British Democrats win town council by-election

British Democrat candidate Ken Perrin won yesterday’s by-election in the Slade Lode South ward of Chatteris Town Council in Cambridgeshire. He gained 47.5% of the vote, ahead of Labour’s Richard Hirson on 27.7% and an Independent on 24.8%.

Much of the campaign focused on local housing/planning issues, which are often ones where racial nationalist ideas come into sharp focus for ordinary voters.

As Mr Perrin pointed out in an interview with his local newspaper, developers were planning “to build on land that is actually a run-off for flood water”.

In the broader context, the British Democrats have emphasised that “there isn’t a housing crisis in this country; there’s an immigration crisis causing a housing shortage!”

Town councils, sometimes called parish councils or community councils, sometimes operate in a non-partisan manner and the wards are usually much smaller than a borough ward or a county council division.

But on housing and other planning applications they can have an important role – and as several nationalist parties including the Brit Dems have pointed out, gaining experience on a parish council can be an important step in winning back credibility for our movement.

Congratulations to Ken Perrin and his campaign team on bringing H&D readers some good news! Chatteris is best known historically as the place where Boudicca and her Iceni warriors made their last stand against the invading Romans. So it’s an appropriate place to take a political stand against our 21st century invaders!

Mainstream media panic over Portuguese ‘far right’ election success

Yet another media panic over ‘far right’ success followed last Sunday’s parliamentary election in Portugal, where the Chega party more than doubled its support from 7.2% to 18.1%, and quadrupled its number of MPs from 12 to 48.

The nature of this party (led by former sports journalist André Ventura) can be gleaned from its name, usually written with an exclamation mark. It literally means ENOUGH! (i.e. “we’ve had enough”!).

As this name implies, Chega has a broad populist appeal to those discontented with the political system, and has rightly concentrated in recent weeks on the threat to Portuguese farmers from out-of-touch regulators and (more fundamentally) from rapacious global capitalism.

Their campaign was also helped by the circumstances of this election. Socialist prime minister António Costa resigned last November following corruption allegations. Costa’s chief of staff and another close friend are among those already arrested.

Chega is similar to the broad range of European nationalist parties in campaigning against the tidal wive of immigration, but as regular H&D readers will know, there are fundamental ideological differences among the various parties labelled by the mainstream media as “far right”.

Reflecting the opportunist politics characteristic of populism, Chega and Vox leaders André Ventura (above left) and Santiago Abascal put on a show of unity, despite the fact that Chega whips up anti-Spanish sentiment over ancient border disputes.

As with its Spanish counterpart Vox, Chega is a ‘free market’, economically liberal party, and in this respect is very unlike Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, which is economically ‘left wing’ and favours the traditional French ‘big state’.

One good thing about Chega is that its leader André Ventura was among the first leaders of the European ‘far right’ to denounce Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, without any equivocation. In this respect Chega is at the opposite extreme from the Kremlin’s fellow travellers in certain other European anti-immigration parties, such as AfD in Germany, and Éric Zemmour’s ultra-Putinist French party Reconquête.

On the negative side, while Chega has happily appropriated the slogan “God, country, family and work” associated with the dictatorships that ruled Portugal from 1926 to 1974, some of its tax-cutting, state-shrinking policies have more in common with the Reagan-Thatcher style of trans-Atlantic conservatism.

Chega also pursues ‘petty nationalist’ obsessions such as ancient border disputes with Spain, which make it difficult for the party to operate as part of any pan-European alliance of nationalists, though Ventura and Vox leader Santiago Abascal made a great show of Iberian solidarity during the campaign.

Even so, such is the stigma attached to any form of anti-immigration politics that the main Portuguese conservative party (confusingly named Social Democrats) which narrowly won the election but is a long way short of a parliamentary majority, is under pressure to rule out any deal with Chega and instead to patch together a coalition with liberals and centrists.

From a racial nationalist perspective, the entire election was to some extent another charade that avoided fundamental questions. But the substantial gains made by Chega, whatever our doubts about the party, are a positive sign that European voters are rejecting mainstream options.

