Whatever Happened To The Truth Truck?

“I wonder where I am?” said Thomas the Truth Truck, sadly.

Thomas had been locked away in a dark shed for many, many months now. He hadn't been taken out to see the crowds of merry onlookers – who so loved to see him and shout and throw things whenever he came down their street – since last June.

“And to think the Fat Controller, Sir Nicking Twatt, said such nice things about me in the past.”

Thomas had once been the pride of The Fat Controller's company. He had cost a lot of money, and Sir Nicking had been very busy writing letters to his friends across the Island asking everyone to send cheques to pay for “A brand new and custom built Truth Truck”.

Thomas had thought this was a bit funny at the time, because he knew he wasn't “brand new and custom built”; in fact he was already driving around a different island, advertising different things.

But Sir Nicking, after writing thousands of letters and counting hundreds of cheques, had soon collected enough money to buy Thomas.

“In fact”, Sir Nicking used to laugh with him when they were alone; “I collected three times as much money as I needed!”

Sir Nicking was a very, very clever Fat Controller, thought Thomas, and the people who sent him so much money were very, very silly.

He remembered the wonderful day when Sir Nicking had proudly unveiled him. “You're a really useful moneymaker”, he'd whispered lovingly to him.

And Thomas had once been on a marvellous tour of the Island, when he had happily tooted his horn as people came out of their houses to shake their fists at him and shout things he couldn't quite understand.

It all seemed a very long time ago now, as he sat in this dark, dark shed.

He wasn't even sure any more that he had ever really been “bought”. He might have just been borrowed from his old owner.

Then a voice in the darkness made Thomas jump. In the gloom at the back of the shed was an old, rusty bus covered in an oily tarpaulin.

“I was Sir Nicking's Really Useful Moneymaker once...” said the bus. “My name's Boudica”.

“I've heard of you...” said Thomas; “but I've never actually seen you before.”

“Hardly anyone ever did”, said Boudica. “I was just another thing for Sir Nicking to raise money for and then forget about...”

“And now he's done exactly the same thing to you...”

Thomas felt sad. It had all been very exciting to think that he was going to be so important to Sir Nicking's plans, but now he knew that he would just be quietly forgotten about, now that he'd served his purpose.

Suddenly, the door of the shed opened.

It was Sir Nicking Twatt himself, carrying a strange-looking object.

Sir Nicking put the object down and left the shed, bolting the door behind him.

Thomas and Boudica looked at their new neighbour.

It was a sad-looking computer.

“Hello.” Said the computer: “My name's Alfred...”

This Time, The BNP Blow It In Oldham East & Saddleworth: Those Excuses In Full...

BNP 1,560 (4.4%)

As confidently predicted by everyone apart from the BNP's National Officer In Charge Of Making Stuff Up, the Saviours Of The Nation ™ have, yet again, failed to make any headway at all (and lost their deposit!) in a target seat.

“How could this have happened?” wail the disconsolate BNP Faithful of Oldham. “How could we fail yet again?”

And so the excuses begin...

There Was A Large Postal Vote

That Democracy's a sod, isn't it? Why, it's almost as though the LibLabCon Marxist BBC NWO Elite wanted to give people the chance to vote (for whoever they like, mind you!) in the comfort of their own homes, rather than queuing up at a draughty church hall to put their cross on the paper with the same stub of pencil on a bit of string they've been using since 1974.

It Was Raining

Doughty and steadfast your Oldham Nationalist may be: unfazed by taunts and untroubled by threats. The brightest flowering of our Nation's stouthearted spirit, equally ready to speak out against the myriad foes ranked against these islands as to take to the streets in protest at an injustice to a fellow Kinsman.

Unless it's raining. They hate it when it's spitting.

The Controlled Media Gave Hardly Any Coverage To The BNP Candidate

If only the Electorate had been given the chance to see Derek Adams displaying his statesmanlike demeanour, incisive grasp of political discourse and Shavian command of his mother tongue (or just seen him bang on, yet again, about how his pub being knocked down represented the most sinister exemplar of State Repression since the Stalinist Terror); that would've swung it. Oh yes. (Or, failing Derek Adams (as he will forever be known), we could at least have been treated to yet another sight of Griffin looking like the “before” bit in “The King's Speech”...)

The Nationalist Vote Was Split

I ask you; what's the point of having a democracy when any Tom, Dick & Harry can start up another so-called “Party” and get people to vote for them? It'd all be different if that nice Mr Griffin was in charge...

Massive Vote-Rigging Was To Blame

I suspect the operation by the LibLabCon Marxist BBC NWO Elite involved something as simple as this: After the polls close and the ballot boxes are sealed, they are driven at high speed to a secret depot, where dozens of handpicked lefty Council Staff (all of whom can be relied upon to remain silent about the whole affair until the day they die) lie in wait to open them, count every vote, filter out the ones for the BNP (the vast majority, I'll be bound), replace them with votes for the three (so-called!) “main” parties, reseal the boxes and drive them at breakneck speed to the “official” count. As we know from Barking & Dagenham, this entire operation would only have taken a few minutes. Bloody fast workers, those handpicked lefty Council Staff.

The Other Parties Had Billboards

Because, as anyone who knows anything about modern political campaigning will tell you, nothing, and I mean nothing, wins hearts and minds like a big poster of a fat bloke in a cheap suit leering like someone who wants to rape your cat. As amply proven in Barking and Dagenham.

Where Was The Truth Truck?

As a seasoned observer of Democracy's Rich Pageant, I can authoritatively say that nothing swings an election like a second-hand lorry with a poster and a loudspeaker. So where was it? No doubt there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. After all, Mr Griffin wouldn't raise thirty grand from his Members to buy a Brand New Lorry and then not use it at every available opportunity, would he?

People Voted For Other Parties

There's just no pleasing some people, is there? You give them a shabbily racist party run by a crook who would just as likely sell his own family for cosmetics testing as hand over the Accounts, putting up a candidate with all the polish, easy charm and quick-witted electoral nouse of Arthur Mullard on a particularly slow day, and STILL they won't vote for you.

What do they want? Real politics?

(Please Note: These same excuses may also be used for the forthcoming failure in Barnsley Central.)

Crazy Nick's Clearance Sale!

Just had this flier through the door. Think I might pop over and pick up a crappy Chinese "Life Membership" watch. They must have hundreds left. (Click to enlarge)

The Truth Truck of Doom strikes again!

I'd be willing to bet that Nick Griffin frequently rues the day that he ever had the idea of conning the membership of the BNP into donating to the so-called Truth Truck appeal. Ever since it appeared, the truck has been nothing but trouble, only encouraging thick idiots like Clive Jefferson to disturb the peace by driving around while shouting incoherent rubbish at a bewildered public.

But that's been far from the worst problem - the main one being the question of who actually owns the bloody thing. Griffin raised the money on the back of a purchase of a new truck, apparently changed his mind (without telling anyone) and decided a decent second-hand truck would be better value for money, and has since been vilified for apparently leasing the truck from Dowson instead, rather than fulfilling his side of the bargain and buying one, second-hand or not.

One of Griffin's main problems is that he is a liar in a party of liars. It must be hard to be consistent (or indeed, coherent) in one's lies if everyone else is lying and changing stories all the time. Thus, at times, tales of fraud and incompetence within the BNP disappear into the ether not because they are untrue, but because they get lost in a swirling mish-mash of truth, lie, bullshit and ignorance. But just occasionally, a lie reveals a greater lie...

In a post on the BNP website in which Griffin refers to his intention to stand down as party leader in 2013 (assuming he isn't booted out or jailed before then), he has decided to clear the air about a number of things, among them the ownership of the Lie Lorry. He says;

'The Truth Truck is owned by the BNP, contrary to internet rumour-mongers, a fact confirmed in person by the BNP treasurer who paid for the vehicle, Jennie Noble.'

Fair enough. So why, on May 22nd 2009, was it reported that;

'...High Court Enforcement Officers attempting to seize the vehicle [the truck] to settle judgements on behalf of freelance journalist Mark Croucher were informed that the vehicle did not, in fact, belong to the BNP. This was confirmed in a subsequent letter from the BNPs solicitors, Gilbert Davies & Partners of Welshpool who wrote, “the goods referred to are registered in the name of another person who…has no connection with the judgement debtors”.'

If the Lie Lorry does in fact belong to the BNP, Mark Croucher was lied to and, incidentally, so were the BNP's solicitors, who would hardly have told Croucher what they did unless they believed it to be the truth. If the Lie Lorry does NOT belong to the BNP, the party is lying to the public and its membership, and Jennie Noble appears to be complicit in that lie. Either way, this whole Truth Truck/Lie Lorry scam smacks of fraud hastily and untidily being covered-up.

