BNP's Euro-funds closely scrutinised

Concern has been expressed that the BNP could syphon off thousands of pounds of European Union money to pay off its reported mounting debts.

Party leader Nick Griffin and his colleague Andrew Brons are entitled to a combined financial package worth around £600,000 a year because they are MEPs. It includes their annual MEP salaries and a general expenditure allowance to cover office costs, worth £86,000 for both MEPs. But concern has been raised over the use of an allowance for an MEP's support staff being used to pay for BNP activities in the UK.

Nick Griffin reluctantly revealed his European spending this year after other MEPs voluntarily disclosed their financial costs. He uses up to £145,000 of his annual staff allowance on eight personnel, who officially are only allowed to carry out duties concerned with his European parliamentary activities.

Only six are named and four also work for the BNP in the UK. They include party chairman Simon Darby, UK staff manager Adam Walker, and party spokesman John Walker. The website still lists ex-campaigns director Eddy Butler, expelled from the party three weeks ago. Four other staff are also employed twice by both MEPs.

Details of the BNP's financial crisis have been emerging following last week's letter from the party's ex-chief fundraiser James Dowson describing a "very grave" situation in which the party could only pay a fraction of its debts, estimated at over £500,000. They include thousands owed to printing firms for election material, an out-of-court settlement over copyright infringement to Marmite, thought to be £170,000, and the cost of fighting this week's court battle with the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Conservative North West MEP Sajjad Karim said he and other MEPs were closely watching the BNP's finances to ensure that European funds could not be used for any purposes other than their parliamentary activities. However, he admitted: "Someone could actually quite easily use fair amounts of those funds for party purposes without anybody finding out, unless a thorough investigation were to be carried out."

The BNP did not respond to questions on the issue.

Jewish Chronicle

Don't let the maggot off the hook

This article was submitted by one of our readers, The Gremlin. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.

People are now asking - What will happen to what’s left of the BNP once Griffin has finally been excreted from it? After all, something that falls has to land somewhere, doesn’t it? Another question of course should be - Who deserves the medal for helping to rid us of this saggy-arsed crook?

The last question is of course far easier to tackle. Practically 99.9% of people that have ever had the unfortunate experience of getting to know him personally, including his wife (I also speak personally), hate his guts; so you simply couldn’t make that many medals.

The percentage is probably not much lower for people that are simply aware of what he represents. I’m not talking about racism here, and all the other ‘ism’s and ‘ist’s that are part and parcel of the ammunition thrown at the Far Right; I’m going way beyond that and talking about the person he is.

He is without a doubt a sociopath, we know this; I’ve seen him in action and there is no uncertainty with this. In all his blame-casting, crowing, finger-pointing and two-dimensional speeches, he has proven incapable of exhibiting or formulating even the slightest modicum of empathy. As for the rest of the good stuff – justice (moral or otherwise), sacrifice and hard-graft? These attributes to Griffin are like a good sprinkling of salt on the preverbal slug’s tail. Once again, as I heard his wife say, he has never done a single day's work in his entire life. I believe her.

With Griffin it is about control, cash and a total belief that he is simply better and more intelligent than anyone else and therefore deserves the things he wants. He simply can’t see any wrong in what he does or how he operates. He truly thinks he has a higher calling, a quasi-Napoleonic destiny to do great things and save all us poor plebs from ourselves, however perverted the path to greatness may be.

How ever much opposition groups and parties despise Griffin, that loathing is still at a minuscule level compared with the vast majority of the active Far-Right. Much has been written about Griffin’s ‘alleged’ stealing, lying and general gangsterism within nationalist politics over the years, and now it seems it is all about to finally catch up with him culminating with the ignominious coat-turning of the almost equally vile Jim Dowson – a special second-rate Arthur Daley meets Del Boy meets ‘Penfold’ kind of swindler.

Seriously, did Griffin actually scour these Isles to find someone as bent and unscrupulous as himself? If so, was it so that no questions were likely to be asked by a fellow conman, ‘Thick as thieves’ etc? Or was it so that Griffin could pass the buck quickly onto Dowson should things really get out of hand and the membership start asking serious questions threatening police involvement? The bottom line is, that sooner or just a little later Griffin is going to become completely unstuck, an overweight Hitler in his Welshpool bunker with his unemployed daughter and gob-shite wife.

He is certainly squirreling away as much cash as possible now, in preparation for his re-election campaign into Europe; with or without the BNP. It is here that we (we as in everyone that would like to see him finished) need to concentrate our efforts. I speak for many people when I say that it is not enough that he is simply deposed of his chairmanship of what is left of the ruined BNP, he must be well and truly removed from 'potentially' viable politics for good; cut away like a carbuncle that has sucked people dry for so long.

How do we derail his re-election campaign? There are a hundred different ways, but first we need to see what will happen to him and his relationship with the BNP. It’s true to say that it exists now solely to propagate him, this is what he has inflated it into, but just like anything empty of substance and full of useless gas, it can only be short-lived.

So the pitiful and gaseous foul ramblings of a small splattering of sycophantic followers some of which with literally nothing else in their sad lives, will not be enough to hold him in place. Griffin will however, undoubtedly try to keep this small band of internet warrior-goons together in support as he plans an ‘all or nothing’ type grab at re-election. He’ll use everything and anything if he thinks it will improve his chances; he’ll even throw the kitchen sink at it and sell his mother for medical experiments if he has to.

His ‘Ace in the pack’ of course will be how he spins his first tenure as MEP. He is bound to create a series of lies, a fantasy world about how he has, for the last five years, been waving the flag and only he, and he alone, can save us all, blah, blah, blah. This is where he will expose his jugular.

Each and every one of his wild claims needs to be answered, cleanly and accurately with as much coverage as possible across his North West region, cutting him to bits, making him look a fool and a waste of space. The voters need to know that not only is he a liar, he would also sell them out in a flash. The fact that he pushed himself into being the candidate in Barking and Dagenham in the last general election, hundreds of miles away from their region, because he thought it was there for the taking, is an example of what he really thinks about the people of the North West; everyone in that region should be told about this. The fact, and what a beautiful one it is, that he got utterly annihilated in the general election 2010 and dragged the entire local BNP entity down the plug-hole with him, should also be brought to the fore.

Even if Griffin in his hour of desperation has the temerity to spout that he is no less a useless moron than the assortment of other gravy-train riding, champagne-slurping rubber-stamper’s that make up the European Union, North West voters must be reminded of one other fact. Griffin is the only politician in the EU to my knowledge, that has systematically destroyed his own political party while keeping himself at the top of that crumbling edifice in the name of greed, through intimidation, lies and illegal activity. So what possible use can such a person have when supposedly representing a region of nearly 7 million largely decent tax-paying and law abiding people?

We know that it was only proportional representation that handed him the Euro seat, and that same system can also bury him. What about Brons I hear you ask? I say what about him? He’ll soon disappear in good time with or without Griffin, like Robin without Batman. Oops did I just say Robin, or Robbing? (Allegedly eh, Nick)

Thanks to The Gremlin for the article

A message from Nick Lowles at HOPE not hate

Over the past few days the media have been reporting that Griffin and his fellow BNP MEP Andrew Brons have been using vast amounts of taxpayer money to prop up their extremist party. Our research team have just sent me a dossier listing the benefactors of this action – and 10 of them are standing to be MPs in the coming election, including their election co-ordinator.

We are paying for the BNP’s election campaign.

This appears to be a clear misuse of public funds – and it’s up to us to demand that the EU take the strongest possible action to stop it. We’ve set up a simple tool that lets you write to four EU anti-corruption bodies at once.

According to our source inside the BNP, 14 party members are being paid with EU money. Several of them don’t even live in areas where the BNP has MEPs. And most of them are among the party’s lead candidates in the forthcoming General Election.

We can’t let this continue. If enough of us come together we can demand that the EU stamp down on the BNP’s dodgy activities – and stop each of us funding this nasty, extremist party. Our simple tool lets you write to the EU Anti-Fraud Office, the EU Ombudsman, the President of the EU Parliament, and the Secretary General.

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/fraud

Every taxpayer is currently funding the BNP’s election campaign. With your help we can stop this right here and right now.

You can sign our petition here.

As I write this an incredible 12,736 letters have been sent [and now - 24 hours later - the figure is well over 18,000!].

