BNP ratpack hold secret Scots summit as they plan new far-right party

Far-right fanatic Jim Dowson and other BNP ratbags slunk into Scotland yesterday to launch a new party full of hatred.

The former BNP treasurer pitched up in Perth at a secret Scots summit to launch Britain First, clutching a cardboard box crammed with far-right propaganda.

Britain First claim to offer a “new moderate approach for British nationalism”, free from the “toxic brand” of the BNP. But the small band of activists who turned up for the lunchtime talks at Perth’s Grampian Hotel all had key roles in peddling the BNP’s racist message.

Dowson, from Cumbernauld, near Glasgow, was BNP leader Nick Griffin’s right-hand man and chief fundraiser before he quit the party last year after being accused of groping a blonde activist. Previously, Dowson was the public face of the Life League, who published online details of people they believed encouraged abortions. He has convictions including breach of the peace, possession of a weapon and criminal damage.

Britain First campaign manager Paul Golding, who joined Dowson in Perth, is a former communications officer for the BNP. He won a council seat in Sevenoaks, Kent, in 2009 but quit this year after putting in just three appearances in a year. Golding had returned to the party after being expelled in 2004 – for allegedly attacking their only ethnic minority councillor.

Dowson and Golding arrived in Perth first – with Dowson unloading boxes of pamphlets and banners as well as a full Highland dress outfit from the boot of his car.

They were followed by Richard Payne, who fought the Banff and Buchan Westminster seat for the BNP at the last general election – and by black-shirted Gary Raikes, who heads Britain First’s Scottish arm. Raikes was an army cadet officer who trained teenagers. But he was drummed out in 2007 after being exposed as the leader of the BNP in Scotland. He was accused of abusing his position to peddle the BNP’s vile views.

Raikes claims Britain First is the “start of a new moderate approach for British nationalism in Scotland”. And he says party chiefs “carefully vet” all their members – “to ensure that no cranks and unsavoury types encountered in the BNP are allowed to join.”

But Gerry Gable, editor of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, said: “There is nothing in Jim Dowson or Paul Golding’s history that shows them as being moderate. They can dress themselves up in new clothes, but in the end it comes down to the same ideology of hate. They will always find someone fresh to hate.”

Dowson quit working for the BNP last year, and claimed in a BBC Panorama documentary this month that BNP treasurer Clive Jefferson asked him to help get fabricated documents to be used against a political opponent. He also claimed Griffin raked in thousands of pounds through fund-raising drives based on lies. Jefferson denied the claim and said Dowson had no credibility within the BNP.

Daily Record

Thanks to Zaahid and others for the heads-up

Singer Edwyn Collins takes on the British National Party and wins

Pop star's fury as BNP website uses hit song

City rocker Edwyn Collins demanded that the BNP remove his song from a "bizarre" party website that is being investigated by police.

The Edinburgh-born star's hit A Girl Like You featured on a Lothians British National Party website behind images of Asian men burning a union flag and veiled women waving banners saying "God Bless Hitler". The "Lothians BNP Video" site has now been taken off-line and its creator, BNP Central Scotland organiser Mike Coyle, has resigned from the party.

Police are investigating whether any action can be taken against the site. Edwyn Collins' wife and manager, Grace Maxwell, warned the BNP against using copyrighted material on their websites.

Ms Maxwell said: "There are many iffy videos on YouTube using A Girl Like You without permission and we are normally very relaxed about it. Whilst we don't believe that viewers would imagine for a moment that Edwyn has sanctioned the use of his track in this bizarre setting, for the removal of any doubt, we will require it to be deleted and will take the necessary steps to ensure that this happens."

The site, which was accessed via a link on the BNP Scotland website, also featured Louis Armstrong's What A Wonderful World with a montage calling the founder of Islam a "murderer" and "a paedophile", and several original songs by a Whitburn-based heavy metal band called Mott & Bailey.

