Folk Against Fascism

The British National Party's manifesto encourages its members to insinuate themselves into the folk and traditional customs and events of Britain. This involves the appropriation of British folk music, customs and culture as a means of spreading their racist policies. They are selling traditional music through their Excalibur merchandising arm, despite the protestations of many of the artists included, who find their policies abhorrent.

The UK folk scene is a welcoming and inclusive one. Folk music and dance is about collaboration, participation, communication and respect. This group is being created to take a stand against the appropriation of folk culture by the BNP. They want to take our music. We will not let them.

From the BNP's Activists and Organisers Handbook:

"Community Activism means our activists getting involved in the affairs of their neighbourhood at all levels...We have had some major successes, for example, with local groups set up to encourage the celebration of St George's Day. Fun activities for children and families which are linked to our Christian heritage - such as Pace Egging in many northern towns - are particularly suitable candidates for revival as popular awareness of the growing power of Islam encourages support for and interest in our own religious and cultural traditions."

More from the Activists and Organisers' Handbook:

"Ideally our units will lead their communities in organising, or at least supporting, cultural events such as St George's Day celebrations (April 23rd). Most regions of the country have cultural events which are unique to that area, or county. For example, Padstow Hobby Horse (sic) in Cornwall, Arbor Tree Day in Shropshire, Garland King Day and the Well Dressing in Derbyshire, the Marshfield Mummers in Wiltshire, the Haxey Hood in Humberside, and countless others.

Some such celebrations, now very popular, have only been revived in recent years - the Hastings Jack in the Green and Whittlesea Straw Bear festivals show just how big such things can get. Why not do some research to see if there's a lost local tradition you can inspire a team of enthusiasts to revive?"

One of the things we need to be particularly aware of is the English Fair Fund. This exists to "give grants to help local community groups celebrate St George's Day."

Another racist organisation, The Steadfast Trust, provides community grants for "English-themed" events and St George's Day celebrations, and has already co-opted folk music within this strategy.

So, you're a folk musician or in a morris side. Someone in your town or village asks you to come and play at their St George's Day festival, and, in the spirit of community, you agree. Later, the BNP or the Steadfast Trust releases a press statement telling of all the wonderful St George's Day festivals it has supported this year, and lists all the artists/dance sides who took part. And there's your name.

Just like the artists who find their music being sold on the Excalibur/BNP website and are powerless to do anything about it, you become part of their marketing strategy, and there's not a lot you can do.

So if you are asked to play at any St George's Day events next year, ask who is supporting them. Find out where the money is coming from. Or, even better, start your own St George's Day event, and make it one that actively welcomes ALL of England's communities. Don't let them win.

Folk Against Fascism

Anti-BNP rally ends in tense stand-off

An anti-BNP rally in Lincoln ended in a tense stand-off between protesters and supporters of the far right organisation. Marchers and party supporters faced each other across the Cornhill, just off High Street, during the 30-minute confrontation. Police officers formed a barrier between the two groups, both of which held up flags.

Shocked and bemused onlookers watched the face-off between the two groups at lunchtime on Saturday – the city's busiest day.

BNP supporters held up a St George's Cross flag with the letters BNP daubed across it. In response the marchers chanted anti-BNP slogans including the words "Griffin out" and "when the BNP spreads racist lies we fight back and organise". The 30-minute incident ended peacefully when the group of eight BNP supporters left the scene.

Earlier in the day around 50 rally participants had marched from the University of Lincoln campus, along Guildhall Street and down the city's High Street, stopping at Cornhill to hear speeches.

Afterwards BNP spokesman Simon Darby, who was not in Lincoln on Saturday, said: "The BNP supporters were not sanctioned by us at all. It was just a spontaneous demonstration of support. We have got some people in Lincolnshire and got good votes in the county on June 4. These protestors are marching against the democratic process."

March organiser Nick Parker said: "We want to encourage people to stand up against the BNP and marching is our democratic right to protest. We did expect some sort of BNP presence. They often take photos and that sort of thing. When they unfurled the flag the tension was raised."

Lincolnshire Echo

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

Not in my name...

Britain is an open and tolerant country - we reject the BNP's dangerous, racist and fascist politics.

That's why tens of thousands of people have said "Not in my name" in the past few weeks alone - and why you should as well.

Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons take their seats in the European Parliament on Tuesday. But despite their election there was no groundswell of support. They won because turnout for the traditional political Party's collapsed - both Griffin's and Brons' vote actually dropped from the number they recieved in the 2004 European Elections. The BNP do not represent Britain in the European Parliament.

Sign our petition and help show what Britain thinks of the BNP - we'll be handing our petition to the European Parliament on the day Griffin and Brons take their seats. Join the campaign, upload a photo of yourself holding a sign saying "Not in my name" and then share this petition with your friends. Sign up and help us send a deafening message of defiance: NOT IN OUR NAME.

Not in my name...

Midwives reject BNP births scare

A row has broken out between the BNP and members of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), who reject claims that pregnant immigrants are stretching maternity services to breaking point.

A BNP spokesman said this weekend: "The official figures cite an increase of 65% in foreign mothers giving birth to babies in the UK between 2001 and 2007." He claimed that this was putting a huge strain on maternity units.

The debate has spread to Northern Ireland, where a senior midwife, Breedagh Hughes, has accused the BNP of twisting statistics to meet its own ends. "There has been a rise in the birthrate across Northern Ireland and of course the BNP is choosing to blame it on economic migrants. However, this is totally unfounded. People have flooded back to Northern Ireland in recent years because there is peace and regeneration.

"During the bad days of the Troubles we would never have asked a pregnant woman which 'community' she belonged to and we don't ask women now where they are from."

BNP spokesman John Walker said: "We note that they are not disputing the statistics, they are merely saying that it is not a problem, which is hard to believe given the statistics for the increase, and the fact that maternity services are being stretched."

Observer

300 schools to become Holocaust specialists

£1.5m national programme will train a teacher from every secondary school in England

Hundreds of schools across the country are to become specialist centres of Holocaust education under a national scheme launched today. The plan, which will be rolled out in 300 schools, forms part of the new £1.5 million Holocaust education programme run by London University’s Institute of Education.

As The TES revealed in November, the Holocaust Education Development Programme will provide extensive specialist training for 3,500 teachers - one from every secondary in England.

The first cohort of 150 will attend a one-day workshop in London at the beginning of November and a second workshop three weeks later. This will be followed by similar sessions in Liverpool. The training will then be introduced across the country over the next two years. From these teachers, 300 will be able to follow up their training with a masters degree module in Holocaust education. Their schools will then become designated beacons of excellence in the subject.

The masters module, which will be delivered online, will be free to participating teachers. The cost will be covered jointly by the Pears Foundation and the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Stuart Foster, director of the programme, said: “Professional development can be quite short-lived. We want it to be a continuous process rather than people going away and forgetting about it.”

The specialist teachers will co-ordinate Holocaust education in their schools. Often, the subject is discussed during history, English, RE and citizenship, but with little collaboration between staff.

“Are those teachers working together?” Dr Foster said. “Is there a sense of collaboration in schools? Often, planning is a little bit arbitrary. We want schools to think about how they organise their curriculum.”

The Holocaust specialists will also pilot new teaching materials and provide feedback and suggestions for improvement. Eventually, they will work with local authorities, bringing co-ordinated Holocaust education into all local schools. They will also liaise with teachers across the country as part of an online network supporting the national training programme.

Paul Salmons, the programme’s head of curriculum and development, said: “One of the greatest assets of the programme will be this pool of teachers with classroom expertise, ideas and knowledge. They will really immerse themselves in cutting-edge research into Holocaust history and education.”

At present the Holocaust forms a compulsory part of the national curriculum, but teachers often find it a difficult subject to teach effectively.

“You’re talking about mass murder - some of the worst atrocities humans are capable of,” Mr Salmons said. “That can be very disorientating and distressing for young people. We’re looking at how to move them, without traumatising them. Teachers want to encourage deep reflection about the Holocaust, but not revulsion, horror and disgust. The key is to enhance learning, not to shock.”

Judith Vandervelde, an educator at the Jewish Museum in London, agrees that there is an urgent need for effective methods of teaching about the Holocaust in schools.

“The understanding that pupils get through face-to-face interaction with Holocaust survivors is quite incredible,” she said. “But they’re not going to be here for ever. We have to look into how we’re going to continue to have that connection without survivors speaking to pupils. We need to look ahead a few years and make Holocaust education tangible and accessible.”

