The BNP and the neo-Nazis

The BNP claims it isn’t racist – this is a lie. The BNP claims it has no links with violent neo-Nazis – this is a lie. The BNP claims to be a ‘normal’ political party – this is a lie.

What ‘normal’ political party would associate itself with Nazi sympathisers and violent right-wing paramilitary groups?

In Liverpool, the BNP works openly with people who promote Hitler’s ideology and groups which spout racism and anti-Semitism in their crudest forms. Its candidates attend demonstrations organised by violent racists and are happy to be associated with neo-Nazis.

On Friday April 23rd, Liverpool BNP hosted an event at Aigburth People’s Hall. But it was not just BNP activists who were present. Also attending were members of the Racial Volunteer Force (RVF) and the British Freedom Fighters (BFF). These pictures were not intended for the public – they show BNP candidates and activists with neo-Nazis. When you read Liverpool BNP’s election material, you are not being told the truth about the party.

Picture 1 looks innocent enough – three patriotic men in front of Liverpool BNP’s banner:

Yet the two on the left are members of the Racial Volunteer Force. This is a neo-Nazi paramilitary group whose leading members have been jailed for inciting racial hatred and publishing information on how to make bombs. Their publications included praise for David Copeland, the former BNP member jailed for life for his London bombing campaign in 1999, which killed three people and injured over 100 others.

Go to 6.11 on the following video and you can see the men pictured at the Liverpool BNP event attending a Racial Volunteer Force gathering in Glasgow in March 2009:


Picture 2 shows the RVF men (here seen left and right) with Liverpool BNP’s Steve Harwood (in the Union flag t-shirt) and Steve Davis (with flag):

Picture 3 shows Karen Otty, Liverpool BNP’s secretary and candidate for Anfield in Thursday’s election. With her is one of the as yet un-named members of the Racial Volunteer Force:

Otty is not just a member of the BNP herself. She joined a Facebook group affiliated to the violent English Defence League and attended the EDL’s demonstration at the House of Lords in March this year. She is highlighted in Picture 4 below:

Coverage of Otty’s EDL links can be found here and here.

Otty’s friend from Picture 3 is not only in the Nazi terror group, the RVF, he is also a member of the British Freedom Fighters, another neo-Nazi paramilitary group (which says itself that its main aim is the promotion of Hitler’s National Socialist ideas). Picture 5 shows Otty’s companion with the BFF’s leader ‘Wigan’ Mike Heaton (currently facing terror charges for soliciting the murder of Jewish people):

Picture 6 (below) shows him at leaving a BFF meeting in 2009, sieg-heiling with other Nazi thugs:

The RVF/BFF men are also friends of Gary Aronsson. He is the large gentleman seated in the centre of Picture 7 (below), seen talking to Andrew Leary, BNP candidate for Church ward in Sefton.

Aronsson was for a long time the BNP’s declared candidate for Knowsley in the general election. However, personal rivalries and the fact that Aronnson had been told to remove neo-Nazi imagery from his website by Nick Griffin, AND the fact that he disagreed with the new membership rules forced on the BNP by the courts, led to him being withdrawn from Knowsley shortly before the election. (Picture 8 (below) shows the SS Death’s Head Aronsson used on his Facebook page).

Picture 9 shows Aronsson (centre) with the RVF man (right) and Liverpool BNP’s Gary Lucas (who posts on Facebook as ‘Gary James’):

Picture 10 (below) shows ‘Gary James’ with BNP leader Nick Griffin, Christmas 2009:

The links between the BNP and neo-Nazis are plain for all to see. They socialise together; they campaign together; they attend each other’s events. Liverpool BNP tries to hide what they really believe in and who they really work with.

Thinking of voting BNP on May 6th? Think again.

Liverpool Antifascists

English Defence League cracks begin to show

The English Defence League was born in 2009, but as we begin 2010 Simon Cressy wonders whether the EDL is about to self-destruct

The year 2009 could be described as a seesaw year for the newly formed English Defence League. Responding to a protest in Luton in March by the extreme Islamist al-Muhajiroun group against troops of the Royal Anglian Regiment returning from the war in Afghanistan, local football hooligans organised a counter-demonstration under the name United People of Luton. They in turn linked up with hooligans associated with a variety of football clubs across the UK.

