Sick glee at racist beatings

The far-right British National Party's true nature was exposed last night and their election hopes rightly damaged.

Prominent members were shown to be racists and Nazi-sympathisers. They have expressed hatred for David Beckham and said they "still laugh" at a video of black man Rodney King being beaten by US police.

The revelations were made by anti-fascist organisation Searchlight, which infiltrated websites, chatrooms and blogs.

Lee Barnes, the BNP's senior legal officer, posted a video of King on his blog and described it as "brilliant". He added: "The beating of Rodney King still makes me laugh."

In an entry on a white supremacist forum Barry Bennett, MEP candidate for the South West, wrote: "David Beckham is not white, he's a black man. Beckham is an insult to Britishness and I'm glad he's not here."

And in a spiteful reference to the disabled, Jeffrey Marshall, senior organiser for the BNP's election campaign, wrote: "We live in a country which is unhealthily dominated by an excess of sentimentality towards the weak and unproductive." He allegedly added: "There is not a great deal of point in keeping these people alive after all."

A Searchlight spokesman said the comments showed the BNP's true colours.

Bnp deputy leader Simon Darby accused Searchlight of distortion. He said: "In the context of what's been happening at Westminster, a few alleged scribblings on Facebook hardly seem worth worrying about."

Mirror