Tory Chairman Brandon Lewis has some explaining to do ...

On March 1st 2019 the independent media site Evolve Politics exposed an absolutely despicable Tory Facebook hate chamber full of bigotry, racism, anti-Muslim hate, and the kind of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that would have sent the mainstream media into paroxysms of condemnation had they been found in a Labour group run by Labour Party councillors.

One of the most disturbing comments was posted by a woman called Dorinda Bailey where she agreed with someone calling for all mosques to be bombed, but criticised them for using a swear word in their comment!

When Ash Sarkar asked the Tory chairman Brandon Lewis about this despicable mosque-bombing comment he responded with a simple one sentence reply; "she is not a member of our Party".

The problem of course is that there's loads of evidence out there that Dorinda Bailey is an active member of the Tory party, or at least was one until very recently.

Here's a picture of her out on the campaign trail with the Tories during the 2018 local elections.

And here's evidence that she was actually one of the Tory party candidates in the Bradwell ward of Newcastle-under-Lyme, which means she was definitely a Tory party member within the last year, which makes Brandon Lewis's "not a member" comment extremely evasive and deceptive at the very least.

If Dorinda Bailey has been thrown out of the Tory party within the last year, Brandon Lewis clearly has an obligation to explain why.

Did the Tory party know about her bigoted tendencies. If so, why were two other Tory party councillors running the Facebook Tory hate-chamber with her?

Don't they have rules in place for preventing party members from co-operating with people who have been thrown out of the party?

But there's also the possibility that Brandon Lewis was outright lying that she's not a member since he provided absolutely no evidence to support his "not a member" claim.

It's pretty obvious that any political party that is serious about combating bigotry and racism in their ranks should be transparent about how they deal with proven bigots who stood as their official party candidates in elections less than a year previously.

It's pretty obvious that Brandon Lewis and the Tories have an obligation to explain why someone who was until very recently a party member (at the absolute best) was behaving in this despicable manner on a pro-Tory Facebook page run by other Tory Party members, and provide documentary evidence to back up Brandon Lewis's assertion that she's not a member of the party, and an explanation of why.

Will the mainstream media pick up on this and work to hold Brandon Lewis and the Tories accountable?

Will they pick up on the fact that Brandon Lewis has used the exact same "not a member" line to distance the party from a bigoted Tory party member who organised an extreme-right protest involving a hate group called the North East Infidels?

Will they pick up on the fact that stating "not a member" is absolutely insufficient when Tory party activists have been caught spreading bigotry and hatred in a pro-Tory Facebook propaganda page. At the very least the disciplinary processes used to remove them from the party should be detailed, and an apology should be made for the bigoted behaviour.

The likely answer is no. They won't pick up on this issue because it contradicts the whole narrative they're trying to construct, that it's the Labour left (who were actually amongst the tiny minority of just 18 anti-racist MPs to oppose Theresa May's unlawfully racist "Hostile Environment" legislation in 2014) who are the nasty racists.

But just imagine if this was the other way around and it had been a Labour Party candidate at the 2018 local elections who had agreed with a proposal to 'bomb all synagogues' using a picture of them grinning alongside a famous Labour Party figure as their profile picture as they made their despicable comments.

Do you honestly think the media would allow Jeremy Corbyn to get away with evasively claiming "not a member of our party" with no apology, and no details whatever of the disciplinary procedures used to remove that person from the party?

Of course they wouldn't. It'd be spun out into a days-long re-examination of the Labour anti-Semitism issue and used as personal ammunition against Jeremy Corbyn (and whoever was pictured alongside the racist bigot too).

This disparity in mainstream media coverage that's actually just as concerning as the rampant bigotry and racism in the Tory ranks, and Brandon Lewis's outright evasiveness in not apologising for it.

If they're working as hard as they can to portray one side as having a bigotry problem, whilst deliberately turning a blind eye to the much worse bigotry problem on the other side (and the other side's deceptive, evasive, and unapologetic responses to it) then they're not reporting the news, they're manufacturing it.

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