Social conservative split rocks Irish republicanism

Peadar Toibin, formerly of Sinn Fein, now leader of a new socially conservative party

The Republic of Ireland has no electorally credible racial nationalist, or even eurosceptic nationalist party. In 2014 the big story here was Sinn Féin’s success in gaining three MEPs with 19.5% of the vote. This year Ireland’s European parliamentary representation will increase from 11 to 13 MEPs, so Sinn Féin (political arm of the terrorist IRA) will almost certainly retain these three seats.

However Sinn Féin is now being challenged by social conservatives, who take a leftwing stance on economics and remain committed to taking Ulster into the Irish Republic, but are disgusted by their leaders’ new liberal policies on issues such as abortion.

Co Tyrone councillor Rosemarie Shields is among the new party’s recruits from SDLP

At the start of 2019 a Sinn Féin member of the Irish Parliament, Peadar Toibin defected to set up a new conservative nationalist party called Aontú (which means ‘Unity’ or ‘Consent’). Some see this party as a desperate last stand by a dying Catholic establishment, but it has already attracted a few defections from either side of the Irish border.

Mr Toibin is a business consultant and graduate of University College Dublin, and had been a Sinn Fein activist since his student days. He says that about one-third of the new party’s supporters come from Fianna Fail, Ireland’s second-largest party and successor to the tradition of the country’s first independent leader Eamon de Valera. North of the border recruits have also come from Sinn Fein’s declining rival the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), including a councillor in County Tyrone.

The latest defector to Aontú is Sinn Fein councillor for Central Craigavon, Fergal Lennon, who told the media: “My former party has lost contact with the grassroots and no longer represents the best interest of the electorate, choosing instead to put media sound bites in place of real action.”

Craigavon councillor Fergal Lennon is the latest defector from Sinn Fein to the new party

Arguably the roots of this split date back to the late 1960s when the Provisional IRA was formed. This rejected the old-fashioned Marxism of the ‘Official IRA’: instead of waiting and building towards a proletarian revolution, the Provisionals were determined to escalate a brutal terrorist war against the hated Brits.

Yet on the other hand these same Provisionals increasingly identified themselves with Third World ‘liberation movements’, and eventually with the entire gamut of trendy delusions ranging from feminism, through abortion rights, gay marriage, multiracialism and no doubt now ‘transgender’ rights.

For many years Sinn Fein / IRA disguised these leftist/liberal affiliations from their American donors, since most of the latter were old-fashioned nationalists with a romantic attachment to traditional Irish culture, and in most cases devout Roman Catholics.

Now the chickens have come home to roost. Emboldened by a decade of scandals that have undermined church authority, militant left/liberal secularists have openly taken control of Sinn Fein’s agenda.

The new Aontú party is an effort to reconnect Irish republicanism with its traditional roots: it will be interesting to see whether Sinn Fein’s hegemony (that has been consolidated over the past half century) will now be challenged.

There is also a new party called Irexit campaigning for Ireland to leave the European Union, but it’s not yet clear whether this will be officially registered in time to contest this year’s elections. In Ireland (unlike the UK) at least 300 registered members are required before a party is officially recognised to appear on ballot papers.

Is it Corbyn or the mainstream media who’s “lost the plot”?

Tomorrow’s Daily Mail predictably attacks Jeremy Corbyn for having “lost the plot”, choosing to print a photograph of the Labour leader gardening on his allotment as the storm clouds gathered and seven of his rebellious MPs broke away to form an “Independent Group”.

Their assumption seems to be that it was somehow weird or arrogant for Corbyn to be on his allotment at such a time.

I wonder whether voters will see it that way? They don’t share the obsessions of political journalists and part of Corbyn’s success at the 2017 election was because (despite his ‘extremist’ policies) many Britons saw him as a normal bloke – his allotment and Arsenal allegiances were part of that.

If most voters were concerned about Corbyn’s previous associations with Sinn Fein, or his links with alleged ‘antisemites’, then they would have ditched the Labour Party long ago.

