How to find out if your Facebook 'friends' are hard left supporters

We've seen several postings recently which tell Facebook members how to find out if their friends 'like' what is described as the far right, most recently in this morning's 'Metro' newspaper. But how can you tell if your Facebook friends burn literature, physically attack people for their views and violently disrupt political meetings they don't agree with?

To help our supporters, you can use the links below to find out if you have anyone on your friends list who supports Hope not Hate, Unite Against Fascism, AntiFa or the Labour Party.

To find friends who like Hope not Hate -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=91897231853

To find friends who like UAF -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=101124430813

***UPDATED***
To find friends who like the increasingly SWP linked Watermelons of the Green Party -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=20995300784

To find friends who like AntiFa -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=37315363535

To find friends who like the Socialist Workers Party -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=132633832928

To find friends who like 'Radical Independence Campaign', the Scottish soap-dodgers -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=566948540013005

To find friends who like 'Left Unity' -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=327424650740809

To find friends who like the Labour Party -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=25749647410

To find friends who hate music and like the band 'One Direction' -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=121930497861753

We think that just about covers the most tiresome of the fascist, anti-free speech, pro-intolerance groups. If we've missed any off, please let us know and we'll add them to the list.

If you want to know who supports far-right groups, they links are:

To find friends who like Britain First -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=300455573433044

To find friends who like the BNP -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=173163939435977

To find friends who like the EDL -
https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=238696516197018

Forgetting Sarah Marshall - a close friend of demo & Sheffield Socialist Party organiser Sam Moorcroft

A pretty young woman dancing carelessly at a demonstration seems to have caused uproar at Hope not Hate and one of their funders, the NUJ.

The woman at the protest - is this Sarah Marshall?

Last week, the Casuals United blog, operated by people you wouldn't want to run into in a dark alleyway, posted what they claimed was the Facebook profile of just that - a young woman dancing carelessly at a demonstration. The young woman - who they allege was called Sarah Marshall - was also seen to be throwing flowers. None of this would have mattered except for several salient points.

Sarah Marshall - if it was she - is also a trainee reporter on the Doncaster Free Press, and was sent there to cover a demonstration and the expected conflict between members of Casuals United and the EDL on one side, and anti-fascist protesters on the other. The demonstration centred on the Cenotaph in Sheffield. It was alleged that Ms Marshall joined the Antifa protesters, and the flowers she was throwing were flowers which had been laid at the Cenotaph in private acts of remembrance not connected with the demonstration. Sadly for the maybe Ms Marshall, she was also caught on video.

Since then, a war of words has erupted. The Casuals United blog outlined the case against her, and asked that people contact her newspaper to see if they approved of their journalists taking part in events they were supposed to report. This appears to have degenerated into a series of threats against someone who is after all young and inexperienced and who may well be the victim of a case of mistaken identity.

Meanwhile, the NUJ has waded into the row, issuing a statement exonerating Ms Marshall and clearing her of any part in the demonstration, while calling for the 'EDL thugs' who are persecuting her to be prosecuted.

For the Doncaster Free Press, it originally tweeted that it was investigating complaints against Ms Marshall. It then apparently cleared her in another tweet, but the link it gave went dead almost immediately and the posting linked to was removed. Since then, the newspaper has refused to comment, and has removed all previous comments.

All of which leaves us no closer to knowing the truth. Was the young lady pictured Sarah Marshall or not?

Ms Marshall's Facebook front page
before access was restricted

Contrary to the squeals of outrage from the NUJ and Hope not Hate, there is more than a passing resemblance between Ms Marshall and the woman at the demonstration. The Casuals United blog also alleges that Ms Marshall acknowledged it was her on her Facebook page before changing the privacy settings to prevent others seeing it, although they offer no proof of this allegation, and no screen captures.

On the other hand, sections of Ms Marshall's Facebook account remain public. While her Facebook front page did show her support for both the NUJ and Unite - both of whom fund Hope not Hate - her 'likes' are equally revealing.

Sarah Marshall 'liking' items on Sam Morecroft's page -
Moorcroft was one of the Sheffield Socialist Party organisers
who sought violent confrontation at the demo

These include 'Socialist Party - Yorkshire',  'Socialist Meme Caucus', 'Yorkshire Youth Fight for Jobs and Education', 'Sheffield City Council - Bring Back our MMA', 'VI Lenin', 'Socialist', 'Karl Marx', 'Re-elect Dave Nellist', 'Sheffield Socialist Party', 'Occupy Liverpool', 'Occupy Sheffield', 'Occupy Shropshire' and others in a similar vein.

