As any parent will tell you, toddlers do a very good line in selective deafness. My own boy, in his younger days, could manage blank indifference to a level that would foil a brainscan if asked to come and have his dinner, or put his toys away, yet could detect the music of an ice cream van or a rustling sweet wrapper in another town.
Such is the case with Paul “Green Arrow” Morris. A windy old blowhard who will drunkenly shout the virtues of his beloved BNP while portraying a suspiciously homoerotic fixation on its wonky–eyed leader, and yet will conveniently retreat into a world of Carthusian silence whenever an inconvenient truth emerges that might shatter his world view.
Like the fact that the Party have failed to submit their accounts on time. Again.
Over on Morris' blog today, for example, we have a bizarre rant on the usual theme of Europe about to be invaded by hordes of Muslims with their funny curved swords and their penchant for white women; a piece about how Idealogical Tory David Cameron is actually leading a Marxist government dedicated to the overthrow of the White Race, and an aside (from Morris himself) about how Mark “Naziboy” Collett may THINK he's got away with his dastardly plot to assassinate the Dear Leader, but you can jolly well bet your boots that the ones he “threatened” will – even now – be getting ready to launch a private prosecution against the would–be murderer and so drag him through the courts after all.
Because obviously the BNP Leadership would love to have the opportunity to air their internal wranglings in open court, and never, ever pass up such a chance. (Cheap sarcasm there.)
Whether or not the much–quoted story about Morris boiling cans of cheap lager in order to “increase the alcohol content” is true, he's clearly a man with issues.
The failure to submit accounts is serious. It demonstrates, yet again, that the BNP are NOT a “serious, legitimate” political party. It shows that they can't even fulfil the most basic requirements of playing with the Big Boys. It might even suggest (to all but the most naïve supplicant) that the Leadership are in a blind panic, have something to hide, and that Butler and the anti–Griffin factions might just have a point, after all.
Not so with Morris, though. Like a toddler who doesn't want to eat his broccoli, the old fool ignores it in the hope that the whole nasty business will go away.
As with the accounts, so with wrongfully dismissed BNP staffer Michaela Mackenzie. Despite the fact that she was offered a financial settlement by Griffin who has since reneged on the deal, and is currently on the verge of beginning bankruptcy proceedings, there's no mention of this minor detail of Party affairs from the fearless Morris.
Morris is happier living within a fantasy world (as beautifully outlined in an astonishing piece some time ago where he – with childlike innocence – portrays himself and his dim bulb mates as “The Three Welsh Musketeers”). A fantasy world in which He, the sagacious and respected old military commander, sits tirelessly at his keyboard, marshalling the dwindling forces of Light and Decency in his neverending struggle to defend his beloved Nation from an onslaught of Orc–like Darkness.
In Morris World, too, the fact that I'm writing this piece serves only to illustrate the righteousness of his stance: Lefty Morons like myself only attack him because he's right, and we're terrified of his intellect and his fearless warrior bearing.
Sorry, G.A., I actually write this piece because I – along with all of the anti–fascists I know and (judging by the chatter on far–right talkboards) most of your own side - think you're absolutely bloody hilarious: The kind of self–deluded old keyboard warrior who does nothing but good for your enemies' cause.
Carry on, Old Boy! Pip, Pip!
July 30, 2010
July 29, 2010
Woe is Nick - accounts late, Collett charges dropped, Decembrists return from the grave
Despite promise after promise that this year it would be different, the BNP has yet again failed to submit an annual statement of accounts to the Electoral Commission, incurring an automatic minimum £500 fine. The party's Regional Accounting Unit has also failed to submit accounts and will be fined a minimum of £100.
In a statement made earlier today (Thursday) by the Electoral Commission, Chief Executive Peter Wardle said:
Most parties and accounting units submitted their accounts on time; one [the SDLP] made what we hope will prove to be a one-off mistake and will face a fine for late submission. But two parties have repeatedly failed to put information about their income and expenditure into the public domain on time.Joining the BNP in the doghouse is the tiny Christian Party.
That is not acceptable, and as well as fining these two parties for late submission, we will be monitoring them closely to try to ensure they meet the same standards of reporting as the others. The sanctions we currently have available to deal with this sort of non-compliance are limited, but we look forward to Parliament giving final approval to a wider range of sanctions, before the end of this year.
Should the BNP fail to submit its accounts within the next three months the fines levied on the party will double, as they did last year when the party played fast and loose with the EC's patience (and its own members' subscriptions and donations).
Ever since the spotlight fell firmly on the BNP's finances post-general election, Nick Griffin has been going out of his way to give an impression that all is well and that this year the accounts, now - allegedly - under the management of a professional accountant, would be submitted as required. Griffin must have been aware for some time that this would not be the case.
Cynics dissecting the series of self-serving treatises put out by Griffin post-election, forecast that the BNP accounts would again be late, since Griffin continually harped on about the complexity of the party's financial operations and the difficulties inherent in keeping them in order, and seemed to be laying down an advance trail of plausible excuses.
This may also explain why a clearly uncomfortable David Hannam, the party's national treasurer, has been pushed to the fore in the past week, being chivvied, we strongly suspect, into making a video for the BNP website and issuing a statement on behalf of his treasury department which promises much but clarifies little. The emailed version is "From Chairman Nick Griffin", and while we don't suppose he did more than outline what he expected the statement to contain, it's also difficult to believe that Hannam's is the only hand involved.
Nick Griffin having conveniently departed the country for a holiday, explanations for the lateness of the BNP's accounts will be sought from Hannam, who may be wondering if he hasn't been set up for a fall.
(For a fuller examination of this matter, see Sonia Gable's HNH/Searchlight article, republished here.)
In the meantime...
Humberside Police have dropped charges against sacked BNP publicity director Mark Collett (above, with Griffin), according to a post on leadership challenger Eddy Butler's blog. Collett was arrested on April 1st after Griffin had contacted the police claiming to have received death threats. A police statement made after Collett was bailed said: "This investigation was initiated as a result of a complaint by a member of the British National Party and inquiries are ongoing."
Clearly, no, or insufficient, evidence existed upon which a charge could be sustained.
At the time Nick Griffin sent out a hysterical email linking Collett not only with the utterance of alleged death threats but with financial impropriety and of being part of a "palace coup" about to be staged against his leadership. Despite claiming that he was unable to discuss the matter due to rules of "sub judice" (which was untrue), Griffin (ignoring sub judice as it suited him) instigated a widely ridiculed "inquiry" that was held on Easter Monday (April 5th), in which twelve dupes were sent off to "authenticate" a highly edited recording of the "death threats". Naturally, they gave the required answer.
Along with Collett, Eddy Butler and Emma Colgate were dismissed from their posts, and it is now apparent that the entire saga relates not to "death threats", the misappropriation of BNP monies on Collet's part or to "palace coups" but to allegations of serious financial wrong-doing at the top of the BNP, of which the trio had become aware.
News of Collett's arrest was deliberately leaked to the media from within the BNP just as the party's general and local election campaign was set to launch. How much damage was done to the BNP's vote as a result, and how much it was responsible for the loss of so many BNP councillors is difficult to tell, since we believe the BNP was always on course for a hiding at the ballot box.
It is self-evident to all but the most blind and sycophantic of Griffinites that the dodgy "death threat" episode, played out in the press and on television, was an enormous own goal on the part of the leadership, far more damaging than the fleeting loss of the party's website just before polling day. People may go to political websites in their hundreds, but they read newspapers and watch television in their millions.
With the charges dropped and any loyalties he might have held for Nick Griffin shattered, Mark Collett may well end his prolonged silence on the affair, an eventuality that on the surface can only benefit Eddy Butler. Butler is closer to Collett than he cares to admit, and thus far the Nazi Boy has been a peripheral, almost invisible figure, with very good reason. Collett is so widely reviled within the BNP that any open association between him and Butler would seriously damage Butler's leadership campaign. His open involvement in the campaign would almost certainly kill it. Collett, then, is of limited use to Butler, no matter how innocent he may be of the charges levelled against him by Griffin - though he may yet damage Griffin to the favour of Butler in an apparently independent "off stage" role.
The weight on Griffin's mind has been added to by news that the final part of the case he instigated (and has so far roundly lost) against the December Rebels will be heard at the High Court in Newcastle on November 29th.
Kenny Smith, one of the leading Decembrists, has reactivated the derelict Enough Is Enough website to announce that "Judgement Day is coming!"
