Griffin gets in a sweat as his Euro campaign gets off to a bad startOur thanks to the many people who made the effort to ring up. Keep up the good work, folks. :-)
June 20, 2008
Griffin's Blackpool meeting cancelled
Griffin gets in a sweat as his Euro campaign gets off to a bad startOur thanks to the many people who made the effort to ring up. Keep up the good work, folks. :-)
Labels:
Blackpool,
BNP,
Nick Griffin,
North-West
The rise of the far right - Jon Cruddas and Nick Lowles
The New Labour project relied on the assumption that its traditional support had nowhere else to go. But this is now changing, and the BNP has emerged as one beneficiary
Media coverage of the London elections focused, inevitably, on the victory of Mayor Boris. But even with a close-fought race pushing up turnout to a new high, the slow rise of the BNP continued as they gained a foothold in the London Assembly. This should not merely be a cause for concern, but for us to reflect on how our own party can respond.
The BNP polled 5.3 per cent across London and averaged 13.9 per cent in the 642 council wards it contested around the country. It now has 55 councillors and poses a serious threat across several regions in next year's European elections, not to mention the mayoral election taking place in Stoke-on-Trent next year.
There are some who still think that the BNP is a flash in the pan that will disappear as quickly as it emerged. But we are facing a shift in British politics. Traditional voting patterns are fragmenting as voters shop around for a party that best articulates their concerns and even prejudices. The emergence of the BNP is just one consequence of this change.
Labour's support among its working-class electoral base has been shrinking for many years, and this goes well beyond the recent decline in the government's fortunes. In many areas, Labour's support among the working-class C2DE demographics was at a lower level in the 2005 general election victory than in the crushing defeat of 1983. Since then, support among these groups has further disintegrated.
Some of these disappearing voters switched to other parties. In local elections this was often the Liberal Democrats, but far greater numbers simply stayed at home.
For the Labour leadership, this long-term shift caused only moderate concern. It is a truism that general elections are not won or lost in the Labour heartlands but in the swing marginals, where a few votes can turn success into defeat. It is towards these voters that the major parties have calibrated their language, tactics and policy.
The New Labour project relied on the assumption that its traditional support, although declining, had nowhere else to go. But this is now changing, and the BNP has emerged as one beneficiary. The party received more votes last month than Labour in seats such as Dagenham and Rainham in east London and the new Morley and Outwood constituency in West Yorkshire.
But we cannot view the BNP in isolation. In other areas, such as south Yorkshire and South Wales, it has become represented by the rise of local independents. Who would have thought that Labour could have lost the former heartlands of Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent? In Stoke-on-Trent, a city where ten years ago Labour held all 60 seats, it was this year able to win only four wards. In Barnsley, where the BNP polled 21 per cent, the Barnsley Independent Group holds a third of the seats on the council.
This trend reflects a more fundamental shift than midterm blues. An increasing number of traditional Labour voters believe that the party no longer reflects their interests. This is in no small measure a result of new Labour's triangulation tactic - a deliberate shift to what the political class thinks is the "centre ground". It is also a symptom of a failure to prioritise grass-roots activism at the local level, instead flirting with the "virtual party" and delivering messages through centralised marketing. The danger is not only that we ignore the reasons for the strength of the BNP, but that in so doing we reinforce the very conditions that have created it.
Despite the generally benign economic climate of recent years, many of the people now turning their back on Labour have not shared in this economic prosperity. Swaths of these voters not only feel ignored but have been persuaded that the BNP articulates their interests.
Race is obviously the vehicle through which the BNP galvanises support but the party also articulates the frustration of many voters and seeks to provide them with a new sense of belonging. As politicians remove class as a social, economic and political category, the BNP seeks to insert race.
It is no coincidence that the BNP is doing best in those communities, often overwhelmingly white, where there has been the greatest economic change, such as the former coalfields and car manufacturing areas. For too long a basic formula has underscored much New Labour thinking - a counterbalancing of so-called aspirational, Middle-England swing voters with our traditional supporters. Its adherents have remained tone deaf to both the aspirations and insecurities of those who fall outside this tight political calculus.
Ministers' rhetoric of "aspiration" fails to address the real aspirations of voters across huge tracts of the political landscape, where even decent housing or good jobs are in too short supply. So our language, policies and tactics all fail to hit the mark.
All this represents a fundamental shift in British politics, and the real danger is that we are heading the way of many continental countries where large segments of the working class have broken with their traditional centre-left parties and moved to the right, often the far right.