Heads the BNP is lying: tails the BNP is lying. Take your pick.

Image courtesy of this great thread on b3ta.

Griffin launches election campaign by cynically exploiting war dead

Griffin smirks while the bodies of soldiers are brought home via Wootton Bassett

Immediate withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan will be one of the primary themes of the British National Party’s general election campaign. Speaking on BNP television, Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, sets out a blatantly populist stall for the election, which he believes will be called in late February or very early March.

Griffin hopes to exploit what he sees as an “enormous gap” between the views of the public and “politicians” on Afghanistan. The second main issue for the BNP, not surprisingly, will be “mass immigration and Islam in particular”, a subject at which he intends to go “hammer and tongs” to show the public that the BNP has not “gone soft”. He may also have an eye on limiting the damage to his party’s reputation among its racist supporters caused by his decision, forced by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), to open BNP membership to non-white people.

The third theme will be Europe. While recognising that Europe plays a lesser role in the general election in the minds of the public, Griffin explains that it is very important for a section of the public that the BNP aims to attract, namely those voters who are not sure whether to vote BNP or for the UK Independence Party.

As for the economy, the issue on which most people will focus, Griffin dismisses it on the grounds that it is “not feasible for us to get across the fact that a nationalist economic policy is the only way out of the mess”.

In other words, the BNP will go for votes by exploiting policies chosen for that purpose alone, rather than present a serious political programme to the electorate. Griffin appears to dismiss voters as too stupid to understand his economic arguments, though the reality is that the BNP’s mishmash of economic nationalism, fascism and opposition to trade would totally wreck the British economy.

Griffin states that his party is not yet ready for the election, though the main leaflets have been designed. There is also some fundraising to be done, he admits, before moving on quickly to another subject.

Money may well be a problem. The BNP went into the European election campaign in a dire financial state and spent large sums on its misnamed “Battle for Britain”. Before the election last June the party pledged that in the event of victory the party would contest every seat in the country in the general election.

That would commit the party to £325,000 in candidates’ deposits alone, much of which would be lost as the BNP will not overcome the 5% threshold for return of deposits in most constituencies. Probably realising the foolishness of standing hundreds of no hopers, Griffin backtracked, grabbing the opportunity to blame the three-month freeze on recruitment of new party members that he had agreed as a result of the EHRC’s court case.

Exaggerating wildly as usual, Griffin claimed the EHRC had cost the BNP a potential £105,000 in membership fees from 3,000 people keen to join up. “Those lost funds would have allowed the BNP to drive its way through the quiet Christmas period and launch an impressive General Election campaign the likes of which have never been seen in Britain,” wrote Griffin in an email to supporters on 12 December.

“As soon as we did make a breakthrough, the Equalities Commission pounced in what was a carefully calculated effort to make the BNP unable to contest every seat in the country,” the arch conspiracy theorist continued.

As a result the party had to “drastically scale back our General Election plans…If you want to blame someone, blame the tax-guzzling foreigner Trevor Phillips,” said the racist, before going on to appeal to existing BNP members to upgrade their membership to “gold” for “a measly £30” or take out life membership for a more painful £465.

One pot of money readily available to Griffin is the MEPs’ communications allowance for him and his fellow MEP, Andrew Brons. Each has £20,000 to spend on publicity about their work in the European Parliament and their constituency. While careful to acknowledge that the money cannot be used to promote the BNP, Griffin claims that when people hear of the two MEPs’ work, it will “have an effect”. The A3 folded glossy leaflets for the two constituencies will be ready for distribution “early in the new year”, revealed Griffin, providing “some cracking publicity”.

Leaflets will be an important part of the BNP election effort, but the BNP will not do telephone canvassing, Griffin promised, claiming that people do not like it. Instead BNP canvassers “will knock on doors”. Presumably he thinks voters are happier with a bunch of heavies at their front doors. Probably the real reasons the BNP has rejected telephone canvassing are that none of the sources of the necessary data would deal with the racist party and that the party’s canvassers sound even worse on the phone than on the doorstep.

In choosing Afghanistan as one of his election themes, Griffin must hope that voters will overlook the contradiction with the party’s much repeated claims that Islam is trying to colonise Britain and Europe and impose Sharia, and that the Muslim community harbours terrorists.

In his constituency newsletter Griffin denounces the war in Afghanistan arguing that British troops should only be sent to war “when the British people or British interests are being threatened”. Yet the BNP maintains that Islam has been engaged in a war on Western civilisation since its inception. Griffin lumps together the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ignoring the fact that, unlike the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan was a direct response to the terror attacks on the USA of 11 September 2001, with the aim, whether or not realistic, of preventing al-Qaeda using Afghanistan as an operational and training base.

Since then, Britain too has come under attack from al-Qaeda. Even where the individual terrorists were born in Britain, they were generally trained in or directed from Afghanistan or the Pakistan border area. There are good cases to be made that the war in Afghanistan may be unwinnable, or that Britain and the US have not committed sufficient resources, or that we should not support the Karzai administration, among other things, but it is unarguable that Islamist terrorism affects British people and British interests.

Islamophobia is one of the guiding principles of the BNP except when it conflicts with the latest attempt to win votes, it seems.

Rather than present a reasoned standpoint, Griffin resorts to emotion. Launching the party’s campaign to “Support our troops, bring them home” just before Christmas, Griffin described a “devastated, grieving mother” who spoke to him “recently” about the death of her “beautiful son” while serving in Afghanistan, and apparently implored Griffin to “help our boys out there or bring them home”.

“These are the words now carved into my heart, the words of a grieving mother, words that I will carry with me to my grave and words that made me take a solemn oath to do every-thing in my power to honour, support and protect our fighting heroes who have been abandoned both on the battlefields of Afghanistan and back here at home,” gushed Griffin.

He went on to accuse “Brown, Cameron and Clegg” of being “evil leaders … liars and con artists [who] started and backed the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan …”. That none of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg were leaders of their respective parties in 2001, and that Clegg has consistently opposed the war in Iraq, must have passed Griffin by in his excitement over a new cause for an appeal for money.

Announcing a “daring and innovative strategy to expose the hypocrisy, lies and cover-ups relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Griffin promises “a wave of activism, publicity material and direct action” which “will send shockwaves through the old parties and the traitors within the media”.

It will consist of four phases. Firstly a “full-colour well-designed 12-page brochure, detailing the crimes against our soldiers” will be sent to “every MP, MSP, MLA, and AM as well as every member of the House of Lords and also every registered journalist in the UK”. Secondly, the BNP will send “10,000 brochures to each key town and city in every one of The BNP’s 12 regions”.

The third stage will be, wait for it, a “nationwide truth tour” using “our very own ‘bought and paid for’ professional advertising lorry”. That’s the “truth truck”, better known as the lie lorry, a vehicle that the BNP does not own but leases from the hardline anti-abortion campaigner Jim Dowson. The tour will be followed by BNP TV films.

Anyone who thinks they have read this before would be right. The campaign has been recycled, almost word for word, from the BNP’s “Racism cuts both ways” initiative of autumn 2008. The 12-page outrage-ously Islamophobic brochure on that occasion listed 167 people whom the BNP alleged had been murdered as a result of anti-white racism, although only in a handful of the cases was there any clear indication of a racial motive and in several the perpetrator was white not black.

The BNP claims to be different. Too true. No other party would go into a general election on the back of racism, Islamophobia, a recycled clapped out campaign, nothing to say on the issues that really concern the electorate and a lead policy selected solely to pull votes from the UKIP.

Searchlight

BNP admits lying to raise money

The British National Party’s deputy leader has admitted that the party lies to gain financial advantage

A document filed with the Electoral Commission showed that the BNP exaggerated its spending during the European election, in which it gained two seats.

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, has often said the party spent more than £500,000 on the campaign, especially when asking his members and supporters for more money. But figures released by the Electoral Commission this week show that the fascist party spent just £282,843, only £54,000 more than it did during 2004.

Simon Darby, Griffin’s deputy, told a reporter from The Times that the party needed to exaggerate because “if we had said we wanted to spend 10p, it wouldn’t do us any good … there’s a bit of hyperbole with politics”. He refused to comment further on the discrepancy, saying that it was not a “worthy question”.

For “hyperbole” read “lie”.

During the European election campaign the party claimed to have met its fundraising target of £390,000. An email on 22 May, two weeks before polling day, announced that the party had only £17,495 still to go. There was also a thermometer-style graphic on the party’s website, which eventually reached the top after unsteady progress. Those who gave in response to the numerous calls for donations will be wondering whether these figures were another lie or, if true, what Griffin did with the rest of the money.

