The BNP will lose the argument

It's not hard to intellectually undermine the far-right party – don't just dismiss its racist arguments, break them down

Last weekend the BNP's annual shindig, "Red, White and Blue", took place in a small town in Derbyshire. Reports said that there were actually fewer attendees than there were anti-fascist protesters outside the gate. Unfortunately, some of these anti-BNP protesters soon became violent – leading to 19 being arrested. Although it is good to see ordinary people protesting against the BNP, such protests become ineffective when they descend into heavy-handed violence. Just a week earlier, for example, violent clashes erupted between the English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism in Birmingham, leading to bottles, sticks and banners thrown, and brought police in riot gear on to the streets. This ended up actually boosting the BNP after the Daily Mail and other papers ran full-page pictures of Asian youths attacking white protesters.

Violence is not the answer to countering the BNP. A paper I authored entitled In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda was released last week. Since about 2006 (particularly post-7/7), the BNP has consciously changed its rhetoric from being overtly anti-Asian, anti-black and anti-Jewish to being ardently anti-Muslim. My paper takes 10 of the key accusations made against Islam and British Muslims by the BNP and points out their intellectual inconsistencies and factual weaknesses. Rather than simply dismissing the BNP's ideology as racist or bigoted (an approach that the BNP's steady popularity proves is not working) or resorting to violence, there needs to be a greater focus on intellectually undermining it through a systematic deconstruction of its arguments.

This task is not particularly taxing. The BNP's arguments are easily undermined using proper statistics and historical and textual evidence. Nick Griffin's broad argument is that Islam is an "efficient imperialistic machine" with a "conscious and deliberate plan" to take over and Islamify Europe and install an Islamic state.

First, Islam is not a religion with a cunning master-plan for its adherents to emigrate with the intention of mass conversion. The Islamic concept of migration (hijrah) is to flee from religious persecution rather than a calculated drive for world domination. Second, Muslims constitute roughly 3.3% of Britain's entire population (according to government estimates in 2008). Despite population increases, is one of the greatest threats to the UK today really an impending Islamic takeover?

The BNP makes a significant proportion of its accusations on the basis of the impending Islamic state; one that will restrict individual freedoms and apply a literalistic form of Islamic penal code. These are arguments that Griffin has (knowingly) made on the basis of the ideas of a small minority of Islamists rather than the majority Muslim population; projecting extremist interpretations as representative of Islam in general. The BNP takes this even further, making the claim that Muslims support the tactics of jihadists: "The fifth characteristic of immigrant Muslim populations in all nations has been their widespread support for terrorism." This claim of "widespread support" is in fact based on a 9% figure taken from a 2006 NOP report, and is therefore both hyperbolic and factually inaccurate.

This is an intellectual battle that needs to take place at all levels of society. The specific allegations against Islam need to be refuted, at least in part, by Muslim communities themselves. Rather than extremist voices, the majority Muslim population needs to acquire the confidence to undermine the slurs being made against it and show that it will not be held to account for the actions of a minority faction of Islamist extremists.

This intellectual challenge also needs to be made by the British politicians who claim to represent the Muslim communities. The British MEPs' recent shunning of Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons in the European parliament is certainly a step in the right direction, but we also need a simultaneous breakdown of their arguments. Nick Clegg's description of the BNP as "a party of thugs" or David Cameron's statement that he was "sickened" by their EU election success will not alone persuade people not to vote BNP. Jon Cruddas, Labour MP for Dagenham, wrote in a foreword to the paper that "The political class has recoiled in shock and indignation following the BNP's recent electoral successes, yet has failed to confront the way they demonise British Muslims … because of this vacuum the BNP have been able to focus on an extremist Islamism as being representative of the views of all Muslims."

Finally, British society needs to start responding more thoughtfully to the views of the BNP. These issues are not limited to British Muslims. The BNP has not abandoned its sentiments towards other minority communities (its whites-only admission policy is under scrutiny by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission), and other minority groups must also stand up to such discrimination. Muslim communities should not face intolerance in isolation, but should be bolstered by the support of British society as a whole. Smear campaigns against BNP candidates who supposedly have "Nazi" written on their number-plates are insufficient. The BNP needs to be intellectually challenged by all who condemn concepts of racism, intolerance and segregation, and stand for a free and fair society in Britain.

Lucy James at Comment Is Free (hosted by The Guardian)

BNP targets children as recruits for party's youth wing

YBNP annual training camp 2008 - Mirror story
Inside the tent adorned with the Union Jack and St George’s flag, Peter and Anthony are on a recruiting drive.

They hand out leaflets telling potential converts that their organisation is not racist, merely “helping to resist the racist colonisation of Britain”.

Their table is scattered with postcards of young, white women draped in the Union Jack, holding placards with the reminder that “nationalism is for girls too”. The pair tell The Times that the British National Party is great for the country and that they are proud to support it.

However, they are unable to articulate why they are attracted to the far-right party, and they squirm in their seats when asked about their understanding of issues such as racism, nationalism and discrimination. They may be simply too young to appreciate such concepts: Anthony is 14 and Peter just 12 years old.

Nevertheless, the pair spent the weekend recruiting for the youth wing of the BNP at the party’s annual gathering in Derbyshire, which attracted several hundred families.

Peter, whose mother brought him to the event, said: “Young BNP is just about making sure that we are going to have a good place in the normal BNP when we’re older, and that’s what we want. It’s cool, we play lots of sports and stuff.” Several events at the Red, White and Blue Festival, which was picketed by protesters, were geared towards youth in what anti-fascist groups said was “disturbing indoctrination” and an attempt to create a new generation of nationalist sympathisers.

Young children’s faces were painted with the Union Jack and many sported BNP T-shirts and fake tattoos of crusaders and the St George’s flag. They were encouraged to throw wet sponges at a man in the stocks, who was dressed in Islamic clothing and wearing an Osama bin Laden mask.

Even infants were exposed to the nationalist cause, with toys and blow-up furniture in the children’s tent being decorated with the Union Jack.

Simon Darby, the deputy leader of the BNP, told The Times that the younger generation was “very important” for the future of the party. “We don’t think short-term, we think long-term,” he said.

Mr Darby denied that the party was indoctrinating youth: “We’re just pointing out another side of things — that it isn’t a good idea to completely destroy our own culture. We are making sure they know that white people aren’t inferior, because that’s what they are being taught in schools.”