Hope not hate

BNP links to Troubles charity

Money, money, money...

A fundraising expert for the far-right BNP helped head a charity for Troubles’ victims that has raked in taxpayers’ cash

Fanatical anti-abortionist James Dowson was trustee of Solas NI — which has received more than £130,000 from Government and European Union peace grants. There is no suggestion that the money intended to help victims was misused.

Dowson confirmed his links to Solas NI after we started to investigate the secretive charity, which was set up to counsel those bereaved, maimed or traumatized by terrorist attacks. The support group has now mysteriously shut its Belfast headquarters amid revelations it has links to the far-right BNP.

Dowson was revealed in June as the man who runs the British National Party’s national call centre in Dundonald. The Dundonald BNP “bunker” is tucked away at Unit 5, Carrowreagh Business Centre.

Scottish businessman Dowson is a hardline anti-abortion campaigner who has a number of criminal convictions. He also featured in a flute band which produced tapes glorifying UFF killer Michael Stone’s infamous Milltown cemetery massacre in 1988. Dowson, 44, has a string of convictions including breach of the peace in 1986, weapon possession and breach of peace in 1991 and criminal damage in 1992.

When we first contacted him to ask about his links to Solas NI, he referred us to his solicitor. They released a statement to us through Dowson’s company Adlorries. In the statement, Dowson refers to Solas NI as ‘Solaris NI’. It said Dowson ceased to be a trustee of the group in February last year.

The statement added: “Jim Dowson is pleased to have been involved in a charity that set itself the agenda of making Northern Ireland safe for all by building bridges between persons of different faiths, different political persuasions and of different ethnic origins.”

Solas declares on its website that it embraces diversity and aims to ensure that victims of Troubles atrocities can turn to a “nonpolitical and non-sectarian organisation” for help. The group received £111,479 of European Union peace funding between 1998 and 2007. And from 2003-2007, Solas received £18,627 in Northern Ireland peace grants.

Dowson’s statement said that it was his “understanding” that Solas had been “dormant” since October last year. It added: “As far as Jim Dowson is aware, Solaris NI complied with all its legal, regulatory, funding and public disclosure obligations and requirements in full during the time he was a trustee and he has no reason to believe that this exemplary record was not continued by Solaris NI after he ceased to be a trustee.”

When we called at the Solas registered address in east Belfast last week, its doors were shuttered over and there was no sign. The deserted building on the Upper Newtownards Road is the same address which is still listed on the organisation’s website. A local businessman, who did not want to be named, said he had seen the BNP ‘truth truck’ – which is emblazoned with anti-abortion propaganda – regularly parked outside the Solas office.

Solas still has an operational website, but it is not clear if it is still accepting donations from the public. And when we rang the telephone number on its website, they refused to say if they had closed, how their cash was used or where they were now based.

Records show that Solas NI has the same address and telephone number as the Christian Youth Fellowship, set up by Jim Dowson. Online records show that the last registered chairman for Solas NI is Alex Thomas. Thomas’s wife, Marion, answered the phone when we rang the organisation using the number on its website. It has been claimed that Marion is in “overall charge” of directing calls to Dowson’s charity and business empire.

She refused to tell us where Solas was based when we asked about its closed headquarters. She also referred us to the same solicitor Dowson uses if we wanted further comment.

Unlike England and Wales, there is no charity register in Northern Ireland to give the public access to their details. It means there are no official documents we could view which show how Solas NI works.

Sunday Life via Hope not Hate

Dissecting the Dowsons

The leak of the BNP membership list last month has turned the spotlight on the party's Belfast call centre, the tensions it has caused in the party, and the links between the man who runs it and a charity that has received a six-figure sum in EU funding. Matthew Collins and Simon Cressy investigate.

The posting on the internet of a British National Party membership list two days before the BNP leader's prized appearance on Question Time was a huge embarrassment to the fascist party. After the BNP lost an earlier list of members and contacts last year, the party promised to put security measures in place to ensure such a thing could never happen again. It was only because of this promise that the BNP managed to stem a walkout of members concerned about losing their jobs and friends because of the revelation of their racist adherence.

Searchlight can now reveal that the "security measures" consisted of handing over the files to Jim Dowson, a hardline anti-abortion activist with a string of criminal convictions, who runs the party's "secret" administrative lair in Northern Ireland.

In what has become known as the BNP's Belfast bunker, an office on an industrial estate in Dundonald, Dowson's private company, Adlorries.com, employs staff recruited through employment agencies, to handle BNP members' personal information. Staff are not security vetted, though East Europeans and Asians applying for work at the call centre are automatically rejected, in contravention of employment legislation.

Staff, one of whom is the wife of a police officer working at Castlereagh police station, do not even have to sign a confidentiality clause. Yet one of their roles was to persuade up to 3,000 lapsed members that their personal information and membership details would now be kept securely and encrypted in the secretive call centre.

Dowson has told the police that a former staff member leaked the membership data after leaving her job taking a laptop computer in lieu of £2,000 that she claimed she was owed in unpaid wages.

Who's who in the Belfast bunker

Jennifer Matthys (née Griffin):Newly married, Jennifer and her husband Angus moved to the village of Comber, where a number of the BNP's key Northern Ireland personnel already live. Until recently a checkout assistant at her local Co-op, the BNP leader's daughter (pictured with father) is supposedly entrusted with keeping a close eye on the activities of the Dowsons. A new car was thrown into the bargain to sweeten the move away from her long-time love interest Mark Collett, the controversial designer of BNP leaflets and newly appointed editor of the party's newspaper Voice of Freedom. It is Jennifer who has stopped James Dowson Jr getting his hands on the Young BNP after a battle of wills between them.

James Dowson Jr: Until Jennifer Griffin's arrival, James Jr, Dowson's eldest son, was cock of the north around the village of Comber and in the BNP call centre from where he ran his plumbing firm, Ultraplumb.com Ltd, set up with his father's financial help. Dowson Jr, 21, is a senior member of the Goldsprings flute band, a favourite of Protestants who want to "kick" the Pope. His planned rise in the BNP has been curbed since Ms Griffin came on the scene. His father is alleged to have bought him a Russian bride who upped and left not long after arriving in the Dowson home.

Marion Thomas: Unknown until now, Marion Thomas has emerged as the key link person to the Dowson empire. Thomas, Dowson's sister-in-law, is the administrator of Dowson's various business and campaign interests and signs various documents on Dowson's behalf. Her husband, Alex Thomas, is a business partner of Dowson and chair of Solas NI, the victim support group linked to Dowson. Allegedly no great fan of Dowson, Marion allegedly keeps a record of all the business transactions that go on in Dowson's offices.

John Thompson: Dowson's long-time accountant, Thompson was taken on last April to sort out the BNP's books and records after a succession of changes in the BNP's treasury department, which had been widely accused of incompetence at the time of the winter 2007-08 rebellion in the BNP. Although the BNP described him as a "professional chartered accountant" he appears to have been unequal to the task and the BNP's 2008 accountants, due with the Electoral Commission by 7 July 2009, are still missing. Since the election of the BNP's two MEPs, Thompson has taken on the role of "paying agent" for the MEPs' staff on the European Parliament payroll.

One of the employment agencies that supplied staff to Adlorries was Office Angels. The firm would only speak to Searchlight through a PR company but confirmed that it had supplied staff to the call centre. A statement from Office Angels said it had terminated the contractual arrangement once it learned that Adlorries was a "third party supplier to the BNP". It added: "We do not discriminate against a person's race, age or sex. It is totally against Office Angels' values to do this, not to mention against the law."

The BNP claimed that Northern Ireland was a "safe haven" away from the strong opposition the party faces on mainland Britain. Since spring this year the BNP has carried out almost all its telephone fundraising and recruitment activities from the Dundonald office and another in nearby Ballyhackamore. Staff solicit donations and send out information packs all over the UK for a wage of £6 an hour plus commission based on the amount they raise.

Since the move to Northern Ireland the party has been trying desperately to plug a succession of embarrassing leaks to the Irish press identifying key personnel in the Irish operation and exposing the gradual and almost forced takeover of the BNP by a man who claimed publicly to have "stepped down" from fundraising for the party, but who still has his hand very firmly on the BNP's purse strings.

