It's time for LU to say goodbye

For seven years, first on my own server then on Blogger, Lancaster Unity (formerly Lancaster UAF) has been fighting fascism and racism as embodied in such groups as the BNP and the EDL. From originally being set up to accompany local anti-fascist activity, the blog spread itself wider until it became a national resource with, over the years, many excellent contributors and countless thousands of readers.

When LU began, there was a gap in the market for a continually updated blog that has now been closed by a number of anti-fascist organisations elsewhere, some of which are listed below. Also, the advent and popularity of Twitter and Facebook (both easily accessible and updatable via smartphones) has made the anti-fascist presence on the internet much larger and more effective than it has ever been before. While the bad guys use technology to humiliate and embarrass themselves, anti-fascists have used it to inform and organise.

Because of ongoing health problems which are drastically eating into the time I can devote to Lancaster Unity, it has gradually become a copy and paste blog with very few original articles. This is no bad thing because it's always useful to have one type of news that appeals to a certain group located in a single place. This role though, is rapidly being superceded by Twitter, which does the same job very well. Better, in fact, than we ever could. Thus, it's time for Lancaster Unity to stand down, though the blog as it is will remain here as an archive and a resource for anti-fascists.

It's not too bad a time to be going. The EDL, although it has political ambitions, seems incapable of keeping itself from fragmenting in all directions, while the BNP at the moment appears to be shrinking by the day while Nick Griffin spends half his time in the European Parliament participating in the gravy train that he once professed to despise, and the other half boring us all to death with his tedious stories about smoked salmon.

Even better, it's a real pleasure to be leaving in the week that two of the killers of Stephen Lawrence have finally been convicted. We look forward to the day that the rest of them get banged up.

Big thanks to Denise and John, both of whom helped make LU what it was, and very many thanks to our contributors: Andy Minion, Iliacus, Roddy, Larry and all the rest of them. Special mentions go to NewsHound and Zaahid, both excellent news-spotters who should get their own sites together and keep up the good work. Naturally, a site such as this is useless without readers, and we've had a loyal and feisty readership over the years whose contributions have easily been as interesting as ours. Thank you to all of you (except the nazis, who are just complete morons).

We've been helped since the blog began by a number of organisations. Principal among these are Searchlight (who gave us essential help to get started in the first place, and who we worked closely with on numerous occasions), Hope not hate and Unite Against Fascism. Special thanks to those three and to all the other people who have helped out in one way or another.

It's been (at times) great fun, interesting and bloody hard work (especially on the all-night election specials). Thank you to everyone for all your input.

Although I have a good deal less time and energy these days, I shall be posting occasionally at my own blog space on Searchlight's new website. Thanks to Searchlight for offering me both the opportunity and the space. John has moved over to Anti-Fascists Online.

Ketlan
Lancaster Unity

This is not a comprehensive list of anti-fascist resources. If you think I've left anyone out who should be included, email me or make a comment and I'll add them.

Searchlight
Hope not hate
Unite Against Fascism
Anti-Fascists Online
EDL News
Everything EDL
Malatesta's Blog
Love Music Hate Racism
Show Racism the Red Card
EDL Watch at Urban75
HateWatch
Indymedia
Love Music Hate Homophobia
Liverpool Antifascists
Kick It Out
ICARE

Happy Christmas to all our readers!

An extremely Happy Christmas to all of our supporters who celebrate it and our very best wishes to those who don't (except the EDL, who we hope have a piss-poor Winterval). Whichever you are, let's all look forward to a great (and peaceful) 2012 for everyone. Special thanks from us here at Lancaster Unity to all our friends, fellow writers and readers who have contributed to our success during 2011. Your help and support has been very much appreciated.

We're taking a couple of days off while we sleep off the nut roast/turkey and sulk because Santa STILL hasn't brought the iPad despite all the hints, dammit. ;-)

Enjoy the holiday! We'll see you soon!

Cheers everyone
All at Lancaster Unity x

A couple of apologies...