However, anti-fascist groups whose blockade of the event, near Denby, resulted in 19 arrests after clashes with police, said that the BNP’s approach was “very dangerous”. Weyman Bennett, joint national secretary of Unite Against Fascism, said that the BNP was actively trying to recruit the young in a new drive because so many of its members were from older generations. “It’s really dangerous. They are trying to normalise their politics among young children. It is very concerning — do we really want this to be going on in our playgrounds?”

Alongside Peter and Anthony, Tristan Simekins, 18, had travelled from Corsham, Wiltshire, to recruit for the BNP’s student wing.

His leaflets explained that the movement provided advice to young people on dealing with “anti-white discrimination”. He said: “My problem is with the indoctrination of Islam. I admit not all Muslims are evil, but I feel Islam is.”

Times Online

'Barack Obama' is put in stocks as festivities kick off at the BNP summer party

The BNP have often denied being a racist party. But as a man dressed as U.S. president Barack Obama was put in stocks, the true colours of the party were clear for all to see.

The shocking scene was part of the BNP's annual Red, White and Blue festival which is taking place in Codnor, Derbyshire this weekend.

The rally, in its 10th year, has sparked widespread controversy and today protesters descended on the site to show their opposition. A spokeswoman for Derbyshire Police said a small number of arrests had been made near the village of Codnor as hundreds of demonstrators voiced their opposition to the festival.

'Those arrests were of protesters who had been acting unlawfully,' the spokeswoman said, adding that some of the demonstrators had gathered outside approved protest zones.

The main body of demonstrators, which is being monitored by police CCTV cameras, gathered in Codnor's Market Place and is expected to march to Codnor Denby Lane later. Campaign group Unite Against Fascism has joined forces with Midlands TUC and local protest group Amber Valley Campaign Against Racism and Fascism to bring hundreds of anti-fascist protesters to the area.

They plan to 'kettle' the rally today and have organised the protest march to the site of the festival and back again.

Kettling, also known as containment or corralling, is sometimes used by police and involves a large cordon to contain a crowd in a limited area. The move comes after an open letter was published yesterday on Unite Against Fascism's website, condemning the event. The letter, whose signatories include former London mayor Ken Livingstone, children's author Michael Rosen and trade union leaders, said the event's purpose was to 'build up a hardened neo-Nazi core at the centre of the organisation'.

It said: 'We condemn the BNP and its festival of race hate, and we urge people to reject this party's poisonous and anti-democratic agenda.'

This year is not the first time the festival has attracted opposition. Last year about 30 anti-BNP protesters were arrested after clashes with police. Derbyshire Police have planned a 'significant policing operation' throughout the three-day event, including restrictions on the planned protests.

Yesterday a American white supremacist was stopped from entering the country to attend the Red, White and Blue Festival.

Preston Wiginton, a close associate of BNP leader Nick Griffin, was turned away at Heathrow because officials believed his presence would stir up racial tension. There were suggestions he would be speaking at the event, but the BNP denied these rumours.

A UK Border Agency spokesman said Mr Wiginton, 44, was sent back to New York from Heathrow airport on Thursday.

The BNP's deputy leader Simon Darby said of Mr Wiginton: 'He came to last year's Red, White and Blue and was coming to this year's but they wouldn't let him in for some reason. He wasn't coming to speak.'

Mr Wiginton, a freshman student at Texas A & M university, wrote an essay in 2006 which described non-white immigration as 'an abnormal growth that is threatening the life of American culture and the life of American people'.

He said: 'If action is taken, and time is of the essence, this cancer can be eradicated.' If not, he added, 'the death of the American way of life, identity and sovereignty is certain.'

He is rumoured to spend half of the year living in a flat in Moscow that he sublets from a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. In October 2007 he organised and paid for Nick Griffin to speak at three American universities to coincide with Islam Awareness Week. As well as financing the trip he also appealed to members of Nazi internet forums to donate money to the BNP.

Later that year he organised a march in the Russian capital at which leading Nazis addressed a crowd of fascists shouting 'death to Jews' and 'glory to Russia.' He also spearheaded the support for Griffin during his trial for inciting racial hatred in 2006, and set up an online petition urging the British Government to drop the prosecution.

He regularly posts anti-Semitic messages on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront. One reads: '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.'

Nick Lowles, editor of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, said the decision to ban him was 'great news'. He added: 'He is one of the world's most extreme racists - this shows what the BNP are really like.'

Mail online

La Mesa Man Convicted Of Making Threats Against Obama Online

A La Mesa man who posted racially charged comments on Yahoo about killing Barack Obama during the presidential campaign was convicted today of making threats against a major candidate for president.

Walter Bagdasarian - who was indicted in January - faces up to five years in federal prison when he is sentenced Oct. 26 by U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff. The judge found Bagdasarian guilty on two counts after an hourlong bench trial in which no witnesses were presented. The 47-year-old defendant - who is free on $100,000 bail - left the courtroom without speaking to reporters.

In finding Bagdasarian guilty, Huff said the defendant's Internet postings last Oct. 22 were intended as a threat when they were written. Others who were reading Bagdasarian's writings told him that law enforcement was monitoring the Web site and one reader even told him that he was going to report him, the judge noted.

The writings were subsequently reported to the Secret Service, which tracked them to Bagdasarian's home computer, which was in his wife's name.

Bagdasarian used the computer to post threatening messages on a Yahoo Finance message board, including one that read, "He will have a 50 cal in the head soon," and 20 minutes later posted a message that read "Shoot the n-------," said Assistant U.S. Attorney William Cole.

The defendant also sent e-mail messages containing a link to a YouTube video depicting a vehicle exploding after being hit by a round from a firearm, the prosecutor said. "The defendant admitted that he posted the statement(s) on his home computer," Cole told the judge. "When people make threats, things happen."

During a search of the defendant's home, agents found six weapons, including a .50-caliber rifle, Cole said.

Defense attorney Ezekiel Cortez argued unsuccessfully that Bagdasarian was drunk when he posted the comments in a political discussion chat room last Oct. 22. The attorney said the original comments were made about midnight or 1 a.m., then Bagdasarian came back on the computer at 8 a.m. and said he was drunk hours earlier.

KFMB-TV

Norfolk Unity asks - if US law enforcement can take action against these racist fruitloops what's stopping the British police from doing the same?