One clue may be the rumour, currently doing the rounds on fascist and anti-fascist forums, that the BNP paid “£336,208 in the first 11 months of 2009 to three Dowson controlled entities”.

We have no way of judging the truth of this figure, to which only a handful of people in the BNP or around Jim Dowson, would have access, but we have long maintained that Dowson, a militant anti-abortion campaigner with a string of criminal convictions, who provides management and fundraising services to the BNP, has “bought” the party. It is Dowson who runs the BNP’s main call centre in Belfast, owns the “truth truck” advertising lorry, which Griffin regularly lies that the BNP has “bought and paid for”, and arranged the printing of the party’s 28 million European election leaflets last year.

Darby, probably realising that his anger at being asked probing questions by the Times journalist, whom Searchlight knows to be highly professional, had led him to speak unwisely, later claimed, amid a string of insults, that she had “twisted and distorted” his words. He and Griffin now refuse to speak to her.

Meanwhile the BNP has tried to divert attention from the lie by claiming that it ran a more efficient campaign than the four bigger parties in terms of amount spent per vote received. Its £282,843 equated to 29p per vote, compared to 51p for the UK Independence Party and higher amounts for the three main parties. Naturally the party failed to explain why it had claimed spending of £500,000, which would have been similar to the UKIP’s cost per vote. And it was no surprise that supporters commenting on the website article also avoided the awkward question and had nothing but praise for the party.

Nor has anyone on the BNP website expressed any concern that the party’s latest accounts, covering 2008, do not comply with the requirements of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000, as the party did not maintain adequate financial records. The BNP’s former treasurer may yet face prosecution for this.

HOPE not hate

Of turning worms and unusual honesty from the anti-Griffin far-right

It's sometimes worrying to observe the amount of times Nick Griffin can crap on the members of the BNP and continue to get away with it, particularly where money is concerned. It seems that, as far as the membership is concerned, he is golden - as in King Midas - and money disappearing into the ether (such as the Trafalgar Club dosh) doesn't seem to bother any of them, their devotion is so complete.

Even the never-ending late submission of the party's accounts to the Electoral Commission and the consequent fines seem to be ignored by the complacent, gullible or just plain stupid BNP member in the street. In fact, BNP members never seem to worry about having money stolen from them by clearly fraudulent behaviour - witness the 'Truth Truck' scam, the Boudica 'battle bus' scam (almost identical to the Truth Truck fraud) or any number of other schemes that appear to be designed solely to keep Porky Griffin in the manner in which he is determined to become accustomed, which makes one worry about the mental health of BNP members in general. Though not for long.

One issue that does seem to be driving a lot of BNP members bonkers at the moment is that of the opening up of the party to non-whites - though in many cases they will deny it for fear of being labeled racist (too late - being a member of an openly racist party has already proven that much). Instead, they will blame their anger on any number of other problems within the BNP - financial shenanigans usually, though the fact that Nick Griffin runs the party as a support group for himself, his family and his friends occasionally gets an airing too.

One such person is very close to us here at Lancaster Unity. No, not in that way - just because we have the joy of having him living here in Lancaster. Chris Hill, for it is he, is a former star of the BNP, having stood for the party in local elections on no less than five occasions (and won on no occasion). He has, up until now, been a Griffin-loyalist, with a slight hiccup during the Sadie Graham debacle, where he joined the rebellion, was told off by Clive Jefferson and promptly returned to the fold, chastened and ready to do whatever was needed to get Nick Griffin into 10 Downing Street. A couple of weeks later, he recanted (again) and rejoined the rebels, though he remained a member of the party. Clearly not a man to be trusted.

One of his great ideas was to emulate Lancaster Unity and start up his own Lancaster BNP blog. It was a complete washout, as witnessed by the fact that his average readership is currently 3.9 per day, one of whom is me and one (I'd hope) is Hill himself, leaving less than two visitors per day from the real world. Funny but tragic, really.

Maybe it was the realisation that he had failed at everything BNP-related that forced the worm to finally (and publicly) turn. The Lancaster BNP site has been closed and all posts have been shifted to a new site with a very conspicuous lack of 'BNP' in the title. Hill explains himself thus:

'After much soul searching, the author of this blog regrets that he can no longer support the BNP.

This withdrawal of support for the British National Party is in no way connected with the current proposed constitutional change, which will allow non-white members into the party. It is in fact a result (at least in part) of the long-standing and ongoing financial skulduggery of the leadership.

Here is what the party's official accounts auditors said of the most recent set of accounts the party submitted to the electoral commission: (Accounts which were late again for the third year running, costing the party yet another £1000 fine)

"Accordingly in our opinion the financial statements do not:

1.Give a true and fair view of the state of the part's affairs at 31st December 2008.
2.Give a true and fair view of the results for the year the ended.

In our opinion the financial statements have been properly prepared in accordance with the accounting policies set out on pages 18 and 19.

In our opinion it cannot be said the accounts comply with the requirements of the political parties, Election and referendums Act 2000, as adequate record have not been made available."

The full accounts are available from the Electoral Commission here: (Auditors statement is on Pages 11 & 12)

This, along with the totality dictatorial nature of the current leadership, were the causes of this withdrawal of support for the party in its current state.'

If, as Hill states, the removal of his support is 'in no way connected with the current proposed constitutional change, which will allow non-white members into the party', why make the change now? The party has always been a dictatorship and its accounts have always been a disaster. If his statement had any truth to it, Hill would have resigned years ago. Like many others, he is obviously leaving the party for one reason and one reason only - because it will soon be forced to take in non-white members.

Hill's farewell sideswipes at Griffin's dictatorial control of the party and the financial skullduggery are views shared by many of his compatriots on the far-right, though they seem capable of being a tad more brutal than Hill. Here's a quote from a reader of the acerbic GriffinWatch blog:

'Gri££in's judgement has always been incredibly poor, as a party leader he has made one to many cocks ups, 'fundamentally errors in his analysis,' 'childish stunts,' 'ridiculous statements,' 'nonsense written in begging letters,' 'gross hypocrisy,' 'putting people in jobs that they were not up to or were completely incompetent,' 'associating with convicted criminal scum,' 'treacherous u turns,' 'misappropriation of party funds' the list of errors is endless.'

But as they tell us, Hell hath no fury etc. Sharon Ebanks, former leading light of the now more or less moribund Birmingham BNP, has turned out to be one of Nick Griffin's most vociferous opponents after the party dumped on her personally, refuses to beat around the bush. Just a couple of days ago, she came out with this little masterpiece of invective over at the NWN forum:

'Griffins entire management of the BNP is a disgrace. His ego and what he wants goes before all else. We recognise that Griffin cannot be removed, and for me personally that means nationalism as a political force is fucked. He concentrates purely on Muslims and immigration without offering any solutions which makes him look a laughing stock amongst the so called political elite. He won't even form a shadow cabinet out of fear someone might upstage him or prove they have more knowledge on a given subject than he has.

The BNP will not be taken seriously because it does not take itself seriously. Its loaded with people on the payroll and non of them are prepared to sacrifice. £700,000 wage bill for pities sake, where is the sacrifice and the £700,000 spent on elections?

He's a greedy, debauched, self centred, lying, two faced wanker whose real power lies in preying on the uneducated, the working class, and the poor. Griffin isn't there to help them, he's there to help himself, just as he's always done.'

And I defy anyone to put it better than that!

British National Party required to explain ‘inadequate’ accounts

The British National Party’s former treasurer could face criminal proceedings for delivering “inadequate accounts” to the Electoral Commission

The BNP’s 2008 accounts finally emerged three weeks before the fine for their late submission to the Electoral Commission would have doubled to £2,000.

Like the 2007 accounts, the latest financial statements do not give a true and fair view of the state of the party’s affairs at 31 December 2008 and of the year’s results, in the opinion of Silver & Co, the party’s regular auditors. However this year the BNP had no easy target to blame of the likes of Kenny Smith, one of the leaders of the party’s internal rebellion in winter 2006, who was used as the excuse for failings in both the 2006 and 2007 accounts.

In 2008 the party simply could not get its act together. As Nick Griffin, the party chairman, explained in his introduction to the accounts, soon after June 2008, when Jenny Noble took over as party treasurer from John Walker, it “became apparent that the task of maintaining central office accounts had become too big for any one individual”. So the job was “outsourced” to “an independent Chartered Accountant and Accounts Technician with the aim of presenting acceptable accounts for the accounting year 2009”.

In other words the BNP gave up on the 2008 accounts, though Griffin admitted lamely: “We recognize that it is not acceptable to present inadequate accounts”.