Remarking that Griffin and Simon Darby "have tried every trick in the book, and indeed continue to invent new ways of delaying proceedings, to prevent the case they instigated at the Party's expense coming to trial", Smith gleefully adds:
Sadly for them, but happily for those who want to see justice done and the truth finally revealed in full, the trial has been fixed to start on Monday the 29th November 2010 at Newcastle High Court.The Decembrists, somewhat pre-empted as Griffinite bugging of their private conversations led to the exposure of their intentions, launched the last serious attempt at unseating Nick Griffin, but the campaign soon floundered through indecision and the want of firm leadership. Then as now, Griffin began expelling or suspending individual Decembrists on eminently challengable grounds. At the time we observed that just one challenge to Griffin's worthless writs of expulsion would stop him in his tracks and galvanise support for the rebels as hesitant individual members lost their fear of the Leader's edicts. It is a lesson Eddy Butler's supporters have failed to learn, as they allow themselves to be picked off one by one.
Kenny, Nicholla, Steve and Ian are all looking forward to their days in court and finally being able to expose Griffin and his cabal for what they are!
Griffin's smothering tactics worked at the time but disguised the extent of latent discontent within the party. Seemingly united for the Euro election campaign, the cracks soon began to show as the false foundations on which the Euro success had been built were exposed by ever worsening votes which reflected the BNP's true electoral position, and by Griffin's inept approach to the EHRC case. The awful Question Time appearance, the dislodging of PPCs in favour of party "names", the wild allegations against Collett, thuggish behaviour towards journalists and others, the needless courting of Unilever litigation, the general and local election rout have all done for Griffin what the Decembrists never could.
He did it all himself. And if he really were a leader of vision, the genius of strategy he is so frequently claimed to be, then he would have known that cutting off the Decembrist head while smothering Decembrist sentiment would leave hundreds within the BNP to brood and bide their time.
That they have done, for what else is Eddy Butler's campaign but the second coming of the Decembrists, with new leadership, bigger and badder than ever?
Labels:
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BNP faces fines for third accounts failure.
The British National Party has failed to submit its 2009 accounts to the Electoral Commission, the third time the fascist party has been late.
The Electoral Commission said today: “The British National Party and the party’s Regional Accounting Unit were both granted an extension to the deadline for submitting their statements of accounts. Both have failed to deliver their accounts within the extended deadline so the party will be fined a minimum of £500 and the accounting unit will be fined a minimum £100, this figure will increase if the accounts are more than three months late.”
The 2008 accounts, which were submitted nearly six months late, remain under investigation by the Electoral Commission because the auditors reported that they did not give a true and fair view and did not “comply with the requirements of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 as adequate records have not been made available”.
At the time, Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, described the accounts as “inadequate”. In his introduction to the 2008 accounts Griffin claimed that “the task of maintaining central office accounts had become too big for any one individual”. However, he continued, the problem had now been solved because the job had been “outsourced” to “an independent Chartered Accountant and Accounts Technician with the aim of presenting acceptable accounts for the accounting year 2009”.
The independent chartered accountant was John Thompson, a close business associate of Jim Dowson, the man whose web of financial links with the BNP is such that he in effect “owns” the BNP.
The failure to submit accounts will add to Dowson’s unpopularity with many BNP members and plays into the hands of Eddy Butler, who is currently trying to collect enough nominations to challenge Griffin for the party leadership. Butler’s response was: “Nick Griffin has brought disgrace upon the BNP yet again. There is only one way that you can change this. Sign the nomination form and vote for change.”
That the accounts have not appeared was no surprise to Searchlight. Given the BNP’s huge liabilities as a result of Griffin’s long list of reckless legal actions, the party’s independent auditors are likely to have had difficulty certifying that the BNP is a “going concern”.
In recent years, although the party has been insolvent, the auditors have assumed it can meet its liabilities by raiding the funds of its groups and branches, something with which many local officers are unhappy. Now, the liabilities are so big that branch funds are not enough, and many branch treasurers have adopted measures to keep head office’s hands off their money.
An organisation that is not a “going concern” cannot operate unless it pays for all goods and services in advance, something the BNP does not have the money to do.
Many party members are beginning to realise that although Dowson has raised unprecedented sums in donations, Griffin has been spending far more on madnesses such as using an image of Marmite on a BNP election broadcast, which attracted an injunction from Unilever, defending indefensible unfair dismissal claims from former employees and dragging out his response to the Equality Commission’s action over the party’s racist constitution to the extent that the legal costs are believed to be running at £300,000 so far.
Another problem the auditors might have had is that the party apparently no longer owns any of its assets. One of the sections of the new BNP constitution that Griffin slipped in without telling anyone states that all the party’s assets belong to the so-called Founders’ Association. That body is not defined in the constitution but it is understood to be all BNP members who joined before the new constitution came into effect in February and are still members. If the party does not own its assets, they cannot correctly be included in its accounts, which would greatly increase the party’s insolvency.
The BNP, however, is hoping its members will keep their heads firmly in the sand. The day before it emerged that the party’s accounts were missing, Dave Hannam, the party treasurer, sent out an email listing all the party’s financial achievements but admitting that he had been forced to implement new stringent financial controls and submit to monthly inspection of his “treasury office” by “an outside accountant”.
According to Hannam the party lacked “financial stability”. One reason was: “the large number of court cases launched at this party in a deliberate attempt to derail us,” skating over the fact that almost all the legal costs were entirely the fault of the BNP. Another reason was “a general lack of accountability with regards to the National Treasurer and his office”. And it had been “discovered that some officials has incurred expenditure that was both unauthorised and previously unknown to the Treasury department”.
In other words, Hannam had been as incompetent as most people, other than Griffin, Dowson and their sycophants, always knew he was from the time he first became the party’s deputy treasurer.
The email said nothing about the 2009 accounts being late, appealed for new regional treasurers – in other words new people Hannam can blame the next time it all goes wrong – and ended with a “donate” button, in the hope that the party’s stupid supporters will throw more money into Griffin’s bottomless pit.
Searchlight / HOPE not Hate by Sonia Gable
The Electoral Commission said today: “The British National Party and the party’s Regional Accounting Unit were both granted an extension to the deadline for submitting their statements of accounts. Both have failed to deliver their accounts within the extended deadline so the party will be fined a minimum of £500 and the accounting unit will be fined a minimum £100, this figure will increase if the accounts are more than three months late.”
The 2008 accounts, which were submitted nearly six months late, remain under investigation by the Electoral Commission because the auditors reported that they did not give a true and fair view and did not “comply with the requirements of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 as adequate records have not been made available”.
At the time, Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, described the accounts as “inadequate”. In his introduction to the 2008 accounts Griffin claimed that “the task of maintaining central office accounts had become too big for any one individual”. However, he continued, the problem had now been solved because the job had been “outsourced” to “an independent Chartered Accountant and Accounts Technician with the aim of presenting acceptable accounts for the accounting year 2009”.
The independent chartered accountant was John Thompson, a close business associate of Jim Dowson, the man whose web of financial links with the BNP is such that he in effect “owns” the BNP.
The failure to submit accounts will add to Dowson’s unpopularity with many BNP members and plays into the hands of Eddy Butler, who is currently trying to collect enough nominations to challenge Griffin for the party leadership. Butler’s response was: “Nick Griffin has brought disgrace upon the BNP yet again. There is only one way that you can change this. Sign the nomination form and vote for change.”
That the accounts have not appeared was no surprise to Searchlight. Given the BNP’s huge liabilities as a result of Griffin’s long list of reckless legal actions, the party’s independent auditors are likely to have had difficulty certifying that the BNP is a “going concern”.
In recent years, although the party has been insolvent, the auditors have assumed it can meet its liabilities by raiding the funds of its groups and branches, something with which many local officers are unhappy. Now, the liabilities are so big that branch funds are not enough, and many branch treasurers have adopted measures to keep head office’s hands off their money.
An organisation that is not a “going concern” cannot operate unless it pays for all goods and services in advance, something the BNP does not have the money to do.
Many party members are beginning to realise that although Dowson has raised unprecedented sums in donations, Griffin has been spending far more on madnesses such as using an image of Marmite on a BNP election broadcast, which attracted an injunction from Unilever, defending indefensible unfair dismissal claims from former employees and dragging out his response to the Equality Commission’s action over the party’s racist constitution to the extent that the legal costs are believed to be running at £300,000 so far.
Another problem the auditors might have had is that the party apparently no longer owns any of its assets. One of the sections of the new BNP constitution that Griffin slipped in without telling anyone states that all the party’s assets belong to the so-called Founders’ Association. That body is not defined in the constitution but it is understood to be all BNP members who joined before the new constitution came into effect in February and are still members. If the party does not own its assets, they cannot correctly be included in its accounts, which would greatly increase the party’s insolvency.
The BNP, however, is hoping its members will keep their heads firmly in the sand. The day before it emerged that the party’s accounts were missing, Dave Hannam, the party treasurer, sent out an email listing all the party’s financial achievements but admitting that he had been forced to implement new stringent financial controls and submit to monthly inspection of his “treasury office” by “an outside accountant”.
