One Flew Over The Pig Farm: the BNP and us in 2008 - June

Sexuality and Aids and the concept of a relationship, how does a man and a woman relate, going through history, between Captains Scott and Oates, between Christ and John the Baptist and the Mother Earth walking through carrying the flag...it's almost like a still-born child, how does people relate to each other...it was dealing with the bigotry of attitudes towards people.

Before you conclude that Barnes had been at the funny fags again, the quote was actually Richard Barnbrook speaking to the Independent, as posted by a bemused Antifascist.

Even by the standards of the extreme Right Barnbrook is an exotic oddity. Antifascist noted:

There are certain snippets in the interview that reveal rather more about Barnbrook than the general membership of the BNP might care to know. He presents himself for the interview in a sand-coloured linen suit (with matching socks) and a gold tie. His ex-council house home, we are told, has cream carpets and visitors have to remove their shoes before entering. His television is covered by a cream throw and his mobile ringtone features a chorister singing Jerusalem.

But the oddest thing about Barnbrook (to that date) concerned his claim to have had a relationship with the actress Tilda Swinton, which Ms Swinton - not unnaturally - vehemently denied. Barnbrook's response was: "I've got DNA proof that I went out with her."

What the nature of this proof was, Barnbrook didn't tell - or if he did, the Independent thought it too disgusting the publish. Perhaps future girlfriends should be advised to back off at some speed if approached by a Barnbrook armed with a cotton bud?

Barnbrook's lucky elevation to the Greater London Assembly also elevated him above the BNP's small number of common or garden district and borough councillors, and made him, after Nick Griffin, the BNP's best known personality.

Things like that make Griffin twitchy, and sensing future danger to his position the BNP leader immediately saddled Barnbrook with deputy-leader and toady-in-chief Simon Darby as one of Barnbrook's "researchers". Acting, we believe, more as his Nickship's eyes and ears than as a researcher for Barnbrook, this at least gave former the rubber magnate something approaching real work to do, though we imagine Barnbrook would soon tire of Darby exclaiming "Yes, Nick, superb Nick, marvellous Nick" at least thirty times a day on one of his extensive collection of mobile phones.

Antifascist commented:

Barnbrook has become the BNP's most high profile member - of far more interest to the membership and the media than its leader Nick Griffin. Which really should make Barnbrook nervous. The last time someone became unaccountably more popular than Griffin - the BNP's then 'Cultural Officer' Jonathan Bowden - the attack dogs were set on him and he was forced into resignation. Griffin has never liked competition and will destroy anyone who looks set to usurp his position.

Barnbrook is clearly setting out his stall for both the assault on Parliament and leadership of the BNP. My guess is that if the former doesn't work out in two years time, he'll go full pelt for the latter.

Barnbrook's keen interest in the preservation of DNA is shared by the police, who used it in evidence against BNP supporter Kevin David, of Leytonstone. David was convicted for sending a hate letter to local councillor Maria Pye, who is disabled. DNA from David was found on the envelope. In language not a million miles removed from that found on many BNP blogs, David wildly emoted:

I see you talk a lot about the regeneration of Leytonstone and how there are going to be new shops and businesses. But the whole world can see how these scumbags are pushing the British people out. There are five million of these scumbags wanting to live here and open shops here.

Leytonstone has become a cesspit and ghetto for these scum. I see you walking around with a walking stick. Why don't you f**k **f you f** c**? Now there are 50 million scumbags in the UK. BNP for ever. Don't look for the real cockneys because they have already left. Asians out. Africans out. Europeans out.

Later David, with an existing conviction for ABH, was given an 18-month supervision order, and ordered to attend a six-month rehabilitation course. He was also ordered to pay £100 in compensation to Maria Pye and £70 in court costs.

We had cause to revisit the world of fantasy and fiction inhabited by Patrick Harrington and his tiny band of Third Way/National Liberal Party supporters when this strange confection of old National Front failures and tall-story tellers lighted upon the (stolen, of course) idea of bringing down upon their greying heads the proceeds of a "Money Bomb" for "liberty".

Patrick Harrington (or PA Sharp as he prefers to be known when conducting certain financial transactions) apparently being blessed with the ability to "order" a website into existence at a time of his choosing, a tacky website duly appeared calling upon 10,000 of the internet's most credulous dimwits to donate £10 each in return for a vague promise that "Everything given will go towards promoting a Liberty Party in the UK".

We said:

Exactly what the Third Way/NLP is intended to achieve - aside from cushioning Patrick Harrington from the truth of his own abject irrelevance - is unclear. For an organisation (if so large a word may be employed to describe something so insubstantial) to find itself with only twenty members after eighteen years of existence is the clearest of proofs that its only achievement has been utter failure.