Gradually, since Dowson first became involved with the BNP in late 2007, he has taken over more and more of the party's operations and drawn the BNP further into his web of business, campaigning and charity interests.

Until the membership list leak, BNP members were receiving an average of three telephone calls a month from the call centre, soliciting donations and encouraging people to renew their membership early or upgrade to the life or gold membership schemes.

Legal action by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has forced the BNP to suspend recruiting members while it makes changes to its constitution. Instead, Dowson is now desperately trying to revive the near moribund Trafalgar Club, members of which contribute at least £15 a month in exchange for an annual dinner with speech by Nick Griffin, the party leader, usually in a smart country hotel, on the Saturday nearest to Trafalgar Day, 21 October.

Dowson has also put his staff onto increasing subscriptions to the party periodical Voice of Freedom as well as making begging phone calls for donations to fight the EHRC's case against the BNP. In reality the funds are being raised to pay the EHRC's costs, which are likely to be awarded against the BNP, after Griffin gave up the hopeless battle.

All these calls are made from the same telephone lines that the Dowson family use for their charity, anti-abortion work and the plumbing business run by James Dowson Jr. In overall charge of answering and dispatching calls to the correct part of the set-up is Marion Thomas, Dowson's sister-in-law.

Marion Thomas is married to Alex Thomas, who acts as chair of Solas, a Northern Ireland charity, which he runs together with Dowson. Solas NI is a victim support group set up in 2003 to help bereaved and injured victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles. It says its aim is "to ensure that those most affected by the Troubles have recourse to a non-political and non-sectarian organisation which caters specifically for their needs".

Solas operates from the same address and uses the same telephone number as another Dowson organisation, the Christian Youth Fellowship.

When Searchlight telephoned the number it was answered by a woman with a Scottish accent who gave her name as Marion. We then asked to speak to Jim [Dowson] and she proceeded to connect us.

Searchlight has discovered that up to March 2007 Solas received £111,479 of funding under a European Union programme for peace and reconciliation. The money, part of a £6.8 million allocation for projects in Northern Ireland in 2006-07, came via Proteus, an intermediate funding body.

Announcing the grants, Pat Donnelly, chief executive of Proteus, said: "There is real evidence that projects funded by PEACE II [the EU programme] have contributed to a significant change in mindset and created the necessary preconditions for genuine cooperation and improvements to take place".

Dowson's past record and current involvement with the racist BNP, which only seeks to divide communities, shows that cooperation is the last thing on his mind.

As well as controlling income coming in through the call centre, Dowson has placed his own accountant John Thompson to look after the BNP's books. Thompson, who is based in Comber, also looks after the accounts for Alex Thomas and Dowson's anti-abortion campaign, the UK LifeLeague.

Last April, Griffin announced that the "current and anticipated growth" of the BNP had necessitated the formation of a "full Treasury Department" headed by a professional chartered accountant", whom he did not name. Thompson's main achievement in that role appears to be the failure to produce the party's 2008 accounts on time, incurring a fine of at least £1,000 under electoral legislation.

Thompson was supposed to work under the oversight of the BNP's treasurer. At the time of his appointment this was one of the many party positions held by Simon Darby, the deputy leader. Thompson is believed to have clashed a number of times with Darby over the payment of bills, in particular to Romac Press Ltd in east Belfast, which now does the party's printing, including the endless begging letters the party sends out to an esoteric mailing list.

It appears that Romac Press, which also prints for Dowson's other operations, is being lined up to print Voice of Freedom. Senior party members on the mainland are said to be resisting the move, but Dowson hopes this may placate the owners who still have a large bill to be settled.

Senior BNP officers on the mainland have also voiced concern over the apparent independence of the Irish operation. They include Simon Bennett, the BNP's webmaster, Eddy Butler, the national organiser, Martin Wingfield, the Communications and Campaigns Officer for the two BNP MEPs, and even Darby. Bennett is especially aggrieved because Dowson is earning commission on the money he raises for the party. Bennett was offered commission on donations raised through the BNP website but the party appears to have reneged on the promise.

Searchlight can reveal that it was Griffin's sole decision to give Dowson free rein to run major BNP administrative functions. Perhaps it was to pacify them that the BNP announced in June the appointment of Emma Colgate as the party's administration officer in place of "consultant Jim Dowson", though in fact Dowson's role has not changed.

Dowson's remit is not limited to Northern Ireland, however. During the European election campaign the BNP announced proudly that it had acquired a number of office premises to house its growing operations, but kept the locations secret.

Searchlight has discovered that early this year the party leased three rooms in a smart building on the Salmon Springs Trading Estate in Stroud Gloucestershire for "training" at a cost of £5,000 per year. However it was not the BNP's name on the tenancy but that of Adlorries.com. The three-year lease was a waste of the BNP's money. Except for one meeting, at which the party sacked Michaela Mackenzie from her positions as administration officer and national nominating officer, the offices have remained unused and unfurnished.

West Midlands organiser Alwyn Deacon: runs a secondary BNP call centre in Nuneaton

It is different in Nuneaton, where the former pub landlord Alwyn Deacon is fronting the BNP's merchandising operation, Excalibur, complete with a mini call centre with 20 phone lines, in a property leased in his own name from the local Conservative council in Slingsby Close on the Attleborough Fields Industrial Estate. Deacon and his wife follow a series of fundraising guidelines set down by Dowson, under which former customers of Excalibur as well as all other party members and even members of the UK Independence Party are bombarded with phone calls and special offers.

How the BNP will afford these new premises is unclear. Any attempt to hide the costs in the party's expenses claims for the new MEPs would of course be fraudulent.

Partly to meet the concerns of members of the Party's national advisory council about Dowson's power in the party, Griffin's daughter Jennifer and her new husband Angus Matthys moved into a flat in Comber last month to begin work at the Dundonald call centre. Ms Griffin, a former leader of the Young BNP, once manned the tills at the same Co-op store where her father was briefly employed. Now she is allegedly forging her father's signature on the photograph of the revered leader that gold party members receive as thanks for their generosity.

Since moving to Northern Ireland, Jennifer is believed to have concurred with Arthur Kemp, the South African former apartheid intelligence agent who now edits the BNP website, that despite his father's wishes, Dowson's eldest son, James, could not be publicly anointed as the head of the BNP's youth wing. The decision has apparently caused resentment in the Dowson family as the Griffin and Dowson heirs vie for supremacy in the call centre.

However, this has not stopped Mr and Mrs Matthys joining Dowson Jr as members of the Goldsprings "kick the Pope" marching and flute band, a clear sign that despite the BNP's protestations to Anglo-Irish members on the mainland, a strict evangelical, racist and sectarian policy still runs through the very core of the BNP.

Another of Dowson's religious cohorts unpopular with senior members on the mainland is Zak McAdam. An IT specialist who has clashed with the BNP's webmaster Simon Bennett on a number of occasions, McAdam recently made a name for himself with a one-man campaign against lesbians and computer games. A number of holders of party laptops were furious to discover that they could not access pornography after McAdam blocked access to some of the party employees' favourite porn sites.

Although the latest BNP membership list leak has been overshadowed by Griffin's Question Time appearance, limiting the damage in terms of bad publicity, advisory council members are angry and are blaming Dowson for the embarrassing loss of data that were supposedly kept encrypted.

Wingfield, whose wife Tina used to be the party's membership secretary, was the first to comment shortly before midnight on the eve of the anticipated leak. Wingfield blogged: "I know the leak certainly didn't come from our end here."

Days after Griffin's disastrous performance on Question Time and the membership list loss, Jennifer and Angus Matthys attended this year's Trafalgar Club dinner alongside Dowson at a smart country house hotel near Ross-on-Wye. The tension between senior BNP officers and Dowson, and the animosity between Griffin's daughter and Dowson Jr, cannot have made for a congenial evening.

Searchlight thanks all the people in Northern Ireland and England who have helped in this investigation.

Irish TUC calls for enquiry

Searchlight’s investigation into the business activities of the BNP front man Jim Dowson has led to a call for an enquiry into whether the employment practices at the BNP call centre are in breach of Northern Ireland’s Race Relations Order of 1997, which prohibits racist employment practices.

The Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities (NICEM) issued a joint call last month for an investigation by the Department of Employment and Learning, after Searchlight passed them evidence that employment agencies had been duped into providing staff for the BNP.

