Germany kicks out US nazi David Duke

David Duke poses in his Klan robes in front of the House of
Parliament in London in March 1978. Photo: Associated Press

David Duke, the ex-Ku Klux Klan leader, former US nazi boss and still close associate of British National Party boss, Nick Griffin, has been kicked out of Germany after being arrested in Cologne last week ahead of speaking at a nazi gathering in the city.

The arrest of the 61-year-old embezzler and fraudster – aka Dorothy Vanderbilt – came at a time of mounting public concern in Germany over the brutal murders, over an eleven-year period, of nine immigrant traders and a female police officer by members of the terrorist National Socialist Underground (NSU). Other NSU violence included bombings in Cologne in 2001 and 2004.

On his release, Duke who, like his pal Griffin, has been closely connected with Germany’s biggest nazi organisation, the National Democratic Party (NPD) – which, in turn, has been linked with the NSU killers – pledged to fight his deportation, begging supporters to send him money. Urgently. “While most of you will be getting ready for the warmth and love and friendship and family of Christmas, I will be far from home fighting the good fight,” he wrote.

Any would-be donors should exercise caution: Duke has form in this regard having served a year in US federal prison for filing a false tax return and mail fraud in 2003-2004 after it was revealed that hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of donations he had solicited from his followers were actually used to pay off his gambling debts.

Police in Cologne branded Duke an “undesirable foreigner” who was “obliged to leave German territory without delay”. The police statement added that Duke “was not entitled to stay in Germany” because of a travel ban against him in another, unspecified, European country. It was later disclosed that the group he was scheduled to address was the hardcore nazi Freies Netz Köln, in cooperation with the violent Kameradschaft Sturm Rhein-Sieg.

Press reports have compared Duke’s latest escapade to his 2009 expulsion from Czech Republic, following his arrest in Prague on suspicion of “denying or approving of the Nazi genocide and other Nazi crimes” and “promotion of movements seeking suppression of human rights,” which are crimes in the Czech Republic punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment. At the time of his arrest, Duke was being protected by thugs from the nazi group Národní Odpor.

Duke habitually describes the Nazi murder of six million Jews during WW2 as a “myth” and his antics have made him one of world’s most infamous racist extremists. In recent years Duke, who claims he intends to run in the next US presidential elections, has been active in Russia and Eastern Europe as well as in the Middle Eastern states of Syria and Iran.

He was a keynote speaker at the Iranian Holocaust denial conference in December 2006 telling the audience that: “The Zionists have used the Holocaust as a weapon to deny the rights of the Palestinians and cover up the crimes of Israel... This conference has an incredible impact on Holocaust studies all over the world... The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder.” Duke is also the author of several books including My Awakening (1998) and Jewish Supremacism (2002).

After being expelled to Austria where he now lives, the cosmetically altered racist was, incredibly not questioned by the Austrian police on his return.

Hope not hate

BNP establishes 'social networking' branch in America

The British National Party has set up a branch in the United States – nine years after it abandoned a fundraising drive across the Atlantic amid controversy over its links with American white supremacists.

The far-right party described its new US "unit" as simply a social networking organisation designed to help expatriate BNP supporters stay in touch with one another, and the party, while working abroad. But the Government last night accused the BNP, which has been hit by internal strife following poor general election results, of looking overseas to promote "hate and intolerance".

The new US branch has signed up 90 sympathisers, while a Canadian branch has 60 members. The party is also trying to boost its presence in Europe and the Far East. The American operation is being co-ordinated by an IT worker from Croydon, Adam McArthur, who recently moved to the US to take up a job. Mr McArthur, a BNP officer since February, lives in Berryville, a small town in rural Virginia just over an hour's drive from Washington DC.

The move follows the collapse of American Friends of the BNP, based in Virginia, which was set up to raise cash for the party and was addressed by Nick Griffin, the party's leader. Members of the group included David Duke, the leader of the Ku Klux Klan at the time, who was photographed with Mr Griffin. James W von Brunn, the white supremacist who shot dead a guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington last year, attended two meetings.

The organisation was run by Mark Cotterill, a veteran figure on the far right, who drew inspiration from the IRA's success in raising money in North America in the 1990s. It folded amid claims that its fundraising activities were illegal under American law. Mr Cotterill returned to Britain and has left the BNP.

In January, Mr McArthur registered under American law to reactivate the party's presence in the country. According to US government documents, he said the branch would "organise US-based members, so that we can develop social networking campaigns to increase votes for the BNP in the forthcoming local and general elections".

He also said he would advise the party's supporters on how to vote in British elections. The move was part of efforts co-ordinated by the BNP's overseas liaison officer, Andy McBride, to forge links with sympathisers around the world.

Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities, told The Independent: "This just shows there's nothing British about the BNP. It's a sign of the party's own weakness that it has to look outside Britain to try to peddle their messages of hate and intolerance."

Mr McBride said the new branch would be carefully monitored to prevent extremist sympathisers of organisations such as the KKK from joining.

"People are told that if they come into this party because they hate people, or hate the colour of their skin, it's the wrong party for them," he said. Mr McBride added that the party did not encourage donations from members living abroad because it involved completing "immense" amounts of paperwork.

Meanwhile in Britain

The British National Party is struggling under a weight of debts estimated at more than £500,000 and has suffered a series of resignations of prominent activists. Its cash crisis has arisen because of unpaid bills to suppliers and the cost of fighting legal actions with Unilever over the use of an image of a Marmite jar in an election broadcast and with the Equality and Human Rights Commission over its constitution.

