Too much Braun, not enough brains

Mick Braun, the BNP candidate for the Tilbury Riverside & Thurrock Park ward in Thurrock, has been described as an “utter racist and a loose cannon”. This description does not come from us (though we do not disagree), but instead comes from the ex Havering BNP councillor Mark Logan in an interview he gave to the Ilford Recorder just last year. Braun isn’t actually from Thurrock but from nearby Romford and is actually the BNP’s Havering organiser

Braun’s Facebook account is overflowing with racist and homophobic sentiment, in fact it is one of the worst accounts we have seen so far.

Not for the first time, much of what Braun has to say for himself is far too disgusting for us to reproduce. One posting that does stand out though is where Mick Braun or Mick Brown as he also likes to be known as on Facebook, advocates spraying Asians and homosexuals with hydrochloric acid.

Braun also suggests posting a Molotov cocktail through the letter box of an Asian family that has just moved next door to one of his Facebook friends. He also suggests setting fire to mosques in response to Islamic extremists burning the Union Jack.

Neither is Braun too bothered as to whether the police are monitoring his activities. In one posting he suggests “let’s set up a ‘where a copper lives’ site so we can alert all nationalists where these treacherous bastards live and let’s give them hell for a change”. So much for the BNP being the party of law and order.

Another Thurrock candidate is Karne McGinn who is standing in the Ockenden ward.

McGinn passes his time on the social networking site posting things like as “Kill the Muslim scum” and compliments one of his Facebook friends for having a Swastika for his profile photo.

McGinn also attempted to start an online campaign of hate directed at a local takeaway in nearby Grays in Essex, because the takeaway sells Halal meat. He printed the phone number of the takeaway encouraging people to withhold their telephone number and ring them up to “give them some grief”.






Thanks to Nick Lowles at HOPE not Hate/Searchlight

BNP councillor quits and slams leadership

A BNP councillor has quit the party with a blast at its leader, Nick Griffin.

After a lengthy absence from public appearances relating to her council duties, councillor Emma Colgate returned to Thurrock Council’s chamber on Wednesday evening. Her only contribution to the meeting was to second a motion calling for a five per cent voluntary cut in the wages of the authority’s senior officers and she didn’t make any announcement about her change of political affiliation.

However, before the meeting she circulated a letter to the press, announcing she was quitting the BNP – even though she stood by its core principles.

Her statement said: ““It is with deep sadness that I have to inform you that I have resigned my party whip with immediate effect and will be an independent councillor. I have been unhappy with the leadership of the BNP for some time and I feel the direction the current leadership are taking is not in the interest of the public.

“I still stand true to the core values of the BNP and believe it has many good members and supporters but I feel I am no longer able to represent an organisation that is falling apart due to mismanagement. If the current leadership changed hands I would be more than happy to return. I do not feel it is correct to resign my position completely as I only have five months of my term remaining and to force a by-election would be an unnecessary financial burden. I will continue to represent the same values and policies that I was elected under.”

There has been much local speculation about the political future of Miss Colgate in recent times. Earlier this year she stepped down from her position as British National Party staff manager, saying she wanted to concentrate fully on fighting the Thurrock Parliamentary seat for the party in the General Election.

At the time Mr Griffin thanked Ms Colgate for “all her hard work and loyalty. I look forward to seeing her make even more progress in her political role as an outstanding BNP councillor and beyond.” But it was widely reported that there were deep rifts between Miss Colgate and other senior members of the BNP with Mr Griffin.

Locally, since being well beaten in the general election, her profile has been low. Wednesday’s appearance in the chamber for a full council meeting was the first time since June 30 that she had turned up – and her ability to claim her allowance for council duties was in jeopardy had she not turned up for the November council meeting.

It has been reported that several months of mail from constituents are unopened at the council offices, her voicemail is full and e-mails bounce back. Concern has been expressed within her ward that she failed to turn up to the recent Tilbury remembrance service.

Though she didn’t make any announcement of her change of affiliation at the meeting, the Council’s Democratic Services department confirmed they had been informed.

The Enquirer

Breaking news - Another one goes...

