Book Review: Hate by Matthew Collins

Hate is the captivating and witty autobiography of reformed fascist turned Searchlight mole Matthew Collins.

Collins was a full-time activist and administrator for the National Front for several years at the turn of the 1990s and his experience spans the disintegration of the NF and the rise of the British National Party. It is an engrossing chronicle of confrontation between the left and right and examines Collins’ relationship with prominent fascists including Ian Anderson, Richard Edmonds, Eddie Whicker, Tony Lecomber and Combat 18 leader Charlie Sargent.

The book – crude, brutal and savagely funny – charts Collins’ involvement with the National Front in his late teens through to his work as an informant with the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. Collins was the principle source of Andy Bell’s World In Action documentary and was forced into hiding for 10 years in Australia before returning to the UK to work full-time as an anti-fascist campaigner.

Although Collins was never a fascist leader and his flirtation with the far right was relatively brief, he does provide a fascinating insight into the tactics and psychology of British Nazism. The right’s ability to mobilise coalitions of thugs – including violent fascists, barbaric football hooligans and brutish Loyalists – is truly chilling, but Collins also demonstrates the inherent contradictions and weakness of the movement.

The awkward alliance of various groups and factions is saturated with egotism and paranoia whilst deluded ideological warhorses – such as Anderson and Edmonds – rely on the muscle and numbers provided by football hooligans to further their political ends. Hooligan firms might echo the racist bile of the NF and the BNP, but they’re not interested in building a ‘movement’ or selling papers, they just want a ruck with some Reds. Collins’ terrifying description of a number of violent encounters with the left helps illustrate this implicit conflict.

Another highlight is the fascinating story of Mr X – a former Trotskyite turned Sun journalist who becomes increasingly cosy with leading British Nazis and violent Ulster Loyalists – which illustrates the incestuous relationships between the far right of the Conservative Party and the fascist movement. Until the emergence of some embarrassing photographs, Mr X plays an increasingly pivotal role in the National Front as he offers them access to the political establishment and writes for a number of NF publications.

Unlike similar accounts – such as Ray Hill’s The Other Face of Terror – there is no epiphany or eureka moment which converts Collins to fighting fascism. Rather it is a gradual disillusionment with the increasingly well-organised and escalating violence. This gradualism mirrors Collins’ first interaction with the National Front and his hesitant and wary engagement of Searchlight.

Although the primary focus is on the National Front, as a historical document charting the rise of the BNP – detailing its violent, Nazi and anti-parliamentary origins – the book is truly significant. Much of what Collins says is hardly revelatory, but it is an important resource to demonstrate the true colours of the BNP when many of its supporters – and even members – are ignorant of the reality.

Hate does not provide a blueprint for fighting fascism, but it does show how the far right attracts working-class people damaged by the system and encourages them to express their anger at other members of society. It shows how fascists exploit some of the most vulnerable people in society – young working-class men with limited prospects – and gives them a sense of belonging, worth and comradeship. The most important lesson of Collins’ book is that as long as the mainstream political establishment continues to restrict employment opportunities and housing prospects for the inner-city youth, the far right will continue to be a frightening menace. As a first-hand account of this menace – and for anyone concerned about the rise of the far right and the emergence of the EDL – this is a must read.

Click here to buy Hate from Hope Not Hate with all proceeds going to Searchlight or you can buy it from The Guardian Bookshop

Thanks to Eyes on Power

EDIT - I'm sorry that we cannot publish the various guesses that people have sent through regarding the ID of Mr X. Legally it's a bit dodgy, well a lot dodgy really.

BNP Woes

Whilst many anti-fascists have been preoccupied with the EDL we should not forget the current woes of the good old BNP. It has been a heck of a month!

Summertime Blues
The BNP’s Summer School was a washout by all accounts. The few pictures published have shown a few dispirited looking fascists in a mainly empty field. Apparently, Nick Griffin acolyte the Green Marrow was there in a new Stetson but it was unclear if he was selling his special ‘condensed lager’ cocktails. Things like the Summer School (SS) and the Red, White & Blue Farcical are big money spinners for Griffin who usually takes control of any profit making enterprises such as beer and ticket money. About 200 attended the RWB or Indigenous Family Weekend and 85 attended the SS. There is not going to be much to divvy up after these 2 ‘showcases.’ Branch wise, the BNP is doing poorly: Liverpool BNP is riven with accusations of ‘spies’ and ‘nonces,’ Birmingham’s once strong branch has collapsed and Tameside is refusing to distribute official BNP leaflets in the area. On the plus side, for Griffin at least, former webmaster Simon Bennett has had his case against the BNP thrown out of court.

Nickclops
Griffin turned up in court again on September 7th with the CEHR over discriminatory elements in the membership criteria and contempt but this was adjourned. This whole case will be costly and he has been soliciting donations for ‘razor sharp legal advice,’ although he also said he was representing himself. On the day Griffin, who turned up late, was being ‘advised’ by veteran racist Patrick Harrington, former organiser of the National Front’s White Noise neo-Nazi band collective and part of the BNP’s made-up union, Solidarity. Griffclops is also painting himself out as a martyr to the ‘British Resistance’ (resisting reality around the UK) and flags up rumours he may be jailed. This would obviously create a huge amount of publicity and reassert some badly needed political buoyancy for the discredited captain of a sinking ship.

Griffin’s begging bowl is bringing back decreasing contributions and members are getting sick of his constant requests for money. Each missive cites a different but more desperate reason why the cash strapped members should shell out. Politically, Griffin may be an idiot but he is no fool when it comes to money and you can guarantee that he has nothing in his own name, will have salted away a few quid somewhere, and has been carefully stashing his MEP salary and ‘any other monies’ should the BNP go under.

