Nuneaton soliders parade ends in race storm

Police officers swooped to quell a racist confrontation which flared up shortly after soldiers had paraded through Nuneaton yesterday afternoon. Members of the English Defence League attended the ceremony, which granted the Borough Council’s Freedom of Entry to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

The active servicemen, carrying machine guns and led by a regimental band, were cheered by large crowds who lined the town centre streets. As the march came to an end, the 60-strong EDL entourage headed towards the Edward Street area of the town, which is the heart of the local Muslim community.

“We were expecting some people connected with the EDL to be at the parade and after it had finished they congregated at The Crew bar in Queen’s Road,” said Chief Inspector Chris Lewis. “They positioned themselves outside and raised tensions with the Muslim community, which caused a few minor skirmishes but nothing of any consequence.

"We moved in to keep people at a distance and to calm things down. The EDL members were then escorted away from the scene and back to Nuneaton train station.”

The Warwickshire force commander, who was in charge of policing the parade, added: “We are constantly scanning for intelligence and knew that the EDL were planning to be in attendance for this occasion. Many of them had travelled from other parts of the country but they also had some local supporters.”

Around 200 people gathered around the Edward Street-Queen’s Road junction during a four-hour stand-off, as police officers, including dog handlers, kept the situation under control. All roads leading to the area were blocked for traffic and police reinforcements were also called in from the West Midlands.

Yaseen Ahmedabadi, assistant secretary of the Nuneaton Muslim Society, said: “The local community staged a peaceful protest against the unexpected and unwarranted presence of visitors from the English Defence League, who have no place in our society.

"We are very pleased with the way the police handled the situation.”

Coventry Telegraph

BNP: British generals should be hanged for war crimes

Some of Britain’s most respected military commanders have been drawn into an extraordinary public row with the British National Party after the party's leader compared them to Nazi generals hanged for war crimes.

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, accused General Sir Richard Dannatt and General Sir Mike Jackson, two former chiefs of the general staff, of complicity in “illegal” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the MPs’ expenses scandal.

Mr Griffin’s attack came after the generals added their names to a new campaign against the BNP's attempts to “steal the valour” of the Armed Forces by using wartime images and slogans.

The party routinely uses images of Spitfires in its campaign material, and has also invoked the memory of Sir Winston Churchill.

In an ITV News interview, Mr Griffin claimed that Sir Winston would backed his party if he were alive today. "His only place would be in the British National Party," he said.

Promising to counter such propaganda, the Nothing British campaign launched on Tuesday with a report warning: “The forces of extremism and racism are hijacking the good name of Britain's military.”

The campaign, organised by Conservative activists, is backed by retired senior service personnel including the generals, who signed an open letter on the issue.

“We call on all those who seek to hijack the good name of Britain's military for their own advantage to cease and desist,” they wrote. “The values of these extremists – many of whom are essentially racist – are fundamentally at odds with the values of the modern British military, such as tolerance and fairness.”

Mr Griffin responded with a lengthy tirade on the BNP’s website, likening the generals to Nazi military chiefs.

He said: “Those Tory generals who today attacked the British National Party should remember that at the Nuremberg Trials, the politicians and generals accused of waging illegal aggressive wars were all charged — and hanged — together.

He added: “Sir Richard and Sir Mike fall squarely into this bracket, and they must not think that they will escape culpability for pursuing the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Mr Griffin singled out Sir Richard, who stepped down as CGS in August and has agreed to become an adviser on defence to the Conservatives.

Mr Griffin said: “Sir Richard said nothing about the fact that low-paid British soldiers have to buy their own kit because the Government has deliberately underfunded the army, despite sending our soldiers to foreign conflicts which have nothing to do with us.”

Sir Mike declined to respond to Mr Griffin’s comments. In an earlier BBC interview, he insisted that the military remains apolitical and his support for the Nothing British campaign was not partisan.

He said: "This is not in any sense party political. It is an issue about the reputation and good name and the tolerance of the British armed forces.”

In a separate interview, Mr Griffin said that his party has widespread support among serving service personnel.

“I'm the one who talks to the families of young squaddies and large numbers of ex-servicemen and they all say that almost everyone at the coalface, fighting in Afghanistan, vote for the British National Party," he said.

Last year, a leaked BNP membership list contained the names of 16 people who were described as servicemen including a Royal Marines Commando.

Among the 68 members listed as former servicemen were one Chelsea Pensioner, three Paras, three Guards and two Royal Marines.

Telegraph

Scary Saturday - updates on the EDL's Birmingham awayday

Birmingham Disunited as concert cancelled

Plans for a Birmingham United concert on Saturday to celebrate the city’s diverse multicultural heritage have been cancelled after the City Council, acting on police advice, refused to sanction the event. Unite Against Fascism have condemned the move.

The Birmingham United concept was designed to provide a positive counterweight to the planned English Defence League demo – and underline the fact that the city was not a “no go” zone for members of any religious or ethnic group.

Efforts to secure the backing of the local authority ultimately came to nothing when on Thursday they confirmed their refusal to sanction a booking at the Council House. This was despite the fact that local MP's including Richard Burden, Khalid Mahmood and John Hemming had supported the idea.

The possibility of an event on other dates or at venues outside the city centre were floated, but Stirrer editor Adrian Goldberg rejected these ideas as “spectacularly missing the point".

He said: “The whole idea was to capitalise on media interest in the EDL demo by showing how ordinary Brummies could come together and celebrate their multicultural identity. We needed to be where the cameras were - or else it would have just been ignored.

“A city centre venue was also vital to send the message that town isn’t a ‘no go zone’ for Muslims and other minority groups.

“As for the timing of the event, in theory we could have a Birmingham United event any day of the year, but as a taxpayer in the city I don’t see why I should be denied access to municipal facilities just because a group from outside the area, with a dubious agenda, wants to demonstrate here.

“This sends the message that those who seek to disrupt our city with divisive messages are given priority over positive community-minded initiatives.

“The whole idea for Birmingham United arose because of what I regarded as the lack of civic leadership in the city over this issue. Sadly, the delay and obstruction our team experienced in trying to establish the event only confirmed my worst fears.”

Mike Wongsam, regional chair of Unite Against Fascism, said his group wasn’t planning a counter demonstration on Saturday - despite frequent police references to the contrary - but had instead urged supporters to back Birmingham United.

He said: “In Birmingham, we now have the deplorable situation where a rally aimed at promoting harmony and unity among our communities is prevented from taking place, whereas the EDL are allowed to conduct their demonstration of hate and division despite their previous events invariably leading to violent disorder."

Superintendant Jez Moore of West Midlands Police commented: “Our view was that it was better to have the event outside of Birmingham [city centre] for operational reasons."

* * *

Demo ban calls grow louder

Labour councillors and Methodists have joined the calls for a ban on tomorrow’s demo in Birmingham against Islamic “extremism”. Meanwhile Broad Street boss Mike Olley has warned protestors from the English Defence League they are only welcome if they respect the area’s cosmopolitan flavour.

