"We're not responsible", bleats Lowles as the focus shifts to Hope not Hate inspired violence and lies

Having spent the past year doing his very best to stoke up hysteria by misrepresenting UKIP's immigration policy, HnH director Nick Lowles has this afternoon published a self-justifying set of lies and evasions on his personal blog. This came after UKIP leader Nigel Farage shone a spotlight on the violence Hope not Hate and Unite Against Fascism  have incited against UKIP in an interviewon BBC1's 'Sunday Politics' programme this morning.


Farage said, "Sadly we have a a couple of organisations out there headed up by senior Labour Party figures, who purport to be against fascism and extremism, who receive funding from the Department of Communities, who receive funding from the trade unions, who have acted in a violent way more than once."

Asked if he was accusing the Labour Party of organising the violence, he said: "No. I said Unite against Fascism and Hope not Hate are taxpayer-funded, they are trade union-funded, they are headed up by very senior Labour figures".

Lowles bleats a whole host of untruths and partial truths in his defence as he sees his income stream unravel before his eyes. In his response, it is what he fails to say which is more revealing than what he does. As an example, nowhere in his blog posting does he deny that Hope not Hate members have acted in a violent way and he makes no attempt to disassociate Hope not Hate from such violence.

Hope not Hate of course have a long history of inciting violence against groups they don't like. We blogged back in February of this year how HnH 'director of intelligence', former BNP thug Matthew Collins sent a series of tweets during a visit to London by members of the Hungarian far-right party Jobbik which were designed to vector Unite Against Fascism boot boys to their exact location. This sort of incitement has been carried out repeatedly by Hope not Hate, including during EDL demonstrations both in the UK and overseas.

As for direct violence against UKIP Andrew Scott, the man convicted of assaulting Farage with a banner in Margate, was a Hope not Hate supporter. Fred Glenister, the man currently on bail after assaulting Farage by hitting him with an egg in Nottingham, was a Hope not Hate supporter.

Of the rest of his evasions, to take some of them in turn:

"We are not aligned to any political party" - This is hardly worth responding to. It is so transparently a Labour Party & trades union front that such an assertion is simply laughable. Lowles deputy director is Ruth Smeeth, a Labour parliamentary candidate selected for a safe seat, while 80%+ of their funding comes from the trades unions. UnionsTogether organiser Byron Taylor sits on HnH's management board. Meanwhile, in 2009, Lowles wrote, "anybody...serious about stopping the BNP was by now mobilised behind the Labour Party campaign. The campaign was carefully planned with Hope Not Hate Yorkshire to coordinate Labour activity and third party interventions". Former Labour MEP and Europe Minister Glenis Kinnock is a patron. Meanwhile, Hope not Hate's online campaigning is managed by the Labour facing Blue State Digital. Verdict - Lie

"(Our) supporters have not attacked or disrupted any UKIP meeting, nor have we encouraged anyone to hold protests outside such meetings." - Except that UnionsTogether is closely aligned with the UAF's "Stand up to UKIP" campaign, while their organiser Byron Taylor said earlier this year on the Labour List website, "To save them a lot of time and effort, I’m very happy to point out that in my spare time I’m on the management committee of HOPE Not Hate". Attendees at last week's UKIP rally in Westminster may have noticed that alongside the Socialist Workers Party (no imperialist apostrophe in their name) banners were a large number of 'UNITE' ones. And it was difficult to miss the UnionsTogether advertising truck with their poster on it which drove past repeatedly. As we reported the following day, our own representative at the protest reported that a number of SWP people present also identified themselves as Hope not Hate activists. The membership overlap between these organisations is so great that it is impossible to tell where one ends and where another begins. We have of course dealt with precisely this issue in more detail in an earlier posting and comprehensively demolished Lowles' lies then Verdict - Lie

