EXCLUSIVE: A £350 a head fund-raising dinner for Nigel Farage’s ‘racist cronies’ at the Grand Sapphire Hotel on an industrial estate off the Purley Way next week has caused outrage.
WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor, reports
Party people: millionaire Richard Tice has been used to promote the Reform fund-raiser
A massive row has broken out among Croydon’s Muslim community over plans to hold a fund-raising event for Reform UK at the Grand Sapphire Hotel, a venue owned by Pakistan-born millionaire Suleman Raza.
Tickets for the Croydon Reform Christmas Party next Thursday cost up to £350 per head for the privilege of sitting at a “VIP-hosted” table, where the VIPs lined up have been listed variously as Lee “30 pence” Anderson MP, former Tory Assembly Member Keith Prince (Who he?) and Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader.
The business-cum-political party led by racist grifter Nigel Farage is embroiled in controversy, from having its former leader in Wales jailed for 10 years for accepting money to lobby for Russian interests, to the widespread allegations of Farage’s own anti-semitic conduct when he was a pupil at the posh, fee-paying Dulwich College in the early 1980s.
And then there are the multiple resignations and suspensions of Reform UK councillors (39 at the last count) who were elected barely six months ago.
The Reform event scheduled for December 4 has been advertised online to Reform members in Bromley, where they already have one councillor, Sutton and in Croydon.
Lots of ballroom: the Grand Sapphire Hotel can seat 1,200 for its rubber-chicken dinners
Tickets are only for sale to Reform UK members. The Grand Sapphire ballroom can accommodate up to 1,200 seated guests for banquet-style dinners. Sources suggest there are fewer than 120 Reform members in Croydon.
Inside Croydon is unable to confirm that part of the evening’s entertainment will be a karaoke session at which Tice and Anderson will sing We’re Dreaming of a White Christmas.
And the irony of anti-immigration Reform choosing to hire a venue owned by a Muslim immigrant has not been lost on some.
But many in the Croydon Muslim community are deeply offended that Raza’s business should have ever accepted such a booking. It has been suggested that the hotel’s managers were not made aware that the booking was being made for a Reform event.
Enquiries today to the front desk of the venue, which sits alongside a Purley Way industrial estate, have confirmed that the event is still due to go ahead, despite protests and an appeal from the group Croydon Stand Up to Racism.
Rogues’ gallery: who can resist such a line-up?
Now, some are threatening to boycott Raza’s businesses, which include the Spice Village chain of restaurants.
It has been suggested that the Grand Sapphire would consider cancelling the booking, but only if it received compensation for the lost business. Some estimate such a booking might be worth £20,000.
Staff at the hotel have said that they cannot cancel the booking, for fear that they might be accused of racism.
Happy host: millionaire businessman Suleman Raza was awarded the MBE by Boris Johnson when he was Prime Minister
“Enough is enough!” one member posted to a south London Muslim social media page. “It’s time for us as a community to step up.
“Grand Sapphire Croydon is scheduled for hosting Farage and his band of racist cronies on December 4.
“This needs to be stopped!
“Grand Sapphire, Spice Village and many more enterprises of the owner Suleman Raza need to be boycotted unless he cancels entertaining Nigel Farage and his ilk.”
They added that efforts to “reach out” to the business to get them to cancel the event “have fallen on deaf ears”.
“What’s more upsetting is seeing a Muslin, ethnic migrant business prepared to facilitate the very people who campaign against Muslim, ethnic migrant immigrants.”
Suleman Raza failed to respond to Inside Croydon’s calls today.
Read more: Reform to investigate claims over conduct of ‘nasty’ Morgan
Read more: Worries over ‘nasty’ Peter Morgan’s part in Croydon Reform UK
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So we can all once again see clearly that the so-called political party is driven by money and uses immigration as poor cover for its unethical policies. It beats me how anybody can take it seriously.
I’m going to join Reform, buy a ticket and film the event. My YouTube revenue from clips of Nigel Farage bopping to John Walker’s choons (and Peter Morgan getting down with the kids) will make me a millionaire
Save your money, Arfur. They will probably have heavies in suits who will stop you trying to film at the event. The self-appointed minister for Hatred, Farage will probably not be there anyway. £350 for a dinner with a bunch of racists is a hard sell at the best of times, but the advert mainly features racists that nobody has ever heard of. If Farage was going they would surely put him on the advert ?
You are the racist one. This building is in England.
I was going to join up as an under 25 member and get the reduced three course meal rate, but then noticed this bunch of Crypto’s weren’t accepting the Cryptocurrencies they have been so keen to advertise and of which some types have been revealed recently being used to finance the Putin millitary invasion of Ukraine. Funny they only want hard pounds sterling when George Cotterell isn’t around.
I used to enjoy reading your news articles, but I have totally gone off of your biased views, and I do not like the fact that you calling me one of Nigel Farage’s ‘racist cronies’
People have been labelling Reform racist since its incorporation in late 2018. In fact, because no other British tabloids are allowed to do this, Inside Croydon labelling them racist just draws more attention to their site and gives Reform more free publicity.
