Thousands marched against racism in Florence on Saturday after a far-right activist killed two Senegalese vendors in a shooting spree that shocked Italy and ignited a row over immigration.
"We want today to be the dawn of a new hope so that our brothers did not die in vain," said Pape Diaw, a spokesman for the Senegalese community. "We really have to work for peaceful coexistence and respect of people but it has to be a real struggle, not just a facade," he told reporters.
Around 10,000 people took part in the demonstration, according to police, while organisers put the number at some 12,000. Participants carried Senegalese flags and placards including one that read: "Racism? Not in my name."
"Our brothers were martyred. Obviously not martyrs of war but martyrs since they were killed while they were working for their daily bread," Florence imam Izzedin Elzir told the crowd in the historic Santa Maria Novella square.
The city is still reeling after Gianluca Casseri, a Holocaust denier and author of fantasy novels, went on the rampage on Tuesday with a Magnum revolver at two local markets including the tourist-heavy San Lorenzo in the centre. Two Senegalese street vendors were killed and another three wounded before the 50-year-old killed himself when police began closing in on him. Senegalese authorities have called for a full inquiry into the killings.
Dozens of Senegalese immigrants and white Florence residents gathered ahead of the protest at the Dalmazia Square market where the spree began, reading passages from the Koran and leaving flowers and messages at a street shrine. A large makeshift sign at the square in honour of the two victims -- Samb Modou, 40, and Diop Mor, 54 -- read simply "Modou and Mor: Two of Us."
After a Muslim rite on Monday, their bodies will be flown back to Senegal the following day.
"There needs to be a strong commitment against racism by everyone and we need to put in place an immigration policy in line with our constitution," said Vannino Chiti, a senator from the centre-left Democratic Party. Chiti, one of several left-wingers at the protest, said Italian law should be changed before the next elections to allow the children of immigrants to obtain citizenship -- echoing a demand made by President Giorgio Napolitano.
Several members of the Senegalese community have also called for the immediate closure of Casa Pound, a national right-wing social group that Casseri belonged to but which has been quick to denounce the violence.
Claudio Morganti, a lawmaker from the anti-immigration Northern League party, said the protest had been "ruined by left-wing politicians who have manipulated it and made it part of their political propaganda."
"The Senegalese have to understand that whoever comes here has to respect the rules and respect the people who are hosting them," he said.
There were several smaller marches in other major Italian cities too. At one in Milan, some immigrants shouted "Racists!" and "Murderers!" at police officers. Bologna, Genoa, Naples, Padua also saw protests.
Many street vendors in Italian cities, who sell everything from African sculptures to tourist trinkets to fake designer accessories, are Senegalese. Their makeshift stalls are popular but they are often selling without official licences and are forced to run off whenever police approach.
In an interview on Saturday, International Cooperation and Integration Minister Andrea Riccardi warned attacks like the one in Florence and an arson attack on a Roma camp in Turin last Saturday were "a warning bell".
"We can't dismiss these as one-off events. They are a risk for the integration and the solidarity of our country. And they show that the crisis is not just economic but much deeper," he told La Stampa daily.
Responding to criticism from the Northern League, Riccardi -- the founder of the pro-integration Catholic community group Sant'Egidio -- was scathing.
"Contempt has been preached for too long, ethnic minority groups have been spoken about harshly for too long. There has to be security for all Italians, for all immigrants and for all those who work in Italy. This is the first thing I told the Senegalese community in Florence: 'There needs to be security for you too.'".
Yahoo
Thanks to Zaahid for the heads-up
Showing posts with label anti-immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-immigration. Show all posts
December 18, 2011
November 22, 2011
BNP set for £40,000 taxpayer handout to fight Birmingham elections
Far-right party the BNP could be handed £40,068 of taxpayers’ money to contest elections in Birmingham under controversial plans to be announced this week.
A report on funding is set to call for a cap on the money parties can receive from trade unions or businesses – with the cash replaced by a handout from taxpayers. The proposal, to be published by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, would mean parties got £3 for every vote they received.
Cash would be handed to parties to campaign in the next election, likely to be in 2015, based on the number of votes they received in 2010. It means the BNP would get £40,068 after gaining 13,356 votes in Birmingham last year, some of which could be spent on leaflets and other propaganda. Nationally, the BNP would get around £1.69 million, having gained 563,743 votes last time.
The party stood only in about half of the UK’s constituencies at the 2010 General Election and state funding could help them field candidates in every constituency across the country. It claims to be a party representing “indigenous British people”, meaning white people. In the 2010 election the BNP manifesto included a promise to introduce a system of “voluntary resettlement” in which “immigrants and their descendants are afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin”.
Liberal Democrats have been pushing for state funding of political parties, arguing that it would reduce the ability of big business and trade unions to influence Government policy by making donations. Around £100 million would be allocated to parties under the plans to be published each week, with the Tories and Labour Party gaining the most. But the proposals are set to be highly controversial.
Stourbridge MP Margot James (Con) said: “I’m absolutely opposed to any suggestion that funding for parties should be taken out of the public purse in the current economic climate.”
Birmingham Mail
A report on funding is set to call for a cap on the money parties can receive from trade unions or businesses – with the cash replaced by a handout from taxpayers. The proposal, to be published by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, would mean parties got £3 for every vote they received.
Cash would be handed to parties to campaign in the next election, likely to be in 2015, based on the number of votes they received in 2010. It means the BNP would get £40,068 after gaining 13,356 votes in Birmingham last year, some of which could be spent on leaflets and other propaganda. Nationally, the BNP would get around £1.69 million, having gained 563,743 votes last time.
The party stood only in about half of the UK’s constituencies at the 2010 General Election and state funding could help them field candidates in every constituency across the country. It claims to be a party representing “indigenous British people”, meaning white people. In the 2010 election the BNP manifesto included a promise to introduce a system of “voluntary resettlement” in which “immigrants and their descendants are afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin”.
Liberal Democrats have been pushing for state funding of political parties, arguing that it would reduce the ability of big business and trade unions to influence Government policy by making donations. Around £100 million would be allocated to parties under the plans to be published each week, with the Tories and Labour Party gaining the most. But the proposals are set to be highly controversial.
Stourbridge MP Margot James (Con) said: “I’m absolutely opposed to any suggestion that funding for parties should be taken out of the public purse in the current economic climate.”
Birmingham Mail
Labels:
anti-immigration,
anti-Muslim,
BNP,
British National Party,
racist
November 16, 2011
After the Greek debt crisis, Europe may be headed for its next nightmare
As if the economic ramifications of a full-blown Greek default were not terrifying enough, the political consequences could be far worse. A chaotic eurozone breakup would cause irreparable damage to the European integration project, the central pillar of Europe’s political stability since World War II. It would destabilize not only the highly indebted European periphery, but also core countries such as France and Germany, which have both been the architects of that project.
The nightmare scenario would also be a 1930s-style victory for political extremism. Fascism, Nazism and communism were children of a backlash against globalization that had been building since the end of the 19th century, feeding on the anxieties of groups that felt disenfranchised and threatened by expanding market forces and cosmopolitan elites.
Free trade and the gold standard had required downplaying domestic priorities such as social reform, nation-building, and cultural reassertion. Economic crisis and the failure of international cooperation undermined not only globalization, but also the elites that upheld the existing order.
As my Harvard colleague Jeff Frieden has written, this paved the path for two distinct forms of extremism. Faced with the choice between equity and economic integration, communists chose radical social reform and economic self-sufficiency. Faced with the choice between national assertion and globalism, fascists, Nazis and nationalists chose nation-building.
Fortunately, fascism, communism and other forms of autocratic ideologies are passé today. But similar tensions between economic integration and local politics have long been simmering. Europe’s single market has taken shape much faster than Europe’s political community has; economic integration has leaped ahead of political integration.
The result is that mounting concerns about the erosion of economic security, social stability and cultural identity could not be handled through mainstream political channels. National political structures became too constrained to offer effective remedies, while European institutions still remain too weak to command allegiance.
It is the extreme right that has benefited most from the centrists’ failure. In Finland, the heretofore unknown True Finn party capitalized on the resentment around eurozone bailouts to finish a close third in April’s general election. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom wields enough power to play kingmaker; without its support, the minority liberal government would likely collapse. In France, the National Front, which finished second in the 2002 presidential election, has been revitalized under Marine Le Pen.
