Muslim peace conference condemns terrorism

Thousands of Muslims have attended a peace conference in London which has condemned terrorism.

About 12,000 Muslims gathered at Wembley Arena for Islamic group Minhaj-ul-Quran's Peace for Humanity Conference. The conference launched a campaign to get one million people to sign an online declaration of peace by 2012.

Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri said the conference would send a message that 10 years of extremist activity should end. Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri is the founder of Minhaj-ul-Quran and gave the keynote speech at the event, despite having received death threats after issuing a fatwa - or religious ruling - against terrorism last year. The cleric was repeatedly applauded during his address in which he said the "terrible" 9/11 attacks in the US had distorted perceptions of Islam over the past decade.

He told the audience: "In spite of statements and memorandum and condemnation of the terror, the voices of the 99% true, peace-loving Muslims have not been heard, they have been drowned out by the clamour and the noise of extremists. Islam has nothing to do with any act of terrorism. We reject every act of extremism and terrorism unconditionally."

The event, which took one year to organise, was attended by people from across the UK, many of whom arrived in coaches. Those who attended heard a series of lengthy and impassioned speeches, some in Arabic, from Islamic scholars denouncing terrorism and extremism.

Ghazala Hassan al-Qadri, president of the MQI Women's League, told attendees: "Islam teaches love, it teaches compassion, it teaches tolerance, it teaches mercy."

Another speaker - Egypt-based Islamic scholar Shaykh Hassan Mohi-ud-Din Qadri - told the conference: "Islam is a religion of justice, not a religion of injustice...is a religion of manners and co-operation, not a religion of extremism and radicalisation...is a religion of forgiveness and pardon, not a religion of brutality and revenge."

The audience heard pre-recorded messages of support from, amongst others, Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, opposition leader Ed Miliband, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams. And there were prayers for peace from representatives from a number of different religions including the Bishop of Barking, the Rt Rev David Hawkins, Jewish rabbis and representatives from the Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh faiths.

The declaration of peace included a call for democracy and good governance in the Muslim world, respect for human rights, and alleviation of poverty throughout the world.

BBC

BNP threat in pub fracas

An engineer threatened to knock out a doorman and shouted at him: "I'm part of the BNP". The fracas took place during the weekend the BNP was holding its conference in Blackpool.

Lee Kelly, 33, pleaded guilty to threatening behaviour. He was fined £300 with £60 costs and ordered to pay the £15 victims' surcharge by Blackpool magistrates.

Martine Connah, prosecuting, said Kelly was among a group causing a fracas outside Yates's Wine Lodge on June 20 at 6.30pm. Kelly, of Easton Road, Droylsden, shouted at a doorman and pushed a police sergeant in the chest, shouting "don't touch me" and struggled violently when arrested.

Kathryn Edwards, defending, said her client, who had no previous convictions, had come to the resort on a stag party. She added Kelly denied being with the BNP.

Blackpool Gazette

BNP conference video report

Another gem from our mate Irish Tony!

Time to step up the campaign against the BNP conference in Blackpool

For years the British National Party has tried to convince the public that it has changed, that it is no longer racist, that it is a legitimate political party that simply wishes to take part in the democratic process - only to be shown up time and time again as a thoroughly racist group that has absolutely no interest in democracy except where it furthers the BNP's own agenda.

One of the innovations its leader Nick Griffin has brought in to try to convince the electorate that racism in the party is all in the past is to allow a clearly limited number of idiotic non-whites and Jews to join - much to the annoyance of the more hardline members - but that this is all a smokescreen becomes apparent when we read the comments of Griffin's supporters like Graham Williamson, former treasurer of the National Front and old chum of Nick Griffin and boss of the one-man PR company Accentuate, which now seems to be working for the BNP-front Solidarity, who suggested a stunt to deflect any accusations that the fake union was racist:

'The first ‘stunt’ should be a Press Conference launching the Union in Essex unveiling our first Sikh member Pramjit Sadra. This of course helps to counter the racist...accusations.'

