BNP supporter spoofs 'The Spoof' (maybe)

Q: When is a spoof not a spoof? A: When it's BNP propaganda.

For those of you who have yet to come across 'The Spoof', it's an online repository of spoof articles, many of which look like they might be hysterically funny but turn out to be about as entertaining as reading back issues of Punch while waiting for the dentist to clean off the blood from the patient before you.

The article that caught my eye was titled 'IMF Shock "Only Nick Griffin's BNP Can Fix The British Economy!"'. With a title like that and with all we know about the BNP's financial corruption and mismanagement, it looked like essential reading, if only for the odd snigger after a busy day.

It started off fairly promisingly and looked like it might be a tad more subtle than the usual fare (like 'Scientist proves Kerry Katona doesn't actually exist' or 'Entire UK Population To Hide From Inspector Morse').

'Red faces all around when Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund amazed journalists and commentators at a news conference this morning In Berlin by announcing that only the British National Party has put forward enough spending cuts to save an almost certain imminent collapse of the British economy within the next few months.

Mr Strauss Khan endorsed the plans of Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP to make the real and substantial spending cuts necessary to cut the deficit and get Britain on track to regain her financial independence from abroad.

"Only the British National party" he said "has proposed enough cuts to prevent Britain from going begging for a bailout to the International Monetary Fund within the next few months of an election win by any of the three wings of the British One Party State."'

Hmm. That phrase 'British One Party State' seems strangely familiar...

'Mr. Griffin commented "Unlike the other parties we will hide nothing, we will open all the books on the economy to the British people and the British media and trust them to understand, instead of hearing bits of the facts filtered through the the spin doctors in Number 11 or the main party's phoney think-tanks."'

Odd then that Griffin can't even open the books (or indeed, balance them) for the BNP itself, let alone the entire UK, but there you go. The article continues:

'Before releasing the full economic policy as listed below this report, Mr Strauss-Kahn gave some interesting highlights drawn up by his advisors:

The British National Party will begin by carefully explaining to the British people the truth about the economy and explain why a number of jobs, but less than those proposed by the other parties, will be lost for a while in public services. It will seek to get the British people on board in the spirit of the Blitz, when Britains [sic] united together to make sacrifices now to lay the foundations for a strong economy in the future for their children...'

The article then drifts into a complete (and long) reproduction of the finance section from the BNP's manifesto. Not funny at all, in fact.

So who would post something like this? Well, that at least is easily explained because the item was provided by a writer named 'sarasara'. Sarasara's homepage turns out to be a YouTube channel packed with pro-BNP and EDL videos and this little image at the top, which might help to explain things.

A search of other stories by Sarasara reveals that he, she or it has been a busy little bee on the BNP's behalf. A story named Secret MI5 Report Highlights Nick Griffin Threat is another puff-piece for the BNP, while others attack the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Unite Against Fascism, Billy Bragg and anyone even vaguely anti-fascist or linked in any way to anyone who has dared to question the BNP.

In fact it's pretty clear where Sarasara's political sympathies lie, particularly when, on reading an article about a fictitious invitation to Nick Griffin to visit Israel, the phrase 'fascist far-left anti-Israel UAF' is used. Sarasara's 'satires' are no such thing - they are pro-BNP propaganda, pure and simple.

The Spoof, naturally, has a set of fairly familiar terms and conditions for the writers who submit their stories, one of which is:

'You must not use the website for any of the following...to impersonate any third party or otherwise mislead as to the origin of your content'

I would suggest that providing political propaganda in the guise of satire is breaching that condition and I would ask that readers complain about this to the site's webmaster or the site's administrator. It's one thing to be attacked by humour - we do it all the time - but it's quite another to have an innocent site (if it is one) used to unwittingly spread the BNP's filth, lies and idiocies.

Annoyingly, Mark Lowton, the owner (or at least the site registrant) of The Spoof, lives here in Lancaster, so purely because I'm a nosey bastard, I searched to see what other domains he had an interest in and immediately one popped up, so to speak - www.bountifulpenis.com. Says it all really, doesn't it.