In response to Searchlight’s investigation, the employment agency Office Angels issued a statement through its London PR company admitting it had supplied a “small number of staff to a call centre called Adlorries” but withdrew them and terminated the agreement once it became apparent who the customer really was.

The statement went on to say that Office Angels “would not support any client who appeared to discriminate and would review our contract with them forthwith. Our philosophy is to not only uphold the word of the law but also our company morals, standards and policies.”

While there is no suggestion that Office Angels has contravened the law or in any way behaved improperly, Searchlight does have evidence that at least one other high profile employment agency is not only still supplying staff to Adlorries to work for the BNP but is also allegedly “cherry picking” prospective employees based on race, religion and sexuality.

Launching the joint call for an investigation, Peter Bunting, ICTU Assistant General Secretary, said: “The BNP are fascists. They misrepresent facts about public housing going to immigrants, about foreigners taking our‚ jobs, about Muslims and crime and about the Holocaust. They even deny what Britain fought during World War II. The truth is that Britain fought against fascism, and this clearly is a fight that is not over yet.

“These are tainted jobs from an evil employer, and no employment agency should have any truck with them.”

Searchlight is also calling for an inquiry and we will be handing our dossier to ICTU and NICEM to present to the authorities leading the investigation.

You may also be interested to read
• Dissecting the Dowsons Part 3 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
• Dowson's empire Part 2 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
• From rags to riches Part 1 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
• BNP Bosses Uncovered A former employee lifts the lid on life working for 44-year-old Jim Dowson and the BNP in Belfast by Steven Moore Sunday World October 2009
• 'Cash strapped' BNP fails to deliver accounts Sonia Gable on the BNP’s current financial problems Searchlight Magazine September 2009
• The man who bought the BNP Sonia Gable untangles a BNP financial web Searchlight Magazine July 2009
• Truth truck or lie lorry? Sonia Gable uncovers another BNP financial scandal Searchlight Magazine August 2008
• BNP accounts don't add up Sonia Gable analyses the BNP’s latest figures Searchlight Magazine September 2008

Hope not Hate

Dowson's empire

Sonia Gable shines a light on Jim Dowson's string of business and campaigning interests

Solas NI

Solas NI, a charity with the registration number XR86269, describes itself on its website as a victim support group set up to help bereaved and injured victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles. It says its aim is "to ensure that those most affected by the Troubles have recourse to a non-political and non-sectarian organisation which caters specifically for their needs". It was formed in 2003 and up to 2007 had received £111,479 of funding under a European Union programme for peace and reconciliation.

Jim Dowson is not known to hold any position in Solas, but its chair is Alex Thomas, a business partner of Dowson and husband of his sister-in-law, who is also involved in Solas. The charity also uses the same address and telephone number as another Dowson organisation, the Christian Youth Fellowship.

Adlorries.com Ltd

Jim Dowson is the sole director of Adlorries.com Ltd, the company that hired the Belfast staff. Incorporated in October 2004 it describes itself as "an independent company providing professional services without prejudice to NGOs, charities and political organisations … We are the complete business solution," its scanty website claims.

The BNP's "truth truck", better known outside the party as the lie lorry

The company owns little of substance. Its latest accounts show fixed assets plus cash of nearly £27,000 against £25,000 owed in debts and long-term loans.

One of its assets is the BNP's "truth truck", better known outside the party as the lie lorry. Last year the BNP claimed to have bought the truck after a successful appeal to supporters to raise the £26,550 needed. However when bailiffs tried to enforce a county court judgement against the BNP, the party's solicitors responded that the vehicle was "registered in the name of another person who … has no connection with the judgement debtors".

In fact the truth truck turned out to be the same vehicle that Dowson had bought two years earlier for the anti-abortion UK LifeLeague, after appealing for donations from supporters. It even had the same name. A press release issued in April 2006 claimed Operation Truth Truck would "enable the pro-life message to reach the unreached across the towns and cities of Britain". The UK LifeLeague and the BNP had milked their gullible supporters twice over for the same "truth truck" which never left the ownership of Adlorries.com.

Albion Logistical Solutions Ltd

Incorporated in February 2009, Albion Logistical Solutions Ltd has an address in Loughborough and one director, Jim Dowson. It was this company that organised the printing of over 28 million glossy BNP European election leaflets earlier this year.

Midas Consultancy

Early in 2008 BNP senior officers and activists were invited to attend "high level management training" arranged by "a professional management consultancy and training company", which "uses a property in Spain as its main training base". Searchlight quickly established that the organiser was a Belfast-based business called the Midas Consultancy, the name under which Jim Dowson marketed his management and fundraising skills, and that the training base was in Valencia on the Costa Blanca.

Christian Youth Fellowship

The Christian Youth Fellowship shares premises with Solas NI and its contact person is listed as J Dowson. Its activities centre around anti-abortion and anti-gay campaigning, though in May it took part in the launch of TIDY Northern Ireland's Clean Coast Programme on Portrush, Whiterocks beach.

UK LifeLeague

Jim Dowson is the main public face of the hardline anti-abortion UK LifeLeague, which uses highly provocative tactics, such as publishing the home addresses of abortion clinic staff. Similar actions by anti-abortion groups in the US have resulted in the murder of doctors.

Formed in 1999, the LifeLeague claims to be committed to peaceful campaigning "to end the violence of abortion". Although its website states that "campaigning is an important part of what we do", the organisation appears to have done nothing since early 2008 apart from raising money.

Ultraplumb.com Ltd

Jim Dowson helped his eldest son, James Dowson Jr, to set up Ultraplumb.com Ltd, a company registered at Dowson's address in Cumbernauld, Scotland, in 2007. Dowson Jr, 21, (pictured) is the sole director and Marion Thomas, Dowson Sr's sister-in-law, is the Company Secretary. Ultraplumb styles itself as "Northern Ireland's premier plumbing company" but of the three testimonials on its website, dated 2007, one is from Thomas herself. Its accounts are several months overdue for filing at Companies House.

After the exposé of the BNP's Belfast bunker operation in the Irish press, Dowson Jr painted out the signs on his company's vans, fearing reprisals from the local population.

BNP offices in Stroud and Nuneaton

Stroud: The large grey stone house on a Stroud industrial estate is not the sort of place one might expect the BNP to occupy. Jim Dowson's company Adlorries.com Ltd leased three rooms at Unit 13, Salmon Springs Trading Estate, Painswick Road, Stroud for three years, paying £5,000 a year in rent to the owner, D J Melsome Ltd. They were to be used as a training centre for the BNP run by Michaela Mackenzie, but have remained empty after the party sacked her from her posts as administration officer and national nominating officer. Like many in the BNP it appears she clashed with Dowson, but came off second best. Unfortunately for Dowson, the lease has no cancellation clause.

Nuneaton: Alwyn Deacon, the BNP's West Midlands regional organiser, leases Unit 3 Slingsby Close, Attleborough Fields Industrial Estate, Nuneaton from Nuneaton and Bedworth council, where the BNP has one councillor following the resignation of a second last month. Deacon is also the BNP's enquiries secretary and national dispatch manager, a job he carries out at the unit.

Like the unit the BNP secretly occupied on a Deeside industrial estate last year, until the landlords evicted the party following a Searchlight exposé, the Nuneaton premises also houses Excalibur, the BNP's merchandising operation. Since May Excalibur has been run privately by Arthur Kemp, the BNP's foreign affairs spokesman, under an annually renewable licence from the party. Excalibur's range of tatty cringe-making and overpriced goods include golliwogs, Replica Victoria Crosses, condemned by the Ministry of Defence as an insult to British troops' heroism, Enoch Powell t-shirts and copies of Kemp's own dismal books.

The Nuneaton unit also houses a call centre with 20 phone lines, where BNP staff try to solicit as much money as possible in donations and merchandise sales from past Excalibur customers, party members, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be on their phone number list.

Friday: Dissecting the Dowsons The leak of the BNP membership list last month has turned the spotlight on the party’s Belfast call centre, the tensions it has caused in the party, and the links between the man who runs it and a charity that has received a six-figure sum in EU funding. Matthew Collins and Simon Cressy investigate.

