BNP's dirty tricks department on pre-election overdrive

The BNP's dirty tricks department must be working overtime during this pre-election fortnight or so because the attempts to disrupt Lancaster UAF and other groups are coming in thick and fast (though mainly thick - well, it is the BNP).

Anyone who opposes the party and has had to post their telephone number on the internet for some reason will have received numerous offensive telephone calls. There have been plenty of cases where the little dears have phoned up, screamed obscenities then slammed the phone down, apparently blissfully unaware that, even if they used 141 to conceal the number they dialled from away from us, the police and BT can overide it. If they weren't so sad, they'd be bloody funny.

Most people are aware of the nazi 'big lie', which, in the words of Adolf Hitler writing in Mein Kampf, consists of telling a lie so 'colossal' that no one would believe anyone 'could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously'. The BNP appear to have taken this a step or two further - perhaps more in line with George Orwell's definition from 1984, 'To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed...'

Lancaster BNP's Chris Hill has demonstrated his ability to go for the big lie on a number of occasions since he decided to stand for the party in a couple of by-elections (and now the May 3rd locals).

When we reported on an attack by fascists on anti-fascists delivering leaflets in Morley, Hill's response was to immediately accuse other anti-fascists of attacking their own people. A colossal lie indeed. More recently - in fact during the current campaign - Hill took exception to a factual report from us in which we mentioned that David Copeland (the Soho nailbomber) was a former member of the BNP, that at the time of his arrest Robert Laidlaw (who shot random people for no apparent reason) claimed to be a BNP member, and that Robert Cottage was definitely a member of the BNP at the time of his arrest for possession of bomb-making materials. Hill's idiotic response? None of it was true. Fortunately for us, we can back up all our statements but the response from Hill was an excellent example of Orwell's definition of the big lie.

But these ridiculous allegations of lying are just minor dirty tricks - little annoying things that the BNP has got good at over the years because the party has had to do it so often to fend off unwelcome truths. With the people who really get on its nerves, the fascist BNP gets a little more aggressive.

As we've seen, this election campaign has produced a phenomenal number of allegations that the BNP has faked signatures on nomination papers. Reports are coming in from all over the country indicating that, if all are true, this is so widespread a practice as to give the distinct impression of being deliberately orchestrated. That wouldn't be any great surprise, though the BNP would deny it 'til the cows come home.

The dirty tricks are clearly getting dirtier though. A particularly vile nazi blog, apparently endorsed by the BNP's Nick Griffin, has threatened to reveal the contents of a Lancaster UAF activist's Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) file on its site. Quite what it expects to find in there is anyone's guess but the threat is clear. A couple of days ago, the same activist received a 1571 phone message, purportedly from the Child Support Agency. Here it is in full...

'Hello [pause] this is Joe calling from the Child Support Agency [pause] regarding your cases. If you'd like to get back to me [pause] my extension number's [pause] 2801 but I'll try contacting you again [pause] in the next day or two. Bye.'

As there are no cases pending between this activist and the Child Support Agency anyway, our man wasn't particularly bothered by the message - though if it actually was from the CSA for some reason, they need to train their staff in how to make a sensible and coherent telephone call. Leaving a number along with the extension might be a good starting point.

When we had the Lancaster UAF blog on our own server, we were naturally very aware of when we were attacked. Denial of Service attacks were growing in both frequency and intensity, and email bombing and spamming were both an overwhelming pain in the butt. Now that we've moved to Google's Blogster space and we've got super-strength email spam killers firmly in place, the method of attack has shifted.

Today we received notification that the blog had been reported as a spam blog. Google has announced that it's cleaning up the blogosphere (sorry) of these blights and takes them seriously enough to act immediately when it receives such a report. However, on reviewing our site, Google had this to say; 'Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that it will no longer appear as potential spam.' Thank you Google, and hard luck to the fascists. You failed again. As you did with Redwatch/Combat 18 and all the implied threats, details and photographs that you posted on those sites that were supposed to terrify us into letting you have your way.

Perhaps we ought to make one or two things clear to the nazi scum who read this blog - and there is a surprising number of them. Whatever dirty tricks you have in mind, whatever shit you think you can throw our way and however you choose to do it - you can take it as read that we're here to stay and no amount of intimidation or lies (big or small) are going to shift us. Get used to it.