BNP warning to public - "If we duff you up it's your fault"

Racist BNP teenager pushed girl, 14, to the brink of suicide

A teenage BNP supporter who drove a classmate to the brink of suicide has been convicted of racial harassment in a landmark legal case

The youth, 15, subjected his female victim to months of racist abuse, on one occasion telling her: 'Go back to your own country, you don't belong here.' A court heard the 14-year-old girl - who had already moved schools once to avoid racist abuse - was also called 'wog, c**n, n****r, gorilla and golliwog' by her tormentor. He taunted her with chants of 'white, white, white is right, kick them out, fight, fight, fight' - taken from a film about football hooliganism.

But the girl feared reporting the abuse would make him become violent and instead suffered in silence, the court was told.

The victim, who has mixed white English and black African heritage, endured the abuse for four months before she attempted suicide in January this year. A source close to the case said the teenager, who, like his victim, cannot be named for legal reasons, was a BNP supporter who had actively tried to enlist other youths.

Raymond Wildsmith, prosecuting, told Lincoln Youth Court the insults happened 'again and again and again' - anything up to four times a week.

But the girl only revealed her torment after she tried to kill herself. She took a mixture of stress pills and painkillers in January before writing a note telling her family that she did not want a 'sad funeral'. Giving evidence by video link, the girl told a police officer the abuse made her 'want to die'.

She added: 'I wanted to die because of everything that was happening at school. I thought, "Do I want to do this?" And then I thought, "Yes, I don't want to be here".

Last night, her mother described her daughter's tormentor as 'evil'. She said: 'He seemed to mimic everything his father did and became a ringleader of a violent set of boys at the school.' She told how her daughter left a suicide note requesting that nobody wore black at her funeral. She said: 'My world fell apart. I had no idea that there was anything wrong with her. At home she put on a brave face and seemed totally normal.'

The teenager was hospitalised and then sectioned in a psychiatric hospital for several weeks. She has been out of school virtually ever since but is due to start at a new school in a different part of the country in September.

The mother reported the girl's ordeal to the school and police, but said she had a 'long hard fight to get justice for my daughter'. She added: 'When I first informed the school, they as good as called me a liar. I then had a long battle convincing the police to take this seriously. They were desperately slow and interviewed 25 people before they seemed to appreciate the seriousness of it.' The court was told that the girl had only been in the Lincoln area for a year before the abuse started.

Her 15-year-old tormentor, who denied the charge, was convicted of racially aggravated harassment. He will be sentenced on August 13. A second 15-year-old was cleared of the same charge.

The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed it was the first successful prosecution of a schoolchild for racial abuse in the UK.

Jaswant Narwal, Chief Crown Prosecutor for Lincolnshire said: 'We would like to thank the victim for her courage in coming forward and strongly encourage other young people in the same situation to report to the police when they have been targets of campaign of racial bullying.'

Daily Mail

BNP get police to arrest socialists

On Tuesday 14 July I was arrested, along with two other Socialist Party members, on alleged public order offences following a complaint made by local members of the fascist-led British National Party

The BNP's allegations were entirely without substance, and were a poor attempt at intimidation. The complaint related to campaigning on Saturday 30 May, when we were running a stall in Wrexham town centre.

We were promoting the No2EU-Yes to Democracy European election challenge and campaigning against the BNP. We had spent two hours campaigning prior to the local BNP mob arriving and setting up a stall a few yards away from us.

The BNP outnumbered us, but we did not rise to their deliberate attempts to provoke us. A member of the BNP approached us and made a number of racist comments, while another BNP member filmed us for several hours.

Arrests

One Socialist Party member was arrested at his home on 14 July at around 9am. I went to the police station of my own accord at around midday, where I was arrested. The third Socialist Party member went to the station after finishing work at 5pm, and he was also arrested.

We were detained for up to two hours each. We were asked to provide a statement, and then subsequently to provide fingerprints and DNA, and we were photographed. We also spent time in the 'custody suites'.

North Wales Police (NWP) treated us courteously, and the arresting officer behaved in a very professional manner. Nonetheless, the police had no evidence whatsoever, which leaves the question of why NWP chose to arrest us for what was evidently a fabricated charge.

We were bailed unconditionally, to appear back at Wrexham police station in August. The following morning we were contacted by the arresting officer, who advised us that there would be no further action.

We had to spend a fair amount of time in custody, and our DNA will be retained for 12 years, despite not being charged.

We were told that we had been arrested because NWP had a duty to investigate the complaint, and that the only way in which the police could investigate was to arrest us. It is not acceptable for the police to detain socialists and anti-fascists simply for campaigning against the BNP.

Dylan Roberts, Wrexham Socialist Party

The Socialist via Left Wing Criminologist

BNP supporters 'beat man who clashed with Griffin'

Supporters of the British National Party were accused last night of operating like "a private army" after they set upon a man who poured a drink on the group's leader.

David Drew MP told the House of Commons last night that a "totally upstanding" constituent was given "one hell of a hiding" by BNP supporters.

He said the attack took place as Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP who was last month elected as a Member of the European Parliament, was visiting Painswick, Gloucestershire. "I don't know why he was wined and dined in my constituency in Painswick but he was," Mr Drew said. "It just so happens that one of my constituents took offence at this and happened to spill some beer over Mr Griffin. As a result of this he was given one hell of a hiding."

The MP for Stroud added: "I am not prepared to accept that any politician has a private army. I am not prepared to have the BNP anywhere near my constituency. But I hope that we will look at the actions of the BNP."

He told the Commons that he knew the victim, whom he said he was proud to be associated with, but that an arrest and charges were unlikely to be made because the constituent was too shocked to pursue it. "That's just indicative of what the BNP is like," the MP said.

The Deputy Commons Leader Barbara Keeley said the allegation of the attack was a "serious thing".

The attack is alleged to have taken place on 11 July at the Falcon pub in Painswick after the constituent, a teenager, waited outside and threw a pint of Guinness over the BNP leader.

A spokesman for the BNP dismissed the claims made in Parliament as, "just another MP trying to make a bit of political capital out of this". He said that the constituent, for whom he had "no sympathy", had verbally abused Mr Griffin before throwing a drink.

"People have got to realise that they cannot go around trying to attack senior politicians in this way," he said. "After he threw the beer, our security treated him robustly. That could've been acid for all we knew. How did he expect us to react?"

In an interview with a local newspaper the victim, named only as Ben, said he had wanted to confront Mr Griffin to give him, "a taste of people's feelings towards him". He told how he had felt intimidated by a group of BNP supporters before being put in a headlock by "one of his security people".

