Imagine an experiment to create fertile conditions for a far-right political party to thrive. You might start with an exhausted government. You would hang a pall of petty corruption over it - some systematic expenses fiddling, perhaps. Then you would throw in an economic crisis, high levels of immigration and a surge in unemployment. You would incubate the mix in a culture of contempt for mainstream politics.
No wonder Labour is worried about a surge in support for the British National party in local and European elections next month. As the Observer reports today, the ultra-nationalists look within reach of European parliamentary seats for the first time.
The BNP has often before hovered around the threshold of electoral breakthrough. The alarm is raised and the threat subsides. It is then argued that needless alarm advances the far-right cause; that the BNP thrives on publicity from panic-stricken liberals; that disapproval from Westminster burnishes their anti-establishment credentials; that they should be left to suffocate in media silence. That is not an option in the digital age. The BNP doesn't need mainstream media to get its message across. And it doesn't need any help persuading voters that their interests go unheeded by out-of-touch politicians in Westminster.
The BNP gets much more attention than other fringe parties because the doctrine of extreme nationalism is a nasty virus in the body politic. It cannot be ignored. It must be engaged and defeated.
That means raising the alarm to combat apathy. The proportional representation system in European elections means that tiny parties can do well out of a modest showing in a low overall turnout. Even a small increase in the numbers bothering to vote for other parties can put a cap on the far right's performance.
But the BNP also needs to be beaten with old-fashioned political argument. Its flimsy policies should be rebutted and its underlying motive - to foment fear and inter-racial tension - should be exposed. The BNP works hard to shed its skinhead image. Rule No 1 of its "language and concepts discipline manual" tells activists not to identify the party as "racist". Rule No 4 instructs them to obey the law. What kind of organisation needs to remind its members not to be thugs?
The BNP has traditionally submerged its "whites first" agenda in the language of economic opportunity. It has campaigned on crime, housing, education, jobs and links them all to immigration. It projects real policy concerns through a prism of race. That creates a tricky balancing act for local MPs who have to persuade voters that they are concerned about the problems without adopting the BNP's analysis of their cause.
It is true that many working-class white communities have fared badly under Labour. But that doesn't mean non-whites are winning at their expense. The idea that there is a fixed pool of success - that one person's gain is another's loss - is a basic fallacy in far-right thinking. But the BNP turns the shame of underachievement into an aggrieved sense of ethnic expropriation.
The same approach is now applied to the issue of MPs' expense claims. The public perception of a Westminster elite on the make allows the BNP to project itself as a party of anti-political outsiders. The race issue is thus submerged even deeper. But it is there. When the BNP claims to speak for "ordinary people" against the establishment, it still means "white people".
The best antidote to the far right would be a movement that aspires to represent everyone who feels disenfranchised, alienated, excluded, regardless of race; a movement that promotes solidarity among poorer voters instead of dividing them. It would speak with moral authority against a political system that looks, to many voters, grotesquely skewed in the interests of a narrow, wealthy elite.
That no Westminster party can credibly deliver such a message shames the government. It was once the job of the Labour Party.
Observer
Showing posts with label race. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race. Show all posts
May 03, 2009
April 16, 2008
Race, diversity and 1 May
Operation Black Vote's Simon Woolley on the closest run and bitterest mayoral contest to date
This third London Mayoral contest will be by far the closest run yet. It’ll also be the bitterest.
Of course, a bittersweet dynamic of this fierce contest should lead to a better-than-average voter turnout - crucial if the BNP are to be denied any Greater London Assembly seats. But my worry is that many Londoners will be left feeling ‘don’t we deserve a better contest than this?’.
Unlike the previous two mayoral elections race has taken centre stage and I’m sorry that it has because London generally has a lower level of racial tension than we have seen in recent years in Paris, Bradford, or Birmingham.
For hundreds of years, particularly in the last 50, the capital's teeming diversity has been its strength. Diversity won us the 2012 Olympic games. But that’s not to say there aren’t tensions, or that tackling race inequality is no longer a priority.
The fact is that for the vast majority of people living in the capital, particularly the young, their identity as a Londoner is worn as a badge of honour. The identity of race and religion are not diminished, however, whether or not you are born here; the inclusive nature of London is very appealing. The biggest problem young Londoners face is not a racial divide but rather a territorial division that pits one neighbourhood against another - that's a serious problem for any mayor.
The capital's identity politics, as in the politics of voting, also takes on a life of its own. When the novelist Jeffrey Archer began his ill-fated quest to become the capital's first Mayor he made it his business to schlep all over the capital in an attempt to win over potential voters.
He courted the black vote so much that it was said he would go to the opening of a fridge if he knew there would be a black audience. It began to pay dividends. Archer would tell anyone who would listen, that he was not like his then exceedingly unpopular Conservative Party. His politics, he argued, were ‘for a world beating multicultural city, dynamic as they are different from the ‘run of the mill politics’. In a poll commissioned by Operation Black Vote (OBV) back in 1999 asking black communities who they would vote for as Mayor, Archer beat Livingstone, Trevor Phillips, and Susan Kramer. The next Tory candidate Steve Norris continued Archer's narrative that celebrated multicultural London.
So, why has race negatively come to the forefront this time around? There are two main factors. The first has been the wholly disproportionate attention towards Ken Livingstone’s former equality aide Lee Jasper, and a number of black groups and individuals, including Doreen Lawrence and Pastor Nims.
No-one in the black community condones financial wrongdoing but many have asked, was the scale of this focus on these allegations fair, and how come everyone targeted by this media onslaught just happens to be black?
The second element has come from Boris Johnson himself. His remarks about Africans and Africa have forced him to make an unreserved apology. Johnson has had to learn quickly that the politics of London demands that it’s not enough not being a racist, you have to be a passionate anti-racist.
There is a third racial element, which until last week largely went ignored. The Ken v Boris Punch and Judy Show has focused attention away from the politics of race hatred: BNP. Masquerading as democrats, and even courting their once archenemies - the Jewish community - the BNP are hoping their claim that they are no longer bigoted boot boys will win acceptance.
If they can keep up the charade, and there is a low voter turnout, the BNP would hope to pick up one or two Assembly seats. The result would be disastrous for London. The very essence of what brings people to London from all over the world to a multi-cultural metropolis would be threatened by politics that has its roots in fascism.
Some commentators have suggested the BNP’s success might not be a bad thing as it would shake up the mainstream parties. I disagree. Any far right political success directly translates into racial abuse, verbally and physically. Worse still their bigoted ideas would, even more, seep into mainstream thinking.
Last week, the mainstream candidates stopped attacking each other to unite against the threat of the BNP. Speaking at OBV’s coalition against the BNP, Boris Johnson declared that Londoners must register to vote and defeat the BNP. Ken Livingstone argued that as well as attacking the capital's cultural identity the BNP’s racial hatred ‘would turn visitors away’.
I agree with both of them and would add that, if we value what we have in London, lets protect it on May 1st.
New Statesman
This third London Mayoral contest will be by far the closest run yet. It’ll also be the bitterest.
Of course, a bittersweet dynamic of this fierce contest should lead to a better-than-average voter turnout - crucial if the BNP are to be denied any Greater London Assembly seats. But my worry is that many Londoners will be left feeling ‘don’t we deserve a better contest than this?’.
Unlike the previous two mayoral elections race has taken centre stage and I’m sorry that it has because London generally has a lower level of racial tension than we have seen in recent years in Paris, Bradford, or Birmingham.
For hundreds of years, particularly in the last 50, the capital's teeming diversity has been its strength. Diversity won us the 2012 Olympic games. But that’s not to say there aren’t tensions, or that tackling race inequality is no longer a priority.
The fact is that for the vast majority of people living in the capital, particularly the young, their identity as a Londoner is worn as a badge of honour. The identity of race and religion are not diminished, however, whether or not you are born here; the inclusive nature of London is very appealing. The biggest problem young Londoners face is not a racial divide but rather a territorial division that pits one neighbourhood against another - that's a serious problem for any mayor.
