The looming threat of terror that comes from the far right

The threat comes not from jihadis but 'neo-Nazis' out to kill black people, Jews and gays

Britain is facing the real risk today of a bombing campaign that targets random civilians for death - but it is being virtually ignored. When its supporters step closer every day to mass murder, nobody notices. When its perpetrators are caught, there is (at best) a little flick of information in News in Brief, before everyone goes back to talking about the Strictly Come Dancing race row. This silence suggests something dark about us - and requires us to change our behaviour, fast.

The campaign I am talking about is not being planned by jihadis or fringe Irish nationalists but by white "neo-Nazis" who want to murder Asians, black people, Jews and gays in the bizarre belief it will trigger a "race war".

They have struck before. Exactly a decade ago, a 22-year-old member of the British National Party called David Copeland planted bombs in Brixton, Brick Lane (where I live), and a gay pub in Old Compton Street. He managed to lodge a nail deep in a baby's skull, and to murder a pregnant woman, her gay best friend, and his partner. He bragged: "My aim was political. It was to cause a racial war in this country. There'd be a backlash from the ethnic minorities, then all the white people would go out and vote BNP."

The police are warning ever-more urgently that similar attacks seem to be coming today. The West Yorkshire Police recently launched a huge series of raids against far-right groups and found them in possession of 80 bombs - considerably more even than any jihadi group has been caught with in British history.

Last year, a 43-year-old man called Neil Lewington was arrested "on the cusp" of waging a "terror campaign", it emerged at his trial. He had built a bomb factory in his parents' house which he planned to use to launch attacks against people he considered to be "non-British". He was only caught by chance: he picked a panicked fight with a train conductor, and the police who turned up found he was laden with explosives.

The list of far right-wingers who have been busted for planning violence has spiked up in the past few years. In the home of a BNP election candidate called Robert Cottage in 2008, the police discovered "the largest amount of chemical explosives ever found in this country", they said.

The same year, a thug called Martyn Gilleard was caught with a huge stash of nail bombs, and rage-filled letters in which he declared: "I am so sick of hearing nationalists talk of killing Muslims, of blowing up mosques, of fighting back, only to see these acts of resistance fail to appear. The time has come to stop the talk and start to act." He was only caught by fluke: the police busted him for distributing child porn.

It's not hard to get in on this act. There are dozens of far-right websites that explain - with handy video links - how to make bombs, and then urge you to head to the nearest mosque, synagogue or gay club.

But as the New Statesman's Mehdi Hassan has pointed out, as far as public debate goes, it's as if these crimes never happened. While planned attacks by jihadis (rightly) dominate the news agenda for days, these remarkably similar plans pass unmentioned and unnoticed.

This disjunction exposes a rash of hypocrisy. The parts of the right that gleefully blame all Muslims for the actions of a tiny minority are mysteriously reluctant to apply the same arguments to themselves. If Martin Amis was consistent, he should now declare: "The white community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation. Strip-searching people who look like they're from Hampshire or from Surrey ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children."

But of course he won't. It shows the bigotry at the core of these make-all-Muslims-pay arguments: they see brown-skinned people as a homogenous mass who can be collectively punished, while they see white people as discrete units who should only be punished individually.

But these white bomb-makers also blast holes in the arguments put by some small parts of the left, who claim "terrorism" is only a response to "legitimate grievances". We can see that somebody like David Copeland simply had an insane hatred of black, Asian and gay people. It's a form of soft racism to fail to see that the same lunacy can happen to non-white people. The vile Islamist gang who wanted to blow up the Ministry of Sound really did say the women there were "slags" who deserved to die for wearing miniskirts. Sometimes (but not always), the grievances that drive violence are simply deranged and have to be resisted.

While the threat of far-right violence is rising, the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, is going to appear on Question Time next week. It would be easy, and emotionally satisfying, for me to join the many well-intentioned protesters who are saying he shouldn't be there, but I can't do it. There are two reasons - one moral, and one pragmatic.

Freedom of speech includes the freedom to say abhorrent and repulsive things, or it isn't worth having. Why is our Britain vastly morally superior to the fantasy island that the BNP dream of building? Because we do not silence them - even though they would silence so many of us.

Then there's the pragmatic reason. The BNP is doing increasingly well in elections because there is a huge gap between the reality of the BNP and how their voters see them. I see this on the run-down estates where many of my relatives live: most of the BNP's voters believe they are a patriotic party who will peacefully defend the rights of the white working class, just as other organisations peacefully defend the rights of other ethnic groups.

When they find out the BNP leaders have in fact praised Britain's greatest enemy, Adolf Hitler, derided the Holocaust as "the Holohoax", had violent maniacs in their senior ranks, and want to deport many of our national heroes like Ashley Cole and Trevor McDonald, they are disgusted, and withdraw their support. There is only a very, very small constituency in Britain for Holocaust denial, mass "repatriations", and the mongering of "race wars".

So how do we close this perception gap? Shutting the BNP out of debate hasn't worked. They have been shut out and they have grown. In the darkness, the fungus can spread. The greatest disinfectant is sunlight, shone straight into Griffin's face. The only people who should fear free speech are the BNP, because when the British people hear what they have to say, and their lack of answers to basic factual questions, they are repelled.

One of the areas where everyone should see Griffin being challenged is over this question of far-right violence. He claims he is "strongly" opposed to these freelance attacks - yet he has kept violent attackers in his senior team.

