COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY ON RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA: REPORT ON THE FINDINGS OF THE INQUIRY Rapporteur: Mr Glyn Ford, published by the European Parliament, Luxembourg, (1991). 177 pages.
This publication was put out in several languages. Aside from Searchlight stooge Glyn Ford’s association, documentation received from the United Kingdom lists (page 174) New Right New Racism, The Other Face Of Terror and From Ballots To Bombs.
What THEIR papers didn’t say published in Vanguard, JANUARY-MARCH 1991, issue 33, page 3.
Reports on the rift between Searchlight and “anti-racist“ Asians.
Visit to Iraq “sinister“ published in the Northern Echo, January 16, 1991, page 4, [Compiled from CD-ROM.]
Gable quoted. It’s all part of Saddam’s worldwide conspiracy, this three man delegation to Baghdad.
Writer’s Name “leaked“ to NF by David Rose, published in the Guardian, Wednesday, January 31, 1991, page 2.
Claims that Gable’s address was leaked to the National Front by the Secret State. David Rose is a drinking pal of Gable’s, and I know – from personal experience – that Rose is so gullible that he’ll believe anything Gable tells him. All the same, I have it on good authority that this is what actually happened.
February 1991: SEARCHLIGHT: THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST MONTHLY, issue 188 runs to 20 pages and is priced at £1.
Below is the front cover non-story. To find out how this turned out, see the entry for June 1991 (below).
Incidentally, the title of this article is a well-known cultural reference; sans exclamation mark it alludes to a notorious headline in the same newspaper during the Falklands War.
CARF is back/Dear Searchlight published in CARF, page 2, issue No 1, FEB/MAR, 1991. (Based on photocopy).
The grovelling letter Searchlight declined to publish, explaining why the CARF Collective can’t work with Gerry and co any more. We don’t want gollywogs on jam jars and we don’t want Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinian schoolchildren either, Holocaust or no Holocaust.
FILE ON EDGAR Compiled by Malcolm Page and Simon Trussler, published by Methuen Drama, London, (March 1991). 95 pages.
(Trussler is the General Editor of the series; Page is Associate Editor).
Page 91: “Edgar has been a prolific journalist, writing more often on politics, the right and racism than on theatre. A small selection of his articles and reviews follows“.
This “small selection“ runs to page 93; pages 93-4 lists interviews; pages 94-5 lists secondary sources.
[BBIP, 1995]
March 1991: Issue 189 of SEARCHLIGHT
THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST MONTHLY runs to 20 pages for £1.
The front cover uses Gable’s favourite word: LINKS in bold red capitals; on pages 4-6 the story behind this is said to be that neo-Nazi mercenaries were signing on for the Gulf War, fighting with Saddam Hussein, and hot everyone on the far right was happy with this. Is anyone ever happy with war apart from those who profit from it? This article is credited to our European Editor, ie Graeme Atkinson.
There is the usual whining and wailing about so-called racism from around the UK, much of it trivial or contrived, although there are reports on real crimes including (page 18) of a mass shooting in South Africa.
On page 19 is a mention of a publication by Mag Segest and American correspondent Leonard Zeskind: The Far Right’s Homophobic Agenda which alludes to lesbian and gay children – Nope! No such animals exist, only sexually confused kids.
On the back page is the notification of a mass picket by Anti-Fascist Action to win back the streets, in other words to stop the British National Party campainging by any means necessary>.
Search Me! published in Private Eye, page 14, issue 762, 1 March, ’91.
Letter from Michael Sherman of Western Goals Institute which says, among other things, that Gable has a conviction for burglary and the late and unlamented Harry Bidney had convictions for pimping and the homosexual rape of under-age boys.
SKINHEADS STARTED AS BRITISH YOUTH CULT published in the Jerusalem Post, March 3 1991, page 8. [Compiled from CD-ROM]
The magazine is mentioned in this brief article.
Searchlight, a letter from Gable published in Private Eye, 15 March, ’91, issue 763.
“I have no conviction for burglary...Harry Bidney...had no...convictions [for sex crimes against young men]“.
Both of these claims are technically correct. Gable’s 1964 conviction would today be called burglary artifice, and Bidney wasn’t convicted of buggery, but he was convicted of pimping, and his employer was convicted of attempting to procure a youth for him.
The Cause Book at the High Court for 1991 is entered thus:
Garry Llewellyn Bushell v Searchlight Magazine Limited and Gerry Gable and The Russell Press Print Limited.
The writ was issued on 20/2/91, Action No 1686 (41193); N\C 22/3/91.
Bindman & Partners acted for the defendants.
