The BNP leadership challenge: the soap opera continues...

The apparently never-ending saga of the BNP's leadership challenge (still unconfirmed publicly by the alleged challenger Chris Jackson who is supposedly continuing to gather the hundred signatures necessary to actually make the challenge) rumbles on with attack and counter-attack on all sides coming from all directions.

We anti-fascists continue to do our bit during the period of the challenge but the supporters of both Griffin and Jackson appear to be attacking each other so vigorously that they seem to be knocking unhealthy lumps out of each other without any help from us. All we're having to do is stir as and when we feel it's necessary and add the occasional bit of seasoning from time to time. Which, of course, we will happily continue to do.

Since the news of the challenge became public, three blog sites have started up - BNP Leadership Challenge (which broke with a raft of revelations about the BNP's current leader Nick Griffin but quickly closed, no doubt under the threat of the masked avenger Tony Lecomber paying the blog owners a visit), Britain Forward (which seems to be run by the Sharon Ebanks' New Nationalist Party (NNP) and seems to exist only to attack the current BNP leadership and ask pertinent but extremely awkward question) and Britain Backwards (which seems to be a Nick Griffin fan site, run by a buffoon named Green Arrow with a little unofficial help from Griffin and co). The last two appear to be slogging it out - in the process providing anti-fascists with some interesting tidbits of information and a huge insight into how the BNP has been run (mismanaged) by its leadership team who, if the extensive allegations are even half-correct, should all be banged up.

What becomes very clear as more facts emerge, is that Nick Griffin and co appear to have been running the company, sorry party, as something of a private pension plan - but we'll let Britain Forward (BF) take up the story. BF is responding to a verbal attack by Britain Backwards (BB), after BB has denied everything and told a lot of lies to cover up anything they've forgotten. Our interjections are in [square brackets].

How much does all this remind you of a soap opera?

Britain Backwards: Our Response

Britain Backwards

We are pleased that BNP HQ have taken up the challenge of dealing with our questions on their peculiarly named Britain Backward site but disappointed at the number of issues they have merely sidestepped or dismissed. All the matters we addressed were genuine concerns raised by our fellow members. Indeed in the last two days our small band of patriots has grown from 48 to 57.

Let’s see what Backwards have to say in more detail.

BNP constitution and the leadership challenge

Backwards says Nick Griffin is merely enforcing rules laid down in the last leadership challenge in 1999. The truth is that since 1999 NG has successfully tweaked our party’s constitution to reinforce his personal position and the positions of his cronies.

In particular a lot of changes were made at the general meeting on 11th March 2000 (soon after NG took over) especially to Section 4 which regulates leadership elections. Section 4 states that the procedures for carrying out such elections shall be determined by party HQ as the occasion arises. Therefore NG is responsible for the decision to deny access to party publications and websites to Chris Jackson, and the fact that John Tyndall might have made a similar decision in 1999 is no excuse. In fact it is rather strange that NG, who normally prefers to distances himself from JT, insists on following JT to the letter on this.

Red White and Blue

Backward claims the farmer told the BNP to go because it was “the least economically viable for him”. In other words RWB is not the roaring success that our chairman has claimed in terms of income and numbers attending. [In fact the farmer who formerly allowed the BNP's RWB event is planning to cover the days lost with a car boot sale, indicating that the RWB was a complete waste of time for him and that a car boot sale is likely to make him a far better profit - plus the advantage of not having to tolerate a bunch of racist drunken thugs on his land]

Sadie Graham

As we well know, the reds and the left-wing media [that's us, apparently] will seize any excuse to attack our party. We cannot ignore this, if we want to win elections we have to take extra care over our image. They have already accused our community safety patrols in Corsham and Calne of being “vigilantes”. Normally practising martial arts would be quite acceptable, if one ignores the fact that this is not exactly a British sport. However it is only a matter of time before the Blatant Bias Corporation [the BBC] or some other media organisation picks up on a rising star in our party doing martial arts and sharp shooting and accuses us of preparing to take over Britain by military means. Such an accusation is ridiculous as we all know but the image will remain in people’s minds. NG going on about the coming civil war doesn’t help in this regard.