The tracks railed against "invaders marching through our land, coming in like the night" and "darkness bringing down the walls". Videos accompanying the tracks featured images of 9/11, the London bombings and processions of coffins being carried through Wootton Bassett intermixed with images of British mosques and protesting Muslims.

Mr Coyle initially defended the site, stating that he saw nothing criminal in its content and claiming that "the BNP are not in the business of upsetting people". However, within hours of being contacted by the News, copyrighted content had been removed and the site had been re-branded "The Unofficial BNP Video Site". Mr Coyle then resigned.

The father-of-four said: "My last act as a BNP member was to dismantle this site. I put my head above the parapet and ended up being lied to. I set up this website with the full approval of the Scottish party, but now that my name stands to be dragged through the newspapers they have failed to show me any support. When I stood as a candidate in the last election my children were subjected to death threats, but I stood firm. They have lied to me for the last time."

The BNP Scotland website carries contact details for party members, party news and a page of material written by BNP Scotland leader Gary Raikes.

Edinburgh Evening News

BNP withdraw candidate from Scottish seat

BNP candidate Gary Raikes has dropped out of the running for East Renfrewshire

The BNP candidate for East Renfrewshire, which has the largest Jewish population in Scotland, has dropped out of the election race

A spokesman for BNP Scotland confirmed that candidate Gary Raikes, who was standing against Labour MP Jim Murphy, the Secretary of State for Scotland. Mr Raikes, who has lived in Scotland for 18 years, was a local instructor in the Army Cadet Force until 2007. He has not yet given a reason for his departure from the campaign.

BNP Scotland’s spokesman said that they had chosen to concentrate on candidates in Aberdeenshire and would not be fielding another candidate in East Renfrewshire. The seat, which is located to the south west of Glasgow, has a significant Muslim and Jewish population.

Mr Murphy said he was delighted that the BNP had chosen to stop campaigning in the area. He said: "I am proud that local people have given the BNP a red card and they have been forced to leave after local people made it clear they would not stand for their abhorrent views. The BNP had only one aim to promote hatred. East Renfrewshire is a great place to live and bring up a family, we have really good relations between all of our faith communites including Christains, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. The BNP attempts to ruin that have been stopped in their tracks."

Philip Mendelsohn, President of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council said: “I’m glad to hear that the BNP have withdrawn their candidate from the seat as it was clearly targeted at a constituency which has both a high Jewish and Muslim component. It was designed to be divisive in what is a very cohesive community.”

Jewish Chronicle

Scotland: fear and loathing grips McBNP

On the day that Nick Griffin made the fantastical claim that the BNP had gained 1000 members since last Friday (not all of them Sikhs, apparently) a very large fly dropped into the ointment jar when three Scottish officials were outed as “traitors” in a hysterical post on the BNP Scotland website.

The post is illustrated with a tiny version of the poster below, issued in Wisconsin as a warning to Confederate sympathisers that if caught they would be “summarily dealth with”, meaning hung – an end the BNP has previously promised awaits everybody from the Archbishop of Canterbury to British Army generals and its own dissident former members. No wonder they reproduced it at illegible postage-stamp size.

It seems that emails between the three "traitors", who allegedly call themselves the "Scottish Volunteers", had somehow fallen into the hands of "a loyal member", and are now in the possession of Scottish BNP officials ("emails in our procession" [sic] is how the excitable author of the BNP Scotland post puts it) and are to be forwarded on to national BNP officials.

We shall have to assume that these emails were obtained by legal means, because, of course, if they weren't...

The post alleges that the three, in "their words", intended “to cause the greatest destructive effect on their (BNP Scotland) morale” and also “To destroy the party in Scotland”. It further claims that the three had refused to stand for the BNP in Scotland "but have tried to get seats to stand in in England", but happily:

This action as they know means we have nine candidates standing now missing the required twelve to qualify for a TV election broadcast. This will cost us thousands of votes..

Alongside an unexplained accusation that the renegades had "spread poison in England" is another that "this trio of fools are being manipulated behind the scenes by ex-Tory ex-ukip rejects with their own agenda".

It's all very strange, but there's not much about the BNP that isn't.