That the racism and thuggery of the BNP is now largely covert rather than overt is demonstrated again and again as BNP members and allies, ignoring their leader's pleas to hide their hatred from the public, allow themselves to display their true hatreds either by attacking Iraqi asylum-seekers (Kevin Hughes, who earned himself two and a half years inside) or appearing and lauding Nazi Germany in programmes like the Channel Four documentary Young, Nazi and Proud (Mark Collett who, just a week later, was again sharing a platform with Nick Griffin).

Racism aside (though there is a mountain of evidence that proves the racism of the BNP beyond any shadow of doubt) there is continual thuggery and violence in the party. In just the past few weeks, we've seen David Enderby, the BNP councillor from Redditch, lose an appeal against his conviction for attacking his former wife, her mother and a fourteen-year-old girl at a party. Enderby, who claims he's ex-SAS, is not only still in the BNP but the party's recently-appointed Press Officer Simon Darby has made his views clear about the conviction:

'...the latest attempt to poison the electorate against the BNP involves our Redditch councillor David Enderby. Just a couple of weeks ago I attended David's appeal hearing concerning his ridiculous conviction for assault at Worcester Crown Court.'

The party welcomed the violent thug Kevin Hughes back too.

Another fine example of type of person the BNP wants in its ranks is former candidate Dominic Bugler, who was recently given an ASBO after subjecting his neighbours to 18 months of abuse at his family's hands.

BNP Parliamentary candidate for Hull Brian Wainwright was guilty of a campaign of hate mail against the local mosque, a Muslim councillor and a local anti-fascist activist. A letter in which he claimed, 'Muslim blood will be spilt' included 'SS' and skull and cross bones imagery. Another letter was sent to a local anti-fascist activist threatening that Combat 18 (the Nazi terrorist organisation who take their name from Hitler’s initials) would visit.

Swindon BNP activist Mark Bulman (who has used the pseudonym Bullock) was sentenced to five years after attempting to firebomb a local mosque using a BNP leaflet as a fuse. He also daubed swastikas and racist graffiti on local shops and businesses that he believed to be ‘ethnic’.

In June 2006 BNP councillor Brian Turner was found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence. He escaped a jail sentence and was instead ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work in the community. Turner has previous convictions of common assault and police assault after he was convicted of beating up his wife Melanie Turner.Again, just a few of many, many examples.

Part of the process of pretending to be a legitimate political party is for the BNP to act as though it is one and this, in the past couple of years, has including establishing an 'annual' conference. Anyone who has ever been to an annual conference of one of the real political parties or a trades union will know that they are generally an example of democracy in action. Leadership battles are fought, rules are made or amended and proposals are made, seconded, discussed and voted upon by the delegates who are there representing the wishes of their branch of the party/union. Not so with the BNP. After the last leadership challenge, Griffin wrote this:

'It was a pathetic, pitiful, desperate attempt to cause trouble for the most modernised and most successful nationalist party in British history by a handful of cranks left over from the BNP’s most sterile past, aided and abetted by a gaggle of Hollywood Nazis, congenital losers and thieves.'

Griffin then went on to describe the challenger's supporters as 'vermin' and has spent a good deal of time since the challenge vigorously purging them from the party.

The BNP drones on about 'democracy' on every available occasion yet never, in a million years, will Nick Griffin allow a democracy in the BNP. One of his recent blog posts had this to say on the issue of those party members who have unsuccessfully attempted to push through a truly-democratic 'one man, one vote' system:

'This group must now accept that their scheme to put the destiny of the BNP in the hands of anyone who deigns to pay their membership has been comprehensively and permanently rejected, in favour of a system that gives power only to those who have earned it, and who continue to earn it. The argument is over, and anyone trying to raise it again against the repeatedly expressed will of the vast majority of the party will mark themselves out as a would-be saboteur and a candidate for expulsion.'

