I have frequently observed that Truth and the BNP are but distant acquaintances.
This post is for them - and quite a few of them there are come visting this outpost of anti-fascism, if our blog stats are to be believed.
Last Saturday a member of the BNP thought it would be a jolly jape to make a posting in my name on the Metro website. The posting was "my" response to a Metro article entitled "Gang made 'good mugging guide'", and went thus:
As someone active in anti-racist causes and in particular opposed to the BNP see unite against fascism. I think society should tackle its racism before it turns its anger on the young black men who live by mugging. After what we did to blacks historically it's not surprising that young black people have an attitude of aggression towards whites. I also question the raising of this case in the Metro, and suggest it shows in itself an underlying hostility to black people and a desire to show them as criminals. The fact is that we owe black people and we've no right to complain about their behaviour.
Denise Garside, Norfolk
A post, then guaranteed to inflame passions, and which Metro removed at my request.
Needless to say, the contents of "my" post have found their way to the Nazi Stormfront, where the rabidly racist Oxfordshire forum poster "Magcourt" and the BNP's legal-eagle basket-case, hiding behind the delightfully camp moniker "Walk Toward The Light", have got to work on it.
As I said, this post is for Norfolk Unity's Stormfront visitors, by way of letting them know that even their own kind, not satisfied with lying through their teeth to the general public (see Atreus's post below), are quite happy to lie through their teeth to their own Aryan comrades.
And that is because, as I have just posted elsewhere, in the political annals of this country, no party has ever sunk lower, displayed less honour, less grace, less charm, less honesty, or so fulsomely demonstrated its complete unfitness to any form of public trust than the British National Party.
4 February 2008
Six Million Dead "just another atrocity" - BNP's mask slips
Some readers of this blog will know that I was a member of the British National Party from its formation until the late 1990s, and that before then I had been a member of the National Front.
Eventually I came to renounce my racist and fascist opinions and joined the fight to expose and combat latter day Nazism, especially that of the BNP.
Soon there will be a post here telling of my journey from darkness to light.
One thing was de rigueur in the British National Party during my time, and that was a flat denial that the Nazi extermination of six million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and others ever took place.
Why?
Because the BNP, like other organisations worldwide calling themselves "nationalist", were so closely associated with Nazism (and rightly so) in the public mind that it was necessary to "cleanse" the history of Nazi Germany.
The largest piece of dirt to scrub away was the Holocaust, and the BNP set to work trying to convince the public that this most horrific of events had never happened.
One leading denier of the Holocaust was the BNP's current leader, Nick Griffin.
In 1998, before becoming BNP leader, Griffin wrote:
"I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that 6 million Jews were gassed and cremated or turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the earth is flat... I have reached the conclusion that the 'extermination' tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter day witch-hysteria."
For your benefit, here's Griffin denying the Holocaust again in a 1997 "Cook Report"
So there's no doubt at all what Griffin believed and had believed for years.
He wasn't alone, and it wasn't difficult to be at any BNP gathering when the latest piece of Holocaust denial "evidence" was announced and then discussed into the ground.
But the BNP Holocaust deniers were always in a split mind. On the one hand they denied the Holocaust, but wouldn't have minded at all if it was true.
That's because most of them knew it was true, and quietly approved.
You see they had to deny the Holocaust to make nationalism "respectable", and nationalism had to be made respectable for the BNP to achieve power, and once in power - believe you me - the BNP wouldn't be able to get its own British versions of Auschwitz built quickly enough.
When the BNP's vote began to rise and the party started to win local council seats the question of Holocaust denial became awkward and embarrassing, especially as some BNP councillors openly denied while others floundered hopelessly when put under media inquisition.
Nick Griffin, a man who has done so many u-turns on policy throughout his career on the far Right that he's virtually a walking Spaghetti Junction, then decided that the Holocaust did not happen.
He's never explained why, probably because the day will come when he needs to revert to type. Nobody should underestimate Griffin's eye for the main chance. He wants his highly paid seat in the European parliament (more because it's highly paid than of any use to the BNP) and he doesn't want to put his financial future at risk by sitting in front of the news cameras explaining away the far Right's crankiest dogma to a disbelieving audience.
Thankfully, Jewish organisations and BNP watchers have never believed that Griffin's about turn was anything more than a sprat to catch a mackerel. His followers on the Nazi Stormfront website openly debate whether the political acrobat's change of mind is real or feigned, the hope being that it's feigned.
I think I know which it is.
Unable to openly deny the Holocaust, the BNP has to settle for the next best thing: belittling it.
So when the government announced this morning (Monday) that every school in the country would send two pupils to Auschwitz to learn about and keep alive memories of the Holocaust, the barely supressed Jew-hating side of the BNP couldn't wait to rush out an article designed solely to minimise the sheer scale and importance of the deaths of those six million human beings.
This is part of that article:
Further to elevate just one of the many atrocities Man has inflicted on Man is in itself discriminatory and racist. Emphasis on the lessons to be learned from the horrors of the 1940s concentrates one peoples’ suffering and implies that only Europeans can be guilty of such atrocities. It is racist because it minimises or completely omits from the school curriculum the lessons to be learned from the massacres of Christians in Armenia, the butchering of Serbs in Kosovo, the slaying of Christians (including many of our own forebears) at the hands of Islamic pirates as well as the ongoing ethnic conflicts in Rwanda, Sudan and Burma.