Hope not Hate

Jim Dowson: How a militant anti-abortionist took over the BNP

Today we start a serialisation from the current issue of Searchlight Magazine which features a special investigation into the heart of the BNP. We highlight the organisational set-up, the secret locations and the people running the fascist party. We expose how the running of the party has been outsourced to a rabid Loyalist anti-abortionist in Belfast and we reveal that this man is receiving European Union money for peace and reconciliation.

We have also been busy working with the media. Many of the revelations and exposés we have read in the newspapers over the past few weeks have originated from Searchlight. Forty-seven years after Searchlight was first formed we are proving that we are still ahead of the game.

From rags to riches : Part I of a three part investigation - Gerry Gable

Ten years ago Jim Dowson (pictured left) was a down-at-heel anti-abortion campaigner and hardline Protestant, who had marched with a loyalist band that played songs in praise of the convicted loyalist murderer Michael Stone

His luck changed when he formed an alliance with Justin Barrett, a far-right Catholic lawyer and leader of the notorious Irish anti-abortion group Youth Defence, which had previously stormed buildings in Dublin in their crusade against a woman's right to choose.

In 2000 Barrett had attended a rally of the German nazi National Democratic Party, where he met Roberto Fiore, the Italian fascist friend and mentor of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader. The trip was arranged by Derek Holland, one of Griffin's old colleagues from the days of the National Front Political Soldiers. Barrett attracted attention as the lead spokesperson of the successful Irish campaign against the Nice Treaty in 2001 and money started to flow from far-right anti-abortionists in the United States.

In 1999 Dowson had formed Precious Life Scotland and it was through cooperation between his group and Youth Defence that he met Barrett. The link proved beneficial when Barrett pitched £50,000 into Dowson's organisation to pay for the production of anti-abortion CDs and video tapes to be distributed to schools and churches in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Dowson was a "rent-a-cause" extremist who had been kicked out of the Orange Order. He has a list of criminal convictions including breach of the peace in 1986, possession of a weapon and breach of the peace in 1991 and criminal damage in 1992. Although a Protestant, he was happy to sell thousands of photographs of the Pope at inflated prices to Catholics in the Irish Republic.

Barrett faded from the public arena after the Nice Treaty vote was rerun and went the other way. His political demise was hastened after the publication of his book The National Way Forward, in which he described immigration as "genocidal". He also became increasingly antisemitic, influenced by the nazi leaders he had met in Germany.

In contrast, Dowson's campaigning activities grew. He turned his sights on gay people and encouraged his followers to abuse and threaten people who attended or worked in abortion clinics. This resulted in Dowson parting company with some of his Precious Life fellow activists, but he was now in a financial position to go it alone, turning his faction into the UK LifeLeague. He never looked back.

Dowson, 45, started working with the British National Party late in 2007, and he quickly revolutionised its fundraising. His first appeal, launched at the time the BNP was tearing itself apart in an internal rebellion, was carried out as a free sample to show the party what he could do, but since then he has worked on a percentage commission.

His work for the BNP grew to encompass the provision of manage-ment training in Spain and revamping the party's administration. Early in 2009 he set up the Belfast call centre, piggybacking it on his successful fundraising for the LifeLeague, thereby cutting costs and perhaps giving doubtful BNP officers the impression of a larger operation than it actually is.

Over the past two years he has clearly raised huge sums for the party, although it remains financially strapped. Partly this is the result of scams, such as the truth truck, which Griffin claimed had been bought with thousands of pounds of supporters' donations. It turned out still to belong to Dowson's private company, Adlorries.com, and, like much of the other equipment the BNP claimed to have bought, it was only leased by the party.

Today Dowson practically owns the BNP, which he briefly joined to placate his critics but left as soon as the heat was off him. He remains at loggerheads with many senior party officers and employees. One, whom he sacked in spring, is heading for an employment tribunal.

Griffin's claim that the BNP is being flooded with donations via Dowson's call centre is a lie. Income is down to a trickle and membership is a mere 8,000 or so. People are not queuing up to join after the end of the three-month moratorium on membership, they are leaving in droves, especially since the latest membership list leak from Dowson's Belfast bunker.

All this comes on top of the party's forced climbdown over its racist constitution, the non-appearance of its 2008 accounts and concern over the number of senior party officers who have been put on the European Parliament payroll as staff of the two BNP MEPs.

Tomorrow: Dowson's empire by Sonia Gable
Friday: Dissecting the Dowsons The leak of the BNP membership list last month has turned the spotlight on the party’s Belfast call centre, the tensions it has caused in the party, and the links between the man who runs it and a charity that has received a six-figure sum in EU funding. Matthew Collins and Simon Cressy investigate.

Hope not Hate

Deputies fight BNP election campaign

The Board of Deputies has launched a nationwide campaign to stop the BNP from winning seats in the European elections in June.

Under the slogan “Your voice or Theirs”, the Board will be distributing 1,000 special kits containing posters, leaflets and balloons in the next four weeks to help grassroots activists run local campaigns to get people out to vote for a mainstream party. Previous elections have shown that a high turn-out usually means defeat for the extreme right-wing party.

The Board has identified the areas most at risk as those with the biggest Jewish populations - the North West, where BNP leader Nick Griffin will be standing, London and the South East. In the South East, where 10 seats are available, the BNP needs only 7.5 per cent of the vote to win a seat and only 8.5 per cent in the other two areas.

Henry Grunwald QC, President of the Board said: “As a community, we need to unite to say no to the politics of hate and extremism wherever they may be. The unhappy reality is that the BNP is gaining momentum and may well be successful in the forthcoming elections.

“I, for one, am not prepared to say that I sat back and did nothing whilst a national racist campaign is launched across Britain. The Board of Deputies is doing everything it can to support local community groups in our collective fight against the BNP and I hope that, collectively, we will rise to the occasion.

“We want the community to spread the word about the elections and the threat posed by the BNP. Use your democratic right and register to vote by May 18 or the elections on June 4. The higher the turnout across the country, the harder it is for the BNP to succeed. Every vote for a mainstream political party is a vote against extremism.”

Jewish Chronicle

UKIP can stop BNP says Nigel Farage

The UK Independence Party last night claimed it was the only party that could stop the BNP from securing a North West seat in next year’s European elections.

Speaking at a reception in Liverpool, Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, said the party would expose the “hypocrisy” of the three main European parties in their dealings with the European Union. He said the party was intending to make the next election a proxy referendum on the Lisbon treaty, which the government has steadfastly refused to allow the general public to vote on.

Mr Farage was in Liverpool to launch the campaign of Bootle’s Paul Nuttall, who has been selected by UKIP as their top North West candidate in next June’s poll. He will replace Lancaster University academic John Whittaker, who will stand down as UKIP’s North West Euro MP in June.

Mr Nuttall, 31, was recently made chairman of the party and formed UKIP’s south Sefton branch. He is a political adviser to the Ind/Dem Group in the European Parliament. He was formerly a history lecturer.

Although Mr Farage said the party would do a “very good job” of exposing the hypocrisy of the three main parties, he admitted there was a threat from the BNP.

“We are the only party that can stop them [from getting a seat].”

Liverpool Daily Post

Beware “the Lure of Rome”: BNP writer says Catholics are the “Anti-Christ” and “Satanic”

“There can be no fellowship with Rome: for once the Protestant Church is entangled in the web there is no escape, for sudden destruction will come upon it. Jesus came to give life, but Antichrist Rome administers the kiss of death ... There must be no compromise with Rome, and no appearance of compromise”

- BNP activist and writer Colin Farquhar

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Hexapla. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.

The Kiss of Death

In our fourth article on anti-Catholic bigotry within the BNP, we expose the rancid anti-Catholic article, The Death Kiss of Rome on the Protestant Church, written by BNP activist Colin Farquhar. The BNP does well to hide its anti-Catholic bigots in the sectarian closet. But, every so often those bigots manage to prise open the closet’s door in order to propagate their message of sectarian hate fused with extreme race-based nationalism. Before we carry on, our previous articles on BNP anti-Catholicism are below:

BNP accuses Catholics of “heresy” and “blasphemy”

The Whore of Revelation and the BNP speaker who wants to destroy Catholics

BNP candidate in anti-Catholic claims: the indefatigable Alan Girvan strikes again!

