Disturbance after ex-Burnley BNP councillor's funeral

Police were called after reports that mourners were hurling objects off a Burnley bridge following the funeral of a former BNP councillor.

Officers arrived at the Yorkshire Street bridge at 9pm on Tuesday after being told around 40 youths were causing a disturbance. The mourners had attended the funeral of Luke Smith, 26, of Brunshaw Road, who was found dead last week, police said. The convicted football hooligan, who was forced to resign as a councillor after continued allegations of violence, was said to have been suffering from psychological problems when he appeared in court earlier this month charged with assault.

Sgt Phil Carter, of Burnley police, said: “Police dispersed the group on Tuesday soon after arriving and no arrests were made.”

It is believed the mourners had been drinking in the Lounge pub, in nearby Higgin Street, following Mr Smith’s funeral. Yesterday a large banner was hung from a bridge in Yorkshire Street with the message “Luke Smith lives forever”.

Speaking last week, Mr Smith’s uncle, Steve Smith, who was the BNP leader in Burnley when his nephew was elected, and is now leader of the far-right England First party, said: “He was a lovely, lovely lad who, like a lot of people, was just too sensitive to exist in what is effectively an extremely cruel world. Things had gone downhill for him.”

Mr Smith was 21 when he was elected as councillor for Lanehead ward, in May 2003. But he was suspended from the BNP less than three months later, after it emerged previous football-related violence had earned him a lifetime ban from Turf Moor, and he was alleged to have been fighting at the party’s Red, White and Blue festival in Sawley in July that year.

In September 2004, after a full investigation by the Standards Board for England, he was banned for three years from becoming a member of any council across the UK.

Earlier in 2004, the former gas engineer had been given a two-and-a-half year football banning order, and he was jailed for 11 months in March 2006, after breaching the order and being involved in football-related violence in Manchester, Blackpool and Burnley. His football banning order was extended to six years.

In his latest court appearance, on July 14, he was charged with assault after an attack on the landlord of the Princess Royal – the pub near where he was found dead.

Lancashire Telegraph

Anti-Semitic incidents 'rise 9%' in UK

Desecrated Jewish graves

There was a 9% rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the UK in the first half of 2008 compared with the same period last year, a charity has reported.

There were 266 incidents up to June, compared with 244 last year, according to the Community Security Trust (CST). Some 166 were incidents of abusive behaviour, including verbal abuse, hate mail and anti-Semitic graffiti.

CST admitted that improved contact with smaller Jewish communities "goes some way to explaining the overall rise".

Incidents involving Jewish students or academics and at colleges rose 88%, from 26 to 49. There were also 29 incidents involving Jewish schools and schoolchildren. Violent assaults were down, from 54 in the first six months of 2007, to 42.

Outside the biggest Jewish communities in London and Manchester, CST recorded 98 incidents in 38 different areas. This included 21 incidents in Leeds, up from 13 a year before, and a rise from six to 10 in Liverpool. In the first half of 2007, CST had recorded 70 incidents in 25 locations outside London and Manchester.

"This is partly explained by efforts made by CST to improve contact with smaller Jewish communities beyond the main urban centres, and goes some way to explaining the overall rise in incidents," the charity said.

John Mann MP, chair of the parliamentary group against anti-Semitism, said the report showed improved reporting of incidents involving students and smaller communities.

"By knowing the scale of the problem we can deploy strategies to combat anti-Semitism from our streets and our campuses," he said. "Every anti-Semitic attack is a blight on society."

BBC

Stormfront Founder’s Wife Sets Off Firestorm

A revelation published earlier this month by Hatewatch — that Chloe Black, wife of former Klan leader Don Black, was the public relations contact for a philanthropist’s efforts to build a campus for children of poor black and Latino children in Florida — caused quite a stir in the media and elsewhere. The Gawker.com website was one of the first to revisit the story, recounting the Hatewatch item under the headline, “The Socialite’s Nazi Publicist.” (The title referred to the fact that Chloe Black, whose husband founded and runs the major white supremacist website Stormfront, was the contact for a school established by Emilia Fanjul, whose wealthy family runs the Florida Crystals sugar conglomerate.) Then it was the turn of The New York Post’s Page Six — probably the best known celebrity gossip column in America — which ran “Sugar Baron’s Aide’s KKK Link,” setting off a whole bevy of similar reports on celebrity gossip websites.

But it was when a version of Hatewatch’s revelations was published in the Palm Beach Post this past Saturday that sparks flew in the white supremacist circles that Chloe, her husband, and ex-husband David Duke inhabit. Even though she had just attended a June event put on by the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, Black told the Post: “I am not involved with the Web site [Stormfront] and do not agree with extremist or racially prejudiced views.” Not only that, but the Post, based on information provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center, also reported that Don Black had recently toned down Stormfront, banning many symbols of Nazism that formerly were common on the site, including swastikas and SS lightning bolts, and getting rid of particularly offensive terms, including “nigger.”

White supremacists were not happy. In racist Web forums, they ripped both Don and Chloe Black, denouncing them for caring more about money than their beliefs.

Alex Linder, the head of the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network (VNN), was particularly incensed. “It’s not that small a deal,” wrote Linder to a defender of Chloe Black who was minimizing the importance of her comments. “It shows that at the end of the day money matters more than principle to WN [White Nationalist] leaders.”

Others were cruder in their comments. “What’s so hard to understand or face about the idea that Don Black (Black is a very common Jewish surname) from Palm Springs [Black actually is from West Palm Beach, Fla.] Florida (a city with the highest Jewish population per capita than anywhere else in the world outside of Israel) is a kosher motherfucker!?” wrote “melcur” on VNN. Bill White, head of the neo-Nazi American Nationalist Socialist White Peoples Party and a friend of Linder’s, attacked the Stormfront founder under the headline, “Don Black Whores Himself to the Jew.” White accused Black of selling out “to the Jew in exchange for a bit of media exposure and some promotion for his dying and has been website Stormfront.”

At least one prominent anti-Semite defended Black: April Gaede, mother of the teen twins who make up the neo-Nazi singing group Prussian Blue. “Very few people in White Nationalism have the ability to earn a living openly being racial,” wrote Gaede. “If she can earn a living and support her family and nationalism then who cares.” However, Gaede’s post was not well received. “But at the cost of helping the muds and jews? Don’t be stupid,” wrote “Akingu” on VNN. “That’s like teaching an attack dog to attack yourself!”

In a Stormfront post, Don Black, who the Palm Beach Post reported had recently suffered a stroke, dismissed the hoopla as absurd and blamed the “gutter press.” He also mocked his increasingly disgruntled Stormfronters, noting, “With the never-ending internal drama among members, we often joke about ‘How the Stormfront Turns.’”

Hatewatch

BNP legal director Lee Barnes calls Britain a “sick society” that must be destroyed by the god Odin to make way for a BNP order

By Hexapla.

He also claims that the 7/7 bombings were committed by the British government, that actor Heath Ledger died because he unleashed the powers of Odin and launches a racist tirade against Barack Obama.

BNP legal director Lee Barnes wants Odin to destroy the UK!

A few days ago BNP legal director Lee Barnes published his fascist-Odinist interpretation of the newly released Batman movie, The Dark Knight, entitled 'Batman and the Odinic Archetype'. Now, Odinism is a fictitious religion expounded by many fascists, such as Lee Barnes, as the spiritual means to revive the White race, corrupted and weakened by Christianity. In that article, Lee Barnes reads Heath Ledger’s character, the Joker, as the prime embodiment of the god Odin. But, Lee Barnes’ interpretation takes on a starkly disturbing twist when he argues:

“Just like Odin the Joker is an agent of chaos, a force unleashed to destroy a sick society and to make way for a new order”

It is undoubtedly clear that BNP legal director Lee Barnes sees and condemns British society as ‘sick’ which needs to be destroyed by the force of ‘Odin’ to make way for a new BNP-imposed order.

Lee Barnes claims Heath Ledger died by unleashing the powers of Odin!

