Sorry, I just liked the headline :-)
Mother-hennish white supremacists planning a small rally in Boston today are more concerned with avoiding sunburn and filling their bellies with picnic food than “agitating” the public, according to the hatemongers’ Web postings. One organizer urges the neo-Nazis to cover their skinned heads with a hat “so you don’t burn your scalp,” while another boasts about his mom’s fruit salad.
Nonetheless, cops are planning to keep an eye on the rally, billed as a regional get-together in memory of David Lane, a neo-Nazi terrorist who died in May.
“We are aware of it and we’re prepared,” said Boston police spokesman David Estrada. The protests are planned for City Hall and the O’Neill Federal Building.
For the big cookout after the rally, the racists’ leaders told members to count on plenty of steak tips, boneless chicken and macaroni salad, but said they need money or other dishes, according to the Web site North East White Pride.
“Dress appropriately. . . . Drink plenty of water,” the bigots warn. One skinhead gourmand gushed that his mother’s “special desert” - a fruit salad mixed with sour cream - would wow his fellow Nazi wannabes. “It’s mixed with marshmellows (sic) and as well the fruits of all kinds and then perfectly mixed in with sour cream,” the poster, Irishskin88, brags on the Web site. “You can barely taste the sour cream. Anyhow as I said I will try and bring a big bowl.”
The dwindling ranks of skinheads turned the last North East White Pride Hub rally into a laughingstock when 125 anti-protesters ran the gaggle of 10 supremacists out of town under police guard on Martin Luther King Day 2006.
Boston Herald
June 30, 2007
Church split feared as Pope backs return of 'anti-Semitic' Latin Mass
A plan by the Pope to authorise the widespread return of the controversial Latin Mass, despite concerns that parts of it are anti-Semitic, has provoked a backlash among senior clergy in Britain and threatens to divide the Catholic Church worldwide. The 16th-century Tridentine Mass - which includes references to "perfidious" Jews - was abandoned in 1969 and replaced with liturgy in local languages, to make worship more accessible to the bulk of churchgoers. But the Pope announced on Thursday that a long-awaited document liberalising the use of the Mass, which some clergy fear will also limit the Church's dialogue with Jews and Muslims, will be released next week.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, has written to the Pope to say that no changes are needed. Concerns about the prospect of the introduction of the Mass were also underlined on Thursday at an unusual meeting to underline resistance to it. But the Pope subsequently issued a statement revealing that he had illustrated "the content and the spirit" of next week's document, which will be sent to all bishops, accompanied by a personal letter from him.
There have been months of debate about the impending statement within the higher echelons of the Church. Cardinals, bishops and Jewish leaders are concerned by the text of the "old" Mass, which has passages, recited every Good Friday, which say Jews live in "blindness" and "darkness", and pray "the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ".
There are also fears that a reintroduction may be the precursor of further changes to the reforms approved by the Second Vatican Council, which sat between 1962 and 1965 and which called for the Mass to be said in local languages, for the priest to face the congregation, and for the use of lay readers. Latin could still be used to recite the Mass, but the "new" Mass will be used, not the "old" Mass.
To celebrate the old Latin Mass now, a priest must obtain permission from the local bishop and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain. "It is standard practice to follow Rome, but we don't know yet what the [statement] will say," a spokesman for the Church in Britain said yesterday. "When we have the document, bishops and cardinals will consider it."
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, said bishops would still have a "central role" - but hinted at the Vatican's new enthusiasm for the old Mass by calling it a "great treasure" of the Church.
Pope Benedict's move is widely seen as an attempt to reach out to an ultra- traditionalist and schismatic group, the Society of St Pius X, and bring it back into the Vatican fold. The late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the society in 1969 in Switzerland, in opposition to the Second Vatican Council's reforms.
The Rev Keith Pecklers, a Jesuit liturgical expert, said: "The real issue here is not limited to liturgy but has wider implications for church life." He added that proponents of the old Mass "tend to oppose the laity's increased role in parish life... collaboration with other Christians and its dialogue with Jews and Muslims".
Independent
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, has written to the Pope to say that no changes are needed. Concerns about the prospect of the introduction of the Mass were also underlined on Thursday at an unusual meeting to underline resistance to it. But the Pope subsequently issued a statement revealing that he had illustrated "the content and the spirit" of next week's document, which will be sent to all bishops, accompanied by a personal letter from him.
There have been months of debate about the impending statement within the higher echelons of the Church. Cardinals, bishops and Jewish leaders are concerned by the text of the "old" Mass, which has passages, recited every Good Friday, which say Jews live in "blindness" and "darkness", and pray "the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ".
There are also fears that a reintroduction may be the precursor of further changes to the reforms approved by the Second Vatican Council, which sat between 1962 and 1965 and which called for the Mass to be said in local languages, for the priest to face the congregation, and for the use of lay readers. Latin could still be used to recite the Mass, but the "new" Mass will be used, not the "old" Mass.
To celebrate the old Latin Mass now, a priest must obtain permission from the local bishop and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain. "It is standard practice to follow Rome, but we don't know yet what the [statement] will say," a spokesman for the Church in Britain said yesterday. "When we have the document, bishops and cardinals will consider it."
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, said bishops would still have a "central role" - but hinted at the Vatican's new enthusiasm for the old Mass by calling it a "great treasure" of the Church.
Pope Benedict's move is widely seen as an attempt to reach out to an ultra- traditionalist and schismatic group, the Society of St Pius X, and bring it back into the Vatican fold. The late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the society in 1969 in Switzerland, in opposition to the Second Vatican Council's reforms.
The Rev Keith Pecklers, a Jesuit liturgical expert, said: "The real issue here is not limited to liturgy but has wider implications for church life." He added that proponents of the old Mass "tend to oppose the laity's increased role in parish life... collaboration with other Christians and its dialogue with Jews and Muslims".
Independent
June 29, 2007
Griffin and Co: Asset-strippers and Dictators
A pro-BNP blog that started up recently as a response to attacks on the financial probity of the party from the NNP and various others (including us) has printed an article that begins 'Why do stories about alleged 'corruption' within the BNP surface with such monotonous regularity on the Internet?' Well, there's a very simple answer to that - but let's take a look at what the article says.
The point of the article is to establish that the BNP is not corrupt and it attempts to do this by making a number of statements which need examining.
Nick Griffin has a Cambridge Law degree, has run rings around the best barristers that the Crown Prosecution Service have thrown at him in three free speech trials, and has demolished every Establishment 'big gun' radio and TV interviewer he has ever faced. If the man was in it for the money, he certainly wouldn't be in the BNP!
Nick Griffin actually has a 2.2, which is okay but hardly earth-shattering - in Jurisprudence, which is nowhere near as exciting as some weird people might think. As far as the trials go, the writer seems to have forgotten that in 1998 Griffin was given a two-year suspended sentence for distributing material likely to incite racial hatred. The more recent so-called 'free speech' trials of last year were both inadvisable and unnecessary, and there can't be an anti-fascist commentator anywhere who thought Griffin would actually be convicted though we would all have liked to have seen it. In any case, he hardly ran rings around the prosecution, nor has he ever demolished any radio or TV interviewer he has faced. Far from it in fact - he tends to come across as inept and stumbling to anyone with even rudimentary critical ability.
Land Registry records confirm that Nick's wife brought their home in Wales on a mortgage for £25,000 in the early 1990s. Obviously prices have gone up since then, but it's hardly the price of a palace.
Who cares, though wasn't Griffin declared bankrupt with debts of £70,000 on June 16th 1994 at Welshpool and Newtown County Court? Wonder where he got the money to buy the farm? And where he got the money to do the barn conversion which would have added considerably to the value of the place? Oh yes, that was paid for by the membership wasn't it. Presumably, Griffin is paying the money back at some point?
Interesting to note that it was Griffin's wife who bought the farm. Presumably that's something to do with either his bankruptcy or it's a tax dodge.
When travelling on speaking tours, Mr. Griffin invariably stays at the homes of BNP members. All other political leaders use plush hotels...
Bullshit. Where does he stay when he's over in America, France, Sweden or Croatia (where it's rumoured he has bought another property - no doubt for the planned BNP Holiday Hotel from Hell)?
The finances and financial records of the BNP, which the Electoral Commission classifies as a 'major party', are therefore by law closely monitored not only by internal staff but also by an independent auditor who is bound by his professional code to ensure that everything is handled properly...
We have never heard the BNP described as a 'major' party simply because it isn't. Roughly the same amount of members as the Monster Raving Loony Party does not make it a major party by anyone's standards.
...His complete audit is in turn gone through with a fine toothed comb by officials from the Electoral Commission...
And it was pointed out by the auditor that because no bank wanted to handle the accounts of the fascist BNP, most transactions were carried out in cash, making it extremely difficult to keep tabs on expenditure.
...The chances of money being illictly raised, spent or stolen under such a system are effectively zero. The finances of the modern BNP are the most open and transparent of any party in the history of British nationalism.
The second statement of that sentence might well be true but we're still wondering where the real accounts are, where the accounts of the Trafalgar Club are, where the income from the numerous business ventures appears in the accounts, how much everyone who is employed by the BNP actually gets paid, where the real foreign donations are listed and so on ad nauseum...
Let's face it: Far from being a passport to luxury, high living and privilege, running the BNP - in a country with Islamic terror cells, endemic violence among certain immigrant communities, left-wing thugs and a Politically Correct legal system operated by a totalitarian government - is a dangerous as well as a thankless task.
Strange, I thought Griffin's farm was set in its own land and came complete with a sauna and jacuzzi and so on. I could be wrong but that sounds pretty luxurious to me.
I've yet to see any evidence of a physical attack on Nick Griffin - ever - from anybody except Tony Lecomber, and he was actually attacking Eddie Butler and Griffin just got in the way. The only other mention of an attack was when the BNP tried to claim at attempt on Griffin's life over in Sweden on one of his many trips abroad. The bomb was unprimed and would never have gone off and it eventually emerged that the liar Griffin hadn't even been on the train that had been under threat.
The BNP is the only household name party in the UK which is 'in the black'. All the others are mired in massive debt, because running a political party's central machine is a very costly exercise.
That's odd because the BNP is the only party which the auditor pointed out was close to bankruptcy. The BNP could only survive by stealing branch money.
Any head of any organisation will at times have to discipline individuals within that organisation, and to defend the interests of the organisation against rivals. Both the punished guilty and jealous rivals have clear motives for lying about the man who has put them in their place, or the successful organisation that blocks their own personal or group ambitions.
Ah yes, the people Griffin has sacked. Like one of two former treasurers Griffin's sacked, Mike Newland, who protested at the plainly unacceptable blurring of the boundaries between the chairman's private business concerns as a secondhand car dealer (Affordable Cars) on the one hand, and party finances on the other, not to mention the making of wholly illegal payments (£1500 is mentioned at one point) to Tony Lecomber, who was claiming benefits at the time. In September 2000, Newland wrote;
'Griffin was elected on a clear pledge to have full financial accountability and fell at the first hurdle when reasonable questions were asked. He and Lecomber have shown themselves incapable of running the organisation as a legitimate affair. I thought that Griffin had matured sufficiently enough to behave sensibly and I was wrong...I misjudged him and that was my terrible mistake for which I eat humble pie.'
Griffin has sacked numerous people from the BNP mostly for questioning the accounts - the Edwards' are another example. But our favourite was the Sharon Ebanks scam that caused so much harm to the BNP.
Ebanks, you'll recall, was elected as the councillor for Kingstanding in Birmingham by a miscount of the votes. Though the mistake was noticed on the night of the count, the winner had already been announced and nothing could be done unless there was a High Court challenge from the party that should have taken the seat. Labour duly made the challenge and Ebanks, on advice from the BNP's legal wizards (Lee Barnes and Nick Griffin) fought it and lost.
Losing in the High Court is an expensive business and Ebanks' costs were, as far as we can gather, around £5000. The BNP promptly started asking for donations and raised, we're reliably informed, around £7000.
For some bizarre reason, everything then went pear-shaped for the BNP. They'd lost the seat but were sitting on top of a propaganda goldmine - small party having to raise big funds for cock-up that wasn't its fault, successful fundraising saves reputation of ousted councillor etc etc. Okay, no councillor but the loss could easily have been turned to a victory played the right way.
But the BNP decided not to do this. In fact, despite the membership forking out £7000 of its own money to pay Ebanks' High Court costs, the party decided to keep it. At one point (when she was threatened with bankruptcy) Ebanks was advised by the party to get a credit card to pay off the debt to the court.
The uproar from the far-right was predictably bad and the BNP came in, justifiably, for a hell of a lot of criticism from people it would consider supporters - the nazi forum Stormfront, for example. It got so bad that Stormfront members called a collection together and raised the money Ebanks needed and the debt was duly paid, no thanks at all to the BNP.
Ebanks was promptly sacked from the BNP and, in a fit of pique, formed her own party, the NNP, with a bunch of other BNP rejects.
The point of all this waffle - and there is a point, you'll be pleased to read - is that Griffin and his chums will use you up and spit you out. If you're stupid enough to question any disrepancy in the accounts, you're out. If you disagree with the leadership, you're out. If you don't do as you're told, you're out. And we've now seen this dictatorship spread to the external organisations of the BNP, with Solidarity being a fine case in point.
Clive Potter and Tim Hawke question the Solidarity accounts and suddenly they're untrustworthy, probably reds and certainly traitors. It's pretty clear from all we've been able to read that Potter and Hawke will be kicked out and Harrington reinstated as President, complete with full backing from Griffin and an unbeatable majority on the union's Executive - which will be the kiss of death to any hope of it providing any real alternative to any of the genuine unions and their shortcomings as perceived by the BNP. In short, Solidarity will become a cash cow for Griffin and co until it collapses completely.
Griffin and the BNP are asset-strippers and the only people they can strip assets from are those poor deluded sods who have joined the party/union.
There is a hell of a lot more to write about Griffin's BNP - the rip-offs and general thievery would fully occupy this blog for the next two years - but for the moment we'll leave this issue (though we'll return to it at greater length) with a quote from Nick Griffin himself;
'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.'
Which says it all really.
The point of the article is to establish that the BNP is not corrupt and it attempts to do this by making a number of statements which need examining.
Nick Griffin has a Cambridge Law degree, has run rings around the best barristers that the Crown Prosecution Service have thrown at him in three free speech trials, and has demolished every Establishment 'big gun' radio and TV interviewer he has ever faced. If the man was in it for the money, he certainly wouldn't be in the BNP!
Nick Griffin actually has a 2.2, which is okay but hardly earth-shattering - in Jurisprudence, which is nowhere near as exciting as some weird people might think. As far as the trials go, the writer seems to have forgotten that in 1998 Griffin was given a two-year suspended sentence for distributing material likely to incite racial hatred. The more recent so-called 'free speech' trials of last year were both inadvisable and unnecessary, and there can't be an anti-fascist commentator anywhere who thought Griffin would actually be convicted though we would all have liked to have seen it. In any case, he hardly ran rings around the prosecution, nor has he ever demolished any radio or TV interviewer he has faced. Far from it in fact - he tends to come across as inept and stumbling to anyone with even rudimentary critical ability.
Land Registry records confirm that Nick's wife brought their home in Wales on a mortgage for £25,000 in the early 1990s. Obviously prices have gone up since then, but it's hardly the price of a palace.
Who cares, though wasn't Griffin declared bankrupt with debts of £70,000 on June 16th 1994 at Welshpool and Newtown County Court? Wonder where he got the money to buy the farm? And where he got the money to do the barn conversion which would have added considerably to the value of the place? Oh yes, that was paid for by the membership wasn't it. Presumably, Griffin is paying the money back at some point?
Interesting to note that it was Griffin's wife who bought the farm. Presumably that's something to do with either his bankruptcy or it's a tax dodge.
When travelling on speaking tours, Mr. Griffin invariably stays at the homes of BNP members. All other political leaders use plush hotels...
Bullshit. Where does he stay when he's over in America, France, Sweden or Croatia (where it's rumoured he has bought another property - no doubt for the planned BNP Holiday Hotel from Hell)?
The finances and financial records of the BNP, which the Electoral Commission classifies as a 'major party', are therefore by law closely monitored not only by internal staff but also by an independent auditor who is bound by his professional code to ensure that everything is handled properly...
We have never heard the BNP described as a 'major' party simply because it isn't. Roughly the same amount of members as the Monster Raving Loony Party does not make it a major party by anyone's standards.
...His complete audit is in turn gone through with a fine toothed comb by officials from the Electoral Commission...
And it was pointed out by the auditor that because no bank wanted to handle the accounts of the fascist BNP, most transactions were carried out in cash, making it extremely difficult to keep tabs on expenditure.
...The chances of money being illictly raised, spent or stolen under such a system are effectively zero. The finances of the modern BNP are the most open and transparent of any party in the history of British nationalism.