You get the picture?
Back in my BNP days I couldn't have put it better myself. Seething that I can't deny the Holocaust I reduce it to "just one of the many atrocities Man has inflicted on Man" and go on to hit my favourite targets (or second favourites, since the Jews are now off limits), the Muslims, then get in a dig at Africans and Asians.
Somebody at the BNP (Griffin?) worked out that was how others would see it, too, and the article was removed without ceremony. All that remains of it is the snippet published above.
So don't be under any illusions about the BNP. In its poisonous heart it still believes the Jews are its greatest enemy, and now and again, as today, the mask slips.
The BNP is still Nazi and still obsessed with Jews. Never believe otherwise.
Eventually I came to renounce my racist and fascist opinions and joined the fight to expose and combat latter day Nazism, especially that of the BNP.
Soon there will be a post here telling of my journey from darkness to light.
One thing was de rigueur in the British National Party during my time, and that was a flat denial that the Nazi extermination of six million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and others ever took place.
Why?
Because the BNP, like other organisations worldwide calling themselves "nationalist", were so closely associated with Nazism (and rightly so) in the public mind that it was necessary to "cleanse" the history of Nazi Germany.
The largest piece of dirt to scrub away was the Holocaust, and the BNP set to work trying to convince the public that this most horrific of events had never happened.
One leading denier of the Holocaust was the BNP's current leader, Nick Griffin.
In 1998, before becoming BNP leader, Griffin wrote:
"I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that 6 million Jews were gassed and cremated or turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the earth is flat... I have reached the conclusion that the 'extermination' tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter day witch-hysteria."
For your benefit, here's Griffin denying the Holocaust again in a 1997 "Cook Report"
So there's no doubt at all what Griffin believed and had believed for years.
He wasn't alone, and it wasn't difficult to be at any BNP gathering when the latest piece of Holocaust denial "evidence" was announced and then discussed into the ground.
But the BNP Holocaust deniers were always in a split mind. On the one hand they denied the Holocaust, but wouldn't have minded at all if it was true.
That's because most of them knew it was true, and quietly approved.
You see they had to deny the Holocaust to make nationalism "respectable", and nationalism had to be made respectable for the BNP to achieve power, and once in power - believe you me - the BNP wouldn't be able to get its own British versions of Auschwitz built quickly enough.
When the BNP's vote began to rise and the party started to win local council seats the question of Holocaust denial became awkward and embarrassing, especially as some BNP councillors openly denied while others floundered hopelessly when put under media inquisition.
Nick Griffin, a man who has done so many u-turns on policy throughout his career on the far Right that he's virtually a walking Spaghetti Junction, then decided that the Holocaust did not happen.
He's never explained why, probably because the day will come when he needs to revert to type. Nobody should underestimate Griffin's eye for the main chance. He wants his highly paid seat in the European parliament (more because it's highly paid than of any use to the BNP) and he doesn't want to put his financial future at risk by sitting in front of the news cameras explaining away the far Right's crankiest dogma to a disbelieving audience.
Thankfully, Jewish organisations and BNP watchers have never believed that Griffin's about turn was anything more than a sprat to catch a mackerel. His followers on the Nazi Stormfront website openly debate whether the political acrobat's change of mind is real or feigned, the hope being that it's feigned.
I think I know which it is.
Unable to openly deny the Holocaust, the BNP has to settle for the next best thing: belittling it.
So when the government announced this morning (Monday) that every school in the country would send two pupils to Auschwitz to learn about and keep alive memories of the Holocaust, the barely supressed Jew-hating side of the BNP couldn't wait to rush out an article designed solely to minimise the sheer scale and importance of the deaths of those six million human beings.
This is part of that article:
Further to elevate just one of the many atrocities Man has inflicted on Man is in itself discriminatory and racist. Emphasis on the lessons to be learned from the horrors of the 1940s concentrates one peoples’ suffering and implies that only Europeans can be guilty of such atrocities. It is racist because it minimises or completely omits from the school curriculum the lessons to be learned from the massacres of Christians in Armenia, the butchering of Serbs in Kosovo, the slaying of Christians (including many of our own forebears) at the hands of Islamic pirates as well as the ongoing ethnic conflicts in Rwanda, Sudan and Burma.
You get the picture?
Back in my BNP days I couldn't have put it better myself. Seething that I can't deny the Holocaust I reduce it to "just one of the many atrocities Man has inflicted on Man" and go on to hit my favourite targets (or second favourites, since the Jews are now off limits), the Muslims, then get in a dig at Africans and Asians.
Somebody at the BNP (Griffin?) worked out that was how others would see it, too, and the article was removed without ceremony. All that remains of it is the snippet published above.
So don't be under any illusions about the BNP. In its poisonous heart it still believes the Jews are its greatest enemy, and now and again, as today, the mask slips.
The BNP is still Nazi and still obsessed with Jews. Never believe otherwise.
3 February 2008
2 February 2008
The BNP's very own Julie Andrews
Every so often the BNP comes by that rarity, a presentable and articulate person it believes it can use to explode the "myth" that the party is filled to the gunnels with racist bigots sporting shaven heads and unfortunate tattoos.If that person is an attractive woman with no apparent blemishes on her character, so much the better.