Nigel Farage has claimed  that I'm a member of the Communist Party with close links to the Socialist Workers Party: claims which are utterly untrue - We can not comment on his membership status with the Communist Party, but it has long been rumoured that he was a member in the past. As for links with the Socialist Workers Party, HnH paid hack Carl Morphett is a former member, while the HnH website frequently highlights events run by Love Music, Hate Racism, another (like UAF) SWP front organisation, this one headed by UAF in-house rapist and former SWP leader Martin Smith. Meanwhile, UnionsTogether - who are actively represented on HnH's board and who supply funding to HnH - work closely with the UAF in the 'Stand up to UKIP' campaign (see above) Verdict - Lie

"Now Farage is peddling a fantasy that we have received Government money to take him on. This is a lie. Three years ago our charitable arm received a grant for £60,000 from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to undertake anti-racist community work in four areas of the country. This was a one-year project which ended in 2012, long before we started scrutinising UKIP" - Hope not Hate's accounts show a total of over £120k received from the DCLG between 2010 and 2012. As their most recent accounts have yet to be filed, it is not possible to tell whether this has continued. Meanwhile, Hope not Hate has been scrutinising UKIP since 2005, as confirmed by former UKIP staffer Mark Croucher who liaised with them. Verdict - Lie

"Last year we began to identify racists and extremists within UKIP. We initially tried to form a constructive relationship with the party leadership but it became quickly evident that they had no interest in working together to root out these racists" - UKIP worked closely with Searchlight and then Hope not Hate (see above) up until the scale of the drift in support from Labour to UKIP became clear. By 2011, this cooperation had completely ceased, not because of UKIP, but because of Hope not Hate, who had no interest in continuing cooperation with a party it was about to start actively campaigning against. Verdict - Lie

So why did Lowles fail to disclaim violence? A look at their supporter's comments on their Facebook page is instructive. In an article published on the 25th January this year regarding comments by UKIP's Farage on gun control, a whole series of HnH supporters made violent suggestions, including the following:

 

These are the sort of comments which - had they featured on a UKIP website or been written by a UKIP supporter - would be spread all across Hope not Hate's page as 'evidence' or 'proof' of violent intentions.

Lies, damn lies and Labour

The three 'non-political' members of the public who just
happen to have close links to the Labour Party

Hope not Hate have been busy circulating the Manchester Evening News story from yesterday in which three innocent, non-political members of the public were used in a UKIP leaflet. As was revealed on another blog late last night, these three innocents - Bernard Caine, Irene Lawrence and her daughter Rachel - are in fact Labour Party activists. UKIP has confirmed that all three gave their permission for their image to be used, while sources tell us that pretty much everybody involved with the story also knew that it was fundamentally a lie, although that did not stop the Manchester Evening News running it.

Bernard Caine, the gentleman pictured, said he "has no party political affiliation but on this occasion has picked Labour candidate Mike Kane via

The 'non-political' Mr Caine not at all urging people to
vote Labour on his friend Mike Kane's behalf

postal vote, added: “It is diabolical.”". His choice of Mike Kane was not entirely unexpected, as he was a fellow director of the multi-million pound Parkway Green Housing Trust a few years ago, a position to which he was nominated by the local Labour Party. He was also pictured with Mike Kane and Harriet Harman - a photograph which appears on the latter's website - at the beginning of the Wythenshawe & Sale East by-election attending a Labour Party meeting. He also appears to have forgotten his presence amongst a carefully selected audience of Labour supporters who got to meet Ed Milliband during the campaign.

The non-political Bernard Caine not listening to
Labour leader Ed Milliband

Irene Lawrence - who "only went to the meeting because her housing association asked her to go" - has a similarly short memory. She was the chairwoman of the multi-million pound Willow Park Housing Trust for 11 years and also worked closely with Mike Kane and the Labour administration who nominated her.

And for Ms Lawrence's daughter Rachel? Well, she also appears to have got to meet Ed Milliband as one of the carefully pre-selected audience members when the Labour leader 'meets the public, although as it is difficult to be certain, we have not reproduced the photograph here. 

It is worth asking whether with former directors of two of the largest local housing trusts in Wythenshawe being prepared to lie about their association with the Labour Party if this is the source of local resident's complaints that they were told to take down UKIP posters and placards from their social housing? Were Labour tacitly supporting threats to the security of working class people in housing association properties?

