Democratic engagement vs Encouraging censorship: what a meeting with no empty chairs looks like, Nick!

Hope not Hate continue to post articles poking fun at the low attendance at assorted rallies and meetings which they deem to be 'far right'. Some of them even are. Low attendances are not a problem for UKIP though, so instead they send along their UAF bully boys, even though officially both HnH and UAF have declared UKIP to be non-racist and non-fascist.



Several rows of empty chairs turned up to hear Nick Lowles
speak in Basildon. They were devastated when he ran away
rather than face democratic argument.

Meanwhile, Hope not Hate's own meetings continue to go from strength to strength. After kicking off with attendances of 5 (Warrington), 20 in Shrewsbury and 70 in Leicester (from a population of almost half a million), the meeting in Basildon was cancelled after the organisers ran away. This was followed by attendances of 9 in Harrow, and then the meeting in Woolwich - the events there being what they are trying to cash in on - was cancelled, apparently through lack of interest. We now hear from another source - although it is unconfirmed - that other Hope not Hate meetings in Ipswich and Hackney drew record attendances of 7 and 3 respectively. No news has reached us yet regarding their meeting in Wimbledon earlier this week, but we can be sure that had there been a decent turnout, it would have been all over their website by now.

Now, we understand how depressing it must be for poor old Nick Lowles to spend hours addressing row upon row of empty chairs. One of the problems is that at a public meeting, people will disagree with the speaker: Nick has attempted to overcome this by holding secret public meetings, with the venues publicised only at the very last minute. And who said there was nothing he could learn from the BNP?

Here at Nope, not Hope, we are concerned that Nick might forget what a roomful of people looks like and so as a public service, we have attached below the video of UKIP MEP Paul Nuttall addressing the Stourbridge branch of UKIP a couple of nights ago. Not only did people buy their own meals, but at the end of the evening, the collection raised more than the scrapings of peoples Giros and some shirt buttons. This is what happens when like UKIP you engage in the democratic process and rely on the power of your ideas rather than encouraging the censorship of the state, Nick.