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?

"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!!

With 7 Oxford men sentenced for grooming, why is HnH silent on Imam Karmani's initiative?

News broke today of the sentencing of 7 men in Oxford for a string of sex offences against young girls. Now, I may just be scaremongering, but something about their names - Akhtar Dogar, Anjum Dogar, Kamar Jamil, Assad Hussain, Mohammed Karrar, Bassam Karrar and Zeeshan Ahmed - suggests that these men may have something in common beyond living in the Oxford area.

I don't intend to spend hours examining links between grooming gangs and Islam - it is sufficient to

Imam Alyas Karmani - his initiative
to tackle sexual grooming through an
Islamic 'Khutba' to be read in mosques
is being ignored by HnH

say that there is an increasing amount of evidence to suggest that this is an increasing problem, particularly with men from the Indian sub-continent. Whether there is a direct connection to Islam or whether their religion is incidental makes little difference to the victims.

As I have blogged previously, there is action being taken within the Islamic community to combat such crimes. Imam Alyas Karmani in Bradford has prepared a Khutba to be read in mosques during Friday prayers tomorrow. In it, he sets out beyond any doubt how such crimes are against the true teachings of Islam, and he aims to have it read in 500 mosques around the UK.

The Imam is also a Respect Party councillor in Bradford. Regardless of personal feelings or political preferences, this is an initiative which deserves respect, as Karmani - like many within the British Muslim community - recognise that it is their community which has the best chance of tackling such issues successfully, and I have said before that I feel he should be applauded for taking a stand which will not be universally popular.

What is particularly surprising then is the continued silence of Hope not Hate, both on the issue of grooming, and on Imam Karmani's initiative.

It seems to me that this represents little more than a betrayal of everything they are supposed to stand for. Sections of the far-right are already near-hysterical, painting all Muslims with the same brush and undoubtedly using the recent spate of convictions of groups of Islamic men as a powerful recruiting tool. Hope not Hate have the opportunity to use their e-mail database - the largest in the country, if their own words are to be believed - to spread far and wide information on Karmani's initiative, and to show that the actions of these men are not representative of the wider Muslim community.

Instead, we have a self-imposed silence on the whole issue.

I do not know whether this is because Imam Karmani is a Respect Party councillor in an area where Respect are making huge inroads in the Labour vote, or whether it is because by admitting that a problem such as this may exist, Hope not Hate will find themselves saying some of the things that those they condemn also say.

Whatever the reason, it is a further demonstration that there is much more Hate than Hope going on in their organisation. If it can not use its influence to promote an initiative which will blunt the advance of the far right, then we have to ask once again what is Hope not Hate for?

Islamic Emergency Defence slips beneath Hope not Hate's radar

While Hope not Hate were running their campaign to ban Pam Geller and Robert Spencer from the UK, their old friend Anjem Choudhary - whose Al Muhajiroun group was supposed to be one of the hate groups they opposed - was launching a fresh group to circumvent government controls.

As reported in 'The Sun', Choudhary's new group - which he was pushing through his Twitter feed

Choudhary's Twitter feed, showing his support for
'Islamic Emergency Defence' (IED)

(pictured) - aims to set up 'task forces' and mete out 'instant justice'. Choudhary admits to having an 'advisory role' with the group, but does not run it.

The selection of the name Islamic Emergency Defence and its initials IED were, according to a spokesman, 'completely coincidental' to any similarity with the initials for Improvised Explosive Device.

Over on Hope not Hate's website, Director Nick Lowles wrote only a week ago that "While many people look just at the extremism on the right wing, it is important to also monitor those who deliberately stoke sectarian tensions within the Muslim communities too."

It may be that Lowles and his colleagues simply missed the story: they are after all nice, middle class kids who probably don't read the 'Sun', which is reserved for the working class in their view. Far better to read the 'Guardian'. Even so, as Al Muhajiroun is one of the groups they supposedly monitor, it is not unreasonable to expect them to have spotted it. Perhaps they could launch a front page campaign demanding that the Home Secretary ban the group, similar to the campaign they launched against Geller and Spencer?

That won't happen, of course. There are few Labour votes to be gained in opposing Islamic extremism with the same fervour they apply to opposing right-wing extremism whatever Lowles may state publicly. Of 51 news links on their websites news feed, only one deals with Islamic extremism. Of 15 front page stories on 'Nick's Blog', only one deals with Islamic extremism - regarding Mohammed al Arefe, while of 28 posts on the 'Insider' blog, none deal with Islamic extremism.