Is this Ms Marshall - centre?

The Sheffield Socialist Party was according to their website responsible for the confrontation with the marchers at the wreath laying on June 8th, and actively sought violent confrontation with what it classed (rightly or wrongly) as the far-right. The Sheffield Socialist Party for Sheffield South is run by someone called Sam Morecroft who, like Ms Marshall, is originally from Shrewsbury. Marshall and Morecroft are friends, both on Facebook and in real life, and would appear to have been since their days in Shrewsbury, as it looks like Ms Marshall in the picture of 'Shrewsbury Socialist Party' which features Mr Morecroft as well. There is another photograph of an inebriated Ms Marshall and Mr Morecroft posted last year which according to a comment by Ms Marshall was 'about 6 years ago'.

None of this proves anything one way or the other, and it is all just speculation and deduction. It does raise a number of questions which the various statements issued - and in some cases subsequently removed - fail to answer. In summary these are

• Is the woman at the demonstration Ms Marshall?
• Whether or not Ms Marshall was the person in the photograph, given her closeness with the organiser of the protest, was it wise to assign her to this event?
• Would Ms Marshall have been sufficiently neutral to abide by the NUJ's own code of conduct for journalists, point 2 of which states that a "journalist strives to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair"
• Why has the Doncaster Free Press apparently removed its defence of Ms Marshall, and why is it now refusing to comment?

There are other questions, but these are enough to be going on with for now.

A drunken Ms Marshall and Sheffield Socialist Party organiser Sam Morecroft

With all that said, even assuming that Ms Marshall is the person at the demonstration the campaign of harassment against her seems excessive, particularly given her youth and inexperience: she is only a trainee reporter after all, and it is difficult to see what is to be achieved by proving all the worst stereotypes of the far right correct.

So after all that, is the woman at the demonstration Ms Marshall? We don't know, but we suspect that it is. If we had to guess at a sequence of events, they would go something like this:

• Ms Marshall volunteers to cover demonstration because she knows one of the organisers
• Ms Marshall gets carried away, possibly after a beer or two, as the AntiFa demonstrators are friends of hers from the Sheffield Socialist Party
• Ms Marshall finds herself taking part in the demonstration rather than reporting on it.
• Ms Marshall acknowledges her part on her Facebook, and then hastily removes it and changes her privacy settings when she realises she has been caught out
• When Casuals United first published their information, she was called in by her editor and flatly denied it was her, knowing that it was unprofessional in the extreme.
• Her editor defends her and repeats her denial.
• The NUJ saw an opportunity to make political capital and, forgetting its own code of conduct, accepted her assurance while not caring if it was true or not.
• Her editor realised that the accusations on the Casuals United blog were actually true and therefore deleted his defence of Ms Marshall and refused to make further comment.

All of which leaves almost nobody looking good. What started as an informative post by Casuals United descended into a series of veiled threats against a young woman. The Doncaster Free Press found itself unwittingly caught in a lie, and couldn't withdraw without risking the wrath of the NUJ. The NUJ knows it is lying, but doesn't care - who will take it on? And it is not a funder of Hope not Hate for nothing, while its leadership belong to assorted far left political parties, and it is depending upon the principle of 'might is right' to force its lie on the world.

This is of course all speculation, but speculation based on fair comment and research which links Ms Marshall to the organiser of the AntiFa demonstration. We do not advocate violence or any further threats against Ms Marshall - there is nothing to be achieved, and which media organisation will print it anyway? What is interesting is the way that apparently all of the groups and individuals involved  are either lying or covering up a lie, but the truth has come a distant second to the opportunity to make political capital.

 

 

 

"You're not singing any more" - Hope not Hate silent on new Daily Mirror poll - UKIP only 1.2% behind Tories

After a number of articles on the Hope not Hate website pointing at a dip in UKIPs polling results in an ICM survey in June, they've been very silent on the latest results of a poll commissioned by their own funders, the Daily Mirror. That said, the Daily Mirror have been very quite on the results too: this is from their NHS Anniversary Poll which is all over their paper today, apart from the voting intentions bit, which their online coverage fails to mention!

As Hope not Hate are 'putting UKIP under a magnifying glass' with their 'Purple Rain' campaign, their failure to mention this result is nothing more than censorship, plain and simple. So much for their claims to stand for free speech and democracy - their approach is more fascist than the NF's!!