Nor is the backlash confined to eurozone members. Elsewhere in Scandinavia, the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots, entered parliament last year with nearly 6 percent of the popular vote. In Britain, one recent poll indicated that as many as two-thirds of Conservatives want Britain to leave the European Union.
Political movements of the extreme right have traditionally fed on anti-immigration sentiment. But the Greek, Irish, Portuguese and other bailouts, together with the euro’s troubles, have given them fresh ammunition. Their Euro-skepticism certainly appears to be vindicated by events. When Marine Le Pen was recently asked if she would unilaterally withdraw from the euro, she replied confidently, “When I am president, in a few months’ time, the eurozone probably won’t exist.”
As in the 1930s, the failure of international cooperation has compounded centrist politicians’ inability to respond adequately to their domestic constituents’ economic, social, and cultural demands. The European project and the eurozone have set the terms of debate to such an extent that, with the eurozone in tatters, these elites’ legitimacy will receive an even more serious blow than it already has.
Europe’s centrist politicians have committed themselves to a strategy of “more Europe” that is too rapid to ease local anxieties, yet not rapid enough to create a real Europe-wide political community. They have stuck for far too long to an intermediate path that is unstable and beset by tensions. By holding on to a vision of Europe that has proven unviable, Europe’s centrist elites are endangering the idea of a unified Europe itself.
Economically, the least bad option is to ensure that the inevitable defaults and departures from the eurozone are carried out in as orderly and coordinated a fashion as possible. Politically, too, a similar reality check is needed. What the current crisis demands is an explicit reorientation away from external financial obligations and austerity to domestic preoccupations and aspirations. Just as healthy domestic economies are the best guarantor of an open world economy, healthy domestic polities are the best guarantor of a stable international order.
The challenge is to develop a new political narrative emphasizing national interests and values without overtones of nativism and xenophobia. If centrist elites do not prove themselves up to the task, those of the far right will gladly fill the vacuum, minus the moderation.
That is why outgoing Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou had the right idea with his aborted call for a referendum. That move was a belated attempt to recognize the primacy of domestic politics, even if investors viewed it, in the words of a Financial Times editor, as “playing with fire.” Scrapping the referendum simply postpones the day of reckoning and raises the ultimate costs to be paid by Greece’s new leadership.
Today, the question is no longer whether politics will become more populist and less internationalist; it is whether the consequences of that shift can be managed without turning ugly. In Europe’s politics, as in its economics, it seems there are no good options – only less bad ones.
Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University, is the author of “The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy.” THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate © (www.project-syndicate.org).
(Lebanon) Daily Star
The nightmare scenario would also be a 1930s-style victory for political extremism. Fascism, Nazism and communism were children of a backlash against globalization that had been building since the end of the 19th century, feeding on the anxieties of groups that felt disenfranchised and threatened by expanding market forces and cosmopolitan elites.
Free trade and the gold standard had required downplaying domestic priorities such as social reform, nation-building, and cultural reassertion. Economic crisis and the failure of international cooperation undermined not only globalization, but also the elites that upheld the existing order.
As my Harvard colleague Jeff Frieden has written, this paved the path for two distinct forms of extremism. Faced with the choice between equity and economic integration, communists chose radical social reform and economic self-sufficiency. Faced with the choice between national assertion and globalism, fascists, Nazis and nationalists chose nation-building.
Fortunately, fascism, communism and other forms of autocratic ideologies are passé today. But similar tensions between economic integration and local politics have long been simmering. Europe’s single market has taken shape much faster than Europe’s political community has; economic integration has leaped ahead of political integration.
The result is that mounting concerns about the erosion of economic security, social stability and cultural identity could not be handled through mainstream political channels. National political structures became too constrained to offer effective remedies, while European institutions still remain too weak to command allegiance.
It is the extreme right that has benefited most from the centrists’ failure. In Finland, the heretofore unknown True Finn party capitalized on the resentment around eurozone bailouts to finish a close third in April’s general election. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom wields enough power to play kingmaker; without its support, the minority liberal government would likely collapse. In France, the National Front, which finished second in the 2002 presidential election, has been revitalized under Marine Le Pen.
Nor is the backlash confined to eurozone members. Elsewhere in Scandinavia, the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots, entered parliament last year with nearly 6 percent of the popular vote. In Britain, one recent poll indicated that as many as two-thirds of Conservatives want Britain to leave the European Union.
Political movements of the extreme right have traditionally fed on anti-immigration sentiment. But the Greek, Irish, Portuguese and other bailouts, together with the euro’s troubles, have given them fresh ammunition. Their Euro-skepticism certainly appears to be vindicated by events. When Marine Le Pen was recently asked if she would unilaterally withdraw from the euro, she replied confidently, “When I am president, in a few months’ time, the eurozone probably won’t exist.”
As in the 1930s, the failure of international cooperation has compounded centrist politicians’ inability to respond adequately to their domestic constituents’ economic, social, and cultural demands. The European project and the eurozone have set the terms of debate to such an extent that, with the eurozone in tatters, these elites’ legitimacy will receive an even more serious blow than it already has.
Europe’s centrist politicians have committed themselves to a strategy of “more Europe” that is too rapid to ease local anxieties, yet not rapid enough to create a real Europe-wide political community. They have stuck for far too long to an intermediate path that is unstable and beset by tensions. By holding on to a vision of Europe that has proven unviable, Europe’s centrist elites are endangering the idea of a unified Europe itself.
Economically, the least bad option is to ensure that the inevitable defaults and departures from the eurozone are carried out in as orderly and coordinated a fashion as possible. Politically, too, a similar reality check is needed. What the current crisis demands is an explicit reorientation away from external financial obligations and austerity to domestic preoccupations and aspirations. Just as healthy domestic economies are the best guarantor of an open world economy, healthy domestic polities are the best guarantor of a stable international order.
The challenge is to develop a new political narrative emphasizing national interests and values without overtones of nativism and xenophobia. If centrist elites do not prove themselves up to the task, those of the far right will gladly fill the vacuum, minus the moderation.
That is why outgoing Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou had the right idea with his aborted call for a referendum. That move was a belated attempt to recognize the primacy of domestic politics, even if investors viewed it, in the words of a Financial Times editor, as “playing with fire.” Scrapping the referendum simply postpones the day of reckoning and raises the ultimate costs to be paid by Greece’s new leadership.
Today, the question is no longer whether politics will become more populist and less internationalist; it is whether the consequences of that shift can be managed without turning ugly. In Europe’s politics, as in its economics, it seems there are no good options – only less bad ones.
Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University, is the author of “The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy.” THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate © (www.project-syndicate.org).
(Lebanon) Daily Star
Labels:
anti-immigration,
communism,
Europe,
extremism,
fascism,
Front National,
Geert Wilders,
Marine Le Pen,
nazism,
neo-Nazi
October 25, 2011
Poll jolt for Swiss anti-immigration People's Party
The Swiss People's Party has called for an end to mass immigrationIt had campaigned on a tough anti-immigration platform, and had predicted it would receive an unprecedented 30% of the vote on Sunday. But with the count nearly complete, it was set to get less than 27%.
Its calls to limit immigration strictly are now likely to be quietly ignored, a BBC correspondent says.
The party lost votes, in part, to a more moderate breakaway party, the Conservative Democrats, and a new Green Party also did well. Both these parties focussed on issues which have worried voters this year, like the strong Swiss franc and its effect on the economy, or future energy policy now that Switzerland has decided to phase out nuclear power, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva.
The People's Party had been buoyed by recent successes in campaigns to ban minarets, and to automatically deport foreign criminals. But voters gave the party something of a slap in the face - fewer votes and the loss of seven parliamentary seats, our correspondent notes.
The party's single campaign theme - restricting immigration - did not seem to find favour. Switzerland's foreign population may be almost 25% but its unemployment rate is less than 3%. Voters know many Swiss businesses, and their health service, depend on foreign workers, our correspondent says.
While the People's Party remains the largest party, its chances of negotiating more power in Switzerland's coalition government are now greatly reduced, our correspondent adds.
BBC
Thanks to Zaahid for the heads-up
February 27, 2011
Searchlight poll finds huge support for far right 'if they gave up violence'
Level of far-right support could outstrip that in France or Holland, says poll for Searchlight
Huge numbers of Britons would support an anti-immigration English nationalist party if it was not associated with violence and fascist imagery, according to the largest survey into identity and extremism conducted in the UK.
