More hypocrisy from HnH as pictures of Anjem Choudhary drinking and smoking resurface

As if further evidence were needed of Hope not Hate's desperation to target UKIP while ignoring other organisations which actually pose a risk to race relations in the UK, it is worth noting the attitudes displayed to one which it lists as one of its targets - Al Muhajiroun.


Headed by Anjem Choudhary, the group numbers among its former members the two Woolwich killers - one of whom was described by Choudhary as a 'nice guy' - and is responsible in large part for the perversion of Islam into a hate-filed vehicle of repression, at least in the UK.

Over the last few days, pictures of Choudhary during his days as a student at Southampton University have been published in much of the media showing him smoking, drinking beer and posing with a copy of 'Mayfair' magazine: all things he now rails against since he became a 'strict Muslim'. This is akin to having photographs of Nick Griffin attending a synagogue in a skull cap in his youth, or Tommy Robinson with his Islamic girlfriend in her burq'qa.

You hardly need to imagine the gloating articles that Hope not Hate would publish on their website, touting the hypocrisy of Griffin or Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon. I wouldn't much care, as I have no time for either of them. And yet after this photographic scoop of Choudhary - whose organisation is officially a Hope not Hate target - what do we find? Not a single word. Not a single photograph. Not a single comment.

What I can't understand is how Hope not Hate justify such negligence. Their methods in the past have always included ridiculing the leaders of organisations which peddle hate, and they have frequently made use of photographs and quotes which the leaders of such organisations have made in the past. So why the kid gloves with Anjem Choudhary? Why - despite having a whole page describing why Choudhary and his organisation is a hate group - have they not followed the precedent they have set in mocking the hypocrisy which is clear from the photographs?

Admittedly, these photographs are not new: they first surfaced back in 2009 in an article in the Daily Mail, but they have re-surfaced, and featured heavily in The Sun a couple of days ago. Needless to say, after the recent prominence of Choudhary and his group, they are more than topical, and yet HnH has instead focussed on a trip to Damascus by Griffin, and attacking the BBC for allowing Robinson on the 'Today' programme on BBC R4. Naturally, it has also continued its campaign against UKIP, as featured on this blog yesterday.

The question we must ask Nick Lowles and his fellow travellers at Hope not Hate is simple: why? If you are genuinely against hate - and are serious about including Al Muhajiroun amongst the hate organisations you oppose - then why the silence which seems nothing but rank hypocrisy?

Hope not Hate's selective magnifying glass turns to (some) poll results

More wishful thinking on the part of Hope not Hate's 'Purple Rain' campaign, which promises to put UKIP under a magnifying glass, albeit an increasingly selective one.

Leading their campaign today is a repost of a report from 'Political Betting' focussing on today's ICM poll which shows UKIP down 6% in the polls and level pegging with the Liberal Democrats.

This is the first mention of UKIP polling results on 'Purple Rain' since they launched their rather less than exhaustive examination of the party last November just as UKIPs rise in the polls began: even UKIP hitting 19% in last months ICM poll wasn't worthy of a mention.

It is no surprise then to discover that their selective magnifying glass has failed to miss two other polling related stories since yesterday.

The Independent's 'Poll of polls' published yesterday showed Labour's lead being eaten into by UKIPs continuing rise, and gave the following results: Labour 35% (-4), Con 30% (-1), UKIP 15% (+3), LD 11% (NC). The full story is available here Labour lead lowest for a year as UKIP threatens all three parties

Meanwhile, today saw the publication of an TNS/BRMB poll, with fieldwork conducted over the last four days (6th to 10th June). The results of this poll were Lab 36% (-1), Con 27% (+3), UKIP 19% (NC), LD 8% (-2). Full details of this poll can be found at TNS/BMRB

Meanwhile, the poll which Hope not Hate features - by ICM, which doesn't prompt for UKIP - had the following results: Lab 36% (+2), Con 29% (+1), UKIP 12% (-6), LD 12% (+1). Full details can be found here UKIP support falls back, but man parties remain weak on economy

Of course, it is for them to decide what to post and what not to post, but given that they are supposed to be running an open consultation to 'decide what to do about UKIP' - remember the 'Stand up for HOPE' series of public meetings which were to be announced 'in the next few days' on the 18th of May and which have yet to appear? - it hardly bodes well for the impartiality of their consultation.

