It’s difficult to know quite what to make of the news that George Ashcroft, a Tory local election candidate in Telford, was at one time the Midlands regional organiser for the National Front, albeit that he was known in those days as Wayne Ashcroft.

Mmm… what is with Tories and changing their name to George?

For one thing, it seems to have taken the Tories rather a long time to uncover the connection between ‘George’ and ‘Wayne’ - not only has he been a member of the Conservative Party for five years, but unless there’s another Conservative activist named George Ashcroft in the town - and the electoral roll from Telford shows only two individuals of that name - the candidate formerly known as Wayne has stood, unsuccessfully, for election to the Borough Council as a Conservative on at least one previous occasion (2003); coming fourth of six behind two Labour candidates and an independent.

MADELEY [2]
David Davies Lab 826
Gillian Green Ind 728
Arnold England Lab 682
George Ashcroft C 533
Jeremy Haigh C 473
Patrick McCarthy Ind 438

And, as the BBC report notes, he is also currently a Conservative parish councillor in Madeley - as is evident from this set of Parish Council minutes from April 2006, which record his apologies for the meeting.

Once one becomes aware that George used to be Wayne, evidence of his past involvement in far-right politics is not difficult to come by, as in the case of this article on the subject of the National Front joining forces with the BNP, which dates from July 1998:

Wayne Ashcroft : We are undertaking discussions about unity with the British National Party. Keep an eye on us.

Englishmen advancing with new people and fresh ideas

LONDON - The National Front, once the arch-nemesis of communism, is making a startling comeback. Begun in the Eighties as a rebellion against alien immigration, The Front rapidly took on a pop-culture mystique in Britain. The infusion of Skinheads, who the press derided as “yobs” or hooligans, boosted The Front’s numbers and influence. Fronters battled Reds in the streets and came out bloodied, but triumphant. However, growing pains ensued. A staffer was discovered to be a homosexual. A bandleader quit in a row over money. Rivalries broke out between officials. The biggest schism took place over whether the group should adopt rehashing World War II or being active in modern-day politics.

As correspondent K. Schmidt observed, “Nationalists in Europe seem to make better use of their organizational skills. There is more urgency in their actions than in America.” The Front reached its pinnacle in 1989 when it hosted delegates from the English-speaking world and signed the New Atlantic Charter, pledging Anglo-American unity. Shortly after, Chairman Ian Anderson bolted to form the National Democrats, which tried to distance itself from the “rowdy” crowd that congregated in pubs and mixed it up with the Left in the streets. The lilly promptly lost its gilt. The rival British National Party took up the slack, even electing Deron Breckon to a city council post. But critics noted that the party seemed mired in ante-bellum issues and personality clashes.

Forced into Exile

Leading speakers Martin and Tina Wingfield left the country in disgust and took up residence in France, where The National Front of Jean LePen has made exceptional strides and now holds the balance of political power. Rising stars James and Paul Nash quit altogether, while Lady Birdwood, the most revered rightist activist in England, cut short her activism as she celebrated her ninety-second birthday. Enter Wayne Ashcroft, a youth fired from his job for opposing immigration, who is now organizing marches and demonstrations. “We are undertaking discussions about unity with the BNP,” he says. “Keep an eye on us.” Ashcoft credits The Front’s chairman, John McAuley, with making new strides. He, also, invites stalwarts to his annual meeting in October. Ashcroft has been beaten twice by immigrants, but remains undaunted.

And this from June 1999

Despite Hoax, Ashcroft Keeps Stiff Upper Lip

Combat-18 affair hurts National Front web site

LONDON - The long-suffering National Front, plagued by leader ship squabbles, a hoax and policy gaffes, has shut down its Internet site. Sys-op Wayne Ashcroft reported that his Directorate was hopelessly mired between the Old Guard, which resisted new technology, and younger members who championed newer, more activist, methods.

Ashcroft was repeatedly threatened with dismissal for conducting Internet broadcasts which criticized Front programs. His work was many all the more difficult by the leftist Tony Blair regime, which hauled rightists off to court for criticizing minorities and communists. Former youth leader Nick Griffin was convicted of violating the Race Law, but his summoning of Negroes in his defense further splintered his supporters, many of whom disdained any complicity with non-Englishmen. Departure of the talented Kelvin Sanderson, who directed overseas operations, took its toll, as well.

Shadowy Figure Looms

The Front was blamed for bombings which rocked alien neighborhoods. Reporters also put blame on Combat 18, a shadowy outfit some claim was launched by a man called “the Rabbi,” which had been vying to challenge the Front. By the time links to the Front were proven a hoax, many Fronters had quit.

