Hope not Hate: UKIP alleged sexual harrassment worse than Tory rape or Labour child abuse

The bits that Hope not Hate don't want to mention

Hope not Hate have tweeted 3 times this morning on the subject of UKIP general secretary Roger
Bird and his alleged harassment of female former Labour Party activist Natasha Bolter during her selection as a UKIP PPC.

As yet however there is no mention of Bird's response, despite it being carried online in many news outlets and having been tweeted by Channel 4 reporter Michael Crick: Bird states that he has texts and e-mails to prove that Bolter's story is not true, and that they were in a consensual relationship until the 2nd November.

UKIP's Roger Bird - a dignified response

Whichever way you slice it, Bird's response has been dignified and measured: in the Daily Telegraph article, he says, "I'm very sorry that a story like his should have arisen because it detracts from our [Ukip’s] central messages. The party had to respond in a formal way and conduct an appropriate investigation".

Texts from Bird's phone which appear to prove his
version of events is the correct one

We don't pretend to know what the truth of the matter is, although it would be strange if Bird claimed to possess exculpatory evidence which he then could not produce in his own defence. What is certain is that the matter is by no means as clear as it was presented by the Times this morning, although the Times carrying out a vendetta against UKIP on the basis of nonsense is hardly something new. For us, we hope that Bird's version is true and that he is vindicated: if it proves to be untrue, then he deserves whatever is coming to him. UPDATED - Some of the texts are now available on Guido Fawkes website and can be viewed by clicking on this link.Roger Bird appears to have been telling the truth, which begs the question - How could Natasha Bolter have thought she'd get away with it and he'd have no proof, and what game is she playing?




Hope not Hate - all accusation, no defence.

But what of Hope not Hate's newfound enthusiasm for protecting women in politics? A quick look back to their output on the 4th and 5th December shows that they tweeted exactly no times at all about the arrest for rape of Conservative MP Mark Pritchard so concerned are they about equality, women's rights and the repression of women in politics. On the same day as Pritchard's arrest, the former leader of Rotherham council, Labour's Cllr Barry Dodson, was arrested for the sexual abuse of a 13 year old girl. They had nothing to say about that either, while their carefully worded views on the wider Rotherham child abuse scandal managed to not mention the Labour Party even once, although it did spend some time explaining why Tory cuts were responsible.


Every day, Hope not Hate move just that little bit further away from their founding principles, and just that little bit closer to becoming an arm of the Labour Party and their union paymasters.

Heywood & Middleton Labour candidate and her BNP colleague

Labour Heywood & Middleton candidate Liz McInnes -
remember her association with the far-right when she
starts shouting 'racist' at UKIP

Spare a thought for Labour candidate for Heywood & Middleton, Liz McInnes. There she was, all set to call UKIP 'racist', 'fascist' and 'nazis', and she seems to have forgotten one of her colleagues.

For Liz is a councillor in Rossendale. The neighbouring Borough is Blackburn with Darwen. Both are covered by the same constituency Labour Party, known as Rossendale and Darwen after the parliamentary constituency.

Former Nazi turned Labour Mayor -
and colleague of Heywood & Middleton
Labour candidate Liz McInnes

Blackburn with Darwen's current councillor for the Earcroft ward is Trevor Maxfield. Maxfield  was originally elected as a BNP councillor for the ward, before defecting to the Labour Party, which rapidly changed its mind about him being a 'racist', 'fascist' and 'nazi' - so much so that they made him Mayor of Darwen.

Maxfield had a long history with the BNP. He was appointed local organiser by no less a person than
then BNP leader Nick Griffin back in 2004 when he was described by his predecessor as being one of the 'drug dealers and football hooligans' who made up the local branch of the BNP. He didn't defect straight to Labour though - first he joined the white supremacist 'England First Party'. Of course, had he been a member of UKIP, we'd have read about all this on the front page of the Mirror and the Guardian, and Hope not Hate and UAF would have been picketing his house. But, since he eventually joined Labour, that's alright then. As a fellow Labour councillor said when he was made cabinet member for culture, "To be fair to Trevor, he’s quite a good bloke. I think his BNP stuff is in the past". Not that far in the past, as he is pictured at a 'Heritage & Destiny' meeting in Bradford in 2006 with various other luminaries of the far right, including Eddy Morrison and Dave Smith. Its a strange world indeed where Maxfield is not just accepted but promoted within the Labour Party despite his far right links, while he would not even qualify for membership of UKIP because of his past associations. And they call us racist!

