BNP Legal Director Lee Barnes’ June bout of anti-Jewish madness

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Hexapla. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.

Please Note: Shortly after we published our article exposing Lee Barnes’ racist and plagiaristic use of Jew Watch material, Lee Barnes himself responded with yet another anti-Jewish diatribe on his blog attacking Lancaster Unity. In his response Lee Barnes deliberately avoids addressing his plagiarism of Jew Watch material. He wants to ignore this issue and censor any meaningful discussion of his racist postings by slandering Lancaster Unity and anyone else who dares raise this issue in the public domain. In other words, Lee Barnes, in true fascist and racist tradition, is unrepentant. The following are extracts from his response entitled, Lancaster Unity – The facts. As the reader will see, his response is thoroughly anti-Jewish, incoherent and intellectual redundant:

“One such collection of poisonous hypocrites are the self professed Zionist extremist Jews on Lancaster Unity.

A few months ago in a rare example of honesty, the LU website stated that most of the people who control the site and post on the site are Jewish.

Them being Jewish is of itself irrelevant. They were only declaring and using the fact of their 'Jewishness' to divert attention from the true issue, which is the fact they are Zionists.

It is the fact that the people who control LU are Zionists is the most important issue.

The LU Zionists are part of the same type of extremist Jews who supported and worked with the Nazis during WW2, and who even offered to fight alongside the Nazis against the British in Palestine, even as the Death Camps were murdering millions of non-Zionist Jews in Europe”
....

“But the problem begins when a tiny cabal of manipulative and deceitful Jewish extremists organise to represent the interests of Zionism and then use the camouflage of 'Anti-Racism' and 'pro-working class propaganda' in order to attack other racial groups who are also organising to represent their community interests”.
.....

“The people in LU are part of the lineage of Jewish Zionist extremists that supported the genocide of the Palestinians, that worked with the Nazis and that supported mass Islamist immigration into the UK over recent decades”

Busy Anti-Semitic Barnes

It’s been a busy month for Lee Barnes, the self-appointed, unemployed and unqualified head of the BNP’s dysfunctional legal department. Whilst he’s not making apocalyptic pronouncements about the impending end of the world, issuing keyboard threats against rivals within the BNP or telling us about his plans for the esoteric revival of pre-Roman indigenous pagan religions to revitalise the White race, Lee Barnes has been indulging in one of his other favourite pastimes: Jew-baiting. Summer is here and Lee Barnes has informed us in his very own plagiaristic and racist style that silly season has indeed begun with three-four June articles tinged with anti-Jewish sentiment.

BNP Legal Director Lee Barnes and Jew Watch – the tale of anti-Semitic plagiarist extraordinaire

The contents of some of Lee Barnes' Jew baiting articles are directly lifted from what is perhaps the world’s leading anti-Jewish website, Jew Watch, run by a member of the American neo-nazi hate group, the National Alliance (which the BNP has links with). Jew Watch is extremely controversial, so extreme that it has been condemned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as one of the worst examples of how the internet has been exploited for purposes of incitement to racial hatred.

In the introduction to one his recent articles, Jewish Chronicle Interview, the irrepressible Lee Barnes tell us:

“Had another call from Dana at the Jewish Chronicle today about my article 'Burn Down Hollywood' about how the power of the Jewish elite that run Hollywood is being abused to undermine the Anglo-European community in the US and Europe.

I was very surprised that Dana had not ever heard of or read Kevin McDonalds book 'The Culture of Critique' which chronicles the role of Jewish intellectuals and activists in American society.

The fact that the Jewish community has disproportionate power over various sectors of American society is only controversial to those that think those Jewish groups are doing something wrong”

Below we demonstrate how Lee Barnes has plagiarised Jew Watch hate material by comparing extracts from his Jewish Chronicle Interview article with a Jew Watch article, Monopolist Jewish Pro-Zionist/Pro-Soviet Control of Movie Studios. Conveniently, Lee Barnes doesn’t acknowledge his over-dependent use of Jew Watch hate material anywhere in his racist article. We wonder why?

Paragraph 1 (Jew Watch article):

The largest media conglomerate today is Walt Disney Company, whose chairman and CEO, Michael Eisner, is a Jew. The Disney empire, headed by a man described by one media analyst as "a control freak," includes several television production companies (Walt Disney Television, Touchstone Television, Buena Vista Television), its own cable network with 14 million subscribers, and two video production companies.

Paragraph 42 (Lee Barnes BNP article):

The largest media conglomerate today is Walt Disney Company, whose chairman and CEO, Michael Eisner, who is Jewish ran the company from 1984-2005. The Disney empire, was headed by a man described by one media analyst as "a control freak," included several television production companies (Walt Disney Television, Touchstone Television, Buena Vista Television), its own cable network with 14 million subscribers, and two video production companies.

Paragraph 2 (Jew Watch article):

As for feature films, the Walt Disney Picture Group, headed by Joe Roth (also a Jew), includes Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, and Caravan Pictures. Disney also owns Miramax Films, run by the Weinstein brothers, who have produced such ultra-raunchy movies such as The Crying Game, Priests, and Kids.

Paragraph 44 (Lee Barnes BNP article):

As for feature films, the Walt Disney Picture Group, headed by Joe Roth (also a Jew), includes Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, and Caravan Pictures. Disney also owns Miramax Films, run by the Weinstein brothers, who have produced such ultra-raunchy movies such as The Crying Game, Priests, and Kids.

Paragraph 3 (Jew Watch article):

When the Disney Company was run by the Gentile Disney family prior to its takeover by Eisner in 1984, it epitomized wholesome, family entertainment. While it still holds the rights to Snow White, under Eisner the company has expanded into the production of graphic sex and gratuitous violence. In addition to TV and movies, the corporation owns Disneyland, Disney World, Epcot Center, Tokyo Disneyland, and Euro Disney.

Paragraph 46 (Lee Barnes BNP article)

When the Disney Company was run by the Disney family prior to its takeover by Eisner in 1984, it epitomized wholesome, family entertainment. While it still holds the rights to Snow White, under Eisner the company had expanded into the production of graphic sex and gratuitous violence. In addition to TV and movies, the corporation owns Disneyland, Disney World, Epcot Center, Tokyo Disneyland, and Euro Disney.

Paragraph 4 (Jew Watch article):

Time Warner, Inc., is the second of the international media leviathans. The chairman of the board and CEO, Gerald M. Levin, is a Jew. Time Warner’s subsidiary HBO is the country’s largest pay-TV cable network.

Paragraph 47 (Lee Barnes BNP article):

Time Warner, Inc., is the second of the international media leviathans. The chairman of the board and CEO, Gerald M. Levin, is a Jew. Time Warner’s subsidiary HBO is the country’s largest pay-TV cable network.

Paragraph 5 (Jew Watch article):

Viacom, Inc., headed by Sumner Redstone (born Murray Rothstein), is the third largest megamedia corporation in the country, with revenues of over $10 billion a year. Viacom, which produces and distributes TV programs for the three largest networks, owns 12 television stations and 12 radio stations. It produces feature films through Paramount Pictures, headed by Jewess Sherry Lansing.

Paragraph 48 (Lee Barnes BNP article):

Viacom, Inc., headed by Sumner Redstone (born Murray Rothstein), is the third largest megamedia corporation in the country, with revenues of over $10 billion a year. Viacom, which produces and distributes TV programs for the three largest networks, owns 12 television stations and 12 radio stations. It produces feature films through Paramount Pictures, headed by Jewess Sherry Lansing.

