BNP - the disastrous war of the roses

A ferocious "war of the roses" over the leadership of the far-right British National Party has left it badly split and potentially mortally wounded.

Nick Griffin squeaked home by just nine votes in this week's national ballot of party members to retain the chairmanship he has held since 1999.

Griffin, who sits as Member of the European Parliament for the North West region, faced a strong challenge from the other side of the Pennines.

His only rival in the contest was the party's other MEP - Yorkshire and the Humber's Andrew Brons.

"Probably, this was the worst mandate the Chairman could win," Brons wrote to his supporters on his BNP Ideas website shortly after the result was announced.

"In effect, the party is split from head to toe and there remain grave questions of doubt over the fitness of many existing officers of the party to exercise control over its operations."

It is a far cry from the high point of the 2009 European Parliamentary elections when Griffin and Brons shocked the political establishment by mustering enough popular support to take the party's first seats in a UK national election.

Their European seats were both won by the narrowest of margins, but it raised expectations that the self-proclaimed defenders of the "British indigenous population" could be on the verge of further breakthroughs.

Griffin defiant

Instead, Griffin's disastrous appearance on the BBC's Question Time a few months later and an embarrassing result in the 2010 general election has led to vicious infighting which could yet see the BNP implode.

In his own statement issued shortly after the election Nick Griffin said: "The time for division and disruption is over; now is the time to heal. Now is the time to move on. Now is the time to get back to work.

"We have a party to build and a nation to save. Let us go forward together!"

Griffin's rallying call might be too late.

In an online video election webcast recorded at the start of the campaign, Andrew Brons said members and activists had been voting with their feet for at least and year and leaving the party.

'Civil war'

At one stage he claimed a third of the membership and two thirds of its activists had left because of what he called Griffin's "unnecessary civil war" to stifle opposition.

The BNP has always been cagey about its total membership but this election for its national leader reveals just how small it has become. The number of ballot papers returned was just 2,316.

In fact, across every council in Yorkshire, the party could muster just 50 candidates at the 2011 elections earlier this year. Not a single one mustered enough votes to become a councillor.

The nightmare is not over for Nick Griffin or the BNP.

In his latest blog "Reply to Dissatisfied Supporters" Andrew Brons issues a clear warning: "If the leadership wants peace, he can have peace and we can get on with work that will contribute towards our substantive aims.

"If on the other hand if he were to choose war, he would meet an equal and opposite force."

BBC News

Internal splits threaten BNP's chances in London Assembly poll

The British National Party is gripped by civil war amid bitter personality clashes and claims of dirty tricks by rival factions.

Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right party, is facing vehement criticism of his stewardship. The party has hopes of winning seats in the London Assembly next year. Tensions within party ranks came to a head when two key organisers were accused of plotting a coup against Mr Griffin and sacked for "gross misconduct". But they have been backed by at least 50 activists and councillors, setting the scene for a struggle for control of the party. The rebels insist they are loyal to the BNP, but some observers suspect another extreme right-wing grouping could emerge to challenge the party.

Activists' anger focuses on two of Mr Griffin's allies – Mark Collett, the party's director of publicity, and Dave Hannam, its regional organiser – and the BNP leader's support for them. The criticism has been led by Sadie Graham, the head of group development, and Kenny Smith, head of administration. The pair were removed from their posts following an investigation by the BNP's "intelligence team" which was alleged to have tricked its way into Ms Graham's home and taken away computers.

She and Mr Smith were dismissed for setting up an "anti-BNP smear blog" and for plotting a "spectacularly ill-timed and amateurish alleged coup attempt". An email written by Ms Smith and a recording of a conversation between the pair have been posted on the BNP website to substantiate the claim.

Simon Darby, the BNP spokesman, said last night: "They have been caught out getting involved in some very unsavoury business. You have to have discipline in a political party or you have chaos."

The exiles have retaliated by calling for a grassroots revolution to take control of the party. They say that, despite record numbers of councillors, BNP morale has hit an all-time low. They are calling on sympathisers to stay in the BNP, but to resign from party positions and not to renew their membership for the moment. Councillors are urged to quit the party whip and describe themselves as "independent Nationalists".

The rebel faction says: "This fight is for our country and our people as much as it is for the party we love."

The BNP was itself born out of a feud when the right-wing National Front imploded in the 1980s. After struggling to make an impact for a decade, it secured its first council seat in 1993 in Tower Hamlets, London. But it languished until 1999 when Mr Griffin became leader and set about modernising the party. It achieved a breakthrough in Burnley in 2003, when it won three council seats.

