Hope not Hate

[Keenovay]

Just read Zoe Williams' interview with Nick Lowles of Hope not Hate, the anti-fascist campaign group, and decided to check out their stance on gender ideology to see if they had any nuanced understanding. Sigh.

It can be summed up by this 2022 article, "Transphobia and The Far Right" which reduces concerns around self ID to fomented media led panics which are then exploited by the far right.

HNH are an anti-fascist organisation, so I get that everything they publish will be via that lens. And they are correct in asserting that far-right and Christian fundamentalists exploit trans issues for their own ends.

However a responsible researcher would at least pay lip service to the fact that there's views across the political spectrum on this topic. There's no acknowledgement here that grassroots and left-leaning GC feminists exist, or may have legitimate concerns around self ID and puberty blockers which can be distorted and exploited by bad actors. The impression left in the reader's mind is a simplistic association of gender critical views with fascism, with trans people as victims. In publishing research on this topic without nuance or qualification, I think HNH paints a target on gender critical feminists' backs.

I find them pretty shady as an organisation

https://mallarduk.com/2024/04/a-sensible-centrists-guide-to-hope-not-hate/

Zoe Williams is a genderist and an idiot, as well.

People like Hope Not Hate chuck around insults like "far right" and "fascist" because they haven't got a sensible explanation as to why rapists belong in women's prisons, or why 15-year old girls should be forced to have men watch them get undressed in their changing rooms. My contempt for these people is bottomless.

Absolutely this.

https://restorationist.org.uk/how-long-can-the-cps-ignore-hope-not-hates-criminality/

This appeared on my timeline. It’s a long read and I have to admit I have only read part.

"Hope not hate" is exactly the kind of wet, meaningless drivel left-wing people come out with all the time. The left deal in fantasy, not reality. They live in a fairyland where everything is very simple. There is the left, who are the goodies and who stand for 'tolerance' and 'equality' and all sorts of other vague things. Then there is the 'right' (which basically includes everyone who disagrees with them in any way). They see the world like a Disney film.

They throw around words like 'fascist' and intolerant' when it is the left who have IMPOSED mass immigration and multiculturalism on us. Nobody voted for it. And when people protest that they are losing their national identity, or that they're afraid to let their daughter walk home from school, they're told to shut the f-k up. Now that is fascism. That is intolerance. So many of these words and slogans are meaningless now. I have seen people who want rapists deported described as 'far-right'. And I have heard people with union jacks outside their house called 'Nazis'.

Hope for what? Hope we can have open borders?? Hope we can block the deportation of criminals and illegal immigrants?? Hope we can allow men into women's changing rooms?? Hope we can use mass immigration to destroy people's sense of identity and impose a new one on them?? Look at the case of Anicet Mayala, an illegal immigrant from the Congo. Left-wing activists fought against his deportation and won. He's now in prison for raping a 15-year-old girl. Was that a victory for hope over hate?

And btw, no one is more filled with hate than the left. The left is a magnet for bitter, destructive, hate-filled people. They hate the Brexit-voting, Daily Mail reading nimbys. It makes them happy to upset them. It makes them happy to open borders and then destroy the suburban villages where those nimbys live. They hate them and enjoy ruining their lives. When it comes to the Conservative-voting nimbys, the left support hate not hope.

Hope Not Hate is a typical front organisation. The SWP used to specialise in them, and you could tell because on demos there would also be loads of placards in exactly the same house style as SWP placards. I'm way out of touch with left these days but I bet the leopard doesn't change its spots. When I looked up HNH it was largely funded by trade unions. One thing it absolutely isn't is a grass-roots organisation. It obviously depends on already existing activist networks to get bodies to its counter-demonstrations. And it links in very well with the anti-terrorism strategy of 'spontaneous' demonstrations organised by 'community leaders' after public order events.

They're the one's the other side identify as the 'paid agitator's', the one's in the mask's that usually start the trouble and turn a peaceful rally into a violent one.

I don't have much time for them myself, they've been around for years, so they've done their fair share to influence where we are all at today.

What she said 👆🏻

'Hope not hate" is exactly the kind of wet, meaningless drivel left-wing people come out with all the time. The left deal in fantasy, not reality.'

I agree, and I would say I'm on the left myself! Sadly unsurprised that this organisation is deaf and blind to the concerns of actual genuine women who live in the real world

Hope Not Hate make up hoaxes. They made up a list of where 100 protests were going to take place in wake of Southport, and Lowles made up a story about an acid attack on a Muslim woman.

And yet the organisation moans about fake news.

Self described anti fascists are usually….fascist

I don’t know how Lowles got away with telling spreading that disinformation. At a time when tensions were already high he attempted to stir things up further. Really very irresponsible.

I'm not sure whether she would report it even if there had been a discussion about nuance.

There's been quite a few threads about this group.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4752357-posie-parker-featured-in-hope-not-hates-state-of-hate-2023

there are others but searching FWR never works.

Although not necessarily in that order.

And in doing so just feed lines to the people they claim to be fighting.

Apologies - should have remembered to search first - thanks for the link.

Interesting. So that's the guy behind Hope not Hate. I had a few twitter arguments with him back when I was still on there and before I realised how pointless it was trying to engage with him.
Don't know if he still does it but the account made a habit out of trolling feminists, especially anyone mentioning MRAs. I think he must have had some kind of alert set up. It wasn't even mildly intelligent arguments. He'd just pop up to call women fascists amd terfs and then just repeat himself when they replied. It was all incredibly stupid.

IMO the organisation can pretty much be summed up as that 'Everyone I disagree with is Hitler' meme.

Every word of this.

I had no idea HNH had such a long and interesting past. I just thought they were a bunch of dicks with a crap website.

No apology needed, but just thought it was interesting that the group had been mentioned before.

But of course couldn't find the threads.

Although may have been on other threads.

What is puzzling, or even troubling, is that I suspect 99.9% of the population have never heard of them.

But the lazy MSM love quick story based on a publication or statement, which they can promote as being verified by the group. And dont, of course, look at the who the source actually is.

Hope we can allow men into women's changing rooms??

To be fair, I think that is a home grown ‘hope’.

This article popped up on my facebook feed. Commenters were Very Unimpressed.