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.

Its not just the BNP which lines allies pockets - HnH do the same

Hope not Hate have gone on the offensive against the BNP this morning with an attack on Nick Griffin. Here at Nope, not Hope, we're not interested in the BNP, and in no way support them. But there was one comment of interest. In the HnH article posted by Matthew Collins - himself a former BNP thug - they say:

"Moving swiftly on, Walker then claimed that after years of far-right activity, Griffin has made "virtually nothing" from his time in the far-right. Some BNP ex-members may wish to remind Adam of the extension on Griffin's home paid for by the BNP and the fact that he managed to get almost his entire family on the party pay roll doing jobs that members used to do voluntarily."

Which we found interesting when compared to the invoices submitted to the Electoral Commission for the 2010 General Election by Hope not Hate. This was of course before HnH split from the Searchlight organisation - at the time, Nick Lowles was the HnH campaign director rather than its owner.

Included in the invoices was one from a company called Taxinform Ltd for £2,300.00, which covered "subediting and checking election newspapers and leaflets, General Election 2010". We were rather more surprised to discover that the company has only 2 shares issued, both to Sonia Gable, while she and her husband Gerry were the director and company secretary respectively. Taxinform is listed as a tax advisory service. We will restrain ourselves from publishing the full details of the company, which are in any case a matter of public record. Sonia and Gerry Gable were the founders of Searchlight, of which in 2010 Hope not Hate was a part, and were also its owners. We assume that checking leaflets was something which used to be done voluntarily, or at least as a part of their jobs before they found themselves awash with money from the Daily Mirror. And speaking of the Daily Mirror......

..... there was Ros Wynne-Jones, who doubled up her salary as a senior leader writer for the Daily Mirror - which funds Hope not Hate - by invoicing Hope not Hate for £6,500.00 with no details of what it was for other than 'Hope not Hate 2010'. Nice work if you can get it. Her day job paid her to write stories about Hope not Hate for the Mirror, while Hope not Hate paid her to write stories about them in the Mirror. Talk about having your cake and eating it!

So, I'm sure as a result of Nick Lowles' largesse, both the Gables and Ms Wynne-Jones could also afford substantial extensions on their houses too. It just seems that the closer you look at Hope not Hate's finances, the more similar to the BNPs they appear. Certainly it would appear that their friends benefit financially for jobs which in the case of both the Gables and Ms Wynne-Jones would seem to form a part of their job in any case. Is this like Griffin, getting friends and relatives "on the party pay roll doing jobs that members used to do voluntarily?". Why is it we are not surprised by the hypocrisy? Why attack Griffin for something which Hope not Hate regularly do themselves?

We have much more to say about HnH's finances including a major funding scandal, so please stay tuned over the next month or so!

Want to know why you've got a BNP MEP? Thank Nick Lowles.

Michael McManus -
But for Hope not Hate, he
would be the NWs 2nd UKIP
MEP, and the BNP would not
have gained a seat.

Michael McManus MEP (UKIP). Not a name that's familiar to you? I thought not. That's because he didn't quite become an MEP. He was the second name on the UKIP list for the North West in 2009, and was beaten to the prize by Nick Griffin of the BNP. UKIP missed out on the second seat by fewer than 1,200 votes.

During the campaign, Hope not Hate delivered almost 4m leaflets. The vast majority were in five regions - London (300k), the East & West Midlands (150k each), Yorkshire & Humberside (880k) and the North West (1.6m). They also say "Our eve of poll email was sent out to almost 600,000 addresses, making it the largest single political email in British domestic political history".

But now look at how the BNP polled. The average BNP increase across the country was 1.3%. In the five regions targeted by Hope not Hate, only two showed increases below that average - London and the West Midlands, with increases of 0.9% and 1.1% respectively. In both of these regions, the overall HnH effort was by their own admission a small one, while London as a whole has never been particularly fertile territory for the BNP. The West Midlands, despite the below average increase still gave the BNP their 4th largest vote share - 8.6% - suggesting they were close to their vote ceiling.

In the three regions where Hope not Hate directed most of their resources, the BNP vote increased by more than the national average. These were:

Region                         Share    Increase
East Midlands              8.7%     2.1%
North West                   8%        1.6%
Yorks & Hum              9.8%      1.8%

Hope not Hate also claim that thanks to their intervention, the Labour vote held up in the regions they targeted - especially the North West. While they may claim this, it is not a claim which is borne out by the statistics. The Labour vote across the country fell by 6.9%. In the North West, the Labour vote fell by 6.9% - in other words, by exactly the national average, while the BNP vote was up on its average national increase by almost 25%.