Paragraph 6 (Jew Watch article):

Its publishing division includes Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, and Pocket Books. It distributes videos through over 4,000 Blockbuster stores. It is also involved in satellite broadcasting, theme parks, and video games.

Paragraph 50 (Lee Barnes BNP article):

Its publishing division includes Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, and Pocket Books. It distributes videos through over 4,000 Blockbuster stores. It is also involved in satellite broadcasting, theme parks, and video games.

Paragraph 7 (Jew Watch article):

Viacom’s chief claim to fame, however, is as the world’s largest provider of cable programming, through its Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon, and other networks. Since 1989, MTV and Nickelodeon have acquired larger and larger shares of the juvenile television audience. Redstone, who actually owns 76 percent of the shares of Viacom ($3 billion), offers Beavis and Butthead as teen role models and is the largest single purveyor of race-mixing propaganda to White teenagers and sub-teens in America and Europe. MTV pumps its racially mixed rock and rap videos into 210 million homes in 71 countries and is the dominant cultural influence on White teenagers around the world.

Paragraph 51 (Lee Barnes BNP article):

Viacom’s chief claim to fame, however, is as the world’s largest provider of cable programming, through its Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon, and other networks. Since 1989, MTV and Nickelodeon have acquired larger and larger shares of the juvenile television audience.

Paragraph 10 (Jew Watch article):

Number four on the list is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox Television Network and 20th Century Fox Films. Murdoch is a Gentile, but Peter Chernin, who heads Murdoch’s film studio and also oversees his TV production, is a Jew.

Paragraph 52 (Lee Barnes BNP article):

Number four on the list is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox Television Network and 20th Century Fox Films. Murdoch is a Gentile, but Peter Chernin, who heads Murdoch’s film studio and also oversees his TV production, is a Jew.

Paragraph 12 (Jew Watch article):

Most of the television and movie production companies that are not owned by the largest corporations are also controlled by Jews. For example, New World Entertainment, proclaimed by one media analyst as "the premiere independent TV program producer in the United States," is owned by Ronald Perelman, a Jew who also owns Revlon cosmetics. The chairman at New World, Brandon Tartikoff (formerly head of entertainment programming at NBC), is also a Jew.

Paragraph 55 (Lee Barnes BNP article):

For example, New World Entertainment, proclaimed by one media analyst as "the premiere independent TV program producer in the United States," is owned by Ronald Perelman, a Jew who also owns Revlon cosmetics.

Paragraph 13 (Jew Watch article):

The best known of the smaller media companies, DreamWorks SKG, is a strictly kosher affair. DreamWorks was formed in 1994 amid great media hype by recording industry mogul David Geffen, former Disney Pictures chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, and film direction Steven Spielberg, all three of whom are Jews. The company produces movies, animated films, television programs, and recorded music. Considering the cash and connections that Geffen, Katzenberg, and Spielberg have, DreamWorks may soon be in the same league as the big three.

Paragraph 57 (Lee Barnes BNP article):

The best known of the smaller media companies, DreamWorks SKG 1994 amid great media hype by recording industry mogul David Geffen, former Disney Pictures chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, and film direction Steven Spielberg, all three of whom are Jews. The company produces movies, animated films, television programs, and recorded music. Considering the cash and connections that Geffen, Katzenberg, and Spielberg have, DreamWorks may soon be in the same league as the big three.

Paragraph 14 (Jew Watch article):

Two other large production companies, MCA and Universal Pictures, are both owned by Seagram Company, Ltd. The president and CEO of Seagram, the liquor giant, is Edgar Bronfman, Jr., who is also president of the World Jewish Congress.

Paragraph 58 (Lee Barnes BNP article):

Two other large production companies, MCA and Universal Pictures, are both owned by Seagram Company, Ltd. The president and CEO of Seagram, the liquor giant, is Edgar Bronfman, Jr., who was also president of the World Jewish Congress.

In a further article, we will detail Lee Barnes’ other anti-Jewish writings and postings. ¡No Pasarán!

Further update: Lee Barnes of the BNP has posted a second response to our exposé of his racism, Lancaster Unity – Update. It is only now that he has, in some of sort of half-hearted way, decided to hesitantly address the one of the main thrusts of our article: his unacknowledged use of Jew Watch material. Jumping through hoops of illogical reasoning, Lee Barnes justifies his use of Jew Watch as follows:

“In the articles I wrote below I had to do some research to find out the power of sections of the Jewish community in Hollywood. This entailed reading sites that list details of the individuals and organisations that control Hollywood.

Much of this was not up to date and I had to do extra (and boring research) to bring the articles up to date.

The next time I decide to investigate the power of members of the Irish community in America, then I will look for a site called 'Irish Watch' similar to the one that contained information that I used called 'Jew Watch'”

One couldn’t make this stuff up. What the reader will automatically realise is that Lee Barnes unwittingly says the following: ‘That it is not anti-Jewish to use an anti-Jewish resource when writing an anti-Jewish article’! As we said earlier, Lee Barnes is an unrepentant fascist and will always go to great lengths in order to justify his illogical hatred in the most illogical ways. His torrid justification, like his article, drips of incredulity.

Leading BNP member resigns stating 'the party is corrupt' and undemocratic

Scottish BNP webmaster Paul Johnson has resigned from the BNP, citing the party's corruption and lack of democracy among his reasons for leaving. His resignation statement (completely unedited) is reproduced below:

'What have I learned about the BNP in almost a year of being a paid member and as a BNP Scotland official, that a lot of the rumours are true and the party is corrupt, and is not democratic in any shape or form. Infact one might go as far to say that its not necessarily British but more of lets follow Griffin and blow smoke up his arse!

The party is full of a lot of lemmings that think Nick Griffin/ Mark Collett are some sort of 'Gods' in the making. I suppose when you surround yourself with lemmings it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you are the greatest person who walked the earth.

I had a person that wanted some answers with regard to the parties constitution. I didn't have a copy so I thought I would contact other officials for advice or to obtain a copy. The first person I contacted was Mark Collett who said he has never seen a copy and wouldn't know where to get one from. In the end he suggested that I contacted Nick Griffin as at the end of the day he was the one who wrote it.

Before I went that far up the official line I thought I would contact the deputy party leader, Simon Darby. His words on the subject were why do you want it? Just tell him to "F*$k Off!" He is only a 'red' trying to wind you up!"

I could add more to this but I will only be called a 'Red' or a 'Traitor'. Would I reccommend joining the BNP? As it stands with the current lineup It would be a resounding NO! If the party changes its current team leadership and how its run then Yes! Only time will tell if the party changes for the better as currently it is stuck in the dark ages.'

A quick peek under the apron, beagle attack and the 'return' of two old favourites

What an exciting week it's been for the massed lunatics of the far-right. This last week has seen Lee Barnes, the BNP's legal beagle, have a go at us because according to him we at Lancaster Unity are all racists, and the North West Nationalist blog getting into a frenzy at the news (?) that Nick Eriksen and Tony Lecomber had returned to the BNP fold. Oh yes, and that Nick Griffin's father Edgar has been a Freemason for the past sixty-odd years.