Elsewhere, on our Facebook page this morning we posted of an initiative in Bristol - an inter-faith prayer group dedicated to the memory of Lee Rigby - which was held in a mosque, and which was organised by a Muslim woman.

It seems to us that as every day goes by Hope not Hate is more about Hate and less about Hope. Where was their mention of the Bristol event as a symbol of hope? Where are the mentions of Imam Alvas Karmani's initiative against sexual grooming in Bradford? Where is their condemnation of Choudhary's latest group of extremists?

Nick Lowles, Ruth Smeeth and their colleagues at Hope not Hate should hang their heads in shame. Their hypocrisy is not advancing Hope, it is only interested in their own Hate and advancing the Labour vote for their own political and financial gain.

Imam Alyas Karmani stands up for hope, while Hope not Hate betray their principles

Imam Alyas Karmani

Readers of this blog will be aware that Hope not Hate pays little more than lip service to the existence of Islamic hate preachers, even though Al Muhajiroun features on their list of hate groups. While every public indiscretion of UKIP members - who do not feature on their list of hate groups - is publicised in full detail, Anjem Choudhary, Al Muhajiroun's leader, has escaped any form of personal censure.

Even worse than this deliberate absence of condemnation for groups which seek to spread hate is their failure to highlight the efforts of Imam Alyas Karmani in Bradford to combat the grooming of young girls by Muslim men, something which is widely recognised as a problem. Imam Karmani - who is also a Respect Councillor - has issued a Khutba to be read in Mosques during Friday prayers on the 28th June and which is intended to drive home to worshippers that such actions are not acceptable in the eyes of Islam. His goal is that it should be read in more than 500 mosques across the UK.

For those of us who feel that Imams should play a more visible role in combatting the rise of Islamic extremism, Imam Karmani's initiative is to be welcomed, and is perhaps a sign that moderate Islam is capable of rising to the challenge. What is more puzzling is Hope not Hate's failure to even mention his initiative. What is the point of calling your organisation 'Hope not Hate' if all you are interested in is the 'Hate', and only certain types of hate at that? The key to their silence is Karmani's 'Respect' affiliation. In Bradford, Labour are seeing support haemorrhage in two directions - to UKIP on the right, and to Respect on the left, as evidenced by George Galloway's election as MP. Because of this, Karmani's initiative will fail to gain the support of Hope not Hate. Not because it is not worthwhile. Not because it is wrong. But because the Imam represents the 'Respect' Party and not Labour, and to push his initiative would be to admit that Labour - like Hope not Hate - has no answers, and indeed caused many of the problems

 By failing to promote initiatives such as Karmani's, Hope not Hate - who have access to a considerable audience - are helping to create the impression that there is no action within the Muslim community to tackle these problems. Their silence allows the EDL and the BNP to condemn Islam as something to be feared, because Hope not Hate is too mired in party political allegiances to shout from the rooftops the message of hope contained within Karmani's initiative. They would rather allow their silence to act as a recruiting sergeant for the far right than stand up and proclaim what should be their core message - Hope, not Hate.

We make no secret of our support for UKIP. And we would be lying if we said we supported much of Respect's policy platform. But this is an issue which cuts to the heart of the problems of Islamic extremism, and one which is beyond the nonsense of partisan politics. Karmani - whatever his political allegiance - is tackling a problem, and I urge UKIP supporters to share his message and to show that we are big enough to embrace good ideas whatever their political or religious source. Common sense is common sense.

So I say this to Nick Lowles and his Hope not Hate comrades. Shame on you, for betraying your core principles. Shame on your silence which allows hate to grow and lies to spread unchecked. And shame on your shoddy attempts to put your own personal allegiances ahead of an initiative which will clearly aid better relations between communities. Your blinkered attitude and political partisanship makes you no better than those you claim to oppose. For many years, you attacked the BNP, and ran with the slogan 'Not in my name', only for us to find the tables are now turned, and an increasing barrier to harmonious relations between communities is not the BNP and the EDL, but Hope not Hate and your refusal to back initiatives like Karmani's. If you must continue with such wilful blindness, be aware you do so on your own and not in my name. 

Read more about the Imam's initiative here Click here

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.