In a Survation poll released yesterday the results were as follows:

• Labour - 36%
• Conservative - 22.8%
• UKIP - 21.6%
• Lib Dem - 9.6%
• Green 4.3%
• SNP 3%
• BNP 1.1%
• PC - 0.4%
• Respect - 0.2%
• TUSC - 0.1%

This may explain the apparent panic at Hope not Hate, and the increasingly threatening behaviour of UNISON and their union allies as they attempt to shut down debate.

These figures were taken from Survation's data tables and can be found on Table 11, described as
 

"Q8 Voting Intention Tables - Special Table (After Replacing the Undecided/Refused Responses with 2010 Voters responses)

Q8.1. If there was a General Election taking place tomorrow, and there was a candidate from all political parties standing in your constituency, which party do you think you would vote for?

Base : All Respondents Would Vote and Excluding Undecided/Refused"
 These were not the most favourable figures - Table 10, which excludes undecided/refused and does not redistribute their votes, shows UKIP 0.4% ahead of the Tories!!

Does it really take a £1m organisation to combat people saying rude things about Islam on the Internet?

Hope not Hate last night reposted a Channel 4 news article headlined "EDL 'linked to a third' of

Data based on 'Tell MAMA's figures -
but they are losing their grant because
of doubts about their accuracy

online anti-Muslim incidents".

The report, by the Centre for Fascist Studies at Teeside University, runs to 30 pages of analysis, but suffers from a serious drawback: its data is based on information provided to it by the 'Tell MAMA' campaign. Tell MAMA, which was founded by Fiyal Mughal last year and funded by the government, has just lost its central government grant because its figures were unreliable. In an article on June 9th in the Sunday Telegraph, Andrew Gilligan wrote:

"A controversial project claiming to measure anti-Muslim attacks will not have its government grant renewed after police and civil servants raised concerns about its methods.

The project, called Tell Mama, claimed that there had been a “sustained wave of attacks and intimidation” against British Muslims after the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby, with 193 “Islamophobic incidents” reported to it, rising to 212 by last weekend.

 The group’s founder, Fiyaz Mughal, said he saw “no end to this cycle of violence”, describing it as “unprecedented”. The claims were unquestioningly repeated in the media.

Tell Mama and Mr Mughal did not mention, however, that 57 per cent of the 212 reports referred to activity that took place only online, mainly offensive postings on Twitter and Facebook, or that a further 16 per cent of the 212 reports had not been verified. Not all the online abuse even originated in Britain.

Contrary to the group’s claim of a “cycle of violence” and a “sustained wave of attacks”, only 17 of the 212 incidents, 8 per cent, involved the physical targeting of people and there were no attacks on anyone serious enough to require medical treatment."

 The Teeside report focuses on incidents over a longer timescale, but the figures are broadly in line with those since the Woolwich incident. In the period 1st April 2012 to 30th April 2013, Tell MAMA has recorded 584 anti-Muslim hate crimes, of which 434 took place on-line, as opposed to 150 in the real world. Of these real world incidents, only 8% - 12 - involved 'extreme violence', although there is no indication of what extreme violence means. This is not to downplay the seriousness of assaults, but to show that of the 584 incidents recorded by Tell MAMA, only 2% involved anything more than what amounts to name-calling or insults.

HnH would like you to think that this is commonplace -
but even Tell MAMA's figures show this is not so

Of the real world incidents, only 29 out of 150 involved an identifiable link to the far-right, or 19.3% - a figure the report refers to as 'nearly a quarter', when it is actually 'nearly a fifth'. By 'far-right', the report refers to the BNP, NF and EDL and its offshoots: it specifically excludes UKIP (HnH take note).

There are several gaping holes in this data. Most noticeable is the lack of any indication of how many of the real world incidents which resulted in violence also had connections to the far-right, which leads us to believe the figures were pretty evenly spread. This would mean that statistically only 2.4 violent incidents took place with far-right links of the 12 recorded. Online, the situation was clearer, with 300 out of 434 incidents having links to the far-right, although even here the methodology was not clear - was passing on an internet 'meme' which could be considered anti-Muslim sufficient? As EDL membership is self-selecting and not limited to the UK, it is also not clear to what extent the data is valid.

