Disturbance after ex-Burnley BNP councillor's funeral

Police were called after reports that mourners were hurling objects off a Burnley bridge following the funeral of a former BNP councillor.

Officers arrived at the Yorkshire Street bridge at 9pm on Tuesday after being told around 40 youths were causing a disturbance. The mourners had attended the funeral of Luke Smith, 26, of Brunshaw Road, who was found dead last week, police said. The convicted football hooligan, who was forced to resign as a councillor after continued allegations of violence, was said to have been suffering from psychological problems when he appeared in court earlier this month charged with assault.

Sgt Phil Carter, of Burnley police, said: “Police dispersed the group on Tuesday soon after arriving and no arrests were made.”

It is believed the mourners had been drinking in the Lounge pub, in nearby Higgin Street, following Mr Smith’s funeral. Yesterday a large banner was hung from a bridge in Yorkshire Street with the message “Luke Smith lives forever”.

Speaking last week, Mr Smith’s uncle, Steve Smith, who was the BNP leader in Burnley when his nephew was elected, and is now leader of the far-right England First party, said: “He was a lovely, lovely lad who, like a lot of people, was just too sensitive to exist in what is effectively an extremely cruel world. Things had gone downhill for him.”

Mr Smith was 21 when he was elected as councillor for Lanehead ward, in May 2003. But he was suspended from the BNP less than three months later, after it emerged previous football-related violence had earned him a lifetime ban from Turf Moor, and he was alleged to have been fighting at the party’s Red, White and Blue festival in Sawley in July that year.

In September 2004, after a full investigation by the Standards Board for England, he was banned for three years from becoming a member of any council across the UK.

Earlier in 2004, the former gas engineer had been given a two-and-a-half year football banning order, and he was jailed for 11 months in March 2006, after breaching the order and being involved in football-related violence in Manchester, Blackpool and Burnley. His football banning order was extended to six years.

In his latest court appearance, on July 14, he was charged with assault after an attack on the landlord of the Princess Royal – the pub near where he was found dead.

Lancashire Telegraph

Former Burnley BNP cllr assaulted landlord

A former Burnley councillor who attacked a pub landlord is suffering from mental health problems, a court has heard.

Convicted football hooligan Luke Smith, 26, is awaiting sentence at Burnley Magistrates Court after punching the landlord and his solicitor told the court there had been a marked deterioration in his mental health.

The former Lanehead councillor made national headlines in 2003 after he was kicked out of the British National Party for fighting at the organisation’s national festival in Sawley. Smith, of Brunshaw Road, Burnley, is now said to be suffering from adjustment disorder, brief reactive depression and a mental and behavioural disorder due to misuse of substances.

The defendant, who handed himself into police on Monday morning, after going missing from court the Friday before, has admitted common assault in court on May 11. The court was told Smith had been ejected from the Princess Royal pub on Yorkshire Street, Burnley, but went back in a few minutes later drunk. When the victim took hold of him, he took a swing and struck him, breaking his glasses.

Smith was bailed until August 5, for a pre-sentence report and the bench said they were thinking of a medium community penalty. He must not go within 100 metre of the pub and not contact witnesses.

Dylan Bradshaw, defending, said Smith went to hospital on June 23 and was kept in until July 3. He was seen and diagnosed by a consultant psychiatrist. Mr Bradshsaw said Smith’s life had spiralled out of control. He had earlier left court because he could not face the proceedings and he had surrendered himself at the police station later.

The former town hall member was banned from being a councillor for three years by the Standards Board for England after being caught fighting at the Red, White and Blue Festival in Sawley in August 2003. He had earlier been kicked out of the party following internal meetings over the Sawley incident - a decision which prompted leading BNP organiser Steven Smith to quit. He now heads the Cliviger-based England First Party.

Luke Smith was also jailed for 17 months in March 2006 after being convicted of violent disorder in relation to incidents surrounding a World Cup qualifier in October 2004 and later violence in Blackpool. He was also banned from football grounds for six years.

Previously the former gas engineer, who is barred for life from Turf Moor, had been serving a two-and-a-half year football banning order, imposed for being involved in over 20 violent episodes in five years.

