Various media are currently reporting that a 'lone wolf' perpetrator of terrorism in Norway, who has so far killed upwards of 90 people (mainly youths), MAY be linked to far right/neo-Nazi/fundamentalist Christian groups, and hold anti-Muslim views. The attacks have left more casualties than 7/7.
I've just published an alleged list of internet posts by the shooter, Anders Behring Breivik. These reveal he was particularly concerned about the impact of immigration, multiculturalism and Muslims/Islam. They also suggest he held a high view of the anti-Islam English Defence League (EDL) and was influenced by a broader narrative across Europe that has been adopted by the far right. Rather than focus on the importance of race and ethnicity, this narrative frames opposition to minority groups such as Muslims along the lines of culture.
Seen from one perspective, the attacks by alone wolf are surprising. In recent years, the attention of security services across Europe has focused heavily on preventing al-Qaeda (or 'AQ') inspired acts of terrorism. In fact, I was told only recently by a member of the security services in Britain that the threat of violence from ultra right-wing groups is only minor when set against their AQ and Northern Irish counterparts. Perhaps for these reasons, many early commentators were quick to associate the Oslo attacks with this form of extremism.
Seen from another perspective, however, for several reasons the attacks in Oslo are not that surprising. First, both Norway and Sweden have had a relatively active neo-Nazi scene for years. Indeed, this is not the first example of right-wing violence in Oslo. Second, recent years have seen growing support across Scandinavia for right-wing movements and their ideas, most noticeably in Sweden where the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim Sweden Democrats (SD) recently entered the national parliament. Third, this trend of rising support for the right-wing has been taking place across the continent more generally, arguably producing a more receptive climate for right-wing ideas and activists. And fourth, with much attention focusing on alternative forms of extremism, it might well be the case that increased space was created for the lesser studied and understood right-wing groups.
In fact, analysts have long predicted that members of more ultra-violent right-wing groups may resort to 'direct action' methods. In our study of extremism that was published last year, we warned of the dangers of 'cumulative extremism', namely when one form of extremism (e.g. far right) responds violently to the rise of another form of extremism (e.g. violent Islamism). An example might include an activist bombing a Mosque in response to the 'threat' posed by growing Muslim populations, and then AQ-inspired groups retaliating. In Britain, we have not seen this process since Northern Ireland.
I also only recently finished reviewing an academic study of al-Qaeda (AQ) inspired terrorism that predicted how the 'next wave' of terrorism in Europe will come not from Islamists but ultra-violent far right groups, partly as a backlash against immigration, rising ethno-cultural diversity and AQ-inspired terrorism. The attacks in Oslo have a clear political motivation, being directed toward youth representatives of the political mainstream. It may turn out to be the case that the perpetrator did not feel that the main parties were responding adequately to broader threats.
Nor is the threat from lone wolves restricted to Norway and Scandinavia. Two years ago, anti-terrorism officers in Britain warned of the growing threat from lone wolf activists. This was underscored by the case of Robert Cottage who was convicted after being found stockpiling chemical explosives. And before him the attack by David Copeland - 'the London Nailbomber' - who sought to trigger race war by targeting members of Bengali and homosexual communities. The broader threat of lone wolf terror is also underscored by the fact that, prior to 9/11, the most destructive attack on American soil was perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh, a right-wing activist, not Islamists.
What potential motives might be at work?
I spent almost four years interviewing activists on the far right, many of whom had no direct association with violence. However, within the far right there is unquestionably a culture of violence that is reflected in several core narratives: the belief that members of the in-group are embroiled in a 'survivalist struggle' and that their ethnic or religious group is facing threat of extinction because of immigration and rising diversity; the belief in the need to take urgent and radical action to defend the group from these wider threats; and a sense of moral obligation to take this action on behalf of their children and grandchildren. These motives provide followers with compelling reasons not only to join fundamentalist groups, but also to take direct action on their behalf.
Based on this research, I suspect that when Breivik's motivations become clear we will be hearing a lot about threats in Norwegian society: the threat of multiculturalism, the threat posed by the presence and growth of Muslim communities, and the need to take radical action against the inefficacious mainstream parties (particularly the Labour Party). Like the activists who I interviewed, the posts left by Breivik also reveal an obsession with demographic statistics: the growth of minority communities and differential birth rates across different groups. This is often used as a justification for taking urgent, and radical action.
Clearly, other motives might be at work, for example a conspiratorial outlook that traces changes like immigration or the emergence of Islamist terror to mysterious elite groups or 'corrupt' mainstream parties. This might lead perpetrators to target mainstream parties (or their youth wings) and international organizations like the United Nations. Foremost, however, it is a belief that the wider community (whether ethnic, religious, etc.) is under threat that leads some individuals toward the far right. The source of this perceived threat may vary: AQ terror, settled Muslim communities, immigration or supranational organizations (e.g. the EU).
Many thanks to Matthew Goodwin for permission to republish this article
Showing posts with label Robert Cottage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Cottage. Show all posts
July 23, 2011
June 25, 2010
No-holds-barred racism as Griffin gets desperate
“A Third World slum colonised by millions of African and Asian immigrants, facing the growing certainty of eventual civil war between an ever-growing Muslim community and everybody else”.This is how Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, which claims to be not racist, described Britain in an email to supporters on 23 June appealing for money to help him fight the continuing action by the Equality and Human Rights Commission over the BNP’s racist constitution.
In the email, which also described Trevor Phillips, the chair of the EHRC, as an “immigrant Marxist” and a “black Marxist”, Griffin said he was “ready to go to prison” for his beliefs. Outrageously he invoked Winston Churchill, the “heroes of D-Day” and “Spitfire pilots” in a blatant attempt to win sympathy and persuade supporters to open their wallets yet again for him.
Griffin has often referred to an impending civil war in Britain, especially after electoral failure such as in last month’s elections. After the BNP failed to win any MEPs in the 2004 European election despite gaining 800,000 votes, Griffin said the party might have to consider alternatives to the ballot box. The following year the BNP’s general election manifesto called for adults who have completed a period of military service to be “required to keep in a safe locker in their homes a standard-issue military assault rifle and ammunition”, a policy the party has never renounced.
A number of BNP members have tried to turn Griffin’s talk about civil war into action. They include David Copeland, the London bomber, and Robert Cottage, who was convicted for possession of explosives.
In raising the prospect of imprisonment Griffin no doubt also has his eye on Eddy Butler’s challenge to his leadership of the BNP, announced on 18 June. Griffin may hope that party members would hardly desert a man who was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for them.
However most BNP members are likely to see through this ploy. Growing numbers want a new party leader because of Griffin’s incompetence in producing electoral results, dubious financial dealings and his insistence on handing over administrative and financial control of the party to the “consultant” Jim Dowson, a militant anti-abortion campaigner with criminal convictions for violence.
Butler, the BNP’s national elections officer until he was peremptorily sacked at the end of March, is now trying to collect the signatures of 20% of BNP members with at least two years’ membership, which he needs to force a leadership election. Several party branch organisers are calling local meetings so that members can sign the forms.
BNP activists all over the country are beginning to support Butler’s challenge. One of them is Danny Lake, former leader of the Young BNP. Echoing the views of many party members, he describes Griffin as “a man who has brought the party far but remains stunted by a damaged reputation”. Griffin is standing “with a set of disastrous election results behind him”, Lake points out, before expressing the view that Griffin will not allow a clean fight.
For more detailed analysis of the challenge to Griffin’s leadership, see the July issue of Searchlight.
Hope not hate
November 01, 2009
The BNP and terrorism
This article was submitted by one of our readers, Roddy Newman. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.
After 9/11, BNP leader Nick Griffin started moralising about Islamist terrorism, and pretended that the BNP was a mainstream political party like the big 3 parties, UKIP, and the Greens, but as I will explain in this article, the BNP has had links to fascist terrorists, while the five other parties have not. Moreover, as I will also explain in this article, Nick Griffin supported Iranian dictator Ayatollah Khomeini's terrorist regime during his period in the International Third Position group, who saw Khomeini's Iran, and Libyan dictator Colonel Gadaffi's terrorist regime, as a "Third Way" which was not "Jewish-controlled capitalism", or "Jewish-controlled communism".
The most notorious BNP linked former terrorist, is of course the London nail bomber, David Copeland, whose 3 bombs killed 3 and injured 139. Copeland had been a member of the BNP before he carried out his bombings, and he openly said that his bombs were designed to create a race war which would encourage white British people to vote BNP (one bomb went off in the primarily African-Caribbean Brixton area, and one in the primarily Asian Brick Lane area). The third went off in a Soho gay bar. See the June 30, 2000 BBC News online article, "Profile: Copeland the killer", to learn more about Copeland and his bombings.
Another BBC News online article, "Ex-BNP man jailed over chemicals" (July 31, 2007), discussed a second BNP former terrorist, Robert Cottage [pictured left], who stored bomb-making chemicals at his home, because he expected that immigration would lead to a civil war. A YouTube film, "BNP terrorist Robert Cottage", which is a clip from a Sky News report about his bomb-making hoard, mentions his involvement with the BNP, for whom he stood as a local election candidate 3 times.
A third BNP former terrorist, former BNP Propaganda Officer and Group Development Officer Tony Lecomber, who was taking a nail bomb to the headquarters of a left wing group when it went off in his car, was discussed in an article in "Searchlight", which is Britain's leading anti-fascist magazine, "Sacked terrorist ran BNP election campaign" (September 2006), and in a YouTube film, "BNP nail-bomber Tony Lecomber", which is a clip from a BBC "Panorama" documentary, "Under the Skin", which was originally broadcast on November 25, 2000.
The "Searchlight" magazine, which all 3 of the big political parties have asked for advice on how to defeat BNP candidates in elections, have discussed a number of other BNP former terrorists in their articles. In their November 2005 article, "Right-wing terrorism still alive and plotting", you can read about David Tovey, a BNP member who was caught with military plastic explosive, and remote control devices to set it off, and in March 2007's "AWB terrorist finds home in the BNP", you can read about Lambertus Nieuwhof, a white South African former terrorist who has joined the BNP, and who has created a number of its websites - for example, the website of the BNP's Barking and Dagenham branch, and the website of its Solidarity trades union.
As a March 31, 2007 article in "The Guardian" ("BNP activist took part in terror campaign") revealed, Nieuwhof planted a 25 kg bomb in a South African multiracial school, which thankfully failed to explode.
If Nieuwhof was a non-white, South African Islamist former terrorist, rather than a white South African former terrorist, there would no doubt have been critical stories in various national newspapers about his presence in Britain, but so far, only "The Guardian", and "The Independent" ("Johann Hari: The looming threat of terror that comes from the far right", October 14, 2009) have written about him.
Johann Hari's article, which was reprinted in "The Belfast Telegraph" under a slightly different title ("Johann Hari: UK faces looming threat of terror from 'neo-Nazis' out to kill black people, Jews and gays"), perhaps because that city is much more concerned about white terrorists than the mainland UK is, for obvious reasons, discusses several British fascist former terrorists, including David Copeland and Tony Lecomber.
The YouTube video "Lambertus Nieuwhof and the Afrikaner Resistance Movement", is a short clip from "His Big White Self", a 2006 Nick Broomfield TV documentary about the Afrikaaner Resistance Movement white South African terrorist group, who, as the film explains, set off about 120 bombs in the 1992 to 1994 period, to try to stop the transition to black majority rule. Broomfield made another TV documentary about the same terrorist group in 1991, "The Leader, His Driver, and the Driver's Wife". Both of the documentaries have now been released on DVD.
On a "Searchlight" HOPE not hate webpage, "The real BNP: The terrorist links", you can read about yet another BNP related former terrorist, BNP supporter Allen Boyce, who was given a 2 year suspended jail sentence after he passed bomb making instructions to a BNP activist, Terry Collins.
As I will now explain, even Nick Griffin himself has past terrorist links, as he is linked to an Italian fascist former terrorist who was convicted in absentia for being a member of an Italian fascist terrorist group. As I will now explain as well, Griffin also once backed 2 regimes which funded terrorist groups, and was allegedly once a "close ally" of a pro-terrorism American fascist party leader.
