BNP accused of exploiting murder victims in campaign

The British National Party have been accused of exploiting murder victims and their families

The party has run a campaign featuring murders allegedly with a racial element, to call for support for BNP policies. But the families of some of those involved are unhappy at being used in this way. In response, the BNP accused the BBC of indulging in "simplistic and emotive propaganda concerning a campaign that is over two years old".

Freelance journalist Michelle Gribbon, who has worked at the BBC, has this personal report.

BBC

Pressure grows on Attorney General as BNP targets school children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Searchlight

Shut down the peddlers of hate

Searchlight’s editor Nick Lowles demands that the BNP should be held to account for peddling racist lies in a clear attempt to whip up racial tensions

Searchlight is calling on the authorities to investigate whether the BNP’s Racism Cuts Both Ways campaign is an incitement to racial hatred. The BNP initiative, revealed in last month’s Searchlight, has a special section on the party’s website, a glossy 12-page brochure and was launched with its own limited tour of the country.

The BNP campaign claims to highlight examples of anti-white racism. In an introduction on the website, party leader Nick Griffin calls it the “silent epidemic of racist targeting of indigenous Britons”.

Griffin goes further in his opening message to the campaign’s glossy 12-page pamphlet. “The vast majority of the real racism that scars Britain involves white victims from the indigenous community. Whether you are English, Scots, Welsh, Irish or from Ulster, being white makes you a target, being white means you are guilty.”

To back up his claim the BNP has released the names of 167 people who it alleges are the victims of anti-white racism. In addition, it has published 200,000 copies of the pamphlet, which it has distributed to every councillor and MP in the country. The party also claims that copies are being sent to all 18-year-olds in 50 key parliamentary constituencies.

The pamphlet includes a page entitled, “Racist Murder – The Shocking Truth”, which states: “The result was truly shocking – 142 white victims of racist homicide”. It concludes: “The average racist murderer in Britain is 40 times more likely to be a member of an ethnic minority than a native Brit”.

However, and probably unsurprisingly, the research is deeply flawed. Searchlight has analysed the 167 cases highlighted by the BNP and found a racial motive in only a handful. In over 90% there was no evidence presented by the BNP, or in any media reports at the time, to show that racism played any role in the murder at all.

The BNP research is so wrong that the list includes several cases where the perpetrators are white. In one case, that of John Ward, the BNP only reports an initial description of the killers as Asian or Turkish but fails to admit that three white men were later convicted and imprisoned for life. In other cases the perpetrators were part of mixed race groups, including whites, but the BNP only focuses on the white victims and black attackers.

There are also several supposed racial murders where the alleged killer has not actually been convicted. In fact, an Old Bailey murder trail was only just beginning when the BNP named the alleged murderer and asserted a racist motive, a clear breach of legal restrictions on reporting. And in a number of cases the BNP merely reports arrests or people being charged, but its sloppy research fails to investigate what happened to them.

Of course, none of this should be a surprise. The BNP clearly sets out to whip up racial tensions and prejudice with this “research”. Its aim is to make young people in particular angry and resentful. To this end the BNP has simply made up assertions to fit its wider cause. It may hope to channel the fury of readers and supporters into joining the BNP but it could just as easily be unleashing vengeful racist violence. The BNP campaign is quite simply dangerous and should be held to account.

It seems that we are not alone in having concerns over the RCBW material. Thirteen BNP members were arrested in Liverpool for distributing the pamphlet after Merseyside Police concluded it incited racial hatred.

Several councillors have reported the pamphlet to the police in other parts of the country. A number of families have been appalled to hear that the deaths of their loved ones are being used by the BNP for their own racist ends. West Yorkshire Police were outraged to find the BNP trying to claim that the murder of Sharon Beshenivsky was a racist attack.

Jon Cruddas, the MP for Dagenham, has put down an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons calling the pamphlet and accompanying website material a clear attempt to whip up racial tension. “The BNP has set out to stir up a racist reaction and this could have serious consequences,” Cruddas told Searchlight. “The fact that they have lied and claimed over one hundred murders to have had a racial motive when they quite clearly have not is reprehensible and they should be called to account.”

He has also written to the Metropolitan Police demanding that they investigate the document.

Searchlight is urging its supporters to complain about the BNP campaign. The BNP must not be allowed to whip up racial tensions through lies and innuendo. To read Searchlight’s full analysis of the BNP’s Racism Cuts Both Ways campaign, go here.

Searchlight

BNP targets councillors

An attempt by the British National Party (BNP) to canvass the support of local councillors has been slammed as "provocative and intimidating."