Those with long memories might well recall that this is the sort of selective reporting which Hope not Hate used to condemn the BNP for back in the days when they were interested in fighting racism, rather than helping the Labour Party with scaremongering and distortions. Since the split with Searchlight - which used to help UKIP keep out racists and fascists - HnH has become little more than a source of income for its staff, whose tarnished reputations would hardly bear scrutiny in mainstream politics. As it increasingly becomes an irrelevance in the face of UKIPs success, Nick Lowles and his fellow travellers - several of whom are former Nazis themselves - are desperately clutching at whatever straws they can find. Clearly they are now falling back on the reporting skills of their former BNP staff.

Hope not Hate's racially discriminating magnifying glass

Nigel Farage and Amjad Bashir,
UKIP's new SME spokesman who is
completely invisible to Hope not Hate

As Hope not Hate's 'Purple Rain' campaign is 'putting UKIP under the magnifying glass', I can't understand why they haven't featured this news item which features Amjad Bashir, UKIPs newly appointed spokesman for SMEs. Only Hope not Hate could have a magnifying glass which racially discriminates. And they call UKIP racist?

Racist 'UKIP' profile: A thick wannabe, or a Hope not Hate creation?

Yesterday, the Hope not Hate website lead with the story of Mick Parker of Fenton, Stoke on Trent, and called on UKIP leader Nigel Farage to "to put his money where his mouth is and deal with a Stoke on Trent UKIP supporter we have discovered who has bigotry oozing from every pore."

The article, written by someone using the pseudonym Simon Cressy, included screen shots of Parker's Facebook wall which featured such gems as 'get theres shit scum fuckin muslims out of my country'(sic). There were plenty of other examples since the account was created on the 5th January this year - in fact there were almost no posts which were not clearly an attempt to tie UKIP to the EDL and other similar racist organisations.

Clearly, this is not the page of someone UKIP would wish to be involved with. And inquiries with the local branch proved that, in fact, UKIP was not connected with him. Mick Parker contacted the local branch on the 9th May expressing a desire to 'get involved locally'. He was invited to attend the next branch meeting, but did not turn up. This was the only contact between UKIP and Parker, despite his Facebook page having the UKIP logo as his image since the account was formed at about the time UKIPs latest poll surge began.

There are two options here. The first is that a chap called Mick Parker came along on the 5th January - shortly after UKIP began their rise in the polls - decided it was time to have a Facebook account, signed up and then posted items almost exclusively about UKIP and the EDL, with the odd, semi-literate comment interspersed. All this despite not being a member of UKIP, and having no contact with UKIP whatsoever until 4 weeks ago.

The second option is that the Parker Facebook account is one of many maintained by Hope not Hate as they attempt to shift their focus away from fighting racism and onto fighting UKIP. What better way to achieve this than creating straw man profiles to knock down at a later date? There was a time when Hope not Hate were more than happy to call UKIP and discuss individuals posting material which implied that UKIP was racist, but sadly under Lowles those days appear long gone: the facts come a distant second to his attempt to persuade his supporters - who remain far from convinced - that UKIP is a worthwhile target.

It would be nice to think that Hope not Hate would remove their article, which is clearly untrue. They may or may not, but in any case they will feel that the damage is done: even if they remove it, they will have reinforced the impression their distortions, half-truths and outright lies are designed to create in the minds of their less than enthusiastic band of supporters.

Hope not Hate's 'consultation' on UKIP

Following on from Hope not Hate's sparsely attended meeting a couple of nights ago in Warrington, it is clear that despite a 'public consultation' supposedly in progress, the outcome is already decided.