Nick Griffin fought off a challenge to his leadership and has promised to step down in 2013. Last May, he said he wanted to "make way for a younger person" and focus on getting re-elected to the European Parliament in 2014. But infighting has continued to destabilise the party, with Eddy Butler, its former campaigns director, and Richard Barnbrook, the BNP's sole London Assembly member, both recently expelled.

Last week, Wiltshire's only BNP councillor, Michael Simpkins, quit the party over the scale of its debts and said he would sit on Corsham Town Council as an independent. He said he knew of two local printers that waited six months for the BNP to pay its bills. Meanwhile, Jim Dowson has said he will be stepping down as the BNP's chief fundraiser. He has faced accusations of making inappropriate advances to a young female activist. He has denied the claims and said he is the victim of a dirty-tricks campaign.

Independent

The Mayer of Pigtown

Why does pop star John Mayer think racism is funny? asks Alexander Billet

John Mayer (pictured left) is the musical equivalent of Wonderbread: flashy packaging covering a complete lack of taste, substance and anything vaguely nourishing. And very, very white.

There are plenty of media outlets trying to downplay Mayer's comments in a recent Playboy interview. For the likes of TMZ and Rolling Stone, Mayer's crack about having a "nigger pass" and the disturbing notion that he has a "David Duke cock" are "all in good fun." To most of the mainstream press, the fact that he was supposedly making a joke that he is now sorry for is where the matter ends.

None of them are getting at the heart of the issue. To them, the fact that Mayer made a public apology at his concert on February 10 is enough, and time to let bygones be bygones. They're willing to accept his argument that the majority of his touring group is African American, which must be the pop-star version of "I can't be a racist because some of my best friends are Black."

None are willing to point out that his idea of "wit" is likely to offend the very people whose music laid the groundwork for Mayer's entire catalog. In recent years, his music has become much more influenced by blues and R&B (albeit in their most watered-down forms).

If today's music industry treated these musical genres with any respect, this fact alone might have made for a double indictment against Mayer. But that's not the case, so the singer was let off the hook. But this is par for the course for the mainstream media. For them, history and current events happen separately, and comments like Mayer's are best swept under the rug because they're ultimately harmless and have little to do with the rest of the world.

It's an outlook that even seems to have influenced some on the left. Jay Smooth, host of WBAI's Underground Railroad and one of the best alternative pop culture commentators out there, posted a video blog on his Nil Doctrine Web site in which he insists that focusing so much on Mayer's comments can mean that we're likely to "forget that a whole bunch of the biggest race questions - the ones that impact our lives the most and that we most need to change - are the ones that don't manifest in the form of words or people's emotions. A lot of the most important race issues are institutional, systemic, structural issues."

In one sense, Smooth is right. Racism, sexism and homophobia run a lot deeper than just bad ideas or insensitive words. But letting John Mayer's frat-talk fall by the wayside is to miss the connection between the institutional and the day to day. They may just be the words of a camera-hungry rock star, but in an economically unstable world where race can easily become the new fault line, they can have much wider ramifications.

In fact, entire movements have been touched off by similar comments. During the summer of 1976, when an economic slump had most of the planet in its grip, rock god Eric Clapton took the stage of the Odeon Theater in Birmingham, England, and launched into a drunken racist screed. Blaming Black immigrants for the sorry state of the Empire, he insisted that Britain was on its way to becoming a "black colony," and vowed support for arch-racist and former Member of Parliament Enoch Powell. (A favorite slogan of British racists back in that time was "I'm with Enoch!")

For Clapton, whose career was built on Black music, to make such a statement was the worst kind of rank and hateful hypocrisy. His career had hit a slump before his cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff." But given that a fascist group like the National Front was at the time trolling the streets of Britain and gaining votes at the ballot box, Clapton's comments were especially dangerous.

This spurred a group of music lovers and activists to write an open letter to Clapton published in Britain's largest music rags. The letter lambasted Clapton: "Come on, Eric. Half your music is black. You're rock music's biggest colonist...P.S. Who shot the sheriff, Eric? It sure as hell wasn't you!"

The letter also called for the formation of a grassroots group mobilized against the "racist poison music" that would become Rock Against Racism. RAR managed to organize a full-on movement, joining forces with the Anti-Nazi League to push back the National Front and bring out some of music's most militant voices - from the Clash to the Specials to X-Ray Spex.

Now, Mayer didn't call for everyone to vote for Sarah Palin. Clapton, drunk though he might have been, was being serious, while Mayer intended his comments as a joke. But it would be irresponsible to say there aren't consequences for what Mayer said in these volatile times. Barack Obama's frustrating inability to deliver on any of the "change" he promised has opened the door for some of this country's less savory elements to exploit the presence of a Black president.

In their heads, the debilitating recession is the fault of affirmative action, "illegal" immigrants, "welfare queens" and entitlement programs. The momentum that their thinly veiled racism can be seen clearly at everything from Minutemen patrols to Tea Party conventions.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that far-right hate groups are growing right now. Fascist groups have become increasingly brazen in staking a public presence from Los Angeles to Atlanta. Recently, the neo-Nazi National Socialist Front announced their intention to demonstrate in Chicago on March 21--a date originally chosen by the anti-apartheid movement to highlight South Africa's oppression of Blacks.

Legitimate anger in times of economic crisis can easily be taken advantage of by bigots. Music, far from being separated from the rest of the world, is bound to reflect these kinds of contradictions. What we need is a movement that can challenge racism, sexism and homophobia head on--a movement that can mobilize the power of beats against bigotry in the streets, on the stage and in the music press.