His chief lieutenant for years was a man called Tony Lecomber, who was jailed for three years in the 1980s for plotting to blow up the offices of a left-wing political party. After he was released, he and a gang then beat a Jewish teacher unconscious. When he was freed after another three years inside, he was swiftly promoted through the BNP ranks. He was only ditched after he approached a Liverpool hitman to discuss how they could "take out" a cabinet minister.

One of the leading figures in the BNP's online operation, Lambertus Nieuwhof, tried to blow up a mixed-race school in South Africa in 1992. The BNP is happy to have him nonetheless. Nieuwhof says: "Everybody should be allowed to make a mistake."

The BNP is not directly organising violence, but it has tolerated violent madmen in its midst, and its arguments have encouraged violence. Griffin has demanded "rights for whites with well-directed boots and fists". He reacted to the Soho nail-bomb by one of his own party's members by attacking the victims, saying they were "flaunting their perversion in front of the world's journalists, [and had] showed just why so many ordinary people find these creatures disgusting".

Let Griffin speak his filth to the nation, and sweat under David Dimbleby's forensic questioning. He will only discredit himself.

But the country also needs to start acknowledging the danger of bombs thrown from the far right. David Copeland came from within the ranks of the BNP; so might the next one. The police need to monitor neo-Nazis as closely as jihadis, and the Government projects to prevent violent extremism should be working with white kids as well as Muslim children. We need to prepare ourselves now: the next person to bomb Britain might not look like Mohammed Sidiq Khan - he might look like me.

Independent

File on 4 - Is far-right extremism a threat?

Yet another right-wing nutcase

Britain's security services have focused on Islamic extremism since the late 1990s but as BBC File on 4's Allan Urry discovered there are now concerns some resources should be devoted to the growing threat of far-right terror plots

When two attackers firebombed the Islamic Centre, a mosque in the heart of Luton's Bury Park area in May, they created a siege mentality for local Muslims, according to mosque official Farasat Latif.

"We are on edge as a community; everyone is expecting another attack," he told File on 4.

Tensions have been high in Luton since Al Muhajiroun, a group banned at the firebombed mosque, organised a demonstration in March against the war in Afghanistan as the Royal Anglian Regiment marched through the town after a tour of duty. This in turn sparked a counter-demonstration by a group called the United Peoples of Luton. This group became the English Defence League (EDL), whose protests against Islamic extremists around England have led to claims that it attracts far-right extremists hoping to foment racial tensions and encourage further protests, which the group denies.

The Islamic Centre received hate mail after the March protest, but there are fears the firebombing was more sinister - a premeditated attack rather than a hot-headed reaction to the controversial demonstration.

"Police told us that the getaway car was stolen nine months before the incident and had been kept off the road for a good eight to nine months," said Mr Latif. "Maybe the next attack could be an incendiary device left in the mosque, because people come with bags and we have many nationalities, so an English person wouldn't stand out."

He said mosque officials have been considering whether people should be searched before they enter, which could be a wise precaution in the current climate.

Earlier this month Neil Lewington, 44, a white supremacist from Reading, was jailed for being found in possession of explosives as he was about to board a train. Lewington, a fascist loner who hated Asians, regularly visited two white supremacist websites - Combat 18, a British neo-Nazi group, and a website for the Ku Klux Klan. According to Dr Matthew Feldman, an expert in far-right extremism who gave evidence at Lewington's trial, the authorities were fortunate to arrest him before he took any drastic action.

"I have every reason to believe this person has posed a very serious threat to public order in this country," he told File on 4.

Lewington, however was only arrested by chance, after being found drunk at a railway station.

Another lone far-right extremist, Martyn Gilleard, who was found to have four home-made nail bombs when police raided his flat, was also arrested by chance as part of an investigation into child pornography. Like others described as "lone wolves", he visited extremist websites and web forums that provided information about how to make bombs.

Edmund Standing, author of The BNP and The Online Fascist Network, said: "The fact that a lot of people [who use these websites] may be fantasists and do not pose a direct threat, doesn't mean these forums and websites don't, because for every 20 of them there could be one person who is actually twisted enough do something like this. These kind of groups and these kind of forums create an atmosphere in which it is seen to be more and more acceptable to express these hateful views."

He said the websites advocated "lone wolf tactics" where anonymous individuals turned up at meetings and carried out subversive and violent actions.

"We face a far more difficult task dealing with these individuals, lone extremists who go to these groups or hang around the edges of these groups and become radicalised," added Mr Standing.

In fact, the threat posed by lone extremists was recently flagged up by a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), while a senior member of the Metropolitan Police has voiced concerns about the possibility of a major terror attack by right wing extremists.

In April 2007 the government began its Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) action plan to work with Muslim communities to "isolate, prevent and defeat violent extremism". There are suggestions the government is planning to widen the scope of PVE to cover far right extremists as well, but no minister would be interviewed by File on 4. But a statement from the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "Government is working to address all forms of extremism, including violent far right groups. Over the coming months, we will be implementing a more comprehensive strategy to strengthen resilience to such extremism."

Dr Feldman thinks the move would be a timely intervention: "I can't recommend enough the work that the police are doing in terms of a preventive agenda and I'm sure it's going to move into considering these very overtly racist and far-right websites that are clearly inciting violence and racial hatred."

He said most security service resources had been devoted to Islamic extremism since the late 1990s and the attacks of 7 July 2005. But he added: "I think the appreciation now is that doesn't mean the far right has gone away... some of the treatment and attention to these issues has in fact galvanised a white British nationalist in terms of acting where before they would have stayed at home grumbling."