The Comments section of the post is as revealing as the post itself:

...The word traitors is too good a word to use - they are scum...

...BNP Scotland has it's own "axis of evil", aided and abetted by their UKIP master. Once again, you have been foiled. Why do you continue with your attempt to de-stabilise the BNP in Scotland...

...The only thing they are fighting for is the demise of the current scottish bnp their reason is they want to run Scotland their way i think they should be named and shamed...

And the very next poster does exactly that - allegedly:

I WILL NAME THE SUPER KEY PLAYERS (thats what they call themselves) CHARLIE BAILLEE, JOHN ROBERTSON, MAX DUNBAR. AND THE VERY HAPPY IAN WILSON i have the proof here so the above please try to sue me

Hang on - we seem to have acquired an extra traitor, but no matter. It appears, from a close reading of all this, that the three (or four) renegade officials are not too happy with the leadership of Englishman Gary Raikes, who is very much a Nick Griffin groupie.

Some time ago a commenter at Lancaster Unity (click) reposted the following from a BNP blog:

Not to worry as I will continue the Nationalist fight, just not under the banner of Corrupt Griffin and his lying backstabbing toad in Scotland, Gary (Please can I have my picture published) Raikes. The good members north of the border will very quickly see the difference between, the very efficient, open, loyal, and honest Kenny Smith, and the self publicising, lying, lazy, backstabbing, tight arse that Raikes has already shown himself to be”.

Oh dear, trouble in the glens for the BNP's Caledonian clots, and just as you thought it was safe to predict a BNP Scottish MSP in 2011...

[The post - "Anti-BNP Scotland group exposed" - was removed some time this morning (Thursday)]

BNP 'facists' target town

The Scottish leader of the country's most notorious political party will target Barrhead voters in this year's General Election in a bid to claim a top political scalp.

The British National Party's (BNP), Gary Raikes [left], will wage a campaign on the town's streets in an attempt to woo Barrhead voters and oust MP Jim Murphy from his seat in Westminster.

The party, led by outspoken MEP Nick Griffin has been slammed for its 'fascist' views, and says that although it does not expect to win the seat, the BNP is determined to stop Murphy from being re-elected and hopes to take around 1,000 votes from the Barrhead politician. This, the party says, would split the vote and allow the Tory candidate to take the seat.

Mr Raikes, who has led the BNP in Scotland since 2007, is keen to kick-off the publicity campaign, which he says will help his party take root in Barrhead. And he is optimistic about his party's chances in the upcoming election.

He said: "I have decided to stand in East Renfrewshire seat as this is held by Jim Murphy MP - the self appointed anti-BNP spokesman in Scotland. It is time voters got to see the true face of the BNP instead of the stereotype nonsense peddled by Murphy. I am pleased to be standing against the Labour Scottish secretary. I very much look forward to sharing a platform with Mr Murphy during the campaign and enlightening him to the truth about today's BNP."

Responding to Mr Raikes announcement, Mr Murphy said: "Its a shame that the leader of the BNP in Scotland is coming here to peddle his poison and in his own words try to help the Tories win this seat. The people of Barrhead won't be fooled by the BNP. The BNP is a fascist party. Their hatred is the kinds that lead to six million being killed in the holocaust. It is trying to look moderate by swapping skinheads for sharp suits, but they are still the same trade union hating and foreigner hating extremists."

The Conservative candidate for East Renfrewshire, Richard Cook, is determined to keep the fight about politics - and not about the publicity surrounding the BNP's decision to field an election candidate. He said: "The BNP is not welcome in East Renfrewshire, [this] is the great place it is because of its diversity. We proudly boast the largest Jewish population in Scotland and one of the fastest growing Muslim populations too. It is not by accident that we live together in peace and harmony - it is because we are a tolerant area with mutual respect for one another and a loathing for the type of politics pedalled by the BNP.

