Coventry BNP charity leaflet campaign 'absurd'

The British National Party has defended its decision to leaflet residents in Coventry, asking them to donate scrap metal to help "British" charities.

A BNP spokesman said they were merely addressing the issue of scrap merchants operating in the Coundon area.

Coventry North-West MP Geoffrey Robinson, who was contacted by one of his constituents about the leaflets, called it "an absurd proposition". Help For Heroes, named on the leaflet, said it was "strictly non-political".

Mark Baddrick, a BNP organiser in the city, said: "This is a local issue that concerns a lot of people... that they are really fed up with this trail of scrap vans trawling the streets."

Mr Baddrick admitted the party had not approached Help for Heroes but said they had done benefits for the charity before.

"We will approach them when we have raised some funds and if they decline the offer of a donation, that's entirely up to them."

Responding to the criticism, he added: "If they're really that concerned, why don't they address the issue we're trying to address instead of criticising our efforts."

Labour MP Mr Robinson, said he could "understand people being very upset" about the leaflet.

"What is the BNP trying to do? It's a political party. They should concentrate on those affairs. The idea they can can become conduit to charities is absurd."

Bryn Parry from Help for Heroes said: "We have no affiliation with any political party and do not endorse the use of our name for the promotion of any political viewpoint. The money we raise supports wounded servicemen and women of every colour and creed. We strongly oppose any individual or political party who believes we should act otherwise, and those who seek to use the charity's name for their own political gain."

Councillor Ed Ruane from the Labour-led Coventry City Council, said the authority had joined forces with the police to "see if this is legal and whether the BNP are licensed to trade in this manner".

BBC

War veterans' group who took money from BNP to be struck off as charity

A war veterans' group who took money from the BNP are to be struck off the charity register.

A probe into Forward Edge of Battle Area (Feba) revealed problems with its management and finances. Feba, set up by former Queen's Own Highlander Tommy Moffat in 2006, had been backed by First Minister Alex Salmond and former defence secretary Des Browne. But it emerged last year that Moffat had taken £3000 from the BNP to pay rent on their HQ in Hamilton, Lanarkshire. The leader of the racist party, Nick Griffin, visited Moffat, claiming he wanted to show his support.

Feba were given charity status in March 2007. But now an inquiry by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has found they don't meet the watchdogs' "public benefit" test. The probe uncovered "significant weaknesses in governance and financial controls".

The OSCR said Moffat had run up large debts he couldn't repay and was running the charity while they were apparently insolvent. He had also been the sole trustee of Feba, despite an agreement to have at least four people at the helm.

The report said: "It appears Thomas Moffat has not acted in the best interests of the charity and with the care and diligence that is reasonable to expect. The lack of accounting records made it impossible to determine the extent of any financial mismanagement."

The report said Moffat repeatedly refused to provide information and did not act on recommendations for improvement. Moffat refused to comment. Feba have until November 7 to appeal the decision.

Daily Record

Commission urged to tackle BNP fake charities

The Charity Commission has been urged to clamp down on “BNP organisations masquerading as veterans charities” by a group of former senior army generals.

The call came in a letter signed by General Sir Mike Jackson and General Sir Richard Dannatt, former heads of the army; Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, former chief of defence staff, and Major-General Patrick Cordingley, commander of the Desert Rats in the Gulf War. The letter, widely reported in the national press, warns that the armed forces are in danger of being hijacked by far-right extremists “for their own dubious ends”.

It is the start of a campaign launched this week to highlight the British National Party’s strategy of cloaking itself in the military.

Earlier this month The Times reported that the BNP has made a point of targeting veteran charities with offers of support. It has also highlighted on its website, individual donations by its members to organisations including the Royal British Legion and the Gurkha Welfare Trust.

A Charity Commission spokesperson said: "The Charity Commission is aware of the press coverage regarding Nothing British about the BNP's report, Stolen Valour, in which the Commission is mentioned. We have obtained a copy of the report and will be responding directly to Nothing British on the points that they have raised.

"Charities should usually seek to maximise their income. However, in some circumstances trustees may decide that it would not be in the best interests of their charity to accept a donation, if this would damage the charity’s reputation or its ability to do its good work would be compromised. Trustees should be able to demonstrate how and why they have made any such decision and the Commission is happy to advise in such cases.