Taking these in reverse order for no particular reason, we read that Edgar Griffin (pictured, centre) has been awarded something or the other (we don't care) for being a Freemason for more than six decades. Edgar, as our regular readers will know, is an accountant who has been repeatedly linked to Roberto Fiore, an old friend of his son. As recently as February of this year, Edgar was found to have been doing the accounts for CL English Language, a college in west London that teaches hundreds of foreign students each year, run by neo-fascist Fiore, leader of Forza Nuova, an extreme right-wing party.

Fiore arrived in Britain in October 1980 as a 21-year-old fugitive from the Italian police, who wanted to question him about the Bologna train station bombing two months earlier in which 85 people were killed and more than 200 injured. He was reputed to be a member of the extreme right-wing organisation the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei, several of whose members were subsequently convicted of mass murder. After being arrested by Scotland Yard officers the following year, Fiore was brought before Bow Street court, but the authorities in Rome failed to secure his extradition. Fiore settled in London and became friendly with Nick Griffin; the two are reported to have shared a flat and are also said to have run a travel agency together.

Edgar, who introduced his son to the National Front by taking him along to a meeting when the younger Griffin was just fifteen, has been a life-long Freemason, as was his father Edwin before him. Edwin, according to Martin Webster, a former colleague and claimed ex-lover of Nick Griffin, left his grandson, the current leader of the BNP, £300,000 in his will in the late eighties, which 'he quickly lost in stupid property deals'.

An article on the web page of the Mark Master Masons of North Wales details the celebrations at the Lodge:

'In 1992 he received further promotion to the rank of Active Grand Junior Deacon. W. Bro. Edgar Griffin was Elevated in the Degree of the Ancient and Honourable Fraternity of Royal Ark Mariner on 31st August 1955 (52 years ago) in the Barnet Lodge of Royal Ark Mariners No. 947. He was Installed as Worshipful Commander in 1964. He was elected Holder of Provincial Royal Ark Mariner Grand Rank in 1985 and received Royal Ark Mariner Grand Rank in 1990. After a period of years spent in Suffolk, and having been granted Honorary Membership of his Mark and RAM Lodges, he moved to Welchpool where he has continued his Masonic careers in our Degrees by becoming Worshipful Master in 2002 and Worshipful Commander in 2005.'

Whoopee.

Back in the real world, we hear that two of Nick Griffin's old friends have returned to his side - or at least that's what the North West Nationalist blog seems to think. Describing them as 'two vile and totally disreputable creatures', the article reports the returns of Nick Eriksen and Tony Lecomber.

There isn't much to say about these two scumbags except to remind our readers why they are so universally loathed (except, apparently, by Nick Griffin). Eriksen, you may recall, claimed that women were more troubled by bag theft than rape and also advocated violence against women on his 'Sir John Bull' blog, as reported by the Evening Standard just prior to the last elections. The subsequent furore cost him his position as the BNP's London organiser and as the second-highest candidate on its list for the Assembly.

Tony Lecomber, former Group Development Officer for the British National Party, is much more complicated and has quite a history with the far-right. In 1986, he was convicted on five counts for offences under the Explosives Act, including possession of homemade hand-grenades and electronic timing devices, and earned himself a derisory three year sentence. In 1991 he was sentenced to a further three years for unlawful wounding for his part in an attack on a Jewish teacher who he caught trying to peel off a BNP sticker at an underground station. He has a total of 12 convictions.

His most recent claim to fame is that he was expelled from the BNP after attempting to solicit a well-known alleged hitman to assassinate establishment figures 'who are aiding and abetting the coloured invasion of this country', an act of terrorism prompted by racism. The full story is here. Following this lunacy, he was thrown out of the party (January 16th 2006) and was proscribed to the membership - meaning nobody in the party was allowed to talk to him or in any way to associate with him.

Obviously, the proscription didn't apply to Nick Griffin because we received reports that Lecomber was helping out all over the place, planning and working side by side with Griffin himself.

In fact, contrary to the North West Nationalist report, neither Eriksen or Lecomber have ever really left the party at all. Lecomber, who is long known as being a confidente of Griffins, knows where the bodies are buried and cannot be allowed to be cast aside for fear that he might spill the beans. Eriksen's views are abhorent but not, we are told, that much different from those of the great leader himself, who has simply been waiting for what he considers to be a suitable amount of time to elapse since his remarks were made public to bring the arch-misogynist back.

These are just Griffin's old pals, creeping back into the party via the back door. Whether they are welcomed home by a membership that is rapidly losing confidence in its leadership is another matter entirely.

And we're back to Lee Barnes, the BNP's legal beagle and surely one of the most tedious and insane writers ever.

Barnes' problem this week is apparently that he has identified Lancaster Unity as 'the most racist organisation in the country'. Oo-er. And on what does he base this bizarre statement? Largely because we have 'remained silent on the ongoing racism of Hollywood against the English and anyone with blonde hair and blue eyes'.

To support this stupidity, Barnes refers to a film he has obviously seen recently.

'My present favourite negaive [sic] image of the English as propagandised by the racists in Hollywood is that of Tim Roth in the new The Hulk movie.'

As I've never seen The Hulk, and am unlikely to, I can't possibly comment on it except to suggest to Barnes that he tries to watch some more intelligent films - perhaps something that's designed to appeal more to adults with brains than adolescents with pimples.

Toodle-pip.

Plight of the Roma: echoes of Mussolini

The compulsory fingerprinting of Italy's Gypsy population is the latest example of the country's increasingly repressive attitude towards minorities – and an ominous reminder of the policies of the former Fascist dictator.

Fingerprint the lot of them: the idea had the satisfying smack of firm government. Now the Italian government was doing something tough; something long overdue.

The Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, a leader of the rabble-rousing Northern League – close allies of Silvio Berlusconi on the government benches – has explained his next step in his assault on the "emergenza di sicurezza", the "security emergency": fingerprinting all Gypsies.

It was the only way, he told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, for Italy to guarantee "to those who have the right to remain here, the possibility of living in decent conditions." For this purpose the Roma – those with Italian nationality and those without, EU citizens and those from outside the Community – will all have their fingerprints taken. And the rule will even apply to Gypsy children – for reasons that to many of Mr Maroni's supporters must have sounded obvious: "to avoid phenomena," as he put it, "such as begging". The new measures, he said, were indispensable "in order to expel those who do not have the right to stay in Italy".

For anybody not swept up in the wave of anti-Roma fury, the campaign has a strong whiff of Mussolini and Hitler about it.

The task of counting and identifying the residents of Italy, citizens or otherwise, who happen to belong the most despised minority in Europe is, in fact, already under way.

Giovanna Boursier, an Italian journalist, found one small camp where the count had already taken place on the furthest southern outskirts of Milan. "There is not even a bar where one could ask the way," she wrote in Il Manifesto, "but once you scramble up a hill you see the roofs of the huts. There are about 10 of them, along with the caravans, dotted around the outskirts, under flyovers and high-tension wires. Around 40 Roma lived here."

They told her that the police arrived at dawn, woke everybody up, surrounded the camp and flooded it with lights and then went from home to home, demanding identity documents and photographing them. All the residents were Italian citizens. It made no difference. "This wasn't a census," protested a Roma called Giorgio. "This was an ethnic register."

Fingerprinting was the detail they omitted – lacking, at that point, the power to do it. But Mr Maroni has now set about remedying that.