What is interesting is to turn this data around the other way. Hope not Hate and its associated groups

Once again, HnH prove inept at
sorting data which doesn't fit
their agenda

have an annual turnover approaching £1m, and a significant number of staff. For the past year, it has involved itself in opposing hate crimes primarily against Muslims living in the UK. But that really highlights the scale of the problem facing Nick Lowles and Ruth Smeeth. On Tell MAMAs figures since the Woolwich incident, HnH's expensive organisation has essentially spent the last 6 weeks going after 40 EDL members who said rude things online about Muslims, and a further 17 people who shouted rude words at a Muslim in the street. According to the data in the Teeside report - and merging it with that released by Tell MAMA since the Woolwich incident - it means this expensive organisation has been chasing a mere 796 incidents, the vast majority of

Ruth Smeeth - may have
to step off the HnH
gravy train

which - 554 - amounted to Muslims being called rude names in internet postings. Of the real world incidents, only 12 - or 1.5% - involved violence, and only 2.4 - 0.3% -of those involved the far right. This does not seem to justify the scale of resources which Hope not Hate deploy, and explains their desperation to find another target before their own supporters begin to ask the same questions.

Without UAF to hide behind, Weyman
Bennet is just another political thug

The same problem is also facing the other supposedly anti-racist organisations, chief amongst which is Unite Against Fascism and its various offshoots. Many of these groups like UAF are simply front organisations for other political groups such as the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) who use them for spreading their own propaganda. If organised fascism is seen to be defeated, this audience is lost to them and that
they can not afford to happen.

Hope not Hate is not all about the money. It is about the influence and the power that brings: the access to media which unquestioningly accepts what they say. It is a heady brew, rubbing shoulders with sympathetic MPs and Ministers, editors and journalists. By selectively using statistics, they are not combatting the problem of anti-Islamic attacks, they are making it seem worse than it is, and diverting efforts away from the majority of perpetrators of real-world incidents who have no connection to the far-right. If there is a better example of Hope not Hate failing in its primary task, we have yet to see it.

All of this adds to the evidence that many of the supposed racist incidents are orchestrated not by the far right, but by anti-racist groups desperate to hang on to their positions and bands of thoughtless followers. Incidents such as the careful desecration of Islamic graves we reported on yesterday appear increasingly calculated to extend what HnH and UAF define as 'far-right' into the political mainstream. We have seen continually decreasing attendances at EDL marches which the EDL leadership has attempted to combat by ever more desperate political stunts. We have seen the collapse of the BNP, with its own attempts to hijack the Woolwich incident descend into farce. The English Democrats attempts to harvest disillusioned members has resulted in the collapse of the party. Andrew Brons and his new political party have disappeared.

UKIP should be on their guard. Lowles, Smeeth, Bennett and Smith will not let power slip through their fingers, and will resort to almost any means to prevent their followers seeing their own irrelevance to the political debate. They recognise that unless they successfully convince their own followers that UKIP is more than a political threat, their ride on the gravy train is approaching the terminus, and we should be aware from past experience that there are almost no depths to which they will not stoop to avoid having to step off onto the platform.

 

 

Will anyone remember the Armed Forces on Armed Forces Day?

Tomorrow is Armed Forces Day. Our focus as a nation should be on the armed forces, and particularly on recent events in Woolwich.

Instead, we have an EDL march which couldn't have descended further into farce if it had been organised by a bunch of 5 year olds. We have UAF on the prowl with counter demonstrations, and their activists in SE London sending e-mails about organised fights. We have Hope not Hate stirring the pot while using Lee Rigby's name to raise funds for what is essentially a private company owned by Nick Lowles. We have speakers denied entry to the UK, charities refusing donations, instructions to anti-fascists about face masks and HnH gloating over it all. It's shaping up nicely to be a day of civil unrest.

Was it too much to hope that the focus could be on the Armed Forces for Armed Forces Day?

Ban on 'fascist street thuggery' should include UAF and AntiFA

Hope not hate today published the comments of Colin Inglis, former head of the Humberside Police Authority.

Inglis called the EDL 'fascist street thugs', and called for a ban following an event in Hull which saw 10 people arrested. All ten were protesting the event, and none were associated with the EDL.



The worst of the EDL........

We make no secret of our views of sections of the EDL. While the vast majority of people who support them are decent, law abiding folk there is undeniably an element who are exactly what Inglis calls them. Fascist street thugs. We have no time for them.

