Martin Webster has another go at the BNP's Nick Griffin

In the latest edition of his ebulletin, Electronic Loose Cannon, the far-right's extremely loose cannon, Martin Webster, has again attacked the BNP leader Nick Griffin. Webster, who has had his claws deep into Griffin since the announcement that there is to be a BNP leadership contest, regales us with a list of small but far from insignificant facts (?) which, added to the body of evidence collected over years by both the anti-fascists movement and his opposition on the far-right, show Griffin to be a shyster on rather an impressive scale, if true.

For the most part, we'll repeat the allegations from Webster verbatim but there we feel the need to comment, we'll enclose our comment in square brackets [like these].

'I have no knowledge of Nick Griffin's father, Edgar, beyond that he is a chartered accountant and that his father, Edwin, was a leading Freemason who left Nick, £300,000 in the late 1980s (which he quickly lost in stupid property deals).'

[Curiously, considering what an enormous amount of money £300,000 is, isn't this just after Griffin declared bankruptcy? If so, perhaps that's how he managed to be discharged.]

'On the one occasion in the mid 1970s that I stayed over-night at the Griffin family home (then at Hill House, Huntingfield, near Halesworth, Suffolk) the kitchen was filled with oriental carpets, giving it the appearance of a souk.

Mrs Griffin had bought a job lot of these and was proposing, somehow, to merchandise them. She asked my opinion as to their quality. I was surprised she didn't remark: "Never mind the quality -- feel the width". It became evident to me on that occasion that the entire Griffin family were money mad.'

[It shouldn't take anyone long to come to that conclusion.]

'I was informed last year by Daily Mail feature writer David Jones that Nick Griffin's sister is "Susan Patricia". Jones said he had tried to locate her via a search of the on-line Registry of Electors, but had no luck. There is a real mystery concerning why she has broken off all contact with her family and made efforts to cover her tracks.

Susan Patricia was once engaged to Ipswich National Front branch organiser Tony Williams, a boyhood friend of Griffin's. At the time (late 70s/early 80s) Williams (whose father was a wealthy businessman) was building up a very successful off-licence business in East Anglia. During the 1970s Susan Patricia stood at least once (I think in Ipswich) as an NF local council candidate.'

[There's nothing about Susan Griffin on the net but it would be interesting to find out more about her. Any information would be welcome.]

'I don't know when or why the engagement between Susan Patricia and Williams ended. It may have been something to do with the following:

'NICK GRIFFIN'S FIRST SWINDLE?

In the mid/late 1980s Griffin swindled Williams of a couple of thousand pounds. Griffin told Williams that he had got news about a bargain supply of CDs somewhere on the Continent, but that he didn't have the cash to take advantage of the offer. He implied the purchase was for his own private business enterprise and promised to repay Williams in cash "within two weeks". As they were friends, the deal was transacted without paperwork.

Weeks went by and no repayment was made. When Williams asked for his money, he was astounded to be told by Griffin that the money was "a loan to the party" (i.e. what remained of the National Front, or one of its splinters) not a personal loan to him, or a loan guaranteed by him, and that if Williams wanted his cash, he should chase the party.

But this was at the time that the remnant of the NF was splintering into little grouplets and Griffin was helping Roberto Fiore set up the International Third Position, so in effect there was no identifiable "party" to chase and any litigation against the then impecunious Griffin would be futile.'

[If this is indeed true, we doubt very much if it was Griffin's first swindle but this does sound very much like Griffin's first foray into the music business, Rock Against Communism, a cash-generating racist music scene that eventually evolved into the enormously successful Blood and Honour.

It is believed by many who were involved in the scene at the time that Griffin realised that the 'white power' music scene was a money-making scam of epic proportions but it appears he was eventually sussed by none other than Ian Stuart Donaldson, the late lead singer of Skrewdriver, one of the most famous bands in the whole Blood and Honour movement, who, with a few others who were involved (Nicky Crane of the British Movement being one) got the hell out and largely separated the music from the politics (and the thieves from the money). Great White Records doesn't seem to be doing quite as well.]

'JUNK PRINTING EQUIPMENT AND A DRUNK'S LIFE-SAVINGS

You will know that Griffin was eventually forced to quit the ITP after a deal which involved the purchase of printing equipment which turned out to be only just so much scrap iron; and swindling one of its members, Colin Todd, caretaker of the Fiore-owned building Liss House at Liss Forest, Hants.

Somehow Griffin persuaded Todd to "invest" his life savings in a venture. It was a scam and Todd lost the lot. When confronted with this cruel swindle Griffin shrugged it off, remarking that "Todd is a drunk".

The two thousand pounds loss which [Tony] Williams sustained as a result of Griffin's crookedness was not the worst aspect of the sting. It was the crass and cynical dishonouring of an agreement between two long-standing friends. Williams just could not believe Griffin could be so dishonest and so brazen - and so casual about a long friendship.'

[Which is precisely what he's going to do to the membership of the BNP - take their money and run.]