The capital's identity politics, as in the politics of voting, also takes on a life of its own. When the novelist Jeffrey Archer began his ill-fated quest to become the capital's first Mayor he made it his business to schlep all over the capital in an attempt to win over potential voters.
He courted the black vote so much that it was said he would go to the opening of a fridge if he knew there would be a black audience. It began to pay dividends. Archer would tell anyone who would listen, that he was not like his then exceedingly unpopular Conservative Party. His politics, he argued, were ‘for a world beating multicultural city, dynamic as they are different from the ‘run of the mill politics’. In a poll commissioned by Operation Black Vote (OBV) back in 1999 asking black communities who they would vote for as Mayor, Archer beat Livingstone, Trevor Phillips, and Susan Kramer. The next Tory candidate Steve Norris continued Archer's narrative that celebrated multicultural London.
So, why has race negatively come to the forefront this time around? There are two main factors. The first has been the wholly disproportionate attention towards Ken Livingstone’s former equality aide Lee Jasper, and a number of black groups and individuals, including Doreen Lawrence and Pastor Nims.
No-one in the black community condones financial wrongdoing but many have asked, was the scale of this focus on these allegations fair, and how come everyone targeted by this media onslaught just happens to be black?
The second element has come from Boris Johnson himself. His remarks about Africans and Africa have forced him to make an unreserved apology. Johnson has had to learn quickly that the politics of London demands that it’s not enough not being a racist, you have to be a passionate anti-racist.
There is a third racial element, which until last week largely went ignored. The Ken v Boris Punch and Judy Show has focused attention away from the politics of race hatred: BNP. Masquerading as democrats, and even courting their once archenemies - the Jewish community - the BNP are hoping their claim that they are no longer bigoted boot boys will win acceptance.
If they can keep up the charade, and there is a low voter turnout, the BNP would hope to pick up one or two Assembly seats. The result would be disastrous for London. The very essence of what brings people to London from all over the world to a multi-cultural metropolis would be threatened by politics that has its roots in fascism.
Some commentators have suggested the BNP’s success might not be a bad thing as it would shake up the mainstream parties. I disagree. Any far right political success directly translates into racial abuse, verbally and physically. Worse still their bigoted ideas would, even more, seep into mainstream thinking.
Last week, the mainstream candidates stopped attacking each other to unite against the threat of the BNP. Speaking at OBV’s coalition against the BNP, Boris Johnson declared that Londoners must register to vote and defeat the BNP. Ken Livingstone argued that as well as attacking the capital's cultural identity the BNP’s racial hatred ‘would turn visitors away’.
I agree with both of them and would add that, if we value what we have in London, lets protect it on May 1st.
New Statesman
Labels:
BNP,
Greater London Assembly,
Operation Black Vote,
race
October 18, 2007
Race-row scientist's remarks condemned by minister as fuel for far-right
A Government minister has condemned a Nobel prize-winning geneticist for claiming that black people are less intelligent than white people.
David Lammy, the skills minister, said that James Watson's comments were “deeply offensive” and would “succeed only in providing oxygen for the BNP”.
It follows comments by the US-born Dr Watson to a newspaper in which he said that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really”.
He hoped everyone was equal, he said, but “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true”.
Mr Lammy, a Harvard graduate whose family come from the Caribbean, said: “These comments are deeply offensive. They will succeed only in providing oxygen for the BNP. It is a shame that a man with a record of scientific distinction should see his work overshadowed by his own irrational prejudices. It is no surprise to me that the scientific community has condemned this outburst and I think people will recognise these comments for what they are.”
He added: “What is important is that this does not distract from the real business of giving people from all backgrounds the best possible chance in life.”
Dr Watson, 79, was one of three people working at Cambridge University who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for discovering the structure of DNA and now runs a School of Biological Sciences in the US. He made the controversial assertions in an interview in The Sunday Times.
Mr Lammy's comments follow the decision by the London Science Museum to ban Dr Watson from giving a lecture tomorrow after his comments were made public. The museum said that it was cancelling the American's speech. “The Science Museum feels that Nobel Prize winner James Watson's recent comments have gone beyond the point of acceptable debate and we are as a result cancelling his talk at the museum this Friday. If people want to know about the science behind genetics and race, they can book on to other events looking at this at the museum's Dana Centre over the next year.”
Dr Watson arrived in Britain yesterday to promote his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. He may also be banned from appearing at other bookshops and lectures planned for its promotion.
Dr Watson has courted controversy in the past, reportedly saying that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, proposing a theory that black people have higher libidos, and claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured. He has said: “People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.”
On the issue of obesity, Dr Watson has also been quoted as saying: “Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them.”
Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University, labelled his recent comments as racist.
“This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain. If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically.”
Times Online
David Lammy, the skills minister, said that James Watson's comments were “deeply offensive” and would “succeed only in providing oxygen for the BNP”.
It follows comments by the US-born Dr Watson to a newspaper in which he said that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really”.
He hoped everyone was equal, he said, but “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true”.
Mr Lammy, a Harvard graduate whose family come from the Caribbean, said: “These comments are deeply offensive. They will succeed only in providing oxygen for the BNP. It is a shame that a man with a record of scientific distinction should see his work overshadowed by his own irrational prejudices. It is no surprise to me that the scientific community has condemned this outburst and I think people will recognise these comments for what they are.”
He added: “What is important is that this does not distract from the real business of giving people from all backgrounds the best possible chance in life.”
Dr Watson, 79, was one of three people working at Cambridge University who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for discovering the structure of DNA and now runs a School of Biological Sciences in the US. He made the controversial assertions in an interview in The Sunday Times.
Mr Lammy's comments follow the decision by the London Science Museum to ban Dr Watson from giving a lecture tomorrow after his comments were made public. The museum said that it was cancelling the American's speech. “The Science Museum feels that Nobel Prize winner James Watson's recent comments have gone beyond the point of acceptable debate and we are as a result cancelling his talk at the museum this Friday. If people want to know about the science behind genetics and race, they can book on to other events looking at this at the museum's Dana Centre over the next year.”
Dr Watson arrived in Britain yesterday to promote his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. He may also be banned from appearing at other bookshops and lectures planned for its promotion.
Dr Watson has courted controversy in the past, reportedly saying that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, proposing a theory that black people have higher libidos, and claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured. He has said: “People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.”
On the issue of obesity, Dr Watson has also been quoted as saying: “Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them.”
Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University, labelled his recent comments as racist.
“This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain. If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically.”
Times Online
Labels:
David Lammy,
IQ,
James Watson,
race
July 29, 2007
Racism cases up by 76%, tribunal report reveals
The Equality Tribunal’s annual report revealed how 146 race case referrals accounted for a third of its workload in 2006.
Racism was also cited as the primary reason for complaints in twice as many employment cases than any other category, including gender, age and disability. The largest group taking cases were Eastern European workers in the building industry.
Director of the tribunal Melanie Pine said racism claims were succeeding in half of all rulings. “We do not publish the outcomes of each individual category but in cases of racism we are finding grounds for discrimination in about 50% of cases,” she said.
Ms Pine revealed how in recent years greater awareness, coupled with growing rates of immigration, had been a significant catalyst for the rise in racism cases. This trend is supported by the latest figures compiled by the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism. In the first half of this year it received 52 reports of racist incidents, an increase of 30% on the previous six months. The reports cover everything from social discrimination to physical assaults.
Committee director Philip Watt said racism was becoming more prevalent. “To some extent you would expect there to be some increase in the number of cases because of the increase in the population. However, the rate of increase is significantly more than the population changes would allow. This increase has been so dramatic over the past year that it is a worry,” he said.
Since 2001, race has streaked ahead of all other categories of complaint dealt with by the Equality Tribunal. It is most common in workplace disputes dealt with under the Employment Equality Acts. There has not been any noticeable rise in the number of race-related grievances under the Equal Status legislation, which covers discrimination in how businesses and services deal with the public.
Irish Examiner
Racism was also cited as the primary reason for complaints in twice as many employment cases than any other category, including gender, age and disability. The largest group taking cases were Eastern European workers in the building industry.