Donna Bailey (left) is undeniably presentable, and, so far as we can tell, has never set a foot wrong in her life. Since moving to Upper Beeding in West Sussex she has thrown herself into community activities with some gusto and has won praise from all and sundry for her commitment and effort.
Which would be all well and good if only Donna Bailey were not simultaneously demonstrating the same commitment and effort on behalf of the racist British National Party.
Donna's fame has spread far and wide, and today we find her the subject of a two-page Daily Mail spread in an article that seems to be stuck somewhere between admiration and deep unease.
The first half of "Meet the BNP's blonde bombshell" must count as relatively good publicity for a party more usually in the headlines for its criminality and corruption. Our favourite bigot, the toad-like Green Arrow, thought the article marvellous: "An excellent article that shows the True Brits that we are them and they are us despite the reporters attempt at making it a smear."
By "a smear" the fearless keyboard warrior means that in the interests of balance the Daily Mail felt bound to report the feelings of those not so enamoured of the blonde goddess:
"One disappointing bit in the story is the reaction of her neighbour James Palmer who said he was the 'Neighbour of the Beast' and went on to say; 'I don't think there should be a place for it in a village like this.'
"A stupid man who does not care what happens to the rest of the country so long as his tiny part of it does not change. If he wants to keep his place in the Sun he should start supporting Donna and the British National Party because they are the only one's who really care."
(Aprostrophe placement/lack of (c) BNP)
Of course, in BNP-land only good things must be reported about Britain's most dishonest party. Anything else is only and ever a "smear" concocted by Gerry Gable, the SIS, UAF, the Daily Mirror, the World Jewish Conspiracy, Mao Tse-Tung and Jack the Ripper.
Donna first thought of joining the Tories: "But I had a look on the website and, you know, it just didn't talk to me. I wasn't particularly impressed by Cameron, and I really objected to the Tories' policy on Europe.
"So then I looked at the BNP website."
As you do.
"I thought probably exactly the same of the BNP as you do. I thought, if this is all racist, offensive stuff then I am switching right off. But it wasn't. It was all perfectly sensible. I found myself agreeing with everything - especially the immigration stuff."
Well, yes, Donna - "the immigration stuff" is very difficult to avoid on the BNP website. As is the BNP's overarching obsession with that one subject. Take "the immigration stuff" away and you could put the BNP's remaining policies on the back of a postage stamp (if the BNP has one left over after all the expulsion letters of late).
Presumably, as she sat wide-eyed in front of her PC's monitor, Donna never noticed the barely disguised racism festering on virtually every page, or worked out the poisonous intention behind the endless parade of stories of the "black crime" and "more immigrants - we're doomed" species that are its stock-in-trade.
And also - perhaps charitably - we'll presume that Donna refrained from visiting the numerous websites of the BNP's Blog Battalion, where open racism and complete contempt for other peoples and cultures is all too painfully obvious - turnips, Muzzies, Mudslimes, Groids, Donna?
Or that she has never visited a BNP-infested Internet forum where the tone is somewhere between the toilet and the sewer, and the mental ability to step back a couple of rungs on the evolutionary ladder is a prerequisite to talking on anything like equal terms with them.
According to Donna BNP people are, like her, "quite normal too".
We'll also assume that Donna suffers from some unspecified but mercifully unique condition that blinds her to any awareness of the after-hours activties of so many of her fellow BNP members - you know the kind of thing, trivialities like murder, solicitation to murder, bomb-making, wife-beating, GBH, fraud, attacking Eddy Butler... not to mention the latest additions to the list, such entering members' homes by deception to make off with their property, bugging their private conversations and then pasting them on the Internet.
"It's just the bad press," Donna plaintively tells the Daily Mail, falling back on the stock excuse churned out by every cornered BNP member since first the party came kicking and cursing into the world.
Donna is, as they say, a class act. It's almost as if the BNP has recruited its very own Julie Andrews who comes skipping and singing over the Sussex Downs spreading sweetness and light wherever she goes.
Do we buy it?
Not many, we don't.
According to keen activist and twice BNP candidate Donna, she won't take her politics in to the parish council for which she is seeking election.
Well, she would say that, wouldn't she?
As do her supporters, who are presumably the same who made up the mob Donna led to a meeting of Upper Beeding parish council to demand co-option amid scenes one councillor described as "quite threatening".
The implication is, then, that Donna Bailey will take her seat - if or when that happens - as Donna Bailey, All Round Good Egg, with not a mention of the BNP.
Unfortunately, the BNP - delicately rehashing the Daily Mail article on its website - doesn't see it that way.
They see Donna as "theirs", as do the BNP Blog Brigade, who make no fine distinctions in these matters. She's BNP and she'll be a BNP parish councillor as far as they're concerned, period.
That goes for us too.
We're not about to swallow the idea that Donna Bailey will walk out of a BNP meeting in one frame of mind and take her place at a parish council sitting in another. Not for one minute we're not.
