Indigo Jo on March 6th, 2010

Today the Guardian carried a front-page story about how various Tory MPs and activists are being given training by an offshoot of the party’s youth wing, Conservative Future, named the Young Britons’ Foundation ([1], [2]). The group’s leadership regards the NHS as a waste of money, disbelieves global warming and condones waterboarding on the […]

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Indigo Jo on February 16th, 2010

Various newspapers have reported that two sculptures to be erected at both ends of Brick Lane in east London, a narrow street which has become a trendy hang-out place and which is supposedly full of Bengalis, have been dubbed the “hijab gates” and have become the focus of a lot of local opposition. Quoted […]

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Indigo Jo on February 5th, 2010

In 2002 Teresa May, the chairwoman of the Tory party appointed by Iain Duncan Smith, told the party’s conference that people called her party the “nasty party” and that their base was too narrow as were their sympathies on occasion. Norman Tebbit noted that this “nasty party” won three general elections but that it […]

Continue reading about The nasty party begins to re-emerge

Indigo Jo on December 8th, 2009

Rod Liddle has managed to outdo himself this past week, with two shockingly bigoted and ignorant articles on the Spectator’s website the same day. One of them is in support of the ban on minarets which was passed the Sunday before last in Switzerland; the other is a short blast about black crime and […]

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Indigo Jo on November 30th, 2009

I’ve been asked to offer my opinion on the result of yesterday’s referendum on minarets in Switzerland, perhaps inevitably. I had expected such a law to be passed, contrary to the opinion polls which suggested that it wouldn’t, because a country where a major party can use such openly racist imagery as the “black […]

Continue reading about The Swiss minaret law and its implications

Kevin Myers: ‘Fear of Islamophobia stopped Hasan’s superiors from disciplining him for his jihadist outpourings’ - Kevin Myers, Columnists - Independent.ie

Kevin Myers, a columnist on the Irish Independent (a paper whose website is suspiciously similar to the Independent in London) who has also written for the Telegraph in the UK, raises a fairly common Islamophobic […]

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Indigo Jo on October 5th, 2009

So, I’m sure everyone in the UK has heard that Anton du Beke (a BBC presenter and Strictly Come Dancing contestant) told his partner Laila Rouass, after she had applied a fake tan, “you look like a Paki”. This has caused quite a bit of controversy, as you might expect, with some calls for […]

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Indigo Jo on September 16th, 2009

Mark Steel: So has anyone really been ‘Islamified’ against their will? - Mark Steel, Commentators - The Independent

Mark Steel tears into the ridiculous myths about the ‘Islamification of Europe’ peddled by some on the far right (HT: Julaybib):

The arguments of the far-right groups are already obviously ridiculous. The latest slogan they march under […]

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Indigo Jo on September 10th, 2009

BBC NEWS | England | London | Man hurt in mosque ‘race’ attack

Another Asian man has been attacked near a mosque in Tooting: this time, a 30-year-old, attacked by ‘youths’ after taraweeh at 10:15pm on Tuesday. The attacker is described as a black teenager and police are treating the attack as racially motivated.

This comes […]

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Indigo Jo on August 17th, 2009

A culture of fear — from Saturday’s Guardian

Pankaj Mishra had a lengthy article published on the rise of Islamophobia across Europe in Saturday’s Guardian which covers the gamut of issues raised by Islamophobia from demographic scaremongering through debate on the hijab that left out the women who wear it to the resilience of the anti-Turkish […]

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Indigo Jo on August 2nd, 2009

Martin Sullivan at Islamophobia Watch on his ongoing debate with Edmund Standing, a contributor to Harry’s Place and author of a recent think tank report which plays up the BNP’s anti-Semitism and plays down its Islamophobia, explains that the BNP’s shift towards Islamophobia is not just a vote-winning move:

I also agree with the […]

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BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | Enforced marriage law forces couple apart

This is the story of a couple consisting of a British man and his Canadian bride, who married quite legally in the UK last year, and their marriage was delayed because of paperwork getting lost. Four days after their marriage, new rules […]

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Indigo Jo on July 20th, 2009

Dispelling the Myth of Eurabia — Newsweek.com

This is the lead article from the current edition of Newsweek, in which scare stories about Europe being taken over by Muslims by means of immigration and breeding are debunked:

A much-cited 2004 study from the U.S. National Intelligence Council outlines a number of possible scenarios. Its most […]

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Indigo Jo on July 15th, 2009

Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics on the glaring omission from the latest report by the “Centre for Social Cohesion”, The BNP and the Online Fascist Network (PDF), written by Edmund Standing, long-standing contributor to Harry’s Place:

What’s glaringly omitted from the report is an analysis of how the BNP has in recent years shifted […]

Continue reading about CSC report ignores Nazis’ shift to attacking Muslims

Indigo Jo on July 7th, 2009

A few months ago I blogged a piece called something like “The Price of Vilification”, regarding incidents of attacks against Muslims in the USA, one of which turned out to be a hoax and the other may have been. Three incidents which have happened, or come to light, in the last few days, aren’t […]

Continue reading about The price of bigotry (and it’s for real this time)

Indigo Jo on June 17th, 2009

Fear and Hatred on the Streets of Luton from the Sunday Times

A very long and comprehensive article (you can also see it in four parts here: [1], [2], [3], [4]) on the unrest in Luton prompted by the tiny protest by al-Muhajiroun against the soldiers’ parade in March. You will notice that it includes […]

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Indigo Jo on May 26th, 2009

The story is starting to come out regarding the display of thuggery and bigotry in Luton last Sunday, in which a group of about 200 broke away from a bigger march and headed for the town centre, clearly intending to reach the Bury Park area to attack local Asians. As is common with these […]

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Indigo Jo on May 11th, 2009

Continue reading about KFC and the BNP

Indigo Jo on May 9th, 2009

Recently, a video has been popping up on various Muslim blogs ([1], [2], [3]), attempting to raise fears among Westerners that Muslim birth rates are vastly outstripping non-Muslim ones, to the point that some western European countries will have Muslim majorities by the middle of this century. Another example of this kind of scaremongering […]

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Indigo Jo on April 22nd, 2009

Continue reading about “Civil war” in US anti-Muslim blogosphere