Do you believe any of the following:
That the National Front is a Nazi party?
That a secret Nazi organisation called Column 88 exists in Britain and is implicated in all manner of terrorist outrages, safe-housing etc?
That neo-Nazis plotted to bomb the 1981 Notting Hill Carnival?
That Holocaust Revisionism is a neo-Nazi plot to rewrite history?
That the Socialist Workers’ Party is anti-Semitic?
That anarchist groups in Britain have been taken over by neo-Nazis?
That Searchlight is an anti-fascist magazine and that it provides reliable information on the extreme right?
If you do believe any of the above, you are misinformed. Anyone can be wrong, anyone can be lied to, anyone can be duped, conned, exploited. Please take a little time to read this pamphlet and we will open your eyes. We may even save your publisher embarrassment, or a libel writ.
In 1965, a news agency was set up with the ostensible aim of monitoring the extreme right in Britain. (1) In reality, Searchlight, in its various guises, has fed the media an almost non-stop stream of lies, sensationalism and just plain rubbish ever since. For the past 18 years, if not longer, almost every major story about Nazism, fascism, anti-Semitism etc., to have appeared in the British print and telecommunications media has been “researched” either by Searchlight, by people associated with it, or by people who have used its “resources”, and is therefore polluted at source. (2)
In this pamphlet we publish two lists: the facts contained therein are a matter of public record; if you have any doubt as to our veracity, please check them yourself. (3) The first list contains facts you should know about the Searchlight team; the second contains a list of palpable errors and lies which have been fed to the media, the public and “anti-fascist” groups by these thoroughly evil men and women.
1) In 1964, Searchlight’s current editor Gerry Gable, together with Manny Carpel, was convicted of conning his way into the historian David Irving’s flat. (4) They claimed at their trial that they were looking for material to hand over to Special Branch. (5) Those journalists who consider themselves anti-fascists and who read this might like to ask themselves how many dedicated anti-fascists – which is what Gable claims to be – go on fishing expeditions for Special Branch? In 1981, Manny Carpel was convicted of a politically related arson offence and jailed for two and a half years. (6) The printing press he burned down printed literature for the National Front, among others; (7) Carpel was at this time closely associated with Searchlight magazine.
2) In 1980, Gable, who was working as a researcher for London Weekend Television, was exposed by the New Statesman as being involved in a two-way traffic with the Security Services,
including smearing a left-wing journalist. (8)
The inference here is that Gable – and Searchlight – do not tell the media the truth about “fascists” but only what the state wants it to believe. In short, it is a state-sponsored channel of disinformation. This extends to spying on left wing and “anti-fascist” groups, whom the security services regard as a far bigger threat than the National Front ad nauseum. Organisations such as Searchlight routinely collect a great deal of information on left wing activists, much of it trivial, but do you really want your name finding its way from a Searchlight mailing list into the files of Special Branch or M.I.5.?
3) In 1993, Gary Murray, a former M.I.5. operative, claimed that Gable had asked a “friend” in Special Branch to do him a favour. (9) How many “anti-fascists” do the dirty work for the Secret State or can call on Special Branch officers to do them favours?
4) In 1981, Searchlight claimed to have uncovered a neo-Nazi plot to bomb the Notting Hill Carnival. This story, which they fed to the Daily Mirror, (10) was repeated with major inconsistencies in Searchlight, and in a book and a TV documentary, both called The Other Face of Terror. (11) The press officer at New Scotland Yard informed us that the police had no knowledge of any such bomb plot. (12)
5) In 1986, a plot was allegedly unearthed to kidnap and murder Searchlight boss Gable. This was widely reported in the mainstream press at the time. No one was ever charged with any offence in relation to this plot because it obviously never existed. In short, it was another of Gable’s neo-Nazi fantasies. (13)
6) Since July 1992, Searchlight has run a series of smears on an independent researcher, Larry O’Hara, accusing him of being a Nazi fellow traveller and worse. These smears are totally without foundation.
7) Searchlight has smeared anarchist groups and individuals as Nazi collaborators. In 1986, the International Times accused Searchlight head honcho Gable of peddling paranoia and of smearing fellow “anti-fascists”. On whose orders, we might ask? (14) When Gable and Searchlight are unable to substantiate their smears, they simply resort to innuendo, presumably in the belief – often vindicated – that if you throw enough mud, some of it will stick.