Lancashire Telegraph

Bishop of Blackburn urges voters to shun far right parties

A religious leader has called on voters in this May's local elections to reject political parties that spread racial hatred.

The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, has made the rallying cry against extremism in a letter to the county's Anglican churches, which will be published this weekend. The Rt Rev Reade urged voters not to be duped by far right parties which he claims have altered their image to hide the fact they are still pedalling racial prejudice.

He said: "I must urge the strongest possible rejection of the divisive policies of far-right political factions. They may have fine-tuned their outward image, but their ideas remain the gutter politics of racial hatred. The policies which such parties advance provide a blueprint for everything that Christians should renounce: contempt for minorities, ignorant victimisation of differences, and the denial of democracy. Their propaganda should be read as a recipe for rejection among Christian voters in Lancashire."

The bishop points to a private member's motion from the Blackburn Diocese in 2005 which led the Church of England's general synod to unanimously call for Christians to reject racist parties. The motion was passed in response to support for the British National Party in local elections in parts of Lancashire, at that time.

And he added that the diversity of the county was something that should be celebrated. He said: "Let us celebrate the diversity of our developing society, seeking to encourage candidates committed to policies that benefit those of all ethnicities and cultures."

The comments drew criticism from former BNP local leader Steven Smith, now chairman of the far-right Cliviger-based England First Party - who described himself as having an "open mind" on religion. He said: "The Bishop is confusing a desire to preserve racial and cultural identity with racial hatred. If there is any racial hatred it's come along as a result of the liberal establishment which people like the Bishop of Blackburn support. The ills that we are suffering in society at the moment, like race ghettos and race riots, are the result of people like the Bishop not standing up for traditional Christian values."

Lancashire Telegraph

Spinning the truth - the BPP and the 'White Nationalist' (nazi) Forum

The British People's Party (BPP) made much of the proposed White Nationalist Forum that was long-planned for Saturday March 24th. It was to be a get-together of senior nazis to discuss how they could work together to achieve whatever insane plans they have at the moment. It was to be, we were told, an example to everyone in how groups with similar aims but disparate methods could work in unison.

The BPP took the leading role in this forum, planning it and advertising it everywhere they could. They even persuaded Gunter Deckart, the Holocaust-denier, to fly over from Germany especially for the meeting.

As expected, the BPP reported on its website that the forum was 'a resounding success', attended by people from the National Alliance (NA), the BPP and the England First Party's only remaining member, its leader Steve Smith (about to stand in the local elections on May 3rd in the Cliviger with Worsthorne ward on Burnley Borough Council). Steve Smith of course is famous for being uncle to Luke Smith, ex-BNP councillor, football hooligan and violent thug, and for being the former organiser for Burnley BNP and doing six months for electoral fraud as a result.

Gunter Deckart must have been disappointed (like we care), having flown from Germany expecting to speak at a 'conference' only to find himself stuck in the back room of a pub with seventeen idiots, at least one of whom was drunk and abusive. According to a report we've seen, Sid Williamson (pictured), for it was he, was 'pissed out of his head' and caused havoc at several points in the meeting, apparently yelling that he was second in command of the BPP on several occasions, much to the irritation of all there.

Sid, you might remember, used to be a moderator on the appalling VNN nazi forum but was forced out last year when he unaccountably joined the BNP. His dalliance with Nick Griffin only lasted a couple of months. Although Griffin was prepared to ignore Williamson's racist rants against blacks, Asians and Jews on the swastika-strewn VNN, he drew the line at an attack on the Irish and was promptly thrown out of the squeaky-clean British National Party.

The forum was rather more interesting for who wasn't there - Kevin Watmough, the leader of the BPP and the nazi creep who runs Redwatch, Unsteady Eddy Morrison, the alcoholic 'National Political Advisor' of the BPP (who had apparently been on a bender all week and was unable to attend because he was still sloshed), just one from the Nationalist Alliance (but none of its leadership), no-one from the British First Party/N9S, no-one from the Wolf's Hook White Brotherhood and no-one from the British Movement (or whatever's left of it).

