There’s been a whole lot of outrage on far-right online feeds about a claim made recently by former Reform UK (and Farage) PR man Gawain Towler. He claimed that back in 2010, UKIP, then led by Nigel Farage, asked Hope Not Hate to vet prospective members and candidates who might have extreme far right backgrounds. At that time, of course, HNH was the campaigning arm of Searchlight, splitting away in late 2011.

Towler was, for many years, PR guru to UKIP, and then the Brexit Party and was very close to Farage. Unfortunately, his chum turned on him recently and fired him as Director of Communications for Reform UK. Which may or may not have some bearing on this story. Who knows…?

Whatever the motive, it’s certainly prompted fury on the far right. Most recent to get themselves all worked up are the foul creatures who publish Heritage and Destiny, house rag for self-styled neo-Nazi intellectuals:

 “Reform UK showed its true colours this week when one of Nigel Farage’s chief lieutenants – veteran spin doctor Gawain Towler – admitted that Farage’s old party UKIP had shared information with the ‘anti-fascist’ organisation Hope not Hate.”

And H & D doesn’t stop there: the anonymous author (likely either editor Mark Cotterill or his errand boy Peter Rushton) goes on to accuse Searchlight of all sorts of nefarious deeds. But more of that later.

The trouble with Towler’s claim about us vetting UKIP members is that it is, well, in a word…bollocks.

Or, in two words, total bollocks.

Here’s what he said in an online interview online with the Spectator’s James Heale:

“Many years ago, we worked with Hope Not Hate to winkle out the fascists from our own ranks. At that time, when we were ripping them out of our system, there were times when one of the guys in the press office was in touch with them, just to double check: ‘We think this guy’s dodgy, is he on your list?’”

He amplified the claim later when challenged online about this gross act of betrayal by racist activist Steve Laws:

“In about 2010, one of the staff would run names past a HNH staff member. UKIP was riddled with former NF and BNP fanatics, we didn’t want racists then or now.”

Well, for the record, let us state here: it never happened. And, for the avoidance of doubt: it never happened.

But there’s something else spun by the H & D lie machine that never happened either. It alleges, based on a claim made in Simon Heffer’s biography of Enoch Powell, that “during the 1970s Searchlight obtained private papers and other documents from a burglary at the home of Powell’s political secretary Bee Carthew”.

So here’s what did happen. In 1968, Enoch Powell’s notorious “Rivers of Blood” speech had inflamed racist sentiment across the UK. Prime Minister Edward Heath sacked him from the Tory front bench but even four years later, Powell divided the Tory party. He dominated its annual conference, and there was much debate as to whether he would split and form a new party.

There was an unofficial, arm’s length operation working on his behalf, building a potential membership base among his supporters. It was called Powellight and was run by a nasty racist piece of work called Bee Carthew. She was not, we might add, Powell’s political secretary.

And Powellight did indeed hit a bit of a problem. In his biography of Powell, Simon Heffer writes this:

“The divisions within the party, which Powell was doing so much to heighten, may or may not have been behind a burglary at the flat of Bee Carthew, Powellight’s secretary, shortly after the conference…

“Most of Powellight’s files, listing details of members and their addresses, were stolen too, as well as some Monday Club files – Mrs Carthew was its meetings secretary at the time. She had written to The Times about Powellight, a letter that had generated a huge response, but which had also given Powellight’s address.

“The police soon came to the view that the burglary was political; and it set the group back, since among the files stolen was one containing names of would-be applicants for membership…

“Some of the material was published later in the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, and Powellight’s organisers drew their own conclusions about who had been responsible…”

This, needless to say, is an outrageous calumny. At no time was Searchlight involved in a burglary of Bee Carthew’s flat or any other premisses used or controlled by her. The suggestion is outrageous.

We got the files by a completely different route…