Gloucestershire police said in a statement: "The group restrained him and it was during this time that the man states he was assaulted and bruising caused to his face. He did not wish to make a formal complaint."

Independent

BNP’s ‘devils’ find they are without friends in Europe as right-wing bloc fails to materialise

Their success in the recent European elections sent shockwaves through the British political establishment but the arrival in Strasbourg of the British National Party's two newly-elected MEPs this week could not have got off to a more shambolic start.

Travelling to the picturesque French city for their first week at the parliament's inaugural session after June's elections, BNP leader Nick Griffin and his sidekick Andrew Brons found themselves on the wrong side of the law, having to explain to the police why their car had broken the speed limit.

The car was doing about 10mph above the limit and Griffin was fined £50, small change compared to the combined £350,000 a year he and Brons will receive in parliamentary salaries and allowances.

A further, far more damaging, setback for the two "devils" - Griffin's mocking self-description - was their failure to find enough far-right comrades across the EU to form a new bloc.

However, the BNP still had plenty of friendly fellow travellers to hang out with. Griffin has been getting matey with several groups. One is Jobbik, the far-right Hungarian party that won 14.8% of the vote in the Hungarian European elections despite its anti-gypsy stance and unpleasant comments about the nation's Jews.

Griffin and Brons even stayed in the same hotel as three Jobbik MEPs. The party, also known as the Movement for a Better Hungary, won nearly as many votes as the ruling socialists, securing three seats in the European parliament.

Others involved in talks with the BNP were France's Front National - which won three seats, including the re-election of its veteran controversial leader Jean-Marie Le Pen - Belgium's Vlaams Belang and Ataka, the nationalist Bulgarian party.

Griffin said: "We needed at least 25 members from seven different member states to form a group but we failed and, yes, it is a setback. There is no doubt that we would have been able to wield a lot more influence if we could have formed a group."

Griffin hit the headlines even before he and Brons landed in Strasbourg, following his call for the EU to sink boats carrying illegal immigrants. He also told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show that the EU had created a "super-state that isn't far from fascist".

Accompanied by two burly bodyguards because of what Griffin says have been personal threats, the newly-elected neo-fascists swaggered into the institution they have vowed to abolish.

"If and when the free nations of Europe get their destinies back, perhaps this building could be turned into a monument to the follies of imperialism. We must get rid of this ridiculously wasteful circus," declared Griffin.

British officials had already imposed a "cordon sanitaire" around the BNP and the pair were told they would be banned from a UK government reception, hosted by Glenys Kinnock, the Europe minister.

Under new guidelines, agreed by UK foreign secretary David Miliband, Griffin and Brons will be isolated and kept at arm's length from the world of diplomatic socialising.

The pair of BNP MEPs have been placed in seats numbered 780 and 781 for the next five years, close to and just one row in front of the new Conservative and Reformist Group founded by the UK Tories.

As they took their seats in the assembly's debating chamber, Griffin and Brons were surrounded by like-minded colleagues: three Hungarian Gypsy-haters, four Muslim-baiters from the Netherlands, a couple of Austrian deputies elected on a platform of anti-semitism, Le Pen and his daughter Marianne, who both believe the Holocaust is a myth, and an assortment of Italian racists.

Glenis Willmott, the Labour Party's leader in Europe, was prompted to say: "This is a sad day for Britain. Two UK fascists are taking their seats in this parliament for the first time."

Richard Howitt, a Labour MEP, said he was ashamed, as a Briton, that the BNP was taking part in the parliament.

However, Timothy Kirkhope, who leads the UK Tory group of MEPs, said he was "not particularly uncomfortable" sitting in the Strasbourg assembly with two extremists behind him. He added: "I'm not happy, but they were elected by the people of Britain."

Griffin, who is expected to sit on the environment committee, appeared unconcerned by all the fuss around him, or by the fact that the Democratic Unionist Party's MEP Diane Dodds abandoned her seat when she discovered she had been put next to Brons.

He was equally untouched by news that 90,000 British voters signed a petition stating that the BNP does not speak for them. He said: "We're speaking happily with European nationalists. I even spoke to several German Greens. But there is very childish behaviour from some of the British."

As a "non-attached" member, the amount of speaking time Griffin will be given in debates will be strictly limited, but he used his first speech, during a debate on Iran, to denounce alleged human rights violations against "nationalist dissidents" in Britain.

He accused Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats of routinely deploying "intimidation and violence against nationalist dissidents in Britain". He claimed they were using taxpayers' money "to fund their own militia, which breaks up opposition meetings and attack their opponents with bricks, darts and claw-hammers" and described the Unite Against Fascism movement as an "organisation of far-left criminals".

Griffin told a two-thirds empty chamber that "warmongers" were itching to attack Iran and were using human rights as a new "casus belli". He invoked Elvis Costello's song Oliver's Army to protest against the prospect of British youths being sent to die in Iran.

"Do not leave the war which hypocritical rhetoric will help to justify and unleash to the usual brave British cannon fodder: 18-year-old boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne," he said. "Instead, send out your own sons to come home in boxes, or without their legs, their arms, their eyes or their sanity. Or mind your own business."

However, there were no publicity-seeking tactics - that was left to the UK Independence party. UKIP leader Nigel Farage, whose new desk is next to commission president Jose Manuel Barroso in the debating chamber, plonked a mini Union Jack in front of himself during a debate.

Barroso responded by asking an aide to get a mini EU flag for his own desk.

Griffin returned to his home in mid-Wales on Thursday at the end of what had been an eventful first week.

This week, it's back to Brussels, where Griffin's notoriety has already seen Brons and himself banned from Fabian O'Farrell's, an Irish pub popular with Eurocrats, something he says amounts to "a form of apartheid".

They say they will be keen attenders at the parliament over the next five years, a prospect that is likely to fill many of their fellow MEPs with dread.

Sunday Herald

Accrington BNP supporter spared jail after targeting Asian family

A man who made his Asian next door neighbours’ lives a misery with his anti-social and racist conduct was spared immediate jail.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Nigel Hesmondhalgh, 36, who had a British National Party sticker in the window of his Accrington home, was abusive and insulting to the couple, repeatedly picking on the wife. He piled dog dirt up in the alley outside their home and told them: “It’s a white country, not a Muslim state.”

Hesmondhalgh, said to be the carer for his brother, who has learning difficulties, told the husband of the couple he should be scared and shouted support for the BNP.

The couple had lived in their home for 14 years before he moved in. The defendant, who has since moved but wants to go back to the property on Higher Antley Street, had earlier admitted racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress.