A Populus poll found that 48% of the population would consider supporting a new anti-immigration party committed to challenging Islamist extremism, and would support policies to make it statutory for all public buildings to fly the flag of St George or the union flag. Anti-racism campaigners said the findings suggested Britain's mainstream parties were losing touch with public opinion on issues of identity and race.
The poll suggests that the level of backing for a far-right party could equal or even outstrip that in countries such as France, the Netherlands and Austria. France's National Front party hopes to secure 20% in the first round of the presidential vote next year. The Dutch anti-Islam party led by Geert Wilders attracted 15.5% of the vote in last year's parliamentary elections.
Anti-fascist groups said the poll's findings challenged the belief that Britons were more tolerant than other Europeans. "This is not because British people are more moderate, but simply because their views have not found a political articulation," said a report by the Searchlight Educational Trust, the anti-fascist charity that commissioned the poll.
According to the survey, 39% of Asian Britons, 34% of white Britons and 21% of black Britons wanted all immigration into the UK to be stopped permanently, or at least until the economy improved. And 43% of Asian Britons, 63% of white Britons and 17% of black Britons agreed with the statement that "immigration into Britain has been a bad thing for the country". Just over half of respondents – 52% – agreed with the proposition that "Muslims create problems in the UK".
Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP who fought a successful campaign against the British National party in his Dagenham and Rainham constituency in east London, said that the findings pointed to a "very real threat of a new potent political constituency built around an assertive English nationalism". The report identified a resurgence of English identity, with 39% preferring to call themselves English rather than British. Just 5% labelled themselves European.
Earlier this month David Cameron delivered a controversial speech on the failings of "state multiculturalism". The speech was seized on by the anti-Islamic English Defence League, which said that the prime minister was "coming round" to its way of thinking. BNP leader Nick Griffin also welcomed the speech as a sign that his party's ideas were entering "the political mainstream".
The poll also identified a majority keen to be allowed to openly criticise religion, with 60% believing they "should be allowed to say whatever they believe about religion". By contrast, fewer than half – 42% – said "people should be allowed to say whatever they believe about race".
Observer
Huge numbers of Britons would support an anti-immigration English nationalist party if it was not associated with violence and fascist imagery, according to the largest survey into identity and extremism conducted in the UK.
A Populus poll found that 48% of the population would consider supporting a new anti-immigration party committed to challenging Islamist extremism, and would support policies to make it statutory for all public buildings to fly the flag of St George or the union flag. Anti-racism campaigners said the findings suggested Britain's mainstream parties were losing touch with public opinion on issues of identity and race.
The poll suggests that the level of backing for a far-right party could equal or even outstrip that in countries such as France, the Netherlands and Austria. France's National Front party hopes to secure 20% in the first round of the presidential vote next year. The Dutch anti-Islam party led by Geert Wilders attracted 15.5% of the vote in last year's parliamentary elections.
Anti-fascist groups said the poll's findings challenged the belief that Britons were more tolerant than other Europeans. "This is not because British people are more moderate, but simply because their views have not found a political articulation," said a report by the Searchlight Educational Trust, the anti-fascist charity that commissioned the poll.
According to the survey, 39% of Asian Britons, 34% of white Britons and 21% of black Britons wanted all immigration into the UK to be stopped permanently, or at least until the economy improved. And 43% of Asian Britons, 63% of white Britons and 17% of black Britons agreed with the statement that "immigration into Britain has been a bad thing for the country". Just over half of respondents – 52% – agreed with the proposition that "Muslims create problems in the UK".
Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP who fought a successful campaign against the British National party in his Dagenham and Rainham constituency in east London, said that the findings pointed to a "very real threat of a new potent political constituency built around an assertive English nationalism". The report identified a resurgence of English identity, with 39% preferring to call themselves English rather than British. Just 5% labelled themselves European.
Earlier this month David Cameron delivered a controversial speech on the failings of "state multiculturalism". The speech was seized on by the anti-Islamic English Defence League, which said that the prime minister was "coming round" to its way of thinking. BNP leader Nick Griffin also welcomed the speech as a sign that his party's ideas were entering "the political mainstream".
The poll also identified a majority keen to be allowed to openly criticise religion, with 60% believing they "should be allowed to say whatever they believe about religion". By contrast, fewer than half – 42% – said "people should be allowed to say whatever they believe about race".
Observer
Labels:
anti-immigration,
EDL,
far-right,
fascist,
Jon Cruddas,
Searchlight
December 10, 2010
BNP 'turning into Ukip'
The British National party (BNP) has become more "dangerous" by toning down its racist rhetoric, experts have warned.
Research analysing the party's manifestos published in the Political Quarterly journal shows that the BNP's emphasis since Nick Griffin became leader in 1999 has focused on protecting Britain's values and institutions, rather than a nationalism based on race. It suggests that Ukip's language has been mirrored by the BNP, especially on Europe, and that its anti-immigration stance has shifted from racial tensions towards broader social and economic problems.
"We are definitely not saying that the BNP is no longer an extreme right racist party," Daphne Halikiopoulou from the LSE's department of government commented. "Indeed its use of more inclusive rhetoric makes it more dangerous because it makes it more difficult to identify it as such."
The civic narrative developed by the BNP has led to mixed results for the party. It has won two seats in the European parliament but, following intense media coverage, lost all its councillors in Barking and Dagenham in May 2010.
Another researcher, Sofia Vasilopoulou, said Mr Griffin's reforms had had a noticeable impact on the far-right party's arguments, however.
"The BNP's post 1999 manifestos are characterised by a rhetoric shift," she explained. "Although race still figures, it is less prominent and no longer forms the premise of its nationalist agenda. Instead, the BNP has increasingly talked about its agenda using elements of British national identity which unite rather than divide, such as 'democracy', 'freedom', and 'liberty' - all values that the party has previously rejected as 'liberal sickness'."
politics.co.uk
Research analysing the party's manifestos published in the Political Quarterly journal shows that the BNP's emphasis since Nick Griffin became leader in 1999 has focused on protecting Britain's values and institutions, rather than a nationalism based on race. It suggests that Ukip's language has been mirrored by the BNP, especially on Europe, and that its anti-immigration stance has shifted from racial tensions towards broader social and economic problems.
"We are definitely not saying that the BNP is no longer an extreme right racist party," Daphne Halikiopoulou from the LSE's department of government commented. "Indeed its use of more inclusive rhetoric makes it more dangerous because it makes it more difficult to identify it as such."
The civic narrative developed by the BNP has led to mixed results for the party. It has won two seats in the European parliament but, following intense media coverage, lost all its councillors in Barking and Dagenham in May 2010.
Another researcher, Sofia Vasilopoulou, said Mr Griffin's reforms had had a noticeable impact on the far-right party's arguments, however.
"The BNP's post 1999 manifestos are characterised by a rhetoric shift," she explained. "Although race still figures, it is less prominent and no longer forms the premise of its nationalist agenda. Instead, the BNP has increasingly talked about its agenda using elements of British national identity which unite rather than divide, such as 'democracy', 'freedom', and 'liberty' - all values that the party has previously rejected as 'liberal sickness'."
politics.co.uk
Labels:
anti-immigration,
BNP,
British National Party,
Nick Griffin,
UKIP
November 22, 2010
Nick Griffin planned to exploit war hero
Shameless Nick Griffin intended to capitalise on a leading Conservative industrialist’s distinguished war record until an arrest put paid to his plans.
Michael Smith, son of Sir Alan Smith, was due to stand for the British National Party against Gordon Brown at the general election until he was charged with killing two cormorants with a shotgun on the banks of the River Tay in Perthshire in January.
The 62-year-old denies the charge and claims his human rights were breached when he was cautioned and interviewed by police without being given the chance to speak to a lawyer. Although this has been normal procedure in Scotland, the UK Supreme Court recently upheld an appeal by a teenager whose assault conviction was based on evidence gained before he spoke to his solicitor, ruling that this breached human rights law.
Sir Alan, a former RAF pilot, 92, fought alongside Douglas Bader and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for “valour, courage or devotion to duty”. He was furious when his son, a lifelong Tory, defected to the BNP in 2006 and announced his plan to contest Brown’s Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath seat.
Smith, who owns a farm in Kinross, claimed he had become disillusioned with the Conservatives’ move away from the right and said he would fight an anti-immigration campaign. Griffin welcomed him and said the party would capitalise on his father’s war record during the election. Smith’s arrest ended their plans.