According to Hannam the party lacked “financial stability”. One reason was: “the large number of court cases launched at this party in a deliberate attempt to derail us,” skating over the fact that almost all the legal costs were entirely the fault of the BNP. Another reason was “a general lack of accountability with regards to the National Treasurer and his office”. And it had been “discovered that some officials has incurred expenditure that was both unauthorised and previously unknown to the Treasury department”.
In other words, Hannam had been as incompetent as most people, other than Griffin, Dowson and their sycophants, always knew he was from the time he first became the party’s deputy treasurer.
The email said nothing about the 2009 accounts being late, appealed for new regional treasurers – in other words new people Hannam can blame the next time it all goes wrong – and ended with a “donate” button, in the hope that the party’s stupid supporters will throw more money into Griffin’s bottomless pit.
Searchlight / HOPE not Hate by Sonia Gable
July 28, 2010
Friends and other enemies
While most trade union leaders have of late found a good deal to occupy their minds and their time as draconian government spending and job cuts loom, the general secretary of at least one alleged "fighting union" has other concerns that he clearly feels to be far more pressing than such bothersome trivialities as protecting and promoting the employment prospects of his members in the hard times to come.
These, after all, can be quickly disposed of in a few stock cod-radical phrases posted on the website of his "one big union" and regurgitated in a press release that will (for a fee payable to his friend Graham) then be posted on a free PR website, where it will attract its customary level of feverish disinterest and disappear without trace.
Patrick Harrington/Sharp, general secretary of Solidarity, director of the Third Way "think tank", newly-coined BNP employee and fantasist par excellence has been extremely busy on Facebook just lately, patiently scanning his list of "friends" for any who link to the numerous enemies of the Very Important trade union leader and Political Thinker - a man so Important that he maintains his own Wikipedia page as a reminder to the rest of the world of just how Very Important he is.
Should Harrington discover the name "Simon Bennett" lurking amongst the friends of his Facebook friends, then the general secretary of the "fighting union" will employ some of his ample spare time to send a message warning that Bennett was responsible for "crashing" the BNP website on the eve of the general election and might use the personal details of those who link to his Facebook page in unspecified but detrimental ways. It would therefore be "unwise" to maintain a link to Bennett.
Mark Walker, also with more spare time on his hands than is healthy, performs the same service as the sneaking Harrington, but goes a little further in his "friendly" advice, warning that retaining Bennett as a Facebook friend might be "construed as disloyalty".
Things must be getting desperate when trade union general secretaries and leading Griffinites begin to act like pre-adolescent school children and are driven to scour the pages of something so shallow as Facebook looking to rubbish their enemies - but then, Harrington and Walker both possess the type of mind that eminently suits them to such infantile activities.
Having made no secret of his support for Nick Griffin, and having openly attempted to exercise a negative influence upon the nomination gathering process on which a challenge to Griffin's leadership depends, Harrington appears to have forgotten that his Third Way and National Liberal Party websites were hosted gratis by Bennett, who also owns the domain names. Not unnaturally, given the vitriol pouring down upon him from the Griffin camp, Bennett revenged himself by pointing the two domains at his YourBNP website.
Harrington, being Harrington (and sometimes being Sharp), thinks this most unfair, and so, while other trade union general secretaries devote their time planning for the difficult political and industrial struggles to come, the general secretary of the "fighting union" scrabbles about in the nether reaches of the Internet pursuing yet another of the personal vendettas that have peppered his less than illustrious career.
While Harrington gets on with what Harrington does best (which is not very much at all), the man he induced to undertake electoral spoiling duties at the behest of Nick Griffin flounders.
Richard Barnbrook, much pitied but largely abandoned to his own devices, appears to have been thrown into the laps of the Walker brothers, who are humouring him hugely. It was via Barnbrook's Facebook page that Mark Walker sent out some of his ominous "friendly advice".
Ultimately doomed by his initial association with the Butler camp, Barnbrook is the pliant prisoner of the Griffinites who captured him, painfully eager to please the guards set to watch and control his every move, cushioned from the reality of his humiliation by the carefully maintained illusion that he really is mounting a serious independent leadership challenge.
Doubtless the Walkers have difficulties in preventing a matching pair of sly smiles from stealing across their lips as they listen to the wretched Barnbrook's plans and make approving nods in all the right places. Their job as his wards includes that of keeping Barnbrook busy, and to that end the GLA member is in County Durham to help in the campaign to have Adam Walker elected to Spennymoor Town Council.
For the occasion Walker has produced a cheap word-processed leaflet in which he says that a path he helped to clear was "drastically needed", and seems, as BNP people are prone to do, to elevate the influence of the lowest and least influential tier of governance well beyond its bounds, asking: "Why do we need to produce council, benefits, medical and police documents in umpteen different languages and provide and pay for expensive professional interpreters?"
Why indeed, since this is not something likely to trouble Spennymoor Town Council?
How well Walker's campaign is progressing might be gauged from a post made on Monday evening by Richard Barnbrook on his new blog, presumably in an unguarded Walker-less moment: "I have to laugh, or I would 'Cry'.... So fare today 3 people turned out to canvas in Spennymoor!" (sic).
Not very well at all, then.
Still, while at least some microscopic BNP activity is taking place in the north-east, elsewhere
BNP activity flourishes according to the BNP website, which seems to report a fresh outbreak every other day. The trouble is that the bulk of these "activities" appear with a suspicious regularity to be concentrated in the north-west, the home turf of regional organiser, tall tale teller and Griffin goon Clive Jefferson.
These reports are invariably accompanied by photographs of a very few people who have apparently sold a very large number of BNP newspapers and delivered impossible quantities of BNP literature to an adoring public. New members are just falling out of the heavens, and talk of breakthroughs and successes to come abounds, much as it has for the past several fruitless years.
Breakthroughs and successes require money and activists, both of which are in increasingly short supply as donors are loath to throw good money after bad and members walk away in disillusionment or entrench themselves in the rival leadership camps. But no matter,
Nick Griffin has signposted the road to electoral heaven on the BNP website in a mini-manifesto entitled "What Is Going to be Done", coincidentally (and wisely) decamping to France for his holidays before anybody can ask, "Exactly How Is It Going To Be Done?".
A screed of praise to Jim Dowson intermingled with the same hopelessly unrealistic but fine-sounding plans that have been thrown at the jaded membership of every failing political movement since time began, I don't propose here to discuss at length that which Griffin and the BNP cannot possibly achieve.
"What Is Going to be Done" may sway the gullible, as it is intended to do, with its magic vote-winning computers, mobile homes that dispense iced water and suncream on hot days, and a 30-acre BNP place in the country, but all of this requires money, and huge amounts of it. But money is something the BNP does not have - in fact it does not have it to the extent that it owes ever increasing quantities of the national currency to an ever growing list of unpaid creditors.
Unless Griffin has found for the BNP a sugar daddy, one who pays the rent rather than one who screws the party and departs in the morning without leaving so much as a discreet farthing on the mantelpiece, then his plans for the BNP will need to be retitled "What Is Not Going To Be Done". As
Honest Eddy Butler points out, the needless EHRC case has so far cost the BNP £300,000 with more to come, both Michaela Mackenzie and Mark Collett are in a position to bankrupt the party, as are any one of a "frightening" number of creditors not as emotionally bound to the BNP as Mackenzie and Collett.
By way of example, according to Butler, who we have no reason to doubt, the party's Midland depot is now four months in arrears with rent and council taxes, and the telephone, gas and electricity bills have not been paid. These debts alone must already amount to something between £5,000 to £10,000, and there is no obvious way in which they can be met.
The recent spate of hysterical postal appeals, as we know from other sources, have brought in desultory returns even when backed up by emailed variants, not even enough to cover the £5,000 cost (Butler's figure) of each appeal.
So the grand plans of "What Is Going to be Done" are so much stuff and nonsense, as its author is well aware, since the BNP will be lucky to own a rubber stamp by the end of the year, let alone contemplate moving into a 30-acre complex somewhere in the Midland countryside.
Since throwing down the gauntlet, Eddy Butler has presented himself as the "honest man" candidate, one interested in financial transparency, the guy who's on the side of the members, yet his remarks at a campaign meeting held in East London on July 20th would suggest there are limits to his more agreeable traits, and there are circumstances in which he would turn a blind eye to corruption at the top.
Here we must stress, as Butler repeatedly stresses, that what follows is hearsay - though it is hearsay he frequently returns to, and it is the same hearsay which underpins his campaign to unseat Nick Griffin. Butler clearly gives far more weight to it than he is prepared to admit to in public.
The story, as told by Butler, is that in mid-March the then BNP staff manager Emma Colgate visited treasurer David Hannam at his new office. While Colgate was there Hannam received a call from Nick Griffin, which was overheard by Colgate (Butler is hazy as to how, suggesting that Hannam had the speakerphone switched on). Griffin, it is alleged, asked Hannam to pay off his personal credit card in a sum, Butler says, that amounted to six figures. Hannam apparently demurred at the idea of using party money to pay Griffin's personal debts, but Griffin "had a bit of a go" at Hannam and ordered him to pay.
