Paul Weston
Paul Weston is a British counterjihad activist.[1]
Weston, a former UK Independence Party parliamentary candidate, was chairman of the far-right British Freedom Party from November 2011[2] until he was replaced by the former EDL deputy leader Kevin Carroll in early January 2013.[3]
He is now the chairman of Liberty GB, which describes itself as 'a patriotic counter-jihad party for Christian civilisation, Western rights and freedoms, British culture, animal welfare and capitalism'. [4]
Weston stood in the 2015 general election against Labour Luton South MP Gavin Shuker, who has described him as 'racist'.
Weston, who is from Dorset, has described Luton as 'a hotbed of violent [Islamic] extremism' and is calling to 'remove the "supremacist" ideology of Islam from Britain', along with the minarets.[5]
Local voters largely ignored Weston, with just 158 people (0.4 per cent) voting for him in 2015.
In January 2015, it was announced that Weston would take over as head of Pegida UK, a far-right nationalist group which originated in Germany, which campaigns against the 'Islamification of Europe'. [6]
Contents
Activities
Arrested on suspicion of religious or racial harassment
In 2014 Weston was arrested by Hampshire Constabulary after complaints from members of the public about his reading of a Winston Churchill quote describing Islam as “militant” and “retrograde” through a megaphone outside Winchester’s Guildhall.
The Southern Daily Echo reported that Weston had addressed passers-by with an excerpt from former Prime Minister Churchill’s book The River War, written in 1899 while he was a British army officer in the Sudan. [7]
Left UKIP for being 'too soft on Islam'
Weston stood as the UKIP parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Cities of London & Westminster in the 2010 general election, gaining 664 votes.[8]
Weston later left UKIP, claiming that after Nigel Farage replaced Lord Pearson as leader the party had gone soft on Islam. [9]
Israel visit with far right European party leaders
In December 2010, Weston visited Israel with a counterjihad delegation which included "Filip de Winter of the Vlaams Belang; Heinz Christian Strache of FPO and Rene Stadtkewitz, leader of the Geert Wilders inspired and recently formed German Freedom Party, or Die Freiheit", according to Weston.[10] Haaretz columnist Adar Primor, described the visit as part of "the very unholy alliance between figures on Israel's right and extreme nationalists and even anti-Semites in Europe that is gaining momentum in the Holy Land."[11]
EDL demonstrations
According to a 2015 report by British group Hope Not Hate, Weston has attended demonstrations of the English Defence League (EDL).[12]
Views
Following the Utoeya massacre in Norway, Weston attacked the BBC in an article which appeared on the English Defence League website, writing:
- have written before that a future religious civil-war will be preceded by tit-for-tat small scale atrocities and now we have seen the start. By shamefully closing down a desperately needed debate in order to pursue perverse and politically driven objectives, Paxman, the BBC and the entire political liberal/left have ensured the inevitability of potential carnage and thus have the blood of future innocents on their hands alongside those of the inevitable psychopathic perpetrator.[13]
Criticism
Liberal Democrat candidate Antony Hook has described Liberty GB as holding “unpleasant and deeply Islamophobic” views.
Affiliations
Conferences
Friends
- Counterjihad activist Ann Marchini has described him as a personal friend
Publications
Gates of Vienna posts
- The Week Britain Died, Gates of Vienna, 22 January 2007.
- Britain's Dystopian School Children, Gates of Vienna, 26 January 2007.
- Questioning the Sanity of Liberals, Gates of Vienna, 2 February 2007.
- Multiculturalism — Merits and Debits, 1 March 2007.
- Is European Civil War Inevitable by 2025?, 31 March 2007.
- Is European Civil War Inevitable By 2025? - Part Two, 12 April 2007.
EDL website posts
- The BBC, Breivik, The EDL and Islam, English Defence League, 30 July 2011.
Contact
- Blogger Paul Weston
- 4Freedoms Paul Weston's Page
External Resources
- Matthew Carr, Far right blames BBC for ignoring Breivik’s beliefs, The First Post, 3 August 2011.
Notes
- ↑ Paul Weston, Ethnically Cleansing the English, Gates of Vienna, 12 March 2010.
- ↑ New Executive Council Announced, British Freedom Party, 9 November 2011
- ↑ Kevin Carroll becomes British Freedom chairman BritishFreedom.org (link now dead)
- ↑ Liberty GB Facebook page, accessed 10 November 2014
- ↑ The JVS Show: Street Lights, Paul Weston, and the consumer hour, BBC Three Counties
- ↑ PEGIDA leader-EDL-UKIP, www.rt.com, accessed 7 January 2015
- ↑ European election candidate arrested on suspicion of 'religious or racial harassment', Southern Daily Echo, May 2014, accessed 20 January 2015
- ↑ Candidate: Paul Weston, UK Political Database, telegraph.co.uk, accessed 29 June 2010.
- ↑ Bob Pitt, Paul Weston arrested on suspicion of religious or racial harassment, Islamophobia Watch, April 28, 2014, accessed 20 January 2015
- ↑ Paul Weston, The Metaphorical Front Line of Islam, Gates of Vienna, 5 December 2010.
- ↑ Adar Primor, The unholy alliance between Israel's Right and Europe's anti-Semites, Haaretz, 12 December 2010.
- ↑ Hope Not HateThe Muhammed Cartoons: the counter-jihadist plot to ignite a civil war in Britain, Hope Not Hate, July 2015
- ↑ Paul Weston, The BBC, Breivik, The EDL and Islam, English Defence League, 30 July 2011.
- ↑ KGS, The Tundra Tabloids Is Back, Let The Counter-Jihad Begin......., Tundra Tabloids, 20 October 2007.