Hope not hate
Michael Smith, son of Sir Alan Smith, was due to stand for the British National Party against Gordon Brown at the general election until he was charged with killing two cormorants with a shotgun on the banks of the River Tay in Perthshire in January.
The 62-year-old denies the charge and claims his human rights were breached when he was cautioned and interviewed by police without being given the chance to speak to a lawyer. Although this has been normal procedure in Scotland, the UK Supreme Court recently upheld an appeal by a teenager whose assault conviction was based on evidence gained before he spoke to his solicitor, ruling that this breached human rights law.
Sir Alan, a former RAF pilot, 92, fought alongside Douglas Bader and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for “valour, courage or devotion to duty”. He was furious when his son, a lifelong Tory, defected to the BNP in 2006 and announced his plan to contest Brown’s Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath seat.
Smith, who owns a farm in Kinross, claimed he had become disillusioned with the Conservatives’ move away from the right and said he would fight an anti-immigration campaign. Griffin welcomed him and said the party would capitalise on his father’s war record during the election. Smith’s arrest ended their plans.
Hope not hate
Labels:
anti-immigration,
BNP,
British National Party,
Nick Griffin
February 09, 2010
Journalists launch campaign to challenge BNP in run-up to election
Campaigning journalists and media workers are to launch EXPOSE, a campaign aimed at "revealing the undemocratic and racist nature" of the British National Party
The new campaign will tackle the BNP's "attempts to construct a respectable public image" and support media workers who refuse to work on uncritical programmes or material, the group announced today.
EXPOSE aims to brief reporters and news editors to help them challenge the BNP's statements and spokespersons in the run-up to the UK election, the campaigners said.
A launch rally at the Amnesty UK headquarters in London on 23 February will feature Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, columnist and broadcaster; Mehdi Hasan, political senior editor for the New Statesman; Sunny Hundal, editor of the Liberal Conspiracy blog; and Peter Hain, secretary of state for Wales.
"The political and media consensus appears to be that the way to tackle the BNP is to meet it halfway, by talking up tough anti-immigration measures (...) this conventional wisdom must urgently be challenged," said one its founding supporters, James Macintyre, political correspondent for the New Statesman.
"The BNP is not an 'ordinary' political party (...) So why does the media, including the BBC, give them so much time, space and opportunity to spread their bile?" added his New Statesman colleague Mehdi Hasan.
The campaign is also backed by the unions, with speakers at the launch event including Michelle Stanistreet, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Journalists; Pat Styles, national official for BECTU, the media and entertainment union, and Weyman Bennett joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism.
"Journalists have a duty to hold up to the closest scrutiny the claims and activities of those who would foment racial tension and violence. The BNP's inflammatory rhetoric about immigration cannot be taken at face value," said Stanistreet.
journalism.co.uk
The new campaign will tackle the BNP's "attempts to construct a respectable public image" and support media workers who refuse to work on uncritical programmes or material, the group announced today.
EXPOSE aims to brief reporters and news editors to help them challenge the BNP's statements and spokespersons in the run-up to the UK election, the campaigners said.
A launch rally at the Amnesty UK headquarters in London on 23 February will feature Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, columnist and broadcaster; Mehdi Hasan, political senior editor for the New Statesman; Sunny Hundal, editor of the Liberal Conspiracy blog; and Peter Hain, secretary of state for Wales.
"The political and media consensus appears to be that the way to tackle the BNP is to meet it halfway, by talking up tough anti-immigration measures (...) this conventional wisdom must urgently be challenged," said one its founding supporters, James Macintyre, political correspondent for the New Statesman.
"The BNP is not an 'ordinary' political party (...) So why does the media, including the BBC, give them so much time, space and opportunity to spread their bile?" added his New Statesman colleague Mehdi Hasan.
The campaign is also backed by the unions, with speakers at the launch event including Michelle Stanistreet, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Journalists; Pat Styles, national official for BECTU, the media and entertainment union, and Weyman Bennett joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism.
"Journalists have a duty to hold up to the closest scrutiny the claims and activities of those who would foment racial tension and violence. The BNP's inflammatory rhetoric about immigration cannot be taken at face value," said Stanistreet.
journalism.co.uk
Labels:
anti-immigration,
BECTU,
BNP,
media,
NUJ,
Peter Hain,
Unite Against Fascism
October 26, 2009
BNP man's racist vow
Racist bastard Charlie BaillieCharlie Baillie said "brown, black, and yellow" people should continue to be barred from joining, claiming that whites needed a party that represents their views alone. His position appears to put him at odds with BNP chairman Nick Griffin, who told a court last month he would ask his party to amend its constitution so it did not discriminate on grounds of race or religion.
Griffin may make an appearance in the Glasgow seat ahead of the 12 November by-election.
The BNP claimed yesterday it had received 9,000 inquiries following his appearance on BBC's Question Time last week, which was watched by over eight million people.
Baillie said he would be campaigning on an anti-immigration platform, focusing on the arrival of asylum-seekers. Asked whether he would turn away a torture victim from Zimbabwe who faced death on return, he said: "Yes. They have neighbouring countries they can go to."
Scotsman
May 15, 2009
Postmen 'threatened with sack' for refusing to deliver BNP leaflets
Postal workers claim they are being forced to deliver British National Party election leaflets or face the sack.
Royal Mail bosses are said to have warned postmen they could lose their jobs unless they carry the ultra-Right-wing party's campaign literature. Around 100 workers in the West Country have told union leaders they will not carry the anti-immigration leaflets because they do not want to promote the BNP's extremist 'rubbish'.
Postmen, who were asked to start delivering the BNP's 29million leaflets this week ahead of the European elections next month, are also said to be afraid for their safety if they are seen delivering the anti-immigration message in racially mixed areas.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has accused Royal Mail chiefs in Bristol and Somerset of 'bullying' and says one office threatened workers with the sack if they did not comply. Bristol and District CWU spokesman Dave Wilshire said today: 'What's happening is that managers in Bristol are effectively bullying people. Someone from Thornbury said to me if we don't deliver it we will get the sack. That is outrageous.'
Royal Mail is breaking a 'conscience clause' agreed four years ago which allows staff to refuse to deliver literature they find offensive, he said.
'Over the past 48 hours I've had around 32 calls from individual members and those speaking on behalf of groups, saying they don't want to deliver the material. That is fair enough. The clause says members don't have to deliver material if they feel threatened or if it is against their personal beliefs.'
He added: 'In Bristol we have the St Paul's area which has a very high density of those from ethnic backgrounds. Anyone being expected to post BNP stuff through there is going to feel at risk.'
Mail Online
Royal Mail bosses are said to have warned postmen they could lose their jobs unless they carry the ultra-Right-wing party's campaign literature. Around 100 workers in the West Country have told union leaders they will not carry the anti-immigration leaflets because they do not want to promote the BNP's extremist 'rubbish'.
Postmen, who were asked to start delivering the BNP's 29million leaflets this week ahead of the European elections next month, are also said to be afraid for their safety if they are seen delivering the anti-immigration message in racially mixed areas.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has accused Royal Mail chiefs in Bristol and Somerset of 'bullying' and says one office threatened workers with the sack if they did not comply. Bristol and District CWU spokesman Dave Wilshire said today: 'What's happening is that managers in Bristol are effectively bullying people. Someone from Thornbury said to me if we don't deliver it we will get the sack. That is outrageous.'
Royal Mail is breaking a 'conscience clause' agreed four years ago which allows staff to refuse to deliver literature they find offensive, he said.
'Over the past 48 hours I've had around 32 calls from individual members and those speaking on behalf of groups, saying they don't want to deliver the material. That is fair enough. The clause says members don't have to deliver material if they feel threatened or if it is against their personal beliefs.'
He added: 'In Bristol we have the St Paul's area which has a very high density of those from ethnic backgrounds. Anyone being expected to post BNP stuff through there is going to feel at risk.'
Mail Online
Labels:
anti-immigration,
BNP,
CWU,
Euro Elections,
Royal Mail,
St Pauls
October 16, 2008
Haider 'drunk' in fatal car crash
Austrian far-right politician Joerg Haider was drunk at the time of his fatal car crash last Saturday, an official from his party has said. Stefan Petzner, the new head of Mr Haider's Alliance for Austria's Future (BZO), said the blood alcohol level was well above the legal limit.