Skint
The BNP is close to bankrupt with it’s £ ½ million debt. If it does go under then their assets will be seized but apparently most assets have been transferred to Jim Dowson’s control so if they do go bankrupt there will be little to sequester. Griffin was also taken to court over wrongful dismissal of Michael McKenzie and ordered to pay her compensation. This he has now reneged on so that should be another few bob and a futile court case. The BNP membership has been in a terrible state since the appalling election campaign resulting in further loss of income. Griffin was boasting of 1,000s of new members after the election but membership had actually been frozen due to the case over membership rules. No doubt people will have been put off following all the salacious gossip about party funding. Many have let their memberships lapse, have resigned or been suspended. According to Eddy Bitler’s blog they have lost 1,500 members in the last month alone. There are rumours on the net of only about 4,000 members but it is hard to clarify with so much misinformation floating around. The BNP council elections have all been an embarrassment and their sole London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook has resigned the whip (but is still a member) following concerns over wrong doing and misconduct. Barnbrook was the only BNP member, apart from Griffin, to actually get a semi-decent position and a media profile.

The All-New BNP?
Disaffected Nazis on various web forums have commented on the BNP’s political direction being somewhat confused and compromised following the case over membership rules. The reformers are still hoping to rebuild the party sans Griffin whilst other want to start a new party free of the baggage of the BNP. If the BNP implodes, there will be the space for a new right wing party to capitalise on the anti-immigration angle. But this is one of the problems for the BNP: it is seen as a single issue party and aside from having a go at the ‘Pakis’ has little else to show for itself. A whites-only anti-immigration party will have a hard time organising as the BNP case has set a legal precedent.

Give Griffin his due, he has moved the BNP from being a bunch of hairy arsed skinheads into a more Euro-fascist proposition having abandoned the streets with his ‘no more marches, meetings, punch-ups’ remark in the 1990s. The chances of a new party rising from the ashes of the BNP and quickly establishing itself are remote. It takes a long time and a lot of money. The EDL are currently reaping the ‘benefits’ of disaffected BNP members who attend their demos but the transformation into a legit political party does not seem likely. Even if they did become legit they would suffer from the same single issue stigma as the BNP.

Abandon Hope, Ship, Trousers …
Not only did Griffin go into overdrive suspending members who sided with Butler in the leadership challenge but many of the party luminaries have abandoned the Griff-tanic to leave him tangoing in the ballroom alone. Lee Barnes, the mental ‘legal adviser’, says he resigned from the BNP over Marmite and the CEHR. Batty Barnes has realised that he is now in even more of a political wilderness than ever and has been buttering up the EDL with ‘advice’ on how to do their demos. How kind. Griffin recently hit back at Batty Barnes’s various allegations which inspired a lengthy breath of stale air from Barnes’s blog. Barnes is also backing the sexual misconduct claims against BNP svengali Jim Dowson and he has openly accused Dowson of being a multiple rapist on his blog. Dowson has not responded to these somewhat strong allegations but it remains a source of grievous contention. There is an odious whiff around the fragrant Shelley Rose, the BNP glamour kitten, for it is she who made the allegations against Dowson and following her revelations there have been others. All are yet to be substantiated however. What is even more horrifying is that this English Rose was also having an affair with married Simon Darby who subsequently did a disappearing act for a week or 2 under mysterious circumstances.

Eddy Butler is still leading the main reform group. If he successfully deposes Griffin it is likely that many ex-BNP and anti-Griffinites will rally around him but given the fractious nature of far-right politics many of them have fallen out with each other and even if the BNP was reborn under a new name, there would still be all the smelly little schisms that characterise those on the fringes of political reality. We should also remember that Butler is a deeply unpleasant prospect who was behind the Rights For Whites campaign in the early 90s and also helped set up the BNP Stewards Group that became Combat 18. Butler was also tight with Griffin until very recently.

Also re-emerging is Tony Lecomber, another dodgy prospect. Lecomber was imprisoned over an attempted bombing back in the 1980s and for assault in the 1990s. His enemies claim he is a state asset. Back in the day, AFA used to refer to him as Tarmac Tony due to his face being familiar with pavements around London. According to a Lancaster Unity article, he is currently running round trying to mediate between pro- and anti-Griffinite factions. Lecomber also beat up Butler at Loughton station a couple of years back. All these character are desperate to regain the flimsy status that being a BNP ‘face’ gave with its attendant publicity and perks.

Conclusion
So as Griffin battles on against the CEHR, his leadership certain for the while, the Reform group don’t seem to be getting too far and support for the BNP is dwindling. Are the BNP’s days numbered? And if Griffin is imprisoned will he take time to explain his policies to any Afro-Carribeans or Asian prisoners he may meet on the dinner line.

‘Malatesta’

Thanks to Bob Sponge for the heads up.

What is occurring, Tony?

One of the strangest characters ever to grace the extreme-Right stage is Tony Lecomber (pictured above, in his natural element). Few know quite what to make of him. There has long been speculation in fascist quarters that Lecomber was "turned" during one of his spells of imprisonment, and has ever since supplied information to the Special Branch; a variation on the same theme has it that Lecomber is, or was, a wholly-owned puppet of "the state", bent on destroying the BNP's best branches, promoting division, earning the party bad publicity, and generally keeping it restricted in size and unthreatening to "the state" BNP members believe lives in terror of them.

They do love a good conspiracy theory in the BNP.

We don't know the truth of that or of much else surrounding Lecomber, though there is more than a suspicion that in the past he has been helpful to agencies operating beyond the reach of the BNP. What we do know is that he is not to be trusted.

Lecomber was probably more responsible than Griffin for the success of Griffin's long-laid plans to capture the BNP leadership from founder John Tyndall. He operated for years as Griffin's second in command, and played a crucial role in the long roll-call of expulsions and divisions that have characterised the Griffin leadership.

When disgruntled members ask "Where has all the talent gone?" they should keep in mind that Lecomber stands squarely next to Griffin as the man bearing most responsibility for the purging and bullying that saw it off. Griffin routinely ousted talent that he saw as a future threat to his own position, together with those who - as so many in the BNP have belatedly come to realise - became aware of the shady financial business going on at the top of the party. Tony Lecomber was Griffin's willing accomplice, if not, in some cases, the instigator.

