A statement regarding press coverage of our Rochdale campaign

This evening Guido Fawkes has published an article which makes a number of serious allegations about HOPE not hate. These statements are completely untrue and we will be consulting with lawyers. For now we would like to set the record straight

1. The article refers to a ‘lead organiser’ appearing on audio recordings. Nick Lowles was the lead organiser on our recent Rochdale campaign day. The voice recording is not of Nick and he denies saying the things attributed to him.

2. The recordings are of HOPE not hate volunteers and at no point are HOPE not hate staff recorded.

3. The audio recording mentions an ‘MRP’ poll of Rochdale. At no point has HOPE not hate conducted a constituency level MRP of the Rochdale constituency.

4. Our election campaign has nothing to do with HOPE not hate Charitable Trust and is run by HNH Ltd. HNH Ltd is registered with the Electoral Commission and we follow electoral law. Electoral law is quite clear that Third Party groups can campaign for and against candidates and/or parties within our spending limits, as the Electoral Commission reminded Mr Galloway on Twitter on May 28th.

Contrary to what Galloway and Guido claim, Third Party groups are allowed to spend £17,500 for the each constituency in the 12 months period before an election. The £700 limit only relates to the short, six-week campaign. We refute any suggestion we have broken spending rules.

In the case of Rochdale, there is also nothing wrong with encouraging voters to vote against Galloway. We will continue to do this until polling day.

5. We strongly believe these recordings have been selectively edited and miss crucial context including volunteers clearly stating that HOPE not hate LTD operates quite separately from any political party.

We’d also like to note that Guido Fawkes made no attempt to approach HOPE not hate LTD before this story ran and made no effort to check facts. We will now consider all legal avenues available to us.