The links between lefty outfit Hope Not Hate and the Labour government are increasingly being called into question after Starmer’s latest reshuffle, which saw acolytes of the organisation promoted to senior ministerial roles. The group’s long-term comrades are now in high office…
The group called for the incoming government to “engage with the pro-Palestine movement as a legitimate form of democratic participation and protest,” complaining that pro-Palestinian street protests had been “villainised.” It said that: “long-term democratic backsliding as well as targeted curbing of dissent from British Muslim communities in particular has played a huge role in the demonisation of their participation in the pro-Palestine ‘mob’. The Government must…actively support and engage with [the protests] as a form of legitimate opposition that has a rightful place within the norms of a healthy democracy.” A view massively at odds with reality, as popular outrage about the actions of Pro-Palestine hate marches led for widespread calls for them to be disbanded…
Last year the group said: “It is clear that [the government] are not only grossly negligent in enacting solutions, but are part of the problem. The conflict in Israel and Palestine has become another pawn they can play to draw in the most extreme fringes of their support base, revitalising Islamophobia tropes to feed a culture war that they think will win them an election, all at the expense of the safety and wellbeing of British Muslims.” Yikes…
Hope Not Hate previously condemned “political and media narratives around ‘grooming gangs” which falsely insinuate that, disproportionately, white girls are abused by Pakistani, South Asian or Muslim men.” Prior to the media explosion of the rape gangs scandal, that did not age well…
The heavily Labour-linked group also accused media organisations as “spreading misinformation” for reporting things which were in fact true – including reports by ITV News and The Times in February 2023 that four teenage asylum-seekers in Dover had been arrested for an alleged rape. The articles were correct, though about a week later police said the boys were released without charge…
It’s a sorry record that is causing difficulties for the current Hope Not Hate alumni who populate the Labour government. The Chair of the Labour Party for instance…
Hope Not Hate recently released a special report called ‘The 2024 Riots: One Year On’. As ever with the Labour-linked group, it is selective at best…
The anniversary coverage gently glosses over Hope Not Hate’s own role in promoting alarm over what it called a “hit list” of far right protest targets that its own director later admitted was a “hoax”. During the riots, Hope Not Hate drew attention to what it called a “hit list… for action up to and including terrorism” at 39 law firms and immigration advice centres. The list caused national panic…
A Telegram channel had posted a list of the 39 supposed law and advice offices to be targeted. But some of the names were law firms that no longer existed, at least two were private homes, and one was a government agency that has not existed since 2013…
Nevertheless, Hope Not Hate’s Director of Research, called it a “hit list of aspirational targets that calls for action up to and including terrorism… Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict exactly which, if any, of these locations will be targeted by far-right rioters or come under physical attack. Any and all services should be on high alert.” Responding, the BBC ran stories using Hope not Hate’s “hit list” terminology. Ministers were asked about it on the Today programme. The Guardian newspaper put the story on its front page. Shops and businesses, not just immigration services, closed or boarded themselves up. Six thousand riot police were deployed or put on standby…
But the actions did not materialise. Hope Not Hate’s chief executive, Nick Lowles, was reported in The Guardian as saying: “I think it’s a hoax…The list has been compiled by one man in Liverpool, who simply googled immigration law firms etc. No-one is organising the local protests and there is very, very little chatter about it on the forums and WhatsApp groups that have been key over the past week. It’s had more circulation from the left community groups than the far right.” He later tweeted: “Yes, the list was a hoax, but just look at the front pages of today’s papers [filled with pictures of all the counter-demonstrations]. An anti-racist message is being message is being transmitted to millions of homes this morning.” Funny to miss all that out…
Guido has been charting the ways the left-wing group Hope Not Hate has veered from its supposed purpose of fighting racism. The Labour-linked group is now operating at the highest levels of Keir Starmer’s government, and, after the reshuffle, Labour HQ…
Not satisfied with labelling dozens of centrist Tory figures as “extremists“, Hope not Hate also blasted the Conservatives for: “increasingly adopting far-right tropes and conspiracies – “invasion” of asylum seekers, the “misguided dogma of multiculturalism”, trans women having “no place in women’s wards”, lefty “activist lawyers”. Simply put, this empowers the far right, as their rhetoric is legitimised by the political mainstream.” The boy who cried wolf comes to mind…
The only difficulty – and the irony – is that by Hope Not Hate’s definition, that would make Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, and Keir Starmer himself “far-right”. They all on record supporting women-only wards…
Labour’s close links to the group is causing grumbling among realists on the backbenches. Is the relationship sustainable?
Lefty outlet Hope Not Hate is now dedicating significant resources to trying to attack Reform UK. Its website shows a series of pieces claiming to deep-dive into the party. A sign of the success of Nigel Farage’s movement, no doubt. It would all be irrelevant, but for the fact that Hope Not Hate’s acolytes and former staff are now embedded at the top of the Labour government…
The bonkers outfit published its annual ‘State of Hate‘ report over the summer. The document claims: “Britain faces a genuine far-right political threat for the first time in our history, in the form of Reform UK… GB News is increasingly the mouthpiece for Reform UK… academic-turned-activist Matt Goodwin is playing an increasingly important role in supporting Reform, backed by a Substack with more than 70,000 followers.” All of which is standard political activity. The “genuine far-right threats” faced by Britain “in its history” surely include, er, some more notable ones?
The report follows the previous edition last year, which claimed to be “the most comphrehensive and analytical guide to the state of far-right extremism in Britain today”. It was greeted with incredulity after it named 64 (then) Tory MPs, including Neil O’Brien, co-founder of the centre-right think tank Onward. Other villains listed included, er, Lord Andrew Tyrie, who as an MP ran the archetypal wet Tory Ken Clarke’s leadership campaigns…
Hope Not Hate said: “It is now time to ask whether the Conservative Party is transforming into a radical or even far-right political party.” Did anyone tell them about the Tories’ record on mass immigration?
Hope Not Hate is now deeply embedded at the top of the Labour government – for example, one of its former directors, Anna Turley, has just become Chair of the Labour Party. Stay tuned for the Hope Not Hate Files…
Hope Not Hate’s official advice to the “refugee and migration sector” is to state that “there is no evidence to suggest that men from particular racial, ethnic or religious groups are more likely to be perpetrators of gender-based violence” and that “to suggest otherwise is racist.” Multiple independent reviews and the government’s own work disagrees…
In a 2023 guide “aimed at organisations or individuals in the refugee and migration sector who are concerned about allegations of gender-based violence being linked to anti-migrant sentiment in the community” the prominent activist organisation – with links to Labour – gives very specific advice if migrants are accused of crime:
Baroness Casey’s major audit this year, for example, found that police and council authorities covered up the scale of Asian grooming gangs since 2009 because they were scared of being called racist. As Guido has revealed, this organisation has penetrated the highest levels of the Labour government…
Kemi Badenoch at the 1922-ConHome bash last night:
“I did praise [Burnham] for his stamina, it was amazing. All I had to do was sit back and lie there. I didn’t have to do anything at all…”