Deputy Labour Group leader Ian Ward said: "This is an open and shut case - these thugs are coming in to Birmingham from outside to cause trouble, create violence and intimidate people in our home town. Well over 2,000 local people have written to the council to register their opposition, so why on earth aren't they doing anything?

"This is a public safety issue. These people are determined to bring their hatred and aggression to our city, and Birmingham City Council needs to take the lead and publicly call for them to be stopped. This Council needs to act now. They shouldn't dither, they shouldn't pass the buck, they shouldn't just hope it all goes away, we need firm action now to prevent these vicious thugs from trying to turn our city into a war-zone.

"They banned a march in Luton and we need to make clear that they should do the same here, and firmly say no to hatred, violence and intimidation on our streets."

Ward is echoing the view of Liberal Democrat leader Paul Tilsley, leaving the Conservatives as the only group on the City Council in favour of the demo.

Three leading city Methodists, Revd Bill Anderson, Revd Ray Gaston and Revd Neil Johnson also wanted it banned.

They’ve sent a letter to the Police Authority, saying: “Following their provocative presence in the city on August 8th we feel strongly that the relevant authorities should do their utmost to prevent this group coming into the city again.

“Their sole aim is to create tension and to intimidate and provoke the people of Birmingham with racist and Islamophobic abuse.

“The EDL has been banned from congregating in Luton by the Bedfordshire Police and we see no reason why the West Midlands Police authority cannot take similar powers to protect our city from attempts to undermine community relations and promote hatred against our city’s Muslim citizens.”

Meanwhile Broad Street manager Mike Olley has poured scorn on the EDL’s claims that they’ve negotiated a deal with West Midlands Police for an escort from the entertainment district to Lancaster Circus.

“There appears to be some confusion between the commentary of the English Defence League, as outlined on their web site and the perceptions of the Police,” commented Olley. “My understanding is that there has been limited communication from the EDL with the Police. If this is the case I trust the EDL will make every effort to correct this.

“Accordingly I would urge the EDL to establish a firm line of communication with the Police to sort out what is intended. A march between Broad Street and Lancaster Circus may look appealing on a map but would be entirely impractical due to the road layout in Birmingham.

“Broad Street is a cosmopolitan entertainment district and enjoys a marvellous array of fine venues. We welcome only those who wish to responsibly enjoy themselves and respect all others in the pursuit of relaxation and entertainment.”

The EDL insists its motives are peaceful, and denies that it is racist or Islamophobic.

The Stirrer

See also EDL climbdown over police escort

Anti Muslim protestors demo in Brum

Dozens of far right anti-Muslim protestors disrupted shoppers in the shadow of Birmingham’s Bull Ring shopping centre on Saturday afternoon, but were contained by a sizeable police presence. The hatemongers are promising to return on August 8 to whip up more ill will.

The protest appears to have been organised by – and certainly involved members of – the English Defence League which was also occupied with another demo on the same day in London’s cosmopolitan Whitechapel district.

This shadowy group first emerged on the streets of Britain last month when they turned up on in Luton to register their disapproval at the barracking of homecoming British troops by a small number of local Muslims.

There’s also a linked Facebook called the English and Welsh Defence League which – like the EDL - claims to have no political affiliation, but nevertheless claims that “Labour have done a fine job destroying our country”.

They make the the curious claim that “racism will not be tolerated in this group”.

In distinct contrast to the BNP’s attempt to give fascism a moderate face, these supposedly peaceful protestors have the look of hooligan boot boys – and indeed there have been suggestions of links with football gangs.

Chants of “No Surrender To The IRA”, “We Want Our Country Back”, “Allah Is A Christian”, “We Want Muslims Out”, and “Lets Go Fucking Mental” do nothing to dispel the image of a few footy firms coming together to cause mayhem in the close season.

The Facebook group is now advertising a further “meeting” in Birmingham on August 8 at 6pm.

The Stirrer

The right wing may not realise what they’ve won

For the first time, it happened. No surprise, though. But there are lessons to be learnt, when we consider the repercussions of the election of members of a UK far-right party to the European parliament.

There should be little doubt about whether they are a far-right party – the British National Party (BNP) is, regardless of how it has tried to redesign itself, a party with radical racist and xenophobic views. Had this party come of age in the 1930s, their main target would have been Jews. Now a different group is being targeted: Muslims.

This follows a trend that exists all across Europe: the “new Jews” (ie, those who are now being discriminated against, as Jews were in the 1920s and 1930s) are invariably Muslims. A number of interesting studies have compared the public discourse around Jews in the 1920s with Islamophobic material in the mainstream press in Europe today – the results are not encouraging. It seems Europeans may not forget the Holocaust, but may forget what happened right before it.

What I was interested in after the elections, however, was not the similarities between how Jews were once perceived, and how Muslims are now perceived, but something else. The worry of Muslims overrunning Europe (essentially, the BNP’s fear) is shared by a growing proportion of people across the continent – to the point where one could begin to describe it as “a movement”. This movement that would be united by a fear, which they call “Eurarabia” (an amalgamation of “Europe” and “Arabia”). Many who share this fear are on the left, as well as in the centre – so, it cannot be said to be solely a “right wing” obsession. Indeed, this is something quite worrying – it is a xenophobia that can find sympathisers across many different sections of European society.

Nevertheless, the core of this group is on the right, and that raises interesting questions. Why the right? And what sort of repercussions does that imply for the future in terms of Muslim-non Muslim relations within the UK, and beyond?

In the UK, as well as across Europe, the left was the party of those who felt disenfranchised. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in the UK today are not descendants of indigenous Britons who converted to Islam, but the descendants of recent migrants to the UK who generally came from very modest backgrounds. Naturally, it was the left (particularly the Labour Party) which endeared itself to the Muslim community, from which it received overwhelming support. The right had the opposite experience – historically, rarely appealing to the disenfranchised, and more given to conservative views as to how the “nation” was constituted.

Such was the state of play in the 1970s until the 1990s. One of the ironies of this situation was that when it came to values, Muslims often shared the right’s focus on family and tradition. For more pragmatic reasons, they affiliated with the left.

The last decade has changed a lot of that. Labour went to war in Iraq – a war that turned out to be baseless, in a country that happened to be a predominantly Muslim country. Many in the Muslim community have become more enfranchised, and historically when migrant communities progress economically, they often become more interested in participation in centre or centre-right positions on the political spectrum. The left’s hold on the Muslim community has been broken.

But, coming back to the BNP’s wins, what do these political histories mean now for Muslims in the UK? While most Muslims are expressing fears about the intensifying discourse (which frankly borders on hate-speech), some are calling for their community to engage with the right wing with more seriousness. It’s a sign of maturity that rather than simply describe the BNP as being far-right extremists, some Muslims are asking: why is there support for the BNP in the first place? What have Muslims done, or not done, to create the conditions for that support to emerge?