Hannam then said to Colgate that there were "all kinds of bad things going on in the party, to do with the party's finances - serious stuff".
Serious stuff indeed. Serious criminal stuff, if any of this is true.
Colgate then told Eddy Butler, at that time the BNP's national organiser. Publicity director Mark Collett became aware of the allegations, and soon after Hannam forwarded a recording of a private conversation he had held with Collett to Griffin, who then sacked Colgate, Butler and Collett from their positions, and, just as the BNP election campaign opened, ran to the press and police with wild tales of death threats which were to dog the BNP until polling day.
Explaining this at his campaign meeting, Butler says: "In discussions I said, look, if this is true ... we're in the run up to a general election campaign. If we don't do well and we don't get all these seats, and we haven't got all the momentum with us - which would make up for everything, frankly, wouldn't it? - then we'll have to raise the issue..."
This seems a fairly clear indication that before his sacking, Butler was minded not to press the matter of the alleged credit card payment provided the BNP did well in the general election, and would have happily kept his inside knowledge of the alleged transaction from the membership in those circumstances.
This strange ambivalence does not sit well with the "honest man" image Butler is at great pains to project. Misuse of funds for the alleged purpose recounted by Butler is common or garden corruption. There is no sense in which corruption can be vindicated, no situation in which suppressing knowledge of it will "make up for everything".
It is noteworthy that the mental circumlocutions afflicting Eddy Butler seemed also to afflict the audience to which he recounted his squalid little tale. He had, after all, just told them that their money had allegedly been stolen, but that would have been made up for if only the BNP had performed better in the general election. Not one member of the audience took issue with him.
And finally, those of you of strong constitution who flock every Sunday morning to listen to the latest instalment of the Green Arrow's "Voice of the British Resistance" may have been alarmed to learn from the constipated-sounding Voice that the "growth of babies born to foreign women has doubled."
The Voice does not enlighten us as to the cause of this unparalleled phenomenon, but we're fairly certain it is related to the heavy ingestion of alcohol on the part of an amoebic intellect seized by a compulsion to record dotty internet podcasts in the darkness of a coal bunker situate somewhere in South Wales.
Perhaps a friend - or even an ex-friend, if, courtesy of Harrington, he has one or two to spare - should have a word?
These, after all, can be quickly disposed of in a few stock cod-radical phrases posted on the website of his "one big union" and regurgitated in a press release that will (for a fee payable to his friend Graham) then be posted on a free PR website, where it will attract its customary level of feverish disinterest and disappear without trace.
Patrick Harrington/Sharp, general secretary of Solidarity, director of the Third Way "think tank", newly-coined BNP employee and fantasist par excellence has been extremely busy on Facebook just lately, patiently scanning his list of "friends" for any who link to the numerous enemies of the Very Important trade union leader and Political Thinker - a man so Important that he maintains his own Wikipedia page as a reminder to the rest of the world of just how Very Important he is.
Should Harrington discover the name "Simon Bennett" lurking amongst the friends of his Facebook friends, then the general secretary of the "fighting union" will employ some of his ample spare time to send a message warning that Bennett was responsible for "crashing" the BNP website on the eve of the general election and might use the personal details of those who link to his Facebook page in unspecified but detrimental ways. It would therefore be "unwise" to maintain a link to Bennett.
Mark Walker, also with more spare time on his hands than is healthy, performs the same service as the sneaking Harrington, but goes a little further in his "friendly" advice, warning that retaining Bennett as a Facebook friend might be "construed as disloyalty".
Things must be getting desperate when trade union general secretaries and leading Griffinites begin to act like pre-adolescent school children and are driven to scour the pages of something so shallow as Facebook looking to rubbish their enemies - but then, Harrington and Walker both possess the type of mind that eminently suits them to such infantile activities.
Having made no secret of his support for Nick Griffin, and having openly attempted to exercise a negative influence upon the nomination gathering process on which a challenge to Griffin's leadership depends, Harrington appears to have forgotten that his Third Way and National Liberal Party websites were hosted gratis by Bennett, who also owns the domain names. Not unnaturally, given the vitriol pouring down upon him from the Griffin camp, Bennett revenged himself by pointing the two domains at his YourBNP website.
Harrington, being Harrington (and sometimes being Sharp), thinks this most unfair, and so, while other trade union general secretaries devote their time planning for the difficult political and industrial struggles to come, the general secretary of the "fighting union" scrabbles about in the nether reaches of the Internet pursuing yet another of the personal vendettas that have peppered his less than illustrious career.
While Harrington gets on with what Harrington does best (which is not very much at all), the man he induced to undertake electoral spoiling duties at the behest of Nick Griffin flounders.
Richard Barnbrook, much pitied but largely abandoned to his own devices, appears to have been thrown into the laps of the Walker brothers, who are humouring him hugely. It was via Barnbrook's Facebook page that Mark Walker sent out some of his ominous "friendly advice".
Ultimately doomed by his initial association with the Butler camp, Barnbrook is the pliant prisoner of the Griffinites who captured him, painfully eager to please the guards set to watch and control his every move, cushioned from the reality of his humiliation by the carefully maintained illusion that he really is mounting a serious independent leadership challenge.
Doubtless the Walkers have difficulties in preventing a matching pair of sly smiles from stealing across their lips as they listen to the wretched Barnbrook's plans and make approving nods in all the right places. Their job as his wards includes that of keeping Barnbrook busy, and to that end the GLA member is in County Durham to help in the campaign to have Adam Walker elected to Spennymoor Town Council.
For the occasion Walker has produced a cheap word-processed leaflet in which he says that a path he helped to clear was "drastically needed", and seems, as BNP people are prone to do, to elevate the influence of the lowest and least influential tier of governance well beyond its bounds, asking: "Why do we need to produce council, benefits, medical and police documents in umpteen different languages and provide and pay for expensive professional interpreters?"
Why indeed, since this is not something likely to trouble Spennymoor Town Council?
How well Walker's campaign is progressing might be gauged from a post made on Monday evening by Richard Barnbrook on his new blog, presumably in an unguarded Walker-less moment: "I have to laugh, or I would 'Cry'.... So fare today 3 people turned out to canvas in Spennymoor!" (sic).
Not very well at all, then.
Still, while at least some microscopic BNP activity is taking place in the north-east, elsewhere
BNP activity flourishes according to the BNP website, which seems to report a fresh outbreak every other day. The trouble is that the bulk of these "activities" appear with a suspicious regularity to be concentrated in the north-west, the home turf of regional organiser, tall tale teller and Griffin goon Clive Jefferson.
These reports are invariably accompanied by photographs of a very few people who have apparently sold a very large number of BNP newspapers and delivered impossible quantities of BNP literature to an adoring public. New members are just falling out of the heavens, and talk of breakthroughs and successes to come abounds, much as it has for the past several fruitless years.
Breakthroughs and successes require money and activists, both of which are in increasingly short supply as donors are loath to throw good money after bad and members walk away in disillusionment or entrench themselves in the rival leadership camps. But no matter,
Nick Griffin has signposted the road to electoral heaven on the BNP website in a mini-manifesto entitled "What Is Going to be Done", coincidentally (and wisely) decamping to France for his holidays before anybody can ask, "Exactly How Is It Going To Be Done?".
A screed of praise to Jim Dowson intermingled with the same hopelessly unrealistic but fine-sounding plans that have been thrown at the jaded membership of every failing political movement since time began, I don't propose here to discuss at length that which Griffin and the BNP cannot possibly achieve.
"What Is Going to be Done" may sway the gullible, as it is intended to do, with its magic vote-winning computers, mobile homes that dispense iced water and suncream on hot days, and a 30-acre BNP place in the country, but all of this requires money, and huge amounts of it. But money is something the BNP does not have - in fact it does not have it to the extent that it owes ever increasing quantities of the national currency to an ever growing list of unpaid creditors.
Unless Griffin has found for the BNP a sugar daddy, one who pays the rent rather than one who screws the party and departs in the morning without leaving so much as a discreet farthing on the mantelpiece, then his plans for the BNP will need to be retitled "What Is Not Going To Be Done". As
Honest Eddy Butler points out, the needless EHRC case has so far cost the BNP £300,000 with more to come, both Michaela Mackenzie and Mark Collett are in a position to bankrupt the party, as are any one of a "frightening" number of creditors not as emotionally bound to the BNP as Mackenzie and Collett.
By way of example, according to Butler, who we have no reason to doubt, the party's Midland depot is now four months in arrears with rent and council taxes, and the telephone, gas and electricity bills have not been paid. These debts alone must already amount to something between £5,000 to £10,000, and there is no obvious way in which they can be met.
