Pressure grows on Attorney General as BNP targets school children

Pressure is growing on the authorities to review their decision not to take action against the British National Party for its Racism Cuts Both Ways campaign. An Early Day Motion, signed by Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Plaid Cymru MPs, was accompanied by a letter to the Home Secretary and the Attorney General demanding that the BNP initiative be deemed an incitement to racial hatred.

These moves came as the BNP issued a fundraising appeal with the specific intention of distributing its Racism Cuts Both Ways racist pamphlet to secondary school children. “From now on we’ll [be] turning up outside secondary schools and sixth form colleges just as they close for the day … now we’ve got the means to reach out and grab them [young people]” promised the BNP in an appeal for more money to carry on the campaign after the schools reopen in January.

The Racism Cuts Both Ways initiative claims to highlight anti-white racism. In an introduction to the RCBW section of the BNP website, party leader Nick Griffin called it the “silent epidemic of racist targeting of indigenous Britons”.

In the opening address of the pamphlet, Griffin went further. “The vast majority of the real racism that scars Britain involves white victims from the indigenous community. Whether you are English, Scots, Welsh, Irish or from Ulster, being white makes you a target, being white means you are guilty.”

To back up his claims the BNP listed 167 people who it says are the victims of anti-white racist murders.

Last month Searchlight proved that this was nothing more than a crude attempt to whip up racial tensions and fears. Fewer than ten of the cited cases had any clear racial motivation. Some of the killers turned out to be white and others were part of mixed race groups, including whites, but the BNP only focused on the white victims and black perpetrators.

In some cases it was the victim who was racist, most notably Keith Brown, a BNP activist who was killed by his neighbour, Habib Khan, in July 2007 after a sustained racial campaign by Brown, his family and friends.

After a complaint from Liverpool City councillors Merseyside police arrested 13 BNP supporters for distributing the Racism Cuts Both Ways pamphlet. They were released on police bail while the CPS considered whether to charge them.

It appears that the local CPS felt the pamphlet raised racial tension but did not incite racial hatred, but fearing a local political backlash they passed the files to the CPS in London for a second opinion. It concurred and the case was dropped, though not without much anger within Merseyside Police.

The day after the arrests the BNP announced a “Day of Action” in Liverpool city centre to support the 13 the following Saturday, 29 November. A national mobilisation attracted just 120 supporters, far fewer than the 500 anti-fascists who had gathered in a counter-protest earlier that day organised by the Merseyside Coalition Against Racism. Thousands of specially designed HOPE not hate leaflets were distributed and dozens of people signed up to the anti-BNP campaign.

The only sour note on the day was the duplicity of the police. Despite making promises that the BNP would not be allowed into the city centre, and indeed at one point claiming that the fascists had not even turned up, hundreds of police officers were deployed to protect the BNP as it rallied in the middle of the city. BNP supporters were even allowed to distribute the same pamphlets on the very site where the 13 were arrested the previous week, after the CPS decision not to charge the 13 was announced that morning. By this time the anti-fascist protest had ended and several people were isolated and cornered by fascists.

Despite the initial refusal of the CPS to take action the campaign is not over. Politicians of all parties have signed a letter to the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, asking her to reconsider. This has been given added momentum with the news that the BNP intends to target secondary school children with the material.

For more information visit http://www.racismcutsbothways.org.uk

Searchlight

Rallying for power

Last month the BNP rallied for a fallen member in Stoke-on-Trent, but, the party was really launching its bid for power

The British National Party conducted its largest single leafleting session when 300 people campaigned in Stoke-on-Trent last month. Publicly they were there to draw attention to what they considered was the lenient sentence handed down to a man found guilty of the manslaughter of a local BNP member, but in truth they were launching their campaign for control of the city.

The BNP activists, drawn by a ratio of more than four to one from outside the city, spent a few hours leafleting and then met up again for a shambolic rally in car park. As usual Griffin was surrounded by thuggish henchmen and the so-called truth truck – known more accurately as the lie lorry.

Habib Khan had received an eight-year sentence in August after being convicted in May of the manslaughter of his neighbour Keith Brown, a BNP member.

The pair had been involved in a long-running dispute over land and Khan had been the subject of a sustained racial campaign by Brown, his family and friends. The two men had previously worked together at H & R Johnson Tiles quite amicably but things turned nasty after Khan bought the house next to Brown and applied for planning permission to demolish his two houses to build one new one.

“I took him [Mr Brown] inside the house and I said ‘it’s so dangerous’,” Khan told the court. “‘I have a family, in my position what would you do? He said ‘my house is old, your house is new, I don’t like it’. From that day he never cooperated.”

Brown blocked access to the builders and is alleged even to have tried to smash down some of the new building. The Khans were regularly called “Paki”, had their windows put in frequently and even had a panic button installed by the police because of their fear of attack. Last year Brown’s son, Ashley Barker, was convicted of assaulting Khan, an incident that left Khan unconsciousness.

The court heard how Khan acted to defend his son who was being attacked by Barker outside his home. Khan, described in court as a “mild and calm-mannered family man”, had intended to use the knife to threaten Mr Brown, who had hold of one of his sons.

Judge Simon Tonking said Khan had acted “in the honest belief that he needed to protect his son” but in doing so had killed Mr Brown.