UKIP will face many more of these set-ups over the coming months. We should not underestimate the depths to which the Labour Party will sink, or the lies which will be told by otherwise ordinary people. It is no wonder that Hope not Hate are pushing the story so hard. Increasingly though HnH are finding that even their supporters are seeing through their lies:

HnH's Morphett photoshops details on latest 'expose': not spin, an outright lie

Hope not Hate's latest 'expose' of UKIP members with links to the far right has just been written in rather excitable style by Simon Cressy, the pseudonym for Carl Morphett.

According to Morphett, "Only three days away from Christmas and those lovely people in UKIP have given us a smashing present for us to unwrap in time for the big day". It could take some time, because the wrapping is quite complicated. Essentially, three former NF activists once belonged to a party - Third Way - set up by a person who now works for Nick Griffin. At some point but over a decade ago Third Way changed its name to the National Liberals. According to Morphett, this is clear proof that UKIP is linked to racists.



Morphett has photoshopped out the
'added by' details and altered
Davies position within UKIP

There are several problems with his breathless logical fallacy. The first is that it is an open group, meaning people can be added to it without their knowledge or consent. This is easily spotted by the 'added by' information under the members names. You would be able to see this on the screen grab Morphett helpfully appended to his post, except that he has photoshopped it out. You can see the two versions on this page. Certainly in the case of Davies, he did not join this group, he was added to it. Don't believe me? Go take a look - just search on Facebook for National Liberals.

We move on to the other two UKIP activists Morphett names -
Arthur Thackeray and Alexander Balkan. Morphett does not appear to have photoshopped their entries in the list of members, and they appear to have joined themselves.



How Davies entry actually looks

If this makes them racist, then I wonder how Morphett explains the membership of some of the other group members? I have screen grabbed some images, but among the other people he feels are also allied to the National Front and the BNP because of their membership of this group are Ruby Akhtar, Shira Singh, Sabiha Choudhury, Paul Siwela, Samer Reza, Tarig Anter, Thabisa Mabhena, Majid Sandilo etc etc. You get the idea. Bloody racists.

The point about Morphett is that he is not an internet amateur - this is what he does for a living with Hope not Hate. He has not made a mistake, and he is well aware of how these groups work. He knows that Davies did not sign up to the group voluntarily, but he has deliberately removed the wording which proves it. This is not spin. It is not propaganda. It is not a mistake. It is a deliberate lie intentionally done to smear the name of Davies.

It is also worth noting that if he found these three UKIP members in the group, he could hardly fail to have noticed Akhtar, Singh, Choudhury, Siwela etc. I don't know how Thackeray and Balkan came to join the group - perhaps they just hit 'accept' on an invite, perhaps they intentionally joined. Either way, it is no more proof of racism than it is proof of the other member's racism. Particularly as Morphett - under a pseudonym - is also a member.

Interestingly, Edward Davies was added to the National Liberals group by Richard Byng. Byng joined facebook in September, just weeks before he started adding people to the National Liberal group. Amongst his FB 'likes' are Radical Independence Campaign Scotland - the group which barricaded Nigel Farage in a Scottish pub, and who have close links to both Hope not Hate and the UAF. This looks more and more like a set up.



Racist members of the
National Liberals
Facebook Page



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!

 

Fake Hawthorne profile now apparently removed - but be careful, there'll be others

The fake profile we warned of this morning in the name of Geoffrey Hawthorne now appears to have

Hawthorne - the profile is gone, but there
is a lesson in it for us all

been removed from Facebook following wide circulation of our blog posting - many thanks to all for spreading the word.

You can be sure however that those who are involved with UKIP and have a significant number of political friends on Facebook who they have never met in real life are likely to have one if not more already buried away. If the Hawthorne attempt had not made some fairly basic errors, it would have been much harder to spot. Even my own Facebook profile - Dave Briggs - has been accepted unquestioningly by almost 400 people, and while I know a handful in real life, I have only just joined Facebook. Hopefully, myself and my blog here have proved their worth and our commitment to the UKIP cause, but to those of you I don't know - particularly those who are standing as UKIP candidates at local, national or European level - even I could have trawled your profiles and screenshotted the odd questionable remark or internet 'meme'.

