For many reasons, but this one is my favorite. Back in 2010 Andrew and some buddies wanted to bring alt-right notable Mark Steyn to London (Ontario). First to the University of Western Ontario and then, when that fell through, to the London Convention Center. But it all went South on them at the LCC as well, and they blamed Islam. From Andrew's old blog, which doesn't appear to exist anymore:
“The reason offered by the LCC [in a Tuesday morning phone call] was that they had received pressure from local Islamic groups, and they didn’t want to alienate their Muslim clients. It’s interesting to note that the LCC is owned by the City of London, and is therefore a government operation,” wrote Strictly Right’s Andrew Lawton at the website.
But as I argue here, Andrew's explanation doesn't work. Basically, the site for Steyn's speech had already changed once, and it would have been impossible for any of these "Islamic groups" to have known which new potential venue to threaten.
Andrew actually responded to my argument in the comments, and pretty much admitted the major points of it. As I wrote at the time:
Andrew,
So will you acknowledge that, whatever you might have been told by the LCC, it would have been impossible for local "Islamic Groups" to have had any real influence on their decision. This is not to say anything about the LCCs decision making processes, which may well have involved considerations about what how their Muslim clients might have reacted to Steyn's appearance.
So, in short, Andrew Lawton tried to arrange to have an alt-right lunatic speak at the LCC, bunged it up, and blamed Muslims. If Doug Ford wants to convince Ontarians he isn't a Trump clone, one way to do it would be to kibosh this nomination run.