Italy's "security emergency" is a strange and distracting phenomenon which has been brewing up slowly for the past decade as economic growth slowed to a stop. It intensified dramatically with the admission of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU in January of last year, and now bulks so large that it was the biggest factor in Mr Berlusconi's election victory and continues to dominate the media. It led to the decision last week to allow police numbers in the big cities to be augmented by up to 3,000 troops.

The issue is strange and distracting because it does not seem to exist, either statistically or as a fact of personal experience. Crime is not a big deal in Italian cities. There is no epidemic of burglary, mugging, bag-snatching, rape. Italy remains a country where it is pretty safe to walk the streets. Yet the government is behaving as if this were Colombia. And Colombia with a very special difference: that the supposedly soaring rate of crime is the work of one particular ethnic group, known as "nomadi rom."

Gypsies or Roma are visible in Italian cities as in the rest of Europe, and their number has increased. In Rome your subway journey may be made slightly less enjoyable by their accordions and violins and the appeals of their begging. Your eyes may be offended by the sight of them fishing in the waste bins, or hauling stuff home for recycling. Rome is so badly policed that small, utterly miserable squatter camps have sprung up in many places. They are a disgrace – unhygienic, unaesthetic – and have no place in a civilised modern country. But as the source of a "security emergency"?

Giovanni Maria Bellu, a La Repubblica journalist and an expert on Italy's minorities, said the problem was one of misunderstanding. "Most Italians make no distinction between Italian Roma and those who arrived from Yugoslavia during that country's break-up," he said. "And many Italians think that 'Rom' is an abbreviation of 'Romanian' – and since the arrival of Romania in the EU there has been a large influx of Romanians. People conflate these separate things. There have been crimes committed by Romanians – and people confuse these with the Rom, and the Rom end up being blamed for everything.

"Security was the over-riding theme of the general election, which is why this conflated Roma-Romanian theme became so big, and a part of the left is very timid about confronting the problem. The security emergency itself is a myth: there has been no increase in the number of rapes, for example – in fact, the number has declined. But when a single case occurs it is splashed on the front page of certain papers for a double reason: it increases the climate of fear; and it damages the centre-left, which is perceived as being weak on security."

Italy's Roma paranoia spilled on to the world's front pages on 13 May, when a woman in a suburb of Naples called Ponticelli alleged that a Roma girl had tried to steal her baby. The community erupted in fury, and thugs belonging to the Camorra crime syndicates threw petrol bombs into the local gypsy squatter camp, driving out the inhabitants and burning the place to the ground. Suddenly there was no avoiding the fact: the Italian hatred for the Roma had taken a dramatic new turn.

But the origin was an ancient fear, rooted not in fact but legend. Mr Bellu said: "There is nothing in police records to support the idea that Roma have stolen babies. It's just a legend. But one that still has people in its grip."

Marco Nieli, the president of Opera Nomadi, the most important organisation representing Italy's Roma, said: "The first Roma arrived in Italy in 1400 and have been here ever since, and are Italians in every respect. The real problem is one of crass ignorance: if someone says that Roma steal babies, the political parties reflect and amplify this nonsense. This way all the problems are swept under the carpet."

Thomas Hammerberg, European commissioner for human rights, visited a big Roma camp in Rome earlier this month. "I visited Casalino 900 camp, where 650 or so Roma live," he said. "There was no electricity, no water. It was a very bad slum."

And the fear of the "ethnic register" was already rampant, he said, "due to what happened to them in the past in Germany and elsewhere. They also raised the question, why us? Why not others? Many of those in the camp I visited had been in Italy for 40 years; they came over from Yugoslavia, some of them still have problems with identity papers, squeezed between the old and the new country. If you've been in a country for 40 years, are you still a foreigner? This talk about fingerprints was another reminder that their status has never been settled.

"The basic problem of Roma is widespread in Europe: housing, health, education, employment, political representation... But for a long time in Italy the Roma have been a symbol of something that is unwanted.

"The Nazis and the Fascists used the same methods of singling them out in the 1930s. It's not surprising that they are frightened."

A pocket dictator and the Manifesto of Race

Racism is often seen as intrinsic to fascism, but the inventor of the ideology, Benito Mussolini, was brought around to the Hitler obsession with race late in his career and after a great deal of arm-twisting.

Jews had lived in Italy for centuries without persecution. The community in Rome, though confined to the historic ghetto area for many centuries, has the longest uninterrupted history of any Jewish community in the world. In Mussolini's Italy, upper middle- class Jews continued to live and prosper without persecution – until 1938.

In that year Mussolini introduced his Manifesto of Race, closely modelled on the Nazi Nuremberg laws, which stripped Jews of their Italian citizenship, the right of Jewish children to go to school and of adults to work in the government or the professions.

Traditional Italian tolerance and/or indifference towards Jews meant that many were sheltered during those years, but after the fall of Rome, when Mussolini moved to the town of Salo on Lake Garda and was set up by the Nazis as the pocket dictator of the Republic of Salo, deportations of Jews to the death camps began in earnest.

And what of Italy's Roma during the grim final years of Mussolini's rule? Some 1.6 million Roma died in Germany and elsewhere during the Holocaust, a proportionately greater genocide than that suffered by the Jews.

The history of their treatment under Mussolini is a subject that contemporary Italian historians have been loath to look into, according to Marco Nieli, president of the Italian Roma organisation Opera Nomadi.

"It's a fact that there were concentration camps for Roma in Italy during the Fascist period, and it's also a fact that thousands of Roma died in them of hunger, cold and over work," he claimed. "Studies are now under way to discover the extent of the suffering that took place."

Independent

BNP activist loses appeal

A BNP activist found guilty of harassment after putting up posters of three convicted killers with the description "illegal immigrant murder scum" has lost an appeal against his conviction.

Andrew Kendall, 32, from Fairfax Drive, Westcliff, claimed he was legally entitled to use the posters, which he put up in Southend High Street in February 2007, to promote his party's views on immigration and crime. But two senior judges at the High Court in London yesterday ruled Kendall was rightly found guilty by Southend magistrates.

Kendall was appealing against his conviction after he was given an 18-month conditional discharge for causing harassment, alarm or distress.

Mr Justice Keith said while it was accurate to say the three men were illegal immigrants, they had been convicted of manslaughter, and not murder. The judges also said Kendall should have known his actions might distress the public.

Essex Echo

BNP Parish Councillor Faces The Crunch

Deacon (facing camera, to the left of the person giving salute)
on a National Front activity before his election

Bedfordshire campaigners are organising to confront the racist politics of British National Party Parish Councillor Simon Deacon and will be scrutinising his response to the Equal Opportunities Policy being laid before the Parish Council meeting on Tuesday 1st July.

On Tuesday 1st July Simon Deacon, British National Party (BNP) councillor for Markyate Parish Council, will be asked to give his assent to the body’s Equal Opportunities Policy. This will create an impossible situation for Deacon, the former leading National Front activist who told the St Albans Observer (25.4.07) on his election

'England was a white country – we think it should be returned to that.'

The Equal Opportunities Policy contains many statements that stand totally opposed to his racist ideology, particularly the clause on cultural diversity that states:

'the council recognises that we live in a multicultural society and believes that cultural diversity should be viewed positively.'

