June 08, 2009

Man who hosts annual BNP festival says he may move

The Derbyshire man who hosts an annual festival for the British National Party says he may sell his land and move away.

Alan Warner has allowed his land in Denby to be used for the Red, White and Blue festival twice, with a third event planned to take place in August. But the pensioner has been the victim of several acts of vandalism – including having his home daubed with a swastika and the words "BNP scum".

He told the Derby Telegraph he had become tired of protestors who vandalised his property. Mr Warner said: "I should move on – I have had enough. I will be holding it this year but, if I sell the land, the BNP won't be coming back. I'm getting my property vandalised, my stuff stolen and my walls painted. I had to install a camera as a security measure."

Mr Warner said he had a flag stolen from his property late last year. It was returned in a jiffy bag with a list of 12 telephone numbers – for undertakers in London. A gate to his property was also forced shut with two motorcycle locks that he had to saw off to get in and out.

At last year's event, 36 anti-BNP protesters were arrested outside the site in Codnor-Denby Lane. Derbyshire police spent £250,000 protesters clashed with officers outside the site.

"I understand it's because of my beliefs but I do not go around aggravating people who have got different beliefs to me. I believe in what I do. As far as the British people are concerned, I do not think we should have any more immigrants. If I'm being targeted for saying that then it's a poor look-out."

Neighbour John Lumsden, who has protested against the festival, said he would be "delighted" if Mr Warner left the village and claimed most other people living nearby would be too. He said: "I'd love him to leave and take the BNP festival with him, although I'll only believe it when I see it."

But Mr Warner said he had already had an offer for the land and his bungalow and would like to move to the Peak District.

"They seem very interested," he said about the people behind the offer. "I have met with them twice, but we will have to wait until after the Red, White and Blue Festival."

Police have written to Mr Warner to tell him they believe the site is unsuitable for the festival this year. But the BNP said it could see no reason to change venues because there had been no trouble on the site itself in the past. The festival is scheduled to take place in Denby on August 13, 14 and 15.

A police spokeswoman said officers had concerns "based on intelligence we have received and the risk that was caused by last year's violence in the area surrounding the festival".

Derby Telegraph

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Man who hosts annual BNP festival says he may move"

Good.

The Professa said...

There is one aspect of politics that the BNP has worked in its' favour, it's status as a party of rebels.

Like the racist confederacy in the US, it wallows as a party of dangerous (for dangerous read exciting to many disillusioned voters!)

It's great that the media have finally woken up to the fact that the BNP are white supremacists (although they have to learn how put down the Black Police Association bullshit dogma and not be afraid of displaying all of the acts), and I'm much rather anti-racism be the orthadoxy than the exception, even if it means convicted criminal nazis such as Brons and Griffin win the odd seat.

In the dark days of old, even though under Thatcher the NF/BNP didn't poll well, anti-racism was wrongly believed to be a leftist preserve.

Anti-racism must always from now onwards be a broad church and must always include conservatives and liberals as well as traditional leftwingers (if they exist).

The one thing that must the left must do is reform a brand new political movement that casually includes (but not exclusively) a strong ethos of anti-fascism, but a movement that will not claim it's opposition to racism as its own, allowing centre right political opponents who fear its thunder to play the race card, returning anti-fascism to the bad old days of a left-right split leaving voters stranded on either side of the fence about race due to their political allegiance.

For a good while, Simon Darby's newspaper trolls have cleverly tried to shed the tag of "far right" by falsely claiming that the BNP are actually "far left".

I used to chuckle and scoff at this falsety, never believing there would be any truth in it, however the BNP bigwigs actually managed to turn this lie into a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Professa continued said...

The Professa continued......

So the BNP put on the emperor's new clothes in reaching out to traditional socialist communities with pretend-socialist/leftwing ideas including anti-capitalism, worker cooperatives, state nationalisation, etc, knowing New Labour sold out such principles long ago.

Let's not be fooled, in trying to win disillusioned voters south of Pontefract, the BNP don't actually believe in workers rights (fot anybody scratching their heads, check out the Solidarity Trade Union fiasco!) Their "faux-socialism" is just one big con, but to communities left politically emasculated by Labour's irrepairable sell out to big business and American neoconservatives, they said everything people wanted to hear, without having to say much about race.

Of course, by adapting Gordon Brown's British Jobs For British Workers slogan, they could craftily introduce xenophobia into the mix without nobody noticing this was fascism rather than socialism.

This is how "Brownshirt Brons" won his seat, which is somewhat different circumstances to Nick Griffin getting elected in the Northwest where the vote went up and not down.

The Professa (finally!) said...

Professor (final words on the matter!)

So, the BNP newspaper online comment trolls about the BNP being a far-left party (though a piss-poor pale immitation of a proper socialist party), held more sway than the equally as fake protestations of Labour MPs of their radical status, especially after the expenses scandal.

Many people in South West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire former mining and steel communities now do (wrongly) believe that the BNP are a socialist party because of the BNP's crafty propaganda in filling the void.

