The BNP and the Media

The Film, TV and Entertainment Industry is a hotbed of wishy-washy, bleeding-heart liberal do-goodniks. At least, that's the received wisdom and, it's got to be said, it's largely true.

You don't need the brain of a Stephen (Hawking or Fry – it makes no difference at that level) to work out the historical reason for this: If an industry is catering for a Mass Audience, and that Mass Audience is a Multicultural one, it isn't going to go out of its way to alienate any sector of that Audience. It follows that those who choose to work within the field are likely to be inclusive, fair-minded and generally easygoing, with an interest in people of all backgrounds and a wish for a healthy, cohesive society.

Of course there are exceptions. One elderly TV Writer I knew used to fume at anyone who'd listen to him (few did) that his late-nineties cop show was cancelled by “The Jew Yentob” because “it didn't have enough ethnics in it”. It only took a moment to look at a calendar and a Big Book of True Facts to work out that it was actually cancelled by “The Gentile Michael Jackson” because “it didn't have enough quality in it”.And “it didn't have enough audience for it”, either. He writes books now.

Last year, a TV Presenter (with his own long-running series and issues around drinking) mentioned to his Producer that he was inclined to lend his support to the BNP come the next General Election. The Producer, knowing this would end his career in a kind of instant, total, no-coming-back-from-it-ever-again, David Icke-meets-Simon Dee car crash of public humiliation and total industry revulsion, managed to talk him out of it and keep the whole thing quiet. So quiet, in fact, that it's probably only common knowledge to a few hundred people, along with the Press of several countries.

And no – it ISN'T Jeremy Clarkson. Even he isn't that dense.

The Far Right, of course, like to see a conspiracy in all of this. Some might even go so far as to write bizarre screeds like “Who Are The Mindbenders?” (I dunno; Wayne Fontana's backing group?), in which the Author, one N. Griffin, sees World Media Industries controlled by the sinister machinations of the likes of (sinister music, please...) Michael Grade, Michael Winner, Felicity Kendall and Dennis Norden (“Tremble before the majestic power and mind-splintering terror of my Occasional Light Entertainment Specials, oh quivering mortals! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”).

The Far Right will, for example, hit the roof (followed by the Daily Mail Comments Board) over a TV documentary like Panorama's recent “Hate on the Doorstep”. “You'd never make a programme like that about Ethnics!” they'll say, while calmly forgetting about other recent, equally powerful films like Dispatches' “Britain's Islamic Republic” or “Britain's Witch Children”. All important films looking, often uncomfortably, at forces that undermine a healthy society.

Having no hope of ever penetrating the Media Industry, the BNP and their like have turned it to their advantage (in their own martyrdom-obsessed imaginations) by filling the dank recesses of the Internet with their own, barely-sentient video sludge.

There's plenty to choose from. At the “high end” of the market (which, in TV terms, is a bit like calling Pricedrop TV the crème de la crème of insomniac shopping channels) there's “BNPTV” with their wonkily-framed, no-proper-mic' “reports” presented by a succession of wooden, stammering numbskulls.

Then there are the likes of Roger Phillips' hilariously inept “exposes” of London Streets With Very Few White People In Them (we could all, of course - and with far greater ease - take out a camera and shoot in places where there would be Streets With Nothing But White People In Them), presented in such nervously hushed and terrified tones by the porky skinhead that you'd think he was, at the very least, trying to catch Kim Jong Il red-handed, naked and smoking crack with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a nuclear missle silo in downtown Pyongyang.

And then you've got The Rest. Oh, so much of The Rest: Those painfully amateurish attempts at “filmmaking” (step forward and accept your Award, Mr Bertie Bert!) that all seem to follow the same pattern:

FADE IN ON:

Music: “Land of Hope and Glory”

Image: A succession of still images of thatched cottages, smiling, blonde children, old ladies knitting in rocking chairs in rose gardens, etc.

Caption:
THIS IS WHAT OUR GRATE COUNTRY USED TOO BE LIKE

CUT TO:

Music: “Islamic Call to Prayer”

Image: A succession of images of women in burqas, bearded chaps burning the Union Jack, mosques, etc.

Caption:
AND THIS IS WHAT ITS LIKE NOW

CUT TO:

Caption:
VOTE BNP

FADE OUT:

On You Tube, where you can find hundreds of these things, they're usually followed by dozens of comments like; “V Powerful stuff – the mainstream media won't dare show this as it's TO DANJEROUS!” or “That was a thought-provoking film, I shall send it to all my frends and they will join the BNP too!” (actual comments, of course).