Every elected representative on Newtownabbey Council recently received a copy of the party's 'Racism Cuts Both Ways' document and an accompanying letter appealing for support. The report claims that "racism is wrong", adding that the "vast majority" of people affected by racism are "white victims from the indigenous community."

The right-wing group is targeting first time voters and politicians in a bid to build support ahead of next year's European elections. The accompanying letter from BNP Chairman Nick Griffin claims that local political parties have "let down white working class voters and middle class taxpayers" and urges councillors to use their power to "address the dangerous injustice of anti-majority racism."

"If you are not prepared to do your duty by the long-suffering silent majority who elect you and who pay your salaries, don't be surprised when they look elsewhere for someone to voice their very real concerns," the letter concludes.

The UUP's John Scott claimed that he had found the correspondence "threatening."

"Racism is wrong no matter who is behind it or who the victims are, wherever they're from or whatever colour their skin. But this sort of thing from the BNP doesn't help, it just makes things worse," he said.

SDLP councillor Noreen McClelland echoed that sentiment, describing the letter as "provocative and intimidating."

"I found the publication and accompanying letter both distressing and threatening. I believe it is aimed at stirring up racial hatred and tension. As a politician I have been the victim of sectarianism and discrimination and am familiar with these subtle attempts to create fear and division. The BNP have been rejected by the electorate. I am confident that the vast majority of the decent, law abiding people in our community will see this publication for what it is and continue to reject the people who promote such views."

Alliance councillor Billy Webb slammed the BNP's report and letter as "offensive."

"As someone who has been subjected to sectarianism I can empathise with those who are subjected to racism as I see no difference between the two - the victim suffers the same hurt. I sincerely hope the BNP does not find support within Newtownabbey."

His party colleague Lynn Frazer added: "I didn't even read it. I just saw the BNP logo and tore it up. I've no interest in what they have to say."

The leader of the DUP grouping on Newtownabbey Council, alderman Paul Girvan, said that he too had binned the letter.

"They seem to be trying to canvass elected representatives. I think we all got correspondence from them. As soon as I realised what it was I just ripped it up," he said.

Alderman Nigel Hamilton described the BNP's publication as "a diatribe of hatred based on fear and ignorance," claiming that such material only creates division and prejudice.

"I am rather disappointed that having read the literature it did little to disguise the contempt and prejudice from which it was spawned. Clearly the BNP may attempt to masquerade as a legitimate political party, but their philosophy is as dated as that of Hilter's Brownshirts of the 1930s and their intolerance as blatant. I don't think having read this that any right minded person could take it seriously unless they have led a very sheltered existence."

Newtownabbey Times

[Searchlight has produced an excellent rebuttal of the lies in the BNP document here. There is further information here.]

Lie lorry tour fails to deliver

Talking to himself: Nick Griffin aboard the lie lorry

“We will start in Scotland and work our way south over one month, stopping in all major cities from Edinburgh to Southampton,” promised Nick Griffin, the BNP chairman, in a fundraising appeal in September.

This so-called truth tour, using the BNP’s notorious “lie lorry” advertising vehicle, was intended to promote the launch of the party’s Racism Cuts Both Ways brochure. Copies would be handed out along the way and “millions will see and hear our message”.

The truth was rather different. Driven by Paul Golding, director of the BNP’s British Pride “white history” website, the truck left London at 8.30am on Monday 10 November. Over five days, wrote Golding, it “visited Brighton, Portsmouth, Winchester, Salisbury, Bath, Corsham, Wolverhampton, Dudly [sic], West Bromwich, Birmingham, Stoke, Manchester, Oldham, Huddersfield, Leeds, Middlesborough [sic], Sunderland, South Shields, Barking, Dagenham, Thurrock, Grays, Tilbury, Blackburn and Blackpool”.

And that was it. The geographically convoluted tour “ended on Friday night at our annual conference,” said Golding, whose name is notably absent from the leaked list of BNP members.

Even though the tour missed huge areas of the country, including the whole of Scotland and Wales, wherever it stopped Golding and Mike Howson, the middle-aged leader of the Young BNP, distributed “thousands and thousands of the Racism Cuts Both Ways booklets to an eager public,” boasted Golding. In Oldham the team “received a wildly enthusiastic response from the public”, similarly in Huddersfield “it was mobbed by highly enthusiastic members of the public”.

The trouble was that the reports were accompanied by pictures of the lie lorry in the various locations visited. And the one thing that the photos had in common, apart from the truck, was the complete absence of any members of the public, eager or otherwise. In fact it was remarkable how many big empty spaces the BNP managed to find in England’s supposedly overcrowded towns and cities.

No doubt Griffin is relying on the people who put up the money for this fiasco being too gullible to notice.

Racism cuts both ways