Mr Haider, 58, was driving alone after leaving a nightclub early on Saturday when his car crashed and overturned. Police have said he was travelling at 142km/h (88mph) in a 70km/h zone. The accident occurred south of Klagenfurt, the capital of Carinthia, where he was the provincial governor.
"It is correct that... Joerg Haider was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident. I can and must confirm that," said Mr Petzner.
He said he had made the announcement because of widespread rumours that Mr Haider had been driving drunk.
Mr Haider's car overturned a number of times, causing him serious head, chest and spinal injuries. He died on the way to hospital. Mr Haider had reportedly been due to attend his mother's 90th birthday celebrations later in the day. Mr Haider was known for his anti-immigration and anti-EU policies.
The BZO was one of two right-wing parties that did better than expected in general elections last month, fuelling speculation of a possible role in a ruling coalition. His deputy, Mr Petzner, took over as head of the BZO after Mr Haider's death.
Mr Haider was first elected as governor of Carinthia in 1989. He was forced to resign in 1991 after he made comments praising the employment policies of Nazi Germany. He was re-elected governor in 1999 and 2003.
BBC
Mr Haider, 58, was driving alone after leaving a nightclub early on Saturday when his car crashed and overturned. Police have said he was travelling at 142km/h (88mph) in a 70km/h zone. The accident occurred south of Klagenfurt, the capital of Carinthia, where he was the provincial governor.
"It is correct that... Joerg Haider was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident. I can and must confirm that," said Mr Petzner.
He said he had made the announcement because of widespread rumours that Mr Haider had been driving drunk.
Mr Haider's car overturned a number of times, causing him serious head, chest and spinal injuries. He died on the way to hospital. Mr Haider had reportedly been due to attend his mother's 90th birthday celebrations later in the day. Mr Haider was known for his anti-immigration and anti-EU policies.
The BZO was one of two right-wing parties that did better than expected in general elections last month, fuelling speculation of a possible role in a ruling coalition. His deputy, Mr Petzner, took over as head of the BZO after Mr Haider's death.
Mr Haider was first elected as governor of Carinthia in 1989. He was forced to resign in 1991 after he made comments praising the employment policies of Nazi Germany. He was re-elected governor in 1999 and 2003.
BBC
September 26, 2008
Haider is back. Just don't mention the war
Last time he was in power, his nation became a pariah state. These days, Jörg Haider is more likely to praise the EU than the Nazis, although he and his party still hold controversial views about immigrants.
Jörg Haider believes he will hold the balance of
power after parliamentary elections this weekend
Jörg Haider, the far-right politician who turned Austria into an international pariah less than a decade ago because of his sympathetic views about Nazi Germany, is aiming for a surprise comeback in elections this weekend.
When he was part of the Austrian government in 1999 the rabble-rousing populist described Nazi SS veterans as "men of honour" and praised Hitler's employment policies, triggering European Union sanctions against Austria as a result.
Mr Haider, 58, has been mostly out of national politics ever since, but in Sunday's parliamentary elections he is hoping to return with a result that will leave him holding the balance of power, and maybe even offer him the chance of becoming head of state.
In an interview at the headquarters of his Alliance for the Future of Austria party in Vienna, Mr Haider told The Independent: "I want to run for the post of Chancellor of Austria – I am convinced that I can offer an alternative to those voters who have had enough of the failures of the outgoing grand coalition government."
Austria's grand coalition, comprising the conservative People's Party and the centre-left Social Democrats, collapsed in July after months of infighting. Neither of the two parties wants to form another alliance. Opinion polls published this week suggest that each will secure only around 25 per cent of the vote. The forecasts suggest that a further 25 per cent of votes will go to Austria's populist far-right bloc comprising the Freedom Party and Mr Haider's Alliance.
Mr Haider is banking on such a constellation leaving the far-right bloc as potential kingmakers. He says he is open to the idea of forming a coalition with either of the two main parties. And as a well-known figure in Austrian politics and a seasoned governor of the state of Carinthia, he sees himself as the ideal candidate for chancellor.
The veteran right-winger's praise for Hitler's employment policies and his attendance at a rally of SS veterans provoked widespread international criticism and charges that Austria had failed to learn the lessons of its Nazi past. Mr Haider says those days are now over but he added: "We are not going to let the outside world dictate to Austria how it should deal with the past."
Vienna is plastered with election billboards displaying colour photographs of a permanently tanned Mr Haider. He is shown wearing checked shirts and peasant costumes in an apparent appeal to Austrian country folk. "Let's roll up our sleeves and get on with the job – vote Jörg Haider – the original," proclaim the slogans. For his interview in the top-floor office of his Vienna HQ however, Mr Haider showed up in a figure-hugging white leather jacket and skin-tight trousers. He insisted that during his absence from Austria's national political scene he had become more reasonable and responsible. "Austria had reached a dead end with the grand coalition. We have lost out against chief industrial competitors in Germany and missed a chance," he explained. "I want to put Austria back in front," he added, listing a series of proposals for government funding for ailing medium-sized businesses. Mr Haider's confrontation with the EU also seemed to be over. Unlike his right-wing Freedom Party competitors who are advocating that Austria leave the EU, he wants his country to remain, although as a critical member.
His new-found enthusiasm may have something to do with the fact that Austria has benefited hugely from EU membership. In recent years the country has managed to expand its trade with eastern Europe. Unemployment is around 3 per cent and Austria now imports thousands of young German "guest workers" each year.
However despite the "responsible" rhetoric, it was clear that the governor of Carinthia continues to hold extreme views about immigrants. In the run-up to the election Mr Haider's Alliance had been conducting a controversial campaign in the southern city of Graz. It featured a large poster of an immigrant beggar woman clad in what appeared to be filthy clothes, sitting on a step in the centre of Graz. The slogan reminded voters that Mr Haider's party would "Clean up Graz". And alongside were posters, displaying the party's leading politicians sweeping the streets with brooms.
Mr Haider exploded at the suggestion that his poster was reminiscent of the anti-immigrant campaigning of the right-wing populist in next-door Switzerland, Christoph Blocher. "I know the British press, it is always on the look out for such negative extremism," he said. "Sarkozy, the President of France, used similar language after the riots in Paris. You cannot criticise us for using the same methods as the current president of the EU," he insisted, claiming that his campaign was designed at rooting out a "beggars' mafia" that had invaded part of Austria. Indeed, Mr Haider and his party see Austria threatened by a massive influx of criminals from eastern Europe.
Ironically, the biggest threat to his political re-emergence after this weekend is the leader of Austria's other right-wing organisation – the Freedom Party which Mr Haider left in 2005 following a split in the organisation, taking all of the Freedom Party's MPs with him.
Mr Haider's Alliance for the Future of Austria is the junior partner in the bloc. Polls suggest that most far-right votes, amounting to around 17 per cent, will go to the Freedom Party headed by Mr Haider's old protégé turned enemy, Heinz-Christian Strache. A 39-year-old former dental technician, Mr Strache has been running a virulently anti-foreigner campaign with slogans such as "Flights home for asylum cheats". He recently failed to win a court action against a magazine which accused him of having neo-Nazi contacts.
Mr Haider and Mr Strache have made it plain in the past that they consider themselves arch rivals and are said to dislike each other intensely. But Mr Haider has since indicated that he may have to work together with his enemy if he wants a taste of political power. "I will have to co-operate. He may not be my ideal candidate, but we will have to make compromises," he said.
Rise of the right The power of xenophobia
Galvanised by the issues of Third World immigration and Islam, right-wing parties are a force to be reckoned with across much of Europe today. Several of them have succeeded in rebranding themselves as traditional conservatives rather than quasi-Fascist.
In Norway the anti-immigrant Progress Party is now the largest in the land. Like other right-wing parties in Scandinavia, it has enjoyed surging support since the Islamic cartoon affair two years ago. In Switzerland, Christoph Blocher's Swiss People's Party won the general election last year after a campaign condemned as racist by UN monitors. In Poland the League of Polish Families, a member of the coalition government until a year ago, campaigns for the elimination of Jewish influence in business and the professions. The Vlaams Belang in Belgium is strongly anti-immigrant. Even in ultra-liberal Denmark, the nationalist and anti-immigrant Danish People's Party is now the third largest party. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi's Party of Freedom is sandwiched in the ruling coalition by the anti-immigrant Northern League and the post-Fascist National Alliance.