Perhaps over-estimating the powers of a parish councillor to a small degree, BNP website poster Maurice Oatley seems to concur: "Hello Donna, I take my hat off to you someone with bottle, it seems that you`re not prepared to stand by and do nothing while Brown and the rest of his bully boys sell this country down the river,If only there was a few more like you this country would be all the better," (Maurice likes commas).
In a party membership notably dominated by men who polarise into those with thick necks and those who give an appearance of being closely related to weasels, Donna is a striking oddity.
Our reformed friend Atreus tells us that in his day the presence of an attractive woman at BNP events was a cause of much excitement among the thick-necks and the weasel-alikes as so few of them had ever been in close proximity to a real female. It was always form, he tells us, to push such women to the fore at public events "to kid the world along as to just how 'normal' we were".
Echoing this, a poster on the BNP's website says: "I’ve been saying for years that if we could only recruit more good looking, intelligent women to the party, it would be transformed."
Awkwardly for chrisM3, who made the observation, intelligent women (whether good looking or not) are generally precluded by the very fact of their intelligence from joining the BNP.
What the BNP is more likely to end up with is this:
The frightening Lynne Mozar, of BNP Wives fame, whose demented performance brought forth as splendid a lesson in bigotry as has ever graced our television screens.
Quoth Mozar: "That's a legal term for them", in relation to the racist term for Pakistanis, adding that she "sometimes" uses the racist term for black people - "and why not?" Added to which was the far from lithe Mozar's summation of another woman as a "fat slag" who ought to wear a burqua.
We also had a female BNP friend of Mozar (talking to a woman in the street and pointing at a sign with a mosque on it): "You wouldn't like one of these around here would ya?"
Person in the street: "It doesn't bother me."
Female BNP activist (muttering): "It will do if one of them bleedin' rapes your daughter."
Normal non-racist people just like you, eh, Donna?
Young bands wanted (Cambs)
POPULAR Cambridge promoters R*E*P*E*A*T Fanzine are to hold an afternoon gig specifically aimed at bands, DJs, MCs and audiences aged 14 and under.
R*E*P*E*A*T's founder, Richard Rose, says: "I have long been involved with working with young bands, and while there is a lot of exciting talent out there, there is also a lack of places to play.
We've managed to come to a deal with the Man on the Moon whereby the back bar will be open to young bands and fans to allow this often neglected age group to show off some of their talents."
The event is set to take place on Saturday, March 8 at the Man on the Moon (Norfolk Street, Cambridge). As the event is in aid of the Love Music Hate Racism campaign, the organisers are keen to ensure that performers represent the exciting multicultural mix of the city.
INFORMATION: email Richard at: rosey@repeatfanzine.co.uk
Hunts Post
R*E*P*E*A*T's founder, Richard Rose, says: "I have long been involved with working with young bands, and while there is a lot of exciting talent out there, there is also a lack of places to play.
We've managed to come to a deal with the Man on the Moon whereby the back bar will be open to young bands and fans to allow this often neglected age group to show off some of their talents."
The event is set to take place on Saturday, March 8 at the Man on the Moon (Norfolk Street, Cambridge). As the event is in aid of the Love Music Hate Racism campaign, the organisers are keen to ensure that performers represent the exciting multicultural mix of the city.
INFORMATION: email Richard at: rosey@repeatfanzine.co.uk
Hunts Post
1 February 2008
The real BNP
This video was posted on YouTube by Searchlightinfo. It shows how leading members of the British National Party behave away from the public, and includes a Ku Klux Klan-style "cross burning". The comments below the video are taken from Lancaster UAF.
BNP unmasked as nazi party:
youtube.com/watch?v=HxsT9geBp2E
This recently shot DVD reveals the true nature of the BNP - in their own words. It shows them behind closed doors when they think the public are not watching. It proves that they are still nazis.
The sign on the door says No Blacks. Inside, BNP members sing racist and pro-Nazi songs. They glorify the Holocaust, and call for blacks to be killed. They give nazi salutes as they chant the names of Hitler's henchmen.
This is the real face of the BNP -- the one that they try to hide from voters.
One of the people giving a Nazi salute is Scott McLean, the deputy leader of the BNP. Others include BNP organisers and minders for party leader Nick Griffin.
The BNP say they have changed. This DVD proves they are the same Nazis they always were.
BNP unmasked as nazi party:
youtube.com/watch?v=HxsT9geBp2E
This recently shot DVD reveals the true nature of the BNP - in their own words. It shows them behind closed doors when they think the public are not watching. It proves that they are still nazis.
The sign on the door says No Blacks. Inside, BNP members sing racist and pro-Nazi songs. They glorify the Holocaust, and call for blacks to be killed. They give nazi salutes as they chant the names of Hitler's henchmen.
This is the real face of the BNP -- the one that they try to hide from voters.
One of the people giving a Nazi salute is Scott McLean, the deputy leader of the BNP. Others include BNP organisers and minders for party leader Nick Griffin.
The BNP say they have changed. This DVD proves they are the same Nazis they always were.
28 January 2008
Jan Kucera - Another victim of neo-nazis
(From Antifa.cz.)
About one thousand people gathered on 19 January, 2008 in Pilsen, Czech Republic, to commemorate the victims of nazi terror: 66 years ago, Jews from Pilsen were deported to concentration camps, but nobody knew that another victim of current neo-nazi violence is at the very same time fighting for his life in a hospital.