TES

Holocaust Education Development Programme

The neo-Nazi 'asylum seekers'

Whittle and Sheppard - a pair of freaks by any standards

They looked like a pair of cranks straight out of a Louis Theroux documentary. One was an unrepentant woman hater whose racist and anti-Semitic views were too hard-line even for the British National Party. The other, his long-haired sidekick, sought the protection of a pseudonym that he used to make extremist rants.

Their hunger to stir up controversy saw them flee from justice in the north of England and stage an unlikely claim for political asylum in Los Angeles. But their journey has now ended with jail sentences in the UK.

Jurors at Leeds Crown Court decided neo-Nazis Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle were not just harmless oddballs, but dangerous propagandists dedicated to whipping up racism. On Friday, Sheppard was jailed for four years, 10 months and Whittle for two years, four months.

In a landmark case, they have become the first Britons to be convicted of inciting racial hatred online, having printed leaflets and controlled websites featuring racist material.

The court heard the investigation into the pair began when a complaint about an anti-Semitic comic book called Tales of the Holohoax was made to the police in 2004 after it was pushed through the door of a synagogue in Blackpool, Lancashire. It was traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard, 51, a former BNP organiser kicked out of the far-right party after he was jailed in 2000 for distributing a racially inflammatory election leaflet.

The spotlight fell on the publishing activities of Sheppard, of Selby, North Yorkshire, a self-styled "scientific publisher", whose online ramblings took in a hatred of women and a morbid fixation with cannibalism. But a police investigation discovered that his prime motivation was racism and he dedicated himself to producing what prosecutors called "obnoxious and abhorrent'' books, pamphlets and web pages.

On his website, Sheppard employed Whittle, 41, of Preston, Lancashire, as a columnist under the pseudonym "Luke O'Farrell".

Although their vitriol was variously directed at black, Asian and other non-white people, most of the material shown to the jury was virulently anti-Semitic. The language and racial slurs used by the pair cannot be repeated here, but some of the excerpts presented to the court offered a flavour of their discourse. One leaflet claimed that Auschwitz had not really been the location of industrial mass murder but had been, instead, a holiday camp provided by a benevolent Nazi regime for Europe's Jewish population.

Jonathan Sandiford, prosecuting, told the jury that it held up survivors of the Holocaust to "ridicule and contempt", accusing them of lying about the genocide of six million Jews. Another story was illustrated with photographs of dead Jews. Sheppard also wrote that Holocaust victim Anne Frank's diary was "evil".

Reviewing lawyer Mari Reid, of the Crown Prosecution Service's counter-terrorism division, said members of the public were entitled under the law to hold racist and extreme views. But she added: "What they are not entitled to do is to publish or distribute those opinions to the public in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner either intending to stir up racial hatred or in circumstances where it is likely racial hatred will be stirred up."

The defence argued that the online material did not fall under the jurisdiction of UK law, because Sheppard's site was hosted on servers in California. But in a landmark ruling, the judge dismissed this - potentially paving the way for further prosecutions against the owners of other hate sites who believe they are exploiting a legal loophole. Jurors, too, rejected the defence's claim that the pair's writings were merely satirical.

Sheppard was found guilty of 11 offences and Whittle was found guilty of five offences in July 2008. Sheppard was found guilty of a further five charges in January 2009. But the pair were not in court to hear the verdicts against them. Before the jury in the first trial could return verdicts, both men fled to Los Angeles International airport and attempted to claim political asylum. But their bid was thrown out by an immigration judge, and they were held at Santa Ana prison in California until they were returned to the UK to serve their sentences.

The irony of two racists attempting to exploit the immigration and asylum system was lost on no-one who followed the case.

BBC

BNP's Griffin: Islam is a cancer

As the BNP struggles for right-wing support in the European Parliament, leader Nick Griffin tells Cathy Newman he believes there is "no place in Europe for Islam"

The BNP leader Nick Griffin has described Islam as a “cancer” that should be removed from Europe by "chemotherapy".

In an interview with Channel 4 News, Mr Griffin, who has just been elected to the European Parliament, said there was "no place in Europe for Islam". He added: "Western values, freedom of speech, democracy and rights for women are incompatible with Islam, which is a cancer eating away at our freedoms and our democracy and rights for our women and something needs to be done about it".

