Lee Jasper, Ken Livingstone’s former policy adviser, has published an outrageous post, which you should read in full, but which is extracted below:
Chief among these webs sites wasHarry’s Place a left wing libertarian site that I now accuse of being a safe haven for racists. I will be publishing more detail on the clear evidence I have to back up my claim. I found them to be deeply duplicitous and profoundly hostile to supporting my demand that they ban Terry from their site. They did so only after they became aware that Terry would now face criminal charges.
They eventually ‘ cleaned “ their site of all Terry’s racist comments. Luckily we have a complete record that demonstrates their full support for Terry whilst he was conducting his campaign.
Similarly we contacted Searchlight
and asked them to support us by publicly distancing and condemning Terry’s comments. They refused to do so even when it was pointed out that he was announcing himself as a member of the Searchlight team. They indulged his racism and supported his campaign along with Harry’s Place much to their discredit. Both only took action to when forced to do so and it became clear that Terry had been charged.
The fact that a so called prominent “ anti racist “ campaigning organisation and ‘ left leaning “ Harry’s Place gave this despicable man cover during his racist campaign against Simon and I speaks volumes.
There is a section on the left that despises black self-organisation and in their ideological zeal their articulation becomes both racist and profoundly hostile.
I will say more about this in the coming weeks suffice to say that I have always maintained their can be no collusion with racism without becoming deeply compromised and poisoned by it.
The racism on the blogosphere is rampant and out of control and Harry’s Place is not alone in allowing unmoderated racist comments in the name of “ free speech”. After securing the conviction of Terry Fitzpatrick I along with OBV we be taking a zero tolerance stance toward these matters and all such comments will be reported to the police for prosecution.
We don’t expect apologies form either Searchlight or Harry’s Place they are incapable of such good grace. We do expect that their collusion with a racist and their failure to condemn him should result their unequivocal condemnation by all genuine ant racist. They must be held accountable for their actions. They must face censure.
We have little to add to this post.
I would say this, though. Is there a more demeaning sight, than a victim of a racist crime, using that prosecution to further his own shameful sectarian agenda against Hope Not Hate, the only effective anti-BNP campaigning organisation in the United Kingdom?
The post is a single, horrific, libel. Even Andy Newman – a Searchlight supporter – knows it:
Lee Jasper provides no evidence for his rather outlandish claim that Searchlight “indulged [Fitz’s] racism and supported his campaign”
Can Lee Jasper expand on the nature of this alleged support? Claiming that a major and respected anti-racist organisation supported a criminal campaign of racially aggravated harrasment is a very strong claim indeed.
I suspect that Lee Jasper is innocently mistaken about Searchlight supporting Fitz’s campaign, based upon the sadly all too common break downs of trust and communication in politics, and he has jumped to a conclusion that the facts do not support.
That is a generous interpretation of what has happened, here.