The British left needs to sort out itself, and it is lacking a Che Guevara/Arthur Scargill/Bove, maybe even Malcolm X-type figure to court controversy and play dangerously, for since most if not all of the radical figures in the Labour Party "did a Peter Hain" and sold out all of their principles to big business, Labour had become mainstream, safe, establishment, and overwhelingly boring and non-applicable to the lives of young people.

Tony Blair is arguably ultimately to blame for "making the party electable" by courting Rupert Murdoch, for he had to neuter the party of all its radicialism, especially to win a second term in office, which meant supporting Rupert's JR Ewing-style oil-rich buddy George W Bush, and along with that, the so-called "War Against Terror" that even Nick "The Cyclops" Griffin has brought attention to.

In typical BNP revisionist mode (if you can deny the holocaust you can deny everything) they now claim to be an anti-war party even though at the time Griffin and his cohorts were in favour of the war. Just like the Birdwood thing, they can revise their own positions to brush the shit under the carpet.

The crux of the matter for the BNP is that they are now positioning themselves in the target of capitalism by pretending to target it, which is excellent news for all non-partizan anti-fascists.

Many rightwing newspapers hate one thing more than scapegoating immigrants and minorities, it's anti-capitalism, which threatens their actual existence. The fact voters switched straight from Labour to Fascists for reasons other than racism and xenophobia, but rather by stealing a (albeit pretend) radical anti-capitalist voice, makes the BNP (as a threat to the Conservative Party winning a clear majority at the next election), public enemy number one.

Once it was Arthur Scargill who was opposed by the system, now thankfully, it's Nick "The Cyclops" Griffin.

This is excellent news for broad-thiking anti-facists who look beyond simple political boundaries.

Also, the Times, Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph now call the BNP with its toxic "nationalism" and its pseudo-socialism - guess what...

national socialists.

The name Nazi means just that... "national socialist".

Finally, conservative voters recongise the BNP for what they truly are.

Looks like, by winning a few socialist heartland votes they have shot themselves in the foot.

Makes me want to celebrate not sob, as the Tories begin to lay into the BNP before the next election.

postgrad pete said...

The BNP cannot have it both ways - they endorsed the green anti-capitalistic ideas of Peak Oil saying people should use less fuel and use cars less, while in places like Dagenham and Stoke, vocally speaking out about the closure of the car industry!

They cannot have it both ways without danger of hypocrisy. That's not how philosophy wsorks.

Greenie said...

What the story doesn't mention, is that Nick Griffin is going to buy the the land with the money he'll get from being an MEP.

Bigger Picture said...

THE COLLAPSE OF THE LABOUR VOTE.

Gordon Brown’s present uselessness as Labour Party leader is demonstrated by his inability to make clear that the Tories come out of the expenses controversy very much worse than Labour.

Gordon Brown’s failures as a Prime Minister are based on his absurd assertions that ever expanding markets are sustainable politically economically and environmentally. Ever expanding markets are politically economically and environmentally unsustainable. In particular the idea of ever increasing house prices has been nothing more than a pyramid selling scam.

If ever increasing markets in general and ever increasing house prices in particular are so absurd, how has there been no political opposition to such absurdities? The answer to that is simple. The leader of the opposition is a professional and successful property speculator. In fact David Cameron is the 1477th richest person in Britain according to the Rich List of The Sunday Times, with wealth of £38 million based on property, a matter easily checkable online.

THE RESPECTIVE POSITIONS IN PUBLIC LIFE OF BOTH DAVID CAMERON AND GORDON BROWN ARE UNTENABLE. TORIES AND LABOUR PARTY MEMBERS SHOULD CONSIDER THE FEW MONTHS BEFORE THE GENERAL ELECTION AS A SCRAMBLE TO DUMP THEIR LEADERS AND START TALKING SENSE AND REALISM TO THE ELECTORATE. WE CAN START WITH THREE YEAR FIXED TERMED, FIXED DATED PARLIAMENTS.

Gordon Brown personifies the idea that if enough people agree about something, it must be right. That is politically economically and environmentally absurd. This is incidentally why the Greens are making no progress. They have not got the bottle to admit that environmental considerations take priority over considerations about economic sustainability or social justice.

Alan Greenspan gave the idea of ever expanding markets an intellectual respectability and Gordon Brown put the theory into practice as practical politics. Greenspan and Brown have primary responsibility for the present world wide economic difficulties. The whole thing could be said to have been a pyramidally sold idea. The idea kept expanding, getting more and more adherents, until natural realities made the absurdities of the whole thing clear.

Gordon Brown is unfit for public office now that the political economic and environmental absurdities of his ideas have become clear.

Further to that, Gordon Brown is temperamentally unsuited to public office because he considers public office as an honour. Gordon Brown is kept in office by people who feel compassion for the possible dishonour that might be felt by Brown following his dismissal. This honour or dishonour is all froth.

GORDON BROWN HAS TRIED HAS BEST, AND HIS BEST HAS NOT BEEN GOOD ENOUGH.