But, Lee Barnes plunges to even greater depths of fascist intellectual depravity when he asserts that Heath Ledger (who died shortly after the filming of The Dark Knight) died because by playing the Joker character, he took on the forces of ‘Odin’ and as such couldn’t control those powers:

“Heath Ledger by unlocking this arhcetype unleashed a darkness within himself he was unable to control.

In order to control the archetype he needed to understand the 'Sun' side of the archetype, that of the Odinic veneration of nature and the love for folk, family, the forests and the fields. The shadow of Odin is just one aspect of his divine nature, for the other aspect is personified by the wandervogel movement of the early 1930's and the Hippie movement of the 1960's established by the scions of the German wandervogel movement in California after the war.

Heath needed to purge himself of the shadow of the Joker, but he did not know how to do that.

Heath never knew he was channeling an archetype, and therefore he was swept away by it.

He needed to get into the countryside, camping and just commune with nature.”

Lee Barnes claims the 7/7 bombings were an 'inside job'

Thumbing his yellowing dictionary of wild conspiracy theories (again), Lee Barnes accuses the British government of carrying out the 7/7 bombings in another recent article, ‘The Shadow Government attacks its own Citizens’:

“7/7, like 911, was an inside job - that the government used its assets in islamist terrorist groups to work with islamist terrorists to assist in the creation and planting of bombs ?”

Apart from insulting the memories of the 7/7 victims, BNP legal supremo Lee Barnes then accuses the US, Saudi Arabia and Israeli governments of setting up terrorist groups to attack Britain in order to, as he puts it, force British “citizenry into surrendering their liberty for security”!

But, then again Lee Barnes will find fellow fascist travellers who believe that 7/7 and 9/11 were, implausibly, ‘inside jobs’. Ex-BNP councillor and rabid anti-Jew hater Simon Smith writes in his latest article, 'The Enigmatic Larry O'Hara':

"I regard acceptance of the September 11th attacks as an "inside job" as the touchstone of an intelligent person's integrity in politics".

Similarly, Dissent Congress, a pro-BNP outfit, argued on the right-wing British Democracy Forum site under the thread 'The only way the BNP can attract support':

"The BNP needed 9/11 to act as a trigger by blaming it on Muslims when it was an inside job.

If 9/11 never happened and the bitter feeling towards Muslims never emerged then the EDs would probably be a bigger party and get better election results."

Lee Barnes' racist rant against US presidential candidate Barack Obama

It seems that BNP legal director Lee Barnes is angry at a Black man for being, well, Black! Here are extracts from Lee Barnes racist article, ‘The BBC, Hurricane Katrina and the Obama Effect’, in which he attacks Barack Obama over his successful Berlin rally:

“The pictures of the 100,000 german lemmings lining up to listen to a speech of Barack Obama is evidence of the utter, horrifying power of the media to influence and manipulate the minds of the public, both in Europe and America.

This Obama hysteria in the US, Europe and germany is a sign of a deep sickness in all our democracies, and also a deep sickness in the soul of the german people ...

The endless incultation of poisonous war guilt in the minds of young people in germany has resulted in the creation of a pathological germany, a germany sick, twisted and at war within itself.

The german people have a death wish. They abort their children and their future in the name of excorcising the ghost of the past ....

His [Barack Obama] black skin allows the media to trigger the 'slave guilt reflex' inculcated in white children (inserted into their minds during school) whilst his part white racial heritage means he can be sold to the public as part of the 'inclusiveness' agenda and the new advertising niche that has taken hold in the mind of the media, that of the mixed race ....

The fact that the BBC showed live the speech of Obama in Berlin was an example of the way the media has such power to influence the British public ...

THIS WAS PURE MANIPULATION - the intent was to violate the perceptions of the British public and to bolster the Obama reflex ....

The fawning, sickening, lickspittle liberal scumbag of the BBC, Matt Frei, as usual was introducing Obama ...”

In conclusion, we ask this: is this the best the BNP has to offer? The simple answer – yes.

-----

Postscript: The following is Lee Barnes' response to the article (we need not add any commentary as you couldn't make this up):

Hi To The Puppets

30 July 2008

To be attacked for my Odinic Archetype article first on Stormfront and then on Lancaster Unity is proof that the right targets are right in my sights.

When both the Zionists of LU and the Hollywood Nazis of SF, the puppetmasters and their puppets, are attacking you then this is complete validation of your position

Only when both the Puppetmasters and the Puppets of the Zionist-Nazi Nexus are attacking you, can you say you are near the truth.

Clive Jefferson, YouTube, and incitement to violence

This article was submitted by our mates, Lancaster Antifa. 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.

With the infamous case of Sheppard and Whittle in the news it doesn't seem like anti-fascists have to dig very deep to find links to organised far right groups and violent threats and intimidation. Redwatch is obviously the jewel in the crown for the far-right as far as this tactic is concerned. The BNP have, in public at least, recently tried to distance themselves from Redwatch but we know only too well that BNP members have supplied photos for the Redwatch site which promotes violence against dinner ladies, union activists, and anti-fascists.

It seems like the tactic of posting internet picture of your enemies has inspired the BNP's Cumbrian press officer, Clive Jefferson. He now regularly posts videos of anti-fascists on YouTube under the profile name "CumbrianPatriot". You can hear Jefferson's pathetic comments on these video clips as he attempts to mock and deride those who protest against the BNP.

In one video clip Jefferson complains about pictures of the Nazi Holocaust on an anti BNP leaflet. The woman he is talking to complains "that's going back to the 1940s"., as Jefferson adds "disgusting.... they're putting that out against us." What is Jefferson's problem? He is happy to belong to an organisation whose leader, Nick Griffin, says;

"The "extermination" tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie and latter witch hysteria."

"It's well known that the chimneys from the gas chambers at Auschwitz are fake, built after the war ended."

So he should expect a response from people who are sickened and disgusted by these claims. The Nazi Holocaust was not a mere "detail of history" but a stain on mankind.

Jefferson recently led a sorry band of out of towners into Lancaster to attempt, in their own words, to "breach the citadel". Of course as readers of this blog know their attempts to set up a stall in the town centre met with a swift response and Jefferson, Ashburner, and a couple of friends had to make a demoralised retreat with their tales between their legs.

Their "stall" (a wallpaper paste table!) was surrounded by anti-fascists and they were unable to peddle their filthy racist bile. They packed up to shouts of “no racism in Lancaster!” from locals, and to make matters worse Jefferson was issued with a fixed penalty notice for his illegal number plate!

Fascists are often noted for their historical revisionism and it wasn't long before Jefferson was boasting on his blog about what “potential” Lancaster had for far-right campaigning! He obviously hasn't learnt anything from the miserable failure of Chris Hill, and the fact that the BNP has now completely folded in Lancaster, rejected by the voters, and split by internal wrangling.

Jefferson also boasted about his YouTube video of the protesters who turned out to send the BNP packing. The video titled “Lancaster UAFs finest” was another attempt to bring Redwatch tactics to YouTube. Jefferson whose nose was dribbling as he packed up the stall makes pathetic comments about protesters shaking like leaves. The video though had the desired effect and it wasn't long before threats were being made to anti fascist activists who had been mistakenly identified.

One such threat came from someone with the YouTube profile name “destroyblackvermin” (that says it all really!). “destroyblackvermin”, as you can see from checking his profile and favourites, is rather fond of the BNP. He is also openly racist in public. You don't have to dig very far to find comments like these posted on YouTube by this sewer dweller;

“hey black twat you can but try ..told you i eat pakis filth and inbred cunts like you for supper..just fire me your house number and street let me drip your black aids riddled blood on your doorstep you vermin..and by the way dickhead im not in bradford im in salford manchester a 99% white area...now less of the chat give us your adress or keep your black mouth shut ..and dont get your little race traitor girls doing your dirty work. destroyblackvermin”

Well I wonder if Jefferson is pleased with himself knowing what sort of filth he is inspiring on the internet? “destroyblackvermin” went on to post a direct threat, on an anti-fascist YouTube profile, against someone who he thought had been identified on Jefferson's video. It read “********** has been identified – watch your back”. The incident was reported, and, despite all the other vile racist hatred that remains on YouTube, Jefferson's video proven to inspire racists and threats of violence was removed for “terms of use violation by user”. Of course there are still a number Jefferson's videos on the net, but at least we have had another small victory against this man and his rather unsuccessful attempts to organise the BNP in Cumbria and north Lancashire.