Director of the tribunal Melanie Pine said racism claims were succeeding in half of all rulings. “We do not publish the outcomes of each individual category but in cases of racism we are finding grounds for discrimination in about 50% of cases,” she said.
Ms Pine revealed how in recent years greater awareness, coupled with growing rates of immigration, had been a significant catalyst for the rise in racism cases. This trend is supported by the latest figures compiled by the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism. In the first half of this year it received 52 reports of racist incidents, an increase of 30% on the previous six months. The reports cover everything from social discrimination to physical assaults.
Committee director Philip Watt said racism was becoming more prevalent. “To some extent you would expect there to be some increase in the number of cases because of the increase in the population. However, the rate of increase is significantly more than the population changes would allow. This increase has been so dramatic over the past year that it is a worry,” he said.
Since 2001, race has streaked ahead of all other categories of complaint dealt with by the Equality Tribunal. It is most common in workplace disputes dealt with under the Employment Equality Acts. There has not been any noticeable rise in the number of race-related grievances under the Equal Status legislation, which covers discrimination in how businesses and services deal with the public.
Irish Examiner
Labels:
discrimination,
Eastern European,
Equality Tribunal,
race
May 02, 2007
Row erupts over BNP mosque letter
A row has broken out in Lincoln over a letter sent by a British National Party representative to the council leader criticising a new mosque in the city. Richard Foster, the BNP's regional representative in Lincoln, wrote claiming the mosque, on the site of a former church, could "teach terrorism".
Council leader Ric Metcalfe said the letter was being shown to the police to determine whether it broke race laws. All other parties standing in the local election have condemned the letter. A Lincolnshire Police spokesman said they had not yet seen the letter but were aware of the council's plans to involve them.
"I think it is absolutely outrageous and exposes the BNP for the party it's always been known to be and a party holding overtly racist views," said Mr Metcalfe, who is Labour leader on the council.
But Mr Foster defended his words, saying his opinions were nothing new.
"The building would become an Islamic centre, rather than just a mosque and this can mean that the Islamic form of 'getting your own way' - terrorism - could be taught there. I don't know if you're aware of the programme 'The Undercover Mosque' but anything I have put in this letter, in that documentary far, far, far worse things have been said about the [Muslim] community. I don't need anybody to tell me that the only thing to happen in these places is worshipping their god because we all know that isn't the case. Not all Muslims are terrorists but most terrorists are Muslims," he said.
Bashir Ahmed, from Lincolnshire's Racial Equality Council, said he was shocked at the letter's contents.
"To blame a particular group for something is a sign of racism. This [the BNP] is not a party to recommend neighbourly living or getting on, it's a racist party and there's no doubt about it."
'Prejudiced letter'
Eddie Strengiel, from the Conservative Party in Lincoln, said he agreed with the council's views.
"I would go along with Ric Metcalfe's comments. He and I have a lot of disagreements on the political side but this is above politics and is on dangerous ground. I don't agree with what they've said."
Echoing Mr Strengiel's words, Tony Charles Shaw, from the Liberal Democrats, said: "The BNP...doesn't actually, or it does think about the consequences of what it does but gets the argument wrong on almost every occasion. For me this is a totally prejudiced letter."
Tony Wells, a candidate for the UK Independence Party said the letter was "extreme" in its comments. "There's no doubt about it, the BNP is extreme right and fascist and can't get any further right."
BBC
Council leader Ric Metcalfe said the letter was being shown to the police to determine whether it broke race laws. All other parties standing in the local election have condemned the letter. A Lincolnshire Police spokesman said they had not yet seen the letter but were aware of the council's plans to involve them.
"I think it is absolutely outrageous and exposes the BNP for the party it's always been known to be and a party holding overtly racist views," said Mr Metcalfe, who is Labour leader on the council.
But Mr Foster defended his words, saying his opinions were nothing new.
"The building would become an Islamic centre, rather than just a mosque and this can mean that the Islamic form of 'getting your own way' - terrorism - could be taught there. I don't know if you're aware of the programme 'The Undercover Mosque' but anything I have put in this letter, in that documentary far, far, far worse things have been said about the [Muslim] community. I don't need anybody to tell me that the only thing to happen in these places is worshipping their god because we all know that isn't the case. Not all Muslims are terrorists but most terrorists are Muslims," he said.
Bashir Ahmed, from Lincolnshire's Racial Equality Council, said he was shocked at the letter's contents.
"To blame a particular group for something is a sign of racism. This [the BNP] is not a party to recommend neighbourly living or getting on, it's a racist party and there's no doubt about it."
'Prejudiced letter'
Eddie Strengiel, from the Conservative Party in Lincoln, said he agreed with the council's views.
"I would go along with Ric Metcalfe's comments. He and I have a lot of disagreements on the political side but this is above politics and is on dangerous ground. I don't agree with what they've said."
Echoing Mr Strengiel's words, Tony Charles Shaw, from the Liberal Democrats, said: "The BNP...doesn't actually, or it does think about the consequences of what it does but gets the argument wrong on almost every occasion. For me this is a totally prejudiced letter."
Tony Wells, a candidate for the UK Independence Party said the letter was "extreme" in its comments. "There's no doubt about it, the BNP is extreme right and fascist and can't get any further right."
BBC
April 19, 2007
Backlash against BNP
Church leaders have come together to condemn the BNP over the far-right party’s latest attempts to claw their way into the town hall. Eight candidates are standing in next month’s local elections, the largest contingent ever in Tameside.
The Rev John Holland, of Christ Church, Ashton, said: "I cannot support anything that breeds division and resentment between people of different cultural backgrounds. It is disappointing to see Waterloo as one of the wards chosen to field a candidate. We enjoy a very good relationship with people of other faiths. In fact, the church is being used this weekend for a Hindu funeral. The BNP are a divisive element. We are all God’s creation and although we may know him by different names, humanity is about wholeness. The BNP want to destroy that."
Waheed Ahmed, Imam at the Katherine Street mosque, Ashton, said: "In my time here, racial aggravation has never reared its ugly head. Certainly not on the scale of nearby towns such as Oldham and Burnley. People should support political parties which are working for the good of all people, be it in relation to race, colour and class or trying to create harmony and peace among all. I’d urge everyone not to vote for the BNP or anyone else who advocates hate and violence."
The Rev Philip Burrows, of Mottram Church, said: "I am not shocked by the amount of candidates standing. I have spoken out about this in the past. I don’t think membership of the BNP is compatible with a loving Christian faith."
Dr Phil Edwards, BNP national press spokesman, said: "The church seems to have forgotten that they’re here to preach the gospel, not to interfere in the democratic process. There is nothing un-Christian about being a member of the BNP. It is a shame the Muslim leaders in this country are expanding their religion while Christian leaders are allowing our religion to wither away."
Tameside Advertiser
The Rev John Holland, of Christ Church, Ashton, said: "I cannot support anything that breeds division and resentment between people of different cultural backgrounds. It is disappointing to see Waterloo as one of the wards chosen to field a candidate. We enjoy a very good relationship with people of other faiths. In fact, the church is being used this weekend for a Hindu funeral. The BNP are a divisive element. We are all God’s creation and although we may know him by different names, humanity is about wholeness. The BNP want to destroy that."
Waheed Ahmed, Imam at the Katherine Street mosque, Ashton, said: "In my time here, racial aggravation has never reared its ugly head. Certainly not on the scale of nearby towns such as Oldham and Burnley. People should support political parties which are working for the good of all people, be it in relation to race, colour and class or trying to create harmony and peace among all. I’d urge everyone not to vote for the BNP or anyone else who advocates hate and violence."
The Rev Philip Burrows, of Mottram Church, said: "I am not shocked by the amount of candidates standing. I have spoken out about this in the past. I don’t think membership of the BNP is compatible with a loving Christian faith."
Dr Phil Edwards, BNP national press spokesman, said: "The church seems to have forgotten that they’re here to preach the gospel, not to interfere in the democratic process. There is nothing un-Christian about being a member of the BNP. It is a shame the Muslim leaders in this country are expanding their religion while Christian leaders are allowing our religion to wither away."