On 18 January in Pribram, a town 50 km south-west of Prague, 20-year-old neo-nazi Jiri Fous stabbed 18-year-old Jan Kucera in the groin and back about an hour to midnight. Before this attack, young local neo-nazis were provoking with nazi salutes and offending a group of young punks and antifascist skinheads, to which Jan belonged. Jan’s friends were trying to stop the bleeding from his femoral artery and called for an ambulance. Neither the paramedics nor Jan’s friends realized that Jan had also been stabbed in the back before it was too late. Jan lost massive amounts of blood and fell unconscious. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but even though he was in the hands of professional doctors, he died on Sunday morning.
Jan Kucera was an antifascist skinhead from Pribram, and he was never afraid to express his opinions. In his Internet profile, he wrote: "I’m a normal boy and I consider myself a SHARP skinhead. I don’t care who my friends are - I don’t judge people because of their musical taste, their clothes or the colour of their skin. I judge people by what they do. Anybody can write to me. I hate nazis, the bourgeoisie, communists and similar scum! Antifascista Oi!"
He stood by his opinions until the very end. He will stay forever in the hearts of his family, friends, and all people with an antifascist attitude. Honour to his memory.
Sickening security camera footage of Jan's stabbing
Update:
With the permission of Jan Kucera’s family, we bring their statement on the tragedy:
Jan’s family agreed with his attitude, even though they were understandably worried about him, because he wasn’t afraid to express openly his antifascist opinions.
Jan’s family would like to appeal to everyone who feels anger and need for vengeance against the neo-nazi aggressors: don’t debase yourself to their level of hate.
Everyone is welcome at the funeral, but strictly without any public speeches and without media attention.
They also thank everyone who shares their sorrow.
About one thousand people gathered on 19 January, 2008 in Pilsen, Czech Republic, to commemorate the victims of nazi terror: 66 years ago, Jews from Pilsen were deported to concentration camps, but nobody knew that another victim of current neo-nazi violence is at the very same time fighting for his life in a hospital.On 18 January in Pribram, a town 50 km south-west of Prague, 20-year-old neo-nazi Jiri Fous stabbed 18-year-old Jan Kucera in the groin and back about an hour to midnight. Before this attack, young local neo-nazis were provoking with nazi salutes and offending a group of young punks and antifascist skinheads, to which Jan belonged. Jan’s friends were trying to stop the bleeding from his femoral artery and called for an ambulance. Neither the paramedics nor Jan’s friends realized that Jan had also been stabbed in the back before it was too late. Jan lost massive amounts of blood and fell unconscious. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but even though he was in the hands of professional doctors, he died on Sunday morning.
Jan Kucera was an antifascist skinhead from Pribram, and he was never afraid to express his opinions. In his Internet profile, he wrote: "I’m a normal boy and I consider myself a SHARP skinhead. I don’t care who my friends are - I don’t judge people because of their musical taste, their clothes or the colour of their skin. I judge people by what they do. Anybody can write to me. I hate nazis, the bourgeoisie, communists and similar scum! Antifascista Oi!"
He stood by his opinions until the very end. He will stay forever in the hearts of his family, friends, and all people with an antifascist attitude. Honour to his memory.
Sickening security camera footage of Jan's stabbing
Update:
With the permission of Jan Kucera’s family, we bring their statement on the tragedy:
Jan’s family agreed with his attitude, even though they were understandably worried about him, because he wasn’t afraid to express openly his antifascist opinions.
Jan’s family would like to appeal to everyone who feels anger and need for vengeance against the neo-nazi aggressors: don’t debase yourself to their level of hate.
Everyone is welcome at the funeral, but strictly without any public speeches and without media attention.
They also thank everyone who shares their sorrow.
27 January 2008
Response to the attendance of BNP mayoral candidate at Police Federation march
(Police Federation statement.)
The Police Federation of England and Wales did not invite the BNP London mayoral candidate to our march on 23 January 2008.
In fact we did not even recognise him or realise he was there until it was brought to our attention.
However, as the march was in a public place it would have been inappropriate to have asked him to leave, especially as one of the other London mayoral candidates was present.
At the conclusion of the march we held a rally at Central Methodist Hall. This was by invitation only and the BNP mayoral candidate was not invited and therefore could not attend.
Police officers are prohibited from being members of the BNP and we have gone on record numerous times saying that many of the policies and statements BNP promote are incompatible with the execution of duty by the independent Office of Constable.
The Police Federation of England and Wales did not invite the BNP London mayoral candidate to our march on 23 January 2008.In fact we did not even recognise him or realise he was there until it was brought to our attention.
However, as the march was in a public place it would have been inappropriate to have asked him to leave, especially as one of the other London mayoral candidates was present.
At the conclusion of the march we held a rally at Central Methodist Hall. This was by invitation only and the BNP mayoral candidate was not invited and therefore could not attend.
Police officers are prohibited from being members of the BNP and we have gone on record numerous times saying that many of the policies and statements BNP promote are incompatible with the execution of duty by the independent Office of Constable.
BNP promises heads on spikes
(From Hope not Hate.)