Archbishop backs Lancaster BNP debate ban

The Archbishop of Canterbury has backed a decision to ban the British National Party (BNP) from a hustings in a Lancaster church

All candidates in the Lancaster and Fleetwood constituency - except the BNP - have been invited to the event at St Thomas's Church on Tuesday. A party spokesman described the snub as an "affront to democracy". But Dr Rowan Williams said the party had often exploited events "to say inflammatory and silly things".

The archbishop said bishops all over the country were writing letters to their congregation urging people to organise such events.

Asked whether he supported the decision to ban the BNP, the archbishop told BBC Radio Lancashire: "Personally, I think if that's the decision I'd be happy to go with it. I find it very difficult to see the BNP as part of a serious political discussion and very often people will exploit the platform to say inflammatory and silly things. So I can understand why people don't want to see the BNP as part of that discussion, as if they were to be taken as seriously as the other parties."

The debate in Lancaster has been arranged by Lancaster Churches Together, an organisation representing a number of Christian denominations. But organisers declined to invited BNP candidate Debra Kent, saying that a church was not the place to allow what they described as "racist views" to be promoted.

Steve Greenhalgh, a spokesman for the BNP, questioned the validity of the debate without his party's candidate.

"I think if you are going to hold a debate you have all the democratically put forward candidates - or none at all," he said. "I would say the church should be really more concerned with the falling numbers of their congregations and not the views of the British National Party. It's pointless challenging it because if you challenge it then you become an extremist, and you become a person who is trying to cause hassle."

Candidates standing in Lancaster and Fleetwood are: Gina Dowding: Green; Clive Grunshaw: Labour; Debra Kent: British National Party; Stuart Langhorn: Liberal Democrat; Fred McGlade: UK Independence Party; Eric Ollerenshaw: Conservative; Keith Riley: Independent.

BBC

BNP's Lie Lorry zooms around Lancaster...

The BNP's Clive 'Am I drooling again?' Jefferson

A couple of days ago, Lancaster was treated to an extremely brief glimpse of the BNP's Lie Lorry as it zoomed around the city centre and back off to the motorway at high speed.

In the very short time it was passing through, an alert was sent out to supporters, though this had hardly been sent when we received confirmed information that the lorry, complete with the BNP's Chief North-Western Dimwit Clive Jefferson in the shotgun seat, was speeding away from Lancaster. Frankly, if it hadn't been for the excrutiatingly loud music and Thicky Jefferson's squawking through the sound system, no-one would have noticed the visit at all.

Naturally, the BNP and Jefferson in particular, can't bear to tell the truth about anything, and this day out for the lads was no exception. On his peculiar Cumbrian Patriot blog, he has this to say;

'The people of Longtown all came out of their houses and shops and lined the main street applauding us...'

Jefferson has posted a video on his blog - made on the day - and it at once struck me as bizarre that he didn't include this inspiring event for us all to watch. But maybe that's because it didn't happen and Jefferson is just bullshitting as usual.

Here he is trying to take a sideswipe at Lancaster anti-fascists;

'Another highpoint was Lancaster, its really interesting to see the effect music such as Rule Britannia and the colours Red, White and Blue have on the small zealot communist element of Lancaster. Some of the scruffy louts where actually jumping up and down shaking their fists at the Truth Truck...'

Er, no, they weren't. Nobody saw it for long enough to shake their fists. And as far as I know, there isn't a 'small zealot communist element' in Lancaster. There are a lot of people who hate the BNP and all it stands for though, and if Jefferson and his fascist chums had the balls to come here and stop for a while, they'd find out that the number of anti-fascists here has grown considerably since their last (short and expensive) visit. There is, needless to say, no video of anyone jumping anywhere or shaking anything.

We all know the BNP is riddled with thugs whose only talent lies in intimidation, and Jefferson proves this very nicely by standing outside the offices of the Cumbrian Newsgroup HQ, raving like a mad drunk, or as he puts it;

'we stopped outside the Cumbrian Newsgroup headquarters and I couldn't resist getting on the tannoy and having a little bit of fun with the editor - Neil -the zealot - Hogekinson, the anti-BNP Editor of the News & Star.'