Apart from Deacon’s personal prejudice, this very mild and reasonable statement stands against the policy of the national BNP, which calls for “an immediate halt to all further immigration...and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here.”

You can hardly value another culture if you want it moved out of town.

The Policy sets very high standards for councillors, stating that “the principle behind the statement must be reflected in all of our behaviours and practices.” Three Counties UAF feel that belonging to a Party that undermines a policy in its everyday business is a practice that is incompatible with being a Parish Councillor.

It is Deacon’s declared intent to get the BNP active in Hemel Hempstead and campaigners feel that his activity on the parish council is merely a smokescreen to further his wider electoral ambitions.

Markyate has shown itself to be a village free of prejudice in the manner that it returned an Asian woman, Jayshree Patel, onto the Parish Council long before Deacon walked into the post last May.

Three Counties UAF say that if Deacon agrees to the Policy then he should resign from the BNP, but if he disagrees then he should resign from the Parish Council. This action is the first in a campaign of action by Three Counties UAF to raise awareness of the threat posed by the BNP to the well-being of the village.

Notes:

1. The attached photo shows Deacon (facing camera, to the left of the person giving salute) on a National Front activity before his election. The person doing the salute is Stuart Hollingsdale, an NF member who was jailed in 1998 for smashing up the Stephen Lawrence memorial plaque in Eltham, South London.

2. Deacon was elected unopposed to the seat in May 2007 when only 9 nominations were made for the 10 vacancies on the parish council.

Three Counties UAF

Where Now? A debate on the way forward for anti-fascism in Britain

Last month Searchlight launched a debate on the direction and priorities for the anti-fascist movement. This month we print three of the many responses we have had to our initial article. These are the views of readers rather than Searchlight but we are genuinely keen to widen the debate.

If you would like to contribute to the debate please click here

Original 'Where now?' article
Community organising to beat the BNP
Targeting the BNP leadership
The answer is political

HOPE not hate

Solidarity PayPal account frozen

The BNP's pretend trade union has suffered another financial problem. A notice posted on 25 June on Solidarity's website stated that PayPal had frozen its account, which is used to receive membership subscriptions and donations online.

"This is due to the fact that the level of payments have triggered an automatic process designed to prevent money-laundering," the notice said. "We are required to submit photographic ID of officials, bank statements and so on. We are in the process of doing this."

This comes a month after the Trade Union Certification Office opened an investigation into Solidarity's financial affairs. For more information, read the July 2008 issue of Searchlight.

Searchlight

Racist hatemailer sentencing delayed

The sentencing of a racist BNP supporter who sent a councillor hate mail has been delayed again.

Kevin David was due to hear what his punishment would be on Tuesday, but bench chairman Haydon Gott ordered a psychiatric report.

David admitted sending a letter which included a bigoted rant against immigrants' and abused Cllr Marie Pye directly, Waltham Forest Magistrates' Court heard when he pleaded guilty last month. The 38-year-old, who lives close to Cllr Pye in Fairlop Road, Leytonstone, signed the malicious mail Nick Griffin' - the leader of the far-right BNP.

David was caught when police found traces of DNA on the letter which had been hand-delivered to Cllr Pye by a friend of David's in January.

Joanne Nicol, prosecuting, said: "On Wednesday, January 16, Cllr Pye heard a letter fall through her letter box and her partner went to get it. After reading it Cllr Pye became very distressed because it made several racial remarks and contained comments about her weight and disability."

Emma Judt, mitigating, said: "David is currently seeing a doctor at Thorpe Coombe Hospital to resolve his mental health issues."

Mr Gott said David had two previous convictions, one for an assault in 2002 for which he received a community punishment order and the other for an offence he committed 14 years ago. He will now be sentenced on Thursday, July 22.

Leytonstone Guardian

Nazi sympathiser jailed for planned nail bomb attacks

A Nazi sympathiser and paedophile who made nail bombs to attack black, Asian and Jewish people was jailed today for 16 years.

A judge at Leeds crown court told Martyn Gilleard, 31, of Poole Court, Goole, East Yorkshire, he believed he intended to cause "havoc" with the devices found by police under his bed. Gilleard was found guilty yesterday of terrorist offences and also of possessing child pornography. Gilleard was found guilty yesterday of charges of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts and collecting information for terrorist purposes.

Police found four nail bombs, bladed weapons, bullets, documents about terrorism and extreme right-wing literature when they were searching his flat for child pornography in October last year. Humberside police discovered around 39,000 indecent images of children, which included films and photographs and ranged from category one to five - where one is the least serious and five the most.

Gilleard admitted 10 specimen counts of possessing indecent images of children. He also pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing 34 cartridges of ammunition without holding a firearms certificate.

Police who searched Gilleard's flat discovered significant volumes of extreme right-wing literature and propaganda from far-right group Combat 18, as well as ammunition, weapons and homemade bombs. A further search by detectives and forensic teams from the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) in Leeds uncovered more explosive material, camouflage clothing, balaclavas, a bomb-making manual and outdoor survival guides.

They also found gunpowder, ready-made fuses and a notebook containing hand-written expressions of extreme anti-Semitic views.

A search of his workplace found a high-visibility jacket which had been modified with a hand-drawn swastika and Combat 18 lettering, and colleagues told police that Gilleard had expressed racist views.

Detectives launched a man-hunt when the father of one failed to return home after the original search of his flat. He was eventually found three days later and 300 miles away in Dundee, Tayside, and was arrested and charged with the terrorism offences after three days of questioning.

Gilleard's 31-year-old flatmate was also arrested but was later released without charge.

Gilleard was a member of a number of far-right groups, including the National Front, the British People's Party and the White Nationalist Party. In police interviews, he admitted sympathising with white supremacists and accepted that he was racist, but said he had become less racist in recent times.

During the six-day trial, he told the court he had an interest in the second world war and Nazism appealed to him because of the way the Nazis rebuilt Germany.

Gilleard claimed the nail bombs were not intended for serious violence and said he made them when he was bored after drinking "a couple of cans". But the prosecution said Gilleard intended to use the weapons and documents found in his flat in terrorist acts to further his political cause.

Guardian

Of dead ferrets and dodgy deals - the BNP lectures Labour about money

The latest ramblings on Simon Darby's blog seem largely to focus on the inability of the BNP membership to recognise a dead ferret when they see one. Quite how this has anything to do with his role as deputy-leader of the BNP I have no idea but perhaps he should reflect on the fact that while he's extremely lucky to live in a bloody nice house out in the wilds of Wales from which he can make patronising noises about urban deprivation, most of us (and the vast majority of the BNP membership) live in a distinctly urban environment and would find it hard to spot the difference between a ferret and Mark Collett. But then, who wouldn't?

The bulk of Darby's post seems strangely allied to a post we made here a week or so ago, concerning the current dire financial state of the BNP though in Darby's case he's having a go at what he wittily (?) calls 'ZaNuLabour'. One assumes this is a feeble attempt to deflect criticism away from the BNP for its continuing (and apparently endless) catalogue of financial disasters.

Here's a 'little snippet of gossip' regarding labour, as related by Darby.

'Apparently, workers at Labour head office are complaining bitterly that they are are having to wait longer and longer to get paid. Being £24 million in the red they have just about managed to scrape up enough pennies to pay their staff for last month, but there is real concern amongst the Party faithful that sooner rather than later the dosh isn't going to arrive.'