The Jewish Chronicle has long attacked Corbyn for ‘antisemitism’: most voters don’t care

Sadly for Fleet St, and sadly for many H&D readers, most Labour voters are probably more concerned about the effects of Tory austerity cuts than they are about terrorism in Northern Ireland, arguments about Zionism and ‘antisemitism’, or even Britain’s membership of the EU.

That’s why when in 2017 Theresa May offered them the opportunity to elect a House of Commons committed to securing Brexit, the voters instead returned the present hung parliament.

Doubtless the latest split will do some electoral damage to Labour, but a great deal might depend on whether the Tories also split, and especially on whether really heavyweight Tories can be persuaded to join the breakaway.

Latest rumours are that a gang of four female Tory MPs are most likely to defect: Anna Soubry (who has already removed references to the Conservative Party from her Twitter biography), Dr Sarah Wollaston, former cabinet minister Justine Greening, and Heidi Allen.

Perhaps a bigger prize would be Sir Alan Duncan, who is still in Theresa May’s government as a Foreign Office Minister of State responsible for Europe and the Americas. Whereas some of the defectors are pretty much in the ‘wet’ Tory Reform Group (TRG) tradition, Alan Duncan was closely associated with William Hague and in his student days was a leading figure in the so-called ‘Magdalen machine’, the main ‘right-wing’ rival to TRG inside the Oxford University Conservative Association.

In common with several other leaders of the ‘Magdalen machine’, Sir Alan is a homosexual. He is also unusual among modern Tories in taking a broadly pro-Palestinian line on Middle East matters, and was among the main targets for the covert Israeli Embassy lobbyist Shai Mosat, exposed by Al Jazeera in 2017.

In this respect Sir Alan would make an unusual ally for the solidly pro-Zionist Labour faction who have created the ‘Independent Group’. However it’s possible these hardcore Zionists might welcome him for this very reason, as it would help to deflect suspicions that the whole business is a Mossad plot to prevent a Corbyn premiership!

Labour splits: is this the end of the two-party system?

This morning the long-expected split began in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. Seven MPs resigned and will now sit as an ‘Independent Group’ in the House of Commons.

The group includes one relic of the 1990s New Labour project, Stockport MP Ann Coffey who was Tony Blair’s parliamentary private secretary. However another is Chris Leslie, MP for Nottingham East, who during New Labour’s civil war was a supporter of Gordon Brown rather than Blair, and is married to one of Brown’s former aides.

Two others are among the most strongly pro-Zionist MPs in Parliament: Luciana Berger, Jewish MP for Liverpool Wavertree, and Mike Gapes, who though not Jewish himself is best known for his five years as a very pro-Zionist chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.

It seems likely that some of Corbyn’s other Jewish critics have deliberately avoided joining the rebel group because they didn’t want it to be perceived as disproportionately Jewish. If significant numbers join the seven initial members, one would expect them eventually to include Dame Margaret Hodge and Dame Louise Ellman, though the latter has tweeted that she will continue to “fight the virus of antisemitism in the Labour Party from within”.

For the time being the “Independent Group” will not be a registered political party and will not fight elections. This avoids them having to contest the forthcoming local elections in May, where they would doubtless be crushed.

Chuka Umunna, effective leader of the Independent Group and once seen as a future Labour Prime Minister – has he committed political suicide?

Yet the intellectual leader of the group, half-Nigerian MP for Streatham, Chuka Umunna, has strongly implied that he sees the group evolving into a new “centrist” party. Umunna is a former City lawyer whose maternal grandfather, Sir Helenus ‘Buster’ Milmo, was the leading MI5 interrogator during the Second World War before becoming a High Court judge.

Westminster has been rife with rumours for the last fortnight that Umunna was about to launch such a party alongside Anna Soubry and other fanatically pro-EU Conservatives. Perhaps these rebel Tories have been put off by the undoubted practical difficulties of launching a new party, but if Theresa May does eventually position the Conservative Party as unequivocally pro-Brexit, or if she is replaced by a Brexiteer such as Boris Johnson, we can assume Ms Soubry and a few others will team up with Mr Umunna.