Perhaps the editor of the News and Star could get his own Tannoy and respond by asking (at top volume) why Jefferson is driving around in a hired lorry that was meant to have been paid for outright by donations from the BNP's members. And then he could ask where the donations actually went. Then maybe he could ask Jefferson how long he's been paid by the party and how much - and precisely when he stopped claiming benefits. And what his views are on drug dealers...

If I were Thicky Jefferson, I'd spend a bit more time tucked away quietly indoors and a lot less time shouting my mouth off and telling porkies.

Hideously diverse Britain: mythbusting in Lancashire

How a job that will help link communities became a victim of prejudice

The municipalists of Lancashire could have done themselves a favour by describing the official they sought to employ as a community relations officer, or something featuring the term "cohesion". But every specialty has its buzzwords and so they advertised last month for someone to lead a "mythbusting project" to promote harmony and counter slurs about migrants. Soon they were taking fire. Mayday, Mayday.

"Anger at £30,000 plan for race 'myth-buster'," said the Daily Express. "Pointless non-jobs," said Richard Littlejohn. Another harrumph from the Taxpayers' Alliance. And predictably, across the internet, ridicule and outrage.

But spend some time in Lancaster or Morecambe and the idea hardly seems outrageous. You quickly find out that it isn't a council initiative. It involves many agencies, including the police and the fire service. The county council – Tory-led, mind – is providing admin but isn't paying. There's a grant from a government pot, funded by the cost of visas.

Yes, mythbuster is a funny job description, but what do you do when faced with a leaflet saying that Muslims in the region are responsible for all the drugs? Or that English workers are unemployed/homeless/under-educated/unhappy because of the Poles? When BNP extremists become MEPs and win a seat on Lancashire county council? The air needs clearing. Someone has to do it.

Liz Neat of the National Coalition Building Institute shows me around the west end of Morecambe with Magda, a tireless liaison worker. Magda is employed by the fire service but, with a smile for everyone, she's a bridge between officialdom and Poles in the area.

Things are happening in the west end – new shops, community facilities being built. There's tension between the settled and the recently arrived, but there are also attempts help them interact. Cultural events are good; anything involving food especially so. It's the social glue. Volunteers work in a drop-in centre, newsletters are crafted. People are trying to build.

But it's difficult, especially when perceptions are set, prejudices fed, and the air is rendered toxic. If a mythbuster helps Lancashire breath more easily, what's £30,000? It's a snip.

Guardian

Lancaster unites against the nazi BNP

Part of yesterday's impromptu anti-fascist demo in Lancaster

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Barry Kade. 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.

As people finished work on Monday evening a crowd began to gather in Lancaster's Dalton Square, where they soon began to line the edge of the city's busy one-way traffic system. Hastily-made placards were passed around and held aloft.

By 6pm, a headcount revealed that over one hundred local people were now gathered. What was happening was a sudden and spontaneous outpouring of popular anger, sparked by that morning's news - a notorious Nazi extremist had taken a Euro MP's seat for our region. A megaphone arrived and rousing anti-fascist speeches filled the air, invoking the memory of our ancestors who sacrificed themselves in the battles to stop fascist rule in Europe. As the numbers swelled people stood on traffic islands and roadsides holding aloft signs that said 'Stop the BNP' and 'Unite Against Fascism'.

Lancaster folk united in their opposition to the nazi BNP

What was amazing about this gathering was that it had been announced only a few hours before. Word got out via SMS text messages, facebook and email, spreading rapidly around networks of families and friends. People had woken up that morning to hear the dismal news of Nick Griffins elevation to the EU gravy train. You can tell when people are really angry when sizeable protests seem to come out of nowhere, and take a only few hours instead of weeks to organise. It was like this with the poll tax and the build up to the Iraq war. People seem to be desperately seeking an outlet for their opposition, concern and rage, and take to the streets almost instantly. The same was also happening at the same time across the North West and Yorkshire, with reports of 2,000 gathering in Manchester, and many other hastily called protests each growing hundreds strong in Preston, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield.