Tameside Advertiser
April 10, 2007
BNP's Griffin speaks
Click on image for full size
A pdf file of the poster (32k) can be downloaded from here.
A pdf file of the poster (32k) can be downloaded from here.
April 09, 2007
Tory candidate accused of echoing the BNP message
The future of a Conservative candidate was hanging in the balance last night after he became embroiled in a race row over his campaign literature, The Times can reveal.
Luke Mackenzie, a Tory candidate in a British National Party (BNP) target ward in Basildon, was accused of peddling scare stories by suggesting that people who wanted to stop asylum-seekers being given council houses should vote Conservative.
David Cameron faced calls to disown the candidate last night, but the Conservative Party avoided immediate action, saying that it would examine the election leaflet this week. This contrasted with the swift action last month to dismiss Patrick Mercer from the Tory front-bench after he referred to “black bastards” in the Army. A Tory spokesman said: “We encourage all councillors to confront the BNP and not to pander to them.”
Mr Mackenzie, who is standing against the local council’s only ethnic minority councillor, told The Times that he did not believe that his remarks would inflame racial tensions because “people were aware of this anyway”.
The leaflet, headed “Conservatives: We’re on your side”, refers to being on the “front line” in a “battle”, talking about local people “getting organised” and “fighting back”. It says: “I support Conservative policy of giving council housing to Basildon residents and not [of it] being used to house asylum seekers. There is a shortage of homes, but at the same time the Labour Government is encouraging record levels of immigration.”
Opposition politicians said that the remarks were highly inflammatory and echoed the message used by the BNP in other parts of the country.
Mr Mackenzie, a 21-year-old politics student at Westminster University, is standing in the local elections against Labour’s Swatantra Nandanwar in a ward where the BNP took 22.7 per cent of the vote in 2004. The party’s record for the area is 25.3 per cent in the Fryerns ward last year.
This year the BNP is contesting 11 of the 14 seats up for election in Basildon, part of a remarkable surge of activity across the country. It is to field 655 candidates, double the number who stood last time. It currently has 49 council seats.
Mr Mackenzie denied accusations he was stoking up racism. “At the end of the day it’s [the main parties] not saying things like this that is encouraging racism tension because the only place people can turn to is the British National Party.”
He said that there was strong feeling among residents that people from outside the area were causing a housing shortage. “They blame the influx of immigration [as one reason for this], because there isn’t enough housing in the UK and you’ve got thousands of people coming from abroad.”
Asked what he thought Basildon residents felt about immigration, he said: “They think it’s entirely out of control.” He said that it was a view that he shared, adding: “The cause of this is that there is no real control over who is here.” It is already virtually impossible for asylum seekers to get housing in Basildon after the council changed the system to give preference to people who have been in the area a long time.
Jon Cruddas, a Labour MP and deputy leadership contender who campaigns against the BNP, said: “This dangerous exploitation of people’s fears is a gift to extremist organisations such as the BNP. Peddling myths about immigrants pouring into a town or about asylum seekers supposedly being given council housing ahead of other residents is incredibly unhelpful. If David Cameron is serious about fighting racism he should disown this candidate straight away.”
Times Online
Luke Mackenzie, a Tory candidate in a British National Party (BNP) target ward in Basildon, was accused of peddling scare stories by suggesting that people who wanted to stop asylum-seekers being given council houses should vote Conservative.
David Cameron faced calls to disown the candidate last night, but the Conservative Party avoided immediate action, saying that it would examine the election leaflet this week. This contrasted with the swift action last month to dismiss Patrick Mercer from the Tory front-bench after he referred to “black bastards” in the Army. A Tory spokesman said: “We encourage all councillors to confront the BNP and not to pander to them.”
Mr Mackenzie, who is standing against the local council’s only ethnic minority councillor, told The Times that he did not believe that his remarks would inflame racial tensions because “people were aware of this anyway”.
The leaflet, headed “Conservatives: We’re on your side”, refers to being on the “front line” in a “battle”, talking about local people “getting organised” and “fighting back”. It says: “I support Conservative policy of giving council housing to Basildon residents and not [of it] being used to house asylum seekers. There is a shortage of homes, but at the same time the Labour Government is encouraging record levels of immigration.”
Opposition politicians said that the remarks were highly inflammatory and echoed the message used by the BNP in other parts of the country.
Mr Mackenzie, a 21-year-old politics student at Westminster University, is standing in the local elections against Labour’s Swatantra Nandanwar in a ward where the BNP took 22.7 per cent of the vote in 2004. The party’s record for the area is 25.3 per cent in the Fryerns ward last year.
This year the BNP is contesting 11 of the 14 seats up for election in Basildon, part of a remarkable surge of activity across the country. It is to field 655 candidates, double the number who stood last time. It currently has 49 council seats.
Mr Mackenzie denied accusations he was stoking up racism. “At the end of the day it’s [the main parties] not saying things like this that is encouraging racism tension because the only place people can turn to is the British National Party.”
He said that there was strong feeling among residents that people from outside the area were causing a housing shortage. “They blame the influx of immigration [as one reason for this], because there isn’t enough housing in the UK and you’ve got thousands of people coming from abroad.”
Asked what he thought Basildon residents felt about immigration, he said: “They think it’s entirely out of control.” He said that it was a view that he shared, adding: “The cause of this is that there is no real control over who is here.” It is already virtually impossible for asylum seekers to get housing in Basildon after the council changed the system to give preference to people who have been in the area a long time.
Jon Cruddas, a Labour MP and deputy leadership contender who campaigns against the BNP, said: “This dangerous exploitation of people’s fears is a gift to extremist organisations such as the BNP. Peddling myths about immigrants pouring into a town or about asylum seekers supposedly being given council housing ahead of other residents is incredibly unhelpful. If David Cameron is serious about fighting racism he should disown this candidate straight away.”
Times Online
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March 30, 2007
e-petition to ban the BNP
Some of our readers may want to sign the e-petition on the 10 Downing Street site, to ban the BNP.
The petition reads: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Ban the British National Party (BNP).
The BNP is a party whose 'values' go against the core values of the British People: respect for your fellow humans, equality for all regardless of race, creed, religion etc. This is a party who likes to prey on people's fears and try to create divisions in society rather than build bridges...so i urge you to sign this petition and make the BNP history!
Never mind the waffle, point me at it!
The petition reads: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Ban the British National Party (BNP).
The BNP is a party whose 'values' go against the core values of the British People: respect for your fellow humans, equality for all regardless of race, creed, religion etc. This is a party who likes to prey on people's fears and try to create divisions in society rather than build bridges...so i urge you to sign this petition and make the BNP history!Never mind the waffle, point me at it!
March 26, 2007
Hope not Hate blog update
The Daily Mirror Hope Not Hate bus launched today, kicking off our campaign aimed at spreading goodwill ahead of the May elections, on a journey from London to Glasgow that will cover 1600 miles and many different communities in the UK.
It was a bright cold day, and the bus was unmissable, parked up on a South London pavement by the market at Merton Abbey Mills. It had arrived from Wales that morning and it was the first time we had seen it in its red and yellow livery and experienced the reactions it gets. Lots of thumbs ups, waves and cheers, people at bus stops looking a bit puzzled because they're expecting the 38 not the Hope not Hate. The very occasional v-sign from people who don't like the idea of hope (what kind of person hates hope?).
We'll be spending 15 days on the bus in total, travelling from London to Glasgow in a strange curly scribble of a route that takes in all the communities who wanted to organise something for our fortnight celebrating the diverse and tolerant country in which we live. Our itinerary is still quite sketchy at this stage, but the route takes in Dagenham & Thurrock, Northampton & Leicester, Nottingham & Lincoln and Sheffield before we even get to Tuesday.
We're all really looking forward to visiting the different communities along the way. The celebrity support we've had so far has been overwhelming, but it's the real people we want to see. There's so much planned - from colliery brass bands to Welsh male voice choirs to school events and food festivals - that will be a real privilege to see.