The second statement of that sentence might well be true but we're still wondering where the real accounts are, where the accounts of the Trafalgar Club are, where the income from the numerous business ventures appears in the accounts, how much everyone who is employed by the BNP actually gets paid, where the real foreign donations are listed and so on ad nauseum...
Let's face it: Far from being a passport to luxury, high living and privilege, running the BNP - in a country with Islamic terror cells, endemic violence among certain immigrant communities, left-wing thugs and a Politically Correct legal system operated by a totalitarian government - is a dangerous as well as a thankless task.
Strange, I thought Griffin's farm was set in its own land and came complete with a sauna and jacuzzi and so on. I could be wrong but that sounds pretty luxurious to me.
I've yet to see any evidence of a physical attack on Nick Griffin - ever - from anybody except Tony Lecomber, and he was actually attacking Eddie Butler and Griffin just got in the way. The only other mention of an attack was when the BNP tried to claim at attempt on Griffin's life over in Sweden on one of his many trips abroad. The bomb was unprimed and would never have gone off and it eventually emerged that the liar Griffin hadn't even been on the train that had been under threat.
The BNP is the only household name party in the UK which is 'in the black'. All the others are mired in massive debt, because running a political party's central machine is a very costly exercise.
That's odd because the BNP is the only party which the auditor pointed out was close to bankruptcy. The BNP could only survive by stealing branch money.
Any head of any organisation will at times have to discipline individuals within that organisation, and to defend the interests of the organisation against rivals. Both the punished guilty and jealous rivals have clear motives for lying about the man who has put them in their place, or the successful organisation that blocks their own personal or group ambitions.
Ah yes, the people Griffin has sacked. Like one of two former treasurers Griffin's sacked, Mike Newland, who protested at the plainly unacceptable blurring of the boundaries between the chairman's private business concerns as a secondhand car dealer (Affordable Cars) on the one hand, and party finances on the other, not to mention the making of wholly illegal payments (£1500 is mentioned at one point) to Tony Lecomber, who was claiming benefits at the time. In September 2000, Newland wrote;
'Griffin was elected on a clear pledge to have full financial accountability and fell at the first hurdle when reasonable questions were asked. He and Lecomber have shown themselves incapable of running the organisation as a legitimate affair. I thought that Griffin had matured sufficiently enough to behave sensibly and I was wrong...I misjudged him and that was my terrible mistake for which I eat humble pie.'
Griffin has sacked numerous people from the BNP mostly for questioning the accounts - the Edwards' are another example. But our favourite was the Sharon Ebanks scam that caused so much harm to the BNP.
Ebanks, you'll recall, was elected as the councillor for Kingstanding in Birmingham by a miscount of the votes. Though the mistake was noticed on the night of the count, the winner had already been announced and nothing could be done unless there was a High Court challenge from the party that should have taken the seat. Labour duly made the challenge and Ebanks, on advice from the BNP's legal wizards (Lee Barnes and Nick Griffin) fought it and lost.
Losing in the High Court is an expensive business and Ebanks' costs were, as far as we can gather, around £5000. The BNP promptly started asking for donations and raised, we're reliably informed, around £7000.
For some bizarre reason, everything then went pear-shaped for the BNP. They'd lost the seat but were sitting on top of a propaganda goldmine - small party having to raise big funds for cock-up that wasn't its fault, successful fundraising saves reputation of ousted councillor etc etc. Okay, no councillor but the loss could easily have been turned to a victory played the right way.
But the BNP decided not to do this. In fact, despite the membership forking out £7000 of its own money to pay Ebanks' High Court costs, the party decided to keep it. At one point (when she was threatened with bankruptcy) Ebanks was advised by the party to get a credit card to pay off the debt to the court.
The uproar from the far-right was predictably bad and the BNP came in, justifiably, for a hell of a lot of criticism from people it would consider supporters - the nazi forum Stormfront, for example. It got so bad that Stormfront members called a collection together and raised the money Ebanks needed and the debt was duly paid, no thanks at all to the BNP.
Ebanks was promptly sacked from the BNP and, in a fit of pique, formed her own party, the NNP, with a bunch of other BNP rejects.
The point of all this waffle - and there is a point, you'll be pleased to read - is that Griffin and his chums will use you up and spit you out. If you're stupid enough to question any disrepancy in the accounts, you're out. If you disagree with the leadership, you're out. If you don't do as you're told, you're out. And we've now seen this dictatorship spread to the external organisations of the BNP, with Solidarity being a fine case in point.
Clive Potter and Tim Hawke question the Solidarity accounts and suddenly they're untrustworthy, probably reds and certainly traitors. It's pretty clear from all we've been able to read that Potter and Hawke will be kicked out and Harrington reinstated as President, complete with full backing from Griffin and an unbeatable majority on the union's Executive - which will be the kiss of death to any hope of it providing any real alternative to any of the genuine unions and their shortcomings as perceived by the BNP. In short, Solidarity will become a cash cow for Griffin and co until it collapses completely.
Griffin and the BNP are asset-strippers and the only people they can strip assets from are those poor deluded sods who have joined the party/union.
There is a hell of a lot more to write about Griffin's BNP - the rip-offs and general thievery would fully occupy this blog for the next two years - but for the moment we'll leave this issue (though we'll return to it at greater length) with a quote from Nick Griffin himself;
'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.'
Which says it all really.
By-election results for June 28th 2007
Craven ward by-election, Pendle BC
Lib Dem 632
Con 260
Ind 241
BNP 237 (16.4%)
Lab 76
Previous BNP electoral history in this ward:
2004: 447 votes (21.9%)
2006: 459 votes (25.0%)
Slough ward(Nuneaton & Bedworth)
Turnout 40.57%
Labour Gain from Tories
Labour 862
BNP Alwyn Deacon 582 (27.3%)
Tories 499
Eng Dems 102
Lib Dems 83
Charlemont/Grove Vale by-election(Sandwell)
Con 870
Lab 801
BNP 544 (21.6%)
Lib/Dem 238
Greens 71
Whaddon Ward (Milton Keynes) by-election result from last night was
LAB 1108 - 43.8%
CON 914 - 36.1%
EFP 221 - 8.7% England First Party
LIB 129 - 5.1%
UKIP 109 - 4.3%
IND 49 - 1.9%
Lib Dem 632
Con 260
Ind 241
BNP 237 (16.4%)
Lab 76
Previous BNP electoral history in this ward:
2004: 447 votes (21.9%)
2006: 459 votes (25.0%)
Slough ward(Nuneaton & Bedworth)
Turnout 40.57%
Labour Gain from Tories
Labour 862
BNP Alwyn Deacon 582 (27.3%)
Tories 499
Eng Dems 102
Lib Dems 83
Charlemont/Grove Vale by-election(Sandwell)
Con 870
Lab 801
BNP 544 (21.6%)
Lib/Dem 238
Greens 71
Whaddon Ward (Milton Keynes) by-election result from last night was
LAB 1108 - 43.8%
CON 914 - 36.1%
EFP 221 - 8.7% England First Party
LIB 129 - 5.1%
UKIP 109 - 4.3%
IND 49 - 1.9%
Mayor slams Hitler t-shirt
London Mayor Ken Livingstone joined with Holocaust survivors this week to condemn t-shirts glorifying Hitler on sale in Camden Market. The garment, being sold in Camden Market Hall, displays a picture of Hitler performing a Nazi salute above a list of countries he invaded, describing the war as a “European Tour.”
Livingstone said the t-shirt gives a bad impression of London. He told TJ: “There is no case for selling these t-shirts, which aim to make money by exploiting the horror of Nazism, under which millions were killed.”
Holocaust survivor Roman Halter added: “It is terrible that people find this sort of thing appealing. Holocaust survivors felt the memory of Hitler was buried with his death, but nowadays fame is equated with infamy.”
Gerry Gable, editor of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, said: “This kind of money making out of a war that killed more than 30 million people is appalling. What kind of impression must it make not only to Londoners but the hundreds of thousands of tourist who visit that market every year.”
But Myles Parker, manager of Camden Market Hall insisted that the t-shirt was not offensive or in bad taste. He said: “I think it is satirical. People may also be offended by some pro-Israel t-shirts on sale or items with Che Guevara. It’s a sensitive subject but where do I draw the line, these t-shirts are clearly geared at adolescents, they can be notoriously cruel and heavy handed.
“The person with the stall has only been there for 3 or 4 weeks, he is not a political person. I don’t find that particularly offensive, but if somebody has an objection they should raise it with the trader. I can empathise with people’s viewpoints but it is not breaking any laws.”
Totally Jewish
Livingstone said the t-shirt gives a bad impression of London. He told TJ: “There is no case for selling these t-shirts, which aim to make money by exploiting the horror of Nazism, under which millions were killed.”
Holocaust survivor Roman Halter added: “It is terrible that people find this sort of thing appealing. Holocaust survivors felt the memory of Hitler was buried with his death, but nowadays fame is equated with infamy.”
Gerry Gable, editor of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, said: “This kind of money making out of a war that killed more than 30 million people is appalling. What kind of impression must it make not only to Londoners but the hundreds of thousands of tourist who visit that market every year.”
But Myles Parker, manager of Camden Market Hall insisted that the t-shirt was not offensive or in bad taste. He said: “I think it is satirical. People may also be offended by some pro-Israel t-shirts on sale or items with Che Guevara. It’s a sensitive subject but where do I draw the line, these t-shirts are clearly geared at adolescents, they can be notoriously cruel and heavy handed.
“The person with the stall has only been there for 3 or 4 weeks, he is not a political person. I don’t find that particularly offensive, but if somebody has an objection they should raise it with the trader. I can empathise with people’s viewpoints but it is not breaking any laws.”
Totally Jewish
June 28, 2007
Cambridge gets £1m for Jewish-Muslim centre
A Jewish philanthropist who was on the panel of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry has donated £1 million to a new centre for the study of Muslim-Jewish relations.
Richard Stone, a former GP and son of Lord Stone of Hendon, has given £1 million to the Woolf Institute, a body with close links to Cambridge University that specialises in the study of Jewish-Christian relations. The money, from his family’s Stone Ashdown Trust, is intended to mark the antiracist activities of Dr Stone over the past 30 years.
It will be used as an endowment to fund the work of the new Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations, which will teach a Cambridge University course with the aim of overcoming prejudice and hostility between the two religions. Students will begin by researching the areas the two faiths have in common, such as monotheism, close family ties and diaspora communities.
Dr Stone told The Times he believed there had been a “serious lack” of academic study in this subject.
Once the centre in Cambridge is established, studies will develop into more controversial areas, including issues around Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The donation will be announced today by the Woolf Institute’s director Edward Kessler. Dr Kessler told The Times: “As far as I know, there is no centre that is examining the encounter between Muslims and Jews. We are really pioneering the way. I would like to see the work feed into the work of people who need to use inter-faith relations — the police, prison officers, teachers.”
Times Online
Richard Stone, a former GP and son of Lord Stone of Hendon, has given £1 million to the Woolf Institute, a body with close links to Cambridge University that specialises in the study of Jewish-Christian relations. The money, from his family’s Stone Ashdown Trust, is intended to mark the antiracist activities of Dr Stone over the past 30 years.
It will be used as an endowment to fund the work of the new Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations, which will teach a Cambridge University course with the aim of overcoming prejudice and hostility between the two religions. Students will begin by researching the areas the two faiths have in common, such as monotheism, close family ties and diaspora communities.
Dr Stone told The Times he believed there had been a “serious lack” of academic study in this subject.
Once the centre in Cambridge is established, studies will develop into more controversial areas, including issues around Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The donation will be announced today by the Woolf Institute’s director Edward Kessler. Dr Kessler told The Times: “As far as I know, there is no centre that is examining the encounter between Muslims and Jews. We are really pioneering the way. I would like to see the work feed into the work of people who need to use inter-faith relations — the police, prison officers, teachers.”
Times Online
Hatewatch for the week of June 27th 2007
Neo-Nazi soldiers charged with equipment thefts
Two 82nd Airborne paratroopers allegedly sold morphine, body armor, and a Humvee, and planned to sell a 105 mm Howitzer, to an FBI undercover agent posing as a white supremacist group contact...
White supremacist prisoner kills Corrections Officer
Curtis Michael Allgier, 27, stole a gun from a corrections officer and shot him to death during a medical appointment at the University of Utah, then carjacked an SUV and led police on a high-speed chase...
FBI investigates death threats against columnist
Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts received hundreds of racist threats after white supremacist websites published his address, directions to his house, and a satellite image of his neighborhood...
Klansman convicted in 1964 slayings
A federal jury convicted James Ford Seale, 71, of kidnapping and conspiracy in the deaths of two black teenagers in Mississippi almost 43 years ago...
SPLC
Two 82nd Airborne paratroopers allegedly sold morphine, body armor, and a Humvee, and planned to sell a 105 mm Howitzer, to an FBI undercover agent posing as a white supremacist group contact...
White supremacist prisoner kills Corrections Officer
Curtis Michael Allgier, 27, stole a gun from a corrections officer and shot him to death during a medical appointment at the University of Utah, then carjacked an SUV and led police on a high-speed chase...
FBI investigates death threats against columnist
Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts received hundreds of racist threats after white supremacist websites published his address, directions to his house, and a satellite image of his neighborhood...
Klansman convicted in 1964 slayings
A federal jury convicted James Ford Seale, 71, of kidnapping and conspiracy in the deaths of two black teenagers in Mississippi almost 43 years ago...
SPLC
June 27, 2007
Nick Griffin the mortgage broker? Just what precisely IS the BNP now?
What precisely is the BNP? Your guess is as good as ours but now it's rapidly becoming a money-grubbing national joke! First it was secondhand cars, then the fake church and union, then it was life insurance, swiftly followed by double-glazing and skip hire - though that's ignoring all the little bits and pieces on the way like the BNP's invisible though expensive bus and the radio station that never was - and now it has entered the (it hopes) lucrative mortgage market.The British National Party, rapidly becoming the most financially-inept and patently desperate organisation in the known universe, has branched out into trying to flog you a mortgage for that dream home of yours - or rather to act as it planned to act with Albion Life - to sell you a mortgage via some other company and take a broker's fee for doing nothing except setting up a web site and finding the sucke - customers.
The BNP's new attempted rip-off, the quaintly-named Avocado (thick-skinned, slimy inside and with a heart of stone) Mortgages appears to be working through a company named David Boulton Mortgage Solutions who apparently have an office at 28 West Road, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales, CF31 4HD.
Curiously, or perhaps not, this appears to be the same David Boulton of Financial Solutions Unlimited in Bridgend who was associated with the BNP's failed venture into life insurance, the laughably short-lived Albion Life. David Boulton appears to be a busy boy - he's also listed as David Boulton & J. Saunders (Mortgages), Victoria Chambers, 7 Dunraven Place, Bridgend, Vale Of Glamorgan, CF31 1JF, Tel: 01656 664006. Whether this is the same David Boulton is uncertain but it seems unlikely that a smallish place like Bridgend is awash with David Boultons, all involved in mortgages and/or financial advice.
Readers may recall that Albion Life made a very big thing of being involved with the British National Party, clearly hoping that supporters would sign up and leave their insurance to the party when they finally pegged it. Avocado though - obviously having learned a valuable lesson from its predecessor, doesn't mention the BNP at all, which might not actually be fraud as far as the law is concerned, but certainly seems like it.
Once again - following the process it used with Albion Life - the BNP tries to give the impression that it is Avocado who is doing all the work, when in fact it's the real broker, David Boulton (and possibly his business partners Craig Francis and Brian John Howcroft). In a section on the website headed 'Why Avocado?', the party/company gives us this incoherent nonsense;
'Avocado Mortgages can help power charge your finances, releasing equity tied up in your property or help get you on the first rung of the property ladder.
- To treat our customers fairly and with honesty and integrity in a courteous manner at all times.
- To offer our professional yet personal service to our customers in a speedy manner.
- To endeavour to recommend the most suitable lenders and products to satisfy customer needs, using the whole market place.
- To provide our customers with all the relevant information required during the process and to ensure that customers fully understand the information.
- To endeavour to make prompt contact with new clients to start our advice process as soon as possible, ensuring that the client is able to speak to an experienced advisor.'
David Boulton, or at least the David Boulton who was associated with Albion Life and is now associated with Avocado, doesn't seem to be too bothered about what the public thinks of his connections with the British National Party but one wonders about the building societies whose trademarks appear all over the Avocado site without, we suspect, a single permission being asked for, implied or granted. These include the following companies:
Cheltenham and Gloucester
Alliance and Leicester
Portman Building Society
Northern Rock
Abbey
Nationwide
Yorkshire Building Society
Scarborough Building Society
Norwich and Peterborough Building Society
Mutual Matters
Skipton Building Society
Well, we'll have to check that out with their head offices and see what they say. Feel free to find the Head Office address for each of them on the internet and complain with us...