According to an email circular this morning from Stephen Bush, the well-connected political editor of the New Statesman, it was Gavin Shuker, MP for Luton South, who helped persuade the other six that it was time for a formal split. Mr Shuker is an unusual character, who in one respect has nothing in common with New Labour ‘centrism’. Before standing for parliament in 2010 he was leader and pastor of the City Life Church in Luton: he opposes ‘gay marriage’ and has taken a number of other stances on ‘moral questions’ that put him at odds with the liberal consensus.

Gavin Shuker, the former Christian pastor who registered the limited company behind the new ‘Independent Group’ of MPs

The group is not registered as a party with the Electoral Commission, but it operates from an office in Altrincham, near Manchester, in the name of a limited company called ‘Gemini A Ltd’ which Shuker created on January 16th this year.

One of the Labour rebels, Angela Smith, MP for the marginal Yorkshire seat Penistone & Stocksbridge, made much of her working-class roots (in contrast to the well-heeled Umunna). But a problem for such people is that while working-class Britons might find their traditional Labour loyalties strained by Corbyn’s trendy-left, London-dominated Momentum faction, many such voters (including in Ms Smith’s own constituency) voted to leave the EU and remain pro-Brexit.

Anna Soubry, notoriously pro-EU MP for Broxtowe, and the most likely Tory to join Umunna’s ‘Independent Group’

Umunna’s “independents” have made it clear that being pro-EU and campaigning for a second referendum to overturn the 2016 result is a fundamental component of their so-called ‘centrism’.

That’s why the best known earlier anti-Corbyn rebel, Birkenhead MP Frank Field who quit Labour to sit as an independent last August, will certainly not be joining Umunna’s group. Similarly other anti-Corbyn MPs who might be thought on the right of Labour – Kate Hoey, Graham Stringer and John Mann – will certainly not be on board.

In fact one might logically expect two Independent Groups to the right of Corbyn’s Labour – one pro-Brexit and one pro-Remain!

If this really is the long-overdue breakup of the two-party stranglehold on British politics, one eventual consequence will have to be a change in the electoral system.

Only then will we see a realistic chance for the views of forgotten millions of British voters to be represented at Westminster, and a real challenge to the dead consensus of multiracialism.

Farage set to back new party

Nigel Farage (right) with UKIP’s former Scottish leader David Coburn who joined him in resigning over new leader Gerard Batten’s shift to an anti-Islam agenda

Feb 1st update: The Brexit Party’s official founder Catherine Blaiklock (interviewed by the Daily Telegraph’s Christopher Hope) claims that the party already has more than 200 potential candidates lined up – including Nigel Farage – in the event of a delayed Brexit causing either UK involvement in European elections or a snap general election this year. We should bear in mind that it is easier to talk about election plans than to deliver them.

Following his long-expected resignation from UKIP – the party he led for nine years including its greatest successes at the 2009 and 2014 European elections and the 2015 General Election – Nigel Farage gave the first indication yesterday that he is planning to endorse a new breakaway party.

During an interview with the Sun on Sunday, Farage said:
“There is huge demand for a party that’s got real clarity on this issue. You can see and hear the frustration welling up out there. It’s clear the political elite want to stop Brexit in its tracks and the prime minister doesn’t have the strength or inclination to see this through.
“…If the government goes back on its word and betrays the millions of people who voted for Brexit then we need a party prepared to stand up and fight for it. I’m fully prepared for article 50 to be extended or revoked and if that happens, I will re-enter the fray.”

Rather than backing any of the existing post-UKIP parties, Farage said he is likely to support one that is presently being registered by UKIP’s former economics spokesman Catherine Blaiklock, who wrote for the Salisbury Review before Christmas explaining her conclusion that “UKIP is dead”.

Catherine Blaiklock, former UKIP spokesman, is launching The Brexit Party

Ms Blaiklock began the process of registering this party with the Electoral Commission on January 11th, which leaves very little time to complete the process if we were to face a snap general election, or if delays to Brexit entail our involvement in the European Parliamentary elections on May 23rd.