The Labour Party always had a mission of emancipatory economic and social change but to many it feels like we have lost our traditional purpose or even identity. The economic downturn, the credit crunch, the housing collapse and rising living costs will only increase material insecurities over the next few years.
There is still time to move in a different direction but without a radical and immediate change Britain, and in particular Labour, could fall victim to the same political rupture that has already shaken much of modern Europe.
Jon Cruddas is MP for Dagenham
Nick Lowles is editor of Searchlight
New Statesman
Media coverage of the London elections focused, inevitably, on the victory of Mayor Boris. But even with a close-fought race pushing up turnout to a new high, the slow rise of the BNP continued as they gained a foothold in the London Assembly. This should not merely be a cause for concern, but for us to reflect on how our own party can respond.
The BNP polled 5.3 per cent across London and averaged 13.9 per cent in the 642 council wards it contested around the country. It now has 55 councillors and poses a serious threat across several regions in next year's European elections, not to mention the mayoral election taking place in Stoke-on-Trent next year.
There are some who still think that the BNP is a flash in the pan that will disappear as quickly as it emerged. But we are facing a shift in British politics. Traditional voting patterns are fragmenting as voters shop around for a party that best articulates their concerns and even prejudices. The emergence of the BNP is just one consequence of this change.
Labour's support among its working-class electoral base has been shrinking for many years, and this goes well beyond the recent decline in the government's fortunes. In many areas, Labour's support among the working-class C2DE demographics was at a lower level in the 2005 general election victory than in the crushing defeat of 1983. Since then, support among these groups has further disintegrated.
Some of these disappearing voters switched to other parties. In local elections this was often the Liberal Democrats, but far greater numbers simply stayed at home.
For the Labour leadership, this long-term shift caused only moderate concern. It is a truism that general elections are not won or lost in the Labour heartlands but in the swing marginals, where a few votes can turn success into defeat. It is towards these voters that the major parties have calibrated their language, tactics and policy.
The New Labour project relied on the assumption that its traditional support, although declining, had nowhere else to go. But this is now changing, and the BNP has emerged as one beneficiary. The party received more votes last month than Labour in seats such as Dagenham and Rainham in east London and the new Morley and Outwood constituency in West Yorkshire.
But we cannot view the BNP in isolation. In other areas, such as south Yorkshire and South Wales, it has become represented by the rise of local independents. Who would have thought that Labour could have lost the former heartlands of Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent? In Stoke-on-Trent, a city where ten years ago Labour held all 60 seats, it was this year able to win only four wards. In Barnsley, where the BNP polled 21 per cent, the Barnsley Independent Group holds a third of the seats on the council.
This trend reflects a more fundamental shift than midterm blues. An increasing number of traditional Labour voters believe that the party no longer reflects their interests. This is in no small measure a result of new Labour's triangulation tactic - a deliberate shift to what the political class thinks is the "centre ground". It is also a symptom of a failure to prioritise grass-roots activism at the local level, instead flirting with the "virtual party" and delivering messages through centralised marketing. The danger is not only that we ignore the reasons for the strength of the BNP, but that in so doing we reinforce the very conditions that have created it.
Despite the generally benign economic climate of recent years, many of the people now turning their back on Labour have not shared in this economic prosperity. Swaths of these voters not only feel ignored but have been persuaded that the BNP articulates their interests.
Race is obviously the vehicle through which the BNP galvanises support but the party also articulates the frustration of many voters and seeks to provide them with a new sense of belonging. As politicians remove class as a social, economic and political category, the BNP seeks to insert race.
It is no coincidence that the BNP is doing best in those communities, often overwhelmingly white, where there has been the greatest economic change, such as the former coalfields and car manufacturing areas. For too long a basic formula has underscored much New Labour thinking - a counterbalancing of so-called aspirational, Middle-England swing voters with our traditional supporters. Its adherents have remained tone deaf to both the aspirations and insecurities of those who fall outside this tight political calculus.
Ministers' rhetoric of "aspiration" fails to address the real aspirations of voters across huge tracts of the political landscape, where even decent housing or good jobs are in too short supply. So our language, policies and tactics all fail to hit the mark.
All this represents a fundamental shift in British politics, and the real danger is that we are heading the way of many continental countries where large segments of the working class have broken with their traditional centre-left parties and moved to the right, often the far right.
The Labour Party always had a mission of emancipatory economic and social change but to many it feels like we have lost our traditional purpose or even identity. The economic downturn, the credit crunch, the housing collapse and rising living costs will only increase material insecurities over the next few years.