Galloway victory exposes the fake left’s crisis over ‘multiracialism’

A few minutes ago the former Labour MP George Galloway won the Rochdale by-election, in a stunning exposé of Muslim voters disillusionment with Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer. Galloway polled 39.7% of the vote, and won a majority of 5,697, ahead of local independent David Tully, who surprised the media by taking 21.3%.

Though I reject many of Galloway’s views (especially his Putinism and his support for the terrorist IRA’s political front Sinn Fein), I welcome his election to Westminster where he will be an eloquent (if unprincipled) voice in support of Palestine, against the lavishly financed Zionist lobby that dominates all the major UK parties.

Labour thought they had chosen a perfect careerist candidate: Azhar Ali, an Asian councillor in nearby Nelson who led the Labour group on Lancashire County Council. Ali had made all the right noises to obtain promotion in Labour’s ranks – regarded as a reliable ‘moderate’ and endorsed by leading Jewish activists in Starmer’s party.

Azhar Ali in happier times with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer

But as should have been obvious, careerism involves saying different things to different audiences. At the start of the campaign, a secretly recorded tape was leaked of Ali speaking to Asian community leaders in Accrington (less than 20 miles from Rochdale). As anyone outside Starmer’s circle of deluded wokeists might have predicted, Ali’s words to this audience were very different from when he was speaking to liberals and Jews!

The leak quickly led to Labour disowning Ali, and because he has always depended on careerist grovelling rather than principle, he completely failed to maintain any sort of campaign on his own. Ali remained on the ballot paper as Labour candidate, because the relevant deadlines had passed, and his feeble 7.7% vote came from that section of the electorate who would vote for a donkey if it had a Labour label.

The Rochdale campaign was absolutely made for George Galloway. Though he will be 70 later this year, Galloway has lost none of his ability to play populist political cards. In this case most of his pitch was to Rochdale’s Asians (who amount to around 30% of the constituency, according to the 2021 census). The Gaza issue has highlighted a broader perception among such people that they have been let down by their ‘community leaders’ in a series of cynical deals with the Labour Party. A reckoning was overdue, irrespective of the Azhar Ali fiasco.

Independent candidate David Tully (above left) with Rochdale AFC chairman Simon Gauge

Galloway also made a pitch to disillusioned White voters, but a large number of these opted for local independent David Tully, whose energetic campaign received little attention from mainstream journalists until ballot boxes were opened.

Mr Tully is not a racial nationalist, but his commendable campaign and focus on local concerns (including the threatened bankruptcy of Rochdale Football Club, where he is a season ticket holder) will have won him a lot of support from our type of voters.

And that brings us to the elephant in the room: the total absence of any credible nationalist party from this campaign.

The bankruptcy of “civic nationalism” was demonstrated by Reform UK choosing disgraced former Labour MP Simon Danczuk as their candidate. Mr Danczuk is seen here on holiday in Singapore with his Rwandan wife.

Reform UK, just two weeks after an excellent result in Wellingborough, suffered a well-deserved embarrassment in Rochdale after their inexplicable selection of Simon Danczuk as their candidate. Mr Danczuk is another shallow careerist who was Labour MP for Rochdale until he was disgraced after sending inappropriate sexual messages to a teenager.

Danzuk and his party leader Richard Tice tried to distract from their poor result (only 6.3% and sixth place) by whining about “racism”, “intimidation” and “anti-semitism”. Their desperation in playing the victim card merely reflected the utter bankruptcy of “civic nationalism”. Galloway himself has now revealed that a short while ago Tice asked him to be a Reform UK candidate: that’s how shallow and unprincipled Reform UK’s leader is.

In the 1990s I repeatedly experienced political violence in Rochdale, including being pelted with half-bricks by “anti-fascists” outside Rochdale Town Hall after an election count. But anyone who is serious about nationalist politics doesn’t whine about such things, they just get on with the task, however long and arduous.

Britain First raised funds from their supporters with the promise that they would fight this by-election, even after the close of nominations showed that they did not in fact have a candidate. The sad truth is that Britain First is just another con aimed at gullible nationalist donors – just like the BNP became in later years, and just like the various enterprises run by Nick Griffin.