"There is nothing in charity law that prohibits members of a political party from establishing and/or being the trustee of a charity. However, no charity can have political purposes or support a political party. All trustees must act only in the charity’s best interests and must not represent the interests of any outside organisation or their own personal interests. To do otherwise would be a breach of trust.

"‘Soldiers off the Street’ is not a registered charity, and must not claim to be a registered charity. We have not received any application to register from an organisation by that name. Any application to register as a charity would be considered in line with the registration criteria as set out on our website. In order to register, charities must be established for exclusively charitable purposes for the public benefit and must not have any political purpose."

Charity Finance

South Oxhey Community Choir snubs British National Party cash

Members of the South Oxhey Community Choir have rejected a much-needed £1,000 donation offered by a British National Party (BNP) councillor.

The group, featured in the recent BBC programme The Choir: Unsung Town, was offered the money by South Oxhey county councillor Deirdre Gates, elected earlier this year. Like all of the council's 77 representatives Councillor Gates has been given £10,000 to distribute to worthy community groups. The choir’s members, however, decided they could not take money from associated with the right wing party.

Committee member Russ Clancy told the Watford Observer why the group decided to reject the offer: He said: “Obviously we would really like this money but we discovered that if we took it that our name would be used in BNP literature in the future. We’ve worked really hard as a group to be inclusive of everybody and promote an ethnically diverse choir. We don’t feel the BNP shares those values so, as group, we decided to turn the money down.”

Councillor Gates was not available for comment this morning. The retired legal secretary has, however, made a £250 donation to the Three Rivers Neighbourhood Watch group, which has been accepted.

Watford Observer

Nothing British reports BNP front group to Charities Commission

“Soldiers off the Street“ (company number 07018818) is the latest and possibly most troublesome example of astroturfing (fake grassroots) by the BNP targeting veterans. SOTS aims to care for veterans and aims to clothe, feed and provide shelter for homeless ex-servicemen. A noble cause.

However, the story doesn’t stop there. SOTS is run by the BNP husband and wife team, Bill and Marie Murray. Mr Murray [pictured, left] is head of the BNP’s Welsh division and his wife is a seasoned activist for the extremist party. SOTS also works in association with FEBA (a Scottish veterans charity that accepted money from the BNP). Mr. Murray is, according to SOTS’s company records (available through companies house), Director and his wife is the Secretary.

Three weeks ago we reported SOTS to the Charities Commission and Trading Standards after we discovered it was claiming to seek charity status and for failing to mention its very close ties to the BNP.

In a letter to Dame Suzi Leather, Chair of the Charities Commission, we wrote that while, the objectives of SOTS were commendable, we were extremely concerned about its attempts to conceal its political connections and thus had the potential to solicit funds from the public under the false impression that it was an entirely unpolitical organisation with no associations to a political party.

In our letter we pressed for “urgent action” and for a thorough investigation. This week, we were informed by the Commission that it would be reporting back to us by October 10th. Trading Standards have acknowledged receipt of our letter but have not yet said whether they will be investigating.

As we have seen with Islamist “charities”, one concern is that members of the public are duped into donating money in good faith and that funds end up in the hands of extremists (in this case the BNP). Another concern is the propaganda value of this association to BNP recruitment teams. Lastly, we believe that fake organisations like SOTS that withhold information about their extremist links undermine the exceptional and genuinely selfless work of groups that are concerned for the welfare of our servicemen and women.

We hope that by reporting groups such as SOTS that socially-minded members of the public will be better protected from front organisations masquerading as authentic veteran groups.

Nothing British

RBL dithers while BNP donations con-trick is exposed

For a so-called political party that constantly appears to be teetering on the edge of financial collapse, the BNP seems to have become astoundingly generous to charities in the past couple of months - or that's what it would like us to believe.

In fact, it has done very little for charities except to make hollow promises that are exploited for its own purposes on the BNP's website, giving the visitor the impression that the party is acting responsibly by supporting its chosen causes while actually doing nothing except taking the kudos for its unperformed acts of generosity.

A week or two ago, we reprinted an article in which the Institute of Fundraising Scotland, a leading fund-raising body, warned charities to beware of undeclared donations from the British National Party after a number of good causes claimed they were duped into accepting money from the far-right group. In several cases, the BNP claimed credit for donations to charities who have never knowingly accepted money from the party and in several cases would refuse it if it were ever to be openly offered.

