Car crash blogging as HnH consumed by jealousy and hate

Hope not Hate have spent the morning writing a blog post on Nigel Farage, UKIP's leader, and his past statements on Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants after controls are removed at the beginning of next year.

It has not been a good week for Hope not Hate. After finding themselves overshadowed by the 

Nigel Farage (l) with fellow UKIP MEPs
Stuart Agnew and Derek Clark

Quilliam Foundation over the departure of Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll from the EDL, most of their postings have been directed to mocking the sincerity of any of the parties involved. Quilliam, whose receipt of money from the public purse dwarves Hope not Hate's publicly funded handouts, have long been a target of animosity for the hard left from which Hope not Hate and the UAF draw the majority of their support, not least because it dares to actually educate and act, rather than propagandise and stir up hatred.

Thus we see the unedifying spectacle of Hope not Hate's jealousy breaking out unashamedly on their assorted blogs, switching between wistful envy, jealous mockery and, ironically, outright hate.

Part of HnH's angst is because while they focussed on UKIP, they took their eye off of the EDL and have consequently been left looking rather foolish. Their claims of 'inside intelligence' from the far-right did them little good when they were forced to admit they'd learned of Robinson & Carroll's EDL resignations from normal media outlets. So much for the actions of their own tame Nazi, HnH head of intelligence Matthew Collins.

Then there are the results of last nights local by-elections across the UK. Despite the best efforts of Hope not Hate, UKIP again polled well above their opinion poll levels gaining a seat in Haverhill with 43.4%, and polling 20% in South Staffordshire, 17.6% in Selby, 18.5% in Salford, 23.2% in Barnsley and 9.4% & 9.2% in Manchester and West Lancs respectively.

Today's tack therefore is to attack the mainstream media for daring to give Farage and UKIP a platform - one which is increasingly denied to Hope not Hate as the past week accelerates their slide into irrelevancy.

With righteous indignation in full flow, they demand evidence for assertions that there will be a flood of Romanian criminals and deny with some pretty evasive statistics that Romanian gangs are responsible for any more crime than any other ethnic group. And this just a couple of months after banker's associations and the City of London police stated clearly and uncategorically that Romanian gangs were responsible for 90% of the UK's ATM fraud at cash machines.

It also ignores figures from February this year which demonstrated that up to a third of Romanians living in the UK had been arrested for criminal offences - over 27,000 out of a total of 84,000.

Neither of these figures were produced by or at the behest of UKIP, a fact which HnH deliberately overlook.

The week has further demonstrated not only Hope not Hate's irrelevancy to the current political debate, but has highlighted their own failures. While the Quilliam Foundation is prepared to tackle not just the far-right but also Muslim extremism, Hope not Hate's efforts on the latter amount to little more than tokenism: we discussed last week their latest anti-Islamist 'campaign', which they jumped on board of late, and which consisted of HnH owner Nick Lowles writing a single letter and making one blog post.

Their failure is demonstrated neatly by the anti-Farage article attacking the media. Despite the air of authority with which it is written, it fails to tackle inconvenient facts like those regarding Romanian crime above. While asking what to do about the '4,000 doctors and nurses' - actually medical workers would be more appropriate, for the vast majority are care assistants - and 7,000 Romanian students, it fails to address or even mention the 27,000+ Romanian arrests. It is all very well quoting the Romanian ambassador to the UK saying how wonderful and law abiding Romanian expatriates are, but he is hardly an unbiased source, and his comments fail take into account the criminality figures.

And so we see Lowles and his crew retreat into the sort of Stalinist hyperbole and myth from which they came as they attempt to salvage a working and relevant organisation from what is increasingly becoming a car crash in slow motion. Their campaign against the EDL looks decidedly shaky as that organisation appears set to collapse into chaos, while their campaign against UKIP seems to be driving more voters to UKIP than the reverse as the ordinary working class recognise the truths that HnH refuse to see.

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.