At the same time, Inglis seems to have lost sight of the fact that all 10 arrested in Hull were from UAF or another of Hope not Hate's allies. At a recent EDL march in London, the majority of those arrested were also UAF.

...are no worse than the leaders of UAF. Just shabby
street thugs and fascists. The difference is that Hope not Hate
approve of UAF violence. Pictured here (centre) is
Martin Smith, SWP rapist and UAF organiser.

If Hope not Hate are going to call for a ban on 'fascist street thugs', they could do worse than looking much closer to home than the EDL. Their own associates and fellow travellers are no less fascist street thugs than the worst elements of the BNP and EDL.

The question is whether Lowles will also condemn his allies in the UAF, SWP and Anti-Fascist Alliance? Do Hope not Hate believe that violence on the streets is fine as long as those committing the acts of violence are their allies? Do Hope not Hate - and Inglis - advocate the advancement of political aims by the use of violence and intimidation so long as they agree with the cause?

We already know the answer, of course. Just yesterday, when UKIP leader Nigel Farage accused the Anti Fascist Alliance in Scotland of being 'as bad as the EDL', there were howls of rage from Lowles and his mates, who feel they should have an exclusive right to bring violence to the streets of our nation. With that sort of attitude, it is easy to confuse two particular people called 'Nick' - they are beginning to sound the same, and they are both hypocrites of the first order.

Breivik and Adebolajo, and Hope not Hate's hypocritical stance

In 2009, a group calling itself 'Stop Islamification of Europe' announced a protest at the then new Harrow Central Mosque in Harrow, Middlesex. The protest was subsequently announced on the EDL's Facebook pages, although it was never clear whether the EDL intended to take part themselves. As soon as the protest was announced, UAF announced a counter-protest to take place at the same time.

In all the fuss over who and how many were attending, one important voice was lost. Haroon Sheikh, the Mosque chairman - speaking of both demonstration and counter-demonstration - said, "We would request that the local authority and the police try to put a stop to it. The concern we have is with a large congregation. It's very difficult to control what people would want to do on the day. We would have 200 to 300 people coming here for prayers on a Friday. Emotions will be high if it's provoked, but we will have the police and we will have stewards here."

As it turned out, not many people on either side bothered to listen. The 20 SIOE protesters who turned up were outnumbered by up to 1,000 UAF protesters who repeatedly charged police lines and threw bottles and stones. So far, it was just another UAF gathering, but what made this one different - if only in retrospect - was the presence of Al-Muhijaroun activist Michael Adebolajo, who was captured on video telling a group of UAF protesters that what they did, they did 'for Allah'. Adebolajo was one of the two men arrested recently for the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.

It is not so much the presence of Adebolajo which is the problem: at the time, he had done nothing illegal, and was as entitled as anyone to be there, even if the local Mosque had asked for people to not attend. No, the thing which is striking about it is the response of UAF since the murder occurred. Weyman Bennett, the UAF leader, has batted away implied criticism with a statement that Adebolajo was 'not on the platform, and was not an official speaker'. While Adebolajo was speaking, a procession of UAF and trades union flags passed within yards, so his words were hardly a surprise to Bennett and his SWP colleague Martin Smith, who passed just feet away.


UAF and Trades Union banners passed within feet of
Michael Adebolajo at the Harrow protest....

 One can just imagine the outcry from UAF if it came to light that Anders Breivik had attended a UKIP meeting in 2009 and had been allowed to hold his own impromptu rally. It stretches credibility to imagine that Nigel Farage could get away with the notion that Breivik 'not being on the platform and not being an official speaker' would be a satisfactory dismissal of concerns.



...as he was spewing his message of Hate, not Hope



There is no love lost between Hope not Hate and the UAF, although there does seem to be a thawing of relations since HnH was taken over by Nick Lowles. Under the Gables' stewardship, HnH recognised that far from being part of the solution, UAF were a part of the problem: the other side of the racist violence coin. Lowles seems to take a more relaxed view, as reports on EDL marches over the past few years demonstrate on HnH's twitter and Facebook feed: the reporters seemed to glory in the violence of running battles between the EDL and UAF, although as most of Hope not Hate's 'feet on the street' were previously BNP activists who a decade earlier would have been in there with fists and boots flying, this is perhaps not surprising.

As Andrew Gilligan discusses in his Telegraph article, the actions of the UAF do not detract from the rise in tensions, they add to it, a point then Harrow Council leader David Ashton made back in 2009: "We are saddened and dismayed that groups from outside the borough have come here and caused unrest. Harrow has an excellent record in community relations and we condemn those who came to our borough from elsewhere to either foist extreme political opinions on us or use religion as a cover for causing trouble."