Independent
Jörg Haider believes he will hold the balance ofpower after parliamentary elections this weekend
When he was part of the Austrian government in 1999 the rabble-rousing populist described Nazi SS veterans as "men of honour" and praised Hitler's employment policies, triggering European Union sanctions against Austria as a result.
Mr Haider, 58, has been mostly out of national politics ever since, but in Sunday's parliamentary elections he is hoping to return with a result that will leave him holding the balance of power, and maybe even offer him the chance of becoming head of state.
In an interview at the headquarters of his Alliance for the Future of Austria party in Vienna, Mr Haider told The Independent: "I want to run for the post of Chancellor of Austria – I am convinced that I can offer an alternative to those voters who have had enough of the failures of the outgoing grand coalition government."
Austria's grand coalition, comprising the conservative People's Party and the centre-left Social Democrats, collapsed in July after months of infighting. Neither of the two parties wants to form another alliance. Opinion polls published this week suggest that each will secure only around 25 per cent of the vote. The forecasts suggest that a further 25 per cent of votes will go to Austria's populist far-right bloc comprising the Freedom Party and Mr Haider's Alliance.
Mr Haider is banking on such a constellation leaving the far-right bloc as potential kingmakers. He says he is open to the idea of forming a coalition with either of the two main parties. And as a well-known figure in Austrian politics and a seasoned governor of the state of Carinthia, he sees himself as the ideal candidate for chancellor.
The veteran right-winger's praise for Hitler's employment policies and his attendance at a rally of SS veterans provoked widespread international criticism and charges that Austria had failed to learn the lessons of its Nazi past. Mr Haider says those days are now over but he added: "We are not going to let the outside world dictate to Austria how it should deal with the past."
Vienna is plastered with election billboards displaying colour photographs of a permanently tanned Mr Haider. He is shown wearing checked shirts and peasant costumes in an apparent appeal to Austrian country folk. "Let's roll up our sleeves and get on with the job – vote Jörg Haider – the original," proclaim the slogans. For his interview in the top-floor office of his Vienna HQ however, Mr Haider showed up in a figure-hugging white leather jacket and skin-tight trousers. He insisted that during his absence from Austria's national political scene he had become more reasonable and responsible. "Austria had reached a dead end with the grand coalition. We have lost out against chief industrial competitors in Germany and missed a chance," he explained. "I want to put Austria back in front," he added, listing a series of proposals for government funding for ailing medium-sized businesses. Mr Haider's confrontation with the EU also seemed to be over. Unlike his right-wing Freedom Party competitors who are advocating that Austria leave the EU, he wants his country to remain, although as a critical member.
His new-found enthusiasm may have something to do with the fact that Austria has benefited hugely from EU membership. In recent years the country has managed to expand its trade with eastern Europe. Unemployment is around 3 per cent and Austria now imports thousands of young German "guest workers" each year.
However despite the "responsible" rhetoric, it was clear that the governor of Carinthia continues to hold extreme views about immigrants. In the run-up to the election Mr Haider's Alliance had been conducting a controversial campaign in the southern city of Graz. It featured a large poster of an immigrant beggar woman clad in what appeared to be filthy clothes, sitting on a step in the centre of Graz. The slogan reminded voters that Mr Haider's party would "Clean up Graz". And alongside were posters, displaying the party's leading politicians sweeping the streets with brooms.
Mr Haider exploded at the suggestion that his poster was reminiscent of the anti-immigrant campaigning of the right-wing populist in next-door Switzerland, Christoph Blocher. "I know the British press, it is always on the look out for such negative extremism," he said. "Sarkozy, the President of France, used similar language after the riots in Paris. You cannot criticise us for using the same methods as the current president of the EU," he insisted, claiming that his campaign was designed at rooting out a "beggars' mafia" that had invaded part of Austria. Indeed, Mr Haider and his party see Austria threatened by a massive influx of criminals from eastern Europe.
Ironically, the biggest threat to his political re-emergence after this weekend is the leader of Austria's other right-wing organisation – the Freedom Party which Mr Haider left in 2005 following a split in the organisation, taking all of the Freedom Party's MPs with him.
Mr Haider's Alliance for the Future of Austria is the junior partner in the bloc. Polls suggest that most far-right votes, amounting to around 17 per cent, will go to the Freedom Party headed by Mr Haider's old protégé turned enemy, Heinz-Christian Strache. A 39-year-old former dental technician, Mr Strache has been running a virulently anti-foreigner campaign with slogans such as "Flights home for asylum cheats". He recently failed to win a court action against a magazine which accused him of having neo-Nazi contacts.
Mr Haider and Mr Strache have made it plain in the past that they consider themselves arch rivals and are said to dislike each other intensely. But Mr Haider has since indicated that he may have to work together with his enemy if he wants a taste of political power. "I will have to co-operate. He may not be my ideal candidate, but we will have to make compromises," he said.
Rise of the right The power of xenophobia
Galvanised by the issues of Third World immigration and Islam, right-wing parties are a force to be reckoned with across much of Europe today. Several of them have succeeded in rebranding themselves as traditional conservatives rather than quasi-Fascist.
In Norway the anti-immigrant Progress Party is now the largest in the land. Like other right-wing parties in Scandinavia, it has enjoyed surging support since the Islamic cartoon affair two years ago. In Switzerland, Christoph Blocher's Swiss People's Party won the general election last year after a campaign condemned as racist by UN monitors. In Poland the League of Polish Families, a member of the coalition government until a year ago, campaigns for the elimination of Jewish influence in business and the professions. The Vlaams Belang in Belgium is strongly anti-immigrant. Even in ultra-liberal Denmark, the nationalist and anti-immigrant Danish People's Party is now the third largest party. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi's Party of Freedom is sandwiched in the ruling coalition by the anti-immigrant Northern League and the post-Fascist National Alliance.
Independent
June 03, 2008
Anger at BNP leaflet drop in Antrim
British National Party anti-immigration leaflets are being distributed by loyalists on the north Antrim coast, it was claimed today.
The leaflet drop - allegedly by a group including a known paramilitary leader - followed a recent incident in which a car belonging to Bulgarians was set alight in Portballintrae. That prompted local residents to stage an anti-racist rally.
Sinn Féin councillor Billy Leonard branded the timing of the loyalist leafleting as “sinister” and said there was anger about it among the local population. He said: “Those who approached me are disgusted at this action. They say they know that one of the people who strutted up and down the streets of Portballintrae is a well known loyalist paramilitary from the nearby Bushmills area.”
Mr Leonard added: “The leaflet is an official BNP publication and talks of immigrants as ”health tourist spongers“ and how ”white people“ in Britain will become a minority.”
The timing of the leafleting was sinister given the recent car burning, he said. “We can only assume that this daylight distribution of leaflets was intended as a message to migrant workers who undoubtedly would have received a copy through their letter boxes.”
The action could only be an attempt to raise temperatures in the area and was totally unacceptable, he said.
“The vast majority of locals see the migrant worker community as people who work hard and in many cases take jobs that local people will not take.”
The Irish Times
The leaflet drop - allegedly by a group including a known paramilitary leader - followed a recent incident in which a car belonging to Bulgarians was set alight in Portballintrae. That prompted local residents to stage an anti-racist rally.
Sinn Féin councillor Billy Leonard branded the timing of the loyalist leafleting as “sinister” and said there was anger about it among the local population. He said: “Those who approached me are disgusted at this action. They say they know that one of the people who strutted up and down the streets of Portballintrae is a well known loyalist paramilitary from the nearby Bushmills area.”
Mr Leonard added: “The leaflet is an official BNP publication and talks of immigrants as ”health tourist spongers“ and how ”white people“ in Britain will become a minority.”
The timing of the leafleting was sinister given the recent car burning, he said. “We can only assume that this daylight distribution of leaflets was intended as a message to migrant workers who undoubtedly would have received a copy through their letter boxes.”
The action could only be an attempt to raise temperatures in the area and was totally unacceptable, he said.
“The vast majority of locals see the migrant worker community as people who work hard and in many cases take jobs that local people will not take.”
The Irish Times
Labels:
anti-immigration,
Billy Leonard,
BNP,
Portballintrae,
Sinn Féin
November 05, 2007
Tory candidate quits after race row
Tory Nigel Hastilow has resigned as a Parliamentary candidate after declaring that Enoch Powell was "right" when he gave his notorious "Rivers of Blood" anti-immigration speech. Mr Hastilow stepped down after being summoned to a meeting with Tory party chairwoman Caroline Spelman to explain the comments he made in a newspaper column.