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File on 4

Police fear far-right terror attack

Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command fears the extreme right will stage a deadly terrorist attack in Britain to try to stoke racial tensions, the Guardian has learned.

Senior officers fear the attack will be a "spectacular" that is designed to kill people. The counter-terrorism unit has moved officers to beef up its monitoring of the extreme right's potential to stage attacks.

Commander Shaun Sawyer told a meeting of British Muslims concerned about the danger posed to their communities that police were responding to the growing threat.

Sawyer said of the far right: "I fear that they will have a spectacular ... They will carry out an attack that will lead to a loss of life or injury to a community somewhere. They're not choosy about which community."

He said the aim of any attack would be to cause a "breakdown in community cohesion".

Sawyer revealed that the Met commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, had asked the counter-terrorism command, SO15, to examine what the economic downturn would mean for far-right violence. The assessment concluded that it would increase the possibility.

Sawyer told the meeting last Wednesday that more of his officers needed to be deployed to try to thwart neo-Nazi-inspired violence. He said the terrorist threat posed by al-Qaida remained the unit's priority, but said of its far-right section: "It is a small desk ... we need to grow that unit."

Sources have told the Guardian that while they believe the neo-Nazi terrorist threat has grown, they have no specific intelligence of an attack.

"There is an increased possibility of violence from the far right. There is a trend," said one senior source, adding that the ideology of the violent right was driven by "people who don't like immigration, people who don't like Islam. We're seeing a resurgence of anti-semitism as well."

Similar warnings about the terror threat of the far right have been issued in America recently. In April, an internal report drawn up by the US department of homeland security warned of a possible rise in violent rightwing extremist groups fuelled by the recession and hostility over the election of the first black president. The report said threats from white supremacist and violent anti-government groups had been largely rhetorical so far, but a prolonged economic downturn could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists.

It is a decade since an extreme rightwing terrorist used bombs to claim lives in Britain. In 1999, David Copeland bombed three targets in London in a fortnight. His strike against a gay pub in Soho, London, killed three people and left scores injured. It followed attacks against the Muslim community in Brick Lane, east London, and the bombing of a market in Brixton, south London.

The senior source said since Copeland's bombing campaign, community tensions had worsened between British Muslims and other groups. "When Copeland attacked we did not have the religious tensions with the Muslim community. What kind of schism would a Copeland-type event cause now?"

British Muslims have been a particular target of neo-Nazi propaganda, and groups representing them say they have felt increasingly vulnerable after the al-Qaida attacks on London in July 2005.

The threat the far right poses to Britain's Jewish communities is monitored by the Community Security Trust, which says attempted terrorist violence by neo-Nazis in Britain has increased in the past few years. The CST says nine white men have been "convicted of offences involving explosives, terrorist plots, violent campaigns or threats to carry them out". One of them, Martyn Gilleard, was convicted last year of three terrorism offences and jailed for 16 years. The self-confessed fan of Nazi Germany had kept nail bombs under a bed at his home in Goole, east Yorkshire.

David Rich, of the CST, said: "The violent fringes of the far right have shown a desire and intention to carry out terrorist violence against minorities in the UK. The last five years has seen an increase in terrorist cases involving the far right, more than before David Copeland."

Most of those convicted are believed not to have been part of a group. Opinion among those tracking the violent far right differs. Some believe neo-Nazi terrorists are acting outside networks, making it harder for them to be caught and investigated.

Rich said: "There's no one directing people, it's a mindset" – a reference to the easy availability of extremist rightwing material and information about making homemade bombs.

The veteran anti-fascist campaigner Gerry Gable, of the group Searchlight, praised police efforts to tackle neo-Nazi terrorism but warned the threat remained: "They believe that violence begets violence. They hope it will cause a backlash."

The Guardian

Homegrown British Terrorists: The Extreme Face of Nationalism

It appeared to be a routine operation. Intelligence had suggested that a 31-year-old forklift driver from Goole, Yorkshire, had downloaded child pornography. But when officers of Humberside police raided the home of Martyn Gilleard in October 2007 they found more than they bargained for.

In his free time Gilleard had not only been downloading 39,000 indecent images of sadistic child abuse onto his computer, he was arming himself for an impending race war.

Police discovered knives, guns, machetes, swords, axes, bullets and nail bombs in his flat, as well as “significant” amounts of literature from far right parties including the National Front, the British People’s Party (BPP), Blood and Honour, and the British National Party.

Prior to being arrested, he was the BPP’s Goole branch organiser, making him a senior member of what is alleged to be a neo-Nazi organisation.

Gilleard had a five-year-old son who he described as “the most perfect thing in my life”. However in an interview with a tabloid newspaper, the mother of his child claimed that he had stored nail bombs under his son’s bed.

He was sentenced in June for 16 years after being found guilty for, among other charges, preparing terrorism acts with the intent of carrying them out.

It is clear from his diary that Gilleard was preparing to wage a race war. “Be under no illusion we are at war,” he wrote. “It is a war that we are losing badly. Unless we, the British right, stop talking of racial war and take steps to make it happen we will never get back that which has been stolen from us.

“I’m so sick and tired of hearing Nationalists talk of killing Muslims, or blowing up mosques, of fighting back. Only to see these acts of resistance fail to appear. The time has come to stop the talk and start to act.”

It is easy to regard Martyn Gilleard as an isolated agent. A maladjusted young man who externalised the demons that plagued him. But the reality is that he is but one of many far right extremists who have plotted to or actually carried out terrorism attacks across Britain over the last 50 years.

On online forums Gilleard advised other far right activists in bomb making manuals and encouraged others to take up arms.