Lancaster Antifa

The democracy dodge and the 4 year rule

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The result will be a foregone conclusion.

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

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

Paranoia, anybody?

Quiggins boss told to halt use of 08 logo

The former owner of Liverpool’s Quiggins centre has been warned by the city’s Culture Company about using the 08 logo to promote the British National Party.

Hill Dickinson, the Culture Company’s solicitors, have written to BNP party member Peter Tierney threatening legal action over his use of a version of the Liverpool 08 logo on an advertising hoarding he tows behind a vehicle.

The threat comes in the same month they contacted former Culture Company chief executive Jason Harborow for using the logo on the website of a consultancy firm he set up after leaving the company.

But Mr Tierney, who trades as Peter Quiggins from his antique dealership on Aigburth Road, claims the threats are unnecessary and heavy-handed.

He said: “I put the logo on my trailer and it says that the city has been sold off. It’s not the Capital of Culture, it’s the Capital of Vultures. I’ve even drawn the logo myself – when you look at it, you can tell I’ve drawn it.”

He said that he was making a political statement and should be allowed to exercise his right to free speech. Far from using the logo for his own ends, he said he was attempting to undermine what he sees as a false impression created by the Capital of Culture status.

Mr Tierney fought a long-running battle with the city council and developer Grosvenor, who wanted to use the Quiggins site on School Lane for the Liverpool One development. Despite thousands of people supporting his battle, the site was eventually built on.

It is not the first time Mr Tierney has used iconic images to publicise his battle. In 2002 he unveiled a massive banner which morphed his face with Che Guevara as he fought to survive the rebuild programme. However, his current links with the BNP have caused the Culture Company to take a dim view of his actions.

A spokesman said: “We do not affiliate ourselves to any political parties so we will not allow our logo to be used in this way.”

The letter sent to Mr Tierney, is almost identical to the one posted to Mr Harborow. That letter states that his use of the logo is an infringement of the company’s registered rights along with their intellectual property rights.

It adds: “We have advised our client further that they are entitled to institute infringement proceedings against you in respect of trade mark infringement.”

Liverpool Daily Post

The delusional Mr Darby

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Iliacus. 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.

Regular readers will know that I have taken up the role of ridiculing the phenomenon of the BNP's Quiet Revolution, a concept much trumpeted by that noted naturalist, angler (and BNP deputy leader), Mr Simon Darby, who seems to think that his party is becoming ever more successful in fielding candidates at council by-elections, and is steadily increasing its support.

The evidence - the BNP's failure to field candidates on a sustained basis, the weird antics of some of those nominated, and their extraordinary inability to actually win - points to Mr Darby being delusional.

If there was any doubt, the events of 24th/25th July certainly supports my contention.

On his own splendidly idiosyncratic (and idotic) blog Darby states that "judging from yesterday's by-elections we are establishing a base level of support of around 10-11% nationally across England".

So what actually happened in the by-elections of 24th July? Well, there were seven in total, and the BNP's vote shares?

Seven by-elections; one BNP candidate. In Boston (with one of the highest migrant worker influxes in the UK) they trailed way adrift of the pace, on just 10.5%. Elsewhere, even in areas like London, and the East & West Midlands they couldn't even find a candidate!

Quiet Revolution? I think the expression used by the Ricky Tomlinson character in the Royle Family might be appropriate.

And speaking of "quiet" Mr Darby, where are the accounts?

Truth truck or lie lorry - Sonia Gable uncovers another BNP financial scandal

“After months of research, we have come up with a better way of spreading the ‘Nationalist Message’ right across this country,” says the message that the British National Party has been sending out to its supporters for several weeks.

“Our very own personal advertising lorry, a ‘Truth Truck’ – brand new and custom-built, complete with a high definition special lighting system for night-time use, and a massive audio system for addressing the public. Can you imagine it?” continues the appeal in terms designed to pull hard at the purse strings of “nationalists”.

There have been personalised letters from Nick Griffin, the party chairman, headed and “last chance to help ‘Operation Truth Truck’”, imploring in underlined type: “Just imagine how you will feel, being part owner of our very own British National Party advertising lorry …”. The party website has carried a picture and online donation form for several weeks.

But behind all the excitement lurks yet another dodgy deal by the BNP to hoodwink its own members.

One appeal letter puts a figure on the cost of buying and equipping the “truth truck” of £39,550, arrived at after Griffin personally “worked very hard researching this project”. It then suggests that “we can knock £13,000 off the amount needed” by opting for a “used lorry in first class condition”. Yet there is no indication on the website appeal that the lorry will be anything other than “brand new and custom built”.

Such a compromise could be explained away as a better use of members’ hard-earned and generously given donations, though that is no excuse for pulling the wool over potential donors’ eyes long after the decision to go for a second-hand vehicle has already been taken. But the lies go further than this.

At first the excitement rubbed off onto BNP members. Posting on the members’ internet forum, one person, who claimed to have “surprised myself by not even hesitating to donate £100 towards the campaign”, said the truck would also “counter commie smear leaflets”.

One discerning poster was more cautious. “Just one thing What happened to Bodicea [sic]?” asked “the benwell hopper”. “Boudica”, as “Captain Black” was quick to correct, was a second-hand “battle bus” and the target of an appeal in 2006 for money to put it on the road. Agreeing that “a few people will be very miffed that it has never been seen by the rank and file”, Captain Black could only plead that “the failings of the Boudica hobby horse should not detract from the ambitions of this new venture”.

Others smelt a rat. Despite Griffin’s claims to have carried out “months of research” before coming up with this “new, innovative” idea, if it comes to fruition the BNP will not be the first organisation in the UK to pin its hopes on a “truth truck”.

Two years ago the anti-abortion UK LifeLeague boldly announced the “Launch of Britain’s first ever ‘Truth Truck’”. A press release on 21 April 2006 thanked supporters who “donated generously to make this project possible” and claimed this would be: “the most innovative and what will possibly be the most effective campaign in UK Pro-life history”. “Operation Truth Truck” would: “enable the pro-life message to reach the unreached across the towns and cities of Britain. These vehicles are wholly owned and operated by LifeLeague activists,” it continued.

There was a picture. And it was no coincidence that the only difference between the LifeLeague’s “truth truck” and the BNP’s one was the particular lie on the billboard, because it was the same vehicle.

The UK LifeLeague and the BNP had milked their gullible supporters twice over for the same truck.

This is not the first time the BNP has had dealings with the UK LifeLeague, and more particularly its founder and national coordinator, James Dowson. Earlier this year many BNP members were angry when they found out that the party was sending key BNP officers on management training courses in Spain. Why could the training not be held in the UK, asked irate, xenophobic party members on a popular nazi internet forum until the site administrators pulled the discussion thread.

The courses were organised by Dowson’s Belfast-based fundraising and management training business, the Midas Consultancy, which has signed a three-year consultancy contract with the BNP. Whether it was because of the BNP’s growing financial difficulties or because Griffin was reacting to criticism of his poor administrative skills, the party has handed over key organisational functions to the self-styled vicar and militant anti-abortion campaigner.

It was Dowson who wrote the “truth truck” appeal letters in professional fundraising style. The Building to Grow appeal at the end of last year was also his work. The BNP claimed that appeal had raised £70,000, which paid for the party to move into the new Excalibur warehouse and buy “a vast array of new equipment” including “an envelope stuffing machine”, which by June had mysteriously disappeared when Simon Darby, the BNP’s deputy leader, appealed for volunteers to stuff election leaflets into envelopes by hand.

The involvement of Dowson has already upset some BNP members who do not share his extreme anti-abortion views and think he is a Catholic, which is anathema to many in the nationalist party who view the Battle of the Boyne as one of England’s greatest historical triumphs. In fact Dowson is a Protestant but has been linked to far-right Catholics in Ireland, including Justin Barrett, an anti-EU campaigner and vocal opponent of immigration, which he describes as a “genetic” problem. Back in 2001, when Searchlight first exposed Dowson, Barrett had donated £50,000 so that Dowson’s outfit could produce anti-abortion hate CDs and videos to distribute in schools and churches in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Dowson is a former member of the Orange Lodge in Northern Ireland and has admitted involvement with hardline loyalist groups in the West of Scotland. His tattooed arms are evidence of his extremist hate connections.