But that's not all. Behind the Avocado Mortgages site, there is another one hiding away, also registered to Steve Blake, the registrant of the BNP site, Avocado, Albion Life, the Skip Hire Registry, the Christian Council of Britain and Brightahomes (double-glazing) - Avocado Finance. One wonders what plans are afoot for this fake company's future.
Quite what the BNP's next money-making venture will be who knows, but what's the betting it will be another one of Nick Griffin's rubbishy get rich quick schemes that'll not only fall at the first hurdle but end up costing the party a fortune, all paid for out of the membership money. Leadership challenges notwithstanding, you do have to wonder how long the membership will keep its patience with this simple-minded buffoon.
(Note: Thanks to Denise, who first spotted Avocado and passed the info along)
New jail term for BNP leader's son
A prolific criminal and son of the leader of the BNP in Sandwell is back behind bars after a high-speed car chase.
Ricky Lloyd, 20-year-old son of Tipton councillor Jim Lloyd, took his mother's car just 18 days after being released on licence after previously being given three years' detention for attempted robbery. Coun Lloyd, who represents Princes End, admitted today he was "tearing his hair out" over his son but hoped that this latest sentence would help him finally see the light.
Wolverhampton Crown Court was told that Lloyd drove the car at more than 60 miles an hour in a 40mph limit. The court heard that Lloyd, who has been in trouble with the police since the age of 14 and has been branded one of the most prolific offenders in Sandwell, ignored red lights and swerved into the middle of the road while being pursued by police.
Recorder Peter Cooke told Lloyd he had shown a "cavalier disregard" for the safety of other people.
The court was told that Lloyd took his mother Sandra's car from outside the family home in High Street, Princes End, Tipton, at 1am on March 16. Lloyd admitted dangerous driving and driving while disqualified. He was given six months detention and banned from driving for two years.
Coun Lloyd, opening his heart [oh please] to the Black Country Mail today, said that Ricky, who will be 21 in October and will then be moved to an adult prison, did not have a driving licence and had driven to Brierley Hill to pick up a friend when he was spotted by CCTV cameras.
"Ricky committed the latest sentence while on an 18-month licence for the previous offence of attempted robbery. He will probably now have to serve the rest of the earlier sentence as well as this latest term and it will be at least November next year before he is allowed out. I can only hope this is the last time he is 'banged up'."
Coun Lloyd said he'd offered Ricky a job with his firm but Ricky had got into trouble before he had chance to take up the position.
Birmingham Mail
[A bit too much sympathy in that article for our liking. Read this and this to get a better perspective on the Lloyds]
Ricky Lloyd, 20-year-old son of Tipton councillor Jim Lloyd, took his mother's car just 18 days after being released on licence after previously being given three years' detention for attempted robbery. Coun Lloyd, who represents Princes End, admitted today he was "tearing his hair out" over his son but hoped that this latest sentence would help him finally see the light.
Wolverhampton Crown Court was told that Lloyd drove the car at more than 60 miles an hour in a 40mph limit. The court heard that Lloyd, who has been in trouble with the police since the age of 14 and has been branded one of the most prolific offenders in Sandwell, ignored red lights and swerved into the middle of the road while being pursued by police.
Recorder Peter Cooke told Lloyd he had shown a "cavalier disregard" for the safety of other people.
The court was told that Lloyd took his mother Sandra's car from outside the family home in High Street, Princes End, Tipton, at 1am on March 16. Lloyd admitted dangerous driving and driving while disqualified. He was given six months detention and banned from driving for two years.
Coun Lloyd, opening his heart [oh please] to the Black Country Mail today, said that Ricky, who will be 21 in October and will then be moved to an adult prison, did not have a driving licence and had driven to Brierley Hill to pick up a friend when he was spotted by CCTV cameras.
"Ricky committed the latest sentence while on an 18-month licence for the previous offence of attempted robbery. He will probably now have to serve the rest of the earlier sentence as well as this latest term and it will be at least November next year before he is allowed out. I can only hope this is the last time he is 'banged up'."
Coun Lloyd said he'd offered Ricky a job with his firm but Ricky had got into trouble before he had chance to take up the position.
Birmingham Mail
[A bit too much sympathy in that article for our liking. Read this and this to get a better perspective on the Lloyds]
June 26, 2007
Solidarity - an email update from the Vice-President Tim Hawke
Following all the fuss around the BNP's fake union Solidarity and the two articles we produced over the past few days (here and here), we have now received an email from Solidarity Vice-President Tim Hawke that attempts to put the record straight(ish). We provide the whole thing to keep you up to date with the apparent chaos that surrounds anything the BNP organises or Nick Griffin gets his sticky little mitts on.Dear Sir / Madam
I have recently been informed that the internal activities of our union have been brought to your attention.
Since the events have been aired in public, may I set a few issues straight. On the 20th May 2007 during an Executive Committee Meeting in London, Mr Potter (who is in my opinion a man of great integrity) expressed his deep concerns regarding the financial clarity of the accounts. Mr Harrington refused to provide the accounts in details, even though the requests for these went back a month or more and so stated that he would begin the process of an investigation. Harrington refused this but I agreed. The minutes will confirm this – there’s your quorum 2-1 approved
On the 3rd of June Mr Potter requested that I to attend a Special Executive Meeting in Liverpool (such meetings do not require a quorum within the constitution) and Mr Harrington was suspended. A member with considerable union experience and who has been a member since Feb 2007 (the Membership and his membership card number will confirm this) agreed to head the Investigation due to his impartial status and was chosen as the Acting General Secretary, however he has made it clear that he would abstain from voting on any issue regarding Mr Harrington and that he views his role as temporary.
Regardless of the hype, myself and Mr Potter have driven this union with the genuine intention of fighting for the workers of this country who are being exploited on a daily basis, the rich poor divide is widening but the current unions (in my opinion) have neglected that struggles that I personally witness regularly onsite,
Our core 6 principles of opposition are totally genuine to me, and Mr Potter if you consider his actions. Union corruption is a terrible act of betrayal to members and I hope that you would support our activities in combating this. Be assured that the concerns are serious and that I would fight for the ending of any corrupt organisation to prevent it from spreading.
With regards to the BNP, it seems that Mr Harrington has extremely close links with its chairmen and have hatched a takeover plan before the investigation is complete – a possible sign of guilt? During the many months that I took off work to advance this union, I met many decent BNP members including Mr Potter and would hope that it was understood that most members are good people just wanting what’s best for their nearest and dearest.
Once the investigation is complete we should all know more, but the certification office are investigating due to our contacting them, however if others wish to do so then they have our full support.
Yours truly,
Tim Hawke
Vice-President of Solidarity
P.S. A members bulletin will be dispatched shortly informing them of the situation, what a shame that this could not have been done in a more professional manner
Although we clearly will not agree with Mr Hawke over the integrity of Solidarity or anyone involved in it, we thank him for emailing us to let us know the current situation as he sees it.
One point that we think is worth making is that it's our belief, based on advice we've received from a couple of different and trusted sources in the past few days, that by refusing to hand over the disputed accounts, Harrington is apparently acting illegally.
We wonder if Solidarity is considering any legal action to obtain these accounts before the BNP forces an Extraordinary General Meeting and puts a stop to any investigation, which it certainly will if given half a chance?
Rise: London United steps up the fight against racism
The importance of the fight against racism to London’s success will be demonstrated next month with a free anti-racist festival in Finsbury Park featuring acts from around the world – and the festival will move east the day before to join local people in Barking and Dagenham.
The Rise: London United festival will take place in Finsbury Park on Sunday 15 July, organised by the Mayor of London in conjunction with the Trades Union Congress and National Assembly Against Racism, and with acts including Kelis, Saint Etienne and the Skatalites.
On Saturday 14 July, Rise will host a stage in the Dagenham Town Show.
Acts confirmed for the main stage at Finsbury Park include US star KELIS; SAINT ETIENNE; Jamaican ska legends the SKATALITES; British trio NOISETTES; rising hip hop artist K'NAAN, who won the Best Newcomer section of the BBC World Music Awards; and three time MOBO award winner JAMELIA.
The festival will also see performers including UK Beatboxing champion BEARDYMAN; FRANKIE PAUL, the multi-instrumentalist singer who has been called the Jamaican Stevie Wonder; JAZZIE B (SOUL II SOUL) AND ASHLEY BEEDLE (X-PRESS 2) on the DJ Bus, alongside TROJAN SOUNDSYSTEM DJs.
Among those performing as part of the Rise stage at the Dagenham Town Show on Saturday 14 July will be award-winning UK rapper SWAY and NEILS CHILDREN, whose current release is 'You Didn't Care'.
Mayor Ken Livingstone said: 'London's success depends on the international character of our city and London’s fortunes are tied up with our stand against racism and prejudice. Fighting racism is a daily fight and a political priority for our city and the Rise: London United festival is a clear statement of that fact.
'Linking up with the Dagenham Town Show this year will mean many more Londoners can come together to for a great day out, demonstrating that they reject the politics of hate.'
MP for Dagenham Jon Cruddas said: 'We're delighted that Rise is coming to Dagenham. As well as being a great day out it provides a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the wonderful diversity of our city. It sends out powerful messages too - that we are happy and proud to live in a multicultural city and that racism will not be tolerated in our communities.'
Milena Buyum, National Assembly Against Racism, said: 'The Rise festival is a fantastic counterblast to those arguing that multiculturalism doesn't work. It vibrantly demonstrates that the idea that people need to give up visible cultural or religious difference to successfully live, work and play together is a nonsense. The festival's enormous popularity is testament to Londoners’ overwhelming support for celebrating diversity and opposing racism and division.'
Megan Dobney, Regional Secretary of SERTUC (the TUC in London, the South East and East of England) said: 'We are delighted to take part in the 2007 Rise festival. As well as celebrating the diversity of both our city and our membership, London's trade unions will demonstrate our opposition to racism, fascism and all forms of discrimination. And this year SERTUC is launching union city – we’ll be round the DJ Bus, with mural painting, and a bar – if you're a union member come and visit us, if you're not, come and join us!'
LISTINGS INFORMATION
Event: Rise: London United
Location: Finsbury Park, London N4
Date: Sunday 15 July 2007
Time: 12pm – 8:30pm
Entry: FREE EVENT
Public information: www.risefestival.org / 020 7983 6554
Event: Rise: East
Location: Dagenham Town Show, Central Park, Wood Lane, Dagenham, RM10 7EJ
Date: Saturday 14 July 2007
Time: 4pm - 8pm (festival runs 11am-8pm)
Entry: FREE EVENT
Public information: www.risefestival.org / 020 7983 6554
The Rise: London United festival will take place in Finsbury Park on Sunday 15 July, organised by the Mayor of London in conjunction with the Trades Union Congress and National Assembly Against Racism, and with acts including Kelis, Saint Etienne and the Skatalites.
On Saturday 14 July, Rise will host a stage in the Dagenham Town Show.
Acts confirmed for the main stage at Finsbury Park include US star KELIS; SAINT ETIENNE; Jamaican ska legends the SKATALITES; British trio NOISETTES; rising hip hop artist K'NAAN, who won the Best Newcomer section of the BBC World Music Awards; and three time MOBO award winner JAMELIA.
The festival will also see performers including UK Beatboxing champion BEARDYMAN; FRANKIE PAUL, the multi-instrumentalist singer who has been called the Jamaican Stevie Wonder; JAZZIE B (SOUL II SOUL) AND ASHLEY BEEDLE (X-PRESS 2) on the DJ Bus, alongside TROJAN SOUNDSYSTEM DJs.
Among those performing as part of the Rise stage at the Dagenham Town Show on Saturday 14 July will be award-winning UK rapper SWAY and NEILS CHILDREN, whose current release is 'You Didn't Care'.
Mayor Ken Livingstone said: 'London's success depends on the international character of our city and London’s fortunes are tied up with our stand against racism and prejudice. Fighting racism is a daily fight and a political priority for our city and the Rise: London United festival is a clear statement of that fact.
'Linking up with the Dagenham Town Show this year will mean many more Londoners can come together to for a great day out, demonstrating that they reject the politics of hate.'
MP for Dagenham Jon Cruddas said: 'We're delighted that Rise is coming to Dagenham. As well as being a great day out it provides a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the wonderful diversity of our city. It sends out powerful messages too - that we are happy and proud to live in a multicultural city and that racism will not be tolerated in our communities.'
Milena Buyum, National Assembly Against Racism, said: 'The Rise festival is a fantastic counterblast to those arguing that multiculturalism doesn't work. It vibrantly demonstrates that the idea that people need to give up visible cultural or religious difference to successfully live, work and play together is a nonsense. The festival's enormous popularity is testament to Londoners’ overwhelming support for celebrating diversity and opposing racism and division.'
Megan Dobney, Regional Secretary of SERTUC (the TUC in London, the South East and East of England) said: 'We are delighted to take part in the 2007 Rise festival. As well as celebrating the diversity of both our city and our membership, London's trade unions will demonstrate our opposition to racism, fascism and all forms of discrimination. And this year SERTUC is launching union city – we’ll be round the DJ Bus, with mural painting, and a bar – if you're a union member come and visit us, if you're not, come and join us!'
LISTINGS INFORMATION
Event: Rise: London United
Location: Finsbury Park, London N4
Date: Sunday 15 July 2007
Time: 12pm – 8:30pm
Entry: FREE EVENT
Public information: www.risefestival.org / 020 7983 6554
Event: Rise: East
Location: Dagenham Town Show, Central Park, Wood Lane, Dagenham, RM10 7EJ
Date: Saturday 14 July 2007
Time: 4pm - 8pm (festival runs 11am-8pm)
Entry: FREE EVENT
Public information: www.risefestival.org / 020 7983 6554
June 25, 2007
BNP's Solidarity situation worsens - fake union under threat
The BNP's fake-union Solidarity appears close to collapse after the apparent suspension of the General Secretary Patrick Harrington.
Harrington, formerly involved with the National Front, was allegedly suspended from his duties as General Secretary of the BNP-allied union pending an investigation into accusations of financial irregularities.
Information supplied to Lancaster UAF suggests that Harrington has refused to cooperate with the investigation by refusing to disclose details of the Solidarity accounts. Indeed, he appears to have gone a few steps further, blocking access to the union's Paypal account which we're told, has all the membership money tucked away in it - prompting threats of legal action unless the money is forthcoming.
The Executive Committee of Solidarity, which now appears to consist only of Clive Potter (President) and Tim Hawke (Vice-President), have taken action after Hawke refused to sign the first year accounts (required by the Certification Authority before, we gather, making Solidarity a bona fide union) after becoming aware of the 'irregularities', prompting the BNP to go into automatic blame the reds mode, claiming that Solidarity had been the subject of a far-left sabotage bid. Rubbish of course, but pretty much what you'd expect from the corrupt and single-minded BNP.
We were supplied with a further communication allegedly sent to all members from the Executive Committee. This communication, while interesting in itself, had other interesting information contained within it.
'In a last ditch attempt to prevent the investigation from coming to light, Mr Harrington contacted the Host Provider of the website (a past friend of his) and has replaced the website with his own. He is currently misleading members into the believe [sic] that he is the Leader of the union, however this is not the case and we ask members to be patient with us.'
This presumably is a reference to Calvary Church School bomber Lambertus Neiuwhof, who apparently now runs most of the BNP's web-based operations now through his company Vidronic Online. There's more about the truly despicable Neiuwhof and his connections with the BNP and its subsidiaries here and here.
Accusations and counter-accusations are flying about in all directions. Harrington (assuming that the note we have received really is from Harrington) has responded to his suspension by claiming breach of the Data Protection Act (though he then breaches the Act himself by giving some personal details of one of his accusers which must have come straight off the membership list), complaining about his 'unconstitutional' removal from office and making another call for an Extraordinary General Meeting to increase the Executive Committee of the union to seven members, mostly BNP-nominated, thus giving control over completely to the party. He then takes on the tried and tested 'sabotage' defence but rather than us having to dissect it all, here it is for you to read and nod off to;
'A malicious email is being circulated which I understand you have been sent a copy of. First, let me apologise to you that personal information that you supplied to our Union is being misused in this way. I will be making every effort to ascertain who has supplied this information and whether they have committed offences under the Data Protection Act.
An unconstitutional attempt is unfortunately being made by two members of our Executive, Clive Potter and Tim Hawke, to remove me as General Secretary of our Union. A secret meeting was held in which they appointed a William McLinden both a 'Special Investigator' and 'Acting General Secretary'. Our Constitution is available on our Website. You will see that for Executive meeting to be quorate all three members must be present (strangely, I was not invited!). As I was not present any purported decisions are unconstitutional. Additionally our Constitution states that the General Secretary will remain in post so long as he satisfies the majority of members. Mr McLinden has been a member of our Union for little more than a few weeks. When he joined he provided a Liverpool Street address but a North Cheshire telephone number. His actions since joining have been factional and disruptive. Investigations regarding Mr McLinden are ongoing.
