Say hello to the BNP Crusaders!

Ever since I signed up on the British National Party website to harangue someone linking to the blog, I've had the pleasure of irregularly having all the latest missives from the Fuhrer himself, Nick Griffin, arrive in my inbox. The vast majority of these are increasingly desperate pleas for funds as they presumably start to dwindle in the bank account, while the rest generally fulminate against the current political situation in typically hyperbolic, incendiary, borderline racist rhetoric, where only the BNP can save Britain from its current path. Here's the opening paragraphs of the most recent example:

As predicted, the only outcome of the election is that one set of self-serving crooks has replaced another, and our country continues its decline and disintegration. It is time we reflected on the terrible future that awaits our country, our children and grand-children.

If the politicians and the media have their way, our country will be totally overrun by the masses of the Third-World, we will be ruled from Brussels, we will be a despised, second-class minority in our own homeland.

Is that the future you want for your children? Will you regret it when it is too late and you wished you would have joined the British Resistance when you had the chance?

Granted, Griffin would never refer to "the masses of the Third-World" in interviews or to anyone other than party members, as that might just suggest that despite all his protests to the contrary, he and his party really are still racist. Still, given the BNP's showing at both the general and local elections in May, losing every single one of the seats they were defending on the council in Barking, a performance so awful Griffin had to promise to step down as leader by 2013, even though the number of votes the BNP received vastly increased on the 2005 election, you would expect them to be in desperate mode.

No wonder then they've decided at this inauspicious moment to relaunch the Young BNP, not to be confused obviously with a group with a somewhat similar name which was fairly massive in the 30s and 40s in a certain foreign nation. Perhaps because of the connotations with that other youth organisation, as well as journalists infiltrating the grouping and finding them being taught how to make Dutch arrows as well as partaking in lessons in shooting, the group has been renamed and is now aimed at the slightly older 18 to 30 market. For those imagining this might be an exercise in encouraging the master race to procreate in a Club 18-30 style, you'll probably be disappointed. No, it seems the most exciting antics the BNP Crusaders, as they will be known from now on, involve themselves in is that old hardy perennial, fancy dress, of naturally, the war-time variety.

Aren't they gorgeous?

The entire ethos of the group seems to be based around having good, wholesome, clean fun. Griffin introduces them as such:

The BNP Crusaders is a group of 18-30 year old BNP activists. We prove that there is more to the British National Party than just politics, with social gatherings arranged all year round. From trips to theme parks to just simple get togethers and nights out, the Crusaders do it all.

From trips to theme parks to simple get togethers and nights out! The whole spectrum of youth interaction covered! There is of course more to the BNP than just politics; it isn't just a party, it's a way of life.

It doesn't help that Griffin comes across as the slightly creepy uncle in his introduction to the Crusaders, nor that his description of the Crusaders' leader, Joey Smith, is cringe-inducing:

The leader of the BNP Crusaders is BNP activist and super-star Joey Smith (pictured right). "The BNP Crusaders is a great idea and I look forward to working with my new team, and meeting lots of new members and activists. We have already had a few outings and I look forward to seeing you all on future ones."

Thankfully, super-star Joey is quite the dish, not too dissimilar to heart-throb Robert Pattinson. In fact, they both share another similarity, Pattinson portraying the oppressed minority of vampires in the wider community in the Twilight films, while Smith is from the heavily discriminated against and ignored young white male demographic.

As if you couldn't have guessed, the choice of Crusaders is meant as a "homage to our ancestors from the middle ages who saved Christian Europe from the onslaught of Islam", which shows the BNP's usual level of historical literacy. Quite what they're crusading against in our modern times however is unclear, and the group's Facebook page doesn't give many further details, except for some more lovely pictures of the group on past jaunts, including this especially delightful one of Griffin with two young supporters, clearly ecstatic to meet their idol (and isn't that a glass of bubbly in his paunchy hand, Griffin the champagne national socialist?). One of the messages left on their wall does however give something of an insight:

Barrie Neale what a grand idea to allow the youth of todday be aware of the truth about what used to be england!!-proud of producing quality goods(not cheap asian rubbish)-and not infected by the cancer of the MOSLEM -evil!!-and i am not even a christian-but a tolerant man -i had to leave this country becauase of this-to FRANCE THE...Y WOULD JUST DEPORT THEM HERE !!-it has just gone to far!!-

Presumably Barrie is happy in France, untouched as it is by the cancer of MOSLEM evil.