Colonel William Shuttlewood, a director of the Gurkha Welfare Trust, one of the charities the BNP claims to have made donations to, said it would never knowingly accept money from the BNP. Al Sutton, chairman of Troop Aid, another unknowing possible recipient, said: 'We are not associated with any political party, especially the BNP', while the Down’s Syndrome Association vehemently denied a claim on the BNP website that it had asked the party to help it raise funds.

Another more dramatic (and consequently more exploited) donation has been that which the BNP claims it is negotiating with FEBA, a charity which is negotiating £50,000 a year from the BNP to keep open its veterans' drop-in centre in Lanarkshire. A lot of fuss was made about FEBA a few weeks back, with the BNP taking full credit for keeping it open, yet 'negotiations' between Nick Griffin and Tommy Moffat, the charity's administrator, seem to have stalled. No great surprise, as Griffin has already got what he wanted from the announcement - the publicity.

FEBA did receive a donation of sorts from the BNP - or rather the wealthy BNP supporter Walter (or William, depending on which story you read about him) Hamilton - a consignment of radiators allegedly worth £3000 (which may well have fallen off the back of the Lie Lorry). Radiators notwithstanding, FEBA still needs £50,000 a year to run - if the BNP is near-bankrupt, where is that money going to come from?

The truth is, naturally, that it isn't coming from anywhere and there was never any intention of donating such a large sum to anyone (except possibly King Nick himself), only to reap the rewards of the very rare positive publicity that the story generated.

There's a short aside to this story which is worth mentioning. The BNP survives on donations from its gullible members, thanks to the never-ending stream of increasing desperate begging letters from Welshpool. Even though most of the money raised goes directly to non-member Jim Dowson, the organiser of the begging campaign and owner of the Lie Lorry, and a hefty percentage goes to Nick Griffin and various acolytes and hangers-on (including would-be schoolie-bonker and all-round shit Mark Collett, who is allegedly paid £50,000 per year for designing the BNP's propaganda), that leaves little to be used for the BNP for its 'political' work. So who decided to spend substantial chunks of that money by donating it to various charities and were the members asked if that was the way they wanted their donations to be spent?

But now we come to the latest twist in the BNP/charities mess, the bit that is currently (and rightly) causing great embarrassment to the Royal British Legion.

Back in October 2008, one of our contributors Eric the Fish wrote about the BNP's attempted hijack of the Poppy Appeal, the RBL's long-term and popular fundraser. Eric reported;

Neil Griffiths, of the Royal British Legion Scotland, said: "We abhor any association with the BNP. I worked most of my military career with Gurkhas and feel angry by any level of racism when I encounter it. The BNP seem to have forgotten that the Indian Army in the Second World War had two million members. It was the biggest volunteer army in military history and it played a huge role in the war."

and

Jim Panton, chief executive of Poppyscotland, said: "I had no idea the BNP have tried to get involved in the Poppy Appeal. It's outrageous for any organisation or group to try to hijack the poppy for their own benefit or gain. It is a misuse and misrepresentation of the sentiment of the appeal and we would take a strong line against that. We are apolitical and have not asked any party to back us."

So strongly did the RBL feel that it demanded that Nick Griffin stop wearing the Poppy during the European Election campaign and also that he stop using the armed forces to further the BNP's agenda. To no effect, because Griffin continued to do both.

Having seen that the BNP doesn't give a toss for the armed forces except where they can be used for political and financial gain, one would have expected the RBL to respond vigorously to any attempt by the BNP to directly make capital from any contact. Thus, when BNP member Rachel Firth announced that she would pledge half of the funds she raised by spending twenty-four hours in a cardboard box in the street to the legion and the other half to the BNP, it was no great surprise when the legion refused the donation.

When Firth then clearly stated that the donation would not be used for partisan political activity, the RBL naively accepted her assurance and announced that it would accept the donation, at which point the news of the donation and the RBL's acceptance of it appeared on the BNP's website (August 30th: see image below).

Rachel Firth - where's the RBL's donation?

As it happens, even though Firth's little stunt took place way back in August, the RBL still hasn't had its donation and according to Third Sector (the UK’s leading publication for everyone who needs to know what’s going on in the voluntary and not-for-profit sector), the RBL is now seriously considering whether to reject it even if it is (finally) offered, on the grounds that the party has used it to make political capital.

The dithering of the Royal British Legion over this matter is shameful. The offer of a donation should have been refused outright because of the ridiculous proviso that half the money raised from the stunt was going to the BNP. Under its own rules, that was grounds for the RBL to say thanks but no thanks. Instead, it took the party at its word, was taken in and now has to make the choice again, assuming the offer is ever forthcoming.

