Fighting, burn-out and depression: life as a BNP activist

Leaked document reveals how the far-right party is showing signs of strain in the run-up to elections

Senior members of the British National Party are "burning out", a leaked document drawn up by leaders of the far-right organisation has revealed. Long-serving activists are prone to fits of depression, picking fights with other members and "irrational or erratic behaviour", the BNP party manual says. It tells members how to spot someone with signs of "burn-out" and reveals that the BNP is dogged by in-fighting.

The details will come as some comfort to MPs who have cautioned that the BNP poses its biggest electoral threat for years as it attempts to capitalise on economic hardship. Harriet Harman, spearheading Labour's local and European election campaign for 4 June, said that many people were not aware that the BNP was fielding such a large number of candidates.

This month the BNP took second place in a council by-election in Manchester.

Under the heading "Burn Out" the activists' and organisers' handbook, which was leaked to the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight, reads: "Occasionally, a previously hard-working and constructive activist or official will 'burn out' and either go into an inactive fit of depression or, even worse, will start picking fights with colleagues or the leadership as an 'excuse' to drop out.

"The little factional squabbles that break out every few years in all political organisations always act of [sic] magnets to people in this unfortunate position. Although it's not very common, because we have so many officials doing so many great jobs, it's inevitable that a few will always be vulnerable." Signs of burn-out include "raised levels of irritability, irrational or erratic behaviour, depression and loss of hope".

The manual goes on: "If it happens to you, if by chance the time should come when you've had enough and have nothing more to offer, then please, please don't undo all the good work you've done and lose the friendship of people who have come to trust and admire you. Instead of picking fights or blaming other people for your decision to go, just tell your most trusted colleagues that you need some time out, shake hands and walk away with your head held high. That way you'll be welcome back at any time you want to get involved again, and in any case you can always be proud of your past efforts."

The booklet also warns activists not to set up official party blogs because "they can't write proper English" and describes some members as "oddballs".

A Searchlight spokesman said: "Everyone knows BNP members are irrational, erratic, hopeless people who like picking fights and blaming others, but it's surprising to hear them described that way in their own training manual. This proves that if any of this rabble were to be elected they wouldn't be fighting Britain's corner in Europe; they'd be fighting each other."

Independent

The biggest anti-fascist campaign ever

The BNP is looking to exploit the recession to win Euro seats; but thousands of people will thwart its message of hate

Over the next few months Searchlight and its HOPE not hate campaign will be gearing up to prevent the BNP from winning seats in the European elections. We anticipate mobilising thousands of activists and delivering over 2 million leaflets and newspapers in what will be the biggest and most intense anti-fascist campaign in history.

And it is needed. The BNP poses a threat in six Euro regions, with as little as 7.5% required in the North West, where the party leader, Nick Griffin, is standing. With Ukip faltering, few local elections and the economy hurtling into recession, we will need everyone who opposes the BNP's message of hate to play a part. A BNP victory will change the political landscape in Britain.

The last few years have seen the British National Party make significant electoral gains across the length and breadth of the political landscape – often off the radar of the political and media class at Westminster, which has remained preoccupied with a very small part of the electoral map that decides Westminster elections: so-called middle Britain.

Quietly but steadily the BNP has been building its support. While many commentators have focused on its traditional heartlands in the Lancashire and Yorkshire mill towns, the BNP has been widening its base across the country. In 2007 the BNP stood 742 council candidates, averaging 14.7% of the vote. Last year they averaged 13.9% in 642 wards. The regional average vote is fairly consistent across the country.

The critical element to this palpable support for the BNP is that it has occurred against the backdrop of extraordinarily benign macroeconomic conditions. Well over a decade of continuous quarter-on-quarter growth, low interest rates, falling unemployment and general prosperity have obscured the economic and cultural issues the BNP has focused on. It has tapped into a deep sense of alienation among many who have not prospered in the good times, a corresponding fracture of working class identity, and indeed demonisation in popular culture – all refracted through the prism of race.

