An independent left-wing magazine 'Notes from the Borderland' has recently detailed the machinations involved in the split at the end of last year between the uninspiring (and geriatric) Searchlight organisation, organised by the former Communist Party candidate Gerry Gable and his wife (a former 'neo nazi' and Lib Dem member) Sonia, and the aspiring (but mercenary) Hope not Hate (HNH) campaign group run by a shady former TV researcher, Nick Lowles.
For decades, Searchlight has been the premier 'anti-fascist' crank organisation. It was originally established in the sixties by left-wing Labour MPs Reginald Freeson and Joan Lestor and a Communist Party journalist, Maurice Ludmer, with its roots in the violent Communist/Zionist opposition to Sir Oswald Mosley immediately after the Second World War.
Following the split, Searchlight is increasingly reliant on the efforts of assorted left-wing academics and a fragile left-wing blogger, while both sides furiously court the trade union movement and the para-military Community Security Trust (CST) for funding and influence.
The shadowy CST purports to provide security advice to most of the Jewish community in the UK and is chaired by ex-con and militant Zionist Gerald Ronson. The CST also has close links with the notorious Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, the Metropolitan Police and various Labour, Lib Dem and Tory politicians.
In contrast, Nick Lowles, who is widely regarded as an establishment state friendly tout by his critics on the radical left, has cultivated numerous Labour Party luminaries over the years, including Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham and now Labour leader Ed Miliband's policy adviser.
A pro-Labour "coup" uncovered
The writers at 'Notes from the Borderland' stress the ease by which these elements have now hijacked Hope not Hate, an ongoing process that seems to have sparked the eventual split with the Gable-controlled Searchlight organisation.
They write: "Obvious, but worth emphasising, the Labour Right could easily hijack HNH precisely because it was never democratic, and always a front/hollow shell. A shell which Gerry Gable had no problem with when under control and 'on message'."
They conclude that a pro-Labour "coup" has been mounted by "rich finance capitalists, political associates of Tony Blair, his disciple David Miliband and even Gordon Brown, PR gobblegook merchants, a US embassy 'protected source' married to an executive member of the spook friendly 'British American Project' and various other failed Labour Party candidates."
The two key players in this "coup" are Ruth Smeeth (the 'protected' US source mentioned above) and Cormac Hollingsworth (who previously worked in the banking industry), both of them "failed" Labour Party candidates.
Ruth Smeeth is now described as the Deputy Director of HNH and presumably acts as understudy to Nick Lowles while he travels the country stalking nationalist demonstrations with his gormless sidekick, the National Front turncoat, Matthew Collins. Smeeth is a candidate for the Labour NEC this year and was the Labour candidate in Burton in the 2010 general election where she was easily beaten into second place by the Conservative. Apparently, her family arrived in this country a century ago as Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Cormac Hollingswoth is described (surprise, surprise) as a "fundraiser" for HNH and was previously a managing director in a financial services company. He worked for Searchlight (before the split, obviously) during the 2010 general election and now advises Gordon Brown, the former Labour leader and Prime Minister, who has also appeared at Searchlight/Hope not Hate events in the past. In 2010, Hollingswoth claimed he was attacked by a BNP supporter while campaigning for the Labour Party in Bermondsey, in south London. He has also been a Labour local election candidate in that area of London in the past.
Despite Searchlight now cosying up to the far-left Unite Against Fascism (UAF) campaign group, which is dominated by the trotskyite (and anti-Zionist) Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) and chaired by Labour left-winger Ken Livingstone, the split has not been a clear cut party political split. The former long-standing European editor of the Searchlight magazine (and ex-Communist journalist) Graeme Atkinson has sided with Lowles and co at Hope not Hate.
The split has recently degenerated into an online spat much to the amusement of interested obsevers. It remains to be seen who will emerge victorious, but the smart money is on the "rich finance capitalists" and "failed" Labourites at Hope not Hate rather than the fragile Communist/Nazi/Lib Dem/Zionist busted flush at Searchlight.
Urban 75 shenanigans
Another online spat amongst 'anti-fascist' cranks that has amused us recently has taken place on a well-known left-wing internet forum involving two former members of the Searchlight-linked Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), a violent group of anarchists and former SWP members who assaulted political opponents during the nineties. The argument involves Steve Tilzey and Gary O'Shea and concerns who did what during the violent harassment of a BNP organiser in Manchester many years back. Tilzey and another AFA knucklehead Dave Hann (now deceased) wrote a book about their exploits called 'No Retreat, while O'Shea is alleged to be the author of another equally malevolent and worthless tome called 'Beating the Fascists', which Civil Liberty has mentioned previously.
"Crivvens! Jings! And help Ma Boab!" as one of their wannabee do-nothing admirers would say! |