In fact, despite the BPP's claim that the forum was a 'resounding success', it seems to have been a complete washout, the only bright moment being when Sid nearly fell off his chair, then suddenly jumped up and demanded to speak.

Sadly, this laughable event has only been reported on the BPP's main website, Nobody has posted about it on the BPP's forum, which hasn't seen a new post in over a month, and no-one has bothered to send a report in to Stormfront. You can't blame them really.

NNP? BPP? EFP? More letters than members...

A brief round-up of what's going on at the periphery of the UK nazi scene.

Is the BNP bovvered by the NNP? Well yes, actually.

Readers who frequent the blogs and forums where BNP members are allowed to vent their communal spleen have observed both a marked increase in verbal attacks on Sharon Ebanks' group of BNP-rejects, the New Nationalist Party (NNP), and an even larger increase in the amount of venom expended per attack.

One of the nastier and openly pro-BNP sites on the internet is named, believe it or not, Covert Undercover Nuisance Tactics (you work out the acronym) - as rabid a bunch of thugs as you could have found in the National Front in its heyday, though the activism in this case is solely internet-based. This charming group took such exception to a Stormfront poster writing in support of Ebanks and her party that they printed his name and address for all to see - and this is someone who is well over on their side of the political spectrum! Not content with that, they have also uncompromisingly attacked Ebanks herself, posting a swathe of virulent articles complete with pictures of black TV stars labelled with her name - an obvious and hardly subtle reference to the persistent rumour that her late father was black.

Stormfront, the largest of the nazi forums, is suddenly awash with anti-Ebanks/anti-NNP posts, many of them direct attacks and insults (including one attack on the NNP deputy-chair Dave Cheetham, who was called a traitor - there being no worse insult in the disturbing world these people inhabit).

As far as Lancaster UAF and other observers can ascertain, these attacks are coming almost exclusively from the BNP members - some very prominent members indeed - who are also members of Stormfront (despite the party's proscription on membership of the forum). Which leads one to wonder why the BNP is so obviously bothered about what it describes dismissively as 'a micro-party'.

There are probably two reasons. The BNP was hoping to get its claws into Birmingham and almost did last year, when a miscount temporarily put the then BNP's Ebanks into a seat by mistake. The party is desperate to get there, despite last year's fiasco which not only lost them the seat but also Ebanks after a furious row about money. Unfortunately for the BNP, the NNP have every intention of standing in Birmingham and for all that Ebanks is as vile as racist as you could find, she also happens to put in her work in the ward, which frankly is more than can be said of practically all BNP councillors or would-be councillors. If the choice is between the nationally high-profile BNP and the locally high-profile Sharon Ebanks, it's difficult to see which way the voters would jump. The most likely outcome - and the most desirable for us, is that neither get in and the seat goes to a hard-working member of a bona-fide party without a fascist axe to grind.

The other reason for all the attacks on Ebanks revolves around her continual threats to reveal all she knows about Nick Griffin. We all know a lot about him, particularly his moral (and fiscal) bankruptcy, but Ebanks claims to have information that will destroy his so-called political career. While she teases the nazi world with the threat of startling revelations to come (maybe), her attackers are frantically destroying her credibility on the far-right. By the time she reveals all, no-one will be around to listen to her. All of which indicates that she might have something worth saying but, if she has, she'd better say it quickly.

Lancaster UAF blog readership goes up by nearly one

News reaches us that Unsteady Eddy Morrison, the laughable 'National Political Advisor' for the British People's Party (now run by Mr Inept himself, Kevin Watmough), has started reading our blog. Well, he's got nothing else to do, the poor old sod. Running over the memories of his undistinguished career in the nine hundred far-right political groups he's been a part of must have taken him all of five minutes.

Oddly, he wrote on his own blog about our reference to the BPP as a 'three man and a very large dog' party, which segues very nicely into the next item...

The England First Party is easily confused

Steven Smith (the owner of the very large dog, pictured left) is a member of the British People's Party. So why are we writing about him here? Because he is also the new Leader of the England First Party, following Mark Cotterill's resignation from the post. We have no information on which party the dog belongs to though so far it's joined its owner in the BNP, the BPP and the EFP - it's no wonder it looks depressed.