The jury, consisting of 11 white people, found Khan not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. In passing sentence, the Judge took into account the abuse and attacks on Khan.

“What became obvious as the evidence unfolded, however,” said Judge Tonking, “is that from time to time, despite denials to the contrary, both Mr Brown and his son Ashley Barker were involved in acts of racial aggression towards members of Mr Khan’s family. It should be said that the jury’s verdict was entirely respectable and understandable on the evidence.”

The real issue

The BNP and Brown’s family were furious and claimed that this was another example of anti-white prejudice and so a rally was organised. However, raising opposition to Khan’s sentence was simply the pretext. It was left to the party’s deputy leader to spell out the real purpose of the day. Simon Darby told the rally that the party’s next target would be to take control of the city of Stoke-on-Trent through the election of a BNP mayor.

“If there is a mayoral election then we are confident that we will win that election,” he added.

The BNP currently has nine councillors in the city and averaged 24% in the wards it contested in May’s local elections. While this is less than one sixth of the total councillors, their influence extends far beyond what the figure suggests.

Labour has the largest group on the council, but at 17 it is not that much bigger than the BNP group. In May the Labour Party polled 25% of the vote across the city, only fractionally more than the BNP. Indeed, in the ten wards where the BNP and Labour went head to head the BNP was in front in all but two.

More worryingly, the BNP councillors sit and regularly vote with a larger group of independents, making a group of 29 in total. Opposing them is a coalition of 31 Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

This is all a far cry from the mid-1990s when Labour held all 60 seats on the council, most with huge majorities. Since then Labour has collapsed. Internal wrangling, incompetence and a general swing against the national government has seen Labour’s grip on the city weaken.

A directly elected mayor was introduced in the city in 2002 but unlike in other local authority areas with mayors, Stoke-on-Trent was unique in that it gave total power to the mayor and the council’s Chief Executive. This created resentment and hostility in the city and particularly from the councillors who became increasingly redundant in the decision making process. Their disquiet often became open opposition, which added to the political instability in the city.

The first mayoral contest was won by an independent (who was a former Labour Party member), with the BNP only just failing to go through to the second round by 1,500 votes. Each voter has two votes and the result is determined after the two leading candidates in the first round are allocated the second preferences of the others.

In 2005 Labour won it back, largely because the contest was held on the same day as the general election, which had brought the Labour vote out. The BNP was further behind, though its candidate still took 18% of the vote.

In the face of mounting hostility to mayoral government the current mayor introduced a cabinet system in a bid to involve the councillors. However, this has done little to improve the standing of the council in the eyes of the population.

The BNP scents victory next year and certainly has the momentum behind it. Its confidence was evident by a recent letter from the party’s councillors to other councillors in which they boasted of running the council before long. These councillors were invited to join them.

However, it is not certain that there will even be a mayoral election next year, as the legislation that introduced the elected mayor only provided for two terms. Later this month the people of Stoke-on-Trent will decide whether to keep the mayoral system or replace it with a traditional leader/cabinet authority. It is not clear which they will choose.

Most parties appear split, though the councillors of the three main parties seem keen to revert to the more traditional method of selecting the council leader from within the council chamber.

The BNP however, precisely because it believes it can win a contest, is campaigning to retain the mayor. The party is joined by a group of individuals who have launched a campaign called People’s Choice.

Its leader Paul Breeze told the local paper: “The reason we voted for a directly elected mayor system in the first place was because our existing governance arrangements of a leader and cabinet had resulted in our city becoming stagnant, bereft of ideas, and lacking in vision and true leadership.

“We are still paying the price today for the years of drift we had under the old system. Our city needs stability, someone given a clear mandate from the people, to push forward with changes.”

However, in a sign that chaos will reign, the anti-mayoral campaign is also called People’s Choice!

If a mayoral contest does take place it would seem that the BNP, Labour and the former independent mayor Mick Wolff will be fighting it out for the top two places. Any one of these could win.

Given the danger of a BNP victory, it might seem logical for anti-fascists to hope the mayor is abolished. However, not only is this merely delaying a problem, it could in fact create a bigger one in a year or two.

If the people go against the mayoral system, the city will be in a state of flux, which will only intensify the stagnation and demand for real change. By law, the current mayor leaves office next May, so who would run the council? A Governance Report into Stoke-on-Trent recommended a reduction in the number of councillors in the city so we are likely to face all-out elections in either 2010 or 2011. With chaos and confusion likely to overshadow the intervening period the BNP could continue to grow locally and so dominate those elections. It might be easier for the BNP to win enough wards to take control of the city council, albeit with the support of some independents, than win a mayoral election outright.

Either way Stoke-on-Trent is where we currently face the most serious threat. With a real danger of the BNP winning control of a city of 250,000 people, the energies of the anti-fascist movement must be focused here. Likewise, the main political parties and the trade unions must also redouble their efforts.

A multi-track approach is needed. Anti-fascists and trade unions need to develop a coherent and sensible campaign that highlights the threat of the BNP and its true nature, but recognises that the BNP has planted deep roots in local communities and that undermining the BNP’s councillors locally is vital. At the same time a turnout campaign needs to be built, especially if there is a mayoral election, which can identify and mobilise anti-BNP voters. Wider mood events are important but in a winner-takes-all election our priority has to be winning the election.