8) Searchlight editor Gable advocates an uncompromising “No platform for fascists”, which means denying anyone he and his fellow travellers designate a fascist the right to address the public, even on private property. It should therefore come as some surprise to learn that Gable is married to a former member of both the National Front and the “Nazi fan club” League of St George. The claim usually made under such circumstances is that “I was an infiltrator gathering information for the anti-fascist movement.”
This won’t wash with Mrs Sonia Gable though, for, like her husband, she is Jewish, and when she was running with these “fascists” she made no attempt to hide her ethnic origin. In 1976, the former Sonia Hochfelder published an article in League Review, the theoretical journal of the League of St George in which she wrote:
“The enemies of the White Race operate on an international scale and will continue to dictate to us if we fight amongst ourselves.” (15)
If Larry O’Hara for example had penned such a phrase, Searchlight would have undoubtedly interpreted it as anti-Semitic.
9) Searchlight has persistently harassed British Nationalist Steve Brady, ostensibly because he is a “Nazi”, in reality because Searchlight boss Gable has a more personal reason. (16)
10) Searchlight asset Ray Hill, who was allegedly their “mole” inside the extreme right for five years, was accused in court by a Jewish businessman of being an anti-Semite – after he’d “come out” as an “anti-racist”. (17) In Searchlight, issue 204, Hill referred to Black Separatists as “a Gucci-outfitted bunch of middle-class wankers”. (18) In a letter to the Labour magazine Briefing, Hill referred to black organisations “consisting of three men and a dog”. (19) Racism or not, this is not the sort of language one expects from people who profess to care passionately and deeply about social injustice.
11) Searchlight has accused the Jewish-led Socialist Workers’ Party of anti-Semitism because it has had the audacity to attack the State of Israel for its barbaric treatment of the Palestinians. In its April 1992, issue 202, Searchlight actually accused the Socialist Workers’ Party of perpetuating its “own brand of antisemitism” (20) In its near three decades of existence, Searchlight has never condemned Zionist atrocities. The fact that Gable has a son in the Israeli army may well have something to do with this. (21)
12) Searchlight has consistently smeared Holocaust Revisionists as Nazis, “Holocaust liars”, apologists for Nazism, and dupes, even though the most cursory examination of the true facts reveals such charges to be the most brazen falsehoods. (22)
13) Searchlight openly incites violence against “Nazis” and denies “fascists” their legitimate political rights. And they decide who is a Nazi, fascist, racist, fellow traveller etc. From its inception, Searchlight branded the National Front “Nazi”. Although there were a number of former Nazis in the Front – BNP Führer John Tyndall, for example – most of the people who joined the National Front, in its early days at least, were neither Nazis, fascists nor racists, but ordinary white British people who were concerned, rightly or wrongly, that their country was being taken over by aliens. It was the hate campaign of Searchlight and its fellow travellers more than anything else which made the National Front and similar parties what they are today. In particular, the unremitting attacks on these parties by Searchlight and other Jewish organisations have been responsible for nurturing the intense anti-Semitism of most of Britain’s right wing extremists.
14) Searchlight has smeared black groups on account of their being more concerned about such unpleasant everyday matters as police harassment and brutality than in perpetuating editor Gable’s absurd neo-Nazi conspiracy theories. (23) As previously stated, one recent issue referred to Black Separatists as a “Gucci-outfitted bunch of middle-class wankers” who espoused “black fascism”. In other words, anyone – white or black – who doesn’t whole-heartedly endorse Searchlight’s policy of forced race-mixing and no platform for anyone who dissents, is a fascist, bigot or “wanker”.
15) In 1975, the first reports of a secret Nazi group called Column 88 appeared in the British press. An in-depth article on this group was published in the May 1975 issue of Searchlight. Stories about Column 88 and the mythical “Nazi underground” have been fed to a number of publications over the years, including Police Review. (24) These exposés were based almost entirely on the allegations of one Dave Roberts, another Searchlight “asset”.
Dave Roberts was a communist who claimed to have worked undercover inside the extreme right. Like most such “infiltrators” he was more enthusiastic for violence than most so-called fascists, because in 1976, along with two “right wing extremists” he was convicted of conspiring to assault the staff of an
Indian restaurant. (25)
This was reported apologetically in Searchlight at the time. The June 1976 issue claimed that Roberts found himself “in a spot” when the two men he had been drinking with decided to burn down a communist bookshop. The reality is that Roberts was an agent provocateur and Walter Mitty character who was, among other things, adept at conning money out of right wing extremists. (26) He was said to have made covert recordings of secret (and illegal) meetings, but in spite of a team of police typists spending twelve to thirteen hours transcribing them, (27) no one was ever prosecuted for any criminal offence, and the Column 88 scare faded away like a will-o’-the-wisp.