The LifeLeague, which is secretive about its finances, uses highly provocative tactics, such as publishing the home addresses of abortion clinic staff. Similar actions by anti-abortion groups in the US have resulted in the murder of doctors.

Dowson’s professional “begging letters”, as one disillusioned party member described them, have not been universally welcomed in the BNP. Some see their “tone of desperation” as indicative of the BNP’s “very serious financial trouble”, according to the blogsite set up in support of Colin Auty’s failed attempt to challenge Griffin for the party leadership.

One member is quoted saying: “These bloody letters are an embarrassment, I’ll not pay another penny so he can go and waste it or lose another blimp”, in a reference to the BNP’s helium balloon that slipped its moorings in June because, Darby suggested, David Shapcote failed to secure it properly. The BNP later blamed the loss on a faulty rope.

The letters themselves may have been professional, but Dowson fell down in compiling the mailing lists. Naturally he needed to dispatch the letters to a much wider audience than the BNP’s members, who have little left to give after constant appeals at branch meetings and to support election campaigns. However Searchlight has received a stream of complaints from anti-fascist trade unionists and members of the Jewish community who have received them.

The website appeal for the “truth truck” shows it adorned with the BNP’s ubiquitous election picture of Nick Cass and his family alongside the slogan “Decent people vote British National Party”. The picture, which adorned election leaflets and newspaper advertisements all over the country in this year’s May elections and several by-elections, concealed Cass’s less than decent “tree of life” tattoo.

The symbol, also known as the life rune, is a favourite among nazi groups worldwide and, under Hitler, was used to represent a project that encouraged SS troopers to have children out of wedlock with “Aryan” mothers and kidnapped children of Aryan appearance from the countries of occupied Europe to raise as Germans.

A lying picture for a lying appeal. How appropriate.

This article is from the August edition of Searchlight magazine

Inquest opens into death of ex-BNP councillor

A post-mortem has been held following the death of former Burnley councillor Luke Smith.
The 26-year-old was found hanged from a tree on a bridle path next to the Princess Royal pub in Yorkshire Street on Sunday. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 5-43 p.m. The post-mortem was carried out at Burnley General Hospital on Tuesday, but toxicological tests are also being carried out. An inquest has been opened and adjourned while tests are carried out.

The former British National Party councillor was voted into the Lanehead ward in 2003 but resigned the same year over what he claimed was lack of support from the party's national leadership. At the time of his death he was said to be suffering from mental health problems.

Mr Smith, of Brunshaw Road, was a former pupil at Towneley High School, had previously trained as a gas fitter and was a lifelong fan of Burnley Football Club. His funeral service will be held on Tuesday at 11-15 a.m. at St Catherine's CE Church in Todmorden Road, and then at Burnley Crematorium at noon.

Burnley Express

Councillors clash over parish poll for mayor

The BNP and Independents have clashed over a parish poll on whether Morley should have a directly elected mayor.

Coun Robert Finnigan, Morley Borough Independents leader, attacked the BNP for their support of a poll while Mike Mee, the BNP member who seconded the call for a parish poll, has hit back. Speaking at Morley Town Council's last full meeting, Coun Finnigan said: "This is not about democracy, it is personal. It is a vindictive attack on the Mayor of Morley, Coun Terry Grayshon, driven by homophobic elements that always have a home with the BNP."

He launched his attack after Coun Joanna Beverley (BNP, Elmfield) said she would not support a resolution proposed by Coun Tom Leadley (MBI, Scatcherd) saying the town council opposed a parish poll about a directly elected mayor. She said she was supporting democracy.

On June 30 a parish meeting was held where it was decided, on the votes of 14 people, a request would go to Leeds City Council asking for a poll into whether voters in the town wished to elect their mayor.

At the meeting of the town council on July 9 all the councillors except Coun Beverley voted to express the council's disapproval of spending £14,000 of town council money on a poll followed by £36,000 for a mayoral election, followed by a further £18,000 to hold an election every year. After the meeting, Mike Mee, who had at the parish meeting seconded the call for a parish poll, hit back at Robert Finnigan.

He said: "Robert Finnigan decided to launch a ridiculous attack on the BNP. He tried to claim the moves to deliver democracy by electing a mayor were simply a nasty BNP plot, aimed at getting rid of Terry Grayshon just because he is gay. This is a disgraceful and frankly pathetic line for Robert Finnigan to pursue."

He added: "Regarding the allegations of homophobia, neither myself nor anyone from the BNP in Morley or further afield has ever attacked Terry Grayshon for being gay. For Finnigan to bring this up smacks of utter desperation, and appears to be a rather blatant attempt to impose some kind of victim status on his party."

When contacted by the Observer and Advertiser, Coun Grayshon, who was on his way to a garden party at Buckingham Palace, said: "It hasn't been an issue since 2000 when the town council started but as soon as I become mayor it seems to be a big issue, so it is up to people to make their minds up about what is behind this."

Defending his attack on the BNP, Coun Finnigan said: "Don't judge the BNP by their words, judge them by what they do."

Morley Observer and Advertiser

‘Springtime for Irving’: The Video

Here’s a fresh treat for readers of Hatewatch — a brand new video, made by journalist Max Blumenthal and videographer Thomas Shomaker and co-produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, about convicted Holocaust denier David Irving. It’s an amazing, sardonic account of Irving’s visit this July 16 to a church in Manhattan, where Blumenthal presses him into a most remarkable interview.

Irving, of course, is the infamous British writer who penned numerous apologetics for Adolf Hitler and then sued American scholar Deborah Lipstadt after she called him a Holocaust denier. Irving ultimately lost his epic court battle in London, with the judge in the case concluding that he was a “pro-Nazi” polemicist. The court also found that the author of some 30 books had “persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence” to promote his racist and anti-Semitic ideas.

We’ll save most of the good stuff for viewers of the video, but offer just a couple of teasers here. At one point, Irving tells his audience: “Adolf Hitler was being kept out of the loop and was probably not at all anti-Semitic… . He repeatedly held out his hand to stop things happening to the Jews.” Just as you’re digesting that incredible piece of neo-Nazi propaganda, the video recounts how journalist Christopher Hitchens, a former Trotskyist-turned-Iraq War cheerleader, has described Irving as “a great historian” and, in Irving’s words, remains “a good friend” to the man who once said that more people died in the back of Ted Kennedy’s car than in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Although the video doesn’t make this point, Hitchens was named one of the world’s “Top 100 Public Intellectuals” by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine of Britain in 2005, long after his paean to Irving’s swell talents as a “historian.”

Take a look at this remarkable video, which we offer here a day late as a birthday present from Hatewatch, which just completed its first year of existence. As the months unfold, we hope to bring you more along these lines.

Hatewatch

Sadie Graham launches bitter attack on hated 'liar and coward' Griffin

'I truly believe that there has never been a political leader in this country so hated by his own people.' Sadie Graham

Just when you think the BNP's December Rebel faction has disappeared into the obscurity it deserves, it suddenly pops up again like a demented Jack-in-the-box to bite Nick Griffin on the arse.

Sadie Graham has been temporarily resurrected from the politically dead specifically, it seems, to attack Nick 'Fingers' Griffin for his lying and cowardice, the lack of proper leadership in the party and the complete lack of structure within the BNP. Regarding this latter point, she says;

'One day the world will know that Nick Griffin is a liar and a coward...[the] party is without doubt in turmoil and decline. The votes are decreasing and the rate of councillors is not moving forward...too many councillors don’t get re-elected into their seats, so something is seriously going wrong. The problem is the leadership or lack of it, there is no party structure, no shadow cabinet, regional, national organisation and accountability are extremely poor, basically the Party is not moving and growing as it should be now. It should be every true nationalist’s role, both within and outside of the Party, to do all that they can to remove Griffin from the position as Chairman. This is the only way to secure the Party’s future, so that a pro-democratic and anti-corrupt structure can be formed in his place...I truly believe that there has never been a political leader in this country so hated by his own people...