"As the only East Renfrewshire candidate standing at the British General Election to have been at the forefront of the Scotland United Against Racism and Fascism march last November that ran the Scottish and English Defence League's out of Glasgow, I intend to run a campaign that does the same to the BNP in East Renfrewshire."

Barrhead News

Brown, Murphy and Darling all targeted by BNP in Scotland

The leader of the BNP in Scotland will contest Jim Murphy’s Westminster seat at the next general election as part of a publicity-grabbing campaign which the fascist party believes will help them win a Holyrood seat in the 2011 election

BNP representatives will also stand in Gordon Brown, Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling’s seats.

Although the party expects to lose against the Scottish Secretary in the General Election, BNP chiefs hope to gain enough attention during the race to win a regional list seat when the Holyrood elections come round in 2011. Mr Murphy will be fighting for his political life at the general election as the Tories see his East Renfrewshire seat as one of their key targets, and will be counting on every vote.

Campaigners have attacked the BNP’s Scottish leader Gary Raikes and claimed his decision to stand in multicultural East Renfrewshire, which contains almost half of Scotland’s Jewish population and large Islamic communities, could inflame community tensions. In response to the BNP move, Mr Murphy is now vowing to recruit Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups to fight what he described as the “abhorrent” far-right party.

Raikes said: “Jim Murphy is a very important target for us. We’d like to see all Labour politicians lose their seats.”

The BNP’s Scottish leader added: “This is just a step to 2011 when we will be in with a chance of winning a regional list seat. The sheep will still vote Labour in this seat, however I do think the Tories are in with a real chance of winning the seat. If we can take a thousand or so votes off Murphy and help him lose his seat we will be happy.”

The BNP also plans to stand against Gordon Brown in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, Alistair Darling in Edinburgh West and in Alex Salmond’s Banff and Buchan seat, although Salmond will not be contesting it. Candidates will also stand in Aberdeen North and Aberdeen South, which is Anne Begg’s seat.

The next tactic will be to field candidates for all eight regional list seats in 2011, in the hope of winning a place in Holyrood. The BNP claimed it has a “good chance” of getting enough of the vote in the Central and Glasgow regions to win a seat. The BNP hopes to capitalise on recent public resentment over the expenses scandal. Mr Murphy warned that anger with politicians was “being exploited by people with evil intentions.”

The Scottish Secretary now faces the prospect of sharing a platform with the BNP. “I didn’t ever think I would have to debate a fascist party,” Mr Murphy said. “I thought that type of politics was a thing of the past but that poison is back in the form of the BNP.

“They are now planning to stand against me and its time for them to give some answers about their denial of the Holocaust and their hatred of immigrants. Their politics are alien to our British way of life – where we try to see people for who they are rather than their skin colour, nationality or religion. The BNP’s Nazi salutes and Holocaust denials turn my stomach.”

Mr Murphy has a history of battling the BNP and has previously said that its members are a problem facing Scotland, not just England, and that their support has grown tenfold in the past decade to 29,000 across Scotland.

Mr Murphy now plans to muster support from all religious groups in his constituency to mount a fightback.

He added: “We need to rise to this challenge sooner rather than later and we must succeed not for the sake of politicians but for the sake of our country. I will consult with churches, Jewish and Muslim groups about the best way to engage with, and defeat, the abhorrent views of the BNP.”

Scotland has faced a number of “fascist” threats recently, claimed Aamer Anwar, human rights lawyer and organiser of Scotland United, a coalition that stood against the far-right Scottish Defence League when it tried to march in Glasgow.

He said: “This should be of concern because the BNP has repeatedly been exposed as a fascist organisation. They have so far failed to get a toehold anywhere in Scotland ... but what is of concern is the publicity they will try to gain in these high profile seats.”

Sunday Herald

Revealed: the secret links between the Scottish Defence League and the BNP

An SDL supporter at a recent demonstration in Glasgow

Despite party expulsion threat, some individuals have joined both camps

Links between the BNP and the right-wing Scottish Defence League can today be exposed by the Sunday Herald. Both groups have publicly tried to distance themselves from each other, with the BNP claiming it would expel members found to be active in the Scottish Defence League (SDL) and its English counterpart, the EDL.