Still, things work a bit differently in Rossendale & Darwen. The local Labour candidate - they lost the seat to the Tories in 2010 - is none other than William Straw, son of former Home Secretary Jack. Readers may recall that back in 1998, he was cautioned by police for selling cannabis, something which would have stopped anyone less propelled by nepotism from being selected. Local Labour councillors have rallied around him since his selection, with Liz McInnes saying how wonderful he is just above a similar endorsement from Trevor Maxfield.


Will himself did plenty for race relations, which is probably why a former BNP councillor speaks so highly of him. After all, Will caused no little controversy shortly after his selection when he was attacked and decried as a racist after being pictured with two fancy dress goers who had 'blacked up'.

So when Labour start slinging the usual slurs at John Bickley, the UKIP candidate, it is worth recalling that their own local party has quite a lot to answer for itself.

Hope not Hate mock and smear mentally ill man in supermarket

News today in the Daily Mirror of a man entering a branch of Asda in full Nazi SS uniform.
Naturally, HnH - who are partially funded by the Mirror - reposted the story with the heading 'It's not easy being in the BNP.....'

The article explains that the man in question is Paul Dutton, a former IT engineer of Cambridge, and that he did it to promote his website.

If you take a look at his website, he believes he is the nephew of SS General Dr Hans Kammler, the man who built the concentration camps. The rest of the story is too convoluted to repeat, but involves secret Nazi time machines, enhanced intelligence injections and SS General Paul Dutton. It is quite clear that Dutton is seriously unwell and suffers from psychiatric problems. Since when was it acceptable to mock the afflicted?

What was interesting is that nowhere on Dutton's site does he mention the BNP. Neither does Dutton appear on either of the leaked BNP membership lists. There is also - if you search on Google - not a single webpage which would indicate any form of link between Dutton and the BNP.

Here at Nope not Hope we do not support the BNP. We do however find it strange that although clearly in possession of the BNP lists, Hope not Hate either couldn't be bothered to search for Dutton on them, or simply didn't care that this is a man apparently suffering from a brain tumour and associated mental impairment before smearing him as a BNP member. As if the poor guy's life isn't miserable enough already.

This is not of course the first time that HnH have been happy to either poke fun at the mentally ill - we exposed how they were happy to call people 'retards' less than 3 weeks ago. Their approach is hardly universally popular amongst their own supporters either - several people questioned their mockery of the mentally ill within minutes of them posting the story on their website

 



We should not be surprised by such double standards though: while they are happy enough for their own supporters to mock the mentally afflicted, even in such obviously serious cases as this, woe betide any who are not on their side who dare say the word 'mong', as a UKIP press officer found out recently. Final words though to another HnH supporter happy to carry on a disgusting attack on an ill man:

 

 

HnH's own supporters agree with Bloom and oppose burning of books

Evidence of the widening gap between Hope not Hate and their own supporters continues to emerge in the comments following HnH's latest articles.

On Friday, Nick Lowles blog featured an article on former UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom's new book, "A guinea a minute" which was ripped off without attribution from the Huffington Post UK. Entitled 'Godfrey Bloom's best quotes from 'A guinea a minute', HuffPo contributor Asa Bennett had managed to whittle the book down to reveal the very best.

Designed as a piece to elicit mockery of Bloom whose trenchant views are already widely known, the responses from Hope not Hate supporters were revealing when it was posted on their Facebook page. Just 5 people 'liked' the article, while 6 commented upon it. Of the 6 comments, 4 were supportive, including a comment by one of the 'likers'. They said:

 

 

There was yet more disappointment for Lowles and his motley crew as the comments thread also developed on the story we covered a couple of days ago on his enthusiasm for overcoming political opponents by simply burning their books in best National Socialist style. While some agreed with HnH's desire for the censorship of opposing political views no matter how absurd or easily disproved, the vast majority of comments showed that HnH's support is hardly foursquare behind them, while many noted the closeness between Lowles position and that of Goebbels, as we noted in our article: that banning books is just one step away from burning them.

