BNPGATE: The Andi Ali interview
Introduction
Imagine what it must be like to be a journalist and given a story which seems so incredible to be true that you don’t for one moment believe it, but then, when you do some digging, you find out that not only is it true, but the police, Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), Civil Service Commissioners (CSC), and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have gone out of their way to hush it up. Well if you can then perhaps you might understand what it was like for me when Andi Ali a former Civil Servant at the Tax Credit Office in Preston came to me with one such tale. When he told me that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs had misused thousands of pounds of public money by charging him with being an extremist for heckling the British National Party (BNP) at a peaceful protest in Burnley, after his details had been put on a Neo Nazi hit list called Redwatch, and after he had been stabbed outside Downing Street and left for dead, I thought he was joking, having a laugh, but it soon became clear it wasn’t. Fair enough, I’ve been a journalist for over thirty years, and should not have rushed to judgement, but this story seemed so far fetched to be true, what else could I do? I found myself standing up, waving my finger at him and saying, "look here Mr Ali, the BNP are a racist vile party who wants to remove all non whites from these shores, as well as Jews, no government department would label you an extremist for heckling those Neo Nazis at a peaceful protest".
I should have listened to my old editor Dominic Mason in the 1970’s, who told me when I was a young journalist in Fleet Street "that some stories are so bizarre they must be true because nobody could possibly make them up". Three years on, and many of the Civil Servants who testified against Andi, or found him guilty of being an extremist for heckling the BNP, have been rewarded with promotion and better pay. Yet Andi was sacked, marched out the building, and treated like a common criminal after raising concerns of malpractice within Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs under the Civil Service Code, and Public Information Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA). My head still shakes in disbelief. The story of how Andi Ali became the first Civil Servant to be dismissed for heckling a Neo Nazi party at a peaceful protest is a national disgrace which needs to be investigated. The victimisation he was subjected to, was unacceptable, racially motivated and unlawful.
Facing unemployment as he did, at the relatively young age of forty, and not long after he was diagnosed with prosaic arthritis - he never stopped claiming that there was nothing extremist about heckling the BNP. More importantly, however, he was determined to pursue the matter with the Civil Service Commissioners, whose job it is to ensure that Civil Servants behaved in accordance with the standards of behaviour outlined in the Civil Service Code, and which under paragraph 26 states that staff “must not suffer a detriment as a consequence of raising a concern“. I asked him when he was still waiting for the Civil Service Commissioners to make a decision what he would do if they continued to try and brush the matter under the carpet when I last saw him about a year ago, and his answer was simple. “I will take it to the Prime Minister” he said, “the Prime Minister is the head of the Civil Service and he has a duty to investigate this matter“, - and I must admit I thought he was joking until I bumped into him a week ago and discovered that is precisely what he had done.
Though Andi was able to convince me of the truth of his story early on, by producing internal HMRC documents, letters and e-mails, it was when I read classified Civil Service transcripts of the investigation and saw how HMRC investigators had admitted, even boasted, to other HMRC investigators of switching tapes off when they were interviewing Civil Servants against standard procedure, and encouraging staff to put in complaints against Andi before switching the tape back on and asking them if they had anything to say, that convinced me the most. That was a despicable thing to do and when you’ve read these pages, I sure you will agree with me that this was not the only thing that HMRC said and did that was despicable. The Prime Minister must take action and must take action now, to lunch an investigation in to the terrible events which is fast becoming known as BNPGATE and explain why HMRC conducted a hate campaign against this remarkale man
Coofan Bragg
May 2010.
The Andi Ali interview
It is May 9, 2010, in York and I've just switched the tape on to conduct a taped interview with Mr Andi Ali, a 42 year old former Civil Servant with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, who between May 1999, and December 2007, was a Decision Maker based at the Tax Credit Office in Preston. Two years ago Mr Ali came came to me with a story I thought was so unbelievable, so incredible, that it couldn't possibly be true. I have now seen the proof that it is, but I've asked Andi to interview him on tape so you can hear the story for yourself. That ok with you, Andi. I may call you Andi may I?Yes,you may and yes it is
Right fine. What I intend to do is to let you talk, and then, when I feel it is nessasary, asked you a few questions or ask you to clarify a few points you make. That ok with you. It's fine yep.
Ok to get the ball rolling. How did you come to be charged by Her Majestry's Revenue and Customs with being an extremist for heckling the BNP? Golly! That's a story in itself. I suppose I should start at the begining. Well when I was assulted outside Downing Street anyway.
You were assuted outside Downing Street?Yea. In October 2003. I was taking pictures of the British Ulster Allaince to proof their were links between them and the BNP, when I got struck from behind and the next thing I know I opened my eyes and some girl was holding my hand and telling me I had been stabbed.
StabbedYea stabbed. But in a way I was lucky because the person who wielded the knife turusted it into my back, but I was waering a rucksack which prevented it from reaching my body. If I hadn't been wearing a ruck sack I would probably have been killed, which is a scarey thought. But as it happens the ruck sack saved me. Still, I was lying in a pool of blood so somthing must happened. I'm still not sure what to this day but it was certainly down to Neo Nazis, because twenty fours later
my picture apeared on Redwatch boasting of the attack, and that picture was taken moments before I was attacked outside Downing Street.