The recent spate of hysterical postal appeals, as we know from other sources, have brought in desultory returns even when backed up by emailed variants, not even enough to cover the £5,000 cost (Butler's figure) of each appeal.
So the grand plans of "What Is Going to be Done" are so much stuff and nonsense, as its author is well aware, since the BNP will be lucky to own a rubber stamp by the end of the year, let alone contemplate moving into a 30-acre complex somewhere in the Midland countryside.
Since throwing down the gauntlet, Eddy Butler has presented himself as the "honest man" candidate, one interested in financial transparency, the guy who's on the side of the members, yet his remarks at a campaign meeting held in East London on July 20th would suggest there are limits to his more agreeable traits, and there are circumstances in which he would turn a blind eye to corruption at the top.
Here we must stress, as Butler repeatedly stresses, that what follows is hearsay - though it is hearsay he frequently returns to, and it is the same hearsay which underpins his campaign to unseat Nick Griffin. Butler clearly gives far more weight to it than he is prepared to admit to in public.
The story, as told by Butler, is that in mid-March the then BNP staff manager Emma Colgate visited treasurer David Hannam at his new office. While Colgate was there Hannam received a call from Nick Griffin, which was overheard by Colgate (Butler is hazy as to how, suggesting that Hannam had the speakerphone switched on). Griffin, it is alleged, asked Hannam to pay off his personal credit card in a sum, Butler says, that amounted to six figures. Hannam apparently demurred at the idea of using party money to pay Griffin's personal debts, but Griffin "had a bit of a go" at Hannam and ordered him to pay.
Hannam then said to Colgate that there were "all kinds of bad things going on in the party, to do with the party's finances - serious stuff".
Serious stuff indeed. Serious criminal stuff, if any of this is true.
Colgate then told Eddy Butler, at that time the BNP's national organiser. Publicity director Mark Collett became aware of the allegations, and soon after Hannam forwarded a recording of a private conversation he had held with Collett to Griffin, who then sacked Colgate, Butler and Collett from their positions, and, just as the BNP election campaign opened, ran to the press and police with wild tales of death threats which were to dog the BNP until polling day.
Explaining this at his campaign meeting, Butler says: "In discussions I said, look, if this is true ... we're in the run up to a general election campaign. If we don't do well and we don't get all these seats, and we haven't got all the momentum with us - which would make up for everything, frankly, wouldn't it? - then we'll have to raise the issue..."
This seems a fairly clear indication that before his sacking, Butler was minded not to press the matter of the alleged credit card payment provided the BNP did well in the general election, and would have happily kept his inside knowledge of the alleged transaction from the membership in those circumstances.
This strange ambivalence does not sit well with the "honest man" image Butler is at great pains to project. Misuse of funds for the alleged purpose recounted by Butler is common or garden corruption. There is no sense in which corruption can be vindicated, no situation in which suppressing knowledge of it will "make up for everything".
It is noteworthy that the mental circumlocutions afflicting Eddy Butler seemed also to afflict the audience to which he recounted his squalid little tale. He had, after all, just told them that their money had allegedly been stolen, but that would have been made up for if only the BNP had performed better in the general election. Not one member of the audience took issue with him.
And finally, those of you of strong constitution who flock every Sunday morning to listen to the latest instalment of the Green Arrow's "Voice of the British Resistance" may have been alarmed to learn from the constipated-sounding Voice that the "growth of babies born to foreign women has doubled."
The Voice does not enlighten us as to the cause of this unparalleled phenomenon, but we're fairly certain it is related to the heavy ingestion of alcohol on the part of an amoebic intellect seized by a compulsion to record dotty internet podcasts in the darkness of a coal bunker situate somewhere in South Wales.
Perhaps a friend - or even an ex-friend, if, courtesy of Harrington, he has one or two to spare - should have a word?
The Internet: Just Made for Irritating the Far Right
More internet - based mischief.
“Razorcuts” are a Salford – based punk/skinhead band. They've set up an account on Midge Ure's excellent Tunited Community Music service (logline: “Make Love Share Music”), and have proudly announced that “10p of every download goes to support patriotic organisations in the UK”.
Hmm... “patriotic organisations in the UK”. Could they mean the National Trust? Or maybe English Heritage? Perhaps they're talking about the Royal British Legion? And who could begrudge anyone donating to these outfits? Even my own local – as trendy lefty an enterprise as you could imagine – has a fundraiser every November for the Normandy Veteran's Association and the RBL.
But no. Predictably enough, and duly explained by a helpful post on one of the Nazi Forum sites, they have “offered to donate 10p to the British National Party for every tune downloaded from this site! So let's all get on there and download some great tunes and help get our country back! TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW!”
Tell everyone you know?
No problem, chum! I started by telling Tunited.
They weren't happy.
In fact, I got the feeling from the Managing Director who replied almost immediately that Razorcuts had better start looking for a new outlet.
Hey ho! Little victories...
(By the way: Hodson & Minion (“Bringing Silent Film Entertainment to the Quality Since the Twentieth Century”) are presenting An Evening With Buster Keaton and a screening of “Steamboat Bill Jr” at the Quad Cinema in Derby on Thursday September 9th. We'll give 30p to Love Music Hate Racism (a Patriotic Organisation, in my book)for everyone who turns up.)
“Razorcuts” are a Salford – based punk/skinhead band. They've set up an account on Midge Ure's excellent Tunited Community Music service (logline: “Make Love Share Music”), and have proudly announced that “10p of every download goes to support patriotic organisations in the UK”.
Hmm... “patriotic organisations in the UK”. Could they mean the National Trust? Or maybe English Heritage? Perhaps they're talking about the Royal British Legion? And who could begrudge anyone donating to these outfits? Even my own local – as trendy lefty an enterprise as you could imagine – has a fundraiser every November for the Normandy Veteran's Association and the RBL.
But no. Predictably enough, and duly explained by a helpful post on one of the Nazi Forum sites, they have “offered to donate 10p to the British National Party for every tune downloaded from this site! So let's all get on there and download some great tunes and help get our country back! TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW!”
Tell everyone you know?
No problem, chum! I started by telling Tunited.
They weren't happy.
In fact, I got the feeling from the Managing Director who replied almost immediately that Razorcuts had better start looking for a new outlet.
Hey ho! Little victories...
(By the way: Hodson & Minion (“Bringing Silent Film Entertainment to the Quality Since the Twentieth Century”) are presenting An Evening With Buster Keaton and a screening of “Steamboat Bill Jr” at the Quad Cinema in Derby on Thursday September 9th. We'll give 30p to Love Music Hate Racism (a Patriotic Organisation, in my book)for everyone who turns up.)
EDL - a shocking truth
A message from Nick Lowles at HOPE not hate:
Day by day the violent and racist English Defence League are becoming more dangerous. This shocking video exposes the truth behind this self professed "peaceful" group. Watch this video and then share it with everyone you know:
The EDL exists for one simple reason: they want to spread fear and hatred throughout the UK - and it's only going to get worse.
In a few weeks the EDL will be invading Bradford for what they're calling "The Big One." Once again they plan on attacking the Muslim population.
We've been down this route before - the riots in Bradford in Oldham were sparked by small groups of violent racists attacking the local community.
We simply can't let that happen again. I'll be in touch about Hope not Hate's plans to combat the EDL in the next few days - but for the moment please watch this video, share it with your friends and get as many of them as possible to sign up to our campaign.
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/EnglishDefenceLeague
We've really got our backs against the wall on this one - we're all going to need to take ownership of this issue.
Please email a link to this post to everyone you know.
Best wishes,
Nick
HOPE not hate
Day by day the violent and racist English Defence League are becoming more dangerous. This shocking video exposes the truth behind this self professed "peaceful" group. Watch this video and then share it with everyone you know:
The EDL exists for one simple reason: they want to spread fear and hatred throughout the UK - and it's only going to get worse.
In a few weeks the EDL will be invading Bradford for what they're calling "The Big One." Once again they plan on attacking the Muslim population.
We've been down this route before - the riots in Bradford in Oldham were sparked by small groups of violent racists attacking the local community.
We simply can't let that happen again. I'll be in touch about Hope not Hate's plans to combat the EDL in the next few days - but for the moment please watch this video, share it with your friends and get as many of them as possible to sign up to our campaign.
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/EnglishDefenceLeague
We've really got our backs against the wall on this one - we're all going to need to take ownership of this issue.
Please email a link to this post to everyone you know.
Best wishes,
Nick
HOPE not hate
Labels:
Bradford,
EDL,
English Defence League,
Hope not Hate,
racism
Bradford, by ‘Malatesta’
This article (slightly amended for publication) was submitted by one of our anarchist readers, ‘Malatesta’, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Lancaster Unity or its contributors. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.