Ideology and Opinions: Studies in Rhetorical Psychology by Michael Billig, published by Sage Publications, London, (April 1991). 216 pages. Index.
[BBIP, 1995 says this was published simultaneously in hardback and paperback; hardback not seen by compiler.]
The Radio Times for 6-12 April 1991 listed the following on page 64.
9.30pm (Monday, April 8)
Panorama
“Racial violence is on the rise in Britain, but this time the victims are fighting back. In London, young Bangladeshis have formed gangs to protect themselves. In Manchester, where Jewish institutions have been attacked, young Jews train in self-defence. Robin Denselow reports on the threat of increasing street violence, and investigates the role of the openly racist British National Party.“
The programme was produced by Dai Richards. There is no mention of Gable or his hatesheet, but in Private Eye for May 2, Gable boasted that he had just worked on a Panorama programme for the BBC. In view of the smear on the BNP and the reference to Jews et al fighting back against the wicked Aryan goyim, this boast has the ring of truth.
Gabled versions
No less than five letters published in Private Eye, April 11, 1991.
Page 11: correspondence from Paul Fountain, S.B. Nark! and Patrick Harrington; and page 13 from Donald F. King and Alan Lownie re Gable’s “burglary“ conviction, Maggie’s Militant Tendency and the late Harry Bidney’s sexual tendencies.
The new fascists, by Martin Shipton, published in the Northern Echo, April 28, 1991, page 1p. [Compiled from CD-ROM.]
Atkinson on xenophobia.
May 1991: Issue 181 of SEARCHLIGHT
THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST MONTHLY runs to 20 pages for £1.
The front page, the Editiorial and pages 3-6 covers what is said to be a revival of the Brownshirts in Germany.
There is a review of the April 8 Panorama programme (covered above), and the HILL STREET NEWS column (which should of course be called Gable Street News as demonstrated by the February 2000 judgment in Riley Gable & others).
On page 18, a Home Office report that revealed nearly a quarter of convicted rapists in Britain are black didn’t go down at all well, either with this magazine or the usual suspects.
There are various other reports from the UK and abroad, including the United States.
The back page includes a warning that someone in the misnamed anti-fascist/anti-racist movement is passing information to the far right, and a flashback to 1981 re the death of the odious Maurice Ludmer.
Neo-Fascism in Europe Edited by Luciano Cheles, Ronnie Ferguson and Michalina Vaughan, published by Longman, London and New York, (May 1991) 299 pages. Index.
See entry below for Gable’s contribution.
[BBIP, 1995 says this was published simultaneously in hardback and paperback; hardback not seen by compiler.]
The Far Right in Contemporary Britain by Gerry Gable, is Chapter Twelve (pages 245-63) of the book Neo-Fascism in Europe (see above entry).
For a full analysis the reader is referred to the the Third Edition of the current writer’s Searchlight On A Searchliar.
Are You Being Served? by David Edgar, published in Marxism Today, May 1991, page 28.
Goings On published in the Letters column in Private Eye, May 2, 1991, page 14.
Gable’s reply to the correspondence of April 11, including a reply to Patrick Harrington. But surely Gable doesn’t debate with “fascists“ ? Whitewashes Bidney.
Manipulative moggies
A somewhat witty letter appeared under this title, from Mrs Sonia Gable to the Times, May 2, 1991, page 19.
May 10, 1991, page 19: Letter in the Times from Pamela Nichol in response to the May 2 letter of Sonia Gable.
Neo-nazis in street brawls by Kim Fletcher, published in the Sunday Telegraph, May 26, 1991, page 1.
Gable: “We had tickets. Dozens of skinheads arrived and just got stuck into people. People got stuck into them.“
THE SUN
SINKS ON
‘Searchlies’ published in Vanguard, issue 36, (undated but circa June 1991), page 4.
Scoffs at the suggestion that Garry Bushell is a National Front asset.
British history reconsidered by Ann Dummett, published in Patterns Of Prejudice, Summer 1991, Volume 25, Number 1, pages 100-1.
This is a review of the 1990 book The Politics of Marginality by Kushner and Lunn.
June 1991: SEARCHLIGHT
THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST MONTHLY is issue 192, runs to 20 pages and is priced at £1.
The front page bears a photograph of John Tyndall on a visit to the United States with a typically unflattering caption.
Page 7 reports on the forthcoming trial of lady Birdwood. For an objective view of this much maligned woman, check out the interviews on my main website.
Page 14 reports the death of German National Socialist Michael Kühnen from AIDS. Oh dear. Or perhaps that should be oh duckie.
On the back page, Gable praises himself and his contribution to the book Neo-Fascism In Europe, something Mark Taha and I dismantled. Also on the back page we find this.
