The BNP's Lee Barnes: just an arrogant idiot or seriously disturbed?

I used to work with ex-cons a few years back, a good percentage of them having been in jail for drug-related offences normally involving theft, sometimes with violence attached, to get money to buy heroin or some other highly-addictive and lethal hard drug. Everyone who came to my place of work had a story behind their addiction and after a while it became relatively simple to separate the truth from the lies and thus to begin dealing properly with the problems behind the crimes. The origin of the addiction could be due to a number of reasons but far and away the most common seemed to be simple peer-pressure, usually from a close friend or partner.

Addiction is difficult to understand for most of us who are addicted to nothing worse than the odd cup of coffee or occasional pack of cigarettes, but those living with or who are emotionally close to addicts know the all-pervading grip that, for example, heroin, has on its victim. Nothing - absolutely nothing at all - takes precedence over the habit, and the consequences of the addiction affect everyone around the addict themselves. Imagine then, that your daughter, thanks to an addict boyfriend, herself becomes an addict. Having met a lot of addicts, and having daughters of my own, just the thought of this makes me shudder.

Rachel Whitear, 21, died of a heroin overdose. She was discovered on the floor of her flat in May 2000 and photographs of her body were used as part of an anti-drugs campaign. Her mother, Pauline Holcroft, along with Rachel's stepfather, Mick Holcroft, took the brave and extraordinary decision to publish photographs of her daughter, slumped and lifeless, in the hope that it would discourage other youngsters from taking drugs.

At around the same time, and in conjunction with Herefordshire County Council they released a video called 'Rachel's Story'. The 22 minute video follows Rachel's decline from happy student to heroin addiction. In May 2002, then Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, announced that a copy of the video would be made available to every secondary school in the UK. It was Ms Holcroft's hope that publishing the photographs and making the video meant that the tragedy of their daughter's death stopped other people dying from the same cause.

The astonishing courage shown by Mr and Mrs Holcroft in allowing the image to be used in this way would be applauded by any decent person, and the terrible tragedy of a young life lost to heroin could be turned into something useful, something that might avert future, similar, tragedies. Nobody in their right mind could express anything but hope that good might come from bad. Except for the British National Party.

An organisation calling itself the Preston Pals (actually the Preston branch of the BNP) has issued a leaflet which has been delivered to a large area of Preston in Lancashire. The leaflet rants about the heroin trade, blames it entirely on Muslims and is headed; 'The heroin trade, a crime against humanity - time for Muslims to apologise.' It continues with the usual rant against a proposal to demolish an existing mosque which would be replaced by a new one. It also has a prominent picture on it - the image of Rachel Whitear, dead on her bedroom floor. Tony Bamber, who stood as the BNP candidate in last year's council elections, is given as the Pals' contact on the leaflet.

The 'Preston Pals' was the name given to the 7th Battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, which fought and was almost annihilated on the Somme in July 1916, during the First World War. The Royal British Legion (RBL) has condemned this misappropriation of the name by the BNP, with its spokesman Patrick Leavey saying; '[The Preston Pals] sacrifice should not be besmirched by people engaged in political campaigning for such an ugly cause. We condemn this leaflet, its contents, and those who are disseminating it'.

Lee Barnes, the BNP’s legal advisor, feels differently, and in an article entitled 'The Definition Of Pathetic' he makes his views, and given his position within the organisation we can safely consider his views to be those of the BNP, very clear indeed. Using the premise that 'the main funding of the Islamic Jihad comes from heroin', he rips into Rachel Whitear without mercy or compassion.

'She was not an angel, she was an accomplice to genocide, terrorism and a funder of the most vicious criminal gangs on the planet as she funded the terrorists and gangsters that cause such misery across the planet. The idea that she should be regarded as a victim is repulsive. Every junkie is a criminal, not a victim. The body of every dead junkie should be photographed and hung on a wall of shame in every community so that young kids can see the real price of heroin. Their lives should be regarded as a disgrace not as victims.'

He continues: 'I bet Rachels parents either funded her addiction directly through giving her money for smack 9to stop her becoming a prostitue or a dealer) or indirectly when she stole off them. If she didnt steal off of them then she was even worse than a junkie, she was a pathetic heroin tourist who used heroin as a bit of a laugh, a middle class drug culture tourist idiot scumbag. The sort of people who say to other people ' hey man you can dabble a bit with smack and you will be alright' - a facilitator of addicition, a seducer of others into becoming addicts.'

As I understand it, it was a former boyfriend of hers that got her on to heroin in the first place - making him the creature Barnes describes as 'a pathetic heroin tourist...a facilitator of addicition' and Rachel his victim.

Barnes' lack of sympathy to the mother and stepfather and their objection the the image being used by the BNP to attack Muslims is startling.

'The idea we should treat with reverence the image of their dead junkie daughter is repulsive...the idea we should ask your permission to use the image of your dead junkie daughter is not something we need to do.'

The idea that Barnes should use the phrase 'your dead junkie daughter' as though speaking directly to the parents of Rachel Whitear is both shocking and disturbing. I don't know anybody who would treat the death of someone's child with such contempt and loathing, no matter what the circumstances, and I'm surprised that even the BNP, notoriously full of hatred for anyone who doesn't conform to its own distorted idea of perfection, would allow its legal advisor to come out with this venomous garbage.

What makes Barnes' article even more offensively bizarre, is that quite a number of fairly prominent BNP members have been drug dealers, encouraging the vulnerable like Rachel Whitear to become addicted and thus to line their own pockets. One of our readers kindly supplied a list just a couple of days ago:

'It’s a bit rich for the nazi BNP to accuse others of drug dealing. The BNP has been involved in drug-dealing for years. Here's a small selection...

• The BNP councillor in Blackburn, Robin Evans, resigned after he wrote a letter stating that the BNP in Blackburn was largely made up of drug dealers and football hooligans.
• The neo-terrorist group Combat 18 (founded by the BNP) undertakes large-scale illegal drug imports and deals to raise money for neo-nazi activities in the UK and abroad. Many BNP members are Combat 18 members. A number of Combat 18/BNP members are cocaine dealers.
• Charlie Sargent, a convicted murderer, BNP member (he used to guard BNP founder and former leader John Tyndall) and senior Combat 18 leader, has convictions for drug dealing and trafficking.
• The BNP candidate for Huddersfield, Karl Hanson, was fined in Crown Court for dealing in crack cocaine and heroin (in face he face five class A drugs offence charges)
• Richard Brown, a BNP candidate in Kirklees, admitted he was jailed as part of a £100,000 drug ring! He pleaded guilty to intent to supply drugs.
• John Shearer, leading member of Oldham BNP, is a convicted drug dealer.
• Colin Smith, BNP South East London organiser, has a conviction for possession of drugs (in addition to 16 other criminal convictions for burglary, theft, stealing cars and assaulting a police officer)

And so on. Barnes, being deeply involved with the BNP, will know all this - indeed, he probably knows and works with a few of the people on the list - yet he chooses to ignore the damage that people in his own party have caused just so he can take a swipe at whoever is his target of the day.

As is usual with the British National Party, the hypocrisy is profound, though in Lee Barnes case I'm more concerned with the state of his mental health.