Politician Backs Petition to Ban Jobbik’s Gábor Vona From UK Holocaust Memorial Day Visit
by Joshua Levitt
Andrew Dismore, London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden, said he backed Hope Not Hate’s petition urging Home Secretary Theresa May to ban Gábor Vona, the leader of the Hungarian far right Jobbik Party and founder of the now outlawed “Magyar Gárda Mozgalom Paramilitary Guard,” from attending an event in Holborn on Sunday, in an email to The Algemeiner on Wednesday.
Dismore said he had already written to the Home Secretary, asking her to exclude Vona from the UK and called on the police to ban the event. He said he “is now urging all Londoners to sign the petition to show Mr Vona’s hate-fuelled views are not welcome on our city’s streets.”
“Jobbik are the most powerful outwardly fascist political party in Europe. Their level of support in the Hungarian elections shows how their message of hate has spread,” Dismore said.
“London is a diverse city and we must take a stand against those who have no other aim than to incite hatred. Our Jewish and Roma communities in London, for whom Jobbik reserve special hate, need defending against their filthy ideas. All our residents need protection from the undesirable audience of far right activists he is likely to attract. I have no doubt that all decent thinking people in Camden and London as a whole will join with me in demanding that the Home Secretary says ‘No to Jobbik.'”
The event was planned to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day, Dismore said.
Last year, Jobbik protested as the World Jewish Congress met in Budapest, where one of Vona’s associates, a Magyar Nemzeti Gárda leader, was quoted as saying “We have a domestic problem that is the gypsy criminality and an external problem that is the Jew expansion”.