Either our Nazi Friends are so starved of anything to bolster their imaginary world view that they are genuinely moved, impressed and galvanised by such dross, or they're simply such undemanding knuckleheads that the very spectacle of a succession of still images projected with such rapidity as to give the illusion of movement is enough to excite them. (Having said that, there are so many BNP supporters on Facebook who list the cinematic oeuvre of Mr Danny Dyer among their favourite movies that the latter is entirely possible.)

The BNP and their like wouldn't last five minutes in the Real Media. No conspiracy; no Master Plan. Just that their message is both unwanted and unwelcome by Audiences. Quite apart from that, they simply aren't up to the task of making real programmes. And I suspect they never will be.

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 BNP's very quiet revolution

The far-right BNP's incursion into the roots of British politics - parish councils

Following the successes of the British National Party in the local elections last May, new instructions were sent out from the BNP bunker in preparation for the next round - the local government elections that will be upon us in three weeks time.

These instructions were simple and to the point - to conquer the media by overwhelming it with constant letters, emails and pro-BNP reports and to fight the council elections that very few people would bother to oppose and most don't even seem to know exist, the parish council elections.

Commentators (including us) have written about the former offensive on a number of occasions - pointing out how nazi forums are used to spread the word when there is an anti-Islam petition to be signed online and when email responses to anti-BNP articles are required, these being two of the simpler ways the BNP's increasingly sophisticated propaganda machine makes use of new technology.

We've pondered on the BNP's grasp of using the likes of Altermedia (a right-wing alternative to Indymedia) and other news sources to spread the far-right word. But everyone seems to have managed to miss or ignore the way the far-right party has sneaked in through the back door and begun very quietly to undermine us from within. Thus the BNP was able to report on April 5th that SIX new BNP councillors have been added to its list 'without a single ballot paper being marked'. So much for the party that purports to stand for democracy then. One of those new parish councillors, by the way, is Carol Collett, mother of the Hitler-admirer Mark Collett.

So, what precisely are parish councils? The National Association of Local Councils has this to say:

Parish councils are statutory bodies. Members are elected for a term of four years and councils are funded principally by an annual precept. Income and expenditure for the next financial year are calculated in the form of estimates. The net amount (the precept) is added to council tax, collected by the county, borough or district council (principal authorities) and paid to parishes in two six-monthly instalments. Parish and town councils can apply for other funding such as grant and funding awards, but they do not receive funds direct from central government, as principal authorities do.'

Nevertheless, they do receive funds and they do have a certain amount of power. One of their powers, for example, is to create or initiate local by-laws. And here we have six BNP parish councillors walking into office completely unopposed...

Another considerable power given to parish councillors is to be the first (though not final) arbiters in locally-based planning applications. One wonders how far an application for the conversion of, for example, a dairy to a mosque, would get when a parish councillor representing the rabidly anti-Islam BNP was thrown into the equation. Although parish councillors are intended to be apolitical, any councillor who has attended a parish council meeting will tell you that politics is just as much a part of parish life as it is in the city.

There is however, a Code of Conduct to which parish councillors supposedly have to adhere. According to The Parish Councils (Model Code of Conduct) Order 2001: Section 2, a member must:

(a) promote equality by not discriminating unlawfully against any person;
(b) treat others with respect; and
(c) not do anything which compromises or which is likely to compromise the impartiality of those who work for, or on behalf of, the authority.

We'd be willing to bet the new influx of BNP parish councillors ground their teeth at those.

Anyone who works at ground-level in any form of politics will tell you that there is where the real work is done. Certainly it's where previously unknown faces can make their mark and spread their names around, and parish councils are frequently the springboard on to district or city authorities. The fact that opposition to the BNP becomes apparent the moment a candidate stands in a district council election and that any opposition has an inevitable effect on the results of elections has obviously not been lost on the BNP. Nor can the party have avoided noticing that a huge percentage of its councillors are a complete washout in the job. Perhaps it sees the lower-stress parish council, with its general lack of opposition and more informal approach to business, as a training ground for its district councillors of the future - they certainly need some training in being useful and worthwhile.

Whether that's the case or not, the BNP is sneaking in by the back door, and will use any method it can find to worm its way into mainstream political life in the UK. It's up to us to stop it, whether it's at parliamentary level, district or parish. For the safety and security of all of us, we have to keep an eye on the back door as well as the front. If we don't, we might find Nick Griffin's mother (a former National Front parliamentary candidate) our next parish councillor. Wouldn't that be fun.