Apologies to everyone for disappearing for a few weeks but I was suddenly taken ill, which kept me out of action for a while, then this was followed up with a pretty disgusting bug which kept me fully occupied for a week or so. My computer, obviously bored with being ignored for weeks on end, decided to teach me a lesson and destroyed both my main hard drive and my back-up drive. Consequently, all emails that have been sent to Lancaster Unity since I got ill have disappeared into the ether. If you were kind enough to sent in an article recently, please resend it and accept my apologies for the loss. I now have two new hard drives and an external drive. Belt AND braces.

And big kudos to John for keeping things going with no explanation until now. :-)

Antifascist

Who Reads The Truth About The BNP?

An Internet, earlier today.

At the moment, I'm having a bit of a Dark Night Of The Soul about the point of all this internet malarky. Well, maybe not a “Dark Night”; more of an “Overcast Brunch”, but I was pondering a simple question: With all the evidence that's out there already of Griffin and Dowson's cheap, barely-disguised criminality, and with all of the new revelations that surface on an almost daily basis, Why Does Anyone Still Support Them?

Socially insulated by having little contact with people who, if they aren't already active Anti-Fascists, would certainly help out if we're ever short-handed, it's easy to fall into the trap of assuming that there must be Amazonian Tribes, as yet untroubled by Missionaries, who've heard of the endless Griffin begging letters and who fall around laughing at the mere mention of “Truth Truck”.

Some of the continued Supporters can easily be put in the “wilfully delusional” camp. The likes of Paul “Green Arrow” Morris and his shrinking band of “Kinsmen” have, by now, invested so much self respect (a curious concept where he's concerned, I know – but hear me out) and fervour in their shrill support of the BNP and its Leadership that they might suffer total mental collapse, and the noose beckon were they to ever finally accept the evidence of their own eyes (indeed, he was suspiciously quiet on the matter of the Dowson Creditor's Letter...).

Then there are the “Rank & File” of the BNP's support. Those people (often elderly, it must be said), who, incensed by a shocking expose they've read in the Daily Mail, outraged by something they heard at Lunch Club That-Happened-To-My-Friend-Enid's-Daughter-Or-Was-It-Her-Milkman-Well-Never-Mind-It-Happened-To-Someone-And-It's-All-True-And-It's-A-Bloody-Liberty-It-Really-Is, or impressed by seeing That Nice Young Man With The Wonky Eye on an Election Broadcast, fire off their fifteen quid to Belfast, (or Nuneaton, or Welshpool, or wherever else it is this week) and (having calmed down, had a nice cup of tea and had some sense talked into them by the Grandkids) let their membership lapse after a year.

As do almost 60% of Memberships.

According to a 2008 survey conducted by Researchers at Edinburgh University, BNP Voters have the lowest I.Q of all political parties, at an average of 98.4. This, in itself, may account for something.

But then it dawned on me (my own I.Q reaches 98.6 on a good day) just where the evidence of the corruption within the BNP appears. Blogs like this one. Any number of Right-Wing talkboards and chat rooms. Everywhere, in fact, except where Griffin's mercilessly fleeced Supporters are likely to actually look.

A few years ago, I set out on an ill-judged crusade to turn my late mother into a Silver Surfer. Safe in the knowledge that my 86-year-old Uncle was merrily tapping away and chatting with old Wartime Buddies the World over, I thought it couldn't be too difficult, could it?

Picture, if you will, the Taliban trying to launch a Space Shuttle.

After several hours, many exasperated coffee breaks, enough cigarettes to resurface the M1 and giving careful consideration to taking up Crack-smoking as a way of calming down, I had shown her the basics and she had constructed a basic list of Bookmarks.

The Guardian Online. BBC Food & Drink. Wikipedia. Derby Evening Telegraph. Derbyshire County Cricket Club. Royal Horticultural Society.

All was right with the world.

A few months later, I checked her list of Bookmarks. The Guardian Online. BBC Food & Drink. Wikipedia. Derby Evening Telegraph. Derbyshire County Cricket Club. Royal Horticultural Society. Nothing else.

At this point I gave up. I now have a nervous tic and a £200 a day Crack habit.