Its progress has been steady, but not spectacular, over the past four years. Its strategists believe it is now well placed to win seats in the London Assembly and the European Parliament. After last year's local elections the party had 55 councillors, the most in its history but below its expectations before the contest.

Mr Darby insisted that 90 per cent of BNP members were not interested in the in-fighting and that the storm would "blow over".

Nick Lowles, spokesman for the anti-fascist group Searchlight, said: "This is a very serious split and one I cannot see being reconciled. One side or another is going to leave the party."

Independent

Former BNP candidate jailed for stockpiling explosives

Note: We've changed the article to one that a) is better written, and b) has a couple of interesting and ridiculous comments from the BNP's Phil Edwards at the end.

A former British National party candidate who stockpiled explosive chemicals and ball bearings in anticipation of a future civil war was today jailed for two and a half years.

As he has already spent nearly a year in custody, however, he is likely to be released within six months.

Robert Cottage, aged 49, from Colne, Lancashire, had pleaded guilty to possession of the chemicals. He was acquitted after two trials on charges of conspiracy to cause explosions.

Sentencing Cottage at Manchester's crown square court, Mrs Justice Swift said he continued to hold views "that veer towards the apocalyptic". She added that his actions had been "criminal and potentially dangerous" but said there was a low risk of his committing further offences.

"It is important to understand that Cottage's intention was that if he ever had to use the thunder flashes, it was only for the purpose of deterrence," Mrs Justice Swift said.

Cottage had believed that, as he saw it, "the evils of uncontrolled immigration" would lead to civil war, which would be imminent and inevitable, she said.

"The pre-sentence report says Cottage continues to hold views that veer towards the apocalyptic. The risk of further offending of the same type is low but it cannot be ruled out."

The judge said she accepted that Cottage's intention had been to hold on to the chemicals, which included ammonia, hydrogen peroxide and hydrochloric acid, until the outbreak of civil disturbance. But she warned: "In letting off any such thunder flash, mistakenly believing you were under threat, you may have caused injury to some innocent person."

Alistair Webster QC, Cottage's counsel, told the court his client accepted that he had bought the potassium nitrate and sulphur with the intention of manufacturing gunpowder, but said this would have been used only to create thunder flash-style bangers to scare off intruders.;

Cottage, who stood three times unsuccessfully for the BNP in local council elections, was arrested last September after police found the stockpile of chemicals at his home in Talbot Street, Colne. The police took action after Cottage's wife told a social worker of her concerns about the items he was storing and, and about her husband's stated belief that immigration was out of control. Police also found ball bearings and a document about bomb-making from the do-it-yourself explosives-making manual The Anarchist Cookbook on his computer. He also had air pistols, crossbows and a stockpile of food.

"I believe it is everyone's God-given right to defend themselves and their families if they are attacked," Cottage told the court during his trial. "The breakdown of the financial system will inevitably put an unbearable strain on the social structures of this country."

Cottage claimed in court that, with the armed forces in the Middle East and the police insufficiently trained, the authorities would be unable to offer people protection. He added that immigration was a luxury that Britain could not afford, but that he drove a bus for children with disabilities and had a good relationship with the Asian children among them.

A second man, David Jackson, 62, a dentist, was also charged with conspiracy to cause explosions but was cleared after the jury twice failed to reach verdicts.

A BNP spokesman said after sentencing that the prosecution had been brought for political reasons. "We're not condoning it, but it's a quid pro quo to appease the Muslims," said Dr Phil Edwards, of the BNP. "To keep them quiet, we'll snatch someone from white society. We certainly don't support the bloke. We condemn all forms of violence...but I wouldn't have thought you could do any harm with what he had."

Dr Edwards said Cottage would not be standing as a candidate for the BNP again. "We never have anyone in the party with criminal convictions," he said, because "lefties and people on your newspaper" would publicise the fact.

Guardian

Pair cleared of explosions charge

A former British National Party election candidate and a dentist have been cleared of plotting explosions.

Former BNP candidate Robert Cottage, of Talbot Road, Colne, and David Jackson, of Trent Street, Nelson, were alleged to have stockpiled chemicals they bought on the internet and discussed using them to cause explosions. But they were cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions with intent to endanger life after a jury at Manchester Crown Court failed to reach a verdict.

It was the pair's second trial on the charge after the first jury was also discharged. Cottage had admitted possessing explosives for unlawful purpose at the first trial because he said he needed to defend himself as the country was heading to civil war. He was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on July 31.