The Italian fascist former terrorist who Griffin is linked to, is Roberto Fiore, who fled Italy and made his home in Britain after the August 2, 1980 Bologna train station bombing (which killed 85, and injured more than 200), because his fascist terrorist group, the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei, were responsible for what is known in Italy as "The Bologna massacre". See 3 online articles, "Italy:Terror on the Right" ("New York Review of Books", January 22, 1981, Volume 27, Numbers 21 and 22), "Roberto Fiore: from terrorist to entrepreneur...and back again" ("Searchlight", July 1998), and the "Searchlight" HOPE not hate website's "Nick Griffin, BNP leader" (December 2008) to learn more about Fiore, the Armed Revoloutionary Nuclei, and the Bologna massacre.
Most people would no doubt assume that Nick Griffin, who moralises about Islamist terrorism, would have had nothing to do with a former terrorist like Fiore when he fled to Britain, but of course if you did assume that, you would be wrong, because Griffin has in the past said one thing to the general public, and a different thing to his own people. Griffin tells the general public that the BNP is now a moderate mainstream political party, but in a YouTube film of a Griffin speech, which has been posted under the title "BNP MEP Nick Griffin + KKK Terrorist", Griffin tells an American far right audience that he is merely repackaging his unchanged far right ideas to make them more acceptable to the British general public.
It is thus not surprising that Fiore is the political mentor and friend of Griffin, as a "Searchlight" article, "Nick Griffin political extremist and veteran splitter" (February 2008) pointed out, and that Fiore has financially supported Griffin, as a second "Searchlight" article, "BNP deputy leader addresses international fascist rally" (April 5, 2009) explained. It is thus also not surprising that Griffin used to be Fiore's business partner, as a third "Searchlight" article, "No beer, no bands, no fun" (September 2009) revealed, that Griffin and Fiore once shared a flat together, as a February 29, 2008 article in "The Guardian" ("Language school run by Italian fascist leader") stated, and that Fiore spoke at the BNP's Red, White and Blue Festival in August 2009, as an August 16 story in "The Times", "Convicted Italian fascist Roberto Fiore addresses BNP followers in Derbyshire" noted. Nor is it surprising that in a YouTube video which has been posted under the title "Nick Griffin and Christianity (BNP)", you can hear Griffin praising Fiore as "charismatic" and "magnetic".
If you know about the dirty secrets of the Italian fascist scene which the "charismatic" and "magnetic" Fiore emerged from, then you will also know that those dirty secrets make it extremely hypocritical for the BNP to moralise about terrorism. The Bologna bombing was initially blamed on an accident or the communist Red Brigades terrorist group, but it soon became clear that the fascist Armed Revoloutionary Nuclei had carried out the bombing, which was presumably designed to weaken support for the large Italian Communist Party, as Bologna was one of its strongholds.
The Italian Parliament's 13 year Slaughter Commission, which was investigating the Bologna massacre, and a series of other murderous "communist" and "anarchist" bombings in Italy in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's (hence its 'Slaughter Commission' name), concluded that the American CIA, and the Italian elite Masonic lodge P2, which included senior figures in the Italian Parliament, armed forces, secret services, and police forces, were responsible for the bombings, which it is now known were carried out by fascists to create public support for a fascist military coup.
On page 110 of David Yallop's book, "In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I" (Constable and Robinson, London, 2007), which has sold over 6 million copies around the world, and which is about the theory that P2 poisoned and murdered Pope John Paul I, because he was about to throw Freemasons out of the Vatican, Yallop mentions the fact that Italian former fascist terrorist Elio Ciolini, who had allegedly been a follower of P2's fascist Grand Master, Licio Gelli, had alleged that the Bologna bombing was planned at a P2 meeting in Monte Carlo on April 11, 1980.
Bologna was a well known stronghold of the Communist Party, so why would a communist terrorist group bomb the second class passengers' waiting room at its Central Station? Communists have historically got most of their support from working class people, who were probably the majority of the people in the second class waiting room on the morning of August 2, 1980. It is equally unlikely that anarchists, who have historically got most of their support from peasant and working class people, should have perpetrated the bombings which they were initially accused of in Italy, as those terrorist atrocities killed or injured many working class people.
Italian judge Guido Salvini indicted US Navy officer David Carrett as a suspect in a December 12, 1969 "anarchist" bombing of Milan's Piazza Fontana (Fontana Square), which killed 16, and injured 90, and which an Italian former fascist terrorist, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, has said was the work of fascist terrorists, and, although it should be pointed out that Carrett has never even been tried, never mind convicted for carrying out that bombing, it should also be pointed out if Salvini was indicting a US Navy officer as a Piazza Fontana suspect, it is hardly likely that anarchists were responsible for the atrocity.
The Piazza Fontana bombing also led to another death, that of Giuseppe Pinelli, an entirely innocent Italian anarchist railway worker, who "fell" to his death from the fourth floor of a Milan police station while he was being interrogated about his non-existent role in the bombing. Pinelli's death inspired Dario Fo's famous 1970 play, "Accidental Death of an Anarchist", which was broadcast on Channel 4 in 1983, and which has been performed in various British theatres in London, Birmingham, and other places.
Fiore's friend, political pupil, and former financial benefactor and business partner Nick Griffin, was also once a fan of 2 regimes which fund, or did fund terrorism (Colonel Gadaffi's Libya, and Iran's Islamist theocracy). A BBC News webpage, "Nick Griffin: Right wing chameleon" (June 29, 2001), explains how Griffin went to Libya to ask Colonel Gadaffi for funds for the National Front, which Griffin was then a member of. That visit is also discussed in a YouTube video, "Nick Griffin supports Muslim Extremism", which is a clip from an already mentioned BBC "Panorama" documentary, "Under the Skin". The "Panorama" documentary clip includes a photograph of Griffin in Libya, whose regime paid for his trip to Tripoli, as a "Searchlight" anti-BNP webpage which also includes that photo explains.
That webpage also mentions the fact that the "political soldier" wing of the NF, which Griffin created, as an already mentioned "Searchlight" article, "Nick Griffin political extremist and veteran splitter" (February 2008) pointed out, had been paying visits to the "Libyan People's Bureau" (the Libyan Embassy) in London, and had been expressing support for Colonel Gadaffi's Libya, so it is not surprising that the Libyan regime arranged an all expenses paid trip to Tripoli for Griffin. Colonel Gadaffi's Libya used to fund a number of terrorist groups of course, including the IRA.
The just mentioned "Searchlight" Stop the BNP webpage, and the previously mentioned "Searchlight" article, also refer to Nick Griffin's past support for Iran's Islamist theocracy, which has long funded Islamist terrorism (for example, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas), so Griffin's past support for that regime is as hypocritical as his links to Fiore, and as his past links to Colonel Gadaffi's Libya.
Whether you believe the original theory that Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran paid Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to carry out the Lockerbie bombing, to avenge the deaths of 290 Iranian pilgrims returning from Mecca, whose Iran Air Flight 655 airliner had been shot out of the sky by accident by the US Navy warship the USS Vincennes, or whether you believe the post 1991 Gulf War theory that Colonel Gadaffi's Libya was responsible (when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, Iran was needed for the anti-Iraq coalition, so some writers, like the late Paul Foot of "Private Eye", have alleged that American and British intelligence agencies started to point the finger at Libya so Iran could become part of the anti-Iraq coalition), Nick Griffin backed the regime which was responsible for the worst terrorist atrocity in British history.
That atrocity killed all of the 243 passengers and 16 crew on board Pan Am Flight 103, as well as 11 people in the village of Lockerbie, because the plane's nearly full fuel tanks (and wings) fell on their homes and exploded.
9/11 created a "Who should we hate now?" moment for Europe's far-right, as a "Searchlight" article, "International far-right reactions to the terrorist attacks on the USA" (October 2001) showed, because some of Europe's far-right continued to primarily hate Jewish people, and what they saw as the USA's "Zionist Occupation Government", which led to them applauding the 9/11 attacks, while the rest of Europe's far-right, including Nick Griffin, switched to primarily hating Muslim people, which is why Griffin used the attacks as an excuse to begin hypocritically moralising about Islamist terrorism.
Griffin was also allegedly a "close ally" of a pro-terrorism American fascist party (National Alliance) leader, the late William Pierce, who openly advocated killing all of the world's non-white and Jewish people with nuclear weapons, and the use of terrorist violence to kill such people. See my September 13th Lancaster Unity article, "Do the BNP and EFP leadership still believe in the mass slaughter of billions?", to learn more about Pierce's pro-global genocide views, and about Griffin allegedly being a "close ally" of his.
Of course, other British fascist groups have terrorist links, which is why "The Guardian" of December 13, 2008 featured a story called "Racist who had bomb kit jailed for campaign against couple", which discussed Nathan Worrell, a British People's Party, Ku Klux Klan, and November 9 Society terrorist, and which is why another article in the same newspaper, "Neo-Nazi convicted of planning terrorist bombing campaign" (July 15, 2009), discussed Neil Lewington, who was found by police to have 2 home made bombs, and fascist (Ku Klux Klan and Combat 18) literature, as well a video about the ex-BNP nail bomber David Copeland. A YouTube video, "BNP + Nazi terrorist Nathan Worrell", includes film of the BNP stickers which were found at Worrell's home. Another YouTube video, "Nazi terrorist Neil Lewington", is a BBC News clip about that fascist would-be bomber.
A third non-BNP fascist terrorist, Martyn Gilleard, was the subject of a BBC News online article, "Man jailed over nail bombs plot" (June 25, 2008). Police found 4 home-made nail bombs at his home, as well as bullets, swords, and axes (and 39,000 child pornography images). A second BBC News online article, "Neo-Nazi had child abuse images" (June 25, 2008), states that: "At the time of his arrest he [Gilleard] was a paid-up member of the National Front, the White Nationalist Party, and the British People's Party...".
Andrew Wells and Ian Hindle
Gilleard's British People's Party membership is also mentioned in a YouTube film, "BNP and NF Pedos Martyn Gilleard, Roderick Rowley, Ian Hindle + Andrew Wells", which is a clip from a Channel 4 News report. The report only discusses Gilleard, but the "more info" information on the right hand side of the page when the video is playing, mentions former BNP election candidate Roderick Rowley's child pornography conviction, and the child sexual abuse convictions of BNP members Ian Hindle and Andrew Wells, which were exposed after the BNP's membership list was posted online in 2008.
Despite the existence of non-BNP British fascist former terrorists, the BNP are the largest British fascist party, so it is no surprise that they seem to attract the most terrorists, and it is also no surprise that even the non-BNP terrorists Nathan Worrell and Neil Lewington had BNP stickers, or a video about an ex-BNP former terrorist at their homes.
The BNP may even attract more terrorists than other countries' fascist parties, because "Searchlight" has foreign readers who write articles for them about fascism in other countries, but that magazine has primarily featured BNP-linked terrorists in its articles, which have included: "Belgium: Arrested nazi terrorists included soldiers" (October 2006); "Italy - An endless cycle of terror" (May 2002); "Portrait of a bomber" (February 2001), which was about a terrorist bombing that was carried out by a member of the New Force party (whose leader is a certain Roberto Fiore, who, in 1999, was allowed to return to Italy, where he became a fascist MEP); and "Unmasking the Anti Anti-Fa" (May 2000), which mentions German fascist terrorism.
See Martin Lee's book, "The Beast Reawakens: The Chilling Story of the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement" (Warner Books, London, 1998), to learn more about modern fascist terrorism in Italy, Germany, and Belgium.
Perhaps not even an American fascist party has attracted as many terrorists as the BNP, despite that country's size. See my already mentioned September 13th Lancaster Unity article, "Do the BNP and EFP leadership still believe in the mass slaughter of billions?", to read about various American fascist terrorists, who, like the ex-BNP London nail bomber David Copeland, were inspired by the genocidal ideas of the late National Alliance leader William Pierce.
A YouTube video, "BNP + Nazi Terrorism", which is a clip from a BBC documentary, "Panorama Special - The Nailbomber", which was originally broadcast on June 30, 2000, discusses David Copeland's [pictured left] involvement with the BNP, and his admission that his bombings were inspired by "The Turner Diaries", which the documentary said was "sold through BNP magazines". So much for the supposedly mainstream BNP. Do the big 3 parties, UKIP, or the Greens sell novels through their party magazines in which billions of people are exterminated with nuclear weapons?
