| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Just what are the Tories and Junior Tories doing to our borough? | |
| Posted by: | Robin Taylor | |
| Date/Time: | 03/06/09 14:05:00 |
| "I can only say that my opposition to all the organisations you cite - the Anti Nazi League, the Southall Monitoring Group, Searchlight, Labour - has been reactive to attacks on myself and on the ICG by these groups." Phil, have you ever considered why these groups opposed you? Could it be that they had reasonable doubts about how genuine your conversion was? Let's look at the facts: You were an active member of far-right organisations for a total of fourteen years (1977-91) and then suddenly re-invented yourself as a community politician. Bear in mind, here, that during your latter days in the National Front you articulated a strategy which involved infiltrating residents' organisations and taking them over for the organisational benefit of the NF. (I seem to remember that the title of one of the articles you wrote for an internal National Front publication was "New strategies for winning recruits".) When you look at your history in public life, does it not occur to you that so much of it has been about smoke and mirrors (and, at the risk of sounding impolite, about trying to deceive people about your true objectives?). Let me give you some examples. At around the time that you set up the South Isleworth National Front, you established the ICG's forerunner, the South Isleworth Community Group. This claimed to be an independent community organisation yet when it stood candidates in the 1986 local elections, the legal election agent for those candidates was also the organiser of the Hounslow branch of the National Front (a certain Phil Andrews). Anti Fascist Action, who had opened a branch in Southall, conducted a leafleting campaign to expose the South Isleworth Community Group. They also had to use special magnifying equipment to decipher the imprint on the SICG election literature - which, it emerged, was printed at the NF's HQ in Thornton Heath. Given the fact that the National Front had always contested the Isleworth South ward in local elections BUT STOPPED DOING SO when the SCIG started contesting the ward, do you not see why some people think that the SICG was established in an attempt to pull the wool over people's eyes? Likewise, when the Labour controlled local authority barred the NF from using council-owned buildings, you got round this by forming a "coarse angling club" and booking meetings at public buildings under this new name. Then, at the last minute, the angling club would cancel the meeting and allow the NF to use its allotted meeting time instead. Searchlight has long been aware of the tactic of far right organisations to operate under assumed names so as to hide their true objectives, so it's hardly surprising that they have had their reservations about you. Am I correct in saying that you stood NF member Alan Minehan as a "Green Action" candidate in a local election (was it in Isleworth North Ward?) - and if so, was that part of this strategy? Certainly, the case of Joe Short, who was exposed by Searchlight as a National Front member when he stood for the Liberal/SDP Alliance in the Rylands Ward of Croydon borough council in the 1982 local elections, is an example of this "smoke and mirrors" tactic. Had the election been held six months earlier (when the Alliance was riding high in the polls) he would have been elected and would certainly have set up his own one-man NF group on the council. You were organiser of Croydon NF for a time, so I'm sure that you know what I am referring to here. On top of all of these things is the issue of writing to the press (and posting on this website) under aliases - and what some of those aliases say. Ironically, you often claim to adhere to a policy of "honesty and openness". It is the apparent lack of these things, throughout much of your political history, which causes doubt among many of those on the anti-fascist left. You may, of course, claim that I am being unreasonable by harking back to past events. Well, I agree that it is time to talk about the things you have said on this forum more recently - and how those things are supposed to help the fight against the far right. For that, however, I need to start a new thread - and after the Euro elections. |