Lowles bends the truth as he tries to fight of 'establishment' claims

Lowles fights 'establishment' label

It was interesting to read Hope not Hate director Nick Lowles self-congratulatory puff piece in the Huffington Post yesterday, not least because of the levels of distortion it contained.

In the article, Lowles says,

"In fact, the UKIP leader sounds worried. This morning he attacked me personally, and HOPE not hate, on BBC radio and in national newspapers, claiming I was a Communist and linked to the Socialist Workers Party (I am neither), or that we were linked to another organisation Unite Against Fascism (we are not) and that because our charitable (non-campaigning) arm accepted government funding in the past (now ceased) we are part of the 'Establishment' trying to stop them. I guess he must be feeling riled."

To deal with these distortions in turn:
..claiming I was a Communist and linked to the Socialist Workers Party (I am neither)...

Lowles originally worked for Searchlight before engineering his own well paid political career by breaking Hope not Hate out of its founding organisation after an internal power struggle. Searchlight was founded and run by members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Some of his Hope not Hate staff members - including website contributor Carl Morphett and his pseudonyms - remain associated with hard left, communist groups.

As for the SWP, it is true that the SWP and HnH had a falling out, although close links remain between them. HnH staff regularly attend far-right demonstrations, often disguised as serious journalists, and their detailed tweets giving the specific locations of far-right activists are eagerly used by UAF/SWP to target them for violence. Meanwhile, SWP front organisation Love Music Hate Racism - headed by rapist Martin Smith, former SWP leader - regularly has its events publicised by Hope not Hate. A quick internet search shows Norfolk Hope not Hate advertising an LMHR event at the Mulberry Tree, Ipswich in October last year.

Verdict: False. While Lowles' assertion that he is formally linked to neither the Communist Party or the SWP may be true in the narrow sense that he is a member of neither, there are clear, ongoing links between all of these groups.

... that we were linked to another organisation Unite Against Fascism (we are not)...

If his denial of involvement with the SWP is false, his denial of links to UAF must also be false, since the UAF is merely an SWP front organisation, as is LMHR. HnH is more than happy to use the street violence of the UAF (see above) as a part of its tool set, while not being stupid enough to permit more direct links. Notwithstanding that, at last years failed 'Stand up for HOPE' meetings which were designed to produce an anti-UKIP consensus within the Hope not Hate membership (they didn't, and few people turned up, as we reported at the time), UAF members were conspicuous attendees advocating a harder line against UKIP and were welcomed because of it.

Verdict: False. As above, Lowles denial is disingenuous at best as clear links between UAF and HnH exist and are well documented.

.....because our charitable (non-campaigning) arm accepted government funding in the past (now ceased) we are part of the 'Establishment' trying to stop them....

Lowles closeness to the Labour Party is no secret, and that of his deputy, Ruth Smeeth could hardly be clearer - she is an open Labour supporter who has just been selected to fight a safe Labour seat. Their own accounts with the Charity Commission and Companies House show them receiving government funding - 2013's accounts have yet to be filed, so it remains to be seen whether his assertion that such funding has ceased is true. In a week in which we have seen the Corporation of London donating money to oppose UKIP politically, it is difficult to escape the notion that Lowles is indeed a part of the establishment. After all, unlimited cheap foreign labour undercutting the British workforce - whatever their race - is only good for the richest in society.

Verdict: False. Hope not Hate attempts to present itself as a grassroots organisation, but in fact has solid links with bankers, big business, the Labour Party and the media, as evidenced in its sponsorship by the Daily Mirror. It doesn't get much more establishment than that.

Far from UKIP's Farage feeling riled, it would appear that Lowles is concerned that the general public is seeing through his propaganda to the point that he feels obliged to write a HuffPo article patting himself on the back. How nice it would have been to have seen some honesty in it, but that would be a step too far for Hope not Hate.

Dan Hodges - 1 cheque from the Telegraph, 1 cheque from Hope not Hate

Dan Hodges - paid by the Telegraph, paid by
Hope not Hate: nice work if you can get it

It was hardly a surprise to see Nick Lowles triumphantly echoing the words of Dan Hodges - "UKIP
is a racist Party" - and using this as a justification for continuing political action against UKIP not because it is racist, but because it threatens the Labour Party.

Hodges reached his conclusion because, amongst other heinous crimes, UKIP members were caught laughing at a racist joke at conference in Torquay, and used a slogan once used by the BNP. Hodges also complains that "there has been a steady stream of outrageous and disgustingly racist comments by UKIP councillors and officials" which he claims have gone unpunished. In fact, most have been punished, unlike the many Labour Party councillors who have featured on our Facebook page over the last year.

Lowles has of course been looking for an excuse to drag the dwindling band of Hope not Hate supporters along on his quest to attack UKIP, a party he was once happy to work with in fighting the far-right - as, in fact, was Dan Hodges who met with a senior UKIP official on a number of occasions. That was before UKIP looked like thumping the Labour Party in the European elections, and before UKIP started taking huge chunks out of the Labour vote in previously safe Labour seats in the Labour heartlands of the north.

Lowles has long faced a problem within Hope not Hate. Huge numbers of his own supporters were decidedly lukewarm about HnH turning its guns on UKIP, as we discussed about this time last year when he was doing a speaking tour in an attempt to drum up anti-UKIP feeling. Speaking mostly to empty chairs or hand-selected audiences of UAF and SWP activists who thought Lenin was a bit right wing and Mao was a fascist, he still lacked anything approaching a mandate to fight a battle with UKIP.

And now, out of the woodwork, crawls Hodges with his thoroughly dishonest diatribe. Hodges and Lowles are hardly unknown to each other - in the 2010 General Election campaign, HnH paid Hodges over £4,500 for a raft of services ranging from fundraising to writing press releases - the invoices are attached below. Hodges himself is a defender of Peter Mandelson, on the pages of Labour Uncut and even in the Progress Online website, while Mandelson's group are suspected of funding Hope not Hate. And yet, as Left Futures says, "Dan Hodges is not the most reliable of soothsayers."

No-one however has ever accused him of not knowing which side of the bread the butter is on. His latest column will inevitably raise the question about whether he is being paid by two masters for the same article: in 2010 he was already hard at work for Hope not Hate by this time of the year, although we'll have to wait for HnH's Electoral Commission returns later in the year to find out for sure. It's nice work if you can get it though - being paid to promote the views of one organisation in the columns of a national newspaper which is also paying you for the same thing.

And with Hodges mother - Labour MP Glenda Jackson - standing down at the next General Election, having Peter Mandelson's influence on your side shouldn't hurt when the selection battle starts. It just goes to show, it's never too early to get your nose in the trough.

So, what's in it for Lowles? He can trumpet a national newspaper - albeit one he is hardly likely to read - labelling UKIP as racist, and flaunt the article before his dwindling band of supporters. It helps drag out the death throes of Hope not Hate - an organisation which since UKIP saw off the remnants of the BNP has no purpose - for another election campaign, and all the money that involves. The bleaker long-term reality for Lowles is that Hope not Hate is becoming an increasingly unwieldy alliance of hard left and Blairite Labour funding, with the trades unions on one side, and Mandelson's Progress on the other. The public meetings mentioned earlier showed that HnH has no true grass roots support - this is why in 2010 it was reduced to paying private companies to carry out its leafleting as it simply no longer has the ability to put feet on the ground.

How long can he continue to pull off this balancing act? The smart money is that his organisation will be gone by the end of the year.