Colin Farquhar pops up every so often in the letters section of the Northern Echo newspaper to tell readers of the benefits of a BNP-ruled Britain (only to be rebuked by other readers for his political propaganda. See link). But, Colin Farquhar does not tell readers that he, along with a fair number of BNP members, harbour a distinct anti-Catholic streak. Indeed, Colin Farquhar is quite notable for his anti-Catholic activism. Back in 2002, Colin Farquhar personally hosted the anti-Catholic preacher Pastor Frank W. Dowsett of The Covenant Vision Ministry in his tour of Britain.

The whore of Babylon

In highly emotive and polemical language, BNP writer Colin Farquhar provides a perverted reading of the Bible’s Book of Revelation when he condemns the Catholic faith as the fabled whore of Babylon or as he puts it, “the harlot Mother Church of Rome”. This provides Colin Farquhar with the justification to denounce aspects of Catholic belief as “totally false” and a “sham”.

Catholics kill and torture Protestants

Unfortunately, history can be a political tool, malleable in the hands of extremists and bigots. Indeed, BNP writer Colin Farquhar shows this is the case: he reifies Christian history by compressing it into a dubious sectarian metanarrative that transposes Catholics as the historical persecutors of their Protestant counterparts:

“When we remember the origins of this church, from as far back as the tower of Babel in Babylon; and the countless idolatrous and blasphemous satellite churches of Rome; and those millions of Protestants that have been tortured and slaughtered by this same church, is there need to say more?”

Colin Farquhar goes on to condemn his fellow Protestant believers who fail to give countenance to his rather scurrilous reading of western Europe’s fraught history of Catholic-Protestant relations:

“However, in defiance of historical fact, Protestants continue to succumb to the Lure of Rome”

The European Union: an evil Catholic plot against the UK and Protestantism

How does Colin Farquhar’s ‘historical fact’ play out? Like his fellow BNP writer and activist, Alan O’Reilly, Colin Farquhar claims that the European Union is an evil Catholic plot to destroy Britain and the Protestant faith:

“An up-to-date example of the attraction of evil is the fascination of our leaders with Europe and their willingness to sacrifice the independence and self-sufficiency of our great nation as they lust for power in the forthcoming Superstate of Europe ... As our politicians are transfixed with the political manifestation of Rome, that of Europe, so our church leaders are enchanted with the ecclesiastical manifestation, the Roman Catholic Church. This great edifice of unimaginable wealth, pomp and splendour has caused so many of our church leaders to capitulate to the grandeur and influence of this mighty satanic institution. What power and authority could be theirs if only they bow the knee to Papa”

Of course Colin, of course. Do keep up the good work; you chaps in the BNP are doing a sterling job.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is a Catholic agent in service of the anti-Christ

Colin Farquhar’s ‘historical fact’ also plays itself out in a different way. Perniciously, Colin Farquhar’s conspirital pen drubs the collective leadership of the Protestant faith as irredeemable traitors:

“Today we are experiencing a similar betrayal by the leaders of our Protestant Churches. Not only are they willing to come under the authority of Rome but they move heaven and earth to take as many with them as they can. The Reformers and great Christian leaders of the past identified the Roman Church as the Church of Antichrist. Antichrist they believed was to be found in the succession of Popes. The term ‘anti’ in this sense meaning ‘another’. The Popes therefore, each in turn were Antichrist, or in other words Another-Christ”

But, BNP writer Colin Farquhar reserves especial venom for the admirable head of the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams:

“Haven’t we just witnessed this crawling to Rome of our present Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams? He just the other week in his attempt to promote ecumenical relations knelt before the Pope and kissed the ring on his hand as the Cardinals present chuckled with delight at their moment of triumph. There was the representative of the Protestant Church of Great Britain submitting himself in subservience to the Antichrist. What shameful behaviour: if ever a man deserves to be removed from office, it is he. The treachery of such an act is unbelievable considering how his predecessor Archbishop Cranmer was burnt at the stake at the hands of this same church. Where were the voices of condemnation within the Protestant Church, and the calls for his resignation for this and other issues that have brought disgrace on the church and dishonour to the Lord?”

Anti-sectarianism is evil! The “curse” of ecumenism

It is clear that BNP writer Colin Farquhar, without a doubt, burns Archbishop Rowan Williams at the metaphorical stake. This is the fate of those brave individuals who attempt to cross the bridge of sectarian difference and apathy. This is the process of what is known as ‘ecumenism’. And, it is something that Colin Farquhar, tout court sectarian extremist, loathes. In the most strident terms, Colin Farquhar denounces attempts to reconcile sectarian difference as yet another wicked Catholic trick to debase Protestantism:

“In my youth .. union with other denominations was inconceivable ... Yet the process of ecumenism is centuries old and no surprise to the Roman church, for this baby was conceived in the Vatican. It is part of the Jesuit Counter-Reformation plot to cause the downfall of the Protestant church and to bring the whole world under the domain of the Pope. For the Reformation was such a deadly blow to the apostate ‘Mother Church’ of Rome”

Thus, for Colin Farquhar anti-sectarianism is a “curse”. Based on this twisted logic, hate must be, conversely, a blessing. This perhaps explains why Colin Farquhar, and others like him, are members of the BNP. After all, the BNP rejoices in its own form of race-based anti-ecumenism to which it can add an anti-Catholic component. The wicked have truly inherited the earth.

Convert those wayward satanic Catholics

It is only the chosen few like Colin Farquhar who are endowed with racially-privileged spiritual insight. The Catholics are heathens whose lost souls must be prayed for. As Colin Farquhar concludes in his childish article:

“Let us be faithful witnesses toward Catholic people and others that are carried along by deceitful and deadly satanic organisations and institutions. Let us be diligent in prayer that God will be merciful toward them that the light of the gospel might shine in their lives and dispel all darkness and falsehood. Let us warn them especially regarding the deceitfulness, error and darkness of the Antichrist Roman Catholic Church; and those organisations such as the World Council of Churches and Churches Together that seek to bring about unity with this Satanic institution”

Conclusion

Colin Farquhar’s sectarianism is little more than an exercise in unapologetic hate. Should he be condemned, refuted or pitied? I leave it to the reader to answer this question. But, regardless of who you are - Catholic or Protestant, Christian or non-Christian, believer or atheist - we must all make the stand against fascism, racism and sectarianism. This is our common truth that binds us all irrespective of our backgrounds. It is only through our individual and collective apathy that the BNP can succeed. And, we should never let this happen.

¡No Pasarán!

Time to renew the fight against the BNP

The past couple of days have been interesting for Lancaster Unity for a lot of reasons - not just the obvious ones. Our experiment with 'live' updating has been a lot of fun and a tremendous success thanks to our contributors who have plied us with information and laughs almost non-stop over this election period.

Thanks to Denise and her insatiable information-gathering, we have kept pretty much on top of things, giving our readers a snapshot of the current situation at any given moment. In fact, this election has been invaluable for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is by showing us that we can work in an entirely different way by embracing all the means that both new and old media can provide.

The results are not good - there's no getting away from that fact - though the BNP's net increase of ten councillors and the idiotic Richard Barnbrook's election to the London Assembly are more as a result of the rocky position in which the current government finds itself rather than anything the BNP has done or said. That said, the result is very far short of the BNP's expectation - they were hoping for forty new councillors and three Assembly members. And there is even more good news, as reported by Searchlight, which pointed out very clearly how the BNP's vote in many of its heartlands has gone down, in some cases quite considerably.Nevertheless, with the Euro-elections coming up, we need to remain alert and to keep working hard and continually against the ever-present threat of the far-right.

The election results themselves, though irritating, are not catastrophic. Given the usual disasters the BNP is prone to, we should lose half of the new input of BNP councillors within a year or so and Barnbrook will be sure to provide us with a constant stream of gaffes and idiocies to brighten the darkest days.

You can be sure that we at Lancaster Unity will be doing our bit in the fight against the BNP and that we will do as much as is possible to continue to spread the truth about the British National Party and its fascist links and followers, its covert racism and anti-semitism, and its continued internal corruption. The fight against the far-right is not over - it will probably never be over - but Lancaster Unity and its many friends and allies will be there at the front, with your help, doing its best to oppose it wherever we can.

Far-right European parliament group on verge of collapse

The anti-immigrant far-right political group in the European Parliament is on the verge of collapse following internal fighting over comments made by an Italian member about Romanians and criminality.