The failure meant that the accounts not only did not give a true and fair view but also did not “comply with the requirements of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 as adequate records have not been made available”. In 2007 the accounts did comply with the PPERA, despite not giving a true and fair view.

A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission told Searchlight that they had “a number of concerns” about the financial statements and the inadequate records referred to in Griffin’s report and have urgently requested more detailed information about the inadequacies from the party’s auditors. The BNP has until 8 January to reply, after which the Electoral Commission will consider what further action to take.

Under the PPERA 2000 the party’s treasurer on 31 December 2008, the last day of the accounting period concerned, commits a criminal offence by not complying with the regulations governing party accounts. Although the 2008 accounts are presented by Philip Reddall, he was appointed BNP treasurer only in autumn 2009. At the end of 2008 Noble was still the treasurer, until she was shunted out in April 2009 to run the Trafalgar Club, a task she appears to have performed with similar lack of success.

Her only defence, if the Electoral Commission decides to prosecute, would be that she took all reasonable steps and exercised due diligence to ensure the accounts were adequate, or that the failures were attributable to the period before she became treasurer and she did her best to put things right.

Despite the unreliability of the accounts, the figures are very interesting as they prove that the BNP has lied repeatedly to its members and donors.

The BNP started its main fundraising drive at the tail end of 2007 and built it up throughout 2008 with a number of appeals for objectives such as the launch of its provocatively racist Racism Cuts Both Ways booklet, the May 2008 election campaign and the notorious Truth Truck appeal.

The accounts show that the party did indeed raise more money than ever before. Income from donations and fundraising activities (the distinction is unclear) amounted to £688,764 compared to £221,456 in 2007.

Nevertheless the party ended the year with a loss of £82,642, an increase of £32,000 over the previous year’s loss. It was also a far cry from the £100,000 profit claimed in June 2009 by Jim Dowson, the militant anti-abortion campaigner behind the BNP’s fundraising efforts, who controls its Belfast telesales centre and other essential party functions. It was Dowson too who supplied the “independent chartered accountant”, John Thompson, who works for Dowson’s various business interests in Belfast, now charged with getting the BNP’s books into better shape for 2009.

The loss left the BNP bankrupt to the tune of £168,233. While that may not be much compared to some political parties, it is a significant proportion of the party’s turnover of under £1 million and the latest in a trend of growing losses. To stay afloat the party continued to raid the funds of its branches and groups, stayed in arrears with its tax and VAT payments and relied on the advance payment of membership subscriptions for the following year.

Far from spending the increased income on campaigning, most of the money has gone to paying party staff and propping up the party’s lacklustre publications and its failed Excalibur merchandising operation.

The start of 2008 had seen Excalibur’s move, to great acclaim, into new premises with a “vast array of new equipment”. At the end of the year Excalibur was out on its ear after Searchlight, in conjunction with Lancaster Unity and Wales Friends of Searchlight, had tracked it down to a Deeside Industrial Estate (click here for details).

According to the accounts, Excalibur’s stock, consisting of tatty, cringe-making and overpriced goods, including white mugs reading “I’m a white mug”, may have been worth £5,000 to £6,000 at the end of the year, but “the very nature of the stock raises questions as to its realisable value”. In other words, no one wants to buy them – even the BNP doesn’t have enough white mugs to buy its white mugs.

The total cost of the BNP’s “commercial activities”, consisting of Excalibur, Identity, Voice of Freedom and unspecified other printed material, amounted to £285,341 compared to income of £130,526, a loss of £125,000.

Staff wages and “professional fees” – a term that includes staff paid without accounting for income tax and national insurance – grew by over £100,000 compared to 2007. The accounts state there were 13 staff. Management and administration costs rose by £96,000 to £263,000. Rent and associated costs of the short-lived Excalibur unit undoubtedly pushed up this total.

Campaign expenditure was a mere £74,580, of which only £41,095 was on leaflets and £14,325 was the cost of fundraising. Back in March 2008 a BNP appeal letter asked for donations towards the 2008 London and local council election campaigns, promising that the London campaign would cost at least £80,000. That now emerges as another lie.

The party did buy £29,000 of equipment, far less than it made out when it moved into the Excalibur unit. It also spent £19,550 on buying vehicles. The figure does not include the “truth truck”, an advertising vehicle and trailer better known as the lie lorry. Contrary to statements in fundraising appeals that the lorry was “bought and paid for”, Searchlight established that the party was renting it from Dowson’s Adlorries.com business. The accounts do not refer to the “Truth Truck” by name but state that the party leases one vehicle under an agreement that does not give “rights approximating to ownership”.

The accounts also reveal some interesting non-financial details. The Young BNP was “defunct” during the year, “with the failed head being removed at the end of the year and replaced by a new team”. The reference is to the summary dismissal of Danny Lake and his replacement by Mike Howson, a man in his mid-forties, after Lake raised concerns about the “psychopathic” behaviour of Mark Bulman, an erratic and alcoholic teenage YBNP member who was also treasurer of Howson’s BNP branch.

The BNP’s security department is described as responsible for running party events “correctly to ensure the health and safety of all those attending”. This is the bunch of thugs who surround Griffin wherever he goes and have scant concern for the “health and safety” of those on the receiving end of their activities.

The South African influence remained strong, with both Arthur Kemp and Lance Stewart on the party’s 15-strong Advisory Council. Kemp is the BNP’s website editor and during 2008 was also in charge of Excalibur dispatch and “developing Voting Membership educational material”. Stewart, a former high-ranking officer in the South African Police, heads the BNP’s “Intelligence Department”.

BNP members, of whom the accounts state there were 9,801 at 31 December 2008, will not understand or care about the shambolic state of the BNP’s finances revealed in these statements, the potential criminal charges faced by the former treasurer or the proof that the party’s fundraising appeals were a pack of lies. They will not doubt go on pouring money into the bottomless and unaccountable pit that is the racist BNP.

Hope not hate

British National Party launches general election campaign with a lie

Nick Griffin, the British National Party leader, revealed [yesterday] that he would be contesting the Barking constituency, east London, in the next general election. He made his announcement in front of television cameras on the last day of his party’s annual conference in Wigan, Greater Manchester, over the weekend of 14-15 November.

Yet a few days ago, in an appeal for donations to launch the party’s “run-up campaign to the general election”, he wrote: “In this next General Election I will be standing in Thurrock where the split vote between the old parties means we could win a Parliamentary seat with just 27% of the vote”.

No candidate may stand in more than one constituency at a general election. So Griffin must have been lying, either in the begging letter or at the party’s conference.

Potential donors to the fascist party should note that this would not be the first time the BNP has lied in a fundraising appeal. The party claimed to have bought its “truth truck”, an advertising lorry, last year after a successful appeal to supporters to raise the £26,550 needed. Yet when bailiffs tried to enforce a county court judgment against the BNP, the party claimed it did not own the vehicle.

It was in Thurrock that Griffin held his first press conference after his disastrous performance in Question Time on 22 October. Claiming that the programme should not have been filmed in London, because the city was “no longer British”, he said: “Why not come down and do it in Thurrock …?”

Griffin linked his new choice of Barking for the general election with the party’s attempt to take over Barking and Dagenham council in the May 2010 elections. The party currently has 12 councillors there, the largest BNP council group in the country. The party has largely been ineffective against the huge Labour majority and many of its representatives rarely attend meetings.

According to Griffin, the council campaign will be spearheaded by Richard Barnbrook, the BNP’s sole London Assembly member, who is currently appealing against his suspension from the council for bringing his office into disrepute by inventing a series of murders in the borough. Robert Bailey, the BNP’s leader on Barking and Dagenham council and the party’s London organiser, appears to have been sidelined.

Barnbrook’s wider ambitions have also been swept aside. At the end of September he rented a huge billboard by the side of the A406 in Barking, at great expense, to announce that it was “Barnbrook for Barking”. On his blog he explained in no uncertain terms: “I, Richard Barnbrook am going to be Barking’s next MP! I’m the candidate for the British National Party …”. Lying that he had lived in the constituency for six years, he proclaimed: “Back me, Richard Barnbrook, Barking’s next MP”.

Griffin and Barnbook campaigned side by side apparently without animosity in the recent Glasgow North East parliamentary by-election. How Griffin bought Barnbrook out is not known.

Nick Lowles, editor of Searchlight, said Griffin’s decision to stand, coupled with the BNP’s prior local success in the area, made Barking “the front line” of efforts to combat the party’s rise. “It’s going to be difficult for him to win, but they have got a lot of councillors so we can’t be complacent,” he said.