Curiously, we've heard much the same rumour about Darby's little gang. Obviously the numbers are smaller because the BNP has about three percent of the Labour Party's membership. Some of the complaints we've heard about the BNP are that debts are not being paid when they should be, money is continually being taken from branch funds to prop up the failing central bureaucracy and, yes, that workers are not being paid when they should be. The party faithful are indeed concerned that the BNP is heading towards financial collapse and the ones that correspond with us state very clearly that they expect that collapse to come sooner rather than later.

Darby continues;

'Not to worry though because Golden Gordon has a cunning plan.'

I'm starting to wonder if Simon Darby actually is one of our regular correspondents because almost that exact phrase appears in an email to us from a few days back.

'Not to worry though because Nick Griffin has a cunning plan.'

And Griffin's cunning plan turns out to be much the same one that Darby attributes to the Labour Party.

'Secret talks, not so secret actually, have been taking place with a certain well known pro-Labour multi-millionaire about throwing a lifeline to the technically insolvent political organisation...'

We too have heard the phrase 'secret talks', though in this case they refer to two millionaire supporters of the BNP. Both, we have heard, have been approached to bail out the party 'temporarily', which in this case we are told means two years at the outside. One of them, a long-time Griffin loyalist, is apparently reluctant to pump any more money into what he sees as a business that's pretty much on the rocks. While he seems okay providing smallish amounts to help out in times of need, he seems to be baulking at a larger and longer-term commitment. The other is an unknown quantity at the moment though we'll dig for more information.

In the meantime, the BNP's desperation for cash is reaching breaking point. Remember Albion Life, the party's extremely short-lived insurance company? Brightahomes, the double-glazing registry? Horse Matters (for all our equine needs)? The Skip-Hire Registry? Now the BNP has set up Avocado Marine Finance (registered to December rebel Steve Blake) - astonishingly closely linked to Avocado Mortgages but this time aimed at people who fancy buying themselves a boat.

The party will continue with these insane schemes, usually through a third-party (in the case of Avocado, a broker) until it either implodes into its own financial black hole or it finds some gullible idiot to stave off disaster. At the moment, the BNP membership is supporting it but each appeal produces substantially less money and if the amount of angry emails to us from disgruntled members is indicative of the current mood in the party generally, disaster looms.

Darby might like taking the odd dig at the Labour Party for its own dreadful financial problems but size for size, the Labour Party has nothing on the BNP.

Martyn Gilleard – Searchlight press release

Martyn Gilleard, an organiser in the neo-Nazi British People’s Party has been found guilty of three offences under the Terrorism Act.

Upon raiding his flat police discovered a small arsenal consisting of several nail bombs, dozens of bullets, swords, axes and knives, which a jury found him guilty of possessing for the preparation of terrorist acts. Gilleard also pleaded guilty to a number of child pornography offences after police discovered 39,000 indecent images of children on his computer ranging from category one to five. Five is the most serious.

Throughout his detention Kevin Watmough the leader of the BPP who also runs the Redwatch website gave Gilleard his unreserved support and only expelled him from the party once the trial was underway presumably after discovering he had also pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.

Given Gilleard’s pronounced neo-Nazi views and his desire to put them into practice the case has chilling similarities to that of London “nail bomber” David Copeland, a former BNP member whose rampage in 1999 left three people dead, including a pregnant mother, and hundreds injured.

The August issue of Searchlight will feature a special report on Gilleard and a full account of his far right affiliations.

Stop the BNP

Man guilty over nail bombs plot

Part of Gilleard's mini-arsenal

A Nazi sympathiser who kept nail bombs under his bed has been convicted of three terrorism offences.

Martyn Gilleard, 31, of Goole, East Yorkshire, was a paid-up member of the National Front, the White Nationalist Party and the British People's Party. Police officers discovered four home-made nail bombs, as well as bullets and bladed weapons in his flat.

Prosecutors said Gilleard had written that he had wanted to "save" Britain from "multi-racial peril".

Gilleard was convicted of preparing for terrorist acts and possessing articles and collecting information for terrorist purposes. During the trial, he admitted having a collection of Nazi memorabilia, saying Nazism appealed to him because of the way the Nazis had "rebuilt" Germany.

Officers had found "potentially lethal bladed weapons", 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm and printouts from the internet about committing acts of terrorism, the court heard. These included instructions on how to make a bomb and how to kill someone with poison.

Explaining why he made the bombs, Gilleard said: "I'd had a couple of cans. I was just sat around bored. An idea popped up and I thought, 'Why not?' I thought, 'I've got pretty much what I need,' and I threw them together."

BBC

Terror Nazi's child abuse images

Neo-Nazi Martyn Gilleard has been found guilty of making bombs for a far-right terrorist campaign, after having previously admitted downloading thousands of images of child sexual abuse.

He wrote of starting a "racial war" and murdering Muslims. But Martyn Gilleard boasted that he was no "barstool nationalist". He wanted to put his white supremacist views into action. And when police raided the 31-year-old's flat, they found four home-made nail bombs, bullets, knives, swords, an axe and handcuffs with which - a jury has decided - he intended to launch his campaign of terror.

However, his comrades in various extremist groups were shocked to learn that this was not the limit of his criminal activities.

At the opening of his trial at Leeds Crown Court, Gilleard admitted 10 counts of child pornography offences. Officers had discovered more than 39,000 indecent images of children on his computer. Jurors considering the terror charges did not learn of this until they delivered their verdict.

'Potentially lethal'

Gilleard, a forklift truck driver from Goole, East Yorkshire, admitted to police and the court that he had held racist views. At the time of his arrest he was a paid-up member of the National Front, the White Nationalist Party and the British People's Party - all opposed to multiculturalism.

His computer password was Martyn1488 - the 14, according to prosecutor Andrew Edis QC, being a reference to the far-right's "14 words" slogan, "We must secure the existence of our race and the future for white children."

The 88, Mr Edis added, represented the eighth letter of the alphabet - an abbreviation for "Heil Hitler".

But Gilleard was not simply a passive crank, the court was told. In a notebook recovered by police, Gilleard wrote that the "time has come to stop the talk and start to act".

"Unless we the British right stop talking of racial war and take steps to make it happen, we will never get back that which has been stolen from us," he added. "I am so sick and tired of hearing nationalists talk of killing Muslims, of blowing up mosques, of fighting back, only to see these acts of resistance fail to appear."

In another note, he wrote that he wanted to see "reds" - left-wing activists - attacked with "lightning strikes" and "home-made grenades".

His comments were a chilling echo of far-right nail bomber David Copeland, jailed for life for murder after attacks targeting London's gay community and ethnic minorities in 1999.

By the time police raided his flat, Mr Edis said, Gilleard's preparations for this impending conflict had already been well under way. Officers had discovered the four nail bombs under a bed along with "potentially lethal bladed weapons", 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm, and printouts from the internet about committing acts of terrorism, Mr Edis told the court.

These had included instructions on how to make a bomb and how to poison someone, he added.

Gilleard had already pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing 34 cartridges of ammunition without holding a firearms certificate. But he denied that he had intended to hurt anyone with the nail bombs, arguing in court that he had only assembled them to give himself something to do.

When asked why he made the devices, he said: "I'd had a couple of cans. I was just sat around bored."

The jury, however, decided that he had more sinister purposes in mind.