All strata of British society are trying to analyse what has happened, and certain trends are emerging. Some want to deny any responsibility for themselves by condemning every voter for the BNP as a repentant racist, who simply cannot be helped or (worse) understood. But others are trying to understand why so many have now turned to the BNP, and where their resentment comes from, in an effort to remove those conditions for the future.

Both of these trends are also represented within the Muslim community. In their reaction to the BNP victories, Muslims have actually been shown to be more British than they might have been years ago. That’s a far cry from the common media perception of Muslims as unintegrated (and, often, incapable of being integrated) but it is borne out by the limited polling data we have on the attitudes of Muslims in the UK. More than the average non-Muslim, Muslim Britons are hopeful for the future of their country.

Matters are likely to get worse before they get better – this shift to the right has taken years and it will probably take a long time to settle in a more stable position. In the meantime, we may see Muslims joining centre-right parties, and drifting away from left wing politics.

That is surely good news for democracy in general – no part of the political spectrum should have a monopoly on a particular ethnic community. But matters will continue to deteriorate unless British and European society as a whole faces up to those who fear “Eurarabia” – not simply to shout them down, but to deconstruct their arguments with facts and examples of people who prove their fears unwarranted.

The BNP might not realise it, but they could turn out to be a good catalyst for the integration of the Muslim community: by reminding non-Muslims in Europe how ugly the far-right can get, and encouraging Muslims not to have their vote monopolised by a single part of the political spectrum.

The National (UAE)

Hisham Hellyer is a fellow at the University of Warwick in England and director of the Visionary Consultants Group

BNP deny racism comments aimed at Archbishop of York

The deputy leader of the British National Party has denied allegations of racism after branding the Archbishop of York an “ambitious African” and accusing him of being “derogatory, condescending and arrogant”.

Simon Darby said comments made to a local newspaper and on his online blog in which he made “spear-thrower” references to people from Uganda – Dr John Sentamu’s country of birth – were not a bigoted blast. But the senior figure in the far-right organisation has been condemned as “disgusting “ and “poisonous” by anti-fascism campaigners after alleging the Archbishop – a vociferous critic of the BNP – was trying to rob English people of their identity.

In a blog entry dated April 23, Mr Darby – second-in-command to BNP chairman Nick Griffin – wrote: “As if the responsibilities of being the Archbishop of York were not enough, the ambitious African has apparently used his power and influence to kindly bestow upon the world the right to be English.”

He also labelled Dr Sentamu – who recently supported making St George’s Day a public holiday to promote English unity – “a professional anti-British zealot” and said: “If I went to a Ugandan village and said the people there were genetic mongrels and that they had no right to their Ugandan identity, I would be picking out spears for days.”

But defending his comments, Mr Darby said: “I stand by my quotes – I don’t see how that is offensive or racist. It can be twisted or distorted to look that way, but what I am saying is factual. There are lots of indigenous people there (in Uganda) and in the bush they have spears – that is their lifestyle.

“I am not implying that all Ugandan people use spears at all. I was speaking specifically about the indigenous people. The spear is an integral part of their culture and lifestyle. I wouldn’t dream of denying Ugandan tribespeople their identity, but the contrast is that that is what he (Dr Sentamu) is doing. If I went there and preached to those indigenous people in the same way that Sentamu does to us, then I’d be attacked.

“If I was derogatory, condescending and arrogant – because that’s what John Sentamu is – I would be attacked. And rightly so.”

Last month, the Archbishop slammed the BNP for trying to define “Englishness” and said its suggestions that a “bloodless genocide” was taking place in the UK were “beyond belief”, having previously pleaded with people not to vote for the party at the 2007 local elections. His office was unavailable for comment on Mr Darby’s views.

A spokesman for anti-fascism campaign group Searchlight said: “These disgusting threats and thinly-veiled racism from its senior leadership exposes the real face of the BNP. Even somebody as internationally respected as Dr Sentamu is not immune from their poisonous slurs.”

The Press (York)

BNP leader defends policy on race

British National Party (BNP) chairman Nick Griffin has defended a party leaflet which says that black Britons and Asian Britons "do not exist". The BNP's "Language and Concepts Discipline Manual" says the term used should be "racial foreigners".

In a BBC interview, Mr Griffin said to call such people British was a sort of "bloodless genocide" because it denied indigenous people their own identity.

Mr Griffin is standing in the European Parliament elections in June.

'Politically correct fiction'

The BNP manual, leaked to an anti-fascist group and seen by the BBC, says that "BNP activists and writers should never refer to 'black Britons' or 'Asian Britons' etc, for the simple reason that such persons do not exist".

"These people are 'black residents' of the UK etc, and are no more British than an Englishman living in Hong Kong is Chinese. Collectively, foreign residents of other races should be referred to as 'racial foreigners', a non-pejorative term... The key in such matters is above all to maintain necessary distinctions while avoiding provocation and insult."

The manual describes the BNP's "ultimate aim" as the "lawful, humane and voluntary repatriation of the resident foreigners of the UK".

Commenting on the leaflet's content, Mr Griffin told The Report on Radio 4 that although "in civic terms they are British, British also has a meaning as an ethnic description".

"We don't subscribe to the politically correct fiction that just because they happen to be born in Britain, a Pakistani is a Briton. They're not; they remain of Pakistani stock.

"You can't say that especially large numbers of people can come from the rest of the world and assume an English identity without denying the English their own identity, and I would say that's wrong," he added. "In a very subtle way, it's a sort of bloodless genocide."

'Delighted'

Mr Griffin was also candid about the significance the BNP places on the ogan "British jobs for British workers".

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown famously used the phrase in a speech about skills training.

Mr Griffin claimed the prime minister borrowed the rhetoric from his party. "When I heard Gordon Brown use our slogan - British jobs for British workers - I was delighted," he said. "What Mr Brown actually meant when he said British jobs for British workers is of course down to Mr Brown.

"But there's no doubt that it was perceived - and was intended to be perceived - by millions of ordinary Brits as meaning that they would be at the front of the queue in front of economic migrants from anywhere else in the world."

"So having raised our slogan, promised it, we feel that he's legitimised our message."

'Pernicious'

Hazel Blears, secretary of state for Communities and Local Government, said she rejected Mr Griffin's charge that the prime minister's use of the phrase represents an endorsement of BNP policy.

"I certainly regret the fact that the BNP could be using language we've used in order to legitimise what I regard as divisive, pernicious policies which will actually do working class people no good at all," she said.

"What I don't regret is the fact that we need to have a proper discussion in this country about making sure that British people have a chance to get the skills, the education, to be able to get the jobs of the future."

The "British jobs for British workers" slogan was widely repeated during the BNP's recent council by-election campaign in Moston in Manchester, where the party's candidate, local publican Derek Adams, came second.

