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The Community Group (ICG)

Keeping a Keen eye

Watching them watching us

Introduction
 
THE ICG, despite having "tested the water" by contesting Brentford & Isleworth constituency at the 2005 General Election on a Community Power ticket, has no organisational interest in national politics.  Our members and supporters are united by their desire to see a more enabled and empowered community at local level, but have the same range of views on national and international issues as is to be found anywhere else in society.
 
However events beyond our control have led us to advise voters at the next election to vote for the candidates most likely to unseat the borough's two incumbent New Labour MPs, Alan and Ann Keen.
 
Here is a summary of the reasons:
  • Both MPs have refused to co-operate with the new democratically elected administration at the London Borough of Hounslow in protest against the result of the election and the consequent appointment of an Executive which includes community councillors.  Local people need Members of Parliament who will work constructively with the council for the greater good of the borough.
  • Both have exploited and continue to exploit a loophole in the rules which allows them to claim from the taxpayer for the cost of a second home in London, despite the fact that their first home is just nine miles from their place of work.  Despite several attempts over nearly three years to get them to explain their actions to the public, both have continually refused to do so.
  • The Keens have been the instigators of a number of smear articles in local and regional newspapers (see below), and through other media, which have sought to falsely associate the ICG with "extreme right" groups with which we have absolutely no sympathy and nothing whatsoever in common.
  • It is precisely those New Labour campaign workers who are particularly close to the Keens that have been largely responsible for debasing local politics and for lowering the ethical threshold below which politics should never fall if it is to retain the confidence of the electorate.  The introduction by New Labour of "spin" (words used in a disingenuous, deceptive and/or highly manipulative way in order to present a false picture of events) into local debate has in our view cheapened the political process and led many to the quite incorrect view that everybody involved in the local political process operates on the same moral level.

The ICG considers integrity to be a more important factor than ideology (or in the absence of ideology as in the case of New Labour, party allegiance) when electing somebody to public office.

For this reason we believe the people of the London Borough of Hounslow, irrespective of where they happen to stand on the big political issues of the day, would be best served by replacing the Keens with MPs of higher integrity who were prepared to work constructively with others from outside their own narrow political circle for the greater good of the wider community.

 
The "expenses" scandal explained
 
HIS and hers MPs Alan & Ann Keen, members for Feltham & Heston and Brentford & Isleworth respectively, each continue to claim in the region of nearly £16,000 per year in respect of an "Additional Costs Allowance".
 
This money is paid to them in respect of a second property which they have acquired, in London's Covent Garden.
 
The intended purpose of this allowance is to enable MPs who live too far away from parliament (such as in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the North of England or the South-West) to be compensated for the cost of having to stay in or around London whilst undertaking their parliamentary duties.  However the Keens live together in Brentford - just nine miles from their place of work - and yet both of them claim the allowance.
 
Neither of them is breaking any law, nor are the Keens the only MPs who are abusing the spirit of this provision.  But they are our MPs.  Which is why we hold them to account.
 
Ever since this scandal was revealed the Keens have dodged, evaded and refused point blank to answer any questions as to why they require a second home when their first is so close to their place of work.  They refused to attend hustings meetings in the run-up to the General Election in 2005 where they could have been questioned by rival candidates or members of the public. 
 
Instead they have depended on the services of an increasingly well-choreographed army of acolytes who spring instantaneously to their defence whenever they are challenged, usually by means of behind-the-scenes manoeuvres designed either to change the subject or to question the bona fides of those who are asking the question.
 
But the issue is not going away.

 
Community reminds Ann Keen of "the inconvenient truth" about Heathrow
 
MEMBERS of the local community demonstrated outside Holiday Inn, Brentford recently where Brentford & Isleworth MP Ann Keen hosted a screening of Al Gore's inspirational documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which highlights the dangers of climate change.
 
Mrs. Keen arrived at the hotel early to avoid the demonstration, although fans arrived whilst the demonstration was in full swing and were engaged by the protesters who gave them leaflets (see pictures below).
 