The text Gawain Towler should have sent to keep Hope not Hate happy

There was much outrage on Hope not Hate yesterday as UKIP Press Officer Gawain Towler dared to describe journalist Kiran Randhawa as "a female journalist (of some form of ethnic extraction)" - the full text was:

“James, my fault but I told the Standard that Nigel would be arriving at approx. 10.30 this morning. They have called and I expect a snapper and a female journalist (of some form of ethnic extraction) at Piccadilly. Am sorry”

 When trying to describe a stranger being met in a public location, we had some difficulty seeing what
was being objected to. A picture of Ms Randhawa can be found to the left. She is undoubtedly - as near as we can tell without conducting biological tests - a female, definitely a journalist, and she certainly appears to be of ethnic extraction. We couldn't be precise as to which ethnicity. Mr Towler told the Evening Standard the "descriptive" phrase was meant to help his colleague identify the reporter of whose descent he was unsure after speaking to her by telephone. However, to keep Hope not Hate happy, we have rewritten Mr Towler's text message so it is more inclusive:

"James, my fault but I told the Standard that Nigel would be arriving at approx. 10.30 this morning. They have called and I expect a snapper and a female journalist at Piccadilly. You won't have any difficulty spotting a couple with a camera there, so no further description is required. Am sorry."

Sadly, that still made reference to gender, so I tried again:

"James, my fault but I told the Standard that Nigel would be arriving at approx. 10.30 this morning. They have called and you need to meet two people at Piccadilly. One is a journalist. Am Sorry".

I accept that may be a little vague, so I tried again, but full-on with the inclusivity bit:

"James, my fault but I told the Standard that Nigel would be arriving at approx. 10.30 this morning. They have called and I expect a snapper and a journalist whose family may have originated from the Indian sub-continent, but possibly more widely from the continent of Asia. Perhaps even Fiji, although I think there are quite a lot of people with Indian names in South Africa too, so maybe from there. I don't think she's from further north in Africa than that, if that's the continent her family originated from, although maybe Zimbabwe. I think it's more Indian though, as there's a town in Uttar Pradesh called Randhawa - it looks like the most likely candidate. Randhawa is also a clan of the Jat tribe of India and Pakistan. So if you look out for someone with a camera standing next to somebody whose appearance looks as if their family may once have come from India (or Bangladesh, or Pakistan), or possibly Asia, and maybe even Africa no further north than Zimbabwe (although maybe Kenya), but whose ancestors probably came from a village in Uttar Pradesh, then you won't go far wrong. If in doubt, just ask them what tribe they're from. Hope that's clear? I Googled it, but couldn't pin it down closer than that. Am sorry. Oh, and it could be a man or a woman, but it would be gender stereotyping to say which. Kiran is a gender neutral name in Sanskrit, but it does mean 'ray', as in 'ray-' or 'beam of light'. Hope that helps. Oh, at Piccadilly. Don't text back, my battery has gone flat and my phone has no memory left."

So there we go. Perfectly clear. Surely no-one could be offended by that?

Next week: Gawain Towler gets into trouble for describing Nick Lowles as "a thin white bloke with glasses", thereby excluding the possibility that he could be of some ethnic extraction.

Some Social Media tips for combatting Hope not Hate

We noticed a few months ago that many of our Facebook posts were being marked as spam - we can see such things in the page administration section. We also had a pretty good idea of who was doing this and why.

Some genuine, Hope not Hate spam

The 'why' is quite straightforward. Since Facebook introduced 'sponsored posts', messages posted by pages do not go to all subscribers, but only to a percentage. This ensures that to get maximum reach, you have to 'pony up' and pay Facebook. For what they call 'organic' reach, ie non-paid, the number of page 'likers' who get to see it depends on the record of your page in the past, and the more negative reactions you have had, ie 'hide from page', 'mark as spam' etc, the fewer people see it.

The 'who' is equally obvious. Hope not Hate are terrified that their organisation has outlived its original purpose - the far right is beaten, and it is now targeting a party supported by hundreds of thousands if not millions of former Labour voters. The last thing they want is their hypocrisy put under the magnifying glass.

So, here's an idea. If you want to hit Hope not Hate where it hurts then follow these simple steps:

1.  'like' their page
2. when you have done so, put your mouse over the 'Liked' button on their page, and a drop down menu will appear.
3. Select 'Get Notifications' from the menu
4. When Hope not Hate stories appear in your news feed, you will notice a line above the post with a small down arrow
5. Click the down arrow, and then select 'I don't want to see this'
6. This brings up another menu - select 'Its spam'
7. You then get another menu - select 'Its just a spammy post'

The effect of enough people doing this will be to minimise the number of people who get to see Hope not Hate's hypocritical rubbish, most of which contains appeals for funds and is genuine spam anyway. To continue to get organic reach, Nick Lowles will have to put his hand in his pocket and pay.

By the way, if you want to be sure you see all of our posts, be sure to follow steps 1 to 3 above - 'get notifications' ensures you will know when we post!!