It had been assumed that UK MEPs, including Farage himself, would have left by then and their seats would be redistributed among the EU’s remaining member states. But as with so much about the Brexit process, even this is now uncertain.

Farage has indicated he would be prepared to stand again in May, and might also be tempted to stand in a likely parliamentary by-election in Peterborough, which will occur if Labour MP Fiona Onasanya fails to overturn her conviction for lying about a traffic offence.

Anne Marie Waters on the by-election campaign trail with former BNP election guru Eddy Butler: her party For Britain has now become an affiliate of the largest European alliance of anti-immigration parties, alongside Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini.

UKIP’s activists and donors would then be left with a dilemma: should they follow their old leader; stick with their new leader; or opt for one of the three other main alternatives offered by leading figures who have quit UKIP during the past year or two – Anne Marie Waters’ anti-Islamic For Britain Movement; the Democrats and Veterans Party led by John Rees-Evans; or the Social Democratic Party endorsed by MEP and former Express journalist Patrick O’Flynn.

For Britain was recently accepted as an affiliate of the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom, which includes Marine Le Pen’s ‘National Rally’ (RN), formerly the National Front; the Austrian Freedom Party; the Flemish Vlaams Belang; and the Italian anti-immigration party Lega headed by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.


Farage quits UKIP

UKIP leader Gerard Batten (left) with EDL founder Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (alias ‘Tommy Robinson’) whose increasingly close relationship with the party has now prompted Nigel Farage to resign.

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage quit the party this week, after another row with the current chairman Gerard Batten. Farage was a founder member of UKIP, formed by homosexual libertarian Dr. Alan Sked in 1993. Before UKIP they had been in the Anti-Federalist League, and previously the Conservative Party, which they quit in 1992.

Farage was firmly against Batten’s plan’s to bring former BNP member and EDL founder Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (alias ‘Tommy Robinson’) into UKIP, and to focus more on being anti-Islam than anti-EU.

Former National Front official Martyn Heale (right) – a UKIP councillor from 2013 to 2017 – with Nigel Farage

However, when Farage was UKIP leader he let a number of former NF officials join the party without any problem – including Martyn Heale, the then UKIP chairman of the Thanet South constituency where Nigel Farage was the party’s candidate at the 2016 general election. Heale was a leading member of the National Front in London in the 1970s, and its Hammersmith branch organiser in 1978.

Subsequently Heale spent over twenty years in the Conservative Party, including three years as Chairman of Ramsgate Conservative Association, before joining UKIP about fourteen years ago. He was a UKIP county councillor for the Ramsgate division in Kent from 2013 to 2017. In August this year Heale applied to rejoin the Conservative Party, but his application was rejected as being liable to bring the party into disrepute, despite his earlier two decades as a Tory.

Nigel Farage has always denied claims that his father Guy Farage had himself been a member of the NF in the 1970s.

Martyn Heale as a London NF activist

Rather more serious than this row over alleged ‘extremism’ is UKIP’s continuing identity crisis. The party will surely struggle now to fight a serious campaign, if Theresa May’s Brexit troubles lead to a general election next year. Realistically there isn’t much time for Farage and his financial backer Arron Banks to start a new party, and none of the splinter groups that broke away from UKIP during the past year or two, such as the For Britain Movement or Democrats & Veterans, have really built up momentum.

Are we heading back to a period of two-party politics? And if so, will this be an interlude before the emergence of a radical anti-immigration party?

German government on the brink over immigration policy – is this the end for Merkel?

Angela Merkel (left) is at odds with her own interior minister Horst Seehofer (right) over immigration policy in a row that could transform European politics.

Germany’s coalition government is on the verge of collapse due to serious splits over immigration policy.

Chancellor Angela Merkel took the disastrous decision in 2015 to admit more than a million refugees in what amounted to an ‘open border’ policy. Now her own interior minister (equivalent to a British Home Secretary) is threatening to resign.