 

 

 

It is worth noting that these are not messages from people who appear to be supporters of the far-right or of holocaust denial. Rather these are people who seem to be waking up to the agenda behind Hope not Hate's words and actions. Increasingly comments are appearing beneath their articles which should give any organisation a reason to pause for thought, although that is unlikely to happen with Hope not Hate. A more likely cause of action will be the disabling of the comments threads, or an even heavier handed censorship of what is posted. They already remove anything which appears to be written by persons whom they consider 'far-right'. It is one thing to remove the comments of political opponents, but could Lowles and Hope not Hate be forced to start removing the comments of their own supporters to hide the growing uneasiness within the ranks? It can not be long coming. After all, no dictatorship can survive for long once it permits internal dissent.

When will HnH point their fingers and call Cllr Hiqab Jama racist?

There was an interesting story on the Bristol 247 news site yesterday - Immigrants ‘can do more to integrate into British culture’

It carried the news that "Bristol’s first Somali councillor has said immigrant families could do more to integrate themselves into British culture to help the battle against racism". The article went on to say:

Cllr Hibaq Jama -
Lucky not to have been called
'racist' by HnH

"Bristol’s first Somali councillor has said immigrant families could do more to integrate themselves into British culture to help the battle against racism.

Cllr Hibaq Jama, who came to Britain with her family when she was two years old as a refugee fleeing civil war in her country, said immigration was a threat to British culture if it was “a threat in the minds of British people”.

She said she had found real fears over immigration while campaigning in her Lawrence Hill ward, one of the poorest areas in the South West and with a large, white, working class community.

The debate over immigration needed to be broader, she added, to ask how immigrants and refugees could accommodate themselves more into the communities they enter."

This was just the day after Hope not Hate featured UKIP Croydon leader Peter Staveley in an article reprinted from the Croydon Advertiser which could barely contain its contempt in reporting Mr Staveley as saying:

UKIP's Peter Staveley - not allowed
to say what Cllr Jama does

""I'm not particularly uncomfortable but what I am uncomfortable about is when immigrants come into the country and do not properly integrate themselves into the community....

"By definition those people who have come to this country to better themselves are not integrating properly with the community because they can't speak the language.

"If too many people come from the same country too quickly then quite naturally they would tend to live and work with their colleagues rather than getting to know the people who were there before.


Now, I don't know about you, but to us, it would appear that Mr Staveley and Cllr Jama are saying exactly the same thing, particularly when you read Cllr Jama's full comments in the article linked above.

Meanwhile, in Croydon,

"Nero Ughwujabo, chief executive of Croydon Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Forum, accused him of "talking rubbish""

What is doubly remarkable is that Councillor Jama was speaking at an event in Bristol commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Bristol Bus Boycott, where the general public boycotted Bristol's buses in protest at the bus company's refusal to hire black or Asian crews. It is revealing that not only did Hope not Hate fail to even mention such a landmark event in race relations on their web- or Facebook pages, but they were also conspicuously not invited to attend the event and had no official presence there. Is there any clearer proof of their slide into irrelevancy? Or will they, in the interests of anti-racism, point there fingers at Cllr Jama tomorrow and demand she apologise for her racism?

'Faggot', 'chav', 'retard' and calls to violence all acceptable to HnH - just make sure the EDL are the target.

One again, Hope not Hate was setting new standards of hypocrisy over the EDL demo in Bradford yesterday.

Perhaps the most remarkable event after HnH attacked UKIP member Andy Lovie for daring to talk with a former BNP activist on Facebook was HnH Campaign Director and owner Nick Lowles re-tweeting former EDL deputy leader Kevin Carroll's tweet despite publicly questioning the sincerity of his resignation just the previous day:

 

Still, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? No need to get hung up by the same standards he applies to everybody else, where a similar re-tweet would see them marked as violent fascists. Can we look forward to an expose of Nick Lowles contacts with fascists by Carl Morphett? Let's not forget that HnH attacked this blog and our Facebook page for having people associated with the far-right as 'likers'!

