Self-preservation more important than fighting homophobia - HnH's official position

Yesterday evening saw Hope not Hate proclaim the success of their latest 'campaign', this one to stop a conference in Edmonton, North London called 'Beloved of Allah'. Their objection was that the conference was homophobic and incited hate against the gay community. On Nick Lowles blog, he

When it comes to campaigns, money is more
important than principle - Nick Lowles

wrote:

"Last week I blogged about a conference being held in London, scheduled for this weekend.

Entitled, ‘Beloved to Allah’, the conference agenda featured several Homophobic hate preachers. The one day conference was due to be held at the Edmonton Islamic Centre (Sunday 6^th October).

I am pleased to announce that after a campaign by HOPE not hate and other partners the Centre has cancelled the event. We understand that this may be the first time an event of this type has been cancelled.

HOPE not hate believe it is important to be consistent in our opposition to hate speech. Just as we would speak out against right-wing homophobes, so too must we voice our opposition to those in any community or faith who vocalise violence and even death against others."

 

So how does this campaign compare to others run by Hope not Hate? The original blog posting amounted to just 550 words posted the previous Friday, and of these, just 176 words were devoted to actually addressing the rally itself. The remaining 374 words were biographies of three of the speakers, none of whom had said anything not said by a huge number of radical Imams - previously which had been ignored by Hope not Hate, as detailed in our earlier blog postings. In fact, such views remain commonplace not just within the Islamic faith, but within Christian groups too, such as the Roman Catholic church, which also takes a pretty dim view of homosexuality. Can we look forward to HnH's forthcoming anti-Catholic campaign?

So how serious was this campaign? Lowles wrote, "HOPE not hate believes that this is unacceptable. We will be writing to the Centre to outline our concerns about these rabidly anti-gay views and to ask them if such individuals are 'right' to be speaking in their building.". And that was it.

Of course, Hope not Hate don't normally care what hate speech is being peddled by the radical: they didn't bother with Anjem Choudhary's Islamic Emergency Defence group: Mohammed al-Arefe and Sheikh Yasser al-Habib barely caused a ripple: and music festivals run by a rapist in the form of Martin Smith are actively promoted.

Still, perhaps there was a call to arms to fight such homophobic prejudice on their front page? Perhaps not. As the screen grab below shows, the 'Beloved of Allah' meeting wasn't even worthy of a front page caption and graphic. Instead, Hope not Hate were continuing to fight for their right to work for the Labour Party by gagging its opposition

Yesterday's HnH front page shows no sign of any 'campaigns' apart from those designed to keep
the money rolling into Hope not Hate's coffers

No. Far more important was their campaign to evade government regulation to allow them to participate in elections without the bother of having to be accountable to the voters, and the need to tout for more donations. The only campaign which truly matters is their 'Purple Rain' campaign designed to blunt the rise of UKIP. Talk of 'campaigns' which on closer examination consist solely of Nick Lowles writing a letter are there simply to keep up the pretence of even-handedness.

Compare this with the campaign waged by HnH just a few months ago designed to keep Pam Spencer and Robert Geller out of the UK - while ignoring the arrival of al-Arefe and al-Habib - and the hypocrisy requires no further words from us.