Offensive weapon

After the raid on Wednesday 31 October 2007, Gilleard fled to the home of his half-brother in Dundee, Tayside. Police caught up with him after a three-day manhunt.

Detectives who interviewed his work colleagues were told that he had expressed racist views to them. The police also recovered a high-visibility jacket belonging to Gilleard that had been daubed with a hand-drawn swastika.

Born on 15 July 1976 in York, Martyn Paul Gilleard had a complicated upbringing. At the time of his birth his mother had two older children by her ex-husband. He became the adopted son of his mother's new partner after she remarried in 1978. He left school at 16 with GCSEs in history, English language and literature, but failed to complete a course at Northallerton College. In 2000 he began working for Howarth Timber in Breighton, East Yorkshire, as a forklift truck driver.

In 2002 - the same year he was fined £25 for possession of an offensive weapon - his partner gave birth to a son, but the couple split in 2006.

A prison cell, not the racial conflict of which he dreamed, now awaits him.

BBC

Sticky: new anti-fascist forum link

Here it is: http://www.unitywebring.com/forum/yabb/

Self-registration is currently enabled, so we do expect heavy fascist trolling - but we'll sort that out as we go along.

Enjoy, and happy posting.

Johnson sacks political adviser caught in row on African-Caribbean migration

Boris Johnson was plunged into his first big race row as London mayor last night when he was forced to sack his chief political adviser for having suggested that older African-Caribbean people should move to the Caribbean if they are unhappy living in a Tory-controlled London.

James McGrath was recorded on tape saying: "Well, let them go if they don't like it here."

Johnson announced late last night that McGrath, a 34-year-old Australian-born Tory high flyer, would leave City Hall with immediate effect after a tape recording emerged of his remarks to Marc Wadsworth, a journalist.

"It is with great regret this evening that I have accepted the resignation of my political adviser, James McGrath," the mayor said. "Unfortunately, his remarks in a conversation with an internet journalist, published this weekend, made it impossible for him to continue in that role."

The mayor continued: "London is blessed with a rich ethnic and cultural diversity. It is one of the main reasons why I regard it as the greatest city on earth, and I am determined, as mayor, to serve each and every community with equal passion and commitment."

Johnson consulted David Cameron, the Tory leader, on the issue. Johnson said last night that McGrath was not a racist, and he believed that he had run into trouble after a "silly and hostile suggestion" was put to him by Wadsworth.

This was a reference to a meeting last month at which Wadsworth asked McGrath his reaction to an article by the writer Darcus Howe on the eve of the mayoral election. Howe had written that the election of Johnson might trigger a mass exodus of older African-Caribbean migrants back to the West Indies.

Wadsworth wrote on his blog that McGrath responded: "Well, let them go if they don't like it here."

Johnson said: "James's remark was taken out of context and distorted, but he recognises the need for crystal clarity on a vital issue like this. We both agree that he could not stay on as my political adviser without providing ammunition for those who wish to deliberately misrepresent our clear and unambiguous opposition to any racist tendencies."

The sacking last night represented a rapid U-turn by Johnson's camp - which at first had maintained that McGrath had done nothing wrong when his remarks were set in the context of hostile questioning from Wadsworth.

The Guardian was warned earlier in the day that it might face legal action from McGrath if it reported McGrath's remarks in an inappropriate way.

This initial firm response was directed by McGrath who issued a furious response to Wadsworth when he reported his remarks on the citizen journalist website (the-latest.com) on Friday.

McGrath resisted standing down until late yesterday, did issue a statement to Wadsworth confirming that he had made the comments but he insisted they were made in response to "inflammatory comments" by Howe, a supporter of Ken Livingstone. Describing himself as "an immigrant myself," the Australian-born McGrath wrote: "I felt that this suggestion [by Howe] was ridiculous and intended as a slur and responded by saying with words to the effect of 'let people go if they don't like it here'."

Wadsworth last night welcomed the resignation of McGrath. "James McGrath has done the right thing, though I had not called for him to resign. I just wanted a dialogue with him."

Guardian

Auty campaign labels Nick Griffin as ruthless and desperate 'crook' and 'liar'

Whether it's because Colin Auty's leadership campaign is going through its death throes or because Auty is anxious to establish his anti-Griffin credentials for once and for all before any contest takes place is uncertain but his team has clearly decided to state its case unequivocally over on the challenger's blog.

In a post made last night, Auty questioned the reason behind the sudden shifting of former party treasurer John Walker into the newly-created role of 'National Dispatch and Logistics Manager', a move that we pondered on a week ago. He comes to much the same conclusion that we did - that Walker was moved to keep him quiet or, as Auty puts it rather more harshly;

'He has been privy to a great deal of the shady and downright deceitful dealings of Mr Griffin over the last couple of years, so much so in fact that Griffin has been, for sometime, completely perplexed on how he is going to get rid of him without risking John doing the honourable thing and exposing the corruption and pressure that he has himself been compliant with for so long.'

In an intriguing insight into the way the BNP is run that should surprise nobody, Auty relates Griffin's standard procedure for dealing with those within the party he perceives to be a threat to his position;

'He would merely isolate the victim by concocting lies about them concerning financial ‘irregularities’ (somewhat ironically), aimed carefully at his victim before unleashing his attack-dogs to finish the job with personal attacks and slanderous gossip. Occasionally the victim would then be pulled apart at an Advisory Council meeting in their absence complete with the customary ‘such a shame’ crocodile tears. Without being afforded the opportunity to defend themselves, the victim would be cast out as a leper from the Party. Those sat around the AC table, however shocked or confused that the ‘evidence’ spewed out regarding one of their comrades is entirely unsubstantiated, would very often sit in silence though fear of becoming the next victim. This is a standard Griffin modus operandi, as many of his decent and hardworking victims have been only too happy to confirm and share with us.'

There's a coincidence - they've shared it with us too. But this is not the end of the revelations. Auty goes on to state categorically that the party finances are controlled by Nick Griffin alone, that '...it is Griffin that pulls all the strings and ‘balances’ the Party books, it is he alone that decides where our money is spent, and even if it is thrown into his black hole of amateurish gimmicks more akin to the activities of the Monster Raving Loony Party than a serious political alternative, no one is ever afforded the opportunity to find out exactly what such stunts cost us; the books are always cooked to a crisp and kept under lock and key'.

As a relatively senior member of the party, we can safely assume that Auty knows what he's talking about. Indeed, nothing he has said in this or any other article contradicts anything that we have been told by those members of the BNP who have been concerned enough with Griffin's behaviour and the party's financial dealings to correspond directly with Lancaster Unity. As we all know, money and its acquisition has ever been Griffin's raison d'être, a fact which seems at last to be acknowledged by those within the BNP, as witnessed by this statement by Auty;

'Over the last few months, many members and ex-members from various regions that had held different posts from activists through to regional organisers and councillors have been in contact with us. Many have expressed their despair at the financial situation within the Party. Many have commented that money is simply now the only driving factor behind Nick Griffin’s façade of modern British Nationalism.'

Auty speculates on Griffin's future financial plans, pointing out that 'the sun always eventually sets on all empires and regimes...it is very advantageous for the totalitarian that presided over it to be in a comfortable position ready to point the finger at someone else from the safety of an overseas bolt-hole with money in the bank...alternately, a person facing such a dilemma could find a very comfortable and well paid position and home, once again abroad, a very welcome prospect indeed; a seat on the European Parliament may do nicely for example?'

