BNP nazi guest barred from UK

A white supremacist friend of Nick Griffin, the British National Party leader, was banned from entering Britain yesterday as he headed to speak at the BNP’s Red White and Blue festival this weekend.

Preston Wiginton (left), one of the world’s most active nazis and antisemites, was refused entry by immigration officers at Heathrow airport under laws to keep out “undesirables”. He was to have been the star overseas guest at the BNP’s tenth RWB festival, which opens today in Derbyshire.

It was Wiginton, 44, who organised Griffin’s anti-Islam tour of three US universities at the end of October 2007. As well as financing the trip, Wiginton appealed to users of the Stormfront nazi internet forum to donate money to Griffin while he was in America.

Wiginton had been unknown in the UK before Griffin’s trip and it was Searchlight that exposed him and revealed his extensive nazi activities and connections. This was no doubt what brought him to the attention of the UK Border Agency.

Shortly after his tour Griffin wrote an open letter to “European Colleagues” endorsing Wiginton’s involvement in organising a march in Moscow at which leading nazis addressed a crowd of fascists giving the Nazi salute while shouting “death to the Jews” and “Pure Russia”.

Griffin praised Wiginton as a “very effective organiser [who], rarely among American nationalists, understands the importance of image and popular acceptability to all nationalist parties”. The letter explained that Wiginton “is very well connected in Russia, with good contacts with various nationalist organisations and elected politicians”. The organisations to which he refers are some of the most racist and murderous neo-nazi groups and skinhead gangs in Russia who have been responsible for dozens of racist murders.

Referring to Wiginton’s role in planning a “major march and rally” in Moscow Griffin continued “the BNP supports this endeavour wholeheartedly and asks all our European comrades to do likewise, hopefully thereby creating the beginnings of an effective cooperation between patriots of both Western and Orthodox Christendom against our common enemies: Mass immigration; radical Islamism; Western liberalism and Wall Street/White House dollar imperialism”. The language is typical of neo-nazis.

Griffin and Wiginton have collaborated for many years. Wiginton spearheaded US support for Griffin during his trial for inciting racial hatred, setting up an online petition calling on the British government to drop the prosecution. Together with Jamie Kelso of Stormfront, he also organised a protest outside the British consulate in Houston, Texas in January 2006.

Wiginton’s connections and activities are wide-ranging. He caused a furore at Texas A&M university some years ago by arranging a series of meetings for Frosty Wooldridge, a prominent opponent of immigration. The two men ran a joint campaign to repeal a 2001 Texas law that allows immigrants to pay the same reduced fees at state universities as Texas residents.

These days Wiginton works with the Texas chapter of the Minuteman Project, a group of would-be vigilantes who take violent exception to Mexican immigrants, or the “mestizo parasite” as he prefers to call them.

Kevin Strom, leader of the neo-nazi National Vanguard (NV), was another associate until his arrest on child pornography charges when Wiginton and Griffin dropped him like a ton of bricks. Wiginton boasts of being friends with perhaps the most famous NV member, April Gaede, mother of the nazi pop twins Prussian Blue. Their act is named after the chemical residue left by Zyklon B, the gas used to murder the Jews in the Nazi death camps.

Wiginton also has close ties to Denis Gerasimov, lead singer of the notorious Russian white power band Kolvorat (Swastika), for whom he wrote a racist ditty on how immigration is diluting the purity of Russia’s “blood” and “soil”.

Despite repeated denials to the contrary Wiginton regularly posts antisemitic vitriol to Stormfront to which he also donates money. A typical posting of his, on 13 July 2007, read: “And the jew – how many nations and economies have they destroyed – yes they were doing this in many centuries ago as well. The jew has infested every nation – there is no where else to go.”

That Griffin should invite this hardline nazi to help celebrate his election to the European Parliament at the BNP annual festival shows yet again that the BNP’s claim to legitimacy is just a pretence and that Griffin has not moved far from his fascist roots.

Searchlight/Hope not hate

East Midlands BNP officer on nazi night out

Meet Martyn Page on a night out in a Nottinghamshire pub with his mates in May. Page (front, left) is fundholder (treasurer) of the BNP’s active Broxtowe group. With him in dark jacket is Benny Bullman, lead singer with the Nazi band Whitelaw and activist in the openly nazi British Movement.

Page’s wife Kim (below) also seems to have a predilection for a certain type of stiff right arm salute in the company of Bullman. She too is a BNP activist regular fundraiser for the Broxtowe group.

Hope not hate

Can the BNP ever lose its racist reputation?

A vandalised British National Party billboard in John Street, Carlisle

Splattered with paint and daubed with the words “Nazi scum”. . . an attack on a British National Party billboard in Carlisle shows emotions are running high ahead of European Parliament and county council elections.