 

Still, it would be a shame to leave the double standards there. After the HnH 'campaign' - a single letter - to prevent the 'Beloved of Allah' conference at the Edmonton Islamic Centre in London last week because of its open homophobia, Hope not Hate were still more than happy to allow homophobic comments on their Facebook page so long as the EDL were the target:

 

 

Tahair's comment is still there now almost 24 hours later, although several messages by EDL supporters have been removed, so we can only assume that homophobia is OK by HnH so long as the EDL are the target. If only the 'Beloved of Allah' organisers had known, they could still have had their conference just so long as they made clear it was only the EDL they were bashing because of their sexuality!

 

And bashing it would have been. While Hope not Hate regularly uses posts on other's Facebook walls as 'proof' that they are violent, far-right thugs, they are not so keen to police their own Facebook, where the EDL were the subject of several threats of violence. Not a surprise really, given the closeness of HnH and their UAF boot boy allies, but it rather puts their sanctimonious hectoring of others into perspective:

 

But that is not the end of it, because several HnH supporters were advocating that people should piss on the EDL:

 

 

There were some decent people around, but sadly they were in the minority by a considerable distance. And their calls for the HnH admin to delete comments which amounted to incitement to violence were simply ignored:

 

 

For the only messages which were removed were those from EDL supporters. You can't beat a good bit of censorship, can you? But then with Hope not Hate being run - and supported by - largely nice, middle class students, it is fair enough that they show their appreciation for and understanding of the working class: HnH is just a Labour front organisation nowadays, and Labour has nothing but contempt for the working man:

 

 

There were people who thought this show of class solidarity were wrong, but they were clearly in the minority, if you look at the number of 'likes' their comments garnered:

 

 

But of course poor old Angus misses the point - HnH is 'elitist' and comfortably middle class in a 'New Labour' and 'Progress' sort of way, and will only get more so now that Lord Ashcroft shares common cause with them. Still, such hypocrisy should not stand in the way of the work which pays best, ie attacking UKIP. After having a go at UKIP press officer Alexandra Phillips a couple of weeks ago for daring to mention the word 'spaz', even if it was in jest, the use of insults directed towards the mentally handicapped is just fine so long as the EDL are the target -

 

 

So as we can see, calling people 'retards' is officially approved by Hope not Hate on their Facebook pages just so long as the EDL or anybody else deemed far-right is the target, and on the condition that it is accompanied by some acceptably trendy, right-on left wing student politics sound bites. A few simplistic phrases of Labour ideology makes any taunt acceptable and certainly won't upset the 'tards, as Nick, Ruth and Carl like to call 'em!

 

Still, as the Hope not Hate team try and make their efforts appear a success, their own posting from the IBT - written by Mark Piggot, as Timor Moon is presumably still in prison for his assault on UKIP activists in London - states

 

"However, there seemed little danger from today's soggy turn-out, which was estimated at just 200.A rival anti-fascist counter-demo by "We are Bradford" attracted even fewer people."

 



Hardly the 'resounding success' claimed by Hope not Hate, who themselves conceded that there were between 350 and 750 EDL marchers present. #We Are The Many seems like just a distant joke now. #We Are The Not So Many seems more appropriate.

All in all, what a strange day. We have Nick Lowles and Hope not Hate retweeting messages from Kevin Carroll with approval, deleting messages from EDL supporters and yet approving of calls for violence against the EDL - not to mention pissing on them. We have the working class described as 'brain dead chavs', while the EDL are called 'faggots' and 'retards' with the tacit approval of the HnH admin team.

Once again - because HnH may not grasp such a simple point - we at this blog do not support the EDL. Our mission is to expose Hope not Hate's hypocrisy - something which should have been done years ago. So here you have it - it's official - Hope not Hate support misogyny, homophobia, violence and the use of the word 'retard' while retweeting messages from the far-right, and that's ok. God help anyone else who does it though, for their finger is ever ready to point and hurl the usual insults.

HnH comply with Data Protection Act after Nope not Hope pressure, but who knows who will get your data?

Good news - sort of - for those who value their privacy in the internet.