Alexander Billet's music blog is Rebel Frequencies.

Socialist Worker

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

Nasty Nick's paedo pal

BNP leader Griffin shares platform with neo-Nazi paedophile

BNP chief Nick Griffin shows his true colours - holding aloft the hand of a neo-Nazi paedophile.

Griffin tries to pretend his whites-only party is NOT racist. But our exclusive picture nails that lie, showing him cosying up to a leader of a group which described Hitler as "the greatest man of our era".

Griffin shared the platform with Kevin Alfred Strom while in America to drum up BNP support in 2005. Also on stage were former Ku Klux Klan chiefs Stephen "Don" Black and David Duke. Vile Strom was a lead member of America's neo-Nazi National Alliance, which says whites are superior and wants whites-only schools and workplaces. The group claims the "sickness of multiculturalism" is destroying America and Britain. Last year Strom also pleaded guilty to possessing ten child porn images and got a 23-month jail term.

News of the World

Ex-KKK man ditches 'irrelevant' Griffin

Right-wing friends Nick Griffin and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke have fallen out in the wake of the humiliating Question Time appearance.

The former Grand Wizard blasted Griffin’s shambolic performance on the show as “horrendous”. He revealed on an internet blog that he is “considering legal action” after Griffin implied Duke was still involved with the KKK in 2000. Griffin drew howls of derision from the BBC audience when he said he had shared a platform with the former KKK leader and described the group as “an almost totally non-violent organisation”.

A spokesman for 59-year-old Dr Duke said: “The impression was clearly given that Dr Duke was still a member of the organisation at that time. The truth is, he had left many years earlier and had already served a successful term as a Republican on the Louisiana state senate.”

Four years before his meeting with Griffin, Duke unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the US Senate. His aide added: “Any statement that refers to Dr Duke being a member of the klan at the time is a blatant lie. He is very unhappy with this and is considering what course of action, legal and otherwise, to take.”

The BNP leader was dismissed as “irrelevant” by a KKK recruiter at the race-hate group’s office in Harrison, Arkansas. He said: “This guy is irrelevant to us, but he should think very carefully before bandying the klan’s name around. We can do without the kind of publicity he might attract.”

At its peak in the 1920s, the KKK boasted a membership of more than 4million in America. Today, the KKK, classified as a “hate group” by the US government, has about 8,000 supporters.

Express

Griffin tried to make small talk, says Bonnie Greer

Question Time panellist reveals how BNP leader tried to ingratiate himself

The BNP may have expended considerable energy in the week leading up to last night's BBC Question Time programme attacking her, but the black American playwright Bonnie Greer reveals today in the London Evening Standard that the party's leader, Nick Griffin, spent the evening trying to ingratiate himself with her.

Greer, who had the dubious pleasure of sitting next to Griffin on the panel, tells interviewer David Cohen how she left her dressing room before the show's recording began, "prepared for combat", and came face to face with the BNP man in the corridor at Television Centre.

"It was as if he'd been waiting for me in the corridor," Greer, 60, told the Standard. "I was the last to emerge and when he saw me, he turned and smiled his greasy smile and clumsily half extended a hand. I ignored it and thought to myself: What are you about? Are you forgetting I'm black? Are you trying to show me you aren't racist?"

Last week the BNP website referred to her as a "black history fabricator" for her work on the radio documentary In Search of the Black Madonna, which was, it said, an "Afrocentrist daydream". The website said that she would be the "joker in the pack" on the panel and sneered at her claim that she was a 'refugee' who fled the Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

So Ms Greer was understandably surprised to find the party's leader making nervous small talk with her as they sat down in the studio. "As we were having our microphones attached, he leaned towards me like I was his new best friend... 'Bonnie, how many times have you been on?’ he asked. 'Bonnie, do you find it scary?' I looked him straight in the eye. 'No,' I replied sharply, 'but you might.'"

Describing last night as "probably the weirdest and most creepy experience of my life", Greer says that her composure almost snapped at one point of the evening - presumably when Griffin looked like he was about to hug her or when he made a jocular reference to the white hoods of the Ku Klux Klan.

"I spent the entire night with my back turned to him. At one point, I had to restrain myself from slapping him. But it was worth it because he was totally trounced," Greer says. "I had thought we'd face a formidable orator, somebody who knew his facts and had his ducks in a row, but the guy was a mess!"

The First Post

Jeered, scorned and ridiculed - still BNP's Nick Griffin milks his moment in spotlight on Question Time

In for a rough ride - Griffin on the Question Time panel

Nick Griffin was booed, jeered and mocked by a hostile television audience on the BBC's Question Time last night. But the British National Party leader's priceless air time still left the Corporation facing accusations of 'publicity-seeking' naivety.

Senior Labour figures warned of racist attacks in the coming days, leaving the BBC with 'blood on its hands'.

Mr Griffin ran the gauntlet of 1,000 angry protesters who had laid siege to the Question Time studio at Television Centre in West London. The 50-year-old, who has a criminal conviction for inciting racial hatred, was loudly booed as he went before the cameras under tight security.

Facing angry heckling, and at times looking shaken, Mr Griffin:

• Repeatedly refused to give his views on the Holocaust, drawing attacks from Jewish members of the audience.
• Claimed that Winston Churchill would have joined the BNP.
• Was branded 'disgusting' by one black member of the audience.
• Was forced to deny he had said that black men 'walk like monkeys'.
• Was laughed at when he admitted meeting Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and claimed the organisation was 'non violent'.
• Was jeered by a lesbian member of the audience who told him: 'The feeling of revulsion is mutual'.
• One Asian member of the audience called for a whip round to pay for him to go and live at the South Pole where he could enjoy a 'colourless landscape'.