There is still time to move in a different direction but without a radical and immediate change Britain, and in particular Labour, could fall victim to the same political rupture that has already shaken much of modern Europe.
Jon Cruddas is MP for Dagenham
Nick Lowles is editor of Searchlight
New Statesman
Labels:
BNP,
London Assembly,
Searchlight,
Stoke-on-Trent
Ex-BNP activist 'recruiting prisoners to join al-Qa'ida'
A former British National Party activist who converted to Islam in a maximum-security jail is being held in isolation on suspicion of trying to recruit fellow prisoners to terrorist groups.
Stephen Jones has been confined to a segregation unit in Whitemoor prison, Cambridgeshire, for three weeks while the intelligence services investigate his alleged links to al-Qa'ida. It is thought to be the first time a prisoner has been put in isolation because of fears he was attempting to radicalise other inmates. The authorities were also said to be concerned about his safety. Two other Muslim prisoners are thought to be in the same unit.
Fears have been growing that extremist groups are using prisons as a fertile recruiting ground. Britain is believed to have more prisoners with terrorist sympathies than any other European country.
The Prison Officers' Association (POA) has called for extremist prisoners to be kept away from inmates who could be vulnerable to radicalisation.
Steve Gough, the POA's vice-chairman, told the BBC: "If you can get someone that's so right-wing to be converted, then a normal prisoner is going to have absolutely no chance."
An internal review of security at Whitemoor – where almost a third of the 500 inmates are Muslim – warned that officers were struggling to deal with Muslim gangs. It concluded that staff feared a "serious incident is imminent".
Henry Bellingham, the shadow Justice Minister, who has raised concerns about Whitemoor, said: "What we have got to do is work with the moderate Muslim organisations to try and stamp this out."
He said prison officers needed support to tackle the threat and added: "They have got a huge challenge, particularly at a time of overcrowding."
The Ministry of Justice has announced initiatives to curb the spread of extremism. They include rooting out extremists and improved training of staff.
Independent
Stephen Jones has been confined to a segregation unit in Whitemoor prison, Cambridgeshire, for three weeks while the intelligence services investigate his alleged links to al-Qa'ida. It is thought to be the first time a prisoner has been put in isolation because of fears he was attempting to radicalise other inmates. The authorities were also said to be concerned about his safety. Two other Muslim prisoners are thought to be in the same unit.
Fears have been growing that extremist groups are using prisons as a fertile recruiting ground. Britain is believed to have more prisoners with terrorist sympathies than any other European country.
The Prison Officers' Association (POA) has called for extremist prisoners to be kept away from inmates who could be vulnerable to radicalisation.
Steve Gough, the POA's vice-chairman, told the BBC: "If you can get someone that's so right-wing to be converted, then a normal prisoner is going to have absolutely no chance."
An internal review of security at Whitemoor – where almost a third of the 500 inmates are Muslim – warned that officers were struggling to deal with Muslim gangs. It concluded that staff feared a "serious incident is imminent".
Henry Bellingham, the shadow Justice Minister, who has raised concerns about Whitemoor, said: "What we have got to do is work with the moderate Muslim organisations to try and stamp this out."
He said prison officers needed support to tackle the threat and added: "They have got a huge challenge, particularly at a time of overcrowding."
The Ministry of Justice has announced initiatives to curb the spread of extremism. They include rooting out extremists and improved training of staff.
Independent
Labels:
al-Qa'ida,
BNP,
Prison Officers Association,
Whitemoor
Is this the end of social democracy?
The BNP is capitalising on the fear and anger caused by the cultural destruction of the working class
The BNP is filling the political vacuum left by New Labour's abandonment of the working class. In core Labour constituencies like Dagenham, Rainham and the new Morley and Outwood constituency it poses a direct electoral threat. Mainstream opinion argues that BNP successes are about economic deprivation and migrants being blamed for taking scarce resources like housing. But the problem goes deeper. The current successes of the BNP are a symptom of the historical changes in Britain's class system.
In Labour heartlands there is a powerful feeling of being dispossessed. As one BNP supporter, who appears on a YouTube video puts it, "the majority of our policies, if you bother to read them, veer toward socialism. We are probably the old Labour party in essence. We care about the working class people." She points across to a counter-demonstration and says, "When some of those people stand over there and tell me I have no rights ... I have blood and I have history on this soil and that's what I'll fight to defend."
