BNP selling Irish Republican Music

Given the BNP's longstanding antipathy to Irish republicanism, and to the IRA in particular, it is surprising to see them selling a CD (Cu Chulainn - Over an Hour of Irish Folk) featuring 'Back Home in Derry', by Bobby Sands.

The CD also includes 'The Fields of Athenry', 'The Foggy Dew', about the Easter Rising, and 'Only Our Rivers Run Free'.

Another CD, A Feast of Irish Folk, includes 'Grace', about the marriage immediately before execution of Joseph Plunkett, after the Easter Rising, and 'Gallipoli', lamenting the death of an Irishman fighting for England. Hardly the sort of ballads you'd associate with the BNP!

Curiously, the BNP don't stock CDs of loyalist music - there's not a rendition of 'The Sash' or 'The Famine Song' to be bought.

We wonder what BNP supporters, more associated with chants of 'no surrender to the IRA' than singing 'The Soldier's Song', will make of this. Excalibur manager Arthur Kemp may face some awkward questions in the weeks ahead.

Antifa

Norwich Pride launch

THE Norfolk gay event of 2009 - to get involved click the image

Fascist firebomber out on parole

On Friday I was visited by Julian Corbett, from the Public Protection Department of Wiltshire Police.

He came to ask me what my relationship was with wannabe Nazi terrorist, Mark Bullman (pictured), and to warn me that Bullman is now out of prison, and is looking for me - I have moved address since he went to prison. Bullman had been sentenced to 5 years for racially aggravated arson, but has now been released after two and a half years. (Bullman also goes by the name Mark Bullock)

As I have reported before, in August 2006, BNP supporter, Bullman attempted to burn down the Broad Street mosque in Swindon using a petrol bomb. Mark was the registered fund holder for Wiltshire BNP, and actively campaigned for the party in the 2006 local council elections, just four months before the arson attack. Strangely Mark used to write to me while he was on remand, and even telephoned me from prison - not in a threatening way, but for a friendly chat.

He had left the BNP shortly before the fire bomb attack to form what he called the “1290 sect”, named after the year the Jews were expelled from England, and he wrote to me: “I only attacked the mosque because there is no synagogue in Swindon, and it was close enough for public consumption”. The fuse used for the fire bomb was a rolled up BNP leaflet.

It since transpires that Danny Lake, (former leader of the YBNP and also from Swindon, and who has since been expelled from the BNP), had raised concerns about Bullman with Nick Griffin, but the BNP did not consider Mark Bulman’s mental instablity, propensity to violence and gross anti-Semitism to be a problem. Bullman was supported by Wiltshire organiser, Mike Howson, and Danny Lake claims that Howson encouraged Bullmans’ extremism. Ironically, the main plank of Mike Howson’s campaigning in his native Corsham is “law and order”.

Mark’s letters to me, which I passed on to Searchlight, were filled with a virulent hatred of Jews, mixing up three themes. i) racialised anti-semitism; ii) Christian anti-judaic traditions; and iii) opposition to Israel’s War in the Lebanon, and the occupation of Palestine.

Bullman started ring me regularly late at night sometime during 2005. I decided when Bullman contacted me that it was simply safer to talk to him than snub him, and establish a human relationship, and impress upon him that I was a real person with young children, not just an objectified “enemy”.

I knew that it was him who had fire bombed the mosque as soon as I saw the pictures, because the Swastika daubed on the outside wall was identical to the rather idiosyncratic style that Bullman had used in letters to me. But before I could go to the police I heard that Bullman had already been arrested, indeed he had turned himself in and confessed.

The police decided to contact me after Bullman told his probation officer last week that he had visited my old address, in Avenue Road, where in Bullman’s own words “a communist lived” and Bullman told the probation officer he wanted to apologise to me.

