The Right-wing news blog Guido Fawkes carried a ‘story’ today about Toby Perkins, MP for Chesterfield’s attendance at a Human Rights conference in Paris which was hosted by the pro-democracy National Council for Resistance in Iran.

The story, which the website chose to publish without seeking clarification or comment, repeats long discredited slurs from the Iranian Regime about the pro- democracy resistance and ignores the fact that the NCRI won support from hundreds of MPs and peers for their ten point plan for Iran and that in fact Toby was part of a cross-party British delegation of around 20 people led by a recent Conservative Secretary of State and around a dozen other MPs and peers of all parties.

He said:

“The only thing that’s ‘bizarre’ about this story is that Guido Fawkes has so little to put on their clapped out website that they think this ‘story’ is newsworthy.

I went to the conference with a cross party group that also included at least 5 Tory MPs who don’t get a mention in the story.

It was also attended by International figures like former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani and Congressmen and MPs from USA, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and many other countries, with around 60,000 pro- democracy supporters in attendance.

Many MPs believe that resistance to the Iranian regime which executes more of its own citizens than any other Government and is a major source of the continued unrest in the Middle East should be supported, it’s odd that the website should choose to promote the spin from the Iranian regime and their attempts to discredit those who call for democracy. I am happy to work with anyone who wishes to see democracy return to Iran.”

If any constituents would like to learn more about the cross party delegation to Paris earlier this year, and Toby’s work to promote democracy in Iran, please contact him on toby.perkins.mp@parliament.uk