Book Review: Hate by Matthew Collins

Hate is the captivating and witty autobiography of reformed fascist turned Searchlight mole Matthew Collins.

Collins was a full-time activist and administrator for the National Front for several years at the turn of the 1990s and his experience spans the disintegration of the NF and the rise of the British National Party. It is an engrossing chronicle of confrontation between the left and right and examines Collins’ relationship with prominent fascists including Ian Anderson, Richard Edmonds, Eddie Whicker, Tony Lecomber and Combat 18 leader Charlie Sargent.

The book – crude, brutal and savagely funny – charts Collins’ involvement with the National Front in his late teens through to his work as an informant with the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. Collins was the principle source of Andy Bell’s World In Action documentary and was forced into hiding for 10 years in Australia before returning to the UK to work full-time as an anti-fascist campaigner.

Although Collins was never a fascist leader and his flirtation with the far right was relatively brief, he does provide a fascinating insight into the tactics and psychology of British Nazism. The right’s ability to mobilise coalitions of thugs – including violent fascists, barbaric football hooligans and brutish Loyalists – is truly chilling, but Collins also demonstrates the inherent contradictions and weakness of the movement.

The awkward alliance of various groups and factions is saturated with egotism and paranoia whilst deluded ideological warhorses – such as Anderson and Edmonds – rely on the muscle and numbers provided by football hooligans to further their political ends. Hooligan firms might echo the racist bile of the NF and the BNP, but they’re not interested in building a ‘movement’ or selling papers, they just want a ruck with some Reds. Collins’ terrifying description of a number of violent encounters with the left helps illustrate this implicit conflict.

Another highlight is the fascinating story of Mr X – a former Trotskyite turned Sun journalist who becomes increasingly cosy with leading British Nazis and violent Ulster Loyalists – which illustrates the incestuous relationships between the far right of the Conservative Party and the fascist movement. Until the emergence of some embarrassing photographs, Mr X plays an increasingly pivotal role in the National Front as he offers them access to the political establishment and writes for a number of NF publications.

Unlike similar accounts – such as Ray Hill’s The Other Face of Terror – there is no epiphany or eureka moment which converts Collins to fighting fascism. Rather it is a gradual disillusionment with the increasingly well-organised and escalating violence. This gradualism mirrors Collins’ first interaction with the National Front and his hesitant and wary engagement of Searchlight.

Although the primary focus is on the National Front, as a historical document charting the rise of the BNP – detailing its violent, Nazi and anti-parliamentary origins – the book is truly significant. Much of what Collins says is hardly revelatory, but it is an important resource to demonstrate the true colours of the BNP when many of its supporters – and even members – are ignorant of the reality.

Hate does not provide a blueprint for fighting fascism, but it does show how the far right attracts working-class people damaged by the system and encourages them to express their anger at other members of society. It shows how fascists exploit some of the most vulnerable people in society – young working-class men with limited prospects – and gives them a sense of belonging, worth and comradeship. The most important lesson of Collins’ book is that as long as the mainstream political establishment continues to restrict employment opportunities and housing prospects for the inner-city youth, the far right will continue to be a frightening menace. As a first-hand account of this menace – and for anyone concerned about the rise of the far right and the emergence of the EDL – this is a must read.

Click here to buy Hate from Hope Not Hate with all proceeds going to Searchlight or you can buy it from The Guardian Bookshop

Thanks to Eyes on Power

EDIT - I'm sorry that we cannot publish the various guesses that people have sent through regarding the ID of Mr X. Legally it's a bit dodgy, well a lot dodgy really.

The NF's Roundabout Route to Tripoli Revealed

This is how Searchlight reported the Griffin and Harrington trip to Libya in March 1989

In the last few weeks Searchlight investigators have been able to uncover the exclusive story of how three of the NF political soidier chiefs found themselves in Libya last September as guests of the Government.

In 1983 Derek Holland and Joe Pearce were negotiating with the London Libyan People's Bureau for assistance. But these negotiations came to an abrupt end when a killer firing from inside the building shot down policewoman Yvonne Fletcher in cold blood and wounded a number of Libyan exiles, who were demonstrating outside.

The ineptitude of Special Branch led to their failure to discover correspondence between Pearce and the Libyans when they raided Ian Anderson's old flat in Newham East London. Anderson and Pearce were later charged with publishing Bulldog in contravention of the Race Relations Act. Pearce went to prison but Anderson was acquitted.