In reality, like other totalitarian organisations, the BNP is a haven for psychopaths and other dangerous individuals, and has nothing to do with mainstream politics.
Another BNP type fascist group which is a haven for psychopaths and other dangerous individuals, the even more extreme National Socialist Movement, has a tiny past and present membership which includes 3 men who are serving life sentences for murders, London nail bomber David Copeland, Charlie Sargent, and Martin Cross, so it is no surprise that the BNP has had to ban convicted criminals from standing in elections, because anti-fascists had been able to use their leaflets to point to the numerous BNP candidates with convictions for terrorist offences, racist violence, gang rape, child sexual abuse, football hooliganism, and other violent crimes.
The NSM were profiled in an already-mentioned BBC documentary, "Panorama Special: The Nailbomber". They are not to be confused with a different National Socialist Movement of the past, whose members included a certain Andrew Brons, who is now the BNP MEP for Yorkshire and Humberside. While the previous NSM did not spawn any terrorists, it did spawn some arsonists, as a "Searchlight" HOPE not hate webpage, "The real BNP: Andrew Brons" explains. It states: "NSM members were responsible for an arson campaign against Jewish property and synagogues in the 1960's."
"Brons appears to have approved. In a [garbled] letter to [hardline fascist Colin] Jordan's wife, Brons reported meeting an NSM member who "mentioned such activities as bombing synagogues." He declared: "On this subject I have a dual view, in that I realise that he is well intentioned, I feel that our public image may suffer considerable damage as a result of these activities. I am however open to correction on this point.""
Like BNP founder John Tyndall, Colin Jordan was a disciple of the pre-World War Two Imperial Fascist League leader Arnold Leese, who advocated gassing Jews before the Nazis (in 1936).
Because British fascists are at least partly responsible for far more racist violence than fascists in any other Western European country, as an official European Union report which you can download here shows (in England and Wales, there are several times more racist crimes each year than in Germany, which has a roughly 30% bigger population than England and Wales), it is hardly surprising that the BNP appear to attract more terrorists than any other fascist party on the planet. As an April 22, 2009 EU Business article which you can read here explains, a survey has revealed that the true level of racist violence in the EU, is far higher than the level in official government statistics, which makes it even less surprising that the BNP attracts so many terrorists.
After 9/11, BNP leader Nick Griffin started moralising about Islamist terrorism, and pretended that the BNP was a mainstream political party like the big 3 parties, UKIP, and the Greens, but as I will explain in this article, the BNP has had links to fascist terrorists, while the five other parties have not. Moreover, as I will also explain in this article, Nick Griffin supported Iranian dictator Ayatollah Khomeini's terrorist regime during his period in the International Third Position group, who saw Khomeini's Iran, and Libyan dictator Colonel Gadaffi's terrorist regime, as a "Third Way" which was not "Jewish-controlled capitalism", or "Jewish-controlled communism".
The most notorious BNP linked former terrorist, is of course the London nail bomber, David Copeland, whose 3 bombs killed 3 and injured 139. Copeland had been a member of the BNP before he carried out his bombings, and he openly said that his bombs were designed to create a race war which would encourage white British people to vote BNP (one bomb went off in the primarily African-Caribbean Brixton area, and one in the primarily Asian Brick Lane area). The third went off in a Soho gay bar. See the June 30, 2000 BBC News online article, "Profile: Copeland the killer", to learn more about Copeland and his bombings.
Another BBC News online article, "Ex-BNP man jailed over chemicals" (July 31, 2007), discussed a second BNP former terrorist, Robert Cottage [pictured left], who stored bomb-making chemicals at his home, because he expected that immigration would lead to a civil war. A YouTube film, "BNP terrorist Robert Cottage", which is a clip from a Sky News report about his bomb-making hoard, mentions his involvement with the BNP, for whom he stood as a local election candidate 3 times.A third BNP former terrorist, former BNP Propaganda Officer and Group Development Officer Tony Lecomber, who was taking a nail bomb to the headquarters of a left wing group when it went off in his car, was discussed in an article in "Searchlight", which is Britain's leading anti-fascist magazine, "Sacked terrorist ran BNP election campaign" (September 2006), and in a YouTube film, "BNP nail-bomber Tony Lecomber", which is a clip from a BBC "Panorama" documentary, "Under the Skin", which was originally broadcast on November 25, 2000.
The "Searchlight" magazine, which all 3 of the big political parties have asked for advice on how to defeat BNP candidates in elections, have discussed a number of other BNP former terrorists in their articles. In their November 2005 article, "Right-wing terrorism still alive and plotting", you can read about David Tovey, a BNP member who was caught with military plastic explosive, and remote control devices to set it off, and in March 2007's "AWB terrorist finds home in the BNP", you can read about Lambertus Nieuwhof, a white South African former terrorist who has joined the BNP, and who has created a number of its websites - for example, the website of the BNP's Barking and Dagenham branch, and the website of its Solidarity trades union.
As a March 31, 2007 article in "The Guardian" ("BNP activist took part in terror campaign") revealed, Nieuwhof planted a 25 kg bomb in a South African multiracial school, which thankfully failed to explode.
If Nieuwhof was a non-white, South African Islamist former terrorist, rather than a white South African former terrorist, there would no doubt have been critical stories in various national newspapers about his presence in Britain, but so far, only "The Guardian", and "The Independent" ("Johann Hari: The looming threat of terror that comes from the far right", October 14, 2009) have written about him.
Johann Hari's article, which was reprinted in "The Belfast Telegraph" under a slightly different title ("Johann Hari: UK faces looming threat of terror from 'neo-Nazis' out to kill black people, Jews and gays"), perhaps because that city is much more concerned about white terrorists than the mainland UK is, for obvious reasons, discusses several British fascist former terrorists, including David Copeland and Tony Lecomber.
The YouTube video "Lambertus Nieuwhof and the Afrikaner Resistance Movement", is a short clip from "His Big White Self", a 2006 Nick Broomfield TV documentary about the Afrikaaner Resistance Movement white South African terrorist group, who, as the film explains, set off about 120 bombs in the 1992 to 1994 period, to try to stop the transition to black majority rule. Broomfield made another TV documentary about the same terrorist group in 1991, "The Leader, His Driver, and the Driver's Wife". Both of the documentaries have now been released on DVD.
On a "Searchlight" HOPE not hate webpage, "The real BNP: The terrorist links", you can read about yet another BNP related former terrorist, BNP supporter Allen Boyce, who was given a 2 year suspended jail sentence after he passed bomb making instructions to a BNP activist, Terry Collins.
As I will now explain, even Nick Griffin himself has past terrorist links, as he is linked to an Italian fascist former terrorist who was convicted in absentia for being a member of an Italian fascist terrorist group. As I will now explain as well, Griffin also once backed 2 regimes which funded terrorist groups, and was allegedly once a "close ally" of a pro-terrorism American fascist party leader.
The Italian fascist former terrorist who Griffin is linked to, is Roberto Fiore, who fled Italy and made his home in Britain after the August 2, 1980 Bologna train station bombing (which killed 85, and injured more than 200), because his fascist terrorist group, the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei, were responsible for what is known in Italy as "The Bologna massacre". See 3 online articles, "Italy:Terror on the Right" ("New York Review of Books", January 22, 1981, Volume 27, Numbers 21 and 22), "Roberto Fiore: from terrorist to entrepreneur...and back again" ("Searchlight", July 1998), and the "Searchlight" HOPE not hate website's "Nick Griffin, BNP leader" (December 2008) to learn more about Fiore, the Armed Revoloutionary Nuclei, and the Bologna massacre.
Most people would no doubt assume that Nick Griffin, who moralises about Islamist terrorism, would have had nothing to do with a former terrorist like Fiore when he fled to Britain, but of course if you did assume that, you would be wrong, because Griffin has in the past said one thing to the general public, and a different thing to his own people. Griffin tells the general public that the BNP is now a moderate mainstream political party, but in a YouTube film of a Griffin speech, which has been posted under the title "BNP MEP Nick Griffin + KKK Terrorist", Griffin tells an American far right audience that he is merely repackaging his unchanged far right ideas to make them more acceptable to the British general public.
It is thus not surprising that Fiore is the political mentor and friend of Griffin, as a "Searchlight" article, "Nick Griffin political extremist and veteran splitter" (February 2008) pointed out, and that Fiore has financially supported Griffin, as a second "Searchlight" article, "BNP deputy leader addresses international fascist rally" (April 5, 2009) explained. It is thus also not surprising that Griffin used to be Fiore's business partner, as a third "Searchlight" article, "No beer, no bands, no fun" (September 2009) revealed, that Griffin and Fiore once shared a flat together, as a February 29, 2008 article in "The Guardian" ("Language school run by Italian fascist leader") stated, and that Fiore spoke at the BNP's Red, White and Blue Festival in August 2009, as an August 16 story in "The Times", "Convicted Italian fascist Roberto Fiore addresses BNP followers in Derbyshire" noted. Nor is it surprising that in a YouTube video which has been posted under the title "Nick Griffin and Christianity (BNP)", you can hear Griffin praising Fiore as "charismatic" and "magnetic".
If you know about the dirty secrets of the Italian fascist scene which the "charismatic" and "magnetic" Fiore emerged from, then you will also know that those dirty secrets make it extremely hypocritical for the BNP to moralise about terrorism. The Bologna bombing was initially blamed on an accident or the communist Red Brigades terrorist group, but it soon became clear that the fascist Armed Revoloutionary Nuclei had carried out the bombing, which was presumably designed to weaken support for the large Italian Communist Party, as Bologna was one of its strongholds.
The Italian Parliament's 13 year Slaughter Commission, which was investigating the Bologna massacre, and a series of other murderous "communist" and "anarchist" bombings in Italy in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's (hence its 'Slaughter Commission' name), concluded that the American CIA, and the Italian elite Masonic lodge P2, which included senior figures in the Italian Parliament, armed forces, secret services, and police forces, were responsible for the bombings, which it is now known were carried out by fascists to create public support for a fascist military coup.
On page 110 of David Yallop's book, "In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I" (Constable and Robinson, London, 2007), which has sold over 6 million copies around the world, and which is about the theory that P2 poisoned and murdered Pope John Paul I, because he was about to throw Freemasons out of the Vatican, Yallop mentions the fact that Italian former fascist terrorist Elio Ciolini, who had allegedly been a follower of P2's fascist Grand Master, Licio Gelli, had alleged that the Bologna bombing was planned at a P2 meeting in Monte Carlo on April 11, 1980.
Bologna was a well known stronghold of the Communist Party, so why would a communist terrorist group bomb the second class passengers' waiting room at its Central Station? Communists have historically got most of their support from working class people, who were probably the majority of the people in the second class waiting room on the morning of August 2, 1980. It is equally unlikely that anarchists, who have historically got most of their support from peasant and working class people, should have perpetrated the bombings which they were initially accused of in Italy, as those terrorist atrocities killed or injured many working class people.
Italian judge Guido Salvini indicted US Navy officer David Carrett as a suspect in a December 12, 1969 "anarchist" bombing of Milan's Piazza Fontana (Fontana Square), which killed 16, and injured 90, and which an Italian former fascist terrorist, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, has said was the work of fascist terrorists, and, although it should be pointed out that Carrett has never even been tried, never mind convicted for carrying out that bombing, it should also be pointed out if Salvini was indicting a US Navy officer as a Piazza Fontana suspect, it is hardly likely that anarchists were responsible for the atrocity.
The Piazza Fontana bombing also led to another death, that of Giuseppe Pinelli, an entirely innocent Italian anarchist railway worker, who "fell" to his death from the fourth floor of a Milan police station while he was being interrogated about his non-existent role in the bombing. Pinelli's death inspired Dario Fo's famous 1970 play, "Accidental Death of an Anarchist", which was broadcast on Channel 4 in 1983, and which has been performed in various British theatres in London, Birmingham, and other places.