Hesmondhalgh, who has almost 90 previous convictions and has been flouting the law since he was 11, had struck while on bail for similar allegations which were left to lie on the file. He kept his freedom but his hostile and anti-social conduct was slammed by a judge, who warned the courts would not tolerate it.

The defendant, of Stanley Street, Accrington, was given 36 weeks in custody, suspended for two years, with 18 months supervision and the Thinking Skills programme.

Martin Hackett, defending, said the offence was unpleasant. Hesmondhalgh had been very close to his mother who died last July and he may have been adjusting.

Lancashire Telegraph

Huge BNP turnout to support West - 20 descend on derelict pub - intimidated by 3 anti-fascists

The BNP's top-secret RV point
Three HOPE not hate campaigners surprised and angered the BNP in Norwich on Saturday when they arrived to monitor what the BNP supposed was a secret meeting point at the Duke of Norfolk pub in Mousehold Lane. Unknown to the fascists, who snuck into the area for a leaflet and canvass session, the closed public house had been watched since early that morning.

The arrival of the fake "reverend" Robert West - the BNP's candidate in the Norwich North by-election - prompted the three anti-fascists to move in closer, and it was several minutes before the BNP noticed we were clicking away.

The penny drops
We approached the ropey reverend to ask who ordained him, but the prefabricated prelate went all sheepish on us and demanded that we address him as "reverend". We decided to address him as "fake".

Would you buy a used crucifix from this man?
We also asked him about Leader Nick's call for the sinking of refugee boats, because we couldn't find the verse in the Bible which states: "Blessed are those who torpedo black people on the high seas, for they shall inherit the Earth."

Needless to say West wasn't too interested in answering that point and went off to pretend to look through some BNP "literature" - a shoddy leaflet claiming that blacks are being housed ahead of whites by Norwich City Council (if they knew anything about Norwich North they'd know it's within the boundaries of Broadland District Council, and the housing policies of Norwich City Council have no effect in the constituency).

Those fellow fascists of West's who approached us all began with the "I'm not a racist" spiel then proceeded to justify blasting black people out of the water, one idiot talking about the New Testament's justification for Nick's sink 'em policy, then going on about the Old Testament when, quelle surprise, he found himself out-brained by a real Christian who'd done more than read the Bible's title.

While this was going on one or two of the motley assembly of 20 race haters were obviously losing it, and one of their goons suddenly jumped the wall separating us and attacked one of the HOPE not hate trio from behind, grabbing him around the neck, wrenching his arm behind his back and hustling him along the pavement.

Realising the camera's on him, West's goon backs off
When I pointed out he was committing a serious criminal offence the goon retorted "I can do what I fucking well like" - just as we saw outside Parliament the other week, when BNP goons ordered the public out of the way while they escorted Griffin and Brons to an egg-pelting party, and then again when they felled and trampled a black woman as they rushed their terror-struck Leader away from the scene.

The attack on our man prompted two of the BNP, including West, to call the police to claim that the three of us were victimising the 20 of them, and in minutes three police cars came blazing into the scene.

The lies quickly agreed to by the BNP didn't compute with the police, and the officer who interviewed us was quite ready to arrest the BNP goon. I've got to say I was in favour of it, but it would have meant hours at Norwich police station and the loss of our cameras, so our man declined to press charges.

Edith Crowther, who stood in King's Lynn Gaywood in the county council elections, explained that she had a degree in Arabic and that her goon mate was a "working class man from a poor council estate who doesn't know any better.."

What they're driving on poor council estates these days - West's thug and his 4x4
The kind of poor council estate where everybody owns a petrol-hungry 4x4 with a personalised numberplate, eh, Edith?

Crowther ("My husband sometimes lets me out of the house") was peremptorily told to stop talking to us. We can't say whether it was her husband who gave the order.

Motley collection - would-be BNP boat sinkers
The turnout for the BNP was pathetic. Despite a national call for help most of the twenty belonged to Norfolk BNP, with few of them from Norwich - and almost all of them had out-of-county accents. Until recently, while the rest of the BNP prepared to fight elections Norfolk BNP prepared to order lunch, but we still couldn't help but notice the absence of some of Norfolk BNP's biggest online loudmouths, who, like most of the BNP, are too ashamed to show their faces in public and prefer to do their politicking from the anonymity of a keyboard.

After that not much happened. Everybody, including us, had to give their details to the police, and that kept the BNP corralled on the pub car park for more than an hour. When told they were free to go, the BNP cars waited around while a number of mobile phone calls were made, leading the HOPE not hate trio to suspect that something else was being planned, then they made a number of unsubtle feints (we're not that stupid, West) and finally drove off in convoy.

As we had no chance of reaching our cars in time to follow, and as the police were still watching, we decided to call it a day at that point, happy that we'd acheived what we set out to do - but there's a way to go in the Norwich North by-election yet, and we're pretty sure we'll be meeting up again with the BNP and its deceitful devil-dodger some time very soon.

Going West

While leading members of the BNP are afforded the luxury of having themselves pelted with eggs, those lower down the ranks are only thought worthy of cheaper alternatives.

In the case of the BNP's Norwich North by-election candidate this was a jug of iced water expertly flung at pretend prelate the "Reverend" Robert West by an irate housewife in North Hykeham, Lincs, when West - sporting his trademark dog-collar - came calling on behalf of the racist party.

The incident happened in 2006, soon after West resigned from a Conservative Party about to expel him for speaking at BNP meetings and for his role in setting up the BNP's bogus "Christian Council of Britain".

The unnamed housewife later told the Lincolnshire Echo: "He was wearing a dog collar so I asked him whether he was a real reverend. He refused to enter into a debate about it. I had the jug of iced water because I was preparing for friends who were visiting that day. I refuse to apologise. I have no remorse. If he comes here again I will empty a whole jug over his head."

The matter of whether West is a "real reverend" or not has exercised quite a number of people for quite some time, not least those who take a closer interest in religious affairs than the "Rev." West finds comfortable.

In the past West has refused to discuss the validity of his orders - that is, who ordained him, into which church, when and where? Without valid orders, West has no more right to call himself "Reverend" or to pass himself off as a clergyman than you or I.

There have been unsourced reports that West was ordained as an "Elder" into something calling itself the Apostolic Church, but the only legitimate existing British church of that name denied all knowledge of him, telling a researcher for the Love @nd Rage website:

First of all may I confirm that The Apostolic Church does not support the views or the activities of the British National Party. The Church has no political association whatsoever.