This is especially serious because the minister concerned (Horst Seehofer) leads the Bavarian conservative party CSU, which has been allied to Merkel’s CDU for the entire history of the German Federal Republic: all the way back to 1945.

Seehofer’s immediate concern is so-called “secondary migration”, by which immigrants to one EU country then move to another EU country. Understandably he wants Germany to have control of its own borders.

Merkel tried last week to reach a deal with other EU leaders which would satisfy her anti-immigration critics, both among her own government allies and in the general population, but she seems to have failed.

If Seehofer’s CSU splits from the CDU, it will be the most serious change in Western European politics since the Second World War – a much bigger deal than Brexit – and might give a tremendous boost to plans for a continent-wide alliance of anti-immigration parties, now being promoted by Italy’s deputy prime minister and interior minister Matteo Salvini.

(July 3rd update: Seehofer and Merkel seemed to have patched up a deal to avoid an immediate split in the government, but the big issues remain unresolved and the latest deal is causing a fresh immigration row with Austria.)

Meanwhile demonstrations have been held for the last two weekends in the cities of Hamm and Nuremberg against the imprisonment of 89-year-old Ursula Haverbeck for the opinion crime of ‘Holocaust denial’. Mrs Haverbeck dared to question the establishment’s line on 1940s history – the very same historical myths that underpinned the postwar political consensus which is now collapsing.

The most recent protest march last Saturday (see below) was attended by veteran British nationalist and campaigner for historical truth Richard Edmonds, whose speech begins at 25:28 in the first video below.

This week the latest Orwellian trial will take place in Germany, featuring Canadian-German Alfred Schaefer and his sister, violinist Monika Schaefer, a Canadian citizen who has been imprisoned since January awaiting trial for the ‘crime’ of uploading a ‘Holocaust denial’ video to YouTube.

Arlene Foster speaks for UK after May’s blunders

As Prime Minister Theresa May blunders through another day of chaotic Brexit negotiations, it has been left to Arlene Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, to stand up for the principles once understood by every member of May’s Conservative & Unionist Party.

Mrs Foster today made clear:
“Northern Ireland must leave the EU on the same terms as the rest of the United Kingdom. We will not accept any form of regulatory divergence which separates Northern Ireland economically or politically from the rest of the United Kingdom. The economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom will not be compromised in any way.”

How on earth could a Conservative Prime Minister have allowed herself to be drawn into a position where that “economic and constitutional integrity” could be questioned in the slightest degree?

What part of the words “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” does the Prime Minister fail to comprehend?

Too many Tories have been relying on the complacent assumption that DUP MPs will continue to support the government at Westminster (despite every provocation and betrayal) because they cannot possibly risk a Jeremy Corbyn government.

It’s time for the DUP (and any remaining genuine Tory patriots) to call that bluff.

UKIP executive decides not to block EDL-linked candidate

Peter Whittle (left), bookies’ favourite to win the UKIP leadership, with former leader Nigel Farage

[spacer height=”20px”]UKIP’s latest leadership election will have eleven candidates after the party’s national executive announced yesterday that they had decided not to block an EDL-linked candidate from standing.

‘Moderates’ on the executive tried to block the leadership campaign of Anne Marie Waters, a former Labour Party member whose campaign team includes ex-BNP member Jack Buckby. Ms Waters is a longstanding ally of Paul Weston (head of Liberty GB) and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, alias ‘Tommy Robinson’ (founder of the English Defence League, EDL).

Liberal media outrage against Ms Waters (typified by a Nick Cohen column in The Observer) is matched by opposition to her candidature within UKIP, almost all of whose MEPs would quit if she became leader or deputy leader. Mike Hookem, UKIP’s deputy chief whip in the European Parliament whose immediate superior – chief whip Stuart Agnew – is Ms Waters only senior supporter, quit in protest yesterday saying that “turning a blind eye to extremist views” was “not something I am prepared to do”.

H&D readers will remember last year’s fracas involving former leadership favourite Steven Woolfe, which seemed to show that Mr Hookem was more likely to inflict a black eye (if provoked) than turn a blind eye.

