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.