One poster wrote: “I’ve seen the nail bombs spoke about by the police along with some more of his artillery. It’s a sad day when comrades get nicked but for every one that does there must be three more that don’t get caught. It’s a pity he couldn’t have just blown up the local mosque before he was arrested.”

Following his arrest he was offered “full support” by the BPP and was described on the Guestbook page of Nazi terror group Combat 18 as a “hero to the cause”.

However after Gilleard admitted to charges of possessing images of child pornography, the BPP issued a statement of “total abhorrence and repugnance” and claimed that had his criminal activities been known he would’ve been expelled from the Party.

His conviction was highly embarrassing for the organisation, which runs the Noncewatch website – an “integral” part of the campaign which advocates the death penalty for paedophiles.

Another campaign run by the BPP is Redwatch, which campaigners describe as a “hit list” carrying the personal details of anti racist activists, including photographs and in some cases, addresses and phone numbers.

The website has been used as a tool of political intimidation and critics of racist groups have been actively targeted. Manchester-based local councillor John Taylor, received an email on July 5 which read: “Congratulations, you’re on Redwatch. I am going to take you out. Six .22 rounds in the back of your head should do the trick. I would bring my special .38 but it makes one hell of a mess. I’ll be seeing you.”

Far right terrorism in Britain is nothing new but has failed to garner the same recognition as the relatively more recent phenomenon of Islamic extremism.

Britain’s first suicide bombing was not in fact carried out by a Muslim, but rather a Birmingham National Front member.

In the early 1980s Richard Barnes carried out an orgy of violence, which began when he fired a crossbow bolt at an Asian man and ran down two black women. Following this he kidnapped another woman, dumped her in the boot of his car and ram-raided a left-wing bookshop. The car burst into flames and the trapped woman died in the blaze. Barnes was pulled from the fire and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Another right wing terrorist was member Tony Lecomber, who in 1985 injured himself with a nail bomb while trying to blow up the offices of a British left-wing political party. Police found ten grenades, seven petrol bombs and two detonators at his home. He was imprisoned for just three years and after his release was promoted to a senior position in the BNP.

In 1999, over three successive weekends, David Copeland placed homemade nail bombs in three locations across London with the intention of killing Asians, Blacks and homosexuals. The bombs killed three, including a pregnant woman, and injured 129, four of whom lost limbs.

He was a member of the National Socialist Movement, a small neo Nazi group run by Tony Williams, a former school chum of BNP chief Nick Griffin. Editor of anti-facist Searchlight magazine Gerry Gable, who compiled many of the examples used in this article to back up his case, wrote in an editorial: “Copeland was treated as an isolated madman rather than as part of a long history of involvement by the extreme right in terrorism.

“The public deserve a response from the police and intelligence agencies that takes far-right terrorism as seriously as the Islamist variety and not only fights this threat on the domestic front but looks at the wider international implications.”

In March this year, a police community support officer from south London escaped jail despite being found to have lied about his BNP membership. Police found in his flat a vast collection of racist literature, as well as illegal weapons including a CS spray, eight combat knives, a replica AK-47, a crossbow and a stun gun. He also had in his possession T-shirts bearing the logo of violent neo Nazi organization Combat 18.

In Glasgow, BNP activists were accused of using the murder of white teenager Kriss Donald to stir up hatred against the Asian community, from which the killers came.

Later that year, Allan Burnett, the incoming counter terrorism coordinator for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland said that right-wing extremism was as dangerous as the threat posed by al-Qaeda.

“There’s no point promoting positive race relations, if in claiming to be everyone’s coordinator of counter terrorism, you take your eye off the far right,” Burnett said.

The Epoch Times

Nazi fiend 'a Muslim'

Jailed racist in Islam ploy

A cross-dressing Nazi racist has converted to Islam in jail because he's terrified of being killed in a revenge attack.

Hitler fanatic Martyn Gilleard, 31, was caged for 16 years last month for possessing 39,000 sick child porn images - and making four nail bombs. The pervert, who kept pictures of himself in women's underwear, planned to target mosques or places where black and Asian people gathered.

But now he has seen an imam at Wakefield Prison in West Yorkshire and says he has become a Muslim.

A prison source said: "Gilleard was kicked into touch by far-right parties for having child porn. Without their backing, he knew he wouldn't last five minutes in prison. So he reckoned changing his religion was the only way he'd avoid reprisals inside.

"But Gilleard turning to Islam is laughable. Just a few months ago he was a fully paid-up member of various racist groups and now he wants to start reading the Koran. He's making a mockery of Muslims and the lads will not stand for it."

Fork-lift truck driver Gilleard, of Goole, East Yorks, admitted at Leeds Crown Court 10 specimen child porn charges and was convicted of two terror charges.

The People

The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain's new disease

Suspicion of the Muslim community has found its way into mainstream society – and nobody seems to care

Three years ago, four young suicide bombers caused carnage in London. Their aim was not just to kill and maim. There was also a long-term strategic purpose: to sow suspicion and divide Britain between Muslims and the rest. They are succeeding.

In Britain today, there is a deepening distrust between mainstream society and ever more isolated Muslim communities. A culture of contempt and violence is emerging on our streets.

Sarfraz Sarwar is a pillar of the Muslim community in Basildon, Essex. He is constantly abused and attacked, and the prayer centre he used has been burnt to the ground. Mr Sarwar, who has six children and whose wife is matron of an old people's home, is a patently decent man. His only crime is his religious faith. He and his fellow worshippers now meet in secret to evade detection, and the attacks that would follow.