But one long-standing BNP member in Scotland told the Sunday Herald the party and the SDL shared many members and supporters, adding that the threat of expulsion was merely “a publicity thing” designed to placate the media. He said: “I am a member of the BNP and a supporter of the Scottish Defence League. A lot of the supporters are the same.”

On the threat of expulsion, he added: “That is a publicity thing. We both have the same views on radical Islam and we both don’t want Sharia law in Britain. We created our group [the SDL] to support what was happening down south with the English Defence League. I couldn’t say that the SDL was set up by BNP activists, but I was one of the early ones to support it.”

The leagues are loosely organised groups which claim to campaign against Muslim extremism in the UK but are widely perceived to be racist organisations. This charge has been denied by the groups, as have suggestions that they are linked to the BNP.

Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, alleged the claim about the publicity stunt of the expulsion threat had been made by a “liar”. He said: “I can imagine that there will be people with really no understanding of our position who support both organisations, but that would be an incredibly misguided position.”

He said that “not for one moment” did he believe a “genuine” BNP member would support the SDL or EDL.

“That is because they would be more aware of our position on these organisations. There are clear, sensible, mainstream political ways in which to make points about issues such as radical extremism rather than parading in the streets. We have very little in common with the EDL and the SDL. We understand their opposition to radical Islam … [But] there are simply no connections between [them and] the BNP. We wouldn’t want any. The EDL are doing something that we abandoned nearly 10 years ago. We don’t want to spend time stomping up the street making a nuisance of ourselves.”

When asked why it was so dangerous for the BNP to be linked to the SDL, Mr Griffin said: “These organisations are very provocative. One day they will spark an almighty riot and the Left will try and demonise us for that.”

Gary Raikes, national organiser of the BNP in Scotland, said yesterday that every party member in Scotland received a newsletter informing them that anyone found to have links with the SDL or to have attended any of their demonstrations would be expelled from the party.

The claim that the expulsion threat was a publicity stunt was dismissed as “preposterous” by the party’s national press spokesman, who questioned the authenticity of the member who made the allegation. However, information gathered by David Miller, a professor of sociology at the University of Strathclyde and a co-founder of the campaigning website Spinwatch, alleges that at least three BNP members are also Defence League supporters. One is BNP Scotland member John Wilkinson. He leafleted on behalf of the party in the run-up to the European Elections, and is involved with running the SDL website.

SDL supporter Iain Brooks, from Glasgow, is also listed on a leaked BNP membership list. And Adam Lloyd, the BNP organiser for Bridgend in Wales, is another listed as an SDL supporter, according to Prof Miller. The Sunday Herald contacted all three via email.

The SDL protested in Glasgow last month, their demonstration tightly controlled by police. Officers stopped the SDL marching into the city centre. South of the Border, English Defence League marches have ended in arrests and violence. The English Defence League was set up following Muslim extremist protests at the homecoming parade of the Royal Anglian Regiment troops in March this year, during which soldiers were branded the “Butchers of Basra” by a small number of demonstrators.

EDL members were then mobilised from within football hooligan groups – it is understood that football intelligence officers from Strathclyde Police have been used to pinpoint activists in Scotland.

Aamer Anwar, a high-profile lawyer who led the Scotland United anti-racism and anti-facism march last month, said that “he was not surprised at all” that the SDL was linked to the BNP. He claimed that the extremist group was simply creating a “street army” for the political party, which polled more than one million votes in this year’s European election, winning two MEP seats, and has 58 councillors.

Mr Anwar said: “The BNP denied they had links [to the EDL/SDL] because they were trying to win electoral respect. What they can’t get away from is that at the root of their politics is fascism and racism. It is the same scenario as Adolf Hitler and the Brownshirts. Hitler denounced them, but they were central to the organisation. The whole thing is trying to mould a street army from racists, football hooligans and groups such as Combat 18. If the group was open and democratic it … wouldn’t operate in the way that it does. The whole basis of the SDL is simply to create street terror.”