On 15 September last year, when Lehman Brothers went for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US, the world changed. More specifically the world changed in terms of the climate within which the BNP is seeking to gain political traction. Any cursory reading of history suggests that recession and depression breed extremism; everything else being equal, the BNP will expect to benefit from the suffering and the insecurities that will intensify over the coming months and years.

Jon Cruddas and Nick Lowles
Comment is Free

Hypocrisy, homophobia and lesbian BNP organiser Donna Hancock

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Hexapla. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.

To add to its distasteful racism, anti-Semitism and residual anti-Catholicism, the BNP is an unequivocally homophobic party. The BNP views homosexuality in the same terms as it views the white working class: both are regarded as internal threats to the purity and strength of the White race and Britain. Given this, it is quite surprising to find married heterosexual and BNP Worcestershire Organiser Donna Hancock not only proclaim herself to be an open lesbian but that she intends to wed her girlfriend and take her to the BNP annual piss-up, the Red, White and Blue ‘festival’. If anything, Donna Hancock is making a big mistake and should brace herself for the inevitable backlash from the BNP rank-and-file.

The hypocrisy

Along with husband Lee Hancock (a BNP candidate), Donna Hancock operates the BNP blog, Worcestershire Nationalist. Despite Donna Hancock proclaiming herself as the BNP’s only open gay organiser, we find the following homophobic statements on the Worcestershire Nationalist blog directed at one of Britain’s leading anti-fascist activists, Denise Garside, herself an openly gay women (in addition to other homophobic writings):

“the lesbian Garside”, “Garside a fucking dyke”, “LGPA (Lesbian and Gay Police Association) = Looks Good Patently Aesthetic”

BNP Worcestershire Organiser Donna Hancock’s lesbian postings

Posting on the lesbian forum LoveGirls.co.uk (‘For girls who love girls’), Donna Hancock claims that not only can a lesbian be a raving fascist but that she also plans to take her girlfriend to the BNP’s Red, White and Blue festival:

“Hi, this issue bugs me loads. I'm a political animal and when I inform others of this there is often an automatic assumption that because of my lesbian preferences my political leanings must be of a liberal or leftist persuasion. In fact my political views are what could be termed on the right if one uses arguably out-dated political mapping. Anyway, I am planning to attend the BNP's RWB (Red White and Blue festival) in Derbyshire in August. Bet my g/f and I will be the only gay women present (just like last year although we did not go around asking or advertising ourselves as such!!) but why should this be so? Gay women have a lot to offer and this applies across the political spectrum. Please join me in fighting against the political stereotyping of gay women! It's all hands on deck as we battle encroaching liberal-fascism!”

Incredibly, Donna Hancock then tries to spin an image of the BNP as non-homophobic:

“From what I can gather about BNP attitudes, there are no more homophobes in its ranks than in any other Party and actually, suprisingly enough to anyone who believes that a so-called far right Party would be anti-gay”

As we show below, not only is Donna Hancock in denial over the BNP’s homophobia but is either a liar or overwhelmingly naive about the BNP. Donna Hancock goes on to regal us with the colours and styles of pubic hair that she and her girlfriend sport as well as the fascist-inspired tattoos she has on her genitals (she also says that “I am butch and I used to sign off my emails and texts 'the cock' (short form of my surname). Sort of gave it away I guess!”). Donna Hancock also tells us of her plan to wed her girlfriend, something, as detailed below, the BNP are definitely opposed to:

“Can anyone recommend a lesbian-friendly wedding planner? I'm in the West Midlands but I suppose my big day could be arranged from a laptop in the Outer Hebrides if need be!”

But, Donna Hancock then admits to fearing her family’s homophobia:

“I don't think that some of my relatives have even sussed that I am a lesbian ... I can't help but feel sort of gagged as these people are my family and I don't want to fall out with them ... How on earth do you come out to your dearest relatives when you know that they will not accept it in a million years?”

If Donna Hancock fears the reaction of her family, then she should defiantly fear the reaction of her fellow BNP members.