He said: "I am very sorry that any remarks of mine have undermined the progress David Cameron has made on the issue of immigration, as on so many other issues."
A Conservative spokeswoman confirmed the party had accepted his resignation as the candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis. Mr Hastilow said it was "with regret" that he had tendered his resignation but added the party would have his support for the future.
It is the second time Mr Hastilow, a former editor of the Birmingham Post, has courted controversy while a would-be MP. In 2001 he said the Tories under William Hague were seen as a "lost cause" with an unpopular leader. In his column for the Express and Star newspaper in Wolverhampton - where Mr Powell was MP at the time of the 1968 speech - Mr Hastilow wrote: "When you ask most people in the Black Country what the single biggest problem facing the country is, most say immigration. Many insist: 'Enoch Powell was right'. Enoch, once MP for Wolverhampton South-West, was sacked from the Conservative front bench and marginalised politically for his 1968 'rivers of blood' speech, warning that uncontrolled immigration would change our country irrevocably. He was right. It has changed dramatically."
He also wrote: "They have more or less given up complaining about the way we roll out the red carpet for foreigners while leaving the locals to fend for themselves."
Cabinet minister Peter Hain said Mr Hastilow's comments had revealed the "racist underbelly" of the Tory party.
Guardian
He said: "I am very sorry that any remarks of mine have undermined the progress David Cameron has made on the issue of immigration, as on so many other issues."
A Conservative spokeswoman confirmed the party had accepted his resignation as the candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis. Mr Hastilow said it was "with regret" that he had tendered his resignation but added the party would have his support for the future.
It is the second time Mr Hastilow, a former editor of the Birmingham Post, has courted controversy while a would-be MP. In 2001 he said the Tories under William Hague were seen as a "lost cause" with an unpopular leader. In his column for the Express and Star newspaper in Wolverhampton - where Mr Powell was MP at the time of the 1968 speech - Mr Hastilow wrote: "When you ask most people in the Black Country what the single biggest problem facing the country is, most say immigration. Many insist: 'Enoch Powell was right'. Enoch, once MP for Wolverhampton South-West, was sacked from the Conservative front bench and marginalised politically for his 1968 'rivers of blood' speech, warning that uncontrolled immigration would change our country irrevocably. He was right. It has changed dramatically."
He also wrote: "They have more or less given up complaining about the way we roll out the red carpet for foreigners while leaving the locals to fend for themselves."
Cabinet minister Peter Hain said Mr Hastilow's comments had revealed the "racist underbelly" of the Tory party.
Guardian
Labels:
anti-immigration,
Enoch Powell,
Nigel Hastilow,
Tory
August 24, 2007
BNP's green disguise
Opponents of asylum and immigration once talked about "rivers of blood". Now they talk about "tidal waves of concrete". Enoch Powell and other early advocates of shutting Britain's borders argued that too many immigrants would shred our social cohesion. Today's anti-immigrant lobby is more likely to complain about immigrants' carbon footprint and their noxious impact on our green and pleasant land. The close-the-borders brigade has co-opted environmentalist arguments, and it is using them to demand tougher restrictions on the right to asylum in the UK.
One reason why anti-immigrants are wrapping themselves in a pseudo-green cloak is that their old arguments - about Britain being invaded by swan-eating asylum-seekers and migrants - are transparent tosh. On 21 August the Home Office published its Asylum Statistics for the second quarter of 2007. These showed that applications for asylum have fallen. Between April and June this year, there were 4,950 applications, a 13 per cent drop from the first quarter of the year.
There were 10 per cent fewer applications in the second quarter of 2007 than there were in the second quarter of 2006, when 5,495 people applied for asylum. What's more, 2,980 asylum-seekers were deported in the second quarter of 2007. This means that the net number of asylum-seekers added to the population between April and June was a measly 1,970. If this quarterly figure was averaged out over a year, it would add up to roughly 8,000 asylum-seekers - enough to fill eight streets in your average big-city suburb. Britain swamped by asylum-seekers? Get a grip.
Asylum applications have fallen steadily over the past decade. In 2006, 23,520 people applied for asylum in the UK, the lowest number since 1997. In the same year, 18,235 failed asylum-seekers were removed from the UK. We are no "soft touch": 80 per cent of applications are refused.
The number of immigrants (rather than asylum-seekers) from eastern Europe continues to rise - but not nearly by as much as the scaremongers predicted. In the first quarter of this year, after Bulgaria and Romania acceded to the European Union, 7,935 of their nationals were granted permission to come to the UK; in the second quarter 9,335 arrived and a further 3,980 were accepted under the seasonal agricultural workers' scheme. It's a far cry from the "flood" of 300,000 predicted by some tabloid (and broadsheet) writers. One reason why the Bulgarian and Romanian numbers remain low is that the government imposed stringent restrictions on who can come from those countries - skilled workers, maybe; low-skilled workers, not so much.
The number of eastern Europeans who have come to the UK since the A8 countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) joined the EU in May 2004 has reached 683,000 - the figure that most frightens the anti-immigration lobby. Yet as Philippe Legrain, author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, has written, "most have already left again, and many are, in effect, international commuters who spend only part of the year here". Legrain points out that in 2005, the first big year of eastern immigration into the UK, 565,000 migrants in total came to Britain - but 380,000 people left these shores. That made a net inflow of 185,000 people, or an increase to Britain's population of 0.31 per cent.
Since the idea that Britain is being "swamped" is pure poppycock, so those who oppose immigration have had to change tack. The British National Party argues that "our countryside is vanishing beneath a tidal wave of concrete" as more and more houses are built. Apparently "the biggest reason all these new houses are needed is immigration. One-third of all new homes are for immigrants and asylum-seekers." The BNP claims that "immigration is creating an environmental disaster", and worries that if we let in more migrants Britain will become "a tarmac desert".
The think tank Migration Watch claims that immigration has "significant costs" for the environment. And the right-wing Campaign for National Democracy says: "[Our population] is expected to grow by over five million during the next 20 years, chiefly as a result of immigration. This will put pressure on housing and roads, which will mean the loss of more of our countryside, the destruction of greenbelt area and worsening traffic and pollution in our cities."
Unfortunately, green-leaning groups sometimes hand these right-wingers their arguments on a plate. The Optimum Population Trust, which counts Jonathon Porritt among its patrons, argues that mass immigration is a route to environmental collapse. It has called for the balancing out of immigration with emigration, so that net immigration into Britain always remains at zero: an inhumane policy proposal that would mean saying "no", even to desperate arrivals, on the basis that they would cause our population to rise by a tiny amount.
It is worth noting that, according to 2002 figures, 45.96 per cent of Britain's land is used for intensive agriculture, 29.78 per cent of it is semi-natural, 11.91 per cent of it is woodland, and only 7.65 per cent of it is "settled" - that is, built environment. In the new pseudo-green arguments for raising the drawbridge, immigrants are once again being blamed for what are in fact social and political failures. It is underinvestment in infrastructure that leads to scarcity of good-quality housing or decent roads, not the arrival of people from overseas who simply want a better life. They should have as much right to live and work here as any of the rest of us - and if that means building more homes and roads to accommodate them, so be it.
New Statesman
One reason why anti-immigrants are wrapping themselves in a pseudo-green cloak is that their old arguments - about Britain being invaded by swan-eating asylum-seekers and migrants - are transparent tosh. On 21 August the Home Office published its Asylum Statistics for the second quarter of 2007. These showed that applications for asylum have fallen. Between April and June this year, there were 4,950 applications, a 13 per cent drop from the first quarter of the year.
There were 10 per cent fewer applications in the second quarter of 2007 than there were in the second quarter of 2006, when 5,495 people applied for asylum. What's more, 2,980 asylum-seekers were deported in the second quarter of 2007. This means that the net number of asylum-seekers added to the population between April and June was a measly 1,970. If this quarterly figure was averaged out over a year, it would add up to roughly 8,000 asylum-seekers - enough to fill eight streets in your average big-city suburb. Britain swamped by asylum-seekers? Get a grip.
Asylum applications have fallen steadily over the past decade. In 2006, 23,520 people applied for asylum in the UK, the lowest number since 1997. In the same year, 18,235 failed asylum-seekers were removed from the UK. We are no "soft touch": 80 per cent of applications are refused.