The Greater Romania party on Thursday (7 November) announced that it was withdrawing its five members from the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty group following comments expressed by Alessandra Mussolini, grand-daughter of the facist Il Duce, about Romanians after a much publicised murder of an Italian last week.

The suspected perpetrator is thought be a Romanian immigrant from the Roma community and prompted harsh rhetoric from far-right politicians in Italy, including Ms Mussonlini.

In response, a letter by the head of the Greater Romania party, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, states that "The unconsciousness of this lady [Ms Mussonlini] who makes easily generalisations, leaving to understand that all the Romanians are living like delinquents and are making dreadful crimes - remind us of her grandfather, the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini (...)."

"With the exit of the 5 Romanian MEPs, who became independent again, the Identity-Tradition Sovereignty group disappears," says the letter.

According to Mr Vadim, whose own party has been regularly accused of racism, Ms Mussolini is quoted in Romanian newspapers as saying: "Breaking the law became a way of life for Romanians. However, it is not about petty crimes, but horrifying crimes, that gives one goose bumps."

Later on Thursday, it emerged that the Romanians were considering trying to stay in the group but get Ms Mussolini removed - in this way the group would be able to continue to exist. A decision is to be made next Tuesday. A spokesperson for the ITS group told EUobserver that they are going to "use the weekend" for negotiations and that it was "not possible to say" yet whether the group would survive. Under EU assembly rules, a party must have at least 20 members from six member states.

The turmoil in the group - which was less than a year old - has already caused a certain amount of schadenfreude among officials and MEPs in the parliament. Some already sent out press releases announcing welcoming the demise of the group.

"Watching these people argue amongst themselves warms the heart," said Scottish MEP Alyn Smith in a statement. "The European Parliament is a home to Europe's democracy and it is right that all views are represented but I dislike everything these people stand for and am glad to see theirgroup collapse," continued the MEP.

The diverse group also houses politicians from France's and Belgium's anti-immigrant National Front and Vlaams Belang, as well as Andrew Mölzer (an Austrian MEP kicked out of a far-right party in Austria for being too extremist), Dimitar Stoyanov (a Bulgarian MEP who caused a ruckus in the parliament last year when he circulated a derogatory email about Roma people) and two Italian MEPs Luca Romagnoli and Alessandra Mussolini.

Another of its members, UK MEP Ashley Mote, is currently in jail for benefit fraud.

During its months as a group, it has failed to act as a coherent political faction appearing to bear out analysts predictions that its various parts have little to unite them.

EUObserver

Outcasts: Italy turns on its immigrants in wake of a murder

These are the first victims of a brutal Italian crackdown on immigrants. As thousands await deportation without trial, are we entering a new era of intolerance across Europe?

They sat forlornly on the banks of the Tiber yesterday while the shantytowns they had called home only hours before were demolished. Already outcasts from the mainstream of Italian life, now they have been banished from whatever impromptu shelter they had found. And the city rejoiced at their misfortune.

Three small kittens and a hungry-looking mongrel are the last remaining inhabitants of the Roma squatter camp on the northern outskirts of Rome. The camp is yards from Tor di Quinto station on a commuter line from central Rome, but, screened by trees and creepers and huddled in a narrow gully, it is invisible until you part the creeper and step inside. Then you find the first of a line of flimsy huts, put together from scrap wood and fabric and cardboard but neat and cared-for. Inside some of them have rugs on the floor, tiny gas cooking stoves, dressers with ornaments, a double bed, a broken down chair; outside is a mouldy old sofa, a moth-eaten beach umbrella shading an old coffee table: la dolce vita for Italy's poorest and most marginal residents.

The camp is empty because on Wednesday a naval captain's wife, Giovanna Reggiani, 47, returning home from a shopping trip to central Rome, was attacked and robbed near here, and dumped in the gully. Last night she died in hospital. It was a vicious crime, and fed into a mounting national mood of anger and exasperation about immigration. Suddenly Italy's political system, normally so sluggish, sprang into life.

Within hours Italy was doing what millions of people around Europe – whipped up by populist politicians and a xenophobic media – would like to see their own governments doing: taking quick, dramatic and draconian action to teach the immigrants a lesson they won't forget.

A new law on security has been creeping through parliament: one of its central provisions is that foreigners belonging to EU countries and resident in Italy can be expelled on the orders of local prefects if they are a threat to "public security". No trial is necessary. On Wednesday night, at the urging of Walter Veltroni, the Mayor of Rome and leader of a new centrist party, the Democratic Party, that provision was extracted from the law, quickly redrafted as a "decree-law", a sort of diktat, and signed by the President overnight. From being the sluggard of the EU, suddenly Italy was in the vanguard. "First 5,000 expulsions to go ahead," promised La Repubblica newspaper.

The decree law came into force yesterday, and last night the Prefect of Milan became the first in the country to apply for its implementation, demanding the expulsion of four Roma. The Roma are as ever the first minority group to be singled out and vilified when anti-immigrant sentiments are inflamed.

While the politicians and lawyers were thrusting the law through the system, the state was coming down hard on the squatters of Tor di Quinto. A line of police cars arrived at the site and police chased the Roma away from their makeshift homes. Forensic detectives went through the camp for clues to the murder, and it was expected that its shacks would be levelled by bulldozers within a few hours. Other police teams descended on camps small and large dotted across the shabby, sprawling, crime-infested and chaotic Roman outskirts, and along the squalid banks of the Tiber.

It's the sort of bold, drastic action against the tide of immigration that many have called for across much of western Europe.

The free movement of people across the continent is a cornerstone of the union of 27 member states but the linkage between immigration and crime remains explosive. In Italy, as in Britain, the Netherlands and elsewhere, the issue of foreign criminals stirs a mob mentality that can quickly remove senior politicians from office if they are caught on the wrong side of it.

Statistics do little to calm the debate. Analysis from the Metropolitan Police suggests that foreign migrants are if anything less likely to commit crimes than other groups. Figures suggested that they made up 27 per cent of the population in London but committed 20 per cent of the crimes. Danny Sriskandarajah, a respected expert on migration at the Institute of Public Policy Research, said: "Although the evidence may suggest foreigners are no more, and maybe less likely to be criminal in the UK there is a combination of fears about outsiders and mistrust of outsiders.

Yesterday the consensus on the streets of Rome was that the crackdown was long overdue. A woman on crutches at Ponte Milvio, a couple of miles from the crime scene, said baldly: "It would be better if they all went home. Here we are all scared." A middle-aged woman shopping with her husband said: "I've no objection to them being here as such. But if they don't have regular work and a steady income, if they have to rob and murder to stay alive, it would be better if they went home."

But another woman said Mr Veltroni couldn't escape blame. "He's been a good mayor in many ways but it's true that he has had no interest in dealing with this problem."

If the murder of Mrs Reggiani has plunged Italy into a moral panic, it has been a long time coming. Politicians, Mr Veltroni and the post-Fascist leader Gianfranco Fini leading the pack, have been doing everything they can to prove that they are tough on immigrant crime. Mr Fini took journalists up in a plane the other week to point out Rome's squatter camps, while Mr Veltroni flew to Bucharest to plead with the Romanian President to put a brake on emigration.

Increasingly racist coverage of muggings, rapes and murders in the press and on television has built a mood of national hysteria. In Italy there is a widespread feeling that the country is swamped by outsiders. About 700,000 immigrants have arrived – more than in any other EU country. Yet it rests on a flimsy basis of fact. In the 10 months since Romania entered the EU, Romanians have been accused of nine separate cases of murder against Italians, a number dwarfed by, for example, gang murders in Naples.

Amid the cathartic sense yesterday that at last the people's voice was being heard, murmurs of doubt arose. If only the lane leading to the station had had the benefit of a few street lamps – would the murder have happened? If Mr Veltroni had taken action against the squatter camps years ago instead of negligently allowing them to multiply – would the country be faced with this sense of crisis?

The attack on Giovanna Reggiani came to light after a Roma woman stood in the middle of the road and forced a bus to stop. Unable to speak Italian, she screamed the name of the man now accused of the murder – "Mailat!" – and mimed a man carrying a body. She led the police to the body, and to the shack where Nicolae Romolus Mailat lived with his mother. After receiving threats from people in the camp she is now under police protection.

Mr Mailat was remanded in custody charged with attempted murder, sexual violence and robbery. He has admitted only the robbery.