After our story last month about Hope not Hate breaching the European Data Protection Directive  and the Data Protection Act, they have finally added a privacy and cookie statement to their website. Never ones to spend money when a cheapskate solution is available - they need the cash for the purposes of champagne socialism - they have opted for a free of charge solution available from the achingly right-on and inclusive 'Civic UK' company.

The option they have chosen ensures that visitors to their site still don't know what information is gathered by their cookies, and there is no option to browse without them - there is a Hobson's Choice of 'take it or leave it'.

Still, it is a start even if only a small one, and an acknowledgement that after a call from the Information Commissioner's office, even Hope not Hate are required to adhere to the law. We may have to wait a while to discover exactly what information HnH are harvesting though, as they have still failed to provide any information on what the multiple cookies they run actually do and what information they store.

Hope not Hate have also finally got around to publishing their privacy policy. It all sounds good - they will not share your information or sell or rent out their mailing list without your prior approval. Sadly, this rather contradicts the tacit permission you give if you do contact them, where the privacy statement says they will not share your personal information with anyone not connected with the Hope not Hate campaign. This rather broad, catch-all statement would allow them to pass your details on to the Daily Mirror (who help fund them), the Labour Party (likewise), Unite, Unison, NUT, NUJ, and a whole host of other trades unions. Who knows, if you live in the right area, you could even find yourself signed up as a Labour Party member by one of the unions.

The end result is that while Hope not Hate are playing lip service to complying with the law, their

broadly worded 'privacy policy' pretty much lets them pass any data you give them on to just about anybody. If you have contacted them, look forward to receiving anti-UKIP e-mails from a whole host of organisations ahead of next year's European elections.

It is worth remembering that Hope not Hate's 'technology consultants' are Blue State Digital, who are also employed by the Labour Party, and whose director is the Labour Party's favoured candidate in the Falkirk selection scandal currently gripping the Labour Party. Who knows what will happen to your information if they get their hands on it?

HnH Leicester meeting - a correction

Because we like to be accurate in our reporting, we felt we should correct an earlier report of Hope not Hate's meeting in Leicester in early June. In our report, we incorrectly stated that it had been attended by 76 people including the organisers. From Leicester's population of 441,213, this represented a 0.017% turnout. Our attention has now been drawn to an article written by a Mr George Gay who attended the meeting. In his report, he states that the meeting was attended by 'around two dozen people, mostly Leicester University students'.


He stated that the options on offer to the meeting were as follows:

1. Ignore them.
2. Monitor and expose racism within UKIP but don’t explicitly campaign against the party as such.
3. Do campaign against the party as such.
4. Recognising that much of attraction of UKIP is cultural, offer positive alternatives to communities.
5. Some form of combination from the above four.

And then goes on to say that:

Although there were a few supporters of position 3 above, there was overwhelming support, including from myself, for a combination of 2 and 4 ( an actual vote was taken ).

Finally, the “other” Owen Jones told us that there had also been overwhelming support for 2 and 4 from the meetings which had already taken place, and asked us to consider the best ways of campaigning in the circumstances of Leicester and Leicestershire.

In other words, the outcome of the meeting - despite it being heavily attended by those with a vested interest in campaigning against UKIP - was that it monitor racism in UKIP, and offer a positive alternative.

Nick Lowles must be seething with rage, as his Hope not Hate organisation has already begun acting on its preferred option - to campaign against UKIP - and he was expecting his carefully selected audiences to deliver the correct democratic response to rubber-stamp his decision. This may well account for his decision to further restrict attendances at HnH's 'Stand up for HOPE' and 'Let's talk about UKIP' meetings - it is far easier to obtain the correct democratic result if you hand select those allowed to vote. In this, he appears to have taken lessons from his Unite funders as demonstrated by them in Falkirk, which his organisation has nothing to say about.

Meanwhile, we apologise for our error which lead people to believe that 0.017% of Leicester's population had attended the Hope not Hate meeting when in fact the figure was 0.005%. In actual fact, the meeting ran true to form, and organisers were left speaking to mainly empty seats.

HnH reduced to publicising case of brain dead moron who once said a racist word in a pizza shop

Reece Elliott - brain-dead halfwit, but not connected
to the far-right. Why would HnH be interested?