The demonstrators waved placards and handed out leaflets to draw attention to the fact that the New Labour government, members of which were flaunted by Mrs. Keen at the event, had presided over an increase of nearly 40,000 flights per year at Heathrow since the general election of 1997.
 
The demonstration was organised by the Independent Community Group (ICG), and was supported by members of the Liberal Democrats including the party's local group leader Councillor Andrew Dakers.  Despite having received an invitation to the screening, Councillor Dakers was later refused entry to the event by the Keens.
 
Also present at the demonstration was a delegation of residents from Cranford, led by former Labour councillor Parmod Kad MBE.  Members of Friends of the Earth managed to attend the event.
 
Leaflets handed out by the demonstrators pointed out that in October 2005 Ann Keen had voted against a bill which would have limited the number of night flights using Heathrow - then a week later attended a rally opposing airport expansion!
 
Speaking after the event, Community Group councillor Phil Andrews commented: "Ann Keen is to be commended for staging this event, but the big names she flaunts are the very same people who are backing the expansion of Heathrow at the expense of our local community.
 
"Mrs. Keen demonstrated once again in 2005 that her own career and personal advancement mean more to her than her own constituents, who continue to suffer the effects of night flights.
 
"Under the circumstances this event would seem to have more to do with keeping her own name in the headlines than with an honest attempt to highlight the very real problem of climate change."
 
Mr. Kad added:  "Every time I see an aeroplane flying over Cranford in the middle of the night disturbing our sleep and all day discharging noise and air pollution over Cranford, and every time I see a young child or elderly person coughing with asthma due to air pollution in Cranford, I pray to God in desperation for a better elected political representatives for Cranford and Hounslow who cared to understand our difficulties. Lack of representation of Cranford councillors at this event exhibits their lack of commitment to the environment". 

holidayinn1.jpg

holidayinn2.jpg

Left: Demonstrators outside the Holiday Inn protest against airport expansion.  Right: An ICG protester greets Labour councillors Nisar Malik and Pritam Grewal as they arrive at the event.

 
10.06.07: Gilligan and Standard prepare FIFTH hatchet-job against ICG at Keens' behest
 
THE London Evening Standard is preparing its fifth "exposé" of ICG Organiser Phil Andrews' former membership of the National Front (see footnotes), the last four having appeared within the space of fourteen months of each other.
 
And reporter and hatchet-man in chief Andrew Gilligan, better known for his role in the Dr. David Kelly affair, admitted to Councillor Caroline Andrews during a brief telephone conversation that he is writing the piece simply because he has been asked to do so by local MP Ann Keen, despite the fact that the story of Cllr. Phil Andrews' membership of the NF in the 1980s and of his role on the new Executive of Hounslow Council has already been "revealed" by him to Standard readers previously, thus exposing his own newspaper to ridicule.
 
The previous two articles by Gilligan accused Councillor Phil Andrews of having sustained a criminal conviction for a racist assault, which is an absolute fabrication.  Despite the fact that the Editor of the Standard was advised after the first of these allegations that Gilligan had libelled Cllr. Andrews, no apology appeared and indeed some months later Gilligan called Cllr. Andrews' bluff by actually repeating the same allegation, which by this time he must definitely have known to be false, in an embellished form.  This matter is currently in the hands of solicitors.
 
Thus when Gilligan, for once, bothered to contact Cllr. Phil Andrews for his side of the story, his request was treated with the contempt that he and it deserved.  Cllr. Andrews commented: "I have nothing at all to hide and have always co-operated with the press for as long as they are prepared to behave honourably.  Gilligan has already repeated an allegation against me which he knew to be false and presumably intends to again, and I've no desire to converse or co-operate in any way with such a low-grade individual. 
 
"He can write whatever comes into his head and take his chances, but if he gets it wrong I'll act decisively."
 
The purpose of the Standard campaign is to advance the local New Labour agenda of attempting to associate the entire ICG with the brand of politics once pursued by Cllr. Andrews, which he publicly rejected and denounced two decades ago.  Locally New Labour still believes that political mileage can be extracted from the issue, despite the evidence of repeated election defeats, by scaring vulnerable people from ethnic minority communities into voting Labour to avert the "threat" posed to them by the ICG.
 