The BNP leader said he agreed with a candidate for the Flemish far right party, Vlaams Belang, who had declared: "We urgently need global chemotherapy against Islam to save civilisation."

The remarks will fuel controversy over the BNP’s success at the European elections last month. The party’s two winning candidates - Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons - take up their seats in the European Parliament next week.

Mr Griffin has been holding talks with other far right parties in Europe such as Vlaams Belang and Jobbik, from Hungary. The BNP had hoped to team up formally with a range of European rightwingers, giving them access to up to €1m of public money to spend on staff and offices. However, those talks have ended in failure.

The BNP will still work together informally with Jobbik, with both parties saying they share common ground on issues such as law and order. Jobbik has formed its own militia, the Hungarian Guard, which wears Nazi-style uniform and marches across the country to tackle what it calls “gypsy crime” by Roma travellers.

Mr Griffin told Channel 4 News that he believed Britain had “got a problem with Romanian gypsy crime”. Jobbik’s use of the term has led to accusations that it is seeking to criminalise an entire ethnic group. The BNP leader said: “There are two sorts of gypsies in Britain. There are the old fully-established anglicised Romanies who have been here for generations and who when they go to an area, when they leave it, it is spotlessly clean and you can not see they have been there. We have got no issue with that.

"And on the other hand there are the travellers - mainly from Ireland - and the Roma gypsy beggars and pickpockets in London. And while the liberal elite may say it is politically incorrect to say so, I would say that they have a very high level of criminality."

One of Jobbik’s MEPs, Krisztina Morvai, has been accused of anti-Semitism after text she wrote on an online forum. Questioned by Channel 4 News about the remarks, she did not deny writing them, but said she did not want to make any comment. She then terminated the interview.

Although Jobbik still sees the BNP as an ally, Vlaams Belang distanced itself both from Mr Griffin and the call by one of its candidates for "global chemotherapy" against Islam. One of its MEPs said he did not agree with comparing "people to diseases".

Channel 4

BNP threat in pub fracas

An engineer threatened to knock out a doorman and shouted at him: "I'm part of the BNP". The fracas took place during the weekend the BNP was holding its conference in Blackpool.

Lee Kelly, 33, pleaded guilty to threatening behaviour. He was fined £300 with £60 costs and ordered to pay the £15 victims' surcharge by Blackpool magistrates.

Martine Connah, prosecuting, said Kelly was among a group causing a fracas outside Yates's Wine Lodge on June 20 at 6.30pm. Kelly, of Easton Road, Droylsden, shouted at a doorman and pushed a police sergeant in the chest, shouting "don't touch me" and struggled violently when arrested.

Kathryn Edwards, defending, said her client, who had no previous convictions, had come to the resort on a stag party. She added Kelly denied being with the BNP.

Blackpool Gazette

Bum's rush in Brussels for BNP boat-sinkers

BNP struggling to make friends in Brussels

The British National Party's first two Euro-MPs are finding it increasingly hard to win friends and influence people in Europe.

BNP leader Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons both won seats in the euro-elections - and so far they have chalked up three notable rebuffs.

First, they were unable to muster enough allies to form an official political grouping in the European Parliament, which begins work next week. Second, they were asked to leave one of the main drinking haunts of European Parliament staff and MEPs in Brussels. And now they find they are not on the Government's guest list for a formal drinks party for British MEPs in Strasbourg next week.

The pair are still trying to form workable political alliances with other right-wing MEPs, but they seem unlikely to muster the necessary minimum of 25 MEPs from at least seven member states which would trigger substantial funding for staff, as well as improve prospects of influential committee seats and speaking time in the European Parliament chamber.

After one recent visit to the European Parliament's Brussels headquarters searching for political bedfellows, Mr Griffin, MEP for the North West region, repaired to nearby O'Farrell's bar, where he sat at a table outside to be served. Soon afterwards he was asked to leave. According to another drinker on the premises at the time: "He was sitting quietly outside, and then he was recognised and he was told he wasn't welcome."

The same bar is one of the regular watering holes of UK Independence Party leader (Ukip) and MEP Nigel Farage, who is trying to put as much political distance between his party and the BNP as possible.