It's not often you get the chance to take a journey like this, especially not on a 1964 Leyland Titan double decker. We realised today that it's going to be very cold, as there's no heating on the bus, and very slow (top speed 38mph and that's downhill with a favourable wind), and the bus lurches like a drunk on the top deck. But it's also going to be a fascinating insight into what makes up modern Britain.
We were all shocked today by the reaction of the BNP to the trip, which is aimed at nothing more earth-shattering or radical than celebrating the diverse country we all live in and see outside our windows and on our televisions every day.
There were quite a few phonecalls yesterday when a special eight page supplement launched the campaign, making offensive - and frankly factually wrong - comments about non-white communities and complaining about the "evil" Nelson Mandela.
Then today the BNP's official website took issue with our campaign and a piece I wrote for the supplement: "Clearly the writer has never stepped out of his or her ivory tower into the ghettos of Tower Hamlets, the killing fields of south London where various tribes of African descent are wagging (sic) war with one another, the no go areas for native Britons in Birmingham, Peterborough and Glasgow."
The thing is, I live in the 'Killing Fields' of South London and I love where I live. Part of the reason I love my street is that it is filled with different vibrant cultures. And I am far more concerned by what I've read on the BNP website today than by any of my neighbours.
I've also reported many times from the scene of all kinds of gun deaths and urban tragedies across Britain, and I can tell you that poverty is the defining factor here, not race. Poverty afflicts immigrant communities and white communities the same, and its presence is writ large over every gun death and knife death and drug death I've seen in the UK. Clapham North where a 15-year-old schoolboy was killed in cold blood last month is not 'no-go', but an affluent middle class area with pockets of poverty. His parents were decent working people whose son was trying to break free of a culture of criminality that afflicts people of all races who live in poverty.
The last time I went to a 'no-go' estate, in Glasgow, it was to cover the story of a white child in a predominantly white school collapsing from sniffing heroin at her desk. That tragedy was rooted in poverty too.
Anyway, I'm partly acknowledging this reaction as I expect this blog to attract the attentions of some of the same people who rang the paper yesterday, and I wanted to warn genuine readers that some of the comments posted below may well be by people with extreme views.
Mostly I'm shocked that the BNP are so blatant. I thought they went round knocking on people's doors pretending to be a mainstream political party these days?
Funniest moment of the day: Finding two European tourists on the bus taking photos of each other and presumably hoping to be driven to Hope, the destination on the front of the bus.
Best moment of the day: Meeting the cast of Rafta Rafta at the National Theatre who came out to support us in the rain by the Thames.
Song of the day: The wheels on the bus go round and round.
Weather: Wintery
Multicultural event of the day: Mr Singh who called to say he was wearing his special St George's red and white turban in honour of our campaign.
Mirror
It was a bright cold day, and the bus was unmissable, parked up on a South London pavement by the market at Merton Abbey Mills. It had arrived from Wales that morning and it was the first time we had seen it in its red and yellow livery and experienced the reactions it gets. Lots of thumbs ups, waves and cheers, people at bus stops looking a bit puzzled because they're expecting the 38 not the Hope not Hate. The very occasional v-sign from people who don't like the idea of hope (what kind of person hates hope?).
We'll be spending 15 days on the bus in total, travelling from London to Glasgow in a strange curly scribble of a route that takes in all the communities who wanted to organise something for our fortnight celebrating the diverse and tolerant country in which we live. Our itinerary is still quite sketchy at this stage, but the route takes in Dagenham & Thurrock, Northampton & Leicester, Nottingham & Lincoln and Sheffield before we even get to Tuesday.
We're all really looking forward to visiting the different communities along the way. The celebrity support we've had so far has been overwhelming, but it's the real people we want to see. There's so much planned - from colliery brass bands to Welsh male voice choirs to school events and food festivals - that will be a real privilege to see.
It's not often you get the chance to take a journey like this, especially not on a 1964 Leyland Titan double decker. We realised today that it's going to be very cold, as there's no heating on the bus, and very slow (top speed 38mph and that's downhill with a favourable wind), and the bus lurches like a drunk on the top deck. But it's also going to be a fascinating insight into what makes up modern Britain.
We were all shocked today by the reaction of the BNP to the trip, which is aimed at nothing more earth-shattering or radical than celebrating the diverse country we all live in and see outside our windows and on our televisions every day.
There were quite a few phonecalls yesterday when a special eight page supplement launched the campaign, making offensive - and frankly factually wrong - comments about non-white communities and complaining about the "evil" Nelson Mandela.
Then today the BNP's official website took issue with our campaign and a piece I wrote for the supplement: "Clearly the writer has never stepped out of his or her ivory tower into the ghettos of Tower Hamlets, the killing fields of south London where various tribes of African descent are wagging (sic) war with one another, the no go areas for native Britons in Birmingham, Peterborough and Glasgow."
The thing is, I live in the 'Killing Fields' of South London and I love where I live. Part of the reason I love my street is that it is filled with different vibrant cultures. And I am far more concerned by what I've read on the BNP website today than by any of my neighbours.
I've also reported many times from the scene of all kinds of gun deaths and urban tragedies across Britain, and I can tell you that poverty is the defining factor here, not race. Poverty afflicts immigrant communities and white communities the same, and its presence is writ large over every gun death and knife death and drug death I've seen in the UK. Clapham North where a 15-year-old schoolboy was killed in cold blood last month is not 'no-go', but an affluent middle class area with pockets of poverty. His parents were decent working people whose son was trying to break free of a culture of criminality that afflicts people of all races who live in poverty.
The last time I went to a 'no-go' estate, in Glasgow, it was to cover the story of a white child in a predominantly white school collapsing from sniffing heroin at her desk. That tragedy was rooted in poverty too.
Anyway, I'm partly acknowledging this reaction as I expect this blog to attract the attentions of some of the same people who rang the paper yesterday, and I wanted to warn genuine readers that some of the comments posted below may well be by people with extreme views.
Mostly I'm shocked that the BNP are so blatant. I thought they went round knocking on people's doors pretending to be a mainstream political party these days?
Funniest moment of the day: Finding two European tourists on the bus taking photos of each other and presumably hoping to be driven to Hope, the destination on the front of the bus.
Best moment of the day: Meeting the cast of Rafta Rafta at the National Theatre who came out to support us in the rain by the Thames.
Song of the day: The wheels on the bus go round and round.
Weather: Wintery
Multicultural event of the day: Mr Singh who called to say he was wearing his special St George's red and white turban in honour of our campaign.
Mirror
March 21, 2007
Braindead in cyberspace
Anybody who has ever posted to an internet forum will be aware that these are prime targets for manipulation by the Braindead Neanderthal Party (BNP). In some cases this can be subtle, in most cases it's as subtle as a sledgehammer. BNP members routinely flood forums with threads on race and immigration, then support themselves with a multiplicity of sock puppets.
Sock puppets are operated in a variety of ways. There is usually an attempt to pretend that more BNP members exist on a forum than is really the case. Some sock puppets are deployed as "ordinary members of the public" who invariably support the BNP line. Some are deployed to hunt with the hounds and run with the foxes. Some will appear to mildly question the BNP and its policies - the questions posed in an easily rebutted manner, as was the intention.
Many BNP posters adopt a tone of sweet reason, and are capable of dressing up their vile propaganda in some handsome clothes. But most of them will simply post with a link to a news story - so long as the story is crime-related and has a picture of a black or Asian face, they're satisfied. Then the sock puppets come in to do their duty.
The majority of BNP posters being notably unintelligent, they frequently revert to gutter language and have few inhibitions about making personal attacks on other posters. This frequently leads to them being banned - but they always come back.
What is remarkable to many is that abusive BNP posters fail to understand that for every person posting on a forum there are many more "lurkers" - people who simply like to browse forums but who do not feel inclined to contribute. Members of other political parties might have a care for what these unseen lurkers make of them, but the braindead BNP rarely do.
Illustrative of this is the curious case of the Oxfordshire and Brighton Argus forums.