Fair enough, I actually take that at face value. For all his weaknesses Bullman is a troubled and actually quite likable lad. He seems to have always been a bit of a misfit, and found a group of friends who accepted him through football hooliganism and far right politics. It was quite spooky having the police do an audit of the security of my house, and checking out the approaches to it in case they decided I was in serious danger and they had to put me on a rapid response list.

I was actually quite encouraged that they were also assessing the risk to Bullman himself. The bewildered lad has been playing games in his head with his Nazi fantasies, irresponsibly encouraged by BNP activists who exploited him. And his attempts to contact me suggest that he is drawn back to revisiting the same haunts and habits that he was in before his arrest.

Bullman fire bombed a mosque and daubed it with Swastikas. I am prepared to be understanding to Bullman only because I have had personal contact with him, and I have some partial insight into what a troubled and unhappy young man he is; who really needs help and not to be further ostracised and isolated from society. But other people might be less understanding and charitable about what he did than I am.

What really is scandalous is the way the BNP used this young man. They had no problem with exploiting his obvious mental distress, they had no problem with his open support for genocide against the Jews, instead they encouraged him, they used him up and spat him out.

Socialist Unity

Dame Vera Lynn furious after BNP use her hit 'White Cliffs of Dover' on anti-immigrant album

Singer Dame Vera Lynn is furious after the BNP used her famous hit White Cliffs of Dover on an anti-immigration album without her permission. The 91-year-old Forces Sweetheart says she had no idea her iconic hit would be used and has no alignment with the controversial right wing party.

The BNP have named the album after the track and have included it as well as another of her hits, All Alone in Vienna, on a nationalistic album which features a Spitfire on the front.

The album is being sold for £4.95, with a portion of the money raised going towards the BNP’s party funds, and states 'Vera Lynn, Glen Miller and others produced the music by which the English-speaking world went to war from 1939 to 1945. Here, recaptured in re-mastered glory, are the songs the soldiers sang from the deserts of North Africa to the beaches of Normandy. An unforgettable trip down memory lane.'

But the singer has told her solicitor Nigel Angel that the BNP had not approached her for approval.

Dame Vera Lynn, who lives in Ditchling, East Sussex, is in talks with her legal team about the album which is on sale at Excalibur - the BNP's trading arm.

'Her position is that the songs were included without her approval. She does not align with any political party,' said Angel.

Dame Vera is renowned for her relentless fundraising and donates proceeds from songs she has sung to British troops to charity. The singer, who lives in West Sussex, had one daughter, Virginia, by her late husband Harry.

Norman Baker, MP for Lewes, said: 'The BNP will try to imply they have the support of individuals by this kind of action when they clearly don't have their support - it's extremely regrettable.'

The White Cliffs of Dover was written by an American called Nat Burton in 1941. It became a massive hit in 1942 when sung by Dame Vera Lynn.

Daily Mail

First Norfolk Unity podcast

As an experiment we're making public our first podcast.

We're the first to admit it's not perfect and we've got a lot to learn - but we'll get there in the end.

This first testcast contains only three items, but we've managed to keep the play quality up and the file size down - it's only about 3.5mb so it shouldn't cause much grief for most visitors, but dial-up visitors would be best advised to download.

We're not embedding webcasts into the site because we don't want Norfolk Unity turning into the same slow loading dog's dinner that characterises a lot of BNP sites. You can listen by clicking on the graphic below (which should open up your media player - you may need to point Firefox at Windows Media Player instead of Quicktime) or you can right-click and save it to your hard drive and listen later.

We're using the MP3 format, as that's pretty much cross-platform and is the best quality-file size trade off.

Got that?

Richard Barnbrook under new investigation by GLA

BNP London Assembly Member Richard Barnbrook is under investigation for another alleged breach of the GLA code of conduct, Tory Troll can reveal.

The complaint, made by James Cleverly AM, concerns material distributed during the recent closely fought Bexley Council by-election.

Barnbrook is accused of distributing petitions for the controversial BNP-backed 'London's Mothers Against Knives' campaign with City Hall given as the contact address.

