April 05, 2009

BNP deputy leader addresses international fascist rally

Speakers enter the hotel greeted by fascist salutes
The deputy leader of the British National Party has spoken at an international fascist rally alongside a man convicted of a terrorism offence and a convicted Holocaust denier.

Simon Darby claims he addressed a 400-strong audience in Milan today (5 April). Representatives of extreme-right parties in Germany, France, Romania, Hungary and Cyprus were expected to take part in the meeting.

Darby, who flew out to Italy this morning, heads the BNP’s European election candidates’ list for the West Midlands, a region in which the party could win a seat. He has a “Mr Clean” reputation in a party in which many leading activists have criminal convictions, a nazi past or both.

The rally was titled: “Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Big Powers”, a change from the original, “Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Usury”. The term “usury” is traditionally used by Nazis against Jews and it may have been altered to avoid accusations of antisemitism.

It had been booked at a major conference centre in Milan, but widespread protests from MEPs and Italian partisan veterans, as well as a 20,000-strong petition forced its move to a private hotel.

Simon Darby (right) with Bruno Gollnisch MEP (left) and Roberto Fiore MEP (second from left)
The meeting was organised by Forza Nuova, whose leader Roberto Fiore, was convicted in Italy in 1985 for “subversive association” for his involvement in the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei. Two members of that organisation were convicted for the Bologna railway station bombing in August 1980 which killed 85 people, including two British tourists, Catherine Mitchell and John Kolpinski, and left over 200 wounded. It was the biggest postwar terrorist attack in Europe.

Fiore became an MEP after Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the Italian fascist dictator, resigned her seat to take up a post in the Italian government. He has been a friend, financial supporter and political mentor to BNP leader Nick Griffin since 1980, when Fiore arrived in Britain on the run from justice in Italy.

Fiore helped Griffin run the National Front “political soldiers”, described at the time as a “proto-terrorist organisation”. When the political soldiers collapsed, they went on to found a new fascist group, the International Third Position.

Alongside his political activities Fiore amassed a huge fortune through business interests in London and later around the world. They included operating as a slum landlord and exploiting people brought in from eastern Europe, Italy and Spain, whom he passed on to gang masters to work on the land and in food processing plants.

Fiore was also one of the founders of the extremely violent Hammerskins skinhead movement, part of the nazi music and football hooligan gangs responsible for violence on the terraces. They have strong links with one of the most vicious fascist football hooligan gangs in Europe, the Roma Ultras, who recently attacked English football fans, stabbing one. Their most infamous episode was when they unfurled a banner down one side of their home stadium with the words “Jews to Auschwitz”.

Father Giulio Tam raises his hand in support of fascism
Hammerskins members recently marched through Bergamo in northern Italy armed with sticks and metal bars and with helmets on their heads. At their head were Fiore and Father Giulio Tam, a priest revered by Spanish falangistas and Italian fascists, who blessed the FN’s new headquarters in the town. Father Tam was in the audience at the Milan rally.

Fiore is closely associated with the Catholic Society of St Pius X, in which Bishop Richard Williamson was a leading light. In January 2009 in a television interview Bishop Williamson denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers, a statement that caused a scandal when the Pope lifted his longstanding excommunication a week later.

Also in prime position on the platform with Darby was Bruno Gollnisch. An MEP for the French National Front, Gollnisch was given a three-month suspended prison sentence in January 2007 for denying the Holocaust. He was also fined €5,000.

The court, in Lyon, found he had “disputed a crime against humanity” in remarks he made during a news conference in the city in October 2004. Gollnisch, who was chair of the Identity Tradition and Sovereignty far-right official group in the European Parliament, had questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust and said the “existence of the gas chambers is for historians to discuss”.

Security for the fascist rally - almost as ugly as Martin Reynolds
In April last year, just three days before polling day in the London Assembly election, in which the BNP won one seat, Griffin brought Gollnisch and other European extremists to a private meeting in a South Kensington hotel.

The meeting took place at a time when Griffin, a long-time Jew-hater who has a conviction for race hate, had approached the Jewish community in a bid to form a united front against Muslims, an invitation that the Jewish community firmly rejected.

Despite the BNP’s anti-EU stance, Griffin is keen to build links with European far-right parties, hoping that if he is elected as an MEP, he will be able to join a far-right bloc. If enough far-right MEPs can put aside their nationalist rivalries and form an official group in the European Parliament, they will benefit from a further €1 million a year on top of their salaries and staffing and expenses allowances. They would also be entitled to committee positions and enhanced speaking rights.