I am supporting calls for an Emergency General Meeting on 14 July so that our members can decide themselves who has acted wrongly and who should lead our Union forward.
The principal political backers of our Union - Third Way and the British National Party - have published statements on their website backing me and calling for an EGM. So determined are they that the Union should be secured that they are mounting an email recruitment campaign this week which has already resulted in a surge of new memberships.
Reference is made in the email to allegations made against me. I have requested details of any allegations but these have yet to be provided. Our first year accounts were prepared by a professional firm of accountants. They were audited by a Barrister and Kenny Smith (head of BNP admin) as lay auditors. They were shown all bank statements and receipts. Once submitted to the Certification Officer these will be published on our website and circulated to members. The second year accounts are currently being prepared and will then go through the same process. As Union finances are subject to many legal checks there should be no room for such unfounded allegations.
I am acting in my role as Treasurer of the Union. I am concerned that the financial information of our members is kept confidential. As I bear legal responsibility (currently) under our Constitution I intend to ensure that everything is done properly. I have no intention of handing over control whilst remaining legally liable.
Anyone who uses PayPal will know how it works. All transaction details are automatically recorded. These will form part of our accounts. Membership payments come in, a PayPal fee is deducted and money transferred (once it reaches a reasonable level) to our main Union bank account.
I have suggested, however, that due to my heavy workload in other areas the Executive should be expanded to seven and that a specific post of Treasurer should be created. This would allow me to concentrate on writing and representing our members at grievances, disciplinaries and tribunals. I have pointed out that under the current constitution the responsibilities of the GS are onerous (particularly for a voluntary worker). I look forward to handing over my financial responsibilities to the new Treasurer!
I believe a deliberate attempt is being made to disrupt our Union on a large-scale. This is aimed at preventing a major recruitment campaign that was planned and sabotaging the submission of our first year accounts (a legal requirement). The wreckers have even threatened to call for our Union to be de-registered. I am determined that this will fail. I will take all necessary steps to safeguard our Union pending the decisions of our membership at the EGM. Our website has been secured and I will move to secure other vital areas in co-operation with the wide team of members who have rallied to defend our Union.
When the EGM is held the members alone will decide who has acted wrongly and who has been true. I urge you to continue your support.
If you receive any further malicious communications please copy them to me as I will be looking actively at how those responsible can best be called to account.'
We draw your attention to the line we have highlighted in bold above: 'The wreckers have even threatened to call for our Union to be de-registered.' So have we and we will continue to ask trades unionists to investigate the process of any such move and take action through their unions immediately.
Harrington, formerly involved with the National Front, was allegedly suspended from his duties as General Secretary of the BNP-allied union pending an investigation into accusations of financial irregularities.
Information supplied to Lancaster UAF suggests that Harrington has refused to cooperate with the investigation by refusing to disclose details of the Solidarity accounts. Indeed, he appears to have gone a few steps further, blocking access to the union's Paypal account which we're told, has all the membership money tucked away in it - prompting threats of legal action unless the money is forthcoming.
The Executive Committee of Solidarity, which now appears to consist only of Clive Potter (President) and Tim Hawke (Vice-President), have taken action after Hawke refused to sign the first year accounts (required by the Certification Authority before, we gather, making Solidarity a bona fide union) after becoming aware of the 'irregularities', prompting the BNP to go into automatic blame the reds mode, claiming that Solidarity had been the subject of a far-left sabotage bid. Rubbish of course, but pretty much what you'd expect from the corrupt and single-minded BNP.
We were supplied with a further communication allegedly sent to all members from the Executive Committee. This communication, while interesting in itself, had other interesting information contained within it.
'In a last ditch attempt to prevent the investigation from coming to light, Mr Harrington contacted the Host Provider of the website (a past friend of his) and has replaced the website with his own. He is currently misleading members into the believe [sic] that he is the Leader of the union, however this is not the case and we ask members to be patient with us.'
This presumably is a reference to Calvary Church School bomber Lambertus Neiuwhof, who apparently now runs most of the BNP's web-based operations now through his company Vidronic Online. There's more about the truly despicable Neiuwhof and his connections with the BNP and its subsidiaries here and here.
Accusations and counter-accusations are flying about in all directions. Harrington (assuming that the note we have received really is from Harrington) has responded to his suspension by claiming breach of the Data Protection Act (though he then breaches the Act himself by giving some personal details of one of his accusers which must have come straight off the membership list), complaining about his 'unconstitutional' removal from office and making another call for an Extraordinary General Meeting to increase the Executive Committee of the union to seven members, mostly BNP-nominated, thus giving control over completely to the party. He then takes on the tried and tested 'sabotage' defence but rather than us having to dissect it all, here it is for you to read and nod off to;
'A malicious email is being circulated which I understand you have been sent a copy of. First, let me apologise to you that personal information that you supplied to our Union is being misused in this way. I will be making every effort to ascertain who has supplied this information and whether they have committed offences under the Data Protection Act.
An unconstitutional attempt is unfortunately being made by two members of our Executive, Clive Potter and Tim Hawke, to remove me as General Secretary of our Union. A secret meeting was held in which they appointed a William McLinden both a 'Special Investigator' and 'Acting General Secretary'. Our Constitution is available on our Website. You will see that for Executive meeting to be quorate all three members must be present (strangely, I was not invited!). As I was not present any purported decisions are unconstitutional. Additionally our Constitution states that the General Secretary will remain in post so long as he satisfies the majority of members. Mr McLinden has been a member of our Union for little more than a few weeks. When he joined he provided a Liverpool Street address but a North Cheshire telephone number. His actions since joining have been factional and disruptive. Investigations regarding Mr McLinden are ongoing.
I am supporting calls for an Emergency General Meeting on 14 July so that our members can decide themselves who has acted wrongly and who should lead our Union forward.
The principal political backers of our Union - Third Way and the British National Party - have published statements on their website backing me and calling for an EGM. So determined are they that the Union should be secured that they are mounting an email recruitment campaign this week which has already resulted in a surge of new memberships.
Reference is made in the email to allegations made against me. I have requested details of any allegations but these have yet to be provided. Our first year accounts were prepared by a professional firm of accountants. They were audited by a Barrister and Kenny Smith (head of BNP admin) as lay auditors. They were shown all bank statements and receipts. Once submitted to the Certification Officer these will be published on our website and circulated to members. The second year accounts are currently being prepared and will then go through the same process. As Union finances are subject to many legal checks there should be no room for such unfounded allegations.
I am acting in my role as Treasurer of the Union. I am concerned that the financial information of our members is kept confidential. As I bear legal responsibility (currently) under our Constitution I intend to ensure that everything is done properly. I have no intention of handing over control whilst remaining legally liable.
Anyone who uses PayPal will know how it works. All transaction details are automatically recorded. These will form part of our accounts. Membership payments come in, a PayPal fee is deducted and money transferred (once it reaches a reasonable level) to our main Union bank account.
I have suggested, however, that due to my heavy workload in other areas the Executive should be expanded to seven and that a specific post of Treasurer should be created. This would allow me to concentrate on writing and representing our members at grievances, disciplinaries and tribunals. I have pointed out that under the current constitution the responsibilities of the GS are onerous (particularly for a voluntary worker). I look forward to handing over my financial responsibilities to the new Treasurer!
I believe a deliberate attempt is being made to disrupt our Union on a large-scale. This is aimed at preventing a major recruitment campaign that was planned and sabotaging the submission of our first year accounts (a legal requirement). The wreckers have even threatened to call for our Union to be de-registered. I am determined that this will fail. I will take all necessary steps to safeguard our Union pending the decisions of our membership at the EGM. Our website has been secured and I will move to secure other vital areas in co-operation with the wide team of members who have rallied to defend our Union.
When the EGM is held the members alone will decide who has acted wrongly and who has been true. I urge you to continue your support.
If you receive any further malicious communications please copy them to me as I will be looking actively at how those responsible can best be called to account.'
We draw your attention to the line we have highlighted in bold above: 'The wreckers have even threatened to call for our Union to be de-registered.' So have we and we will continue to ask trades unionists to investigate the process of any such move and take action through their unions immediately.
June 24, 2007
Union backing for BNP-row teacher
A teacher suspended for accessing right-wing political material on the internet during school time has become the victim of a "kangaroo court", his union has claimed.
Mark Walker may now take legal action against education chiefs after his headteacher allowed a separate teaching union - Unison - to hold an anti-fascist meeting on its premises last Monday. The union sent letters to members of staff urging them to attend in opposition to "fascist infiltration" of schools. Though not naming Mr Walker - a BNP council candidate - he is indirectly referred to as a "teacher currently suspended" and the letter states that teaching unions support "action being taken" against him.
We revealed last week how Mr Walker, 36, was suspended from Sunnydale School in Shildon, County Durham, in February after checks showed he had used school computers to look at right-wing websites during teaching time. No other disciplinary action has been taken and he still hopes to be reinstated to his job.
Meanwhile, his brother Adam, 38, has quit his teaching job at Houghton Kepier foundation school in Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, after he was also found to have accessed right-wing websites on the school's computer.
Last week Mark's union - Solidarity - which has close links with the BNP, slammed the decision to allow the meeting to take place before the internal investigation.
General Secretary Peter Harrington [?] - who revealed that Mr Walker may consider legal action over the anti-fascist meetings - said: "It is ludicrous that a meeting against fascism was held at a school where a teacher has been suspended - we believe - for being a member of the BNP. It is like a kangaroo court, and the decision of the school is outrageous, as is the stand taken by the unions. Whatever one's personal view of the BNP, it is a legal political organisation which has been sanctioned by the state. Under the Human Rights Act he is allowed freedom of political expression. It is no coincidence that computers he had used - and not those of other teachers - were checked by the school authorities."
The National Union of Teachers - which had backed Mr Walker - is understood to have withdrawn its support. Neither the school's headteacher nor Durham County Council were prepared to comment. Our calls to Unison were not returned.
Sunday Sun (Newcastle)
Mark Walker may now take legal action against education chiefs after his headteacher allowed a separate teaching union - Unison - to hold an anti-fascist meeting on its premises last Monday. The union sent letters to members of staff urging them to attend in opposition to "fascist infiltration" of schools. Though not naming Mr Walker - a BNP council candidate - he is indirectly referred to as a "teacher currently suspended" and the letter states that teaching unions support "action being taken" against him.
We revealed last week how Mr Walker, 36, was suspended from Sunnydale School in Shildon, County Durham, in February after checks showed he had used school computers to look at right-wing websites during teaching time. No other disciplinary action has been taken and he still hopes to be reinstated to his job.
Meanwhile, his brother Adam, 38, has quit his teaching job at Houghton Kepier foundation school in Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, after he was also found to have accessed right-wing websites on the school's computer.
Last week Mark's union - Solidarity - which has close links with the BNP, slammed the decision to allow the meeting to take place before the internal investigation.
General Secretary Peter Harrington [?] - who revealed that Mr Walker may consider legal action over the anti-fascist meetings - said: "It is ludicrous that a meeting against fascism was held at a school where a teacher has been suspended - we believe - for being a member of the BNP. It is like a kangaroo court, and the decision of the school is outrageous, as is the stand taken by the unions. Whatever one's personal view of the BNP, it is a legal political organisation which has been sanctioned by the state. Under the Human Rights Act he is allowed freedom of political expression. It is no coincidence that computers he had used - and not those of other teachers - were checked by the school authorities."
The National Union of Teachers - which had backed Mr Walker - is understood to have withdrawn its support. Neither the school's headteacher nor Durham County Council were prepared to comment. Our calls to Unison were not returned.
Sunday Sun (Newcastle)
June 23, 2007
Uefa tells referee to abandon U-21 final if racist abuse erupts
Uefa is willing to have the European Under-21 Championship final abandoned if there is a repeat of the racist behaviour from Serbian supporters which marred their group match against England.
The referee Damir Skomina has been reminded that he has the power to call an instant halt to tonight's match between Serbia and Holland, while European football's governing body has warned that it will operate a policy of zero tolerance against racist behaviour.
Uefa was forced to make an anti-racism announcement during England's 2-0 win against Serbia last Sunday, when the Manchester City defender Nedum Onuoha was subjected to racist chanting and gestures from a section of supporters.
Serbia have now contacted their supporters to warn them of the possible consequences if any of Holland's black players are abused.
"They [Serbia] have gone out of their way to ensure a few idiots don't spoil the final," said Uefa's director of communications, William Gaillard. "Our president has made it clear that zero tolerance applies to the final. There is no problem for the referee to stop the game and there would be sanctions as well. We are prepared to take drastic measures. We hope it won't come to that but we are ready. This is supposed to be a celebration of football and we will not tolerate any racism."
The Dutch are concerned that the tournament could be overshadowed by the issue of racism while their coach, Foppe de Haan, has been quoted as describing Serbians as "a bit racist". The president of the Serbian Football Association, Zvezdan Terzic, has urged Serbian supporters to "control themselves".
Speaking to the Serbian TV station B92, he said: "For all their enthusiasm and patriotism, our fans must understand that outbursts of nationalism and racism will only cause damage to our football and our country's reputation."
Holland's captain, Ron Vlaar, will miss the final after a knee ligament strain and is likely to be replaced by Arnold Kruiswijk. The defender limped off during Wednesday's semi-final against England which ended in a 13-12 penalty shoot-out win.
Guardian
The referee Damir Skomina has been reminded that he has the power to call an instant halt to tonight's match between Serbia and Holland, while European football's governing body has warned that it will operate a policy of zero tolerance against racist behaviour.
Uefa was forced to make an anti-racism announcement during England's 2-0 win against Serbia last Sunday, when the Manchester City defender Nedum Onuoha was subjected to racist chanting and gestures from a section of supporters.
Serbia have now contacted their supporters to warn them of the possible consequences if any of Holland's black players are abused.
"They [Serbia] have gone out of their way to ensure a few idiots don't spoil the final," said Uefa's director of communications, William Gaillard. "Our president has made it clear that zero tolerance applies to the final. There is no problem for the referee to stop the game and there would be sanctions as well. We are prepared to take drastic measures. We hope it won't come to that but we are ready. This is supposed to be a celebration of football and we will not tolerate any racism."
The Dutch are concerned that the tournament could be overshadowed by the issue of racism while their coach, Foppe de Haan, has been quoted as describing Serbians as "a bit racist". The president of the Serbian Football Association, Zvezdan Terzic, has urged Serbian supporters to "control themselves".
Speaking to the Serbian TV station B92, he said: "For all their enthusiasm and patriotism, our fans must understand that outbursts of nationalism and racism will only cause damage to our football and our country's reputation."
Holland's captain, Ron Vlaar, will miss the final after a knee ligament strain and is likely to be replaced by Arnold Kruiswijk. The defender limped off during Wednesday's semi-final against England which ended in a 13-12 penalty shoot-out win.
Guardian
Sick yobs daub Nazi slogans on D Day veteran's house
War hero Arnold Holland was devastated after yobs daubed his home with swastikas and the words 'Nazi'.Arnold, 85, a torpedo man with the Royal Navy throughout World War Two, survived but saw friends die as he protected vital convoys for the war effort. And yesterday he said : "I wonder now if it was all worth it. To have swastikas and 'Nazi' painted on my home is the final insult to someone who fought against Hitler and all he stood for. The ignorant idiots who did are even so ill-educated they don't even know which way the swastika emblem goes they painted it on the wrong way round." The graffiti is the latest attack on the home where Arnold lives with Annie, 84, his wife of 64 years who was born in the house in Normanton Springs, Sheffield.
And so far police have been unable to trace the vandals despite a series of incidents including: bitumen daubed on windows, breeze blocks hurled through windows, false adverts being placed saying the house is for sale.
But with angina, arthritis, only one lung and extremely severe digestion problems frail Arnold feels he can't bear to begin the latest clean-up operation.
He said: "We just don't know where to turn any more. We are in our eighties we shouldn't have to live like this, It's terrible and it's making us ill. I don't know why we are being picked on. We've lived here since we were married and until the last few years there was never any problem. But we can't put up with this all the time. We're really at the end of our tether. These people are just cowards who come in the night and do the damage. I don't know what they are trying to achieve."
Added Annie: "We rely on the law but it doesn't seem to get any better. We are just so fed up and now the swastikas are there for everybody to see."
Inspector Colin Mcfarlane of South Yorkshire Police said: "This is a serious matter and we are currently pursuing all possible lines of enquiry to identify the persons responsible. We are urging anyone who knows who is responsible to come forward."
Daily Mail
June 22, 2007
BNP's fake union Solidarity already up against the ropes
Potter, Lee and WalkerCoup d'etat or power-struggle at Solidarity?