“There have been some demographic changes since the last election which could limit the BNP’s success in Barking. But a lot depends on getting people out to vote, so it’s vital we let the people of Barking know exactly who Nick Griffin is.”

Hope not hate

Where did Griffin's £30,000 ‘Truth Truck’ money go?

Press release issued today by former UKIP Director of Communications Mark Croucher, reproduced without comment:

Questions have been raised over the destination of £30,000 raised by BNP Leader Nick Griffin to buy a mobile advertising hoarding after it came to light that the vehicle had not been purchased despite Griffin ’s claims that it had.

Throughout 2008, Griffin had urged BNP members to contribute to its ‘Truth Truck’ campaign, raising £30,000 to fund its purchase. In his new year’s message to BNP members this January, Griffin confirmed that the vehicle was now ‘bought and paid for’.

However, High Court Enforcement Officers attempting to seize the vehicle to settle judgements on behalf of freelance journalist Mark Croucher were informed that the vehicle did not, in fact, belong to the BNP. This was confirmed in a subsequent letter from the BNPs solicitors, Gilbert Davies & Partners of Welshpool who wrote, “the goods referred to are registered in the name of another person who…has no connection with the judgement debtors”.

Mr Croucher said, “As the vehicle is not owned by the BNP, it is clear that the fundraising campaign was a farce. Ordinary people have been suckered twice: once into joining a racist party like the BNP, and again into donating cash to buy something which Mr Griffin lied about having bought.

“Mr Griffin clearly has some questions to answer, and not just to his members who thought they’d purchased a truck.

“There is a certain irony in £30,000 being apparently misused by the BNP as they attempt to cash in on the current expenses scandal. I will be contacting the police and asking them to investigate whether the fundraising campaign was fraudulent and the cash was obtained by deception.” ENDS

Clergyman drives BNP activist out of cathedral grounds

The Ven Chris Liley, the Archdeacon of Lichfield, confronted the supporter of the far-right party after he parked its "Truth Truck" outside the cathedral in Staffordshire.

The 61-year-old cleric told him to stop taking photographs of the van in front of the building, then ordered him to leave the cathedral close.

He now plans to tell the BNP, which hopes to put up candidates for county council elections in Staffordshire this year, not to publish any material featuring Lichfield Cathedral or imply that the Church of England supports its policies.

The party, which wants an end to immigration and the "voluntary resettlement" of foreign-born residents of Britain, believes it will receive a large number of votes because of opposition to a mosque being built in the city.

Earlier this year the Church of England's governing body, the General Synod, voted overwhelmingly to ban clergy and lay staff from being members of the group amid growing fears it is trying to disguise its extreme policies and portray itself as a Christian organisation.

The BNP is using a picture of Jesus in a new billboard campaign ahead of European elections in June, together with a quote from the Bible reading "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you" and posing the question: "What would Jesus do?"

Mr Liley said: "Lichfield Cathedral is a place of Christian worship and the centre of mission for the Diocese of Lichfield. We are open to all and want everybody to feel welcome here – but people visiting the Cathedral must act in a way which does not damage the cathedral nor the welcome that we are able to offer other visitors.

"The BNP are wrong to suggest that Jesus would vote for the BNP. I don't know who he would vote for, but his parable of the Good Samaritan was a clear example about the value we should place on people from other communities.

"Lichfield Cathedral encourages people to vote in elections and we seek to engage with all legitimate politicians. But we will not endorse any particular candidate or party and it is wrong for any party to seek to use the Cathedral in a way which might imply endorsement, regardless of how much we may support or oppose what they stand for."

A spokesman for the BNP said the activist had only been trying to take a photo with the cathedral in the background, on Tuesday afternoon, to show the places its campaign bus had visited.

He said: "The cathedral is synonymous with Lichfield. It's a very quaint English place so when you depict it, what better thing to show than the cathedral?

"We're about to put our first candidate in Lichfield and I think we're going to get a very big vote. There's a big mosque planned for Lichfield but there's a lot of opposition to it."

The Telegraph

One Flew Over The Pig Farm: the BNP and us in 2008 - August

Summer arrives with a vengeance and a nicely sarcastic series of articles by our friend Iliacus, who begins the task of inspecting and analysing the BNP's accounts for 2007 - delivered to the Electoral Commission late, as usual. Iliacus points out the highlights, which to the untrained eye, show a party in great financial trouble, as shown by the auditor for the accounts who states 'the financial statements do not give a true and fair view of the state of the party's affairs'.

• Donation Income falls by 32%
• Membership income up by 38% (?)
• Income from commercial activities down by 68%!
• Deficit for year is £50,000 (against £18,000 surplus in 2006)
• Current cash accounts in chaos
• Balance sheet shows net liabilities of £85,000+
• Party owes £20,000 + in PAYE and VAT - (that's £20k less for schools and hospitals!)

Who is to blame for all this? The party's chairman? Its incompetent treasurer? Perish the thought. Nick Griffin has the answer and says so in his Chairman's Report.

'Oxfordshire police; Labour Party thugs; illegality by Labour Cabinet Ministers; undemocratic thugs from the far-left; local newspapers; the police and the Electoral Commission; third party disparagers; the unions; the Daily Mirror; postal fraud by Labour and LibDem activists; unscrupulous council officials; a small clique of staff and middle ranking officials [within the BNP !]; the violent far-left of the Labour regime; the viciously anti-BNP neo-Nazi fringe. (All listed and identified in Griffin's 'Chairman's Report' as acting against the BNP, and many of them accused of illegal behaviour. Only surprised that he forgot the BBC. Thank goodness he isn't paranoid!)'

Iliacus' masterly summary of the mess that is the BNP's accounts can be read by clicking the links below:

The Accounts (1): First Impressions
The Accounts (2): "We wuz robbed"
The Accounts (3): Figure Skating
The Accounts (4): "and for my next trick"
The Accounts (5) : "a slender merit of providing cosmetic comfort"

Meanwhile the BNP, the party that has nothing but respect for all things British (ho-ho), pisses off everyone by flogging fake Victoria Crosses, thus showing its contempt for our armed forces and incidentally using the income from sales to fund more of the party's extremism and racism. Hero Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry, 28, who won the VC four years ago for saving 30 pals in Iraq, condemned the BNP. He said: “Selling fake VCs is very disrespectful. The honour of the medal and its history shouldn’t be tarnished like this. I take so much pride in my medal and I hate seeing it abused. The medal is not about money or politics and it shouldn’t be worn for fun – that devalues the sacrifice of the soldiers who won it.”

The BNP's Lie Lorry looks to be one of its key moneymakers if the number of begging letters sent out referring to it are anything to go by. You'll recall that the party asked for £30,000 to buy the truck but now they are asking for more to actually put it on the road. No-one in the party (apparently) has the sense to ask why this wasn't factored into the original appeal.

The truth is that the Lie Lorry is yet another of Griffin's scams - remember Boudicca the amazing invisible bus? How much money was raised by the membership for that? Nobody knows, except Griffin and co. And where is the bus? Nobody knows that either. The Truth Truck, being shared with UK LifeLeague, will no doubt appear and will cost the membership dearly. It already has - but this is just the beginning of the scam. And I'll bet there are many more to come.

News reaches us of plans to change the constitution of the BNP to allow leadership challenges to take place quadrennially, rather than annually. There are many changes in the pipeline as Griffin seeks to consolidate his slippery grip on the BNP, many of which are planned for an Extraordinary General Meeting which is to take place at the Red, White and Blue later this month.

The moronic Tommy Williams (he of Covert fame) got in trouble for trying to claim on the nazi Stormfront forum that a bomb had been set off at the entrance to the RWB site. A complete lie that he only told because he thought 'reds' (meaning anyone who opposes the BNP) would get the blame. Silly boy. After a snorter of a telling-off from Nick Griffin, who could obviously imagine the cash-carrying punters melting away into the sunset, Williams quickly printed a retraction, blaming the incident on local children setting off fireworks. Strangely, there is no record of any such incident taking place - not with the police, the local newspapers or any local residents I asked. Am I surprised? Well, no.

Mid-August saw a 700-strong demo against the RWB in Denby somewhat disproportionately policed by 250 officers, many in riot gear. This huge number was supplemented by as many (it seemed) on the BNP's security team. There's a full report of the demo here but one of the highlights was a group of anti-fascists listening to Martin Reynolds, the BNP's then head of security, being told in no uncertain terms by police control to 'breathe deep and calm down' after he called for help in a mad panic. Since then, Reynolds appears to have been replaced by the arrogant Cumbrian and dandy Clive Jefferson. The RWB had a bright spot for Nick Griffin though - he walked away having secured a severance package that could bankrupt the BNP overnight.

