Hope Not Hate (HNH), the left-wing advocacy group now feeding advice to the Labour government, claims there is “no evidence” that men from certain racial, ethnic, or religious groups are more likely to commit gender-based violence—and insists that to suggest otherwise is “racist.”
The guidance, first circulated in 2023 to charities and staff working with asylum seekers, has now come to light. Aimed at those “concerned about allegations of gender-based violence being linked to anti-migrant sentiment in the community,” it instructs refugee workers to:
- Emphasise that crimes and misdemeanours are perpetrated by members of all races, religions, and nationalities;
- Admit that Gender Based Violence (GBV) is disproportionately perpetrated by men, but deny evidence to suggest that men from particular racial, ethnic or religious groups are more likely to be perpetrators of GBV. To suggest otherwise is racist;
- Emphasise that most asylum seekers are victims fleeing danger who have come to the UK in good faith.
HNH’s line is now being echoed in government circles. Labour is understood to be drawing on the group’s input as it searches for ways to blunt the electoral threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Given the proximity of HNH to the ruling party, this amounts to official gaslighting. Even adjusting for age, research—ranging from that of the Centre for Migration Control to Baroness Caey’s preliminary “grooming gangs” investigations—shows that different types of violent and sexual crimes are committed by migrants at a disproportionate rate to their numbers in the UK population.
Like the sinister but goofy Good Law Project, HNH is becoming notorious for its dubious tactics. It is now known to have been deflecting legitimate concerns about migrant crime and Pakistani-heritage rape gangs since at least as far back as 2023. If it has now entrusted HNH with part of its electoral strategy, Labour has serious questions to answer.