The BNP has one fewer councillor this evening after Emma Colgate informed Thurrock council that she was no longer taking the BNP whip.

Colgate, once close to Griffin, is just the latest councillor to withdraw from the BNP and it is yet another sign that party is collapsing. A few days ago it was claimed that BNP membership was down 50% on 2009.

Hope not hate

BNP admits EU money pays for party staff

Councillor Emma Colgate has resigned as the British National Party’s staff manager to devote herself full-time to the election campaign in Thurrock, the BNP announced today

Colgate is standing for election to Parliament and also hopes to get more BNP councillors elected to Thurrock council, where she is the party’s sole representative. She told the BNP website: “We’re in with a real chance in Thurrock and I want to give it my best shot. I cannot properly work fill-time [sic] on the campaign while being paid by EU taxpayers to manage our European staff.”

Colgate is one of 11 staff paid by the European Parliament to run constituency offices for the party’s two MEPs and support them in their European roles. All of them also have major roles in the BNP party apparatus.

Searchlight has always accused the BNP of misusing taxpayers’ money to pay for party staff. Despite winning election to the European Parliament on the back of the MPs’ expenses scandal with the slogan “punish the pigs”, the BNP MEPs wasted no time in jumping onto the EU gravy train.

Colgate’s announcement that she has resigned from her party role, described on the current BNP contacts’ spreadsheet as “party manager, party staff manager, staff administration”, on the grounds that she cannot campaign while being paid by EU taxpayers, is a clear admission that the BNP is using EU money fraudulently to fund party staff.

Whether Colgate was truly motivated by a desire not to misuse EU money further is unclear. Several of the nazi web forums have reported that she and Eddy Butler, the BNP’s national organiser, were sacked. As yet the BNP has made no announcement about Butler’s role, nor about the accusations, also doing the rounds of the nazi forums, that there has been a huge falling out between Mark Collett, the BNP’s unpopular head of publicity, and Jim Dowson, its equally unpopular “consultant”, whom Searchlight describes as “owning” the BNP because of his extensive financial hold over the party.

Colgate still likes to quote a Searchlight description of her last year as a “hard-working” councillor, not appreciating that we were only noting that she attends all her council meetings, as any councillor should and in contrast to almost all the BNP’s other councillors throughout the country, who do as little as possible for their councillors’ allowances.

Nevertheless it is surprising that she repays the “compliment” by making wild accusations against Gerry Gable, publisher of Searchlight, most recently on the streets of Thurrock surrounded by a mob of BNP activists trying to prevent the distribution of an anti-BNP HOPE not hate newspaper in Thurrock as part of the democratic election process.

As for her claimed wish not to use EU money to fund her election campaign, we wait with bated breath for the nine other BNP EU-funded officers also standing for Parliament in the general election to follow her lead and resign.

Hope not hate

Pas de deux

Emma Colgate, who has stepped into the breach in Thurrock after Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, decided to switch to Barking, east London, for the general election, is one of the BNP’s most hard-working councillors.

Elected to Thurrock council in May 2008 she has a 100% attendance record at meetings of the full council and the general services committee. She is the sole BNP councillor there but holds significant power because the council is split between Labour and the Conservatives. After the former Conservative council leader, Terry Hipsey, crossed the floor to join Labour, she used her vote to keep what Hipsey described as a “dysfunctional Tory group” in power.

Only last week, Griffin appealed for donations to launch the party’s “run-up campaign to the general election”, saying: “In this next General Election I will be standing in Thurrock where the split vote between the old parties means we could win a Parliamentary seat with just 27% of the vote” – a highly improbable scenario. He had been putting his face around in Thurrock but on 15 November at the BNP’s annual conference announced that he would be standing in Barking because it was the BNP’s best chance of winning a parliamentary seat.

He is probably wrong about that. For a start he would need considerably more than 27% to oust Labour in one of its safe seats. And the increasing number of minority ethnic residents will make his task that much harder, especially after his recent attack on London as no longer British. Griffin also claimed that Richard Barnbrook, who had very publicly declared that he was going to be Barking’s next MP, had stood aside willingly and had now set his sights on becoming leader of Barking and Dagenham council.