The mainstream political parties need to get their act together and find a way to engage with voters locally. Nationally, the government still needs to do more to address the deep-rooted economic problems that beset the area.

Searchlight is currently making representations to the main parties, unions and government to make sure that everyone is doing their utmost to help in Stoke-on-Trent. Anything less and the BNP will next time be organising a victory rally.

Searchlight

BNP looks for cracks in the Potteries

Part of the BNP rabble listening to Nick Griffin talking crap

The British National Party has been rallying support in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire

The far-right party has been emboldened by its recent successes in local elections - it has nine councillors in Stoke. But it has also been angered by the death of local BNP activist Keith Brown, who was killed by his Asian neighbour.

On Saturday the party handed out leaflets and held a rally to voice its belief that society ignores or plays down violence against whites by non-whites. Mr Brown's killer, Habib Khan, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years - but the party believes that had their roles been reversed, Mr Brown would now be serving life for murder.

The rally was on an industrial estate in the Fenton area, in a car park off a busy main road. About 300 people attended, at most - mainly tattooed males with shaved heads, but also young couples - some with babies - young women and a few quiet-looking pensioners. There were flag wavers, banner holders and placard carriers. Passing drivers were encouraged to honk their horns, and quite a few obliged.

From a "Truth Truck", speakers including BNP leader Nick Griffin addressed the crowd. Speaking over loud applause, Mr Griffin said they day's activities "tell the establishment in Stoke-on-Trent, and across the length and breadth of the country, that they can no longer brush the attacks on British people under the carpet, because the BNP will be there, not to cause trouble, but to cause a fuss".

Stoke-on-Trent is to hold a referendum in October to decide whether or not to retain its elected mayor. If it votes to keep it, then the BNP clearly fancies its chances.

"We have very, very good councillors and I have no doubt that we're the front runners for the elected mayor position, which is why Labour is trying to get rid of it," said Mr Griffin, speaking away from the rally in the Meir area.

He puts his party's rise in popularity in the city partly down to the "lazy and corrupt" Labour administration. But what does the wider community think?

Clearly, Stoke-on-Trent is a place ill at ease with itself. Ravaged by a huge drop in the core industries of mining, pottery and engineering, its proud heritage and identity, which made the Potteries a name familiar across the world for its skill in ceramics, is under threat. Many of its citizens appear worried about making a living and angry at the state of the city in which they live. Unemployment, cuts in health services and substandard housing are just some of the complaints on the street.

Meir resident Alan Hough, 62, angrily asks why the police cars parked nearby, clearly keeping an eye on the BNP leader, "aren't out catching criminals". Mr Hough says he has voted for Labour all his life, but says he will vote for the BNP in future.

"My father will be turning in his grave, he fought the fascists for six years," he says. "But Labour aren't doing their job, and that's why people are voting for the BNP, they're desperate. There's no alternative, people won't vote Tory and they're fed up with Labour."

But Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent South, Rob Flello, says the claim that Labour has done nothing "flies in the face of reality".

"BNP politics are about setting communities against each other," he said. "We're trying to build communities, and strengthen them. We're trying to attract people to the city and bring jobs here. Having a BNP presence makes it seem as if it's a place torn by conflict, with community against community, and that's simply not the case."

There are no non-white people to be seen in Meir, so a taxi ride over to the Shelton area is necessary to find an Asian point of view. Standing outside the local mosque is Abu Kinza, 30. He thinks there are deep divisions within the city's communities, which are partly down to education.

"Stoke-on-Trent's nature is not as aware as other cities," he said. "Asians and whites don't mix. There is lots of racism and the Asian community does suffer. The BNP has support in this city because of a decline in Christian values. That makes people more materialistic and selfish and they don't care about their community. Also, people here aren't educated. Ask them if they've read a book in the last year, the last five years. A lot of them haven't. People from outside of the city say it's one of the worst areas to live in, that it's backwards and that the BNP are strong here. Its presence damages the city's reputation."

Elsewhere in the city a peace vigil was held in opposition to the BNP. It was organised by the group United Against Fascism, with speakers and a march. National campaigner Donna Guthrie said: "It went brilliantly, and hopefully will show the unity the people of Stoke-on-Trent have with each other, which goes against the grain of what the BNP wants to do."

BBC

Calls to ban BNP Stoke-on-Trent rally

Community organisations have come out in opposition to a BNP rally.

Last week local BNP leaders told The Sentinel that next Saturday’s event in Stoke-on-Trent could be the biggest the party has held. That has drawn a strong response from regional and national groups, who have urged authorities to outlaw the gathering. But Staffordshire Police say the democratically-elected party is acting within the law.

North Staffordshire Pensioners’ Convention said it believed the BNP’s intention was to divide the community in the wake of the recent Habib Khan manslaughter verdict. Khan, of Normacot, was jailed for eight years last month for killing his neighbour, BNP activist Keith Brown.

Chairman Philip Snow, speaking for the executive committee, said: “We call upon the relevant authorities to refuse any licence which would permit such an event.”

Mr Snow said that the equal opportunities convention supports and actively works towards integration and harmony.

