BNP's Excalibur evicted from Deeside home

Griffin wondering what new disasters might be hiding around the corner

As the British National Party was desperately shutting stable doors after the list of members had bolted, its leaders had to contend with an equally serious problem.

The party had just been given notice to quit the hate factory that Searchlight had exposed in September. Where would it move the “vast array of new equipment” the party had purchased back in January, when it announced proudly that it had moved into a “brand new ground-floor warehouse”, let alone its range of tatty cringe-making and overpriced goods, Replica Victoria Crosses, condemned by the Ministry of Defence as an insult to British troops’ heroism, Enoch Powell t-shirts, stocks of its new racist brochure Racism Cuts Both Ways and the party’s back catalogue of publications?

The facility had been the first fruit of the BNP’s huge “Building to Grow” fundraising effort last winter and the first time the party could centralise its key operations in a modern unit.

The BNP had tried to keep the location secret but Searchlight, in conjunction with Lancaster Unity and Wales Friends of Searchlight, had tracked it down to the Evans Business Centre, a recently built development of workshops and offices on Deeside Industrial Estate, in Flintshire, North Wales, where the BNP occupied unit B2.

The landlords, Evans Easyspace, appeared uninterested at first. When a Sunday Times journalist contacted Brian Mawhinney, a non-executive director of the company and former Cabinet Minister, he replied that he had not been aware of the BNP connection and said, “Thank you for drawing it to my attention”, before putting the phone down. Lord Mawhinney is currently the chairman of the Football League, which has pledged to stamp racism out of football.

But all bad things come to an end and Evans Easyspace did turn out to be unhappy that an organisation that had rented the unit under the name of Excalibur turned out to be the BNP. When Mirror journalists visited the place on 21 November, they found a “to let” sign outside and an irate Arthur Kemp, the South African in charge of the BNP’s ideological training, trying to close the door on them.

“Evans Easyspace was aware of renting a property to Excalibur, but were not aware of its links to the BNP,” said Tom Stokes, managing director. “We have now terminated their agreement and they are moving out at the end of November.”

Searchlight

Evans Easyspace ignoring concerns about the BNP's Excalibur - time for Stage Two

Some of the rubbish sold via Excalibur, the BNP's tatty merchandising arm

As regular readers will know, we printed the excellent Searchlight exposé about the location of the British National Party's Excalibur operation - the place from which it distributes its 'tatty, cringe-making and overpriced goods' - back in early September. We followed this article up with one of our own in mid-September, when we asked our readers to do their bit in the fight against the BNP - in this case by emailing to inform the owners of the premises in which Excalibur is based precisely what they are allowing to be stored in and distributed from their premises.

In that article, we listed a few of the more offensive items that we know are stocked and sold by Excalibur. The list is here:

• Deeply offensive 'Golly' Pens and badges
• Books by pro-eugenics author Roger Pearson, promoting an all-white society
• Books that make the unfounded claim that immigrants are responsible for TB and HIV
• The truly appalling, racist, anti-semitic and white supremacist March of the Titans by Arthur Kemp, who currently works at Excalibur
• The fake Victoria Cross which was so recently the subject of much controversy in several newspapers, and many more fake medals
• Badges with 'Enoch Powell was right', 'Say no to asylum' and 'No immigrants, no bombs' - presumably forgetting the IRA's visits of a few years back, the three bombs set off by the BNP's very own David Copeland in Soho and Mark Bulman, a BNP activist who set fire to a mosque, to say nothing of the various members of the BNP (including Robert Cottage) who stockpiled bomb-making equipment but got caught before they made use of it, and Tony Lecomber, who blew himself up accidentally while on his way to bomb the offices of a rival political party. Lecomber worked for the BNP for a further ten years after this, finally getting the sack after attempting to recruit another ex-BNP member, gangland hitman Joe Owens, to assassinate a leading politician.
• T-shirts glorifying Enoch Powell, with slogans such as 'It's cool to be white' and 'BNP - It's a white thing'.

Lots of our readers emailed the company, Evans Easyspace Ltd of Millshaw, Leeds, but as far as we know not a single one got even so much as an acknowledgment that their email had been received.

That's not on. When people are showing their concern by contacting a company about a perceived problem, the very least they should expect is a courteous response. Any less is ignorance and doesn't say a great deal about the company's view of public relations - particularly where the complaint, as in this case, deals largely with racism - and implies that the company concerned is okay with what its clients are doing.

Time then, to step up the campaign a little.

The last time we asked you to contact the company, we suggested the single email address of the general office. This time, we're asking you to either phone and speak to one of the people listed below (the phone and fax numbers are down there, too) or to email them directly. If you have the time, it would be best to send an individual email to each of the people on the list. If not, we've included a single line of email addresses that can be placed in the CC (copy to) or BCC (blind copy to) box of your email client. That way, everyone at the Evans' Head Office will receive the email.

It's up to us to stop Excalibur churning out this offensive racist crap and it's up to Evans to do what it can do to stop this garbage being spread around. Let's get emailing, phoning and faxing so that Evans are shown in no uncertain terms that there are a lot of people out here who are getting angry at being ignored and who are demanding that action is taken against Excalibur. Remember though that we are trying to get Evans Easyspace on our side, so please remain calm and polite at all times - you can always throw darts at a picture of Nick Griffin later, to wind down. ;-)

Any responses received can go into the comments section of this post.