The third and latest snub for the democratically-elected BNP duo has come from the Government, which has left Mr Griffin and Mr Brons off the invitation list for a cocktail reception in Strasbourg next Wednesday.

A Government spokesman explained the decision was part of established policy towards elected extremists, even though they are accorded the same basic government facilities as other elected individuals.

"The same general principles governing official impartiality apply in the European Parliament as they do for Westminster groups and MPs. UK Government officials will provide all MEPs with standard written briefings as appropriate from time to time, for example on the MEPs' Statute, with no differentiation. British and other MEPs can also be provided with factual written briefing on specific policy issues upon request, again with no differentiation."

The spokesman went on: "However, the long-standing policy of the Government is that officials will not engage in any other contact with elected representatives of any nationality who represent extremist or racist views, unless specific permission has been granted to do so on a particular occasion from the FCO Permanent Under-Secretary and the Minister for Europe. On the basis of this policy, MEPs representing the BNP are not invited to the reception on Wednesday. UKIP MEPs have been invited."

Andrew Brons (Yorkshire and Humber) was not far off when he predicted after the election that his victory would not be "universally popular".

Independent


UK diplomats shun BNP officials in Europe

The government is to single out Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, the British National party's two newly elected representatives in the European parliament, for special treatment, denying them some of the access and information afforded to all the other 70 UK MEPs.

Under new guidelines drafted in Whitehall and in the Foreign Office following the June elections to the European parliament, the two BNP leaders will be kept at arm's length from the kind of routine contacts and socialising that take place between British civil servants and MEPs in Brussels and Strasbourg.

When the new parliament convenes next week in Strasbourg, Glenys Kinnock, the new Europe minister, is to host a reception for all British MEPs. Only Griffin and Brons have not been invited.

"Officials will not engage in any other contact with elected representatives of any nationality who represent extremist or racist views, unless specific permission has been granted to do so on a particular occasion from the FCO permanent under-secretary and the minister for Europe," a government spokesperson said.

The official said that the BNP duo would be subject to the "same general principles governing official impartiality" and they would receive "standard written briefings as appropriate from time to time".

But British diplomats made plain that they would not be "proactive" in dealing with the BNP MEPs and that any requests for policy briefings from Griffin or Brons would be treated differently and on a discretionary basis. A Brussels-based civil servant said it was acceptable for him to meet MEPs across the party spectrum for a drink, but that any such meetings with Griffin or Brons would be frowned upon.

The MEPs of the anti-EU UK Independence Party have been invited to next week's government reception. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, said he was satisfied that he was treated equally by the 155 diplomats and civil servants working at the British mission to the EU, known as Ukrep, in Brussels.

"During the British [EU] presidency in 2005, I remember Jack Straw telling me that we'll be treated the same as all the others," said Farage. "If we ring Ukrep, we would expect to be treated fairly by them. If we contact them, they help us even though they're almost certainly closer to the other parties. We've not found them to withhold stuff from us if we ask."

Chris Davies, the Liberal Democrat MEP, said that the BNP represented a special case and that the government was entitled to differentiate in its dealings with elected representatives.

"A line has been crossed [with the BNP]. It's a difference of degree. It's not surprising that the government has to draw up guidelines to deal with a different situation."

Following the European elections, the civil service and government officials considered a range of options for dealing with the BNP, from an inclusive non-discriminatory approach to total quarantine, effectively ostracising them. David Miliband, the foreign secretary, is said to have signed off a decision that would bar the BNP people from government and embassy events in Brussels, while providing the extremists with some policy information.

"I don't think the policy of isolating them, of a cordon sanitaire, will work at all," Farage said. "It's a mistake. They're elected representatives, whether we like it or not."

The isolation has been compounded by Griffin's failure over the past week to cobble together an alliance of extremists in the parliament in order to qualify for official caucus status and thus benefit from better funding, speaking time, and committee positions. To qualify, a parliamentary fraction needs to muster 25 MEPs from at least seven EU countries. Griffin's signature failure was not persuading Italy's anti-immigration party, Liga Nord, to join him. Instead the Italians linked up with Farage's Ukip.

Guardian

Sink immigrants' boats - Griffin

The EU should sink boats carrying illegal immigrants to prevent them entering Europe, British National Party leader Nick Griffin has told the BBC.

The MEP for the North-West of England said the EU had to get "very tough" with migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Pressed on what should happen to those on board, he said: "Throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya".