For there is a rising level of anger in this country. It is more than anger against the sick politics of the BNP. It is also anger against the degeneration and corruption of our political life that has lead to this humiliating spectacle - of Britain sending two Holocaust-denying, Hitler loving Nazis as our representatives to the European Parliament - on the very 65th anniversary of our victory over the Nazi war machine!

Yet the BNP still only have support from a small minority of the population. They only received 6.2% of the Euro-election vote across Britain and the actual number of votes they got went down this year. The BNP have experienced no great surge of support, even though Britain is in such a deep economic and political crisis, for while the majority of people have heard their siren calls, they have firmly rejected them. The real shift in this election is the collapse of the Labour Party and its vote, paying the price of years of betraying its grassroots voters, of putting profit before people and selling its soul to big business, war, and greed. Yet still people retch and recoil from the BNP, choosing either UKIP for an anti EU protest because of its lack of Nazi background, or the Greens for a leftish alternative to Labour.

It is worth noting that in the total vote for these Euro elections across Britain, the Green Party polled more than the BNP, receiving 8.6%. It also saw a bigger increase in its vote than the Nazis. It achieved this while standing on its most left-wing yet 'green new deal' platform, which proposes to create a million new green jobs. However, in the North West region, the vote panned out at 8% for the BNP, which due to the proportion of parties and seats, let them scrape in by the tiny margin of just a few thousand votes, only narrowly beating the Greens.

More protestor's at Lancaster's Dalton Square yesterday

Now the fear is that Griffin and fellow ex-National front leader Andrew Brons can leap on the EU gravy train. By linking up with dodgy Nazi groups from Hungary, France, Italy and elsewhere, Griffin can now get millions of Euros of taxpayers money to spend on spreading his poisonous gospel of race war into our communities. As the ordinary people of Britain we face enough problems - we live in fear of job losses, home repossessions, attacks on our rights to pensions, we face being ripped off by greedy bankers and corrupt politicians. Yet now we face another threat, an additional problem - Nazi politicians like Griffin trying to elbow their way into the scene.

But today's protests revealed another side to the situation. Thousands of people are willing to stand up and fight, to oppose the BNP and drive it back. Every advance made by the BNP will generate increased resistance: the more serious a threat it appears to be, the more the anti-fascist majority will want to fight it back. The fascists shall not pass. We shall never surrender; we will never let their jackboot settle upon our necks.

Barry Kade's blog is here.

Clive Jefferson, YouTube, and incitement to violence

This article was submitted by our mates, Lancaster Antifa. 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.

With the infamous case of Sheppard and Whittle in the news it doesn't seem like anti-fascists have to dig very deep to find links to organised far right groups and violent threats and intimidation. Redwatch is obviously the jewel in the crown for the far-right as far as this tactic is concerned. The BNP have, in public at least, recently tried to distance themselves from Redwatch but we know only too well that BNP members have supplied photos for the Redwatch site which promotes violence against dinner ladies, union activists, and anti-fascists.

It seems like the tactic of posting internet picture of your enemies has inspired the BNP's Cumbrian press officer, Clive Jefferson. He now regularly posts videos of anti-fascists on YouTube under the profile name "CumbrianPatriot". You can hear Jefferson's pathetic comments on these video clips as he attempts to mock and deride those who protest against the BNP.

In one video clip Jefferson complains about pictures of the Nazi Holocaust on an anti BNP leaflet. The woman he is talking to complains "that's going back to the 1940s"., as Jefferson adds "disgusting.... they're putting that out against us." What is Jefferson's problem? He is happy to belong to an organisation whose leader, Nick Griffin, says;

"The "extermination" tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie and latter witch hysteria."

"It's well known that the chimneys from the gas chambers at Auschwitz are fake, built after the war ended."

So he should expect a response from people who are sickened and disgusted by these claims. The Nazi Holocaust was not a mere "detail of history" but a stain on mankind.