Indeed.

Auty seems to have finally realised that his days in the BNP are numbered - at least if Griffin retains control. The article reads like the last gasp of a dying man - a final opportunity to say all those things that should have been said clearly, loudly and repeatedly right from the start of his campaign but that he kept under wraps for fear of damaging the party that he presumably believed he would be allowed to lead following an unlikely win.

Now however, all bets seem to be off. Auty has no chance of winning and no future in the party but he seems with this article to have plucked up his courage enough to try for a last-minute attack with the gloves off. Personally, I think it's too little, too late, but who knows? If Auty can avoid being done for the many libels in the article (possibly he can provide proofs to back up his statements?) he might still be a contender.

So far he has revolved his campaign around the issues of internal party democracy and Griffin's apparent dictatorship and has until now barely touched on the financial disaster that is the BNP, and the 'shady dealings' that have been reported here and elsewhere on numerous occasions. That he has finally come to his senses and launched a major attack on 'Fingers' Griffin might make all the difference, even at this late stage. If nothing else, it's nice to see someone else attacking Griffin and his myrmidons for their financial chicanery. Maybe Auty will manage to take over from Griffin after all. If so, we wonder how long he'll be in charge before the financial shit hits the fan.

Join the fight - join the forum!

If you joined in our "live" blogging experiment on election night you'll remember that we had a lot of fun, and that we said we'd repeat the experience in the future.

Well, it set us thinking - elections and breaking news (like the BNP rebel expulsions) are real anti-fascist crowd-pullers, and while we can blog news and moderate comments in near real time, the process is cumbersome, especially for you as you need to constantly hit page refresh to keep up.

There is a better way, of course, and sometimes visitors have asked us to provide a regular forum for continued, more flowing discussion - so we have!

It's simply called Unity - because that says it all.

The forum is complementary to Lancaster Unity (and other Unity and anti-fascist websites), and we hope it becomes a major weapon in the fight against the far-Right.

We'll post the address of the Unity forum here at 10.00 a.m. on Sunday morning, and there will be a permanent link in the sidebar.

Self-registration is currently enabled, but we intend to move to Admin-approved registration soon after launch, so come early and get on board.

Racism rears its ugly head in Cornwall

In a county renowned for embracing everyone, it seems that some residents have decided Muslims are no longer welcome. Jonathan Brown investigates an outbreak of rural hate crimes

A disused chapel in a sparsely populated hamlet far from the summer tourist crowds has emerged as a crucial testing ground of Cornwall's reputation as an easy-going haven for those looking to escape the pressures of urban life – whatever their race.

For amid green rolling hills just a few miles outside the cathedral city of Truro, the slate-roofed Bible Christian church at Quenchwell, near Carnon Downs, is under sustained assault from racists opposed to a planned community centre for the county's Asians.

The third attack in recent weeks was discovered in the early hours of Thursday morning. Obscene graffiti defaming Islam and espousing the cause of Cornish nationalism was splattered across the walls of the chapel. In earlier incidents a pig's head was nailed to the door and "KKK" – Ku Klux Klan – was painted in red gloss on an outside wall. The most recent grafitti included BNP slogans.

The attacks have shocked the Cornish establishment. Police chiefs, politicians (including the head of Mebyon Kernow, the Party for Cornwall), Church leaders and local people have all condemned the desecration and Islamophobia.

One man has been arrested and released on bail. But the attacks have continued, and police, who are treating them as "critical" and linked, appear powerless to stop them recurring. Officers believe residents of the affluent surrounding villages hold the key to the case.

"Somebody in the local community will have an idea who is responsible," said Superintendent Julie Whitmarsh. "I know people would not want to be associated with an individual who is responsible for this."

For Tipo Choudhury, a local restaurateur who bought the chapel and has become the reluctant voice of the Asian communities here, the events have come as a terrible shock. The British-born father of three has been raising his family in nearby Penzance since the mid-1980s. "In 22 years I have had no uncomfortable moments, until now. When you suddenly get called a 'Paki bastard' here in Cornwall it makes you jump. This sort of thing just does not happen here," he said. In addition to the attacks on the chapel, he was also racially abused by a passing motorcyclist while standing outside the building. "Racism is showing its ugly head. It shows prejudice is alive and kicking," he added.

Mr Choudhury is at pains to point out that the centre will not be a mosque but a centre for all of Cornwall's Asians, though he concedes Bengali Muslims make up the majority of the scattered ethnic minority population, most of whom work in Indian restaurants or in the Royal Cornwall Hospital. He says some 2,000 people will use the centre, including Buddhists and Hindus. Asians have no dedicated facilities, with the nearest mosque a two-hour drive away.

But not everyone is convinced that the decision to locate the centre in Quenchwell is for the best. A local Tory councillor, Tomas Hill, had planned to hold a public meeting to discuss concerns about the scheme. He was forced to cancel it as the police investigation intensified.

"People are afraid to speak out because of political correctness," he said. "Some residents have intimated to me privately that it would change the character of the area. In light of the Exeter bombing, which happened only a week or so before it was announced, it was unfortunate timing. There has been unease among certain quarters."

Dick Cole, the leader of Mebyon Kernow, disassociated Cornish nationalists from the attacks, which he described as "a crude attempt to foster division and intolerance" that must be resisted "at all costs". The local MP, Andrew George, president of the Council for Racial Equality in Cornwall, said the attacks had "brought shame on us all".

One of the most telling and impassioned condemnations came from Truro police inspector Mark Richards, who told local reporters the graffiti was offensive "not only to Asians and Asian religions, but also to Christians and Cornish nationalists whose name has been taken in vain".

There is a growing sense of alarm. The story has been picked up in Pakistan and the Middle East but is also being exploited by the British National Party website, where those who condemn the attacks are accused of "sickening hypocrisy" because of an alleged failure to condemn in similarly vociferous terms the recent Exeter bombing.

Despite the hand-wringing of public figures there is evidence that the South-west has a growing racism problem. Figures released by Devon and Cornwall police last month under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that racist crime has risen by 130 per cent. In 2000 there were 349 recorded incidents; this figure had risen to 802 by last year.

Attacks on eastern European migrants have swelled the numbers. An assault on a Lithuanian migrant worker in Redruth in February led to the victim being left in a coma.

Police say much of the increase is because victims are more prepared to report abuse. According to the most recent census figures, 97.1 per cent of people in Cornwall classify themselves as white British, with 99 per cent classed as white. The Asian population is scattered across the county in groups of just a few families. As a result, said Mr Choudhury, they struggle to gain any kind of foothold in the political decision-making process. This lack of "voting muscle" he says, has hampered the search for a permanent cultural centre following the forced closure of an earlier community base in Truro.

It is a typical story, said Victor Downer, director of the newly-founded anti-racism group Unity Cornwall, who believes that many of the problems faced by the county's ethnic communities have not been reported.

"Rural racism is different from what you expect in cities like London. Here it has to do with power. You will find a lot of people who are highly qualified working in the very worst jobs – cleaning toilets, picking vegetables from the ground," he said.

But the latest spate of attacks have left many deeply worried. "If people are prepared to do this, to sneak out in the middle of the night and run the risk of arrest, what next? The community is feeling very vulnerable," he said.

Independent