Yet the far-right party, which has condemned the vandalism, insists it has received a positive response from voters across Cumbria as it canvasses for next Thursday’s ballots.

Some remain less enthusiastically inclined towards the BNP though. They are concerned a low turnout or an anti-establishment voting trend – in fury at the Westminster expenses scandal – could play right into the party’s hands and deliver the mass protest vote it has been hoping for. Those worries have triggered a campaign to limit any BNP gains.

Opinions about the BNP have rarely hit the middle ground since its formation in the early 1980s by John Tyndall, a former chairman of the National Front. He was a man photographed in Nazi uniform – without attending fancy dress parties – and who described Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf as his bible.

Other members have also been reported making extreme pro-Nazi, racist or homophobic comments over the years. Mark Collett, the BNP’s director of publicity, was made infamous by the 2002 television documentary Young, Nazi and Proud.

Former deputy leader Tony Lecomber was jailed for possessing explosives in 1985 and again in 1991 for assaulting a Jewish teacher.

Party chairman Nick Griffin, who visited Whitehaven on Saturday, has tried with limited success to rid the party of its racist image. But controversy continues to follow him. He denied the Holocaust ever happened in a party publication in 1996 and received a suspended jail sentence two years later for inciting racial hatred.

Mr Griffin – his party’s lead Euro election candidate for the north west – this week claimed the ‘controlled media’ had resorted to rehashing comments made a decade and a half ago to throw the BNP into a poor light.

“I have gone on record repeatedly as saying such things [Holocaust rejection] were immature politics and all of us have moved on,” he said.

Yet his insistence on having turned a corner has done little to wipe the slate clean of suspicions which still stalk the party. There was outrage last week at the prospect of Mr Griffin attending a garden party at Buckingham Palace. Yesterday he announced he would not be attending the garden party, in order not to embarrass the Queen.

And leading clergymen – including University of Cumbria chancellor Dr John Sentamu – have pleaded with the public not to let the Westminster expenses scandal convert into BNP votes, in protest against the three major parties.

Carlisle Against Racism has been a prominent campaign group against the BNP, which is standing in 42 of the 84 council seats. By the end of this week, it will have distributed 30,000 copies of its anti-BNP leaflets to homes including those in Carlisle, Longtown, Brampton, Penrith, Wigton, Silloth and Alston. Chairman Brent Kennedy believes the newly glossed image of the party – activists wearing suits proffering slick campaign leaflets – could lure many towards an alternative.

“They don’t know about the truth,” he said. “People just see the glossy leaflets – the false image they are physically putting out.”

He and other campaigners have been working to gather support for their work in Carlisle city centre. Mr Kennedy said: “We have had people saying they are going to vote BNP because they are racist. Some are people who are not racist but desperate because of the economic crisis and angry about MPs enriching themselves. On the other hand, a big majority were really supportive. They were thanking us for campaigning against the BNP, which the political parties are not doing.”

The anti-racism activist, who claims he has been attacked and intimidated while carrying out his work, has clear fears should the BNP taste electoral success.

“I’m worried there will be an increase of racist abuse and attacks on people and political opponents of theirs if they get a Euro MP elected. I have already contacted the police about that,” he revealed.

The church has also been drawn into the electioneering arena with Dr Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams urging people to use “great vigilance” when deciding who to vote for. They claimed some parties would exploit the current political situation if elected and said the BNP fostered “fear and division within communities, especially between people of different faiths or racial background”.

“This is not a moment for voting in favour of any political party whose core ideology is about sowing division in our communities and hostility on grounds of race, creed or colour,” they added. “It is an opportunity for renewing the vision of a community united by mutual respect, high ethical standards and the pursuit of justice and peace.”

BNP supporters in Cumbria are undoubtedly in a minority. But in the European elections – where a proportional representation voting system is used to ensure the number of MPs from each political party reflects the share of votes they received regionally – that could be enough to secure a seat. That is a factor which has mobilised trade unions. The Public and Commercial Services Union has launched a Make Your Vote Count campaign, backed by the Northern TUC, and will be in Carlisle on Saturday. May 30.

Regional co-ordinator Gordon Rowntree said: “Because the European elections use proportional representation there is a fear there. In the north west Nick Griffin could be elected. That’s why we’re working to get turnout higher because that would help the other political parties.”

Clive Jefferson, the BNP’s Cumbrian organiser, maintains his party has moved on and away from the racism linked to it in its early days. He said: “All of the opposition or people who would tar us with the same brush are using things from decades ago. It’s not relevant to the party today.”

The activist, who said his chairman did not encounter any aggression in Whitehaven on Saturday and criticised senior churchmen for their comments, vehemently denied his party was racist.

“It’s not racist, fascist or Nazi, as left-wing extremists dub us. I don’t think the majority of people think that now. What we’ve got are left-wing extremists, as I would call them, peddling this kind of rubbish,” he added.