All of this leaves Hope not Hate's core purpose - fighting racism and fascism - looking rather neglected. Where is the condemnation of Bennett and UAFs pitiful excuses for Adebolajo's presence at the Harrow protest? Back in 2009, nobody knew what Adebolajo would go on to do, but with the benefit of hindsight it is clear that he was an extremist with a future no less notorious than Anders Breivik, even if the number he left dead was smaller. Speaking against Breivik in an article in the Guardian last September, Lowles said, "Sadly, there are many others at large who share his warped ideology. Seventeen people in the UK....have been imprisoned in recent years for terrorist-related offences": the words I have removed and replaced with '....' were 'with far right views'. With those four words removed, it applies as much to UAF as it does to the EDL and the BNP.

But if Hope not Hate can launch an investigation into links between the far right and Anders Breivik and display its results as symptomatic of the approval of the former for the latter, why does the far left not also warrant a similar investigation? With Al Muhajiroun ostensibly a target for Hope not Hate, where is the investigation into the links between the boot boys of the UAF and Anjem Choudhary and Michael Adebojalo?

I will not win many friends in the EDL and BNP by suggesting that such sloppy thinking would not have been a part of Hope not Hate's approach under the Gables' stewardship, but it remains true. Lowles very much takes the view that 'if God is with us, who can be against us', and feels that however fascist the far left becomes, and whatever terrorist organisations it mixes with, the righteousness of his cause outweighs any concerns.

This may have been true were he not simultaneously attempting to make Hope not Hate less a tool to be used against racism, and more a tool to be used against what he perceives to be the political right.
Part of the problem for Lowles is the continued presence at the top of the UAF of such noted Labour Party activists as Ken Livingstone, Diane Abbott and Glyn Ford. Despite UAF being effectively an SWP front organisation, such high profile Labour politicians at its top table - even if they are without meaningful power - makes an attack or even an investigation into UAF politically unpalatable for Lowles. To brand the UAF as fascist would be to brand sections of the Labour Party fascist as well, and that is counter to Lowles purpose as he seeks to align Hope not Hate ever more closely with the Labour Party.

Whether such hypocritical evasions are tenable remains to be seen. Certainly the poor attendance to date at his anti-UKIP meetings have lead to the rebranding discussed yesterday: better to climb on the Woolwich bandwagon and hope nobody notices the tolerance shown by the hard left to Al Mujahiroun in the past. We can not believe that the majority of Hope not Hate support will put up with such hypocrisy for long.

Hope not Hate meeting schedule ties UKIP to Woolwich murder

Hope not Hate have finally published a list of upcoming meetings which readers may find of interest. Although originally billed as 'Stand up for HOPE' to discuss 'what to do about UKIP', many are now billed under the generic 'We are the many' or 'Where now for HOPE?' banner as the original billing failed to attract support.

It is clear from their information that these meetings will attempt to throw UKIP into the same pot as the BNP and the EDL and prominently features the Woolwich murder as can be seen by this advertisement for the meeting in Oxford:

 

To us this rather smacks of desperation; to complain about the 'EDL's attempts to exploit the Woolwich murder' and then doing the same thing in a weak attempt to garner support for a campaign against UKIP - whose only official statement on the matter was a call for calm - is clearly the pot calling the kettle black.

 

Note also how although they claim their campaign is about offering 'HOPE', there is still no mention on the Hope not Hate website of the excellent initiative on sexual grooming being lead by Respect councillor and Bradford Imam Alyas Karmani for the reasons discussed yesterday: Hope not Hate are only interested in 'HOPE' when it is themselves or Labour offering it.

 

A full list of meetings is available on their website, and you can find your local meeting at the Hope not Hate meeting locator. While we will attend as many as possible, we would be interested in receiving reports from those we are unable to attend. I know it goes without saying, but if you attend, please be polite, respectful and calm as they run through their list of distortions and half-truths about UKIP. Remember, it doesn't matter how many people at the meetings say they should leave UKIP alone and focus on racism and fascism, the decision has already been made by Nick Lowles - who is the sole owner of Hope not Hate Ltd - so even unanimous decisions against the proposal can not change that.