In October Griffin addressed an open-air rally of the Hungarian hardline fascist Jobbik party and its private army heavy mob, the Hungarian Guard, in Budapest. Griffin has been flirting with the Hungarian fascists since May when he met the Jobbik representatives Bela Kovacs and Zoltan Fuzessy in London.

Jobbik, also known as the Movement for a Better Hungary, is strongly anti-Jewish. Although the BNP has courted the Jewish community and denies it is antisemitic, Darby said recently on a radio broadcast that BNP MEPs would welcome cooperation with Jobbik.

A few days after his return from Hungary Griffin was cementing his relationship with the tiny anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-Romani Czech National Party (NS) by addressing its rally to celebrate Czech independence. Griffin’s trip, accompanied by several BNP activists, followed the visit by the NS leader, Petra Edelmannová, to the BNP’s Red White and Blue festival last August.

That Darby has now joined Griffin in linking up with these far-right extremists in Europe shows that the BNP is still an out-and-out fascist and antisemitic party, despite the fine words and smart suits of its leaders.

Searchlight

21 comments:

Bermin said...

The BNP showing its fascist credentials yet again.

Ben Trunch said...

Simon "Dumbo" Darby looks really miffed in that photo.

Was he upset with all the fascist saluting as he entered the hotel? In public? For the world to see who the BNP really are and who they mix with?

Poor old Dumbo, should have gone bird-watching instead!

Anonymous said...

Fiore is giving Darby a most peculiar look in that picture. Maybe he trusts him as much as much as everyone else does - not at all.

Anonymous said...

...smart suits of its leaders

I take it that doesn't include Barnbrook.

Martin Reynolds said...

The security is not as ugly and i can assure you not as big either.If any of you fancy finding out,please come try your luck.

BBC said...

Nazis, anti-semites, Holocaust-deniers, thugs, football hooligans and links to terrorists and fraudsters. The BNP hasn't changed one tiny little bit.

Anonymous said...

"Nazis, anti-semites, Holocaust-deniers, thugs, football hooligans and links to terrorists and fraudsters. The BNP hasn't changed one tiny little bit."

Nope, except there's a few thousand small-minded little racists supporting them. If half those silly bastards knew the truth about the party they were in, they'd jack it in and wander over to UKIP.

Anon said...

Nazi scum. They always were and always will be.

Anonymous said...

The title and the first picture says it all really. The BNP IS a nazi party.

Anonymous said...

Customs missed their chance, they could have refused to let the b.....r back in.

tulip

Anonymous said...

How long before we hear from Darby that the saluters were "reds" sent along to discredit him?

Fyi, Fiore has always openly admitted to being a fascist.

Anonymous said...

yes it is

Anonymous said...

I wonder who leaked the story to Searchlight that Darby was going to share a platform with Fiore. Some people think it was a last-minute effort by Griffin to destroy Darby's chances of getting into the European Parliament in June because Griffin doesn't want to share the limelight as an MEP with Darby.

jj said...

"I wonder who leaked the story to Searchlight that Darby was going to share a platform with Fiore. Some people think it was a last-minute effort by Griffin to destroy Darby's chances of getting into the European Parliament in June because Griffin doesn't want to share the limelight as an MEP with Darby."

A distinct possibility considering Nick Griffin's record as a manipulator and all-round devious bastard.

LUS said...

Strange how theres been no mention of this on Stormfront

Mr B said...

LUS said "Strange how theres been no mention of this on Stormfront"

Simon Darby doesn't have much to say about it himself, mostly choosing to drone on about the view from the plane, but he does have this to say:

"...once again our relative media outlets decideded [sic] not to report the substance of the meeting or its purpose, but to childishly insinuate that we were all racists etc."

That would be because you ARE racists.

Landale said...

"How long before we hear from Darby that the saluters were "reds" sent along to discredit him?"

Looking at the video pointed at in http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/04/426755.html he'd have a job defending that.

Not that he, in my opinion, ever lets the truth get in the way!

Anonymous said...

What a fool Darby is, maybe he will soon become known as Darby the Dork!!.
While he was trying to escape the deadly embrace of his Italian hosts and arriving back in the UK to witter on about his trip and how clever he is, none of his pals bothered to tell him his link up with Terrorists and Jew haters had been read in the previous 24 hours by many thousands of voters in the UK.

Anonymous said...

Thats what you get when you said a fascists to do a nazis job.

Anonymous said...

Good to see that the media has finally noticed this - in a small way
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/04/07/bnp-politician-who-lives-in-a-welsh-village-greeted-by-fascist-salutes-91466-23327331/

leigh said...

Once again, more excellent pictures that e4expose the BNP as a nazi party to use at election time, to put off voters.

Every anti-BNP brochure for all regions should feature these photos.