Meanwhile, a key ally of the Front, the Freedom Front of South Africa, caved in to aboriginal violence and shut down. Many of its leaders joined the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, headed by Eugene Terre Blanche. Mark Cotterill, a Front organizer, moved to America where he has attempted some independent, anti-immigrant activity. The British National Party has reported gains, however, fielding a full slate of candidates for Parliament for the first time in its history. “I will keep working for the cause,” said a harried but undaunted Ashcroft.

Carroll Blackledge

All seemingly very damning, then.

I expect many of my regular readers may already making predictions about where this is going, and that I will shortly be getting around to lambasting the Tories in Telford for admitting a fascist ‘ringer’ into their midst - and they would be right…

…but only so far the bit about lambasting the Tories is concerned - Ashcroft, himself, may be a rather different matter.

You see, for all that there may appear to be a slight temporal discrepancy in Ashcroft’s account of his leaving the National Front; he says 1998, the article above was published in June 1999, (although is does appear on a US-based website and the story, itself, is undated, so it may be that this discrepancy rests with the website rather than Ashcroft), we are still talking about events which took place 8-9 years ago when he was 20-21 years old. He’s now 30 years old and much can change in the space of 8-9 years.

Before condemning Ashcroft for past misdemeanours, as local Tory leader, Andrew Eade, seems intent on doing:

The Telford and Wrekin Tory leader Andrew Eade told the BBC Politics Show that Mr Ashcroft should go.

The Conservative Party said it was investigating the matter.

…one should at least make some effort to ascertain whether Ashcroft is genuine in stating that he is ‘deeply ashamed’ of that period of his life and has moved on in his political views to something rather more moderate.

Yes, he has changed his name in the intervening period, and may well have not disclosed his past associations to his Conservative Association. That, if it is the case, may look a little suspicious, but it may also have been no more than necessary step taken in order to leave behind his past completely and make a fresh start - the earlier of the two articles above does suggest that his political views, at the time, cost him his job on at least one occasion. Ashcroft may well have taken the view that the stigma attached to his identity as Wayne the NF organiser made it impossible for him to get on with his life without a change of name.

Before condemning Ashcroft for his past, therefore, one should first make some effort to establish whether or not his views have changed in the intervening years, or have some evidence to show that they haven’t, and here’s where, if one takes the time to look, one comes across a rather curious thing.

In 2000, it appears that Wayne Ashcroft, as he then was, turned up at Warwick University’s library and deposited an archive consisting of 0.412 cubic metres of documentation relating his role as National Front organiser, covering a period from 1995-1999, plus an extensive range of far-right publications and literature dating back as far as 1939.

This archive includes a considerable number of private internal documents including internal correspondence, membership records, agendas and minutes of meetings and even two years worth of financial records - information that may well have been highly damaging to the NF at the time, not to mention that the mere act of placing this documentation in the public domain could easily have exposed Ashcroft to the risk of revenge attacks from the remaining members of the party.

Notes on the archive do, in addition, clear up the uncertainty as to the date of his departure from the National Front as the archive includes his letter of resignation from June 1998, although it does note that he remained involved to some degree in a revived Worcester branch until mid-1999 - the only documents in the archive that date to after his resignation are, however, merely newsletters and newspaper clippings, which does support the view that he was effectively out of the loop from 1998 onwards and operating only at the fringes of the movement.

This, to say the least, is a very unusual turn of events.

Its certainly not unknown for ex-members of far right group to go ‘walkabout’ with some of the paperwork on leaving due to falling out with their party, but it is very unusual for such documentation to then be deposited in a University library - the more usual use for such documentation is either for extracting a measure of revenge on former party ‘colleagues’ or to facilitate the formation of a breakaway party. However, so far as one can see, Ashcroft’s decision to deposit this documentation appears to mark a complete break with the far-right, there being nothing after this point to connect him, either as Wayne or George, with any far-right political activity until recent interest is his past surfaced in the last few days.

This does, therefore, seem to suggest that Ashcroft may be genuine is stating that he regrets his past association with, and involvement in, the National Front, in which case, given the amount of time that has lapsed, it would be unduly harsh of the Tories to hold his part against him out of nothing more than a bit of blatant electoral expedience.

Ashcroft’s past does, in the circumstances merit some investigation but, at the same time, his actions in 2000 in placing into the public domain, a substantial quantity of confidential documentation relating to the internal workings of the National Front would seem to count in his favour and support his contention that his political views have materially changed over the past 8-9 years. Only, I would argue, if evidence emerges either of a continued association with the far-right since joining the Conservative Party or that he continues to harbour unacceptably extreme views on questions of race and ethnicity - which may still not be the easiest determination for the Tory Party to make - would there be any justification for his removal as a Conservative candidate or, worse, his expulsion from the party.