Billy Howarth, a local campaigner against the scandal of Rochdale Pakistanis “grooming” teenage girls, stood as an independent candidate but failed to make any impact, polling only 1.7%. It needs to be recognised that there are some people like Mr Howarth who are honest and have sound instincts on some issues, but who come nowhere near the calibre required of a parliamentary election candidate or spokesman for the broader nationalist cause.

Considering the unusual circumstances, the 39.7% turnout was high – and was likely to have been especially high in Asian areas.

But many White voters will have abstained in despair. Rochdale again shows the political vacuum in the UK, especially in northern towns that have experienced the worst effects of multiracialism.

A credible challenge is long overdue – whether it comes from the British Democrats, the newly registered Homeland Party, organisations not yet registered such as Patriotic Alternative, or some united front of racial nationalists.

H&D will continue to report on a non-partisan basis, and we shall give support to any and every genuine nationalist campaign.

English Democrats campaign to end politically correct Policing

The English Democrats Party are standing four candidates (so far) in this May’s Police Commissioner elections – in Essex, Lincolnshire, Bedfordshire and West Mercia – and three candidates (so far) for the Mayoral elections (which also includes Police Commissionerships).

Party activists have been out and about in these constituencies distributing leaflets in preparation for those elections.

The chairman of the English Democrats Robin Tilbrook always leads from the front and is standing as the party’s Police Commissioner candidate in his local area – Essex.

The party’s other candidates are David Dickason for Lincolnshire; Antonio Daniel Vitiello for Bedfordshire; and Henry Curteis for West Mercia.

The party’s Mayoral candidates are Stephen Morris for Greater Manchester; David Allen for South Yorkshire and Thérèse Hirst for West Yorkshire.

The English Democrats will also be standing a number of local council candidates up and down the country. Full details of these will be published after nominations close at the end of March.
H&D readers wishing to help the English Democrats in any of the constituencies they are contesting can contact the party by writing to: The English Democrats, Queries Green, Willingale, Essex, SS2 5QF.

Or Telephone 0207 242 1066 or 01277 896000

Or Email – Enquiries@EnglishDemocrats.Party

Check out the party’s website at – www.englishdemocrats.party

Chairman of the English Democrats, Robin Tilbrook speaking at a Traditional Britain Group event in 2023

Is Keir Starmer prepared to write off Muslim voters?

Labour Party officials seem bewildered by the extent of “anti-semitism” in their party, following revelations last Sunday that eventually forced Sir Keir Starmer to abandon his candidate at the Rochdale parliamentary by-election.

In normal circumstances, political observers would be relentlessly examining the collapse of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, especially after their catastrophic results in yesterday’s by-elections at Wellingborough and Kingswood.

And if Starmer were being opposed only by hard-left supporters of his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, he wouldn’t be too concerned.

Yet the reality is slowly coming home to Labour leaders that even “moderate” Muslims are disgusted by Starmer’s fanatical Zionism – and that a large part of mainstream opinion among indigenous Britons is also hostile to Israel’s never-ending brutality.

Azhar Ali was regarded as one of the most “moderate” Muslims in the Labour Party, until secret recordings were published last Sunday, in which Ali expressed implicitly “anti-semitic” conspiracy theories.

Ex-MP Graham Jones (above right) with Shadow Cabinet member Lisa Nandy and Azhar Ali. Until this week these three were among Lancashire’s leading Labour activists: now only Nandy remains.

Then another Lancashire Labour candidate – former Hyndburn MP Graham Jones – was suspended for similar anti-Israeli remarks secretly recorded at the same event.

Numerous Labour councillors, including Labour’s council leader in Burnley, had already quit the party in protest at Starmer’s craven pro-Israel policy, and this week two more quit, in the West Yorkshire borough of Kirklees, where there had already been earlier resignations and suspensions.

Several of these anti-Zionists (whether resigning on principle or suspended after being caught out expressing their private views) are indigenous Britons, though many are Muslims.

The really crucial point is that a certain block of voters (likely to be mainly Muslim) views the Gaza issue as such an important one that they could change their vote and desert Labour, even if this runs the risk of allowing Conservative candidates to win.