There seems to have been a spate of fake profiles lately, and this seems to be the new angle of attack both for the Tories who - financed by Ashcroft's millions - compiled a dossier just ahead of the local elections in May, and for Hope not Hate who are likely to step up their attacks on UKIP in order to justify their continued existence now that the far-right are largely defeated. They need a new enemy, and quickly, or they will fade into irrelevance.

I know many of you have separate profiles for personal and political use. Alternatively, you can set up a page to keep people informed of your political activities, while keeping the poor taste jokes, rude pictures and personal banter private on your own profiles. The key is to adjust your privacy settings to be sure that you only let people see what you want them to see. That uproariously funny joke that you shared with your friends after a few drinks last night won't seem quite so funny on the front page of the Daily Mirror accompanied by a serious political commentary attacking you personally as a racist/fascist/homophobe/misogynist. If you accept all requests without question, you must not think that your profile is private. It is not.

I don't mean to preach. You are all adults, and must decide for yourself. Remember though that in the less than 24 hour existence of the Hawthorne profile, it had amassed 142 mutual friends with me out of my total of abour 380, and most of you are UKIPpers. There is a lesson here for us all!

A 'cut out and keep' guide to Danes and Somalis for Hope not Hate

Readers of Hope not Hate's Facebook page who were busy attacking the far right after a suspect package was left at the Al Rahma mosque in Liverpool may be wondering why their comments - and the story - disappeared overnight.


A visit to Hope not Hate's main website provides the answer - for now. Despite Hope not Hate crossing their fingers and wishing that the perpetrator was a far right activist of some sort, police initially stated that the man arrested was actually Danish. This was then corrected yesterday when it was revealed that the man who had been arrested and released with a caution was in fact Somali.

Hope not Hate will no doubt consider it a job well done in any case. While the initial posting appeared on Facebook and allowed their followers to speculate as to who was responsible, the correcting article appears only on their website, and even then with no accompanying explanation. Still, this is what happens when truth and harmonious inter-community relations come a distant second in a race to justify your own existence.

In order to help prevent Hope not Hate from making a similar mistake in the future, we have attached a handy 'cut out and keep' guide to aid them in distinguishing between Danes and Somalis in future.

It would be foolish to believe that the next time a visitor to a mosque forgets to take their laundry with them that Hope not Hate will not use the opportunity to do their best to stir up fear and hatred. Tomorrow, we will include the dictionary definition of 'hope', as they appear to have forgotten what it means.

HnH website data collection breaches European Data Protection Directive

Troubles continue to beset Hope not Hate Ltd as it was revealed that the Hope not Hate website is in
breach of the European Data Protection Directive, which requires users to give 'informed consent' before tracking cookies are installed by a website on their computer.

Its not these cookies we should worry
about. Have HnH been illegally
harvesting personal data?

The legislation, which was introduced to counter fears over the security of personal data and the danger to privacy, requires websites to seek consent before 'cookies' are stored on users computers. Regular internet users will be aware that since last summer, reputable websites have included a privacy disclaimer warning that cookies will be used and stating what use will be made of the data collected.

Hope not Hate's website contains no statement regarding data security on the use of cookies, although visitors to the site who check their computers afterwards will discover a number of cookies have been installed.

In the worst cases, cookies can be used to harvest sensitive personal data and to keep track of web browsing history. We call on Hope not Hate and their expensive (£5600/month) US based internet consultants at Blue State Digital to do two things.

The first is to ensure that their website complies with the requirements of the Data Protection Act and the European Data Protection Directive - we don't agree with the latter, but it is the law, and HnH have to abide by it the same as everybody else.

The second is to disclose exactly what sort of data they have been harvesting from visitors to their internet site. Nick Lowles should give a categorical statement about why they have been breaking the law, what personal information they have gathered if any, and how it has been used.

A statement of data handling and cookie policy is normal practise on the websites of most reputable organisations: will Hope not Hate join their ranks?

Anybody who thinks that Lowles is unlikely to obey they law and make a public disclosure can complain to their local police force, or to the Data Protection Commissioner.

