[Twosugars]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...islam-messages

Leader of Nigel Farage's party resigns over anti-Islam messages
Catherine Blaiklock sent racist posts and retweeted those of far-right figures before joining Brexit party

The leader of the new pro-Brexit party backed by Nigel Farage abruptly resigned on Wednesday after the Guardian asked her about a series of deleted anti-Islam Twitter messages sent before she took on the role.

Catherine Blaiklock, the leader of the Brexit party, repeatedly retweeted posts from far-right figures as well as sending her own messages. Among the messages she shared was one by Mark Collett, a former British National party (BNP) activist, referring to “white genocide”.

The term is often used in extreme rightwing and racist online activism of the sort seen as having inspired the terrorist who killed 50 people last week at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

One of her own messages read: “Islam = submission – mostly to raping men it seems.”

The news will call Farage’s judgement into question after he left Ukip because of its “fixation” on Muslims and its alliance with far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

Blaiklock retweeted seven messages from Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

The tweets, sent between 2017 and this year, came from an account that Blaiklock deleted shortly after she co-founded the Brexit party. They were uncovered by researchers from Hope Not Hate, which monitors the far right, and have been seen by the Guardian.

After the Guardian asked Blaiklock about the messages, she said her role “was only ever supposed to be temporary”, and involved mainly helping Farage set up the party and get it registered with the Electoral Commission.

She said: “The out-of-character comments that I made on social media some time ago were unacceptable in tone and content. After speaking to Nigel Farage, I realise that my comments fall well short of what is expected in any walk of life.

“I have accordingly tendered my resignation as party leader.”

Among other tweets sent by Blaiklock was one that referred to Islam as “a non-democracy ideology that is incompatible with liberal democracy”. Another said of Islam that it was “perfectly rational to be phobic about people who want to kill you”.

Another, from December 2017, recounted being at a north London tube station, and read: “8 people waiting for lift, 5 Muslim girls, 1 black, 1 other Asian Chinese, 1 white. Immediately outside saw a drug deal take place. Looked like Turkey.”

She also retweeted a message by the US radio show host and former state congressman Joe Walsh saying: “Haiti is a ****hole and it’s run by blacks.”

Blaiklock was formerly Ukip’s economics spokeswoman. She left the party late last year, shortly after Farage, who is listed on the Brexit party website as “supporting” it, and has promised to stand if new European elections are held in May.

She shared 45 Twitter posts by Collett, who formerly headed the youth wing of the BNP, one as recently as January this year. One retweet, from 2018, shows a photo of a multiracial primary school class with the message: “This is a British school. This is white genocide.”

Another post by Collett retweeted by Baiklock claims that multiculturalism amounts to “the replacement of the indigenous European people”.

As well as Collett and Robinson, Blaiklock also retweeted dozens of posts by the far-right agitators Peter Sweden and Stefan Molyneux, and Paul Joseph Watson from the US conspiracy theory website Infowars.

Her own tweets about Islam also included: “Islam = submission, slavery. Western thought = critical thinking freedom.” Another, sent 10 days later, read: “I want my country back. I want seaside donkeys on the beach and little village churches, not acid attacks, mobs and mosques.”

In January, deleted posts from Blaiklock’s personal blog emerged in which she expressed concern about “Muslim enclaves” and argued that crime and fatherlessness among black men were due to high testosterone levels.

At the time, Blaiklock said she had taken down her Twitter account “because I have no time right now to monitor it”.

Matthew McGregor, the campaigns director of Hope Not Hate, said: “Blaiklock’s abhorrent racist social media posts have revealed the true nature of Nigel Farage’s Brexit party: new branding, same old nasty underbelly.

“The only reason Blaiklock has gone is because these vile comments were exposed by Hope Not Hate.”

A spokesman for Farage said he had nothing to add.

Aw, poor Nige, funny how this far right stuff seems to follow him around So embarrassing for the king of brexit to be associated with such unsavoury views

[Crimson Dynamo]

Nigel as usual seems to be able to take immediate action over members who have hateful views

when will labour and the tories?

[arista]

At least he is honest
and got rid of the Racist.

[Crimson Dynamo]

not a racist

someone who specifically dislikes the religion of Islam, i think the term is islamophobic - often confused with those who rightly criticise the cult religion


Id imagine that if you are on twitter dont use it when you are 2 bottles of wine deep..

[Nicky91]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

not a racist

someone who specifically dislikes the religion of Islam, i think the term is islamophobic - often confused with those who rightly criticise the cult religion


Id imagine that if you are on twitter dont use it when you are 2 bottles of wine deep..

that is still a racist then

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Nicky91

that is still a racist then

please go on

[Nicky91]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

please go on

no thanks i'd rather avoid talking about these subjects

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Nicky91

no thanks i'd rather avoid talking about these subjects

so we wont see you in SD anymore?

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

not a racist

someone who specifically dislikes the religion of Islam, i think the term is islamophobic - often confused with those who rightly criticise the cult religion


Id imagine that if you are on twitter dont use it when you are 2 bottles of wine deep..