The whole issue of charities taking money from political parties is difficult, particularly when the charity appears to be in dire straits and feels that it needs that money simply in order to carry on. FEBA hasn't got any cash of its own and, let's face it, is unlikely to be getting £50,000 per annum from the BNP - but should it even have entered negotiations with such a party anyway? Personally I would say no unless the charity also supports the party's racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Muslim rhetoric and the BNP leader's constantly recurring bouts of anti-Semitism. Easy for me to say, I know, as I do not run a charity that is unable to continue through lack of cash. Nevertheless, there are principles at stake here and there are times when, no matter how painful it might be, it is right and proper to stand up for them.

The BNP as a party has NO real interest in supporting charities unless it can make some political gain from so doing. At the moment, it sees a lot of interest in armed forces personnel and is exploiting that to the full. A couple of months ago, it was a small bird sanctuary that was the focus of the party's attention for as long as it got a little publicity out of it and the the Poppy Appeal - next month it could be sanctuaries for disabled donkeys or depressed circus clowns. As long as there is something to exploit, the BNP will attempt to exploit it because it is a party without ethics whose only great ability is the skill of jumping on the next available bandwagon. Anyone who believes otherwise is doomed to disappointment.

British Legion accepts BNP gift

The Royal British Legion has accepted a donation from a member of the British National Party, after earlier this year seeking to distance itself from the party with a full-page advert in the national press.

The donation illustrates a dilemma faced by a number of ex-servicemen's charities which have been approached by the BNP.

The money was raised by a BNP member called Rachel Firth, who spent 24 hours on the street in a cardboard box to raise it. The problem was that she donated half of her funds to the BNP, and half to the Legion. The Legion says Rachel assured them the donation would not be exploited politically. But it was then splashed on the BNP website. Simon Darby, the BNP spokesman, denies exploiting the story.

"It's funny how when we're involved, campaigning on an issue turns to cynically exploiting. But that's the spin we have to endure, said Mr Darby. "I don't mind being accused of cynically exploiting the issue as long as the issue gets some coverage."

But this is also embarrassing for the Legion, which initially rejected the donation and then had a change of heart. Furthermore, in June it posted a full-page advert in a national newspaper, accusing BNP leader Nick Griffin of politicising the poppy and asking him to stop wearing it. The Legion declined to make anyone available for interview about the donation. But it has said it will not return the money.

The case illustrates a dilemma faced by other service charities approached by the BNP. Tommy Moffat runs FEBA, a charity which is negotiating £50,000 a year from the BNP to keep open its veterans' drop-in centre in Hamilton, Lanarkshire.

'We're at the bottom of the darkest pit, where we could close the doors within the next two to three weeks, and it would be a tragedy for our ex-service personnel. We're desperate," he says.

Mr Moffat will discuss the matter further with Nick Griffin, next week. But he is clearly anxious about taking money from the party. "They're a legitimate party. We don't agree with a lot of what they say. But let me put it this way. It's either risking our reputation or risking that there are ex-servicemen wandering the streets wondering where help is coming from."

The BNP is also offering support to Help for Heroes. Nick Griffin said last weekend the party was planning to auction two books signed by Andy McNab, the former SAS member, and donate the proceeds to the charity.

''Help for Heroes is a strictly non-political charity, we are only concerned with providing direct, practical support for our wounded servicemen and women,'' the charity said in a statement. ''We accept donations from all who wish to join us in providing that support and we make grants that will benefit all who are injured in the service of our country, regardless of colour or creed.''

Mr McNab has since said he does not want his books to be used by the BNP.

Other charities feel donations by the party are simply inappropriate. Ron Smith, who is head of Veterans Scotland, an umbrella group for ex-servicemen's charities north of the border, said he did not think his members would welcome donations from the BNP as "many of our veterans fought in a major world war against a fascist regime".

He added: "Look at the armed forces and you have multi-ethnicity. What would you do with BNP money - not spend it on soldiers of Afro-Caribbean descent? It's a complete nonsense. We're very saddened they (other charities) feel they have to take this money, and they obviously have to clear their own consciences."

Of course the BNP is a completely legal party with elected representatives. But its efforts to make donations to charities dealing with the welfare of former servicemen are clearly raising difficult questions.

BBC