Mr Jefferson also denied activists used any intimidation and said: “If anyone is telling you that, I would like them to tell me. It should be reported to police. This will not be tolerated. That’s not how we go about things. We are a political party.”

He described the vandal attacks on the poster in Caldewgate, Carlisle, as “nasty”.

Polling stations will be open between 7am and 10pm on Thursday, June 4. Cumbria County Council ballot papers will be counted the following day. The European count will be delayed until other countries have voted on June 6 and 7.

News and Star

BNP deputy leader addresses international fascist rally

Speakers enter the hotel greeted by fascist salutes

The deputy leader of the British National Party has spoken at an international fascist rally alongside a man convicted of a terrorism offence and a convicted Holocaust denier.

Simon Darby claims he addressed a 400-strong audience in Milan today (5 April). Representatives of extreme-right parties in Germany, France, Romania, Hungary and Cyprus were expected to take part in the meeting.

Darby, who flew out to Italy this morning, heads the BNP’s European election candidates’ list for the West Midlands, a region in which the party could win a seat. He has a “Mr Clean” reputation in a party in which many leading activists have criminal convictions, a nazi past or both.

The rally was titled: “Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Big Powers”, a change from the original, “Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Usury”. The term “usury” is traditionally used by Nazis against Jews and it may have been altered to avoid accusations of antisemitism.

It had been booked at a major conference centre in Milan, but widespread protests from MEPs and Italian partisan veterans, as well as a 20,000-strong petition forced its move to a private hotel.

Simon Darby (right) with Bruno Gollnisch MEP (left) and Roberto Fiore MEP (second from left)

The meeting was organised by Forza Nuova, whose leader Roberto Fiore, was convicted in Italy in 1985 for “subversive association” for his involvement in the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei. Two members of that organisation were convicted for the Bologna railway station bombing in August 1980 which killed 85 people, including two British tourists, Catherine Mitchell and John Kolpinski, and left over 200 wounded. It was the biggest postwar terrorist attack in Europe.

Fiore became an MEP after Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the Italian fascist dictator, resigned her seat to take up a post in the Italian government. He has been a friend, financial supporter and political mentor to BNP leader Nick Griffin since 1980, when Fiore arrived in Britain on the run from justice in Italy.

Fiore helped Griffin run the National Front “political soldiers”, described at the time as a “proto-terrorist organisation”. When the political soldiers collapsed, they went on to found a new fascist group, the International Third Position.

Alongside his political activities Fiore amassed a huge fortune through business interests in London and later around the world. They included operating as a slum landlord and exploiting people brought in from eastern Europe, Italy and Spain, whom he passed on to gang masters to work on the land and in food processing plants.

Fiore was also one of the founders of the extremely violent Hammerskins skinhead movement, part of the nazi music and football hooligan gangs responsible for violence on the terraces. They have strong links with one of the most vicious fascist football hooligan gangs in Europe, the Roma Ultras, who recently attacked English football fans, stabbing one. Their most infamous episode was when they unfurled a banner down one side of their home stadium with the words “Jews to Auschwitz”.

Father Giulio Tam raises his hand in support of fascism

Hammerskins members recently marched through Bergamo in northern Italy armed with sticks and metal bars and with helmets on their heads. At their head were Fiore and Father Giulio Tam, a priest revered by Spanish falangistas and Italian fascists, who blessed the FN’s new headquarters in the town. Father Tam was in the audience at the Milan rally.

Fiore is closely associated with the Catholic Society of St Pius X, in which Bishop Richard Williamson was a leading light. In January 2009 in a television interview Bishop Williamson denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers, a statement that caused a scandal when the Pope lifted his longstanding excommunication a week later.

Also in prime position on the platform with Darby was Bruno Gollnisch. An MEP for the French National Front, Gollnisch was given a three-month suspended prison sentence in January 2007 for denying the Holocaust. He was also fined €5,000.

The court, in Lyon, found he had “disputed a crime against humanity” in remarks he made during a news conference in the city in October 2004. Gollnisch, who was chair of the Identity Tradition and Sovereignty far-right official group in the European Parliament, had questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust and said the “existence of the gas chambers is for historians to discuss”.

Security for the fascist rally - almost as ugly as Martin Reynolds

In April last year, just three days before polling day in the London Assembly election, in which the BNP won one seat, Griffin brought Gollnisch and other European extremists to a private meeting in a South Kensington hotel.

The meeting took place at a time when Griffin, a long-time Jew-hater who has a conviction for race hate, had approached the Jewish community in a bid to form a united front against Muslims, an invitation that the Jewish community firmly rejected.