On the second matter I am uncertain about who is the Mr Robert West mentioned in the article. One thing is certain: he does not speak on behalf of The Apostolic Church. If this person lives in Lincolnshire he does not attend The Apostolic Church. In fact as a denomination we have no churches in Lincolnshire.

I note that he is quoted as being ‘ordained as an elder’ within the Church. If this person has had any association with The Apostolic Church in the past the only means by which he can maintain either his membership or office is by attending one of our churches. If he were an active member of the Church his views would not be accepted by the Church and disciplinary action would be undertaken by the Church which strongly distances itself from views such as these.

West operates - if that is the word - the Grace Covenant Fellowship from his Holbeach home, the "Fellowship" strongly suspected, like the "Christian Council of Britain", of having a membership of one.

Following the European elections West appeared on BBC television's "The Big Question", in company of ex-Nazi and ex-National Front leader, Andrew Brons. At the beginning of the show West was explictly challenged by Ekklesia director Jonathan Bartley to say how many members the CCB had, and not for the first time shied away from answering. Bartley told West in no uncertain terms that it had one, namely himself, to which West could only grimace lamely.

Back in April, however, on the East Midlands version of The Politics Show, West produced what he claimed to be a diploma from the Apostolic Church Bible College, located in Pen-y-groes, south Wales. An Apostolic college certainly exists in Pen-y-groes, and is indeed run by the Apostolic Church, a Pentecostal Christian denomination founded in the early 20th century. Its title, however, is Apostolic Church School of Ministry (ACSOM), previously the Apostolic Church International Bible School.

What is immediately apparent from its website is that ACSOM and the church to which it is attached are multi-cultural, multi-racial, and inclusive. Its members do not wear dog-collars, nor do they use the title "Reverend". And the last thing they will preach about is the "sin" of race-mixing.

Little wonder, then, that the church is keen to distance itself from the claims of the "Reverend" West.

As Jonathan Bartley asks of the well-watered "cleric": "Will any church come forward to claim him? Or is this another example of BNP deception?"

Well, the voters of Norwich North and Norfolk journalists are going to have every opportunity to find out the answer to Jonathan's question when West and his cohorts of decidedly unsaintly BNP hatemongers descend upon the Fine City in the near future.

Don't forget to ask: who ordained Robert West? Into which church? When? Where? And let's see his written orders, please.

Guess what? The BNP takes white-supremacist cash from the US

Who'd have thought it, eh? James Von Brunn, the white supremacist who shot dead a security guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, at the Holocaust museum in Washington, attended fund-raising meetings of the American Friends of the British National Party.

Yes, I know you can't always blame political parties for where their funding comes from. But imagine if this had happened to a mainstream political party. Suppose the Conservative Party was found to have received funds from a raving anti-semite. Not exactly a source up there with Michael Ashcroft, is it? Suppose the Labour Party had accepted a donation from Hamas?

And remember the fuss we used to make about the IRA receiving financial support from the US? Yet somehow we're not that surprised, nor particularly alarmed apparently, that the BNP is supported by the kind of anti-semitic nutter who murders a Holocaust museum attendant, that BNP leader Nick Griffin has spoken at the AFBNP meetings that such pond-life attend and was only too happy to say that they made a "significant contribution" to the BNP's [2001] general election campaign.

I only mention this because the BNP's apologists have been out in force lately, after the ethnic-cleansing party won two Euro-seats, saying that I have to understand that the miseries and pressures put on communities subject to immigration push white people to vote for the BNP in protest.

I couldn't understand that, apparently, in my cosseted home-counties existence. Which is a bit rich when it comes from tank-topped, metropolitan, neo-cons, tapping away in their stripped-pine loft conversions, with their hearts bleeding for the oppressed Aryans of inner-city Bradford. Patronising or what?

Let me spell it out, BNP apologists. This is the company you keep when you concede that BNP voters have a point: James Von Brunn. It really won't do, saying: "I'm not a racist, but these immigrants are the problem, not the BNP." Immigration pales into insignificance as an issue compared with a party gaining elected representatives in the European parliament, which is funded by the Von Brunns of this world.

You don't have to be a wishy-washy, tree-hugging, airy-fairy, unpatriotic, sitting-on-the-fence liberal to rank the political danger of the BNP and its supporters above the effects of post-war immigration, serious as those are. You just have to be able to think. And to have read a book beyond one-shilling, war-hero trash mags. (Better now, thankyou, nurse).

Telegraph

BNP routed in Norfolk

A long night and day of County Council election results has seen the BNP fail dismally in its quest to ride the wave of public discontent.

As we publish, the BNP has gained only three county council seats nationwide after more than 600 declarations. For the BNP, Nick Griffin's "perfect storm" never happened, and currently the BNP leader is feverishly reining in his members' expectations. Griffin and deputy Simon Darby talked up those expectations, but now fear the consequences should disillusion set in as the scale of the party's failure dawns on the membership.

Expectations for the Euro elections, to be counted on Sunday, have been quickly revised. Whereas previously BNP leaders were happy to encourage the idea that the party could gain seven MEPs the new leadership line is that the election of just one BNP MEP will count as success.

Whichever way the BNP want to look at it, to gain that one MEP will have cost the racist organisation proportionately more in money, time and effort than that expended by any other party. If they fail, then they will be forced to content themselves with the three most expensive county councillors in recorded history (as Nick Griffin might put it).

However, we're not going to count our chickens before they're hatched and Sunday's results might yet yield a nasty surprise or two.

In Norfolk, where anti-fascists have been very active, the BNP failed on all fronts, its best result being in King's Lynn North and Central, where it had serious expectations of winning after Norfolk BNP mounted its most professional campaign to date. In other West Norfolk seats the BNP performance was mediocre, while the party barely registered in Yarmouth and Norwich.

