HnH's silence over segregated Labour meeting explains how Rotherham happened

Labour have finally broken their silence over the segregated meeting attended by MPs Tom Watson, Liam Byrne, and Jack Dromey and MEP Sion Simon in Birmingham over the weekend. According to a story just published by the Daily Mirror a Labour spokesman is quoted as saying:

"Labour fully supports gender equality in all areas of society and all cultures... the seating arrangements ensured women from Muslim communities could take part."

As Orwellian newspeak and doublethink go, it is pretty standard Labour fayre which translates to "we accepted illegal segregation by sexes rather than illegally denying women entry". Presumably just refusing to attend the meeting unless it was in accord with the law didn't cross anybody's mind as there were votes at stake. By attempting to gloss over such blatant inequality while taking part in it and then trying to excuse it on the basis of 'culture' is such a sickening evasion that we can scarcely believe they had the gall to put out such a statement, not least as the meeting was arranged by Labour councillor Ansar Ali Khan. Surely it would make more sense just to expel Khan for sexism if he is unable to arrange a Labour Party meeting where men and women are treated equally.

Meanwhile, Hope not Hate - the great self-appointed moral arbiter of equality - has so far had nothing at all to say on the subject, and we can't see that changing.

We have blogged before on this subject: The responsibility for the grooming crisis lies within the culture Hope not Hate has infected the Labour Party with , and nothing we said then has changed: if anything, the current sexism scandal simply underlines the double standards at play. In Birmingham, Labour MPs went along with the meeting because they saw not the injustice and inequality of women being segregated, but only the votes that could be delivered by attending. And, of course, there were the concerns that by speaking out, they would be accused of 'cultural insensitivity' and 'racism'. Exactly the same reason that police officers, council officials, Labour councillors and Labour MPs did nothing in Rotherham over child abuse.

Are there any women here? - meeting
addressed by Liam Byrne

Sadly, the meeting at Hodge Hill has proved that nothing has changed either within the Labour Party, or within its associated hard-left, anti-UKIP organisations who pretend to believe in equality, who are the first to shout 'sexism' at UKIP, and yet are right at the back of the crowd mutely acquiescing when it is there in front of them in the own party. The hypocrisy is staggering - if it is against the law for the Christian owners of a B&B to turn away homosexual guests because of their beliefs, then how can it be right for a Labour Party meeting in a community centre to require segregation of men and women?

If nothing will convince you of the cynicism of both Labour and Hope not Hate, then consider these facts: Tom Watson is an active campaigner for Hope not Hate, writing recently how "We did a Hope Not Hate thing in Sandwell". Liam Byrne on his Flickr photostream - and without apparent irony - is pictured addressing several all-male Muslim gatherings in addition to being pictured delivering Hope not Hate leaflets. Sion Simon on his website boasts of meeting local Hope not Hate activists to 'celebrate the cultural harmony we enjoy' - the women were left outside in the rain, we assume.

Liam Byrne delivering (with no sense
of irony) Hope not Hate leaflets

Hope not Hate themselves frequently revisit what they claim is UKIP's sexism; a couple of minutes searching their website will return hundreds of results, with most articles based on a wilful misunderstanding of what was actually said by the UKIP person they are attacking at the time. Despite this, we don't recall UKIP ever having arranged a meeting where women were made to sit separately from men or - as in the case of one meeting addressed by Byrne - where women were excluded altogether.

It is these very double standards which bring us to the heart of the argument. In Rotherham, former MP, convicted thief and Hope not Hate activist Denis MacShane said of the child grooming scandal that:

""I think there was a culture of not wanting to rock the multicultural community boat if I may put it like that. We were aware of the oppression of women within bits of the Muslim community in Britain but....Perhaps yes, as a true Guardian reader, and liberal leftie, I suppose I didn’t want to raise that too hard.”

UKIPs sexism? When did they hold a segregated meeting?

This attendance at segregated meetings is simply putting an official, Labour Party rubber stamp on behaviour which would be unacceptable elsewhere; an acknowledgement that 100 years of women's suffrage, 50 years of Women's Lib and 40 years of equality legislation don't apply if you believe in certain religions. As others have said elsewhere, if the meeting had been segregated by race or by sexual orientation there would have been hell to pay.

It is sadly this same approach which has seen Labour councils across the UK face similar problems with paedophilia, or as it is now politely called, 'Child Sexual Exploitation'. We saw in Rotherham - and heard from then MP MacShane - that Labour didn't want to rock the boat for fear of being called 'racist'. Council employees, police officers and politicians alike were infected by this top-down fear of being branded with the one label which is guaranteed to halt any career in its tracks where Labour are involved. And so - just like Watson, Byrne, Dromey and Simon - they held their tongues, and let thousands of school age young girls pay the price of their right-on political correctness.

