UKIP Hopeful Endorses Racists

We know that Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, takes grave offence at any suggestion that he is a racist. He is not alone: Douglas Murray, he of “conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”, has even hinted that he is willing to resort to legal action when accused of hate speech. Both of these individuals are now in one of those Extremely Difficult Positions.

Anne Marie Waters - addressed racist gathering ...

This is down to their past proximity to one Anne Marie Waters, with whom Murray has shared a platform at debates and on TV programmes, and with whom Lennon launched an organisation called Pegida UK. Lennon strongly endorsed Ms Waters in her bid for the UKIP leadership earlier this year. Now she has launched a new party, not that this is meant to be an echo of Oswald Mosley, you understand.

Her party is called For Britain, and claims “For Britain will be the only political party to truly represent the interests of the forgotten people of Britain … We will not be a part of politicians – we will represent the concerns of the people that politicians forget, and we won’t slander those who are brave enough to talk about the most defining issues of the 21st Century”. And what issues might those be?

... but no comment from him ...

Well, this is what she says elsewhere on the For Britain site: “Centuries of political and social revolution, the enlightenment, science and the advancement of civil rights have made Europe the cradle of Western civilization. Democracy, science, law - Europe has been at the forefront of these and we cannot turn back now to accommodate people from countries that have not experienced our progress. Islamic culture for example has not, and the people of Britain, and across Europe, are paying a heavy price for this”.

Yes, it’s all about attacking those Scary Muslims (tm). But yesterday, Anne Marie Waters went further. A lot further. She spoke at the conference of the Traditional Britain Group, a name that will be familiar to Zelo Street regulars.

TBG has featured such luminaries as recent speaker Adrian Davies, “previously an executive council member of the Conservative Monday Club [and] a former executive committee member of Tory Action”. The latter group was co-founded by Airey Neave and G K Young. Tory Action’s “aims” included a “repatriation programme”. The Monday Club was frequently addressed by Enoch Powell, solely because of the notoriety he had gained from his 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech. Can it get worse? It surely can.

... and no comment from him either

Another TBG favourite is Sam Swerling, self-confessed “Tory Nationalist” and former chairman of, yes, the Monday Club. Swerling had also, by his own admission, been a member of the BNP for five years. And then there is Gregory Lauder-Frost, former political secretary of the Monday Club, whose speeches to TBG include one on “Immigration and repatriation”. Lauder-Frost is vice president of TBG.

TBG are, let us not drive this one around the houses for too long, unreconstructed racists. And that is with whom Anne Marie Waters is now happy allying herself. Perhaps Murray and Lennon would like to distance themselves from her latest move.

Or perhaps they won’t. But they’re not racists. So don’t say they are.