Roberts’ adventures in the mythical Nazi underground were published in several early
issues of Searchlight. (28) He was subsequently jailed for fifteen months for assaulting three members of the National Front. He was released from jail
on March 17th, 1978. (29) During his time in the mythical Nazi underground, Roberts worked closely with Searchlight editor Maurice Ludmer.But
after Ludmer’s death, (30) the staff of the magazine put as much distance between themselves and Roberts as possible. In the August 1981 issue, the following statement appeared:
“We wish to make it clear that Dave Roberts is not and never has been a member of Searchlight’s editorial group and is in no way associated with the work of the magazine...nor would we wish him to be.” (31) Veronica Ware – Editor Gerry Gable – Former Editor.
This is another blatant lie; in 1978, the “anti-fascist” journalist Daphne Liddle wrote in Forewarned Against Fascism, that when “Dave Roberts, the SEARCHLIGHT researcher and secretary of Anti-Fascist Democratic Action was released from prison on March 17th” he was “met at the gate by Maurice Ludmer, the editor of SEARCHLIGHT...” (32)
1) “[Larry] O’Hara accuses me of being a convicted fraudster and arsonist. [In his booklet A Lie Too Far]. I have never been charged with or convicted of either of these offences...” Ray Hill (33) in Searchlight, page 7, issue 217, July, 1993.
O’Hara did not in this booklet accuse Hill of ever being a convicted fraudster or any kind of arsonist. But just for the record, in 1988, Ray Hill wrote the following words:
“In February [1979], a friend had asked me to lend him some money so that he could buy a birthday present for his wife. Not having any cash to hand...I rather foolishly handed him my credit card and told him to get what he wanted...In very little time at all he had run up a bill of more than £3,000, which I was neither willing nor able to pay. The police visited me, and I was charged with credit card fraud...” from pages 65-6 of his fictional autobiography. (34)
There is no escaping the lie, Ray, though any police officers reading this might like to ponder how many times they’ve heard that story before.
There is also the little matter of the court case reported by the (Johannesburg) Star in March 1979. This revealed that “National Front officials allegedly
misappropriated more than R30,000 from the Sons of England Society, the Rand Supreme Court heard yesterday. In response to an urgent application, the court granted a provisional order interdicting three men from withdrawing funds and share certificates from accounts held in six banks and building societies by [this organisation].” One of these men was Ray Hill. (35) Shortly after this, Hill turned up in England; he has always protested his innocence, but other people, the late Jack Noble for example, tell a different story. (36)
Also, in the 27 August, 1993 issue of New Statesman & Society, Hill (Gable?) writes
thus: “I stand accused by O’Hara of having criminal convictions for fraud and arson. For the record, this
is a complete lie.” (37) Note the difference? He’s still lying.
2) Issue 30 of Searchlight published two “atrocity photographs” of the Nazi concentration camps at Bergen-Belsen and Dachau and attempted to palm them off as photographs of Jews “exterminated” at Auschwitz. In reality, the inmates who died in these camps were victims of typhus and mass starvation at the end of the war when communications in the near defeated Germany had all but broken down. There is still a great deal of confusion about Belsen and the other German concentration camps, much of it due to the likes of Searchlight, but the accepted wisdom is that no one was “gassed” in Belsen, as Searchlight and its fellow travellers have often implied. An unusually honest appraisal of the real reasons for the appalling conditions found in Belsen can be found in The Relief Of Belsen, published by the Imperial War Museum in 1991.
3) Issue 204 of Searchlight referred to Professor Antony Flew as a geographer, and insinuated that he was not qualified to review a book on race. (38) Professor Flew is actually one of our most distinguished philosophers. His entry in the 1989 edition of Who’s Who (page 605) reveals that he is, among many other things, author of Equality and Education, published 1976, which means that he is eminently qualified to review a book on race. (39)
4) In 1991, a member of the Searchlight team wrote: “The success of the NF had even prompted Mosley to try several times to return to the hustings, with disastrous results.” (40) This is nonsense. To all intents and purposes, Mosley had retired from politics before the National Front was formed.
