Tory defends ‘dreadful’ plotting with far-Right to become MP
A TORY candidate has vowed to clear his name after he was recorded apparently plotting with a far-Right group to win votes by stirring up religious tensions.
Afzal Amin, who is standing in a key marginal seat, is accused of asking the English Defence League to say it was organising an inflammatory march against a local ‘mega-mosque’.
It is claimed he did not intend the march to go ahead, but wanted to hold phoney talks with the group to get it to call off the march, and gain credit for defusing the situation just before the general election.
Tory ministers yesterday urged him to stand down, but Mr Amin – who has been suspended from the party pending an inquiry – denied the claims and insisted he had been ‘grossly misrepresented’. In secret filming,
‘The most appalling organisation’
he is heard telling EDL leaders that he would also pay for the group’s supporters to canvass on his behalf, and would be their ‘unshakeable ally’ in Parliament if elected.
Defence Minister Anna Soubry said that if the allegations were true, Mr Amin should ‘fess up and go now’. She added: ‘If this is right, this is dreadful. I mean the EDL is the most appalling organisation’.
The party had high hopes for 40-year-old Mr Amin, a Muslim and an ex-Army captain who has done three tours of duty in Afghanistan. The former teacher had become an education officer and was said to have worked with Princes William and Harry.
Former Tory party chairman Baroness Warsi has apparently met Mr Amin on several occasions over the past seven years, and called on his expertise as one of the highestranking Muslim soldiers.
Mr Amin, who faces a disciplinary hearing tomorrow, was selected two years ago to fight the marginal seat of Dudley North. It is held by Labour’s Ian Austin with a majority of only 649. A month ago, a real demonstration about the city’s £18million mosque by 600 EDL supporters inflamed tensions and led to 30 arrests.
Mr Amin appears to have suggested last week to the EDL’s former leader Tommy Robinson and current chairman Steve Eddowes that they announce a ‘second march about the mosque’.
At restaurant, he is heard telling them: ‘We all play our roles, you say, “Yeah we’re going to do a march...”’ He proposes that after a second meeting with him, and police and Muslim leaders, they hold a press conference ‘where you say, “We were going to do a march. The chief [of] police asked Afzal Amin, members of the Muslim community, we’ve sat together and... we’re going to work closely together”’.
In the footage, filmed by Mr Robinson and obtained by the Mail on Sunday, he is heard to say: ‘This is my fantasy... if I could demonstrate to the people in Dudley that I can be a positive voice for community cohesion, for development, for campaigning against the evils and the terrorism and child grooming and all the rest of it, then that would help me a lot in the election.’
He is said to have spoken to the men again later in the week saying he wanted their activists to canvass for him and offering to pay them ‘a small salary’ – which would be a breach of election rules.
But Mr Amin claimed last night that he never planned to ‘behave in the way that was presented’ and that he was using the tactics he learned while negotiating between the US Army and the Taliban ‘to improve community relations here in my own country between the EDL and Muslim communities’.
The father of two said on the BBC that the idea he would carry out the protest was ‘a fantasy’. He said he had held talks with EDL for a year, intending to ‘prevent further communal tensions and violence’.
He added in a statement: ‘During a time of heated tensions between various communities in our country, it’s vital that we tackle these problems and take difficult, sometimes uncomfortable, steps.
‘I made sure I involved Chief Superintendent Chris Johnson from the start and I made clear, which is evident in the recordings, that I refused to do anything illegal’.
But last night Mr Johnson, who is responsible for policing in Dudley, said he had never discussed an EDL demonstration with him.