Mr Jackson, who was also cleared of possessing explosives, walked free from Manchester Crown Court after more than 10 months on remand in prison. He refused to comment, except to say he was "very relieved" to have been cleared.

The trials are estimated to have cost the taxpayer more than £100,000.

Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell, who led the investigation, denied that the trials had been waste of money, and said Cottage could have gone on to endanger himself and the public had he not been arrested. He paid tribute to Cottage's wife, Carina, who first alerted police and social workers to his "paranoid" behaviour over fears of an impending civil war.

Mr Gradwell said: "This came about because of the courage of Carina Cottage, who came forward to the health authority and the police to say she was concerned about her husband and could they help. He was becoming paranoid, stockpiling food and chemicals and it is because of her courage that a more serious incident did not occur. It's quite right that this was brought to court again. Cottage had admitted he was planning to make gunpowder. Someone else, or himself, could have been seriously hurt."

Mr Gradwell denied accusations that the case would have been handled differently if the defendants had been Asian, not white British men. He said: "This investigation was not from intelligence-led, proactive policing. It was Carina Cottage saying come and help me, and her husband stockpiling food because he thought there was going to be a civil war. These are totally different circumstances to any Islamic terror trials. When we found the explosive substances we also downloaded from a computer in the house recipes for making explosives. The fact that there were two trials is in a way a justification of bringing the case. If they had been acquitted in five minutes thing would have been different, but this has taken long consideration by two juries."

When Cottage admitted possessing explosives at his first trial in February, he said he planned to make gunpowder from the chemicals to cause thunder flashes to scare off intruders in the event of civil unrest.

Lancashire Evening Telegraph

Jury out in explosives plot trial

The jury in the trial of a former British National Party election candidate and a dentist accused of plotting to make bombs has retired to consider its verdict.

Ex-BNP member Robert Cottage (49), of Talbot Street, Colne, and David Jackson (62), of Trent Road, Nelson, are said to have stockpiled chemicals they bought on the Internet and discussed using them to cause explosions.

Boxes containing 21 different kinds of chemicals - some paid for by Jackson - were found by police at Cottage's home last September. Officers were alerted to the stash by Cottage's wife, Kerena, who became scared the pair were planning to set off test explosions in countryside near Preston.

Cottage told Manchester Crown Court he feared immigrants were swamping Britain, bringing it to the brink of civil war.

The jury heard the thrice-failed local election candidate had printed off "recipes" for explosive devices from an online version of the Anarchists' Cookbook. Officers who raided his house also found tins of food, crossbows and airguns. His wife said he hoarded them to protect the couple in case civil unrest broke out. Cottage told the jury he planned to use the chemicals to clean his false teeth, unblock his drains and protect himself against bird flu.

Jackson, who was not a BNP member but attended party meetings with Cottage, told the court he was "apolitical" and did not share his friend's views on an impending civil war. He claimed he asked Cottage to buy him chemicals online because he wanted to pursue chemistry as a hobby and was too computer illiterate to order them himself.

Both Cottage and Jackson deny conspiring to cause explosions with intent to endanger life. The current jury heard that Cottage pleaded guilty to possessing explosives for an unlawful purpose at the pair's previous trial in February, which failed to reach a verdict.

Jackson denies the possession charge.

Burnley Express

The BNP's secret agenda: just making money or civil/race war?

Back in 1999 the BNP used to produce a magazine named Patriot, then edited by Griffin-loyalist Tony Lecomber. The Spring issue carried an article by Nick Griffin entitled ‘BNP – Freedom Party!’ in which Griffin set out his plans for the ‘modernisation’ of the BNP, a process which involved the concealment of the party’s true agenda and presenting the public with an entirely fraudulent ‘image of moderate reasonableness’. The complete article can be read online here.

Though the party had managed to get a councillor elected (the execrable Derek Beacon) at Tower Hamlets in 1993, it had more or less stagnated since. This article was one of many that was to lead to Griffin’s victory over the founder and then-leader of the far-right party, John Tyndall, later in the year, resulting in him becoming the leader and allowing him to implement his proposed BNP ‘makeover’, a word that fits more aptly than you would at first think because clearly the ‘modernisation’ of the party is all cosmetic. Wipe off the make-up and you very quickly begin to see the same old fascist party underneath.

It was Griffin’s stated intention to put the boot-boy image that the BNP had behind it, presenting instead a clean image of a modern and acceptable mainstream party. The racism would still be there, just well-concealed. To a large extent, he has been successful. Certainly the fact that a voter intends to vote BNP no longer carries the social stigma that it used to just a few short years back – though this is really a consequence of changing societal attitudes rather than anything that Griffin or the party leadership has done. Nevertheless, the BNP’s makeover has made a difference to the public’s perception of it and its policies – but how much has it really changed?