The Sunday Herald was unable to reach the Scottish Defence League yesterday. Supporters have consistently refused to identify themselves by name to the media.

Sunday Herald

The respectable face of the BNP?

Nick Griffin didn’t speak to many Scots when he visited Glasgow last week

Two men in crisp suits are standing outside the stylish Corinthian bar, nodding in a string of men and women, chatting to some as old friends. The pair are not bouncers – not any more – but members of the British National Party.

Those entering are not regulars of the bar, but activists who have come to hear a speech by the party’s leader, Nick Griffin, currently enjoying his highest profile thanks to his appearance on BBC’s Question Time.

But in spite of the opportunity for more publicity, it is a low-key affair. If the location leaked out it could attract “undesirables”, admits fundraiser Ian Wilson. So the only outward evidence is a small sign, directing those in the know to an event for “Max Dunbar”, one of the party’s organisers. Even the G1 Group, owners of the Corinthian, said later that they were unaware their venue was booked by the BNP, or that a political meeting had taken place.

Inside the Strong Room on the second floor, however, the pretence ends. A Union Flag and BNP flag are hung over a wall and piles of Freedom newspapers are stacked on a table by a collection plate. The back page of the paper advertises T-shirts with slogans including “Stop Islamic Colonisation: No More Mosques” and “Enoch Powell was Right.” By 7.30pm, around 60 people have squeezed in. True to the BNP’s “suits not boots” rebranding, there are no skinheads, no fixed scowls at the press, and almost no tattoos on show.

Most people are in their 30s and 40s, with women making up about a fifth of the crowd. The main subject of conversation is the ferocious heat, which is making everyone sweat. Then in an incongruous Bristol accent, Gary Raikes, the BNP leader in Scotland, welcomes everyone to the official launch of the Glasgow North East by-election campaign.

The meeting’s focus is on statistics and strategy, and on how the by-election and general election are only stepping stones towards the next Holyrood poll.

“Our overall strategy is to win a regional seat in 2011,” says Raikes. “In Scotland, in the regional seats, we need 5%-6%. If you remember not that long ago, the Scottish Socialist Party had five MSPs [actually it had six]. It shows how it’s possible for a small party like ours to win seats under that system.”

Charlie Baillie, the BNP candidate in Glasgow North East, gleefully picks up the baton.

“Mr Dewar must be spinning in his grave. We are not in favour of Scottish independence, but we have a devolved assembly and it gives the Scotland branch of the BNP a platform. How wonderful! How absolutely wonderful! We have got the best chance in the white working-class areas. We don’t need to say what we stand for: the white working-class who have been deserted by Labour.”

Military metaphors, paranoia, Winston Churchill, and fear of Britain becoming an Islamic republic are also to the fore in the speeches.

“We are clear in this party: this is the second Battle of Britain. We are fighting for our survival as a people,” says Mr Raikes.

After a cryptic warning about the BNP’s “enemies within”, he rounds off by quoting from Churchill’s “We will fight them on the beaches” speech. Mr Baillie quotes Churchill too, and also goes back another 500 years to Agincourt and Henry V’s archers defeating the French.

“We are in a battle. We are the longbowmen. No-one else will save this country,” he exclaims.

Other metaphors are less subtle. Mr Baillie detects a “darkness” threatening Britain. “It’s a darkness everyone must face. That darkness covers everything in sight. It needs a single point of light. The BNP is that single point of light. We alone stand for the survival of this nation and will secure a future for British children,” he says. Most of the rest is a ragbag of Keynesian economic stimulus proposals, letting greedy banks fail, hated liberal elites, and Mr Griffin’s heroic stand against the Question Time “bullies”.

There are also some practical campaign tips. “Generally it’s not a good idea to write to the papers as a BNP supporter,” says one old hand. “They don’t like us. You all know what the issues are. Just write about immigration and crime.”