Paranoid it may be, but the BNP is capitalising on the fear and anger caused by the cultural destruction of the working class. Capitalism is destroying class relations and recreating them around new kinds of production and consumption. Deindustrialisation has left large sections of the working class unemployable or working as if they are a reserve army of labour. Millions are economically inactive, or working in casualised and temporary jobs.
Life continues in this time of dislocation and destructive change, but the cultural symbols and institutions that once gave it meaning are disappearing. Those who flourished in the old class culture find themselves ill-equipped to deal with the new uncertainties. A people subjected to cultural destruction lose the means to defend themselves against more dominant cultures that seek to redescribe them. Media representation of the working class has become unremittingly negative with its images of chavs, feral children, obese men and women, teenage mothers, drunken brawling and the pursuit of mindless hedonism. The BNP draws its strength from this currency of cultural humiliation.
To lose a way of life is to lose a sense of hopefulness. It is this loss that provides the BNP with its political agenda. Its racism and blaming of migrants resonates with the insecurities of large numbers of people who feel that they live as strangers outside the community. By promoting culture wars around race, gender and religion it constructs boundaries of identity that define a sense of belonging and entitlement. Its sentimental nostalgia feeds a cultural melancholy in which the past always glows brightly as a better place. At a recent meeting in Dagenham, BNP leader Nick Griffin eulogised the bucolic days of his childhood in Barking, contrasting them to the loss of childhood in our dangerous, insecure times.
The cultural destruction of the working class threatens the existence of the Labour party itself. Not only because of the intense anger at its abandonment of a people in need of political representation, but also because the class and its institutions which once supported it are fragmenting and disappearing. In many of its heartland constituencies, party branches exist in name only. The politics of class are realigning in a way that is threatening the future of social democracy. The BNP is the warning light flashing danger.
Exactly 50 years ago the socialist writer Raymond Williams published a short essay called Culture is Ordinary. It begins with an elegy to his working-class boyhood in the farming valleys of the Black Mountains and the generations of his family who had lived there. Williams describes a way of life that emphasised neighbourhood, mutual obligation and common betterment. He belonged to a class that gave him his personal resilience and social anchorage. It gave him a culture and political representation through the Labour party and a trade union movement.
Williams knew that culture was shaped by the underlying system of production. He recalls how from the mountains he could look south to the "flare of the blast furnace making a second sunset". He wrote at a time when his class was already undergoing momentous change, but he could not have imagined the day when there would be no second sunset and the system of production that had shaped his class and culture was turned into scrap. After that, what would come next? It is a question we are now faced with.
Comment is free
The BNP is filling the political vacuum left by New Labour's abandonment of the working class. In core Labour constituencies like Dagenham, Rainham and the new Morley and Outwood constituency it poses a direct electoral threat. Mainstream opinion argues that BNP successes are about economic deprivation and migrants being blamed for taking scarce resources like housing. But the problem goes deeper. The current successes of the BNP are a symptom of the historical changes in Britain's class system.
In Labour heartlands there is a powerful feeling of being dispossessed. As one BNP supporter, who appears on a YouTube video puts it, "the majority of our policies, if you bother to read them, veer toward socialism. We are probably the old Labour party in essence. We care about the working class people." She points across to a counter-demonstration and says, "When some of those people stand over there and tell me I have no rights ... I have blood and I have history on this soil and that's what I'll fight to defend."
Paranoid it may be, but the BNP is capitalising on the fear and anger caused by the cultural destruction of the working class. Capitalism is destroying class relations and recreating them around new kinds of production and consumption. Deindustrialisation has left large sections of the working class unemployable or working as if they are a reserve army of labour. Millions are economically inactive, or working in casualised and temporary jobs.
Life continues in this time of dislocation and destructive change, but the cultural symbols and institutions that once gave it meaning are disappearing. Those who flourished in the old class culture find themselves ill-equipped to deal with the new uncertainties. A people subjected to cultural destruction lose the means to defend themselves against more dominant cultures that seek to redescribe them. Media representation of the working class has become unremittingly negative with its images of chavs, feral children, obese men and women, teenage mothers, drunken brawling and the pursuit of mindless hedonism. The BNP draws its strength from this currency of cultural humiliation.