Sorry, what is Redwatch?Redwatch is a far right hit list that published names, address, telephone numbers, and work details of anybody who campaigns against the BNP. It was produced by Steve Sargent, a BNP supporter, whose older brother Charlie was fast emerging as the leader of Combat 18, a shadowy group which provided security at BNP meetings. I'll come back to Combat 18 in a bit. It was rightly described as a hit list because once somebody details were on Redwatch, violence usually followed. I know some people have been stabbed for being on Redwatch, and that includes anti BNP campaigners like Alex McFadden. It is a very dangerous publication, which has now been turned in to a website, and sooner or later, an ANL member, or somebody else on Redwatch, is going to get murdered.
Whose Alex McFadden? He's an anti BNP campaigner over in Liverpool. He opened his door one day and sombody stabbed him. He manged to shake his attacker off before locking his door and calling the police. Shortly afterwards, Neo Nazi's started boasting about it on Redwatch, and other Neo Nazi websites.
Then there was Steve Johnson and Sally Kincaid. They had their car set alight after their details were put on Redwatch after they had attended an anti BNP protest in Leeds. They were asleep inside their house when it happened. It was a neighbour who alerted them to it. God knows what would have happened if they hadn't.
The man who had collected the information on them, according to various websites was Tony White. He had scribbled down their car registration when they had attended an anti BNP protest outside Leeds City Hall a short time earlier. That particular protest was against Mark Collect, a very senoir member of the BNP and star of Young Proud and Nazi. I'll come back to him and that shortly.
Anyway, "unbeknown to Sally and Steve, White and his friends began to do some investigating. They discovered that Steve was a teacher at a local school. This was personal for White. He had recently been arrested for distributing racist material to children from the same school". Anyway In early March, White was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and he and his supporters immediately blamed Steve. “Steve had nothing to do with his arrest,” said Sally. “He just jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
It was the night after White’s conviction that their car was attacked.Sally and Steve were considered fair game for White and the others behind Redwatch. They were active anti-racists and in the eyes of hardline nazis that was a crime". What I just said there I was quoting mostly form Searhlight an anti facist magazine that has been around since the 1960's. I'll come back to Searchlight in a while.
Anyway, like I said I was attacked outside Downing Street, and twenty fours later a picture of me appeared on Redwatch boasting of the attack. I was in hospitial but a friend rang me and told me.
What was you reaction? Well I wasn't suprised, because I was already named as the number one target on Redwatch site so it didn't suprise me in the least. But let me tell you what happened next, because its important to put things in context. I'll tell you more about Redwatch later.
Ok Well I was off work for a few weeks and then I went in to give my line manager Anthony Stansfield a sick note. This was about the 11 Decemeber, 2003, but I can't say for sure because I havn't got my notes with me. Anyway, I felt unconfatble about going to see him, because few weeks earlier, I had submitted a complaint against him and two other members of staff, Phil Davies and Tony Smth.
What were the complaints. I had complained that statstics were being manipulated to make it appear as though the team was perfoming better than it was, and in Phil Davies and Tony Smith's case, I had complained about the way they had behaved towards me and spoken to me just before I had been assulted.
And what happened.
Well I give Stansfiled the sick note, had a brief conversation and left. I was back a week later though, because Anthony rang me and said he wanted to do my appriasial. Well when I got there, he toook me in to a small office, asked me to sit down, and implied that if I dropped my complaints I would get a good apprisial and possibly promotion, but if I didn't, well ...
Well what? Exactly! Hear my story and you decide.
Fair enough. So I said I wasn't prepared to do that and left.
And what happened then Well the next thing I know, I've been asked to go and see a work nurse in Diadem House in Preson which I did. Her name was Mandy Brennan and I went to see her on the fifth January 2004, or there abouts.We had a chat and then she showed me a report from sombody called Jacqui Pye a senoir manger at the Tax Credit Office where I worked. It said I had extreme poilital views and staff were thinking of making complaints against me. Now I was fuming and I mean fuming. I had never met Pye, or heard of her, but apprantly she was new the C1 on my team. So I guessed that Stansfied, Smith and Davies were putting in complaints against me, to hide the fact that I had put in complaints against them.
And did that make you angry?Of course it did. But what could I do? It wasn't Mandy's fault. She was only doing her job. But I was angry. I went home and got my Member of Parliament to put in a complaint. And eventually he got a letter from Ann Chant Chairman, or Chairwoman I should say of Revenue and Customs admitting that Jacqui Pye had never met me or heard me express me any views.
Well why did she write a medial referal and say so then. Well according to Ann Chant five members of my team were very concerned about my fourthoming return to work because I had "on occassions expressed extreme political views which staff had said they found upsetting and had lodge formal complaints against me and these were all subject to a seprate investigation. She also akonwleged that Jacqui Pye had never met me and should not have referred to me in such terms. She also made refereance to my academic research on the BNP. I had been harrsed by Neo Nazis for the prievious two years because of my academic research on the BNP and she said that the investigations would established if any of this was motivated because the people objected to my research, or because I had complained that stastiscis were being manipulated.
Why did Ann Chant mention your studies on the BNP?