The thing is that, had she been a typical online BNP Supporter, her sole knowledge of the Party would extend only to their Official Website, where all is Sunny, Griffin is working tirelessly to save the Nation with His Team of Experts by his side, and Exciting New Initiatives and Political Breakthroughs are always just around the corner.

At this year's LMHR Festival in Barnsley, a handful of bedraggled BNP braved the Yorkshire weather and gleeful derision of just about everyone to set up their paste table in a shopping precinct under the watchful eye of the local Constabulary.

An enjoyable hour spent politely chatting with the (largely elderly) shoppers approaching the Stall was all it took to turn many potential supporters away, simply by telling them the truth and where they could find out more.

What my Colleagues here at LU (I'm tempted to call them “My Kinsmen” just for the wind-up value) do is invaluable: An authoritative, exhaustive, searchable online record of the goings-on of the Far Right going back more than five years. It's hardly any wonder that a substantial proportion of our Readership consists of the Enemy wanting to get the lowdown on what's going on with their own Party.

It's also true that the tiniest sidebar in a National Newspaper is going to be read and talked about by more people than the likes of us can even dream of.

Today's snippet in the Guardian (which has, predictably, sent Morris and his Idiot Disciples into a frothing tumult of astonishing (and entirely libellous) naked racism), a forthcoming piece to look out for in the next edition of a Popular Satirical Magazine and other mainstream reports currently on the horizon, will reach a huge number of people who've never given the BNP a second glance; probably even falling into the trap of thinking of them as "Just Another Political Party", if "a bit of a cranky one" (the sort of people who might think of Ebola as "Just Another Virus",if "a bit worse than a dicky tummy").

Given that the Facts are only just beginning to receive wider, mainstream coverage now that things are in the final death-spiral it can't hurt to start getting the truth out to more mainstream media outlets - they're generally always on the lookout for a good story.

And with a saga like The Last Days Of The BNP, with its embarrassment of twists, turns, outrageous revelations and mad characters that make Dickens at his most hyperactive read like Proust on Mogadon, this is certainly a cracker.

Can't hurt, can it?

Happy New Year to all our readers

Happy 2010 to all our readers from everyone here at Lancaster Unity. And here's something to get you into 2010 on the right foot...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy Christmas to all our supporters!

An extremely Happy Christmas to all of our supporters who celebrate it and our very best wishes to those who don't. Whichever you are, let's all look forward to a great (and peaceful) 2010 for everyone. Special thanks from us here at Lancaster Unity to all our friends, fellow writers and readers who have contributed to our success and our phenomenal growth during 2009. Your help and support has been very much appreciated.

We've got a busy and boisterous 2010 ahead of us what with a pile of local council elections coming up - to say nothing of a General Election - so we're taking a couple of days off.

Enjoy the holiday! We'll see you again on the 27th!

Love to all (except the BNP)
All at Lancaster Unity

Inside view on the BNP

Burly security staff in heavy, black coats guard the door while police pace outside the Frank Townend Centre in Cleveleys.

It's not the usual midweek sight outside the Beach Road community centre where children go for dance classes and ladies meet for art and craft sessions. But it's not every night the BNP holds a rally in the quaint seaside town. And it's certainly not often the press get invited to see what goes on behind those well guarded doors. So when Clive Jefferson, North West BNP regional organiser, ushered me into their meeting room, I was quite taken aback.

Going inside, I pass a passionate group of anti-fascist protesters waving placards and shouting. One protester, Jane from Blackpool Trades Union Council told me: "We will fight wherever the BNP stand. If we stand together, we will oppose them quicker."

Then there's an army of bouncers, wearing BNP badges, to negotiate. I join around 40 people – BNP members and invitees – who have turned up to listen to the party's policies and their plans to form a branch in Wyre.

Stood in front of a large banner proclaiming "British jobs for British workers" with a Union Jack flag beside him Mr Jefferson said: "We are a legitimate party, we have a right to hold a meeting here. We want British jobs for British workers. We want the troops out of Iraq."