To lose a way of life is to lose a sense of hopefulness. It is this loss that provides the BNP with its political agenda. Its racism and blaming of migrants resonates with the insecurities of large numbers of people who feel that they live as strangers outside the community. By promoting culture wars around race, gender and religion it constructs boundaries of identity that define a sense of belonging and entitlement. Its sentimental nostalgia feeds a cultural melancholy in which the past always glows brightly as a better place. At a recent meeting in Dagenham, BNP leader Nick Griffin eulogised the bucolic days of his childhood in Barking, contrasting them to the loss of childhood in our dangerous, insecure times.
The cultural destruction of the working class threatens the existence of the Labour party itself. Not only because of the intense anger at its abandonment of a people in need of political representation, but also because the class and its institutions which once supported it are fragmenting and disappearing. In many of its heartland constituencies, party branches exist in name only. The politics of class are realigning in a way that is threatening the future of social democracy. The BNP is the warning light flashing danger.
Exactly 50 years ago the socialist writer Raymond Williams published a short essay called Culture is Ordinary. It begins with an elegy to his working-class boyhood in the farming valleys of the Black Mountains and the generations of his family who had lived there. Williams describes a way of life that emphasised neighbourhood, mutual obligation and common betterment. He belonged to a class that gave him his personal resilience and social anchorage. It gave him a culture and political representation through the Labour party and a trade union movement.
Williams knew that culture was shaped by the underlying system of production. He recalls how from the mountains he could look south to the "flare of the blast furnace making a second sunset". He wrote at a time when his class was already undergoing momentous change, but he could not have imagined the day when there would be no second sunset and the system of production that had shaped his class and culture was turned into scrap. After that, what would come next? It is a question we are now faced with.
Comment is free
Labels:
Barking and Dagenham,
BNP,
Nick Griffin,
Raymond Williams
Accused made bombs 'while bored'
A Nazi sympathiser made nail bombs "when he was just sat about bored," a court has heard.
Martyn Gilleard, 31, told the jury at Leeds Crown Court he had been a member of far right groups including the National Front. But he denied the four nail bombs, which were found by police in a holdall under his bed, were intended to cause serious violence.
Mr Gilleard, of Goole, East Yorkshire, denies all terrorism charges. He denies preparing for terrorist acts and possessing articles and collecting information for terrorist purposes.
Giving evidence, Mr Gilleard agreed he had been a member of a number of far right groups including the National Front, and the White Nationalist Party. He also agreed he had a collection of Nazi memorabilia, saying Nazism appealed to him because of the way the Nazis rebuilt Germany.
He told his barrister, David Hatton QC: "I did have racist views, yes."
When asked why he made the bombs he said: "I'd had a couple of cans. I was just sat around bored. An idea popped up and I thought 'why not'. I thought 'I've got pretty much what I need' and I threw them together."
Officers also discovered "potentially lethal bladed weapons", 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm and printouts from the internet about committing acts of terrorism, the court has heard. These included instructions on how to make a bomb and how to poison someone to death.
Mr Gilleard pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing 34 cartridges of ammunition without holding a firearms certificate.
The trial continues.
BBC
Martyn Gilleard, 31, told the jury at Leeds Crown Court he had been a member of far right groups including the National Front. But he denied the four nail bombs, which were found by police in a holdall under his bed, were intended to cause serious violence.
Mr Gilleard, of Goole, East Yorkshire, denies all terrorism charges. He denies preparing for terrorist acts and possessing articles and collecting information for terrorist purposes.
Giving evidence, Mr Gilleard agreed he had been a member of a number of far right groups including the National Front, and the White Nationalist Party. He also agreed he had a collection of Nazi memorabilia, saying Nazism appealed to him because of the way the Nazis rebuilt Germany.
He told his barrister, David Hatton QC: "I did have racist views, yes."
When asked why he made the bombs he said: "I'd had a couple of cans. I was just sat around bored. An idea popped up and I thought 'why not'. I thought 'I've got pretty much what I need' and I threw them together."
Officers also discovered "potentially lethal bladed weapons", 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm and printouts from the internet about committing acts of terrorism, the court has heard. These included instructions on how to make a bomb and how to poison someone to death.
Mr Gilleard pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing 34 cartridges of ammunition without holding a firearms certificate.
The trial continues.
BBC
Labels:
Martyn Gilleard,
nail bombs,
National Front,
nazi,
racist
June 19, 2008
BNP councillor threatens college
A top BNP councillor warned a college principal "there would be trouble" if he continued hosting anti-racism events, it has been claimed.
Robert Bailey, leader of the BNP on Barking and Dagenham Council - who, in the run-up to the London Assembly elections launched a tirade of foul-mouthed abuse at Recorder staff - had a face-off with Barking College principal Ted Parker on Monday, just hours before the college held a Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) event at its Dagenham Road, Dagenham campus.
