Fight night in Leeds

Searchlight reports from inside the highly charged Yorkshire meeting

The long trailed Fight night in Leeds City Centre yesterday turned into a pantomime as rival factions within the BNP slugged it out over a mince pie and a Christmas sherry. Leading the proceedings was local football hooligan Tony MacDonald, better known to Searchlight supporters as Tony Mac. Smashing a glass on a table he charged at Mark Collett promising to “cut your throat”, forcing the much maligned and recently demoted graphic designer to flee out the fire escape.

The rest of the evening was no less exciting as speaker after speaker spewed poison into the festive air. The highlight of the evening for me personally was the confirmation of the existence of a photo of Nick Griffin doing a Nazi salute. More of this later.

The contest was held at the Dog and Gun in Leeds City Centre, a regular meeting place for the BNP. We were greeted on our arrival by Ian Dawson handing out questions for the audience to ask party leader Nick Griffin and Collett. Though the meeting had been organised by the Griffin faction it was clear that his opponents had taken up his challenge to attend. The majority of the 120 present had already decided that Collett had to go even before the meeting had begun.

There was some commotion over the arrival of the heavy mob, led by Tony Mac and ably supported by his old thuggish sidekicks Army Dave and friends. Many were not even BNP members but Griffin decided to not push the issue. Rules, it appears, could always be broken.

Griffin strode in confidently with Mark Collett, Dave Hannam, John Walker, Arthur Kemp, Simon Darby and a whole gaggle of BNP security guards. Ian Dawson was slightly less self-assured as rumours spread that he was for the chop that evening. We slipped in at the back, sitting just in front of Tony Mac and friends who stood berating Collett for most of the meeting. Well, at least the part for which they were there anyway.

The format of the meeting was agreed, with Griffin speaking first, followed then by Ian Dawson, Mark Collett and Chris Beverley. The impartial [sic] Simon Darby was chairing the meeting.

If Griffin had hoped to win over some doubters he certainly did his best to fail from the outset. His deliberately rude outbursts at Dawson and Beverley, coupled with his desire to have Dawson removed altogether, only infuriated the crowd. Tony Mac, meanwhile, appeared oblivious to the proceedings, fixated as was with making threats towards Collett. Little Nazi Boy (as comedian Russell Brand likes to call him) was obviously scared to death and appeared to spend most of the meeting eyeing out exits if he needed to make a quick getaway.

And so the contest began. Griffin opened by listing the various charges against the rebels, who he referred to as “vermin”. To howls of protest he continued, claiming that the party had been correct in taking Sadie Graham’s computer and more evidence of wrongdoing was going to be released shortly. He accused Kenny Smith of “stealing” £4,000 from the party and questioned Chris Beverley’s honesty by saying that when Beverley ran Excalibur he claimed a stock worth £60,000 but when this was handed over this proved to be only £6,000.

He even had a word or two to say about Dawson. Claiming that he knew that there was at least one Searchlight mole in the room (the room suddenly got very hot at this point!), he told the audience that he also suspected that either Steve Blake or Ian Dawson of working for Searchlight because of certain emails that had come into our possession. Dawson jumped to protest his innocence, “I’m not a Searchlight mole” he shouted to Griffin’s obvious amusement. While this set off another set of anti-Collett shouts, some around me did question the speed he denied this claim. Hmmm, interesting...

Anyway, with the crowd howling, and Tony Mac still threatening all sorts to the increasingly white-faced Collett, it was Ian Dawson’s turn to respond. And so he did, attacking the party leadership and defending the actions of the rebels. I have to admit that it was hard to hear actually what Dawson was saying above the screams from behind me.

According to the script it was then meant to be the turn of Mark Collett to speak but in what was obviously a clearly planned intervention, Griffin rose to reply. Pushing aside the protests from the audience, Simon Darby explained that serious allegations had been made against the party leader so it was only right that he should be allowed to respond. This sent the crowd into a frenzy, not least from the barbarian behind me.

With Collett due to speak Tony Mac had decided that he had had enough. Shouting “I’m going to kill you”, “I’m going to cut your throat”, he charged forward, smashing a glass on the side of the table as he headed straight for Collett.

All hell broke loose, as the security team moved forward to block the charge. Of course, their priority was protecting Griffin so Collett was left to fend for himself. He did, at some haste, by fleeing like a whimpering dog out of the fire escape!