The BNP’s pure, unrefined homophobia

The BNP’s only elected member of the London Assembly, Richard Barnbrook, condemned homosexuality in the following terms:

“There is a close analogy here with homosexuality. No one knows what causes some individuals to do what the majority of any healthy society places on a scale somewhere between distasteful and abhorrent, but some individuals will behave in that way whatever the bulk of popular opinion ... [in] the present circumstances where such "alternative lifestyle choices" are presented as valid – even superior – by the most powerful behavioural modification programme in human history”

This homophobia has been translated in murderous violence. Former BNP member, David Copeland, bombed the Soho gay pub, Admiral Duncan, killing three people in a homophobic terrorist attack. David Copeland said his act was inspired by the BNP leadership. Readers can click on this link for a picture of David Copeland with master homophobe, BNP founder and leader John Tyndall. This is what BNP leader Nick Griffin said about the anti-gay Admiral Duncan bombing in the BNP’s then official magazine, Spearhead (June 1999):

“TV footage of …gay demonstrators flaunting their perversion in front of journalists showed why so many ordinary people find these creatures so repulsive”

David Copeland is not the only BNP-linked person to have carried out homophobic violence. In an April 2000 interview, BNP Thurrock organiser Dave Strickson boasted of attacking gays and lesbians in what he termed “queer-bashing” in Leicester Square. Further, BNP councillor Ian Meller was arrested as part of an armed fascist gang who attempted to attack a Gay Pride march in Leicester.

Writing in the BNP’s magazine, Identity (December 2003), BNP leader Nick Griffin denounced homosexuality as “form of behavioural deviancy”, “not a valid lifestyle choice” and “homosexuality is wrong” that “needs to be pushed humanely but firmly back into the closet”. Nick Griffin then issues this warning to gays and lesbians: if they continue to “press their aims further” there will be an “almighty backlash” which will result in the imprisonment of homosexuals in Britain. Nick Griffin has even advocated ways of criminalising gays and lesbians:

“There's plenty of people making soap operas that present homosexuality as a wonderful lifestyle, which as a matter of fact it very often isn't .. So if you fined or even imprisoned a BBC filmmaker for breaching those laws, then it's not persecuting a homosexual necessarily, it's persecuting someone for breaking those laws”

The BNP’s Director of Publicity (and former head of Young BNP) Mark Collett went on to call gay and lesbians: "AIDS Monkeys", "bum bandits" and "faggots" and said the idea of homosexuality was a "sickening thought". Also, that AIDS is a “friendly disease because blacks, drug users and gays have it”. Not surprisingly, a BNP spokesman told the gay newspaper PinkNews that:

“Some unfortunate people suffer from homosexuality so we will just have to tolerate them. If I was one I would be ashamed and would remain celibate”

The BNP’s founder John Tyndall in his official Dagenham by-election leaflet promised that the BNP would ban all funding to gay and lesbian groups. BNP London organiser Nick Eriksen even went on to claim that gays and lesbians attempt to convert heterosexuals to homosexuality:

"It therefore follows however that I do not approve of those who proselytise in favour of homosexuality or ‘homosexual rights’, or who parade proclaiming their homosexuality to the world"

The BNP’s website also carries the following homophobic policy:

“On the other hand the BNP is not blinded or cowed by political correctness and recognises that homosexuality, which affects less than 2% of the population, is not the norm and that homosexual relationships do not produce offspring – essential to the survival of a people and a nation. We therefore believe in a policy of tolerance to all forms of adult sexuality, but homosexuality should not be promoted or encouraged. The BNP ... is opposed to the flaunting or celebrating of homosexuality which ‘civil partnerships’ represent. We believe that the government should adopt a more neutral position towards homosexuality rather than aiding and encouraging it by passing legislation specifically and solely designed to favour it”

So, will Donna Hancock still persist in her myopic belief that the BNP will accept gay persons such as herself? When will she stop propagating the lie that the BNP can accept gays and lesbians? Is her hatred for non-Whites so overwhelming that she’s prepared to throw her lot in with an organisation that despises her too? Is this a turkey voting for Christmas?