'THE FIRST FARM BUILDING RENOVATION SWINDLE

This made Williams loathe Griffin and, decades later, prompted him to make available to me a DVD copy of a video he had shot of a building restoration project which had taken place in 1984 on Hill House, the Griffin family home in Suffolk.

Griffin told the NF that he had persuaded his parents to grant the National Front's youth wing, the Young National Front, free use of a number of outbuildings of their farmhouse, but that restoration work would need to be done free of charge.

YNF and NF members went to the farm for weekend after weekend during that year and did hard and dangerous building work for no wage. They paid their own fares to and from the site and slept on the floors of the buildings they were renovating.

A SWINDLE WITH GRATIS AD LIB LAGER FUNDED "FREE MEALS"

They were given "free" meals, but the meals were in fact paid for by means of a petty swindle.

Williams had delivered to the site before work commenced a van-load of tins of continental lager which had just gone by their 'sell-by' date and could not be sold via the off-licence trade. Williams GAVE the lager for FREE distribution to the young idealists. Griffins knew a business opportunity when they saw it and they set to work grinding off off the 'sell-by' date from the cans, which were then SOLD to the workers at £1 per can! Easily £2 in today's values. But this was only a trivial side swindle.

The worst aspect of the main swindle - the building restoration - was that the youngsters were put to work on an a major asbestos clearance.

"IF HE DOESN'T BREAK HIS NECK HE'LL DIE OF ASBESTOS POISONING"

By that time a law had been passed requiring asbestos clearances to be conducted by specially licenced asbestos clearance contractors whose staff had been specially trained and who use special protective equipment and who bagged and disposed of asbestos waste in a prescribed manner.

Needless to say, the NF/YNF people were ignorant of the dangers and of the law governing such work, and they simply climbed on to the roof of "the Asbestos Barn" and hurled the asbestos sheets to the ground, sending up clouds of potentially lethal dust. This and other aspects of the work was filmed by Tony Williams on his video camera.

Griffin wrote and spoke a commentary to the video. His voice is unmistakable. At one point in the film John Field, then the organiser of Hackney YNF, is shown on the roof without any protective equipment or safety harness, hammering down asbestos sheets as clouds of dust rise.

Griffin remarks in his commentary: "If he doesn't break his neck, then he'll die of cancer due to asbestos poisoning".

This remark was made with cold matter-of-factness.

WHY SHOULD ALL THIS BE DRAGGED UP NOW - AFTER SO LONG A TIME?

Some may ask why such wickedness should be made an issue now.... "after all, it was a long time ago". There are two equally important answers, as follows:

Firstly, asbestosis is a terminal condition which takes decades to manifest itself. The people who as young men worked on the asbestos clearance at Hill House are now coming into the time when, if they have been unlucky, symptoms will start to present. They may have no idea what is happening to them, or why.

Secondly, anybody who in his 20s (an adult) who could perpetrate such a thing against anybody, let alone "comrades", and who could perpetrate sundry other swindles against friends and associates, is not somebody who at any subsequent time should have any trust reposed in them.

Needless to say, the property, once renovated, was never made available to the NF (nor was the video!!). The whole thing had been a trick whereby the Griffin family exploited their political connection to con young idealists to get dangerous, expensive and potentially lethal work done for free.'

[If the story about the lager is true, it simply shows what we already know - that Griffin will exploit anyone to make a quick buck. It just shows the actions of a petty thief. It's the other story that should concern us more - the asbestos story. If that's true and if evidence exists in the form of a film, it should be passed on to the police, Environmental Health and the Press with a view to pursuing criminal charges against Griffin. Without the film or at least evidence from the other people who were there at the time, this is all hearsay. With the film, Griffin could end up nicely tucked away in Strangeways. Come on Webster, do what's right.]

'VIDEO MADE TO CREATE ILLUSION OF "A HISTORIC PROJECT"

Griffin had only asked Williams to make the video to give the YNF lads the illusion they were engaged in "a historic project" - and how those innocents played up to the camera! Williams says he was as much conned as to the real purpose of being asked to make the video as he was conned by the use made of his supply of lager.

The work which those lads did added greatly the value of the Griffin property. When the property was sold, not a penny of the enhanced value created by the renovation work was directed to any nationalist political movement, as promised by Griffin at the outset.

Fiore and other of the Italian ITP prominenti occasionally turned up to Hill House inspect the good work, since the concept of a "rural community centres" was then very much one of their ideological fads.

One would have thought that the swindle they saw Griffin perpetrate against the NF would have warned them off trusting him with their financial affairs...but Fiore and his gang were then and are now greedy for money, so perhaps they admired Griffin's style.

THE SECOND FARM BUILDING RENOVATION SWINDLE

Griffin performed another "Barn conversion" swindle soon after he became chairman of the BNP in 1999 - in about 2001/2.

The BNP put up the money for the materials and provided free skilled labour for the renovation of his barn on his 'Y Gribbin' farm in Wales. This barn is supposed to function as a venue for party meetings. If as and when it is used as such, the party is invoiced by Griffin for its use. Griffin did not grant the party any equity in the property in return for its "investment" so that if as and when the farm is sold, the added value created by the barn renovation go entirely to Griffin and not a penny to the BNP.

