Former Miliband guru Arnie Graf reveals Labour’s disconnect with the working class:
“On one of my trips to the U.K. in the autumn of 2013, I bumped into one of Ed’s strategists in Portcullis House. He asked me if I was assisting the staff on Ed’s trip that was to take place in a few days to one of the regions. I told him that I did not have knowledge of his planned trip.
He told me that Ed was going to give a talk at the region’s annual fund raising dinner and that prior to the dinner he had invited the media to join him at a local coffee shop to listen to a conversation he planned to have with a minimum wage worker. The point of the conversation was to show how difficult it was for a minimum wage worker to get on in life.
There was only one problem. No one had been able to locate a minimum wage worker for Ed to talk with.”
Ed Miliband is giving a speech:
“Today, I am announcing that the next Labour government will go further still: making it a criminal offence to undercut pay or conditions by exploiting migrant workers. We are serving notice on employers who bring workers here under duress or on false terms and pay them significantly lower wages, with worse terms and conditions. This new criminal offence will provide protection to everyone. It will help ensure that, when immigrants work here, they do not face exploitation themselves and rogue employers are stopped from undercutting the terms and conditions of everyone else.”
The Guardian reported back in June 2011 on Arnie Graf’s hiring by Ed Miliband:
“It was an unusual commission: “‘Ed Miliband – would like you to do a piece of work for him?'” Chicago community organiser Arnie Graf recalls being asked back in November. “But because of our immigration rules and the type of visa you’re on,” the veteran activist quotes the Labour leader’s aide as continuing, “you can’t do anything ‘productive’.”
Arnie Graf admitted to working with Ed and “hundreds of Labour party members and staff throughout the UK.” He told Guido that he was working for free – though Labour HQ told us he was being reimbursed for expenses. Either way it was undercutting unemployed British political campaign gurus like John McTernan. Lucky for Ed exploiting migrant workers by undercutting pay is not criminal yet, or he would be in big trouble…
Arnie Graf walking through PCH from the Norman Shaw buildings, where the leader of opposition's office is located.
— Eye Spy MP (@eyespymp) November 14, 2014
From the above it looks like the community organising guru has sneaked back into the office of his employers.
Yesterday when Guido caught up with Arnie Graf he claimed us he was just in London visiting on a tourist visa en route to Israel. Guido was sceptical that he was an innocent tourist given Arnie was briefing journalists. He also said he wasn’t working for the Labour Party any more…
In case you missed it, here is the video of Guido’s encounter with Graf:
The Home Office have been informed…
Guido has been tracking Arnie Graf, the community campaigning guru personally hired by Ed Miliband, since it emerged that he had no legal right to be working in the country. Readers will remember that Labour claimed he was only being paid expenses – though that would be very unlikely to have impressed the Home Office. We had him under surveillance in June when he was seen coming out of Labour HQ. His illegal immigrant status even made the frontpage of The Sun…
Arnie denies he is over here working for Ed – he says he is on a tourist visit – stopping over en route to Israel. Just another lost elderly American tourst who doesn’t know there is a direct Chicago – Tel Aviv flight…
Oddly for a humble tourist he was briefing Newsnight’s Allegra Stratton over coffee when Guido caught up with him in the Blue Boar Bar in Westminster. Prior to Allegra he had, Guido understands, spoken to The Telegraph’s Dan Hodges. Some tourist.
So if as Arnie claims, Labour have fired him, why exactly was he briefing British political journalists?
Arnie Graf, the controversial US ‘community organiser’ who was illegally working in the UK to overthrow the government, has been spotted travelling from St James’s Park tube station to the One Brewer’s Green HQ of the Labour Party:
The UK Border Agency would like to find this man, sighted yesterday at St James's Park station: pic.twitter.com/0v39E5GvPQ
— UKBA (@UKBA_Press) June 10, 2014
Arnie Graf, white, 69, grey hair, blue eyes. Believed to be working illegally in the UK to overthrow the government: pic.twitter.com/xTqbqbEZDv
— UKBA (@UKBA_Press) June 10, 2014
Have you seen this man? If so, contact UKBA immediately. Seen outside One Brewer's Green yesterday. pic.twitter.com/8cKKjLiC0v
— UKBA (@UKBA_Press) June 10, 2014
Labour bigwigs assure Guido that Graf’s paperwork is order – this time – saying that he is on the same business visa he was on last time. A Labour spokesman says:
“Arnie Graf is back in the UK. He’ll be meeting Ed, Douglas as well as organisers and activists across the country.”
Is he being paid though?
Guido understands this is a flying visit unlike his last stay when he was working in the country without a work permit. A purely cosmetic trip after being forced out by Wee Dougie…
Arnie Graf has left the building. As a casualty of the ongoing internal Labour Party power struggles, Ed Miliband’s illegal foreign-worker community organiser has organised himself out of the community. The party are saying they haven’t sacked Graf, but as the Mail on Sunday reports, he’s nowhere to be seen:
“Mr Graf’s own credibility suffered a hammer blow when it was revealed he was in the UK without a work permit. The leak came shortly after he crossed swords with Mr Alexander.”
Dan Hodges has more. Graf had admitted to working in Britain for the Labour Party, despite not having the required paperwork. Bye…