Please feel free to share this far and wide.

Beating women - fine when done by Hope not Hate's allies

Hope not Hate's gloating over a fight at the Young Independence ball last Thursday night has become somewhat muted lately when it was revealed that the man who bravely attacked a young woman, punching her, pulling her hair and calling her a 'fascist', was none other than Hope not Hate commentator Timur Moon.



Alex Nixon, left, and Timur Moon, the 36 year old who thinks
punching young women and pulling their hair is ok, so long as
he also calls them 'fascist'.

Mr Moon began assaulting guests after being told that it was a private function at which journalists were not welcome. In fairness, Mr Moon barely qualifies as a journalist, but striking a young woman and then having to be restrained until police arrives is hardly dignified behaviour. Still, it is what we have come to expect from Hope not Hate and their associates. No doubt the NUJ will investigate the circumstances closely, and then stand up for women by doing nothing.

Quite why 36 year old Mr Moon, who has a track record of poorly researched articles on the far-right, felt that he qualified either as young or as an independent has not been disclosed, although the recent closeness between Hope not Hate, UAF and Lord Ashcroft's dirty tricks department may provide some indication. Ahead of May's local elections, HnH and the Tories were peddling such headline grabbing news stories as Young Independence members 'dancing stupidly'. We should all count ourselves lucky that our fathers haven't ended up on the front page of the Sun if that is now a noteworthy event.

Still, Moon's crass articles still appear all over Hope not Hate's website. Apparently, it makes no difference if one of their own is likely to be convicted of a criminal offence, even where the crime at hand is gate-crashing a party and punching a young woman. We can only assume that these things are only bad when their opponents do them - another Hope not Hate case of 'do as we say, not as we do'. After all, their own Director of Intelligence (sic) Matthew Collins boasts of his days spent 'Paki bashing' as a member of the BNP in his recently published book (available from bargain buckets everywhere, price £0.25), but apparently he is not a reformed character in a way any former BNP members not involved in Hope not Hate can never be.

It would be a shame to forget the UAF in all this too - for all their talk of equality, rape appears fine. As Martin Smith discovered, a penchant for sexually assaulting young women does not mean giving up your far-left sinecure, organising music festivals to give yourself access to even more young women.

Hope not Hate - seeking the exclusive right to decide who is gagged in British politics

The government is trying to find a way to regulate lobbyists, and its current attempt is the Transparency of Lobbying, non-Party campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill. I think we can all agree that its provisions do not match the aims of what the government was trying to achieve.

Hope not Hate are also campaigning against the Bill. They have produced the following graphic to aid their campaign

As Hope not Hate say on their website,

"Under these new proposals every organisation which seeks to influence public opinion, in the 12 months before the General Election – either directly or as a consequence of its actions – will now be covered. This will include charities, think tanks, trade associations and even blogs and websites.
The amount an organisation can spend is being drastically cut yet the scope of costs which have to be accounted for – such as staff time – has dramatically widened. Indeed, the restrictions on third parties are now far more extensive than those on political parties."

In some respects, Hope not Hate have missed the point - third parties should be subject to tighter scrutiny than political parties for a very simple reason. Parties are accountable to the voters through the ballot box. Third Parties like Hope not Hate are accountable only to their funders; in Hope not Hate's case these are the large trades unions and the Labour Party.

The irony of the situation is almost wonderful to behold. For many years, Hope not Hate has gone out of its way to gag those it deems to be 'far-right'. As if that wasn't bad enough for the political process, we are now seeing their aim turned not on the far-right, but on UKIP - simply because their funders are frightened of them, and have no clue how to stop the party's rise. Intimidation of candidates, fraudulent claims about public statements backed up by photoshopped internet comments, fake social media profiles: a whole panoply of tricks which would shame a Murdoch newspaper and which do nothing but drag the whole political process into the gutter.

Hope not Hate are right. This legislation is bad for freedom of speech and democracy, and should not enter the statute book. What they can't seem to grasp is that it is the actions of groups such as theirs which has made people think it is necessary, and even as they campaign - and raise funds to keep their now pointless organisation afloat - they are still attempting to gag their political opponents. To quote a Central American revolutionary, Jose Marti,

"Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy"

Sadly, Hope not Hate would rather its supporters merely chanted 'Four legs good, two legs better' at every opportunity. The freedom of speech they argue for is the freedom to censor what their opponents think.

What Channel 4 think UKIPs conference brochure should look like....