 

If you attend the meetings in Brighton, Oxford and several other locations, please be careful. There are large UAF branches in these areas, we have already seen how they use bully boy tactics, and they are likely to attend these meetings to push their own SWP agenda. There is little love lost between HnH and the UAF, who fight like cats in a sack in the absence of alternative opposition.

 

Most meetings are likely to see Nick Lowles addressing rows of empty chairs, although after the fiasco in Warrington it is likely that even as I write HnH are on the phone to local branches of trades unions and constituency Labour Partys to ensure the embarrassment of only 5 members of the public attending is not repeated.

UAFs' "Love Music, Hate Racism" Events run by man accused of rape

Unite Against Fascism's 'Love Music, Hate Racism' campaign is now officially headed by a man accused of rape.
 

Martin Smith - 'Comrade Delta' - was accused of raping a
17 year old girl, but escaped justice at the hand of the SWPs
'Disputes Committee' comprising 5 of his colleagues.

Martin Smith, a former national officer of the Unite Against Fascism campaign, is a close friend and political associate of UAF leader Weyman Bennett, and is listed on their website as the LMHR National Organiser. He is also a former leader and Central Committee member of the SWP, which is the organisation behind UAF and LMHR.

There is a much seedier side to Smith, however. Apart from his string of criminal convictions - most recently in 2010 for assaulting a police officer - there is his role in the rape scandal which has convulsed the Socialist Workers Party in recent months.

News of this first leaked out after the SWP decided that it did not trust the 'bourgeois court system', and decided to deal with the allegations internally through its disciplinary committee: no, really! At issue was a 'Comrade Delta', who was accused of raping a 17 year old SWP member, Miss X.

Miss X was pressured into not reporting the matter to the police, but to pass it on to the party Disputes Committee to investigate. The Disputes Committee found in favour of Comrade Delta, and dismissed the case without further action.

Comrade Delta was in fact Martin Smith, former leader of the SWP and Central Committee member. According to the 'pre-conference bulletin' prepared by supporters of Miss X:

‘In this case, the comrade making the complaint was kept waiting for four hours before she was called to the DC [disputes committee] to give evidence. This added stress made it harder to put her side of the case.


Weyman Bennett, UAF leader who appointed accused rapist
Martin Smith to run an organisation which would give him
access to young girls

‘In this case, the DC made a one-sentence decision — that the allegation of rape was unproven — with no further explanation. As might have been expected, the comrade who had made the accusation was extremely distressed.
‘The DC took a full two weeks to provide a statement. Yet the DC’s statement did not explain why it did not accept her account, or why it failed to make any criticism at all of the male comrade’s behaviour.'


Given the age of Miss X, it seems almost unbelievable that Martin Smith now runs 'Love Music, Hate Racism'. With its mission of putting on concerts in support of anti-racism, his new position will bring him into contact with large numbers of impressionable young girls - just like Miss X - while the apparatus of the SWP has already shown that it will do all it can to close down discussion of allegations against its leadership. At least two Central Committee members of the SWP were expelled following their attempts to challenge the findings of the Disputes Committeee.

To quote Tom Walker, a journalist who left the SWP over the handling of the matter,

"As those who raised criticisms pointed out, the disputes committee included five current or former CC members, and all have known comrade Smith for many years. Though I believe they took the case deeply seriously, this was not a jury of his peers, but a jury of his mates. If we were talking about any other organisation we would all consider it obvious that allowing it to investigate itself is unlikely to produce damning conclusions"

It is worth remembering that there are allegations that a further 9 rapes - including at least one other involving Smith - have been dealt with in a similar fashion, with the Disputes Committee dispensing 'revolutionary justice' in the form of expulsion or suspension from the SWP, in some cases for periods of up to two years. For any who feel that being made to temporarily leave a minor political party may not be a punishment which fits the crime of rape - which is a hate crime based on power - it may be worth asking why Hope not Hate feels no need to address such behaviour when they are supposedly opposed to inequality.

Thankfully, under Smiths' leadership the Love Music, Hate Racism campaign seems to have ground to a temporary halt: the last event listed on its website was last August, although the nature of the campaign means that there are often long hiatuses in its event schedule.

Should they start up again under Smiths' leadership, you may wish to ask yourself one thing before allowing your teenage daughters to attend an anti-racist event which sounds so worthy: the man behind it has been accused of rape, and has never faced justice because his friends in the anti-racist, anti-fascist movement whitewashed the allegations. Is this a person young girls should be around? You decide.