Colgate is currently the BNP’s national administration officer, an appointment announced at the BNP’s European election victory rally in Blackpool in June. Before that she was Barnbrook’s researcher, employed by the Greater London Authority at London taxpayers’ expense. She remains on the public payroll, however, as she is one of several BNP senior officers on the EU gravy train as staff for the two MEPs.

Despite Griffin’s optimism about the party’s prospects in Thurrock, she will have a hard job to win the seat. In the 2005 general election, the BNP candidate Nick Geri came fourth with 5.8% of the vote. Colgate herself stood in Basildon in 2005, where she came fourth with 4.8%.

Hope not hate

British National Party launches general election campaign with a lie

Nick Griffin, the British National Party leader, revealed [yesterday] that he would be contesting the Barking constituency, east London, in the next general election. He made his announcement in front of television cameras on the last day of his party’s annual conference in Wigan, Greater Manchester, over the weekend of 14-15 November.

Yet a few days ago, in an appeal for donations to launch the party’s “run-up campaign to the general election”, he wrote: “In this next General Election I will be standing in Thurrock where the split vote between the old parties means we could win a Parliamentary seat with just 27% of the vote”.

No candidate may stand in more than one constituency at a general election. So Griffin must have been lying, either in the begging letter or at the party’s conference.

Potential donors to the fascist party should note that this would not be the first time the BNP has lied in a fundraising appeal. The party claimed to have bought its “truth truck”, an advertising lorry, last year after a successful appeal to supporters to raise the £26,550 needed. Yet when bailiffs tried to enforce a county court judgment against the BNP, the party claimed it did not own the vehicle.

It was in Thurrock that Griffin held his first press conference after his disastrous performance in Question Time on 22 October. Claiming that the programme should not have been filmed in London, because the city was “no longer British”, he said: “Why not come down and do it in Thurrock …?”

Griffin linked his new choice of Barking for the general election with the party’s attempt to take over Barking and Dagenham council in the May 2010 elections. The party currently has 12 councillors there, the largest BNP council group in the country. The party has largely been ineffective against the huge Labour majority and many of its representatives rarely attend meetings.

According to Griffin, the council campaign will be spearheaded by Richard Barnbrook, the BNP’s sole London Assembly member, who is currently appealing against his suspension from the council for bringing his office into disrepute by inventing a series of murders in the borough. Robert Bailey, the BNP’s leader on Barking and Dagenham council and the party’s London organiser, appears to have been sidelined.

Barnbrook’s wider ambitions have also been swept aside. At the end of September he rented a huge billboard by the side of the A406 in Barking, at great expense, to announce that it was “Barnbrook for Barking”. On his blog he explained in no uncertain terms: “I, Richard Barnbrook am going to be Barking’s next MP! I’m the candidate for the British National Party …”. Lying that he had lived in the constituency for six years, he proclaimed: “Back me, Richard Barnbrook, Barking’s next MP”.

Griffin and Barnbook campaigned side by side apparently without animosity in the recent Glasgow North East parliamentary by-election. How Griffin bought Barnbrook out is not known.

Nick Lowles, editor of Searchlight, said Griffin’s decision to stand, coupled with the BNP’s prior local success in the area, made Barking “the front line” of efforts to combat the party’s rise. “It’s going to be difficult for him to win, but they have got a lot of councillors so we can’t be complacent,” he said.

“There have been some demographic changes since the last election which could limit the BNP’s success in Barking. But a lot depends on getting people out to vote, so it’s vital we let the people of Barking know exactly who Nick Griffin is.”

Hope not hate

BNP billboard bites the dust

Now you see it...

...and now you (almost) don't.

Tories hit back at BNP village campaign

Conservative politicians in Orsett have responded to the election efforts of BNP to associate itself with village traditions.

BNP candidate Derek Beackon caused a furore last week when he posted a newsletter through village letterboxes which featured a picture of himself outside the Whitmore Arms pub and restaurant, an award-winning village landmark.