Griffin’s contempt for the voters is apparent from the very first sentence, where he states: ‘The British people are incurably apathetic’. But his aim is for the party to appeal to those apathetic voters despite all the bad press it received in the past for its connections to the National Front, Combat 18, Blood and Honour and so on. The party, certainly back in 1999, was regarded as patently extreme, and this had to change. Griffin lays out the ground:

‘Let’s start with responsibility. Tony Lecomber’s review of The Failure of British Fascism in the last issue of Patriot included a frighteningly apt phrase in its description of the past efforts of British nationalism – "careless extremism". If we seriously want to be elected, the very first step is to look at the things we do, or condone, which make us unelectable, and then to strive to change them from now on, and to minimise the impact of past mistakes.’

So, he proposes that the BNP examine what puts people off about the party, with a view to changing things. But there’s also the problem of the membership. Referring to the unelectability of many members with violent and racist pasts, Griffin has this to say:

‘Of course people change and grow up, and some people who made such mistakes years ago have played, and will continue to play, very important roles in the BNP. But anyone who expects more than a marginalised minority to actually vote for such individuals is living in cloud-cuckoo land. This is not to call for a politically correct witch-hunt, or to advocate a softening of policies, but simply to point out that, if we really wish to be taken seriously, we have to offer to the public candidates for whom Mr. & Mrs. Average Briton can vote. Those people who have now bitterly regretted errors in their past can do one hundred and one things for the party, but standing as unusually vulnerable candidates in important elections should not be one of them. However much we expect our enemies in the media to try to beat us, it is only sensible and responsible to refrain from handing them sticks with which to do it.’

So the violent thugs can take a back seat while the suits can move to the front. Note the highlighted section that makes it clear that policies are not about to change. The fact that any apparent changes are only to fool the public is made very clear in this snippet:

‘As long as our own cadres understand the full implications of our struggle, then there is no need for us to do anything to give the public cause for concern. Rather, since we need their support in order to be able to turn impotent theory into practical reality, we must at all times present them with an image of moderate reasonableness.’

Thus the metamorphosis of the British National Party becomes clear. There is no metamorphosis – merely a mask that covers the old violent nazi party with a thin veneer of respectability.

‘This is so blindingly obvious that it shouldn’t even need saying, but there are still a few who confuse shouting hardline slogans with steady commitment to getting ourselves into a position in which we can put our principles into practice. Politics is always the art of the possible, so we must judge every policy by one simple criterion: Is it realistically possible that a decisive proportion of the British people will support it? If not, then to scale down our short-term ambitions to a point at which the answer becomes ‘yes’ is not a sell-out, but the only possible step closer to our eventual goal.’

What that ‘eventual goal’ is, is not made clear. Presumably, as the article was in Patriot, a magazine for BNP supporters, the reader was assumed to know. This reader however, finds the phrase extremely sinister. You don’t have to hang around BNP territory long to hear the phrases ‘civil war’, ‘race war’ and ‘revolution’ disturbingly often. At least often enough to feel that the phrase ‘final solution’ is just around the corner.

This aside, Griffin also uses this document to set out his plans for the business side of BNP activities. Much-failed businessman or not, he clearly sees the BNP membership as a source of funds – not simply via its sales of related goods but in other ways too. Thus, we read this:

‘In increasingly hard economic times, a group of people the size of the BNP and its support base can provide a significant assured market for a variety of small businesses.’

Here then we find the justification for such idiocies as Albion Life, the BNP’s disastrous life insurance arm that failed shortly after it started, the pointless skip hire and double-glazing websites, the Affordable cars fiasco, the bankrupt travel agency, the failed printing business, the internet radio station that never was, the surprisingly successful Trafalgar Club and the illegal but lucrative fund-raising Civil Liberty. In short, Griffin has found a source of funds in the BNP’s membership and he is determined to relieve it of as much cash as possible – whether to use for himself (barn conversions spring to mind), to support his pals in the BNP hierarchy or to fund the ephemeral ‘eventual goal’ is debatable but might be clearer after reading this passage:

‘Here too is a process which has already begun, but BNP teams such as the Media Monitoring Unit, the video unit, and initiatives such as the Land and People farming/environmental circle are only the start. Many, many more such semi~ autonomous BNP-linked operations will have to be created as we duplicate various functions of the old system and create the ‘state-within-a-state’ which is an essential part of the preparations for any cultural and political revolution.’