According to Mr Parker, the Alibon ward councillor ordered him to stop hosting such events, or there would be "problems" from BNP members at the college.
Mr Parker told the Recorder: "He was perfectly civil but he was obviously agitated. He seemed to be saying our students were in danger. As he left he said 'you have been warned', which sort of stuck it my mind. I thought it was a little strange. We have been involved with LMHR for a couple of years now. We oppose racism and promote harmony between people of all backgrounds, that's our ethos."
Mr Bailey denied he had threatened the college principal with possible trouble.
He said: "There will be no trouble from BNP people. We don't cause problems. They come from the far-left. I would urge the college to stop holding these events. LMHR stir up trouble and hatred and animosity wherever they go, that's what they do. They are a front group for the Labour Party and the far-left. I respect the college as a place of learning and people should be able to speak freely without fear. But once you start bringing in groups with a political agenda, it causes divisions and problems."
Mr Parker, who is retiring from his post in August, said he told the BNP councillor during their impromptu 15-minute discussion that the college would continue to host events with LMHR.
Weyman Bennett, LMHR organiser and national joint secretary for Unite Against Fascism, said: "I think that it should be investigated. It's bully boy tactics. We see this as an insult to the students who have been holding anti-fascist events in the college for years."
LMHR members visited the college to gather support for a rally being held today (Thurs) at City Hall, central London, against the BNP's London Assembly member, Cllr Richard Barnbrook - who is Cllr Bailey's deputy on Barking and Dagenham Council.
Bunny La Roche, of LMHR, said: "We feel the BNP doesn't represent London at all. The reason we have a demo is that there's an absolute anger in London and the country about the fact the BNP have got a seat.
Barking and Dagenham Recorder
Robert Bailey, leader of the BNP on Barking and Dagenham Council - who, in the run-up to the London Assembly elections launched a tirade of foul-mouthed abuse at Recorder staff - had a face-off with Barking College principal Ted Parker on Monday, just hours before the college held a Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) event at its Dagenham Road, Dagenham campus.
According to Mr Parker, the Alibon ward councillor ordered him to stop hosting such events, or there would be "problems" from BNP members at the college.
Mr Parker told the Recorder: "He was perfectly civil but he was obviously agitated. He seemed to be saying our students were in danger. As he left he said 'you have been warned', which sort of stuck it my mind. I thought it was a little strange. We have been involved with LMHR for a couple of years now. We oppose racism and promote harmony between people of all backgrounds, that's our ethos."
Mr Bailey denied he had threatened the college principal with possible trouble.
He said: "There will be no trouble from BNP people. We don't cause problems. They come from the far-left. I would urge the college to stop holding these events. LMHR stir up trouble and hatred and animosity wherever they go, that's what they do. They are a front group for the Labour Party and the far-left. I respect the college as a place of learning and people should be able to speak freely without fear. But once you start bringing in groups with a political agenda, it causes divisions and problems."
Mr Parker, who is retiring from his post in August, said he told the BNP councillor during their impromptu 15-minute discussion that the college would continue to host events with LMHR.
Weyman Bennett, LMHR organiser and national joint secretary for Unite Against Fascism, said: "I think that it should be investigated. It's bully boy tactics. We see this as an insult to the students who have been holding anti-fascist events in the college for years."
LMHR members visited the college to gather support for a rally being held today (Thurs) at City Hall, central London, against the BNP's London Assembly member, Cllr Richard Barnbrook - who is Cllr Bailey's deputy on Barking and Dagenham Council.
Bunny La Roche, of LMHR, said: "We feel the BNP doesn't represent London at all. The reason we have a demo is that there's an absolute anger in London and the country about the fact the BNP have got a seat.
Barking and Dagenham Recorder
BNP festival man's property vandalised
The BNP member who will stage the party's annual festival on his land later this year has told how his property has been targeted by vandals.
Alan Warner, of Codnor Denby Lane in Denby village, a former BNP councillor on Heanor Town Council said he woke on Wednesday morning to find a torrent of abuse daubed on his garden wall in white paint.
He said: "I got up and there were three bike locks attached to my gate."
BNP Scum was painted in big letters on his wall, along with Swastikas and other offensive slogans.
"I started to clean it but feel like leaving it so everyone can see it and see what people we are dealing with creeping around in the night."