The audience – a few women but mainly men in their 50s and 60s – burst into applause. But what about their ideas for Cleveleys? James Clayton, candidate for next week's Jubilee ward by-election, said: "The major problems are anti-social behaviour and drug use in Cleveleys, needles being found on the Promenade, mess in the roads, grass cuttings and street lighting. A lot of people have shown interest in our party and this is our chance to show ourselves for who we are, which isn't the skinhead or thugs and yob image."

One member offers me a drink as he says: "We're not intimidating are we? We get a lot of bad press but we're not thugs."

But I don't like what I hear next as around six people put their hands up to request an application form to become a BNP member. One convert shouts: "I'll have an application form, but not a coloured one!"

It was greeted with laughter by most in the audience, and was a deeply unpleasant reminder of where I was. I had a distinctly uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. While inside the building the recruitment drive was in full flow, it was a different story outside as four people got turned away. All were either black or Asian. There were no members of the ethnic minorities inside.

As I left a security guard told me: "After a while it was getting full up so we decided it had to be members only."

Strange that, as I was given a seat all to myself and I'm not a member. And I swear there was plenty of space.

Madhvi Chabba-Moudgil, 35, from St Annes, was one of those turned away, along with partner Vishal Moudgil and brother SK Chabba. She said: "Allowing a party that only allows certain people to join only goes towards a breakdown of relationships between all sections of the community and further leads to spoil the good work of people who work towards integration and good relations between different communities and classes of society. In this day and age, for a society of this kind to require police presence at a community centre, is a very sad statement in humanity. What hope is there for integration of society?"

Stephen Howard, 32, who is black and from Cleveleys, who was also turned away, said: "When I asked why, they said: 'what does BNP stand for?'"

The refusals put Bernie Naughton off from going inside. The 42-year-old from Poulton said: "I came down to hear their opinions but then I saw they were not letting Stephen in I changed my mind."

Around seven police officers were outside to make sure the rally and protest passed off peacefully. Supt Richard Spedding said officers would be looking into the circumstances surrounding people being refused entry. He then praised protesters, including those from Unite Against Fascism, Lancaster Unity and Blackpool Fylde and Wyre Trades Union Council, for how they behaved during their demonstration.

Anti-fascist campaigners are planning a protest in London against the BNP leader's presence on BBC One's Question Time on October 22. Black writer Bonnie Greer will take part in a televised debate with far right party leader Nick Griffin. They will be joined by Justice Secretary Jack Straw – the first senior Labour politician to say that he was willing to appear on the show with Mr Griffin.

* The other candidates for the Jubilee by-election are: Roy Hopwood representing the UK Independence Party, Wayne Martin for Labour and Tory David Walmsley.

Fleetwood Today

One Flew Over The Pig Farm: the BNP and us in 2008 - May

If the plans we have in place to prevent electoral fraud via the spoiling of ballot boxes works then I expect three BNP officials to be elected in London. If their is fraud then only Richard will get elected.

Around the country I expect 40 new councillors to be elected and us to come second in about 120 other places.

So wrote political genius and legal mastermind Lee John Barnes as polling for the local and GLA elections began on May 1st.

Mocked by many as the BNP's most suitable case for treatment, Barnes's remarks were derided for being hopelessly optimistic and quite in keeping with his usual predictive extravagance, but what shouldn't be forgotten is that - demented though he may be - Barnes is close to the core of the BNP leadership, and would have had a good idea of the party's private expectations.

Keeping their expectations secret was part of the BNP's game in the run up to the elections, but we have a fair idea that Barnes (himself possessing all the political acumen of a brick) was merely passing on what the leadership believed it could achieve in near perfect political and social circumstances for the racist party. The leadership wasn't alone: the BNP's keyboard army continually referred to 2008 as "the year of the BNP" and their hopes at times verged on the stratospheric.

Opinion amongst anti-fascists was divided as to how well (or badly) the BNP would do. As discontent with the Labour government reached new heights, as migration scares broke almost daily in the press, and as the BBC's infamous "White" season climaxed, it did seem to some that May 2008 really could see the BNP make its long-predicted breakthrough. At Lancaster Unity we exercised restraint, keeping in mind the BNP's failure of the previous year (also prematurely hailed as "the year of the BNP"), and having reported on a mostly uninspiring series of BNP local by-election results during the course of 2007 and early 2008. It wasn't that we didn't harbour concerns, but our experience told us not to expect a political earthquake on May 1st.