Landlady Margaret Orman was outraged and slammed the BNP, with Mr Beackon then issuing a veiled apology. He said: "said: "It's just a local landmark that everyone knows. You can have your photo taken anywhere. However, looking back on it I'm not surprised she is upset. Its her livelihood and I can understand that she doesn't want to be associated with us. We were not trying to say she or the pub is associated with the BNP."

However, local Conservatives, including election rival and sitting councillor Diane Revell said the BNP have no place in the village.

Councillor Revell said: "Members of my family fought in two world wars to prevent the spread of this type of party. Some of them died. Fascist parties have no part to play in local elections here in Orsett. There are national concerns on immigration but locally the clearest problems we have are with anti-social behaviour and above all the threats posed by the infra-structural changes about to be imposed on us by the government's Thames Gateway Development Corporation. Clearly their candidate has no idea of what village life is about and has nothing to offer. Leave us to sort out our own problems within the community."

Her husband and fellow councillor Mike Revell said: "Thurrock is twinned thorough its children to a Polish town of Plocke. It is the size of Thurrock. In a period of just two years in the 1940s, 1.5 million people were sent from the ghetto in this town to the gas chambers. Within the centre of the town is left the empty area that once was the walled ghetto. It is still a chillingly cold place in which to stand. It happened because, earlier in the 1930s, nice respectable Germans made their protest votes for a xenophobic, ultra nationalist party, the Nazis."

Those comments were echoed by Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate Stephen Metcalfe who said: "Clearly people are concerned by excessive immigration. The Conservatives have proposed answers to this based on the Australian point system. But this is a national issue that will have to be addressed at government level. My experience of the few BNP councillors elected in Epping Forest tell us that they have nothing to offer and nothing to say on local issues within their local councils."

The Conservatives also took issue with content in the BNP promotional newsletter.

Councillor Mike Revell said: "Orsett Conservatives are united in the condemnation of the deliberate lie that is being spread by the BNP that "the conservatives are responsible for plans to site a travellers encampment in the village". This is completely untrue. The Council have been asked if they would increase the number of pitches in Thurrock. This has been rejected utterly by the Conservative administration. It is also clear that the BNP are unaware of the cooperation between the police and the local village forums when they speak of crime. Although there are still some problems to address there has been a noticeable improvement in most areas.

"When challenged the BNP spokesman said that all parties lie, but when asked to name one case of lying by the Thurrock Conservative Administration, he was unable to name one instance."

Thurrock Gazette

BNP candidate: 'The Asians are rubbish...'

The BNP is currently making a great deal of fuss about the selection of Derek Beacon to fight in the Orsett ward on Thurrock, tucked away to the east of Greater London.

According to the BNP's deputy leader Simon Darby, Beacon 'is the chap that turned British politics on its head when it [sic] was elected in Millwall in 1993'. He certainly did, for he is possibly the only politician ever to declare shortly after being elected via a by-election that he had no intention of working for a large proportion of his constituents. On September 17th 1993 he told the Evening Standard;

‘I am only going to represent the white people. I will not represent Asians. I will not do anything for them. They have no right to be in my great country.’

No great surprise then that he was resoundingly booted out the following May.

Nor will it come as any great surprise to our readers to learn that Beacon is a Holocaust-denier. On the day before he came out with his notorious statement about Asians, he appeared in the Today newspaper with this little gem;

‘Well no, I don’t think anybody was deliberately exterminated by the Germans. It certainly wasn’t six million Jews - maybe a couple of hundred thousand, but so what? Lots of others died in that war, didn’t they?’

Just a couple a days later, he had this to say to the Daily Mirror in reply to a question about rubbish collection on the Isle of Dogs;

‘The Asians are rubbish and that is what we are going to clear from the streets.’

And this was followed up the next day by an article in the Observer, on being asked about his views on crime;

‘I don’t care what the Bengalis think. We are here for the white people.'

On the same day that Beacon, then a virtual illiterate who clearly had trouble understanding his role as a councillor, came out with that last statement, September 19th 1993, police used riot shields and horses to break up fights between BNP and anti-fascist activists who had met in the East End. Twenty-seven people were arrested. A subsequent council meeting was postponed because violence was feared.