5) The same “expert” on fascism also wrote that Martin Webster “did his utmost to create a clean image”. (41) Webster is a known homosexual with a preference for the company of young men. (42)
6) In issue 160, page 6, it is claimed that former world middleweight boxing champion Alan Minter “used to have a reputation for bad-mouthing black boxers”.
Actually, he made one comment before his unsuccessful 1980 world defence against Marvelous Marvin Hagler. “I’m not going to lose my title to...black man” (either a black man, that black man, no black man or any black man). At least, that was what was attributed to him. Minter is a straight-talking sort of man, as anyone who reads his autobiography will appreciate. He may, like the rest of us, put his foot in his mouth from time to time, but he is certainly no bigot. If Minter were guilty of anything, it was hyping up the fight to sell more tickets. He was as disgusted as every other boxing fan with the disgraceful rioting, some of it undoubtedly racially motivated, which resulted when the fight was stopped due to Hagler having cut his face to ribbons. And just for the record, he didn’t lose his title to any black man; he lost it to one of the greatest fighters ever to don a pair of gloves.
7) Issue 124, October 1985, page 8 reports that “LOONY racist and anti-semite Dr Kitty Little” was fined £20 for refusing to wear a seatbelt in her car. In court,
it was said that Little claimed “the support of a group called Choice in personal safety.”
Searchlight’s conclusion is that the Choice involved here has racist overtones. ”We suspect it’s not a million miles from another
outfit called ‘Choice’.”
This is a reference to Choice, which is an occasional newspaper edited and published by Lady Birdwood. Dr Kitty Little is a friend and fellow traveller of Lady Birdwood, but although she believes in some weird conspiracy theories, she is not
anti-Jewish. (43)
Choice is a London-based publication, while Choice In Personal Safety, which is run by a Mr Gordon Read, is an entirely different organisation and is concerned principally with campaigning to reform road safety laws and to encourage responsible behaviour on the roads. Dr Little is a member of CIPS. Needless to say, CIPS has no connection with Lady Birdwood’s Choice.
8) Over the years, Searchlight claims to have run a number of “moles” inside the extreme right – worms would be a more appropriate word. One such worm, and the star catch of the Searchlight team, was the aforementioned Ray Hill. In 1988, Hill published a fictionalised account of his life as a racist and leading “Nazi”. (44) Among other things, Hill, and Gable – who undoubtedly wrote large tranches of the book – claimed, as previously stated, to have prevented the bombing of the 1981 Notting Hill carnival by “Nazis”. We will deal with this fantasy elsewhere, (45) here we will point out a few of the more palpable errors in this tissue of lies.
On page 29, Hill claims that the Racial Preservation Society was “...run by hardened fascists, some of them former Mosley Blackshirts, like...Ted Budden.”
Ted Budden is too young to have been a Blackshirt. At the time of writing, Budden is a leading member of the National Front, of which he was a founder member in 1967. He left in the 1975 split, and seems to have returned in the early 1980s. He writes a regular column for the National Front newspaper, the Flag.
On pages 32-3 Hill makes an extraordinary claim, namely that he became an anti-Semite after reading Colin Jordan’s Fraudulent Conspiracy, which he refers to as a booklet. (46)
“Britain’s problems, it said, are the fault of the financial system. The financial system is run by Jews. Therefore, the problem is the Jews”. (47)
It is true that Mr Jordan has a lifelong and quite appalling record as an anti-Semitic propagandist; it is quite probable that he blames the Jews for every evil in the world since the snake tempted Eve. Indeed, he is still churning out his hate literature to this day. However, he did not write any such booklet called Fraudulent Conspiracy. In 1955, Mr Jordan published a 144 page hardback book entitled Fraudulent Conversion. (48) Certainly the book is anti-Semitic, but its theme is that the Jews (still) control Russia, and that the well-documented anti-Semitism of the Soviet government – at the time of writing – was but a red herring.
This is an enormous gaff, and exposes Hill as a liar of the first order. Like his editor. He compounds his lies when on page 165, referring to Searchlight’s alleged attempts to destabilise the political “parties” of the extreme right he says, “we anticipated that we would later be in a position, if BNP began to grow, to split it down the middle by provoking a life or death leadership battle between myself and Tyndall...”