The Italian terrorist exiles promised to put the NF in touch with friendly Arabs in France but this also seems to have foundered. Then a visit by NF chief Nick Griffin to Spain brought him into contact with Colonel Carlos Meer de Ribera's organisation, the Co-ordinating Group of Nationalist Forces. This looked a more likely route to the Libyan leader, as Ribera was in fact an agent of the Libyan regime enjoying the personal support of Gaddafi.

But again fate intervened. The.Spanish nazi was arrested and convicted of spying for; Libya and of using Libyan funds to finance various fascist groups attempting to destabilise the fragile democracy that had come to Spain after Franco's death.

Then on 19th January 1987 the political soldiers wrote to Robert Pash, leader of the National Vanguard and the Australian People's Congress, in Capalab, Queensland. It was clear from the letter that they were having no luck in reestablishing contact with the Libyans. But Pash was in a strong position to help them out.

In 1985 Pash had been exposed as a front man for the Libyans. A convert to Islam, he has tried to forge a link between the ultra right and the ultra left in Australia, to oppose the Jews and form an international union of white states. He was also involved with the distribution of Ku Klux Klan material in Australia. Stung by Pash's exposure, the Libyan representative in Australia tried to deny any connection with this third positionist crank.

But in reality Pash has gone on to be the man who fixes things for Colonel Gaddafi in Australia. When free trips are arranged for MPs, the press and other special guests, it is Pash who organises things. Among those who have enjoyed his arrangements are John Bennett, the Australian historical revisionist and associate of British historian David Irving and Willis Carlo in the United States.

Two months ago Pash was seen in Tripoli on the arm of the Libyan Foreign Minister who was not denying that Pash had arranged the NF chiefs' trip to his country.

From the political soldiers' letter in 1987, it was clear that they did not have access to Gaddafi's Green Book in the UK. But within a few months they had become sole distributors of the Green Book in Britain.

According to sources close to the Libyan Foreign Office the Libyans are looking for someone to write a book for the western market on the life and thoughts of Colonel Gaddafi and to re-write the Green Book in a style more understandable to western readers. We bet Harrington and Holland are sharpening up their quills.

Thanks to Gerry Gable at Searchlight

Far-right targets the suburbs

Revealed: How the far-right targets suburbs by stealth

A community action group campaigning to save local shops and running a May Fayre sound harmless. But its leader was a prominent member of the National Front...

Forty miles apart, two different election candidates are presenting two different faces of the Right. Ian Anderson, a community activist standing for election in Epping, is talking about the need to save the town's small shops, the iniquity of fortnightly refuse collections, and the inadequacy of the local council. But he has a past that not all his voters might know about.

An hour and a half round the M25, on this St George's Day afternoon, several members of the BNP, 'Britain's foremost patriotic party', are more than half-way through their most patriotic endeavour yet: to become local councillors to the Queen.

For the first time in history, and much to the consternation of the locals, the BNP is standing candidates in the expensive environs of Windsor. From one of the wards they are contesting, you can see the Royal Standard fluttering over Windsor Castle as Her Majesty winds up her Easter break.

'I would like to feel the Queen approves of what we're doing,' says Matt Tait, 22, the BNP's own standard-bearer in Windsor's Clewer North ward, generously overlooking the fact that Her Majesty is herself of German ancestry. 'One of the main issues is to keep Windsor as an English town. We do not want to become like Slough.'

The Queen can, in theory, vote in this election, although she does not seem to be on the register (her husband is listed, under the name 'HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh'). It does, however, seem rather unlikely that she, or many other Windsor residents, will be turning out for the BNP.

The racist party's presence in this middle-class town is the result of a kind of accident: the three days of disturbances last year that followed firebomb attacks on a Muslim-owned dairy that was seeking planning permission to add an Islamic education centre on its site.

It is also supposed to symbolise what is being called the BNP's 'push into the suburbs', with far-Right candidates fanning out from their traditional council-estate territory into such unlikely places as Shrewsbury, Harrogate, and Henley-on-Thames.

In the South-East alone, the BNP is standing in 20 councils, including Horsham, parliamentary seat of the Tory chairman, Francis Maude, where the party won 13 per cent in a council by-election only five months ago.

But what Windsor actually turns out to symbolise is the BNP's enduring Achilles heel. For while it has sharpened up its suits and slickened up its rhetoric, the party is still finding it difficult to field credible candidates.

Unprecedentedly for a man seeking election, Mr Tait refuses to have his picture taken for fear of being identified. He said: 'I would rather keep my job, at least until the election. I'm not too sure my boss would want one of his staff as a BNP candidate.'