Beacon, whose name was formerly spelled 'Beackon', is friendly with BNP election guru Eddy Butler, and used to be the party's chief steward, which included the task of ensuring order at BNP meetings. As chief steward he was given the job of leading the party's bodyguard group set up in 1992 (and now headed by the creepy Martin Reynolds). Made up largely of skinheaded thugs, the group proved difficult for the middle-aged Beacon to control, and before long, real control moved to drug-runner and murderer Charlie Sargent and his brother Steve. Following Beacon's election, the group became disillusioned with the electoral path and broke away from the BNP, adopting the name Combat 18.

Beacon was kept well away from the Press following his appalling comments, and was eventually removed from office in May 1994. Assuming the BNP is stupid enough to allow him to speak except via a spokesperson, the media would do extremely well to ask him if his views on Asians, Bengalis and the Holocaust have changed in the past fifteen years and if, in the unlikely event of his being elected, he will do what he's meant to and represent ALL the people in his ward, not just the white ones.

BNP fails to win seats in key target areas

Early results from the local elections make grim reading for the fascist British National Party (BNP). Despite standing 750 candidates across the country in an attempt to take advantage of anti-immigrant hysteria coming from press and politicians alike, the Nazis have failed to win any seats in their key target areas.

The BNP lost its sole councillor in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, and failed to make any headway in Thurrock, Essex, where in recent years it has had a councillor. The party was utterly humiliated in Scotland, where they had invested heavily and expected a good showing.

Birmingham is a city that fascists have traditionally regarded as good territory. Yet in seat after seat, Respect candidates roundly beat the BNP. In Windsor the fascists failed to capitalise on a nasty campaign of Islamophobia in the area. Though areas such as Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and Yorkshire have yet to declare their results, as of this morning, the Nazis’ only tangible gains were a couple of councillors in North Leicestershire.

It looks unlikely that the BNP will gain anywhere near its predicted 40 more seats and will remain far short of its stated target of 100 councillors nationwide.

A crucial factor in holding the BNP back was the qualitatively higher level of anti-fascist campaigning in these elections. Unite Against Fascism distributed half a million leaflets across the country urging people to vote against the BNP. This campaigning undoubtedly had an impact. But the Nazis still attracted disturbingly high numbers in certain parts of Britain.

In Wales, where BNP leader Nick Griffin was standing, the fascists came 2,500 votes short of winning an assembly seat in North Wales. In Wrexham they grabbed 9.4 percent of the regional vote.

The factors that allow the BNP to make inroads – anger and despair at the mainstream parties, combined with endless “immigration scares” and anti-Muslim racism whipped up in the media – are not going to go away. The need to build united mass campaigns against fascism is clearer than ever.

© Copyright Socialist Worker

Anti-fascism Around The Country

Anti-fascists around the country have started campaigning against the threat posed by the British National Party (BNP) at the elections on 3 May.

Activists in the Yorkshire and Humberside region of Unite Against Fascism went leafleting last weekend in Leeds, Barnsley, York and Scarborough calling on people to use their votes against the Nazi BNP.

In the West Midlands, Unite leafleters, including Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors, covered Redditch’s Winyates ward. The BNP’s David Enderby gained a council seat there last year – but has since been convicted of assaulting his wife.

Unite campaigners in Luton will blitz the Farley Estate with anti-BNP leaflets this Saturday. Luton Unite is calling on people to assemble at 10.30am at the Farley Community Centre on Delphine Way.

Meanwhile Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) has kicked off a national tour of universities to build support for the movement against the Nazis.

Full details of the tour are available at http://www.lovemusichateracism.com/

LMHR has also teamed up with the NUT and NASUWT teaching unions to launch a range of anti-fascist educational material for schools. This includes a CD compiled by Drew McConnell of Babyshambles which will be distributed free to schools across Britain.

Activists in the GMB trade union in Barking & Dagenham, east London, turned out last Saturday to campaign against the BNP in nearby Thurrock, Essex, as part of the Daily Mirror’s “Hope Not Hate” tour.

Tom Baillie, branch secretary of Barking GMB, told Socialist Worker, “The majority of people in this borough reject the fascist politics of the BNP – and we’re out to show that.”

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=11036

Socialist Worker