Moston is in the North West region, where the BNP hopes its supporters will elect Mr Griffin as the party's first MEP in the European Parliamentary elections on 4 June. Nominations close on 7 May.

Under the proportional representation system used in European elections, the BNP would need around 9% of the vote; in the last elections the party won 6.4%.

BBC

Loughton: Local BNP leader nominated to be school governor

The group leader of the British National Party’s district branch has been nominated to be a school governor.

Loughton Town Council put forward Pat Richardson as a candidate for Hereward Primary School at its meeting on Tuesday evening. The decision was made without the knowledge of the Colebrook Lane based school who will now have to consider Mrs Richardson’s case as a potential governor.

Mrs Richardson became one of the BNP’s first district councillors in 2004 and was elected to Loughton Town Council last year. She is a high profile member of the nationalist party after appearing in a Channel Four documentary in July 2008 discussing attitudes to Muslims in Britain, and serves as the BNP’s group leader on Epping Forest District Council.

Chair of governors at Hereward Raymond Warner said: “We’re looking for somebody who’s got a range of skills. I’m hoping that politics in any shape or form won’t come into it.”

Are you a parent at Hereward School? What do you think of the proposal? Leave a message or call the newsdesk on 020 8498 3440.

Guardian Series

Petition calls for sacking of lecturer named on leaked BNP members' list

An anti-fascist organisation backed by the University and College Union is calling for a Birmingham City University lecturer to be sacked after he was named on the internet as a member of the British National Party.

The lecturer has denied that he is a current BNP member.

Unite Against Fascism has launched a petition calling for Andrew Glover, a visiting music lecturer at the Birmingham Conservatoire, which is part of the university, to be removed from his post.

Dr Glover's name was on a list of BNP members that was leaked last year and published on the internet.

This week he told Times Higher Education: "I have no connection with any political party, least of all extreme groups." Pressed whether he had ever been a BNP member, he said: "I am not a member of any political party and believe wholeheartedly in the diversity position held by my university. My research entails studying music from societies around the world, which gives me a love of many cultures. How can that make me a right-winger? ... For these extreme left-wingers to be baying for my blood is ridiculous. This is 2009. The way they demand things is former Eastern Bloc or Third Reich, not a 21st-century diverse Britain.

"This has all the hallmarks of a 1950s McCarthy witch-hunt ... Higher education is not a political football that Right or Left should be allowed to kick around, especially when innocent people such as myself get caught up in it. It is about time that we moderates reclaimed it and removed it from the extremists' agenda."

Unite Against Fascism and another organisation, Love Music Hate Racism, launched a petition headlined "No to Racism and Fascism in our Education System". A Unite Against Facism spokesman said: "Members of the fascist BNP should not be allowed into our education system. Students put their trust in lecturers and have a right to be taught by people who will not judge them as inferior because of their skin colour, sexuality or for any other reason. We demand that Andrew Glover be removed from his role at Birmingham City University."

Rose Mitchell, a second-year student who initiated the petition, which has attracted 300 signatures to date, said she had been shocked by allegations that Dr Glover was a BNP member. "He teaches students from all over the world. I don't have any evidence that he has behaved in a racist way towards students," she said, adding that the allegation that he was involved in a far-Right party was "very worrying".

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU, said: "Universities and colleges are rightly held up as examples to the rest of society because of their diversity and tolerance. The BNP has no interest in sharing those values and preaches only hate and fear."

A Birmingham City spokesman said: "A review is now under way after a series of public allegations. The university accepts that the political beliefs of its staff are a private matter - but we also want to make clear that if such views affect that person's work and professional relationships, then the university will carefully consider its response. The university positively promotes diversity and is proactive in tackling any kind of discrimination or prejudice on its campuses."

Times Higher Education

Pub closed over fears of clashes at BNP rally

The fear of a violent confrontation between the British National Party and anti-fascist protesters led one landlady to close her pub last night.

Farm machinery was placed across the car park of the Huntsman pub near Thornbury after landlady Kaye Thomas found out that the right-wing group had told people to meet there before going on to a local hotel.

Mrs Thomas was told on Friday that a group of BNP activists were due to meet in her car park before going to a secret fundraising dinner at the nearby Park Hotel, booked by a group calling itself the British Heritage Party. Anti-fascists found out about the dinner and more than 25 placard-waving protesters demonstrated outside Mrs Thomas' car park.

After being told about the protest Mrs Thomas, 46, and her husband Jim, 54, alerted the police and were advised to close their pub for the night.Now they are angry that up to £1,000 in takings may have been lost because of a gathering which they had no part in organising.

A BNP spokesman accused the protesters of being responsible for Mrs Thomas' loss of trade and of preventing the party from holding a legitimate meeting. But he would not confirm that the booking at the hotel had been made undercover for the BNP. No references to the British Heritage Party could be found on the internet when the Post searched it last night.

Mrs Thomas said: "I had no idea these people were planning to meet in my car park and I've had to close the pub for the night rather than risk any trouble. It's been an incredibly stressful couple of days, finding out that the pub's name is being mentioned in all these circles, and now it's lost me money. It's hard enough making a living at the moment without things like this happening."

Mike Jones, manager of the Park Hotel, also said the weekend had been a difficult time and that he had been advised by police to cancel the booking for the dinner.

He said: "We were certainly never aware the booking was made for the British National Party but the event was cancelled because of all the things which have been related to it. We didn't want to cause any problems and we also didn't want to breach our licence by being responsible for any kind of public order offences.

"The complaint I have is with the people who have been starting up the protest, creating rumours which aren't even true and sending us nasty emails. They're the ones who've caused all this trouble and it's been a bit of a nightmare for everyone involved."

Last night the protesters held a good-natured protest outside both the pub and the hotel and the planned meeting of BNP members failed to materialise.

Simon Darby, BNP spokesman, said: "There's a group of left-wing thugs threatening violence which has led to a fundraising dinner being cancelled and this poor woman from losing trade. We're in a run-up to an election, we're contesting every seat in the South West and we've every right to hold a meeting. This woman is a member of the community and incidents like this aren't fair on her, or us."

Bristol Evening Post

Frank Foley – the British Schindler

Ian Austin says the national hero who stood up against fascism is shining example for us today.

Whoever said the era of the public meeting is dead should have been at a packed-out hall at Stourbridge College last week to discuss where hatred, bigotry and racism can lead. The vast majority of people there were not political activists, but a cross-section of the communities represented by Stourbridge Labour MP Lynda Waltho and me, interested in hearing about Frank Foley, who has become known as the British Schindler.

Lynda and I invited our constituents to attend the inaugural Annual Frank Foley Memorial Lecture, organised with the Holocaust Educational Trust, to honour the memory of a man who made a real difference during the Second World War, refusing to stand by when people were being singled out because of their race or religion and instead doing whatever he could to help.