At the end of August, the BNP stepped up its production of racially-inflammatory material with yet another leaflet blaming the heroin trade entirely on Muslims via its Preston branch, which seems to have permanently renamed itself the Preston Pals. As usual, the police seem reluctant to take any action despite the fact that there have been numerous complaints about the leaflet. One wonders why...

The month ends with the news that a group calling itself Daten-Antifa has hacked into the servers of the Blood and Honour neo-nazi group, pinching nearly 32,000 items of data on members, their email addresses and their messages from all over the world. While we naturally disapprove of this sort of behaviour, the databank can be found here.

One Flew Over The Pig Farm: the BNP and us in 2008 - July

Even the meanest of the BNP's councillors conform to the party's petty racisms, as was shown in early July when Simon Deacon, a Markyate Parish Councillor and former leading National Front activist, voted against the council's Equal Opportunities Policy, describing it as a waste of time. No great surprise there.

Another non-surprise, was the complete collapse of Colin Auty's leadership challenge: Auty didn't even manage to get the required number of nominating signatures for the challenge to go ahead.

Griffin, clearly nervous of Auty's popularity (not something that the pig farmer has ever experienced), enlisted the help of the big battalions in the dubious forms of fruitcake Lee Barnes and 'election guru' Eddie Butler, both of whom wrote possibly illegal letters to the entire membership warning it to avoid Auty like the plague, Butler referring to Auty as a 'joke candidate' while Barnes stated that anyone who supported the challenge would be 'tried for conspiracy and treason'. Such power.

Meanwhile, Dicky Barnbrook, who takes his politics very seriously indeed, learns to ride a bike with fruit on it...

Dukinfield Labour councillor John Taylor apparently earned the ire of the BNP's Andrew Gatward, the party's West Lindsey organiser, and promptly found himself on Redwatch complete with death threat.

'Congratulations, you're on Redwatch. I am going to take you out. Six .22 rounds in the back of your head should do the trick. I would bring my .38 special but it makes one hell of a mess. I'll be seeing you.'

Whether it was Gatward who put Taylor on Redwatch is impossible to know but the fact that the former writes the occasional hate mail to the latter should give us a clue. As should Hexapla's article about the bizarre and violent fantasy world that Andrew Gatward seems to inhabit.

July saw us asking questions about how closely Nick Griffin and the BNP were working with Patrick Harrington and his micro-party, the National Liberal Party. Certainly there's a strongly incestuous relationship between them which becomes even more intimately entangled when the BNP's fake union Solidarity, its fake PR company Accentuate and Third Way are factored in. More investigation needed, if anyone wants to take it on board.

To no-one's surprise at all, Dewsbury East's BNP councillor Colin Auty quit the party (and eventually his seat) after his failure to get a leadership challenge going, moaning about the lack of democracy in the BNP. Odd how it hadn't bothered him up to this point. His campaign manager Roger Robertson also bit the dust, though in his case he was expelled for bringing the party into disrepute by setting up the challenge to the leadership and having the audacity to talk to the press. Bringing the BNP into disrepute? You couldn't make this stuff up, could you.

Racists and anti-semites Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle are convicted of publishing racially inflammatory material on a website. Both face further charges though mid-July saw them in the news again, this time for not turning up in court. It emerged that the pair had run off to the US, seeking political asylum across the pond.

An old friend reappears in court (albeit briefly), to answer a charge of attacking a pub landlord. Football hooligan, violent thug and former Burnley BNP councillor Luke Smith, hits the news again by doing what he does best - creating havoc. A couple of days later, Smith is found dead, having hanged himself.

Clive Jefferson, who desperately wants to run the BNP's security because he's a tough guy, brought some of his more idiotic pals down from Cumbria to Lancaster just to irritate shoppers by illegally setting up a stall in Market Square and getting in everyone's way. After a kicked-over table, numerous leaflets covered in spilled fizzy and a very noisy spontaneous demo, Jefferson and his morons buggered off - though not before the police nicked him for driving around in a car with an illegal numberplate (for which he was done the statutory £80).

Drifting towards the end of July and we see Nick Griffin writing to the December rebels trying to get them to back off from the forthcoming court case. In his letter, Griffin appears to libel the rebel's barrister Adrian Davies in a number of ways - though Mr Davies doesn't seem too keen to take the pig farmer to court on his own behalf. What Griffin is trying to avoid, of course, is showing the world that he can no longer afford to pay for decent legal representation and may have instead to rely on his own quick wits and those of the party's legal lunatic Lee Barnes. Gawd, I almost feel sorry for him. But not quite.

Too late to make any difference and presumably in angry response to Griffin's letter, Sadie Graham suddenly pops her head over the parapet to declare that

'I truly believe that there has never been a political leader in this country so hated by his own people.'

Her statement, posted on the Voice of Challenge blog, rips into Griffin, calling him a liar and a coward, but the overall effect is that it is too little, too late. Had she issued such a statement six months before, she would have got a massive and positive response. In fact, it comes across as the death knell of the rebellion - which in fact it turns out to be.

Yet another financial scandal within the BNP is uncovered by Searchlight - this one centering on the much-vaunted 'Truth Truck' or Lie Lorry. BNP members were asked to donate towards the purchase of a brand new advertising vehicle, effectively a mobile hoarding, which would help spread the BNP's lies even further. Members were asked to donate a staggering £40,000 to this appeal and many responded though BNP members on its own forum sounded a note of caution, wondering what had happened to the battle bus, a similar idea that was used to obtain donations a few years back.

Eventually, it was discovered that the BNP had conned its membership - again - and that the truck was actually being shared between the UK LifeLeague, an anti-abortion outfit based in Belfast, and the party.

We'll let the late Luke Smith round off July. His funeral seems to have followed the pattern of his life, being marred by vandalism and violence. Around forty drunken so-called 'mourners' were dispersed by police after they were found hurling bricks off a bridge on to a road below, presumably in tribute to Smith being a well-known thug and hooligan throughout his life.

Steve Smith, uncle of Luke, former member of the BNP and now leader of the utterly insignificant England First Party, said of his nephew;

'He was a lovely, lovely lad who, like a lot of people, was just too sensitive to exist in what is effectively an extremely cruel world...'

Whatever.

BNP attempts to infiltrate wildcat strikes

Warnings are being sounded about far-right involvement in the Lindsey wildcat strike over foreign workers, with the deputy leader of the British National party telling politics.co.uk: "We'll be the last people there."

Trade unionists and anti-fascist activists have been alerted to the growing BNP presence around the picket line. The strike spread across the country yesterday, with heavy snow doing nothing to stop over 300 people gathering around the site as the sun rose.

"We'll be there for the foreseeable future," Simon Darby, deputy leader of the BNP, confirmed to politics.co.uk. "We'll be the last people there."

He continued: "Unfortunately Labour have sent in the Socialist Workers party storm troopers who have been aggressive against our people. Police were supportive of us, but the left got rather aggressive. The police said 'we can't guarantee your safety'. The last thing we want is clashes with the left on TV."

That particular event carried a different interpretation from anti-fascist organisation Searchlight. A spokesman told politics.co.uk: "The local trade union people have gone to the police and said we don't want these people anywhere near the picket line. They've got nothing to do with the dispute. The police said to the BNP 'if you bring your truck to the picket line we'll do something about it'. They were forced to move to about half a mile away."

Yesterday the party started handing out leaflets about the strike.

"It's all over the place," the spokesman said. "It has lots of typos but the basic reason it doesn't make any sense is that they don't understand what the trade unions are about."

The Socialist party, which has members on the strike committee, is also handing out a leaflet tomorrow, but one targeted at the Italian workers brought in to work. Written in Italian, the leaflet says Italian workers have more in common with their British counterparts than Italian management.

The BNP, which is at the site in its 'truth truck' (nicknamed the 'liars' lorry' by anti-fascist activists), are understood to be using a BNP-based union called Solidarity' to become involved in the strike, which expanded to include Sellafield nuclear power plant workers yesterday. Solidarity is a registered trade union formed in 2006. Its last returns to the certification office said it had only 100 members, although that number has almost certainly risen slightly since then. It does not have a certificate of independence, meaning it can't represent members at tribunals or in court and employers are under no obligation to recognise it.

The party has dedicated large sections of their website to the strike, with photos of Italian workers showing cameramen the V-sign displayed prominently beneath the slogan: "British job s for British workers – When we say it we mean it."

The response of the unions to a BNP infiltration has been mixed. A spokesman for the GMB union told politics.co.uk "We held mass meeting with our members. We recommended our members go back to work. They decided not to take our advice. You're talking to me about something that's not our responsibility."