The BBC was forced on to the back foot over the decision to invite Mr Griffin on to the show. David Dimbleby, who chaired the session, tried to calm audience unrest by insisting that the programme 'won't be the Nick Griffin show'. But he refused a request to take an audience vote on the rights and wrongs of the decision.

Baroness Warsi, the Tory panel member, said: 'If you look at the audience and reaction outside, people are outraged by his views and he has been exposed for what he is.'

Justice Secretary Jack Straw said the evening capped a 'catastrophic week for the BNP'.

They were joined on the panel by Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne and black poet Bonnie Greer. Mr Huhne said Winston Churchill would be 'rolling' in his grave if he could hear Mr Griffin speak today.

Around a thousand anti-fascists protest against the BNP at the BBC

Things get a tad hairy as flares are set off in the crowd of angry protestors

About 25 protestors breached security and were promptly hauled out

Earlier Mr Griffin's appearance provoked angry scenes outside Television Centre. Three police office officers were injured and six protesters arrested. At one stage, around 25 people stormed inside the West London building as they attempted to find the Question Time studios. Flares were let off and women dragged kicking and screaming back outside by security guards.

Mr Griffin, meanwhile, was smuggled in via a side entrance by up to 40 dark-suited security guards. Inside, he attacked Mr Straw saying his own father was in the RAF in the Second World War, while Mr Straw's was arrested for refusing to fight.

A black man in the audience was cheered when he confronted Mr Griffin. His voice shaking with emotion, the man said: 'For just one minute could you not think of the benefits my parents brought to this country and other parents from an Asian, Indian or Pakistani background have brought? No, all you're thinking of doing is trying to poison politics and poison the minds of people in this country. The vast majority of this audience find what you stand for to be completely disgusting'

Mr Griffin smirked when he was asked whether he denied the Holocaust but refused to answer detailed questions on the issue. Of his previous comments, he said: 'I can't explain why I used to say those things.'

He acknowledged that the BNP had been a 'racist and anti-semitic organisation', but claimed it had changed under his leadership. 'I am not a Nazi and never have been,' he said. He was wearing the poppy he rarely removes. He says he wears it in protest at the poor treatment of soldiers injured in Afghanistan.

Shimal Thakrar, 33, from Edgware in London, said: 'It certainly wasn't as controversial as had been made out beforehand. The guy couldn't stand his ground at all. He contradicted himself throughout. He had no consistency. It was a needed debate. But he's not a politician.'

Mr Thakrar said the audience hissed and booed during the filming and shouted 'Liar' and 'Get out the door,' at Mr Griffin. The BBC had received more than 1,000 complaints ahead of the broadcast.

Senior Labour politicians predicted that black and Asian people would face a violent backlash in the coming days. The BBC insisted it had no choice but to offer an invitation to the BNP following the party's success in the European elections. But critics have accused the corporation of being naive and driven by a desire to boost ratings.

Higher Education Minister David Lammy, one of Britain's first black ministers, said ordinary people from ethnic minority backgrounds would face violence as a result. He added: 'This is a seminal moment for the country. I am very worried about the days that will follow. Many people across the country, black and white, will be appalled that Nick Griffin has been given a platform on the BBC's flagship current affairs programme for his terrible racist views. Many others, a long way from Broadcasting House, will be left very scared.'

However Mr Lammy acknowledged that the mainstream parties had to accept some of the blame for the rise of the BNP.

Former Home Secretary David Blunkett criticised the BBC for 'publicity seeking'.

'To spend the first ten minutes of the Six O'Clock News covering their own decision and the consequences of putting the leader of the BNP on Question Time, was a total distortion of news priority and a deliberate promotion of their own publicity-seeking decision,' he said.

BBC Director-General Mark Thompson yesterday defended the decision to offer an invitation to Mr Griffin. Mr Thompson said the Government should change the law if it did not want the party to appear on news and current affairs programme. He said: 'Censorship cannot be outsourced to the BBC.'

Daily Mail

Note: If you missed the programme, you can watch it and laugh at Griffin here.

Nick Griffin’s hidden agenda

Griffin speaks to an audience of hardcore racists - the Ku Klux Klan and friends

I’m surprised that I’ve never seen the above clip before. I’m equally surprised that it’s been viewed less than 9,000 times. This is the kind of evidence that needs to be spread far and wide. Nick Griffin openly declares that the BNP hide behind a soft lexis of propaganda in order to gain popularity. Perhaps more shockingly, he happily reveals his true agenda — a whites-only Britain.

In the video, Griffin imparts BNP spin-tactics. He says:

'There’s a difference between selling out your ideas and selling your ideas. The British National Party isn’t about selling out its ideas — which are your ideas too — but we are determined now to sell them. That means to use saleable words.'

Basically, Griffin has told an audience consisting of David Duke supporters, i.e. racists, that the BNP holds the same views. He categorically says that the BNP has not changed at its core. It’s still the same fascist National Front that it used to be. Yet it is gaining popularity. Some people are starting believe that they aren’t racist, just realist. They’re falling for the softly-softly BNP spin and being lured in by the buzz-words. Griffin sheds light on their new propaganda tactic:

'[selling our ideas] basically means using saleable words… free­dom, security, identity, democracy. Nobody can criticise them. Nobody can come at you and attack you on those ideas. They are saleable.'