Bradford
In spite of their varied misfortunes, it appears that the English Defence League (EDL) are still set on turning up in Bradford on August 28th for the ‘bloodbath’ they have been blethering on about for the last couple of months, heralding their arrival by making provocative assaults on internet forums like the Bradford Telegraph & Argus, as well posting their usual misinformation and tedious posturings to Indymedia.
The EDL have recently been under pressure from the police, and despite their continued claims to be ‘non-racist’ recent revelations have not helped the EDL’s PR profile.
EDL/BNP
Fading Führer Nick Griffin of the BNP still denies any links with the EDL, but then again he denies the Holocaust, his alleged homosexual past, and the fact that the BNP are falling apart post-election and pre-leadership challenge. (Incidentally leading horse Eddie Butler is currently being smeared by Griffinites as ‘Bitler’). The EDL continue to deny any connection to the BNP and continue to claim they are not racist.
BNP members have often been filmed at EDL demos, but it is the recent exposure of now ex-leader ‘Tommy Robinson’ (a.k.a. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) as a former BNP member that scuppers any of the usual claims. Following his exposure, Yaxley-Lennon has handed over the leadership of the ‘peaceful’ EDL to Kevin Carroll, who has just been convicted of violent disorder in Luton. Even Tommy has realised how untenable the ‘we ain’t BNP’ claims have become and has buried his membership card in the garden.
Admittedly, not all EDL are BNP but it is this broad right wing spectrum that is causing trouble for them. As we have seen, those at the demonstrations range from known neo-Nazis and football hooligans prevented from battling at matches to more moderate elements, many of whom have been put off by the violence and open racism displayed at EDL gatherings. Following the Stoke debacle there was considerable acrimony on the EDL’s own forum over the fighting and vandalism, and after the recent Dudley fiasco the Exeter division leader resigned in disgust. Despite their 'thousands' of paper members on Facebook, Dudley saw a decline in on-the-ground numbers. The last few EDL demos have all kicked off and the hardcore racists, hooligans and Nazis remain. Like most far right groups, the EDL rely on quantity not quality and this means all manner of scumbags have found their way into their ranks.
Opinion on the far right remains divided. On the various Nazi forums several contributors admit to attending the violent demonstrations despite much opposition from pro- and anti-Griffinites and dissident fascists. The EDL’s development of a gay division, their support of Israel and perceived ‘multi-culturalism’ has the mouldy old posters frothing at their toothbrush moustaches with righteous indignation.
The EDL constantly refer to their tiny handful of Sikh and mixed-race members, which actually clarifies their position considerably. In the same way that fascists use criticism of Israel as a smokescreen for vehement anti-Semitism, the EDL employ the same tactics using ‘Militant Islam’ as an excuse to attack any Asians they come across. This is borne out by their random attacks on shops, houses and cars without any idea of whether the victims are ‘militant’ let alone Muslim. Any person of Asian appearance will do, and this exposes the EDL as clueless ‘Paki bashers’. This is also bolstered by their chants of ‘I’d rather be a Paki than …’ etc, as well as the BNP links.
Heavy Manners
The EDL’s relationship with the Old Bill has resulted in a good deal of speculation. After the ‘leadership’ were nicked and taken to Sheffield police station (Malatesta postings, passim) during the ill-fated Scottish excursion, Plod was seen to get heavy with anti-fascists, especially in Bolton. Rumours flew that the EDL leadership had done a deal with the cops and were passing on information, but this remains unsubstantiated. What could have happened is that the EDL ‘leadership’ passed on info about the activities of hard-core hooligans before the World Cup, and also on neo-Nazis who the top nobs dislike anyway, following the hilarious Combat 18 fight in London last year. The stepping down of Yaxley-Lennon could be the result of heavy manners police pressure. The cops got heavy in Dudley and the EDL are aggrieved over the sudden turnaround of events.
Now that the World Cup is over the Nazis are being marginalised, and many on the EDL demos have been filmed and identified, so there is perhaps no longer a need for the cops to uphold their side of the bargain. The reaction of the police in Bradford on August 28th will shed further light on this.
The EDL are useful to the state in several ways. They help inflame the anti-Islamic sentiment which shores up the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both of these wars are deeply unpopular across the political spectrum but the end is not in sight. The EDL’s riotous conduct helps the state argue for tighter laws on public order, and conveniently brings together hooligans and political extremists who can be easily monitored by the state in exactly the same way as the radical Islamic groups opposed by the EDL. EDL? Naïve? Or state?
Conclusion
Concerned citizens of Bradford are calling for the scheduled EDL demo to be banned, and Hope Not Hate are backing this call on their website. If the demo does go ahead, the police - relations with the local community in mind - will no doubt be worried. Local Asian youth have proved they are more than capable of looking after themselves, and they will present a serious physical opposition to the EDL. As anarchists we cannot rely on the state to fight against fascism and there is an urgent need for a militant broad based organisation like Anti-Fascist Action to physically as well as ideologically oppose fascism in our communities, and to link up with militant local youth if they are up for it. The EDL think that we support Islam. We do not support any religion. We are against fascist bootboys being bussed into our communities to cause trouble and division. No Pasaran!
‘Malatesta’
Bradford
In spite of their varied misfortunes, it appears that the English Defence League (EDL) are still set on turning up in Bradford on August 28th for the ‘bloodbath’ they have been blethering on about for the last couple of months, heralding their arrival by making provocative assaults on internet forums like the Bradford Telegraph & Argus, as well posting their usual misinformation and tedious posturings to Indymedia.
The EDL have recently been under pressure from the police, and despite their continued claims to be ‘non-racist’ recent revelations have not helped the EDL’s PR profile.
EDL/BNP
Fading Führer Nick Griffin of the BNP still denies any links with the EDL, but then again he denies the Holocaust, his alleged homosexual past, and the fact that the BNP are falling apart post-election and pre-leadership challenge. (Incidentally leading horse Eddie Butler is currently being smeared by Griffinites as ‘Bitler’). The EDL continue to deny any connection to the BNP and continue to claim they are not racist.
BNP members have often been filmed at EDL demos, but it is the recent exposure of now ex-leader ‘Tommy Robinson’ (a.k.a. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) as a former BNP member that scuppers any of the usual claims. Following his exposure, Yaxley-Lennon has handed over the leadership of the ‘peaceful’ EDL to Kevin Carroll, who has just been convicted of violent disorder in Luton. Even Tommy has realised how untenable the ‘we ain’t BNP’ claims have become and has buried his membership card in the garden.
Admittedly, not all EDL are BNP but it is this broad right wing spectrum that is causing trouble for them. As we have seen, those at the demonstrations range from known neo-Nazis and football hooligans prevented from battling at matches to more moderate elements, many of whom have been put off by the violence and open racism displayed at EDL gatherings. Following the Stoke debacle there was considerable acrimony on the EDL’s own forum over the fighting and vandalism, and after the recent Dudley fiasco the Exeter division leader resigned in disgust. Despite their 'thousands' of paper members on Facebook, Dudley saw a decline in on-the-ground numbers. The last few EDL demos have all kicked off and the hardcore racists, hooligans and Nazis remain. Like most far right groups, the EDL rely on quantity not quality and this means all manner of scumbags have found their way into their ranks.
Opinion on the far right remains divided. On the various Nazi forums several contributors admit to attending the violent demonstrations despite much opposition from pro- and anti-Griffinites and dissident fascists. The EDL’s development of a gay division, their support of Israel and perceived ‘multi-culturalism’ has the mouldy old posters frothing at their toothbrush moustaches with righteous indignation.
The EDL constantly refer to their tiny handful of Sikh and mixed-race members, which actually clarifies their position considerably. In the same way that fascists use criticism of Israel as a smokescreen for vehement anti-Semitism, the EDL employ the same tactics using ‘Militant Islam’ as an excuse to attack any Asians they come across. This is borne out by their random attacks on shops, houses and cars without any idea of whether the victims are ‘militant’ let alone Muslim. Any person of Asian appearance will do, and this exposes the EDL as clueless ‘Paki bashers’. This is also bolstered by their chants of ‘I’d rather be a Paki than …’ etc, as well as the BNP links.
Heavy Manners
The EDL’s relationship with the Old Bill has resulted in a good deal of speculation. After the ‘leadership’ were nicked and taken to Sheffield police station (Malatesta postings, passim) during the ill-fated Scottish excursion, Plod was seen to get heavy with anti-fascists, especially in Bolton. Rumours flew that the EDL leadership had done a deal with the cops and were passing on information, but this remains unsubstantiated. What could have happened is that the EDL ‘leadership’ passed on info about the activities of hard-core hooligans before the World Cup, and also on neo-Nazis who the top nobs dislike anyway, following the hilarious Combat 18 fight in London last year. The stepping down of Yaxley-Lennon could be the result of heavy manners police pressure. The cops got heavy in Dudley and the EDL are aggrieved over the sudden turnaround of events.