Full Norfolk results:

Yarmouth North and Central

Conservative 1001 (34.14%)
Labour 856 (29.2%)
UKIP 549 (18.72%)
Liberal Democrat 278 (9.48%)
BNP 248 (8.46%)


Sprowston (Norwich)

Conservative 1123 (32.37%)
UKIP 663 (19.11%)
Labour 593 (17.09%)
Liberal Democrat 564 (16.26%)
Green 298 (8.59%)
BNP 228 (6.57%)


King's Lynn North and Central

Conservative 677 (32.66%)
Labour 616 (29.72%)
BNP 431 (20.79%)
Green 349 (16.84%)


Gaywood North and Central (King's Lynn)

Conservative 1090 (42.38%)
Labour 445 (17.3%)
Liberal Democrat 369 (14.35%)
BNP 346 (13.45%)
Green 322 (12.52%)


Clenchwarton and King's Lynn South

Conservative 1015 (39.25%)
Liberal Democrat 743 (28.73%)
BNP 313 (12.1%)
Labour 301 (11.64%)
Green 214 (8.28%)


Gaywood South (King's Lynn)

Conservative 865 (32.08%)
Labour 551 (20.44%)
Liberal Democrat 435 (16.14%)
UKIP 376 (13.95%)
BNP 273 (10.13%)
Green 196 (7.27%)


Freebridge Lynn

Conservative 1690 (54.5%)
Liberal Democrat 431 (13.9%)
Green 385 (12.42%)
Labour 347 (11.19%)
BNP 248 (8%)

The legend of Billy Brit

The BNP's "Billy Brit" - aimed at children but enjoyed by BNP adults everywhere - learns some home truths...

Let’s give the BNP publicity ... so we can all see what they really are

Here's shameful confession. When the online list of BNP members was published illegally earlier this year I sneaked a look, then went further and performed the postal code search to see who lived near me. Unhappily several did, and there, on the screen, were their names, addresses, home and mobile phone numbers and email addresses. For a split second, only a second I promise, I was tempted to call them and ask them why they had joined. Then sanity returned to remind me that even looking at such a list, thereby breaching these people's privacy, was a low and uncivilised thing to do. Sorry.

But the curiosity has not left me. Why do these people, living in my area of the city, part of the same community and rubbing shoulders with the same people in the street, believe in such an extreme and repugnant set of policies? What horrors are they encountering that have so riled them into hatred? On going about my business, have I somehow failed to spot Hassidic Jews drinking babies' blood in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens, Eastern European plumbers pimping children in the supermarket, Jihadists beheading Alan from the ironmongers for selling un-Islamic curtain hooks, all whilst stepping over the drugged bodies of black youths and publicly copulating gay men? In which parallel universe do my local BNP supporters do their shopping, and what dystopia has so ruined their lives that would make them give their money to Nick Griffin?

A great deal of academic research has helped us trace the rise of the BNP in English regions of high deprivation and racial tension, highlighting the government's failure to address core issues that stoke a sense of grievance and imagined victimhood from the white working class. Such voters tell us, by supporting fascists, that they feel alienated and abandoned. Some of their anxieties may be justified but most of it is poppycock, since the "immigrants" they imagine are here to steal their livelihoods, culture and opportunities are fellow sufferers, feeling just as marginalised and abandoned as they do.

In these areas of tension, BNP voters are unsurprisingly poor, uneducated, frightened, and highly susceptible to coercion from Griffin's Cambridge-educated forked tongue. What, though, is the excuse for my fellow local souls turning to the hard right, including a few whose pleasant sandstone dwellings sit peacefully amongst mature lime trees, and whose worst social assault is a BMW car alarm going off in the night because a well-fed fox has jumped on it? What forms a racist when their lives are under neither economic nor social pressure? Perhaps we are about to find out.

A few weeks ago I wrote that I believed the British are not sufficiently stupid to return a BNP candidate in the forthcoming European elections. Subsequent polling in the last few days appears to be proving me wrong.

Even more worrying is that the party's sights have swivelled away from their tense, English heartlands of racial strife and are looking north.

The British National Party are currently campaigning hard in Scotland, openly declaring on their website and blogs that they hope to build on two things; the MPs' expenses scandal and the rise of Scottish nationalism. The former is an easy target, but the latter marks a sinister distortion.

Last Saturday in Clydebank, a BNP candidate handed out 2000 leaflets. Many people taking them would have of course instantly binned them. Some may have taken the leaflets home to read. Some definitely stopped to speak with the candidate. A few, allegedly, joined up. No-one, however, demonstrated, or set up a stall in opposition.

Reading the subsequent forums on and linked from the party's website makes the blood run cold, even taking into account (judging by The Scotsman's website) that a significant proportion of people who contribute to online forums seem to be fantasists. Several threads celebrated that Scotland was better at "keeping out immigrants" and that we should be proud of the rise again of our national pride.

This was tempered in other threads by equally disquieting posts declaring that the SNP are "after the Islamic vote", citing the contribution to the Scottish Islamic Foundation, and that former nationalists should now switch to the BNP to stop an independent Scotland ruled by sharia.

Despite being an abhorrent, hate-filled slug, Nick Griffin is a clever, highly educated man, and none of this insane warping of the independence debate is by chance. When given only short and rare opportunities to be questioned, such as during an interview on Sky news last week, Griffin comes across as a calm, professional politician. Griffin's views on interracial marriage, enforced repatriation and homosexuality are unlikely to play well to a public looking for fairness, justice and tolerance, hence that side of the BNP is kept markedly quiet, making sure the party's formal policy declarations remain as insubstantial as gossamer.

Hence it's a fair bet that most of the leaflet recipients in Clydebank know virtually nothing of the hidden wish list of the BNP that leaks out in error from time to time.

This is partly because Griffin and his political thugs are given so little chance to be tested, out from under their stone. Question Time last week, focusing on the European elections, included a UKIP member on its panel, but no BNP representative. Why not? Surely even one question from a black person in the audience about not being allowed to marry who they wished, or being exiled to a country they have never visited, would have been enough to rip the paper-thin mask of civility from the BNP's Janus face?

Griffin is sly enough to realise that our independence debate is already highly volatile and emotional, and as such has decided that we are prime targets for creating a new layer of scaremongering and anxiety-driven hate.

Watching BNP footage of Clydebank residents politely receiving leaflets has made me feel stupid for over-estimating our resistance to this vile manipulation. We are all free to vote for the party of our choice, but we must be absolutely sure we know what it stands for. They're not out to make the trains run on time.

Muriel Gray writing in the Scottish Sunday Herald

BNP candidate withdraws after party officials tamper with election statement.

Don't vote for me, says BNP candidate

A BNP candidate has tried to pull out of next week’s local elections because she “doesn’t want people thinking I’m racist” – and is now asking Worcester people NOT to vote for her.

Corinne Tovey-Jones told your Worcester News she wants to withdraw her candidacy for the far-right British National Party in next Thursday’sWorcestershire County Council elections, but has discovered it is now too late to have her name taken off the ballot papers.