Donna Hancock and her BNP husband Lee Hancock


The not so 'indigenous White' Donna Hancock and her Jewish roots

On the lesbian forum LoveGirls.co.uk, Donna Hancock admits to being East European Jewish in origin (not a good thing in the BNP) on her mother’s side:

“Tell me about it! I'm jewish on my mother's side ... They even talk about 'nice jewish boys' they want to introduce me to. I hear them 'kvetching' (complaining) ... Oy vey! ... All I want is 'a maidel mit a klaidel'. (trad yiddish for a woman in a pretty dress). Gezundheit to all reading this!”

Yet, posting on the Worcester News website, Donna Hancock gives the deliberate impression that she’s 100% White indigenous Briton when she writes:

“As to who are the indigenous Britons: The most up to date genetic studies have shown that three quarters of all British people are direct descendants of the first inhabitants of the British Isles that came here at the end of the last Ice Age, around 13,000 years ago, from the Iberian Peninsula .. There were later invasions and less violent immigrations which left a small genetic signal but no individual event contributed even a tenth of our modern genetic mix. So we are in fact an extremely homogenous people and indeed the indigenous, aboriginal people of this land. And as such, we have just as much right to fight for our interests in our homeland as other indigenous people around the world are encouraged and applauded for doing”

Donna Hancock dissimulation is further compounded by the following racist statement against Eastern Europeans on the Worcestershire Nationalist blog:

“They [Eastern Europeans] may be White, my comrades, but they have a completely different culture. And the hardships they faced in their own countries make them opportunists in ours”

One minority attacks another minority

Is Donna Hancock an inconsistent enigma? We ask this question because in the following posting on the Evening Standard website, Donna Hancock seems to be arguing for equal rights for non-White lesbians:

“Ken has not done nearly enough for us gay women! Where are the gay women in prominent positions within the Labour Party, let alone in the canteens of London? And there are sizeable numbers of lesbians who happen to be BME [Black and Ethnic Minority] -where are the support network for gay BME women fleeing from prejudice within their communities? After all, there's lots of support for heterosexual women fleeing forced marriages! - Donna Hancock, UK”

Yet, in a posting on the BNP’s website Donna Hancock rants against non-Whites as “the advancing dark hordes”:

“I’ve always thought that the best way to destroy something is to take the p*** out of it. “The Life of Brian” did a lot to destroy Christianity. I never thought I’d hear myself saying this, but we’ve got to support Christianity against the advancing dark hordes because, in reality, what sounds better to you? The sound of church bells, or the sound of wailing Muslims? We’re talking about the destruction of 2,000 years of religious history here. Not to mention such places as Avebury and Stonehenge. These sites have a huge cultural significance to us all that outweigh any islamic prayers, because these sites are linked to the ancient gods of Europe. Our gods stem from the beliefs of the Germanic people, and the people that built these ancient sites are our people. Anyway, is it just me or does Rowan Williams look a bit/ a lot Satanic? :D”

Donna Hancock in denial

Some BNP members claim that Donna Hancock is, like BNP deputy leader Simon Darby, a MI5 agent. It is pointed out that within a relatively short period of time Donna Hancock has been elevated to three senior positions within the BNP: BNP Worcestershire Organiser, the BNP’s national enquires team and the BNP’s membership team. But, we’ve got a more plausible explanation. As we all know, the BNP is renowned for a being a party of slavish political correctness. Indeed, the BNP proudly boasts of its equal opportunities program for marginalised minorities such as married heterosexual, part-Jewish and part-Eastern European lesbians such as Donna Hancock. The BNP must have stumbled across Donna Hancock when they read her post in which she complains about persons like her being grossly under-represented in British politics:

“As a gay woman, I would like to know what Ken and Boris plan to do for me - lesbians are terribly under-represented in most fields. And why the stereotype of the left-wing butch dyke (although I'm proud to be a teensy bit butch). My girlfriend and I happen to be right of centre politically”

Don’t worry Donna you’ll do fine in the BNP. It's full of misfits like you, so you should feel at home! You're a great advert for the BNP's much touted family values policy. We just hope that you were holding your girlfriend’s hand at the Red, White and Blue festival.

¡No Pasarán!