The BNP always has difficulty finding a venue for any event - even a pub in which to hold a small meeting. To find somewhere that was big enough to pass off as a venue for anything as large as a 'conference' must have been a real problem for them. However, according to one of our correspondents writing in the comments section of a recent post, the BNP's former Blackpool organiser Roy Goodwin is friends with the owners of the New Kimberley Hotel, a run-down dive on New South Promenade, a pretty hefty walk from Blackpool Tower. This hotel, managed by Peter and Susie Metcalfe, was not only happy to host the conference for the BNP last year but was also happy to ignore the anger of the neighboring hotel owners, local trades unions, the local newspaper and many local people at bringing such notoriety to the area.

Far from considering such a community relations disaster something that should be avoided this year, the New Kimberley is once again allowing the BNP to infest its premises to the detriment of the immediate area and of course Blackpool itself.

The local TUC, Blackpool and Fylde College Student's Union, the newspapers, the NUS, the local MPs and numerous local councillors have all condemned the hotel for hosting the conference and the BNP for having the audacity to believe that Blackpool would welcome its presence but all to no avail.

That the BNP ignores local opinion is no great surprise. After all, it has no real interest in people or their opinions. The New Kimberley however, is an entirely different matter.

Blackpool has, of late, lost some of the edge it had over its competition as a holiday and nightlife resort. With super-cheap flights available, stag and hen parties (long a staple of the Blackpool scene) are increasingly choosing to jet off to Malaga or somesuch place instead. The astonishing decision not to use Blackpool as the site for a so-called 'super casino' has also hit the town hard, leaving depression and anger in its wake. If nothing else, the super casino would have generated a massive business boom for the area. Blackpool hoteliers and tradespeople are working hard to get Blackpool back to the hugely-successful resort it was until a very short time ago and the very last thing the townspeople want is for it to be tarnished by association with the racists and thugs in the British National Party.

One would have expected the party and the BNP-supporting New Kimberley to have realised that the BNP wasn't wanted in Blackpool when all its seven candidates were rejected by the electorate at last May's local government elections - but racists have never been noted for their intelligence.

It's up to us then to drum some sense into the hoteliers who want to pollute Blackpool with this filth. It's up to us to let the New Kimberley know that the BNP is not wanted in Blackpool and that the hotel is wrong both to invite them to the town and to expect us to sit back complacently and let them get on with it.

Almost all of the senior members of the BNP have strong connections with more overtly racist or nazi groups. Nick Griffin himself is former National Front and has lost none of his hatreds over the years, even if they have been tempered in public thanks to the law.

We've seen the effects that the BNP has when it moves into any town - racist attacks increase, racist stickers appear and other racist groups move in to take any scraps that are left and stir up more hatred wherever they can. The British People's Party, a virulently Nazi group that also pretends to be a political party, has been plastering highly offensive stickers all over Blackpool recently and the National Front stickered the town pretty comprehensively just after the last BNP 'conference'.

This is what the New Kimberley has invited to Blackpool and this is why we all need to make the effort to let the New Kimberley know precisely how we feel about this. It's no good telling the hotel owners that the BNP is a racist party - they already know that after inviting them last year and if what our correspondent said its true and they are indeed friends of the former Blackpool BNP organiser Roy Goodwin, they will know precisely what the party is all about and they will approve of its disgusting views.

One of our friends called the hotel and was informed that a) the BNP conference had been cancelled, and b) that the owner of the hotel was a Mohammed Abdul - presumably the New Kimberley's idea of a joke because neither of these statements is true. We're working on finding out who the owner is (and we will) but we need to you ring the hotel and attempt to speak to the managers (Peter and Susie Metcalfe) to put them right on why they should not be holding the conference there at all and we need this done as soon as possible (particularly over the weekend though that's not essential).

If you've rung before, ring again. You can't email them because they don't appear to have moved into the 20th century yet, let alone the 21st.

We will have the demonstration outside the hotel on November 17th at midday and it will be a large demonstration that will show those inside the hotel that plenty of us are prepared to take a stand against the BNP wherever it sticks its ugly shaven head. In the meantime, the hotel needs to know that its invitation to the BNP is intolerable and that under no circumstances will we allow the conference to go ahead without continual and loud protest.