For some reason Griffin never secured the video (with his commentary dubbed on it) of the Hill House outbuildings renovation of 1984. Perhaps in the hurley-burley of political splits and financial shenanigans he forgot all about it.

WILLIAMS' HILL HOUSE VIDEO GOES WALKABOUT

Williams left the NF at about the time of its final disintegration under Griffin's (mis)management and some time in the 1990s became head of the minuscule National Socialist Movement. The NSM became exposed by the media for one reason or another and Williams fled the country and settled in a far-off land. He took with him the video of the Hill House renovation.

Eventually he made a DVD conversion of the video and made available a copy to me. The ownership of the copyright of this film is retained by Williams under contract.

Information about this DVD has been given to a wide cross-section of the media. I have retained the complete file of all the negotiations which took place. In all instances there was an initial flurry of keen interest and then, in all cases, the interest suddenly evaporated without any explanation.'

[Share it with us - we'll spread it around!]

'THE STRANGE REACTION OF THE MEDIA

Can one imagine what the reaction of the media would be in normal circumstances where a politician - of ANY party - was on record on a DVD of being involved in such a matter and of commenting sarcastically about the possible death of one of his duped helpers?

To put the gravity of the current situation into some kind of perspective, one would have to recollect the kind of huge smears, based on the most trivial of pretexts, levelled at personalities in the National Front during the 1970s.

In 1978, for example, the Daily Mirror concocted a double-page spread exposing the organiser of a local branch of the NF as "a Nazi" because part of the minute pattern on his tie, when hugely enlarged, could be said to resemble a "pattern of swastikas"!

The NF official concerned (Paul Kavanagh) was a respectable middle-class importer of machine tools with no "Nazi" background whatsoever. Indeed, he was widely rumoured to be an MI5 informant (but that is another story!). He was co-founder with Andrew Fountaine of the "National Front Constitutional Movement".

How does that bit of nonsense about Paul Kavanagh's tie compare with Griffin's outrageous record?'

[A nazi is a nazi whether his tie identifies him or not. Griffin's record though, if all this is true, is appalling.]

'WHO KILLED-OFF DOMINIC CARMAN'S BIOGRAPHY OF NICK GRIFFIN?

My recent experiences of the media via-a-vis Griffin seem to be very similar to that of the author Dominic Carman (son of the famous libel lawyer, the late George Carman QC).

Three years ago Carman was engaged in researching Griffin prior to producing a biography. Carman subjected me to two long in-depth interviews, the first was video-taped, the second audio-taped. He took copies of a lot of documents I have on file. The questioning covered a lot of ground, including most intimate matters.

In-between Carman's first and second interview with me, he had visited the Griffin farmhouse home in Wales. I understand he spent the weekend there and took the opportunity to interview Nick's wife Jacky separately from her husband Nick.

She was very frank on delicate matters. Carman also took information from former pupils at a girls public school in Suffolk, whose sixth form Nick and one or two other lads were permitted to attend. The information which they gave chimed with that provided by Jackie and provided context for my information in the same general area of sexuality.'

[This is presumably yet another reference to Griffin's interestingly hypocritical past.]

'THE ESTABLISHMENT IS HAPPY WITH GRIFFIN AS BNP CHAIRMAN

Two years rolled by but Carman's book did not appear. A brief article about Griffin by Carman appeared in the Daily Mail colour supplement about a year ago which was clearly based on his book researches, but since then there has been complete silence.

Intrigued by this, I e-mailed Carman on 25th April this year, saying:

"..... you will understand my wondering if the reason why your book on Griffin has not appeared has anything to do with my experiences of trying to get quite crucial information about Griffin's character and background into the public arena at a time when the mainstream media profiles of him are edging towards hagiography. Any reply will be kept confidential by me if you so request....."

Carman received my e-mail but has sent no response. I quite understand. He wants to be able to continue to earn his living from the mainstream media.

For want of any other explanation, I feel entitled to propose that the media was and is being orchestrated not to do anything to dislodge Griffin from his perch at the top of the BNP.

It is evident that the Establishment has every reason to be happy to have [a] creature like Griffin at the head of the premiere "nationalist" party in Britain, just as it is happy to have corrupt creatures at the head of every other political party which strives for the rewards which only Establishment patronage can bestow.'

Apart from detesting Griffin for all the reasons laid out above, we can't see any particular reason for Webster to make all this stuff up. Apart from anything else, the information in the article simply confirms much that is already known (but from the other side, as it were) except the shocking asbestos story, which we feel deserves a far wider readership than we can give it.

Webster clearly has his own agenda and appears to be driven to write all this down by his loathing of BNP leader Nick Griffin. Nevertheless, the items in the article should be essential reading for anti-fascists and BNP members alike. The latter should at least be afforded the opportunity to quiz their party leader to discover how much truth there is to the items. If they could see the film too, it could dramatically change the way the current party loyalists view their not so glorious leader.