Jefferson recently led a sorry band of out of towners into Lancaster to attempt, in their own words, to "breach the citadel". Of course as readers of this blog know their attempts to set up a stall in the town centre met with a swift response and Jefferson, Ashburner, and a couple of friends had to make a demoralised retreat with their tales between their legs.

Their "stall" (a wallpaper paste table!) was surrounded by anti-fascists and they were unable to peddle their filthy racist bile. They packed up to shouts of “no racism in Lancaster!” from locals, and to make matters worse Jefferson was issued with a fixed penalty notice for his illegal number plate!

Fascists are often noted for their historical revisionism and it wasn't long before Jefferson was boasting on his blog about what “potential” Lancaster had for far-right campaigning! He obviously hasn't learnt anything from the miserable failure of Chris Hill, and the fact that the BNP has now completely folded in Lancaster, rejected by the voters, and split by internal wrangling.

Jefferson also boasted about his YouTube video of the protesters who turned out to send the BNP packing. The video titled “Lancaster UAFs finest” was another attempt to bring Redwatch tactics to YouTube. Jefferson whose nose was dribbling as he packed up the stall makes pathetic comments about protesters shaking like leaves. The video though had the desired effect and it wasn't long before threats were being made to anti fascist activists who had been mistakenly identified.

One such threat came from someone with the YouTube profile name “destroyblackvermin” (that says it all really!). “destroyblackvermin”, as you can see from checking his profile and favourites, is rather fond of the BNP. He is also openly racist in public. You don't have to dig very far to find comments like these posted on YouTube by this sewer dweller;

“hey black twat you can but try ..told you i eat pakis filth and inbred cunts like you for supper..just fire me your house number and street let me drip your black aids riddled blood on your doorstep you vermin..and by the way dickhead im not in bradford im in salford manchester a 99% white area...now less of the chat give us your adress or keep your black mouth shut ..and dont get your little race traitor girls doing your dirty work. destroyblackvermin”

Well I wonder if Jefferson is pleased with himself knowing what sort of filth he is inspiring on the internet? “destroyblackvermin” went on to post a direct threat, on an anti-fascist YouTube profile, against someone who he thought had been identified on Jefferson's video. It read “********** has been identified – watch your back”. The incident was reported, and, despite all the other vile racist hatred that remains on YouTube, Jefferson's video proven to inspire racists and threats of violence was removed for “terms of use violation by user”. Of course there are still a number Jefferson's videos on the net, but at least we have had another small victory against this man and his rather unsuccessful attempts to organise the BNP in Cumbria and north Lancashire.

Lancaster Antifa

Lancaster anti-fascists see BNP off again

A cheerful bunch of far-right loons in Lancaster. We know Jefferson (holding his phone up) but IDs on the rest of them would be appreciated.

The fascist BNP were sent packing from Lancaster town centre after they set up a stall. A spontaneous demonstration surrounded the BNP fascists and prevented them from handing out leaflets. They were shouted down and jeered and a passer by emptied two cans of fizzy pop on their stall. Unable to operate they packed up and left town completely demoralised. Thanks to our mate N for the report.

Some good news from Lancaster. The BNP set up a stall today in the town centre. It seems that the small gathering of pond life came from Carlisle. The BNP have no official presence in Lancaster since their previous organiser, Chris Hill, resigned his position following the party split in January. The out of town BNP members set up a small table just near the Museum. It had been kicked over within minutes by a lone woman passing by!

Initially undeterred the fash re-assembled their stall and continued to hand out leaflets. Within half an hour there was a spontaneous response from local concerned people who gathered quickly and surrounded the BNP stall. Standing in front of the stall with anti-fascist leaflets the local people made sure the fascists were unable to distribute their filth. A passer by also emptied two cans of fizzy pop all over the BNP leaflets. People shouted “keep the racists out of Lancaster”, and eventually a mega phone turned up to get the message across!

Clive Jefferson and his car (with illegal numberplate). Under the dodgy number, it says 'Non-compliant and defiant'. See you in court, Clive.