This contradicts his earlier claim, (page 163), that he had “no intention of actually leading a nazi outfit of my own...”
Before that, (page 133), he had talked about “...establish[ing] myself as a rival to McLaughlin for the party leadership.” (49)
9) Returning to Searchlight proper; issue 107, page 3, refers to Chris Tame (50) “and other ASS members...” Tame was never a member of ASS – the Anti-Soviet Society. Nor has this distinguished Libertarian and champion of the free market ever had any sympathies with Nazism, in fact his wife is Jewish. Notwithstanding this, Searchlight has smeared Mr Tame on a number of occasions. (51)
10) The September 1991 issue of Searchlight, page 6, claimed that “[Colin] Jordan’s irregular publication, Gothic Ripples, has the same title as Leese’s magazine, which got him sent to prison in the thirties for criminal libel against Jews.”
About one third of this statement is true. Colin Jordan is regarded as the spiritual heir of Arnold Leese. Leese was a fanatical anti-Semite who believed the Jews controlled virtually everything. Until his death in January 1956, he edited and published an anti-Jewish hate sheet called Gothic Ripples. The first issue is dated 22nd June 1945. (52) Between 1929 and 1939, Leese published The Fascist, a rabidly anti-Semitic newspaper.
In the July 1936 issue, in a mad, rambling article, he claimed that Jews practised ritual murder and that they mixed fresh blood in their Passover bread. (53) This was raised in the House of Commons, and Leese, together with his printer, was subsequently summoned on six charges including seditious libel, effecting a public mischief and conspiracy to effect a public mischief. Leese defended himself, and was acquitted on the major charges. However, he was found guilty on the two “public mischief” charges and would have escaped with a fine except that he preferred to martyr himself. He was sentenced to six months, and later published a substantial booklet, My Irrelevant Defence... (54) in which he documented numerous accounts of alleged ritual murder and accused the trial judge of being a Mason in the pay of the Jews.
And finally:
11) Issue 209, November 1992, claims “Searchlight has always maintained what we consider a moral policy of not publishing details of nazis’ places of work.” (55)
The proof of any pudding is in the eating; not only does this issue “expose” the workplaces of a number of “Nazis”, but:
Issue 174, features a certain Lucy Roberts on the front cover and on page 3 names her place of work and calls for her to be dismissed from her trade union position. (Later she resigned).
Issue 172, page 6, names “Nazi” Fred Herzfeld who works as a cleaner. It also gives his address.
Issue 158, page 5, reports “mounting protests against the continued employment of leading NF activist Paul Nash at Tottenham DHSS.” The South London branch of Anti-Fascist Action is also said to be continuing “to fight for the removal of Malcolm Skeggs” from his DHSS job.
Issue 144, page 4, in an article entitled ROUND THE BENZ, Mercedes Benz worker Steve Brady is singled out for persecution and it is suggested that his employers fire him.
This article is worth examining in depth. Brady is said to have “links” with the Ulster
Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force. This sort of innuendo is one of Gable’s
and Searchlight’s favourite tricks, but what does this really mean, links? By the same token, Gable has “links” with the former National Front member who shares his bed, with the “former Nazi” Ray Hill who was involved in – linked to – the (non-existent) plot to bomb the Notting Hill Carnival. Gable had links with a man who was convicted of conspiring to assault the staff of an Indian restaurant – Dave Roberts – and who was convicted of assaulting three National Front members, a man whose violent tendencies were eclectic if nothing else. Gable also has or had links with a sordid Jewish pimp by the name of Harry Bidney for whom a glowing unsigned obituary (obviously written by Gable) appeared in the September 1984
issue of Searchlight. (56) We all have links, but what do they mean?
Brady is said to have engaged in gun running to Ulster “Loyalists” and to have an international reputation as a “fixer and provider of safe houses...for terrorists.”
Where is the proof? Where is a shred of evidence? Some people on the far right claim – and sincerely believe – that Searchlight is part of the international Jewish conspiracy. Where is the proof?