Following the dud that was the BNP's 2007 local election performance, and coming as another bout of internal feuding rumbled on, Nick Griffin and his inner circle were deeply concerned that another bad BNP performance would see the end of his leadership as the more astute among the membership tired of Griffin's endless "jam tomorrow" promises. Their plan to circumvent dissention and bolster morale was tried, tested, simple - and guaranteed to work on a party membership remarkable for its gullibility and lack of political perception: everything, no matter how trivial, would be claimed as a BNP victory, even if the polar opposite were true.

To that end members were encouraged to stand in the most paltry of parish and town council elections, and especially to stand in obscure parishes where the BNP's candidate could expect to be returned unopposed. This gave the party the opportunity to brag that it had so many councillors "elected" here or there even before a ballot had been cast on May 1st. That these parish councillors had little or no power was never highlighted, and the party was always careful to omit the all-important word "parish" before that of "councillor".

It was simple trickery, mostly designed to fool the BNP membership, and it worked handsomely.

On election day we experimented with "live" blogging, and the Lancaster Unity community rallied round to support us in what proved to be a long and interesting night.

May 1st 2008 represented the culmination of the BNP's biggest push to date, but as the results began to come in it was obvious that all their effort and bluster was bringing in but scant reward. Searchlight later reported:

On election day the BNP predicted it would win 40 new councillors and three seats on the London Assembly. However, when the first results came in, it quickly became clear that this was too optimistic. As the night continued the size of the BNP failure became apparent.

The BNP won three seats in Stoke-on-Trent and two each in Amber Valley, Rotherham and Nuneaton & Bedworth. It also took one seat in Thurrock, Three Rivers, Pendle and Calderdale. It also successfully defended seats in Epping and Burnley. This takes the number of BNP councillors to 55, up from 45 before these elections.

However, it also lost two seats it was defending in Epping and one in Kirklees.

In most areas the BNP share of the vote was well down on last year, which in itself was down on the previous election, particularly in its traditional heartlands.

An increase of ten councillors and a falling vote was hardly a glittering success and certainly not what a nervy Nick Griffin wanted to hear. Barnes quickly backtracked on his "40 new BNP councillors" statement, claiming that he had in fact meant 40 new parish and district councillors, and that was enough to satisfy the majority of BNP troops, who convinced themselves that they had somehow made an historic advance, with one of their better known but more moronic bloggers postulating that in future May 1st might be renamed "BNP Day".

Knowing that the more savvy and rebellious of his members would see straight through the hype, a threatened Griffin desperately hoped to pull a Barnbrook out of the hat in the GLA elections, which were counted on May 2nd.

The BNP could only win seats on the GLA (which, for their purposes, they elevated to something close to the fount of all power) through the party top-up system, and initially believed they were on course to take three GLA seats through these back-door means. As it became increasingly obvious that the party would be lucky to break the 5% barrier necessary to give them a single seat, so the expansive predictions were reined in and an anxious day began for Nick Griffin.

Lancaster Unity again "live blogged" the results with the help of our own loyal community (and as large an audience of BNP lurkers). For much of the night it seemed that the BNP's Richard Barnbrook would not pass the 5% threshold, and while we waited the BNP contented itself with euphoric celebrations on the news that Conservative Boris Johnson had ousted Labour's Ken Livingstone in the mayoral race. Lee Barnes commented incisively:

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

I AM LAUGHING AT YOU

AND I AM GOING TO BE LAUGHING ALL NIGHT YOU PRICK

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

RED KEN GONE

BNP IN THE GLA

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Barnes was more than premature in believing that the BNP had secured a GLA seat, since it was by no means certain at that hour that they had. Richard Barnbrook's appalling performance in the mayoral contest, where he had picked up a derisory 2.9% (not something Barnes dwelled on), suggested caution.