But a political officer for the union took a different stance, telling politics.co.uk: "We want to make sure the BNP don't hijack this to peddle their hate. This is not a dispute concerning immigration or asylum seekers. It's completely different to that. I've not heard people say they can see a lot of BNP activity at the moment although I acknowledge there is some."

He added: "We'll make sure that members and people on picket lines are alerted to the fact they will be about and they will try to recruit. We need to be smart enough to know they will be there and act against it."

Police plans to bus in the Italian and Portuguese workers today are being treated as a statement of intent by strikers, with many saying it is reminiscent of the miners' strike in the 1980s.

View London

Racism cuts both ways - Don't let the BNP divide our communities

BNP targets young people in hate drive

It will be “the biggest and most ambitious strategy that this Party has ever undertaken,” promised a British National Party fundraising letter in September. The “Racism Cuts Both Ways” initiative will detail “the crimes against our people – rape, murder and discrimination”.

The conspiracy nuts of the BNP have long claimed that, in the words of party leader Nick Griffin, “the political elite, the media, the police and the courts are covering up an epidemic of racist violence against the long suffering indigenous people of this country”.

For the past two years the BNP has been putting together a list of “the forgotten victims”, researched by Alan Newark, a former left-wing Scottish journalist who defected to the far right many years ago. In an attempt to give the project authority Tony Shell, a “professional systems analyst” and the BNP’s Plymouth organiser, has written two reports “analysing” crime figures to prove the BNP’s thesis. There are lies, damned lies and statistics, and the BNP knows how to use all three.

Now their work has been distilled into a 12-page full colour brochure that will be sent in the first instance to MPs, members of the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, London Assembly and House of Lords, and journalists. The BNP admits that most of them will bin it. It is intended as a provocation, “priming the fuses for our main attack”, the direct mailing of it to “large numbers of 18-year-olds, personally”.

The BNP claims to be targeting 18-year-olds because, “not only are these new voters with no loyalties to the old parties, but reaching out to so many young people will send the opposition frantic and guarantee publicity that will magnify our efforts tenfold”.

The fundraising appeal aims to raise £78,750 to finance the campaign, including £22,000 to print an initial 200,000 brochures and £45,000 for postage. With this they intend to mail out 10,000 brochures to “each key town and city in every one of the BNP’s 12 regions”.

Postage of £45,000 would only pay for around 120,000 brochures sent out individually. But the campaign will also be promoted by a “nationwide Truth Tour” using the “truth truck”, better known as the lie lorry, acquired after the party’s last big fundraising effort. It will start in Scotland and work its way south over one month.

The brochures will be distributed in schools where the BNP has enough activists, Simon Darby, the BNP’s press officer, told a journalist. Most school students are under 18, suggesting that the BNP will be very happy to hand it out to younger, less politically experienced, teenagers who might be more easily taken in by the glossy but viciously hate-filled publication.

The brochure is at pains to claim that the “injustices” inflicted on the “majority community” are “in no way the fault of immigrants themselves”, but caused by “the attitude of the ruling political elite”. But articles on “racist murder” and rape impart the opposite message. The page about “racist grooming” is especially disgraceful and clearly intended to incite race hate.

“All ethnic groups contain paedophiles” it states, “… But in most communities these sickos operate alone, ashamed of what they do. One community, however, is different. Wherever there are large numbers of young Muslim men, groups of them team up to lure girls – often as young as twelve or thirteen – into a nightmare world of sexual abuse, rape, beatings, drug addiction and prostitution. Some of these perverts are recently arrived ‘asylum seekers’, others come from settled immigrant communities and were born in Britain.

“But what all the Muslim sex gangs have in common – on top of their religion, with its low status for women – is that they never target girls from their own community. The vast majority of the victims are white, although Sikh, Hindu and West Indian girls are also targeted.” Note the attempt to show that the BNP has sympathy with BME communities that it perceives as more accepted by its target white audience.

Searchlight says

The BNP’s decision to target school children in its latest campaign is both predictable and despicable. Over the past few years the fascist party has launched Mothers Against Paedophiles in Keighley and Mothers Against Knives in London (hijacking a genuine campaign) and on both occasions it has been exposed and rejected. However, there can be no room for complacency and Searchlight will be preparing counter material to expose the lies the BNP is peddling.

Teachers’ view

Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest UK teachers’ union:

“Action must be taken to prevent the BNP peddling this vile propaganda which, as always, is designed to promote division and intolerance. The fact that they are planning to ambush children, young people and parents at school gates demonstrates that there is no level to which they are not prepared to sink to peddle their hateful message.

“This demonstrates that the NASUWT was absolutely right to press the Government to include the activities of the BNP and far right in the guidance it has issued recently to schools on tackling extremism and that the Department for Children, Schools and Families was right to do so. The NASUWT will expect the Government to scrutinise any report the BNP produces and seek to bring the full weight of the law to bear to prevent its distribution and prosecute those involved in its production.”

White history month

At the same time as launching this poison, the BNP is promoting what it calls “white history month”. In the past the BNP has objected to “black history month”, which is celebrated in Britain every October. Now the fascist party has changed tack and trying to make out that it has no objection to black history month but white people should have their own equivalent.

This is all part of the BNP’s agenda of making out that “indigenous” white Britons are oppressed, second class citizens in their own country. Black history month started in the USA in 1926 because black history had largely been ignored. At that time, most representation of blacks in history books only referred to them as slaves or descendants of slaves.

Even now in Britain the history of black civilisations and the achievements of individual black people receive far less attention than white history. Hence the need for black history month, to redress the balance.

A “white history month” is in no way the same thing. White people in Britain are not discriminated against because they are white, they are not victims because they are white. White history month is purely and simply an attempt to promote a BNP myth.

The BNP has said it will distributed over 10,000 white history month leaflets in schools, universities and colleges. It intends to email and post material to head teachers, student groups, campus unions, scouts and brownie groups and other organisations involved with young people to promote this insidious campaign.

The BNP’s London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook is being roped in to help. The BNP says it will put on a white history month exhibition at City Hall and at pubs across the country.

The BNP’s lie lorry will tour Britain “meeting activists and campaign teams in towns, cities and universities”, presumably promoting white history month alongside the Racism Cuts Both Ways initiative. The two certainly go together.

And users of Facebook, Bebo, Myspace and other social networking sites should look out for the BNP spreading its propaganda there.

Report incidents of BNP activity

Please tell us if you come across any BNP activity to promote Racism Cuts Both Ways or white history month, especially in schools or other educational institutions, social networking sites or anywhere else. Email us here.

Racism cuts both ways

BNP looks for cracks in the Potteries

Part of the BNP rabble listening to Nick Griffin talking crap

The British National Party has been rallying support in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire

The far-right party has been emboldened by its recent successes in local elections - it has nine councillors in Stoke. But it has also been angered by the death of local BNP activist Keith Brown, who was killed by his Asian neighbour.

On Saturday the party handed out leaflets and held a rally to voice its belief that society ignores or plays down violence against whites by non-whites. Mr Brown's killer, Habib Khan, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years - but the party believes that had their roles been reversed, Mr Brown would now be serving life for murder.

The rally was on an industrial estate in the Fenton area, in a car park off a busy main road. About 300 people attended, at most - mainly tattooed males with shaved heads, but also young couples - some with babies - young women and a few quiet-looking pensioners. There were flag wavers, banner holders and placard carriers. Passing drivers were encouraged to honk their horns, and quite a few obliged.

From a "Truth Truck", speakers including BNP leader Nick Griffin addressed the crowd. Speaking over loud applause, Mr Griffin said they day's activities "tell the establishment in Stoke-on-Trent, and across the length and breadth of the country, that they can no longer brush the attacks on British people under the carpet, because the BNP will be there, not to cause trouble, but to cause a fuss".

Stoke-on-Trent is to hold a referendum in October to decide whether or not to retain its elected mayor. If it votes to keep it, then the BNP clearly fancies its chances.

"We have very, very good councillors and I have no doubt that we're the front runners for the elected mayor position, which is why Labour is trying to get rid of it," said Mr Griffin, speaking away from the rally in the Meir area.

He puts his party's rise in popularity in the city partly down to the "lazy and corrupt" Labour administration. But what does the wider community think?

Clearly, Stoke-on-Trent is a place ill at ease with itself. Ravaged by a huge drop in the core industries of mining, pottery and engineering, its proud heritage and identity, which made the Potteries a name familiar across the world for its skill in ceramics, is under threat. Many of its citizens appear worried about making a living and angry at the state of the city in which they live. Unemployment, cuts in health services and substandard housing are just some of the complaints on the street.