Unable to continue leafleting the pond life got fed up and packed up their stall. The cops arrived to add a bit of extra tension into proceedings. But funnily enough the fascists were in a car with an illegal number plate. Some on our side pointed this out, and the cops spent another ten minutes taking their details. Totally dejected they eventually drove off to cheers and jeers and were told not to come back!

Hopefully the fascists had such a bad day that they won’t return. But if they do let’s make sure they are not given an inch. Fortunately the other market traders were very good at opposing them. The stall holder next to the BNP refused to let anyone in his gazebo with a BNP leaflet! And the fascists were reported for not having a license. However, we can’t just rely on council bureaucracy to see off these fascists. We saw today that it is possible to stop them peddling their hatred in this tolerant town of ours, by taking direct action!! Direct action on a bigger scale can have the same results come the BNP’s “Red White & Blue” racist festival in August.

Late Christmas present for us here at Lancaster UAF - Chris Hill resigns

Christmas Day has come and gone and we thought all the presents had been unwrapped then, surprise-surprise, we find another one buried in among the pine needles at the back of the tree. Yes, Chris Hill, Lancaster's one-man BNP band, has thrown in the towel, resigning his posts as Preston and Lancaster organiser (which he was crap at anyway) and, oddly, as Chorley contact too.

Readers may recall that Hill was one of the first to make a statement supporting Sadie Graham and co when the rebellion began a few weeks back but hurriedly withdrew his support after a stiff talking-to by the burly Clive Jefferson, one of the BNP's more obvious minders. Following this swift and embarrassing reversal, the creepy Griffin-sycophant Green Arrow lavished fulsome praise upon him, no doubt in the mistaken belief that this would cheer Hill up. Apparently it didn't work.

Hill's resignation letter, posted on his tedious and rarely updated blog, follows the formulaic resignation letters of the entire dissident camp, and is partly reprinted below:

'As you know there has, since mid December, been a bitter struggle going on within the party between two groups, one of which wants to continue the modernisation of the party, which has been responsible for the electoral success we have had over the last few years. While the other, at least in my opinion, wants to hold the party back for their own selfish ends.

I will not go into great detail about the dispute, but will just say the first group is led by Cllr Sadie Graham: a hard working district councillor, and much respected & well liked lady, with exactly the sort of image needed if our party is to become truly electable in the eyes of the voting public. While the other camp is backing Mark Collett of ‘Young Nazi and Proud’ fame, as the next leader of the party when our current chairman steps down. Unfortunately Mr Griffin has aligned himself squarely with this last group, and it is alleged that he has been prepared to break the law, by bugging phones and intercepting and altering personal emails, in order to discredit anyone who opposes that group.

Unfortunately it is not only Mark Collett’s image that is holding back the party, although that does hang like a millstone around the necks of all our members, he has also caused chaos within the senior management echelons of the party. And it is this situation, rather than his image, that has led directly to this current crisis...The essence of this dispute is whether the party can prosper without a capable management team, and with a millstone like Mark Collett around the neck of every one of our candidates at election times. How many of us can really say, with our hands on our heart, that the name Mark Collett does not come up whenever we mention the British National Party in a conversation...'

Surprisingly, and presumably to give himself what he thinks is an opt-out clause to allow him back into the hierarchy of the ailing British National Party when the problems are finally resolved one way or the other, Hill then goes on to say;

'I still hope one day to be, once again, the local Chairman of a truly electable British National Party branch, but unless we win this current struggle to modernise our party that will I’m afraid remain just a dream.'

It'll be even more of a dream if Green Arrow has anything to do with it. His hissy-fit response to the resignation was as unequivocal as it was entirely expected.

'Chris, I expected better from you. As far as I am concerned you have deserted your post. Please remove the Green Arrow Links for I shall certainly remove yours.'

Nice to see Green Arrow full of the seasonal spirit. :-)

BNP is linked to petition against new 'mega-mosque'

Right-wing extremists have manipulated a Downing Street petition to stir up racial hatred over the building of a "megamosque" in east London, an investigation can reveal.