Complete chaos broke out, though given the audience and the background to the meeting it was hardly surprising. In the ensuing pandemonium at least a quarter of the audience walked out, some in disgust, others in fear of their lives. All this could have been caught on BNP TV, which had been filming the meeting, had it not been for Tony Mac of making a point of pushing over the camera.

Some people have said that Griffin was punched but hand on heart I cannot say I saw that.

However, the evening was not over yet. In fact, this fight was not even the highlight of the proceedings. That came when an angry Tony Mac publicly confronted Griffin over his claims that the rebels were Nazis. “I have a picture of you in Scotland with Blood and Honour giving a Nazi salute. Do you deny that?

“If you do then it’ll be in the Sunday papers.”

Griffin looked on in silence, his face creasing up in horror.

“Ok,” said Tony Mac, “it’ll be in the Sunday papers”.

As peace started to descend on the place there was confusion about what to do. With so many people having fled many thought that the meeting should close. Arguing against this view was Kirklees councillor Colin Auty. “I want the meeting to be reconvened,” he demanded. “The people of Yorkshire have the right to be heard.” However, he then stormed out!

The meeting did continue, minus a few of the heavies. Collett meanwhile had decided that the fire escape in mid-December was not a place to hang out for too long and slipped back into the room. All credit to the young man, he had found some confidence from somewhere, though of course others would have described it as stupidity. He called a reluctant Dave Hannam up to the front of the room and to Dave’s horror he announced: “Me and Dave are not paedophiles.” I wanted to burst out laughing, though fortunately there were plenty of others to do that for me. “We had gone out with a big group of lads and these two beautiful women cracked on to us,” he continued. “We didn’t know that they were only 15.” If he was thinking that this chummy explanation for events in Blackpool last year would turn the crowd in his favour he was mistaken.

The meeting then descended into mayhem, with accusation being met with counter-accusation. Collett even turned on Dawson and graphically accused him of infidelity at the recent RWB.

There was an attempted vote of no confidence in Mark Collett, as had been pre-arranged by Dawson, but Griffin moved in to block this from happening. Griffin recognised that Collett had done lots of stupid things, particularly the Young, Nazi and Proud video, but then claimed that these youthful indiscretions would be ironed out with time. He even equated Collett’s behaviour with his own time in the National Front. Griffin went on to say that there was nothing wrong with Collett being ambitious, and yes, maybe, in 10 or 15 years time he would become leader of the BNP.

One of the final questions was asked by Leeds member Peter Hollins. He had sat their quietly throughout the whole meeting and then explained how he had thought about joining the party long before he did. When he eventually made the plunge he had met Collett and found him very helpful and friendly. However, events had made him change his mind and he proceeded to destroy Collett’s character, even accusing him of having a personality disorder. With that he announced that this was going to be his last party meeting as he had had enough.

Collett just sat there in shock. I, meanwhile, wanted to cheer old Peter for finally seeing sense but I thought that might be inappropriate, especially with Kemp scanning the room for the Searchlight mole.

One final moment of hilarity, amongst the many I do not have the time to go into at this stage, was Chris Beverley’s apology for his outspoken remarks against Keighley’s Angela Clarke, who had been hounded out of the party amidst a quite sexist smear campaign. Beverley, it appears, is remorseful for his minor part in this. Griffin smiled on and then, when Beverley had finished, began quoting from some emails Beverley had sent him where he was far more outspoken and insulting about Clarke then he had cared to acknowledge.

Yorkshire BNP is not split, it is totally opposed to the Griffin faction and this meeting only seems to have reinforced this position. There appears no chance of reconciliation in Yorkshire with even the sacking of Collett now probably no longer being enough. As for the young ‘Nazi Boy’, I simply can’t see how he can continue to live in Leeds, not least for fear of bumping into Tony Mac. The Leeds United hooligan was still issuing threats as he left the room.

Griffin appears to be ready to jettison the region. Having boasted that the matter had been resolved in every other region of the country he is clearly taking a hard line approach in this county regardless of the consequences. However, starting again might be difficult as there is clearly no-one to work with.

For me, meanwhile, the night was over. I walked out into the cold Yorkshire evening air with a smile on my face. The meeting had been as dreadful as we predicted. It had been wonderful. I got out my mobile and began ringing the Sunday newspapers. There was, after all, a photo of Griffin in Scotland to sell.

(Searchlight makes no comment on the allegations of theft made by Nick Griffin. We are simply reporting what was said at the meeting.)

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