A race investigation has been launched into a political leaflet distributed to thousands of Burnley homes by a far right group. The leader of Burnley Council is also considering legal action against the England First Party after claiming that the leaflets were 'peddling hatred'.
Burnley Police's hate crime and diversity unit began its probe after the publication was sent to homes in the Brunshaw, Gannow, Rosegrove and Cliviger areas. Councillor Gordon Birtwistle, leader of the Liberal Democrats, who was handed a copy of the leaflet in the Rosegrove area by a shop manager, said he was taking legal advice over its contents.
The leaflets are part of Operation Blanket Burnley, which will include the party fielding Steven Smith as a candidate at the next general election, a spokesperson said. Smith is the former leader of the Burnley branch of the British National Party (BNP). In 2001 he was jailed after pleading guilty to six charges involving forging signatures on nomination papers.
Titled "England is being deliberately destroyed by cowards, liars, anarchists and traitors", the leaflets criticise Labour and Kitty Ussher and Gordon Birtwistle and the Liberal democrats. It claims they have helped create a country where 'white people are facing the prospect of becoming an ethnic minority in their own land'.
A spokesperson for the hate crime and diversity unit said: "We are aware of the leaflets. We have a copy and we are examining them to see if there is anything improper in them."
Gordon Birtwistle condemned the leaflet for propagating racial disharmony within Burnley. He said: "I think these leaflets are absolutely disgusting and I am appalled. We have a multicultural community here, not just Muslims but also people from Eastern Europe. I would hope the police are looking at these leaflets. I am looking at it with my solicitors and the party. I am taking advice on the matter but I dropped the leaflet in the bin. Parties like this who are pedalling hatred should not be allowed to drop such leaflets through letter boxes."
Kitty Ussher said she was not prepared to comment on the leaflets or the party's campaign.
A spokesperson for England First, which has headquarters in Westview, Overtown, Cliviger, defended their campaign. He said: "The leafleting is part of our campaign for the general election so if the election was called people would be aware of our party. What has happened under the current government is not good for native people who we believe are being displaced. In the next 60 years native people will become a minority in England. We believe people will vote for us because they agree with our policies."
The party plans to put up candidates in Burnley, Milton Keynes and possibly Blackburn in the general election having fielded candidates at the last election in 2004.
Lancashire Telegraph
Showing posts with label England First. Show all posts
Showing posts with label England First. Show all posts
October 29, 2007
October 23, 2007
A quick scoot around the far-right sites
Disinformation and how not to do it
Poor old Sid Williamson, national something or the other for the almost-dead British People's Party, which consists of him, Unsteady Eddy Morrison and the glue-sniffing moron Kevin Watmough. He's made a post on his blog which seems to be an attempt at spreading disinformation about the relationship between three of the contributors to Lancaster UAF but doesn't seem to have quite got the hang of telling porkies. Perhaps he should have stayed in the BNP for a bit longer - Nick Griffin could certainly have taught him a few tricks.
Still, fair play to Sad Sid - at least he managed to spell my name correctly.
Standing up for the British - via the US
Picking out the stupidities from the average BNP report is like searching for hay in a haystack.
The BNP's Regional Voices section currently has a report on a recent meeting at which the hardcore racist and white supremacist Arthur Kemp spoke. Though the BNP regularly claims double the number of people attending its events when it reports on them, this particular item is more interesting for the picture used to promote the meeting.
The picture is headed 'Standing up for the British Working Man' and underneath it is the tagline 'British National Party - The British Resistance'.
Just one snag - there's absolutely nothing British about the picture. It's a famous cover from the Saturday Evening Post magazine and the picture is all about US democracy, showing a working Joe asking a question at something that looks like a community meeting. One assumes the law 'n order-loving BNP didn't attempt to seek permission to use the image or to faff around with it in the way it has - having added a couple of Voice of Freedom newspapers in strategic places just to spoil it.
One wonders why the party didn't use an image of someone 'standing up for the British working man' at a Solidarity gathering...
The late England First Party?
Whether the England First Party is currently a going concern is anyone's guess but the website certainly isn't. All that comes up when you visit is a picture of a nice sunset with a lighthouse in the middle of it.
Perhaps the EFP has gone the same way as the New Nationalist Party or possibly it's done the sensible thing and moved out of politics and into scenic photography. If that's the case, maybe it'll see some success at last.