Fiore's friend, political pupil, and former financial benefactor and business partner Nick Griffin, was also once a fan of 2 regimes which fund, or did fund terrorism (Colonel Gadaffi's Libya, and Iran's Islamist theocracy). A BBC News webpage, "Nick Griffin: Right wing chameleon" (June 29, 2001), explains how Griffin went to Libya to ask Colonel Gadaffi for funds for the National Front, which Griffin was then a member of. That visit is also discussed in a YouTube video, "Nick Griffin supports Muslim Extremism", which is a clip from an already mentioned BBC "Panorama" documentary, "Under the Skin". The "Panorama" documentary clip includes a photograph of Griffin in Libya, whose regime paid for his trip to Tripoli, as a "Searchlight" anti-BNP webpage which also includes that photo explains.That webpage also mentions the fact that the "political soldier" wing of the NF, which Griffin created, as an already mentioned "Searchlight" article, "Nick Griffin political extremist and veteran splitter" (February 2008) pointed out, had been paying visits to the "Libyan People's Bureau" (the Libyan Embassy) in London, and had been expressing support for Colonel Gadaffi's Libya, so it is not surprising that the Libyan regime arranged an all expenses paid trip to Tripoli for Griffin. Colonel Gadaffi's Libya used to fund a number of terrorist groups of course, including the IRA.
The just mentioned "Searchlight" Stop the BNP webpage, and the previously mentioned "Searchlight" article, also refer to Nick Griffin's past support for Iran's Islamist theocracy, which has long funded Islamist terrorism (for example, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas), so Griffin's past support for that regime is as hypocritical as his links to Fiore, and as his past links to Colonel Gadaffi's Libya.
Whether you believe the original theory that Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran paid Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to carry out the Lockerbie bombing, to avenge the deaths of 290 Iranian pilgrims returning from Mecca, whose Iran Air Flight 655 airliner had been shot out of the sky by accident by the US Navy warship the USS Vincennes, or whether you believe the post 1991 Gulf War theory that Colonel Gadaffi's Libya was responsible (when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, Iran was needed for the anti-Iraq coalition, so some writers, like the late Paul Foot of "Private Eye", have alleged that American and British intelligence agencies started to point the finger at Libya so Iran could become part of the anti-Iraq coalition), Nick Griffin backed the regime which was responsible for the worst terrorist atrocity in British history.
That atrocity killed all of the 243 passengers and 16 crew on board Pan Am Flight 103, as well as 11 people in the village of Lockerbie, because the plane's nearly full fuel tanks (and wings) fell on their homes and exploded.
9/11 created a "Who should we hate now?" moment for Europe's far-right, as a "Searchlight" article, "International far-right reactions to the terrorist attacks on the USA" (October 2001) showed, because some of Europe's far-right continued to primarily hate Jewish people, and what they saw as the USA's "Zionist Occupation Government", which led to them applauding the 9/11 attacks, while the rest of Europe's far-right, including Nick Griffin, switched to primarily hating Muslim people, which is why Griffin used the attacks as an excuse to begin hypocritically moralising about Islamist terrorism.
Griffin was also allegedly a "close ally" of a pro-terrorism American fascist party (National Alliance) leader, the late William Pierce, who openly advocated killing all of the world's non-white and Jewish people with nuclear weapons, and the use of terrorist violence to kill such people. See my September 13th Lancaster Unity article, "Do the BNP and EFP leadership still believe in the mass slaughter of billions?", to learn more about Pierce's pro-global genocide views, and about Griffin allegedly being a "close ally" of his.
Of course, other British fascist groups have terrorist links, which is why "The Guardian" of December 13, 2008 featured a story called "Racist who had bomb kit jailed for campaign against couple", which discussed Nathan Worrell, a British People's Party, Ku Klux Klan, and November 9 Society terrorist, and which is why another article in the same newspaper, "Neo-Nazi convicted of planning terrorist bombing campaign" (July 15, 2009), discussed Neil Lewington, who was found by police to have 2 home made bombs, and fascist (Ku Klux Klan and Combat 18) literature, as well a video about the ex-BNP nail bomber David Copeland. A YouTube video, "BNP + Nazi terrorist Nathan Worrell", includes film of the BNP stickers which were found at Worrell's home. Another YouTube video, "Nazi terrorist Neil Lewington", is a BBC News clip about that fascist would-be bomber.
A third non-BNP fascist terrorist, Martyn Gilleard, was the subject of a BBC News online article, "Man jailed over nail bombs plot" (June 25, 2008). Police found 4 home-made nail bombs at his home, as well as bullets, swords, and axes (and 39,000 child pornography images). A second BBC News online article, "Neo-Nazi had child abuse images" (June 25, 2008), states that: "At the time of his arrest he [Gilleard] was a paid-up member of the National Front, the White Nationalist Party, and the British People's Party...".
Andrew Wells and Ian HindleDespite the existence of non-BNP British fascist former terrorists, the BNP are the largest British fascist party, so it is no surprise that they seem to attract the most terrorists, and it is also no surprise that even the non-BNP terrorists Nathan Worrell and Neil Lewington had BNP stickers, or a video about an ex-BNP former terrorist at their homes.
The BNP may even attract more terrorists than other countries' fascist parties, because "Searchlight" has foreign readers who write articles for them about fascism in other countries, but that magazine has primarily featured BNP-linked terrorists in its articles, which have included: "Belgium: Arrested nazi terrorists included soldiers" (October 2006); "Italy - An endless cycle of terror" (May 2002); "Portrait of a bomber" (February 2001), which was about a terrorist bombing that was carried out by a member of the New Force party (whose leader is a certain Roberto Fiore, who, in 1999, was allowed to return to Italy, where he became a fascist MEP); and "Unmasking the Anti Anti-Fa" (May 2000), which mentions German fascist terrorism.
See Martin Lee's book, "The Beast Reawakens: The Chilling Story of the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement" (Warner Books, London, 1998), to learn more about modern fascist terrorism in Italy, Germany, and Belgium.
Perhaps not even an American fascist party has attracted as many terrorists as the BNP, despite that country's size. See my already mentioned September 13th Lancaster Unity article, "Do the BNP and EFP leadership still believe in the mass slaughter of billions?", to read about various American fascist terrorists, who, like the ex-BNP London nail bomber David Copeland, were inspired by the genocidal ideas of the late National Alliance leader William Pierce.
A YouTube video, "BNP + Nazi Terrorism", which is a clip from a BBC documentary, "Panorama Special - The Nailbomber", which was originally broadcast on June 30, 2000, discusses David Copeland's [pictured left] involvement with the BNP, and his admission that his bombings were inspired by "The Turner Diaries", which the documentary said was "sold through BNP magazines". So much for the supposedly mainstream BNP. Do the big 3 parties, UKIP, or the Greens sell novels through their party magazines in which billions of people are exterminated with nuclear weapons?In reality, like other totalitarian organisations, the BNP is a haven for psychopaths and other dangerous individuals, and has nothing to do with mainstream politics.
Another BNP type fascist group which is a haven for psychopaths and other dangerous individuals, the even more extreme National Socialist Movement, has a tiny past and present membership which includes 3 men who are serving life sentences for murders, London nail bomber David Copeland, Charlie Sargent, and Martin Cross, so it is no surprise that the BNP has had to ban convicted criminals from standing in elections, because anti-fascists had been able to use their leaflets to point to the numerous BNP candidates with convictions for terrorist offences, racist violence, gang rape, child sexual abuse, football hooliganism, and other violent crimes.
The NSM were profiled in an already-mentioned BBC documentary, "Panorama Special: The Nailbomber". They are not to be confused with a different National Socialist Movement of the past, whose members included a certain Andrew Brons, who is now the BNP MEP for Yorkshire and Humberside. While the previous NSM did not spawn any terrorists, it did spawn some arsonists, as a "Searchlight" HOPE not hate webpage, "The real BNP: Andrew Brons" explains. It states: "NSM members were responsible for an arson campaign against Jewish property and synagogues in the 1960's."
"Brons appears to have approved. In a [garbled] letter to [hardline fascist Colin] Jordan's wife, Brons reported meeting an NSM member who "mentioned such activities as bombing synagogues." He declared: "On this subject I have a dual view, in that I realise that he is well intentioned, I feel that our public image may suffer considerable damage as a result of these activities. I am however open to correction on this point.""
Like BNP founder John Tyndall, Colin Jordan was a disciple of the pre-World War Two Imperial Fascist League leader Arnold Leese, who advocated gassing Jews before the Nazis (in 1936).
Because British fascists are at least partly responsible for far more racist violence than fascists in any other Western European country, as an official European Union report which you can download here shows (in England and Wales, there are several times more racist crimes each year than in Germany, which has a roughly 30% bigger population than England and Wales), it is hardly surprising that the BNP appear to attract more terrorists than any other fascist party on the planet. As an April 22, 2009 EU Business article which you can read here explains, a survey has revealed that the true level of racist violence in the EU, is far higher than the level in official government statistics, which makes it even less surprising that the BNP attracts so many terrorists.
October 14, 2009
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 gaysBritain 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
May 05, 2008
Johann Hari: BNP votes are a cry of white working-class anguish
We dismiss them as 'chavs', 'pikeys' and racists, and jeer at their names
The London results were so bleak the election coverage soon turned into an edition of Have I Got Noose For You. Mayor Boris has gone from punch-line to punch-out, and I watched it all in a black cloud, waiting for his pledge to rule on behalf of all Londoners – white, Asian or piccaninny.
But there is worse news still: the far right have seized their fattest electoral prize since the 1930s. The British National Party now have a seat in the London Assembly, continuing a dramatic rise: in 1992, it won 7,005 votes nationally; by 2005 it hit 192,746. This is their most effective lurch into the mainstream yet.
Of course, it’s tempting to ask: does this ugly protest vote matter? The BNP will never take power – so let them spew their bile from isolated seats. But whenever I think this, I remember Robert Cottage. In the most under-reported story of the past year, this 49 year-old BNP election candidate was discovered to have stock-piled explosives and bomb-making manuals in his house. He wanted to use them in a “race war”; they were found along with a letter from BNP leader Nick Griffin thanking him for his hard work. Cottage’s wife believed joining the party had led to this point, saying, “The BNP changed him.” This isn’t new: the Soho nail-bomber was a BNP activist, as are many members of Combat 18. As the party grows, the opportunities for men like this to be hoovered up into far right radicalism swell.
Yet there is a big difference between the party and its voters. It would be easy to say the BNP vote represents simply the remaining rancid scraps of racism – but it’s not true. I spent last Thursday canvassing the vast concrete estates of East London, where I live, and I spoke to half-a-dozen openly pro-BNP voters. They were not straightforwardly bigoted: one single mum said she would vote BNP “if my kids weren’t mixed race.” Instead, they were angry and alienated, and the BNP seemed to them to be the sharpest needle to jab into the eye of the political process; as one fiftysomething white woman said, “I just want to tell politicians to fuck off.”
How do we persuade these voters to make better choices? The first step is the easiest: expose the party for what they really are. The BNP has tried to rebrand itself, hoping we will forget its founder declared “Mein Kampf is my Bible”, and its current leader attacks even David Irvine for admitting some Jews died in the “Holohoax.” This leads to the second step: stop trying to silence them. The trial of Nick Griffin for hate-speech wasn’t just immoral – he has a right to free speech, no matter how foul – but also dumb politics. The way to discredit the BNP is for people to hear what they say. No more no platforms: take them on. Read out their pro-Hitler quotes. Watch them implode.
But we also need to address the biggest worries of BNP voters. Most of them are anxious about immigration not because they don’t want different-looking people walking the streets, but because they feel it damages them, in three distinct ways: through housing, wages, and the unequal provision of public services.
Of course we have to start by debunking the Littlejohnian lies. No, asylum seekers are not “hosed down” with benefits: a single asylum seeker struggles by on forty-four quid a week. No, they are not put ahead of you in housing queues: some 90 percent of people in council houses were born in Britain, and only 5 percent each year go to recent arrivals. No, they don’t commit more crime: the Association of Chief Police Officers says so. But not all their concerns are based on myths pumped out by bigots; many are real, and legitimate.
