Croydon Mayor Jason Perry and policing minister Chris Philp were in full-scale retreat after the London elections, hurriedly trying to distance themselves from the ‘absolute cesspit of vile racism and hate speech’ that they had helped to foster on social media to try to help the Nasty Party’s mayoral candidate, Susan Hall.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Caught out: how will Perry and Philp stir up racist hate and anti-ULEZ vandalism now?
Within a matter of hours of Sadiq Khan being declared the winner of London’s Mayoral election on Saturday, Croydon Conservatives were battening down the hatches and shutting up shop on the secretive Facebook group they had established that sought to make political capital out of racism and anti-ULEZ fervour in outer London.
It was September last year when Inside Croydon exposed the private group Croydon Say No To ULEZ Expansion, which published posts both celebrating and apparently condoning vandalism of cameras installed for London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone.
The group had been set up with Jason Perry, the piss-poor Mayor of Croydon, as an “Admin” and (don’t laugh) listed as an “Expert”.
Prominent among its 2,000-or-so members was also Chris Philp, the MP for Croydon South and, when we last checked, the policing minister.
“Abuse is mandatory,” one of their Facebook friends wrote last year after another member boasted of shouting at Transport for London workers who were repairing a vandalised camera.
The Nasty Party: Jason Perry and Chris Philp’s mates in Croydon Tories did not waste much time shutting down their ‘cesspit’ Facebook group
A recent Greenpeace investigation identified 36 similar, and similarly secretive, Facebook groups set up by Conservative party staff or activists around London which not only supported criminal damage of ULEZ cameras but became a forum for Islamophobic attacks on Sadiq Khan, suggesting he should get “popped” and using racist language about the London mayor.
Rachel Cromie, a Conservative councillor in Haywards Heath, in Sussex, was listed as an Admin in all of the dodgy Facebook groups. Her register of interests lists Conservative campaign HQ in a section on employment and she has previously been described as an area campaign manager for the Tory Party.
Greenpeace called the groups as “an absolute cesspit of vile racism and hate speech, as well as a breeding ground for dangerous conspiracy theories”.
When they were caught wallowing in their own little racist cesspit last year, Philp and Perry duly condemned law-breaking and made suitably feeble excuses about not being responsible for everything that gets posted on a social media group page…
With journalists checking out their activities, the group’s “about” section was swiftly updated to include a warning against posts that encouraged ULEZ vandalism. Not that Perry or his other admins – including his son, Tory Party official William Perry, and Coulsdon councillor Luke Shortland – did anything to uphold this new, respectable rule.
Susan Hall, the Harrow hairdresser who the Conservatives backed to become Mayor of London, was signed up as a member of at least seven of these dodgy anti-ULEZ Facebook groups.
Where they will go the next time they want to stir up a bit of racist bile and Trumpian loathing of London is hard to say.
It was not long before 6pm on Saturday that a note went up on the group page saying that Croydon Conservatives (so no longer even trying to pretend this was a group established by ordinary residents) had archived the page. Archiving makes it impossible for individuals to post further comments – or pictures of felled lampposts – and hides it from searches.
Gone but not forgotten: Croydon Mayor Perry scarpers from the incriminating Facebook page
The “Recent activity” feature is also no longer operating, whether disabled on purpose or rendered inactive by the archiving is impossible to say.
Perry, and his little Willie, were both removed as group Admins, as was Shortland.
Philp ended his membership (or had a flunky in the office do it for him).
According to what was accessible via the interweb on Saturday, the last remaining Admins of Croydon Say No To ULEZ Expansion were Cromie, Max Barnby (thought to be a Conservative Party colleague, and another who appeared as Admin on multiple anti-ULEZ pages), Rhys Elsey and James Hillam, who was selected as a Conservative Party local election candidate in 2022. Hillam is listed as a senior technology consultant at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust.
The policing minister, meanwhile, remains silent and inactive on clamping down on the many examples of criminal damage and vandalism to public property in outer London, costing hard-working tax-payers in his Croydon South constituency hundreds of thousands of pounds. Or, for that matter, against those responsible for encouraging such criminality.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
FREE ADS: Paid-up subscribers to Inside Croydon qualify for a free ad for their business, residents’ association or community group, just one of the benefits of being part of our online community. For more information about being an iC subscriber, click here for our Patreon page
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our near 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, which is featured on Google News Showcase and followed by 16,000 on Twitter/X, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
“Where they will go the next time they want to stir up a bit of racist bile and Trumpian loathing of London is hard to say.”
Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is welcoming racist conservatives as MPs.
Not being of the hysterical left, or right, and of a gentle nature, my assessment of Perry and Philp’s association with this FB farrago is that it’s a monumental fuck-up that either of them really understood or supported. I don’t believe either of them knew what the hell was going on or how to kill it off. It cost the Harrow Hairdresser, as IC insists on calling her, a load of votes from normal people.
The pair of chancers made their own excuses, which were entirely unconvincing, when they were confronted with the vile nature of the group over which they presided.
Neither of them claimed, as you do Chris, that they didn’t know what they were doing.
Not trying to be too cynical in nature but based somewhat on experience, and the fact that a few conservative party people were admins, it seems entirely plausible that our two suspects knew more about the Facebook page than what they’re supposed to be doing in their real roles.
Pull the other one. If these chancers saw it in such terms they could have pulled the plug on this wrong doing months ago. They have only done the right thing after it had all fallen on their face.
So the Tories worked out endless negativity and hatred isn’t a vote winner. Can’t wait for this bright positive era unleashed by part time Perry and his little Willie to turn into their same old predictable dismal game in a very short time.