Meir resident Alan Hough, 62, angrily asks why the police cars parked nearby, clearly keeping an eye on the BNP leader, "aren't out catching criminals". Mr Hough says he has voted for Labour all his life, but says he will vote for the BNP in future.

"My father will be turning in his grave, he fought the fascists for six years," he says. "But Labour aren't doing their job, and that's why people are voting for the BNP, they're desperate. There's no alternative, people won't vote Tory and they're fed up with Labour."

But Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent South, Rob Flello, says the claim that Labour has done nothing "flies in the face of reality".

"BNP politics are about setting communities against each other," he said. "We're trying to build communities, and strengthen them. We're trying to attract people to the city and bring jobs here. Having a BNP presence makes it seem as if it's a place torn by conflict, with community against community, and that's simply not the case."

There are no non-white people to be seen in Meir, so a taxi ride over to the Shelton area is necessary to find an Asian point of view. Standing outside the local mosque is Abu Kinza, 30. He thinks there are deep divisions within the city's communities, which are partly down to education.

"Stoke-on-Trent's nature is not as aware as other cities," he said. "Asians and whites don't mix. There is lots of racism and the Asian community does suffer. The BNP has support in this city because of a decline in Christian values. That makes people more materialistic and selfish and they don't care about their community. Also, people here aren't educated. Ask them if they've read a book in the last year, the last five years. A lot of them haven't. People from outside of the city say it's one of the worst areas to live in, that it's backwards and that the BNP are strong here. Its presence damages the city's reputation."

Elsewhere in the city a peace vigil was held in opposition to the BNP. It was organised by the group United Against Fascism, with speakers and a march. National campaigner Donna Guthrie said: "It went brilliantly, and hopefully will show the unity the people of Stoke-on-Trent have with each other, which goes against the grain of what the BNP wants to do."

BBC

The Lying Lorry's true message to the people

Telling it like it is

No article to read this time. We're just looking for appropriate slogans for the side of the BNP's second-hand Lying Lorry.

As we know, the BNP's Lying Lorry is going to be whizzing around the country at great and unnecessary expense to the membership, spreading the party's lies and propaganda - and we thought it would be nice if, just for a change, it showed the truth. So, let's have a few suitable slogans for the side that will enable everyone to see the reality about the BNP.

Go for it...

Loyalist helps BNP spread race hate message

A Belfast-based loyalist night defended his decision to link up with the extremist BNP.

Former Orangeman James Dowson, who runs Midas Consultancy, told Sunday Life that he had “no problem” providing senior members of the right-wing party with management training and marketing skills. Scots-born Dowson, who is also a hardline anti-abortion campaigner, has been responsible for helping the BNP send letters to businesses throughout the UK in a bid to raise cash.

The loyalist, who makes regular trips to Northern Ireland, helped mastermind the party’s ‘Truth Truck’ campaign [see here and here], which included lorries visiting towns in England to spread the BNP’s ‘nationalist message’. And Dowson, who admitted coming from a “loyalist background”, claimed the BNP’s message would soon be coming to Northern Ireland.

He said: “I specialise in a business pool which includes Belfast and Scotland and I’m proud to describe myself as a loyalist and a unionist. A wide range of organisations come to us because we provide management training and marketing skills. When the BNP contacted us, I had no option but to work with them — it was an exciting business proposal. I understand the truth truck could soon be on its way to Northern Ireland, but that’s nothing to do with me.”

Added Dowson: “The BNP are not an illegal organisation so why shouldn’t I work with them? I don’t think their members are involved in criminal activity. I have worked in Northern Ireland for a long time, but not for any proscribed organisations. The BNP is not a proscribed organisation. It would be wrong for me to pontificate about the views of the BNP and I honestly can’t think of anyone I wouldn’t work with.”

The link between the BNP and Dowson caused concern among anti-racism campaigners in the province. Said one campaigner: “Dowson’s marketing plan is nothing more than a begging letter. The BNP is in very serious financial trouble and this is how they think they can get money. The BNP may not be illegal, but they articulate views which clearly motivate people to commit very serious attacks on minorities.”

Sunday Life revealed last year how Northern Ireland’s only Chinese politician slammed the BNP’s latest attempt at a recruitment drive in the province. The right-wing party published a leaflet — entitled ‘What Now for Northern Ireland?’ — claiming the province was on its way to a “multi-cultural hellhole” and that towns here had become “dumping-grounds” for migrants.

But Alliance MLA Anna Lo said she was “disgusted” by the BNP's intolerant language — and said the party was wasting its time in Northern Ireland “because people are not racist here”.

She added: “There is an element of inciting hatred. There is no attraction in Northern Ireland for this type of politics and I would discourage this party from coming over here. We have always had good race relations in Northern Ireland. There may be the odd incident, but that does not represent the majority of people here.”

In 2006, the BNP’s leader Nick Griffin was cleared by a court of stirring up racial hatred — a move that prompted then-chancellor Gordon Brown to consider changing Britain's race laws.

Belfast Telegraph

You've bought the Timeshare Truth Truck - now let's have some more money

Click on images to see full-size

Nick Griffin's never-ending quest for money moves on to the next stage

Members of the BNP will have received yet another begging letter from that financial wizard Nick Griffin, the party leader. The last time we reported on these rubbishy begging letters that are sent out wholesale, it was so the party could buy what it laughingly called 'the Truth Truck', a blatant con-trick as the truck was actually obtained from the UK LifeLeague, an anti-abortion outfit run by one of Griffin's old chums and the author of those bloody awful begging letters, James Dowson.

This particular letter is headed Great News', that news presumably being that the membership has now got to fork out even more money to get the truck out on the road or, as Griffin prefers to put it, 'build up a fighting fund'. Obviously assuming that the combined BNP membership has the IQ of a whelk, he goes on to explain that 'there will be ongoing costs with this fantastic initiative' and that 'it still requires money to run the truck'. How bizarre (and unlikely) that this wasn't factored into the original appeal.

Three sections leap out from this ghastly letter as of particular interest.

'To keep costs to a minimum, I have organised a friend to do most of the driving this summer, but will need modest support to train other drivers in several regions. And of course - for on the road incidentals, food & subsistence, parking, tolls and fuel etc.'

Costs have already been kept to a minimum by conning the supporters of the BNP into believing they were buying a brand-new truck when what they were actually getting was a time-share with the UK LifeLeague mob. There has been NO indication of how much money was raised by the campaign for the truck, nor have the members been at any point told how much was spent on it or the precise details of its origin.

A 'friend' will drive it? What friend? Will this friend be paid? What is the nature of this 'modest support? Hotel bills, meals, Ronald McDonald-style uniform? And this friend will 'train other drivers in several regions'. At what cost to those regions? Nothing Nick Griffin did for the BNP membership ever came free - far from it, in fact. Oh yes, he's zoomed around the country making speeches while surrounded by his entourage of butch men in dark glasses like he's some kind of third-rate Generalissimo but Nick Griffin has done extremely well out of the BNP and, like every other Generalissimo out there, he has planned his retirement carefully and does not expect to retire into penury.

'When you give to this amazing project, it will be like you are sitting in the lorry cab with me as I travel the length and breadth of this country. You will be shoulder to shoulder with me as we spread our message of hope with the "Truth Truck"'

Perish the thought. He should have asked for donations to enable people NOT to think of sitting 'shoulder to shoulder' with him. He'd have made a lot more money.

One thing I will say about Nick Griffin is that he has chutzpa. On the donations page of the letter, we see the usual layout that asks the reader to tick a box that indicates their chosen donation. Most organisations who are seeking funds for special projects (usually involving the victims of natural disaster, not some petty crap like buying a 'truth' truck) put the highest amount on the left in the hope that the reader will tick that box. Understandable, because this box is usually for some large amount like £50, though not in Griffin's world. No, his appeal goes way beyond such triviality - the first box is for £2500. If you're too mean to donate that, the next one is for a miserly £1000.

I'll make a prediction here. No matter how much is raised from this appeal, the regions will STILL be charged a ridiculous amount to have a driver 'trained' in driving this truck. Why? Because it is simply another part of the scam, the BNP enterprise that now exists solely to enrich Griffin and the other wasters at the top of the party.

Remember Boudica the amazing invisible bus? How much money was raised by the membership for that? Nobody knows, except Griffin and co. And where is the bus? Nobody knows that either. The Truth Truck, being shared with UK LifeLeague, will no doubt appear and will cost the membership dearly. It already has - but this is just the beginning of the scam. And I'll bet there are many more to come.