Why the London Evening Standard, which is not traditonally Labour's strongest ally in the media, should feel obliged to repeatedly publish over and again an article which is in itself of negligible interest to a London-wide readership, is a matter for conjecture.  It is believed that the Keens acquired a certain amount of "bargaining power" following the Standard's article about their scandalous expense claims back in 2005.
 
Our investigations continue.
 
 
FOOTNOTES:
 
1. Councillor Phil Andrews is the Organiser and a founder member of the ICG.  He is also Leader of the Community Group on the London Borough of Hounslow, having been elected in 1998 and then successfully defended his seat in 2002 and 2006.
 
2. In 1977, at the age of fifteen, he joined the National Front as a result of what he describes as having been "a juvenile fascination with fascism".  However he became a solid advocate for NF policies and progressed through the organisation to become Hounslow Young NF Organiser (1978), Hounslow NF Organiser (1982), NF North & West London Regional Organiser (1983), National Young NF Organiser and a member of the NF's National Directorate (1984) and, briefly, a member of the NF Directorate's five-man Executive Council (1987) before resignaing from the Directorate in 1988 and leaving the NF completely in 1989.
 
3. During this time, in November 1986, he sustained a criminal conviction following an incident at Borough underground station some months beforehand.  He was accused of randomly throwing an object from the door of a train into a wholly white group of police officers, one of whom was allegedly injured as a result.  There was no suggestion of any racial motive.  He pleaded Not Guilty and has ever since denied having thrown anything, however he was found guilty of ABH and sentenced to six months' imprisonment.  He was released in March 1987.
 
4. Through the later years of his NF membership he developed an interest in community participation and "total democracy".  This prompted him to write an article for the NF publication Nationalism Today in 1984 headed "New Structures for Winning Recruits" in which he argued for NF participation in and infiltration (based on similar tactics which he had witnessed being employed by the Labour Party in his own community) of residents' associations.  This article, written at the age of 22, is mischievously cited by the ICG's opponents as "evidence" that the ICG is an extension of the same strategy, although a cursory glance at the article clearly reveals it to be something entirely different.  In 1986 he acted as Election Agent for three non-NF community-type candidates in a local election in Isleworth, an exercise he was to repeat in 1990 and 1993.
 
5. After having left the NF in 1989 along with several other activists from Hounslow he formed a locally-based group called Liberation which, like the latter-day NF, still tried to reconcile community-based democracy with racial ideas.  Liberation was affiliated to a far-right umbrella organisation called the International Third Position, which still exists today.
 
6. However in 1991 he and a fellow officer of Liberation folded the organisation and severed any remaining links with the far-right.  Over the ensuing months he rejected racist and fascist ideas outright and publicly declared as much.  Other than for the Isleworth South by-election of 1993, when he actively supported community candidate Tom Reader from Ivybridge, he did not involve himself in politics of any kind for over two years.
 
7. Following the Isleworth South by-election of 1993, Tom Reader and Phil Andrews decided to launch a new, locally-based venture known as the Isleworth Community Group, which later became the Independent Community Group.  From humble beginnings the ICG now holds six seats on the London Borough of Hounslow and is part of a minority coalition with the Conservative Group which finally deposed New Labour from office in the elections of May 2006.
 
8. As Executive Lead Member for Community Safety Councillor Phil Andrews chairs the campaigning and co-ordinating group Hounslow Against Racial Harassment, and has taken the lead in initiatives against racism, homophobia and hate crime around the borough.  He recently presented the Cantle Report on Community Cohesion to to the Council Executive and has spoken on the threat of racism and his experiences as a former far-right activist at national venues alongside senior political figures from all of the major parties.


P.O. Box 218 - Isleworth - Middlesex - TW7 7SA.
 
Tel. 020 8891 6359 - E-mail icg@communitygroup.org.uk