At one in the morning, however, it became clear that Barnbrook had crept into the London Assembly on 5.4%, and the online element of the BNP erupted with jubilation at their victory, egged on by Griffinites determined to gloss over the uncomfortable fact that in the most ideal circumstances possible the party had stalled in the local election polls and failed by a long way to achieve its GLA targets.

Naturally we weren't delighted with Barnbrook's election, but it wasn't the end of the world, given the pre-poll fears of many that London's PR system might provide the BNP with the electoral breakthrough it craved. We were also happy that the BNP's man on the Assembly was Barnbrook, who immediately demonstrated why in an incoherent slurry-shouty (not to say lonely) speech that set the tone for his GLA tenure.


Barnbrook's election was almost certainly the single most important factor in saving Nick Griffin's leadership bacon. The man had, after all, yet again presided over what were a generally uninspiring set of election results, the only real high point being Barnbrook's GLA seat. In consequence, the hyping of Barnbrook continued apace, but just in case any awkward BNP members of rebellious bent should point out that 5.4% wasn't really very good at all, the party came up with a tale of “massive and organised ballot box tampering”, claiming 400,000 votes went west, a lie quickly nailed by Searchlight.

It was at this moment that the most unlikely (and ill-timed) challenge to Nick Griffin's leadership was announced by disaffected Kirklees BNP councillor Colin Auty. Soon after that, an email of disputed provenance was passed on to Lancaster Unity. Allegedly from the irrepressible Lee Barnes in his capacity as Director of the BNP's Legal Department, the missive certainly hit all the usual Barnsian notes:

I have been instructed to inform you of a bogus and illegal leadership challenge and the disciplinary measures we are now putting in place to squash this diversionary and divisive activity in the bud. This is a deceitful and cynical attempt to divert the party’s attention away from the historical victory last week in London and to derail the activist’s attention away from the all important European Elections next June.

This is a sham nothing and more than a forged challenge devised by the liars, thieves and splitters who tried to wreck the party in December 2007 before their unsuccessful coup was successfully thwarted by quick action from the Party’s own security, legal and intelligence departments. The challenger claims is to be Councilor Colin Autty from Kirkless in Yorkshire, a decent man who is known to many of you but he is being used as a puupet by the gang of malcontents who stole party emails, stole party property, stole thousand of pounds of party monies, spread malicious rumours about the Chairman, myself and other senior party officers on bogus Blogs and through a series of bogus bulletins which they prepared using stolen membership lists which they then passed on to our enemies in MI5, The Special Branch, The Labour Party and the Searchlight organisation. They then tried unsuccessfully to set up a rival political party. It is a cylical attempt by our enemies to try and derail the Party and to stop activities to get BNP members electd to the European Parliament.

The dust had hardly settled after the local elections when three of the BNP's newly elected (unopposed) town councillors in Colwyn Bay resigned from the party for reasons not entirely clear, but protestations on the part of one of them, John Oddy, that "I have never been a racist" indicated a belated opening of eyes to what the BNP is really all about. That, however, proved not to be the case. Oddy had just been fined £100 for using a mobile telephone while driving his car, but later still he told the North Wales Daily Post:

“I feel as I have become more high profile I have clashed with the hierarchy in the party and this has now come to a head and led to my resignation. I am at odds with the opinions of the Welsh branch of the BNP, although I have no quarrel with the party nationally.”

Paul Harley, who resigned with Oddy, said: "I have found out more about the party and I am not happy with what I have found out."

Better late than never, but was that the whole truth? Antifascist wasn't convinced:

All three remain members of the local golf club, a place where the Colwyn Bay glitterati meet, confer and make deals which, in the words of one of our correspondents, is full of BNP sympathisers, covert supporters and party members, and none of the three protagonists have showed any sign of feeling the need to disassociate from the club - which leads one to believe that this evolution from BNP to Independent is nothing but a cosmetic change, designed simply to allay the fears of the locals that the Colwyn Bay trio may be too close to the BNP and thus they might get grubby by association.