Things are obviously very quiet over at Hope not Hate. After the failure of their series of meetings
which was designed to stir up trouble for UKIP there seems to be a large number of people with too much time on their hands.

Take yesterday's stories posted on their Facebook page. While here at Nope, not Hope we were kept busy by numerous stories about corrupt Labour councillors, Unite gerrymandering candidate selections, Tories fighting like weasels in a sack and the odd Lib Dem child molester and drink driver, Hope not Hate were reduced to scraping the barrel.

Of four news links they posted, one - the second most shared - was from the Shields Gazette and concerned internet 'troll' Reece Elliot. Elliot was sentenced to 2 years 4 months for making threats to kill after posting insulting messages on a tribute site set up for a young girl who died in a car accident: when challenged, he pretended he was going to drive to the school and go on a shooting spree.

Elliot is far from an angel. He has 15 previous convictions for robbery, burglary and assault dating back to when he was 16. In all of this, he had one conviction for 'hurling racist abuse at a pizza shop manager', and it was presumably this which lead Hope not Hate to seize on the story. There appears to be no link to any far-right organisation or group.

Labour councillor Bill Jeffrey escaped a mention despite
using the phrase 'nigger in the woodpile' in a council meeting

All of which leads us to wonder what was the point? Are Hope not Hate so underemployed that they are reduced to scouring the web for any stories which involve even the slightest hint of racism? If so, it is strange that they missed another North Eastern story involving Labour councillor Bill Jeffrey, who used the phrase 'nigger in the woodpile' during a planning debate and was hauled before the standards committee, which cleared him of racism. We did post the story on our own Facebook page a couple of weeks ago, but HnH must have missed it. Perhaps they were busy arranging empty chairs for that nights meeting? Or perhaps they felt obliged to carry the Elliot story as it featured in the Daily Mirror, which funds their increasingly idle existence?

In case you wondered, we don't think Cllr Jeffrey should have got a mention: he's a relatively elderly man who used a phrase which while common 30 years ago is now politically incorrect. Even dragging him before the standards board seemed a little pointless when a quiet word in his ear would have had the same result but at far less cost. We don't condemn Cllr Jeffrey, only mention him to show the usual double standards and hypocrisy at Hope not Hate are still there.

Hope not Hate on receiving end of 'Golden Shower' campaign after democratic consultation

Over on our Facebook page, we have been running a consultation exercise closely modelled on Hope not Hate's "Let's talk about UKIP" & 'Purple Rain' initiatives, and the results are now in. We asked a completely impartial question - exactly like Hope not Hate - and allowed anybody to vote who was interested. The question was:

Hope not Hate are running their 'Purple Rain' campaign, presenting one sided information to aid their 'consultation' on UKIP. Here at Nope, not Hope we are starting our own consultation on whether we should continue examining Hope not Hate's hypocrisy. It is called the 'Golden Shower' campaign, and is run on exactly the same lines as theirs. Everybody is welcome to vote in our poll.

And the responses - and results - were as follows:

Hope not Hate are hypocrites and should be examined in detail         - 23 votes
You should examine in detail whether Hope not Hate are hypocrites -   1 vote

A further 8 people 'liked' the question, indicating that they got the joke. Turnout was 15%, which is rather more than Hope not Hate managed for 'Purple Rain'!!

In true Hope not Hate fashion, all 32 participants agreed with the proposition, or failed to express a preference in this democratic exercise, and we are pleased therefore to announce the launch of our 'Golden Shower - putting Hope not Hate under the magnifying glass' campaign effective immediately.

We have at great expense designed the eye-catching graphic to accompany our campaign, which is reproduced right - you are free to copy and paste it without restriction!

News reports, pictures and information can be sent to our dedicated e-mail address at HNHgoldenshower@yahoo.co.uk or via our Facebook group!

 

Bury Hope not Hate meeting (attendance 7) - Report by Ian Upton

"We have been asked to make clear that Ian Upton is not associated with the EDL. This occurred while merging two serarate accounts of the meeting we received. We apologise for any inconvenience this misunderstanding may have caused"

Many thanks to Ian Upton who attended last night's Hope not Hate meeting in Bury and provided us with the following report.