During a break to escape the heat and set about the buffet, Mr Griffin arrives with an entourage of square giants and heads upstairs for a closed session with his lieutenants. At one point a man pops out to check no-one is listening at the door – that paranoia again.

Mr Griffin is highly media savvy: before his picture is taken he removes the change from his jacket so his suit hangs well in the full-length shots and in profile, he turns his glass eye away from the camera in case it glares in the flash. (Griffin lost his left eye in an accident in France about 20 years ago.) In our interview, he talk up the party’s chances on the Holyrood list system. “A seat in the Scottish Parliament is the first big step. Everything is geared towards that,” he says.

Despite the SNP abhorring his ethnic nationalism, Mr Griffin says the two parties draw support from a common well.

“One has to assume that the jump from Scottish National Party – ie, the concept that our people are something a little bit special and entitled to something – to British National Party, which is very much in favour of Scottish identity and fair treatment for the Scots and so on, it’s not as big a jump as from the Labour Party to the BNP or the Tories to the BNP, and plenty of people make that jump. If people have once voted Nationalist then another form of nationalism is an entirely logical step, especially when it’s from an illogical nationalism to a logical one.”

He denies any link between the BNP and the English and Scottish Defence leagues, the soccer-hooligan led anti-Islamic protestors who are due to meet in Glasgow next month. Mr Griffin says they are “agents provocateurs”, set up by the British state to make the BNP look bad and blame whites “when it all goes bang”.

Asked about his aspirations, he says he can get the BNP 20% of the vote. Some would think that delusional enough, but Griffin reckons he might be in Downing Street one day – “Every politician wants to be Prime Minister,” he says.

And he goes on: “The appalling financial catastrophe that the old elites and their financial system have created, running out of oil, and turning homogenous boring and fundamentally stable Britain into something like the Tower of Babel, makes it entirely possible that the existing political system could be swept aside in a few months of enormously fast-paced change and we could be in government.”

Later, he lets rip in his main speech about immigration, radical Islam, and the elites who have “looted” the public purse while letting down the poor and war veterans. Arguing for a dead halt to immigration, he says Glasgow is overcrowded because it takes longer than 15 minutes to drive across it in the rush hour. What that has to do with immigration is never explained.

Explaining why migrants must understand they are “perpetual guests”, he says: “As long as they’re here obeying our ways, supporting our system, then I have no problem with having significant numbers, say, of Gurkhas in Britain. I would be delighted if we could turn all those restaurants and kebab shops which are at present run by radicalised young Muslims for the purpose of pushing drugs and seducing young girls – all that ungrateful, unloyal, anti-British shower – and replace them with Gurkhas.”

The next day, Mr Griffin ducks out of campaigning in Glasgow North East, suggesting to some a lack of conviction in his own rhetoric. The BNP has promised big before and failed – at every election in recent years, it claimed to be on the cusp of a breakthrough in Scotland. But that may not last forever. The commonly held belief that “it couldn’t happen here” – that Scots are more resistant to racism than other parts of the UK – won’t hold them back. The BNP originally once had miniscule support in England, but now has two MEPs.

Mr Griffin needs poverty, disillusion and fear to prosper, and there is plenty of that to go round. In Glasgow North East, where voting is on November 12, the worst poverty level in Scotland is combined with the highest concentration of asylum seekers.

On the streets of Springburn, it is not difficult to find residents who think the BNP will do well. It’s a small, unscientific sample which may not be typical of the area, but it is troubling nonetheless. By the towering Red Road flats, Mary, 40, who works for the council’s care service, smokes as she watches a steady stream of African tenants at the bus stop. “I think people are getting fed up, I really do, because everywhere you go they’re everywhere,” she says. “A lot of them lack manners. What really annoys me is pensioners not being able to get a seat on the bus and there’s coloured kids sitting on a full seat, whereas our kids don’t.”

She says she loathes Labour, but wouldn’t vote BNP: “No, I think they’re racists. They want this to be a white country, but you can’t have that. It’s good that they’re integrating with us, but there’s far too many of them.”