In these past seven months I have been amazed, amused, angered and left in disbelief at the way Griffin has handled this whole affair. If he hasn’t been lying about us then he has been skirting the issue or refusing to discuss it. Has the ‘Mighty Chairman’ told you he still has my computer and all the data on it? No, I haven’t had it returned, despite me returning every remaining Party item I had in my possession. Several of the items that he returned to me that were ‘mistakenly’ taken from my home in that illegal entry by BNP Security were also returned to me not in working order. Quite petty really but then nothing would surprise me now when dealing with this man – and I use that term quite loosely.

Plainly folks, the BNP will not make any serious inroads whilst he remains at the helm, it saddens me deeply but this is the reality and every day more and more people are realising this. It was a real shame that Colin’s campaign didn’t take flight, but it was always going to be virtually impossible when you have a Chairman that uses expulsion and proscription as a way of keeping himself in power. As if little version of Robert Mugabe, Griffin would have us topped if he thought he could get away with it. Colin was a brave man to stand and good on him for doing so, I just hope that more people find the courage to sign the nomination papers next time Griffin is challenged; and yes there will be a next time!

So where do we go from here?'

But that turns out to be a rhetorical question for Graham's only response to it is to say for the umpteenth time that the party needs to remove Griffin. That's it.

And this is where Sadie Graham and the rest of those in the rebellion of last December have failed dismally. As was clear from the support that the rebels garnered and the support gained by Colin Auty, a relative unknown in the party as a whole, there is a whole section of the membership that feels that it has been let down by the leadership of the BNP: not just Griffin but all the hangers-on too, and Graham clearly thinks that this should be enough to carry her supporters until they get rid of Griffin or, as seems more likely, he leaves of his own accord.

One of the responses to the Graham post on the Voice of Challenge blog begins, 'Excellent post Sadie, your silence these past few months speaks volumes for your own integrity...'

The writer of this comment is wrong. Silence says nothing of integrity - rather the opposite, in fact. The truth is that Graham (and the rest of the rebels) have lost their nerve and have no idea where to go from here. They are faced with a leader who is damaged goods, with accounts that are commonly known to be well, dodgy, to say the least, and with a party that appears to have become stagnant with its own ineptitude - scoring political points only because the climate is perfect for it and gaining councillors more by accident than design. Certainly, it's clear that councillors get no real support from the party, simply because there is no real support structure in place, despite the fact that the BNP has been getting councillors elected for some years now.

There are a million things that Sadie Graham could have said - after all, she was once a senior officer in the party and as such would have been privy to a lot of information that could doubtless have knocked Griffin off his perch in no time at all. She chose not to and the only reason for doing that must have been that she hoped at some point to inherit the BNP by proxy, simply because the membership knew her name and she seemed, on the face of it, suitably clear of the financial problems that plague Griffin and thus a likely successor by popular acclaim.

It's too late now though, and by leaving it this long to attack Griffin, and by doing it so half-heartedly, the rebels have shown themselves to lack the spirit to take over even if they were to be offered the opportunity. A call to arms from Graham immediately following the December purge could and probably would have destroyed Griffin quickly but this anti-Griffin puff of air does nothing except repeat what has already been repeated ad nauseum - Griffin must go. We keep hearing this but there he still is, still ripping off the membership (feel free to sue us for that, Mr G - we'd really enjoy the court case and the publicity) and still manipulating the party like it's his own big expensive toy.

If this is Graham's tentative opening salvo against the enemy, fine - we look forward to the next. But we suspect not and if we're right and this is all she has to fight with, this attack is Sadie Graham's swansong.

French National Front's bank account frozen

France's far-right National Front party no longer has access to "a single euro" after its bank accounts were frozen due to a payment dispute with its printers.

The companies owned by Fernand Le Rachinel, a National Front (FN) Euro MP, have not received full payment for posters and campaign material from the 2007 parliamentary elections, in which the party suffered a drubbing.

A lawyer of party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen said that the printing companies were suing the FN and its leader for 803,482 euros (£630,000), and that a bailiff had frozen its accounts - meaning it could not take out a single euro. The party contends that the firms overcharged it. The amount is only a fraction of the 6.7 million euros (£5.3 million) which the FN owes Mr Le Rachinel for funding its parliamentary campaign.

The FN has been on the verge of bankruptcy since last year's elections, as most of its candidates failed to win the five per cent of the votes needed to have their campaign costs reimbursed by the state. Support for the FN plummeted to 4.3 per cent last year from an average of more than 10 percent in previous years, after President Nicolas Sarkozy's charm offensive to the far-Right saw much of its electoral base jump ship.

Mr Le Pen's lawyer said the FN was unable to pay the bill before a June 30 deadline, as it had not yet sold its vast headquarters in a chic Parisian suburb – for which it hopes to get 20 million euros (£16 million). Mr Le Pen, 79, recently auctioned off his bullet-proof car for 20,500 euros (£16,000) to reduce debts.

The veteran leader shocked France and Europe in 2002 by finishing second in presidential elections, but fell to a dismal fourth last year with less than 11 per cent of the vote - his worst showing since 1974.

Telegraph

Gays to show their Pride in a city with nine BNP councillors

Stoke on Trent's third annual Pride march has come under fire from local BNP supporters.

Registering their disgust at the civil rights march on the BNP website, one disgruntled local branded Pride "a disgusting 'thrusting in our faces' of homosexuality, which I consider totally inappropriate."

Stoke on Trent has nine BNP councillors. The party rode a wave of anti-Labour feeling to win votes in Stoke during the 2003 and 2007 elections.

Gay Pride in Staffordshire has been the centre of controversy before. In 2003 plans to throw the first Pride in Stoke on Trent were abandoned when local residents and the BNP voiced concerns over the march. The BNP is opposed to the LGBT community having equal rights with heterosexual couples.

Aaron Cogle, who is heavily involved in setting up Stoke Pride, is not phased by the possible BNP presence.

Speaking to PinkNews.co.uk he said: "I think everyone is entitled to equal rights. The fact that the BNP's freedom of speech is protected in this country is wonderful."

The BNP is reported to be planning to be out raising support among local voters on the same day as Stoke Pride, but as far as Mr Cogle is aware, they are not planning a rally.

"We need to show them through education that Pride is a wonderful thing and a celebration of the diversity that makes Stoke a wonderful place. Stoke has in the past had a reputation of not being tolerant and most people want to change that image," Mr Cogle said.

In the past the BNP has been open about their homophobic policies. Richard Barnbrook, a BNP London Assembly member, said in an interview with BBC in April: "You can be gay behind closed doors, you can be heterosexual behind closed doors, but you don't bring it onto the streets, demanding more rights for it."

In 2006 Staffordshire police service won the title of Britain's most gay friendly employer. The force has 2,309 employees, one in 10 of whom are either lesbian, bisexual or gay. Stoke Pride has already garnered support from local businesses and £20,000 has been raised to support the event.

In Europe this summer homophobic violence at Pride marches in Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic was perpetrated by neo-Nazi gangs. In Budapest, Hungary, gangs hurled everything from faeces to petrol bombs and Gay Pride marchers. 45 people were arrested and eight were injured.

Mr Cogle is optimistic Stoke Pride will not face the same problems.

"I think there is a very little chance that we would have those kind of attacks in the UK," he said. "The police have been very involved in Stoke Pride right from the beginning."

The theme of Stoke's Gay Pride is Clubbers Paradise. Angie Brown will be performing on the main stage during the day, along with a several drag acts. Scouse star Sonia will be singing in local gay bar, Pink, after 9pm. Stoke Pride takes place on August 9th Hillcrest St, Hanley from 3pm to 9pm. Local clubs The Club, Pink and the Three Tuns will open from 9pm until late to continue the festivities.

Click here for more information.

Pink News

Vandal jailed for racist campaign

Police hope the the amount of graffiti in Hanworth will drop dramatically following the conviction of a racist vandal. Robert Whitehouse admitted scrawling offensive graffiti all over Hanworth and was jailed for two months on July 11 at Feltham Magistrates Court after being caught in the act on May 2 spray painting an anti-Islamic message.

