that he reached a repayment agreement with them and continues to repay the money outstanding.

And then there is the case itself, in which Mr Perks appears to have been very unlucky and in which the court sympathises with the predicament he found himself in.

The details appear to have been as follows. Mr Perks is a plumber. His business was struggling largely because he had to charge VAT as a self-employed and VAT registered sole trader. He contacted his accountant to see whether it was possible for him to de-register, and was told it was. He instructed his accountant to do so.

His accountant, a Mr Summerfield, was subsequently arrested for money laundering offences which did not involve Mr Perks. Many documents were seized from Mr Summerfield's offices, including some relating to Mr Perks. It transpired that not only was Mr Perks not entitled to de-register, even if he had been Mr Summerfield had made no attempt to do so. When VAT demands continued to arrive addressed to Mr Perks, Mr Summerfield told him to 'bin them' as such demands 'often turned up after deregistration'. Mr Perks duly did so.

After Mr Summerfield's arrest, Mr Perks was left to try and sort out the mess which had been left behind. Relying on information from his accountant he believed the VAT Office assessment of money due was incorrect, and appealed to the tribunal, which it was his perfect right to do.

As stated in the court judgement to which Hope not Hate had linked, while Mr Perks' appeal was dismissed, the judge said,

"Mr Perks approach was that he was a plumber not an accountant. He had taken professional advice from Mr Summerfield in good faith and had accepted his advice at all stages without question....

We accept that he was following professional advice and that, as he now fully appreciates, he was appallingly let down but that does not displace his legal responsibility as a registered trader....

We took careful note of and had some sympathy with Mr Perks’ confusion over his understanding of the Demand Notices"

Unlike Hope not Hate, Mr Perks has a real job. He appears to have paid for professional advice and been badly advised by someone who was subsequently arrested. As a result, he found himself before the VAT tribunal appealing a VAT demand which flew in the face of what his professional advice had stated, and was there as a result not of his own wrongdoing per se, but that of his accountant who advised him poorly. If anybody at Hope not Hate had ever worked for a living, they might understand that.

A further question has also arisen over this story. While we accept that the Tribunal finding is a matter of public record, we had some difficulty finding it on a Google search even though we knew it existed.

We also found the Halesowen News article from this morning, and noted that in it, Mr Perks was quoted as saying, "I went through several tribunals and appeals as I thought it was a genuine mistake, I even asked Dudley North MP Ian Austin for help but got none."

This was quite interesting, because in March 2009, Nick Lowles wrote on his blog (we wouldn't normally link, but here it is - look quickly before it disappears!)

"Last night I spent about an hour on the phone with Ian Austin, the Labour MP for Dudley North. Ian is a long-time friend of Searchlight, and by that I mean since he was in his mid-teens, but today he is more helpful advising us on a media strategy"

We wonder whether that media strategy for 2014 would involve illegally passing on details of constituents and their problems to Hope not Hate and the local media when they become a UKIP branch chairman and candidate?