So if Hope not Hate's claims about helping to shore up the Labour vote are not true, how about their claims to have limited the BNP's vote? Did they limit the increase in their vote? As was mentioned above, that is a claim which does not bear close scrutiny. 6 of the 10 largest increases in the BNPs share of the vote - according to HnH's figures - were in areas they targeted: Copeland (+6.7%), Knowsley (+5%), St Helens (+4.2%), Barnsley (+8.8%), Rotherham (+6.2%) and Nuneaton & Bedworth (+5.6%). 7 of the BNPs 10 highest votes by local authority area were also HnH targets - Barking & Dagenham, Stoke on Trent, Barnsley, Rotherham, Burnley, NW Leicestershire, Bolsover and Ashfield.

If this is a success, we'd love to know how they would define failure.

The reality was that, faced with a general disenchantment with politicians - particularly amongst the least well off - Hope not Hate's campaign simply made the BNP seem more like the voters. There was a lack of originality, a lack of thought and a feeling of tedious repetition about Lowles' campaign that failed to catch the imagination of anyone. For all the triumphalism of Hope not Hate, their 4 million leaflets only served to highlight in the most deprived areas of the country that while Westminster politicians were stealing £10's of thousands with impunity, their local BNP activist once stole a car 20 years ago. There was little if any attempt to take the BNP on politically in their campaign, while their commitment to a 'no platform for the BNP' policy ensured the other parties largely failed to as well. The intensity of the campaign only served to highlight to a disenchanted electorate that voting BNP was a sure way to give the political establishment a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. If the BNP vote was held back, it was done so not by Hope not Hate, but by the strong showing for UKIP, which offered a moderate alternative.

So what then did Hope not Hate really achieve? Their expensive advertising campaign failed to maintain the Labour vote - which it was so transparently designed to do - while drawing to the attention of the poorest sections of society that the BNP was a party of people more like them than anyone in the three largest parties.

The end result is a matter of historical record. BNP leader Nick Griffin took the final NW MEP seat by a mere 1200 votes from UKIPs Mick McManus, who would have made an absolutely first rate MEP for the North West. Hope not Hate's misguided, tedious and scare-mongering campaign ensured voters were landed with Nick Griffin for 5 years. 1201 fewer HnH leaflets, and UKIP would kept out the BNP. That is why you have never heard of Michael McManus.

Hope not Hate Warrington meeting report

An interesting report has been received regarding the Hope not Hate meeting in Warrington last night. We're not entirely clear whether this was a 'Stand up for HOPE' tour date, as the dates and venues of this 'public consultation' have still not been published, despite them being due 'early next week' on the 18th May.

Whether it was or wasn't, it was clear from the start that this was the point of the meeting. Attendance was sparse: the Chairman, two aides, our informant, and 5 members of the public.

The meeting itself was confused; perhaps not surprisingly as at one point the Chairman himself said that 'even in the office they can't agree on whether to go after UKIP or leave them alone'. Despite this, it was quite clear that the Chair was definitely of the opinion that they should 'go after' UKIP, and the whole direction of the meeting was clearly geared to achieving this end.

There seemed broad agreement to the idea that UKIP weren't fascist. There was less agreement on whether UKIP were racist: there was some anecdotal evidence of casual racism, and much was made of former BNP members found to be members of UKIP. The irony of this appeared to escape those attending a meeting of an organisation whose head of intelligence is ex-National Front activist Matthew Collins.

The Chair repeatedly claimed that ex-BNP members were 'fleeing' to UKIP. It was clear that either he was not aware or was not telling that up until the split between Searchlight and Hope not Hate UKIP had actively worked with Hope not Hate to try and prevent just this, a policy begun back in 2005 and continued until Hope not Hate fell under the leadership of Nick Lowles.

The meeting moved on to discuss the stream of 'racist remarks' from UKIP members. As can be seen on our Facebook page, this is not a problem which is limited to UKIP: currently half of the Labour councillors in Harrow are sitting in an Independent Labour group due to institutional racism in the Constituency Labour Party, but naturally this was not mentioned.

There was some discussion of - and disagreement with - wider UKIP policy backed up by the usual misquotes, misunderstandings and faulty logic.

These included that:

• UKIP is a single issue party
• UKIP is only interested in Europe
• UKIP would strip workers of all rights
• Where UKIP stand there is a rise in racist attacks
• UKIP leaflets are racist
• UKIP don't throw out racists quickly enough (!)

The Chairman was forced to concede that opposition to immigration is not the same as racism.

Our informant's comment perhaps best sums up the meeting: "They weren’t a bad bunch of people just misinformed and most definitely being lied to as to what UKIP is all about."