The first abuse that Mr Sarwar's family suffered was in October 2001 – just after the 9/11 attacks – when pigs' trotters were left outside their door, the walls of their house were covered with graffiti and two front windows were broken.

Since then, the family has suffered many attacks, including a failed fire-bombing. In February, the tyres of Mr Sarwar's new car were slashed; in March his windows were broken again. He has now installed CCTV cameras, replaced his wooden back door with one made of steel and erected higher fences.

An investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches programme discovered many violent episodes and attacks on Muslims, with very few reported; those that do get almost no publicity.

Last week, Martyn Gilleard, a Nazi sympathiser in East Yorkshire, was jailed for 16 years. Police found four nail bombs, bullets, swords, axes and knives in his flat. Gilleard had been preparing for a war against Muslims. In a note at his flat he had written, "I am sick and tired of hearing nationalists talking of killing Muslims, blowing up mosques and fighting back only to see these acts of resistance fail. The time has come to stop the talking and start to act."

The Gilleard case went all but unreported. Had a Muslim been found with an arsenal of weapons and planning violent assaults, it would have been a far bigger story.

There is a reason for this blindness in the media. The systematic demonisation of Muslims has become an important part of the central narrative of the British political and media class; it is so entrenched, so much part of normal discussion, that almost nobody notices. Protests go unheard and unnoticed.

Why? Britain's Muslim immigrants are mainly poor, isolated and alienated from mainstream society. Many are a different colour. As a community, British Muslims are relatively powerless. There are few Muslim MPs, there has never been a Muslim cabinet minister, no mainstream newspaper is owned by a Muslim and, as far as we are aware, only one national newspaper has a regular Muslim columnist on its comment pages, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of The Independent.

Surveys show Muslims have the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications of any faith group in the country. This means they are vulnerable, rendering them open to ignorant and hostile commentary from mainstream figures.

Islamophobia – defined in 1997 by the landmark report from the Runnymede Trust as "an outlook or world-view involving an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims, which results in practices of exclusion and discrimination" – can be encountered in the best circles: among our most famous novelists, among newspaper columnists, and in the Church of England.

Its appeal is wide-ranging. "I am an Islamophobe," the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee wrote in The Independent nearly 10 years ago. "Islamophobia?" the Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle asks rhetorically in the title of a recent speech, "Count me in". Imagine Liddle declaring: "Anti-Semitism? Count me in", or Toynbee claiming she was "an anti-Semite and proud of it".

Anti-Semitism is recognised as an evil, noxious creed, and its adherents are barred from mainstream society and respectable organs of opinion. Not so Islamophobia.

Its practitioners say Islamophobia cannot be regarded as the same as anti-Semitism because the former is hatred of an ideology or a religion, not Muslims themselves. This means there is no social, political or cultural protection for Muslims: as far as the British political, media and literary establishment is concerned the normal rules of engagement are suspended.

"There is a definite urge; don't you have it?", the author Martin Amis told Ginny Dougary of The Times: "The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. Not letting them travel. Deportation; further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or Pakistan. Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children." Here, Amis is doing much more than insulting Muslims. He is using the foul and barbarous language of fascism. Yet his books continue to sell, and his work continues to be celebrated.

And we found the language of Islamophobic columnists such as Toynbee, Liddle, or novelists such as Amis, duplicated by the British National Party and its growing band of supporters.

All over Europe, parties of the far right have been dropping their traditional hostility to minorities such as Jews and homosexuals; in Britain, the BNP has come to realise that anti-Semitism and anti-black campaigning won't work if they are serious about electoral success.

To move to mainstream respectability, they need an issue that allows them to exploit people's fears about immigrants and Britain's ethnic minority communities without being branded racist extremists.

They have found it. Since 9/11, and particularly 7/7, the BNP has gone all out to tap a rich vein of anti-Muslim sentiment. The party's leader, Nick Griffin, has described Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith" and has tried to distance himself and the party from its anti-Semitic past. Party members are now rebuked for discussing the Holocaust and told to focus on terrorism, the evils of Islam, and scare stories of Britain becoming an Islamic state.

Griffin's strategy has been inspired by the press. He said: "We bang on about Islam. Why? Because to the ordinary public out there it's the thing they can understand. It's the thing the newspaper editors sell newspapers with."

Last month, we visited Stoke-on-Trent, a BNP heartland with nine BNP councillors, a council second only to Barking and Dagenham in far-right representation. The party has made this progress in large part by mounting a vicious anti-Muslim campaign. Stoke has one of the lowest employment rates in the country since the pottery industry collapsed. The BNP has tried to link this decline to Muslim immigration.

Other campaigns have focused on planning issues over mosques, a flashpoint elsewhere too. The BNP accuses the Labour council of cutting special deals with Muslim groups in exchange for support. Wherever we explored tension between Muslims and the local community we tended to discover the BNP was present, fanning discontent.

Many categories of immigrants and foreigners have been singled out for hatred and opprobrium by mainstream society because they were felt to be threats to British identity. At times, these despised categories have included Catholics, Jews, French and Germans; gays were held to subvert decency and normality until the 1980s, blacks until the 1970s, and Jews for centuries. Now this outcast role has fallen to Muslims. And it is the perception that Muslims receive special treatment that fuels the most resentment. When we investigated clashes at a Muslim dairy in Windsor, we found the perception that police had failed to investigate what seemed to be a racist attack by Asian youths on a local woman played a powerful role in fanning resentments.