National BNP leader Nick Griffin will be one of the speakers on September 20 when the rally arrives at a ‘central location’ after hundreds of activists have spent the morning distributing up to 50,000 leaflets. Other speakers will include Stoke-on-Trent city councillors Alby Walker, who leads the party’s council group, and Michael Coleman.

Mr Walker denied that the BNP was looking to stir up trouble and said that the rally, expected to draw up to 400 activists from across the UK, had been organised in close co-operation with the authorities.

Mr Walker said: “It is not our intention to stir up tensions. It is a perfectly legal protest which is a fundamental right. It really is not aimed against any community and has been mainly organised to point out the discrepancy in different sections of the community by the courts and the failings of the judicial system.”

But national pressure group Love Music Hate Racism has issued a statement condemning the rally. Chairman Weyman Bennett said: “We want peace and harmony in Stoke-on-Trent. We are horrified that an organisation such as the BNP is targeting the city and planning a national rally which the party leader Nick Griffin will attend.”

Mr Bennett said that if the rally goes ahead, his organisation was planning its own demonstration.

Staffordshire Police Superintendent Bernie O’Reilly said: “We have met with members of the BNP on three occasions to discuss their plans.”

The Sentinel

BNP to honour ‘martyr’ with rally as Asian neighbour gets eight years for manslaughter

The British National Party has said that it will hold a rally in honour of its first claimed martyr, whose Asian killer was jailed for eight years for manslaughter yesterday.

Keith Brown, a father of eight and friend of the party leader, Nick Griffin, was stabbed to death by his neighbour Habib Khan, a Muslim community leader. A judge said that the dead white man and his skinhead son had both been involved in acts of racial aggression towards the Khan family.

The BNP said that it will hold a rally in Stoke-on-Trent on September 20 to protest about the case and Staffordshire Police’s handling of the long-running neighbours’ dispute. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announced that it had cleared the force of any blame.

Officers had dealt with more than 100 complaints in five years from the feuding families.

Khan, 49, had been cleared of murder but was found guilty of manslaughter after a jury heard that he stabbed Mr Brown, 52, with a kitchen knife during a row on the pavement.

Judge Simon Tonking said that although Khan was acting in defence of his own son, his action in stabbing Mr Brown went beyond that which was reasonable. Khan had to be punished with “a significant custodial sentence”.

Julia Barker, the mother of Mr Brown’s children, said: “There has been no justice done. We knew it wasn’t going to get done. They are always crying out this racial abuse. They attacked our family. Mr Khan had a panic button put in, Mr Brown didn’t. Both should have been treated equal. When it was our family, nothing was done. The police let our family down as far as I am concerned. Me and the rest of my children will never be able to forget what happened that day. It is a disgrace. He’s got away with it.”

The far Right has portrayed Mr Brown as the “first nationalist victim of Islamic jihad against Great Britain”. Stoke’s BNP councillors shouldered the coffin at his funeral, which is posted on YouTube.

Michael Coleman, a BNP councillor in Stoke, where the far-right party is now placed second only to Labour in the popular vote, said: “We have a man here who has been murdered in the street. It is an outrageous betrayal of justice. Staffordshire Police . . . go softly with ethnic minorities [unlike] the indigenous population. We won’t put up with being treated like this.”

An IPCC investigation released yesterday cleared the force of any blame. Len Jackson, a commissioner, said: “The evidence suggests that on a number of occasions Staffordshire Police attempted to resolve the issues between Mr Brown and Mr Khan. However, no one could have anticipated that this long-running neighbour dispute would have such a tragic outcome.” The Khans were given a panic button after Mr Brown’s teenage son Ashley beat his middle-aged Asian neighbour unconscious.

The police had attempted mediation between the two families but found Mr Brown “immovable”.

The IPCC discovered that the BNP became involved when one of Mr Brown’s friends suggested that a BNP councillor could help with the neighbours’ dispute. The BNP alleged that police had refused to study a homemade DVD offered to them showing a member of Khan’s family kicking Mr Brown’s knee. However, the IPCC said that the DVD only showed a young Asian man apparently making a kicking motion. Mr Brown is off screen, no contact can be seen and, although there is good audio, no sound comes from Mr Brown.

Minutes of that meeting between police and the BNP describe the DVD as showing an argument about the location of a fence and make no mention of any crime.

The Browns claimed that the police ignored incidents where the Khans poisoned their puppy and cut their brake leads, but no records of such complaints were discovered.

Times Online

Habib Khan jailed for stabbing BNP neighbour Keith Brown

A Muslim man was jailed for eight years today for killing his BNP activist neighbour after suffering a long-running campaign of racial abuse.

Habib Khan, 50, stabbed 52-year-old Keith Brown with a kitchen knife during a violent row outside his home in Stoke-on-Trent in July last year. Stafford Crown Court was told that Khan and his family had been subjected to "racial hostility" by his neighbours prior to the attack on July 6. Khan, of Uttoxeter Road, Normacot, was cleared by a jury of murdering Mr Brown and instead convicted of manslaughter following a trial in May.

Khan was sentenced to a total of eight years in prison for two charges - one of manslaughter by lack of intent and one of wounding. Judge Simon Tonking ordered that he serve consecutively six-and-a-half years for manslaughter and 18 months for wounding Mr Brown’s son, Ashley Barker.