Among those condemning Ms Waters is rival leadership candidate Jane Collins, an MEP for Yorkshire & Humber who fought two high-profile parliamentary by-elections for UKIP: Barnsley Central in 2011 and Rotherham in 2012, but Ms Collins is a fringe candidate in a contest that (if you believe the bookies) is now realistically a five-horse race.[spacer height=”20px”]

David Kurten (left) with leadership rival David Coburn MEP

[spacer height=”20px”]A UKIP establishment bandwagon was growing behind David Kurten, a mixed-race UKIP member of the London Assembly, who now has the backing of the Farage-Banks lobby group Leave.EU.  Leave.EU’s backing for Kurten was a blow to Welsh businessman John Rees-Evans, who has organised a nationwide tour to promote his campaign for ‘direct democracy’ to revive UKIP, but apparent ‘homophobic’ comments by Kurten have revived Rees-Evans’s chances.

The field of ‘moderate’ candidates has been further confused by the late entry into the race of Henry Bolton, a military intelligence veteran who stood for Kent Police & Crime Commissioner last year. Bolton is the dark horse in the race, and seems to be picking up support from ‘moderates’ who think that neither Kurten nor Rees-Evans are serious leadership material.

Libertarians disturbed by the anti-Islamist obsessions of Waters and Peter Whittle (described by the Jewish Chronicle as “the Israel-loving friendly face of UKIP” and current favourite to win, after promising to appoint Waters his deputy) are tending to back David Coburn (UKIP’s only Scottish MEP) or Ben Walker (an ex-Tory and councillor for a Bristol suburb), but some will try to pick a ‘non-Islamophobic’ winner from among Kurten, Rees-Evans and Bolton, so as to block the ‘extremists’ Whittle and Waters.

Coburn and Whittle are gay, while Waters is a lesbian. Former leadership candidate Suzanne Evans was thus able to post on Twitter celebrating the fact that “33% of UKIP’s leadership candidates are gay. What other party has ever been able to say that?”

Surprise candidates joining the race but likely to finish as also-rans include Aidan Powlesland, parliamentary candidate for South Suffolk earlier this year, who is an enthusiast for space exploration; David Allen, 2017 parliamentary candidate for Rochester & Strood; and Marion Mason, a former Tory councillor who was UKIP candidate for Hertfordshire Police & Crime Commissioner.

The result of the leadership election will be announced at UKIP’s conference on September 29th in Torquay, after which senior figures such as Nigel Farage and Arron Banks will get on with the serious business of organising a split.

Massive leak of Soros documents exposes anti-racist agenda

Soros

A network of organisations run by billionaire George Soros (notorious for his profitable speculation against the pound on ‘Black Wednesday’ in 1992) has been successfully targeted in a massive leak of confidential documents, published online today.

One organisation lavishly funded by Soros was the British “antifascist” group Hope Not Hate, which in one of the leaked documents is shown receiving $93,740 for just one of its projects – Hope Camp – in advance of the 2014 elections.

This was part of a series of Soros-funded projects intended to influence those elections.  According to the leaked documents, Hope Camp’s “purpose is to provide a community organizers’ training program for local anti-hate organizations, especially those wanting to engage in the 2014 European elections.  The training model will combine the experience, the organizing and campaigning skills developed and used by HOPE not hate in the UK and by United We Dream in the US.”

The smoking gun: leaked document shows Soros funding for "anti-racist" campaign at 2014 elections - click to view full size

The smoking gun: leaked document shows Soros funding for “anti-racist” campaign at 2014 elections – click to view full size

UK political parties are of course prohibited from receiving overseas donations from people not on the UK electoral register.  It will be interesting to see whether the Electoral Commission takes a close look at foreign, non-party intervention in the electoral process.

Although Soros & Co. might have been well pleased with the BNP’s defeat in 2014, the truth is that this had little to do with “antifascist” campaigning.  Nick Griffin had already effectively destroyed his own party’s chances years earlier.