Let’s start with council housing. We need to say: yes, it is a scandal. The Thatcher policy of selling off council houses was a good way of spreading property ownership – but the Tories didn’t put the proceeds into building more new council homes. Instead, they frittered them away on tax cuts for the rich, and for ten years, Labour let the waiting lists sky-rocket and the housing stock deteriorate. The fact this coincided with a rise in new immigrants – who almost all live in private rented accommodation – created the false impression they were linked. The best tactic to stymie the BNP is a huge programme of council house construction, immediately.
How about wages? It’s true that immigrants boost the economy overall, and boost public services and pensions because they pay back £6bn more than they take from the Exchequer. But it’s also true that British people don’t benefit equally from it. It’s simply a fact that if you significantly increase the supply of cheap labour, the hourly rate for it comes down: that’s why wages for builders and waitresses and cleaners have barely budged for ten years now. For people on the lowest wages, immigration does depress their wages, and it is wrong to deny this, or wave it away as unimportant. Instead, we must advocate a simple non-sectarian answer: a higher minimum wage. A campaign calling for this creates a new dividing line: instead of the white working class vs. immigrants, it puts the white working class and immigrants side-by-side, against the CBI and the super-rich who want to preserve their vast profits at their expense.
And what about ethnic divisions in public services? Again this is uncomfortable to face, but we have to be honest about it. If you build a Bengali community centre, you create demand for a ‘white’ community centre to match it. Faith schools are the worst offenders, dividing up communities on ethnic lines when they are at their most impressionable: Muslim kids this way, white kids that way. How can we be surprised if people then convert this tribalism into their political preferences too? Our public services need to be run so they bind us together, not carve us into ethnic chunks.
But instead of offering these solutions, we have turned the white working class into a national punch-line. We dismiss them as “chavs”, “pikeys” and racists, and jeer at their clothes, voices and names. So we don’t really have the right to act surprised when they vote in a way designed to tell us – as the woman standing in her damp flat, carrying bags of economy-brand food from Iceland, told me – to “fuck off.”
Independent
The London results were so bleak the election coverage soon turned into an edition of Have I Got Noose For You. Mayor Boris has gone from punch-line to punch-out, and I watched it all in a black cloud, waiting for his pledge to rule on behalf of all Londoners – white, Asian or piccaninny.
But there is worse news still: the far right have seized their fattest electoral prize since the 1930s. The British National Party now have a seat in the London Assembly, continuing a dramatic rise: in 1992, it won 7,005 votes nationally; by 2005 it hit 192,746. This is their most effective lurch into the mainstream yet.
Of course, it’s tempting to ask: does this ugly protest vote matter? The BNP will never take power – so let them spew their bile from isolated seats. But whenever I think this, I remember Robert Cottage. In the most under-reported story of the past year, this 49 year-old BNP election candidate was discovered to have stock-piled explosives and bomb-making manuals in his house. He wanted to use them in a “race war”; they were found along with a letter from BNP leader Nick Griffin thanking him for his hard work. Cottage’s wife believed joining the party had led to this point, saying, “The BNP changed him.” This isn’t new: the Soho nail-bomber was a BNP activist, as are many members of Combat 18. As the party grows, the opportunities for men like this to be hoovered up into far right radicalism swell.
Yet there is a big difference between the party and its voters. It would be easy to say the BNP vote represents simply the remaining rancid scraps of racism – but it’s not true. I spent last Thursday canvassing the vast concrete estates of East London, where I live, and I spoke to half-a-dozen openly pro-BNP voters. They were not straightforwardly bigoted: one single mum said she would vote BNP “if my kids weren’t mixed race.” Instead, they were angry and alienated, and the BNP seemed to them to be the sharpest needle to jab into the eye of the political process; as one fiftysomething white woman said, “I just want to tell politicians to fuck off.”
How do we persuade these voters to make better choices? The first step is the easiest: expose the party for what they really are. The BNP has tried to rebrand itself, hoping we will forget its founder declared “Mein Kampf is my Bible”, and its current leader attacks even David Irvine for admitting some Jews died in the “Holohoax.” This leads to the second step: stop trying to silence them. The trial of Nick Griffin for hate-speech wasn’t just immoral – he has a right to free speech, no matter how foul – but also dumb politics. The way to discredit the BNP is for people to hear what they say. No more no platforms: take them on. Read out their pro-Hitler quotes. Watch them implode.
But we also need to address the biggest worries of BNP voters. Most of them are anxious about immigration not because they don’t want different-looking people walking the streets, but because they feel it damages them, in three distinct ways: through housing, wages, and the unequal provision of public services.
Of course we have to start by debunking the Littlejohnian lies. No, asylum seekers are not “hosed down” with benefits: a single asylum seeker struggles by on forty-four quid a week. No, they are not put ahead of you in housing queues: some 90 percent of people in council houses were born in Britain, and only 5 percent each year go to recent arrivals. No, they don’t commit more crime: the Association of Chief Police Officers says so. But not all their concerns are based on myths pumped out by bigots; many are real, and legitimate.
Let’s start with council housing. We need to say: yes, it is a scandal. The Thatcher policy of selling off council houses was a good way of spreading property ownership – but the Tories didn’t put the proceeds into building more new council homes. Instead, they frittered them away on tax cuts for the rich, and for ten years, Labour let the waiting lists sky-rocket and the housing stock deteriorate. The fact this coincided with a rise in new immigrants – who almost all live in private rented accommodation – created the false impression they were linked. The best tactic to stymie the BNP is a huge programme of council house construction, immediately.
How about wages? It’s true that immigrants boost the economy overall, and boost public services and pensions because they pay back £6bn more than they take from the Exchequer. But it’s also true that British people don’t benefit equally from it. It’s simply a fact that if you significantly increase the supply of cheap labour, the hourly rate for it comes down: that’s why wages for builders and waitresses and cleaners have barely budged for ten years now. For people on the lowest wages, immigration does depress their wages, and it is wrong to deny this, or wave it away as unimportant. Instead, we must advocate a simple non-sectarian answer: a higher minimum wage. A campaign calling for this creates a new dividing line: instead of the white working class vs. immigrants, it puts the white working class and immigrants side-by-side, against the CBI and the super-rich who want to preserve their vast profits at their expense.
And what about ethnic divisions in public services? Again this is uncomfortable to face, but we have to be honest about it. If you build a Bengali community centre, you create demand for a ‘white’ community centre to match it. Faith schools are the worst offenders, dividing up communities on ethnic lines when they are at their most impressionable: Muslim kids this way, white kids that way. How can we be surprised if people then convert this tribalism into their political preferences too? Our public services need to be run so they bind us together, not carve us into ethnic chunks.
But instead of offering these solutions, we have turned the white working class into a national punch-line. We dismiss them as “chavs”, “pikeys” and racists, and jeer at their clothes, voices and names. So we don’t really have the right to act surprised when they vote in a way designed to tell us – as the woman standing in her damp flat, carrying bags of economy-brand food from Iceland, told me – to “fuck off.”
Independent
Labels:
BNP,
Combat 18,
London Assembly,
Robert Cottage
August 01, 2007
Anti-fascists condemn Cottage sentence as too lenient
Anti-fascists condemn leniency of sentence as ex-BNP candidate gets two and a half years for stockpiling chemicals
Robert Cottage, three times BNP candidate was jailed yesterday for having stockpiled chemicals, bomb making equipment and rocket launcher. Cottage is the latest BNP member to have been found guilty of criminal charges. In the last year, another five BNP members and councillors have been found guilty of offences ranging from racially aggravated assault to attempted firebombing.
Cottage is likely to be released within six months, having already spent a year on remand. The chemicals found in his house were reported by the police to be the largest stockpile of such material used to make explosives in Britain. He was found not guilty of much more serious charges of conspiracy to cause explosions.
Denis Fernando, Joint Secretary of Unite Against Fascism said: 'Cottage's conviction is the latest example of the fascist BNP's criminality: behind the façade of respectability that the BNP craves lies an organisation that is full of convicted criminals. The BNP is not a legitimate party when its members and candidates engage in such violent activity and should not be treated as an ordinary political party or legitimised. They represent a criminal conspiracy that opposes democracy and has a history of violence. This sentence does not reflect the seriousness of the offence committed.'
Earlier this year, David Enderby British National Party (BNP) councillor for Winyates ward, Redditch, was found guilty of three counts of assault. In June last year, Kevin Hughes, Enderby's agent in the elections was sentenced to three months in prison for racially aggravated common assault.
BNP Parliamentary candidate for Hull Brian Wainwright was found guilty after a campaign of hate mail against the local mosque, a Muslim councillor and a local anti-fascist activist. A letter in which he claimed, "Muslim blood will be spilt" included 'SS' scull and cross bones imagery.
BNP activist in Swindon Mark Bulman (who has used the pseudonym Bullock) was sentenced to five years after attempting to firebomb a local mosque using a BNP leaflet as a fuse. He also daubed swastikas and racist graffiti on local shops and businesses that he believed to be 'ethnic'.
In June 2006 BNP councillor Brian Turner was found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence. He escaped a jail sentence and was instead ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work in the community. Turner has previous convictions of common assault and police assault after he was convicted of beating up his wife Melanie Turner.
Unite Against Fascism is a broad-based national campaign aimed at stopping the BNP, which brings together Black, Jewish, Muslim communities and other faith representatives, Lesbian and Gay activists, trade unionists and MPs into an alliance with all those who are threatened by and oppose fascism.
UAF
Robert Cottage, three times BNP candidate was jailed yesterday for having stockpiled chemicals, bomb making equipment and rocket launcher. Cottage is the latest BNP member to have been found guilty of criminal charges. In the last year, another five BNP members and councillors have been found guilty of offences ranging from racially aggravated assault to attempted firebombing.
Cottage is likely to be released within six months, having already spent a year on remand. The chemicals found in his house were reported by the police to be the largest stockpile of such material used to make explosives in Britain. He was found not guilty of much more serious charges of conspiracy to cause explosions.
Denis Fernando, Joint Secretary of Unite Against Fascism said: 'Cottage's conviction is the latest example of the fascist BNP's criminality: behind the façade of respectability that the BNP craves lies an organisation that is full of convicted criminals. The BNP is not a legitimate party when its members and candidates engage in such violent activity and should not be treated as an ordinary political party or legitimised. They represent a criminal conspiracy that opposes democracy and has a history of violence. This sentence does not reflect the seriousness of the offence committed.'
Earlier this year, David Enderby British National Party (BNP) councillor for Winyates ward, Redditch, was found guilty of three counts of assault. In June last year, Kevin Hughes, Enderby's agent in the elections was sentenced to three months in prison for racially aggravated common assault.
BNP Parliamentary candidate for Hull Brian Wainwright was found guilty after a campaign of hate mail against the local mosque, a Muslim councillor and a local anti-fascist activist. A letter in which he claimed, "Muslim blood will be spilt" included 'SS' scull and cross bones imagery.
BNP activist in Swindon Mark Bulman (who has used the pseudonym Bullock) was sentenced to five years after attempting to firebomb a local mosque using a BNP leaflet as a fuse. He also daubed swastikas and racist graffiti on local shops and businesses that he believed to be 'ethnic'.
In June 2006 BNP councillor Brian Turner was found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence. He escaped a jail sentence and was instead ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work in the community. Turner has previous convictions of common assault and police assault after he was convicted of beating up his wife Melanie Turner.
Unite Against Fascism is a broad-based national campaign aimed at stopping the BNP, which brings together Black, Jewish, Muslim communities and other faith representatives, Lesbian and Gay activists, trade unionists and MPs into an alliance with all those who are threatened by and oppose fascism.
UAF
Labels:
BNP,
chemicals,
explosives,
fascism,
Robert Cottage,
UAF
July 31, 2007
Former BNP candidate jailed for stockpiling explosives
Note: We've changed the article to one that a) is better written, and b) has a couple of interesting and ridiculous comments from the BNP's Phil Edwards at the end.A former British National party candidate who stockpiled explosive chemicals and ball bearings in anticipation of a future civil war was today jailed for two and a half years.
As he has already spent nearly a year in custody, however, he is likely to be released within six months.