A BNP government would reopen Traitors Gate at the Tower of London and display the heads of executed government members on spikes according to Simon Darby, the party's deputy leader and press officer. He was speaking at a BNP rally in Dagenham on the Saturday evening of the party’s first "national weekend of action" in support of its London election campaign.
There was confusion over how many activists actually turned out from all over the country to distribute leaflets over the weekend of 19-20 January. Eddy Butler, the party’s Eastern regional organiser, claimed just over 100 people came, Darby claimed 200 and the BNP website claimed 250, though a photo revealed fewer than 70.
The BNP claims that Richard Barnbrook, the party’s candidate for mayor, is holding “national weekends of action” every month in the run-up to 1 May and promises that leafleting teams will be out every weekend in different parts of London. Barnbrook, who strangely was not listed as a speaker at the rally, knows he has no prospect of election as mayor but has his eye on one or more seats on the London Assembly.
Under the proportional representation electoral system, the BNP would get one seat with 5% of the vote across London, a realistic prospect, and 8% would produce two seats. Success would bring a salary of £50,582, office space at City Hall, an mobile phone for use on Assembly business and reimbursement of travel and incidental expenses. It is not the vast fortune the BNP seems to think it will be, though the salary is much more than the party can afford to pay its full-timers – and unlike with many BNP salaries, tax and national insurance are properly accounted for under PAYE.
Above all, success in London would provide a big boost for next year’s elections to the European Parliament, in which the election of MEPs would give the party much more influence and money.
Searchlight is running a Hope not Hate campaign to persuade Londoners to reject the divisive and hate-filled message of the BNP and pledge to vote. Our aim is simple. The more Londoners vote for other parties, the harder it will be for the BNP to get 5% of the total. You can give your support to our campaign in various ways on this website. Please do so now.
A BNP government would reopen Traitors Gate at the Tower of London and display the heads of executed government members on spikes according to Simon Darby, the party's deputy leader and press officer. He was speaking at a BNP rally in Dagenham on the Saturday evening of the party’s first "national weekend of action" in support of its London election campaign.
There was confusion over how many activists actually turned out from all over the country to distribute leaflets over the weekend of 19-20 January. Eddy Butler, the party’s Eastern regional organiser, claimed just over 100 people came, Darby claimed 200 and the BNP website claimed 250, though a photo revealed fewer than 70.
The BNP claims that Richard Barnbrook, the party’s candidate for mayor, is holding “national weekends of action” every month in the run-up to 1 May and promises that leafleting teams will be out every weekend in different parts of London. Barnbrook, who strangely was not listed as a speaker at the rally, knows he has no prospect of election as mayor but has his eye on one or more seats on the London Assembly.
Under the proportional representation electoral system, the BNP would get one seat with 5% of the vote across London, a realistic prospect, and 8% would produce two seats. Success would bring a salary of £50,582, office space at City Hall, an mobile phone for use on Assembly business and reimbursement of travel and incidental expenses. It is not the vast fortune the BNP seems to think it will be, though the salary is much more than the party can afford to pay its full-timers – and unlike with many BNP salaries, tax and national insurance are properly accounted for under PAYE.
Above all, success in London would provide a big boost for next year’s elections to the European Parliament, in which the election of MEPs would give the party much more influence and money.
Searchlight is running a Hope not Hate campaign to persuade Londoners to reject the divisive and hate-filled message of the BNP and pledge to vote. Our aim is simple. The more Londoners vote for other parties, the harder it will be for the BNP to get 5% of the total. You can give your support to our campaign in various ways on this website. Please do so now.
Yarmouth T&G actively recruiting migrant workers
Great Yarmouth 1426 Branch of the TGWU (Unite) is actively recruiting among migrant workers in the town following concerns that local industry and unscrupulous landlords have been systematically exploiting the workers, who have little knowledge of their employment rights or of housing law.
The Branch is also concerned that in some situations employers are using non-unionised migrant labour to keep wages at the minimum wage for all new employees. The Branch heard reports of instances where employers have redeployed long serving employees to mininum wage tasks, cutting wages back to the minimum wage following notice of change of contract, and deploying migrant minimum waged labour to the previously higher paid tasks.
It was felt that these retrograde practices could only fuel resentment against migrant workers, whereas in reality both indiginous and migrant workers were victims.
1426 Branch has secured the services of a Polish translator and urgently requires the services of a fluent Portuguese speaker. Recruitment leaflets in several languages have been printed.
Members of the Branch have been visiting cafes and other venues where migrant workers are known to socialise and report a good response. The Branch already targets factories and other work places in the Great Yarmouth area for recruitment drives, usually held at work place entrances, and will in future ensure that Polish and Portuguese speakers are on hand to assist in the recruitment of workers from those communities.
Link: Transport and General Workers Union. You may join the T&G online here.
The Branch is also concerned that in some situations employers are using non-unionised migrant labour to keep wages at the minimum wage for all new employees. The Branch heard reports of instances where employers have redeployed long serving employees to mininum wage tasks, cutting wages back to the minimum wage following notice of change of contract, and deploying migrant minimum waged labour to the previously higher paid tasks.
It was felt that these retrograde practices could only fuel resentment against migrant workers, whereas in reality both indiginous and migrant workers were victims.