I’ve been fascinated by Foley’s story since I first heard of him. He was an MI6 agent working undercover as the passport control officer in Berlin in the 1930s, where he witnessed the rise of the Nazis at first hand. He saw the persecution suffered by the Jews and did everything he could to help them, providing papers and forging passports to let them escape.

He sheltered families in his own home and even visited concentration camps to get people out. There is no doubt that he took massive personal risks, while his courage and compassion saved tens of thousands of lives.

When he retired, he moved to Stourbridge, where he lived in anonymity until his death in 1958 and what he shows us is that seemingly ordinary people can find within themselves the courage to do extraordinary things, instead of just walking away.

He stood up for the great British values of democracy, freedom, fairness, equality and tolerance and it is this which marks him out as such a great British hero.

Despite growing up in Dudley and my interest in the Holocaust, I’d never heard of Frank Foley until I stumbled on the biography by Michael Smith that brought him and his heroism to public attention, so this year – the 50th anniversary of his death – Lynda and I launched the lecture with Michael and Auschwitz survivor Ziggy Shipper as the guest speakers.

Although recognised as “Righteous Amongst the Nations” by Israel, Foley never received formal recognition from his own country during his lifetime, so Lynda has worked with the Holocaust Educational Trust to launch a national campaign to change the honours system to recognise the brave actions of deceased British heroes during the Holocaust – people like Frank Foley.

It is right to organise a lecture to honour this great man’s memory, but in an area like ours, targeted by the British National Party, demonstrating that the British heroes we should admire are people who fought fascism and stood up for freedom and democracy, it is of even greater importance.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears was right to argue that the BNP takes root in areas the mainstream parties have either taken for granted or ignored.

That has left a vacuum in which the racists can use easy answers to exploit general feelings of resentment, perceptions of unfairness, economic insecurity or concerns about housing, crime, anti-social behaviour or immigration.

So first we’ve got to be out on the doorsteps showing that it is Labour which is in touch and on people’s side dealing with the issues they’re concerned about, not the BNP.

And we’ve got to work harder than ever before in areas we’ve perhaps taken for granted and allowed the BNP to exploit our absence.

The BNP won a council seat in Dudley in 2003 and gave the Labour Party, trade unions and the wider community such a shock that they all joined together and worked harder than ever before to win the seat back the following year.

When I was elected in 2005, we made beating the fascists our number one priority. Since then, we’ve worked with Searchlight and its fantastic “Hope not Hate” campaign and with local unions to build a much broader, community-based campaign and ensure we keep them out.

Searchlight’s strategy of mass campaigning, the long hard slog of grassroots politics and community engagement has seen similar successes elsewhere.

Hazel Blears was right, too, to say that tactics which worked in the 1970s, just 30 years after the Second World War, such as calling them Nazis, won’t work in defeating them today.

But we do have to be clear about what they stand for – and we do have to be just as clear about spelling it out. The BNP claims to be respectable, mainstream, and democratic but its new image masks a very ugly truth.

So when I meet people who are considering voting for the BNP, I point out that its members do not believe what normal decent Dudley people believe. I’m very clear that they are not a mainstream political party, but a bunch of extremists stirring up hatred and dividing people on the basis of where they were born and the colour of their skin.

Many are often shocked to discover the truth about what the BNP believes, but if the BNP won’t tell the public the truth, we must do it for them.

The fact that the BNP believe black or Asian people can never be British, even if they were born here or have served in the forces. They oppose any racial integration and even mixed marriages. They believe ethnic minorities should be second-class citizens under the law. That people should be given preference in the jobs and housing market, and even in choice of schools on the basis of the colour of their skin.

And I tell young men tempted by the BNP’s message that they even believe footballers such as Ashley Young and Rio Ferdinand should not be able to play for England because of the colour of their skin.

No one, apart from a tiny number of hardcore racists, believes this nonsense nowadays. But we must not be complacent. As we hit tough times, extremists will try to exploit insecurity and divide our communities.

Now more than ever we must take a lead locally, find new ways in which communities and politicians can work together, in an economic downturn, to tackle the problems the fascists will try to exploit, and show how the Labour Government is on their side.

And if we spell out the truth about the racists, campaign harder than ever on the doorstep where it counts and find new ways, as we have with the Frank Foley Lecture, of mobilising the wider community in the fight against racism, persuading people to stand up for what is right and confront extremism and racism wherever it appears, then we can beat the BNP and come through the downturn with our communities strong.

Ian Austin is Labour MP for Dudley North

Tribune

Some people think you should resign for failing to protect this data, Nick

The question was simple.

"Are you apologising to your members, whose details you failed to protect?" asked Channel 4 News anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

Taken by surprise, and being unused to making apologies to BNP members on any account, Nick Griffin blinked and quickly uttered "Yah" as if the word was something indigestible sticking at the top of his gullet, and he couldn't get it down fast enough.

Recovering in another blink, he cleverly shifted the unwelcome but all too pertinent focus on his own culpability in the leaking of the BNP membership list: " - We're - we're very sorry for people who may have problems as a result of this," he said in barely suppressed agitation, going on to notice that most BNP members would not have any problems, and that if anybody came to be sacked from their jobs on account of their political beliefs then they would be entitled to "massive compensation".

With his personal apology reduced to a rapid and grudging "Yah", his own responsibility subsumed into a corporate "we're", and questions answered that were never asked, Griffin was fixed to continue in his evasiveness, but an unimpressed Guru-Murthy was having none of it.

"Some people think you should resign for failing to protect this data," he interjected. "Are you considering that?"

Following some self-serving waffle that "we" have done all "we" can to prevent this leak and that "we" have changed the "policies" which led to it and sacked the people responsible for it, Griffin's predictable answer was, "I won't resign" - which is more than a little curious when we recall the number of occasions, some very recent, on which Griffin and his spokesmen have called for ministerial heads to roll when lowly departmental minions in the pay of the government have lost similar data in far less dubious circumstances.

Clearly, the buck doesn't stop with Griffin, the man who directly appointed those he now blames for the BNP's predicament, and who therefore bears the heaviest responsibility of all.

Nothing daunted, Griffin continued: "If my members wish to vote me out - we're a very democratic party - we have an election available every year, and if they want to elect someone else in my place that's fine."

Except, of course, that it's anything but fine, as our readers are well aware and those sidelined and expelled members of the BNP who have attempted to unseat Griffin know to their cost. Krishnan Guru-Murthy, more usually concerned with higher matters than the internal affairs of a squalid collection of racists and fascists, cannot be expected to know that Griffin's comment stands the facts on their heads, and so made no intervention as an increasingly confident BNP leader talked of "an appalling witch-hunt by a liberal-left media and by rival political parties", mostly for the benefit of his own watching members and in the cause of further distancing himself from any personal culpability.

To that end Griffin switched his focus to the recent BNP gain on the obscure Boston Borough Council, a tactic mirrored on the main BNP website, knowing that until news of the leak broke on Lancaster Unity the membership continued to bask in the warm after-glow of the Boston result, in which a grand total of 279 people voted BNP.