Robert Cottage, aged 49, from Colne, Lancashire, had pleaded guilty to possession of the chemicals. He was acquitted after two trials on charges of conspiracy to cause explosions.
Sentencing Cottage at Manchester's crown square court, Mrs Justice Swift said he continued to hold views "that veer towards the apocalyptic". She added that his actions had been "criminal and potentially dangerous" but said there was a low risk of his committing further offences.
"It is important to understand that Cottage's intention was that if he ever had to use the thunder flashes, it was only for the purpose of deterrence," Mrs Justice Swift said.
Cottage had believed that, as he saw it, "the evils of uncontrolled immigration" would lead to civil war, which would be imminent and inevitable, she said.
"The pre-sentence report says Cottage continues to hold views that veer towards the apocalyptic. The risk of further offending of the same type is low but it cannot be ruled out."
The judge said she accepted that Cottage's intention had been to hold on to the chemicals, which included ammonia, hydrogen peroxide and hydrochloric acid, until the outbreak of civil disturbance. But she warned: "In letting off any such thunder flash, mistakenly believing you were under threat, you may have caused injury to some innocent person."
Alistair Webster QC, Cottage's counsel, told the court his client accepted that he had bought the potassium nitrate and sulphur with the intention of manufacturing gunpowder, but said this would have been used only to create thunder flash-style bangers to scare off intruders.;
Cottage, who stood three times unsuccessfully for the BNP in local council elections, was arrested last September after police found the stockpile of chemicals at his home in Talbot Street, Colne. The police took action after Cottage's wife told a social worker of her concerns about the items he was storing and, and about her husband's stated belief that immigration was out of control. Police also found ball bearings and a document about bomb-making from the do-it-yourself explosives-making manual The Anarchist Cookbook on his computer. He also had air pistols, crossbows and a stockpile of food.
"I believe it is everyone's God-given right to defend themselves and their families if they are attacked," Cottage told the court during his trial. "The breakdown of the financial system will inevitably put an unbearable strain on the social structures of this country."
Cottage claimed in court that, with the armed forces in the Middle East and the police insufficiently trained, the authorities would be unable to offer people protection. He added that immigration was a luxury that Britain could not afford, but that he drove a bus for children with disabilities and had a good relationship with the Asian children among them.
A second man, David Jackson, 62, a dentist, was also charged with conspiracy to cause explosions but was cleared after the jury twice failed to reach verdicts.
A BNP spokesman said after sentencing that the prosecution had been brought for political reasons. "We're not condoning it, but it's a quid pro quo to appease the Muslims," said Dr Phil Edwards, of the BNP. "To keep them quiet, we'll snatch someone from white society. We certainly don't support the bloke. We condemn all forms of violence...but I wouldn't have thought you could do any harm with what he had."
Dr Edwards said Cottage would not be standing as a candidate for the BNP again. "We never have anyone in the party with criminal convictions," he said, because "lefties and people on your newspaper" would publicise the fact.
Guardian
Labels:
BNP,
chemicals,
civil war,
Colne,
explosives,
fruitcake,
Robert Cottage
July 12, 2007
Pair cleared of explosions charge
A former British National Party election candidate and a dentist have been cleared of plotting explosions.
Former BNP candidate Robert Cottage, of Talbot Road, Colne, and David Jackson, of Trent Street, Nelson, were alleged to have stockpiled chemicals they bought on the internet and discussed using them to cause explosions. But they were cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions with intent to endanger life after a jury at Manchester Crown Court failed to reach a verdict.
It was the pair's second trial on the charge after the first jury was also discharged. Cottage had admitted possessing explosives for unlawful purpose at the first trial because he said he needed to defend himself as the country was heading to civil war. He was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on July 31.
Mr Jackson, who was also cleared of possessing explosives, walked free from Manchester Crown Court after more than 10 months on remand in prison. He refused to comment, except to say he was "very relieved" to have been cleared.
The trials are estimated to have cost the taxpayer more than £100,000.
Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell, who led the investigation, denied that the trials had been waste of money, and said Cottage could have gone on to endanger himself and the public had he not been arrested. He paid tribute to Cottage's wife, Carina, who first alerted police and social workers to his "paranoid" behaviour over fears of an impending civil war.
Mr Gradwell said: "This came about because of the courage of Carina Cottage, who came forward to the health authority and the police to say she was concerned about her husband and could they help. He was becoming paranoid, stockpiling food and chemicals and it is because of her courage that a more serious incident did not occur. It's quite right that this was brought to court again. Cottage had admitted he was planning to make gunpowder. Someone else, or himself, could have been seriously hurt."
Mr Gradwell denied accusations that the case would have been handled differently if the defendants had been Asian, not white British men. He said: "This investigation was not from intelligence-led, proactive policing. It was Carina Cottage saying come and help me, and her husband stockpiling food because he thought there was going to be a civil war. These are totally different circumstances to any Islamic terror trials. When we found the explosive substances we also downloaded from a computer in the house recipes for making explosives. The fact that there were two trials is in a way a justification of bringing the case. If they had been acquitted in five minutes thing would have been different, but this has taken long consideration by two juries."
When Cottage admitted possessing explosives at his first trial in February, he said he planned to make gunpowder from the chemicals to cause thunder flashes to scare off intruders in the event of civil unrest.
Lancashire Evening Telegraph
Former BNP candidate Robert Cottage, of Talbot Road, Colne, and David Jackson, of Trent Street, Nelson, were alleged to have stockpiled chemicals they bought on the internet and discussed using them to cause explosions. But they were cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions with intent to endanger life after a jury at Manchester Crown Court failed to reach a verdict.
It was the pair's second trial on the charge after the first jury was also discharged. Cottage had admitted possessing explosives for unlawful purpose at the first trial because he said he needed to defend himself as the country was heading to civil war. He was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on July 31.
Mr Jackson, who was also cleared of possessing explosives, walked free from Manchester Crown Court after more than 10 months on remand in prison. He refused to comment, except to say he was "very relieved" to have been cleared.
The trials are estimated to have cost the taxpayer more than £100,000.
Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell, who led the investigation, denied that the trials had been waste of money, and said Cottage could have gone on to endanger himself and the public had he not been arrested. He paid tribute to Cottage's wife, Carina, who first alerted police and social workers to his "paranoid" behaviour over fears of an impending civil war.
Mr Gradwell said: "This came about because of the courage of Carina Cottage, who came forward to the health authority and the police to say she was concerned about her husband and could they help. He was becoming paranoid, stockpiling food and chemicals and it is because of her courage that a more serious incident did not occur. It's quite right that this was brought to court again. Cottage had admitted he was planning to make gunpowder. Someone else, or himself, could have been seriously hurt."
Mr Gradwell denied accusations that the case would have been handled differently if the defendants had been Asian, not white British men. He said: "This investigation was not from intelligence-led, proactive policing. It was Carina Cottage saying come and help me, and her husband stockpiling food because he thought there was going to be a civil war. These are totally different circumstances to any Islamic terror trials. When we found the explosive substances we also downloaded from a computer in the house recipes for making explosives. The fact that there were two trials is in a way a justification of bringing the case. If they had been acquitted in five minutes thing would have been different, but this has taken long consideration by two juries."
When Cottage admitted possessing explosives at his first trial in February, he said he planned to make gunpowder from the chemicals to cause thunder flashes to scare off intruders in the event of civil unrest.
Lancashire Evening Telegraph
Labels:
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civil war,
David Jackson,
explosives,
Islam,
Robert Cottage
Majority verdict allowed in BNP candidate bomb trial
The jury in the trial of two Lancashire men with British National Party connections accused of plotting to make bombs has been told that a majority verdict would be accepted.
Ex-BNP local election candidate Robert Cottage, 49, and dentist David Jackson, 62, are said to have stockpiled chemicals they bought on the internet and discussed using them to cause explosions intended to endanger life. Boxes containing 21 different kinds of chemicals - some paid for by Jackson - and ball-bearings that could have been used as shrapnel were found by police at Cottage's home in Talbot Street, Colne.
Officers were alerted to the stash by Cottage's wife, Kerena, 29, who became scared the pair were planning to set off test explosions with the chemicals in countryside near Preston.
Cottage feared immigrants were swamping Britain and bringing it to the brink of civil war, Manchester Crown Court heard.
The jury heard the thrice-failed local election candidate had printed off "recipes" for explosive devices from an online version of the Anarchist's Cookbook. Officers who raided his house also found tins of food, crossbows and airguns. Cottage told the jury he planned to use the chemicals to clean his false teeth, unblock his drains and protect himself against bird flu.
Jackson, who was not a BNP member but attended party meetings with Cottage, told the court he was apolitical and did not share his friend's views on an impending civil war.
Both Cottage and Jackson, of Trent Road, Nelson, Lancashire, deny conspiring to cause explosions intended to endanger life. Cottage pleaded guilty to possessing explosives that could "reasonably" be suspected to be for an unlawful purpose before the trial started. Jackson denies the possession charge.
Pendle Today
Ex-BNP local election candidate Robert Cottage, 49, and dentist David Jackson, 62, are said to have stockpiled chemicals they bought on the internet and discussed using them to cause explosions intended to endanger life. Boxes containing 21 different kinds of chemicals - some paid for by Jackson - and ball-bearings that could have been used as shrapnel were found by police at Cottage's home in Talbot Street, Colne.
Officers were alerted to the stash by Cottage's wife, Kerena, 29, who became scared the pair were planning to set off test explosions with the chemicals in countryside near Preston.
Cottage feared immigrants were swamping Britain and bringing it to the brink of civil war, Manchester Crown Court heard.
The jury heard the thrice-failed local election candidate had printed off "recipes" for explosive devices from an online version of the Anarchist's Cookbook. Officers who raided his house also found tins of food, crossbows and airguns. Cottage told the jury he planned to use the chemicals to clean his false teeth, unblock his drains and protect himself against bird flu.
Jackson, who was not a BNP member but attended party meetings with Cottage, told the court he was apolitical and did not share his friend's views on an impending civil war.
Both Cottage and Jackson, of Trent Road, Nelson, Lancashire, deny conspiring to cause explosions intended to endanger life. Cottage pleaded guilty to possessing explosives that could "reasonably" be suspected to be for an unlawful purpose before the trial started. Jackson denies the possession charge.
Pendle Today
Labels:
BNP,
bombs,
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David Jackson,
explosives,
fruitcakes,
Robert Cottage
July 11, 2007
Jury out in explosives plot trial
The jury in the trial of a former British National Party election candidate and a dentist accused of plotting to make bombs has retired to consider its verdict.
Ex-BNP member Robert Cottage (49), of Talbot Street, Colne, and David Jackson (62), of Trent Road, Nelson, are said to have stockpiled chemicals they bought on the Internet and discussed using them to cause explosions.
Boxes containing 21 different kinds of chemicals - some paid for by Jackson - were found by police at Cottage's home last September. Officers were alerted to the stash by Cottage's wife, Kerena, who became scared the pair were planning to set off test explosions in countryside near Preston.
Cottage told Manchester Crown Court he feared immigrants were swamping Britain, bringing it to the brink of civil war.
The jury heard the thrice-failed local election candidate had printed off "recipes" for explosive devices from an online version of the Anarchists' Cookbook. Officers who raided his house also found tins of food, crossbows and airguns. His wife said he hoarded them to protect the couple in case civil unrest broke out. Cottage told the jury he planned to use the chemicals to clean his false teeth, unblock his drains and protect himself against bird flu.
Jackson, who was not a BNP member but attended party meetings with Cottage, told the court he was "apolitical" and did not share his friend's views on an impending civil war. He claimed he asked Cottage to buy him chemicals online because he wanted to pursue chemistry as a hobby and was too computer illiterate to order them himself.
Both Cottage and Jackson deny conspiring to cause explosions with intent to endanger life. The current jury heard that Cottage pleaded guilty to possessing explosives for an unlawful purpose at the pair's previous trial in February, which failed to reach a verdict.
Jackson denies the possession charge.
Burnley Express
Ex-BNP member Robert Cottage (49), of Talbot Street, Colne, and David Jackson (62), of Trent Road, Nelson, are said to have stockpiled chemicals they bought on the Internet and discussed using them to cause explosions.
