The shamelessness of Hope not Hate

You would think that a group called ‘Hope not Hate’ would have a lot of important things to talk about at the moment. It could look at how the threat of Islamist extremism is corrupting our democracy, for instance. It might raise the alarm about the MPs unwilling to vote with their conscience when it comes to Gaza because they are ‘terrified’. Or point to Mike Freer, who after years of death threats was recently forced to resign as an MP. Hope not Hate might also have investigated the appalling ‘hate marches’ we’ve seen since 7 October, which brought anti-Semitic slogans and chants of ‘jihad’ to the streets of London – or the people with links to Hamas that have helped organise them. There’s certainly been no shortage of hate in Britain this past year.

So when Hope not Hate announced ‘This is BIG’ on Thursday, the self-professed campaign to ‘defend, champion and promote democracy and the rule of law’ could conceivably have been talking about any of these outrages.