Very few Muslims support the Conservative Party, though this week’s strangest political story was the expulsion of the Conservative Mayor of Salisbury.

Cllr Atiqul Hoque was expelled with immediate effect, after allegations of posting “offensive” messages on WhatsApp and social media. Salisbury is an ancient cathedral city with a very White population: not the sort of place where one expects to find an Asian mayor, still less a Conservative one, still less one who posts “offensive” material online.

Four months ago Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proudly greeted the Tory Mayor of Salisbury, Atiqul Hoque. This week the Mayor was expelled from Sunak’s party for “offensive” social media posts: apparently yet another case of “anti-semitism”.

It all goes to show what a strange country the UK has become!

Mainstream politicians have combined slavish support for the Zionist state, with obedience to a multiracial and multicultural transformation of our country. The potentially incendiary consequences should have been obvious.

The main question now is whether Muslim “community leaders” allow careerism and vested interests to outweigh principle. It would not be surprising to see them mostly fall back into line with Starmer, just as they did with earlier pro-Zionist Tory leaders such as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

But right now, there’s still the potential for Labour to haemorrhage Muslim votes. I suspect most H&D readers would quite enjoy that spectacle!

Although as with the parallel collapse of the Conservative Party, what we really need is a coherent, united and focused racial nationalist challenge to the establishment parties.

Tory collapse continues: has Reform UK’s chance finally arrived? Or is there still a vacuum in patriotic politics?

Ben Habib (above right) with his party leader Richard Tice. He achieved Reform UK’s highest ever vote yesterday at the Wellingborough parliamentary by-election.

Regular H&D readers will know that we have been very critical of Reform UK’s ideological and organisational failures. Their results in actual elections have consistently failed to match their opinion poll ratings. Lacking a serious activist base in most of the country, they have relied on hype from Nigel Farage and his friends on certain newspapers (and at the GB News channel).

Today’s parliamentary by-elections in Kingswood (near Bristol), and Wellingborough (in Northamptonshire), seem to have shown that Reform UK has at last started to attract real votes in real ballot boxes.

Whatever our differences with Reform UK on a wide range of issues, their Wellingborough candidate Ben Habib deserves considerable credit for his earlier activism in Ulster, where together with Baroness Hoey, TUV leader Jim Allister and others he showed genuine commitment and intelligence in exposing the true nature of Sunak’s treacherous border deal. The Conservative Party – and even some so-called Ulster Unionists – have shamefully betrayed the Union, whereas Ben Habib has striven genuinely to uphold it.

Though it might seem paradoxical, many H&D readers will therefore have welcomed the fact that Mr Habib this week polled the highest ever Reform UK vote – 13%.

Just two hours earlier in Kingswood, Reform UK’s candidate Rupert Lowe polled 10.8%, which at that point was itself easily the best vote ever achieved by the party since it emerged from the former Brexit Party.

Earlier this morning Rupert Lowe in Kingswood became the first Reform UK parliamentary candidate to poll above 10%.

While congratulating Reform UK on these much-improved results, we should bear in mind that if their opinion poll scores were anywhere near accurate, they ought to be polling at least 15% in Kingswood and closer to 20% in Wellingborough, in by-election circumstances that tend to favour “protest votes”, and with so many “right-wing” voters having deserted the Tories.

The old UKIP polled 14.8% in Kingswood in 2015. Of course, UKIP is now a joke fringe party. In this latest by-election they managed only 0.5%.

It was also a very disappointing night for the anti-Muslim party Britain First, whose candidate in Wellingborough, Alex Merola, finished 8th with only 1.6%.

Britain First and their supporters now have to ask themselves two questions.

Most fundamentally, they should question whether there is political space for another non-racial, civic nationalist party competing with the much more professional Reform UK. It’s certainly necessary to expose the fact that Reform UK is essentially a system party, committed to neo-Thatcherite “free market” capitalism, and with no serious solution to the catastrophe of multiracialism.

But that serious solution – that serious challenge – needs to go beyond civic nationalism, and cannot consist merely of Britain First’s Islam-obsession.