The BNP met with a humiliating rebuff in Stoke-on-Trent, where Lord Kamlesh Patel was to discuss violent extremism with local community leaders. Refusing to speak to Alby Walker, BNP group leader on Stoke City Council, Lord Patel said:

"I make no apology for refusing to meet with the BNP during my visit to Stoke. My work is focused on looking at what positive actions local communities can take to prevent extremism. I do not believe that any party with extremist views has anything constructive to contribute to this agenda."

With a leadership challenge pending, Griffinite spin on the BNP's election performance reached new heights (or depths, as you will), with the party's website grandstanding the headline: "Tories, Plaid Cymru and Lib Dems trounced in Swansea". The problem was that the BNP had also been trounced, not winning a single seat. A spokesman for the Welsh Tories told the Swansea Evening Post: "These absurd claims fly in the face of the facts. The BNP's divisive, extremist views were rejected by voters in Swansea and every other part of Wales."

At Stafford Crown Court the trial of Stoke-on-Trent man Habib Khan opened. Khan was charged with the murder of Keith Brown, a BNP activist who had subjected the Khan family to "years of racial taunts, threats and violence", as The Times reported:

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.

Keith Brown's tragic death the previous June was the culmination of a series of violent incidents between the neighbouring Brown and Khan families, one the BNP spun for all it was worth. Nick Griffin, who appears never to have met Keith Brown, cynically turned up at his funeral, which became little more than a BNP propaganda exercise as its leader gave a tearful interview to the risible "BNPtv News". The party shamelessly ignored sub-judice as it "reported" its version of events, which cast Brown in the light of a martyr to Muslim violence.


This was very far from the truth, as Stafford Crown Court heard. Habib Khan, described as a "mild and calm-mannered family man", had taken a knife to threaten Brown, who had hold of one of his sons. The trial judge said that Khan had acted "in the honest belief that he needed to protect his son" but in doing so had killed Mr Brown.

Khan was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter and wounding, and later received an eight-year prison sentence.

Nick Griffin and Colin Auty

Meanwhile, alleged BNP elections "guru" and erstwhile Griffinite Eddy Butler waded into Colin Auty's leadership challenge in a strange, hectoring email that spoke in one moment of "our Parties [sic] openness and commitment to democracy" then talked of "anyone who has the temerity to wish to stand for leadership". The "temerity to wish"?

Butler gave out strong hints that the BNP's rules might need to be changed to preserve Nick Griffin's position: "There will be pressure, perhaps unstoppable pressure, to change the rules so that leadership challenges can only take place every four years." No prizes for guessing where the "unstoppable pressure" would originate.

As it later turned out, the Griffin-inspired notion of allowing challenges only every four years was a con being worked on the BNP membership, who would be got - through a bogus compromise - to give Griffin what he really wanted.

Butler, possessed of a very Stalinist idea of "democracy", called on members not to sign Colin Auty's nomination forms, referred to the councillor as a "joke candidate" and recommended that the leadership election "should be carried out in the most rapid manner possible with zero publicity allowed" to Auty.

Paranoic Griffinite attrition on Auty was relentless. The BNP's own secret forum banned any pro-Auty discussion, while its dirty tricks department marched around the internet spreading black propaganda. BNP branches were instructed not to invite Auty to speak at their meetings, and branches which had booked troubadour Auty to sing cancelled.

Auty's campaign manager, Roger Robertson, the BNP's former South-East Regional Organiser, was told that he faced disciplinary proceedings, much as Mike Easter (Chris Jackson's manager the previous year) found himself subject to a Griffinite fit-up.

The intention was clearly to dissuade BNP members from signing Auty's nomination papers, the implied threat being that they, too, would face expulsion. It was a telling measure of the febricity infecting the top of the BNP that this vicious overkill was deployed to protect Nick Griffin from a challenge everybody knew he would walk.

In the meantime Richard Barnbrook made an utter fool of himself when he threatened to stampede into London mayor Boris Johnson's office with "100 young people". The brown-suited one had been to Sidcup, hoping to exploit the murder of Robert Knox. In a since deleted blog post he wrote:

I have invited all of the young people there to come down to City Hall this Tuesday for 9:30 in the morning. This knife crime has to be stopped. If I have to bring a 100 young people into Boris's office then that is what I will do.