Covert goes on the attack again (yawn)
Just for a change, Tommy Williams' Covert blog launches multiple attacks at all its perceived enemies in one glorious attempt to shoot down everyone it hates en masse. Hard luck Tommy - you missed all the targets. In one tiny paragraph in the comments section (pinched from Sid W's blog) we counted fourteen errors - the numbers in the articles are exponentially higher.
If you're going to attack us and score at all, you need to be rather more accurate than that.
Poor old Sid Williamson, national something or the other for the almost-dead British People's Party, which consists of him, Unsteady Eddy Morrison and the glue-sniffing moron Kevin Watmough. He's made a post on his blog which seems to be an attempt at spreading disinformation about the relationship between three of the contributors to Lancaster UAF but doesn't seem to have quite got the hang of telling porkies. Perhaps he should have stayed in the BNP for a bit longer - Nick Griffin could certainly have taught him a few tricks.
Still, fair play to Sad Sid - at least he managed to spell my name correctly.
Standing up for the British - via the US
Picking out the stupidities from the average BNP report is like searching for hay in a haystack.
The BNP's Regional Voices section currently has a report on a recent meeting at which the hardcore racist and white supremacist Arthur Kemp spoke. Though the BNP regularly claims double the number of people attending its events when it reports on them, this particular item is more interesting for the picture used to promote the meeting.
The picture is headed 'Standing up for the British Working Man' and underneath it is the tagline 'British National Party - The British Resistance'.
Just one snag - there's absolutely nothing British about the picture. It's a famous cover from the Saturday Evening Post magazine and the picture is all about US democracy, showing a working Joe asking a question at something that looks like a community meeting. One assumes the law 'n order-loving BNP didn't attempt to seek permission to use the image or to faff around with it in the way it has - having added a couple of Voice of Freedom newspapers in strategic places just to spoil it.
One wonders why the party didn't use an image of someone 'standing up for the British working man' at a Solidarity gathering...
The late England First Party?
Whether the England First Party is currently a going concern is anyone's guess but the website certainly isn't. All that comes up when you visit is a picture of a nice sunset with a lighthouse in the middle of it.
Perhaps the EFP has gone the same way as the New Nationalist Party or possibly it's done the sensible thing and moved out of politics and into scenic photography. If that's the case, maybe it'll see some success at last.
Covert goes on the attack again (yawn)
Just for a change, Tommy Williams' Covert blog launches multiple attacks at all its perceived enemies in one glorious attempt to shoot down everyone it hates en masse. Hard luck Tommy - you missed all the targets. In one tiny paragraph in the comments section (pinched from Sid W's blog) we counted fourteen errors - the numbers in the articles are exponentially higher.
If you're going to attack us and score at all, you need to be rather more accurate than that.
Labels:
Arthur Kemp,
Covert,
England First,
Sid Williamson,
Tommy Williams
April 18, 2007
Complex conversion
Clitheroe's Muslims finally have the go-ahead for a mosque. But the plan to use a former Methodist chapel has uncovered racial tensions that the far right looks set to capitalise on.
When L S Lowry painted A Street in Clitheroe 50 years ago, he could never have imagined the controversy that decades later would surround that street in Lancashire. The red fire station in the middle of the painting surrounded by his distinctive "matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs", in the words of the famous song, has now become a fish and chip shop. But it is the future of the Methodist chapel that can be seen on the right of the painting that is causing divisions in the market town.
At the end of last year, and after a long and bitter battle, Conservative-controlled Ribble Valley borough council finally gave the go-ahead for the former chapel to be turned into a mosque. As the local Muslim community seeks to raise funds to finance the scheme, enter the far right, which is now seeking to exploit the political backlash at next month's local elections.
The slow decline of the Mount Zion chapel on Lowergate Street and its rebirth in a new guise is a story that is being replicated throughout Britain. There are more than 47,000 churches in the UK and at the last census almost 70% of the population claimed to be Christians, but fewer than one in 10 are regular churchgoers and the latest figures from Christian Research show that in a few decades practising Muslims will outnumber practising Christians.
Of course, the decline in practice is having an effect on places of worship. More than 1,700 Church of England churches have been declared formally redundant since 1969. Their new uses include concert halls, apartments, cafes and pizza restaurants. This roll call includes another former Methodist chapel in Clitheroe, just 100 yards away from Mount Zion, which is now the Emporium wine bar and brasserie.