And secondly, even if one adopts a more cynical and limited view of political struggle, one has to question the basic competence of an avowedly anti-Muslim party which wasted its time and its donors’ money in Wellingborough, while failing to field a candidate in Rochdale, a constituency which would seem to offer a perfect audience for Britain First’s message.

Yet again, the remnants of the post-BNP British nationalist movement have shown themselves to be devoid of both political principle and strategic awareness.

We can and must do better. The present situation is a shameful betrayal of our heritage and our people’s future. Within the next year, there will almost certainly be a Labour government with Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. It is vital that there is a serious racial nationalist challenge to that government.

Labour’s Muslim problem revealed as Rochdale candidate dropped

Azhar Ali (above right) campaigning outside Rochdale Town Hall with Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party (which seems almost certain to return to government at a general election some time within the next twelve months) is yet again caught in a ‘scandal’ over ‘anti-semitism’. The party’s candidate at the forthcoming parliamentary by-election in Rochdale, Azhar Ali, has been disowned by the party after recordings were leaked of Ali expressing conspiracy theories about last year’s Hamas attack on Israel.

Azhar Ali – a 55-year-old businessman of Pakistani origin – has been leader of the Labour group on Lancashire County Council since 2021. Having failed several times to obtain selection as a parliamentary candidate, he was chosen to contest this by-election after the death of long-serving MP Sir Tony Lloyd.

Nominations have already closed, which means that Labour cannot replace Ali and cannot prevent him appearing on ballot papers as the Labour candidate. If Ali wins then he is expected to sit in the House of Commons as an independent.

Labour hoped that by opting for a very swift contest after Lloyd’s death – the by-election will be held on 29th February – they would stop any rival party building momentum. They were especially concerned that either a “right-wing” party would gain traction among White working-class voters, or the populist left-winger George Galloway would exploit anti-Zionist views among Rochdale’s large Muslim population.

Azhar Ali presenting a Burnley FC shirt to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

2021 census figures show that Rochdale’s population is 29.6% Asian (predominantly Pakistani – 22% – and Bangladeshi – 4.2%).

Asians are far more likely than White working class voters to turn out at elections, and have traditionally been solidly Labour, but this loyalty has been tested by Starmer’s transformation of the party since he replaced Jeremy Corbyn in 2020.

Starmer (whose wife is Jewish) seems to be obsessed with wiping out any trace of his predecessor’s anti-Zionist views. Even after Israel’s exceptionally brutal response to the Hamas incursion, Starmer has resisted suggestions by many Labour colleagues that he should join calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

His stance led to the resignation of many Labour councillors across the country, with Lancashire being especially badly hit. Several of Azhar Ali’s colleagues quit, including the leader of Burnley borough council and two county councillors who represent areas of Burnley and had been part of Ali’s Lancashire team.

It was in this context that Azhar Ali spoke at what he thought was a private meeting of Lancashire Labour activists last October. What he didn’t know was that someone (presumably a factional opponent within the party) was recording his comments. The tape was passed to the Mail on Sunday and reported yesterday.

The Mail on Sunday’s story yesterday led to Azhar Ali making a swift and grovelling apology, but this wasn’t enough to prevent Labour ditching him today.

Though Ali didn’t express explicitly anti-semitic views, he endorsed one of the many conspiracy theories that are widely believed within the UK’s Asian community. He told the meeting:
“The Egyptians are saying that they warned Israel ten days earlier… Americans warned them a day before [that] there’s something happening… They deliberately took the security off, they allowed… that massacre that gives them the green light to do whatever they bloody want.”

For 36 hours after the story broke, Labour tried to defend Ali, but leading figures in the Jewish community demanded he must be dropped, and Labour has now complied.

It’s too early to say whether Ali will be capable of fighting an independent campaign. If not, it seems likely that the beneficiary will be George Galloway who, although he opposes almost everything H&D readers stand for, is undoubtedly an able campaigner.

The tragedy is that no racial nationalist party is presently capable of fighting a serious parliamentary election campaign. Indigenous Britons in Rochdale have been thoroughly betrayed by all mainstream political parties and by the consequences of the multiracial society. They were never consulted about the demographic transformation of our country, which is more visible in Rochdale than in almost any other town in Britain.