Sgt Darren Weston, who leads Hanworth Park Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT), said: "We've had an ongoing problem with racist graffiti but this was the most intensive campaign we've seen."

Whitehouse, 42, of Almond Close, Feltham, pleaded guilty to charges of committing racially and religiously-aggravated criminal damage and going equipped to charge criminal damage and saw his sentence cut from 12 to eight weeks in light of his guilty plea. .

"We were driving around looking for the person responsible," said arresting officer PC Adam Pearson-Smith. "It had been going on for about four months and we kept missing him by a little bit so we were delighted to finally catch him."

When the officers stopped Whitehouse and demanded he turn out his pockets they found a spray can and stickers referring to the far-right British National Party. Sgt Weston added: "Graffiti is a high-priority issue for our residents who have told us it gives a poor impression of the area and makes them feel unsafe. We hope they'll be as pleased as we are."

Hounslow Chronicle

Implied threats and fear of failure - Nick Griffin loses his nerve over High Court action

Regular readers will know that ten days ago we reported that the December rebels (Sadie Graham, Kenny Smith and co) had received a letter from Nick Griffin suggesting that the ongoing case in the High Court should be dropped. Here's what we said:

'The December rebels who Griffin was taking through the High Court have received letters this week from the pig farmer himself, asking that the case be dropped because 'it's your homes at risk' and 'it's in the best interests of' party unity and so on, apparently forgetting that it was he himself who brought the case.'

This was immediately questioned by the near-dead Lancaster and Morecambe BNP group's idiotic former organiser Chris Hill who, via the recent leadership-challenger Colin Auty's support blog, Challenge for Leadership, said,

'I may in fact be wrong about the Grifin/Collett gang having officially dropped the case against Sadie & Co. I read a report about a retraction letter being received they the defendants elsewhere on the web (the Lancaster UAF blog), but I've not seen any reports from reliable sources as yet. UAF may well be jumping the gun in reporting the inevitable, but that's UAF for you as about as reliable as Griffin on a bad day.'

We're a good deal more reliable than Nick Griffin - even on a good day when all he does is stay at home and admire his new sauna and jacuzzi while counting his pigs - and to nobody's surprise at all, it turns out that we were telling the truth and those who denied this were telling, forgive me, porkies. Oh, and Chris, in case you hadn't noticed, we changed our name to Lancaster Unity nearly six months ago.

The letter from Griffin to the rebels is reprinted below.

'Dated 8th July 2008

Dear XXXXXXXXXX

Further to our earlier correspondence in connection with proposed disciplinary proceedings, I am writing to you and your colleagues in this matter in an attempt to bring it to an early - and as far as is possible - relatively painless conclusion for all concerned.

In response to my letter of 8th April, several of your group requested that the BNP's internal disciplinary proceedings and connected unfair dismissal hearings. should be stayed pending the outcome of the court case Griffin v Smith & Others. I accepted this as a sensible proposal for all concerned for the time being.

The delay does not, however, alter the fact that our present course will see us back in court, with both sides incurring further very considerable expense. My informed opinion is that you and your colleagues will lose the case, but that Mr. Davies does not mind this in the slightest because his avowed aim is to try and bleed the BNP financially. He knows that the looming problem of negative equity for many home-owners is sufficiently large that, while the end result is likely to be your collective bankruptcy and loss of several homes, we will be unable to recover any significant part of our costs.

I trust that you will already have learnt from the failure of the desperate "Scottish gambit" in which he encouraged you to set so much store that Mr. Davies gungo-ho tendencies do not always work out in the best interests of his clients (as Steve Edwards, Jay Lee, the Roberts Brothers and Tess Culnane have already discovered to their cost).

Especially now that time has elapsed to allow water to flow under various bridges, I ask you individually and collectively, to give very careful consideration to an agreement to end the action on the basis of each side bearing their own costs and going their separate ways. The sums involved at present are, as we all know only too well, steep without being ruinous. It is surely sensible to bring matters to an end while this is the case?

As you know, the BNP has already through the action secured its assets and the privacy of its members (although my solicitor informs me that he is still waiting for the affidavit on these matters from you in accordance with the Judge's directions). While it would have been far better had it been possible to have done so without the expense incurred so far, we have at last achieved what we needed to do, so we have little other than an expensive moral victory to gain by pursuing the matter further if you and your colleagues will agree to end this and any other possible actions. Please note that there can be no question of leaving an opening through which Mr. Davies can continue to use you people as pawns in his own longstanding personal campaign to bring down those who have achieved political success way beyond anything he has been able to manage in his various forays into either "extreme" or "moderate" nationalism.

All concerned have lives to lead and better things to do than enrich lawyers or waste court time. I hope to hear that we can agree on that at least, in which a settlement along the lines outlined above would surely be the only sensible option.'

That the BNP is in dire financial straits is indisputable. Griffin is desperately trying to raise funds to pay for the usual staggeringly-high legal costs that he has already incurred by this pointless action (suggestions of £30,000 have been made by various people who should know) before he and the other officers of the party become personally liable. The fact that he is panicking and floundering around like a landed fish is obvious from this letter.

As usual with Griffin, his preferred mode of defence is attack, though more by implication than clear statement. His criticism of the rebel's barrister Adrian Davies' 'gung-ho tendencies' is a classic ploy, hopefully undermining the rebel's relationship with their counsel, as is the appalling suggestion that Davies is more interested in destroying the BNP than he is in protecting his client's interests - a suggestion that sounds awfully like libel to me but Nick Griffin probably knows more about the law than I do, having a third-rate degree in jurisprudence, the theory and philosophy of law, [yawn, sorry] and having access to one of the sharpest legal brains in the country, Lee Barnes [sarcasm].

The phrase 'the BNP has already through the action secured its assets and the privacy of its members' is an odd one when you consider that the assets (presumably laptops and so on) were grabbed by BNP security long before the court case after illegally gaining access to Graham and co's homes, but we can safely assume that the 'privacy of its members' refers to the court ordering the rebels to stop using the out of date membership lists in their possession. Thirty thousand quid seems an awful lot of money to throw away on getting something virtually worthless from a bunch of people who have done next to nothing to harm the party and who are generally acknowledged to be politically impotent.

Even though asking for, and clearly desperate for, a truce, Griffin still feels the need to ensure that Davies is out of the battle.

'Please note that there can be no question of leaving an opening through which Mr. Davies can continue to use you people as pawns in his own longstanding personal campaign to bring down those who have achieved political success way beyond anything he has been able to manage in his various forays into either "extreme" or "moderate" nationalism.'

Do I detect some nervousness from Griffin? Just a single letter and a number of attacks on Adrian Davies intended to damage client confidence. One wonders if Griffin's legal advisors are aware of this letter and its content. I showed it to a friend of mine who is in the final stages of training to be a barrister and his response was that if one of his clients had written to the opposition in the same terms, he would have no hesitation in dumping the client and immediately beginning what he described as a 'vigorous' process to get paid before the client committed another such faux pas that led straight into the High Court for a libel action.

Of course, there is another possibility. That the rumours are true and that Griffin's legal advisors have told him he gets nothing more out of them until they are paid for the work they have already carried out. As the party is near-bankrupt, paying counsel is impossible at this stage and the thought of having to face the rebels in court with only the help of Lee Barnes must be giving Griffin nightmares. But now Nick Griffin has put himself in a position where he not only has to extract £30,000 from a party that hardly has two pennies to rub together, he has also left himself open to an attack from Adrian Davies which he will find next to impossible to defend himself against.

The former problem might be solved if the cash from the BNP's Red, White and Blue piss-up in August makes enough and is immediately diverted to pay the debt, which might explain the recent statement from the party that the RWB is to be a cash-only event with no advance ticket sales. This could well not work as we hear from a number of trusted sources that there is very little interest in the RWB this year and, naturally, a lot of people are put off from going because of the national demo that's planned, the inevitably heavy police presence and the ban on selling booze.