Mrs Tovey-Jones, who is standing in Nunnery division in Worcester, said she had been convinced to stand for the BNP by a neighbour after her husband was made redundant.

But she decided she wanted to pull out of the poll this week after comments from family and friends.

She said: “I don’t want people thinking I’m racist when I’m not. My sister’s married to an Italian – how could I be? My mum and dad are religious – they don’t need the upset.”

Mrs Tovey-Jones, who could not remember who the BNP’s national leader was while speaking to your Worcester News, said things came to a head when we printed her candidate statement on Monday as part of our election coverage.

She said the statement she submitted to the party – extolling her own “Christian values” – had been rewritten by BNP officials to include comments about the “anti-social behaviour” of “an unruly minority”.

She said: “I read nothing I said. I come from a Christian family, with church values. I’ve had a couple of comments off my father. His friends had seen it. A lot of people link them with the National Front – though they’re not.”

The BNP was formed in 1982 after splits in the racist National Front movement. It now claims to have forgone all links.

But Mrs Tovey-Jones, who lives in Dines Green, Worcester, said: “I had other people say to me, ‘you know what they’re about?’ I don’t want the hassle. I haven’t got a racist bone in my body.”

Asked how she got involved with the extremist party – of which she is a member – she said: “My neighbour is very involved in it, and my husband was made redundant after 10 years and they say things like you can’t get a job at the moment, they’re just taking Polish people.”

Worcester City Council solicitor Doreen Porter – who is helping organise the election – said that with ballot papers printed and postal votes already being returned, candidates cannot now formally pull out.

She said: “There’s no procedure for withdrawing once the statement of candidates is published.”

A spokesperson for the BNP said: “We will speak to Corinne to find out what her position is before we give any statement.”

Berrow's Worcester Journal



COMMENT: Shabby way for BNP to treat voters

This newspaper prides itself on its political independence. We do our best to report the political scene in and around Worcester in a balanced way.

We offer our opinion on political issues based not on party prejudice like the national media but on what we believe to be best for our readers.

Today, however, we question whether the way in which one particular party chooses its candidates for next week’s county council elections is in the best interests of the electorate.

Voters in Worcester’s Nunnery ward, as we reveal today, face the farcical situation of being able to vote next Thursday for a candidate who does not want any votes.

Corinne Tovey-Jones was standing for the extremist British National Party. Now she is not because she fears people will think she is a racist.

Imagine that. People thinking a BNP candidate might be a racist. Whatever next?

Mrs Tovey-Jones’ candidate statement was printed in this newspaper on Monday along with her rivals for the Nunnery seat at County Hall. But she says it was not her statement, which talked about her “Christian values”, and had been changed completely by BNP officials.

Now she wants nothing to do with the election, particularly after negative comments from family and friends. It is too late, though, to delete her name from the ballot paper.

What a shabby way for the BNP to treat the voters of Nunnery ward – putting up a candidate who clearly has little or no idea about the policies of the party she was representing and who does not even know the name of its leader.

At least people in the ward do not have to worry about wasting their vote now.

Berrow's Worcester Journal

Universal Human Rights? BNP Says No!

Queen hosts BNP chiefs at the Palace

Two leading members of the far-Right British National Party are to attend the Queen's garden party at Buckingham Palace.

Richard Barnbrook, a member of the London Assembly, received the invitation in his capacity at City Hall and has decided to take the chairman of the BNP, Nick Griffin, as his guest.

The move will provoke anger at City Hall among those who believe the party should not be part of the democratic system.

Today Mr Barnbrook confirmed he would attend the function on 21 July and said the addition of Mr Griffin as his guest had been a last-minute development.

He said: “If they don't like it then tough. I was duly elected and we live in a democracy.

“I was going to invite a very close friend but at the last minute she couldn't come so the party chairman was the first person I thought of off the cuff.

“If I continue to rattle the cages at City Hall and put noses out of joint while they can't answer my questions then they should look at their own politics.”

Mr Barnbrook was not directly invited by the Queen but was entitled to one of the tickets given to City Hall as a new Assembly member.

A Palace spokesman said: “A number of organisations and bodies receive an allocation of tickets for the garden parties and we trust them to make a decision about which guests they would like to invite. It's a system that has been in place for years. People are vetted for security reasons and we can intervene on obvious security grounds.

“We can't confirm who's attending because of data protection reasons.” Darren Johnson, chairman of the London Assembly and Green party member, said: “It's their garden party and they can invite who they want. He is a member of the Assembly after all and it is essentially a political problem.

“The long-term solution is to make sure neither he or anyone from his party ever gets in again. Mind you, if his behaviour is anything like it is at City Hall, the Queen will be very bored.”

The event will come after the June local and Euro elections, which could see the BNP gaining more local council seats and their first MEPs. Disillusionment with mainstream politicians over the MPs' expenses scandal and fears over jobs and immigration could lead to a surge in support for the party, according to political experts.

Two days ago Mr Barnbrook attended the Wembley launch of England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup finals

This is London

Royal Mail advised to implement policy on posting offensive material

Royal Mail must act quickly to implement a nationwide procedure for staff to object against delivering material they find offensive or have a sensitive moral issue with, to prevent costly tribunal claims, an employment lawyer has warned.

Yesterday the Communication Workers Union (CWU) confirmed it had an agreement with Royal Mail which protected postal workers' rights to refuse to deliver election material that they felt was offensive.

Since last week, hundreds of workers have warned they will not deliver leaflets from the British National Party as they were concerned they could get abused by local residents offended by the material. The CWU said delivery workers had been threatened, chased and spat at for delivering some election leaflets.

Stephen Robinson, employment law partner at Davies Arnold Cooper, said: "It's essential a system is put in place to monitor material and a procedure is established for an employee to lodge a complaint or objection against delivery. A simple alternative would be to obey reasonable instructions to deliver mail, and failing to do so could be a disciplinary matter."

Royal Mail should also consider what other types of material could be deemed appropriate or inappropriate, in the realm of politics, religion or indeed any belief system, Robinson said.

Bob Gibson, CWU national official, said: "We have a national agreement with Royal Mail with a conscience clause which allows individuals to exercise their right not to deliver material which they find offensive or believe their customers may find offensive.

"It is not specific to any political party. We are protecting the rights of our members to be safe at work. Royal Mail has a responsibility to ensure the safety of their employees."

Meanwhile, Royal Mail said it had a legal obligation to deliver election material under the Representation of the People Act.

Personnel Today