Great White Records (GWR) is the BNP's in-house record label, which Griffin once saw as both a lucrative cash cow and a stepping-stone to creating the sort of fascist "counter power" movement he had been harping on about since the 1980s.Its founding statement was explicit that "the chief benefactors/recipients of money raised by GWR will be the British National Party". The party boasted it would release upwards of 13 albums, which would raise around £100,000 for the party.
It is highly doubtful that GWR has even paid back the initial outlay lavished upon it, however. GWR, which was incorporated in December 2005, has hardly released any records of its own and those it has have been underwhelming to say the least. To put it politely they are unlikely to chart any time soon. The company has only produced one set of accounts, which showed its total net assets at £8, and is currently on notice that it will be struck off. In 2008 its business was merged with the BNP's Excalibur merchandising operation.
It is not only about the money though. As one senior BNP figure observed in an interview about GWR: "People will listen to a song over and over again and take all the words in, in a way that you would be very lucky to get one in 100 of them to listen to a speech. Music is a very effective way of getting our views across." Ian Stuart Donaldson, lead singer of the infamous "white power" band Skrewdriver, said exactly the same thing. The music might have changed but the tune has not.
Despite the initial hopes placed upon it, not least by Griffin himself, GWR has stalled. Its lacklustre performance is largely down to the man placed in charge, Dave Hannam (pictured), the BNP deputy treasurer who was jailed for three months in 2000 for handing out antisemitic leaflets in Hull. Hannam was temporarily demoted in early 2008 to appease irate BNP organisers and activists after a former colleague accused him of being "crassly incompetent". GWR's other director, Nick Cass, who in 2007 was sacked as party manager, appears to be a silent partner.
Ironically Griffin's decision to back Hannam (and Mark Collett) during a damaging split in the BNP precipitated a minor disaster for GWR. Those who sided with the "rebels" included its two leading artists, one of whom was Colin Auty. Despite ridiculing Auty the BNP continues to sell his album Truth Hurts, presumably because GWR has so little else to justify its existence. GWR's next release was by Joey Barber, a BNP activist who records under the name Joey Smith. His "pop" album Not Just About the Music was truly execrable. Griffin loved it. BNP members did not.
GWR once tried to take the rise out of anti-fascists by altering the lyrics of a socialist anthem by the late great Woody Guthrie to reflect the BNP's racist prejudices. It would appear that the joke was on them. Guthrie once penned a song entitled "All You Fascists (Bound To Lose)".
If the performance of GWR is anything to go by they already have.
Hope not hate