Moreover, another of the leaked Soros documents – a review of the European campaign, written in November 2014 – showed that not everything went the billionaire’s way.  The document makes clear that the Soros foundations “concentrated a large amount of resources and energy to try and bolster the groups and campaigns which could, in some ways, mitigate the feared populist surge in the EP elections.”

This involved “exposing the weaknesses of the extreme right”.

However, while some projects “far exceeded our expectations”, others “surprised us in a negative way. The grant to UNITED, for example, was a clear disappointment.  While the proposal was well written and the cooperation with ENAR and HOPE not Hate, two OSF grantees which generally deliver great work, seemed promising, not much was achieved on the ground. …Arguing that the HOPE not Hate approach could not be applied in other countries due to particular sensitivities, the project ended up with five very different projects on the ground, with little coordination amongst them. …It was a typical case of a project which looked great on paper, but was an unexpected disappointment in practice.”

H&D looks forward to analysing these leaked documents further: but two points are already evident. Firstly, there was massive financial intervention by George Soros and his foundations in a covert effort to influence European elections.  Secondly, despite lavish funding, many of these interventions failed and are continuing to fail, as European nationalist movements continue to advance!

Media witch hunt against ex-UKIP nationalist

Joe Chiffers was UKIP candidate for Liverpool Riverside at the last general election.  A few months ago, having become disillusioned with UKIP’s avoidance of fundamental issues, he quit and joined Jack Sen’s British Renaissance, where he was appointed party chairman for a few months earlier this year.

Joe Chiffers (right) with his British Renaissance colleague Jack Sen

Joe Chiffers (right) with his British Renaissance colleague Jack Sen

 

Now the Liverpool Echo and its national parent the Daily Mirror are trying to have Joe Chiffers sacked from his job with Liverpool solicitors MSB.  There is no suggestion that Mr Chiffers has behaved improperly in any way, or allowed his political views to influence his work to the detriment of clients.  It has long been accepted that solicitors or barristers will represent clients regardless of their political views, and many lawyers have held ‘extreme’ political views.

Indeed Frederick Lawton, a candidate for the British Union of Fascists during the 1930s who was directly involved in attempting to secure funding from the Italian Fascist and German National Socialist governments for BUF projects, later became (as Sir Frederick Lawton) one of Britain’s most senior judges, sitting as a Lord Justice of Appeal until his retirement in 1986. It has often been more difficult for solicitors than for barristers to hold racial nationalist views, unless they are sole practitioners or in a partnership with fellow nationalists.  Examples of nationalist solicitors include the Leicestershire firm run by Anthony Reed Herbert and Philip Gegan of the NF and (original) BDP; the late Tessa Sempik (partner of former NF vice-chairman Richard Verrall); and English Democrats leader Robin Tilbrook.

MSB Solicitors’ managing partner Paul Bibby told the Liverpool Echo that Mr Chiffers was facing disciplinary action, saying that MSB “pride ourselves on being a socially liberal firm and the views expressed are absolutely the antithesis of what we stand for at MSB”.

What does Mr Bibby’s “liberalism” amount to? Does it mean slavish adherence to a politically correct litmus test? Or does it mean liberal tolerance of diverse opinions?

 

Simon Fox - chief executive of Trinity Mirror - whose newspapers are conducting a vendetta against British nationalist Joe Chiffers

Simon Fox – chief executive of Trinity Mirror – whose newspapers are conducting a vendetta against British nationalist Joe Chiffers

 

Unsurprisingly the likes of Simon Fox (chief executive of the newspaper group pursuing Mr Chiffers) have no time for such fine British traditions.  The values of Mr Fox and his ilk are entirely alien, and reflected every day in their newspapers.

We hope that MSB Solicitors will reject this disgraceful attempt to impose political censorship and ideological uniformity on the legal profession.  Meanwhile Joe Chiffers has released a video response to his would-be persecutors.

Also worth watching is an earlier speech by Mr Chiffers delivered to a UKIP audience, on the origin and intent of the European Union (see below).

We shall inform H&D readers of further developments in this disturbing case.

 

 

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