Exposed: Star Tory candidate plotted with race thugs to stage fake EDL demo in cynical bid to win votes

This is interesting for two reasons; the initial story, and the way newspapers other than the Mail on Sunday (to which the story was revealed) report it.

So we start with the Mail on Sunday.

A key Tory Election candidate was suspended last night after plotting with far-Right extremists to stir up racial hatred in a cynical bid to win votes.

Afzal Amin hatched a scheme to persuade the English Defence League to announce an inflammatory march against a new £18million ‘mega-mosque’. But – as he revealed in secretly filmed footage obtained by The Mail on Sunday – the plan was that the demonstration would never actually go ahead. And when the phoney rally was called off, the fiercely ambitious Amin, a Muslim, intended to take credit for defusing the situation – winning over voters, and police, in the marginal seat of Dudley North.

In return for going along with the scheme, the former Army captain promised the EDL members he would be their ‘unshakeable ally’ who would help bring their extreme views into the mainstream if he was elected to Parliament.

Amin also wanted EDL members to be paid to canvass on his behalf in Dudley – against election law. But his devious plot was secretly filmed by former EDL leader Tommy Robinson, who blew the whistle on Amin’s scheme because he objected to being used as a pawn in his bizarre power game.

Not that even when publishing something which actually shows the EDL in a good light the mail has to, simply HAS to call them ‘far right’ at best, and in the headline‘thugs’. It’s written into their reporters NUJ contact. It’s almost taqiyya for journalists. The old ideas of reporting the truth, which can be leavened with opinion is long gone. The people of Dresden who founded Pegida know what they were talking about with their shout of luegenpresse (lying press).

Amin, who has been described on his Tory Party website as a former Army education officer to Princes William and Harry, outlined his plan at an Indian restaurant in Birmingham on Monday. There he made an apparent offer to Robinson and current EDL chairman Steve Eddowes to covertly pay EDL members to canvass on his behalf. But they were even more shocked by 40-year-old Amin proposing a phantom protest only weeks after a real demonstration in Dudley by 600 EDL supporters led to ugly flashpoints and 30 arrests

The ‘Currygate’ plot began in January with Amin’s first meeting with Eddowes and Robinson, who, despite leaving the EDL because of concerns about its violent reputation, remains close to many senior figures. At that meeting in a Toby Carvery, Amin genuinely tried to persuade the EDL leaders to call off their February protest, but in vain.

Eddowes, 48, recalled: ‘He had wanted us to cancel our protest against the super-mosque in Dudley that we had planned for February 7. . .  The EDL men admitted they were impressed by the Tory hopeful.

But at last Monday’s meeting, Eddowes said he was incredulous.

He said: ‘Tommy had told me that Afzal wanted to meet again and Tommy thought there was something underhand going on. He didn’t go into details.

‘At that meeting, I just listened with bemusement. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. What he was suggesting was to set up a demo and then cancel it after the idea had made the news. Amin added: ‘This is my fantasy. If I could demonstrate to the people in Dudley that I can be a positive voice for community cohesion, for development, 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 we 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”.’ 

Amin elaborated on his plot in a phone call on Wednesday and in a second meeting at a branch of Pizza Express in London on Thursday.

At that meeting, Amin explained how he wanted Robinson to pay EDL supporters to canvass on his behalf. ‘I’ll put it to you bluntly. I need two white working class lads to go round those area to say to people, “You support the Army, if you support the troops then vote for this guy”. That’s what I need.

This is a very important bit – it’s what all the other newspaper deliberately omit.

Eddowes said: ‘This was the same guy who had told us he wanted to be Prime Minister. It seemed entirely dishonest to me. The fake demonstration was fraudulently wasting the time of the authorities. Then he said he would pay our members to canvass for him at the Election. I don’t know if that’s legal but it didn’t seem right to me. It felt like he was trying to buy us off.

‘I was really disappointed in the man. I’d met him earlier this year and was really impressed. To me he ticked every box with his British Army background and seemed like a man of real integrity but when I left that meeting on Monday I felt like I wanted nothing more to do with him.’

Robinson echoed that opinion, saying: ‘I was stunned that this respectable man was talking about bribing members of the EDL and organising fake marches. I was equally alarmed when he said he had violently attacked someone. I haven’t been an angel, but this man could win his Election and I felt I had to do something.’

When The MoS confronted Amin in Dudley yesterday, he described the allegations as ‘completely untrue’, adding that a second march ‘was suggested and we rejected it, and we even informed the police about it.’ Asked whether he had met Robinson and Eddowes at the Birmingham restaurant, he replied: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. When it was put to Amin that he was trying to stir up racial hatred to win a seat, he replied: ‘That’s absolutely untrue, that’s utter rubbish.’ 

Yesterday, after The Mail on Sunday approached Amin, he said in an angry phone call to Robinson: ‘We’re trying to prevent racial discord.’

Robinson replied: ‘By setting up a fake demonstration? Not just that, Afzal, even the fact you wanted to pay EDL supporters to help your campaign to get you in as a Conservative it’s all dishonesty.

The best rated comment on the Mail says

How disappointed the Mail must be that he wasn’t a UKIP candidate

And

If he was the DM would have 10 articles posted about it all at the top of the page. They wouldn’t shut up about it….

The Dudley newspaper the Express and Star says

The Conservative candidate trying to become an MP for a battleground Black Country seat has tonight been suspended by his party, accused of trying to work with the far-right English Defence League.

Nothing about the EDL exposing his corruption. The Droitwich Spa Advertiser and/or the local Tory party are more concerned with Amin speaking to the EDL, rather than the corruption they exposed.

The Conservative Party says it will hold a full hearing into the allegations on Tuesday when Mr Amin will be asked to explain his alleged links to the EDL. 

The Telegraph says:-

Tory candidate suspended over race hate vote plot

Afzal Amin, the election candidate for Dudley North, has been suspended after allegedly plotting with far-right extremists to win votes by stirring up racial hatred.

Again, nothing about the EDL exposing the corruption. By merely repeating the initial offer and Tommy drawing him out on price to confirm that he was offering payment, which is illegal, the Telegraph is making it look like the EDL are in on the corruption, not exposing it. And in typical recent Telegraph policy no comments are allowed to that article so that the record can be put straight.

The Guardian does tell the readers that

Amin was reportedly filmed by former EDL leader Tommy Robinson, who blew the whistle on the plot because he objected to being used as a pawn.

But has to continue with this quote from a Labour politician

Labour frontbencher Jonathan Ashworth said: “Decent people in politics share the wide consensus that the EDL are quite simply despicable. These allegations regarding such a senior Conservative party figure in Afzal Amin are quite simply jaw dropping.

“Given these allegations the Tory party should take immediate steps to suspend Mr Amin from membership. What’s more the Tory party must also investigate who else might have been involved. . . “

In other words he is more concerned that a candidate would work with the EDL in any form, rather than that the candidate is attempting electoral fraud, is corrupt, venal and unconcerned with the waste of public money.

Again, luegenpresse!