Morag Simpson, 54, a former nurse out walking her Doberman by the flats, reckons the BNP will get support because new housing, “needless to say”, was given to asylum seekers, adding: “We have a lady here, she’s 94, stays three [storeys] up, she’s blind, and she did not get offered a house.”

She goes on: “I was brought up in the Highlands as a Scottish Nationalist, but the way things are going… I just feel as if we don’t get priority. It’s our country. I think [the BNP] are over the top, but we as a people, the Scots people, have to do something about it ourselves. I feel there’s no-one looking out for the ones that have worked all their lives.”

Outside Springburn shopping centre, Michelle Slane, 32, a social care student at North Glasgow College, also predicts a good result for the BNP because of asylum seekers. “They’re getting everything, f***’s sake. They’re getting everything. Ask anybody about. Everybody hates them. Go into that Post Office now and it’s like the United Nations … I think the local community should come before people who are just coming in.”

Alan Fisher, 47, a single parent, says he’ll vote Labour, but agrees about housing.

“I stay on a scheme that’s all vandalised. They get f***ing brand new fridges, f***ing brand new TVs, they get brand new everything. You can’t even say ‘Get tae f***’ because they don’t know what you’re saying to them.”

Margaret Rodgers, 28, out with her two-year-old son Connor, would vote BNP.

“I’m just out a homeless flat. I was in there 13 months. It was in the East End of the city. It was totally run down. There were murders happening twice a week. I think it’s shocking they’re getting up-and-down-stairs and everything. It’s not fair. I just think the asylum seekers are getting too much, far, far too much.I agree with the BNP: don’t let any more in.”

It’s not all like this, of course.

“They’re fascists,” says one elderly lady of the BNP. “We saw him [Nick Griffin] on Question Time. All he did was smile, he couldn’t answer.”

Craig Dunbar, 21, a music performance student at Glasgow North College, wants the BNP to do badly.

“I don’t approve of anything they stand for. I don’t agree with the guy’s views.”

And Michelle Slane’s friend, Liz, a young mother, is shocked by her pal’s views.

“That’s a sin,” she says of her comments. “I think it’s live and let live. Everyone just jumps on their back all the time. I think we are all just people trying to make do and do the best for our children.”

The 18 months to the Holyrood election will tell just how many people think likewise.

Sunday Herald

Army sack cadet officer after he is exposed as leader of BNP in Scotland

An army cadet officer who trained teenagers was drummed out after he was exposed as the leader of the BNP in Scotland.

A shocked mum complained to top brass after learning Company Sergeant Major Gary Raikes was the racist political party's top man. Raikes trained boys and girls aged between 12 and 18 as a part-time officer at the Army Cadet Force's 2nd Battalion C Company in Boddam, Aberdeenshire.

He was accused of abusing his position to peddle the far-right party's vile views.

The mum, from Turriff, said: "I withdrew my son after Raikes tried to use my child for one of his BNP stunts. He had the temerity to use one of the pictures on his sick website. It is disgusting and a misuse of trust. It is deeply worrying given he is making inroads into the vulnerable minds of children."

Raikes works for Scottish Water and lives in a caravan on a farm near Turriff with his wife Samantha. He said: "I have nothing to say about the army issue. It is nonsense to suggest I was trying to indoctrinate young cadets. The mainstream political parties are scared of us. It's a plot against us. I'm not saying any more. You'll say we're all racist anyway."

After the mum's complaint, army bosses asked Raikes to discuss the issue but he repeatedly failed to attend meetings and was eventually sacked.

An Army Scotland spokeswoman said: "We would not stop anyone from joining a political party but if those views do not accord with the views of the Army we would want to ensure that the person involved kept his beliefs to himself while training others, especially children. We wanted to discuss his views with him but he just never turned up again."

Raikes became the BNP's Scottish leader after UK chief Nick Griffin ousted Glasgow-based Kenny Smith in a bitter power struggle. Smith denies he was responsible for last week's leaking of the personal details of around 12,000 members - including Raikes, who is hated by those loyal to Smith

Sunday Mail