Lucy James
Lucy James is an associate partner and head of 'stakeholder engagement' at lobbying and PR firm Westbourne Communications. She was previously an account manager and part of its 'infrastructure team'.
Before working for Westbourne James was a research fellow and events manager at the Quilliam Foundation think tank, and also posted under her own name at The Spittoon. According to her current biog on the Westbourne website:
- her work covered the threat of far-right extremism, particularly the BNP and the English Defence League; the threat of Islamist radicalisation on British university campuses; and the role that Muslim women can play in counter-extremism.
- Alongside a continued interest in counter-extremism she is also actively involved in issues around gender equality, helping to coordinate a feminist organisation that works in Westminster. She has an MA in South Asian Islam from the University of Manchester, and is an adjunct fellow at Quilliam. [1]
Contents
Quilliam's "response to the BNP" paper
In August 2009 James wrote a paper for the Quilliam Foundation responding to BNP claims about Muslims. She announced the publication of the paper in an article for the Labour Party's Progress magazine on 18 August 2009 in which she offered her approach as a preferable alternative to the 'violence' of anti-Fascist protesters. She wrote:
- Unfortunately, these anti-BNP protesters soon became violent – leading to a total of 19 protesters being arrested. Although it is good to see ordinary people protesting against the BNP, such protests become ineffective when they descend into thuggery and hooliganism.[2].
After Islamophobia-Watch.com drew attention to these accusations[3] The Spittoon published two posts attacking the website.[4][5] James followed the article with another for the Guardian's Comment is Free. However she qualified some of the claims to say that 'some' of the anti-Fascists 'soon became violent', and the words 'thuggery and hooliganism' were replaced with 'heavy-handed violence'.[6]
Affiliations
Contact
- Email: lucy.james@westbournecoms.com [7]
- Twitter: @lucyjames01
Publications
- Lucy James, In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda, Quilliam Foundation, 2009 (The paper features introductions by Jon Cruddas [Labour], Patrick Mercer [Conservative], and Fiyaz Mughal [Liberal Democrat])
Spittoon articles
- Keeping the Pressure on the BNP, 4 September 2009.
- Symbols at EDL protests undermine their ‘non-racist’ claims, 5 November 2009.
References
- ↑ Westbourne Communications, Meet the Team, company website acc 7 April 2013
- ↑ Lucy James, Protests too much, Progress, 18 August 2009
- ↑ Martin Sullivan, Quilliam accuses anti-BNP protestors of 'thuggery and hooliganism', Islamophobia Watch, 18 August 2009
- ↑ 'Yossarian', Bob and Bungle – Forget the BNP, let’s attack Quilliam, The Spittoon, 20 August 2009
- ↑ 'Yossarian', A Question of Priorities, The Spittoon, 23 August 2009
- ↑ Lucy James, The BNP will lose the argument, The Guardian, 20 August 2009
- ↑ Remains listed on Westbourne website as of 5 August 2015