Boxes containing 21 different kinds of chemicals - some paid for by Jackson - were found by police at Cottage's home last September. Officers were alerted to the stash by Cottage's wife, Kerena, who became scared the pair were planning to set off test explosions in countryside near Preston.
Cottage told Manchester Crown Court he feared immigrants were swamping Britain, bringing it to the brink of civil war.
The jury heard the thrice-failed local election candidate had printed off "recipes" for explosive devices from an online version of the Anarchists' Cookbook. Officers who raided his house also found tins of food, crossbows and airguns. His wife said he hoarded them to protect the couple in case civil unrest broke out. Cottage told the jury he planned to use the chemicals to clean his false teeth, unblock his drains and protect himself against bird flu.
Jackson, who was not a BNP member but attended party meetings with Cottage, told the court he was "apolitical" and did not share his friend's views on an impending civil war. He claimed he asked Cottage to buy him chemicals online because he wanted to pursue chemistry as a hobby and was too computer illiterate to order them himself.
Both Cottage and Jackson deny conspiring to cause explosions with intent to endanger life. The current jury heard that Cottage pleaded guilty to possessing explosives for an unlawful purpose at the pair's previous trial in February, which failed to reach a verdict.
Jackson denies the possession charge.
Burnley Express
Labels:
BNP,
bombs,
civil war,
David Jackson,
explosives,
lunatics,
Robert Cottage
July 06, 2007
Explosives recipes were 'just for interest'
A former British National Party candidate accused of plotting to make bombs from chemicals he bought on the Internet claimed today the substances were for cleaning his false teeth and unblocking drains.
Robert Cottage (49) told Manchester Crown Court he thought some of the other chemicals could be used to protect him from bird flu and purify water if supplies were cut off during civil unrest - two of his great fears. Cottage, a bus driver who transported disabled children, feared immigrants were swamping Britain and bringing it to the brink of civil war.
When his home in Colne was searched by police last September, 21 chemicals were found. Officers also discovered crossbows, air pistols, BB guns and ammunition, along with excessive amounts of rice, sugar and petrol.
Under cross-examination, Cottage said it was a coincidence he had bought chemicals just days after printing off recipes for explosive devices from the Internet. He told prosecutor Miss Louise Blackwell QC he downloaded the Anarchist Cookbook and printed off sections out of ``idle curiosity`` but could not explain why instructions for making a Molotov cocktail, a pipe hand grenade and dynamite were in his possession.
``I can't explain why I printed them off - I had no interest in making the devices, it was just for interest,'' he said.
Cottage told jurors he used an email address involving the phrase "brotherofenoch" as his views on immigration were close to those of Enoch Powell's. He said uncontrolled immigration frightened him but he was not racist.
Cottage and his co-defendant, dentist David Jackson (62), of Nelson, are charged with conspiring to cause explosions intended to endanger life.
The pair, who met at BNP meetings, are also charged with possession of
explosives for an unlawful purpose. Jackson denies this charge, but Cottage admitted it during their first trial in February at which a previous jury had failed to reach a verdict.
Today, Cottage told jurors he did not discuss making explosives from the
Anarchists' Cookbook with Jackson. ``I don't think he even knew the Anarchist Cookbook was in my possession,'' he said.
Cottage admitted buying a separate batch of chemicals on behalf of his friend, but said he did not know why he wanted them.
The case continues
Burnley Express
Robert Cottage (49) told Manchester Crown Court he thought some of the other chemicals could be used to protect him from bird flu and purify water if supplies were cut off during civil unrest - two of his great fears. Cottage, a bus driver who transported disabled children, feared immigrants were swamping Britain and bringing it to the brink of civil war.
When his home in Colne was searched by police last September, 21 chemicals were found. Officers also discovered crossbows, air pistols, BB guns and ammunition, along with excessive amounts of rice, sugar and petrol.
Under cross-examination, Cottage said it was a coincidence he had bought chemicals just days after printing off recipes for explosive devices from the Internet. He told prosecutor Miss Louise Blackwell QC he downloaded the Anarchist Cookbook and printed off sections out of ``idle curiosity`` but could not explain why instructions for making a Molotov cocktail, a pipe hand grenade and dynamite were in his possession.
``I can't explain why I printed them off - I had no interest in making the devices, it was just for interest,'' he said.
Cottage told jurors he used an email address involving the phrase "brotherofenoch" as his views on immigration were close to those of Enoch Powell's. He said uncontrolled immigration frightened him but he was not racist.
Cottage and his co-defendant, dentist David Jackson (62), of Nelson, are charged with conspiring to cause explosions intended to endanger life.
The pair, who met at BNP meetings, are also charged with possession of
explosives for an unlawful purpose. Jackson denies this charge, but Cottage admitted it during their first trial in February at which a previous jury had failed to reach a verdict.
Today, Cottage told jurors he did not discuss making explosives from the
Anarchists' Cookbook with Jackson. ``I don't think he even knew the Anarchist Cookbook was in my possession,'' he said.
Cottage admitted buying a separate batch of chemicals on behalf of his friend, but said he did not know why he wanted them.
The case continues
Burnley Express
Labels:
Anarchists Cookbook,
BNP,
David Jackson,
explosives,
fruitcakes,
Robert Cottage
July 04, 2007
BNP men planned bombs for 'race war'
Two British National party members plotted to make bombs in readiness for a "civil war between races", a court was told yesterday.
A former candidate for the party stashed boxes of chemicals at his home after buying them online at the instruction of a local dentist and fellow BNP member, jurors at Manchester crown court heard. However, the hoard amassed by Robert Cottage, 49, of Colne, Lancashire, came to light when his wife told her social worker she was scared that Cottage and 62-year-old David Jackson were planning to test chemical weapons in the local countryside.
"He had just lost the plot - he just started acting really strange," Kerena Cottage, 29, told the court via videolink. "What he was saying - it sounded to me as if he was delusional."
Prosecutor Louise Blackwell QC told the jury Cottage had emailed orders for the chemicals, which could be combined to make crude bombs, in September 2006. Four months earlier, he had tried to win a seat on Colne council for the second time.
Ms Cottage said her husband had been very enthusiastic in the BNP, rising through the party's ranks during three years as a member and becoming a friend of its leader, Nick Griffin. Alarm bells began to ring when Cottage led her to understand that the chemicals were intended to harm the government or anyone who came unannounced to their home.
"Our relationship before the BNP, it was brilliant," she said. However, she added that Cottage had become "really radical" and their marriage was ruined. "He thinks there's a war going to happen with the culture, the Asian culture and the white culture and that Tony Blair and President Bush are scheming against people," she said.
Ms Cottage added that her husband and Jackson were "solid" friends who met regularly to chat about politics, the BNP and Hitler. Police found guides to making bombs at the Cottages' home, along with ball-bearing BB guns, gas masks, body armour and stab-proof vests.
Cottage's mother, Barbara Cottage, told the jury her son's stockpiling of weapons was only for self-defence. "It was because he was afraid that his house or his family might be attacked," she said. "It was not to go out and attack anybody but because he might be attacked."
Cottage admitted possessing explosives at the pair's first trial in February, when a jury failed to reach a verdict on the more serious charge of conspiring to cause explosions intended to endanger life. He and Jackson deny this for the second time.
The trial continues.
Guardian
A former candidate for the party stashed boxes of chemicals at his home after buying them online at the instruction of a local dentist and fellow BNP member, jurors at Manchester crown court heard. However, the hoard amassed by Robert Cottage, 49, of Colne, Lancashire, came to light when his wife told her social worker she was scared that Cottage and 62-year-old David Jackson were planning to test chemical weapons in the local countryside.
"He had just lost the plot - he just started acting really strange," Kerena Cottage, 29, told the court via videolink. "What he was saying - it sounded to me as if he was delusional."
Prosecutor Louise Blackwell QC told the jury Cottage had emailed orders for the chemicals, which could be combined to make crude bombs, in September 2006. Four months earlier, he had tried to win a seat on Colne council for the second time.
Ms Cottage said her husband had been very enthusiastic in the BNP, rising through the party's ranks during three years as a member and becoming a friend of its leader, Nick Griffin. Alarm bells began to ring when Cottage led her to understand that the chemicals were intended to harm the government or anyone who came unannounced to their home.
"Our relationship before the BNP, it was brilliant," she said. However, she added that Cottage had become "really radical" and their marriage was ruined. "He thinks there's a war going to happen with the culture, the Asian culture and the white culture and that Tony Blair and President Bush are scheming against people," she said.
Ms Cottage added that her husband and Jackson were "solid" friends who met regularly to chat about politics, the BNP and Hitler. Police found guides to making bombs at the Cottages' home, along with ball-bearing BB guns, gas masks, body armour and stab-proof vests.
Cottage's mother, Barbara Cottage, told the jury her son's stockpiling of weapons was only for self-defence. "It was because he was afraid that his house or his family might be attacked," she said. "It was not to go out and attack anybody but because he might be attacked."
Cottage admitted possessing explosives at the pair's first trial in February, when a jury failed to reach a verdict on the more serious charge of conspiring to cause explosions intended to endanger life. He and Jackson deny this for the second time.
The trial continues.
Guardian
Labels:
BNP,
bomb,
Colne,
David Jackson,
Grange,
Hitler,
Nick Griffin,
Robert Cottage
July 02, 2007
BNP candidate was 'stockpiling chemicals for civil war'
The wife of a BNP council candidate accused of stockpiling chemicals for a civil war reported him after he stopped her watching the television, a court heard.
Kerena Cottage, 29, reported Robert, her husband of three-years, after he became "radical" in his religious and political views and removed the TV aerial to shield her from "government propaganda".
Louise Blackwell, prosecuting, said: "He became more religious and controlling of her. He removed the aerial from the television so she couldn't watch what he described as the brainwashing material being put out by the government."
School bus driver Cottage, 49, is jointly accused with former dentist David Jackson, 62, of conspiring to cause an explosion between 1 January 2006 and 30 September 2006. Cottage admitted possessing explosives between the same dates during a previous trial. But Jackson, of Trent Street, Nelson, denies the charge.
Yesterday, Manchester Crown Court, heard that Cottage took delivery of 11 boxes of chemicals and ingredients after Jackson wrote him a letter setting out what to buy.
Miss Blackwell said the investigation began after Mrs Cottage, who suffers from schizophrenia, reported her husband to her social worker who called the police.
She said: "At the start of the relationship all was well but it degenerated. Robert Cottage met a member of the BNP and both he and Kerena joined the organisation. Kerena says some times they would go to meetings very regularly, at which times she described his attitude as radical. He stood on two occasions for the local elections and wasn't selected. Through his membership he met his co-defendant, who wasn't a member but attended meetings.
"Kerena Cottage describes her husband beginning to discuss Asian and white cultures and began listening to what she considered radical radio broadcasts over the internet."
Some time after the chemicals were delivered on 27 September to Cottage's home in Talbot Street, Colne, police arrested him.
The Crown say Cottage also had BB guns, a cross bow, gas masks, two 56 kilogram bags of sugar, a box of mini flares, half a ton of rice, 34 gas canisters, a selection of pellets and an air pistol. Also, officers found a series of printed bomb recipes from "The Anarchist's Handbook", downloaded from the internet.
"The prosecution say these recipes, particularly though not exclusively,show what the intention was of these defendants," said Miss Blackwell.
"Namely, they intended to make an explosion from what they had. These two men agreed to order chemicals that put together would cause an explosion and had the ability to endanger life or cause damage to property. They didn't have them for any lawful purpose."
(proceeding)
Burnley Citizen
Kerena Cottage, 29, reported Robert, her husband of three-years, after he became "radical" in his religious and political views and removed the TV aerial to shield her from "government propaganda".
Louise Blackwell, prosecuting, said: "He became more religious and controlling of her. He removed the aerial from the television so she couldn't watch what he described as the brainwashing material being put out by the government."
School bus driver Cottage, 49, is jointly accused with former dentist David Jackson, 62, of conspiring to cause an explosion between 1 January 2006 and 30 September 2006. Cottage admitted possessing explosives between the same dates during a previous trial. But Jackson, of Trent Street, Nelson, denies the charge.