The court heard that Khan, described as a "mild and calm-mannered family man", had intended to use the knife to threaten Mr Brown, who had hold of one of his sons. Judge Tonking said Khan had acted "in the honest belief that he needed to protect his son" but in doing so had killed Mr Brown.

He said: "It is beyond question that, by acting in the way that he did, Mr Khan killed Mr Brown unlawfully and, whatever their differences, the fact is that Mr Brown lost his life. That is a consequence for which Mr Khan must be punished with a significant custodial sentence."

The court heard that the families’ feud began when Khan put in a planning application to build a new house on his land a few years prior to the incident. Mr Brown objected and when permission was granted and building work began, he "took steps to obstruct it". The situation escalated over the years, with one incident leaving Khan in hospital. The court was told that the Khan family were often subjected to racial abuse and taunting.

Judge Tonking said: "What became obvious as the evidence unfolded, however, is that from time to time, despite denials to the contrary, both Mr Brown and his son Ashley Barker were involved in acts of racial aggression towards members of Mr Khan’s family."

Khan’s defence barrister, Simon Drew, said that police were called on a number of occasions, but often investigations "came to nothing" because of "generous failures by the system".

Speaking outside the court, Stoke-on-Trent BNP members slammed the sentence, which they said did not reflect the severity of the crime. Councillor Michael Coleman said the court case was an example of "liberal politics going on". He criticised Staffordshire Police for "going softly on ethnic minorities" and being hard with "the indigenous population of this island".

Times Online

How the BNP shamefully tried to create a 'white martyr' for their own grubby ends

A film about the death of Keith Brown was posted on YouTube this week. It begins with a hearse arriving at St Batholomew's church in Stoke.

On one side of the coffin is a wreath which spells KEITH, on the other DADDY. Mr Brown was a father of seven. He was 52 when he was fatally stabbed outside his home last year. It would be difficult to imagine more emotional footage.

Among the mourners at his funeral is a middle-aged man in black suit and tie. When he begins to speak to the camera his eyes well-up: 'It's a very sad day, almost unbearable being there with the little kids,' he says, his eyes full of tears.

The tears - crocodile tears, some might think - belong to Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, who barely knew Keith Brown, if indeed they met at all.

Mr Griffin and his cronies have been accused of hijacking Mr Brown's funeral - and his death. BNP members were pallbearers. They laid a floral tribute depicting the flag of St George (something else they have hijacked).

They were also responsible for the internet broadcast courtesy of 'BNPtv'; the party now has its own specialist camera crews precisely for such occasions.

Standing outside the church, moments after the service has ended, Mr Griffin tells his online audience: 'I loathe not so much his killers as the police and authorities in this city who let down his family. They knew something like this was going to happen.

'His family, and Keith himself, was subjected to a reign of terror by the racist neighbours and their gang friends and the authorities did nothing about it. These people I loathe . . . when it's English, white victims, they simply don't care.'

Spin, even political spin, is one thing, outright lies quite another. Anyone - aside from the BNP - who was at Stafford Crown Court for the trial of Keith Brown's killer this week would be in little doubt into which category Mr Griffin's comments fell.

Keith Brown, the court heard, was not a 'white martyr,' but had a history of violence. The man in the dock, on the other hand, was a community leader who had never been in trouble before. He also happened to be Mr Brown's next-door neighbour and a Muslim.

The long-running dispute which finally ended in Mr Brown's death, however, was about property boundaries and building work, not race and politics. And Habib Khan, 50, was convicted of manslaughter, not racially motivated murder.

The truth is shocking only if you view the BNP in the same way as you might other political parties, that is, constrained by basic decency, and forget that it was founded in the early Eighties following splits in the far-Right National Front.

Many remain convinced that the BNP has the same relationship with the shaven-headed thugs who made up the NF, as Sinn Fein did with the bombers of the IRA.

It's easy to forget about the skinheads (lurking in the shadows or in the background at funerals) in Cambridge-educated Nick Griffin's besuited BNP.

And in a Britain plagued with knife and gun crime, and legitimate concerns over immigration, there has been an increasingly receptive audience for the BNP's message, not just in predominantly poor, white, working-class areas of the North, but also in the more affluent South-East.

Today the BNP has 56 local councillors, a net gain of ten in the recent local elections (with parish and community councils, it claims 100 elected representatives across the country) including Richard Barnbrook, the first BNP member to win a seat on the London Assembly.

In Stoke-on-Trent where the tragedy - and travesty - of Keith Brown was played out, the BNP now has nine councillors, perhaps the strongest single party in the city. On May 1, Labour polled 14,000 votes in 20 seats, the BNP polled almost 8,000, standing in just ten seats.

A minority Labour administration struggles on with the support of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats (both smaller than the BNP) and independents. But senior local politicians believe the BNP could be running the Town Hall within three years.

To put that deeply disturbing prospect into perspective, just 12 years ago, Labour won all 60 seats on this new unitary authority.

Around 8 per cent of Stoke's 240,000 population is from the Asian and black community, but some believe the city's white working class has become an underclass.

The statistics are alarming. Officially, of course, unemployment has fallen, but more residents claim incapacity and disability benefits which has resulted in Stoke having one of the lowest proportions of people in work in England and Wales.

This is the economic background to the rise of the BNP in the city.

Michael Tappin, the former Labour group leader and ex-Stoke MEP, was one of those who lost his council seat a few weeks ago.