Rochdale was the scene of one of the most infamous cases of the “grooming” of White teenage girls by men of mainly Pakistani origin. In 2016 eight such men (together with a White heroin addict who committed similar bestial crimes as part of a “grooming” ring) were sentenced to a total of 125 years in prison for offences that took place between 2004 and 2008.

Several official reports have documented the persistent failure of the police and social services to deal with such crimes – often because they feared being accused of ‘racism’.

(A few days before the Ali scandal, the Green Party’s candidate in the Rochdale by-election, Guy Otten, was also forced to withdraw from the campaign due to anti-Islamic posts on Twitter several years ago. Though Otten would have polled a negligible vote in any case, his case is another example of the perils of politics in the internet age, especially in the treacherous political waters of a constituency which is one-third non-White. It seems that candidates can be disqualified nowadays for being either anti-Israel or anti-Muslim, when what we would ideally like to see are candidates who are pro-British!)

Nine men – eight of whom were of Pakistani origin – were convicted in 2016 for carrying out a series of sexual offences against teenage girls in Rochdale.

What can H&D readers learn from the events of the past two days that have rocked British politics, both in Rochdale and nationwide?

(1) Ali’s swift defenestration shows which racial/religious minority has real influence in UK politics, and it’s not UK Muslims. Although there are hardly any Jews in Rochdale, the Labour Party decided to obey the demands of the Jewish community, while continuing to ignore the views of UK Muslims.

(2) Although this is the situation at national level (and certainly where foreign policy is concerned), Labour at local level in many parts of the UK is disproportionately influenced by Asians, who are now likely to split, with one group (often local businessman) pragmatically unconcerned by the fate of their co-religionists in Gaza, while others will break away and support independent candidates.

(3) Gaza is just the latest (though the most serious) of the issues that split Muslim voters. Where Labour is concerned there are also longstanding factional divisions between Pakistanis and Bangladeshis (especially serious in Oldham); bitter personal rivalries; and splits between traditional “community leaders” and younger activists on social issues such as feminism and gay/lesbian/trans questions. Many of those who are most radical on Gaza are also opposed to their own community leaders on issues involving the role of women. For example, one of the Lancashire county councillors who quit Labour over Gaza is a Westernised Pakistani woman.

(4) While some H&D readers will strongly agree with criticisms of Labour policy on Gaza, the sad thing is that the Palestinian cause has been tainted by childish conspiracy theories. Events have shown that Jews do indeed have disproportionate power in UK politics, including within the Labour Party. But it is frankly ludicrous to argue that Israel allowed the Hamas attack to happen, or that Hamas is in some sense part of a Zionist conspiracy. On a wide range of issues, real conspiracies are allowed to happen because political dissidents (both within the Muslim community and among White racial nationalists) are too paranoid and quick to jump on online bandwagons without thinking seriously about the issues involved.

(5) One consequence of this is that the anti-Zionist cause is represented by charlatans such as George Galloway. If he wins the by-election on 29th February and becomes MP for Rochdale, the loudest pro-Palestinian voice in Parliament will also be an ultra-leftist and an ally of Vladimir Putin, further discrediting the Palestinian cause in the eyes of most White Britons.

(6) Yet again, the cause of truth and justice – whether for the Palestinians or (more relevantly) for the victims of Rochdale grooming gangs and other crimes in our dysfunctional multiracial society – is ill-served by the choices available to voters at the ballot box. As racial nationalist activists, we all bear a heavy share of responsibility for the collapse of our movement during the first quarter of the 21st century. Do we have the courage and determination to change course?

The mystery of the disappearing candidate

On Saturday the anti-Muslim party Britain First shared a “Huge Announcement” with their members and supporters on social media, even sending out a special fundraising email.

Party chairman Ashlea Simon was to be the party’s candidate at the forthcoming Rochdale parliamentary by-election, following the death of Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd. Her leader Paul Golding rightly pointed out that Rochdale is notorious for the “grooming” scandal, involving the abuse of young girls by men of mainly Pakistani origin.

As recently as 15th January, yet another official report documented the failure of Greater Manchester Police, social services and Rochdale Council – all of whom betrayed these girls and their families.