Yesterday, Manchester Crown Court, heard that Cottage took delivery of 11 boxes of chemicals and ingredients after Jackson wrote him a letter setting out what to buy.
Miss Blackwell said the investigation began after Mrs Cottage, who suffers from schizophrenia, reported her husband to her social worker who called the police.
She said: "At the start of the relationship all was well but it degenerated. Robert Cottage met a member of the BNP and both he and Kerena joined the organisation. Kerena says some times they would go to meetings very regularly, at which times she described his attitude as radical. He stood on two occasions for the local elections and wasn't selected. Through his membership he met his co-defendant, who wasn't a member but attended meetings.
"Kerena Cottage describes her husband beginning to discuss Asian and white cultures and began listening to what she considered radical radio broadcasts over the internet."
Some time after the chemicals were delivered on 27 September to Cottage's home in Talbot Street, Colne, police arrested him.
The Crown say Cottage also had BB guns, a cross bow, gas masks, two 56 kilogram bags of sugar, a box of mini flares, half a ton of rice, 34 gas canisters, a selection of pellets and an air pistol. Also, officers found a series of printed bomb recipes from "The Anarchist's Handbook", downloaded from the internet.
"The prosecution say these recipes, particularly though not exclusively,show what the intention was of these defendants," said Miss Blackwell.
"Namely, they intended to make an explosion from what they had. These two men agreed to order chemicals that put together would cause an explosion and had the ability to endanger life or cause damage to property. They didn't have them for any lawful purpose."
(proceeding)
Burnley Citizen
Labels:
BNP,
David Jackson,
explosives,
Grange,
Nelson,
Robert Cottage
April 19, 2007
BNP's dirty tricks department on pre-election overdrive
The BNP's dirty tricks department must be working overtime during this pre-election fortnight or so because the attempts to disrupt Lancaster UAF and other groups are coming in thick and fast (though mainly thick - well, it is the BNP).
Anyone who opposes the party and has had to post their telephone number on the internet for some reason will have received numerous offensive telephone calls. There have been plenty of cases where the little dears have phoned up, screamed obscenities then slammed the phone down, apparently blissfully unaware that, even if they used 141 to conceal the number they dialled from away from us, the police and BT can overide it. If they weren't so sad, they'd be bloody funny.
Most people are aware of the nazi 'big lie', which, in the words of Adolf Hitler writing in Mein Kampf, consists of telling a lie so 'colossal' that no one would believe anyone 'could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously'. The BNP appear to have taken this a step or two further - perhaps more in line with George Orwell's definition from 1984, 'To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed...'
Lancaster BNP's Chris Hill has demonstrated his ability to go for the big lie on a number of occasions since he decided to stand for the party in a couple of by-elections (and now the May 3rd locals).
When we reported on an attack by fascists on anti-fascists delivering leaflets in Morley, Hill's response was to immediately accuse other anti-fascists of attacking their own people. A colossal lie indeed. More recently - in fact during the current campaign - Hill took exception to a factual report from us in which we mentioned that David Copeland (the Soho nailbomber) was a former member of the BNP, that at the time of his arrest Robert Laidlaw (who shot random people for no apparent reason) claimed to be a BNP member, and that Robert Cottage was definitely a member of the BNP at the time of his arrest for possession of bomb-making materials. Hill's idiotic response? None of it was true. Fortunately for us, we can back up all our statements but the response from Hill was an excellent example of Orwell's definition of the big lie.
But these ridiculous allegations of lying are just minor dirty tricks - little annoying things that the BNP has got good at over the years because the party has had to do it so often to fend off unwelcome truths. With the people who really get on its nerves, the fascist BNP gets a little more aggressive.
As we've seen, this election campaign has produced a phenomenal number of allegations that the BNP has faked signatures on nomination papers. Reports are coming in from all over the country indicating that, if all are true, this is so widespread a practice as to give the distinct impression of being deliberately orchestrated. That wouldn't be any great surprise, though the BNP would deny it 'til the cows come home.
The dirty tricks are clearly getting dirtier though. A particularly vile nazi blog, apparently endorsed by the BNP's Nick Griffin, has threatened to reveal the contents of a Lancaster UAF activist's Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) file on its site. Quite what it expects to find in there is anyone's guess but the threat is clear. A couple of days ago, the same activist received a 1571 phone message, purportedly from the Child Support Agency. Here it is in full...
'Hello [pause] this is Joe calling from the Child Support Agency [pause] regarding your cases. If you'd like to get back to me [pause] my extension number's [pause] 2801 but I'll try contacting you again [pause] in the next day or two. Bye.'
As there are no cases pending between this activist and the Child Support Agency anyway, our man wasn't particularly bothered by the message - though if it actually was from the CSA for some reason, they need to train their staff in how to make a sensible and coherent telephone call. Leaving a number along with the extension might be a good starting point.
When we had the Lancaster UAF blog on our own server, we were naturally very aware of when we were attacked. Denial of Service attacks were growing in both frequency and intensity, and email bombing and spamming were both an overwhelming pain in the butt. Now that we've moved to Google's Blogster space and we've got super-strength email spam killers firmly in place, the method of attack has shifted.
Today we received notification that the blog had been reported as a spam blog. Google has announced that it's cleaning up the blogosphere (sorry) of these blights and takes them seriously enough to act immediately when it receives such a report. However, on reviewing our site, Google had this to say; 'Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that it will no longer appear as potential spam.' Thank you Google, and hard luck to the fascists. You failed again. As you did with Redwatch/Combat 18 and all the implied threats, details and photographs that you posted on those sites that were supposed to terrify us into letting you have your way.
Perhaps we ought to make one or two things clear to the nazi scum who read this blog - and there is a surprising number of them. Whatever dirty tricks you have in mind, whatever shit you think you can throw our way and however you choose to do it - you can take it as read that we're here to stay and no amount of intimidation or lies (big or small) are going to shift us. Get used to it.
Anyone who opposes the party and has had to post their telephone number on the internet for some reason will have received numerous offensive telephone calls. There have been plenty of cases where the little dears have phoned up, screamed obscenities then slammed the phone down, apparently blissfully unaware that, even if they used 141 to conceal the number they dialled from away from us, the police and BT can overide it. If they weren't so sad, they'd be bloody funny.
Most people are aware of the nazi 'big lie', which, in the words of Adolf Hitler writing in Mein Kampf, consists of telling a lie so 'colossal' that no one would believe anyone 'could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously'. The BNP appear to have taken this a step or two further - perhaps more in line with George Orwell's definition from 1984, 'To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed...'
Lancaster BNP's Chris Hill has demonstrated his ability to go for the big lie on a number of occasions since he decided to stand for the party in a couple of by-elections (and now the May 3rd locals).
When we reported on an attack by fascists on anti-fascists delivering leaflets in Morley, Hill's response was to immediately accuse other anti-fascists of attacking their own people. A colossal lie indeed. More recently - in fact during the current campaign - Hill took exception to a factual report from us in which we mentioned that David Copeland (the Soho nailbomber) was a former member of the BNP, that at the time of his arrest Robert Laidlaw (who shot random people for no apparent reason) claimed to be a BNP member, and that Robert Cottage was definitely a member of the BNP at the time of his arrest for possession of bomb-making materials. Hill's idiotic response? None of it was true. Fortunately for us, we can back up all our statements but the response from Hill was an excellent example of Orwell's definition of the big lie.
But these ridiculous allegations of lying are just minor dirty tricks - little annoying things that the BNP has got good at over the years because the party has had to do it so often to fend off unwelcome truths. With the people who really get on its nerves, the fascist BNP gets a little more aggressive.
As we've seen, this election campaign has produced a phenomenal number of allegations that the BNP has faked signatures on nomination papers. Reports are coming in from all over the country indicating that, if all are true, this is so widespread a practice as to give the distinct impression of being deliberately orchestrated. That wouldn't be any great surprise, though the BNP would deny it 'til the cows come home.
The dirty tricks are clearly getting dirtier though. A particularly vile nazi blog, apparently endorsed by the BNP's Nick Griffin, has threatened to reveal the contents of a Lancaster UAF activist's Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) file on its site. Quite what it expects to find in there is anyone's guess but the threat is clear. A couple of days ago, the same activist received a 1571 phone message, purportedly from the Child Support Agency. Here it is in full...
'Hello [pause] this is Joe calling from the Child Support Agency [pause] regarding your cases. If you'd like to get back to me [pause] my extension number's [pause] 2801 but I'll try contacting you again [pause] in the next day or two. Bye.'
As there are no cases pending between this activist and the Child Support Agency anyway, our man wasn't particularly bothered by the message - though if it actually was from the CSA for some reason, they need to train their staff in how to make a sensible and coherent telephone call. Leaving a number along with the extension might be a good starting point.
When we had the Lancaster UAF blog on our own server, we were naturally very aware of when we were attacked. Denial of Service attacks were growing in both frequency and intensity, and email bombing and spamming were both an overwhelming pain in the butt. Now that we've moved to Google's Blogster space and we've got super-strength email spam killers firmly in place, the method of attack has shifted.
Today we received notification that the blog had been reported as a spam blog. Google has announced that it's cleaning up the blogosphere (sorry) of these blights and takes them seriously enough to act immediately when it receives such a report. However, on reviewing our site, Google had this to say; 'Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that it will no longer appear as potential spam.' Thank you Google, and hard luck to the fascists. You failed again. As you did with Redwatch/Combat 18 and all the implied threats, details and photographs that you posted on those sites that were supposed to terrify us into letting you have your way.
Perhaps we ought to make one or two things clear to the nazi scum who read this blog - and there is a surprising number of them. Whatever dirty tricks you have in mind, whatever shit you think you can throw our way and however you choose to do it - you can take it as read that we're here to stay and no amount of intimidation or lies (big or small) are going to shift us. Get used to it.
Labels:
big lie,
BNP,
Chris Hill,
David Copeland,
fascist,
Hitler,
nazi,
Orwell,
Robert Cottage
April 11, 2007
The BNP's links with terrorism
Click on image for full size
A pdf file of the poster (42k) can be downloaded from here.
A pdf file of the poster (42k) can be downloaded from here.
April 09, 2007
Thug action of the BNP
You carried an article reporting on the visit of George Galloway to Swansea, to speak at a Respect meeting (Post, March 15).The proprietor of the Four Seasons club contacted me personally to say he was worried about security after receiving warnings from a local BNP member that people from around the country would smash up the club if the meeting proceeded.
I immediately brought this to the attention of the police, who agreed to have officers in the vicinity of the meeting, before the owner cancelled. The meeting eventually went ahead successfully at the university with more than 200 people attending.
A BNP spokesman claimed the organisation was not violent. This flies in the face of the facts. BNP member and former election candidate Robert Cottage recently pleaded guilty to the possession of one of the biggest hoards of explosives ever discovered in the UK, in preparation for "race war''.
Richard Stone, a member of the Stephen Lawrence public inquiry, said: "Whenever the BNP are active, police always do report a rise in racist attacks. There is a correlation between BNP activity and the rise in race attacks.''
The BNP is not a legitimate party for working people - it is a fascist organisation of violent thugs who stand in the tradition of Hitler.
Jonny Jones
Respect Wales Steering Committee
Letter to South Wales Evening Post
I immediately brought this to the attention of the police, who agreed to have officers in the vicinity of the meeting, before the owner cancelled. The meeting eventually went ahead successfully at the university with more than 200 people attending.
A BNP spokesman claimed the organisation was not violent. This flies in the face of the facts. BNP member and former election candidate Robert Cottage recently pleaded guilty to the possession of one of the biggest hoards of explosives ever discovered in the UK, in preparation for "race war''.
Richard Stone, a member of the Stephen Lawrence public inquiry, said: "Whenever the BNP are active, police always do report a rise in racist attacks. There is a correlation between BNP activity and the rise in race attacks.''
The BNP is not a legitimate party for working people - it is a fascist organisation of violent thugs who stand in the tradition of Hitler.
Jonny Jones
Respect Wales Steering Committee
Letter to South Wales Evening Post
Labels:
BNP,
explosives,
fascist,
Galloway,
Hitler,
race war,
Respect,
Robert Cottage,
thugs,
violent
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