Lecomber fell from grace due to his alleged involvement in a "death plot" (see here), but was not formally proscribed by Nick Griffin (and then in glowing terms) until after he attacked Eddy Butler at Loughton rail station - something that has never been properly explained. Even then, it was clear from early on that Lecomber remained involved with the BNP and was on the best of terms with Griffin.

With a record involving possession of explosives and various acts of thuggery, at first glance Lecomber appears little more than a violent loon, but he is that rare thing, a violent loon in charge of a brain that sometimes operates at a close to normal temperature, from which he derives the organisational ability and the nose for plotting and scheming which kept him at the top of the Griffinite BNP for so long.

Lecomber is one of those lurking in the background of the current dispute, presenting himself as an honest broker, and claiming to have offered advice to Griffin and Butler. He affects disappointment with Nick Griffin, saying that he advised Griffin to go directly after the Question Time debacle, and rather surprisingly admits that "only Eddy Butler" can save the BNP. In the manner of a despairing wife finally confronting the reality of a failed marriage, he complains on the increasingly crowded British Democracy Forum that he just doesn't understand Nick any more.

That says "maybe". Lecomber has a well earned reputation for double-dealing, such that those with experience of him immediately, and wisely, go on their guard when the ex-con approaches with his hand outstretched and friendly words tumbling from his lips. They wonder what his game is.

Though Lecomber doesn't admit to criminal wrong-doing in regard to the BNP's finances, he does come close to admitting the probability. Like most of those previously close to Griffin and who are now laying all manner of accusations at his door, Lecomber claims to have heard nothing and saw nothing that aroused his suspicion.

Well, he would say that, wouldn't he? Tony doesn't really have much of a choice.

[As a sidelight to this, I have an email from a Lecomber victim in which the sender wonders whether the former second in command isn't using the British Democracy Forum to subtly but publicly remind Griffin that he knows where the bodies are buried, Lecomber no longer enjoying the financial considerations that were once his. It's a thought - unlikely, but worth noting.]

Wherever in the current troubles Lecomber really stands, he does occasionally (amid much self-serving distortion) slip in information which appears to confirm that which reaches us via secondary sources, sometimes (apparently) gratuitously so.

Visitors to this and the Hope Not Hate websites will recall Sonia Gable's recent article "BNP leadership may have pocketed party bequests", which reported on a meeting of the Reform Group:

The meeting heard that questions had been raised over bequests and other large donations that had allegedly been paid direct to the leadership. It was unclear whether the party had benefited from these bequests and probate information would be obtained to investigate these rumours.

A short while after this a cryptic, anonymous comment was left here and moderated out (we don't wish to become part of the battleground on which the BNP factions fight, or to spread the rumours both sides attempt to plant here). It spoke of a bequest that would (from memory) "give the BNP a lifeline". Lecomber today (Friday) claims that the BNP is in line for two bequests which will prevent the party from going, as he puts it, "belly up", at least in the short term.

These bequests must be of a substantial amount, though it is difficult to believe that together they could total more than the minimum £500,000 the BNP needs to crawl out of the financial mire into which Nick Griffin has plunged it. Perhaps there will be enough to cover some smaller debts and to make goodwill payments to the larger creditors, who will be staved off by promises to pay by installment. Even so, the BNP, shrinking, demoralised and barely active, is still left with the problem that even the most basic daily expenditure continues to outstrip income.

It would appear, then, that reports of the BNP's early death are greatly exaggerated. There will be a slight recovery, but the prognosis remains terminal unless the party can clear its debts and cut expenditure to match its greatly reduced income. It can probably keep going long enough to outlast whatever danger is posed by the Reform Group, which is showing distinct signs of flagging together with what may prove a fatal loss of direction - the Reform Group's failure to fund legal challenges on behalf of suspended members, or even to challenge - as promised - the rigged nominations procedure, is hardly helping morale. They could still do both and may yet surprise us, but as supporters begin to lose confidence in a Reform leadership that has huffed and puffed to little real effect for the last near four months, the possibility seems remote. We won't write them off just yet, however, as there are several jokers in the pack and they have been dealt several. They only want for the will to play them.

In the matter of the two bequests mentioned by Lecomber, what is more interesting is his clear imputation that there must have been others which have gone unrecorded, and which, by implication, must have found their way into Griffin's hands.

Lecomber, taking his customary swipe at the loathed John Tyndall, explains thus:

... the BNP pre-Nick had a couple of legacies. One was quite substantial. Tyndall blagged it as you know, quite legally. Nick is aware of how that particular trick worked.

...with a [pre-Griffin] party that numbered between 1,500 and 2,000 getting a legacy every 3 or 4 years and with its membership demographic being primarily poorer older folk and young 'herberts'; how is it that a party with a considerably larger membership (3x - 7x) and with a more up-market demographic not had any legacies at all over all the period that the Electoral Commission has wanted published accounts? These legacies should show up either under a heading saying 'bequests' or as a humungous donation.

...So for 7 years we haven't had a single legacy. Now in 2010, as the need is dire, two show up at once just like buses. It stinks. And I'm furious.

And if this is the way of it, then the real reason that Nick can't step down is that someone will want to know why legacies are hitting the party account and going straight out again [my emphasis]. Of course, if it's the case that the party Will Packs (which I devised) have been logged and those people asked to alter their Will to favour a person rather than the party, then that is legal. Though the person doing it should be taken to the back of an open sewer somewhere and decapitated.

The legacy "blagged" by Tyndall, incidentally, is a matter of ongoing dispute. For what it's worth, Tyndall always claimed the legacy was made over to him to disburse as he saw fit, and one can see that a convinced Tyndallite might want to endow his fuhrer with the means to propogate the cause in a wider, unrestricted and independent manner rather than to sink funds into an inefficient party machine. Tyndall, after all, represented far more than the BNP could ever admit to, and every Tyndallite knew it.