The BNP's annual red, white and blue festival will be held on Mr Warner's land in August for the second year running but controversially will be staged without live music and a licence to sell alcohol after objections from the police and councillors.
Mr Warner has contacted police about the damage.
He said: "We are a political party and not racist as they keep making out.
Ripley and Heanor News
Alan Warner, of Codnor Denby Lane in Denby village, a former BNP councillor on Heanor Town Council said he woke on Wednesday morning to find a torrent of abuse daubed on his garden wall in white paint.
He said: "I got up and there were three bike locks attached to my gate."
BNP Scum was painted in big letters on his wall, along with Swastikas and other offensive slogans.
"I started to clean it but feel like leaving it so everyone can see it and see what people we are dealing with creeping around in the night."
The BNP's annual red, white and blue festival will be held on Mr Warner's land in August for the second year running but controversially will be staged without live music and a licence to sell alcohol after objections from the police and councillors.
Mr Warner has contacted police about the damage.
He said: "We are a political party and not racist as they keep making out.
Ripley and Heanor News
Labels:
Alan Warner,
BNP,
Denby,
RWB
Call to honour El Salvador's rescuer of Jews after war role rediscovered
José CastellanosNow, six decades after José Castellanos helped to save 25,000 Jews by granting bogus nationality certificates, the story of the central American nation's consul general to Switzerland during the second world war has been rediscovered.
"The memory of our father is out of the desk, out of the drawers and on the table again," Frieda Garcia, one of the diplomat's daughters, told a news conference at El Salvador's embassy in Washington this week, amid calls for Castellanos to be honoured posthumously by Israel.
Castellanos, an army colonel, served as a diplomat in Liverpool and Hamburg before being posted to Geneva in 1942 where he befriended a Romanian Jew, Gyorgy Mandl. To protect Mandl he appointed him to the fictitious post of first secretary and amended his name to the more Latino-sounding George Mandel-Mantello.
The two men set about issuing blank nationality certificates for Jews in German-occupied central Europe, especially Hungary. To make them seem more authentic the documents, signed by Mantello, were stamped by other consulates in Geneva before being spirited over the border to grateful recipients who filled in their details.
The so-called "freedom papers" afforded protection against deportation to Nazi extermination camps and gave meaning to the name El Salvador, which means The Saviour. Many of the documents were sent to Budapest where Carl Lutz, the Swiss vice-consul, provided sanctuary to thousands of Jews at an abandoned glass factory known as his "Glass House".
Neither Castellanos nor Mandl had the authority to issue the documents, and El Salvador had sided with the allies against Germany, but the papers offered some protection from Nazi round-ups. It did not matter that few recipients would ever travel to their supposed homeland, a tiny country of rainforest and Pacific coast 6,000 miles away, wedged between Guatemala and Honduras, and that possibly few had even heard of it before.
Castellanos and Mandl persuaded suspicious Swiss and Hungarian officials that the documents were genuine and that there was indeed a sizeable Salvadorean diaspora in this corner of Europe. The initiative evoked the efforts of Raul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, and Schindler, a German industrialist, who separately risked their lives and fortunes to save thousands of Jews.
After the war Castellanos lived a quiet life and played down his role, said Garcia. "He said whoever was in his place would have done the same. For him it was not heroic nor spectacular."
The writer Leon Uris tracked down the retired diplomat in 1972 and Castellanos gave a brief radio interview in 1976 but otherwise he remained anonymous and his contribution went unrecognised. He died in 1977, three years after Schindler's equally low-key passing.
Until now Latin America's best known role in the Nazi genocide was the "rat lines" which spirited wanted war criminals such as Adolf Eichmann to Argentina and Klaus Barbie to Bolivia. Castellanos's story has been brought to light by a new documentary film called The Glass House, directed and produced by Brad and Leonor Marlowe, and a campaign in El Salvador by the foreign ministry and the country's small Jewish community.
"This is the story of a man with great courage who stood up against a system," Ricardo Moran Ferracuti, a Salvadorian official, told the Cox News Service. The campaign has urged Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust museum to confer the title Righteous Gentile on Castellanos.
Guardian
Labels:
El Salvador,
Holocaust,
José Castellanos,
Oskar Schindler,
Yad Vashem
Taking It to the Limit, One More Time
Westboro Baptist Church goes to New YorkAfter all, we’re talking about a fellow who pickets the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, shouting that they are being punished by God for somehow helping America in its “fag-enabling” ways. A man whose own children have accused him of beating them viciously with a mattock handle. A “pastor” who has celebrated the deaths of coal miners trapped beneath the earth, children killed in school bus accidents, even the thousands murdered on Sept. 11, 2001. The language he employs in his sermons attacking homosexuality — versions of which have been hissed at passing children by his followers — is so disgusting that it is unprintable in the major media.
