Yet another example of Reform employing someone with horrific views.
The mask just keeps slipping when it comes to Reform UK. Despite Nigel Farage’s repeated insistence that his party has ‘professionalised’ and carried out enhanced vetting of candidates and members, the party continues to make the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
It’s now been revealed by anti-extremist campaign group Hope not Hate that the party’s director of campaigns and training, Michael Hadwen, has shown support for Enoch Powell and the far right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos.
Hope not Hate reports: “Back in April 2018, Dan Hannan, who is now a Conservative peer and was then sitting for the party in the European parliament, argued on Twitter that, while Powell was “right” about economics and Europe, he was “wrong about immigration”.
“Hannan explained: “Britain became multiracial without the unrest that he and so many others predicted.”
“Hadwen was not impressed, responding to Hannan: “This tweet is sadly proof that many politicians who I have admired for years are not willing to fight against the systemic problems caused by unchecked multiculturalism. Enoch was right, he was just before the times.”
A reminder that Powell was eventually booted out of the Tory shadow cabinet after his racist and inflammatory ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech.
In the speech, Powell approvingly quoted a constituent saying, “In this country in 15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man”; commented, about immigration, that “it is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre”; and referred to black children as “wide-grinning piccaninnies”.
Hope not Hate has also unearthed social media posts which show that Hadwen also expressed support for the far-right Milo Yiannopoulos who is a leading supporter of the misogynistic harassment campaign known as Gamergate.
He wrote on Twitter in February 2016, that if he became a MP, he would like Yiannopoulos as his PR manager.
Hope not Hate adds: “During his time at Breitbart, Yiannopoulos said he doesn’t “entirely believe in lesbians”, claimed that “behind every racist joke is a scientific fact”, commented that a ban on female drivers is “the only thing Saudi Arabia gets right”, and was later revealed to have used antisemitic email passwords and solicited story ideas from white nationalists.”
Yet another example of Reform employing someone with horrific views.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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