Whatever the truth of that, there is no escaping the fact that Tony Lecomber clearly believes that a number of bequests have come the way of the BNP, and have managed, somehow, to escape attention. He also strongly hints that those lodging an intention to leave a bequest to the BNP may have been quietly asked to name the beneficiary as Nick Griffin.

We may be missing something here, but isn't it a little odd that Griffin's long-time second in command and close friend has only now noticed the complete absence of bequests over the past seven years? And isn't it even odder that Lecomber, who claims to want the best for Griffin, a man he is still quick to praise, should go about it by adding substantially to the doubts surrounding his honesty?

It is altogether a curious business, but then, Tony Lecomber is a curious and interesting fellow. Why has he, a divisive and toxic figure, as he happily acknowledges, suddenly come up from between the floorboards to inject himself into the current troubles when there is so little apparent need? He is trusted by almost nobody, carries no real weight, has no future in the BNP or with the Reform Group, and can only harm the cause of whichever camp he sides with.

Perhaps we should ask the old lag directly - what is occurring, Tony?

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.

Exposed: ugly face of BNP's leaders

Prominent members of the British National party are today revealed as Nazi-sympathisers and racists with abhorrent views on such diverse issues as teenage violence, David Beckham and even David Cameron's deceased son, Ivan.

The revelations undermine the party's attempts to paint itself in a more moderate light before the local and European elections and threaten to derail the electoral ambitions of its leader, Nick Griffin, who is standing as a prospective MEP.

At a time when BNP activists are claiming a surge in support in the polls, a reflection, they say, of mounting public outrage over MPs' expenses, the party has been keen to portray itself as a viable alternative to mainstream political parties.

The BNP website boasts that money is flooding into its campaign headquarters. Its administration consultant, Jim Dowson, claims the party's call centre alone received just under 12,000 calls in the first 15 minutes following the BNP's first national television broadcast. And in emails to supporters - or "patriots" as the BNP calls them - Griffin claims almost £400,000 has been stumped up by supporters to help fund the party's European election campaign.

It claims the apparent groundswell in support is down to the "British public waking from the long, deep sleep". Much of the BNP's recent success has been down to its ability to shake off the patina of far-right extremism that has alienated most voters since its inception. But this month the veneer slipped when it emerged that a Salford-based BNP candidate in the European elections had set his Facebook status to read "Wogs go home". Eddy O'Sullivan, 49, wrote: "They are nice people - oh yeah - but can they not be nice people in the fucking Congo or... bongo land or whatever?" O'Sullivan, who also joined an internet group called "Fuck Islam", denied that the comments were racist and insisted they were made in private conversations between individuals. "I also may have had a drink at the time," he added.

Amid the furore, the BNP's leaders promised an investigation into O'Sullivan's comments. The party's officials also circulated urgent emails urging its members that "particular care should be taken when making comments on chat forums and other sites such as Facebook. Do not make the mistake of thinking that comments posted on these sites are secret or hidden. Making inappropriate comments on these sites will be regarded as a very serious disciplinary offence. Please ensure that this message is passed quickly to all members in your area and that it is acted upon. We are entering a very critical time in our party's history and cannot afford careless and stupid talk that can undermine the hard work of our activists."

But the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight has spent months infiltrating the far right's network of websites and chatrooms and found that many BNP activists share O'Sullivan's views.

They include:

• Jeffrey Marshall, senior organiser for the BNP's London European election campaign. Following the death of David Cameron's disabled son Ivan, Marshall claimed in an internet forum discussion: "We live in a country today which is unhealthily dominated by an excess of sentimentality towards the weak and unproductive. No good will come of it."

Later, in response to comments made by others on the site, Marshall is alleged to have written: "There is not a great deal of point in keeping these people alive after all." He said the comments were private and some had been paraphrased and taken out of context. He admitted making the former comment, but said he could not recall making the latter one in an email to the forum, a copy of which is in the Observer's possession.

• Garry Aronsson, Griffin's running mate for the European parliament in the North West, posts an avatar on his personal web page featuring a Nazi SS death's head alongside the statement, "Speak English Or Die!" Aronsson proclaims on the site: "Every time you change your way of life to make immigrants more comfortable you betray OUR future!" He lists his hobbies as "devising slow and terrible ways of paying back the Guardian-reading cunts who have betrayed the British people into poverty and slavery. I AM NOT JOKING."

• Barry Bennett, MEP candidate for the South West, posted several years ago under a pseudonym in a white supremacist forum the bizarre statement that "David Beckham is not white, he's a black man." Bennett, who is half-Jewish according to the BNP's deputy leader, Simon Darby, continued: "Beckham is an insult to Britishness, and I'm glad he's not here." He added: "I know perfectly respectable half-Jews in the BNP... even Hitler had honorary Aryans who were of Jewish descent... so whatever's good enough for Hitler's good enough for me. God rest his soul."

• Russ Green, MEP candidate for the West Midlands, posted recently on Darby's web page: "If we allowed Indians, Africans, etc to join [the BNP], we would become the 'British multi-National party' ... and I really do hope that never happens!" Darby said he echoed Green's sentiments.

• Dave Strickson, a BNP organiser who helps run its eastern region European election campaign, carried on his personal "Thurrock Patriots" blog a recent report of the fatal stabbing of a teenager in east London beneath the words "Another teen stabbed in Coon Town". The site also carried a mock-up racist version of the US dollar entitled "Obama Wog Dollar". Darby said the BNP did not endorse these comments and described them as "beyond the pale".

When confronted in the past about the extreme views of some of its members, the BNP senior hierarchy has often tried to dismiss them as unrepresentative of the party's core membership. But it appears that they run right to the top of the party.

Lee Barnes, the BNP's senior legal officer and one of Griffin's closest allies, has posted a video on his personal blog of a black suspect being beaten by police officers in the US and describes it as "brilliant". Barnes adds: "The beating of Rodney King still makes me laugh."