A report that has appeared on the BNP website reveals that the fake union set up by the party is already in trouble and seems likely to go the same way as all the other ventures the BNP has ever been involved in, like Nick Griffin's washout of a money-spinner Affordable Cars and the Albion Life insurance scam.
The source of the problem is that, according to the BNP, 'an unconstitutional attempt has been made to remove General Secretary Pat Harrington from his position'. Harrington has something of a fine union pedigree - he was expelled from the RMT. He was also one of the National Front's 'political soldiers' in the late 1980s alongside Nick Griffin. Other BNP activists involved in the project include Jay Lee, who was recently booted out of Aslef, and John Walker, the BNP's national treasurer, who has had his own troubles with the T&G. Clive Potter, the possible President of Solidarity is a long-time BNP activist from Leicester, who was expelled from Unison for improper conduct. Potter is still listed as President on Solidarity's homepage though it was our understanding that he had been ousted months ago. More info on this point would be appreciated.
The BNP produces its usual kneejerk response to problems in the ranks, blaming any difficulties on somebody else, usually 'reds'. In this case, the party goes into overdrive, claiming that 'Solidarity has been the subject of a far-left sabotage bid, involving several individuals working as a team' and that the bid to boot the useless Harrington out of office 'and to replace him with an unknown individual from Merseyside whose involvement in the BNP has extended to just a few weeks...the local organiser and activists concluded from his behaviour that he could well be a Marxist agent provocateur'.
However, the real problem is made apparent in the next section of the article - and regular readers of this blog will recognise it straight away as a problem that seems to exist wherever the BNP sticks its corporate nose in.
'...Tim Hawke [Solidarity Vice-President] continues to refuse to sign first year accounts so that these can be submitted to the Certification Officer in time. This is despite the fact that the accounts were prepared by an accountant and have been independently and professionally audited by a Barrister and Kenny Smith (head of BNP admin).'
Yes indeed. The BNP - or rather one of its many subsidiaries, is in financial trouble (again). There is really only one reason for not signing accounts off and that is that you do not believe that they are a true statement of the financial affairs of the stated organisation. Clearly, Tim Hawke has doubts about either their accuracy or possibly their legality, and it wouldn't be the first time that a treasurer or someone connected with the financial side of a BNP venture has balked at leaving themselves open to litigation by signing off on a load of rubbish - at least a couple of treasurers have been booted out after doing the same thing.
One of the 'purposes' listed for the formation of Solidarity was to avoid what the BNP interpreted as union corruption. Its statement on formation clearly says; 'We want independent unions that are fully accountable to its members whose finances are transparent...' by which one assumes it to mean the organisation's finances are transparent and not the member's finances, although that's certainly open to doubt.
To get around the problem of awkward people inconveniently refusing to sign dodgy accounts, the BNP proposes to call an Emergency General Meeting to completely subvert the democracy it claims to uphold and increase the size of the Executive from the current three, presumably Harrington, Potter and Hawke, to seven, the additional four being one from Third Way (Harrington's current political affiliation) and a vote-winning three from the BNP. This would ensure that, no matter what dubious transactions take place and no matter what goes on that the members are kept unaware of, all decisions will be made by the patently corrupt BNP and the very co-operative Pat Harrington, Nick Griffin's buddy from the old days.
Under Item 14(a) of the present constitution of the fake union, 'The Executive Committee may suspend or dismiss any Solidarity officer in cases of misconduct. It has the power to remove any incompetent or insubordinate Branch or Regional Officer.'
It looks like Tim Hawke has had it then.
It also looks like the BNP is attempting to retain complete control over the union - which is certainly not the impression the party was trying to make when it first set the whole thing up - presumably because if it ever takes off (which it never will) it'll make pots of money, most of which will be siphoned off to the nearest handy pockets. These accounts, along with membership numbers, should make interesting reading - if they're ever allowed to appear and, of course, if they're accurate.
The BNP and the BNP's union - democracy and accountability in action. Well, not quite.
Pupils get a glimpse into nazi past
Pupils from Woodhouse High School saw history bought to life during a harrowing trip to the former concentration camp at Auschwitz.
Staffordshire County Council issued an open invitation to sixth form students to take part in the Lessons from Auschwitz project, run by the Holocaust Educational Trust charity. A total of 32 pupils from schools across the county took part, flying to Poland for a one-day visit to Auschwitz Birkenau.
Roger Emmett, history adviser for the county council's School Improvement Division, said:
"This was an important opportunity which we felt should not be missed, hence our invitation to schools to participate. Students and staff attended a seminar in London for a talk from a person who survived incarceration at Auschwitz Birkenau. Her story was a powerful one and really brought to life the horrors of the camp."
Tamworth Herald
Staffordshire County Council issued an open invitation to sixth form students to take part in the Lessons from Auschwitz project, run by the Holocaust Educational Trust charity. A total of 32 pupils from schools across the county took part, flying to Poland for a one-day visit to Auschwitz Birkenau.
Roger Emmett, history adviser for the county council's School Improvement Division, said:
"This was an important opportunity which we felt should not be missed, hence our invitation to schools to participate. Students and staff attended a seminar in London for a talk from a person who survived incarceration at Auschwitz Birkenau. Her story was a powerful one and really brought to life the horrors of the camp."
Tamworth Herald
Anger at EU talks as Germany hit by Nazi jibes
Talks on a treaty to replace the European Constitution got off to an angry start last night, after Poland launched an astonishing verbal attack on Germany over its Nazi past and Tony Blair threatened to walk away from the negotiations.
European Union leaders have gathered in Brussels hoping to agree an amended form of the constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2004.
But the new form of the document is proving intensely controversial, particularly its proposals to change member states' voting weights and enshrine a "Charter of Fundamental Rights" in European law.
Many major British employers fear that the charter would give their workers new rights to strike, and Mr Blair yesterday signalled he was ready to "walk away from a deal" that gives the charter legal force in Britain.
That is one of the four "red lines" Britain laid down before the talks began. Mr Blair also said he would refuse any move to extend EU powers over UK policy in foreign affairs, criminal justice or social security.
Arriving in Brussels for his last EU summit before stepping down as Prime Minister next Wednesday, Mr Blair predicted "tough negotiations".
He said: "We have laid down four areas where we have to have significant change and we will have to see that change - it will have to be done. The four areas we set down we do need satisfied in full."
Mr Blair's insistence on Britain's demands being met "in full" infuriated other EU leaders, who believe Britain must be ready to compromise. Jose Manual Barroso, the European Commission President, yesterday said Mr Blair was not being "sensible" about the talks.
But if Britain's position is generating tension in Brussels, it is a minor row compared to Poland's spectacular rhetorical offensive.
The draft treaty would revise the EU's decision-making process with a new voting system giving countries power according to their population.
That would reduce the power of Poland - which has 38 million people - at the expense of Germany, which has 82 million. The Polish government has reacted with fury to the proposal, threatening to veto a new treaty and badly straining relations with the German government, which is chairing the Brussels talks.
As part of the escalating war of words over voting reforms, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Polish prime minister, broke the greatest taboo of the modern EU by raising Germany's actions in the war.
Poland lost 6.5 million people during the Second World War, more than a fifth of its population.
Mr Kaczynski said that death toll explains the size of his country's population today. "We are only demanding one thing - we get back what was taken from us. If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would today be looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million. Germans inflicted unimaginable injury, terrible harm on Poles, incomprehensible crimes."
Despite that painful history, he claimed, "Poles like Germans, while Germans do not like Poles".
The origins of the modern EU lie in an attempt to reconcile Germany with its wartime enemies, and even to mention the conflict is almost unthinkable to many EU officials.
Publicly, the German government did not respond to the Polish provocation. As the summit began, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said: "Each country will be taken very seriously as regards their concerns."
But privately, German officials were stunned by the verbal assault. "This just shows the character of the man," said one. Another accused Mr Kaczynski of seeking "confrontation".
Other EU nations also criticised the Poles. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, described the Polish position as "absurd" and Romania called the comments "a step backwards".
After the summit's acrimonious start, diplomats were last night resigned to the talks dragging on into the early hours of tomorrow morning.
Scotsman
European Union leaders have gathered in Brussels hoping to agree an amended form of the constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2004.
But the new form of the document is proving intensely controversial, particularly its proposals to change member states' voting weights and enshrine a "Charter of Fundamental Rights" in European law.
Many major British employers fear that the charter would give their workers new rights to strike, and Mr Blair yesterday signalled he was ready to "walk away from a deal" that gives the charter legal force in Britain.
That is one of the four "red lines" Britain laid down before the talks began. Mr Blair also said he would refuse any move to extend EU powers over UK policy in foreign affairs, criminal justice or social security.
Arriving in Brussels for his last EU summit before stepping down as Prime Minister next Wednesday, Mr Blair predicted "tough negotiations".
He said: "We have laid down four areas where we have to have significant change and we will have to see that change - it will have to be done. The four areas we set down we do need satisfied in full."
Mr Blair's insistence on Britain's demands being met "in full" infuriated other EU leaders, who believe Britain must be ready to compromise. Jose Manual Barroso, the European Commission President, yesterday said Mr Blair was not being "sensible" about the talks.
But if Britain's position is generating tension in Brussels, it is a minor row compared to Poland's spectacular rhetorical offensive.
The draft treaty would revise the EU's decision-making process with a new voting system giving countries power according to their population.
That would reduce the power of Poland - which has 38 million people - at the expense of Germany, which has 82 million. The Polish government has reacted with fury to the proposal, threatening to veto a new treaty and badly straining relations with the German government, which is chairing the Brussels talks.
As part of the escalating war of words over voting reforms, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Polish prime minister, broke the greatest taboo of the modern EU by raising Germany's actions in the war.
Poland lost 6.5 million people during the Second World War, more than a fifth of its population.
Mr Kaczynski said that death toll explains the size of his country's population today. "We are only demanding one thing - we get back what was taken from us. If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would today be looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million. Germans inflicted unimaginable injury, terrible harm on Poles, incomprehensible crimes."
Despite that painful history, he claimed, "Poles like Germans, while Germans do not like Poles".
The origins of the modern EU lie in an attempt to reconcile Germany with its wartime enemies, and even to mention the conflict is almost unthinkable to many EU officials.
Publicly, the German government did not respond to the Polish provocation. As the summit began, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said: "Each country will be taken very seriously as regards their concerns."
But privately, German officials were stunned by the verbal assault. "This just shows the character of the man," said one. Another accused Mr Kaczynski of seeking "confrontation".
Other EU nations also criticised the Poles. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, described the Polish position as "absurd" and Romania called the comments "a step backwards".
After the summit's acrimonious start, diplomats were last night resigned to the talks dragging on into the early hours of tomorrow morning.
Scotsman
June 21, 2007
Hatewatch for the week of June 21st 2007
Tax Evaders' Property Ordered to be Sold
While their tense stand-off with authorities continues, a judge ordered Edward and Elaine Brown's property sold to satisfy a tax judgment against them.
Ex-Klansman Convicted in '64 Case
Klansman James Seale, 71, was found guilty by a federal jury of murdering two black teenagers 43 years ago in Mississippi.
White Supremacists Plan Another Knoxville Rally
Community leaders in Knoxville are bracing themselves for another round of white power demonstrations.
Alleged Neo-Nazi Pedophile Pleads Not Guilty Again
Neo-Nazi Kevin Strom maintains his innocence as evidence - and felony charges - of child pornography and sexual coercion of a child mount.
SPLC
While their tense stand-off with authorities continues, a judge ordered Edward and Elaine Brown's property sold to satisfy a tax judgment against them.
Ex-Klansman Convicted in '64 Case
Klansman James Seale, 71, was found guilty by a federal jury of murdering two black teenagers 43 years ago in Mississippi.
White Supremacists Plan Another Knoxville Rally
Community leaders in Knoxville are bracing themselves for another round of white power demonstrations.
Alleged Neo-Nazi Pedophile Pleads Not Guilty Again
Neo-Nazi Kevin Strom maintains his innocence as evidence - and felony charges - of child pornography and sexual coercion of a child mount.
SPLC
BNP's Simpkins to fight Parliamentary seat
The British National Party has announced its intention to put forward a Parliamentary candidate in Wiltshire - and has launched a bitter, personal attack on a black politician.
BNP Corsham town councillor Michael Simpkins has issued a public statement in which he lashes out at Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, the Conservative prospective Parliamentary candidate for the new Chippenham constituency.
Cllr Simpkins, who was appointed to the town council last month after nobody stood against him, also announced that he has been shortlisted by his party to contest the Chippenham seat, which covers Corsham. He is angry that Mr Emmanuel-Jones, who is popularly known as the Black Farmer and has starred in his own reality television series, joined more than 300 people who earlier this month gathered outside Corsham Town Hall to protest against the BNP.
Speaking at that protest, Mr Emmanuel-Jones said: "This isn't a racist town and they are all shocked that this guy got in by default. Everything that the BNP stands for is really not in synch with modern society and it's dangerous."
In a statement this week Cllr Simpkins, who works as a local taxi driver, criticised Conservative policies in general. Then he added: "I also find it rather hypocritical that the Tories' Wilfred Emmanuel- Jones should take it upon himself to come to my town in support of those who infer that I am a racist, a town in which he does not even live."
Mr Emmanuel-Jones was not available for comment, but a Conservative Party spokesman said: "It is a shame the BNP has resorted once more to delivering these type of base-level, inaccurate and unfounded remarks instead of concentrating on the key issues affecting residents, such as the crisis affecting the NHS and the rise in violent crime."
The BNP has repeatedly denied being a racist party. At the recent protest Cllr Simpkins said that "you couldn't find a more non- racist person than me".
The Bath Chronicle
BNP Corsham town councillor Michael Simpkins has issued a public statement in which he lashes out at Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, the Conservative prospective Parliamentary candidate for the new Chippenham constituency.
Cllr Simpkins, who was appointed to the town council last month after nobody stood against him, also announced that he has been shortlisted by his party to contest the Chippenham seat, which covers Corsham. He is angry that Mr Emmanuel-Jones, who is popularly known as the Black Farmer and has starred in his own reality television series, joined more than 300 people who earlier this month gathered outside Corsham Town Hall to protest against the BNP.
Speaking at that protest, Mr Emmanuel-Jones said: "This isn't a racist town and they are all shocked that this guy got in by default. Everything that the BNP stands for is really not in synch with modern society and it's dangerous."
In a statement this week Cllr Simpkins, who works as a local taxi driver, criticised Conservative policies in general. Then he added: "I also find it rather hypocritical that the Tories' Wilfred Emmanuel- Jones should take it upon himself to come to my town in support of those who infer that I am a racist, a town in which he does not even live."
Mr Emmanuel-Jones was not available for comment, but a Conservative Party spokesman said: "It is a shame the BNP has resorted once more to delivering these type of base-level, inaccurate and unfounded remarks instead of concentrating on the key issues affecting residents, such as the crisis affecting the NHS and the rise in violent crime."
The BNP has repeatedly denied being a racist party. At the recent protest Cllr Simpkins said that "you couldn't find a more non- racist person than me".
The Bath Chronicle
STICKY: A quick quiz for all you BNP members looking in (we know you're there)
As members of a so-called political party, you are expected to know a bit about the party hierarchy, structure and so on. Surprisingly, the BNP chooses not to tell its members very much about what goes on at any level, which is why someone was forced to ask on Stormfront a couple of days ago if Roy Goodwin had been booted out of his job after reading it here first (he has).
Given that your party squeezes as much cash as possible out of you via the high membership fees, the vast amount of tatty merchandise it tries to offload on you, its rubbishy Voice of Freedom 'newspaper' and the Red, White and Blue booze-fest and jumble sale, you might choose to wonder where all your hard-earned pennies are going. Some of these questions are pretty fundamental (like the first one) while others are just interesting (like the questions about Lee Barnes, the party's 'legal advisor').
Seventeen questions, more or less - and we defy you to answer more than two of them without having to knowingly lie.
Nick Griffin
1. How much is Nick Griffin paid per annum and how much are his expenses/travel?
2. Precisely how much does the party pay his wife, daughter, mother and father - and for what?
The rest
3. How much is the leadership team paid, per person?
Mark Collett
4. What exactly does Mark Collett do?
5. And why does the party employ a known Hitlerite and idiot?
Tony Lecomber
6. Is Tony Lecomber a member of the BNP right now?
7. Has he ever been a member of the BNP?
8. Why wasn't he thrown out after he proposed an assassination attempt?
Lee Barnes
9. Is Lee Barnes a member of the BNP?
10. Has he ever been a member of the BNP?
11. Has he really got a law degree?
Phil Edwardes
12. Has Dr Phil Edwardes actually got a doctorate?
13. If so, what is it in and where is it from?
14. And why has he got two names (Stuart Russell being the other one)?
Robert West
15. Has the insane fake-vicar Robert West resigned from the party?
Accounts
16. Where are the full accounts for Great White Records, Excalibur Promotions Ltd and the Trafalgar Club?
Security
17. Martin Reynolds is, we're told, paid more than £500 per week, which is a lot of membership fees. How much is paid for the entire security team including their Kray-twin overcoats, Raybans and bullet-proof vests?