1426 Branch has secured the services of a Polish translator and urgently requires the services of a fluent Portuguese speaker. Recruitment leaflets in several languages have been printed.
Members of the Branch have been visiting cafes and other venues where migrant workers are known to socialise and report a good response. The Branch already targets factories and other work places in the Great Yarmouth area for recruitment drives, usually held at work place entrances, and will in future ensure that Polish and Portuguese speakers are on hand to assist in the recruitment of workers from those communities.
Link: Transport and General Workers Union. You may join the T&G online here.
The dark spectre haunting West Sussex
(From The Observer. By Nick Cohen, January 27th.)
Once the far right was confined to the inner cities. Now they turn up in the most surprising places
Nothing happens in Upper Beeding, David Coldwell, editor of the village newsletter, used to complain. The ‘mooted bus shelter in the high street’ had been delayed by the planning process, along with the refurbishment of the village playground. As for his proposal to put up signs pointing visitors to the shops in Hyde Square, West Sussex County Council was so shocked by their radicalism it threw them out.
Until now, the most newsworthy event was the annual boat race in which well-lubricated contestants paddled down the River Adur to Shoreham-by-Sea in adapted baths, while being pelted from the banks with flour bombs, eggs and anything else that came to hand. Although it occasionally got out of hand, the jolly competition only reinforced Upper Beeding’s charming image.
‘The wheels turn slowly, but they do turn!’ Coldwell cried as he explained the sluggish pace of progress, but I wonder if he believed it. Upper Beeding seemed to fit a sentimental ideal of an English village where nothing changes.
Supplies of charm ran out just before Christmas when 23 villagers marched from the pub to the parish buildings to demand that a member of a neo-fascist party be put on the council.
‘I never realised the speed with which neighbours can turn,’ Simon Birnstingl, a gardener who sits on the council, told me. ‘One minute, we were discussing how to get the swings fixed, the next a crowd burst in calling for me to be barred from the meeting. I’ve learnt to toughen up. I look at politicians when they’re in trouble and feel sympathy now. Gordon Brown must go through the struggle I’m going through every day, so I am determined to see it through.’
However absurd it sounds to talk about an anti-fascist struggle in Upper Beeding, that is what he’s facing.
It began when he was talking to his wife about villagers who wanted to be co-opted into empty seats on the parish council. She heard the name Donna Bailey and thought something was wrong. She checked and found that Bailey had run twice for the British National Party in district elections.
Birnstingl assumed that once he told the rest of the council their task was to improve Upper Beeding, not divide it on racial lines, that would be the end of Bailey. Not so or, rather, not entirely. After her friends heard what Birnstingl was saying, they stormed into the meeting. Undeterred, the council twice voted not to co-opt Bailey as a member, but only by a majority of one on both occasions.
She has now forced a byelection on 7 February and although two candidates are standing against her, she may have many supporters in the village. Townies will say that they’ve always known that the countryside is full of dangerous fanatics. But it’s clear that not all Bailey’s friends think they are fanatics. They simply can’t see what is wrong with a member of BNP participating in village life.
Bailey put her case best when I tracked her down. She had helped raise funds for the local school for four years, she said. When the Round Table decided to stop supporting the Bath Tub Race because of the ubiquitous worries about health and safety legislation, she intervened to save it. The parish council didn’t make political decisions, but dealt with street lights and playgrounds. Why shouldn’t she be a member?
Many in Upper Beeding agree that being a member of the BNP is like being a member of the Liberal Democrats, a choice that has no effect on personal standing or moral worth. If she’s a help at the school, her politics don’t matter.
The same view can be found across the country, although how deeply it is held is impossible to determine. As I said a few weeks ago, the notion that the mass of people are racists, programmed by our imperial past to despise outsiders, has been shattered by the population movements of the past decade. The largest wave of immigration in British history wasn’t accompanied by riots, just grumbles.
But there has been a small but palpable electoral impact. Sean Fear of the politicalbetting.com website says that the BNP won an average 14.4 per cent of the vote in the 38 council byelections it fought between May and November and polled higher than 20 per cent in 10. This was a far better performance than the National Front managed in the Seventies and way above the average vote the Greens or Ukip win today. Like most other analysts, he expects that proportional representation will bring the BNP seats on the London Assembly in May.
The far right is as crippled by sectarian hatreds as the far left. The backstabbing of its leaders and rank incompetence of its councillors would make all but the most committed neo-Nazi despair. Nevertheless, significant minorities are prepared to vote BNP, even in districts with few or no immigrants. There are those, like Donna Bailey’s neighbours, who think there’s nothing wrong with being a BNP activist.
Gerry Gable, of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, told me theirs was a hard attitude to confront. The press and BNP rivals like to seize on the criminal convictions of BNP leaders or chronicle its splits and purges. Less easy to document is what happens when far right views become normal in a pub or social club. Are there more racial attacks by whites and blacks and Asians? Do blacks and Asians attack whites? No one can say for sure.
In Upper Beeding, Donna Bailey’s candidature is being opposed by Joyce Shaw, a former stalwart of the parish council, who’s come out of retirement, and Becki Davoudi, who has an Iranian father, and, like the Asian family who have revived the village shop, has good reason to oppose the far right. What they’re fighting is nothing as concrete as a political programme or the certainty of violence, but something vaguer: a chilling of the atmosphere, a potential for disgrace.