The fair thing to do in this case, is to permit George the opportunity to give his side of the story and then allow the electorate to decide whether they believe that, on this occasion, a one-time leopard really has changed his spots.

Certainly, unless local Tories possess adverse information about Ashcroft’s character or behaviour since joining the party, information that is not, as yet, in the public domain, then the reaction of Andrew Eade, in calling for his removal as a candidate - and maybe even from the party as Eade is reported to have said only that Ashcroft ’should go’ - smacks more of panic in the face of assumptions as to how news of Ashcroft’s past may impact on the party’s electoral prospects this week than of any intent to afford him a fair hearing. On that basis alone, and with Eade already having set himself up as a de facto judge, jury and executioner, I would hope that Conservative Central Office will step in, if they have not done so already, and afford Ashcroft a fair and unbiased hearing, especially when there is evidence, in the form of the documents given to Warwick University, to suggest that Ashcroft may have genuinely repented of his past political misdemeanours.

At the very least, Ashcroft is entitled to both to due process and to a fair hearing, for all that these concepts appear rather lost on Andrew Eade.

All credit to Jeremy Kite, Tory Leader of Dartford Council, for taking the time to give his side of the story after I picked on a story in the Evening Standard about a website he’d set up which purported to stop voters being ‘bothered’ by canvassers in the run to this weeks local elections.

In replying to my own post, Jeremy makes the following comment:

Now, I know a blog like yours owes no favours to a minor local politician but I do hope there’s a streak of fairness in there!!

Well, actually Jeremy, there is a streak of fairness here.

For starters you’ve been afforded an unfettered right of reply, and whether you believe me when I say this or not, I would be no less inclined to highlight a story like this had it been my own party (Labour) or any other party that appeared at fault.

Fairness also dictates that, following your remarks, I go back and re-examine the story as much as possible to see if there is anything more conclusive to be gleaned from it, either way. So, here, in full, is the text of the article that appeared on page 16 of the London Evening Standard on Friday.

TORIES ACCUSED OF CON WITH PHONEY WEBSITE

THE Conservatives have been caught apparently trying to make voters disclose their voting intentions to a phoney website.

Members of the public have been duped by a website called VoterChoice.co.uk that promises to stop them being bothered by canvassers.

But those who register are then asked to complete the process by revealing which party they intend to vote for in next Thursday’s local elections, an Evening Standard investigation found. The website resembles an independent free service to stop unwanted callers.

Only a careful study of the small print revealed that the glossy site was set up in the name of local Conservatives in Dartford, where crucial council elections are being fought. People who register are asked for personal details, including name, postal and email addresses. Then they are asked: “How will you vote on May 3” and told to choose from a list of parties fighting locally.

At the end they are given a “validation number” which purports to be unique. But the number is clearly meaningless because no matter how many times people log on using different names or computers, they get the same three digits — JD6.

Respondents can then download a Do Not Disturb poster to put in their window. The site implies that the organisers will contact political parties and ensure they do not bother any householder displaying the poster. It states: “We ask campaigners from ALL parties to respect your wishes and give your house a miss until polling day.”

Other parties said they had no record of ever being contacted in such a way.

Labour chairman Hazel Blears, who condemned the site as “the political online equivalent of the Nigerian letter scam”, today said the party was asking the Electoral Commission to investigate.

“ The Conservatives have t o answer three questions. Are they going to apologise to the voters they misled? Are they going to recycle all their election literature which has this on? How widespread is this — is this happening throughout the country?

“The Tories have resorted to a con trick to try to snatch people’s personal information. David Cameron needs to stop this grubby tactic.”

When challenged with the Standard’s findings, the Tories said they would scrap the website immediately. A spokesman said Mr Cameron’s officials had nothing to do with the site. The site no longer works.

And now, by way of comparison, here’s Jeremy’s own description of the site:

What we tried to do is reflect the fact that whilst some people like to see political types turn up on their doorstep three times a night and have a good old discussion about politics, there are some who just find it a real pain in the derriere to be disturbed just as they’re sitting down for tea or Eastenders. During the last election, I actually saw THREE separate parties canvassing the same street at once, knocking on the same doors just a couple of minutes apart. Have a pop at me if you like but I’m just trying to make things a bit more dignified for people who may not be as worked up about local elections as we are.