There you go. Now let's see how many answers we get...
Given that your party squeezes as much cash as possible out of you via the high membership fees, the vast amount of tatty merchandise it tries to offload on you, its rubbishy Voice of Freedom 'newspaper' and the Red, White and Blue booze-fest and jumble sale, you might choose to wonder where all your hard-earned pennies are going. Some of these questions are pretty fundamental (like the first one) while others are just interesting (like the questions about Lee Barnes, the party's 'legal advisor').
Seventeen questions, more or less - and we defy you to answer more than two of them without having to knowingly lie.
Nick Griffin
1. How much is Nick Griffin paid per annum and how much are his expenses/travel?
2. Precisely how much does the party pay his wife, daughter, mother and father - and for what?
The rest
3. How much is the leadership team paid, per person?
Mark Collett
4. What exactly does Mark Collett do?
5. And why does the party employ a known Hitlerite and idiot?
Tony Lecomber
6. Is Tony Lecomber a member of the BNP right now?
7. Has he ever been a member of the BNP?
8. Why wasn't he thrown out after he proposed an assassination attempt?
Lee Barnes
9. Is Lee Barnes a member of the BNP?
10. Has he ever been a member of the BNP?
11. Has he really got a law degree?
Phil Edwardes
12. Has Dr Phil Edwardes actually got a doctorate?
13. If so, what is it in and where is it from?
14. And why has he got two names (Stuart Russell being the other one)?
Robert West
15. Has the insane fake-vicar Robert West resigned from the party?
Accounts
16. Where are the full accounts for Great White Records, Excalibur Promotions Ltd and the Trafalgar Club?
Security
17. Martin Reynolds is, we're told, paid more than £500 per week, which is a lot of membership fees. How much is paid for the entire security team including their Kray-twin overcoats, Raybans and bullet-proof vests?
There you go. Now let's see how many answers we get...
June 20, 2007
Searchlight press release re' BPP recruitment in Northern Ireland
Searchlight has monitored the domestic and international far right for over 40 years. During this time we have provided newspapers, news groups and television companies with up-to-date information, intelligence and analysis on the activities of far-right extremists. We believe we are a much trusted and reliable source of information.
We wish to draw your attention to an article that appeared in the Irish Daily Star on or about 5 June this year and a follow-up article that appeared on or about 15 June in the same newspaper by the same journalist, John Coulter.
We wish to repudiate the unsubstantiated claims made in these articles that there is any mass drive for recruitment or otherwise by the minuscule British People’s Party (BPP) or that we in any way concur that such groups are trying to hijack the 12 July parades.
It is our informed opinion, through investigation and research into the far right in Northern Ireland, that the BPP has nowhere near the 40 members in Northern Ireland quoted in the article, nor is there any tangible evidence to suggest that any of the other organisations named even exist. We have previously made such representations to Mr Coulter, seemingly to no avail.
We are very disappointed that such prominence has been given to these baseless claims as it only gives the oxygen of publicity to warped individuals at what is a time of great opportunity for reconciliation in Northern Ireland. We therefore wish to dissociate ourselves from these articles.
Searchlight will continue to monitor the very real danger of extremism and fascism in Northern Ireland, but we wish to make clear that it most definitely does not come from any of the groups or organisations named in the article published by the Irish Daily Star.
Searchlight
We wish to draw your attention to an article that appeared in the Irish Daily Star on or about 5 June this year and a follow-up article that appeared on or about 15 June in the same newspaper by the same journalist, John Coulter.
We wish to repudiate the unsubstantiated claims made in these articles that there is any mass drive for recruitment or otherwise by the minuscule British People’s Party (BPP) or that we in any way concur that such groups are trying to hijack the 12 July parades.
It is our informed opinion, through investigation and research into the far right in Northern Ireland, that the BPP has nowhere near the 40 members in Northern Ireland quoted in the article, nor is there any tangible evidence to suggest that any of the other organisations named even exist. We have previously made such representations to Mr Coulter, seemingly to no avail.
We are very disappointed that such prominence has been given to these baseless claims as it only gives the oxygen of publicity to warped individuals at what is a time of great opportunity for reconciliation in Northern Ireland. We therefore wish to dissociate ourselves from these articles.
Searchlight will continue to monitor the very real danger of extremism and fascism in Northern Ireland, but we wish to make clear that it most definitely does not come from any of the groups or organisations named in the article published by the Irish Daily Star.
Searchlight
June 19, 2007
Nazi hunter raps 'fascist' Croatian rock concert
The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday voiced outrage over a Croatian rock concert by a popular ultra-nationalist singer that featured multiple "fascist" invocations.
The Sunday evening Zagreb concert, which was attended by 60,000 people including Croatian members of parliament and the Croatian ministers of science, education and sports, turned into a massive fascist demonstration, the organization's chief Nazi hunter and Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff said.
Thousands of people attending the rock concert by the singer "Thompson" shouted the infamous Ustasha regime's salute of "Za dom spremni," while numerous participants came wearing Ustasha uniforms and symbols, the center said in a press release.
"Under the current circumstances, I believe that the time has come to prohibit public concerts by those who write songs of nostalgia for [the] Jasenovac [concentration camp] and inspire the show of Ustasha symbols, which constitute open and blatant incitement against all the minorities in Croatia," Zuroff wrote in a Monday letter to Croatian President Stjepan Mesic. "I believe that only if someone of your stature and outstanding anti-fascist credentials will lead the efforts to combat this ugly wave of revived fascism, can this extremely dangerous new trend be stopped before it engulfs Croatia," he continued.
The Ustasha regime ran a puppet government after the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. During their four years in power, the Ustasha carried out a Serb genocide, exterminating over 500,000 people, expelling 250,000 and forcing another 250,000 to convert to Catholicism. The Ustasha also killed most of Croatia's Jews, 20,000 gypsies and many thousands of their political enemies. After the war, most of the Ustasha leaders escaped to South America and Spain.
During the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, there was a certain resurgence of Ustasha symbols coinciding with the ethnic hatred that remained after the wars.
Jerusalem Post
The Sunday evening Zagreb concert, which was attended by 60,000 people including Croatian members of parliament and the Croatian ministers of science, education and sports, turned into a massive fascist demonstration, the organization's chief Nazi hunter and Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff said.
Thousands of people attending the rock concert by the singer "Thompson" shouted the infamous Ustasha regime's salute of "Za dom spremni," while numerous participants came wearing Ustasha uniforms and symbols, the center said in a press release.
"Under the current circumstances, I believe that the time has come to prohibit public concerts by those who write songs of nostalgia for [the] Jasenovac [concentration camp] and inspire the show of Ustasha symbols, which constitute open and blatant incitement against all the minorities in Croatia," Zuroff wrote in a Monday letter to Croatian President Stjepan Mesic. "I believe that only if someone of your stature and outstanding anti-fascist credentials will lead the efforts to combat this ugly wave of revived fascism, can this extremely dangerous new trend be stopped before it engulfs Croatia," he continued.
The Ustasha regime ran a puppet government after the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. During their four years in power, the Ustasha carried out a Serb genocide, exterminating over 500,000 people, expelling 250,000 and forcing another 250,000 to convert to Catholicism. The Ustasha also killed most of Croatia's Jews, 20,000 gypsies and many thousands of their political enemies. After the war, most of the Ustasha leaders escaped to South America and Spain.
During the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, there was a certain resurgence of Ustasha symbols coinciding with the ethnic hatred that remained after the wars.
Jerusalem Post
June 18, 2007
Equality fight on BNP councillor
The British National Party (BNP) in the South West is launching a legal challenge after a member resigned from a Devon parish council.
BNP member Peter Pirnie was co-opted onto Kingswear Parish Council earlier this month. But he resigned after a row erupted over whether he had misled councillors about his political intentions.
The BNP says Mr Pirnie has been treated unfairly and is pursuing a case under the Equality Act 2006.
Bus driver Mr Pirnie, 49, unsuccessfully stood for a seat on the Kingswear Village ward in May. After the election the council advertised for members because only two people had come forward for the Hillhead ward, which normally has five councillors. Mr Pirnie was one of three people to apply for the posts, and councillors took a vote and co-opted all three on to the council.
Mr Pirnie described himself in the election as an independent, said the BNP. He then described himself as a "BNP councillor" in a BBC interview.
His appointment as a BNP councillor was also announced on the BNP website. That led to a row in which he was accused of misleading the parish council and he resigned last week.
Peter Mullins, South West regional organiser of the BNP, said: "Mr Pirnie is an ideal member of the parish council and it seems a shame that has not been allowed to take up the post. He is a decent sort of guy. He's lived there for 30 years and wanted to do something for the community."
No-one was available for comment from the parish council.
BBC
BNP member Peter Pirnie was co-opted onto Kingswear Parish Council earlier this month. But he resigned after a row erupted over whether he had misled councillors about his political intentions.
The BNP says Mr Pirnie has been treated unfairly and is pursuing a case under the Equality Act 2006.
Bus driver Mr Pirnie, 49, unsuccessfully stood for a seat on the Kingswear Village ward in May. After the election the council advertised for members because only two people had come forward for the Hillhead ward, which normally has five councillors. Mr Pirnie was one of three people to apply for the posts, and councillors took a vote and co-opted all three on to the council.
Mr Pirnie described himself in the election as an independent, said the BNP. He then described himself as a "BNP councillor" in a BBC interview.
His appointment as a BNP councillor was also announced on the BNP website. That led to a row in which he was accused of misleading the parish council and he resigned last week.
Peter Mullins, South West regional organiser of the BNP, said: "Mr Pirnie is an ideal member of the parish council and it seems a shame that has not been allowed to take up the post. He is a decent sort of guy. He's lived there for 30 years and wanted to do something for the community."
No-one was available for comment from the parish council.
BBC
Britain Forward has a go at us - though not a very good one
Oh dear, yet another attack. Britain Forward, the new site set up to cause as many divisions within the BNP as possible in the run-up to the (possible) BNP election challenge, has taken exception to us sticking our noses in and daring to have an opinion of our own.
In their latest attack, they point out that they 'engaged in some long and heartfelt discussions about the danger of giving ammunition to our enemies like the bunch of trotskyist scumbags and race traitors who go by the name of Lancaster UAF'.
We'll say it again because it takes a while for these things to seep into the average fascist brain, but everyone who is opposed to the BNP and other fascist groups is not automatically a 'Trotskyist'. In fact we have people from all political persuasions in Lancaster UAF, people of all colours and people of all religions (except possibly that one in Vanuatu where they appear to regard Prince Philip as some kind of deity). Anyway, don't worry about giving us ammo - we already know most of it.
Britain Forward then tries to give the impression that it is nothing to do with Sharon Ebanks by describing her as a 'half-caste vengeful clown' but the blog has pretty clear similarities to most of the Ebanks nonsense we've read and even if it isn't directly associated with her it is clearly associated with her idiotic comrades in the NNP. In any case, it sets out its stall pretty clearly, stating that it wants to 'rescue our proud country from a tide of alien immigration that, if unchecked, will lead to the Islamification of our country.' This sounds precisely like the standard BNP rhetoric, which fits in quite nicely with the fact that the NNP is packed with BNP rejects and outcasts. Even the attacks on the BNP in the same article sound the same as the regular attacks posted on Stormfront and other nazi forums.
'To do this we must first root out the cancerous political growth within our own movement, a leader who sees our party as his personal fiefdom. Our activists have not come through the street battles of the seventies and eighties, in some cases spending time in prison for our beliefs, and experienced the start of ballot box success, to allow either red scum or our own chairman who is betraying us stand in the way of ultimate victory for the British people.'
There they go again with the 'red scum'. Though they are right about the BNP being led by Griffin, who clearly sees the whole party and its many subsidiary companies - or certainly the income - as his private property. From the revelations that are emerging via email, various forums and our own last sticky post, there is a lot to be found out that is presently only rumour and hint (at the moment).
Finally, Britain Forward ends its pretty weak (we've had a lot worse) attack with a little anti-Jewish swipe. We knew they'd get one in somehow.
'So Mr Lancaster UAF, here’s something to make you choke on your smoked salmon and gefillter fish.'
Most of us are vegan or vegetarian, we could never afford smoked salmon even if we wanted to eat it and 'gefillter' is spelled 'gefilte', dumbass. We're starting to think Nick Griffin's got nothing much to worry about if this is all his opposition can muster up to attack us. Sad or what.
In their latest attack, they point out that they 'engaged in some long and heartfelt discussions about the danger of giving ammunition to our enemies like the bunch of trotskyist scumbags and race traitors who go by the name of Lancaster UAF'.
We'll say it again because it takes a while for these things to seep into the average fascist brain, but everyone who is opposed to the BNP and other fascist groups is not automatically a 'Trotskyist'. In fact we have people from all political persuasions in Lancaster UAF, people of all colours and people of all religions (except possibly that one in Vanuatu where they appear to regard Prince Philip as some kind of deity). Anyway, don't worry about giving us ammo - we already know most of it.
Britain Forward then tries to give the impression that it is nothing to do with Sharon Ebanks by describing her as a 'half-caste vengeful clown' but the blog has pretty clear similarities to most of the Ebanks nonsense we've read and even if it isn't directly associated with her it is clearly associated with her idiotic comrades in the NNP. In any case, it sets out its stall pretty clearly, stating that it wants to 'rescue our proud country from a tide of alien immigration that, if unchecked, will lead to the Islamification of our country.' This sounds precisely like the standard BNP rhetoric, which fits in quite nicely with the fact that the NNP is packed with BNP rejects and outcasts. Even the attacks on the BNP in the same article sound the same as the regular attacks posted on Stormfront and other nazi forums.
'To do this we must first root out the cancerous political growth within our own movement, a leader who sees our party as his personal fiefdom. Our activists have not come through the street battles of the seventies and eighties, in some cases spending time in prison for our beliefs, and experienced the start of ballot box success, to allow either red scum or our own chairman who is betraying us stand in the way of ultimate victory for the British people.'
There they go again with the 'red scum'. Though they are right about the BNP being led by Griffin, who clearly sees the whole party and its many subsidiary companies - or certainly the income - as his private property. From the revelations that are emerging via email, various forums and our own last sticky post, there is a lot to be found out that is presently only rumour and hint (at the moment).
Finally, Britain Forward ends its pretty weak (we've had a lot worse) attack with a little anti-Jewish swipe. We knew they'd get one in somehow.
'So Mr Lancaster UAF, here’s something to make you choke on your smoked salmon and gefillter fish.'
Most of us are vegan or vegetarian, we could never afford smoked salmon even if we wanted to eat it and 'gefillter' is spelled 'gefilte', dumbass. We're starting to think Nick Griffin's got nothing much to worry about if this is all his opposition can muster up to attack us. Sad or what.
June 17, 2007
BNP brothers in school web row
Two BNP-supporting brothers have fallen foul of education chiefs after accessing right-wing websites while teaching in schools.
Adam Walker, 38, quit his job as a technology teacher after being suspended and told he faced disciplinary action. He used a computer at Houghton Kepier, a foundation school in Houghton-le- Spring, Tyne and Wear, during working hours to view politically extreme sites.
His brother Mark, 36, a former RAF weapons technician, was suspended from Sunnydale Comprehensive, in Shildon, County Durham, pending an internal probe. Mark, also a technology teacher, was found to have accessed the BNP's website during school hours. The pair stood as BNP candidates in Tony Blair's nearby Sedgefield constituency last month.
Married Mark, who served in the first Gulf War, admitted he had viewed the website.
He said: "I looked at the BNP site but I've no idea why that should be an offence. Teachers often look at sites when they are at school. I am being persecuted because of what I believe in. This wouldn't be an issue if I was standing for Labour or the Tories. I love teaching kids and I'm a very good teacher. I've worked at the school almost eight years and the governors know I'm dedicated and a very hard worker. I've taken the children away on trips and my political beliefs are no way in conflict with my professional role. I don't preach politics at work. I was stunned when I was hauled in before the head teacher.
"She said she'd seen someone with my name standing for the BNP and asked if it was me. When I said it was, they went through my computer records. My suspension is an infringement of my human rights and on my right to freedom of speech. I shouldn't be persecuted for having a certain political view. However, I am prepared to sacrifice my career for what I believe in. I would stand up to machine gun fire to stand for the BNP. I believe in the party."
Mark, from Spennymoor, County Durham, who claims he and his brother are close friends of BNP leader Nick Griffin, was hauled before school bosses a week ago. Meanwhile Adam, a former soldier and karate expert, left his job in February after admitting accessing three right- wing sites and a discussion forum about the BNP.