Besides which, was Sadie’s gun and her use of it licensed? [Something that we'd wondered too] Senior BNP officer prosecuted for firearms offence wouldn’t be a great headline for us. Her playing sniper, and having her photo taken doing it, was juvenile behaviour and showed a lack of judgement that we do not expect in a national office-holder in our party.

Sadie’s martial arts skills seem not to have taught her actually to defend herself. When Sadie Graham was confronted by a drunken red thug who spat in her face, she stood there staring like a scared rabbit caught in the headlights of an approaching car.

As for Sadie’s mates, does Backwards think it acceptable for a BNP national office-holder to keep company with a psychotic drug dealer and an equally unbalanced young man who would like to oust the BNP’s head of security from his position? We believe that those who hold positions in our party have to maintain certain minimum standards in their own lives as any dirt the media can dig up will reflect badly on our party.

Mark Collett’s printing press

Backwards says that after the 2005 general election the four high quality digital duplicators, three folding machines and power guillotine bought for £70,000 were given to the regions and no longer kept for HQ jobs. In that case why do the party’s accounts, which do not include the regions, still show the party as owning the equipment centrally at 31 December 2005? Did the auditors check that the party owned the assets shown in the balance sheet, or did NG pull the wool over their eyes?

And why does Backwards say the cost of the printing equipment was £70,000? True we referred to this as the cost, as this is the figure that everyone mentions, but one of our supporters has looked closely at the party’s accounts for 2005 and has pointed out that the party only spent £51,671.13 in total on equipment during that year. [That's a curious and important fact that everyone else seems to have missed thus far] Backwards then goes on to deride our question by saying that a litho printing press would cost a million pounds not £70,000. We know that. Nobody said anything about a litho press. This is just a diversion from the real issue of late delivery of leaflets in many cases and printing charges to branches that were only slightly below commercial rates.

After Mark Collett’s childish appearance in a TV programme, some members thought he had been placed in our organisation by ZOG to destroy at least the youth wing of the party if not the entire BNP. His incompetence at printing and delivering leaflets suggests this accusation might not be wholly fanciful.

Dave Hannam

Backwards defends Dave Hannam’s appointment as deputy treasurer of our party. We say Mark Payne was a good deputy treasurer. He would have been an asset to any organisation being led and run in a financially transparent way. It seems that NG used Payne’s unrepentant national socialist [nazi] beliefs as an excuse to remove this able man and replace him with a dishonest little spiv, namely Dave Hannam, who was only too willing to do his poetic master’s bidding.

One question for anyone trying to make excuses about the handling of the party’s finances is why our treasurer John Walker went with Dave Hannan to visit the home of the former party treasurer John Brayshaw and force him to shred the party’s genuine accounts. Having committed this fraudulent act Walker and Hannam did not even have the wit between them to take away the bag of shredded accounts. Some of our 57 supporters who enjoy jigsaws are trying to reconstruct these accounts and we think they will make devastating reading if one compares them to the “official” accounts.

On Dave Hannam’s criminal record, Backwards claims that Dave Hannam had nothing to do with Simon Sheppard’s leaflet that showed Hannam’s name and address as the originator. Dave Hannam was only 17 at the time and it is unlikely that a youth court would have sent him to prison for something he didn’t really do. Unless of course he had a long line of previous convictions.

Great White Records

Backwards says there was no proposal to strike off Great White Records Ltd. This is untrue but we accept that the striking off notice has now been removed from the Companies House website. We shall look closely at the GWR accounts when they are submitted to Companies House as promised in October to test the truth of Backwards’ statement that the BNP has not put money into GWR.

We are surprised that Backwards compares Griffin’s poetry to that of John Lennon. We would have though there were plenty of patriotic nationalist poets around without singling out this drug-crazed lefty.

