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The Tory & the EDL: Afzal Amin and the politics of cynicism

Afzal AminAs Tory scandals go, it’s a bit of a corker. Forget Grant Shapps and his name-changing hijinks, the furore that has erupted over Afzal Amin’s attempted dealings with the EDL is the real deal.If you don’t know what I’m talking aboutand asking “Afzal who?”, then where have you been? Here is an incriminating extract from one recording made between Amin, the Tory PPC for Dudley North (where they’re trailing Labour and UKIP in the polls), and representatives of the EDL:

This is my fantasy. My idea is this – I’ve discussed it with Tommy and lots of other people – if I could demonstrate to the people in Dudley that I can be a positive voice for community cohesion, for campaigning against the evils and the terrorism and the child grooming and all the rest of it, then that would help me a lot in the forthcoming Election.

One way of doing that is, if you were to announce a second march about the mosque, and then we have two meetings with the chief of police, members of the Muslim community, we all play our roles. You say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to do a march, we’re campaigning and so on.’

We have a second meeting where things are a bit calmer. Then at the third one, we have a press conference where you say ‘We were going to do a march… the chief police asked Afzal Amin, members of the Muslim community, we’ve sat together and… we’re going to work closely together.’

That will … bring the English Defence League out of the shadows into the mainstream political debate.

… And if I win my election in Parliament, you’ve got a very strong, unshakeable ally who is going to work hard to get you involved in all the institutions of the State and get you the exposure you need and the people in Parliament need to us… Like I said from the very beginning, 95 per cent of what you want to campaign against, we’re with you.

Crikey. To have a Muslim court and anti-Muslim organisation to engineer a faux protest against Muslims is real deal cynicism. The Tories have rightly suspended Amin, pending an investigation and as such he is entitled to presumptions of innocence, etc. Yet when our Afzal is not so much handed a spade by the EDL, but gleefully starts digging his political grave with it. But I’ve got to hand it to Amin. Taking his cue from his masters, he’s trying to brazen it out by denying the allegations. “They’re part of an ongoing dialogue” seems to be the message. Be that as it may, then why offer “get you involved in the institutions of the state”? Sounds something straight out of Golden Dawn’s attempts to colonise the Greek state apparatus.

This spotlight on Amin has drawn attention to his role as a jobbing lecturer on the taxpayer’s tab at £2,400 per talk. Clearly I’m in the wrong game. How many other friends of the political establishment pocket huge monies?

What else can be said about this sorry affair? As many people have pointed out, because the Tories are trailing third in Dudley North by some margin it’s quite clear Amin was looking for a short cut that could get him back into the race. I pity the fool for mistaking an election campaign for a cross country run. As he offered cash to “a couple of white working class lads” who would go canvassing for him, perhaps Amin and other Tories might wish to reflect why their party has a hard time attracting working class people of any sort, especially when a stubborn section of it has traditionally turned out and lent them their votes at election time.

When a movement decays, it becomes capable of idiotic and counter-productive things. Such is the lot of British Conservatism. As it slips away, it cannot but help inflict wounds upon itself. And that will forever remain the case until it does what needs to be done to reinvent itself as a moderate centre right party. There may well be one, two, many Afzal Amins rrady to trip up and hasten Tory decline. Of course, there is no evidence of collusion between the EDL and party higher ups, but it can only serve to toxify them further. Forgetvote Conservative, get UKIP, it’s now vote Tory, get EDL.

18 Comments

  1. Robert says:

    I would not be voting Tory if the white light from Heaven and God said I’m a Tory vote for me, so this idiot telling the EDL to do this and I would be your mates I suspect has made the EDL’s day.

    What about the mess which is Halifax and the selection of MP’s, the stopping of 130 people standing and the same number form voting.

    The allegation that some Asians have been working in the back ground to get their own people voted in, by getting members to join naught people but that is why we have the rules of six months before you can vote extended in Halifax to a year, to ensure that labour gets it’s second choice elected.

    The election and the battles and the pretend wars and idiots like this moron thinking the EDL would fall for this.

    God how we need to clean up Politics.

  2. Barry Ewart says:

    It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
    “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we set out to deceive”
    Oh Robert, something that may interest you.
    I read a very interesting review in the latest New Statesman of a book by Beckett et al entitled, ‘Blair Inc: The Man in the Mask.’ (coming to a library near you).
    The authors claim Blair has probably earned over £60m since leaving Parliament.
    He has also been advising some very dodgy Govts such as Azerbajan (who once declared an election result before the election).
    They also claim Azebajan helps fund the SDP (Progress) in Labour!
    They further claim Blair has been advising the dictatorial Leader in Kazakstan.
    Plus Blair has been deliberately undermining Miliband’s election campaign.
    What with this Right Wing Tory and Blair – 2 right wing sticks of dynamite in one day!

    1. Barrie Morgan says:

      Tony Blair=Middle East Peace Envoy=Peace in the Middle East? Discuss!

    2. Robert says:

      Worth a read but of course we all know who Blair backs and works for it’s no secret.

      But whether Blair is still the power within the Progress group, Miliband has just made a speech in which he stated five times in a short speech his new ideas on tax avoidance how he will stamp down on it, pity he did not stamp down more on the avoidance.