He also stands accused of misusing GLA resources as well as other related breaches of both the GLA code of conduct and the Local Authority Publicity Code.

At a recent meeting of the City Hall Assesment Sub-Committee it was decided that the complaint warranted further investigation by the Monitoring Officer.

Sanctions for breaking the code range from an obligation to make a formal apology to full suspension from office.

A separate complaint about 'false' claims that he made in a Youtube video on the subject of murders in Barking and Dagenham is also still under investigation.

Tory Troll

"The BNP are exploiting this for political reasons"

HOPE not Hate - Norfolk campaign launch

Norfolk Hope not Hate Campaign Invites you to a meeting in the Council Chamber Norwich City Hall 2pm Tuesday 10th March 2009

Don't wake up on 5 June to the BNP nightmare!

The BNP is aiming to win an MEP in the East of England region next year. They want to spread their poison across the region and join up with their racist and nazi mates in the European Parliament. They know that just one MEP will transform their political and financial fortunes - that is why they are going flat out to win seats next summer.

BUT WE ARE NOT GOING TO LET THEM WIN.

The BNP are boasting on their website that they'll be running their "most sophisticated election campaign to date." Their threat is very real. But the vast majority of British people fundamentally reject their campaign of hate. And with your help we'll win this important fight.

The BNP are already active in the Norwich area with recent activity in Sprowston and Thorpe and all mainstream political parties, faith and community groups ignore this at their peril.

The British National Party should be of concern to all decent people. It is not a matter solely for politicians. The threat of racism and fascism needs to be addressed before it is too late and that means all good people doing something.

The Norfolk “Hope not Hate” campaign welcomes representatives of all mainstream political parties, all community, all faith and all other interested groups to bring together people who want to play their part in solving issues fairly and honestly.

The Norfolk “Hope not Hate” campaign believes that everyone who lives and works in Norfolk should be able to do so with dignity, free from prejudice and discrimination and we are sure that the vast majority of people in Norfolk share this view.

Together we can bring Hope and defeat those who promote Hate. Details of our meeting are given above. We hope to see you there.

If you have any questions or would like further information please phone: 01603 630819 or email geraldinemurray@ntlworld.com

Far right tries to hijack dispute

Striking energy workers were last night warned to be vigilant against far right groups looking to hijack their protest.

The TUC issued the advice after evidence came to light that groups such as the British National Party had approached unemployed construction workers protesting against a contract awarded to an Italian firm. But Scottish union representatives insisted the campaign was a fight for jobs rather than an attack on the foreign workers.

Contract workers across the UK are demonstrating against the practice by foreign companies of undercutting British firms by bidding for contracts below agreed prices. The protest originated at the Lindsey Oil Refinery, in North Lincolnshire, on Wednesday after a major contract was awarded to Italian firm IREM, which plans to staff the job with Italian and Portuguese workers.

Some unemployed workers took the opportunity to challenge Prime Minister Gordon Brown's 2007 promise of "British jobs for British workers".

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber spoke out against attempts to hijack the action, after evidence emerged that activists from the BNP and other far-right factions attempted to influence strikers around the country. He said: "Unions are clear that the anger should be directed at employers, not the Italian workers. No doubt some of the more distasteful elements in our towns and cities will try to use the fears of workers to stir up hatred and xenophobia.

"But I am confident that union members will direct their anger at the employers who have caused this dispute with their apparent attempt to undercut the wages, conditions and union representation of existing staff."

Bobby Buirds is regional officer for Unite trade union in Grangemouth, where some workers have staged wildcat strikes in sympathy with the Lindsey workers. He said: "The argument is not against foreign workers, it's against foreign companies discriminating against British labour. This is a fight for work. It is not a racist argument at all."

Writing on the BNP website, Nick Griffin said that Unite's claims that this was not a racist issue were "ridiculous".

The Scotsman