Now that the World Cup is over the Nazis are being marginalised, and many on the EDL demos have been filmed and identified, so there is perhaps no longer a need for the cops to uphold their side of the bargain. The reaction of the police in Bradford on August 28th will shed further light on this.
The EDL are useful to the state in several ways. They help inflame the anti-Islamic sentiment which shores up the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both of these wars are deeply unpopular across the political spectrum but the end is not in sight. The EDL’s riotous conduct helps the state argue for tighter laws on public order, and conveniently brings together hooligans and political extremists who can be easily monitored by the state in exactly the same way as the radical Islamic groups opposed by the EDL. EDL? Naïve? Or state?
Conclusion
Concerned citizens of Bradford are calling for the scheduled EDL demo to be banned, and Hope Not Hate are backing this call on their website. If the demo does go ahead, the police - relations with the local community in mind - will no doubt be worried. Local Asian youth have proved they are more than capable of looking after themselves, and they will present a serious physical opposition to the EDL. As anarchists we cannot rely on the state to fight against fascism and there is an urgent need for a militant broad based organisation like Anti-Fascist Action to physically as well as ideologically oppose fascism in our communities, and to link up with militant local youth if they are up for it. The EDL think that we support Islam. We do not support any religion. We are against fascist bootboys being bussed into our communities to cause trouble and division. No Pasaran!
‘Malatesta’
July 27, 2010
EDL members arrested over Bournemouth mosque bomb plot fears
ARMED police opened fire during an operation to arrest members of the controversial far-right English Defence League, who were feared to be masterminding an attack at a Bournemouth mosque.
Marksmen shot the tyres out on a van belonging to John Broomfield, who describes himself as Dorset EDL head, as he drove alone through Corfe Castle. He and six others were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause an explosion at a Bournemouth mosque. All seven, including at least six EDL members, have since been released without charge.
Armed officers pounced from an unmarked car close to the Norden roundabout as 27-year-old Mr Broomfield, from Swanage, drove home from work around 5pm. They used special rapid tyre deflation rounds, fired from a shotgun, to disable his vehicle. Officers, including specialised forensic experts, then swooped on his Bell Street home, removing clothes, computer equipment, mobile phones and passports.
The suspects were held at Poole police station and a police station in Southampton, following last Thursday’s arrests.
The English Defence League is a contentious group that has been leading “anti-Muslim extremism” demonstrations around England since 2009. Thousands of people have attended its protests – many of which have involved racist and Islamophobic chanting. However, organisers insist it is not a racist organisation.
A number of violent clashes have also taken place at EDL demonstrations since the group first emerged in Luton last year.
In a statement to the Daily Echo, Mr Broomfield said: “While travelling home from work I was stopped and arrested by armed police. I was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause an explosion at a Bournemouth mosque. Five other members of the EDL were also arrested and held for 24 hours for questioning while searches of their homes took place. Then all of us were released without charge. There has been no conspiracy. There has never been any conspiracy. The EDL is not a terrorist organisation.”
A spokesman for Dorset Police said: “Dorset Police can confirm that as part of an investigation surrounding threats to a Bournemouth mosque a total of seven people were arrested for conspiracy to cause an explosion. Following an investigation police can now confirm these people have been released without charge. We can also confirm that one of the people arrested was detained safely by armed officers in the Corfe Castle area.
“We’ve been working very closely with the Muslim community since last Thursday and our local safer neighbourhood teams have been providing advice and reassurance throughout. At this stage there is no indication whatsoever that any of the mosques in Dorset are under threat of attack.”
Bournemouth Echo
Marksmen shot the tyres out on a van belonging to John Broomfield, who describes himself as Dorset EDL head, as he drove alone through Corfe Castle. He and six others were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause an explosion at a Bournemouth mosque. All seven, including at least six EDL members, have since been released without charge.
Armed officers pounced from an unmarked car close to the Norden roundabout as 27-year-old Mr Broomfield, from Swanage, drove home from work around 5pm. They used special rapid tyre deflation rounds, fired from a shotgun, to disable his vehicle. Officers, including specialised forensic experts, then swooped on his Bell Street home, removing clothes, computer equipment, mobile phones and passports.
The suspects were held at Poole police station and a police station in Southampton, following last Thursday’s arrests.
The English Defence League is a contentious group that has been leading “anti-Muslim extremism” demonstrations around England since 2009. Thousands of people have attended its protests – many of which have involved racist and Islamophobic chanting. However, organisers insist it is not a racist organisation.
A number of violent clashes have also taken place at EDL demonstrations since the group first emerged in Luton last year.
In a statement to the Daily Echo, Mr Broomfield said: “While travelling home from work I was stopped and arrested by armed police. I was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause an explosion at a Bournemouth mosque. Five other members of the EDL were also arrested and held for 24 hours for questioning while searches of their homes took place. Then all of us were released without charge. There has been no conspiracy. There has never been any conspiracy. The EDL is not a terrorist organisation.”
A spokesman for Dorset Police said: “Dorset Police can confirm that as part of an investigation surrounding threats to a Bournemouth mosque a total of seven people were arrested for conspiracy to cause an explosion. Following an investigation police can now confirm these people have been released without charge. We can also confirm that one of the people arrested was detained safely by armed officers in the Corfe Castle area.
“We’ve been working very closely with the Muslim community since last Thursday and our local safer neighbourhood teams have been providing advice and reassurance throughout. At this stage there is no indication whatsoever that any of the mosques in Dorset are under threat of attack.”
Bournemouth Echo
Labels:
Bournemouth,
EDL,
English Defence League,
John Broomfield,
mosque
July 26, 2010
Join us in persuading the Home Secretary to stop a planned demonstration.
Today the Telegraph & Argus is launching a campaign to keep hatred and violence off the streets of our beloved city.
We are asking T&A readers to join us in persuading the Home Secretary to stop a planned demonstration by the English Defence League in Bradford at the end of August.
Quite simply, it is something that this city does not need, want or welcome.
We believe that if this march were to go ahead it could only damage community relations and threaten the prosperity and harmony of the city and district.
More than in any other city, those of us who lived through the riots of nearly ten years ago know only too well what devastation displays of hatred and intolerance can cause.
The EDL claims to be a “grass roots social movement” which represents, in its words, “every walk of life, every race, every creed and every colour; from the working class to middle England”.
The truth is very different. It is an organisation which thrives on fear, untruths, rumours and hatred and one whose message is divisive to the point where it is dangerous It will argue that its march is to highlight issues relating to radical Islam but it is impossible to see it as anything other than an attempt to stir up hatred against all Muslims.
Do not doubt that the appearance of its members in huge numbers in Bradford could be a disaster for the city and the district.
Bradford is a city rich in many cultures – something of which we can be justifiably proud.
Why should we invite people into our community whose very presence would be a huge insult to part of that community and even put a strain on the good relations between people of different backgrounds?
No doubt some people will say that to stop the EDL from demonstrating would infringe their human rights.
What about the human rights of all of us who live here peacefully and do not want these unsavoury characters anywhere near our city?
Some will doubtless claim that the EDL’s freedom of speech is being curtailed.
They are wrong, because when that speech is dripping with venom and designed purely to stir up hatred then a stand must be taken.
Wherever and whenever the EDL has mounted demonstrations across the UK there has been violence, vandalism and hatred.
That is a fact which cannot be disputed – and we do not want that on the streets of our city.
Bradford has come a long way since the dark days of the riots and that is a credit to all of its people.
No one should be allowed to put that progress at risk.
No one should be allowed to jeopardise what we have in this city for an agenda of hate and intolerance.
A group of organisations has united under the Bradford Together banner and is calling for the Home Secretary to ban the demonstration.
A ban on public gatherings is not something that should be entered into lightly, and a lot of thought has gone into whether such a restraining move would play into the hands of the EDL and their supporters.
But when the peace that has largely settled upon Bradford since the disturbances of 2001 is threatened, then sometimes the tools of last resort must be investigated.
That is why we urge you to sign the petition, in the paper and on our website, to add your voices to those who do not want the EDL and its hangers-on ruining our city and damaging community relations for years to come.
The fact that most of those EDL supporters who plan to descend on Bradford on Saturday, August 28, will come from outside the district speaks for itself.
These are not local people voicing local concerns, they are agitators and trouble-makers for whom Bradford is a place to exploit.
The message from us all to the EDL should be loud and clear: Bradford is not your battleground, and we don't want you here.
Telegraph & Argus
We are asking T&A readers to join us in persuading the Home Secretary to stop a planned demonstration by the English Defence League in Bradford at the end of August.
Quite simply, it is something that this city does not need, want or welcome.
We believe that if this march were to go ahead it could only damage community relations and threaten the prosperity and harmony of the city and district.