Read it again Mark:
“Enough is enough!” one member posted to a south London Muslim social media page. “It’s time for us as a community to step up.“Grand Sapphire Croydon is scheduled for hosting Farage and his band of racist cronies on December 4.”
Arfur, i am no politics expert , but if Reform are so racist then why have they got a muslim in Zia Yusef as Head of Policy and why have they received big donations from several prominent wealthy muslim donors? Laila Cunningham of Reform is a muslim too. In this case, they are also giving business to a muslim who will in turn probably use some of it for the benefit of the muslim community too.
You can direct that question to the Muslims of South London Facebook group, one of whose members I was quoting.
… and you can ask Zia Yusuf why he defended Reform MP Sarah Pochin who said “it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people”
If you are “no politics expert”, perhaps you could read Following Farage, by Owen Bennett, or Michael Crick’s excellent biography of Farage, the founder of UKIP and Reform, to discover more about his racist past, and how he has used the gullible to provide himself and his parties with a veneer of respectability against accusations of racism, or homophobia, or other nasty prejudices.
People like Croydon’s Winston McKenzie, who Farage could point to as being UKIP’s “Commonwealth spokesman”, at least until he was found out as milking party funds and donations – much in the manner that Farage operates Reform as a nice little earner…
https://insidecroydon.com/2015/03/11/farage-dumps-chump-from-the-dump-winston-mckenzie/
https://insidecroydon.com/2015/11/10/ukips-farage-failed-to-act-over-mckenzies-homophobic-text/
To quote from one of the publications on Cunningham being a Muslim:
“Cunningham insists she’s not opposed to Islam, only to what she calls the “Islamisation” of British society. She is a symptom of a wider political trend that exploits minorities for political gain. Figures like Suella Braverman and Priti Patel have walked the same path: elevated within right-wing parties as tokens of inclusivity, only to be used to justify exclusionary policies — and discarded once their symbolic value wears off. These are not genuine partners in shaping inclusive politics. They are stage props in a grim political theatre, ultimately replaceable when the performance ends.”
I rest my case!
You don’t seem to be familiar with the concept of the useful idiot.
Never mention “useful idiot” in the context of Winston McKenzie, because it would be misleading.
He’s an idiot, yes.
My god you sound racist . Don’t stick up for your own
Zia is as much of a ” British Muslim patriot ” as Sajid Javed is. . . whenever it suits to self-label for the purpose of their slimy politics.
As for benefiting the community, Suleman Raza is a known opportunist who is desperate to rub shoulders with known Islamophobe, his recurring visits to the corridors of power via portcullis house. . .all in hope of being knighted in near future. The latest – sucking up to Nigel Farage.
Maybe he was counting on this “gathering of the undesirables” to fund an upgrade of his Audi TT? or using the profits to donate to Reform. I guess we will never know. . . .
Wondering what the food will be like. Will they be serving gammon?
“Halal” if I may add 🙂
This is atrocious when Antisemitism allegations against the teenage Farage matter. Farage has cosied up to US figures who espoused conspiracy theories about Jews. Inviting Reform to Grand Sapphire Hotel and affording its leadership a platform to seed further discord is unacceptable.
Farage ticks off almost every item on the trope bingo list, railing against globalists, cultural Marxists, Goldman Sachs, the Jews, the fleeing Migrants and Muslims, the latter a perennial topic gracing our screens. It is therefore ironic that a Muslim is extending this invitation to a party that is bent upon challenging the very fabric of Islamic identity in the UK.
The particular disquiet by the establishment’s host is troubling. I have been reluctant to join the chorus of condemnation but the Sunday sobering manifested in this comment. The owner ought to do the right thing and retract his invitation.
It’s hardly an “invitation”, Tom. It’s a business deal, possibly worth £20,000.
There is some suggestion that the booking was less-than-forthcoming about the nature of the event being planned.
Nonetheless, it appears that the owner of the Grand Sapphire values the venue’s profits over principles.
They are in business to provide a service. A booking was made. This booking was intentionally made by Reform not with a company that would not cause issues but specifically with a Pakistani owned company in a relatively cohesive multi – culteral community. That was all done with intent and foreknowledge by Reform. The same cannot be said for the Venue. They accepted a booking in good faith and as a business have to honour that.
one can look at this from many perspectives.
1. The booking was made with intent by the organisation to sow discord as is happening.
2. The organisation made this to capitalise on discord and intends to publicise any protest or denial of venue as discrimination and again use this as propaganda.
3. Consider that this was all a publicity stunt and they never had an intention to actually hold this there and are just waiting for the venue to cancel?
4. Who loses out if the booking gets cancelled by the venue
5. More to the point who loses out by it going ahead peacefully? 😁😁
We should all consider supporting this venue so that this booking remains open and fully paid for to the venue by Reform. Give them no reason to pullout We should welcome those of that party to the Borough and show them what real unified multi culteral society looks like – welcoming them in friendship and ensure that at all times truth, decency and real humanity is visible at all times even under provocation and incitement by extremists of all kinds. And ensure they pay their bill so the local economy gets a lift also.
Oh dear!