Hope not Hate hide meeting locations to avoid democratic debate

We notice this morning that Hope not Hate have removed location details from their meetings webpage in an attempt to ensure that they get the correct democratic response to director Nick Lowles 'consultation' meeting.

After Lowles fled from the Basildon meeting rather than engage in political debate there has been disagreement over how to deal with the threat of members of the public actually turning up at a public meeting. The answer - as with so much in Hope not Hate - has been to take a leaf out of the BNPs book and conceal the location of their public meetings, only revealing them if people actively sign up to attend.



Nick Lowles, HnH director, who fights racism
wherever he finds it except in the Labour Party

There is a certain irony in seeing Hope not Hate cower away from public debate in what is supposed to be a consultation exercise about their future stance regarding UKIP, even though that stance is already decided by Lowles, as Hope not Hate's owner. For years, Hope not Hate has actively encouraged its supporters to engage in a campaign of intimidation against political meetings of which it did not approve. Now that it finds itself the target not of a campaign of intimidation and violence, but of political engagement, it runs and hides itself away, although I suppose it is as an organisation only following the example of its leader, Mr Lowles.

Tonights meeting - despite the location being removed - is scheduled for 6:30pm at the Civic Centre in Harrow.



Former Harrow council leader
Cllr Thaya Idaikkadar, who was expelled
from the Labour Party for complaining
about institutional racism

 

This should be a particularly interesting meeting, as the Harrow Labour group has split over recent weeks. 9 councillors have left and established an Independent Labour Group because of what they claim is institutional racism within the Constituency Labour Party. The councillors - lead by former council leader Cllr Thaya Idaikkadar - were subsequently expelled from the Labour Party for going public with their concerns.

All of which should make for an interesting meeting, as despite being a 'Stand up for HOPE' meeting, there is little prospect of Hope not Hate dealing with the institutional racism within the local Labour Party. As we mentioned in a blog posting last week:

"One wonders whether Lowles will address the issue there in a way Hope not Hate have failed to do on their website, where mentions of Labour racism are studiously avoided. It is more likely that - should any of the independent Labour group attend - they will be asked to leave the premises if they raise their concerns and rock the Labour boat. I look forward to the irony of seeing 9 Asian independent Labour councillors being removed from a Hope not Hate meeting because they raised the issue of racism".

If you can get along to the meeting it should prove to be an entertaining spectacle as Hope not Hate brings its party political message to an area it clearly knows little about. If you do attend, as always please be calm, polite and respectful: however much we may disagree with Lowles and his shabby excuse for a consultation exercise, he has as much right to freedom of speech without fear or intimidation as anybody else does even if he tries to deny that right to others. One thing we can be sure of - the meeting in Harrow will offer a banquet of hypocrisy as they attempt to hold a public consultation meeting on what to do about UKIP while excluding the general public, and while not mentioning that the local branch of their Labour paymasters appears to be stuffed full of racists who have driven out 9 Asian councillors. Enjoy!

Hope not Hate laughably claim Basildon meeting was switched to Thurrock

A supporter on Facebook has just brought to our attention the claim by Nick Lowles that last nights anti-UKIP meeting in Basildon was switched to Thurrock, with Lowles claiming that they were 'smarter than the average bear'.

That might be true for the hand-picked little clique he surrounded himself with to ensure that he got the answer he wanted as part of his 'consultation' exercise.

Luckily, apart from the dozen people who were opposed to Lowles plans, no other members of the general public turned up in Basildon. Like his opponents, they would not have heard of the change of venue either, but had any of the public been interested, Lowles was clearly quite happy to abandon them there while he and the other three people that constitute the 'general public' for the purposes of his farcical exercise in democracy decamped to somewhere safer. With a nice restaurant, some good wine and no ghastly working class people about.

We can't help but feel that nothing demonstrates better the contempt Lowles has for the general public, and what a farce his 'consultation' exercise really is. In fact, it works much better when the working class is excluded, because they only muddy the water by insisting that being worried about immigration is not racist, something which doesn't chime with Lowles and his determinedly middle class gang.