Barnes told the Observer his comments were "nothing to do with colour" but were merely a reflection of his belief that the police should have more powers to punish perpetrators of crime by "giving them a good thrashing".

But anti-fascist groups said such comments portrayed the BNP in its true light. "This is the face of the modern BNP," said a spokesman for Searchlight. "The comments of Nick Griffin's candidates and officials are sickening beyond belief. They have tried to hide their agenda of racism and hate from the voters, and they have failed."

Separately, concerns exist about the historic links between the BNP and extremist groups. Gary Pudsey, a BNP organiser running the Yorkshire and Humber campaign, was once a regular at National Front meetings. A young Pudsey was also photographed with the late Max Waegg, a Nazi second world war pilot who wrote articles for the white supremacist magazine Spearhead

Martin Page is a BNP treasurer and his wife Kim is a senior fundraiser for the party. Both have been photographed alongside Benny Bullman, the lead singer of Whitelaw, the white supremacist band whose songs include Fetch the Noose, We're Coming for You and For White Pride.

And Dowson, the BNP's senior administrator, who appears on the party's website talking about the success of its call centre's fundraising activities, has also been dogged by allegations that he has enjoyed close relationships with hardline loyalist groups in the past. The 45-year-old has also been the public face of the LifeLeague, the militant anti-abortion group that has hijacked Britain's pro-life debate. He has regularly appeared on television to pronounce terminations a sin and has published the names of abortion clinic staff, placing many in fear for their personal safety.

That the BNP has become a magnet for extreme-right sympathisers is understandable given Griffin's own background. The Cambridge graduate was himself a member of the NF before going on to form the International Third Position, a neo-fascist organisation with links to the Italian far right.

But aware of the party's need to raise funds from middle England, Griffin has repeatedly attempted to portray his party as the "reasonable" face of patriotism in its bid to broaden its appeal. The approach has paid dividends, with the party having gained 55 seats on local councils, including a seat on the Greater London Authority. This June it is contesting every UK seat at the European elections and there have been predictions it could win overall control of Stoke City Council.

Darby, Griffin's deputy and the BNP's spokesman, accused Searchlight of "distorting the BNP's message" in a bid to derail its political ambitions. He accused the organisation of being "merely a front for the Labour party, paid for by National Lottery funds". Darby said: "When you put it in the context of what's been happening at Westminster, a few scribblings on Facebook hardly seems something to get worried about."

Previous convictions

Nick Griffin, convicted of violating section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986, relating to incitement to racial hatred. He received a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

Kevin Scott, a BNP supporter and former North East regional organiser, has convictions for assault and threatening behaviour.

Terry Collins, a party member, was jailed for five years after waging a year-long terror campaign against Asian families in Eastbourne.

Joe Owens, a former Merseyside BNP candidate and bodyguard to Nick Griffin, served eight months for sending razor blades to Jewish people and another term for carrying CS gas and knuckledusters.

Colin Smith, former BNP south-east London organiser, has 17 convictions for burglary, theft, stealing cars, possession of drugs and assaulting a police officer.

Tony Lecomber, a former BNP propaganda director, was jailed in 1985 after a nail bomb exploded as he carried it to the Workers' Revolutionary party offices. Jailed again in 1991 for assaulting a Jewish teacher on the Underground.

The Observer

A similar article appears in The News Of The World

Can the BNP ever lose its racist reputation?

A vandalised British National Party billboard in John Street, Carlisle

Splattered with paint and daubed with the words “Nazi scum”. . . an attack on a British National Party billboard in Carlisle shows emotions are running high ahead of European Parliament and county council elections.

Yet the far-right party, which has condemned the vandalism, insists it has received a positive response from voters across Cumbria as it canvasses for next Thursday’s ballots.

Some remain less enthusiastically inclined towards the BNP though. They are concerned a low turnout or an anti-establishment voting trend – in fury at the Westminster expenses scandal – could play right into the party’s hands and deliver the mass protest vote it has been hoping for. Those worries have triggered a campaign to limit any BNP gains.

Opinions about the BNP have rarely hit the middle ground since its formation in the early 1980s by John Tyndall, a former chairman of the National Front. He was a man photographed in Nazi uniform – without attending fancy dress parties – and who described Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf as his bible.

Other members have also been reported making extreme pro-Nazi, racist or homophobic comments over the years. Mark Collett, the BNP’s director of publicity, was made infamous by the 2002 television documentary Young, Nazi and Proud.

Former deputy leader Tony Lecomber was jailed for possessing explosives in 1985 and again in 1991 for assaulting a Jewish teacher.

Party chairman Nick Griffin, who visited Whitehaven on Saturday, has tried with limited success to rid the party of its racist image. But controversy continues to follow him. He denied the Holocaust ever happened in a party publication in 1996 and received a suspended jail sentence two years later for inciting racial hatred.

Mr Griffin – his party’s lead Euro election candidate for the north west – this week claimed the ‘controlled media’ had resorted to rehashing comments made a decade and a half ago to throw the BNP into a poor light.

“I have gone on record repeatedly as saying such things [Holocaust rejection] were immature politics and all of us have moved on,” he said.

Yet his insistence on having turned a corner has done little to wipe the slate clean of suspicions which still stalk the party. There was outrage last week at the prospect of Mr Griffin attending a garden party at Buckingham Palace. Yesterday he announced he would not be attending the garden party, in order not to embarrass the Queen.

And leading clergymen – including University of Cumbria chancellor Dr John Sentamu – have pleaded with the public not to let the Westminster expenses scandal convert into BNP votes, in protest against the three major parties.

Carlisle Against Racism has been a prominent campaign group against the BNP, which is standing in 42 of the 84 council seats. By the end of this week, it will have distributed 30,000 copies of its anti-BNP leaflets to homes including those in Carlisle, Longtown, Brampton, Penrith, Wigton, Silloth and Alston. Chairman Brent Kennedy believes the newly glossed image of the party – activists wearing suits proffering slick campaign leaflets – could lure many towards an alternative.