Report of Hope not Hate 'Let's talk about UKIP' meeting

The Met, Bury, July 3rd 2013

The meeting was chaired by Jason Hunter, a Unison union rep from Burnley.

The meeting began with the speaker stating that police were in attendance because the EDL were on their way. They were surprised to discover that the EDL was already present and wearing a suit, sitting quietly and respectfully at the back.

I asked if the Hope not Hate organisation had lost its way somehow in defining which type of hate it supported and which type of hate it didn't ? Out of the 7 people who attended the two obvious UAF at the front really couldn't help themselves when talking of fascists and shouted over everyone from the front, quite embarrassing really when you consider myself (and the Bolton EDL Organiser) were very reserved and there to ask questions and challenge the views.

The meeting attempted to stereotype all EDL and UKIP members as fascist or racist. It was quite clear that  the outcome was already decided: UKIP would become a target. They were unable to grasp the notion that because a handful were racist it did not mean that all were, and were unable to answer the contrary point: Stuart Hall was a paedophile and a Labour Party member, did that therefore mean all Labour Party members were paedophile?

One female attendee stated that all Manchester EDL were 'uneducated' because of how they look, before claiming racism because she had a conversation (presumably with an EDL or UKIP member) with a person once who spoke of 'Asians' generally and stereotypically. She did not appear to grasp the irony.

She was followed by a soon to be standing Labour MEP candidate who couldn't help but mention that the only time she had received abuse was when she was knocking on doors on a "council estate" because the family had the audacity to challenge Labour past record and poor performance in government in effect nearly bankrupting the county. It's interesting to see Labour candidates disdain for what used to be their core voters and the very mention of their residence being "council" shows there own inherent stereotyping and class distinction.

I am more certain than ever that the far left and those in these organisations have an embedded interest in ignoring the facts and in being selective in what they see as hatred.

In Hope not Hate's campaign the hatred that comes from "Islamic Terrorists" to put it in the speakers words does not matter, and  nor does it matter that their own colleagues (Union Reps) who are supposed to be representative of all society in the workplace abuse the general public. If they say someone is Racist then it must mean it is true without being challenged or questioned.

The left don't like being challenged and what went down in Bury certainly showed that the inherent vision and determination to label and target without separation certainly clouds the judgment of these organisations

In other words, the meeting was identical to other HnH anti-UKIP meetings: the outcome was predecided, the attendance was laughably low, they attempted to prevent any who disagreed with their views from attending, and it consisted of the far-left repeating the same old stereotypes and platitudes about UKIP.

I'm sure readers will join me in thanking Ian for the excellent report. Similar reports are always welcome from other HnH meetings!

Lowles fights hypocrisy with hypocrisy in blog post

Nick Lowles - as guilty of hypocrisy
over freedom of speech as Igler

In an article apparently written without any sense of irony, Hope not Hate director Nick Lowles focuses today on the links between Pam Geller, Robert Spencer and Discourse Institute director George Igler. In it, Lowles says,

"it would appear that the Discourse Institute is quite selective in the  (sic) free speech campaigns and from a quick look at the organisation's website it regularly defends the EDL but seems not to offer these same freedoms to Muslims who are being silenced."

This is the same Nick Lowles attacking the Discourse Institute for not defending all free speech who just weeks ago organised the petition to prevent Geller and Spencer from coming to the UK and exercising their right to freedom of speech. At the same time, Lowles' organisation was quite happy to turn a blind eye to other hate speakers visiting the UK, including Mohammed al Arefe and Yasser al Habib. Lowles is also behind the 'no platform' campaign which seeks to deny activists his organisation deems 'far-right' from addressing public meetings, while just yesterday HnH and former NF activist Matthew Collins used the 'Insider' blog to lobby against Tommy Robinson/Stephen Yaxley-Lennon being given a platform a the Oxford Union.

As we have said before, we do not support the views of Geller, Spencer or Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon any more than we support the views of al Arefe or al Habib. The price of freedom of speech however is that even those on the extremes are entitled to it. You can not change peoples minds by victimising them, silencing them, ignoring them or inciting a large mob of UAF bully boys to turn up and beat them, you can only do it by taking on their arguments and defeating them. Lowles needs to get over himself and realise that without freedom of speech, you only have Hate, not Hope.