He also told a local paper that immigration will cause London to run out of drinking water, saying: 'We should not allow mass immigration, especially in the Thames area, because the more immigrants there are, the less drinking water there will be.'

The vast majority of the more than 700 BNP members standing in next month's local elections are, like Mr Tait, paper candidates, standing simply in order so that the party can claim itself to be a national force.

And even in areas where they are elected, BNP candidates' performance is often lamentable. Many have criminal records, giving new meaning to the term conviction politics; the chances of their appealing to middle England remain quite limited.

At least as worrying, perhaps, is the growth of another political species: former members of the far-Right who are re-entering politics new, respectable and community-friendly guises.

In the Essex town of Epping, there is a new party called the Epping Community Action Group (ECAG) standing candidates for the local town and district council. It seems quite unexceptional: it organises a popular annual 'May Fayre' on a recreation ground in the town, it campaigns to save local shops and wants to open a community centre.

ECAG's officers include a former mayor of Epping, Audrey Wheeler, and it has formed some links with local Liberal Democrats. It is well supported in the town, with 270 members, and says it is confident of winning at least one seat in next week's elections.

But the thing about ECAG is that its guiding light, Ian Anderson, was for more than 25 years a senior activist in the National Front. In the 1980s, he was a frequent attender of 'white power' demonstrations and stood trial after leaflets inciting racial hatred were found in his flat (he successfully argued that the flat was used by others and said he had no knowledge of the leaflets' content. He was acquitted).

His car was firebombed in a dispute between NF members over money. From 1990 to 1995 he was the NF's chairman, before leaving to form a new far-right party, the National Democrats, for whom he contested a parliamentary by-election in 1997.

The National Democrats' manifesto at that election advocated repatriation for blacks. 'We believe it will never be possible for the large non-white population currently resident in Britain to retain their culture and identity and to live harmoniously with the white population,' the document says. 'Their presence, through no fault of their own, is detrimental to the unity and cohesion of the nation and threatens our traditions and way of life.'

Members of the existing mainstream parties in Epping Forest, where there are also six BNP councillors, are deeply concerned about ECAG's rise, though none would go on the record about it.

Mr Anderson, for his part, told the Standard that he has not been involved in far-Right politics for at least 10 years. 'I think my opponents are using my past as an excuse,' he says. 'They can't attack us over anything else, so they're dragging that up.'

He insisted that he would not ally with the BNP if he was elected next week. 'I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole,' he says. In the claustrophobic world of the far-Right, the National Front and the BNP were mortal enemies.

But when asked if he had changed his views, he replied: 'Only to the extent that times change and practical politics have changed. There were sillinesses that went on with the NF – stupid marches in silly areas. It was a very negative organisation. We are trying to do something positive here.'

The Standard has established that, according to its latest official return to the Electoral Commission, Mr Anderson remains chairman of the National Democrats, an avowedly racist party, although an inactive one.

He also publishes a journal entitled The Flag, a name also once used by the journal of the National Front. Back issues include articles on topics such as 'Ethnic diversity – Britain's timebomb?'

And the current issue proclaims: 'The world is overpopulated – but not by us. Every day there are an extra 221,000 on our planet, almost all from underdeveloped countries.'

One of Mr Anderson's colleagues in the Epping Community Action Group is Tony Bennett, who was expelled from the UK Independence Party in 2004 after publishing a pamphlet describing Mohammed as a paedophile.

Yet Mr Anderson insists that his political ambitions no longer extend any further than the town boundaries. And he may well have good grounds for confidence in the forthcoming election.

Among the people of Epping, his racist history is of little interest. 'I do know about them and I think they are doing good work,' said Tony Baker, a local resident. 'As far as I'm concerned all that NF stuff is in the past.'

But what the people of Epping should know is that ECAG is just one of a number of respectable-looking community organisations set up by former members of the National Front.

In the borough of Hounslow, the Isleworth Community Group now has six councillors, and actually runs the council in coalition with the Tories. The Isleworth Community Group is controlled by Phil Andrews, a former NF activist with a criminal conviction for a race-hate attack on a black policeman.

In Havering, a party called the Third Way has sprung up with a community-based agenda to save local shopping centres and fight 'overdevelopment'. Third Way's leader, Graham Williamson, is a former senior activist in the NF.

'Epping is a small market town,' says a leading member of one of the other political parties. 'People don't really want to believe that anything as nasty as the NF and the BNP is taking hold in their community. They want to think well of people. But the trouble is, you vote for the ECAG and you really don't know what you're getting.'

Islamophobia Watch