With almost unabashed racism back in fashion on the front pages of the Daily Star and Daily Express, it could be a good time for those on the far-right to try and create youth groups with some real influence, highly organised and dedicated to the cause. Thankfully, the BNP Crusaders isn't it, and frankly the likes of the Bullingdon are almost certainly more dangerous. They'd also be more likely to be the ones goose-stepping down the high street, sieg heiling their hearts out. To suggest that the Crusaders are just ever so slightly lame would be probably paying them a compliment; any wetter and they'd be drowning. Compared to the English Defence League, a genuinely dangerous organisation with the potential to incite riots, with links to hooligan firms and which is far more attractive to those with actual radical views, giving the opportunity to potentially fight with those they so actively loathe, the choice between the two couldn't be any plainer. Got to laugh though, haven't you?

Obsolete (but well worth a visit)

Nazi salutes and burning crosses ... now the BNP sets up Scottish youth camps

It's a nightmare political vision: burning crosses, Nazi salutes and extremist indoctrination. This is the dark heart of the British National Party - an organisation now setting up "youth camps" in Scotland.

The controversial far-right training regime was launched last month in Wiltshire and immediately drew comparisons with the Hitler Youth and Islamic jihad boot camps Now, campaign groups fear a return of the fascist and white-supremacist symbolism seen at previous Scottish events. An outdoor event held in Scotland several years ago saw BNP activists joking about concentration camps and burning a wooden cross in an undisclosed Highland location.

Scott McLean - one of the most senior BNP figures in Scotland - was filmed giving a Nazi salute, and other BNP members were recorded shouting "one-two-three-Auschwitz" before grinning activists gave Hitler salutes to the camera. At one point a man was cheered as he threw petrol on to a burning cross towering over a group of initiates.

At the new brand of camps unveiled last month, children as young as 12 are trained in shooting air rifles and in self-defence, and they learn an alternative version of history as sanctioned by party leader Nick Griffin, who has repeatedly claimed that the Holocaust never happened.

In between shooting lessons, children are instructed in the art of making dangerous weapons from everyday objects. "Dutch Arrows" are manufactured from string and sharpened garden canes, and the BNP website reports that one 13-year-old boy was able to launch an arrow more than 150 metres. Police have confirmed that the darts, if used outside the supervised campsite setting, could constitute offensive weapons.

The BNP told the Sunday Herald that it will roll out camps across Scotland within the next year, and adult activists are using social networking sites such as Bebo to recruit youngsters to the BNP's hardline nationalist cause.

BNP youth leader Mike Howson, a former soldier, said: "We eventually plan to have camps in all the regions. We've achieved our targets for youth recruitment in Scotland. We'll be doing camps there within the next 12 months."

The BNP has applied for government funding to pay for the camps, he added, but has so far been unsuccessful in its bid for state cash. Applications are now being made to charities.

Despite its claims to be a mainstream party, the BNP has faced censure in the past for its alignment with European fascist groups and the Nazi overtones of some of its actions.

Publicity material for the camps is designed to appeal to youths by offering a sense of inclusion and strength. An advert on the BNP's Bebo site promotes the organisation as a "big brother" to its young target audience. It boasts: "Only the YBNP and its big brother the BNP can secure a future for the indigenous children of this land."

Though party leaders say the youth camps are about "moral training" and education, they also aim to lure children with the promise of powerful roles within the adult wing of the party. "The youth wing can only get bigger and better, with older members already being fast-tracked into positions within the party," a BNP statement said.

Campaign groups responded furiously to news of the party's planned expansion among Scottish children. A spokesman for anti-fascist organisation Searchlight said: "Their attempts to politically indoctrinate Scottish youth with their messages of prejudice and division are sickening. There is no place in Scotland for these camp sites of hate."

The recent surge in BNP youth activity has been driven by a conference of European nationalists earlier this year, which brought extremist groups together to "preserve our shared white European heritage". Skinhead delegates from hard-right Czech and German youth groups joined their hosts from the Swedish National Democratic Youth movement.

Revelations over the training and political schooling of children will come as a blow to the BNP, which is struggling to assert itself as a legitimate political force in Thursday's European elections.