Yet it seems that converting a chapel into a place of worship for another faith is a step too far. Since closing its doors to the faithful in 1940, Mount Zion has been home to a munitions store, a metal box factory and a garment-making factory, but when the idea to turn the building into a mosque was first mooted, all hell broke loose. The local paper, the Clitheroe Advertiser and Times, was inundated with letters. Two weeks before the planning committee heard the application, the editor refused to accept any more letters citing "legal issues over content, the length of letters and restrictions on space".
Catch-22 situation
On the day of the vote, more than 150 people attended the council chamber. The chair of the planning committee, Richard Sherras, summed up the council's dilemma: "We are in a catch-22 situation: we can approve the application and be accused of ignoring the wishes of the majority of the public, or we can refuse the application and be branded racist," he told the committee.
The objections of more than 900 people were not enough to dissuade the council and it chose the former option. A further 224 people signed and wrote letters that were deemed so racist by the council that they could not be made public.
The council's decision marked the successful culmination of a 30-year campaign by the town's Medina Islamic Education Centre (MIEC) to gain permission for a mosque. A Muslim community, now numbering more than 300 people (of a population of some 15,000), has been established in the town since 1960s, but Muslims have to travel to at least 10 miles to a mosque, at Burnley or Blackburn. Three previous requests to build a mosque had been turned down.
In the past five years, the MIEC has experienced both racist abuse and intimidation. Its windows have been broken so frequently they are now permanently boarded up and the centre has twice been firebombed. The attacks prompted the centre to adopt the slogan: "Building bridges, burning prejudices".
In his painting, Lowry added pinnacles to the chapel, but the planning application does not include plans to change the external appearance of the former chapel by adding domes or minarets. Nor will there be a call to prayer. Perhaps most importantly, the plan incorporates a community partnership centre where Muslims and non-Muslims can mix and learn about each other's faiths and traditions. This would make the mosque one of the first in the country to incorporate a multi-faith facility. "We want people to come in and find out what we do," explains the MIEC's secretary, Sheraz Arshad. "It's all about breaking down barriers."
The proposal for the mosque has found some supporters in the town, including the last secretary of the Mount Zion Methodist chapel, Fred Braithwaite. Now a sprightly 87, Braithwaite was the last person to close its doors as a chapel back in 1940. He maintains that "the council made the right decision in the end". It is a view echoed by Stuart Burgess, former president of the Methodist Church of Great Britain, and chair of the Commission for Rural Communities. "I believe that rural market towns like Clitheroe need to move with the times and reflect the wider changes happening in our society," he says. "It's always a sad day when a Methodist chapel closes its doors but, if anything, it's a wake-up call to the whole Christian community. If you value your church use it."
High emotions
In the three months since the mosque was given planning permission emotions have continued to run high. The windows of the former chapel have been smashed on two separate occasions, despite being protected by metal grilles. Nigel Evans, the local Conservative MP, says the council has been slow to educate people and tell them what the multi-faith facility is all about. To counteract this he plans to hold his surgeries there.
In Clitheroe itself, opinions on the mosque are mixed. Of a dozen people I speak to, six are very strongly against the mosque, four are uncertain or won't say and two are in support. Sherras and Arshad agree that this broadly reflects the division of opinion in the town. Caroline, who does not want to give her full name, is in her late 20s. She says: "I'm not racist but I don't think they should have given it permission. It will lead to more Muslims coming to live here and we'll end up like Blackburn." Caroline last voted Conservative, but says that this time round she will vote for the British National party (BNP).
The party, which has a long history of strong support in Clitheroe in line with the neighbouring town of Burnley, got 22% of the vote in the five wards that it contested at the last council elections, although none of its candidates were elected.
Next month, two far right candidates are standing in two wards in Clitheroe, one for the BNP and the other for the England First party.
"Of course they'll try to make an issue of the mosque," says Arshad. "But I don't think people will fall for it." Instead he hopes that the threat from the far right has genuinely diminished. Despite the negativity directed towards the Muslim community, he remains confident about the future.
"If Lowry were alive today I would invite him back when we have finished the mosque to paint a street in Clitheroe again," says Arshad. "Now some of his matchstalk men would have brown faces with beards, and women with headscarves. As a painter who celebrated the diversity of working-class people I think he would have been proud."