‘When I take my children to school, there are people who used to smile and say “hello”, who now give me hostile looks,’ said Simon Birnstingl. ‘They don’t realise that we’re trying to stop this village falling into disrepute.’
Once the far right was confined to the inner cities. Now they turn up in the most surprising places
Nothing happens in Upper Beeding, David Coldwell, editor of the village newsletter, used to complain. The ‘mooted bus shelter in the high street’ had been delayed by the planning process, along with the refurbishment of the village playground. As for his proposal to put up signs pointing visitors to the shops in Hyde Square, West Sussex County Council was so shocked by their radicalism it threw them out.
Until now, the most newsworthy event was the annual boat race in which well-lubricated contestants paddled down the River Adur to Shoreham-by-Sea in adapted baths, while being pelted from the banks with flour bombs, eggs and anything else that came to hand. Although it occasionally got out of hand, the jolly competition only reinforced Upper Beeding’s charming image.
‘The wheels turn slowly, but they do turn!’ Coldwell cried as he explained the sluggish pace of progress, but I wonder if he believed it. Upper Beeding seemed to fit a sentimental ideal of an English village where nothing changes.
Supplies of charm ran out just before Christmas when 23 villagers marched from the pub to the parish buildings to demand that a member of a neo-fascist party be put on the council.
‘I never realised the speed with which neighbours can turn,’ Simon Birnstingl, a gardener who sits on the council, told me. ‘One minute, we were discussing how to get the swings fixed, the next a crowd burst in calling for me to be barred from the meeting. I’ve learnt to toughen up. I look at politicians when they’re in trouble and feel sympathy now. Gordon Brown must go through the struggle I’m going through every day, so I am determined to see it through.’
However absurd it sounds to talk about an anti-fascist struggle in Upper Beeding, that is what he’s facing.
It began when he was talking to his wife about villagers who wanted to be co-opted into empty seats on the parish council. She heard the name Donna Bailey and thought something was wrong. She checked and found that Bailey had run twice for the British National Party in district elections.
Birnstingl assumed that once he told the rest of the council their task was to improve Upper Beeding, not divide it on racial lines, that would be the end of Bailey. Not so or, rather, not entirely. After her friends heard what Birnstingl was saying, they stormed into the meeting. Undeterred, the council twice voted not to co-opt Bailey as a member, but only by a majority of one on both occasions.
She has now forced a byelection on 7 February and although two candidates are standing against her, she may have many supporters in the village. Townies will say that they’ve always known that the countryside is full of dangerous fanatics. But it’s clear that not all Bailey’s friends think they are fanatics. They simply can’t see what is wrong with a member of BNP participating in village life.
Bailey put her case best when I tracked her down. She had helped raise funds for the local school for four years, she said. When the Round Table decided to stop supporting the Bath Tub Race because of the ubiquitous worries about health and safety legislation, she intervened to save it. The parish council didn’t make political decisions, but dealt with street lights and playgrounds. Why shouldn’t she be a member?
Many in Upper Beeding agree that being a member of the BNP is like being a member of the Liberal Democrats, a choice that has no effect on personal standing or moral worth. If she’s a help at the school, her politics don’t matter.
The same view can be found across the country, although how deeply it is held is impossible to determine. As I said a few weeks ago, the notion that the mass of people are racists, programmed by our imperial past to despise outsiders, has been shattered by the population movements of the past decade. The largest wave of immigration in British history wasn’t accompanied by riots, just grumbles.
But there has been a small but palpable electoral impact. Sean Fear of the politicalbetting.com website says that the BNP won an average 14.4 per cent of the vote in the 38 council byelections it fought between May and November and polled higher than 20 per cent in 10. This was a far better performance than the National Front managed in the Seventies and way above the average vote the Greens or Ukip win today. Like most other analysts, he expects that proportional representation will bring the BNP seats on the London Assembly in May.
The far right is as crippled by sectarian hatreds as the far left. The backstabbing of its leaders and rank incompetence of its councillors would make all but the most committed neo-Nazi despair. Nevertheless, significant minorities are prepared to vote BNP, even in districts with few or no immigrants. There are those, like Donna Bailey’s neighbours, who think there’s nothing wrong with being a BNP activist.
Gerry Gable, of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, told me theirs was a hard attitude to confront. The press and BNP rivals like to seize on the criminal convictions of BNP leaders or chronicle its splits and purges. Less easy to document is what happens when far right views become normal in a pub or social club. Are there more racial attacks by whites and blacks and Asians? Do blacks and Asians attack whites? No one can say for sure.
In Upper Beeding, Donna Bailey’s candidature is being opposed by Joyce Shaw, a former stalwart of the parish council, who’s come out of retirement, and Becki Davoudi, who has an Iranian father, and, like the Asian family who have revived the village shop, has good reason to oppose the far right. What they’re fighting is nothing as concrete as a political programme or the certainty of violence, but something vaguer: a chilling of the atmosphere, a potential for disgrace.
‘When I take my children to school, there are people who used to smile and say “hello”, who now give me hostile looks,’ said Simon Birnstingl. ‘They don’t realise that we’re trying to stop this village falling into disrepute.’
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