Barnbrook and his aides stood waiting outside City Hall at the appointed time, ready to greet the throngs of incensed young militants rallying to his call. He waited, and waited, and waited, vainly scanning the horizon for signs of massed greasy hair and acne on the march, but saw only the familiar face of self-inflicted humiliation grinning directly back at him.

To be continued...

Happy 2009 from all at Lancaster Unity!

A happy, peaceful and prosperous 2009 to all our anti-fascist readers

Starting tomorrow, we begin our review of 2008, a pretty eventful year all round - and we get on with 2009 and whatever joys and sorrows it has waiting for us. It's going to be a busy year for all of us, so relax for the moment and remind yourselves of the highs and lows of 2008.

Join the fight - join the forum!

If you joined in our "live" blogging experiment on election night you'll remember that we had a lot of fun, and that we said we'd repeat the experience in the future.

Well, it set us thinking - elections and breaking news (like the BNP rebel expulsions) are real anti-fascist crowd-pullers, and while we can blog news and moderate comments in near real time, the process is cumbersome, especially for you as you need to constantly hit page refresh to keep up.

There is a better way, of course, and sometimes visitors have asked us to provide a regular forum for continued, more flowing discussion - so we have!

It's simply called Unity - because that says it all.

The forum is complementary to Lancaster Unity (and other Unity and anti-fascist websites), and we hope it becomes a major weapon in the fight against the far-Right.

We'll post the address of the Unity forum here at 10.00 a.m. on Sunday morning, and there will be a permanent link in the sidebar.

Self-registration is currently enabled, but we intend to move to Admin-approved registration soon after launch, so come early and get on board.

Time to renew the fight against the BNP

The past couple of days have been interesting for Lancaster Unity for a lot of reasons - not just the obvious ones. Our experiment with 'live' updating has been a lot of fun and a tremendous success thanks to our contributors who have plied us with information and laughs almost non-stop over this election period.

Thanks to Denise and her insatiable information-gathering, we have kept pretty much on top of things, giving our readers a snapshot of the current situation at any given moment. In fact, this election has been invaluable for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is by showing us that we can work in an entirely different way by embracing all the means that both new and old media can provide.

The results are not good - there's no getting away from that fact - though the BNP's net increase of ten councillors and the idiotic Richard Barnbrook's election to the London Assembly are more as a result of the rocky position in which the current government finds itself rather than anything the BNP has done or said. That said, the result is very far short of the BNP's expectation - they were hoping for forty new councillors and three Assembly members. And there is even more good news, as reported by Searchlight, which pointed out very clearly how the BNP's vote in many of its heartlands has gone down, in some cases quite considerably.Nevertheless, with the Euro-elections coming up, we need to remain alert and to keep working hard and continually against the ever-present threat of the far-right.

The election results themselves, though irritating, are not catastrophic. Given the usual disasters the BNP is prone to, we should lose half of the new input of BNP councillors within a year or so and Barnbrook will be sure to provide us with a constant stream of gaffes and idiocies to brighten the darkest days.

You can be sure that we at Lancaster Unity will be doing our bit in the fight against the BNP and that we will do as much as is possible to continue to spread the truth about the British National Party and its fascist links and followers, its covert racism and anti-semitism, and its continued internal corruption. The fight against the far-right is not over - it will probably never be over - but Lancaster Unity and its many friends and allies will be there at the front, with your help, doing its best to oppose it wherever we can.

Lancaster UAF becomes Lancaster Unity

Unite Against Fascism, like the former Anti-Nazi League, rightly began as a temporary alliance against resurgent fascism. However, since then, BNP councillors have unfortunately become part of the landscape. Various groups, including Lancaster UAF, have continued to oppose them between and beyond particular campaigns.

The shorter name, 'Lancaster Unity', will express continued opposition to racist division, reflecting our united work with other anti-fascist groups whose names and approaches differ, and points beyond anti-fascism towards racial unity. For these reasons, we will adopt the new name from today.

Please note: the blog will remain in the same location (at least for the foreseeable future).