      But he said again labour is the party of the working people, not working class, and then you find out whom is writing his speeches it’s Campbell the Blair-rite now left winger or so he says.

      progress party.

  3. John.P reid says:

    We all say stuff, and plan stunts that we think we want the electorate to hear, from the pound in your pocket isn’t woeth less after devaluation,to British jobs for British workers, even Labours lord Glasman said labour should listen to those who have values of the EDL, in Rotherham for example,

  4. The call to clean up politics has been on going since the Hamilton cash for questions in 1996 (the famed pair are now UKIP). But no one ever takes it on board. Why not a dedicated web site for scandals?

    The comments here do not help. If Robert (the site should insist people give their full names) has evidence on malpractice in Halifax, then give it. Allegations are no good without evidence. Why on earth are Halifax selecting their candidate less than two months before an election anyway? What#s the back ground story?

    Blair is of course aiming to become leader again, and on present form is a shoo in if Milband loses. This was clear two years ago but when I told a friend this she screamed. Audibly. Very helpful. Objectivity please. THe 106 payments to marginal candidates are down payments, and if the claim that he is backing Assem Allem (Hull city owner) to weaken the union link – evidence please.

    Blog sites don’t change anything. Dedicated effort is needed to do this, and since the media refuse to pay any attention, it has to be the compilation of evidence for those journalists who are willing to break with the consensus. Action not words please.

    Willing to help if a serious effort is to be made.

    Trevor Fisher.

    1. Barrie Morgan says:

      Surely, if Tony Blair is intending to come back as leader, it will be as the leader of the Tory Party! Incidently, I read an online article a few weeks ago, about Tony Benn. The article said that Tony Benn was convinced that Tony Blair had been recruited by the CIA, during his time as a Fulbright scholar in the US, and given the job of destroying The Labour Party! Conspiracy theory at its best.

      1. John.P reid says:

        Well if he was given a job of destroying the Labour Party he didn’t do a very good job, he helped Kinnock kick out militant,among other things increasing labours vote from 8.3m in 1983 and he personally increased labours percentage of the vote from the 34.4% Kinnock got in 1992 to the 35.3% Blair got in 2005

    2. Robert says:

      Yawn staying in labour to do what, no thanks.

  5. Barry Ewart says:

    I wonder if this is what some bourgeois politicians may do?
    Democratic Socialists should be honest and argue for what they believe in; you will never win working people to ideas by being dishonest.
    The means shouldn’t justify the ends.
    I have always hated the shabby wheeling and dealing in politics and I think the public do too.
    Perhaps people are crying out for honesty and decency in politics?

    1. Robert says:

      Labour Tory Tory labour all the same.

  6. gerry says:

    This is hilarious, showing once again for all to see – there are TWO far-rights in the UK! One is the EDL and the other is the Islamic ….and the truth is that the Islamic far-right is even more extremist than the EDL/BNP one. So yes they have lots in common as this idiotic Tory Islamist candidate found out as he was stitched up by Tommy Robinson

    You couldn’t really make this up…but we all know that pre 9/11 there was serious cosying up between Bush neocons and USA Islamic social conservatives. A plague on all their houses

    1. John.P reid says:

      If some Islamists re sexist ,homophobic, anti Jewish, anti the west, it doesn’t mke them far right, anymore than fear of Islamic extremism, hijacked by a bunch of drunks, to be islamaphobic, to all Muslims, is far right.

      Surely the few non idiots in the EDL who support gay rights,women, And jews in the face of Islamic prejudice,aren’t far right either

      1. gerry says:

        John – Islamism is a far-right ideology: it rejects women’s equality, human rights, freedom of speech and expression, minority rights.It puts religious law – sharia – above all other laws, and is explicitly totalitarian and sectarian. Islamists even reject freedom of religion – they want anyone who leaves Islam to be punished by law (in some Muslim majority countries this means death)….check out the great Trinidadian Nobel Laureate V S Naipaul’s recent article about ISIS style Islam as the new fourth reich, John…it hits the nail on the head about this religious fascism.

        Indeed, compared to most Islamists, the EDL and the BNP are relatively moderate in the far-right spectrum!

  7. The theory that the Blair’s had US links was used brilliantly in the book The Ghost, made into an excellent film with Ewan McGregor as a journalist trying to find the truth. However the Blair character does not end up as the central villain….. Read the book or still better watch the film.

    Blair’s career path is Labour. As a couple of GMB officials pointed out to me after Brown lost the General Election in 2010, only one Labour leader has ever won three General Elections. And they were very happy to see him back.

    Blair is not spending money and raising money for the New Labour project. He is raising it for his own project.

    trevor fisher.

    1. Robert says:

      Good your new labour I knew it, another right winger comrade

      1. John.P reid says:

        Wilson win 4 ( all be it he got less votes than Heath in one)

        1. gerry says:

          John – Wilson only got a proper majority in 1966, and ran minority governments in 1964 and twice in 1974. Blair won proper majorities in all three elections he won – so he is easily the most successful electoral asset Labour ever had, though he was not my ideological cup of tea!

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