Football clubs lend support to keep out BNP

Two of the region's football clubs have joined community leaders to urge people to keep the British National Party (BNP) out of the North-East in this week's local elections.

Campaigners from North-East Unites Against the BNP say the BNP is run by "hard-line Nazis" who deny the Holocaust happened.

Two of the region's Premier League clubs, Newcastle United and Sunderland, are urging people to use their vote to keep the BNP out. They are joined in the campaign by the Bishop of Durham, actor Ross Kemp, and Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson as well as GPs, members of clergy and grassroots sports leaders.

Canvassers from the crossparty campaign are distributing leaflets in areas where local elections are taking place. The leaflet says: "The British National Party tries to appear moderate and respectable but they are not. The BNP is run by hard-line Nazis who believe the Holocaust, in which millions of innocent people were murdered by Hitler's henchmen in the Second World War, didn't happen."

The pamphlet, which delivers the "Hope not Hate" message says the BNP is "jam-packed with criminals, terrorists and thugs". It also alleges the BNP has met with racist organisations including a US neo-Nazi group, The National Alliance, and the Ku Klux Klan. It accuses the BNP of not respecting women after comments from one of their senior leaders, Nick Eriksen, deemed rape as a "myth". And it says the BNP is unpatriotic as the party believes the UK should not have fought Hitler in the Second World War.

Last night, Labour MP Mr Wilson said he was proud to be part of the cross-party alliance against the BNP.

"What is excellent about this is it is the whole community standing against the BNP," he said. "They have got to be exposed for what they really are. They are racist, they try to con the electorate by offering simple solutions to complicated issues and they talk about immigrants like the Nazis used to talk about Jewish people in the Thirties. The BNP has no place in our community."

A spokesperson from Newcastle United FC said: "We are very proud of the multi-cultural society in which we live and we have no time for those that discriminate on the basis of race or religion."

A spokesperson for Sunderland AFC said: "Sunderland AFC deplores any form of racism or anti-social behaviour and believes this has no place in our communities or society as a whole."

Ken Booth, North-East organiser for the BNP, said the campaign had been organised by "communist bully boys" in the Labour Party. "It doesn't sound very democratic. That is communist bullyboy tactics. It is all these communists hiding in the Labour Party. The Labour Party are behind it secretly. They are afraid of losing votes to the BNP."

He said the Bishop of Durham should leave politics alone.

"The Bishop of Durham needs to go on a Bible refresher course," he added.

He also denied the BNP was a racist organisation.

The Northern Echo