More than in any other city, those of us who lived through the riots of nearly ten years ago know only too well what devastation displays of hatred and intolerance can cause.
The EDL claims to be a “grass roots social movement” which represents, in its words, “every walk of life, every race, every creed and every colour; from the working class to middle England”.
The truth is very different. It is an organisation which thrives on fear, untruths, rumours and hatred and one whose message is divisive to the point where it is dangerous It will argue that its march is to highlight issues relating to radical Islam but it is impossible to see it as anything other than an attempt to stir up hatred against all Muslims.
Do not doubt that the appearance of its members in huge numbers in Bradford could be a disaster for the city and the district.
Bradford is a city rich in many cultures – something of which we can be justifiably proud.
Why should we invite people into our community whose very presence would be a huge insult to part of that community and even put a strain on the good relations between people of different backgrounds?
No doubt some people will say that to stop the EDL from demonstrating would infringe their human rights.
What about the human rights of all of us who live here peacefully and do not want these unsavoury characters anywhere near our city?
Some will doubtless claim that the EDL’s freedom of speech is being curtailed.
They are wrong, because when that speech is dripping with venom and designed purely to stir up hatred then a stand must be taken.
Wherever and whenever the EDL has mounted demonstrations across the UK there has been violence, vandalism and hatred.
That is a fact which cannot be disputed – and we do not want that on the streets of our city.
Bradford has come a long way since the dark days of the riots and that is a credit to all of its people.
No one should be allowed to put that progress at risk.
No one should be allowed to jeopardise what we have in this city for an agenda of hate and intolerance.
A group of organisations has united under the Bradford Together banner and is calling for the Home Secretary to ban the demonstration.
A ban on public gatherings is not something that should be entered into lightly, and a lot of thought has gone into whether such a restraining move would play into the hands of the EDL and their supporters.
But when the peace that has largely settled upon Bradford since the disturbances of 2001 is threatened, then sometimes the tools of last resort must be investigated.
That is why we urge you to sign the petition, in the paper and on our website, to add your voices to those who do not want the EDL and its hangers-on ruining our city and damaging community relations for years to come.
The fact that most of those EDL supporters who plan to descend on Bradford on Saturday, August 28, will come from outside the district speaks for itself.
These are not local people voicing local concerns, they are agitators and trouble-makers for whom Bradford is a place to exploit.
The message from us all to the EDL should be loud and clear: Bradford is not your battleground, and we don't want you here.
Telegraph & Argus
Labels:
Bradford,
EDL,
Hope not Hate,
Telegraph + Argus
July 25, 2010
NF Caught Out in Norse God Blunder
Click on image for full-sizeCopyright law, for one. Last year we had the enjoyable spectacle of Paul “Green Arrow” Morris having to change the masthead to his horrible little blog under threat of legal action from DC Comics – and now there are copyright problems for the National Front. Remember the NF? Once the brand leader for Far – Right nutcases (Prop: John Tyndall); long since fallen on hard times.
Well, times may get a little harder yet.
While doing my daily trawl of the internet sewer yesterday, I came upon an exciting offer to purchase “Thunderbolt - The Quarterly Political Magazine of the National Front” (above). It was helpfully subtitled “White Nationalism for a new Millennium!” in case I missed the point, and featured a lovely painting of the Norse God Thor, dressed only in helmet, oil, sandals and a thong, and just caught in the act of going into a Muscle Beach posing routine to try and impress some passing giants.
Let's face it; It's not great art. But more to the point, it's not the NF's art, either. It's a detail from a painting by Boris Vallejo, who's been the Illustrator of Choice for muscular adolescent fantasies involving well – built chaps and ladies with no blouses on since the 1960's.
The internet's a wonderful thing, etc, etc, and it only took a few minutes to verify the authorship of the painting, find a contact email for Mr Vallejo and drop him a few lines (with links) about his latest magazine cover.
A reply came just as quickly: “This is not only a violation of my copyright but also my principles...if you can tell me where to write to these people I will be happy to let them know.” Easily done. Gratifyingly, Mr Vallejo (along with most of his colleagues in the U.S Fantasy / Comic scene) guards his copyright jealously, and employs lawyers who possibly (I like to imagine) dress like Mr Thor and have muscles in their very earlobes.
It may not be something that will bring the NF tumbling down, but it's certainly going to be an irritant for them. Something they could well do without and easily avoidable if only their “Thunderbolt” Editor had shown the slightest bit of sense.
July 23, 2010
BNP boss Nick Griffin to open office in Burnley
BNP leader Nick Griffin has set up a base in Burnley.
The highly-controversial politician officially opened his "Euro office" on Saturday in Yorke Street where he will spend time in his role as a Member of the European Parliament for the North-West.
Mr Griffin believes Burnley holds a "special place" in the party's history and it is thought he will hold surgeries at the address in the coming months.
Burnley MP Gordon Birtwistle said democracy meant Mr Griffin was entitled to set up stall in the town. "The office has been there for a number of years and it has done nothing in the past. I would suggest it won't be doing much in future either.
"Nick Griffin is one of our MEPs and a pretty insignificant one at the moment as he doesn't seem to be doing a lot. However, if he wants to come and sort the problems any Burnley people are having with the European Parliament then so be it. I hope he does hold surgeries there and helps deliver what the people of Burnley want," he said.
"The office is important as it will bring local people closer to their MEP," said Mr Griffin, who was dramatically refused entry to the Queen's Garden Party at Buckingham Palace yesterday where Mayor of Burnley Coun. Tony Lambert and his wife, Brenda, were guests.
"Burnley has a special place in the history of the British National Party as it was here we made our political breakthrough when winning three seats on Burnley Council in 2002."
Mr Griffin was elected to Brussels last year even though the BNP polled fewer votes in the region than it had in 2004 – winning a seat through the system of proportional representation used in the European elections. He promised then he would be opening an office in Burnley in the near future.
The BNP has used an office within the Yorke Street building since 2002 but recently moved to two new offices within the same complex.
Leader of the Burnley BNP party Coun. Sharon Wilkinson said: "When Nick first got elected as MEP he said he was going to set up an office in Burnley and he's kept his word. It will be funded with Nick's European funding. We will be getting some of the Euro staff here as well which means we will be able to help more local people with their problems."
Burnley Express
The highly-controversial politician officially opened his "Euro office" on Saturday in Yorke Street where he will spend time in his role as a Member of the European Parliament for the North-West.
Mr Griffin believes Burnley holds a "special place" in the party's history and it is thought he will hold surgeries at the address in the coming months.
Burnley MP Gordon Birtwistle said democracy meant Mr Griffin was entitled to set up stall in the town. "The office has been there for a number of years and it has done nothing in the past. I would suggest it won't be doing much in future either.
"Nick Griffin is one of our MEPs and a pretty insignificant one at the moment as he doesn't seem to be doing a lot. However, if he wants to come and sort the problems any Burnley people are having with the European Parliament then so be it. I hope he does hold surgeries there and helps deliver what the people of Burnley want," he said.
"The office is important as it will bring local people closer to their MEP," said Mr Griffin, who was dramatically refused entry to the Queen's Garden Party at Buckingham Palace yesterday where Mayor of Burnley Coun. Tony Lambert and his wife, Brenda, were guests.
"Burnley has a special place in the history of the British National Party as it was here we made our political breakthrough when winning three seats on Burnley Council in 2002."
Mr Griffin was elected to Brussels last year even though the BNP polled fewer votes in the region than it had in 2004 – winning a seat through the system of proportional representation used in the European elections. He promised then he would be opening an office in Burnley in the near future.
The BNP has used an office within the Yorke Street building since 2002 but recently moved to two new offices within the same complex.
Leader of the Burnley BNP party Coun. Sharon Wilkinson said: "When Nick first got elected as MEP he said he was going to set up an office in Burnley and he's kept his word. It will be funded with Nick's European funding. We will be getting some of the Euro staff here as well which means we will be able to help more local people with their problems."
Burnley Express
July 22, 2010
Peter Tatchell confronts BNP's Nick Griffin
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has confronted BNP leader Nick Griffin, calling him a "gutless coward".
Mr. Griffin was emerging from BBC studios at Westminster when Mr. Tatchell approached him and asked him to apologise for what he called the BNP's long history of anti-semitism, homophobia and anti-islamic views.
Two of Mr. Griffin's entourage then grabbed and pushed Mr. Tatchell as the BNP leader left the building.
BBC News
Mr. Griffin was emerging from BBC studios at Westminster when Mr. Tatchell approached him and asked him to apologise for what he called the BNP's long history of anti-semitism, homophobia and anti-islamic views.
Two of Mr. Griffin's entourage then grabbed and pushed Mr. Tatchell as the BNP leader left the building.
BBC News
Labels:
BNP,
Gutless Coward,
Nick Griffin,
Peter Tatchell
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