Adam, also from Spennymoor, claimed: "I got a letter from the school which said I was unfit to teach because of my political views. I admit I did look at a number of sites which could be seen to be right-wing during school time. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. I also spent a lot of time on computers while teaching kids but it was only when they were working on their own computers and I was free to do my own stuff. I spoke to advisers who said the school had a right to get rid of me so I left without a fight. I jumped before I was pushed."
Sunderland City Council refused to comment on Adam Walker's resignation. A spokesman for the council said: "It's inappropriate to comment on internal matters at Houghton Kepier School."
Sue Byrne, head teacher at Sunnydale, said: "I can confirm that a member of staff has been suspended, without prejudice, by the school governing body pending inquiries into allegations of misuse of school equipment."
Sunday Sun (Tyne and Wear)
Adam Walker, 38, quit his job as a technology teacher after being suspended and told he faced disciplinary action. He used a computer at Houghton Kepier, a foundation school in Houghton-le- Spring, Tyne and Wear, during working hours to view politically extreme sites.
His brother Mark, 36, a former RAF weapons technician, was suspended from Sunnydale Comprehensive, in Shildon, County Durham, pending an internal probe. Mark, also a technology teacher, was found to have accessed the BNP's website during school hours. The pair stood as BNP candidates in Tony Blair's nearby Sedgefield constituency last month.
Married Mark, who served in the first Gulf War, admitted he had viewed the website.
He said: "I looked at the BNP site but I've no idea why that should be an offence. Teachers often look at sites when they are at school. I am being persecuted because of what I believe in. This wouldn't be an issue if I was standing for Labour or the Tories. I love teaching kids and I'm a very good teacher. I've worked at the school almost eight years and the governors know I'm dedicated and a very hard worker. I've taken the children away on trips and my political beliefs are no way in conflict with my professional role. I don't preach politics at work. I was stunned when I was hauled in before the head teacher.
"She said she'd seen someone with my name standing for the BNP and asked if it was me. When I said it was, they went through my computer records. My suspension is an infringement of my human rights and on my right to freedom of speech. I shouldn't be persecuted for having a certain political view. However, I am prepared to sacrifice my career for what I believe in. I would stand up to machine gun fire to stand for the BNP. I believe in the party."
Mark, from Spennymoor, County Durham, who claims he and his brother are close friends of BNP leader Nick Griffin, was hauled before school bosses a week ago. Meanwhile Adam, a former soldier and karate expert, left his job in February after admitting accessing three right- wing sites and a discussion forum about the BNP.
Adam, also from Spennymoor, claimed: "I got a letter from the school which said I was unfit to teach because of my political views. I admit I did look at a number of sites which could be seen to be right-wing during school time. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. I also spent a lot of time on computers while teaching kids but it was only when they were working on their own computers and I was free to do my own stuff. I spoke to advisers who said the school had a right to get rid of me so I left without a fight. I jumped before I was pushed."
Sunderland City Council refused to comment on Adam Walker's resignation. A spokesman for the council said: "It's inappropriate to comment on internal matters at Houghton Kepier School."
Sue Byrne, head teacher at Sunnydale, said: "I can confirm that a member of staff has been suspended, without prejudice, by the school governing body pending inquiries into allegations of misuse of school equipment."
Sunday Sun (Tyne and Wear)
The BNP leadership challenge: the soap opera continues...
The apparently never-ending saga of the BNP's leadership challenge (still unconfirmed publicly by the alleged challenger Chris Jackson who is supposedly continuing to gather the hundred signatures necessary to actually make the challenge) rumbles on with attack and counter-attack on all sides coming from all directions.
We anti-fascists continue to do our bit during the period of the challenge but the supporters of both Griffin and Jackson appear to be attacking each other so vigorously that they seem to be knocking unhealthy lumps out of each other without any help from us. All we're having to do is stir as and when we feel it's necessary and add the occasional bit of seasoning from time to time. Which, of course, we will happily continue to do.
Since the news of the challenge became public, three blog sites have started up - BNP Leadership Challenge (which broke with a raft of revelations about the BNP's current leader Nick Griffin but quickly closed, no doubt under the threat of the masked avenger Tony Lecomber paying the blog owners a visit), Britain Forward (which seems to be run by the Sharon Ebanks' New Nationalist Party (NNP) and seems to exist only to attack the current BNP leadership and ask pertinent but extremely awkward question) and Britain Backwards (which seems to be a Nick Griffin fan site, run by a buffoon named Green Arrow with a little unofficial help from Griffin and co). The last two appear to be slogging it out - in the process providing anti-fascists with some interesting tidbits of information and a huge insight into how the BNP has been run (mismanaged) by its leadership team who, if the extensive allegations are even half-correct, should all be banged up.
What becomes very clear as more facts emerge, is that Nick Griffin and co appear to have been running the company, sorry party, as something of a private pension plan - but we'll let Britain Forward (BF) take up the story. BF is responding to a verbal attack by Britain Backwards (BB), after BB has denied everything and told a lot of lies to cover up anything they've forgotten. Our interjections are in [square brackets].
How much does all this remind you of a soap opera?
Britain Backwards: Our Response
Britain Backwards
We are pleased that BNP HQ have taken up the challenge of dealing with our questions on their peculiarly named Britain Backward site but disappointed at the number of issues they have merely sidestepped or dismissed. All the matters we addressed were genuine concerns raised by our fellow members. Indeed in the last two days our small band of patriots has grown from 48 to 57.
Let’s see what Backwards have to say in more detail.
BNP constitution and the leadership challenge
Backwards says Nick Griffin is merely enforcing rules laid down in the last leadership challenge in 1999. The truth is that since 1999 NG has successfully tweaked our party’s constitution to reinforce his personal position and the positions of his cronies.
In particular a lot of changes were made at the general meeting on 11th March 2000 (soon after NG took over) especially to Section 4 which regulates leadership elections. Section 4 states that the procedures for carrying out such elections shall be determined by party HQ as the occasion arises. Therefore NG is responsible for the decision to deny access to party publications and websites to Chris Jackson, and the fact that John Tyndall might have made a similar decision in 1999 is no excuse. In fact it is rather strange that NG, who normally prefers to distances himself from JT, insists on following JT to the letter on this.
Red White and Blue
Backward claims the farmer told the BNP to go because it was “the least economically viable for him”. In other words RWB is not the roaring success that our chairman has claimed in terms of income and numbers attending. [In fact the farmer who formerly allowed the BNP's RWB event is planning to cover the days lost with a car boot sale, indicating that the RWB was a complete waste of time for him and that a car boot sale is likely to make him a far better profit - plus the advantage of not having to tolerate a bunch of racist drunken thugs on his land]
Sadie Graham
As we well know, the reds and the left-wing media [that's us, apparently] will seize any excuse to attack our party. We cannot ignore this, if we want to win elections we have to take extra care over our image. They have already accused our community safety patrols in Corsham and Calne of being “vigilantes”. Normally practising martial arts would be quite acceptable, if one ignores the fact that this is not exactly a British sport. However it is only a matter of time before the Blatant Bias Corporation [the BBC] or some other media organisation picks up on a rising star in our party doing martial arts and sharp shooting and accuses us of preparing to take over Britain by military means. Such an accusation is ridiculous as we all know but the image will remain in people’s minds. NG going on about the coming civil war doesn’t help in this regard.
Besides which, was Sadie’s gun and her use of it licensed? [Something that we'd wondered too] Senior BNP officer prosecuted for firearms offence wouldn’t be a great headline for us. Her playing sniper, and having her photo taken doing it, was juvenile behaviour and showed a lack of judgement that we do not expect in a national office-holder in our party.
Sadie’s martial arts skills seem not to have taught her actually to defend herself. When Sadie Graham was confronted by a drunken red thug who spat in her face, she stood there staring like a scared rabbit caught in the headlights of an approaching car.
As for Sadie’s mates, does Backwards think it acceptable for a BNP national office-holder to keep company with a psychotic drug dealer and an equally unbalanced young man who would like to oust the BNP’s head of security from his position? We believe that those who hold positions in our party have to maintain certain minimum standards in their own lives as any dirt the media can dig up will reflect badly on our party.
Mark Collett’s printing press
Backwards says that after the 2005 general election the four high quality digital duplicators, three folding machines and power guillotine bought for £70,000 were given to the regions and no longer kept for HQ jobs. In that case why do the party’s accounts, which do not include the regions, still show the party as owning the equipment centrally at 31 December 2005? Did the auditors check that the party owned the assets shown in the balance sheet, or did NG pull the wool over their eyes?
And why does Backwards say the cost of the printing equipment was £70,000? True we referred to this as the cost, as this is the figure that everyone mentions, but one of our supporters has looked closely at the party’s accounts for 2005 and has pointed out that the party only spent £51,671.13 in total on equipment during that year. [That's a curious and important fact that everyone else seems to have missed thus far] Backwards then goes on to deride our question by saying that a litho printing press would cost a million pounds not £70,000. We know that. Nobody said anything about a litho press. This is just a diversion from the real issue of late delivery of leaflets in many cases and printing charges to branches that were only slightly below commercial rates.
After Mark Collett’s childish appearance in a TV programme, some members thought he had been placed in our organisation by ZOG to destroy at least the youth wing of the party if not the entire BNP. His incompetence at printing and delivering leaflets suggests this accusation might not be wholly fanciful.
Dave Hannam
Backwards defends Dave Hannam’s appointment as deputy treasurer of our party. We say Mark Payne was a good deputy treasurer. He would have been an asset to any organisation being led and run in a financially transparent way. It seems that NG used Payne’s unrepentant national socialist [nazi] beliefs as an excuse to remove this able man and replace him with a dishonest little spiv, namely Dave Hannam, who was only too willing to do his poetic master’s bidding.
One question for anyone trying to make excuses about the handling of the party’s finances is why our treasurer John Walker went with Dave Hannan to visit the home of the former party treasurer John Brayshaw and force him to shred the party’s genuine accounts. Having committed this fraudulent act Walker and Hannam did not even have the wit between them to take away the bag of shredded accounts. Some of our 57 supporters who enjoy jigsaws are trying to reconstruct these accounts and we think they will make devastating reading if one compares them to the “official” accounts.
On Dave Hannam’s criminal record, Backwards claims that Dave Hannam had nothing to do with Simon Sheppard’s leaflet that showed Hannam’s name and address as the originator. Dave Hannam was only 17 at the time and it is unlikely that a youth court would have sent him to prison for something he didn’t really do. Unless of course he had a long line of previous convictions.
Great White Records
Backwards says there was no proposal to strike off Great White Records Ltd. This is untrue but we accept that the striking off notice has now been removed from the Companies House website. We shall look closely at the GWR accounts when they are submitted to Companies House as promised in October to test the truth of Backwards’ statement that the BNP has not put money into GWR.
We are surprised that Backwards compares Griffin’s poetry to that of John Lennon. We would have though there were plenty of patriotic nationalist poets around without singling out this drug-crazed lefty.
Welsh Assembly elections appeal
A couple of our Welsh supporters were outraged at being asked to finance our party’s campaign in Wales by sending their cash to a box number on the other side of England. Backwards says the appeal came under the aegis of the regional treasurer in Yorkshire. Why couldn’t a Welsh address have been used, especially seeing as the treasurer John Walker lives in Wales.
BNP security
Backwards spends a lot of time evading our questions and responds with a lie to whether Martin and Mrs Reynolds are paid for their work. Perhaps not everyone is prepared to take the word of a recidivist Liverpool gangster, but Joey Owens says that when he was in charge of security for our chairman and party he was unpaid and did the job out of a feeling of duty. He says that NG told him that when the party could afford it he would be paid.
Joey Owens goes on to claim that he was shocked and hurt when NG dumped him in favour of Warren Bennett who was paid. [Not only was Bennett paid but Joe Owens claimed that he was paid £500 per week] Bennett later fell out of favour and was replaced by Martin Reynolds, a very odd choice. Party members whom he had upset started to circulate pornographic photos of Martin, his wife and a second woman engaged in various sexual acts. A national newspaper obtained the story and made it public knowledge. It appears that two factions within our party were settling political scores. Many respectable and responsible members thought this would be the end of Reynolds’ money-making career in our ranks. Far from it, our chairman totally ignored this embarrassment and offered a job to Mrs Reynolds.
As an interesting aside, who was present in the room to take the photos of Reynolds and the two women?
Overseas funding
Backwards responded to our question with a blatant lie. Everybody knows that the trips to America and to visit wealthy supporters in Germany produce substantial funding for the party. Just listen to the appeal for funds at the New Orleans international conference hosed by David Duke, which NG and Kevin Scott addressed. Taking money through the back door is going to leave us with the same reputation that Blair’s Labour Party has earned.
Nick Griffin’s pay
Backwards says that NG’s pay is a matter of public record. Strangely it does not quote the figure but provides a link to an article in The Times which says he earns £1,800 a month. Since when has our party encouraged us to believe everything we read in the press?
Backwards then claims his salary is way below what his qualifications would command in the private sector. Nonsense. His degree was only a 2:2 [and] since leaving Cambridge his career has been full of financial disasters including bankruptcy. A failed scheme to sell second-hand cars brought shame on our party when the cars turned out to be Japanese and various property schemes all appear to have collapsed. Had it not been for his wealthy grandfather and party money keeping him in the style he has grown accustomed to, he would probably be unemployed and living on benefits.
Nick Griffin’s Arabian nights
Backwards tries to explain at great length why NG tried to tap Colonel Gaddafi for money but simply digs a deeper hole. Why should a true British patriot ever have set his cap in the direction of the Libyan dictator? What had Gaddafi ever done for the British people? He sent weapons to the IRA to kill British soldiers in Ulster, he had WPC Yvonne Fletcher murdered on a London street and one of his agents bombed a jumbo jet over Lockerbie in Scotland causing the deaths of hundreds of men, women and children. What is our chairman’s excuse for pursuing such a link? Blame it all on the late John Tyndall. It was not JT posing for photographs in Tripoli it was Nick Griffin.
Even at his trial in 1998 at Harrow Crown Court NG produced a white-hating black American nationalist as a witness.
Voice of Freedom
What really insults the intelligence of our members is Backwards’ claim that the party did not know that the printer that produced several issues of Voice of Freedom was owned by Saudis. Did they never look at the company’s invoices from which it was clear that it was a Saudi owned company? Did they not notice that most of the management and workforce in the company were Arabs and much of its other printing was in Arabic? Maybe our chairman would like to tell use which infirm member of our party managed to deal with these people without noticing who they were.
Backwards challenge us over our “laughable ignorance [of] international politics”. Perhaps if our Cambridge-educated chairman kept up with international politics he would understand better the double-dealing of the Saudis over Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. And that’s not just in the American or Zionist controlled press.
Abu Hamza
Backwards tries to excuse NG sharing a platform with Abu Hamza by saying that his participation in the Radio Academy event enabled him to promote the BNP to “300 of the most powerful people in British radio”. Backwards claims NG only took part in a panel discussion. We do not criticise NG’s attendance at such an event which let him meet the editors and journalists who are so often hostile to us. He even had the opportunity to meet government ministers such as Tessa Jowell the Arts Minister.
But it was not a panel discussion. The only person on the platform other than the discussion chairman was Abu Hamza, a man known throughout the world as one of the most vocal proponents of the ideas of the world’s leading Moslem terrorist Osama bin Laden. Hamza preached hatred against Britain and its people. British nationalists demonstrated against him when he conducted Friday prayers in the street outside the mosque from which he had been banned, so extreme he was even among Moslems. By debating one to one with Abu Hamza, NG placed our party on the same level, two opposing forms of unacceptable extremism. NG also showed that he was prepared to sacrifice his political principles at the altar of self aggrandisement.
Jonathan Bowden
Perhaps Backwards thinks that by telling a lie often enough it becomes reality. Hundreds of party members know that NG tried to warn Bowden off from speaking at meetings of proscribed organisations or sharing platform with individuals who had been proscribed or expelled from the BNP. Having lied about Bowden Backwards goes on to sidestep the question of the BNP councillors present at the meeting organised by New Right where the speakers included a Muslim extremist and a pagan. Is this lack of discipline acceptable to NG because he fears an open battle within the party?
Infiltration
Backwards claim that Arthur Kemp was never an agent of either the former or the Marxist ANC government of South Africa. It is interesting how adept Kemp is at manipulating the truth to advance his fellow agent Bep Nieuwhof. Backwards claims Arthur’s book nowhere said that Nieuwhof got a 12-year sentence. True the present internet version no longer contains this statement but it was certainly in the old printed version. The fact is that South African intelligence offered Arthur Kemp a deal over the Chris Hani case and as a result he continued his intelligence gathering work for a new master in the Marxist ANC regime. He exaggerated Bep’s sentence in order to enhance Bep’s credibility.