Independent

Anger at EU talks as Germany hit by Nazi jibes

Talks on a treaty to replace the European Constitution got off to an angry start last night, after Poland launched an astonishing verbal attack on Germany over its Nazi past and Tony Blair threatened to walk away from the negotiations.

European Union leaders have gathered in Brussels hoping to agree an amended form of the constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2004.

But the new form of the document is proving intensely controversial, particularly its proposals to change member states' voting weights and enshrine a "Charter of Fundamental Rights" in European law.

Many major British employers fear that the charter would give their workers new rights to strike, and Mr Blair yesterday signalled he was ready to "walk away from a deal" that gives the charter legal force in Britain.

That is one of the four "red lines" Britain laid down before the talks began. Mr Blair also said he would refuse any move to extend EU powers over UK policy in foreign affairs, criminal justice or social security.

Arriving in Brussels for his last EU summit before stepping down as Prime Minister next Wednesday, Mr Blair predicted "tough negotiations".

He said: "We have laid down four areas where we have to have significant change and we will have to see that change - it will have to be done. The four areas we set down we do need satisfied in full."

Mr Blair's insistence on Britain's demands being met "in full" infuriated other EU leaders, who believe Britain must be ready to compromise. Jose Manual Barroso, the European Commission President, yesterday said Mr Blair was not being "sensible" about the talks.

But if Britain's position is generating tension in Brussels, it is a minor row compared to Poland's spectacular rhetorical offensive.

The draft treaty would revise the EU's decision-making process with a new voting system giving countries power according to their population.

That would reduce the power of Poland - which has 38 million people - at the expense of Germany, which has 82 million. The Polish government has reacted with fury to the proposal, threatening to veto a new treaty and badly straining relations with the German government, which is chairing the Brussels talks.

As part of the escalating war of words over voting reforms, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Polish prime minister, broke the greatest taboo of the modern EU by raising Germany's actions in the war.

Poland lost 6.5 million people during the Second World War, more than a fifth of its population.

Mr Kaczynski said that death toll explains the size of his country's population today. "We are only demanding one thing - we get back what was taken from us. If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would today be looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million. Germans inflicted unimaginable injury, terrible harm on Poles, incomprehensible crimes."

Despite that painful history, he claimed, "Poles like Germans, while Germans do not like Poles".

The origins of the modern EU lie in an attempt to reconcile Germany with its wartime enemies, and even to mention the conflict is almost unthinkable to many EU officials.

Publicly, the German government did not respond to the Polish provocation. As the summit began, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said: "Each country will be taken very seriously as regards their concerns."

But privately, German officials were stunned by the verbal assault. "This just shows the character of the man," said one. Another accused Mr Kaczynski of seeking "confrontation".

Other EU nations also criticised the Poles. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, described the Polish position as "absurd" and Romania called the comments "a step backwards".

After the summit's acrimonious start, diplomats were last night resigned to the talks dragging on into the early hours of tomorrow morning.

Scotsman

EU adopts measure outlawing Holocaust denial

The European Union approved legislation Thursday that would make denying the Holocaust punishable by jail sentences, but would also give countries across the 27-member bloc the option of not enforcing the law if such a prohibition did not exist in their own laws.

The draft law, which EU diplomats called a minimalist compromise, gained approval after six years of emotional negotiations, during which countries with vastly different legal cultures struggled to reconcile the protection of freedom of speech with protection of their citizens from racism and hate crimes.

The legislation calls for jail terms of as much as three years for "intentional conduct" that incites violence or hatred against a person's "race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin." The same punishment would apply to those who incite violence by "denying or grossly trivializing crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes."

EU officials said that the law was notable for what it omitted.

Fearing that the legislation could be hijacked by groups trying to right historical wrongs, a majority of EU countries rejected a demand by the formerly communist Baltic countries that the law criminalize the denial of atrocities committed by Stalin during Soviet times. As a political gesture, however, Franco Frattini, the EU's justice commissioner, said the EU would organize public hearings on the "horrible crimes" of the Stalin era in the coming months.

The scope of the law also does not cover other historical events, like the massacre of Armenians during the First World War by Ottoman Turks, which Armenians call a genocide. Instead, the legislation recognized only genocides that fall under the statutes of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, like the mass killing of Jews during World War II and the massacre in Rwanda in 1994.

There will be no Europe-wide ban on the use of Nazi symbols, one of the original intentions of the law's drafters, which gained force two years ago after the release of photographs of Prince Harry of Britain wearing a swastika armband at a costume party.

EU officials involved in the drafting of the law, which needed unanimous approval, said consensus had been achieved by allowing national laws to take precedence. Britain, Sweden and Denmark, which have particularly libertarian traditions, pressed for wording that would avoid criminalizing debates about the Holocaust and would ensure that films and plays about the Holocaust, like Roberto Benigni's award-winning "Life is Beautiful" and Mel Brooks's musical "The Producers," were not censored.

The legislation also states that individual countries' constitutional protections of freedom of speech would be upheld, meaning, for example, that publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark, where freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution, is permitted under the law.

Denmark and Britain also pressed successfully for a provision to ensure that attacks on religions are covered only when they are of a xenophobic or racist nature.

Anti-racism groups said the law had been watered down to the point of rendering it toothless. Michael Privot, spokesman for the European Network Against Racism, said, for example, that a person publishing a pamphlet denying the Holocaust could do so with impunity in Britain, while still facing prosecution in France. "We have ended up with a lowest common denominator law," he said.

Laws against denying the Holocaust exist in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Spain, and in many cases the national legislation goes much further than the new EU rules. In a recent high-profile case, the British historian David Irving spent 13 months in jail in Austria for challenging the Holocaust before being released in December.

Two years ago, Luxembourg tried to use its EU presidency to push through Europe-wide anti-racism legislation, but it was blocked by the center-right government then in power in Italy on the grounds that it threatened freedom of speech. The proposed law was considered too politically difficult to pass until it was taken up by Germany, current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, which has called it a historical obligation and a moral imperative.

Friso Roscam Abbing, spokesman for Frattini, the EU's justice commissioner, said it was inevitable that the bill be diluted, given the need to reconcile so many different political and legal cultures. But he added: "We still think it is useful and sends a strong political signal that there is no safe haven in Europe for racism, anti-Semitism or Islam-phobia."

But Muslim leaders accused the EU of having double standards, arguing that it protects established Christian religions and outlaws anti-Semitism while doing nothing to defend Muslims against defamation.

International Herald Tribune

EU aims to criminalise Holocaust denial

Laws that make denying or trivialising the Holocaust a criminal offence punishable by jail sentences will be introduced across the European Union, according to a proposal expecting to win backing from ministers Thursday.

Offenders will face up to three years in jail under the proposed legislation, which will also apply to inciting violence against ethnic, religious or national groups.

Diplomats in Brussels voiced confidence on Tuesday that the controversial plan, which has been the subject of heated debate for six years, will be endorsed by member states. However, the Baltic countries and Poland are still holding out for an inclusion of “Stalinist crimes” alongside the Holocaust in the text – a move that is being resisted by the majority of other EU countries.

The latest draft, seen by the Financial Times, will make it mandatory for all Union member states to punish public incitement “to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin”.

They will also have to criminalise “publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes” when such statements incite hatred or violence against minorities.

Diplomats stressed the provision had been carefully worded to include only denial of the Holocaust – the Nazi mass murder of Jews during the second world war – and the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

They also stressed that the wording was designed to avoid criminalising comical plays or films about the Holocaust such as the Italian comedian Roberto Benigni’s prize-winning Life is Beautiful . The text expressly upholds countries’ constitutional traditions relating to the freedom of expression.

Holocaust denial is already a criminal offence in several European countries, including Germany and Austria. It is not a specific crime in Britain, though UK officials said it could already be tackled under existing legislation.

In an attempt to assuage Turkish fears, several EU diplomats said the provisions would not penalise the denial of mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman troops in the aftermath of the 1915 collapse of the Ottoman empire. Turkey strongly rejects claims that this episode amounted to genocide.

The proposal draws what is likely to be a controversial distinction between inciting violence against racial or ethnic groups and against religious groups. Attacks against Muslims, Jews or other faiths will only be penalised if they go on to incite violence against ethnic or racial groups, the draft text states.

Financial Times