What we should be worried about is the law against Islamophobia promised by Laobur leader Ed Miliband should he become Prime Minister. We wonder which crimes could then be reported by the media: would reports of the Rotherham scandal and the Birmingham meeting be considered Islamophobic?

 Here in the UK, most of us were brought up to believe that justice is blind, and took that to mean that we were all equal before the law, without excuse. When will Labour, Hope not Hate and their bully boys in Stand up to UKIP and Unite Against Facism learn that a crime is still a crime even if the person committing it is a Muslim?

UKIPs website, and the disappearing story of it being targeted by the European Commission in 2002

Readers with a long association with UKIP and an even longer memory may recall a story which appeared in May 2002 regarding UKIPs website.

UKIP had been attracting bad publicity on the basis of postings made on the party website, which in those days also had a discussion board attached to it for members to exchange ideas. The board was moderated, but allowed real-time posting, with the admins later deleting unacceptable postings.

A number of stories had appeared in the national press regarding some of the posts. Even where they had been deleted rapidly by the admins, screengrabs from UKIPs website kept turning up on newsdesks showing comments which were blatantly, even outrageously, racist.

Eventually, UKIP had had enough, but before the discussion boards were removed, the admins and other staff went through the IP addresses of the posters, and then traced the IP addresses.

The European Commission - the source of racist postings on
UKIPs website back in 2002

It will be no surprise to learn that almost all of the postings came from IP addresses within the European Commission - and other EU institutions - in Brussels.

The reason we mention this is twofold.

Firstly, we have over the past few days spent more time than usual removing racist postings from the Nope not Hope Facebook page and various comment threads here on the blog. On Facebook, almost all of the accounts used were created within the past 2 or 3 weeks, and their entire content has been designed to link UKIP with the far-right and/or with outrageously racist comments, memes, images or statements.

Secondly, we thought we would highlight to readers the depths to which our enemies will stoop in order to maintain the fiction that UKIP is racist - after all, they have precious few other arguments.

We spent several hours attempting to locate a single story relating to UKIPs website online. This is despite it appearing on the BBC and Sky, and in the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Guardian and several other print outlets. We spoke to current and former press office staff, and they also searched without success.

In the end, the only reference we could find to this story anywhere was in a question put before the Commission by Thierry de la Perriere, an MEP from the non-aligned group in the European Parliament on the 2nd May 2002. In it, he asked:

"The British Daily Telegraph has published a report directly calling into question the behaviour of the European Commission or some of its staff.
The newspaper investigated a number of e-mails sent to the discussion forum on the anti-EU UK Independence Party's web site and containing violent attacks on that party's ideas. The source of these messages has been identified. It is the European Commission's offices in the Jean Monnet Building, in Luxembourg.
Can the Commission confirm or deny this report?
Should these allegations be confirmed, does it intend to take disciplinary action against those of its staff involved in this misuse of the European administration's time and equipment?"

The question asked in the European Parliament - the only
online reference we could find.

The question was answered over 6 weeks later by Neil Kinnock, then Vice-President of the Commission, who insisted that:

"Examination of the discussion forum has revealed no trace of a "bevy of colourful postings abusing the UKIP" by "pen pushers", as the Daily Telegraph describes it. Instead of that, an open and informed debate seems to be going on between pro and anti Union views. Neither the webmaster of the site, who moderates the discussion(2), nor other contributors to the forum appear to have been offended by the postings referred to by the newspaper."

Neil Kinnock, whose investigation into the source of the
storiesdid not involve looking at any of the evidence

Before stating that the Commission intended to take no action.

At no time during Mr Kinnock's 'investigation' did he actually contact UKIP, who of course had long since deleted the offending content, but had helpfully kept electronic records in case the Commission wished to do anything.

The internet has changed considerably since it was a minority interest back in 2002, and few could have guessed the direction in which it would head. It was also over a dozen years ago, and papers and broadcasters have updated software and websites since. We do find it interesting though that while we can find accusations of UKIP racism dating back to last century online, of this story we can find almost no trace beyond a single written question, and even that took a little finding.

Weasel - Nick Lowles, HnH owner, offered
to supply the European Movement with
'information' in 1996

So, when you read about the dreadful, racist, fascist things which UKIP 'supporters' are supposed to have said, remember this tale. UKIP have been the victim of a sustained attack along similar lines before, and subsequently it was proved that in fact, the perpetrators had been the European Commission.

Finally, remember also that back in 1996, one Nick Lowles had approached the European Movement offering to 'provide information which may be invaluable to your cause': the letter offering such support was subsequently leaked and appeared on the 'Notes from the Borderland' website in 2001. As Hope not Hate are so active in 'exposing' UKIP supporters and candidates who they allege have said racist things on social media, we wonder whether the two stories are, after all, linked?