Evans Easyspace Ltd
Millshaw, Leeds
LS11 8EG
Tel: 0113 271 1888
Fax: 0113 223 1239

Note: The space occupied by Excalibur is unit B2 on the Deeside Industrial Estate.

Tom Stokes, Managing Director
tomstokes@evanseasyspace.com

Bradley Cooper, Finance Director
bradleycooper@evanseasyspace.com

Simon Bottomley, Projects Director
simonbottomley@evanseasyspace.com

Ian Frostwick, Operations Director
Mobile: 07818 075131
ianfrostwick@evanseasyspace.com

Sarah Cooney, PA to MD and FD
sarahcooney@evanseasyspace.com

Terry Boytler, Projects Manager
Tel: 0870 876 8000
Mobile: 07884 118823
terryboytler@evanseasyspace.com

Maxine Nathan, PR & Marketing Manager
maxinenathan@evanseasyspace.com

Rob Catton, Business Services Technical Manager
Mobile: 07824 452854
robcatton@evanseasyspace.com

Karen Ely, Business Services Operations Manager
karenely@evanseasyspace.com

CC or BCC list: (double-click the line below to copy and paste it into your email client)

tomstokes@evanseasyspace.com,bradleycooper@evanseasyspace.com,simonbottomley@evanseasyspace.com,ianfrostwick@evanseasyspace.com,sarahcooney@evanseasyspace.com,terryboytler@evanseasyspace.com,maxinenathan@evanseasyspace.com,robcatton@evanseasyspace.com,karenely@evanseasyspace.com

Call for anti-fascist action against the BNP's tatty merchandising arm Excalibur

Some of the rubbish sold via Excalibur, the BNP's tatty merchandising arm

The recent exposé that Searchlight carried out on the BNP's tatty Excalibur merchandising arm is having some interesting repercussions. The article below is taken from today's edition of the Flintshire Chronicle and shows clearly that the company that rents the space to Excalibur is less than happy that the BNP has misled it.

Factory rumoured to be BNP merchandising unit

The British National Party (BNP) is renting a factory on Deeside as a merchandising centre.

International anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, claim the Evans Business Centre unit is being used to distribute racist and hatred material. The BNP name doesn’t appear on the factory door but neighbouring businesses confirmed it was operating there.

Searchlight believes the unit is the first phase of the BNP’s “Building to Grow” fundraising effort and a centralisation of its operation. The BNP announced in January that Excalibur, its merchandising operation, had reopened for business in Deeside. A Searchlight statement said: “The BNP was keeping very tight-lipped about the location.”

The Chronicle confirmed the BNP was in Deeside last Friday. BNP member Arthur Kemp introduced himself when we visited Evans Business Centre. When asked if the unit was being used as a BNP merchandising centre he replied there were rumours being spread by communists. He declined to comment further and slammed the unit’s door shut.

Searchlight claims Deeside-based John Walker is the full-time national dispatch and logistics manager at the warehouse but is no longer the BNP’s treasurer.

An Evans spokeswoman says the BNP wasn’t mentioned when the lease was signed. She said: “We only discovered last Friday the unit was being used by them. Excalibur signed a two-month rolling licence. The fact we’re carrying out an investigation reflects our concern and we shall be talking to the people about what’s exactly happening there.”

The Flintshire Chronicle

What we need you to do is email or ring up the company to ask why they are letting space to a party full of criminals, liars, nazis, thugs and terrorists, and why they are content to allow this space to be used to disseminate material that is at worst racist and at the least deeply offensive to a vast majority of the population. The company details are below:

Evans Easyspace Ltd
Millshaw, Leeds
LS11 8EG
Tel: 0113 271 1888
Fax: 0113 223 1239
Email: email@EvansEasyspace.com

The space occupied by Excalibur is unit B2 on the Deeside Industrial Estate.

As ammunition for when you speak to the company, here's a small example of some of the more offensive items sold via Excalibur.

• Deeply offensive 'Golly' Pens and badges
• Books by pro-eugenics author Roger Pearson, promoting an all-white society
• Books that make the unfounded claim that immigrants are responsible for TB and HIV
• The truly appalling, racist, anti-semitic and white supremacist March of the Titans by Arthur Kemp, who currently works at Excalibur
• The fake Victoria Cross which was so recently the subject of much controversy in several newspapers, and many more fake medals
• Badges with 'Enoch Powell was right', 'Say no to asylum' and 'No immigrants, no bombs' - presumably forgetting the IRA's visits of a few years back, the three bombs set off by the BNP's very own David Copeland in Soho and Mark Bulman, a BNP activist who set fire to a mosque, to say nothing of the various members of the BNP (including Robert Cottage) who stockpiled bomb-making equipment but got caught before they made use of it, and Tony Lecomber, who blew himself up accidentally while on his way to bomb the offices of a rival political party. Lecomber worked for the BNP for a further ten years after this, finally getting the sack after attempting to recruit another ex-BNP member, gangland hitman Joe Owens, to assassinate a leading politician.
• T-shirts glorifying Enoch Powell, with slogans such as 'It's cool to be white' and 'BNP - It's a white thing'.