Target reached

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Friday, 11 December 2009, 11:40

An incredible 15,000 people have now co-signed our letter objecting to Nick Griffin's presence at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference. That means that almost 4,000 people have added their names since yesterday afternoon.

Obviously we want more people to sign up but in the meantime a big thank you to everyone who has done so.

The omens don't look good

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Friday, 11 December 2009, 08:41

BNP deputy leader Simon Darby was obviously in a confident mood yesterday when he blooged about the various by-elections taking place around the country.

"There's a couple of interesting by-elections taking place today," he wrote. "Now things are finally starting to settle down a bit we can look forward to more reliable voting patterns with a view to predicting what may happen at the general election."

I wonder whether he will now say that based on last night's showing we shouldn't expect too much from the BNP in the general election, claim that two defeats were actually victories ... or just ignore the results altogether?

And yet more good news....

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Thursday, 10 December 2009, 23:34

The BNP have had an awful night at the polls today. In addition to losing a seat in Nuneaton they also lost one on Loughton Town Council, in southwest Essex, and were humiliated in another in Cumbria, with Labour taking 85% of the vote in a two horse race against the BNP.

BNP lose another councillor

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Thursday, 10 December 2009, 23:25

Labour took a council seat off the BNP in Nuneaton today in a by-election in Camp Hill ward. In a hard-fought campaign Labour took the seat with 670 votes. The BNP came second with 478 votes and the Tories third with 275.

This is a complete reversal from the last time the seat was contested, when the BNP romped home with 675 votes, 6% ahead of Labour.

The HOPE not hate campaign distributed two leaflets during the campaign and I would like to thank everyone who got in involved and helped out, especially Alan who led the campaign and activists from Wolverhampton and Leicester who came over to help.

This was the BNP's 8th safest ward in the country. The result was proof that the fascists can be beaten anywhere.

An act of defiance

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Thursday, 10 December 2009, 22:38

A Swiss businessman man has defied last week's referendum result and built a minaret by adding one to the roof of his shoe factory. Last week the people of Switzerland voted by 57% to ban the building of minarets despite the country only having four.

"It was scandalous that the Swiss voted for the ban. Now we have the support of all the far-right parties across Europe. This is shameful," Guillaume Morand, who owns a chain of shoe stores, told AFP.

The businessman, who is not a Muslim, explained that he had constructed the mock minaret at his building near the western Switzerland city of Lausanne in protest, and at the same time, to "send a message of peace".

To read the full story go to:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jEtHJMaOboide2wITSxabVwvHTYg

Conspiracy theorists and deniers

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Thursday, 10 December 2009, 13:31

This morning I sent out an email pushing for further names for our Copenhagen letter. As of this morning over 11,000 people had signed our letter letting the climate change conference know that Nick Griffin, who denies climate change, does not speak for us.

Those who haven't signed our letter can do so here: http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/copenhagen

There is an interesting article on the New Statesman website on the subject which is well worth a read: http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2009/12/lynas-climate-conspiracy

BNP fall out

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Thursday, 10 December 2009, 12:00

There were quite ridiculous scenes at a council meeting in Barking & Dagenham last night when leading BNP members publicly fell out with each other. In front of about 40 BNP supporters packed into the public gallery, including BNP leader Nick Griffin, Bob Bailey, the leader of the BNP group on the council tried to stop GLA member Richard Barnbrook from raising the Africans for Essex issue in the chamber.

Barnbrook refused to be silenced and continued, much to Bailey's annoyance. Bailey was heard to tell Barnbrook to shut the **** up. Barnbrook replied that he would say what he liked, to which Bailey retored: "not as long as I'm leader."

Is there trouble ahead? Can Barking & Dagenham accommodate both egos?

Weather too bad to jump

posted by: Sonia Gable | on: Sunday, 6 December 2009, 15:12

Sadly the weather was too bad for Rupy to make her skydive for HOPE today. It was too windy and Rupy tells us that if she had jumped she could have been blown all the way to Blackpool.

But the skydive is back on for 20 March 2010. Let’s hope the weather is better then.