Adrian Davies though, might well turn out to be the most serious of Griffin's problems. Despite his disparaging comments, Davies is an able barrister with a good deal of experience. Griffin could well find him the Nemesis that he has repeatedly been avoiding for the past few years. In the past, Griffin has always chosen to attack those who cannot fight back - this time he may well have attacked someone who is not only willing, but able to fight back, and who has teeth that are a good deal sharper than his own. We look forward to it.

Neo-Nazi group offers rent help for new recruits

A white supremacist group in Calgary is recruiting new members with an offer to pay the security deposit on a new rental apartment if they move to the city. A member of the Aryan Guard made the offer in an online posting at stormfront.org entitled "White Nationlist Relocation Program - Destination Calgary."

"The Aryan Guard is always seeking new brothers and sisters, if you are interested in relocating to our Calgary area, we will pay the damage deposit for your residence," the statement by a user named pitbull-A.G. reads. "We believe that through fortifying our current locations with more White Nationlists we can spread the world more efficiently and than in the future branch out further throughout Canada."

Jason Devine of Anti-Racist Action Calgary said that the Aryan Guard conducts poster campaigns and holds meetings and demonstrations in the city to intimidate non-whites. Devine told CTV Newsnet on Tuesday that if the recruiting drive is successful, the group will give off an air "of coherence and solidarity."

"Anything that comes out of white power, white nationalists, neo-Nazi groups, you've got to take with a bit of a grain of salt," Devine said. "But considering everything that the Aryan Guard has done and said to date I think it should be taken seriously."

Calgary mayor Dave Bronconnier told reporters that the offer is "distasteful."

"It's quite surprising that people would have to resort to using financial support in order to encourage people to join their group," Bronconnier said. "I think that speaks to the support level that's here, which is non-existent."

Alberta premier Ed Stelmach said white supremacists should think twice about taking advantage of the group's offer.

"The province of Alberta, we're home to many ethnic communities, it is the strength of this province," Stelmach told reporters. "We believe in human rights."

CTV Calgary attempted to contact the Aryan Guard for comment, but phone calls were not returned. Devine said that Calgary police have told him they can't shut down the Aryan Guard if the group isn't breaking any laws.

"What's going to have to happen is that everyday, average Calgarians are going to have to get up, stand up and say we don't want this anymore," Devine said.

The online post, which is dated July 4, has a few comments, some of which applaud the initiative.
A forum member with the user name VladImpaler wrote: "Another good idea i think, in order to change the demonized perception of national-socialist movements is organization of periodical charity events like collecting funds, helping the olders etc."

The website has international portals and a slogan that reads "white pride world wide."

In a study released in June, Statistics Canada reported that Calgary has the highest rate of hate crime in the country, with 9.2 cases reported to police per 100,000 people. The national average is 3.1 cases per 100,000 people.

CTV

Neo-Nazis have threatened to kill me, says election candidate

A candidate in the Glasgow East by-election says a neo-Nazi gang has threatened to kill her.

Scottish Socialist Party co-founder Frances Curran claims she was formally warned by police that her home could be attacked.

Curran, who has sent her eight-year-old son to stay with relatives, said: "I was told by my neighbours that the police have come knocking three times during the day. I was contacted later and they said that a threat had been received, specific to me and my home. They said no other candidates had been targeted. They wouldn't specify who made the threat but I was given the clear idea it was from some kind of neo-Nazi group."

The advice from Strathclyde Police is believed to have been an "Osman Warning" - given out only when credible information is received that violence is a genuine possibility.

Curran said officers from the force's Operational Support Unit advised her to be on her guard and promised her home in Partick, Glasgow, would be watched. And she vowed she would not be intimidated into pulling out of tomorrow's poll.

She said: "I am concerned but it will be business as usual for me. I didn't take the police up on their offer of an inspection of my home security but I'll be watching my back."

Curran, 47, is joint national spokesperson of the SSP with Colin Fox and was one of six socialist MSPs elected for the West of Scotland at the 2003 Holyrood election - but lost her seat in 2007. In 2005, she played a leading role in protests outside the G8 summit at Gleneagles. She has also campaigned against Trident nuclear weapons and was due to join striking civil servants at the Glasgow passport office this morning.

The "Osman Warning" came from the case of Paul Paget-Lewis, a teacher who wounded a former pupil, Ahmet Osman, to whom he had formed a disturbing attachment, and killed his father, Ali, and two others.

Last night, a Strathclyde Police spokesman said he had no information on Curran's claims.

Daily Record

BNP's Second Licence Application Rejected!

The BNP made yet another abortive attempt to apply for a 'mini' drinks and music licence yesterday morning for their upcoming Red White and Blue event better known as Scumfest.

It was again opposed by the police who held up screen shots from the BNP website the day after the first application was opposed. The screen shots declared the BNP's intention to sell alcohol anyway and the police stated that they had taken this to mean that the British National Party were declaring their intention to deliberately break the law!

Unusually for a licence hearing, this time the decision was reached by the licencing panel and delivered on the same day, within an hour & a half in fact, with a resounding 'NO CHANCE' being sent the BNP's way.

The police are still, apparently extremley concerned about 'extremist activity' on the weekend of the 15th - 17th of August. Aren't we all!

Our people in the know also inform us that Alan Warner, (absent at the licence hearing as he has been declared in some BNP circles as a public relations disaster) ruddy-nosed, suspected drug dealer and owner of the land the RWB is due to be held on, has run crying to the cops who are now taking his personal security so seriously that he has a panic button installed along with what he calls 'covert surveillance' around the bungalow.

Antifa

The picture that shames Italy

Holidaymakers sunbathe, indifferent to the bodies
of two Roma girls that lie on this beach near Naples

It's another balmy weekend on the beach in Naples. By the rocks, a couple soak up the southern Italian sun. A few metres away, their feet poking from under beach towels that cover their faces and bodies, lie two drowned Roma children.

The girls, Cristina, aged 16, and Violetta, 14, were buried last night as the fallout from the circumstances of their death reverberated throughout Italy.

It is an image that has crystallised the mounting disquiet in the country over the treatment of Roma, coming after camps have been burnt and the government has embarked on a bid to fingerprint every member of the minority. Two young Roma sisters had drowned at Torregaveta beach after taking a dip in treacherous waters. Their corpses were recovered from the sea – then left on the beach for hours while holidaymakers continued to sunbathe and picnic around them.

They had come to the beach on the outskirts of Naples on Saturday with another sister, Diana, nine, and a 16-year-old cousin, Manuela, to make a little money selling coloured magnets and other trinkets to sunbathers. But it was fiercely hot all day and, about 2pm, the girls surrendered to the temptation of a cooling dip – even though they apparently did not know how to swim.

"The sea was rough on Saturday," said Enzo Esposito, the national treasurer of Opera Nomadi, Italy's biggest Roma organisation. "Christina and Violetta went farther out than the other two, and a big wave came out of nowhere and dashed them on to the rocks. For a few moments, they disappeared; Manuela, who was in shallow water with Diana, came to the shore, helped out by people on the beach, and ran to try and get help."

Other reports said that lifeguards from nearby private beaches also tried to help, without success. "When Manuela and Diana came back," Esposito went on, "the bodies of her cousins had reappeared, and they were already dead."

It was the sort of tragedy that could happen on any beach. But what happened next has stunned Italy. The bodies of the two girls were laid on the sand; their sister and cousin were taken away by the police to identify and contact the parents. Some pious soul donated a couple of towels to preserve the most basic decencies. Then beach life resumed. The indifference was taken as shocking proof that many Italians no longer have human feelings for the Roma, even though the communities have lived side by side for generations.

"This was the other terrible thing," says Mr Esposito, "besides the fact of the girls drowning: the normality. The way people continued to sunbathe, for three hours, just metres away from the bodies. They could have gone to a different beach. It's not possible that you can watch two young people die then carry on as if nothing happened. It showed a terrible lack of sensitivity and respect."

The attitudes of ordinary Italians towards the Roma, never warm, have been chilling for years, aggravated by sensational news coverage of crimes allegedly committed by Gypsies, and a widespread confusion of Roma with ordinary, non-Roma Romanians, who continue to arrive. The Berlusconi government has launched a high-profile campaign against the community, spearheaded by the programme announced by the Interior Minister, Roberto Marroni, to fingerprint the entire Roma population. The move has been condemned inside Italy and beyond as a return to the racial registers introduced by the Fascist regime in the 1930s. The fingerprinting of Roma in Naples began on 19 June.