However, even in the fantastically unreal world of Third Way/NLP there persists a belief that there is money to be made from the gullible and the deceived, and Mr Harrington and his colleagues have fixed themselves to make it through the mechanism of an appeal warped into the guise of a "mass donation" for "Liberty" aimed at putting £100,000 into the Third Way/NLP purse.

Or more specifically putting it into the pockets of certain Third Way/NLP individuals via the servicing of regular expenses claims.

After our story went up, something wonderful happened on the hitherto lifeless Third Way/NLP scam website - people began donating. Allegedly.

At the end of play the bogus appeal had supposedly raised £3,510, 10,000 credulous dimwits not being to hand. This was a mere £96,490 short of the extravagant £100,000 target, but we're sure that Mr "PA Sharp" ("it's my married name") and his little troop of fellow fantasists will account for every penny when they file the Third Way/NLP's returns with the Electoral Commission this year.

Also on the scrounge was Mr Sharp's friend Nick Griffin, who also prefers to deal in large sums of money but has a better chance of obtaining it. Nick thought that the British people needed to be told "the truth", and decided that the best way to do it was to haul a terrifying picture of Nick Cass up and down the by-ways of the country on the back of a 7.5 ton lorry. To this end he needed £39,000 sharpish and the begging letters went out. The "Truth Truck", as Nick christened it, would be brand new and would incorporate a state-of-the-art PA system together with light display features. Stormfront cynics with healthier bank-balances than the average appeal-prone BNP member were quick to label Griffin's latest wheeze the "Lie Lorry". As the truck eventually purchased was not new and incorporated neither a state-of-the-art PA system or light display features, the cynics were proved right, and the name "Lie Lorry" has ever since stuck as fast as Nick Cass's grinning face to the mobile propaganda project.

As the campaign to stop the BNP holding its annual Red White and Blue festival at Denby in Derbyshire continued, the one BNP member in the world who had no intention of going got into a strop when the police objected to the festival on public order grounds. This was Paul Morris, better known as the Green Arrow, who - perhaps with an empty whisky bottle rolling around his feet - angrily typed out the following into his blog:

Denby Police, sh*t eaters, who will one day have their pensions stripped from them by a vengeful British Public [read: fascist BNP] who never forget.

The UAF, pathetic sad losers who must blush with shame when they take their pieces of silver from their government pay masters. Rest assured we will not forget them.

The BNP learns the lessons of history and never forgets and will use the same tools against those who assist in the betrayal of the British People. Think about that Plod if you are capable of thought. We are watching you watching us.

Morris illustrated his point with a large picture obtained from a pornographic website catering to those with a deep interest in "scat" activities. This was removed by Blogger following complaints, followed by the entire post when the idiotic Morris realised that the BNP candidate in the Henley by-election was due to hold his press conference, and might be asked awkward questions about his fellow BNP member's blog. A chastened Morris replaced the post with one using an image of a beheaded young Muslim girl, and with his heroic friends resumed a campaign of intimidation and abuse against a young woman of Pakistani extraction who - it was the most curious thing - found herself unable to heap praise on the BNP or to show respect for its members in their ancient online mission to connect their feet with their mouths at every available opportunity.

Financial probity and the BNP having much the same relationship as ships that pass in the night (a very dark night, and at a very great distance), it was never going to be very long before yet another tale of BNP economic woe arrived to fill our pages. This came with the news that treasurer John Walker (left, a suspect in the later membership list leak scandal) had been removed from his post and shifted sideways into the gloriously titled position of National Dispatch and Logistics Manager.

Opening a well-written piece on some strange goings-on, Antifascist reported:

There's more chaos in the British National Party this weekend as branches reel from the news that once again their accounts have been rifled to prop up an incompetent and extravagant party management.

Furious fundholders have been in touch with us to complain that their local accounts have been raided again because head office has disastrously overspent and can no longer manage to balance the books without thieving from the branches. Another fundholder with a direct line to the treasury has revealed that the main BNP account has hit rock-bottom and stood at less than £3000 a few days ago - not a great deal for a so-called 'major' political party.

It's a measure of the distrust endemic within the BNP that many of the party's officials place more confidence in their enemies here at Lancaster Unity than they do in their own organisation, and are prepared to rely upon us getting out truths that would otherwise be buried beneath Griffinite spin and bluster.

In respect of the unpopular raid on BNP branch funds, Antifascist wrote:

Incompetence in the BNP is endemic but nowhere is it more evident than in the treasury. The File on Four programme, broadcast by Radio Four back in February, produced a whole raft of accusations of mismanagement, skullduggery and incompetence against Walker and his merry band of idiots, including the revelation that the BNP is behind with its PAYE payments (that is, the tax it takes from employee's wage packets that it is then supposed to pass on to HM Revenue and Customs). Naturally, the party still hasn't paid the bill and part of the reason for the sudden attack on branch funds was that Her Majesty was getting a tad ratty about the lack of revenue coming from the BNP. Not that the raid helped all that much - last month alone, the party paid out nearly forty thousand pounds on wages, expenses and part of the debt to the Revenue plus a further part-debt to Royal Mail.