More than 270,000 people have signed a petition on the Number 10 website that calls for the scrapping of plans to build Europe's largest mosque close to the main site of the 2012 Olympics. Tablighi Jamaat, the Islamic sect behind the mosque, has been accused of having links to Islamist terror groups, prompting a concerted campaign to block the project.

But the Daily Mail's sister paper, the Evening Standard, has learned that the anti-mosque campaign has been infiltrated by the British National Party, which has told its members to sign the Downing Street petition. The petition was originally posted on the No 10 site by a Right-wing extremist called Jill Barham. Ms Barham writes an online blog under the name English Rose, where she has laid claim to being author of the petition. The blog has links to several Right-wing and extremist websites.

Anti-fascist campaigners claim Ms Barham is a close friend of Chris Hill, a notorious BNP activist based in Lancaster. The involvement of fringe extremists from the North-West in what is essentially an east London planning matter has caused alarm and will lead to criticism that Downing Street should have blocked the petition over its use of inflammatory language.

The petition, which closed yesterday with 277,040 signatories, states: "We, the Christian population of this great country England, would like the proposed plan to build a mega-mosque in east London scrapped. This will only cause terrible violence and suffering and more money should go into the NHS."

Mayor Ken Livingstone condemned the petition for stirring up vitriol. "It is quite clear that this piece of vicious BNP propaganda, based as usual on entirely fabricated information, is solely designed to damage good community relations. It is wrong that such invented and falsified petitions provide a platform for those who would like to use them to create tensions among Londoners."

The BNP today admitted orchestrating a campaign to get its members to sign the petition. An email had been sent out to supporters with links to the petition on the Downing Street website. The party used a similar tactic to try to influence a poll on the Evening Standard's website that had simply asked: "Are you in favour of the £100million mosque?" The poll was withdrawn after the discovery of the extremists' attempts to manipulate the outcome.

BNP leader Nick Griffin said: "We have publicised the petition on our website encouraging people to sign and we have had a small part to play in that [reaching 270,000 signatures]. We also had an email campaign to get our people to sign it."

Asked whether he was aware of the English Rose blog or if Ms Barham was a BNP activist, Mr Griffin said: "Even if I knew who she was I wouldn't tell you. She may be involved in the BNP at a local level but I just don't know. I can neither confirm nor deny." The website of Lancaster Unite Against Fascism says that it believes the BNP's local candidate, Chris Hill, is a friend of Ms Barham. The group said today its inquiries indicated Ms Barham ran two websites English Rose and Cry For Freedom, both of them which it described as "rabidly anti-Islamic".

The success of the petition has been seized on by protesters as evidence of the strength of opposition to the mosque.

Newham councillor Alan Craig, a member of the Christian People's Alliance, issued a press release yesterday highlighting the petition's success, although he refused to sign it and admitted he was "wary of the exact wording". He is leading the local campaign against the mosque, planned for an 18-acre site at Abbey Mills next to West Ham Underground station. Mr Craig accused Tablighi Jamaat of being divisive because of its extremist, separatist beliefs.

The French intelligence services have called Tablighi Jamaat "an antechamber of fundamentalism". Two of the 7 July suicide bombers allegedly attended the group's HQ in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

Abdul Rashid Bhatti, spokesman for the Abbey Mills Mosque, said today: "Ken Livingstone has exposed the petition for what it is, and we thank him for that. Both in the language used and in the total lack of truth, we are disappointed that people have been so misled for purposes other than genuine public debate. Tablighi Jamaat is a mainstream, non-political Muslim organisation seeking to go about its faith in a peaceful manner."

Daily Mail

LMHR at the Sugarhouse, Lancaster

Click on image for full size
A pdf file of the double-sided leaflet (423k) can be downloaded from here.

Love Music Hate Racism
at the Sugarhouse, Lancaster
Metro Riots
Black Wire
The Toy Guns
Monday April 30th 8pm
£2 NUS/£3 other