At the end of the five minute interview Griffin executed a perfect about-turn in the matter of who leaked the BNP membership list. Having begun by saying that he had sacked those responsible (the Decembrist rebels), he now claimed: "This was leaked by our political opponents, this is a big campaign by supporters of the Labour Party to try to damage and intimidate the British National Party because they know that we're creeping up on them in election terms."

Ever since the leaked membership list entered into the public domain the BNP membership has switched smoothly into familiar victim mode, loudly protesting about their rights being infringed, of the danger they are in, and making frequently preposterous claims to have received death threats.

On our side of the fence we naturally take a rather jaundiced view of this unedifying self-pity, knowing, as we all do, that for years the normal method of transmitting the names, addresses and photographs of the BNP's opponents to the Redwatch hate site is through the BNP's active membership.

Nor do we have great sympathies with their shrill wails that Muslim organisations and websites have come into possession of the list. This community has for so long been vilified, lied about and insulted by the BNP and its army of bloggers and keyboard warriors that there is a certain sense of justice being done at last if the BNP hate brigade spend so much as one sleepless night kept awake by stray noises in the dark as penance for the vituperation and indignity to which they have subjected this community.

The police are now investigating the matter of the leak. The leak came from within the BNP, despite Nick Griffin's contradictory claims. It wasn't leaked by Lancaster Unity, it wasn't leaked by the Labour Party, it wasn't leaked by Searchlight, and it wasn't leaked by the fairies at the bottom of the garden.

It came from within the BNP and nowhere else - and it will be the BNP itself which is subjected to police investigation. What subsequently happened to the list is another matter entirely.

If the membership of the BNP had but a fraction of the backbone they claim to possess, they would not be crying like little girls who have had their pig-tails pulled by the school bully. They would be demanding the immediate resignation of the man ultimately responsible for their predicament, the man whose incompetence was responsible for putting in place the "policies" which led to the worst debacle - bar none - yet to have befallen the BNP.

They would tell him to go, to do it now, and to rid himself of any thoughts of severance pay.

Do they have the guts? Do they even have the wits to see that their own worst enemy is the man who, when given the chance to apologise to his members on Channel 4 News, gobbled down his feeble "Yah" as if it would make him sick?

Homegrown British Terrorists: The Extreme Face of Nationalism

It appeared to be a routine operation. Intelligence had suggested that a 31-year-old forklift driver from Goole, Yorkshire, had downloaded child pornography. But when officers of Humberside police raided the home of Martyn Gilleard in October 2007 they found more than they bargained for.

In his free time Gilleard had not only been downloading 39,000 indecent images of sadistic child abuse onto his computer, he was arming himself for an impending race war.

Police discovered knives, guns, machetes, swords, axes, bullets and nail bombs in his flat, as well as “significant” amounts of literature from far right parties including the National Front, the British People’s Party (BPP), Blood and Honour, and the British National Party.

Prior to being arrested, he was the BPP’s Goole branch organiser, making him a senior member of what is alleged to be a neo-Nazi organisation.

Gilleard had a five-year-old son who he described as “the most perfect thing in my life”. However in an interview with a tabloid newspaper, the mother of his child claimed that he had stored nail bombs under his son’s bed.

He was sentenced in June for 16 years after being found guilty for, among other charges, preparing terrorism acts with the intent of carrying them out.

It is clear from his diary that Gilleard was preparing to wage a race war. “Be under no illusion we are at war,” he wrote. “It is a war that we are losing badly. Unless we, the British right, stop talking of racial war and take steps to make it happen we will never get back that which has been stolen from us.

“I’m so sick and tired of hearing Nationalists talk of killing Muslims, or blowing up mosques, of fighting back. Only to see these acts of resistance fail to appear. The time has come to stop the talk and start to act.”

It is easy to regard Martyn Gilleard as an isolated agent. A maladjusted young man who externalised the demons that plagued him. But the reality is that he is but one of many far right extremists who have plotted to or actually carried out terrorism attacks across Britain over the last 50 years.

On online forums Gilleard advised other far right activists in bomb making manuals and encouraged others to take up arms.

One poster wrote: “I’ve seen the nail bombs spoke about by the police along with some more of his artillery. It’s a sad day when comrades get nicked but for every one that does there must be three more that don’t get caught. It’s a pity he couldn’t have just blown up the local mosque before he was arrested.”

Following his arrest he was offered “full support” by the BPP and was described on the Guestbook page of Nazi terror group Combat 18 as a “hero to the cause”.

However after Gilleard admitted to charges of possessing images of child pornography, the BPP issued a statement of “total abhorrence and repugnance” and claimed that had his criminal activities been known he would’ve been expelled from the Party.

His conviction was highly embarrassing for the organisation, which runs the Noncewatch website – an “integral” part of the campaign which advocates the death penalty for paedophiles.

Another campaign run by the BPP is Redwatch, which campaigners describe as a “hit list” carrying the personal details of anti racist activists, including photographs and in some cases, addresses and phone numbers.

The website has been used as a tool of political intimidation and critics of racist groups have been actively targeted. Manchester-based local councillor John Taylor, received an email on July 5 which read: “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 special .38 but it makes one hell of a mess. I’ll be seeing you.”

Far right terrorism in Britain is nothing new but has failed to garner the same recognition as the relatively more recent phenomenon of Islamic extremism.

Britain’s first suicide bombing was not in fact carried out by a Muslim, but rather a Birmingham National Front member.

In the early 1980s Richard Barnes carried out an orgy of violence, which began when he fired a crossbow bolt at an Asian man and ran down two black women. Following this he kidnapped another woman, dumped her in the boot of his car and ram-raided a left-wing bookshop. The car burst into flames and the trapped woman died in the blaze. Barnes was pulled from the fire and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Another right wing terrorist was member Tony Lecomber, who in 1985 injured himself with a nail bomb while trying to blow up the offices of a British left-wing political party. Police found ten grenades, seven petrol bombs and two detonators at his home. He was imprisoned for just three years and after his release was promoted to a senior position in the BNP.

In 1999, over three successive weekends, David Copeland placed homemade nail bombs in three locations across London with the intention of killing Asians, Blacks and homosexuals. The bombs killed three, including a pregnant woman, and injured 129, four of whom lost limbs.

He was a member of the National Socialist Movement, a small neo Nazi group run by Tony Williams, a former school chum of BNP chief Nick Griffin. Editor of anti-facist Searchlight magazine Gerry Gable, who compiled many of the examples used in this article to back up his case, wrote in an editorial: “Copeland was treated as an isolated madman rather than as part of a long history of involvement by the extreme right in terrorism.

“The public deserve a response from the police and intelligence agencies that takes far-right terrorism as seriously as the Islamist variety and not only fights this threat on the domestic front but looks at the wider international implications.”