Just how rocky the BNP's finances were was revealed in internal documents that fell in our way later in the year.

Walker's sideways shuffle into the post of National Dispatch and Logistics Manager, based at the then secret Deeside Excalibur merchandising operation, attracted the attention of disaffected BNP councillor Colin Auty, whose leadership challenge was clearly failing as Griffinite intimidation deterred members from signing his nomination papers. Antifascist believed that John Walker had been moved rather than sacked to buy his silence. Auty was more forthright:

He has been privy to a great deal of the shady and downright deceitful dealings of Mr Griffin over the last couple of years, so much so in fact that Griffin has been, for sometime, completely perplexed on how he is going to get rid of him without risking John doing the honourable thing and exposing the corruption and pressure that he has himself been compliant with for so long.

Auty wasn't backwards in coming forwards in the matter of Griffin's purging tendencies, either:

'He would merely isolate the victim by concocting lies about them concerning financial ‘irregularities’ (somewhat ironically), aimed carefully at his victim before unleashing his attack-dogs to finish the job with personal attacks and slanderous gossip. Occasionally the victim would then be pulled apart at an Advisory Council meeting in their absence complete with the customary ‘such a shame’ crocodile tears. Without being afforded the opportunity to defend themselves, the victim would be cast out as a leper from the Party. Those sat around the AC table, however shocked or confused that the ‘evidence’ spewed out regarding one of their comrades is entirely unsubstantiated, would very often sit in silence though fear of becoming the next victim. This is a standard Griffin modus operandi, as many of his decent and hardworking victims have been only too happy to confirm and share with us.'

Auty threw in the towel a few days later

With Richard Barnbrook hauling his exalted carcass about the corridors of City Hall, the leadership of the BNP group on Barking and Dagenham Council fell to f-word specialist and megaphone expert Bob Bailey, who was not best pleased with Barking College for hosting a Love Music Hate Racism event. Confronting principal Ted Parker, Bailey darkly warned of "trouble" if the college continued to host such events. Mr Parker told the Barking and Dagenham Recorder:

He was perfectly civil but he was obviously agitated. He seemed to be saying our students were in danger. As he left he said 'you have been warned', which sort of stuck it my mind. I thought it was a little strange. We have been involved with LMHR for a couple of years now. We oppose racism and promote harmony between people of all backgrounds, that's our ethos.

Bailey told the Recorder that "people should be able to speak freely without fear", just as he did when yelling obscenities at the paper's staff.

"Speaking freely without fear" is not a concept readily encouraged within the BNP, where "fear to speak freely" are the usual watchwords to heed unless you are possessed of a pressing urge to attract accusations that you are State, a Searchlight mole, in the pay of Lancaster Unity, Red, Nazi, mad, bad or any permutation thereof.

The scales fell from the eyes of the party's Scottish webmaster Paul Johnson after less than a year of membership. Johnson was shocked when an inquiry he made on behalf of another member was answered with a mixture of contempt and paranoia by Simon Darby. All Johnson's friend had wanted was a copy of the BNP constitution, an item always available to members of other political parties, but in BNP-land wanting to see the much revised and Griffinised constitution is akin to an act of treason.

Johnson said: "His [Darby's] words on the subject were why do you want it? Just tell him to "F*$k Off!" He is only a 'red' trying to wind you up!"

Johnson's resignation statement began:

What have I learned about the BNP in almost a year of being a paid member and as a BNP Scotland official, that a lot of the rumours are true and the party is corrupt, and is not democratic in any shape or form. Infact one might go as far to say that its not necessarily British but more of lets follow Griffin and blow smoke up his arse!

The party is full of a lot of lemmings that think Nick Griffin/ Mark Collett are some sort of 'Gods' in the making. I suppose when you surround yourself with lemmings it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you are the greatest person who walked the earth.

Before jumping to the conclusion that Johnson is a fundamentally decent man, he came to notice again on The Croft blog at the time of the membership list leak:

Paul also has a nice sideline in making cheerful wee button badges extolling such wonderful sentiments as:

England: Love it or leave it!
There Is No Black In The Union Jack!
White Power!

…as well as some fetching SS badges, Enoch Powell Was Right! badges and the ubuiqitous No To Immigration!

Lovely stuff!

Surely Mr J isn’t a white settler himself? Coming over here, taking all our racist badgemaking jobs…

Quite.

To be continued...