So, we set up a website, entirely openly, that lets people tell us they’d prefer that political canvassers didn’t disturb them. The website looks professional, not because we’ve modeled it on anything, but because I like good looking website. It’s got three pages.

t asks people to register and write three digits on the back page of our (very blue coloured) CONSERVATIVE manifesto which then turns into a DO NOT DISTURB notice which they display in their window. The only reason we ask residents to register and write the 3 digits is solely to stop us confusing genuine requests not to call with manifestos that have just been idly discarded in windows or visible in porches.

We’re not using, storing, processing or manipulating the data in any improper way. It arrives as an email and we make a note of the voting intention. That’s it. As Tim Worstall says, it’s EXACTLY what every party does when their on the doorstep. We don’t send emails, clever little tailored messages, texts or anything. Strange as it may seem, we just leave people alone.

As Hamer quite rightly says, the issue is whether we’ve been open about what we’ve done. Well, here’s the facts (missing from the Standard’s story, natch) …

1) the ONE and ONLY place we promoted the service was on ONE WHOLE PAGE of our 12page Conservative manifesto that - as you might expect from a manifesto - is plastered with Conservative logos. The DO NOT DISTURB notice voters display is actually the back page of our manifesto. I actually think it’s virtually impossible for ANYBODY (except Hazel Blears by the sound of it) to reach a conclusion that it was anything other than a Conservative initiative. We haven’t promoted the website in any way, other than in our huge, bright Tory blue manifesto. Honestly, it just defies belief to say we’ve set out to con anyone.

2) The FRONT PAGE of the website contains just TWO prominent links. One takes you to REGISTER, the other takes you to ‘IMPRINT’. The page it takes you to has no other content but the following words in normal sized type (none of your .5 point, grey on black!) in the middle of the page which says “Promoted by Keith Ferrin on behalf of Dartford Conservative Candidates, all at ….(then the Dartford Tory address)

As for Data Protection, well I’m told we are a registered data keeper in relation to our normal work as a local Conservative Association. We’ve not gathered any information that we don’t already store. Like every other party we have a electoral roll system that stores Voting intentions gathered from canvassing (doorstep or online)

We took the site down because, quite frankly, if Labour and the other parties aren’t going to take any notice of the request to leave people alone, there ain’t much point to it.

Okay, so there’s an obvious disparity in the two accounts. The Standard alleges that the site resembles an ‘independent free service’ and that one has to examine the small print to ascertain that the site was set up and run by the local Tory Party, while Jeremy provides a description of the site that, if 100% accurate, would leave the reader with little or no doubt as to who was behind the site.

And to complicate matters, the site was taken down straight away - and before it could be cached by Google - leaving yours truly with no means of verifying the accuracy of either account.

Mmm… how should one judge this situation?

On reflection, I think benefit of the doubt has to go to Jeremy on the basis the overall impression one gets from reading both accounts is that of a cock-up rather than a conspiracy - it just has that aura of being the kind of thing that ’seemed a good idea at the time’ without having been thought through properly, rather than a deliberately contrived attempt to put one over on the voting public.

On that basis, a bit of adverse publicity and embarrassment is a fair outcome and it would be unduly harsh, and not a bit ridiculous, to take the matter as far as an official complaint to either the Standards Board or Information Commissioner unless something concrete emerged, by way of evidence, to cast serious doubts on the veracity of Jeremy’s account.

There is the germ of a good idea in all this, if approached in its proper context.

While I’m broadly in agreement with Alex’s point that it ill behoves any politician to actively encourage voters to disengage  from the political process, there is something to be said for the possibility of a scheme for vulnerable people that would either permit them to opt-out of visits from canvassers or provide canvassers with properly accredited identification, provide, of course, that such a scheme has the full support of all local parties and operated through the proper channels - that would mean, in this case, via the local authority, which would have the added benefit of enforcing a strict political neutrality on the scheme as a whole.

It is worth stressing that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with political parties canvassing opinions and trying to identify supporters at election time, the only ‘fault’ in Jeremy’s scheme - as it was reported by the Evening Standard - was that the impression was given that the website failed to adequately disclose its links to a specific political party.

More than I cannot say, simply for lack of conclusive evidence one way or another - one salutary lesson for Jeremy in this is that the rapid removal of the site in question did create an initial impression that appeared validate the Evening Standard’s story while, at the same time, preventing bloggers, like myself, from checking the story for accuracy. Had I been able to access the site - and assuming that it was as described by Jeremy - I would have been just as inclined, if not more so, to shoot down the Standard for misrepresenting the content of the site as take a pot shot at him for producing it, were that still merited.

That, on the information to hand, is about as fair as its possible to get, I think, other to note that if Jeremy wishes to provide screen-shots of the site in question to back up his account, then I’m more than happy to append them to this post, and let people judge for themselves whether the Standard misrepresented the content/presentation of the site.