But by the same token we believe that Muslims should be given the same protection as other minority groups from insults or ignorant abuse. This protection is not available. Ordinary Muslim families are virtually a silenced minority.

We should all feel ashamed about the way we treat Muslims, in the media, in our politics, and on our streets. We do not treat Muslims with the tolerance, decency and fairness that we often like to boast is the British way. We urgently need to change our public culture.

Peter Oborne's Dispatches film, "It Shouldn't Happen to a Muslim", will be screened on Channel 4 at 8pm on Monday. The pamphlet Muslims Under Siege, by Peter Oborne and James Jones, is published next week by Democratic Audit

Independent

Nazi sympathiser jailed for planned nail bomb attacks

A Nazi sympathiser and paedophile who made nail bombs to attack black, Asian and Jewish people was jailed today for 16 years.

A judge at Leeds crown court told Martyn Gilleard, 31, of Poole Court, Goole, East Yorkshire, he believed he intended to cause "havoc" with the devices found by police under his bed. Gilleard was found guilty yesterday of terrorist offences and also of possessing child pornography. Gilleard was found guilty yesterday of charges of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts and collecting information for terrorist purposes.

Police found four nail bombs, bladed weapons, bullets, documents about terrorism and extreme right-wing literature when they were searching his flat for child pornography in October last year. Humberside police discovered around 39,000 indecent images of children, which included films and photographs and ranged from category one to five - where one is the least serious and five the most.

Gilleard admitted 10 specimen counts of possessing indecent images of children. He also pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing 34 cartridges of ammunition without holding a firearms certificate.

Police who searched Gilleard's flat discovered significant volumes of extreme right-wing literature and propaganda from far-right group Combat 18, as well as ammunition, weapons and homemade bombs. A further search by detectives and forensic teams from the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) in Leeds uncovered more explosive material, camouflage clothing, balaclavas, a bomb-making manual and outdoor survival guides.

They also found gunpowder, ready-made fuses and a notebook containing hand-written expressions of extreme anti-Semitic views.

A search of his workplace found a high-visibility jacket which had been modified with a hand-drawn swastika and Combat 18 lettering, and colleagues told police that Gilleard had expressed racist views.

Detectives launched a man-hunt when the father of one failed to return home after the original search of his flat. He was eventually found three days later and 300 miles away in Dundee, Tayside, and was arrested and charged with the terrorism offences after three days of questioning.

Gilleard's 31-year-old flatmate was also arrested but was later released without charge.

Gilleard was a member of a number of far-right groups, including the National Front, the British People's Party and the White Nationalist Party. In police interviews, he admitted sympathising with white supremacists and accepted that he was racist, but said he had become less racist in recent times.

During the six-day trial, he told the court he had an interest in the second world war and Nazism appealed to him because of the way the Nazis rebuilt Germany.

Gilleard claimed the nail bombs were not intended for serious violence and said he made them when he was bored after drinking "a couple of cans". But the prosecution said Gilleard intended to use the weapons and documents found in his flat in terrorist acts to further his political cause.

Guardian

Martyn Gilleard – Searchlight press release

Martyn Gilleard, an organiser in the neo-Nazi British People’s Party has been found guilty of three offences under the Terrorism Act.

Upon raiding his flat police discovered a small arsenal consisting of several nail bombs, dozens of bullets, swords, axes and knives, which a jury found him guilty of possessing for the preparation of terrorist acts. Gilleard also pleaded guilty to a number of child pornography offences after police discovered 39,000 indecent images of children on his computer ranging from category one to five. Five is the most serious.

Throughout his detention Kevin Watmough the leader of the BPP who also runs the Redwatch website gave Gilleard his unreserved support and only expelled him from the party once the trial was underway presumably after discovering he had also pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.

Given Gilleard’s pronounced neo-Nazi views and his desire to put them into practice the case has chilling similarities to that of London “nail bomber” David Copeland, a former BNP member whose rampage in 1999 left three people dead, including a pregnant mother, and hundreds injured.

The August issue of Searchlight will feature a special report on Gilleard and a full account of his far right affiliations.

Stop the BNP

Man guilty over nail bombs plot

Part of Gilleard's mini-arsenal

A Nazi sympathiser who kept nail bombs under his bed has been convicted of three terrorism offences.

Martyn Gilleard, 31, of Goole, East Yorkshire, was a paid-up member of the National Front, the White Nationalist Party and the British People's Party. Police officers discovered four home-made nail bombs, as well as bullets and bladed weapons in his flat.

Prosecutors said Gilleard had written that he had wanted to "save" Britain from "multi-racial peril".

Gilleard was convicted of preparing for terrorist acts and possessing articles and collecting information for terrorist purposes. During the trial, he admitted having a collection of Nazi memorabilia, saying Nazism appealed to him because of the way the Nazis had "rebuilt" Germany.

Officers had found "potentially lethal bladed weapons", 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm and printouts from the internet about committing acts of terrorism, the court heard. These included instructions on how to make a bomb and how to kill someone with poison.

Explaining why he made the bombs, Gilleard said: "I'd had a couple of cans. I was just sat around bored. An idea popped up and I thought, 'Why not?' I thought, 'I've got pretty much what I need,' and I threw them together."

BBC

Terror Nazi's child abuse images

Neo-Nazi Martyn Gilleard has been found guilty of making bombs for a far-right terrorist campaign, after having previously admitted downloading thousands of images of child sexual abuse.

