December 04, 2009

BNP hijack Mitcham Remembrance Day

The photograph which appeared on the London Patriot website
The BNP hijacked Mitcham’s Remembrance Sunday event, parading a party banner in front of the War Memorial and duping residents to appear in a photograph. The propaganda shot has since appeared on London Patriot - an extreme right-wing website - sparking fury among those in the picture who believed it was a photocall for the local newspaper.

Witnesses to the event, which happened moments after Mitcham’s Remembrance service finished on November 8, said the BNP banner was deceitfully handed to a group of children at the front of the picture and quickly hidden away after the shot was taken.

Daphne Adkins, 64, was looking on the memorial for the name of her grandfather who died in World War One when the photocall was hastily assembled around her. She said: “I thought it was just disgraceful. We were completely oblivious to what was going on and I can’t imagine many of the other people knew either. I just thought this was something for the local paper organised by the British Legion. Remembrance Sunday has nothing to do with these people. It was sneaky and disrespectful.”

Her son Dean Adkins, 45, a civil servant in the Home Office said he feared his job would be put at risk by association with the BNP. He said: “There was just no way of telling. All I was trying to do was look for my great grandfather’s name on the monument and it wasn’t until afterwards that my wife told me they were holding up a BNP banner.”

A spokesman for the Royal British Legion, said: “The act of Remembrance must be kept above partisan political politics. These events are about recognising valour and sacrifice.”

Mitcham MP Siobhain McDonagh added: “You don’t go to a Remembrance service and expect to be hoodwinked into a photo for the BNP. This is about paying your respect for those who have lost their lives. It’s an invasion of someone’s privacy and a complete abuse of trust. It’s extremely crass that people would choose to use a Remembrance service to make a political point.”

But a spokesman for the BNP said: “We strongly suspect the motivation for some of the complaints received were themselves politically motivated. If any member of the public unwittingly joined the group photograph then we apologise for any misunderstanding. We do however find it a sad situation that people feel they may lose their jobs for merely standing with people who are BNP members.”

Your Local Guardian

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Check out Griffin dancing to Michael Jackson on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CX2fbC4hQ0&feature=related

Terry Terse said...

"BNP hijack Mitcham Remembrance Day"

Bastards.

peewee said...

You expect fraud and deceipt from Gri££in's BNP. What next? A photoshopped photo of Cyclops laughing and joking with the Queen?

No wonder they extort money out of their own members.

John P said...

Absolute scum

Ben Trunch said...

This is typical disgraceful BNP behaviour; trickery and disrespecting our war dead as usual. Those who sacrificed their lives to save us from fascism and Nazism.

They have tried to muscle in on the commemorations at Wimbledon War Memorial in years past but we have outed them and moved them on. The BNP troublemakers are easy to spot...

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!

BTW, their phoney ex-service organisation ABEX seems to have folded? The website gives us a blank page. Are they trying to muscle in on FEBA and other organisations? The British Legion gives them short shrift!

Anonymous said...

Now that is sneaky! I reckon it went something like this,

"Quick, Quick...unfurl the banner while they're not looking...take the photo, take the photo!"

How desperate can you get.

Anonymous said...

You can only assume that they don't have enough members and supporters in Mitcham to fill a photograph so they have to dupe others into it. If that's what they have to do to pay their respect to the dead then they are truly a bankrupt force.

Anonymous said...

griffin has four fat mouths to feed,oh and jackie now x that by 4 ? imagine welshpool be renamed welshsespit,be good to see him at the world cup next year as EL TEL CON GRIFFO,CROOK.

Anonymous said...

Charlotte Lewis from Croydon should try working for a living and then she would not have so much time to spout her bullshit.

John P said...

The more I think about this piece of sickening opportunism the more I'm sickened by it.

I live in Sheffield and in the media over the last few weeks there has been a story about a pissed up student who pissed on our main monument to both world wars.

It is universally agreed the he was a twat from all sides and his life is going to be pretty shit because of what he did for a good long while.

He was pissed up, bottle of whiskey before he went out on a night that is organised by a company that encourages and glorifies pissed up behaviour by students but doesn't have to deal with any of the consequences that their nights and tours encourage but that is nowhere near as sickening as this stunt.

They gave a BNP banner to a group of kids at a Remembrance Service and made it look like all the people there were happy to stand behind it and then used it on their website.

Absolute Scum.

Anonymous said...

@ John P

Presumably this sick stunt will get the same adverse publicity as the drunk student? At least that idiot had the good grace to apologise.