For some years the Brighton Argus forum has been targetted by various BNP supporters, who, true to form, began thread after thread on their favourite subject and got on with the business of abusing their gainsayers. This led to a pattern of bannings and reincarnations that has continued to this day.
Somewhere along the line, the Argus BNP contingent discovered the Oxfordshire forum, where they began their familiar pattern. Though moderation of the Argus forum is at best feeble, at the Oxfordshire forum it is virtually non-existent. Very quickly the language and the abuse reached new depths, and what was by all accounts once a very active and lively forum began a steady decline as regulars deserted, tired at the endless immigration threads and the certainty that questioning or opposing the BNP supporters would bring a shower of foul-mouthed abuse raining down upon them.
Today the Oxfordshire forum is a sterile, inert place, populated only by the braindead BNP, the odd die hard-regular, and an anti-BNP campaigner.
Back at the Argus, they have adopted a new tactic. This involves blocking threads started by people they detest, or where the balance of posting has gone against them (as it always does), or where they have been shown to be liars, or - uniquely, where they have started a thread so that they can block it themselves and blame "the lefties".
Thread blocking apparently works by posting huge amounts of data into a reply box. The effect is to cause something akin to server time-outs. The posts can only be viewed after several minutes of rendering (if at all), cannot be added to, and also have the effect of making the site run slowly.
For some time these idiots have run riot, blocking entire pages of threads. They schizophrenically admit to thread blocking one day (in the name of "free speech", as one of them claimed), and the next blame "the lefties". And they sit in their empty haven of the Oxfordshire forum to crow to one another about how well they have done.
Of course, it has never yet occurred to them that they are doing the party they support the biggest disservice possible - but I don't call them braindead for nothing!
Things have lately become so serious on the Argus forum that one of their own, posting on the Nazi Stormfront site, took them to task:
'Well you and your buddies have screwed up big time. Now nobody can post to either forum and there are likely to be legal consequences and bad publicity that are going to reflect badly on all Nationalists. Thank you. Thank you very much.... You swamped the forum with race-based posts that had nothing to say but just contained links to news stories. It was all you did, and not surprisingly other posters got fed up with it. You wouldn't leave threads that had nothing to do with race alone and other posters got fed up with that too. When they complained to you, you and your cronies immediately stooped to personal abuse. You even abused people who had a BNP mindset... You also did the same thing on the Oxford forums. You made that forum a joke and even when one of our own people came on to fire a warning shot across your bows you ignored him. You caused disruption every day on the Argus forum and used the Oxford forum to boast about it. Very clever... You went there and behaved like trolls so you got treated like trolls.'
Those are excerpts from the first of a series of Stormfront posts. The response of the Braindeads was predictable - they ignored what any rational person would have seen to be sound advice. Unable to believe that one of their own could seriously question their disruption of the two forums they concluded that the Stormfront poster must be an imposter!
BNP antics on two obscure internet forums might not seem to carry much importance (and on these two forums at least, the BNPs are their own worst enemies), but multiply that by several hundred active forums and you have thousands and thousands of people daily exposed to their message - no matter how badly or unintelligently it is posed.
Several things have become very clear to me, after browsing several dozen BNP-infested forums. That is their ability to brazenly lie, to avoid difficult questions (usually by coming back with a question), to query their opponents' bona fides, to attribute to their opponents things they have never said or done, to take statistics and quotes and to mangle them until they fit in with the BNP purpose, and to deflect almost any topic, no matter how innocent, into anti-immigrant propaganda.
There is also a strange propensity for dredging up posts by opponents that were made years before - as if these creepy creatures were keeping databases of who said what and when. Now why would they want to do that?
The BNP encourage and pursue cyber-activism with a vengeance. They realise, even if their opponents do not, that the Internet is an increasingly vital tool in the war of ideas and propaganda, and that the internet forum is one of the strategic fronts in that war. They have taken the initiative, meeting little real opposition away from the larger forums - and though, thanks to their own incompetence and stupidity, they frequently do themselves more harm than good, we should remember that often a post containing nothing more than a link to a crime story with ethnic minority involvement is all that is needed for them to get their racist message across.
Though it isn't my wish to either deny or denigrate the anti-racist stalwarts who do oppose the BNP on many forums, I think we can do so much more. They have many small local newspaper forums to themselves - forums which do have quite a wide local readership. We should be on these forums, not only challenging their views, but exposing their organisation for what it really is.
And the BNP make it so easy!
A thread on crime? Respond by posting of criminality among the BNP membership themselves - there are more than enough links to such stories. Or remind them of the missing money promised to Sharon Ebanks, collected from among their own ranks. Why do none of them ever question what happened to it?
Fastest growing party? Remind them that in 2005 (a great year for racism) the BNP had a net gain of less than 150 members, according to their own accounts as submitted to the Electoral Commission.
Corrupt local government? BNP supporter "EN Ronn" composed an article named 'Unsettling Accounts', reposted on Stormfront several times. Make good use of it! In fact, take a good look at Stormfront, including the back threads - there is so much to use concerning the corrupt internal workings of the BNP that you can counter them on almost anything and throw them completely off balance. And, of course, keep checking the regular anti-racist websites that contain tasty little tit-bits you can store away for future use.
Nick Griffin the best thing since sliced bread? Apart from anti-Griffin posting on Stormfront and similar sites, the best demolition of his reputation to date was penned by the man he deposed, the late John Tyndall. His magazine Spearhead may thankfully be defunct, but its website still exists, and contains many articles full of useful information and quotes. If it's there, you may as well use it.
We're Nationalists? Are they? Ask the majority of them to explain their "nationalist philosophy" and watch them squirm. On two forums they were asked this, and on both avoided giving any answer - in fact their response was to demand that we explain it (they always come back with a question when they have no answers, remember?). Eventually there was some desultory quoting from Wikipedia, and even the OED definition, but nothing in their own words. Which allowed us to show them up as the bone-headed bigots they really are, obsessed with one issue alone, and utterly clueless about the ideology they profess to follow.
We're patriots? So much to choose from to shoot that one down in flames - Mark Collett's "Churchill was a ****ing ***t" tirade is always good.
Undermining the BNP with facts about their own party's doings seems to me the best course of action in the current climate. They cannot dispute provable facts, and their general response when presented with them is a sort of embarrassed prevarication, and sometimes an abusive retort. It doesn't matter which - you have succeeded in undermining their credibility, and can be seen to have done so.
You may not win many converts to the cause of anti-racism but you will cause people to think more deeply about the organisation they may have been tempted to support or vote for. And mostly you can do it simply by posting the facts, the unavoidable, incontrovertible facts!
Article supplied by DG
Sock puppets are operated in a variety of ways. There is usually an attempt to pretend that more BNP members exist on a forum than is really the case. Some sock puppets are deployed as "ordinary members of the public" who invariably support the BNP line. Some are deployed to hunt with the hounds and run with the foxes. Some will appear to mildly question the BNP and its policies - the questions posed in an easily rebutted manner, as was the intention.
Many BNP posters adopt a tone of sweet reason, and are capable of dressing up their vile propaganda in some handsome clothes. But most of them will simply post with a link to a news story - so long as the story is crime-related and has a picture of a black or Asian face, they're satisfied. Then the sock puppets come in to do their duty.
The majority of BNP posters being notably unintelligent, they frequently revert to gutter language and have few inhibitions about making personal attacks on other posters. This frequently leads to them being banned - but they always come back.
What is remarkable to many is that abusive BNP posters fail to understand that for every person posting on a forum there are many more "lurkers" - people who simply like to browse forums but who do not feel inclined to contribute. Members of other political parties might have a care for what these unseen lurkers make of them, but the braindead BNP rarely do.
Illustrative of this is the curious case of the Oxfordshire and Brighton Argus forums.
For some years the Brighton Argus forum has been targetted by various BNP supporters, who, true to form, began thread after thread on their favourite subject and got on with the business of abusing their gainsayers. This led to a pattern of bannings and reincarnations that has continued to this day.