June 1991: SEARCHLIGHT
THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST MONTHLY is issue 192, runs to 20 pages and is priced at £1.
No free speech for fascists. Or for you, Gerry! The above image appeared on the back page.
Right and Mr Hamm, letter to the Sunday Telegraph, published June 2, 1991, page 2.
According to Jeffrey Hamm, Gable’s thugs had forged tickets.
MR JAMES ROSS published in Private Eye, 769, 7 June ’91, page 7.
Announcement that Private Eye apologised to James Ross in the High Court and paid him substantial damages and legal costs re bogus kidnap/murder claim.
Police raid the home of leading neo-Nazi veteran: Crown Prosecution Service weighs action against Colin Jordan, published in the Jewish Chronicle, by Julian Kossoff, June 28, 1991, page 1.
There were said to have been seven police officers in the said raid; this, believe it or not, was in relation to a cartoon published by Britain’s leading geriatric Nazi; Gable claimed the raid was excellent.
July 1991: SEARCHLIGHT
THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST MONTHLY is issue 193, priced at £1 and runs to 20 pages.
The Editorial on page 2 gloats over the June 4 raid on the home of the geriatric Colin Jordan, indeed it says the raid did not go far enough. For the full background to this raid and much more, the reader is referred to the unauthorised biography of Colin Jordan.
Pages 12-3 is a big article about so-called Nazis in Sweden, probably written by Stieg Larsson. See the entry for the August 1991 issue of the magazine (below) for more about this.
Page 19 is a review of Neo-Fascism In Europe; a full review of Gable’s contribution to this book can be found here.
The Social and Cultural Roots of Contemporary Antisemitism by Tony Kushner, published in Patterns Of Prejudice, Summer 1991, Volume 25, Number 1, pages 18-31.
From page 21: “The tendency to focus on the racist fringe has had particularly detrimental results in the United Kingdom. Here the experience and memory of the Second World War has led to the discrediting of explicitly neo-Nazi ideology.“ He should blame Gable for that!
Black activists challenge Searchlight from the FIGHT RACISM column in the magazine Labour Briefing, July, 1991. [Based on photocopy.]
Black groups unhappy with Gable and company’s attitude towards Zionism and the oppression of the Palestinian people.
August 1991: SEARCHLIGHT
THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST MONTHLY is issue 194, priced at £1 and runs to 20 pages.
This issue is the usual mix of whining about something called racism. The front page story suggests a NAZI KILLER might be sheltered in Britain. The July issue of the magazine alluded to this character – Klas Henrik Pontus Lund. He goes by Klas Lund, and served two year of a four year sentence for manslaughter. At the time this article was written, Lund was engaged in insane activities in Sweden including stealing weapons from a police station. He ended up with a six year sentence. The suggestion that he was hiding out in Britain at some point appears to be false, but like the appellation NAZI KILLER (technically true) it made what we would today call good clickbait.
The back page of the magazine contains an advertisement for Anti-Fascist Action who show their commitment to democracy by calling to Drive Out The BNP
Anti-Fascist faces disorder charges by Julian Kossoff, published in the Jewish Chronicle, August 16, 1991. (Based on photocopy).
A fawning, apologetic article relating the allegations against Gable of organising the violent bust-up of the meeting in Kensington Library.
CREATING A COMMUNITY “It is time we stopped talking and started doing“ by Ray Hill, published in Green Anarchist, Autumn ’91, issue 28, pages 14-15.
Hill suggests that 500 anarchists each raise a thousand pounds to “create a community“.
PLAYS: THREE by David Edgar, with an introduction by the author, published by Methuen, London, (October 1991). 418 pages.
Pages vii and viii is A Chronology of Plays and Screenplays.
His first production was Two Kinds of Angel, July 1970.
[BBIP, 1995]
More on Searchlight..., from the RIGHT OF REPLY column in the magazine Labour Briefing, September, 1991, page 25.
Two letters from Searchlight apologists, one of them a certain Mr Ray Hill.
Death notice for Harry Hochfelder, the father of Sonia Gable, published in the Times, September 2, 1991, page 17.
Neo-fascism in Europe reviewed by Liz Fekete in Race and Class, October-December 1991, Volume 33, Number 2, pages 87-91.
One of two books reviewed here.
October 1991: Issue 196 of SEARCHLIGHT
THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST MONTHLY runs to 20 pages and is priced at £1.
Beneath the Editorial on page 3 is an appeal for witnesses re the Kensington Library debacle. For the truth about this incident, including a detailed eyewitness account, see the entry for Keith Thompson in this in-depth article.
