The fog deepens
Tendance Coatesy shares a couple of reports:
Jenny Sterne at the Mancunion:
Allegations have come to light that Nick Lowles, director of HOPE Not Hate, has, according to a post on his Facebook page, been “no-platformed” by the NUS Black Students’ Campaign due to their belief that he holds “Islamophobic” views.
Hope not Hate, founded in 2004 after the BNP started to win substantial votes and local councillors, seeks to “challenge and defeat the politics of hate and extremism within local communities”, and Lowles was due to speak on an anti-racism platform. In Lowles’ Twitter bio he describes himself as “anti-fascist with HOPE not hate” and a “staunch supporter of the Kurdish fight against ISIS”.
In his Facebook status declared the decision “ultra-left lunacy”, mentioning the work HOPE Not Hate has done “challenging anti-Muslim hatred”.
The NUS‘ black students’ campaign is attempting to no platform an anti-racism campaigner who founded Hope Not Hate because he is apparently “Islamophobic”.
Nick Lowles, director of the organisation, posted a message on Facebook saying he had been targeted by the National Union of Students because he has “repeatedly spoken out against grooming and dared condemn Islamist extremism”.
The NUS has a colourful history of attempting to no-platform speakers.
Most recently, gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was branded “transphobic” by an NUS officer, who refused to speak at an event with Tatchell.
However when it emerged Jihadi John sympathisers were speaking on university campuses, the NUS refused to address the issue. The union also voted against condemning Isis as it would be “Islamophobic” to do so.
Coatesy sums up:
The Tendance has been to an event organised by Hope not Hate in Ipswich.
A broad range of left-wing activists, from the Labour Party, trade unionists, to the extra-Parliamentary left, Muslims, and even one Tory, were present.
Our principal concern at that point was campaigning against the xenophobes of UKIP.
Hope Not Hate’s work against UKIP and all forms of far-right bigotry, from Islamists to the BNP, is greatly respected.
It is perhaps unnecessary to observe that the far-right (Stormfront) often mentions that Nick Lowles is from a Jewish background*.
All we can say, if this account is true, is that the NUS are now even more beneath contempt.
That sounds fair to me.
Perhaps infiltration is effective against jeopardy?
“I’ll take 5th column for 200 dollars”
Is anyone acceptable to NUS?
Branding Lowles as ‘islamophobic’ is as ridiculous as branding UKIP ‘xenophobic’.
Lowles has spent years denigrating and marginalizing people whose views differ from his own. His tone has always been somewhat authoritarian, and the labels he’s stuck on people were sometimes quite facile and arbitrary.
Lowles helped perfect those quick, drive-by slanders, and he now finds himself the object of that same shrill and dishonest tactics.
It is simply ridiculous to label someone with an unorthodox opinion on immigration as a xenophobe. Immigration policies, just like economic policies or foreign affairs policies, are to be debated and discussed openly without recourse to insults and innuendo. Those quick-draw slanders silence people, compromise the truth and enable the exploitation of individuals such as we saw in Rotherham.
I sympathize with Lowles predicament and find it ridiculous he’s being de-platformed for ‘islamophobia’, but at the same time can’t help but think his reaping a bit of what he’s sown.
Perhaps this is an ignoble thing to feel, but my schadenfreude is so very, very freude. This is precisely the accuse first and never ask questions attitude to labeling people “Islamophobes” that HNH exhibited when they put out their insipid report last year naming, among others, Rachel Saraswati. I’m not down with no-platforming anybody, but if it had to happen to someone, then I’m glad it happened to Lowles.