Libya has long been a staging post for migrants from Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa wanting to reach Europe.

Nearly 37,000 immigrants landed on Italian shores last year, an increase of about 75% on the year before. But with the prospect of a new immigration and asylum policy being voted on this autumn by MEPs, Mr Griffin is advocating measures to destroy boats used by illegal immigrants to reach the EU's southern coastline.

'Combating the flow'

In an interview with this week's edition of BBC Parliament's The Record Europe, he said: "If there's measures to set up some kind of force or to help, say the Italians, set up a force which actually blocks the Mediterranean then we'd support that. But the only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration and stop large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans dying on the way to get over here is to get very tough with those coming over.

"Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats. Anyone coming up with measures like that we'll support but anything which is there as a 'oh, we need to do something about it' but in the end doing something about it means bringing them into Europe' we will oppose."

The interviewer, BBC Correspondent Shirin Wheeler, said: "I don't think the EU is in the business of murdering people at sea."

Mr Griffin replied: "I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea - I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya. But Europe has sooner or later to close its borders or its simply going to be swamped by the Third World."

In May, the Italian government gave Libya three patrol boats as part of a deal aimed at combating the flow of illegal migrants making the crossing to Italy. Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, a member of the anti-immigration Lega Nord party, hailed the first 200 migrants picked up by the boats and returned to Libya as an "historic" moment.

But human rights groups have raised concerns about Italy sending migrants back to Libya without first screening them for asylum claims or to discover whether they are sick, injured, unaccompanied children or victims of human trafficking. Libya has no functioning asylum system and is not a party to the 1951 UN convention relating to the status of refugees.

'Influence'

Separately Mr Griffin, who will next week formally take up his seat in Brussels, has admitted that the BNP has failed to convince other like-minded parties to form an alliance in the new European Parliament. Talks with France's Front National, Lega Nord, and other groups fell apart, with Lega Nord now joining the new Europe of Freedom and Democracy group, led by Britain's UK Independence Party.

Mr Griffin told The Parliament.com: "We needed at least 25 members from seven different member states to form a group. There is no doubt that we would have been able to wield a lot more influence if we could have formed a group. No one was prepared to commit themselves knowing that we had not got Lega Nord on board.

"Even so, we will continue to work together with these other groups and share ideas. We will have less access to things like speaking time and committee votes but it's too bad."

The BNP advocates British withdrawal from the European Union and an end to all immigration to the UK and last month won its first two seats in the European Parliament.

Mr Griffin and the party's other recently-elected MEP Andrew Brons will sit in the "non-attached" section of the Parliament, which means they will be entitled to less administrative and financial support.

BBC

BNP members banned from joining Methodist Church

The Methodist Church has become the first major denomination in the UK to ban all its members from joining the British National Party (BNP).

A resolution passed by the annual Methodist Conference, meeting in Wolverhampton, declared that “No member of the Church can also be a member of a political party whose constitution, aims or objectives promote racism. This specifically includes, but is not solely limited to, the British National Party”.

The news follows a similar ban on Church of England clergy, but the Methodists have gone much further, saying that no-one can even be a member of the Church while also belonging to the BNP.

“We must be clear that racism is a denial of the Gospel” said Rev Sylvester Deigh, who proposed the motion.

“An openness to all people, regardless of nationality, is at the heart of Methodist identity” he continued.

The motion was seconded by the Rev Dr Angela Shier-Jones.

While strongly condemning racism and the BNP specifically, the motion declares that “those who support racist parties are also God’s children, and in need of love, hope and redemption”. Supporters of the measure are keen to stress that no-one will be banned from attending a church – only from membership of it.

The BNP have in recent months attempted to appeal to Christian voters, claiming to be protecting the UK's “Christian heritage”.

They have fielded the Rev Robert West as their candidate for the Norwich North by-election on 23rd July, though he has failed to make clear in which church he has been ordained.

Most Christian denominations have condemned the BNP and called on their members not to vote for it. However, the thinktank Ekklesia has pointed out that churches need to disassociate themselves from the “Christian nation” rhetoric which the BNP exploits.

The Methodist Church will now undertake the legal work required to put their agreed measures into practice and report back to the Methodist Conference in July 2010.

Ekklesia