The number of immigrants (rather than asylum-seekers) from eastern Europe continues to rise - but not nearly by as much as the scaremongers predicted. In the first quarter of this year, after Bulgaria and Romania acceded to the European Union, 7,935 of their nationals were granted permission to come to the UK; in the second quarter 9,335 arrived and a further 3,980 were accepted under the seasonal agricultural workers' scheme. It's a far cry from the "flood" of 300,000 predicted by some tabloid (and broadsheet) writers. One reason why the Bulgarian and Romanian numbers remain low is that the government imposed stringent restrictions on who can come from those countries - skilled workers, maybe; low-skilled workers, not so much.
The number of eastern Europeans who have come to the UK since the A8 countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) joined the EU in May 2004 has reached 683,000 - the figure that most frightens the anti-immigration lobby. Yet as Philippe Legrain, author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, has written, "most have already left again, and many are, in effect, international commuters who spend only part of the year here". Legrain points out that in 2005, the first big year of eastern immigration into the UK, 565,000 migrants in total came to Britain - but 380,000 people left these shores. That made a net inflow of 185,000 people, or an increase to Britain's population of 0.31 per cent.
Since the idea that Britain is being "swamped" is pure poppycock, so those who oppose immigration have had to change tack. The British National Party argues that "our countryside is vanishing beneath a tidal wave of concrete" as more and more houses are built. Apparently "the biggest reason all these new houses are needed is immigration. One-third of all new homes are for immigrants and asylum-seekers." The BNP claims that "immigration is creating an environmental disaster", and worries that if we let in more migrants Britain will become "a tarmac desert".
The think tank Migration Watch claims that immigration has "significant costs" for the environment. And the right-wing Campaign for National Democracy says: "[Our population] is expected to grow by over five million during the next 20 years, chiefly as a result of immigration. This will put pressure on housing and roads, which will mean the loss of more of our countryside, the destruction of greenbelt area and worsening traffic and pollution in our cities."
Unfortunately, green-leaning groups sometimes hand these right-wingers their arguments on a plate. The Optimum Population Trust, which counts Jonathon Porritt among its patrons, argues that mass immigration is a route to environmental collapse. It has called for the balancing out of immigration with emigration, so that net immigration into Britain always remains at zero: an inhumane policy proposal that would mean saying "no", even to desperate arrivals, on the basis that they would cause our population to rise by a tiny amount.
It is worth noting that, according to 2002 figures, 45.96 per cent of Britain's land is used for intensive agriculture, 29.78 per cent of it is semi-natural, 11.91 per cent of it is woodland, and only 7.65 per cent of it is "settled" - that is, built environment. In the new pseudo-green arguments for raising the drawbridge, immigrants are once again being blamed for what are in fact social and political failures. It is underinvestment in infrastructure that leads to scarcity of good-quality housing or decent roads, not the arrival of people from overseas who simply want a better life. They should have as much right to live and work here as any of the rest of us - and if that means building more homes and roads to accommodate them, so be it.
New Statesman
Labels:
A8,
anti-immigration,
asylum-seekers,
BNP,
Migration Watch
June 18, 2007
Britain Forward has a go at us - though not a very good one
Oh dear, yet another attack. Britain Forward, the new site set up to cause as many divisions within the BNP as possible in the run-up to the (possible) BNP election challenge, has taken exception to us sticking our noses in and daring to have an opinion of our own.
In their latest attack, they point out that they 'engaged in some long and heartfelt discussions about the danger of giving ammunition to our enemies like the bunch of trotskyist scumbags and race traitors who go by the name of Lancaster UAF'.
We'll say it again because it takes a while for these things to seep into the average fascist brain, but everyone who is opposed to the BNP and other fascist groups is not automatically a 'Trotskyist'. In fact we have people from all political persuasions in Lancaster UAF, people of all colours and people of all religions (except possibly that one in Vanuatu where they appear to regard Prince Philip as some kind of deity). Anyway, don't worry about giving us ammo - we already know most of it.
Britain Forward then tries to give the impression that it is nothing to do with Sharon Ebanks by describing her as a 'half-caste vengeful clown' but the blog has pretty clear similarities to most of the Ebanks nonsense we've read and even if it isn't directly associated with her it is clearly associated with her idiotic comrades in the NNP. In any case, it sets out its stall pretty clearly, stating that it wants to 'rescue our proud country from a tide of alien immigration that, if unchecked, will lead to the Islamification of our country.' This sounds precisely like the standard BNP rhetoric, which fits in quite nicely with the fact that the NNP is packed with BNP rejects and outcasts. Even the attacks on the BNP in the same article sound the same as the regular attacks posted on Stormfront and other nazi forums.
'To do this we must first root out the cancerous political growth within our own movement, a leader who sees our party as his personal fiefdom. Our activists have not come through the street battles of the seventies and eighties, in some cases spending time in prison for our beliefs, and experienced the start of ballot box success, to allow either red scum or our own chairman who is betraying us stand in the way of ultimate victory for the British people.'
There they go again with the 'red scum'. Though they are right about the BNP being led by Griffin, who clearly sees the whole party and its many subsidiary companies - or certainly the income - as his private property. From the revelations that are emerging via email, various forums and our own last sticky post, there is a lot to be found out that is presently only rumour and hint (at the moment).
Finally, Britain Forward ends its pretty weak (we've had a lot worse) attack with a little anti-Jewish swipe. We knew they'd get one in somehow.
'So Mr Lancaster UAF, here’s something to make you choke on your smoked salmon and gefillter fish.'
Most of us are vegan or vegetarian, we could never afford smoked salmon even if we wanted to eat it and 'gefillter' is spelled 'gefilte', dumbass. We're starting to think Nick Griffin's got nothing much to worry about if this is all his opposition can muster up to attack us. Sad or what.
In their latest attack, they point out that they 'engaged in some long and heartfelt discussions about the danger of giving ammunition to our enemies like the bunch of trotskyist scumbags and race traitors who go by the name of Lancaster UAF'.
We'll say it again because it takes a while for these things to seep into the average fascist brain, but everyone who is opposed to the BNP and other fascist groups is not automatically a 'Trotskyist'. In fact we have people from all political persuasions in Lancaster UAF, people of all colours and people of all religions (except possibly that one in Vanuatu where they appear to regard Prince Philip as some kind of deity). Anyway, don't worry about giving us ammo - we already know most of it.
Britain Forward then tries to give the impression that it is nothing to do with Sharon Ebanks by describing her as a 'half-caste vengeful clown' but the blog has pretty clear similarities to most of the Ebanks nonsense we've read and even if it isn't directly associated with her it is clearly associated with her idiotic comrades in the NNP. In any case, it sets out its stall pretty clearly, stating that it wants to 'rescue our proud country from a tide of alien immigration that, if unchecked, will lead to the Islamification of our country.' This sounds precisely like the standard BNP rhetoric, which fits in quite nicely with the fact that the NNP is packed with BNP rejects and outcasts. Even the attacks on the BNP in the same article sound the same as the regular attacks posted on Stormfront and other nazi forums.
'To do this we must first root out the cancerous political growth within our own movement, a leader who sees our party as his personal fiefdom. Our activists have not come through the street battles of the seventies and eighties, in some cases spending time in prison for our beliefs, and experienced the start of ballot box success, to allow either red scum or our own chairman who is betraying us stand in the way of ultimate victory for the British people.'
There they go again with the 'red scum'. Though they are right about the BNP being led by Griffin, who clearly sees the whole party and its many subsidiary companies - or certainly the income - as his private property. From the revelations that are emerging via email, various forums and our own last sticky post, there is a lot to be found out that is presently only rumour and hint (at the moment).
Finally, Britain Forward ends its pretty weak (we've had a lot worse) attack with a little anti-Jewish swipe. We knew they'd get one in somehow.
'So Mr Lancaster UAF, here’s something to make you choke on your smoked salmon and gefillter fish.'
Most of us are vegan or vegetarian, we could never afford smoked salmon even if we wanted to eat it and 'gefillter' is spelled 'gefilte', dumbass. We're starting to think Nick Griffin's got nothing much to worry about if this is all his opposition can muster up to attack us. Sad or what.
Labels:
anti-immigration,
anti-Jewish,
Britain Forward,
Ebanks,
gefilte,
NNP,
racist
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