“They don’t know about the truth,” he said. “People just see the glossy leaflets – the false image they are physically putting out.”

He and other campaigners have been working to gather support for their work in Carlisle city centre. Mr Kennedy said: “We have had people saying they are going to vote BNP because they are racist. Some are people who are not racist but desperate because of the economic crisis and angry about MPs enriching themselves. On the other hand, a big majority were really supportive. They were thanking us for campaigning against the BNP, which the political parties are not doing.”

The anti-racism activist, who claims he has been attacked and intimidated while carrying out his work, has clear fears should the BNP taste electoral success.

“I’m worried there will be an increase of racist abuse and attacks on people and political opponents of theirs if they get a Euro MP elected. I have already contacted the police about that,” he revealed.

The church has also been drawn into the electioneering arena with Dr Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams urging people to use “great vigilance” when deciding who to vote for. They claimed some parties would exploit the current political situation if elected and said the BNP fostered “fear and division within communities, especially between people of different faiths or racial background”.

“This is not a moment for voting in favour of any political party whose core ideology is about sowing division in our communities and hostility on grounds of race, creed or colour,” they added. “It is an opportunity for renewing the vision of a community united by mutual respect, high ethical standards and the pursuit of justice and peace.”

BNP supporters in Cumbria are undoubtedly in a minority. But in the European elections – where a proportional representation voting system is used to ensure the number of MPs from each political party reflects the share of votes they received regionally – that could be enough to secure a seat. That is a factor which has mobilised trade unions. The Public and Commercial Services Union has launched a Make Your Vote Count campaign, backed by the Northern TUC, and will be in Carlisle on Saturday. May 30.

Regional co-ordinator Gordon Rowntree said: “Because the European elections use proportional representation there is a fear there. In the north west Nick Griffin could be elected. That’s why we’re working to get turnout higher because that would help the other political parties.”

Clive Jefferson, the BNP’s Cumbrian organiser, maintains his party has moved on and away from the racism linked to it in its early days. He said: “All of the opposition or people who would tar us with the same brush are using things from decades ago. It’s not relevant to the party today.”

The activist, who said his chairman did not encounter any aggression in Whitehaven on Saturday and criticised senior churchmen for their comments, vehemently denied his party was racist.

“It’s not racist, fascist or Nazi, as left-wing extremists dub us. I don’t think the majority of people think that now. What we’ve got are left-wing extremists, as I would call them, peddling this kind of rubbish,” he added.

Mr Jefferson also denied activists used any intimidation and said: “If anyone is telling you that, I would like them to tell me. It should be reported to police. This will not be tolerated. That’s not how we go about things. We are a political party.”

He described the vandal attacks on the poster in Caldewgate, Carlisle, as “nasty”.

Polling stations will be open between 7am and 10pm on Thursday, June 4. Cumbria County Council ballot papers will be counted the following day. The European count will be delayed until other countries have voted on June 6 and 7.

News and Star

The Nasty Party

On the morning of 25 February the Conservative Party announced the tragic news that Ivan Cameron, the six-year-old son of Conservative Party leader David Cameron and his wife Samantha, who suffered from cerebral palsy and epilepsy, had died. In a rare show of unity figures from across the political spectrum united to send their condolences and best wishes to the heartbroken family.

Not so the British National Party. True, the BNP website carried a brief statement from Nick Griffin expressing his sympathy in an attempt to portray himself as a statesman and the BNP as a “normal” political party.

This ruse failed to disguise the fact that the Camerons had not even had the chance to bury their “beautiful boy” before certain BNP members were displaying their true colours.

In a cruel and warped outburst against those who had expressed their condolences at the death of Ivan Cameron, Jeff Marshall (pictured), the central London BNP organiser, who lives in Whitechapel, wrote: “We live in a country today which is unhealthily dominated by an excess of sentimentality towards the weak and unproductive. No good will come of it.”

Not content with attacking those mourning the death of a severely disabled child who brought “joy and love to those around him”, Marshall continued in his sick tirade, stating that although it would be “a kindness” to kill children with disabilities, this was not the same as advocating such a measure as compulsory state policy. “But so what if it is,” he asked. “At least we would all know where we stand. There is actually not a great deal of point in keeping these sort of people alive, after all.”

Marshall’s disturbing and repellent views recall those of Tony Lecomber, who was, until 2008, one of Griffin’s right-hand men. Lecomber proposed a racist eugenics programme, echoing that of the Nazi murderer Dr Josef Mengele, which advocated a “racially purer” Britain through the sterilisation of the poor, the sick and the disabled. Lecomber believed, and presumably still does, that the rich are “genetically superior” to ordinary people and that poor people should not be allowed to have their own children.

Marshall, who was seventh on the BNP’s London Assembly list in May 2008, is a racist who wants to raise tension between white and Muslim communities.

His own views make it perfectly clear that he wishes to foment the sort of “civil war” that Nick Griffin constantly harps on about and from which only the BNP can gain. “The Muslims must be wound up as much as possible – so they will make the maximum amount of trouble. Then it will be clearer to the public what immigration has done to this country.”

Could the BNP make its views or strategy any clearer?

Searchlight

Homegrown British Terrorists: The Extreme Face of Nationalism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Epoch Times

A quick peek under the apron, beagle attack and the 'return' of two old favourites

What an exciting week it's been for the massed lunatics of the far-right. This last week has seen Lee Barnes, the BNP's legal beagle, have a go at us because according to him we at Lancaster Unity are all racists, and the North West Nationalist blog getting into a frenzy at the news (?) that Nick Eriksen and Tony Lecomber had returned to the BNP fold. Oh yes, and that Nick Griffin's father Edgar has been a Freemason for the past sixty-odd years.