Guardian
When L S Lowry painted A Street in Clitheroe 50 years ago, he could never have imagined the controversy that decades later would surround that street in Lancashire. The red fire station in the middle of the painting surrounded by his distinctive "matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs", in the words of the famous song, has now become a fish and chip shop. But it is the future of the Methodist chapel that can be seen on the right of the painting that is causing divisions in the market town.
At the end of last year, and after a long and bitter battle, Conservative-controlled Ribble Valley borough council finally gave the go-ahead for the former chapel to be turned into a mosque. As the local Muslim community seeks to raise funds to finance the scheme, enter the far right, which is now seeking to exploit the political backlash at next month's local elections.
The slow decline of the Mount Zion chapel on Lowergate Street and its rebirth in a new guise is a story that is being replicated throughout Britain. There are more than 47,000 churches in the UK and at the last census almost 70% of the population claimed to be Christians, but fewer than one in 10 are regular churchgoers and the latest figures from Christian Research show that in a few decades practising Muslims will outnumber practising Christians.
Of course, the decline in practice is having an effect on places of worship. More than 1,700 Church of England churches have been declared formally redundant since 1969. Their new uses include concert halls, apartments, cafes and pizza restaurants. This roll call includes another former Methodist chapel in Clitheroe, just 100 yards away from Mount Zion, which is now the Emporium wine bar and brasserie.
Yet it seems that converting a chapel into a place of worship for another faith is a step too far. Since closing its doors to the faithful in 1940, Mount Zion has been home to a munitions store, a metal box factory and a garment-making factory, but when the idea to turn the building into a mosque was first mooted, all hell broke loose. The local paper, the Clitheroe Advertiser and Times, was inundated with letters. Two weeks before the planning committee heard the application, the editor refused to accept any more letters citing "legal issues over content, the length of letters and restrictions on space".
Catch-22 situation
On the day of the vote, more than 150 people attended the council chamber. The chair of the planning committee, Richard Sherras, summed up the council's dilemma: "We are in a catch-22 situation: we can approve the application and be accused of ignoring the wishes of the majority of the public, or we can refuse the application and be branded racist," he told the committee.
The objections of more than 900 people were not enough to dissuade the council and it chose the former option. A further 224 people signed and wrote letters that were deemed so racist by the council that they could not be made public.
The council's decision marked the successful culmination of a 30-year campaign by the town's Medina Islamic Education Centre (MIEC) to gain permission for a mosque. A Muslim community, now numbering more than 300 people (of a population of some 15,000), has been established in the town since 1960s, but Muslims have to travel to at least 10 miles to a mosque, at Burnley or Blackburn. Three previous requests to build a mosque had been turned down.
In the past five years, the MIEC has experienced both racist abuse and intimidation. Its windows have been broken so frequently they are now permanently boarded up and the centre has twice been firebombed. The attacks prompted the centre to adopt the slogan: "Building bridges, burning prejudices".
In his painting, Lowry added pinnacles to the chapel, but the planning application does not include plans to change the external appearance of the former chapel by adding domes or minarets. Nor will there be a call to prayer. Perhaps most importantly, the plan incorporates a community partnership centre where Muslims and non-Muslims can mix and learn about each other's faiths and traditions. This would make the mosque one of the first in the country to incorporate a multi-faith facility. "We want people to come in and find out what we do," explains the MIEC's secretary, Sheraz Arshad. "It's all about breaking down barriers."
The proposal for the mosque has found some supporters in the town, including the last secretary of the Mount Zion Methodist chapel, Fred Braithwaite. Now a sprightly 87, Braithwaite was the last person to close its doors as a chapel back in 1940. He maintains that "the council made the right decision in the end". It is a view echoed by Stuart Burgess, former president of the Methodist Church of Great Britain, and chair of the Commission for Rural Communities. "I believe that rural market towns like Clitheroe need to move with the times and reflect the wider changes happening in our society," he says. "It's always a sad day when a Methodist chapel closes its doors but, if anything, it's a wake-up call to the whole Christian community. If you value your church use it."
High emotions
In the three months since the mosque was given planning permission emotions have continued to run high. The windows of the former chapel have been smashed on two separate occasions, despite being protected by metal grilles. Nigel Evans, the local Conservative MP, says the council has been slow to educate people and tell them what the multi-faith facility is all about. To counteract this he plans to hold his surgeries there.