'The men and women of the BNP look like your neighbours,' he says. 'They are not 25st men with bodypiercings and tattoos as portrayed by anti-fascist demonstrators. They are respectable. It's hard to demonise them. The wear suits. They look tidy. They pick up old ladies when they fall over in the street, shop for the elderly and cut people's lawns.

'It's like that old saying about Mussolini - "At least he made the trains run on time." Here, it's "At least they get your grass cut.'' '

Alby Walker, the BNP group leader on the council, turns up for regular bingo sessions at a local community centre, where he helps put the tables out and take the money.

And, yes, he says he gets 'birthday cards off 80-year-old ladies'.

Mr Walker is a businessman who runs a small joinery firm and whose wife, Ellie, a school governor, has also been elected as a BNP councillor. Mr Walker wears pinstripe suits and fat ties.

One of the BNP leaflets he is most proud of features Hanley - one of the Five Towns which originally made up Stoke-on-Trent. 'Hanley 70 years ago,' it reads above nostalgic photographs of the church tower and smiling housewives.

Below, next to silhouettes of mosques and women with their faces shrouded in niqabs, is the question: 'Is this what you want for our city centre?'

He insists the BNP is not guilty of 'exploiting the situation,' neither in Hanley nor in the Longton South ward where Keith Brown lived and died. How, then, did a row between two neighbours become a cause celebre for the glib-tongued bigots of the BNP?

Neither of the families involved in the bitter feud were at home when the Mail called on them last night.

In fact, neighbours believe both the Browns and the Khans have now moved out of the street and are not sure if, or when, they will return. Contrary to what the BNP might want you to believe, Keith Brown and Habib Khan were not always mortal enemies.

The two, we have learned, once worked alongside each other - without any problems - for the same tiling company.

The former colleagues were reacquainted with each other in 2001 when Mr Khan expressed an interest in buying two semi-detached houses next door to Mr Brown. Mr Brown told Mr Khan to give him his details and he would pass them on to the owner.

He did so, and the transaction went through. Race never seemed to be an issue between the two men - at least not until the BNP got involved. By now, Mr Khan was a successful businessman in his own right (he ran a kebab shop) and was a Muslim elder.

Mr Brown was unemployed with a record of violence stretching back to his 20s. In 2000, the year before Mr Khan entered his life again, he was convicted of punching a man in the face.

The dispute which would eventually prove fatal started, as such rows often do, when Mr Khan applied for planning permission to carry out home improvements - in this case to convert his newly acquired properties into a single grand villa.

Mr Brown tried everything he could to stop him. During construction work, after the plans were approved, Mr Brown and his 20-year-old son Ashley took sledgehammers to the newly-built property next door.

Mr Brown was convicted of criminal damage, but appealed. When the prosecution failed to tell witnesses about the appeal hearing, a judge overturned the conviction. If he hadn't, Mr Brown might still be alive today. Instead, he went back on the offensive.

On one occasion, Mr Brown blocked the access road between their houses with vehicles and tyres. Eventually, he turned to the local authority for assistance and was introduced to Steve Batkin, then the sole BNP member on Stoke Council.

Did 'race' begin to rear its head in the dispute after this meeting?

The Khans, in statements made to the police, claimed they were called 'Pakis' by the Browns and that their windows were smashed every other day. They were also, it is alleged, subjected to death threats.

'The past four years I've been living in hell,' Mr Khan told the court.

Relations reached breaking point on July 6 last year. Mr Khan was in the kitchen when his daughter shouted to him that Mr Brown was trying to kill her brother, Azir. Mr Khan grabbed a knife and went outside to find Mr Brown holding his son in a headlock. He tapped him on the shoulder. Mr Brown, the jury was told, turned and mouthed: 'I'll kill him.'

Mr Khan said that he pressed the knife against Mr Brown's back so he could feel the blade, intending to scare him. But Mr Brown fell, pushing the blade in further.

As his neighbour struggled to his knees, Mr Khan removed the knife from his back. 'I have never seen blood like that in my life,' he said. But he insisted: 'I swear on my life had no intention of killing him.'

The jury believed him. Mr Khan was unanimously cleared of murder, but convicted of manslaughter. Sentencing has been adjourned.

Clearly Mr Khan's actions were entirely wrong and cannot be condoned for a moment. Mr Brown's killing was a shocking and criminal waste of life. Nevertheless, the BNP is now using the incident in its campaign literature with a cynicism that beggars belief.

An article posted on the official BNP website is called: Racist Murder in Britain - The Shocking Truth. 'An epidemic of anti-white racist violence and murder is being covered up by the government, the police and the media,' it claims.

The fate of Mr Brown, it alleges, was a prime example of this.

'So convinced were Mr Brown's family that the murder was racially motivated that they invited six of Stoke's BNP councillors to be pallbearers at Keith's funeral.'

No mention here of how a nonracial dispute seemed to have escalated only after Mr Brown's contact with the BNP.

But the party's Alby Walker is unrepentant. 'The system has let Keith down and justice has not been served. Justice in this country depends solely on the colour of your skin - if you are white you don't get justice.

'If Keith had killed Khan in the same circumstances I believe he would be facing years behind bars for murder and would not have got away with manslaughter. There seems a reluctance among the police to upset the Muslim community.