Robert Bailey
Robert Bailey had what John le Carré’s spy novels called “a legend” created either by himself or by his masters. It is almost certain he did serve in the Royal Marine commandos. However although he has mentioned a number of locations where he served, our checks revealed that before coming back to Britain he was operating in Algeria, a place he never mentioned. What was he doing there? He is referred to as a business man: in fact he was a failed business man though he was able to make a personal donation of £3,000 to the party when he appeared on the scene.
Who is ultimately responsible?
Last week’s by-elections showed that we are still not winning. Yes there were two or three quite good percentages including some second places but British elections operate on the winner takes all principle. NG’s supporters go on about getting 14% of the vote in May, which is a fair achievement compared to a few years ago, but we got over 19% in May last year. And why compare this year’s result with the 4.9% polled in the European elections of 2004? Surely the 16% we got in the local elections that year is a more relevant comparison? One gets the impression that Backwards is selecting its figures in order to prove its point. [Very neatly put]
And among all the carefully chosen figures and quotes from one of our sworn enemies, the left-wing Labour MP Jon Cruddas, Backwards fails completely to answer our question, namely that if middle management is to blame for the failings in our party, as some supporters of NG have alleged, why has NG not ensured that the right people are in these posts.
Don Black
The facts belie NG’s claim of not having any links with Don Black [ex-Ku Klux Klan and owner of the Stormfront nazi forum which is proscribed to mere BNP members]. They were photographed together at a conference in New Orleans organised by David Duke, a close associate of NG.
In 2004 Don Black, representing Stormfront, and John Tyndall attended a gathering of European nationalists in New Orleans to discuss white nationalism. Both of them signed the New Orleans Protocol. Although JT signed as an individual rather than as a representative of the BNP, NG has since then maintained the connection at international meetings in the USA.
We anti-fascists continue to do our bit during the period of the challenge but the supporters of both Griffin and Jackson appear to be attacking each other so vigorously that they seem to be knocking unhealthy lumps out of each other without any help from us. All we're having to do is stir as and when we feel it's necessary and add the occasional bit of seasoning from time to time. Which, of course, we will happily continue to do.
Since the news of the challenge became public, three blog sites have started up - BNP Leadership Challenge (which broke with a raft of revelations about the BNP's current leader Nick Griffin but quickly closed, no doubt under the threat of the masked avenger Tony Lecomber paying the blog owners a visit), Britain Forward (which seems to be run by the Sharon Ebanks' New Nationalist Party (NNP) and seems to exist only to attack the current BNP leadership and ask pertinent but extremely awkward question) and Britain Backwards (which seems to be a Nick Griffin fan site, run by a buffoon named Green Arrow with a little unofficial help from Griffin and co). The last two appear to be slogging it out - in the process providing anti-fascists with some interesting tidbits of information and a huge insight into how the BNP has been run (mismanaged) by its leadership team who, if the extensive allegations are even half-correct, should all be banged up.
What becomes very clear as more facts emerge, is that Nick Griffin and co appear to have been running the company, sorry party, as something of a private pension plan - but we'll let Britain Forward (BF) take up the story. BF is responding to a verbal attack by Britain Backwards (BB), after BB has denied everything and told a lot of lies to cover up anything they've forgotten. Our interjections are in [square brackets].
How much does all this remind you of a soap opera?
Britain Backwards: Our Response
Britain Backwards
We are pleased that BNP HQ have taken up the challenge of dealing with our questions on their peculiarly named Britain Backward site but disappointed at the number of issues they have merely sidestepped or dismissed. All the matters we addressed were genuine concerns raised by our fellow members. Indeed in the last two days our small band of patriots has grown from 48 to 57.
Let’s see what Backwards have to say in more detail.
BNP constitution and the leadership challenge
Backwards says Nick Griffin is merely enforcing rules laid down in the last leadership challenge in 1999. The truth is that since 1999 NG has successfully tweaked our party’s constitution to reinforce his personal position and the positions of his cronies.
In particular a lot of changes were made at the general meeting on 11th March 2000 (soon after NG took over) especially to Section 4 which regulates leadership elections. Section 4 states that the procedures for carrying out such elections shall be determined by party HQ as the occasion arises. Therefore NG is responsible for the decision to deny access to party publications and websites to Chris Jackson, and the fact that John Tyndall might have made a similar decision in 1999 is no excuse. In fact it is rather strange that NG, who normally prefers to distances himself from JT, insists on following JT to the letter on this.
Red White and Blue
Backward claims the farmer told the BNP to go because it was “the least economically viable for him”. In other words RWB is not the roaring success that our chairman has claimed in terms of income and numbers attending. [In fact the farmer who formerly allowed the BNP's RWB event is planning to cover the days lost with a car boot sale, indicating that the RWB was a complete waste of time for him and that a car boot sale is likely to make him a far better profit - plus the advantage of not having to tolerate a bunch of racist drunken thugs on his land]
Sadie Graham
As we well know, the reds and the left-wing media [that's us, apparently] will seize any excuse to attack our party. We cannot ignore this, if we want to win elections we have to take extra care over our image. They have already accused our community safety patrols in Corsham and Calne of being “vigilantes”. Normally practising martial arts would be quite acceptable, if one ignores the fact that this is not exactly a British sport. However it is only a matter of time before the Blatant Bias Corporation [the BBC] or some other media organisation picks up on a rising star in our party doing martial arts and sharp shooting and accuses us of preparing to take over Britain by military means. Such an accusation is ridiculous as we all know but the image will remain in people’s minds. NG going on about the coming civil war doesn’t help in this regard.
Besides which, was Sadie’s gun and her use of it licensed? [Something that we'd wondered too] Senior BNP officer prosecuted for firearms offence wouldn’t be a great headline for us. Her playing sniper, and having her photo taken doing it, was juvenile behaviour and showed a lack of judgement that we do not expect in a national office-holder in our party.
Sadie’s martial arts skills seem not to have taught her actually to defend herself. When Sadie Graham was confronted by a drunken red thug who spat in her face, she stood there staring like a scared rabbit caught in the headlights of an approaching car.
As for Sadie’s mates, does Backwards think it acceptable for a BNP national office-holder to keep company with a psychotic drug dealer and an equally unbalanced young man who would like to oust the BNP’s head of security from his position? We believe that those who hold positions in our party have to maintain certain minimum standards in their own lives as any dirt the media can dig up will reflect badly on our party.
Mark Collett’s printing press
Backwards says that after the 2005 general election the four high quality digital duplicators, three folding machines and power guillotine bought for £70,000 were given to the regions and no longer kept for HQ jobs. In that case why do the party’s accounts, which do not include the regions, still show the party as owning the equipment centrally at 31 December 2005? Did the auditors check that the party owned the assets shown in the balance sheet, or did NG pull the wool over their eyes?
And why does Backwards say the cost of the printing equipment was £70,000? True we referred to this as the cost, as this is the figure that everyone mentions, but one of our supporters has looked closely at the party’s accounts for 2005 and has pointed out that the party only spent £51,671.13 in total on equipment during that year. [That's a curious and important fact that everyone else seems to have missed thus far] Backwards then goes on to deride our question by saying that a litho printing press would cost a million pounds not £70,000. We know that. Nobody said anything about a litho press. This is just a diversion from the real issue of late delivery of leaflets in many cases and printing charges to branches that were only slightly below commercial rates.
After Mark Collett’s childish appearance in a TV programme, some members thought he had been placed in our organisation by ZOG to destroy at least the youth wing of the party if not the entire BNP. His incompetence at printing and delivering leaflets suggests this accusation might not be wholly fanciful.
Dave Hannam
Backwards defends Dave Hannam’s appointment as deputy treasurer of our party. We say Mark Payne was a good deputy treasurer. He would have been an asset to any organisation being led and run in a financially transparent way. It seems that NG used Payne’s unrepentant national socialist [nazi] beliefs as an excuse to remove this able man and replace him with a dishonest little spiv, namely Dave Hannam, who was only too willing to do his poetic master’s bidding.
One question for anyone trying to make excuses about the handling of the party’s finances is why our treasurer John Walker went with Dave Hannan to visit the home of the former party treasurer John Brayshaw and force him to shred the party’s genuine accounts. Having committed this fraudulent act Walker and Hannam did not even have the wit between them to take away the bag of shredded accounts. Some of our 57 supporters who enjoy jigsaws are trying to reconstruct these accounts and we think they will make devastating reading if one compares them to the “official” accounts.
On Dave Hannam’s criminal record, Backwards claims that Dave Hannam had nothing to do with Simon Sheppard’s leaflet that showed Hannam’s name and address as the originator. Dave Hannam was only 17 at the time and it is unlikely that a youth court would have sent him to prison for something he didn’t really do. Unless of course he had a long line of previous convictions.
Great White Records
Backwards says there was no proposal to strike off Great White Records Ltd. This is untrue but we accept that the striking off notice has now been removed from the Companies House website. We shall look closely at the GWR accounts when they are submitted to Companies House as promised in October to test the truth of Backwards’ statement that the BNP has not put money into GWR.
We are surprised that Backwards compares Griffin’s poetry to that of John Lennon. We would have though there were plenty of patriotic nationalist poets around without singling out this drug-crazed lefty.
Welsh Assembly elections appeal
A couple of our Welsh supporters were outraged at being asked to finance our party’s campaign in Wales by sending their cash to a box number on the other side of England. Backwards says the appeal came under the aegis of the regional treasurer in Yorkshire. Why couldn’t a Welsh address have been used, especially seeing as the treasurer John Walker lives in Wales.
BNP security
Backwards spends a lot of time evading our questions and responds with a lie to whether Martin and Mrs Reynolds are paid for their work. Perhaps not everyone is prepared to take the word of a recidivist Liverpool gangster, but Joey Owens says that when he was in charge of security for our chairman and party he was unpaid and did the job out of a feeling of duty. He says that NG told him that when the party could afford it he would be paid.
Joey Owens goes on to claim that he was shocked and hurt when NG dumped him in favour of Warren Bennett who was paid. [Not only was Bennett paid but Joe Owens claimed that he was paid £500 per week] Bennett later fell out of favour and was replaced by Martin Reynolds, a very odd choice. Party members whom he had upset started to circulate pornographic photos of Martin, his wife and a second woman engaged in various sexual acts. A national newspaper obtained the story and made it public knowledge. It appears that two factions within our party were settling political scores. Many respectable and responsible members thought this would be the end of Reynolds’ money-making career in our ranks. Far from it, our chairman totally ignored this embarrassment and offered a job to Mrs Reynolds.
As an interesting aside, who was present in the room to take the photos of Reynolds and the two women?
Overseas funding
Backwards responded to our question with a blatant lie. Everybody knows that the trips to America and to visit wealthy supporters in Germany produce substantial funding for the party. Just listen to the appeal for funds at the New Orleans international conference hosed by David Duke, which NG and Kevin Scott addressed. Taking money through the back door is going to leave us with the same reputation that Blair’s Labour Party has earned.
Nick Griffin’s pay
Backwards says that NG’s pay is a matter of public record. Strangely it does not quote the figure but provides a link to an article in The Times which says he earns £1,800 a month. Since when has our party encouraged us to believe everything we read in the press?
Backwards then claims his salary is way below what his qualifications would command in the private sector. Nonsense. His degree was only a 2:2 [and] since leaving Cambridge his career has been full of financial disasters including bankruptcy. A failed scheme to sell second-hand cars brought shame on our party when the cars turned out to be Japanese and various property schemes all appear to have collapsed. Had it not been for his wealthy grandfather and party money keeping him in the style he has grown accustomed to, he would probably be unemployed and living on benefits.
Nick Griffin’s Arabian nights
Backwards tries to explain at great length why NG tried to tap Colonel Gaddafi for money but simply digs a deeper hole. Why should a true British patriot ever have set his cap in the direction of the Libyan dictator? What had Gaddafi ever done for the British people? He sent weapons to the IRA to kill British soldiers in Ulster, he had WPC Yvonne Fletcher murdered on a London street and one of his agents bombed a jumbo jet over Lockerbie in Scotland causing the deaths of hundreds of men, women and children. What is our chairman’s excuse for pursuing such a link? Blame it all on the late John Tyndall. It was not JT posing for photographs in Tripoli it was Nick Griffin.
Even at his trial in 1998 at Harrow Crown Court NG produced a white-hating black American nationalist as a witness.
Voice of Freedom
What really insults the intelligence of our members is Backwards’ claim that the party did not know that the printer that produced several issues of Voice of Freedom was owned by Saudis. Did they never look at the company’s invoices from which it was clear that it was a Saudi owned company? Did they not notice that most of the management and workforce in the company were Arabs and much of its other printing was in Arabic? Maybe our chairman would like to tell use which infirm member of our party managed to deal with these people without noticing who they were.
Backwards challenge us over our “laughable ignorance [of] international politics”. Perhaps if our Cambridge-educated chairman kept up with international politics he would understand better the double-dealing of the Saudis over Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. And that’s not just in the American or Zionist controlled press.
Abu Hamza
Backwards tries to excuse NG sharing a platform with Abu Hamza by saying that his participation in the Radio Academy event enabled him to promote the BNP to “300 of the most powerful people in British radio”. Backwards claims NG only took part in a panel discussion. We do not criticise NG’s attendance at such an event which let him meet the editors and journalists who are so often hostile to us. He even had the opportunity to meet government ministers such as Tessa Jowell the Arts Minister.
But it was not a panel discussion. The only person on the platform other than the discussion chairman was Abu Hamza, a man known throughout the world as one of the most vocal proponents of the ideas of the world’s leading Moslem terrorist Osama bin Laden. Hamza preached hatred against Britain and its people. British nationalists demonstrated against him when he conducted Friday prayers in the street outside the mosque from which he had been banned, so extreme he was even among Moslems. By debating one to one with Abu Hamza, NG placed our party on the same level, two opposing forms of unacceptable extremism. NG also showed that he was prepared to sacrifice his political principles at the altar of self aggrandisement.
Jonathan Bowden
Perhaps Backwards thinks that by telling a lie often enough it becomes reality. Hundreds of party members know that NG tried to warn Bowden off from speaking at meetings of proscribed organisations or sharing platform with individuals who had been proscribed or expelled from the BNP. Having lied about Bowden Backwards goes on to sidestep the question of the BNP councillors present at the meeting organised by New Right where the speakers included a Muslim extremist and a pagan. Is this lack of discipline acceptable to NG because he fears an open battle within the party?
Infiltration
Backwards claim that Arthur Kemp was never an agent of either the former or the Marxist ANC government of South Africa. It is interesting how adept Kemp is at manipulating the truth to advance his fellow agent Bep Nieuwhof. Backwards claims Arthur’s book nowhere said that Nieuwhof got a 12-year sentence. True the present internet version no longer contains this statement but it was certainly in the old printed version. The fact is that South African intelligence offered Arthur Kemp a deal over the Chris Hani case and as a result he continued his intelligence gathering work for a new master in the Marxist ANC regime. He exaggerated Bep’s sentence in order to enhance Bep’s credibility.
Robert Bailey
Robert Bailey had what John le Carré’s spy novels called “a legend” created either by himself or by his masters. It is almost certain he did serve in the Royal Marine commandos. However although he has mentioned a number of locations where he served, our checks revealed that before coming back to Britain he was operating in Algeria, a place he never mentioned. What was he doing there? He is referred to as a business man: in fact he was a failed business man though he was able to make a personal donation of £3,000 to the party when he appeared on the scene.
Who is ultimately responsible?
Last week’s by-elections showed that we are still not winning. Yes there were two or three quite good percentages including some second places but British elections operate on the winner takes all principle. NG’s supporters go on about getting 14% of the vote in May, which is a fair achievement compared to a few years ago, but we got over 19% in May last year. And why compare this year’s result with the 4.9% polled in the European elections of 2004? Surely the 16% we got in the local elections that year is a more relevant comparison? One gets the impression that Backwards is selecting its figures in order to prove its point. [Very neatly put]
And among all the carefully chosen figures and quotes from one of our sworn enemies, the left-wing Labour MP Jon Cruddas, Backwards fails completely to answer our question, namely that if middle management is to blame for the failings in our party, as some supporters of NG have alleged, why has NG not ensured that the right people are in these posts.
Don Black
The facts belie NG’s claim of not having any links with Don Black [ex-Ku Klux Klan and owner of the Stormfront nazi forum which is proscribed to mere BNP members]. They were photographed together at a conference in New Orleans organised by David Duke, a close associate of NG.
In 2004 Don Black, representing Stormfront, and John Tyndall attended a gathering of European nationalists in New Orleans to discuss white nationalism. Both of them signed the New Orleans Protocol. Although JT signed as an individual rather than as a representative of the BNP, NG has since then maintained the connection at international meetings in the USA.