Using social networking websites such as Facebook as their means of communication, the hooligans concluded that Islamism was a national problem and they had to put aside club rivalries. By the summer the English Defence League had been born and was holding demonstrations across some of the major cities of England, with smaller ones in Wales and Scotland as the embryonic Welsh and Scottish Defence Leagues.

Hands up all you nazi boys: Liam Pinkham (left) and Jerry “Wurzel” Watson

All seemed to be going well for the EDL, but evidence has emerged that splits and divisions are rife within the organisation.

The EDL has always insisted that it is not nazi or racist, even going to the length of holding a sham press conference complete with a pre-planned burning of a swastika flag. However elements in the EDL leadership are quite prepared to accept members of nazi groups as long as they behave themselves, much to the chagrin of more moderate members.

Joel Titus, the violent teenage leader of the EDL’s youth wing, has voiced loud concern, along with several other members of “the inner circle”, over the glib acceptance of known nazis such as Liam Pinkham of the British Freedom Fighters. Pinkham and his mentor Mike Heaton have been regulars at EDL events since Luton. The EDL inner circle has been well aware of this, yet has refused to distance itself from them.

Pinkham received a four-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with 200 hours’ community service and two years’ supervision back in July after he burst into the News from Nowhere community bookshop in Liverpool and threatened the female owners. Pinkham, from the Wirral, was taking part in a British National Party march through Liverpool city centre at the time. The women, who were justifiably terrified, testified that Pinkham threatened to “burn down the shop”.

This comes on top of Heaton’s arrest in December by the North East Counter Terrorism Unit. Heaton is currently on bail charged with soliciting murder and using threatening, abusive or insulting words likely to stir up racial hatred. That will no doubt stick in the craw of Titus, who is of mixed race and claims Martin Luther King is his hero.

Following a recent demonstration in London, EDL supporters led by Titus clashed with Nazi-saluting Chelsea hooligans, leaving one of the Chelsea fans hospitalised. It is reported that Titus now wears a stab vest in fear of reprisals following threats made on the Stormfront nazi web forum.

A closer look at the EDL inner circle reveals why its members may be reluctant to jettison their nazi friends. One of the global moderators on the EDL internet forum is Sean Corrigan of St Albans. Posting under the moniker “Road Rage”, what Corrigan fails to tell Titus and the more moderate wing of the EDL is that he is a gold member of the BNP.

(left to right) Chris Renton, Joel Titus, Matthew Kaplan and Leisha Brookes

Another in the EDL inner circle is Chris Renton, a BNP activist from Weston-super-Mare, who now appears to be using the online name “John Sheridan” and controls a large number of EDL Facebook groups.

One who recently fell foul of Renton is the veteran Bristol EDL activist Jerry “Wurzel” Watson, whom Renton blacklisted following allegations, strongly denied by Watson, of theft of a charity box. This led Watson to side with Paul Ray, the increasingly flaky self-styled “spiritual” leader of the EDL. Ray has formed his own St George’s Division of the EDL and has titled himself “Grandmaster Ray”, despite being disowned by the official EDL.

Another leading EDL activist now sidelined is the bullish Leisha Brookes. An ever visible member of the EDL, Brookes has led the women’s division and acted as the group’s police liaison officer. However, her abrasive nature is not to everyone’s taste in the EDL. One person in particular who has had numerous clashes with her is Matthew Kaplan, a Jewish student from Seattle who is studying history at King’s College, London.

Kaplan is the paid EDL publications coordinator, responsible for leaflets and press releases. He has been seen at several EDL demonstrations complete with Israeli flag. He has clashed on several occasions on the official EDL Facebook group with Leisha Brookes and her supporters for a number of reasons, mainly because he is an American.

Brookes has declared that she doesn’t trust him and accused him of working for the police. Kaplan revealed that Brookes and her colleagues threatened to attack him if he turned up at the Nottingham EDL event on 5 December.