Griffin clearly identifies areas that the BNP can manipulate and distort in order to gain support for the party. The idea that your freedom is at risk from foreign invaders, you should feel insecure because of the risk of terrorism, misrepresent­ing perceptions of political correctness as erosion of identity and heritage. I could go on. Hyperbole, fear-mongering, and scapegoats are the BNP’s most powerful weapons.

The man showed that he is intent on duping the public into thinking the BNP holds legitimate views when he said if the BNP is “subtle enough” then they may find themselves in control of the media, and subsequently in a position to brain­wash the electorate into wanting the removal of all non-whites from Britain. This is abhorrent, scary, and once again highlights that the BNP are not fit to be listed as a political party.

Griffin says:

“If you hold that [fascist policy] out as your sole aim to start with, you’re going to get nowhere. So, instead of talking about racial purity we talk about identity.”

The evidence just comes through thick and fast. The BNP do not want non-whites in Britain, no matter what they say in the press or on their website. They will use the public’s desperation at our current ruling elite to gain popularity and pursue their hidden motives. The truth lies under the surface as has been proven time and time and time again.

Nick Griffin once said:

'Without the white race nothing matters. [Other right-wing parties] believe that the answer to the race question is integration and a futile attempt to create “Black Britons”, while we affirm that non-whites have no place here at all and will not rest until every last one has left our land.'

There’s no room for the BNP in Britain.

The Linc

The BNP's rise is a fantasy created by anti-democrats

The real cause of our anxieties is not the potential of the far right. It's the emergence of people power

Never underestimate how fast fear can swell in Britain. Sophisticated politicians and commentators analyse the "moral panics" of the masses about immigration and crime while remaining unaware of their own irrational prejudices. For in its nervous moments, polite society is just as panicky as the most hysterical tabloid reader. The veil of good manners slips and it describes its fellow citizens as tattooed and shaven-headed brutes who, given the right circumstances, would vote for the modern equivalent of the Nazi party.

The conditions ought to be right this summer. Indeed, I cannot imagine better conditions for a neo-fascist advance. Britain is coming to the end of the longest wave of immigration in her history. I argued when it was at its height that we could take a modest pride in the absence of rioting mobs and burning crosses, but I had to temper my patriotic sentiments with the admission that mass immigration came while the economy was booming and the public was more interested in shopping than taking to the streets. At the risk of stating the obvious, the boom is over. Unemployment is rising and anger at foreigners taking British jobs is rising with it.

To make matters worse - or better from the point of view of extremists - this parliament has disgraced itself. Its frauds turned Westminster into a tax haven and the House of Commons fees office into a cash machine that kept on giving. The electorate has gone from its normal state of surly acquiescence into a righteous fury.

Even before the scandal broke, no less an authority than the Archbishop of Canterbury warned that Britain needed to heed the lessons of Nazi Germany and accept "a very high risk of financial stringency leading to political extremes - anger finding its expression in xenophobia. The fact that the BNP can win a seat in Sevenoaks is a straw in the wind and we have to watch the horizon very, very carefully for the tempest that might be behind that".

I would mock him for imagining the leaders of the British National party crying: "Today Sevenoaks! Tomorrow the world!" But then it is just the kind of thing the leaders of the BNP would say and, in any case, the archbishop is hardly a lone voice. The combination of economic and political crises has led many politicians and journalists to predict sweeping BNP advances - five, six maybe seven European seats.

The party was hiding its roots in European fascism, they argued, and putting on respectable suits and friendly smiles to calm the electorate. It looked set to prosper.

I accept that it is foolish to call an election before a vote has been cast, and low turnouts can produce freak results, but the evidence that the BNP is surfing popular outrage is hard to find. On Thursday, the voters of Salford's Irwell Riverside ward ought to have given the far right an easy victory. If Salford is no longer Friedrich Engels's classic slum of "dirt and poverty", most of the ward's white, working-class voters still live in run-down terraces. Hazel Blears, Salford's Labour MP, did not share their struggles. She claimed for three different properties in one year, along with assorted televisions, beds, mattresses, curtains, pots, pans and overnight stays at one of London's chicest hotels.

After journalists worked out that she had managed to avoid capital gains tax after selling one home she had done up at public expense, she waved a cheque for £13,000 on television and announced she would send it to HM Revenue. Her gesture would have been less tactless if the idea of ever being in a position to write a cheque for £13,000 were not beyond the dreams of many of her constituents. Yet Blears stood at the count in Salford and saw Labour hold the seat. Its support was down, but despite the recession and the scandals, the BNP stayed stuck in third place, its share of the vote up a mere 3.8% on last year.

The anti-fascist campaigners, who gather around Searchlight magazine, were not surprised. They say that internal BNP documents show it to be a feeble organisation, running out of money and credible candidates. They do not think its strategy of dressing thugs in suits is working and nor do I. Not the least of the BNP's problems is that Nick Griffin was caught on camera at a meeting with the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke explaining how he would seek to con the public by using warm words - freedom, security, identity, democracy.

"Perhaps one day, once by being rather more subtle we've got ourselves in a position where we control the British broadcasting media, the British people might change their mind and say, 'Yes, every last one must go.' But if you offer that as your sole aim to start with, you're gonna get absolutely nowhere. So, instead of talking about racial purity, we talk about identity."

Griffin has fooled the occasional journalist, but the regular convictions of BNP members for racial assaults, drug dealing and sex crimes leave most people in no doubt that the new BNP is no different from the old BNP: an alliance of criminals with criminal policies. If it fails to break through even in these propitious circumstances, however, it will still have revealed a latent prejudice in the British elite.