In March this year, a police community support officer from south London escaped jail despite being found to have lied about his BNP membership. Police found in his flat a vast collection of racist literature, as well as illegal weapons including a CS spray, eight combat knives, a replica AK-47, a crossbow and a stun gun. He also had in his possession T-shirts bearing the logo of violent neo Nazi organization Combat 18.

In Glasgow, BNP activists were accused of using the murder of white teenager Kriss Donald to stir up hatred against the Asian community, from which the killers came.

Later that year, Allan Burnett, the incoming counter terrorism coordinator for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland said that right-wing extremism was as dangerous as the threat posed by al-Qaeda.

“There’s no point promoting positive race relations, if in claiming to be everyone’s coordinator of counter terrorism, you take your eye off the far right,” Burnett said.

The Epoch Times

The democracy dodge and the 4 year rule

Some time ago we remarked that in the 25 year history of the British National Party only two leadership elections had ever taken place, and that only one of them could be described as a relatively fair contest.

That long-plotted election saw Nick Griffin unseat BNP founder John Tyndall in a campaign notable for its rank dishonesty, and during which Griffin (largely responsible for the destruction of the National Front) openly threatened that a Tyndall win would “lead inevitably to a most disastrous split”.

The second leadership election came eight years and several self-serving constitutional changes later - years of ruthless purging and disruption by a leader beset with accusations of financial mismanagement.

It was, as we know, anything but a fair contest, the terms on which it was fought laid down by the incumbent Griffin, who shamelessly appointed his own man as Returning Officer, and then proceeded against challenger Chris Jackson's campaign in his habitually odious style of threat, smear, vilification and disinformation. And when Griffin inevitably won his Mugabe-esque victory the purging began.

In the aftermath Griffin spoke of changes to come in his infamously deranged "vermin, liars and thieves" blog post, but never quite got around to making them - unsurprisingly, with the BNP apparently insolvent at the time according to figures coming into our possession some weeks ago, and the Decembrist revolt brewing in the background.

Two would-be challengers came forward in the spring, Kirklees councillor Colin Auty's doomed campaign perhaps best expressing how widely discontent with Nick Griffin's leadership has spread on the so-called moderate wing of the party; while - incomprehensibly - hard-liner Chris Jackson again threw his hat in the ring.

The BNP's dirty tricks department set out to defuse both men (especially the dangerous Auty) very quickly and their challenges lapsed through lack of support - a lack of support not least engendered by threats that anybody exercising their consitutional right to sign nomination papers would face expulsion.

Early on came Griffinite talk of yet another change to the BNP's (apparently unobtainable) constitution that would allow a leadership challenge just once every four years. This is clearly the change that Griffin never got around to last year.

In light of simmering internal disaffection for Griffin, the existence of well-connected anti-Griffin factions on the moderate and hard-line wings of the party, the abortive challenges and the Decembrist disruption, it would be unwise for Griffin to simply impose the all important change since he would hand his numerous opponents a very thick stick with which to beat him.

To stave off accusations that the intended change is little more than the dictatorial stitch-up it is, the matter has to be dressed up in democratic clothing and presented to the membership as essential to the stability and security of the party.

For some time Griffinites have been busy selling the "stability and security" line, with dark talk about shadowy external forces manipulating leadership challenges against good-guy Griffin. "Stop the challenges and you stop the disruption" is the claim - despite the fact that those making the most noise and behaving in the most disruptive manner were the Griffinites themselves.

Rather ingeniously, Griffin has chosen the forthcoming Red White and Blue event to be the simultaneous venue for an EGM of voting members - ingeniously because the RWB will afford a whole weekend of glad-handing by the man himself and a whole weekend of pro-four year rule propaganda to put the voting members onside when the EGM considers the matter.

Holding an EGM will also have the happy effect of intimidating the more weak-minded and of identifying those prepared to risk openly opposing Griffin's will.

The result will be a foregone conclusion.

Griffin will have his way, as his spokesmen on BNP web hangouts have promised, and no matter that the manipulated and bamboozled membership will have effectively turned the BNP into a one man dictatorship - something even the Nazi Tyndall never attempted - they will leave the EGM having convinced themselves of how very democratic it all was.

To put this in context, Nick Griffin has only ever faced one challenge to his leadership. He won it by a long mile.

Paranoia, anybody?

Redwatch threatens to murder councillor after abusive BNP email published

BNP members put Dukinfield Labour councillor John Taylor on Redwatch with a threat to kill him

Andrew Gatward, the BNP's West Lindsey organiser, is one of those bright sparks who would appear to have graduated from the Lee Barnes School of Charm with full honours and a special commendation for making vivid (or is that livid?) use of the imagination.

Back in December Gatward turned his coat to join Sadie Graham's hopeless band of rebels, but within days had turned it again to rejoin the Griffinite BNP fold, thus ably demonstrating the "unity, loyalty, and comradeship we all have in the BNP", of which he speaks below.

Exactly what Dukinfield Labour councillor John Taylor said or did to excite Gatward's considerable ire we do not know, but it was enough to cause Gatward to fire off a missive to Cllr Taylor that for sheer hatred and hysteria (not to mention appalling punctuation) is all BNP.

The following is taken verbatim from Cllr Taylor's Dukinfield Views blog, and as a poster on our forum notes, really requires no further elaboration:

A BNP regional organiser's mail to me. The real BNP at work

3 July 2008

From: AndrewGatward@aol.com
Date: 03/07/2008 09:54:41
To: jwt35@**********
Subject: Re: Welcome to my web site I am a labour councillor in Tameside for the Dukin...

have spoken with my mates in tameside, they dont know what your talking about...so the liar strikes again....you really are worthless to anything decent taylor...your illiterate, retarded, and must have suffered a very bad childhood...was it the sex with your mother thats upset you...and regarding the closure of your site dumbo...you say it your self in one of your latest posts...senile as well, but then so are the rest of your mob...get a life, and stop being jealous of the unity, loyalty, and comradeship we all have in the BNP, which i am sure you all long for in the Labour nazi's......and yes, you will be out your seat in no time, whether it be by BNP candidate, or Conservative, i don't really care at this stage...conservative can win all for me, as long as the Labour Hitlerites are removed.....your very very sad taylor, you need medical help, and I suggest you get it

Do you suffer from Illiterate BNP Email Syndrome? If so, do send them in (with headers) and we'll run the best of them as space allows.

Update: Redwatch threatens to murder councillor

BNP members have put John Taylor on Redwatch with a threat to kill him:

http://wagdukinfield.blogspot.com/2008/07/democrats-at-work-bnp-style.html

Democrats at work bnp style

-----Original Message-----
From: Anonymous [mailto:cripto@ecn.org]
Sent: 05 July 2008 20:25
To: John Taylor - COUNCILLOR
Subject: Redwatch

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.

My brain hurts - or, who's afraid of the big bad Barnes?

