📰 DETAIL: On Thursday, it was revealed that
Matthew McGregor, incoming Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s
newly-appointed head of political strategy, served as Director of Campaigns and Communications for
Hope Not Hate (HNH) from 2018 to 2021. HNH is a
far-left campaign organization with connections to the Labour government. The group has faced
repeated allegations of breaking electoral and charity law, partisan and ideological bias, running smear campaigns against conservatives, and spreading disinformation. The organization also faced significant scrutiny after one of its organizers, Liron Woodcock-Velleman,
pleaded guilty to
child sex crimes. McGregor also briefly worked for
former President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012. McGregor has described supporters of the Brexit Party, a party in favor of Britain leaving the European Union and the predecessor to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, as
“racists and Islamophobes.” McGregor
described Farage as a “racist piece of s**t” and
President Donald Trump as a “maniac with fascist tendencies” in various posts on X (formerly Twitter). A few weeks later, President Trump was
targeted in an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Despite his brief time with the Obama campaign, Burnham’s allies are reportedly keen to
emphasize this experience, rather than his more
extensive time with HNH. McGregor is also a board member of Reprieve, a group that lobbies to prevent people from being
stripped of British citizenship, a policy which the group describes as
“fundamentally racist.” Notably, this would have prevented Shabir Ahmed,
the Pakistan-born ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, from having his British citizenship removed, as well as multiple Islamic State terrorists.
👀 FLASHBACK: Back in June, it was revealed during the
Makerfield by-election (special election) that HNH was campaigning for Labour’s Burnham and against Reform’s Rob Kenyon. HNH reportedly leafleted and ran digital ads. Subsequently, Farage
wrote to the Electoral Commission, Britain’s independent body which oversees elections, urging an investigation into the group. Farage alleged that HNH
exceeded the £700 (~$943) spending limit for local non-party campaigners.