Alongside honourable concerns lurks a suspicion of popular power. Listen carefully whenever proposals are discussed to improve local democracy by, say, electing chief constables and police authorities. Eventually, an authoritative voice will tell you that the British cannot be trusted with more power because they may let the BNP take over the police forces. Similarly with reforms to the national voting system. Once again, we are told that a fairer election system cannot be contemplated because it will let the BNP out of its cage.

The best reason for hoping that it is trounced is not that a vile party will have gone down to a deserved defeat, but because it will make it harder for the opponents of reform to argue that their fellow citizens are nasty children whose betters cannot allow them to run their own affairs.

Comment is free

Exposed: BNP leader Nick Griffin spotted meeting KKK chief Don Black

The far-right party leader met former KKK chief and American Nazi Party thug Stephen "Don" Black at racist conferences in the US.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith named the 55-year-old as one of 16 more extremists yesterday blocked from ever entering our shores. The former KKK Grand Black Wizard was once jailed for trying to invade the Caribbean island of Dominica with mercenaries. But despite Black's criminal past, Griffin - who is standing in next month's European elections - was happy to be pictured alongside him.

Black, boss of hate-fuelled website Stormfront, was banned from Britain along with other hate preachers, Islamic extremists and far-right US talk show host Michael Weiner.

Ms Smith said: "Coming to this country is a privilege. I refuse to extend that privilege to individuals who abuse our standards and values. I will not hesitate to name and shame those who foster extremist views as I want them to know they are not welcome here."

The UK banned list now includes more than 100 people. Islamic hate preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed, who now lives in Lebanon, is on it.

Griffin was pictured with Black at the American Renaissance conference in Washington DC in 2006. BNP head of publicity Mark Collett and Leeds organiser Martin Reynolds were also present, as was Black's predecessor as KKK chief, David Duke.

The BNP said: "We shared a platform with these people, but it doesn't mean we share their beliefs. In fact, we were arguing for a sensible nationalism."

The Mirror's third Hope Not Hate bus campaign starts this month. Our red double decker will tour Britain spreading an anti-racism message in the run-up to the June 4 European elections.

Mirror

The 'new' BNP is still the Nazi BNP

The BNP's merchandising wing - Excalibur - has hit tough times recently since Searchlight exposed its whereabouts and it got kicked out.

But, fear not, for the BNP still has its nascent digital downloads service. There are currently only four songs available, but, rest assured:

This may not be MTV, in fact it is of better cultural quality that the disposable factory-produced music that glorifies violence, drug use and sexual depravity, but this is our first steps towards developing our own music broadcast channel.

What is on offer at present are three tracks by the ever-unpopular BNP minstrel Dave Hannam, and a song called 'We are one', of which we read: 'Battlecry, an American based rock band have produced this powerful track with patriotic lyrics'.

Taking a look at Battlecry's website we discover that this track was indeed specially produced for the BNP. We also find that the band likes neo-Nazi symbolism:

Their albums also have some rather dubious content, it seems. Here's a sample of the lyrics to their self-titled track:

For I am revenge
The furrowed seed
grown to avenge
In Dresden's fire
First breath was born

Devastation
Annihilate
Extermination
Come and seal your fate

They feed on their Prey
The carrion of social decay
The scavengers shall now disgorge
For I am the sword
The tempered blade of Aryan lore
In tower fire I was forged

Then there's the song 'Triumph of the Will'. Does the title ring a bell? It should.

And a sample of the song's lyrics:

Like a phoenix we will climb
From the ashes of mankind
For together we are strong
And now it won't be long

In victory we raise our hands
From all across our sacred lands
Shouting out the triumph of the will
Our enemies shall fall disgraced
As we march out to save our race
Now they'll see the
triumph of the will

The band's website features an embedded YouTube video for the 'Triumph of the Will' song, which includes images of Nick Griffin, former Klansman and anti-Semite David Duke, and Don Black, founder of the neo-Nazi Stormfront forum, as well as a logo supporting Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel. And which YouTube account might be hosting this video? None other than that of the Thurrock BNP branch!

Finally, there's the song 'My Awakening'. Again, the name rings a bell. Of course, it's the title of David Duke's 'political' autobiography:

According to Duke's website, 'My Awakening is the most powerful book in print on the race and Jewish Question'.

It turns out that Battlecry's song 'Keepers of the Light' features a guest appearance by 'Prussian Blue', a two girl act that promotes neo-Nazism:

Lamb and Lynx Gaede, adolescent twin girls who make up the band Prussian Blue, have gained recognition in white supremacist circles while preteens by singing about preserving the white race and Nazi heroes. Prussian Blue is the name of the blue residue left over by the use of Zyklon B, the poison the Nazis employed to kill millions of Jews and others in concentration camps during World War II.

Their perfomances are unambiguous:

"Strike force! White survival. Strike force! Yeah," they sing, punctuating each "Strike force!" with miniature sieg heils. Some of the men in the audience return the salute, and when the girls finish, thunderous applause fills the room.

As is their image:

And they come from a 'lovely' family background:

April home-schools the girls, teaching them her own unique perspective on everything from current to historical events. In addition, April's father surrounds the family with symbols of his beliefs -- specifically the Nazi swastika. It appears on his belt buckle, on the side of his pick-up truck and he's even registered it as his cattle brand with the Bureau of Livestock Identification.

No wonder Battlecry like the girls! And how kind of them to sell the girls' music via their site.