I shall leave aside for now the failure of Hope not Hate to publish the dates of their 'consultation meetings' across the country - on the 18th May, there were 50 planned with dates to be announced 'early next week', and yet 3 weeks later there is still no sign of a preliminary announcement, nor of their 'Stand up for HOPE' campaign which was supposed to convince wavering supporters that UKIP was somehow a suitable target for HnH.

A quick look through the 'News Blog' of the Hope not Hate website produces some interesting figures. Given the events of May - specifically the killing of Lee Rigby in Woolwich - since the beginning of that month there have been 105 'news' postings. 57 of them involve the EDL, the BNP, Drummer Rigby and the threat to mosques, while 48 focus on important UKIP news, such as Nigel Farages son being arrested and UKIP MEP John Buftons announced retirement.

It is interesting to note that, at a time of heightened racial tensions, Hope not Hate's statement on the Woolwich murder requires a Google search to find, while prominently displayed on the front page of their website is a condemnation of the arson attacks in North London which is couched in far stronger terms than their wishy-washy approach to the murder. Despite Al Muhijaroun being one of the 'hate groups' that they claim to target, there is no condemnation of Anjem Choudhary's inflammatory statements.

And this brings us to the root of Hope not Hate's problems. The BNP and EDL have largely been beaten: not by Hope not Hate, but by UKIP at the ballot box. The relatively small numbers who turned out for the EDL in recent weeks, and the complete irrelevance of the BNP who found themselves unable to capitalise on recent events have left two organisations devoted to their destruction with nothing to do. UAF accounts are notoriously difficult to come by, but Hope not Hate file theirs with Companies House. Their donations and sponsorship have fallen since 2010, when they declared a spend of over £309,000 as a 'third party' during the General Election campaign and in which year they had a turnover of around £450,000. When added to the income from what was previously the Searchlight Educational Trust Ltd, that is a pretty tidy chunk of change, and brings disproportionate political clout to the individual who wields it, in this case Nick Lowles.

With the far-right fractured into myriad splinter groups and competing factions, it is difficult to justify continued financial support for Hope not Hate at the levels it has seen over the past few years. Its self-proclaimed victory over the fascists has left it with dwindling resources and no enemy to fight. The UAF have turned back into the bully boys they have always been: unwashed college failures in army surplus clothing, a rabble of the lost adopting the methods of the skinheads they profess to despise.

For Lowles - the sole shareholder of Hope not Hate Ltd, the problem is tougher. A series of failed initiatives such as 'Britain Tastes Great' have depleted his resources and proved that without the bogeyman of racism in British politics, even the Daily Mirror is not much interested in an organisation which has become irrelevant. Lowles only hope - and in this he is aided by the Labour Party, which has belatedly awoken to the threat UKIP poses to the support it has long taken for granted - is to demonise UKIP, and create a paper tiger against which he can rail.

Of course, to achieve this requires considerable hypocrisy. News items attacking UKIP councillors for opposing an expensive 'right to buy' scheme could hardly be considered to fall within Hope not Hate's core aims, and neither could critiques of UKIP education policy. It also has required a volte-face over the past few years: under the Gables, Hope not Hate fulfilled its mission by working with UKIP to keep racists out, something Lowles put a stop to.

With UKIP polling over 20% in some polls, Lowles is walking a fine line. Many within UKIP would support a genuinely anti-racist organisation, but by attacking UKIP - for things which all parties and none suffer from - he risks alienating a significant portion of his own support, particularly in the North. The signs of this were there in the Warrington meeting earlier this week, and it is not difficult to imagine a significant drop in activist participation if Lowles continues to use Hope not Hate's anti-fascist credentials for blatant party political purposes.

The reality is that Hope not Hate has only one course of action open to it: to scale down its operations in line with the demise of the far-right, and to bide its time lest the BNP ever gets its act together. Sadly, the obvious is the one course of action Lowles is unlikely to follow: he has got used to being listened to, and is now unable to accept that he is as irrelevant as the BNP.