Councillor Steve Flood, who now sits as an Independent for the ward of Sprites, retweeted from the @steveflood3 account content that read, “I do not believe Islam should be allowed in the UK” and “ISLAM DOES NOT ALLOW FREE SPEECH and it is being allowed to grow from strength to strength in Britain”.

Flood had listed “borough conservative councillor” on their Twitter bio.

The local Conservative MP Tom Hunt called the retweets “cleary Islamophobic” and had no place in a mainstream political party, the East Anglian Daily Times reported.

The content seen by Tell MAMA and shared with local Conservatives in Ipswich and forwarded to party head office included retweeting content that called for a ban on halal and kosher slaughter, a total ban on immigration, and conspiracies about halal meat labelling. And boosting an inflammatory racialised falsehood that read, “A mainly Muslim Army is being ushered into our Country by the HOUR! Fit, Adult, young Men. Legions of them, from all Cultures and Countries, of which we know NOTHING! 40K so far since 2021. Remember, our own ARMY has just under 80K. Our National Security is in grave Danger!”.

Evidence of Cllr Steve Flood retweeting calls for a ban on kosher and halal slaughter in the UK.

The anti-Muslim falsehood as retweeted by Cllr Steve Flood.

The image used in the original tweet was a photograph of refugees in Calais, taken in 2018.

Examples of the anti-Muslim and Islamophobic retweets that resulted in Cllr Flood’s suspension from the local Conservative party.

Anti-LGBT+ content found by Tell MAMA included a retweet from Cllr Flood from an account holder who called Pride a “sexual deviancy fest” and from a separate account that claimed, “Pride is now just a celebration of perverts, narcissists and pedo apologists.”

Anti-LGBT content Cllr Flood retweeted before locking their Twitter account.

Councillor Flood tweeted statements like “A once great country is being destroyed, by welcoming illegal immigrants” and “You are all paying for illegal immigrants, at £5,000,000 a day and rising,” blaming them for failures to secure dental appointments, rentals, or hospital appointments.

A conspiracy about halal meat labelling appeared on Cllr Flood’s Twitter timeline.

Other councillors documented their misuse of Twitter in 2021 to spread anti-Muslim falsehoods.

In a statement, the Conservative Association said: “On Friday morning the Ipswich Conservative Association suspended Councillor Steve Flood following allegations that appeared in the press on Thursday.

“The suspension includes removal of the whip from the Conservative group at the borough council.”

A meeting on Wednesday (August 24) will decide the future of Steve Flood in the Conservative party.

We continue to offer all councils and local authorities bespoke training on social media best practices and digital trends around anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia.

UPDATE 26/08: Cllr Steve Flood remains suspended from the local Conservative party pending an inquiry. The local MP, Tom Hunt, said, “I want them to know that as their MP, I feel very strongly that there is no place in politics or social media for Islamophobia,” the East Anglian Daily Times reported.

We will continue to provide more updates where possible.

The post Revealed: Cllr Steve Flood retweeted call for ban on kosher and halal slaughter appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Other graffiti on the store exterior included a call to ‘ban’ Islam which was signed off with ‘BRPI’ – the initialism for the British Renaissance Policy Institute.

Credit: Facebook.

The BRPI was founded by the disgraced former UKIP parliamentary candidate Jack Sen in 2014, who then joined the racist, neo-fascist British National Party (BNP) in 2015, before leaving the party several months later. He published a book that year which featured chapters lifted from the notorious neo-Nazi hate site the Daily Stormer, along with a guest chapter from another notorious American neo-Nazi, Matthew Heimbach.

Mr Sen also helped to found British Resistance Party (BRP), which had, for a brief time, sat under the leadership of the Liverpool-based solicitor Joe Chiffers. Mr Chiffers was a parliamentary candidate for UKIP in Liverpool Riverside, gaining 2,500 votes in the 2015 General Election. He also served as chairmen for the BRPI.

Jack Sen also appeared on a Channel 4 documentary about the far-right earlier this year.

A failed Worcester City Council candidate and local organiser for the BNP, Carl Mason, was brought into the BRPI in 2014, and Mason also engaged with the BRP, according to local press in Worcester.

At 13:25 GMT on August 25, Mr Sen shared a post from the official BRPI page to a closed Facebook group called ‘British Politics’ about the graffiti, adding that “LIDL “TOLD” NOT TO SELL HALAL OR KOSHER BY OUR INDEPENDENT ACTIVISTS”.

The post which appeared on the closed Facebook group ‘British Politics’ concerning the graffiti.

