Breitbart Backs Suspected Fraudster

At the end of last month, the Zelo Street Twitter feed relayed the rumour that Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his fellow saloon bar propper-uppers at UKIP were to appoint appalling self-promotion specialist Raheem “call me Ray” Kassam as Farage’s chief of staff. This news had come from two different sources – and has even reached across the North Atlantic to New York City.

Pretentious? Who, moi?

Having been made aware of that rumour, former Tory MP Louise Mensch has proceeded to give Kassam, with whom she has now definitely fallen out, a seriously hard time. “Ray” has stonewalled and deflected, but what is not in doubt is that he and James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole have used Breitbart London to favour the Kippers – and kick anyone dissenting from their viewpoint.

So, while Kassam has been attempting to fend off Ms Mensch by whining “you used Parliamentary privilege to lick [Murdoch’s] bum ... Real MPs don’t shit their pants and move across the Atlantic ... She’s become a fully fledged stalker” (this last denoting desperation at being unable to shake off a persistent critic), he has also been showing questionable judgment in his choice of UKIP members.

After the BBC aired a Panorama programme on the party, Kassam authored a hatchet job which homed in on one faithful Kipper: “One of the people interviewed by the BBC was UKIP member Matthew Smith. But the BBC never aired his comments ... ‘In May this year Panorama came to Great Yarmouth to film me with regards to UKIP. I spent approximately 6 hours with them, talking about how we are grassroots organisation, how we have set everything up here and generally how and why our branch is successful and why I believe we will do well’”.

He went on “I was told by them back in July that I would feature in this programme, but seem to have been missed out ... I found it very strange that I did not feature and can only conclude it is because I did not say anything stupid, controversial or anything that would reinforce an anti-UKIP stereotype!” Oh really?

What “Ray” did not tell is that Matthew Smith, who was going to fight Great Yarmouth for UKIP at the General Election but now isn’t, “is accused of seven counts of supplying a nomination paper to a returning officer knowing it to contain a forged signature. He also faces three counts of producing forged nomination papers”.

Oddly, this rather good reason for Smith’s omission is left out of Kassam’s report. It would, after all, reflect badly on UKIP were he to have made a full disclosure and informed readers about it. Why would he fail so to do – other than to burnish the reputation of the Farage fringe in expectation of future reward from its leader?

Behold Raheem Kassam, prepared to do anything for the promotion of Himself Personally Now. Including misleading Breitbart’s readers. What a sleazebag.