Somewhere along the line, the Argus BNP contingent discovered the Oxfordshire forum, where they began their familiar pattern. Though moderation of the Argus forum is at best feeble, at the Oxfordshire forum it is virtually non-existent. Very quickly the language and the abuse reached new depths, and what was by all accounts once a very active and lively forum began a steady decline as regulars deserted, tired at the endless immigration threads and the certainty that questioning or opposing the BNP supporters would bring a shower of foul-mouthed abuse raining down upon them.
Today the Oxfordshire forum is a sterile, inert place, populated only by the braindead BNP, the odd die hard-regular, and an anti-BNP campaigner.
Back at the Argus, they have adopted a new tactic. This involves blocking threads started by people they detest, or where the balance of posting has gone against them (as it always does), or where they have been shown to be liars, or - uniquely, where they have started a thread so that they can block it themselves and blame "the lefties".
Thread blocking apparently works by posting huge amounts of data into a reply box. The effect is to cause something akin to server time-outs. The posts can only be viewed after several minutes of rendering (if at all), cannot be added to, and also have the effect of making the site run slowly.
For some time these idiots have run riot, blocking entire pages of threads. They schizophrenically admit to thread blocking one day (in the name of "free speech", as one of them claimed), and the next blame "the lefties". And they sit in their empty haven of the Oxfordshire forum to crow to one another about how well they have done.
Of course, it has never yet occurred to them that they are doing the party they support the biggest disservice possible - but I don't call them braindead for nothing!
Things have lately become so serious on the Argus forum that one of their own, posting on the Nazi Stormfront site, took them to task:
'Well you and your buddies have screwed up big time. Now nobody can post to either forum and there are likely to be legal consequences and bad publicity that are going to reflect badly on all Nationalists. Thank you. Thank you very much.... You swamped the forum with race-based posts that had nothing to say but just contained links to news stories. It was all you did, and not surprisingly other posters got fed up with it. You wouldn't leave threads that had nothing to do with race alone and other posters got fed up with that too. When they complained to you, you and your cronies immediately stooped to personal abuse. You even abused people who had a BNP mindset... You also did the same thing on the Oxford forums. You made that forum a joke and even when one of our own people came on to fire a warning shot across your bows you ignored him. You caused disruption every day on the Argus forum and used the Oxford forum to boast about it. Very clever... You went there and behaved like trolls so you got treated like trolls.'
Those are excerpts from the first of a series of Stormfront posts. The response of the Braindeads was predictable - they ignored what any rational person would have seen to be sound advice. Unable to believe that one of their own could seriously question their disruption of the two forums they concluded that the Stormfront poster must be an imposter!
BNP antics on two obscure internet forums might not seem to carry much importance (and on these two forums at least, the BNPs are their own worst enemies), but multiply that by several hundred active forums and you have thousands and thousands of people daily exposed to their message - no matter how badly or unintelligently it is posed.
Several things have become very clear to me, after browsing several dozen BNP-infested forums. That is their ability to brazenly lie, to avoid difficult questions (usually by coming back with a question), to query their opponents' bona fides, to attribute to their opponents things they have never said or done, to take statistics and quotes and to mangle them until they fit in with the BNP purpose, and to deflect almost any topic, no matter how innocent, into anti-immigrant propaganda.
There is also a strange propensity for dredging up posts by opponents that were made years before - as if these creepy creatures were keeping databases of who said what and when. Now why would they want to do that?
The BNP encourage and pursue cyber-activism with a vengeance. They realise, even if their opponents do not, that the Internet is an increasingly vital tool in the war of ideas and propaganda, and that the internet forum is one of the strategic fronts in that war. They have taken the initiative, meeting little real opposition away from the larger forums - and though, thanks to their own incompetence and stupidity, they frequently do themselves more harm than good, we should remember that often a post containing nothing more than a link to a crime story with ethnic minority involvement is all that is needed for them to get their racist message across.
Though it isn't my wish to either deny or denigrate the anti-racist stalwarts who do oppose the BNP on many forums, I think we can do so much more. They have many small local newspaper forums to themselves - forums which do have quite a wide local readership. We should be on these forums, not only challenging their views, but exposing their organisation for what it really is.
And the BNP make it so easy!
A thread on crime? Respond by posting of criminality among the BNP membership themselves - there are more than enough links to such stories. Or remind them of the missing money promised to Sharon Ebanks, collected from among their own ranks. Why do none of them ever question what happened to it?
Fastest growing party? Remind them that in 2005 (a great year for racism) the BNP had a net gain of less than 150 members, according to their own accounts as submitted to the Electoral Commission.
Corrupt local government? BNP supporter "EN Ronn" composed an article named 'Unsettling Accounts', reposted on Stormfront several times. Make good use of it! In fact, take a good look at Stormfront, including the back threads - there is so much to use concerning the corrupt internal workings of the BNP that you can counter them on almost anything and throw them completely off balance. And, of course, keep checking the regular anti-racist websites that contain tasty little tit-bits you can store away for future use.
Nick Griffin the best thing since sliced bread? Apart from anti-Griffin posting on Stormfront and similar sites, the best demolition of his reputation to date was penned by the man he deposed, the late John Tyndall. His magazine Spearhead may thankfully be defunct, but its website still exists, and contains many articles full of useful information and quotes. If it's there, you may as well use it.
We're Nationalists? Are they? Ask the majority of them to explain their "nationalist philosophy" and watch them squirm. On two forums they were asked this, and on both avoided giving any answer - in fact their response was to demand that we explain it (they always come back with a question when they have no answers, remember?). Eventually there was some desultory quoting from Wikipedia, and even the OED definition, but nothing in their own words. Which allowed us to show them up as the bone-headed bigots they really are, obsessed with one issue alone, and utterly clueless about the ideology they profess to follow.
We're patriots? So much to choose from to shoot that one down in flames - Mark Collett's "Churchill was a ****ing ***t" tirade is always good.
Undermining the BNP with facts about their own party's doings seems to me the best course of action in the current climate. They cannot dispute provable facts, and their general response when presented with them is a sort of embarrassed prevarication, and sometimes an abusive retort. It doesn't matter which - you have succeeded in undermining their credibility, and can be seen to have done so.
You may not win many converts to the cause of anti-racism but you will cause people to think more deeply about the organisation they may have been tempted to support or vote for. And mostly you can do it simply by posting the facts, the unavoidable, incontrovertible facts!
Article supplied by DG
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Brighton Argus,
cyber-activism,
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race
March 10, 2007
Look closely. We’re all going colour-blind
My 84-year-old Yorkshire father and I know better than to talk about race. Doors will be slammed, Christmas could be spoilt as it was once 20 years ago when I stormed out of the house after remarks by my uncle that I won’t repeat because such poisonous, hardcore bigotry no longer has any place in public discourse, and quite right too.
These days the racism of old people makes me sad more than angry. It is possible to understand — without in any way excusing — the views of someone who lived all his life in a homogeneous white, working-class community, didn’t go abroad until he retired, who saw maybe two black faces a year.
My father shakes his head over the Daily Mail and tells me the country is ruined: by which he really means, all certainty and familiarity is gone, the landscape now is alien, unsettling, frightening. He is more mystified than outraged why his grandsons’ primary school classes contain mostly black faces.
Then he’ll confound me by overtipping his African mini-cab driver because he was a “lovely fella” or I’ll find him chatting about cricket with our elderly Jamaican decorator and after he’s packed up, Dad carefully examines the kitchen paintwork and says reverently: “Now, he’s a proper craftsman.”
Meanwhile, my children understand that racism is the most heinous playground crime. They have grown up with Black History Month, assemblies on Nelson Mandela and our groovy new school building is named after the black Crimean nurse Mary Seacole (the children’s other suggestion was Rosa Parks). I feel with absolute conviction if they or any of their friends join the Army and find themselves training a bunch of recruits, they will not spur some laggard through the assault course by calling him a “black bastard”.
For all we love to label our young people toxic degenerates, in one regard they look down at us from the loftiest moral heights. In all surveys, the young’s tolerance of other races and intolerance of racism itself far outstrips the adult population: 82 per cent of under 18s, according to a National Research Centre poll, claimed they are not at all racially prejudiced, compared with 69 per cent of adults. While this reveals nothing about their actual behaviour, it reflects that racism is now taboo.