'They are terrified of a race riot in Stoke, but I don't think we are on the verge of that.' Despite, many feel, the best efforts of the BNP.

What was it Nick Griffin said at Keith Brown's funeral? Ah yes: 'It's a very sad day, almost unbearable' . . . but not, it might be argued, for the BNP, which so cynically turned the event into a party political broadcast.

Daily Mail

Muslim cleared of murdering BNP man

A Muslim elder who stabbed his neighbour in the back was dramatically cleared of murder yesterday after a court was told that he had endured a living hell of racism, threats and violence. Habib Khan, 50, of Stoke-on-Trent, was found guilty of the manslaughter of Keith Brown, 52, a BNP activist and an alleged friend of the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, who attended his funeral.

Khan killed Mr Brown last July after finding him in a struggle with his 24-year-old son, Azir. He said he thought that Mr Brown was going to kill Azir and claimed that Mr Brown fell on to a knife he was holding at his back.

Stafford Crown Court was told that Mr Brown, an unemployed father of seven with a long criminal record, began a frightening campaign of intimidation, violence and racial abuse against the Khan family after objecting to his neighbour building a grand house next to his own modest home. A few months before the stabbing, Mr Brown’s son, Ashley Barker, 20, was convicted of assaulting Khan. He hit him repeatedly on the head with a metal object on his wrist.

The court was told that Mr Brown had been jailed in his youth for wounding with intent and that his most recent conviction was in 2000 for assault. Khan, on the other hand, was a pillar of his local mosque.

Prosecuting authorities were accused in court of repeatedly failing to sustain convictions against Mr Brown and Mr Barker, both BNP activists, described by the defence as “the neighbours from hell”.

During the construction of Khan’s house, Mr Brown and Mr Barker took sledgehammers to the walls. Mr Brown was convicted of criminal damage but appealed. When the prosecution failed to warn any witnesses about the appeal hearing, a judge overturned the conviction.

After the Khan house was built, Mr Brown and Mr Barker kept up with their persecution of the family, once shouting “Paki b******s” at Khan and his wife in their garden and threatening to kill them. The police were called but Khan withdrew his complaint in the hope of seeking mediation. Next Mr Brown smashed the windows of the Khans’ conservatory. Khan complained to the police. Mr Brown and Mr Barker were charged with racially aggravated harassment but the prosecution dropped the case. “How would you feel discovering the prosecuting authorities had simply failed you?” Simon Drew, Khan’s lawyer, said. After Mr Barker was arrested and bailed for his attack on Khan last year, he returned immediately to Khan’s home and threw a stone at the bedroom window. He then shouted: “You are dead.” Mr Barker was charged with witness intimidation but that accusation was dropped after he pleaded guilty to assault.

Mr Drew said: “It was pure intimidation. It was nothing else. It was vile, hostile bullying.” On the afternoon of the stabbing, Khan was alerted by one his daughters that Mr Brown was trying to kill Azir by squeezing his neck.

Khan grabbed a sharp 10in kitchen knife, leapt over the garden fence and rushed to Mr Brown. He said Mr Brown mouthed that he would kill Azir. Khan said that he touched Mr Brown’s back so that he would feel the blade but Mr Brown fell back on to it.

Mr Barker, who had gone to join the fight, was left with holes in his head after allegedly being hit by a brick by Khan’s sons. The jury has so far been unable to reach verdicts on charges that Khan and Azir wounded Mr Barker. The judge adjourned the case until Wednesday. Khazir Habib Saddique has admitted wounding Mr Barker.

Times Online

Fueding knife victim was BNP activist

A father of seven allegedly stabbed to death by his Asian neighbour was a British National Party activist who had subjected the family next door to years of racial taunts, threats and violence, a murder trial was told yesterday.

Keith Brown's family had helped the far-right party in the local elections in Stoke-on-Trent and Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, attended his funeral, Stafford Crown Court was told.

Mr Brown and his family, none of whom worked, were said to have been jealous of their industrious Pakistani neighbours and to have inflicted a spiral of abuse on them. Habib Khan is accused of stabbing Mr Brown to death with an eight-inch kitchen knife.

Mr Brown's son, Ashley Barker, 20, was asked about his connections with the BNP and said that he had helped at election time. “We have done leafleting for them,” he told the jury. He said that Mr Griffin had not known his father. “What was he doing at the funeral?” Anthony Barker, QC, for Mr Khan, asked. Ashley Barker replied: “Respect for my old man.”

Mr Khan's barrister told the court that Mr Khan's family had amassed their wealth through running a kebab shop. Mr Khan had bought the plot next door to Mr Brown and built a grand house on it. Mr Brown had objected to planning permission but it was granted.

During construction, Mr Brown parked three scrap cars in an access lane to prevent the builders reaching the plot. One morning, Mr Brown and Ashley Barker rose early and tried to knock the building down. They were prosecuted for attacking it with hammers. After all that failed and the Asians' home was completed, Mr Brown shouted to Mr Khan's wife “that she was a Paki bastard, he was going to smash her and her home up”, Mr Khan's barrister said.

Once, when Mr Khan came out of his house, Mr Brown made slashing movements with his finger across his throat. Another time Mr Brown shouted “f***ing Paki” at him. Mr Brown broke windows in the Khans' conservatory. Mr Brown and Ashley Barker were charged with racially aggravated harassment but the case was dropped.

