Hey John,

Just checking whether you saw this! We've got big plans for 2023, and we need your help.

Cheers,

Nick

Hi John,

Happy new year! 

2022 was another big one for HOPE not hate. 

From taking down extreme misogynist Andrew Tate, through to breaking up nazi gigs and obliterating the far-right at the local elections, we never stopped tackling those spreading hate.

Support our work in 2023

Here’s a round-up of our year: 

• We took down the extreme misogynist, Andrew Tate, privately briefing the tech platforms at the same time as launching a public campaign. Thanks to our research, Tate (who has far-right links) was removed swiftly from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and our campaign featured in news publications around the world.
• We launched a major campaign to take Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) to court after he claimed bankruptcy and said he couldn’t pay damages to Jamal Hijazi, a Syrian refugee he libelled. Our investigation has already resulted in many more court dates, costing Lennon large amounts of money, and we’ve successfully framed him as rich amongst his supporters causing big splits amongst his team. Our investigation continues.
• We kept exposing the links between Patriotic Alternative (PA), the UK’s fastest-growing fascist threat that tries to brand itself as “family friendly”, and the banned neo-nazi terror gang, National Action (NA). This included our revelations that PA’s Yorkshire organiser, Sam Melia tried to set up his own NA branch, and how PA even tried to recruit NA’s founder.
• In the autumn, the hit ITV drama ‘The Walk In’ landed starred Stephen Graham as HNH’s Matthew Collins and Jason Flemyng as Nick Lowles. The drama, which you can still catch on ITVX, told the story of how we thwarted a far-right terrorist plot to murder an MP.
• We ran a highly-targeted local election campaign, focusing on Britain First and For Britain. Despite the most-sustained harassment we’ve faced in a while, including being ambushed whilst on a campaign day, our team made sure no far-right candidates were elected.
• We exposed yet another councillor as having far-right links. Andy Weatherhead has now resigned following our revelations, but the Conservative Party needs to establish how someone who held two senior positions in the Mosely-revivalist New British Union could then stand as a councillor.
• Towards the end of the year, we took down two high profile nazi gigs; one in Widnes and one in Bathgate, Scotland. Both campaigns involved us working alongside local supporters, ramping up the pressure on the venues and the councils to have the shows cancelled. As we head into 2023, the nazi music scene is more deflated than ever.
• We led sector-wide advocacy work on challenging online harms, shaping legislative change around the inspection of low user, high harm platforms to dent the far right’s ability to recruit and organise. Hostility towards migrants and refugees is on the rise, so we’ve also worked to strengthen the response of the migration and refugee sector to the far right threat. 
• A decade on from our first Fear and Hope report, we revisited the research for ‘Fear & HOPE 2022’ to look at the shifting political landscape, outlining what pulls us apart, but at the same time what brings us together.
• We became the second largest provider of anti-discrimination education in the UK and collaborated with a Special Educational Needs expert to develop lessons for children with a range of special educational needs. 

Most importantly, we kept our team safe and secure in the most trying circumstances we have seen for many years. From cyber-attacks to online hate, to street harassment; our team have had to respond to hate because of the work they do, and thanks to the generosity of thousands of our supporters, we have been able to do what it takes to keep them safe.

So what’s in store for HOPE not hate in 2023? 

We have a whole load planned for 2023. The Reseach team are currently working on our annual State of Hate report whilst also building out some major investigations - one of which promises to be extremely eye-catching indeed. As a unit we are working on a big campaign against a significant target, but I'm afraid I can't say much more about that at this stage. Elsewhere in the organisation, the Campaigns & Comms team are working on online, offline and election plans for the year, whilst our Education and Training work will be developed further to ensure that the impact is where it's most needed. Finally, I'll be making sure that I'm keeping my team and I safe from those who increasingly want to do us harm because of the success of our work.

All of these positive impacts are only possible because of your support. 

If you’d like to chip in to help us do more, then I’d be very grateful.

Yes, I'll chip in

Cheers,

Nick

Nick Lowles, CEO HOPE not hate