Despite the BNP’s anti-EU stance, Griffin is keen to build links with European far-right parties, hoping that if he is elected as an MEP, he will be able to join a far-right bloc. If enough far-right MEPs can put aside their nationalist rivalries and form an official group in the European Parliament, they will benefit from a further €1 million a year on top of their salaries and staffing and expenses allowances. They would also be entitled to committee positions and enhanced speaking rights.

In October Griffin addressed an open-air rally of the Hungarian hardline fascist Jobbik party and its private army heavy mob, the Hungarian Guard, in Budapest. Griffin has been flirting with the Hungarian fascists since May when he met the Jobbik representatives Bela Kovacs and Zoltan Fuzessy in London.

Jobbik, also known as the Movement for a Better Hungary, is strongly anti-Jewish. Although the BNP has courted the Jewish community and denies it is antisemitic, Darby said recently on a radio broadcast that BNP MEPs would welcome cooperation with Jobbik.

A few days after his return from Hungary Griffin was cementing his relationship with the tiny anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-Romani Czech National Party (NS) by addressing its rally to celebrate Czech independence. Griffin’s trip, accompanied by several BNP activists, followed the visit by the NS leader, Petra Edelmannová, to the BNP’s Red White and Blue festival last August.

That Darby has now joined Griffin in linking up with these far-right extremists in Europe shows that the BNP is still an out-and-out fascist and antisemitic party, despite the fine words and smart suits of its leaders.

Searchlight

BNP Councillor thrown out of Barking Town Hall

Barking and Dagenham BNP councillors - the only ones applauding their performance

One of Richard Barnbrook's fellow BNP councillors was thrown out of a Barking and Dagenham council meeting last night, after refusing to apologise for comparing sex education to paedophilia.

Councillor Lawrence Rustem (second right) was asked to say sorry for his previous statement that teaching sex education to children before secondary school was akin to paedophilia. But rather than withdraw his statement, Rustem instead launched into a long rant about the Labour government and immigration declaring that he would 'answer the question the way I want to answer it.'

When even calls from his own party members to 'shut up' were ignored, Rustem was escorted from the chamber. Not willing to leave it there, he turned on a Labour councillor and offered him 'outside for a dance.' The offer was understandably declined.

Other highlights from the meeting included the BNP group leader Robert Bailey calling a Labour councillor a Nazi and Richard Barnbrook boasting about his rugby skills. Other vital matters raised by the BNP concerned the supply of Halal meat in schools and the plight of the 'native minority' in the 'Labour borough of Ealing'.

Paralysis

As I left the pubic gallery, people around me complained about the 'squabbling' that always takes place at these meetings. And as I stepped outside a clearly distraught woman turned on the assembled BNP councillors and screamed at them for failing to talk about 'the kids'. Ignoring calls from Richard Barnbrook for her to return, she quickly walked off down the street, crying as she went.

This was my first time in Barking and Dagenham and whatever grief or worries she was feeling I cannot tell you. But from watching the paralysis caused by the BNP in the council chamber last night, I can see little chance of her concerns being met any time soon.

Tory Troll

Top Euro Nazi’s hate site run from terraced house ... in Gravesend

A top Euro neo-Nazi leader has secretly set up home in Britain, The Sun can reveal. Hungarian Zoltan Fuzessy, 35 (above, with BNP leader Nick Griffin), uses his terraced house in Gravesend, Kent, as an HQ to promote his far-right movement.

Fuzessy is vice-president of the Jobbik party, whose members freely boast of their hatred towards Jews and make sick jokes about the Holocaust. The party, called “the shame of Hungary” by the country’s PM, has paramilitaries who dress in black uniforms like Hitler’s SS and has close ties to the British National Party.

Dad-of-two Fuzessy runs a website promoting Jobbik from his modest family home. The site, on which he is described as “head of international relations”, carries streams of bile-filled postings by members including a host of anti-Semitic attacks.

One comment, denying the Holocaust happened, read: “Gassing? Appears to have been delousing.” Another said Jews were “full of lies” about the atrocities committed by Nazis and had “miscalculated” the reaction they would get. A third sick comment bragged about giving Asian immigrants “a whack around the head” and then asking them if they felt like staying in Britain.

When The Sun confronted Fuzessy at his house he claimed he was not racist, saying: “My party is radical but it is patriotic, not nationalist. Millions in Hungary support us. Those who call us Nazi are just Communists.”

Fuzessy, who insisted he was not claiming benefits, refused to say when he had moved to Britain or what motivated him to come.

Minutes later the sick racist comments were removed from the website.

But The Sun can reveal Fuzessy has held meetings with UK-based extremist leaders, including BNP chairman Nick Griffin, who was the star speaker at a Jobbik rally in front of 5,000 supporters in Budapest last month.

Last night Gravesend’s Tory MP Adam Holloway said: “Any website which is anti-Semitic or racist in tone or content should be investigated.”

Hungarian MEP Viktoria Mohacsi said: “It is Nazism and it is serious.”

The Sun