Other leading EDL members have accused her of posting racist comments on the EDL internet forum. Whatever the truth behind the fallout, Brookes has definitely been removed as the EDL’s police liaison officer and is no longer in charge of the women’s division.

It is believed that the new EDL police liaison officer is none other than Corrigan, the BNP gold card carrying member from St Albans.

Hope not hate

Peter Tierney arraigned for assaulting anti-fascist

As Peter Tierney of Liverpool BNP was arraigned for smashing an anti-fascists head in with a camera tripod, protesters organised by the magistrates court in opposition to fascist violence. But much more can be done.

Today, BNP "super-activist" Peter Tierney was arraigned at the Liverpool Magistrates Court on assault charges. On St George's Day, he split open a man's head with a camera tripod during an attack perpetrated by him and Steve Greenhalgh on anti-fascists who had managed to organise opposition to the party's city-centre leafleting on a moment's notice. Despite accusing another anti-fascist of attacking him, Tierney was eventually arrested and charged by Merseyside police.

In response, the BNP claimed that it was in fact they, "including women and elderly folk," who were "suddenly physically attacked" by "a mob of violent Tory and Labour-supported UAF thugs." These "thugs," of course, being local anti-fascists who were not "harassing" Tierney and his fellow fascists but leafleting against them and their lies.

In the run up to the court-date, the BNP mailing list urged armchair fascists to "email or phone the Crown Prosecution service," in an attempt to subvert the course of justice with a flood of crank calls. Merseyside BNP also called on "all democratic, peace loving Nationalists" to show "support" for Tierney by protesting outside the court.

Today, however, after Merseyside antifascists organised an opposition rally to "show the BNP that we won’t tolerate their racism and violence in Liverpool or anywhere else," the story was somewhat different. Around fifty anti-fascists turned up at the Magistrates Court to protest both the fascist gathering and Tierney's violence, but the BNP were nowhere to be seen.

On the other side of the road from the antifascist gathering, however, four known local fascists - believed to be of the British Freedom Fighters (BFF) rather than the BNP - gathered to jeer at the protesters and take pictures. In response, many in the crowd produced their phones to photograph the snoops whilst a chant of "I'm on Redwatch and I don't care" started up. Eventually, the four slipped away to massive jeering, though not before skulking under the nearby motorway bridge to take a few more photographs.

Inside the court, meanwhile, Tierney was decidedly the worse for wear, looking as though he was "off his face on some or other substance" and being unable to remember his own address. His bail conditions, namely a ban from Liverpool city centre, were reimposed, and he will stand trial on September 3rd. It is vital that anti-fascists come out to demonstrate their opposition to Tierney's violent thuggery once again.

However, although today's protest served its stated purpose well, I can't help thinking that it could have been better done. Although local Liverpool anti-fascists were the first to call a demonstration, it was Unite Against Fascism (UAF) who quickly dominated the event, with UAF and trade union "leaders" there as speakers. One major problem I have with the UAF and similar organisations is that theirs is an opposition to the extreme right centred on hierarchy and authority, with a lot of neglect as regards grassroots organisation.

In Liverpool we do not simply need a band of people who will come out to hold banners at protests in "safe" areas pre-arranged with the police. What we need is solid, grassroots organisation of activists who will not just come out to shout "scum" at fascists but also mobilise their community, engage with ordinary people, and combat the ideology as much as the physical presence of fascism. We need to be there in great numbers when fascists come out, and to present genuine opposition - not to simply negotiate with police to sell the Socialist Worker in an area of their choosing. Most importantly, we need a movement that is tied into class-struggle, not one that tries to turn people off the BNP by directing them towards a government enacting their worst policies.

Successful anti-fascist movements recognise that real power lies with the people, not with "leaders" and "spokespersons." Moreover, they organise with the aim of taking back the streets from fascists wherever and whenever they may be, and they realise that asking police permission to occupy a small corner for a short time does not even come close to this goal. Tierney and his fellow thugs must be opposed, not by bureaucrats with a permit but by ordinary people with cries of "¡No Parasan!"

Truth, Reason and Liberty