Mr Sen also claimed that Lidl continues to stock halal and kosher meats, which is not true, as the official Twitter account @LidlUK has confirmed on multiple occasions that it does not stock these meats.

Hi, thanks for getting in touch. We do not stock Halal / Kosher certified meat or poultry. Thanks

— Lidl UK (@LidlUK) August 28, 2018

In July 2016, Lidl confirmed that its meats do not comply with strict halal standards, so, it would, therefore, be ‘misleading’ to label the products as such, since “all processes, production and transport must be regulated throughout the process” to be deemed halal-certified.

The statement from the BRPI ended that Mr Sen had nothing to do with him, as he longer occupies the leadership of the group, and the graffiti was carried out by members acting on their own volition.

Nor is this the first time that individuals linked to the BRPI have carried out Islamophobic stunts. Last year, re-appropriated BNP posters about ‘grooming gangs’ were distributed in Worcester. Other local BRPI activists in the Worcester area have worked with members of extreme far-right groups like the National Front.

Many users in the group condemned Sen’s post, adding, for example, that “If you were genuinely concerned about animal welfare you’d be calling on them to stop selling any meat.”

The post Far-right target Lidl store with ‘Ban kosher halal’ and ‘Ban Islam’ graffiti appeared first on TELL MAMA.

President Hollande talked this evening about the need to react with solidarity between communities. We agree. It is at a time like this that we say that targeted hate towards any community must lead to a co-ordinated and united approach. Today, we stand with Jewish communities and we say #JeSuisJuif:

The post React with Solidarity Between Communities, #JeSuisJuif appeared first on TELL MAMA.

However, the far-right solely focus on Muslims whilst ignoring the Jewish method of Shechita. In recent years, certain tabloid newspapers are also guilty of blurring the debate around religious slaughter. In 2010, the Daily Star ran the Muslim-baiting headline, ‘Brit Kids Forced To Eat Halal School Dinners,’ but the choice was always optional.

Such a headline imposes a rigid dichotomy that implies Muslims are not British. The EDL follow this dichotomy by posting an image in response to Ms Saleem’s business:

“Nothing made from Halal slaughtered meat can be classed as traditionally British! Britain is a civilised country where the unnecessary barbaric slaughter of animals to appease an outdated superstition is simply not acceptable”

It continues to state that Halal will never be ‘British’. Some of most popular comments are deeply offensive:

“Shamefully most of the meat and poultry sold in UK supermarkets is halal. Find a good local butcher and stop funding terrorism.”

“Mulims, DON`T EVER use the term “Traditional British Food, because you animals will NEVER BE BRITISH!”

“Ban halal. Close mosques. Deport moslems.”

However, such intolerance does not follow the British tradition of meeting various religious requirements. As history demonstrates, at the turn of the 17^th Century, British civil servants went to great lengths to source Halal meat for Moroccan delegates. Some years later, and there is evidence of a settled Muslim community in Britain.In parts of Europe, the debate is controversial. Denmark recently banned the religious slaughter of animals for the production of Halal and Kosher meat, despite the country not registering any slaughter without pre-stunning in the last decade.

Both religious groups remain free to import meat without pre-stunning. Yet, for many Danish Muslims, a religious decree stated that pre-stunned meat is Halal. But the malaise runs deeper, as it calls into question why a government would legislate against a non-existent problem. Such a symbolic move will only alienate the religious minorities whose faith is more than a label.

Unlike several European countries, Britain allows “non-stun” slaughter as long as it does not cause “unnecessary suffering”. However, in 2006, EU research noted that 75% of cattle, 93% of sheep and 100% of chickens slaughtered in the UK for Halal meat were pre-stunned before slaughter. Figures published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in 2011 found a similar pattern. For British Muslims, there is dilemma about how their meat is sourced as two of the biggest halal suppliers take contrasting approaches. The Halal Food Authority (HFA) accepts a form of “non-lethal” stunning whilst the Halal Monitoring Committee (HMC) rejects stunning animals prior to slaughter.

If we want a serious debate about animal welfare, let us focus on all forms of slaughter. For example, we genetically select chickens to grow very quickly for their meat. As a result, they can reach slaughter weight in just five weeks after hatching. Such rapid weight gain can lead to heart defects.

Whilst Britain does generally maintain a high standard of livestock welfare, horror stories of mistreatment do emerge.

Un-spin the tabloid headlines and far-right rhetoric and we find that a great deal of Halal meat produced in Britain is pre-stunned. The perceived barbarity of “non-stun” slaughter remains a minority.

The post More Halal Hysteria from the English Defence League, by Steve Rose appeared first on TELL MAMA.