He wrote of starting a "racial war" and murdering Muslims. But Martyn Gilleard boasted that he was no "barstool nationalist". He wanted to put his white supremacist views into action. And when police raided the 31-year-old's flat, they found four home-made nail bombs, bullets, knives, swords, an axe and handcuffs with which - a jury has decided - he intended to launch his campaign of terror.

However, his comrades in various extremist groups were shocked to learn that this was not the limit of his criminal activities.

At the opening of his trial at Leeds Crown Court, Gilleard admitted 10 counts of child pornography offences. Officers had discovered more than 39,000 indecent images of children on his computer. Jurors considering the terror charges did not learn of this until they delivered their verdict.

'Potentially lethal'

Gilleard, a forklift truck driver from Goole, East Yorkshire, admitted to police and the court that he had held racist views. At the time of his arrest he was a paid-up member of the National Front, the White Nationalist Party and the British People's Party - all opposed to multiculturalism.

His computer password was Martyn1488 - the 14, according to prosecutor Andrew Edis QC, being a reference to the far-right's "14 words" slogan, "We must secure the existence of our race and the future for white children."

The 88, Mr Edis added, represented the eighth letter of the alphabet - an abbreviation for "Heil Hitler".

But Gilleard was not simply a passive crank, the court was told. In a notebook recovered by police, Gilleard wrote that the "time has come to stop the talk and start to act".

"Unless we the British right stop talking of racial war and take steps to make it happen, we will never get back that which has been stolen from us," he added. "I am so sick and tired of hearing nationalists talk of killing Muslims, of blowing up mosques, of fighting back, only to see these acts of resistance fail to appear."

In another note, he wrote that he wanted to see "reds" - left-wing activists - attacked with "lightning strikes" and "home-made grenades".

His comments were a chilling echo of far-right nail bomber David Copeland, jailed for life for murder after attacks targeting London's gay community and ethnic minorities in 1999.

By the time police raided his flat, Mr Edis said, Gilleard's preparations for this impending conflict had already been well under way. Officers had discovered the four nail bombs under a bed along with "potentially lethal bladed weapons", 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm, and printouts from the internet about committing acts of terrorism, Mr Edis told the court.

These had included instructions on how to make a bomb and how to poison someone, he added.

Gilleard had already pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing 34 cartridges of ammunition without holding a firearms certificate. But he denied that he had intended to hurt anyone with the nail bombs, arguing in court that he had only assembled them to give himself something to do.

When asked why he made the devices, he said: "I'd had a couple of cans. I was just sat around bored."

The jury, however, decided that he had more sinister purposes in mind.

Offensive weapon

After the raid on Wednesday 31 October 2007, Gilleard fled to the home of his half-brother in Dundee, Tayside. Police caught up with him after a three-day manhunt.

Detectives who interviewed his work colleagues were told that he had expressed racist views to them. The police also recovered a high-visibility jacket belonging to Gilleard that had been daubed with a hand-drawn swastika.

Born on 15 July 1976 in York, Martyn Paul Gilleard had a complicated upbringing. At the time of his birth his mother had two older children by her ex-husband. He became the adopted son of his mother's new partner after she remarried in 1978. He left school at 16 with GCSEs in history, English language and literature, but failed to complete a course at Northallerton College. In 2000 he began working for Howarth Timber in Breighton, East Yorkshire, as a forklift truck driver.

In 2002 - the same year he was fined £25 for possession of an offensive weapon - his partner gave birth to a son, but the couple split in 2006.

A prison cell, not the racial conflict of which he dreamed, now awaits him.

BBC

Accused made bombs 'while bored'

A Nazi sympathiser made nail bombs "when he was just sat about bored," a court has heard.

Martyn Gilleard, 31, told the jury at Leeds Crown Court he had been a member of far right groups including the National Front. But he denied the four nail bombs, which were found by police in a holdall under his bed, were intended to cause serious violence.

Mr Gilleard, of Goole, East Yorkshire, denies all terrorism charges. He denies preparing for terrorist acts and possessing articles and collecting information for terrorist purposes.

Giving evidence, Mr Gilleard agreed he had been a member of a number of far right groups including the National Front, and the White Nationalist Party. He also agreed he had a collection of Nazi memorabilia, saying Nazism appealed to him because of the way the Nazis rebuilt Germany.

He told his barrister, David Hatton QC: "I did have racist views, yes."

When asked why he made the bombs he said: "I'd had a couple of cans. I was just sat around bored. An idea popped up and I thought 'why not'. I thought 'I've got pretty much what I need' and I threw them together."

Officers also discovered "potentially lethal bladed weapons", 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm and printouts from the internet about committing acts of terrorism, the court has heard. These included instructions on how to make a bomb and how to poison someone to death.

Mr Gilleard pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing 34 cartridges of ammunition without holding a firearms certificate.

The trial continues.

BBC

Terror suspect 'spoke of bombs under bed'

A man accused of terrorist offences who had links to white supremacist organisations made racist comments to workmates and spoke of having bombs under his bed, a jury heard yesterday. Police later recovered four nail bombs hidden in a holdall among other items seized during a raid at Martyn Gilleard's flat in Pool Court, Goole, which the prosecution claim he intended to "further his political cause."

Gilleard, 31, an admirer of Hitler and Nazism, denies conduct in preparation of terrorist acts, possessing articles for terrorist purposes and collecting information for terrorist purposes. He has admitted possession of 34 .22 cartridges.

Witness John Percival told Leeds Crown Court that Gilleard was already a fork lift truck driver at Howarth Timber when he began working there aged 18 last summer. He was waiting to go into the RAF, which he had now done, but his start had been delayed because his jaw had been broken in an assault.