There’s that word ‘revolution’ again.

In many ways, Nick Griffin is a laughable character. He comes across as the Del Trotter of politics, always with one eye (no joke intended) on the main chance. If he wasn’t so dangerous, he’d be funny. But, unlike his peers in the mainstream parties, he has long been aware of the power of the internet and TV – though the two look likely to merge in the next couple of decades – so much so that eight years ago, he was preparing his troops to embrace this intertwining of the old and new media.

‘The way in which TV soap operas have become pseudo-families for millions of lonely TV watchers gives us a clue as to the power which could be wielded by an Internet TV station in a few years’ time.’

Indeed. A fact which seems to have been missed by all the other parties up to now and which is only just beginning to be addressed. Nevertheless, Griffin is not infallible. Far from it, in fact, as witnessed by the numerous business disasters with which he has been associated. Nor, despite the disasters, is he to be taken lightly. While he seems to find it difficult to separate the cause from the cash, hence; ‘the BNP is a holy crusade to save and rebuild all we hold dear, but it is also a business’, he also goes to great pains to make himself clear in this document. Thus we read:

‘What message and image should we be aiming to get across in those elections? For the public as a whole we must keep it simple and put things across in the least controversial way possible. Of course, we must teach the truth to the hardcore, for, like you, I do not intend to allow this movement to lose its way. But when it comes to influencing the public, forget about racial differences, genetics, Zionism, historical revisionism and so on – all ordinary people want to know is what we can do for them that the other parties can’t or won’t.’

The phrase that’s highlighted is, in my opinion, extremely disturbing and is really what this entire article is about. David Copeland, the Soho nailbomber, was heavily influenced by his time in the BNP, and his stated intention was to provoke a race war. Robert Cottage, currently awaiting retrial for possession of weapons and explosive chemicals, and a long-time BNP member and several times a candidate, claimed to be preparing for what he saw as an inevitable civil war. The disturbances that took place in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford back in 2001 were said to have been provoked and encouraged by the BNP and other extreme far-right groups. One wonders, reading this, if this is in some way allied to ‘the truth’ that Griffin insists must be taught to ‘the hardcore’. Certainly these events, and so many others, smack of Griffin’s worrying ‘holy crusade’.

It is a fact that last month Nick Griffin made an interesting remark as an aside in his blog about his speaking tour of East Anglia. Referring to the English Civil War, he said; ‘…in due course, it will of course have to be called the First English Civil War, in order to differentiate it from the one to come.’

Since the riots in 2001, there has been a growing belief that the BNP was working to a secret agenda as well as its public one. This document, written in 1999, seems to confirm that this is indeed the case.

From race riots to civil war: What is the BNP preparing for?

“Welcome to Oldham, the front line of the race war,” a BNP officer told a party rally a few weeks before rioting broke out in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in summer 2001. After the riots the cover of BNP’s magazine Identity sported a map of Britain with flames indicating towns where BNP-instigated race riots had already taken place and those where the BNP was still working on it.

Since those days there has been a growing belief that the BNP was working to a secret agenda as well as its public one. Even party members are concerned at the build-up of the BNP’s private army of security guards and the large sums of money spent on their training.

After the European elections in 2004 when the BNP got 800,000 votes but no MEPs, Nick Griffin said that the party might have to consider alternatives to the ballot box. At the time this attracted no more than a ripple of interest. Clearly the BNP leader was harking back to his days running the National Front Political Soldiers faction, when he was happy to rub shoulders with extremists including terrorists of many political hues.

More recent developments add to the evidence about where the BNP might be heading if it fails to make any real breakthrough at the ballot box.

Last autumn the BNP organised its first clay pigeon shoot in Yorkshire, attended by Griffin and BNP councillor Richard Barnbrook as a fundraising and social event but also to build up a core of party members who know how to handle guns.

Then Matthew Single, a regular BNP election candidate in Essex, boasted to the local press that he had been promoted to third in Griffin’s personal security detail and claimed that he had undergone “intensive training”. He has also started training BNP activists in “anti-hijack evasive driving”. Single has twice escaped justice in the courts and was in hot water over a false entry on his election papers last May.

And last month Griffin made an interesting remark as an aside in his blog about his speaking tour of East Anglia, writing: “During the English Civil War (in due course, it will of course have to be called the First English Civil War, in order to differentiate it from the one to come) …”. Was it Griffin who inspired Robert Cottage to stockpile explosives for what he told Manchester Crown Court in February were preparation for the coming race war?

Finally, why has the BNP stated that it is especially keen to recruit serving and recently retired police and army officers?

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