In his letter to the SNJ of 7th August, Kevin Towell refers to the “Establishment triad [ ] …The BBC. The Tories. The Woke.” He then rambles on about “cancel-warriors”.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, because Mr Towell does not seem to listen no matter how often his opponents repeat the point, no-one is trying to censor or “cancel” them. We are simply pointing out the repeated wholesale promotion of far right individuals, organisations and ideas, and other divisive and hateful content in The Light - so that people can reject it, as most people in this town already do. He affects to believe in Free Speech, but doesn’t like it when others use their right to free speech to criticise his movement.

It's unclear what he means by "woke". Although the word is used as a cuss-word by the Tories and the right-wing press, it seems to be a vague insult without a particular meaning. The word has been used by African-Americans since the 1930s to refer to being "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination". Surely he’s not against that, is he?

And it’s kind of funny that people who stand in front of a banner encouraging people to "join the global awakening" and hand out a paper that regularly encourages readers to "wake up" should have a problem with being “woke”.

And it’s really funny that Mr Towell thinks that fellow members of the local community who don't like the hate-filled rag he hands out are "the establishment". Particularly when you remember that this same free-sheet recently published an endorsement of drive-by Tory Prime Minister Liz Truss's odd view that the UK is run by a "left wing economic establishment" rather than a Conservative government.

There’s a lot more factual detail about The Light’s connections with the far right on the Community Solidarity Stroud District website.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Molloy

Denise Needleman

Emma Calicutt

Hannah Boss

Jacqui Stearn

Jeremy Green

Megan Sheer

Rosie Wingate

On behalf of Community Solidarity Stroud District