Council leader threatened after BNP meeting

A council leader has received death threats after opposing a BNP meeting at a charity-run hall.

It comes after the far-right party compared the Labour-run administration to the ousted Gaddafi regime. The BNP accused Labour-run Hastings Borough Council of prompting a protest at St Baldslow Memorial Hall in St Leonards. The party has now vowed to keep the locations of future Sussex meetings secret.

Simon Darby, BNP spokesman, insisted St Baldslow was just one of a number of venues the party could use in Sussex and Sunday’s event had gone ahead despite protests by more than 200 people. He said: “We have just liberated Libya from a dictator and yet the people of Hastings aren’t allowed to hear views different to the Labour Party. This kind of attitude means we don’t feel comfortable revealing where our meetings could be held because we don’t want hate mail sent to people willing to host us.”

Council leader Jeremy Birch insisted he had responded to residents’ concerns that the charity-run venue might host the BNP. He said: “I have had a few emails over the weekend. One suggested I should be hanged and another compared me to excrement. Far from being a dictatorship this decision was prompted by residents and was backed by the whole council.”

The BNP also complained of resistance to a stall set up by their supporters in Worthing last week. The party claim a man spat at Bognor and Littlehampton organiser John Robinson and attacked the stall.

The Argus

Police investigate alleged death threats over YouTube BNP video

Police are investigating a senior member of the BNP in Wales over alleged threats to kill a man who posted an anti-BNP video on a website

Roger Phillips, the BNP’s deputy organiser for West Wales, allegedly made the 12-minute expletive-filled telephone rant after he discovered the video about him on YouTube. Mark Watson recorded the call, in which Mr Phillips allegedly threatened to kill him, and handed it to police.

Avon and Somerset police said they had been in touch with South Wales Police and were investigating the complaint, which they described as “serious”.

Mr Watson, 46, an independent filmmaker living in Bristol, said he started getting phone calls from businessman Mr Phillips, 42, after he made an anti-racist video and posted it online. He said: “He started contacting me to tell me to stop making videos and telling me he would come and get me. When I found some more pictures of him and made them into another video, he phoned me and started shouting and swearing at me to take it down.”

One of the pictures in Mr Watson’s video included the BNP member’s 18-year-old son, and it was this that allegedly led Mr Phillips to make the death threats.

“He told me I had to take the picture of his son down,” said Mr Watson, who has subsequently removed the video from his YouTube page.

The threats, heard by Wales on Sunday, cannot be repeated for legal reasons because they could be used as evidence in court. But in one 40-second clip the caller, believed to be Mr Phillips, swore 14 times and threatened to kill Mr Watson twice. Mr Watson and his friend recorded it by switching his phone to speaker mode and recording the rant on a separate phone.

“My first reaction was ‘my God, I’ve got him now’,” he said. “But afterwards I realised this guy meant business and I really got scared.”

Mr Watson has kept a video diary of his life since the phone call, which was made on Tuesday December 1, and has posted it on YouTube, receiving thousands of hits in days. He is hoping to make a feature-length documentary about his experience after the police investigation and any subsequent court case is complete.

He added: “So many of my friends have been threatened by the BNP and they have backed down because they are scared, and I don’t blame them. But I wanted to stand up to them and show people exactly what they are. Since then I’ve been constantly bombarded with online messages and I’ve even been threatened again by somebody else, but I’ve also had a lot of support and that is really what’s keeping me going.”

A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said: “A man has made a complaint to the police. This is a serious allegation and we are investigating.”

When WoS tried to contact Mr Phillips, his phone was switched off.

The BNP’s spokesman and deputy leader Simon Derby said he would not comment until the police investigation was complete.

Last month, WoS reported how Mr Phillips was forced to withdraw “racist” football merchandise following threats from top Premier League sides. His company Patriot Products, which was based in Ammanford, sold an extensive range of nationalistic memorabilia, including golliwog badges with the names of clubs such as Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea.

Mr Phillips received numerous complaints from the clubs and the items were removed from the company’s website.

Wales Online

BNP "death threat" to Bristol film-maker

A "death threat" allegedly made by BNP Wales second in command Roger Phillips has been reported to the police by Bristol anti-fascist and film-maker Mark Watson.

Mr Watson recorded a 12-minute telephone call from Phillips, which he alleges contained a number of threats, including a threat to kill. The recording was handed over to the police on Saturday. Mr Watson says the police have recorded the incident as a crime and intend to arrest Phillips.

Despite this, in a video posted on YouTube Mr Watson says that Phillips continues to contact him.

Typical of messages left by BNP members on Mr Watson's YouTube channel are:

aryanpower18: Watson You Fucking Spineless Sack Of Shit,Giving It The Big I Am And Dishing Out The Abuse And Then Running To The Old Bill When You Realise You Fucked With The Wrong Bull.Your Nothing But Filthy Commie Scum

BNPCrusade: You are pathetic. No-one gives a shit about you and your crap videos - don't you even see how obviously attention seeking you are in order to make you feel important and meaningful?  Because deep down you know you are a degenerate Marxist self-loathing freak

terencematthew: you are one mentally sick individual.your mother must have hated you and your father probably got off asap.Hence your sick hatred and treason =quisling

Mark has been keeping a YouTube video diary of events to date (below). The BNP is virtually certain to flag Mark's channel for removal, in which case we'll host the videos elsewhere. In the meantime, anti-fascist YouTube users are asking that news of this incident is spread quickly, and in particular that the media are made aware of it.

A link to Mark's channel is at the bottom of this post.








Mark Watson's YouTube channel

Labour candidate for Southend West receives BNP death threat

Tom Flynn, the Labour party PPC for Southend West, was told he was “going to die” by a leading member of the BNP last Tuesday.

On 9th June, BNP leader Nick Griffin was forced to abandon a press conference on College Green in Westminster when protestors organised by Unite Against Fascism pelted him with eggs and chanted “Off our streets, Nazi scum.” Mr Flynn was involved in another, non-violent demonstration taking place at the same time against the BNP press conference.

Later that day, Mr Flynn was confronted by a group of BNP activists, in the presence of the deputy BNP leader. A member of the group said to Mr Flynn that they knew where he lived, and that the next time he set foot in Southend he was “going to die.”

In response to criticism that the demonstration against the BNP was stifling free speech, Mr Flynn wrote on the LabourList blog:

“I will engage with the BNP in the normal spirit of political debate once they offer me the same courtesy. I will never share a platform with the BNP when doing so risks more of the same death threats I have already received. I won’t be intimidated by you and your thugs Mr Griffin.”

Mr Flynn said he gave a statement to the police yesterday, and said that they were taking the matter “quite seriously.”

Council Bust