Taking these in reverse order for no particular reason, we read that Edgar Griffin (pictured, centre) has been awarded something or the other (we don't care) for being a Freemason for more than six decades. Edgar, as our regular readers will know, is an accountant who has been repeatedly linked to Roberto Fiore, an old friend of his son. As recently as February of this year, Edgar was found to have been doing the accounts for CL English Language, a college in west London that teaches hundreds of foreign students each year, run by neo-fascist Fiore, leader of Forza Nuova, an extreme right-wing party.

Fiore arrived in Britain in October 1980 as a 21-year-old fugitive from the Italian police, who wanted to question him about the Bologna train station bombing two months earlier in which 85 people were killed and more than 200 injured. He was reputed to be a member of the extreme right-wing organisation the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei, several of whose members were subsequently convicted of mass murder. After being arrested by Scotland Yard officers the following year, Fiore was brought before Bow Street court, but the authorities in Rome failed to secure his extradition. Fiore settled in London and became friendly with Nick Griffin; the two are reported to have shared a flat and are also said to have run a travel agency together.

Edgar, who introduced his son to the National Front by taking him along to a meeting when the younger Griffin was just fifteen, has been a life-long Freemason, as was his father Edwin before him. Edwin, according to Martin Webster, a former colleague and claimed ex-lover of Nick Griffin, left his grandson, the current leader of the BNP, £300,000 in his will in the late eighties, which 'he quickly lost in stupid property deals'.

An article on the web page of the Mark Master Masons of North Wales details the celebrations at the Lodge:

'In 1992 he received further promotion to the rank of Active Grand Junior Deacon. W. Bro. Edgar Griffin was Elevated in the Degree of the Ancient and Honourable Fraternity of Royal Ark Mariner on 31st August 1955 (52 years ago) in the Barnet Lodge of Royal Ark Mariners No. 947. He was Installed as Worshipful Commander in 1964. He was elected Holder of Provincial Royal Ark Mariner Grand Rank in 1985 and received Royal Ark Mariner Grand Rank in 1990. After a period of years spent in Suffolk, and having been granted Honorary Membership of his Mark and RAM Lodges, he moved to Welchpool where he has continued his Masonic careers in our Degrees by becoming Worshipful Master in 2002 and Worshipful Commander in 2005.'

Whoopee.

Back in the real world, we hear that two of Nick Griffin's old friends have returned to his side - or at least that's what the North West Nationalist blog seems to think. Describing them as 'two vile and totally disreputable creatures', the article reports the returns of Nick Eriksen and Tony Lecomber.

There isn't much to say about these two scumbags except to remind our readers why they are so universally loathed (except, apparently, by Nick Griffin). Eriksen, you may recall, claimed that women were more troubled by bag theft than rape and also advocated violence against women on his 'Sir John Bull' blog, as reported by the Evening Standard just prior to the last elections. The subsequent furore cost him his position as the BNP's London organiser and as the second-highest candidate on its list for the Assembly.

Tony Lecomber, former Group Development Officer for the British National Party, is much more complicated and has quite a history with the far-right. In 1986, he was convicted on five counts for offences under the Explosives Act, including possession of homemade hand-grenades and electronic timing devices, and earned himself a derisory three year sentence. In 1991 he was sentenced to a further three years for unlawful wounding for his part in an attack on a Jewish teacher who he caught trying to peel off a BNP sticker at an underground station. He has a total of 12 convictions.

His most recent claim to fame is that he was expelled from the BNP after attempting to solicit a well-known alleged hitman to assassinate establishment figures 'who are aiding and abetting the coloured invasion of this country', an act of terrorism prompted by racism. The full story is here. Following this lunacy, he was thrown out of the party (January 16th 2006) and was proscribed to the membership - meaning nobody in the party was allowed to talk to him or in any way to associate with him.

Obviously, the proscription didn't apply to Nick Griffin because we received reports that Lecomber was helping out all over the place, planning and working side by side with Griffin himself.

In fact, contrary to the North West Nationalist report, neither Eriksen or Lecomber have ever really left the party at all. Lecomber, who is long known as being a confidente of Griffins, knows where the bodies are buried and cannot be allowed to be cast aside for fear that he might spill the beans. Eriksen's views are abhorent but not, we are told, that much different from those of the great leader himself, who has simply been waiting for what he considers to be a suitable amount of time to elapse since his remarks were made public to bring the arch-misogynist back.

These are just Griffin's old pals, creeping back into the party via the back door. Whether they are welcomed home by a membership that is rapidly losing confidence in its leadership is another matter entirely.

And we're back to Lee Barnes, the BNP's legal beagle and surely one of the most tedious and insane writers ever.

Barnes' problem this week is apparently that he has identified Lancaster Unity as 'the most racist organisation in the country'. Oo-er. And on what does he base this bizarre statement? Largely because we have 'remained silent on the ongoing racism of Hollywood against the English and anyone with blonde hair and blue eyes'.

To support this stupidity, Barnes refers to a film he has obviously seen recently.

'My present favourite negaive [sic] image of the English as propagandised by the racists in Hollywood is that of Tim Roth in the new The Hulk movie.'

As I've never seen The Hulk, and am unlikely to, I can't possibly comment on it except to suggest to Barnes that he tries to watch some more intelligent films - perhaps something that's designed to appeal more to adults with brains than adolescents with pimples.

Toodle-pip.

BNP launches election campaign

This Saturday as the clock strikes 1pm the BNP will launch their national and London election campaigns and the party's manifesto in the less than salubrious meeting room at the Eastbrook public house in Rainham Road, Dagenham.

Journalists who have nothing better to do are being corralled at noon at the Dagenham Civic Centre and transferred to the venue by road.

The new BNP London organiser, Cllr Rob Bailey, has issued his first set of commands, something he is used to doing as a former Royal Marine. He has just replaced Nick Eriksen in the post after Eriksen's sick views on rape came to light, knocking him off the BNP's London Assembly candidates' list and allowing Bailey a leg up into his job and a higher place on the BNP's London Assembly slate.

Party leaders and candidates from London and around the country will also be present. The knuckle-draggers have been told to meet up outside Dagenham East tube station wearing their best togs.