The most senior Catholic in Naples, Cardinal Crescenzo Sepe, was quick to point out the coarsening of human sentiment which the behaviour on the beach represented. But the Mayor of Monte di Procida, the town on the outskirts of the city where Torregaveta beach is located, defended his citizens' behaviour.

When the Roma girls got into difficulties, he said: "There was a race among the bathers and the coastguard and the carabinieri to try and help them." He rejected the claim that the indifference of the bathers was due to the fact that the girls were Roma.

The two cousins were given a Christian Orthodox funeral service in the Roma camp in Naples, attended by 300 Roma and city and regional representatives.

In a speech yesterday, Mr Maroni proposed, "for humanitarian reasons", granting Italian citizenship to all Roma children in Italy abandoned by their parents.

The Italians and the Roma

Roma have been living in Italy for seven centuries and the country is home to about 150,000, who live mainly in squalid conditions in one of around 700 encampments on the outskirts of major cities such as Rome, Milan and Naples. They amount to less than 0.3 per cent of the population, one of the lowest proportions in Europe. But their poverty and resistance to integration have made them far more conspicuous than other communities. And the influx of thousands more migrants from Romania in the past year has confirmed the view of many Italians that the Gypsies and their eyesore camps are the source of all their problems. The ethnic group is often blamed for petty theft and burglaries. According to a recent newspaper survey, more than two thirds of Italians want Gypsies expelled, whether they hold Italian passports or not.

Independent

Insurance Service Quotes Anti-Gay Crackpot as Authority

“It’s a loaded subject, but let’s get right down to it: gay men, on average, die significantly younger than the rest of the population.” So begins [1] “Gay Men Die 20 Years Younger,” an article posted on insure.com, a publicly traded online insurance brokerage. The source for the article, written by one Joseph White of insure.com, is identified as none other than “Dr. Paul Cameron [see Anti-gay researcher speaks to racist BNP], the President of the Family Research Institute, [who] published a study in Psychological Reports that confirmed a 20-year life expectancy gap for actively gay men.”

The study in question in fact did nothing of the sort. Its author is a [2] notorious anti-gay propagandist who for more than 25 years has circulated bogus, homophobic “research findings” in pay-to-publish vanity magazines like Psychological Reports (which will publish most anybody willing to pay $27.50 a page). Cameron’s goal, as he says quite candidly, is to provide “ammunition for those who want laws adopted banning homosexual acts throughout the United States.” (In fact, such laws were struck down as unconstitutional by the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in [3] Lawrence v. Texas.) Cameron’s propaganda is so transparently false and aimed merely at defaming homosexuals that the Southern Poverty Law Center added his Family Research Institute to its list of hate groups in 2005.

One of Cameron’s most infamous works is his 1983 “gay obituary study,” for which he used obituaries published in gay newspapers at the height of the AIDS crisis to conclude that gay men die on average at 43. “Gay Men Die 20 Years Younger,” which was written by insure.com company blogger Joseph White, is obviously based on the gay obituary study, even though Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, thoroughly [4] debunked the study in 1997 in the online magazine Slate.

The average age of death for AIDS victims, Olson noted, was about 40. For Cameron’s figure of 43 years old to hold true, he pointed out, gay people who never contract AIDS must have a life expectancy of no more than 46 years — a truly absurd proposition. “Looked at another way,” Olson reported, “if even half the gay male population stays HIV-negative and lives to an average age of 75, an average overall life span of 43 implies that gay males with AIDS die at an implausibly early age (11, actually).”

Despite Cameron’s total lack of credibility and professional accreditation — he was expelled from the American Psychological Association in 1983 for ethical violations — his work is often cited favorably by anti-gay hate groups, and it still pops up regularly in conservative religious sermons.

But what’s it doing on insure.com?

Although insure.com is a regular sponsor of conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly’s radio show, by all appearances it’s an established mainstream business website. Insure.com, which [5] describes itself as “an online consumer insurance information service” that allows visitors to obtain insurance quotes from more than 200 leading insurers, regularly wins Web design and Web commerce awards, and Sam Belden, its director of consumer experience, is frequently interviewed by major newspapers and networks like CNN as an insurance expert. The site is not a public discussion forum. Its owners strictly control its content, and the vast majority of its articles — described as “a vast library of originally authored insurance articles … not available from any other source” —deal with topics like quarterly car insurance rate reports and tips for discussing rider policies with a homeowners insurance agent. It’s hardly a typical venue for promoting the work of a raving homophobe like Cameron, who once said: “Homosexuality is an infectious appetite. It is like the dog that gets a taste for blood after killing its first victim and desires to get more victims thereafter with a ravenous hunger.”

Last month, bloggers at boxturtlebulletin.com, which delivers “news analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoric,” privately contacted insure.com CEO Robert Bland to make sure that Bland knew all about Cameron’s background, including his praise for Nazi Rudolph Höss, commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, for how he “dealt with” gays. The bloggers [6] went public after Bland wrote back, informing them he had no intention of removing the article from the website. “It contains no factual errors and no editorial bias or slant whatsoever,” Bland wrote in a July 12 post to the boxturtlebulletin.com comments section.

Addressing the implications of Cameron’s findings for the life insurance industry, the insure.com article concludes that despite the gross disparity in life spans, “no life insurance companies charge elevated rates to gay men. Then again, perhaps the issue is still too sensitive for such realistic evaluation.”

Bland, in his correspondence with the boxturtlebulletin bloggers, [7] indicated his belief that such a “realistic evaluation” should be based at least in part on the work of Paul Cameron: “There’s a human interest story to be researched here on why all U.S. life insurers decline HIV-positive applicants (many of whom are healthy and have been for two decades) but will not even attempt to segregate gays who, according to a growing body of evidence, may have a much shorter lifespan than non-gays.”

[1] “Gay Men Die 20 Years Younger,”: http://www.insure.com/articles/lifeinsurance/gay-men-die-young.html
[2] notorious anti-gay propagandist: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=587
[3] Lawrence v. Texas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas
[4] debunked: http://www.slate.com/id/2098/
[5] describes itself: http://www.insure.com/ir/CorporateProfile.html
[6] went public: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2008/07/11/2137
[7] indicated: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2008/07/11/2137#comment-13382

Hatewatch

Updated: Former Burnley BNP councillor Luke Smith found dead

We've just spoken to the coroner's officer in Burnley, who has confirmed the death of former BNP councillor, Luke Smith. Smith was found hanged in Burnley's Yorkshire Street at around 4pm yesterday. An inquest will open on Friday though the verdict is likely to be suicide. Smith was 26.

The last report we had of Smith's behaviour was when he suddenly reappeared from obscurity a few days ago, after being convicted of attacking a pub landlord. In the article that we reprinted, it was revealed that Smith's mental health was fast-deteriorating and the court was told that he was said to be suffering from adjustment disorder, brief reactive depression and a mental and behavioural disorder due to misuse of substances.

Smith had a long history of football-related violence behind him, and was jailed for 17 months in March 2006 after being convicted of violent disorder in relation to incidents surrounding a World Cup qualifier in October 2004 and later violence in Blackpool. He was also banned from football grounds for six years. This followed on from a two-and-a-half year football banning order, imposed for being involved in over 20 violent episodes in five years. Following his 17 month conviction, the BNP rallied around him saying that he was not a man of violence.

Smith was also one of the youngest BNP councillors, resigning his seat on the then BNP flagship Burnley council (on which they had, at the time, eight councillors) in 2003 following an incident at that year's Red, White and Blue booze-fest, when a drunken and belligerent Smith attacked then Leeds organiser Martin Reynolds (now Head of Security) with a bottle, smashing it into Reynolds' face and opening up a gash close to his left eye that required seven stitches, subsequently dealt with by Leeds Royal Infirmary. This fracas earned Smith his expulsion from the BNP and a three-year ban on holding public office by the Standards Board.