On Monday, Tory Stories reported on Osman Dervish, the Conservative council candidate thought to be behind the inflammatory, anti-migrant leaflet recently distributed by Romford Conservatives.
Today Tory Stories has been made aware of further cause for concern at the attitudes harboured in today’s Conservative Party. Dervish, who is also listed as working for the Conservative MP for Romford, Andrew Rosindell, appears to be a member of several highly questionable groups on the social networking site Facebook.
These include ‘Restore Rhodesia’ and the ‘Augusto Pinochet Fan Club’. The latter describes itself as “dedicated to the support of Augusto Pinochet and the continuation of his memorable acts of justice against Communist forces in Chile during the later half of the 20th Century”. It states “We currently support General Pinochet’s innocence in his trial for crimes against humanity that he did not commit”, lists its email address as “pinochetkicksass@benevolentdictatorship.com” and its location as “Caravan of Death Avenue”. Furthermore, Dervish also set up the ‘Ian Smith Appreciation Society’ group, which praises Smith for “fourteen years of maintaining white rule” in Rhodesia.
This comes after a recent investigation by the Guardian into the extreme views of the Young Britons’ Foundation, an organisation described by its founder as “a Conservative madrasa” that radicalises young Tories, and whose past speakers have included Andrew Rosindell MP.
With its extremist allies in Europe, its close involvement in a radical right-wing ‘madrasa’, ongoing questions about the degree of complicity of one of its own MPs in the dissemination of virulently anti-immigrant electoral material, and now indications of extremism amongst its own candidates, does the Conservative Party’s ‘progressive’ and ‘compassionate’ rhetoric really stand up to scrutiny?