But then Battlecry are a very philanthropic pair. Not only have they written a song to support the BNP but they also donate $1 from every CD sale to the neo-Nazi Stormfront forum.

Such kindness is not without its rewards, of course, and they have been interviewed by none other than Blood & Honour Magazine. And Blood & Honour is the name of the neo-Nazi race hate music organisation founded in the '80s in the UK, and allied with:

...Which in turn brings us back to the BNP's leader Nick Griffin and his connections to Blood & Honour and Combat 18:

Particularly illuminating was the testimony of the Scottish Blood and Honour boss Steve Cartwright who went on record with his memories of Griffin in Wales in the mid-1990s. “Our meeting with Griffin went well,” recalled Cartwright, “he pushed all the right buttons, emphasising militancy as well as paying due respect to the Nationalists and National Socialists of the past. He also spoke of the need to re-package and modernise our beliefs in the hope of reaching the British public.”

[...]

[A]s Griffin hastily prepared for his trial on charges of inciting racial hatred in 1997, he decided that one of the planks of his defence would be that C18 had produced far worse and had never been prosecuted for it. Needing some documents he asked Steve Cartwright, head of Blood and Honour, to contact Will Browning, leader of C18, telling Cartwright to reassure Browning that he and C18 were on “the same side”.

Browning later sent Griffin a “bumper pack” of C18 material. Griffin phoned Cartwright asking him to pass on his thanks to Browning. As Cartwright recalled, “Griffin was particularly tickled by the name of the parcel sender – Mr Beast, London”.

The 'modernised' Nick Griffin is trying hard to disassociate the BNP from its Nazi roots. Trying, but constantly failing. As we have seen, the BNP currently offers a track for sale on its website that was specially made for the Party by a band that is clearly pro-Nazi and is connected to the international neo-Nazi and skinhead movement (and a BNP branch has uploaded one of its music videos). This speaks volumes about how hard Griffin and his 'new BNP' are finding it to cut the chord tying them to the Third Reich. And they are finding this hard for the very good reason that, beneath the modern sheen, the BNP remains, as it always has been, a neo-Nazi organisation.

I kid you not

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

Former KKK boss invited to address Madrid and Valencia fascists

Spanish police fear violent clashes in the run-up to next Tuesday's 20th November anniversary of the death of former fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, in 1975. A serving Spanish soldier and self-confessed neonazi has been jailed for the murder of a 16 year old anti-fascist protester in a riot at a Metro station in Madrid last Sunday, and the regional government of Madrid has authorised four demonstrations convoked by various extreme right-wing organisations over the coming days.

Next Saturday, the Falange will pay tribute to former party leader, Primo de Rivera, at the 'Homage to José Antonio, murdered by the socialists in 1936'. On Sunday, the National Confederation of Ex-Combatants will gather, and on the 20th November itself, the National Front will get together at the Valle de los Caídos while the Falange will meet up in Alcalá de Henares.

Permission for a demonstration organised by the Anti-Fascist Confederation on the 24th November has been denied.

According to a report on the 20minutos website, former Klu Klux Klan leader, David Duke (57) [an old chum of Nick Griffin], will be addressing a rally jointly organised by the Centre for National Democratic Studies and the radical National Democracy party at 5pm at an undisclosed location in Madrid city-centre next Sunday. This will be followed, either on the 23rd or 25th November with an appearance in Valencia at an event organised by the National Alliance.

thinkSpain

Hatewatch for the week of August 8th 2007

Neo-Nazi Group Posts Wrong Man's Home Information
The American National Socialist Workers Party got the wrong Brian Schwartz when they posted the home address of a man with the same name as the Mayor of Toledo's spokesman...

Duke Crony Elected to Louisiana GOP Governing Committee
Right-wing radio host and longtime David Duke supporter Keith Rush was elected to the governing body of Louisiana's Republican party...

Neo-Nazis Rally in Kalamazoo
More than 400 law enforcement officers kept the peace while passions ran high at a neo-Nazi rally organized by white supremacist Hal Turner...

Ex-Cop Linked to Aryan Nations After Bomb Blast
Investigators found a large amount of Aryan Nations "literature and items" in the home of a former Pittsburgh police officer who was injured when a homemade bomb exploded...

SPLC

Hatewatch: for the week of April 25th 2007

Former National Alliance leader convicted of hate crimes
Shaun Walker, the former national chairman of the neo-Nazi
organization National Alliance, was found guilty along with two other
NA members of conspiracy in racially motivated attacks.

Jury awards $9 million dollars in Billy Ray Johnson case
A civil jury in Linden, Texas, assessed $9 million in damages against
four white men who beat a mentally retarded black man and left him for
dead beside a garbage dump.

SPLC calls for investigation of professor
The Southern Poverty Law Center urged Cal State Long Beach officials
to investigate psychology professor Kevin MacDonald, whose writings
about Jews are widely used by white supremacists, including David
Duke.

City supervisor placed on leave for making Klan jokes
A Chicago Department of Transportation project director allegedly
referred to black employees as "mambo" and paraded around with a red
tablecloth over his head while calling himself the "Grand Wizard."

Southern Poverty Law Center

Emmanuel's Web

From his base in Brussels, a Belgian webmaster is running some of Europe's leading hate sites. He also may be breaking the law.

On a beautiful day in northern Germany in the summer of 2002, two notorious white supremacists sat down at a picnic table to eat vanilla ice cream.

David Duke, the former Klan leader turned anti-Semitic superstar of the global radical right, sat across from Nick Griffin, the head of the white supremacist British National Party (BNP). Joining Duke and Griffin were a young female BNP supporter from the United Kingdom, Griffin's wife, and a little-known Belgian man in his early 30s by the name of Emmanuel Brun d'Aubignosc.

