Hope not Hate
Hope not Hate is an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom which campaigns against racism and neo-fascism. It has also mounted campaigns against Islamic extremism and antisemitism. It is self-described as a "non-partisan, non-sectarian organisation."
The group was founded in 2004 by Nick Lowles, a former editor of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. It is backed by various politicians and celebrities, and it has also been backed by several trade unions.
History and personnel
Hope not Hate was founded in 2004 by Nick Lowles, former editor of the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine. Having experienced street racism as a child, Lowles became involved with the anti-fascist movement as a student volunteer at Sheffield University. Lowles had previously worked as a freelance investigative journalist, working for television programmes including BBC Panorama, World in Action, Channel Four Dispatches and MacIntyre Undercover. Between 1999 and 2011 Lowles was co-editor, and then editor, of Searchlight magazine. He was appointed MBE in 2016 for his services in tackling extremism.The Deputy Director is Jemma Levene, who previously worked as Head of Campaigns at Jewish cultural education charity SEED, and at the Orthodox Union in New York.
Hope not Hate functioned as part of Searchlight until 2011, when the organisations split. As a standalone organisation, Hope not Hate took with it two of the three units of Searchlight: Searchlight Educational Trust, a charity; and Searchlight Information Services, its research and investigative function. The organisation now consists of Hope not Hate Educational Ltd and Hope not Hate Ltd. From 2010 to 2015, Ruth Smeeth worked as Deputy Director; since then, she has been a director.
Funding
HNH is funded by charitable trusts, trade union funding, and individual donations.During late 2012 and early 2013, the Searchlight Educational Trust, which later renamed itself to Hope not Hate Educational received three separate payments totaling £66,000 thanks to a funding agreement signed by the Department for Communities and Local Government. Conditions in the funding agreement prohibited the funds to be spent on anything other than "educational work", which also included a prohibition on political campaigning. The focus of the allocated funds was to establish community partnerships in four key areas which were prone to EDL activity, including sharing positive local stories and strengthening community bonds.
Activities
Far right and Islamophobia
The organisation encourages voters to support alternatives to far-right extremist movements; it also publishes allegations of violent activities by anti-Muslim organisations such as the English Defence League. It presented a 90,000-person petition to the European Parliament protesting against the election of Nick Griffin as an MEP.Following the murder of Jo Cox, Hope not Hate launched a nationwide #MoreInCommon campaign, with the blessing of the MP's family, hosting meetings across the UK which focused on healing divisions which were caused by the EU Referendum, culminating in 85+ events on the weekend of 3/4 September 2016. In December 2016 The Guardian newspaper joined a Hope not Hate training workshop, revealing the work which was undertaken by its community workers on the doorsteps in south Wales.
The organisation has increasingly focused on community-based campaigning, with a particular focus on building what it calls "community resilience" and focusing more on women voters. It has launched initiatives in support of British foods, Hate Crime Awareness Week, and reported extensively on the activities of the anti-Muslim counterjihad movement of Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, and bloggers such as "Fjordman". It linked hundreds of EDL and National Front supporters in this network with support for the Norwegian killer Anders Behring Breivik.
In 2012, the group published original research which looked at the attitudes of voters towards far-right political parties in the UK, which concluded that nearly half of those who were polled by a Populus Ltd survey supported the creation of an English nationalist, anti-Muslim political party. Nick Lowles claimed in 2012 that politicians, including the Labour Party, need to address the way they talk about immigration and move away from encouraging "hate speech". Liz Fekete, of the Institute of Race Relations, has said that Lowles has not taken a hard enough line in rejecting narratives that portray Muslim men as disproportionately responsible for child sexual grooming.
The organisation updated its research in February 2016, noting that: "Respondents to the new survey were much more positive about personal and national progress, more economically secure, and less anxious about identity change." A , one week after the Brexit vote, revealed that nearly two-thirds of those polled believed Britain was "more divided as a result of the Referendum vote and more people think there are more tensions between communities than when asked the same question in February".
Following a 26,000 signature petition which Hope not Hate handed to the UK Home Secretary, on 26 June 2013, the US-based anti-Muslim bloggers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller were banned from entering the UK. Geller and Spencer had been due to speak at an English Defence League march in Woolwich, south London, where Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered. Home Secretary Theresa May informed Spencer and Geller that their presence in the UK would "not be conducive to the public good". The decision, which they cannot appeal, may be reviewed in between three and five years. Similarly, Hope Not Hate condemned an EDL solidarity demonstration outside the Israeli embassy to which they had invited an American rabbi, with Lowles writing "While many in the Jewish community have understandable concerns about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, it is important to remember that the EDL are not our friends".
In 2013, Hope not Hate was one of the founding organisations of an anti-child sexual exploitation initiative called CAASE, featuring many Muslim and Christian organisations, victim support groups, survivors organisations, and local community networks. The network was founded in response to multiple "grooming" cases which were reported by the British press.
In October 2021, the organisation revealed that a Conservative Party borough councillor and activist Tim Wills in Worthing was also a supporter of the far-right and racist organisation Patriotic Alternative. The party announced that "Cllr Tim Wills has been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation".
In 2023 Hope not Hate uncovered allegedly inflammatory historic social media posts made by the Conservative London mayoral candidate, Susan Hall.
''Undercover: Exposing the Far Right''
In October 2024, the documentary "Undercover: Exposing the Far Right" was aired on Channel 4. The documentary features undercover footage obtained from Hope not Hate journalist Harry Shukman and researcher Patrik Hermansson of well-funded far-right activists from the Human Diversity Foundation. The foundation uses research papers, podcasts and websites to promote "race science". Undercover footage unmasked far-right activist and former private school teacher Matthew Frost, a leader of HDF and his connections to Andrew Conru who had funded the foundation with more than $1million.Islamic extremism
In November 2013, the organisation unveiled research into the al-Muhajiroun Islamic extremist network. In a 60-page report, Gateway to Terror, it wrote that with its partner networks al-Muhajiroun had sent up to 300 fighters to Syria. It linked a further seventy individuals to terrorism offences or suicide bombings, and gave details of links to the Westgate shopping mall attack in Kenya, connections to al-Shabaab and a plot by French security services to kill Abu Hamza in the late 1990s.On 16 October 2014, the organisation launched a new blog, Generation Jihad, which it said would "be a forum to monitor, expose and understand militant jihadism and extreme Islamism".
Once Anjem Choudary was found guilty of inviting support for the Islamic State in August 2016, Hope not Hate updated its research and revealed that Choudary and his extremist groups had motivated at least a hundred people from Britain to pursue terrorism.
More recently, it has also focused on Islamist extremists and issues of communal division, such as grooming.
Brexit
In 2013, the organisation initiated a nationwide consultation among its supporters about the UK Independence Party. The move attracted considerable criticism from some on the right. It went on to campaign vociferously against UKIP during the run-up to the 2014 European elections.On 20 March 2019, Catherine Blaiklock, founder of the Brexit Party, resigned from the party after The Guardian enquired about deleted anti-Muslim messages from her Twitter account from before she took on the role. Blaiklock's deleted tweets were recovered by Hope not Hate and passed to The Guardian.
In November 2019, Hope not Hate said "An election has just been called for the 12th December 2019 and our priority is clear – we're going to be taking on Nigel Farage and his Brexit party, to make sure they don't win any seats." The organisation funded research, along with Best for Britain, used to encourage pro-Remain tactical voting.