Warning! This post contains strong language!

Streets-ahead contender for the annual BNP loopy-fruit of the year award is Lee John Barnes, long-term benefits claimant and legal adviser to the BNP (presumably when his debilitating illness allows).

Barnes is always good copy for antifascists - he's foul-mouthed, ranting, ill-tempered, and egotistical, but let's not dwell on his good points. Bestriding the corrupt and crooked world of the BNP like a one-man Monty Python sketch, the Medway Madman writes his blog of bile with style and grace - the style and grace of a glue-sniffing gibbon.

Known to be a fan of the Jamaican Woodbines, Barnes hits out at all and sundry. Recent targets were the parents of Rachel Whitear, who died of a drug overdose. Barking Barnes called them "pathetic" in a carpet-munching raving session that made even hardcore Stormfront Nazis wince.

Now Barnes has turned his fire on the plentiful enemies he's made on Stormfront, where as Walk Towards The Light he spends a lot of time as one half of a double act with past winner of the BNP loopy-fruit of the year award, Tony Lecomber, aka Purging The Droid - another jobless BNP tax-sponge and Griffin mate, with a bucketful of convictions to his name.

As Walk Towards The Light (WTTL) the Medway Madman patrols the threads of Stormfront waiting to pounce on any signs of anti-Nick Griffin activity, but there's so much it seems to have overwhelmed the remnants of the Madman's grey matter and he's finally spontaneously combusted.

Barnes's disgusting attack on Rachel Whitear's memory and her parents was the catalyst for a series of attacks on him by long-suffering Nazi regulars. To date there are at least three very long threads devoted to the pot-puffing BNP legal advisor.

Afraid to show himself in his WTTL guise, Barnes has resorted to his old practice of fielding a supportive sock puppet - in this case a 16 year old Nationalist newbie, "Jacob Cobain", who appears on the scene from nowhere but has an apparently encyclopaedic knowledge of Nationalism and knows all about the BNP leadership.

Jacob fooled nobody. The Stormfront brownshirts are used to the Medway Madman's antics, and so are we. And, just to settle the matter, Jacob has exactly the same problems spelling exactly the same words as Barnes - we've checked.

We're not going to repeat everything said on Stormfront here, except to remark that the brownshirt brigade have well and truly got their teeth around the Medway Madman's throat and they aren't about to let go. Even those useless internet warriors, endless givers of advice and devout non-activists, the pantomime horse that is Green Bigot and Brighton Sprog, haven't waded in to say a) how important they are, and b) "Anybody who attacks the wierdo gang Nick Griffin has gathered about him is an enemy of the BNP".

So Barmy Barnes's brain began to hurt, he blew a fuse and on Wednesday posted this to his blog:

Ha ha ha loks like the stormfront maggot farm collective of reds, searchlight trolls and general morons are unhappy because the big mouthed larry whitehurst / Jack Black doesnt like it when the people he bullshits about, lies about and makes accusations about know who he really is.

Dont like it when your stone is kicked over do you cockroach.

Like all cockroaches they hate it when the light is shone on them.

Another threat of violence again is it jack, like the last tme you were pissed and acting the big internet warrior frm behind your keyboard - ooooh i am trembling.

Unlike the stormfront shit, BNP activists and officials work in the public realm and face attack every day as they dont hide behind a fake name on a US internet site.

The BNP activists that take the flak for being in public are the heroes, people like Larry Whitehurst who hide on the internet and fling shit at them from behind a fake name are cowards and filth.

You are a wanker Larry - now fuck off you big mouthed maggot back to your fifty strong stormfront maggot farm of reds and malcontents.

You'd never know Barmy Barnes hides behind a fake name (several!) on the same US internet site.

Then today (Thursday) he posted this:

STORMFRONT POLICY.

Over recent years the Stormfront Britain site has degenerated from a useful tool for the nationalist movement, into a swamp of red trolls, searchlight spies, scumbags and sectarian filth that use the site to smear and attack individual nationalists.

The gutless cowards on the Stormfront site hide under false names and attack brave nationalists that stand in elections and who have their names, and addresses, publicised, whilst the Stormfront cowards hide behind false names on the site.

The real heroes of British nationalism, the candidates of the BNP and activists of all parties that work in the public arena to promote British Nationalism face daily abuse and attacks not just from reds, the government, the police etc etc but also from so called 'nationalist' gutless scum and slime that hide under fake names on the Stormfront site.

From now on the policy we have adopted on Stormfront is this ;

Those who post attacks on individual BNP members and activists on the site and who hide their real names behind stupid fake names like Jack Black, Doriot etc etc will have their real names posted onto my site and their identities distributed to our people nationwide.

If you attack us - then we will respond and we will post your name on this site so that the public can see who you really are.

We already have a long list of the names of those who post on the Stormfront site and we will publish all those names if any more gutless and cowardly anonymous attacks on individual BNP candidates and activists takes place by individual stormfront posters.

Attack the policies of the party by all means - but the minute some gutless bastard attacks an individual nationalist - then we will out you.

We ask that all nationalists of all parties adopt the same approach - which is that if an individual candidate is attacked by some gutless bastard on Stormfront Britain using a fake name, that you also publish the real names of the person that has attacked them so that we can all know who these people really are.

If you want to open your big mouth and attack others on Stormfront - then expect to have your name revealed to the world in return.

Seeing as the moderators on the Stormfront Site are unwilling to prevent posts that attack individual BNP members, then the only way we can act is to ensure that those who do post attacks on the real heroes of nationalism are outed as the gutless scum they are.

Big mouthed internet Keyboard warriors have been allowed for far too long to attack the real heroes of nationalism behind the mask of anonymity - from now on if you attack one of the real heroes of British nationalism, then we will respond.

The era where the big mouths and enemies of nationalism could speard their lies and bullshit with no response or accountability is over.

From now on, one way or the other, we will hold you accountable.

Now! one way or the other?

Hello! What do people usually mean when they use that term, we ask?

And "We will hold you accountable"? We?

The Medway Madman can only be talking of the BNP leadership, which has failed to distance itself from Barnes's vile attack on Rachel Whitear's parents.

And how come the BNP will get to know the identities of Stormfront posters... unless one of the Stormfront mods - John Joy Tree is our bet - is handing over IP addresses and poking around in members' accounts and private PM's?

So here we have the leadership of the BNP threatening to publicly expose the identities of Stormfront posters.

That's very good of them! Saves us so much trouble. Lee Barnes's blog just became required reading for antifascists everywhere...

All we can say is, thank God for Lee Barnes, who has provided us with quotes to use against the BNP for years to come. And, boy, are we going to use them! In leaflets and on the doorsteps, in letters to newspapers and posts on internet forums, we're going to make good and sure that the BNP chokes on Lee Barnes's vomit.

That's a copper-bottomed guarantee from Norfolk Unity!

Atreus at Norfolk Unity