He told the jury he got to know Gilleard by mixing in the smokers' area at the branch of the timber merchants at Breighton Airfield, Bubwith, near Selby .

"He once mentioned in jest of having bombs under his bed and if they blew up he would be nailed to the wall."

He said he did not take any notice of it "because nothing said at work was meant to be taken seriously."

Gilleard also spoke of what he used to do with gunpowder from fireworks when he was younger to make them have a bigger bang. "He said it's not making the fuse that's the hard part, it was putting it in without blowing yourself up."

He told the court he and Gilleard also spoke together about football, drinking and target shooting with air rifles. He was aware Gilleard's political views were to "the far right, the BNP, the BPP and the National Front."

Gilleard had put up some racist cartoons from the internet on the canteen wall and on occasions wore T-shirts with BNP or National Front logos on. He also expressed racist views particularly relating to Muslims. When two paratroopers were killed in Iraq, Gilleard commented "what would happen if we blew them up back here."

He told the jury because he was the youngest he thought it would make him feel older, more of a man and fit in by associating with Gilleard and the others. He had given Gilleard his e-mail and did receive a message from him referring him to a site about a Russian beheading. "I saw a Russian man, obviously a Jew, getting beheaded and slaughtered on camera. There was a swastika in the background."

Gilleard also spoke to him about joining the BPP but he had never taken it further out.

He agreed under cross examination by David Hatton QC defending Gilleard the name "Bulls...t Corner" was used to describe the smoking room because of all sarcastic comments and jokes there which were not taken seriously.

Production manager Robert Belton told the jury he dropped Gilleard in Goole on October 31 after the fork lift truck driver said police had raided his flat. He seemed panicky and on edge. Gilleard was arrested in Dundee at 1.40am on November 3. They were shown items found at his flat including swords, knives, an axe, a machete, balaclavas and a strip of nails.

The trial continues.

Yorkshire Post

'Racist planned terror attacks'

A man who wanted to save Britain from "multi-racial peril" made nail bombs to further his cause through terror attacks, a court has heard.

Martyn Gilleard, 31, "admired Nazism" and had links to white supremacist organisations, a jury at Leeds Crown Court was told. Four home-made nail bombs were found at his flat along with "potentially lethal bladed weapons", the prosecution said.

Mr Gilleard, of Goole, East Yorkshire, denies all terrorism charges. He denies preparing for terrorist acts and possessing articles and collecting information for terrorist purposes.

Andrew Edis QC, opening the case for the prosecution, told the jury how police found the nail bombs under a bed in Mr Gilleard's flat. Officers also discovered "potentially lethal bladed weapons", 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm and printouts from the internet about committing acts of terrorism, Mr Edis said.

These included instructions on how to make a bomb and how to poison someone to death, he added.

'Bar-stool nationalism'

The jury heard how other material found at the flat revealed Mr Gilleard was "a man of white supremacist groupings" and had an agenda similar to the National Socialists, or Nazis.

Describing the contents of one document written by Mr Gilleard, Mr Edis said: "He had come to decide that it was time to stop talking and start acting. There had been too much bar-stool nationalism and not enough courageous action to save this country from the multi-racial peril he believes it is in."

Mr Edis told the court it was "pretty clear" Mr Gilleard was "a man who admires Nazism".

He said the defendant's usual password was Martyn1488 - the number 14 referring to a 14-word phrase coined by David Lane, the founder of an American white supremacist paramilitary organisation. The prosecution said the phrase stated: "We must secure the existence of our race and the future for white children."

The jury was also told the use of 88 related to the letter H - the eighth letter of the alphabet - and HH referred to the "Heil Hitler" salute. Police also found a drawing of a Union flag with a swastika on it at the flat and Lane's 14 words written out, Mr Edis said.

'No harm intended'

The prosecution went on to describe how Mr Gilleard had admitted in police interviews that he sympathised with the views of white supremacists and accepted he was a racist.

However, Mr Gilleard also said he had become less racist recently and that he made the nail bombs to see if he could do it and did not think they would work, the court heard. He told police he did not intend to harm anybody.

Mr Edis told the jury it was down to them to decide if Mr Gilleard intended to use the bombs and weapons in terrorist acts. It was the prosecution's case that Mr Gilleard had the weapons and documents "for use in connection with furthering his political cause", he added.

The court was told Mr Gilleard had already pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing 34 cartridges of ammunition without holding a firearms certificate.

The trial continues.

BBC

Suspected neo-Nazi accused of nail-bomb plot

A suspected neo-Nazi from East Yorkshire was planning a nail bomb attack and had four home-made devices, a court heard yesterday.

Shaven-headed Martyn Gilleard, 31, of Poole Street, Goole, allegedly intended to wreak carnage and scribbled down his racist intentions in notebooks. During a raid at his home last week police found four bombs and a detonator, the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in London heard.

Gilleard was arrested in Dundee on November 4 after allegedly fleeing the scene and was detained under the Terrorism Act before being charged yesterday.

Colin Gibbs, prosecuting, told the court: "We say he has a terrorist agenda, but to a right-wing part of the spectrum."

Gilleard is alleged to have researched the making of explosives on the internet, bought ingredients and assembled four devices. He is charged with preparing an act of terror, possessing articles for making explosives, collating records likely to be useful to a person preparing a terrorist act, and possessing ammunition in the form of 34 .22 Winchester cartridges.

District Judge Timothy Workman remanded Gilleard in custody and committed the case to the Old Bailey, where he will next appear on November 23.

Yorkshire Post