Five months before Mr Brown was killed, Ashley Barker was convicted of causing actual bodily harm to Mr Khan by punching his head three times. During the fracas last July, when Mr Khan is said to have stabbed Mr Brown to death outside their homes, Mr Khan's two sons, both in their twenties, attacked Ashley Barker using a metal pipe and bricks, the court was told. Ashley Barker needed stitches to his head and kneecap.

Ashley Barker was allowed to give evidence screened by a heavy red curtain. He insisted that it was the Khans who were to blame for the bad feeling by lying about events.

The assault conviction arose from a confrontation in which Mr Khan had hit him first, he said. Both families installed closed-circuit television cameras to record what happened outside their houses.

“You and your father had made these people's lives a misery because of your racial hatred and envy,” Mr Khan's barrister said.

Ashley Barker replied: “No, I've got nothing against Asians.” He said that he played football with an Asian friend up the street.

Mr Brown's daughter, Bianca Barker, 18, said that Asian women neighbours laughed as she tended to her father as he bled to death on the pavement. Miss Barker said that female members of the family next door appeared to take pride after Mr Khan plunged a meat-cutting knife five inches into her father's back. A videotape was played showing Miss Barker's tearful interview with police two days after her father was killed.

“I went outside to my dad and I asked him if he was all right but he didn't answer. There were a lot of Asians standing in Mr Khan's yard. A girl started laughing at me,” she said.

Miss Barker ran back into her house to get a blanket to put on her father. A police officer asked Miss Barker what the family next door were doing. “Like they were all happy, proud of what they had done,” she said. “They all seemed to be laughing and cheering.”

Mr Khan denies murder. He and his son, Azir Habib Saddique, deny wounding Ashley Barker. Another son, Khazir Habib Saddique, has admitted wounding Ashley Barker.

The trial continues.

Times Online

BNP man’s death - sub judice no bar to BNP hate campaign

The death of a Stoke-on-Trent BNP activist in what police are describing as a “dispute between neighbours” has been hyped out of all proportion by the BNP and its adherents, despite the paucity of details so far released.

Keith Brown had apparently been involved in a long-standing dispute with his Muslim neighbours, which resulted in an altercation on July 6th. During the fracas, Mr Brown was stabbed and died. A number of people were arrested and later released on police bail, and Habib Khan charged with murder. Khan appeared before North Staffordshire magistrates and was remanded to appear at Stafford Crown Court on Monday July 16.

Beyond stating that Mr Brown’s death came about as the result of a dispute between neighbours, Staffordshire police have released few other details. How the altercation arose and who instigated it is not known - these are facts that will be established at Mr Khan’s trial, and until then - quite properly - any speculation or apportioning of blame is prohibited by the rules of sub judice.

However, the fact of one of their own having allegedly been murdered, and allegedly by a Muslim, has proved more than the BNP and its fanatical following can bear, and the party set out to capitalise on the tragedy of Mr Brown’s death.

Very quickly the BNP website, ignoring the fact that nobody accused of a criminal offence may be presumed to be guilty until a jury finds them so, was talking of a “gang of Muslim thugs” and detailed a number of (unproven) allegations made by Mr Brown against his neighbours, saying:

The months of anguish continued for Keith, abuse, assaults and smashed windows until finally the inevitable but entirely avoidable happed. Last Friday afternoon witnesses saw Keith and his neighbours in yet another flare up. Keith had just returned from picking up his three youngest children from school when he was confronted by a group of Muslim men outside his house. Whilst Keith was remonstrating with these men another Muslim man crept from behind a car and plunged a large knife in his back.

Clearly, the BNP does not require anything so mundane as a trial to establish guilt - but then, fascists have a track-record of never greatly bothering themselves with such fripperies wherever they have gained power.

Whether the allegations and summation of events as given on the BNP website is true or not is neither here nor there. The fact is that they have no business being aired in public when the guilt or innocence of a man charged with murder depends upon him coming before an unbiased jury. No newspaper would dare to publish the version of events appearing on the BNP website without a heavy degree of qualification - such that the reader would be in no doubt that the newspaper was publishing allegations, and not established facts.

Even before the BNP website had published its version of events, the party’s keyboard army of bloggers and forum trolls were hard at work hyping their dead comrade into some kind of hero who had fallen in an undeclared race war - one even managing to compare his death to those of the British soldiers who fell at the Battle of the Somme. Calls for revenge came thick and fast, and for once the mask of respectability was discarded as the open racism and hatred of the average BNP member spewed on to the Internet.

We have no more idea than the average BNP member of exactly what led to the death of Keith Brown. Whether his death had anything to do with his politics, his neighbours’ religion, or really was simply a dispute between neighbours that - regardless of politics, religion or race - escalated into violence, are matters that will be established in a court, and not on the poisonous blogs of BNP members.

We hope that all right-thinking people will agree with us that anybody committing an act of murder, whatever the circumstances, deserves the appropriate punishment - as do those who wilfully ignore the long established principle that a person is presumed innocent until proved guilty, and that to presume guilt and to make public utterances to that effect is a contempt of court proceedings likewise deserving of the appropriate punishment.