There's a lot of racist content in that article aside from the Islamophobia

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by MTVN

There's a lot of racist content in that article aside from the Islamophobia

yes retweets tho, she made a couple of comments herself about "multicultural" Britain and compared it to Turkey but not sure that is racist

[Northern Monkey]

I can see why she had to quit.Some of that looked racist.Most of it though just seemed to be criticising Islam as a religion.It is not a crime to criticise religion.The moment it does become a crime is when we live in an Orwellian authoritarian regime.
Also you can tell it’s a Guardian article without seeing the link.Calling Stephan Molyneux a ‘far right agitator’ is abit of a clue

[Beso]

Well done Nigel, quickly nipping this in the bud. A true leader.

[Livia]

There's a lot of hate from the left and far-left over Farage and his mates and their Islamophobia. They're a bit like Labour and their anti-Semitism.

[Twosugars]

Isn't funny how Ukip and now the new party draw these types of people? Why is that I wonder?

[Beso]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

Isn't funny how Ukip and now the new party draw these types of people? Why is that I wonder?

Labours full up?

[Livia]

Originally Posted by parmnion

Labours full up?

LOL...

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by parmnion

Labours full up?

What does this mean?

[Livia]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

What does this mean?

Antisemitism?

It's been in the papers and everything...

[Beso]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

What does this mean?

It means labour is full to the brim with racists so they have to look elsewhere or wait until some more labour members join nigel, so they can then take thier place in the labour party

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by parmnion

It means labour is full to the brim with racists so they have to look elsewhere or wait until some more labour members join nigel, so they can then take thier place in the labour party

Ahh ok, agreed. Full to the brim, I can barely move with all these snowflake SJW racists. Glad you pointed it out.

[Twosugars]

Livia could you take Labour issues to its own thread?
This one is about Nige's new party. He'd hate being upstaged

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

Livia could you take Labour issues to its own thread?
This one is about Nige's new party. He'd hate being upstaged

I would, but I used it as an example in the context of a debate.

So...

Spoiler:

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Livia

I would, but I used it as an example in the context of a debate.

So...

Spoiler:

don't patronize me

[reece(:]

I don't think the tit for tat "one upping" helps, all forms of racism need stamping out no matter what end of the political spectrum

[Twosugars]

Another one resigns. Dear me, it seems as if Nige's Brexit party is full of far right individuals.
I'm shocked
https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...isemitic-posts

Brexit party official removed after antisemitic posts
A senior official from Nigel Farage’s pro-Brexit party has been removed after the Guardian uncovered antisemitic and other offensive Facebook posts he made, two weeks after the party leader quit her role for similar reasons.

The party said Michael McGough, its treasurer, had made “unacceptable statements” and would no longer have any role in the organisation.

In some messages, McGough refers to Ed and David Miliband and Peter Mandelson as having “shallow UK roots” or being “devoid of UK roots” – seen as a common antisemitic trope about Jewish people.

A Facebook post saw McGough refer to a foreigner as “someone from a bingo bongo land”. In another, he said many survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire were “illegal aliens enjoying an amnesty”.

On 20 March the original leader, Catherine Blaiklock, resigned after the Guardian asked her about a series of deleted anti-Islam Twitter messages, in which she repeatedly retweeted far-right figures as well as sending her own offensive updates.

The Electoral Commission now lists Farage as the party leader. The departure of McGough means that two of the three Brexit party officers originally listed by the commission have now left.

McGough was previously a longstanding Ukip member. He was on the party’s national executive and stood for election as an MP three times in the Essex constituency of Brentwood and Ongar. Like Farage and Blaiklock he left the party over its anti-Islam stance under its current leader, Gerard Batten.

Despite this, one of McGough’s Facebook posts, from March 2017, refers obliquely to Islam potentially being a “fifth column” in the UK. “Perhaps a packet of bacon would act like garlic to a vampire but I doubt it,” he wrote. “If we had sharia law then surely most of the terrorist ******* would be limbless as they all seem to have past criminal records for theft and violence.”

A string of posts from the same year use seemingly antisemitic insults against the Milibands and Mandelson. One calls David Miliband “son of an east European communist now milking it from a charity in New York and devoid of UK roots”.

Another message says: “The Miliband dudes and Mandelson have the shortest of roots. Transient folk they have no loyalty to the UK.” One reply by another user tells McGough he is on “slightly dangerous ground”. McGough replies: “True, but there is a valid point to be made even if it seems offensive. It is not dissimilar to Lord Tebbit’s cricket test.”

A post about Mandelson reads: “I resent being called racist by an old queen with shallow UK roots.”

McGough also posted a string of homophobic comments in the autumn of 2017, when there were two LGBT candidates vying for the then vacant Ukip leadership.

“I don’t want a skirtlifter for leader,” he wrote in one. A post a month earlier said: “With Queers Week on the BBC we are being bombarded with material to undermine our sexuality and procreation. I doubt the immigrant birth rates will be affected.” Another referred to a transgender politician who had been on BBC radio: “My, what a deep voice and what a lousy state broadcaster.”

The Brexit party statement said: “The Brexit party is saddened by the unacceptable statements made by Mr McGough. Taken together they mean that he cannot hold a position in the Brexit party.”

Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said the party “did the right thing” in parting company with McGough and Blaiklock. “The new party will need to institute rigorous anti-racist procedures and policies to ensure this doesn’t keep happening,” she said.

Ian Murray, a Labour MP who backs the People’s Vote campaign, said Farage’s new party seemed to be “vectors for nasty, vicious and ugly politics”.

He said: “The worst argument against a People’s Vote or the European elections has always been that they would encourage the far right. We should be fighting, not hiding from, the far right and their friends like Farage at every single opportunity.”