The Green Party is having to face up to the fact that it attracts lunatics. I have many friends who are Green Party members and they are all quite sane (if sometimes a little eccentric), but at least in some parts of the country, the party is providing a political home for people of questionable sanity and even more questionable politics.
What’s worse is that, in some of these cases, these people are securing the party’s nomination to stand for office or speaking to the press in the party’s name.
The issue came to my attention when I got a tip-off from a reader who had seen my piece last week on one Tony Gosling, a “journalist” with some, er, unique ideas, and who occupies a world of spooks and tinfoil hats. Only recently he got into a muddle investigating claims ” that Mossad helped to carry out the July 7th bombings and that no Muslims are to blame”.
No surprises there since the man keeps “an open mind” on the authenticity of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. “Many Jewish people believe the Protocols of Zion to be anti-Jewish hate material.” he tells us. “In fact their authenticity has never been entirely proven nor disproven and if true, they don’t incriminate the Jewish race as a whole. The protocols, if true, are anti Zionist. Zionists are right-wing Jews, some of whom are responsible for the current wave of racism, murder and apartheid in occupied Palestine.”
Now, this would all me mildly interesting at best were it not for the fact that – despite all this – Mr Gosling was selected to stand for the Green Party in Bristol in 2005. And, he appears to be a current electoral candidate for the party. And this is what my correspondent remembered about Gosling:
Green Party Council candidate, Tony Gosling, told The Muslim News he was “personally disgusted” by the books. “No way should kids be indoctrinated in this way. Anyone who says so is branded as homophobic which they are not; it’s the gay mafia in full swing,” he said. (Muslim News, 25 April 2008)
It seems the homophobic Mr Gosling had gotten into bed with an equally homophobic outfit called Bristol Muslim Cultural Society. Unsurprisingly, because one of it’s staff, Farooq Siddique, shares Gosling’s ‘Troofer’ outlook.
And it is of course through the ‘Troofer’ syndrome that the Greens host the nexus between respectable politics and Conspiracy/ZOG stupidity.
Perhaps you’re thinking that every party has its lone nutter. Were that only the case here. But consider Martin Deane, the Green Party’s candidate in Hull in both the recent local elections and the 2005 General Election.
Deane was been very open about his Troofer views. The Hull Green Party website is full of “9/11 issues” in addition to the expected stuff on climate change and that sort of thing, and Deane is the author of an article Was 9/11 the greatest show on earth?, published in the local Hull press. Here’s a taste:
The War on Terror is based on the premise that the 2001 9/11 attacks on New York and Washingotn, which killed nearly 3,000 people were carried out by 19 Islamic fundamentalist men. The official story has been played in such detail throughout our media that we will all know it. But the facts could be – and probably are – radically different.
Having clocked up a few hundred hours now looking at evidence on the internet, while getting bored doing a master’s dissertation, I believe at the very least there is culpable US government complicity in the events of 9/11.
And despite this, he still manages to secure a Green Party nomination as a parliamentary candidate. But wait. Deane is a moderate. Consider his former colleague, Justin Walker:
Justin Walker was a Green Party activist for 15 years. He is also a conspiracy nut. But this isn’t what led him to leave the party. Indeed, the agenda of the Green Party’s 2005 Autumn conference in Lancaster shows that Walker’s presentation on the “9/11 Truth campaign” was part of the official programme. No, what led to a parting of the ways was that the Green Party leadership did not take his asssertions about lizards seriously enough. Here’s a sample:
And before you simply dismiss David Icke (a man who the Green Party’s ‘establishment’ likes to demonise), please consider for a moment that to do so you have to first dismiss the latest scientific evidence concerning cutting edge Quantum Physics along with the collective knowledge and wisdom of the indigenous peoples around the world who have oral traditions going back thousands of years. I also happen to know, having met Cynthia McKinney myself, that she is open minded enough to want to meet with David at some point in the future to discuss his research. Closed minds, my friends, do not get to the truth!
Indeed. But it also appears that you can open you mind so far that your brains fall out.
Cycling and Recycling – it’s all good. That’s why many people, myself included, while shaking my head at some Green ideas, generally regard them as a force for good. Many Green politicians are also very principled supporters of issues I value, like Human Rights and Secularism. So it is a pity that the party’s name and credibility is in danger of being besmirched by the quacks and nutters it seems to be attracting.
I am reassured by senior Green Party members that Gosling’s homophobic and antisemitic statements (particularly those seemingly in the name of the party) will the thoroughly investigated. The Party unequivocally distances itself from his statements. I’m pleased to hear it.
But it worries me that his statements were made back in April and no one noticed or did anything about it. It worries me that his website – with links to neo-nazi and antisemitic conspiracy theories – has been up for years. Did no one vet this man before selecting him to stand for the party?
And what of the other two? Well, a newsletter by the so-called 9/11 Truth Campaign in 2006 notes:
Martin Deane, UK Green Party Candidate for Hull at the last general election, has been actively campaigning in his area and trying, as has Justin Walker, to get a UK resolution to support the US Green Party’s call for a new investigation into 9/11. Several more senior green party members are now aware of the issues. The last vote on a resolution failed to pass by 2 votes.
What? By only two votes? So there is a slim majority of sanity in the party. But a very slim one.
I’m actually quite shocked.