Welsh Assembly elections appeal

A couple of our Welsh supporters were outraged at being asked to finance our party’s campaign in Wales by sending their cash to a box number on the other side of England. Backwards says the appeal came under the aegis of the regional treasurer in Yorkshire. Why couldn’t a Welsh address have been used, especially seeing as the treasurer John Walker lives in Wales.

BNP security

Backwards spends a lot of time evading our questions and responds with a lie to whether Martin and Mrs Reynolds are paid for their work. Perhaps not everyone is prepared to take the word of a recidivist Liverpool gangster, but Joey Owens says that when he was in charge of security for our chairman and party he was unpaid and did the job out of a feeling of duty. He says that NG told him that when the party could afford it he would be paid.

Joey Owens goes on to claim that he was shocked and hurt when NG dumped him in favour of Warren Bennett who was paid. [Not only was Bennett paid but Joe Owens claimed that he was paid £500 per week] Bennett later fell out of favour and was replaced by Martin Reynolds, a very odd choice. Party members whom he had upset started to circulate pornographic photos of Martin, his wife and a second woman engaged in various sexual acts. A national newspaper obtained the story and made it public knowledge. It appears that two factions within our party were settling political scores. Many respectable and responsible members thought this would be the end of Reynolds’ money-making career in our ranks. Far from it, our chairman totally ignored this embarrassment and offered a job to Mrs Reynolds.

As an interesting aside, who was present in the room to take the photos of Reynolds and the two women?

Overseas funding

Backwards responded to our question with a blatant lie. Everybody knows that the trips to America and to visit wealthy supporters in Germany produce substantial funding for the party. Just listen to the appeal for funds at the New Orleans international conference hosed by David Duke, which NG and Kevin Scott addressed. Taking money through the back door is going to leave us with the same reputation that Blair’s Labour Party has earned.

Nick Griffin’s pay

Backwards says that NG’s pay is a matter of public record. Strangely it does not quote the figure but provides a link to an article in The Times which says he earns £1,800 a month. Since when has our party encouraged us to believe everything we read in the press?

Backwards then claims his salary is way below what his qualifications would command in the private sector. Nonsense. His degree was only a 2:2 [and] since leaving Cambridge his career has been full of financial disasters including bankruptcy. A failed scheme to sell second-hand cars brought shame on our party when the cars turned out to be Japanese and various property schemes all appear to have collapsed. Had it not been for his wealthy grandfather and party money keeping him in the style he has grown accustomed to, he would probably be unemployed and living on benefits.

Nick Griffin’s Arabian nights

Backwards tries to explain at great length why NG tried to tap Colonel Gaddafi for money but simply digs a deeper hole. Why should a true British patriot ever have set his cap in the direction of the Libyan dictator? What had Gaddafi ever done for the British people? He sent weapons to the IRA to kill British soldiers in Ulster, he had WPC Yvonne Fletcher murdered on a London street and one of his agents bombed a jumbo jet over Lockerbie in Scotland causing the deaths of hundreds of men, women and children. What is our chairman’s excuse for pursuing such a link? Blame it all on the late John Tyndall. It was not JT posing for photographs in Tripoli it was Nick Griffin.

Even at his trial in 1998 at Harrow Crown Court NG produced a white-hating black American nationalist as a witness.

Voice of Freedom

What really insults the intelligence of our members is Backwards’ claim that the party did not know that the printer that produced several issues of Voice of Freedom was owned by Saudis. Did they never look at the company’s invoices from which it was clear that it was a Saudi owned company? Did they not notice that most of the management and workforce in the company were Arabs and much of its other printing was in Arabic? Maybe our chairman would like to tell use which infirm member of our party managed to deal with these people without noticing who they were.

Backwards challenge us over our “laughable ignorance [of] international politics”. Perhaps if our Cambridge-educated chairman kept up with international politics he would understand better the double-dealing of the Saudis over Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. And that’s not just in the American or Zionist controlled press.