We hear there is fear that violence will break out as the local football team, Dagenham and Redbridge, are playing at home within spitting distance of the Eastbrook pub. The locals might well frown on the sight of a hundred wife beaters, village idiots and overpaid steroid-driven BNP minders descending on Dagenham.

We heard last night that the BNP mad bomber Tony Lecomber is pretty choked off as he has not been given a formal position in the party for which he is doing so much in the election campaigning in Epping and Loughton.

Hope not Hate

Tony Lecomber dragged out of storage to persuade Bowden to return

Tony Lecomber, the former Group Development Officer in the BNP and Griffin loyalist, has a fine reputation. He has received two prison sentences of three years apiece, one for possession of explosives (caught en route to blowing up a left-wing group's offices) and the other for wounding a Jewish schoolteacher who he observed removing racist BNP stickers. These are just two of his twelve convictions (so far). He was finally booted out of the BNP after he was found to have approached Griffin's former bodyguard Joe Owens to attempt to persuade him to join a plot to assassinate leading government figures. Fortunately Owens realised that there was either an attempt at entrapment going on or Lecomber had gone insane and promptly blew the whistle on him.

Following an attack on the BNP's 'election guru' Eddie Butler earlier this year, Lecomber was finally half-heartedly proscribed by the party.

At the time there was all kinds of speculation about exactly why Lecomber attacked Butler but up until now not many people know the truth. It has now been revealed in a widely-circulated letter from former Griffin-ally (and more, if you believe the rumours) Martin Webster that Lecomber, after a period of job-hunting but being able to find one thanks to his appalling criminal background, had approached one of the BNP councillors at Dagenham for a reference. This was to be made out to a false name and written on Barking and Dagenham Council official notepaper. According to Webster, Butler got to hear about this and put his foot down, absolutely forbidding any such thing to be done in the knowledge that, if it ever got out, there would be outrage flying at the BNP from all directions.

Lecomber, furious at Butler's intervention, launched the attack on him as he left Loughton Underground station and during the struggle, had his balaclava pulled off, thus revealing his identity. Following this astonishing event, Lecomber was promptly proscribed and cast into the wilderness.

Or so the members of the party were led to believe...

Never one to take any notice of the rules of his own party, Nick Griffin ignored the proscription notice (something that would have earned any mere member immediate dismissal) and contacted Lecomber shortly after the resignation of Jonathan Bowden in an attempt to get him to persuade Bowden to come back to the party following his angry decision to leave after the appalling accusations made against him by the Griffin attack dogs over at the Covert site.

Bowden, who already believed that the smears against him were inspired and encouraged by Griffin in revenge for his signing Chris Jackson's nomination papers in the recent leadership challenge, ignored the plea to return, publishing a resignation letter showed his anger at his mistreatment in no uncertain terms:

'I am sick and tired of the human scum and vermin which proliferate in such shallows waters. To be accused of being a child abuser is amongst the lowest thing that can possibly be imagined. To even refute such allegations from criminal psychopaths like these is beneath one’s dignity...I will seek to have police action carried out against this vile Internet site [Covert], but I also intend to resign as cultural officer, advisory council member and member of the BNP. I do not wish to associate - even tangentially - with such low-grade lycanthropes and psychotic criminals. Williams [Griffin-ally Tommy Williams], I gather, is a convicted drug dealer and career criminal with a string of convictions.'

Indeed, and the guy Griffin sent to try to persuade Bowden to come back to the BNP was a convicted terrorist and violent criminal with a string of convictions who shouldn't be anywhere near the BNP or any of its members. Once again we see the double-standards that the BNP leader lives by - one rule for him, one rule for everyone else.

And we wonder again - what precisely has Lecomber got on Griffin? It must be something good because he's always been kept close. If anyone knows, do tell.

STICKY: A quick quiz for all you BNP members looking in (we know you're there)

As members of a so-called political party, you are expected to know a bit about the party hierarchy, structure and so on. Surprisingly, the BNP chooses not to tell its members very much about what goes on at any level, which is why someone was forced to ask on Stormfront a couple of days ago if Roy Goodwin had been booted out of his job after reading it here first (he has).

Given that your party squeezes as much cash as possible out of you via the high membership fees, the vast amount of tatty merchandise it tries to offload on you, its rubbishy Voice of Freedom 'newspaper' and the Red, White and Blue booze-fest and jumble sale, you might choose to wonder where all your hard-earned pennies are going. Some of these questions are pretty fundamental (like the first one) while others are just interesting (like the questions about Lee Barnes, the party's 'legal advisor').

Seventeen questions, more or less - and we defy you to answer more than two of them without having to knowingly lie.

Nick Griffin

1. How much is Nick Griffin paid per annum and how much are his expenses/travel?
2. Precisely how much does the party pay his wife, daughter, mother and father - and for what?

The rest

3. How much is the leadership team paid, per person?

Mark Collett

4. What exactly does Mark Collett do?
5. And why does the party employ a known Hitlerite and idiot?

Tony Lecomber

6. Is Tony Lecomber a member of the BNP right now?
7. Has he ever been a member of the BNP?
8. Why wasn't he thrown out after he proposed an assassination attempt?

Lee Barnes

9. Is Lee Barnes a member of the BNP?
10. Has he ever been a member of the BNP?
11. Has he really got a law degree?

Phil Edwardes

12. Has Dr Phil Edwardes actually got a doctorate?
13. If so, what is it in and where is it from?
14. And why has he got two names (Stuart Russell being the other one)?

Robert West

15. Has the insane fake-vicar Robert West resigned from the party?

Accounts

16. Where are the full accounts for Great White Records, Excalibur Promotions Ltd and the Trafalgar Club?

Security

17. Martin Reynolds is, we're told, paid more than £500 per week, which is a lot of membership fees. How much is paid for the entire security team including their Kray-twin overcoats, Raybans and bullet-proof vests?

There you go. Now let's see how many answers we get...