In an attempt to clear up any confusion that may have arisen from Smith's role in both parties, EFP posted a statement on its website:

'Whilst he is a member which, his joining was a show of solidarity it is not true for him to be described as a senior member he does not have any influence or input into the political direction or internal workings of the party and is 100% committed to the England First Party only.'

Which almost, but not quite, makes sense.

Steven Smith, you may recall, is the uncle of the football hooligan and violent thug, ex-BNP councillor, Luke Smith. Uncle Steve was alleged to have left following nephew Luke's expulsion from the BNP after he glassed a member of Nick Griffin's security team in the face at the BNP's family fracas, the Red White and Blue Festival. That was a fib though. Smith left the BNP because he was about to be done for electoral fraud, an act that earned him six months and a five-year ban on standing for council.

Now that the ban has ended, Smith intends to stand and to help himself has taken on the role of leader of the fast-collapsing EFP. Quite how an electoral fraudster expects to win an election is beyond most of us with brain cells but apparently he's full of confidence - even given the fact that both of the EFP's Blackburn councillors have resigned to move elsewhere.

It's no wonder Smith is a member of the BPP as well - he can obviously see there's absolutely no future for the EFP. Even less now he's involved.

England First Party's new chairman is convicted electoral fraudster

The England First Party (EFP) chairman Mark Cotterill, has resigned and is handing over the reins to convicted electoral fraudster Steve Smith. Smith, the former organiser for the British National Party's Burnley branch, has taken over immediately, following Cotterill's announcement that he is leaving to take up a new job in Preston.

Steve Smith followed the usual path of the English nazi, first being involved in the BNP, moving away from that when he was about to be convicted for electoral fraud and into the British People's Party (a more hardcore nazi group led by alcoholic Eddie Morrison and moronic Redwatch organiser Kevin Watmough), then drifting on to the EFP when he realised that the BPP was a dead duck.

EFP have managed to con the voters into putting two third-rate councillors into office in Blackburn, Cotterill himself and pub-owner Michael Johnson, and Smith is obviously hoping the party can build on that and add him to the list.

Smith's pedigree is just about what one would expect from a veteran of the BNP, BPP and EFP. A couple of years back he resigned from the BNP, ostensibly over its treatment of his nephew Luke Smith, former Burnley BNP councillor, football hooligan and violent thug extraordinaire. Following an incident where he smashed a bottle into the face of someone with whom he was having a disagreement at the BNP's annual 'family' do, the Red, White and Blue Festival, the BNP unceremoniously dumped him, much to Uncle Steve's chagrin. The BNP seemed perfectly content with Luke Smith's record of hooliganism; it just didn't like it when he got a bit more personal. The party of law and order, huh?

The real reason Steve Smith resigned was that he was about to be convicted for electoral fraud, which led to his being sentenced to six months on January 16th, 2002. He admitted to allowing false nominations to be submitted for the 2001 elections and received the sentence plus the statutory five-year ban on standing for public office.

Mark Cotterill, the outgoing EFP Chairman, is the main former fundraiser for the BNP via the now defunct American Friends of the BNP, who went off in a huff to start his own group, the England First Party (EFP), after a major fall-out with Nick Griffin over, rumour has it, large quantities of cash disappearing. Curious how most of the more prominent ex-BNP people resigned over money issues (with the dishonourable exception of Tony Lecomber), particularly given ex-bankrupt Nick Griffin's personal financial history.

The skills that Smith displayed when he was a BNP organiser will hopefully cause chaos in the EFP. His proteges include his ghastly nephew Luke, Maureen Stowe, who eventually resigned and led a campaign against the BNP, and the truly appalling Brian Turner, a violent racist who was convicted of assaulting his wife and a police officer in September 2005, a conviction that he can add to his previous eleven and his most recent, of racially abusing a group of Asian men in May 2006.

With the supremely untalented Smith in charge, we should see the demise of the England First Party within a year or two. We look forward to it.

Note: The '14 words' message on Smith's T-shirt refers to a corruption of a statement in Volume 1, Chapter 8 of Mein Kampf, commonly given as 'We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children'. A well-used nazi phrase.