Golding told his followers that Ashlea Simon would be an ideal candidate who would prove “a staunch voice for the victims in the town”. He predicted there was a “strong chance” that she could defeat the established parties and be elected MP for Rochdale.

Britain First’s campaign was announced on Twitter, by email and on its website even after the official list of candidates showed that they were not in fact contesting this election. Where is the money going?

Britain First’s leader confirmed that he and other party officials were already “organising behind the scenes to get the campaign launched, including designing the banners, leaflets, placards, postal voter letters etc.”

When we read this announcement at H&D, it’s fair to say we were surprised – because the official list of candidates for this by-election had already been published the previous day, and Ms Simon was not among them.

In other words Paul Golding was soliciting donations for a non-existent campaign. Meanwhile he was sitting down with the notorious grifter ‘Tommy Robinson’ to make yet another video for his gullible followers.

We don’t know how Mr Golding intends to spend the money raised by these fundraising emails and social media posts, but one thing’s for sure. It can’t be spent on a parliamentary election campaign in Rochdale – because Britain First and Ashlea Simon are not contesting this Rochdale by-election!

Raising money for a non-existent campaign is tragic enough, but at this same Rochdale by-election Britain First’s rivals in the civic nationalist party Reform UK have dragged politics into the realms of farce.

Reform UK’s candidate in this by-election (where allegations of “grooming” are bound to become a central campaign issue) is Simon Danczuk, who was Labour MP for Rochdale from 2010 to 2017.

Mr Danczuk was suspended from the Labour Party in 2015 for sending “inappropriate” texts to a teenage girl. He shamelessly contested Rochdale as an independent in 2017 but lost his deposit with a mere 1.8% of the vote.

Reform UK’s Rochdale candidate – disgraced ex-MP Simon Danczuk – on a recent holiday in Singapore with his Rwandan bride Coco.

The ex-MP has recently married an African beauty therapist whom he met on a “business trip” to Rwanda: the happy couple plan to adopt a Rwandan baby, and doubtless if he returns to Parliament they will be able to adopt an entire houseful of happy African infants.

In other words, while the Tory government is trying (but dismally failing) to export illegal immigrants and asylum seekers to Rwanda, Reform UK’s latest parliamentary candidate is eagerly importing Rwandans to England.

You really couldn’t make it up: but this is entirely consistent with the “civic nationalism” espoused by Richard Tice, Nigel Farage and the fake patriots of Reform UK.

Rochdale voters deserve better. Whether the racial nationalist alternative comes from the British Democrats, the recently launched Homeland Party, from Patriotic Alternative (once they are registered as a political party), or from some electoral alliance between them, it has never been more obvious that the UK needs a movement prepared to defend our islands and our people.

Rishi Sunak’s ‘Conservative’ Party in crisis facing two new by-election tests

Rishi Sunak – the UK’s first Hindu Prime Minister – now seems to need divine intervention if he is to avoid electoral disaster.

This week senior members of Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party – which now seems unable to conserve anything worthwhile – are openly plotting his removal, desperate to avoid electoral annihilation.

A general election is certain at some point within the next 12 months: the latest legal date is 28th January 2025, but few observers think it will be delayed beyond mid-November.

More immediately the ruling party has to defend by-elections on 15th February in two traditionally ‘safe’ Tory seats: Kingswood (near Bristol), and Wellingborough (a market town and surrounding towns and villages in Northamptonshire).

In each case the candidates will include two from parties to the ‘right’ of the Conservatives. Wellingborough in particular will be seen as a big test for Reform UK, the party effectively owned by former UKIP and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, but for the time being led by Farage’s close associate Richard Tice.

Pakistani-born Ben Habib (the party’s deputy leader) is Reform UK’s candidate in Wellingborough.

Ben Habib (above right), Reform UK candidate at the Wellingborough by-election, with his party leader Richard Tice.

The anti-Islamist party Britain First also has a candidate in Wellingborough – Alex Merola, who will be well known to some H&D readers as a longstanding patriotic activist.

Meanwhile in Kingswood, Reform UK’s candidate is another of their stable of millionaires, making us wonder whether it is compulsory to be a City trader or property tycoon to have a senior role with Tice and Farage?