Party leader Griffin was convicted in 1998 of inciting racial hatred. He has also referred to the Holocaust as the Holohoax'. Griffin has long sought to emulate the mainstream success of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the right-wing leader of France's National Front. Despite his ambitions, the BNP has been thwarted in recent years by a string of high-profile scandals and exposés.

Senior officials have been caught on camera making bigoted remarks against non-Christians, non-whites and homosexuals, and the party has failed to find any success outside of a few English heartlands.

A message left on Griffin's mobile phone asking to discuss this article elicited the one-word text message response: "Priceless!"

Sunday Herald

Fascist firebomber out on parole

On Friday I was visited by Julian Corbett, from the Public Protection Department of Wiltshire Police.

He came to ask me what my relationship was with wannabe Nazi terrorist, Mark Bullman (pictured, left), and to warn me that Bullman is now out of prison, and is looking for me - I have moved address since he went to prison. Bullman had been sentenced to 5 years for racially aggravated arson, but has now been released after two and a half years. (Bullman also goes by the name Mark Bullock)

As I have reported before, in August 2006, BNP supporter, Bullman attempted to burn down the Broad Street mosque in Swindon using a petrol bomb. Mark was the registered fund holder for Wiltshire BNP, and actively campaigned for the party in the 2006 local council elections, just four months before the arson attack. Strangely Mark used to write to me while he was on remand, and even telephoned me from prison - not in a threatening way, but for a friendly chat.

He had left the BNP shortly before the fire bomb attack to form what he called the “1290 sect”, named after the year the Jews were expelled from England, and he wrote to me: “I only attacked the mosque because there is no synagogue in Swindon, and it was close enough for public consumption”. The fuse used for the fire bomb was a rolled up BNP leaflet.

It since transpires that Danny Lake, (former leader of the YBNP and also from Swindon, and who has since been expelled from the BNP), had raised concerns about Bullman with Nick Griffin, but the BNP did not consider Mark Bulman’s mental instablity, propensity to violence and gross anti-Semitism to be a problem. Bullman was supported by Wiltshire organiser, Mike Howson, and Danny Lake claims that Howson encouraged Bullmans’ extremism. Ironically, the main plank of Mike Howson’s campaigning in his native Corsham is “law and order”.

Mark’s letters to me, which I passed on to Searchlight, were filled with a virulent hatred of Jews, mixing up three themes. i) racialised anti-semitism; ii) Christian anti-judaic traditions; and iii) opposition to Israel’s War in the Lebanon, and the occupation of Palestine.

Bullman started [to] ring me regularly late at night sometime during 2005. I decided when Bullman contacted me that it was simply safer to talk to him than snub him, and establish a human relationship, and impress upon him that I was a real person with young children, not just an objectified “enemy”.

I knew that it was him who had fire bombed the mosque as soon as I saw the pictures, because the Swastika daubed on the outside wall was identical to the rather idiosyncratic style that Bullman had used in letters to me. But before I could go to the police I heard that Bullman had already been arrested, indeed he had turned himself in and confessed.

The police decided to contact me after Bullman told his probation officer last week that he had visited my old address, in Avenue Road, where in Bullman’s own words “a communist lived” and Bullman told the probation officer he wanted to apologise to me.

Fair enough, I actually take that at face value. For all his weaknesses Bullman is a troubled and actually quite likable lad. He seems to have always been a bit of a misfit, and found a group of friends who accepted him through football hooliganism and far right politics. It was quite spooky having the police do an audit of the security of my house, and checking out the approaches to it in case they decided I was in serious danger and they had to put me on a rapid response list.

I was actually quite encouraged that they were also assessing the risk to Bullman himself. The bewildered lad has been playing games in his head with his Nazi fantasies, irresponsibly encouraged by BNP activists who exploited him. And his attempts to contact me suggest that he is drawn back to revisiting the same haunts and habits that he was in before his arrest.

Bullman fire bombed a mosque and daubed it with Swastikas. I am prepared to be understanding to Bullman only because I have had personal contact with him, and I have some partial insight into what a troubled and unhappy young man he is; who really needs help and not to be further ostracised and isolated from society. But other people might be less understanding and charitable about what he did than I am.

What really is scandalous is the way the BNP used this young man. They had no problem with exploiting his obvious mental distress, they had no problem with his open support for genocide against the Jews, instead they encouraged him, they used him up and spat him out.

Socialist Unity