Abu Hamza

Backwards tries to excuse NG sharing a platform with Abu Hamza by saying that his participation in the Radio Academy event enabled him to promote the BNP to “300 of the most powerful people in British radio”. Backwards claims NG only took part in a panel discussion. We do not criticise NG’s attendance at such an event which let him meet the editors and journalists who are so often hostile to us. He even had the opportunity to meet government ministers such as Tessa Jowell the Arts Minister.

But it was not a panel discussion. The only person on the platform other than the discussion chairman was Abu Hamza, a man known throughout the world as one of the most vocal proponents of the ideas of the world’s leading Moslem terrorist Osama bin Laden. Hamza preached hatred against Britain and its people. British nationalists demonstrated against him when he conducted Friday prayers in the street outside the mosque from which he had been banned, so extreme he was even among Moslems. By debating one to one with Abu Hamza, NG placed our party on the same level, two opposing forms of unacceptable extremism. NG also showed that he was prepared to sacrifice his political principles at the altar of self aggrandisement.

Jonathan Bowden

Perhaps Backwards thinks that by telling a lie often enough it becomes reality. Hundreds of party members know that NG tried to warn Bowden off from speaking at meetings of proscribed organisations or sharing platform with individuals who had been proscribed or expelled from the BNP. Having lied about Bowden Backwards goes on to sidestep the question of the BNP councillors present at the meeting organised by New Right where the speakers included a Muslim extremist and a pagan. Is this lack of discipline acceptable to NG because he fears an open battle within the party?

Infiltration

Backwards claim that Arthur Kemp was never an agent of either the former or the Marxist ANC government of South Africa. It is interesting how adept Kemp is at manipulating the truth to advance his fellow agent Bep Nieuwhof. Backwards claims Arthur’s book nowhere said that Nieuwhof got a 12-year sentence. True the present internet version no longer contains this statement but it was certainly in the old printed version. The fact is that South African intelligence offered Arthur Kemp a deal over the Chris Hani case and as a result he continued his intelligence gathering work for a new master in the Marxist ANC regime. He exaggerated Bep’s sentence in order to enhance Bep’s credibility.

Robert Bailey

Robert Bailey had what John le Carré’s spy novels called “a legend” created either by himself or by his masters. It is almost certain he did serve in the Royal Marine commandos. However although he has mentioned a number of locations where he served, our checks revealed that before coming back to Britain he was operating in Algeria, a place he never mentioned. What was he doing there? He is referred to as a business man: in fact he was a failed business man though he was able to make a personal donation of £3,000 to the party when he appeared on the scene.

Who is ultimately responsible?

Last week’s by-elections showed that we are still not winning. Yes there were two or three quite good percentages including some second places but British elections operate on the winner takes all principle. NG’s supporters go on about getting 14% of the vote in May, which is a fair achievement compared to a few years ago, but we got over 19% in May last year. And why compare this year’s result with the 4.9% polled in the European elections of 2004? Surely the 16% we got in the local elections that year is a more relevant comparison? One gets the impression that Backwards is selecting its figures in order to prove its point. [Very neatly put]

And among all the carefully chosen figures and quotes from one of our sworn enemies, the left-wing Labour MP Jon Cruddas, Backwards fails completely to answer our question, namely that if middle management is to blame for the failings in our party, as some supporters of NG have alleged, why has NG not ensured that the right people are in these posts.

Don Black

The facts belie NG’s claim of not having any links with Don Black [ex-Ku Klux Klan and owner of the Stormfront nazi forum which is proscribed to mere BNP members]. They were photographed together at a conference in New Orleans organised by David Duke, a close associate of NG.

In 2004 Don Black, representing Stormfront, and John Tyndall attended a gathering of European nationalists in New Orleans to discuss white nationalism. Both of them signed the New Orleans Protocol. Although JT signed as an individual rather than as a representative of the BNP, NG has since then maintained the connection at international meetings in the USA.