Tory candidate suspended over vote-winning allegations

[GinandTonic]

Tory candidate suspended over vote-winning allegations

A Conservative candidate at the general election has been suspended over allegations he schemed with the English Defence League (EDL) to win votes.

The Mail on Sunday reported Afzal Amin plotted to persuade the EDL to announce a march against a new "mega-mosque" in Dudley North and then to scrap it so to take credit for defusing the situation.

The EDL told the BBC Mr Amin wanted them "to set up a fake demonstration".

Mr Amin told the newspaper the allegations were "completely untrue".

Mr Amin, who is currently in Dubai, told the Independent on Sunday that the MoS had provided "small snippets" of more than 57 hours of meetings he had held with members of the Muslim community, the EDL and its former leader Tommy Robinson.

He added he had been trying to "promote better community cohesion" to "serve as a model for further dispute resolution in other towns and cities".

Analysis
BBC political correspondent Chris Mason

Allegations like this would be a big deal for any party, anywhere.

But Dudley North isn't just anywhere for the Conservative Party. It is a seat currently held by Labour's Ian Austin with a tiny majority - just 649.

If Conservatives are to win the general election outright, for the first time in 23 years, places like Dudley North have to turn blue.

And yet the Tories could find themselves having to find a new candidate in this crucial seat, just six weeks before polling day.

The Mail on Sunday has him taped trying to get the EDF to set up a fake demo so he can ride in and reach compromise. Tape in the linky.

Highlights include -

The curry house meeting... Afzal Amin to Steve Eddowes: 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.

He also discusses paying two EDL members to canvas for him but that, since this is illegal, Tommy Robinson will have to pay them

AA: We obviously can’t hire people in that because it would be against election rules, and we don’t want to break any rules.

TR: That’s OK. So I’ll pay them and we’ll sort something out between me and you.

AA: Yeah, of course, of course.

TR: No problem.

And seems to be a total thug

AA: Yeah he [a reference to a man involved in the 2011 riots] punched a guy in the face. Who hasn’t done that? The difference between you and me is one thing: I haven’t been caught.

LAUGHS

…Even in Windsor, I was Education Officer for Prince Harry and Prince William, I headbutted a guy, his face exploded. But when the police turned up they see me in a suit – cashmere suit with a briefcase and they see this guy hoodie up, cap on.

Male [a friend of Amin]: What was he doing?

AA: Wheeling all over the place... They can’t work out why would the guy in the suit crack that guy?

Just so busted it's incredible This was supposed to be the Tories new poster-boy. Ethnic self made man, got himself into Sandhurst.

 

[Borachio]

Yeah. It's a bad case. Not as bad as the French politician (was it Mitterand?) who hired someone (was it Pesquet?) to pretend to shoot him, though.

But anyway, about Tommy Robinson:

In April 2012, Tommy Robinson took part in a BBC programme The Big Questions debating about far-right extremism. Mohammed ('Mo') Ansar was on the same programme, and invited Robinson to join him and his family for dinner.[40] The result was their meeting several times over the next eighteen months to discuss issues to do with Islam, Islamism and the Muslim community, accompanied by a BBC team which created the documentary When Tommy met Mo.[41] The turning point came when Robinson and Ansar visited Quilliam and Robinson witnessed a debate between Quilliam's director, Maajid Nawaz, and Ansar about human rights. Robinson said afterwards to the BBC: "I didn’t think a Muslim would confront Mo Ansar because I thought Mo Ansar was being built as the acceptable face of Islam; and that’s everything that I think is wrong. So when I saw this [debate between Nawaz and Ansar], and I read more about Quilliam and I looked at what Quilliam has done – they've actually brought change, which is what I want to do. I want to bring change. I want to tackle Islamist extremism, I want to tackle neo-Nazi extremism – they're opposite sides of the same coin."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Robinson_(activist)#Leaving_the_English_Defence_League

 

[PaganJulian]

Yeah. It's a bad case. Not as bad as the French politician (was it Mitterand?) who hired someone (was it Pesquet?) to pretend to shoot him, though.

But anyway, about Tommy Robinson:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Robinson_(activist)#Leaving_the_English_Defence_League

Robinson's 'retirement' from the EDL has always been half-hearted at best. Apparently, it was Robinson himself that secretly recorded the meeting and passed it on to the Mail.

 

[Borachio]

Oh? That's a shame. I was inclined to think well of him with his Quilliam involvement.

 

[GinandTonic]

God knows I'm no fan of Tommy Robinson but it's seems a little hard on him to criticise him for shopping the bent Tory golden-boy to the papers. I suppose we could wonder if he would have done the same if candidate had been white, but still.

I assume TR sold the story for a packet (iirc didn't he have some financial issues recently), but even there he chose to sell the story to the Mail. I'm sure the Sun and the Mirror would have paid more but the Mail is where it will really hit the tories hardest. Does this represent him trying to hurt the tories for UKIP's gain?

It's been a hell of a time for petty scandals recently. Farage down two candidates in a single day, the tories hit by this and a cash-for-access deal. Few bits for the Libs too. Even Labour in the mix with the wirdly un-newsworthy fuss of Straw offering to work for people after his resignation comes into effect at the election. Not really sure why that was even a story.