In Clitheroe itself, opinions on the mosque are mixed. Of a dozen people I speak to, six are very strongly against the mosque, four are uncertain or won't say and two are in support. Sherras and Arshad agree that this broadly reflects the division of opinion in the town. Caroline, who does not want to give her full name, is in her late 20s. She says: "I'm not racist but I don't think they should have given it permission. It will lead to more Muslims coming to live here and we'll end up like Blackburn." Caroline last voted Conservative, but says that this time round she will vote for the British National party (BNP).
The party, which has a long history of strong support in Clitheroe in line with the neighbouring town of Burnley, got 22% of the vote in the five wards that it contested at the last council elections, although none of its candidates were elected.
Next month, two far right candidates are standing in two wards in Clitheroe, one for the BNP and the other for the England First party.
"Of course they'll try to make an issue of the mosque," says Arshad. "But I don't think people will fall for it." Instead he hopes that the threat from the far right has genuinely diminished. Despite the negativity directed towards the Muslim community, he remains confident about the future.
"If Lowry were alive today I would invite him back when we have finished the mosque to paint a street in Clitheroe again," says Arshad. "Now some of his matchstalk men would have brown faces with beards, and women with headscarves. As a painter who celebrated the diversity of working-class people I think he would have been proud."
Guardian
Labels:
BNP,
Clitheroe,
England First,
far-right,
firebombed,
Medina,
mosque,
Muslim,
racist
March 06, 2007
England First pair quit party
More chaos in EFP as councillor races ex-leader to be first out the door
Both England First councillors for Blackburn with Darwen are leaving the far-right party. Coun Michael Johnson, who represents Fernhurst, will tonight quit to join the new party For Darwen, created last week. And Coun Mark Cotterill, who represents Meadowhead, will stand down as a councillor and leader of party at the local elections on May 3.
It comes less than a year after the England First Party gained the seats on the council.
Coun Johnson said he had told Coun Cotterill three weeks ago of his plan to quit because he did not like the direction the party was taking, and had felt out of the loop. Coun Cotterill said his own resignation was down to moving to Preston where he had a job outside politics.
His spokesman said the timing of the pair's resignations were "just a coincidence". He denied that Coun Cotterill was leaving because he did not see a future for the party on the council without Coun Johnson.
The pair fell out publicly in December after Coun Cotterill posted a link from the party's website to a YouTube video that depicted Jesus making an offensive hand gesture and hurtful remarks about Islam. Coun Johnson said he found the material offensive but Coun Cotterill said the video was amusing.
Coun Johnson said: "I feel that with For Darwen I am going back to my roots. Fernhurst might be in Lower Darwen but to say Lower Darwen is in Blackburn is like calling a pheasant a peacock. I think we will be able to achieve more than England First could have."
Both Coun Johnson and Coun Cotterill were elected in May 2006 and the party was immediately labelled racist after details of its manifesto, which had included banning non-white footabllers from the England squad, were revealed.
Lancashire Telegraph
Both England First councillors for Blackburn with Darwen are leaving the far-right party. Coun Michael Johnson, who represents Fernhurst, will tonight quit to join the new party For Darwen, created last week. And Coun Mark Cotterill, who represents Meadowhead, will stand down as a councillor and leader of party at the local elections on May 3.
It comes less than a year after the England First Party gained the seats on the council.
Coun Johnson said he had told Coun Cotterill three weeks ago of his plan to quit because he did not like the direction the party was taking, and had felt out of the loop. Coun Cotterill said his own resignation was down to moving to Preston where he had a job outside politics.
His spokesman said the timing of the pair's resignations were "just a coincidence". He denied that Coun Cotterill was leaving because he did not see a future for the party on the council without Coun Johnson.
The pair fell out publicly in December after Coun Cotterill posted a link from the party's website to a YouTube video that depicted Jesus making an offensive hand gesture and hurtful remarks about Islam. Coun Johnson said he found the material offensive but Coun Cotterill said the video was amusing.
Coun Johnson said: "I feel that with For Darwen I am going back to my roots. Fernhurst might be in Lower Darwen but to say Lower Darwen is in Blackburn is like calling a pheasant a peacock. I think we will be able to achieve more than England First could have."
Both Coun Johnson and Coun Cotterill were elected in May 2006 and the party was immediately labelled racist after details of its manifesto, which had included banning non-white footabllers from the England squad, were revealed.
Lancashire Telegraph
Labels:
Blackburn,
Cotterill,
Darwen,
EFP,
England First,
Islam,
Johnson,
Meadowhead,
Preston
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