This time it’s the peripatetic property developer Rupert Lowe, most famous to sports fans for his time as chairman of Southampton FC. Mr Lowe was a Brexit Party MEP for the West Midlands from 2019-20, and as far back as 1997 was a parliamentary candidate for Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party.

Also on the ballot paper in Kingswood is another civic nationalist candidate, Nicholas Wood of UKIP, who is a former Surrey County Council candidate. UKIP is now a feeble shadow of its former self, and the party’s remaining activists are probably less interested in the Kingswood campaign than in the internal contest to be the party’s new leader following Neil Hamilton’s imminent retirement. The most likely bet seems to be that Anne Marie Waters, former leader of the defunct For Britain Movement, will complete her political comeback and succeed Hamilton, having only last year rejoined UKIP.

Once these two by-elections are over, attention will shift to the next parliamentary contest in Rochdale (following the recent death of Labour MP Tony Lloyd), where the most interesting battle will be for the Labour nomination, with several Asian candidates seeking to become the town’s first ethnic minority MP.

Wilders remains an outsider despite Dutch election ‘victory’

Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration and anti-Islam ‘Party for Freedom’ (PVV), is being portrayed as the ‘winner’ of this week’s Dutch general election.

And in a sense he is, though many H&D readers will be sceptical of his variety of populist ‘right-wing’ politics.

First of all, we have to understand that he has ‘won’ in a very different sense to ‘winning’ a British election, let alone an American one. While in the UK the leader of the largest party is almost 100% guaranteed to become Prime Minister, and is very likely to have a majority in Parliament without requiring support from other parties, in the Netherlands multi-party politics has been pushed to the extreme.

After these elections there are fifteen parties represented in the Dutch Parliament, even though it has only 150 seats. The smallest of them (a tiny right-wing splinter party) has one seat even though they polled just 0.7%.

A ballot paper in this week’s Dutch parliamentary election, reflecting the vast range of parties and candidates in the proportional representation system.

Wilders ‘won’ the election with 23.6%, well ahead of his nearest rivals, but has fewer than half the seats required to obtain a parliamentary majority.

It seems almost certain that some form of coalition will be fixed that will exclude Wilders from power.

The good news is that any such coalition is likely to be unstable and short-lived. Dutch voters are shifting in large numbers towards anti-immigration positions, though even those who take this view are divided on other issues.

The mainstream conservative VVD (which has been part of coalition governments and often provided prime ministers for the past forty years) had a disastrous election, falling to third place and losing almost a third of its seats.

The VVD had thought it was a bright idea to elect a new female leader of Turkish origin who parroted some of Wilders’ anti-immigration ideas, though less convincingly. Both she and the leaders of other rival parties were easily outshone by Wilders in televised election debates.

Geert Wilders (above right) in Jerusalem in 2014 with Yishai Fleisher, a hardline Zionist propagandist and former Director of Israel National Radio (Arutz Sheva). They were in the Zionist capital for a showing of Wilders’ film ‘Fitna’.

The centrist liberal party D66 also had a disastrous election under an inept new leader. In addition to Wilders, the main winners were a new centre-right party NSC (which will almost certainly refuse to enter any coalition that includes Wilders) and a Green/Left alliance led by a former European Commissioner, Frans Timmermans, which of course is entirely anti-Wilders.

Despite his election ‘victory’ Wilders is now finding that all his years of subservience to the Zionist lobby have bought him no credit at all with the political mainstream, who continue to shun him.

Dutch politics and society remain chronically divided and it’s difficult to see any stable outcome in the near future, whether on immigration, or on environmental policy, or on more traditional issues involving taxation and the size of the welfare state.

One big advantage for Wilders is that his main rival on the anti-immigration wing of politics, Thierry Baudet’s FvD, discredited itself by pursuing crank anti-vaccination policies and extreme Putinism. The FvD lost more than half of their previous vote and now have only three seats in Parliament.

Wilders himself has toned down his Putinism, but remains essentially anti-Ukraine and pro-Israel – positions that will divide opinion sharply among H&D readers.

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