On page 3 is a mention of Arthur New. See the entry for the next issue for more detail.
This issue includes extensive coverage of events in the United States as well as reports on some actual crimes instead of the usual thought crimes although on page 17 is a brief report from the Netherlands on the persecution of Florentine Rost van Tonningen, who at that time was nearly 77 years old. Her crime was to publish her autobiography!
The back page has a triple advertisment for events by Anti-Fascist Action, all in the East End of London.
More on Searchlight... published in the NEWS & VIEWS column in the magazine Labour Briefing, October, 1991, page 7.
Larry O’Hara’s reply. Nazi threat growing, group warns by Adam Batstone, published in the Northern Echo, October 15, 1991, page 8. [Compiled from CD-ROM.]
Ray Hill is said to have infiltrated the extreme right – he didn’t; he is now leading a secret life. I hope his long-suffering wife doesn’t find out.
Alarm raised over neo-Nazi threat, published in the Northern Echo, October 17, 1991, page 12. [Compiled from CD-ROM.]
Published in Edition 5. Gable quoted.
Warning on “rising threat of neo-Nazis“, by Adam Batstone, published in the Northern Echo, October 17, 1991, page 12. [Compiled from CD-ROM, double and single quote marks and all!]
Violent fascism on the march in Europe, by Chris Lloyd, published in the Northern Echo, October 25, 1991, page 10. [Compiled from CD-ROM.]
Commenting on the then recent conviction of Lady Birdwood, Tony Robson said: “We have been campaigning for her to be tried since 1968.“ And “She should have got life.“
November 1991: Issue 197 of SEARCHLIGHT
THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST MONTHLY runs to 20 pages and is priced at £1.
Page 9: There are three articles on this page including FASCIST HEADTEACHER RESIGNS; this is Arthur New whose photograph appeared on page 3 of the previous issue. This man had suffered persecution in print since 1989, and not only by the Gable gang.
He was clearly pressurised to resign. As these words are written, in July 2024, not only homosexuals but transsexuals and even Islamists are working in the public sector. Any attempt to fire one of them for any reason typically results in howls of indignation.
Page 19 under REVIEWS we find Warheit Macht Frei which was scripted by Graeme Atkinson.
This is a sixty minute documentary The Truth Makes You Free of Truth Will Make You Free, directed by Michael Schmidt.
The review is by Stieg Larsson, a regular contributor and a sap rather than pond scum like Gable.
Letter from Mrs Sonia Gable to the Times, November, 30, 1991, page 13.
A letter concerning the alignment of maps on District Line trains in the carriages of underground trains. Written from her home address.
The Shape of the Table published in the Independent, December 14, 1991, page 32.
David Edgar’s comments on the production of his play on Eastern Europe.
Antisemitism in the 1990s: A Symposium, published in Patterns of Prejudice, Winter 1991, Volume 25, Number 2.
This is a long report of a conference. More wailing and gnashing of teeth about the uniqueness of Jewish suffering and the wickedness of the “Aryan“ goyim. Michael Billig’s contribution is pages 10-13. If you really want to know why they hate you so much, O Learned Professor, there is a very simple reason: PEOPLE WHO DESTROY OUR FREEDOMS DESERVE TO BE HATED.
A letter published in Green Anarchist, Winter ’91, No. 29, pages 18-19, from the curiously named AH of Lancaster which began as follows:
“Dear Editor,
The recent article by Ray Hill entitled Creating A Community was indeed food for thought. I think that there is little doubt that he has got something worth investigating.“
Further comment would be superfluous.
December 1991: Issue 198 of SEARCHLIGHT
THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST MONTHLY runs to 20 pages and is priced at £1.
Page 3 reports gloatingly on the arrest of Fred Leuchter while making a speech at an event organised by David Irving. I bought a ticket for that event. If you want to learn why I was unable to attend, check out my book The Churchill Papers on this site and at the Internet Archive.
Page 2: The Editorial (which was presumably written by Gable) alludes to Al Sharpton as a shyster politician from New York. Hmm, sounds a tad racist to me.
Pages 4-5 reports the sad tale of Tony Lecomber. I will say only that I saw a different side to him a few years later when I was invited to speak at a BNP meeting.
Much of the rest of the magazine consists of the usual gloating and sarcasm.
On page 12, the reader is informed that the world’s press and television have turned to the magazine for “accurate news and analysis of events” with particular reference to events in Germany.
There are sundry overseas repoorts including from France, Norway and the United States (the latter, apparently, by regular contributor Zeskind).
The last two pages purport to be a diary of reports from Germany: NAZI VIOLENCE AND ANTI-NAZI RESISTANCE; and that resistance was?
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