We're working on checking out suppliers to the New Kimberley, the coach companies who bring many of its guests and the trade organisations who work with the hotel and once we have the information we are seeking, we'll pass that along to you. In the meantime, let's get calling and making our voices heard.

The New Kimberley, 585-589 New South Promenade, Blackpool FY4 1NQ, is run by Peter and Susie Metcalfe and can be reached at 01253 341184.

Curiously, the New Kimberley Hotel is registered at Companies House as the address for a company called Goldprime Properties UK Ltd (Company No. 05357988) whose accounts (in a neatly ironic twist) similarly to the BNP's own, are long overdue, its last return having been required but not forthcoming on 9.3.2006. There is a proposal lodged with Companies House to strike Goldprime from the register of trading companies.

Perhaps the BNP chose the New Kimberley because the hotel's financial position so closely mirrored that of its own, both being apparently close to going under. Or perhaps it's simply the moral bankruptcy that the party and the hotel share that the BNP finds so appealing. Either way, the parallels are beginning to seem uncanny.

It's not surprising that the New Kimberley isn't doing too well. We've been checking through the reviews from guests who have stayed there. One, a person calling himself Jacks2607, wrote this back in June 2006:

'The new Kimberly hotel Blackpool, its an utter disgrace, the food was absolutely disgusting, the manager was a complete waste of time. Our rooms had holes in the walls and during our stay the rooms were NEVER hoovered, it was damn right filthy. The portable appliance tests were over a year out of date and some even 2 years!. Everyone else on the holiday with us agreed. I reccommend this hotel to NO ONE. We would have been better off in a shanty town.'

A tatty third-rate hotel hosting a fake conference for a tatty third-rate party.

It's time to start pushing this protest forward and to let the New Kimberley know that it is doing the people of Blackpool and the region around it an immense disservice by allowing this bunch of thugs, thieves, racists and trainee-terrorists to infest it.

BNP conference to be in Blackpool again - at great expense to the membership

Once again our contacts inside the BNP have come up trumps with the information that the British National Party's 'Annual' Conference (its weak attempt to act in some way similar to a normal political party) will again be held at the ghastly New Kimberley Hotel at Blackpool.

The New Kimberley, a fast-decaying hotel at 585-589 New South Promenade, Blackpool FY4 1NQ - is run by Peter and Susie Metcalfe and can be reached at 01253 341184.

The conference is to be held on the weekend of 16th/17th/18th November and we are calling for a demonstration right in front of it at midday on Saturday November 17th.

Regular readers will recall that we got over two hundred protestors and loads of speakers up to the very successful demo last November. Maps and more details to follow as we get nearer the date.

Naturally, nothing the BNP does would be complete without an example of its startling financial ineptitude, and this conference, two months before it's even due to take place, provides us with a little classic that should have a few BNP members seething.

A number of telephone enquiries to the New Kimberley and a chat with a couple of highly-disgruntled ex-guests reveals that the current average cost of a room (B and B) for the night is £22.50 - or £27.50 if they throw in an evening meal. Given that the maximum number of guests the hotel can accomodate is 100 (it's a bit less but we're being generous to the incompetent BNP treasurer and rounding up) that means the cost of hiring the entire hotel for the two nights of the conference is either £4500 or £5500 if the attendees demand their evening meal of meat and potato pie.

Sadly for the party's membership, the treasurer, or whatever idiot was responsible for the booking, never bothered to do the maths and has forked out £7000 for the weekend, effectively giving away the nice round figure of either £1500 or £2500, a waste of 50-80 membership fees, a pretty good example of the contempt Nick Griffin and co have for the member's money.

The words 'piss-up' and 'brewery' spring to mind.

Talking of which - according to one of our correspondents who keeps tabs on this sort of thing from inside the party, the BNP managed to splash out around £10000 in the bar over that single weekend, an average of £50 per head per night assuming there were a hundred members stuffed into the bar. They'd have done better to have spent the money on booking into a better hotel.

Watch this space for more information as we get it...