Steve Brady is said to have violent tendencies; the evidence for this is that he was jailed in 1978 for what Searchlight
refers to as “a purely criminal act”. His other criminal conviction is for daubing a swastika on a wall. Something tells us that Gable would have found this latter less offensive than if for example he had decorated this wall with the legend Steve luvs Sonia. Brady has a degree in zoology from Imperial College London and has since retrained as a computer operator; this is what is commonly referred to as self-improvement or bettering oneself. He is also said to have written a “scurrilous article attacking the well known anti-fascist, Harry Bidney.” No, Gerry, not a well known “anti-fascist” but a sordid, Jewish pimp, who, as well as living off the earnings of prostitutes, was reported in the mainstream press as being the would-be recipient of the sexual favours of a 16 year old youth. In other words, Harry Bidney, your hero, wasn’t just a pimp, he was a filthy faggot for
sure, and almost certainly a paedophile as well. (57)
According to this article, Brady was sacked from his teaching job when his employers discovered he had not informed them of his conviction. This may well be grounds for dismissal from such a post; people with certain convictions would not be eligible to work with children or in certain positions of authority anyway. But there are perhaps four million people in Britain with criminal records, many of them a great deal more serious than Steve Brady’s. Including murderers out on life licence. They are all entitled to earn a living, and indeed, there is one case of a man who was convicted of murdering his own mother qualifying as a priest. The well-known actor Leslie Grantham is a convicted murderer who has since put his terrible past behind him and built a very
successful career for himself. (58)
Finally, it should be recalled that Searchlight editor Gable too is a convicted criminal. The nature of his offence would certainly not disqualify him from the editorship of Searchlight or indeed of any magazine. What should disqualify him as a journalist per se are his persistent lies and his incredibly sloppy research.
Searchlight’s latest target for harassment (besides Larry O’Hara) is a young civil servant named Kathy Murphy – also featured in issue 209. In the June 1993 issue, a two page article Coventry civil servant harbours nazi terrorists (pages 12-13) not only makes this obviously bogus claim but gives her home address and reveals that she lives with another “Nazi”. It also comments that “Her fellow employees appear unconcerned about her activities.” Adding, “Perhaps when Murphy’s colleagues at work read this article, they and their union representatives will change their minds about having this heap of garbage under the same roof. The ball is now firmly in their court and the time for waffle is over.”
According to this article, Miss Murphy has worked for the same employer for ten years, so she must be doing something right. And it goes without saying that if we were to refer to a member of, say, the fanatically pro-Zionist Union of Jewish Students as a “heap of garbage”, we would be accused of rabid anti-Semitism. We might also point out that if Miss Murphy shares her house or even her bed with a fellow “Nazi” that is no business either of her employer or her workmates.
On the other hand, people in the “anti-fascist” movement might think it inappropriate for a self-professed, lifelong,
dedicated “anti-fascist” like Mr Gable to share his bed with a former member of the National Front, National Party and League of St. George. They might wonder too if self-professed “former Nazi” Ray Hill, who lends his name to a column in Searchlight, is sincere in view of his disrespectful attitude to certain black
fellow travellers. (18) And they might certainly wonder if Searchlight’s latest “mole” inside the extreme right, Tim Hepple, should be associated with an “anti-fascist” magazine at all when he has been in and out of both the British National Party and the
Church of the Creator (59) and writes articles in anarchist publications inciting violence against members of the
British National Party, (60) which is a legal organisation with a legitimate right to propagate its philosophy, as much as the Socialist Workers’ Party or the Labour Party for that matter.
In issue 123, page 5, Paul Nash (already mentioned) is said to work as a clerk in a Tottenham DHSS office. His brother is thought to work in another local office and a number of other National Front activists past and present are thought to work for the local authorities in the same area. “...watch this space...”
Issue 120, page 3, announces with mock indignation that “The Government’s decision to retain the services of nazi civil servant Denis Pirie has led to dismay and protests across the political spectrum.” In other words, this is yet another attempt to deprive an ordinary working man of his livelihood for the sin of holding heretical beliefs.
Finally, issue 161, page 5, refers to “young Barclays bank employee Mark Alder”. The suggestion is then made that Searchlight readers should visit the Greenford branch of the bank where he works and harass him. (61)
Okay, you wouldn’t employ a convicted child molester in a nursery, nor a thief in a bank, but Gable and company are of the opinion that no one who holds “politically incorrect” views should be entitled to work in the public sector, nor indeed to hold down a job at all. As Gable and many of his fellow “anti-fascists” in and around Searchlight are Jewish, and as we are forever being reminded that the Jews, historically, have suffered persecution, exclusion from the professions, government service etc., it is ironic that Jews themselves (like Gable) are now witch-hunting and persecuting their enemies, real and imagined.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, we are sure that having read this far we will have convinced you that neither Gable nor anyone else employed by his error-prone, lie-ridden magazine deserves to be employed as a journalist. And they certainly shouldn’t be consulted by any responsible media outlet – print or broadcast – as consultants on any aspect of politics, history or current affairs. Aside from this, there is another, disturbing aspect of Searchlight.