There's no record of the conversation that accompanied the ice cream. But it's a good bet that website technology came up. D'Aubignosc at the time was a longtime computer expert and professional website designer, as well as a self-proclaimed white nationalist.

Since he met with Duke and Griffin in 2002, d'Aubignosc ("dee-ah-ben-yosc") has become a major behind-the-scenes promoter of white nationalist ideology in more than a dozen countries, an Intelligence Report investigation has revealed.

According to international website registry records and d'Aubignosc's own statements on the white supremacist online forum Stormfront, he is the chief website manager, or "webmaster," for several high-profile white nationalist organizations, including the British National Party; the French white nationalist group Le Mouvement Social et Patriotique; and the National Front, a far-right anti-immigrant political party in France. The National Front's leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, personally tasked d'Aubignosc with creating a pan-European white nationalist web presence at a meeting last year in Paris, according to a statement d'Aubignosc posted online under his code name, Indutiomar, which is apparently a reference to the first century Celtic general Indutiomarus.

D'Aubignosc also administers a multinational "whites only" dating service called Eurodatelink and a network of white nationalist electronic newsletters for readers in 16 European countries, as well as the United States and Canada. D'Aubignosc promotes this network, dubbed Altermedia, as "World Wide News for People of European Descent."

But d'Aubignosc's most vital role in the global white nationalist movement is that of David Duke's personal webmaster. D'Aubignosc designs, manages, and regularly updates Duke's official website and that of the Duke-led hate group, EURO (European American Unity and Rights Organization).

D'Aubignosc also does business with Chris Evans, a former unit commander for the neo-Nazi organization National Alliance and marketing director for the Alliance's hate-rock company Resistance Records. Evans now lives in Texas, where he runs AryanWear, a leading white supremacist clothing and merchandise company. Website registry records list Evans as the United States administrative contact for Eurodate.

Also, Evans is the North American contact for Upsylon, a web hosting and E-commerce consulting firm owned by d'Aubignosc. Upsylon is based in Brussels, Belgium, where d'Aubignosc also maintains a residence.

Because he lives and works in Belgium, d'Aubignosc's white nationalist website management may violate that country's strict anti-hate speech laws, which prohibit residents of Belgium from distributing propaganda that "incites discrimination, hatred, segregation or violence" against a person or group "on account of race, color, origin, or national or ethnic descent."

The fact that d'Aubignosc is distributing racist and anti-Semitic materials online rather than passing out leaflets in the street affords him scant legal protection, according to Frederick Banson, spokesperson for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, a European Union agency that monitors racism and xenophobia and advises EU member nations on prosecuting hate crimes.

"Last June, two webmasters of the [Islamist] web site 'Assabyle.com' in Belgium were sentenced to ten months imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 Euros [about $19,000] for acts of anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, and incitement to racial hate," said Banson. "Also in June 2006, the leaders of the French-speaking extreme right-wing party 'Mouvement de la Nation' were sentenced to six months for distributing materials online containing incitements to racial discrimination, so there already exists strong case precedent for successful prosecutions [of racist and anti-Semitic webmasters]."

Banson would not reveal whether his agency is aware of d'Aubignosc's white nationalist activism, or whether an investigation of d'Aubignosc is underway. "I am not at liberty to discuss or provide any data we may or may not have concerning a third party," he said.

D'Aubignosc did not reply to five E-mails or three voicemail messages left over a two-week period in late February and early March, seeking comment for this story.

Compared to limelight-seekers like Duke, Griffin and Le Pen, d'Aubignsoc remains an obscure figure in the white nationalist movement. His online postings reveal little about his personal background. According to a letter d'Aubignosc sent to Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in March 2004 protesting the detention of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, d'Aubignosc's mother married the Canadian ambassador to Belgium when d'Aubignosc was 7 years old. "Canada soon became like a second fatherland to me," he wrote.

In October 2003, d'Aubignosc posted to Stormfront, "I have been working hard to unite all people from European descent wherever they may live." In May 2004, he published a report on Altermedia about David Duke's homecoming party after Duke was released from federal prison after serving a year for ripping off supporters. In that post, d'Aubignosc wrote that he had first met Duke in Europe in January 2000 and then visited Duke in Louisiana in May 2000.

D'Aubignosc then launched into an anti-Semitic screed.

"White nationalism is about respect and our willingness to make sure that our children will have a safe place to live protected from the curses of multiculturalism," he wrote. "Our enemies are the vicious people who hate black people so much they have been using them to destroy us by miscegenation or 'racial mixing' which is a form of genocide for us. They are the people who lie, lie, lie to drive America into wars of Israeli conquest. They are the people who deny every nation the right to its own secure living space, while, at the same time, they demand that same space for their own people. They are the ones who plunder American and European taxpayers to subsidize their own terrorist state. They are the ones who poison our children's minds with MTV. They are the people who sell our women on the meat markets of forced prostitution and pornography on the streets of Jerusalem."

While legal in the United States, publishing such vitriol could get a man into big trouble in Belgium, or any other EU country with harsh anti-hate speech laws.

As d'Aubignosc wrote in November 2006 in an article for Altermedia celebrating British National Party leader Griffin's acquittal on hate speech charges, "In Europe, we do not have free speech, and we have to be very careful about what we say and about the words we use."

If the recent cases in his home country are any indication, the Belgian webmaster better hope he's been careful enough.

Southern Poverty Law Center