Fascist meeting disrupted

East London BNP - not welcome in East London

News reaches us that the re-launch of the East London BNP group got off to a less than successful start today. After what can only be described as a gathering of the Darby and Joan club, the assembled geriatrics met at the Salmon and Ball pub on the corner of Bethnal Green Road. This it turns out was just the re-direction point as it soon became clear that the grey-haired security team we're shepherding the old folk a mere one hundred meters away to a church hall opposite! Well done on the planning there people!

A quick call to the church uncovered that the poor old vicar had no idea his hall was being used by the fascist filth as it had been booked by a 'book club', that old chestnut! The 'Vic' assured the concerned caller that he had spoken to the encamped knuckle draggers and told them that they would have to leave as God was none too happy with their choice of politics. The police arrived soon after and encouraged the somewhat downhearted oldies to leave as they were no longer welcome. They had been inside for little over an hour which we believe would have given them very little time to re-launch their sad little group.

As the gaunt and the grey hoard Shuffled out from the hall in single file the anti fascist gathering (that had by now swelled to twice the size) decided to let the fascists know how welcome they really were. As one group followed the main body of fascists up the road, closely followed by the police, a smaller group went over to have a 'chat' with five or six 'men' still stood outside the hall.

They were told in no uncertain terms that they were not wanted in East London and that they would be hounded at every opportunity. The aryan brothers were strangely quiet and the look on their faces said it all.

All in all a pretty good day for anti-fascists with plenty of photo opportunities and a fascist meeting stopped! The old heads of the East London BNP including the likes of Derek Beacon and Richard Edmonds must tonight be scratching their shiney domes wondering what went wrong. Maybe stick to taking the old folk out to bingo in future eh chaps!

Thanks to apple123 at Indymedia

An apology from Nick Lowles

It is always embarrassing to have to admit you were wrong and even more so when one has to apologise in public, but yes, today I have to accept a mistake. Yesterday I derided the BNP claims that they had 250 activists out in London over the weekend and delivered 100,000 leaflets.

I stuck my neck on the line and suggested half this number of activists and only 35,000 leaflets. It now appears that I was too generous. The latest figures doing the rounds is just 90-100 and that comes from BNP election chief Eddie Butler.

As I mentioned yesterday the campaigning weekend was as much for internal party consumption as it was to kick-start the London campaign. It would appear that Griffin and friends deliberately sought to exaggerate their numbers so as to give the impression that the party was fully behind his leadership. You only have to read Richard Barnbrook’s account of the weekend to see how he was trying to ‘big’ up Collett, Darby et al to see the real agenda at play.

As reports were coming in of BNP activity it did indeed seem impressive. Small groups of BNP activists were out in a number of wards across East London. However, on closer inspection not all was what it seemed. It appears that BNP team were out but just doing the main routes through areas rather than the entire ward so as to give the impression that more was actually being done.

So, yes, I admit I was wrong, but my embarrassment isn’t anywhere near that of the party leadership. Given that this was a national turnout then a figure of only 100 is not too impressive. I was in Sandwell earlier this year when we had 221 people (yes, that is the number who signed in), virtually all from the Black Country and Birmingham area. On that particular day we managed to deliver 45,000 newspapers. Now that was impressive.

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