This week the writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, reflecting on the remarks by Patrick Mercer, the Tory homeland security spokesman, and the CCTV footage of a black woman, Toni Comer, being beaten by a white police officer, wrote: “The filth of racism has washed back, but now there’s no concern, no shame, no real opposition.” But who could possibly agree?
No act of perceived racism now goes without exhaustive analysis. Mr Mercer was summarily sacked by David Cameron just three hours after his remarks. Only a few months ago — in what seems now like some lurid dream — the nation’s media and political leaders ceased discussion of the Iraq war or loans for honours to debate the implications for race (and international) relations in Jade Goody calling the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty a poppadom on Celebrity Big Brother. The 30,000 people who complained to Channel 4, the tens of thousands more who voted to ensure Shilpa won the show, were not letting racism pass by unopposed.
My father’s old monocultural generation is dying; the blithely colour-blind young are ascending. Those in the middle, the generation now running the world, are left questioning our own attitudes, trawling for prejudices, trying to make judgment calls in an atmosphere where to err is to be history.
It is seldom acknowledged that we grew up in a deeply racist climate, where our country was affiliated with South Africa (try explaining apartheid to an eight-year-old: it is almost beyond their imagination), where blokes in pubs joked about Paki-bashing, the top sitcom Love Thy Neighbour spoke cheerily of “nig-nogs” and “darkies”. As a nation we have progressed a long, long way so very fast. And although we still have far to go, are these slippages really very surprising?
Patrick Mercer’s mistake was to be a 51-year-old man who assumed promoting and fairly treating black NCOs under him — as many of them have testified — exonerated him of all racism. In his day in the Army, his actions probably made him a cutting-edge progressive officer. But he was not schooled enough in modern antiracist nuances to appreciate that the insults “ginger” and “black” don’t come with equivalent volumes of oppression.
And his remark that some black soldiers “used racism as cover for their misdemeanours” was the most problematic. Is it possible ever to say this publicly now? Even on a day when Lord Levy’s supporters suggest the inquiry into his role in cash-for-honours is fuelled by an anti-Semitic desire to hang a rich, prominent, influential Jew up to dry?
Or when a drunken, aggressive woman, who has been ejected from a nightclub and then vandalised a car, claims the policeman who thumped her arm to stop her grabbing his genitals did so because she was black? The fact that this case — disturbing as it is to watch any woman being hit by a man — has not been whipped up into some South Yorkshire Rodney King moment does not demonstrate indifference to state, racial violence. Rather it shows, I’d bet, that black people themselves realise they don’t need such a lousy figurehead as Toni Comer.
And whether the Army let “black bastard” foul the barrack-room air seems as nothing compared with its huge unchallenged inequalities: that Gurkha soldiers have only now been granted the same pension rights as the British men they died beside. And this was not after a sudden lightning bolt of racial justice but because our Army is undermanned and needs to attract foreign nationals.
It is one thing for David Cameron to keep step with the latest antiracist language, another to pledge action against the huge, institutional injustices: that twice as many black British men are in prison as at university, that gun crime is little addressed by white politicians since its victims are almost all black, that a whole generation of black boys is tumbling, unchecked, through the education system into low-paid jobs, unemployment or crime. These are the sticks and stones that hurt more than any name.
Times Online
These days the racism of old people makes me sad more than angry. It is possible to understand — without in any way excusing — the views of someone who lived all his life in a homogeneous white, working-class community, didn’t go abroad until he retired, who saw maybe two black faces a year.
My father shakes his head over the Daily Mail and tells me the country is ruined: by which he really means, all certainty and familiarity is gone, the landscape now is alien, unsettling, frightening. He is more mystified than outraged why his grandsons’ primary school classes contain mostly black faces.
Then he’ll confound me by overtipping his African mini-cab driver because he was a “lovely fella” or I’ll find him chatting about cricket with our elderly Jamaican decorator and after he’s packed up, Dad carefully examines the kitchen paintwork and says reverently: “Now, he’s a proper craftsman.”
Meanwhile, my children understand that racism is the most heinous playground crime. They have grown up with Black History Month, assemblies on Nelson Mandela and our groovy new school building is named after the black Crimean nurse Mary Seacole (the children’s other suggestion was Rosa Parks). I feel with absolute conviction if they or any of their friends join the Army and find themselves training a bunch of recruits, they will not spur some laggard through the assault course by calling him a “black bastard”.
For all we love to label our young people toxic degenerates, in one regard they look down at us from the loftiest moral heights. In all surveys, the young’s tolerance of other races and intolerance of racism itself far outstrips the adult population: 82 per cent of under 18s, according to a National Research Centre poll, claimed they are not at all racially prejudiced, compared with 69 per cent of adults. While this reveals nothing about their actual behaviour, it reflects that racism is now taboo.
This week the writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, reflecting on the remarks by Patrick Mercer, the Tory homeland security spokesman, and the CCTV footage of a black woman, Toni Comer, being beaten by a white police officer, wrote: “The filth of racism has washed back, but now there’s no concern, no shame, no real opposition.” But who could possibly agree?
No act of perceived racism now goes without exhaustive analysis. Mr Mercer was summarily sacked by David Cameron just three hours after his remarks. Only a few months ago — in what seems now like some lurid dream — the nation’s media and political leaders ceased discussion of the Iraq war or loans for honours to debate the implications for race (and international) relations in Jade Goody calling the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty a poppadom on Celebrity Big Brother. The 30,000 people who complained to Channel 4, the tens of thousands more who voted to ensure Shilpa won the show, were not letting racism pass by unopposed.
My father’s old monocultural generation is dying; the blithely colour-blind young are ascending. Those in the middle, the generation now running the world, are left questioning our own attitudes, trawling for prejudices, trying to make judgment calls in an atmosphere where to err is to be history.
It is seldom acknowledged that we grew up in a deeply racist climate, where our country was affiliated with South Africa (try explaining apartheid to an eight-year-old: it is almost beyond their imagination), where blokes in pubs joked about Paki-bashing, the top sitcom Love Thy Neighbour spoke cheerily of “nig-nogs” and “darkies”. As a nation we have progressed a long, long way so very fast. And although we still have far to go, are these slippages really very surprising?
Patrick Mercer’s mistake was to be a 51-year-old man who assumed promoting and fairly treating black NCOs under him — as many of them have testified — exonerated him of all racism. In his day in the Army, his actions probably made him a cutting-edge progressive officer. But he was not schooled enough in modern antiracist nuances to appreciate that the insults “ginger” and “black” don’t come with equivalent volumes of oppression.
And his remark that some black soldiers “used racism as cover for their misdemeanours” was the most problematic. Is it possible ever to say this publicly now? Even on a day when Lord Levy’s supporters suggest the inquiry into his role in cash-for-honours is fuelled by an anti-Semitic desire to hang a rich, prominent, influential Jew up to dry?
Or when a drunken, aggressive woman, who has been ejected from a nightclub and then vandalised a car, claims the policeman who thumped her arm to stop her grabbing his genitals did so because she was black? The fact that this case — disturbing as it is to watch any woman being hit by a man — has not been whipped up into some South Yorkshire Rodney King moment does not demonstrate indifference to state, racial violence. Rather it shows, I’d bet, that black people themselves realise they don’t need such a lousy figurehead as Toni Comer.
And whether the Army let “black bastard” foul the barrack-room air seems as nothing compared with its huge unchallenged inequalities: that Gurkha soldiers have only now been granted the same pension rights as the British men they died beside. And this was not after a sudden lightning bolt of racial justice but because our Army is undermanned and needs to attract foreign nationals.
It is one thing for David Cameron to keep step with the latest antiracist language, another to pledge action against the huge, institutional injustices: that twice as many black British men are in prison as at university, that gun crime is little addressed by white politicians since its victims are almost all black, that a whole generation of black boys is tumbling, unchecked, through the education system into low-paid jobs, unemployment or crime. These are the sticks and stones that hurt more than any name.
Times Online
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