Most magazines are published in part for profit; Searchlight is not. Its registered circulation of 6,900 is almost certainly a gross exaggeration; (62) its real circulation is believed to be not much more than 3,000. (63) Of these, a tiny fraction go to members of the general public, and indeed, many of these are bought by “fascists”. The magazine’s distributors do not even bother to collect the money from shop outlets. (64) So what is the purpose of Searchlight if it is not a commercial undertaking and is not distributed to the public?
The answer is that this well-produced, glossy monthly (65) is subsidised by someone or some organisation for the express purpose of political disinformation. As previously stated, editor Gable’s connections with the British Secret State are well documented. Although Searchlight professes to attack fascism, it has, as we have demonstrated, never been shy about attacking left wing groups, including anarchists. Doubtless too it monitors them on behalf of its masters.
This is not to say that Searchlight is purely and simply a front for M.I.5., Special Branch or whatever, clearly it is not. It has other agendas, in particular the destruction of free speech and the banning of “fascist” literature and meetings. The fact also that Gable and so many people who have been and continue to be associated with the magazine are of Jewish origin is also significant. Over the years, Searchlight has exhibited a pathological obsession with “fighting” anti-Semitism.
If you are Jewish, you might also like to consider other ways of combatting anti-Semitism besides inciting violence against anti-Semites – real and imagined (66) – denying them their democratic rights, and harassing them out of their jobs. It is well-known that some of these sorely misguided people blame the Jews for every evil under the sun. (67) When they see (what they perceive to be) a mysteriously funded Jewish magazine persecuting them, they interpret this as yet another manifestation of the supposedly all-pervasive international Jewish conspiracy. Perhaps that’s what Searchlight wants them to think. In turn, denied any outlet for their propaganda, thwarted at every turn, they commit acts of violence against Jewish property and Jewish people in general. Perhaps that’s what Searchlight wants them to do.
In 1976, a Birmingham magistrate accused Searchlight of inciting violence. In an editorial, the local press referred to the magazine – and thereby its editor – as “false friends” of Britain’s ethnic minorities. (68) This court case was in connection with the publication A Well-Oiled Nazi Machine, (69) the pamphlet which really launched Searchlight. The editor at that time was the late Maurice Ludmer, a veteran communist and race agitator. (70) He is believed to have co-authored this pamphlet with Gerry Gable.
Some people it seems never forget anything and never learn anything, no more so than the British press, for an article/interview in the Guardian, published four years later, (71) not only gave Ludmer a platform to promote his particular brand of “racial tolerance” but presented a totally uncritical and one-sided picture of a valiant Jewish “anti-fascist” struggling against racism and fascism. This article also revealed that “Any journalist writing about right-wing extremists turns to Searchlight for information. Ludmer also hires himself out as a researcher to television and radio programmes on the subject. To date he has contributed to about 30 programmes, including World in Action, a London Weekend series, and many others. He is the expert, the prime source.” (72)
Gerry Gable worked hand in hand with Maurice Ludmer; thirteen years after this interview, he and Searchlight are regarded as the expert, the prime source. In reality, Gable is a liar of the first magnitude and as sloppy a researcher as you could hope to find. The damage to race relations, civil liberties and public awareness of right-wing extremism he and his unholy cabal has inflicted on this country since the early sixties is difficult to overstate. In addition to that, his neo-Nazi fantasies have wasted considerable police time; time, money and resources which could have been allocated to the investigation of real crimes.
In the September 1992 issue of Searchlight, Ray Hill writing in the Hill Street News column (73) claimed that “the team that produces Searchlight...has an international reputation for accuracy and honesty.”
We trust that after you have finished reading this pamphlet and have verified the claims made therein for yourself, you will recognise that statement as a transparent lie. We trust too that in future when you want hard information on the extreme right in Britain you will look elsewhere, to someone or some organisation totally untainted by Searchlight’s smears, bias, lies, and downright sloppy research. We would suggest Larry O’Hara as a first port of call.
To Appendix A
To Appendix B
To Notes And References
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