But now Fred W. Phelps, who runs the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) of Topeka, Kansas, and the infamous GodHatesFags website, has taken another step down into the slime. His latest, posted last week on Friday the 13th, is “Thank God for Dead Boy Scouts.” The WBC Video News production opens to the strains of a hymn.
Then Phelps launches into it. It turns out that God isn’t really so angry about “enabling fags.” No, it’s the persecution of Phelps that drew his ire.
“Thank God for the four dead Boy Scouts,” Phelps starts out, referring to the Scouts killed by a June 12 tornado at a Scout retreat in Iowa. The boys, Phelps said, were “killed by an angry God in retaliatory vengeance against Nebraska and Iowa for their persecution of Westboro Baptist Church only because we preach the gospel to them. You lifted your hands against the Lord’s servants and, just as he promised, God avenged his servants by using his favorite weapons — his killer tornadoes — to kill your kids. Get it through your thick heads. God hates Nebraska and God hates Iowa. …[Y]ou can expect more and worse wrath from an angry God. … Westboro Baptist Church will picket the funerals of the four dead Boy Scouts. Amen.”
Had enough yet from the man who also runs the Catholic-bashing PriestsRapeBoys website yet? Well, there’s always YourPastorIsAWhore, a website that’s still under construction. “Your pastor is a whore,” Pastor Phelps writes in the promotional blurb now occupying Westboro Baptist Church’s latest site. “You know it’s true.”
Hatewatch
Boris, Barnbrook and the Prosopography of bananas
Boris Johnson was accused of turning the Mayoralty into an 'empty vessel' today, after delegating most of his powers to unelected advisors and deputies.
At an ill-tempered and repetitive session of Question Time, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green members of the Assembly all questioned an increasingly frustrated Boris as he repeated his time-worn response that Londoners would care more about results than procedures
But as his questioners refused to be fobbed off, he lost all patience and accused them of being 'pompous' and obsessed with the 'prosopography' of his administration. And as if that language wasn't 'clear and unambiguous' enough, he went on to deny any comparison between himself and a 'potemkin figure' pitched to conceal the real source of power. No such comparison had been made.
However, with no translator or historian to hand, Assembly members were forced to ask their questions all over again.
And frustrated as he was with the assembly's apparent ignorance of medieval and Crimean military history and their relevance to London government, Boris switched instead to his ever-trusty stock of Latin proverbs, none of which seemed to do the trick.
Eric Wimp or Bananaman
But as both the assembly and the audience started to drift off, the BNP's Richard Barnbrook pulled out a banana and began to chomp away. But unlike Eric Wimp, this act of defiance did not appear to have any visible transformative effect.
In fact when a City Hall official politely asked him to put the fruit away, he rose not like Bananaman to battle, but sank Wimp-like into a pliant concession.
But when his turn finally came to ask his questions, London's favourite fascist didn't disappoint. Due to ask a question on 'black cab drivers' (he wants more white ones) Barnbrook instead decided to thank Boris for having 'taken race out of the Rise festival'.
The Chair Jeanette Arnold, who has become a figure of hatred on far right bulletin boards since Barnbrook's election, ruled the point out of order and the assembly moved on. But when Barnbrook got his second chance to speak, he completely lost his rag.
His question on crime rates and Afro-Caribbeans was initially more third rate than Third Reich as he attempted to frame it as being asked out of concern for his 'black constituents'.
But when Boris replied that 'Londoners will be thoroughly dismayed by this racist breakdown' Barnbrook suddenly turned red and began to shout and thump the table.
And as he continued to rage and ignore the ruling of the Chair, all pretence of him being a serious politician peeled away. And as the session slipped by, the audience were left with little more than the off-colour sight of the BNP's very own Mr. Bananaman.
Tory Troll
At an ill-tempered and repetitive session of Question Time, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green members of the Assembly all questioned an increasingly frustrated Boris as he repeated his time-worn response that Londoners would care more about results than procedures
But as his questioners refused to be fobbed off, he lost all patience and accused them of being 'pompous' and obsessed with the 'prosopography' of his administration. And as if that language wasn't 'clear and unambiguous' enough, he went on to deny any comparison between himself and a 'potemkin figure' pitched to conceal the real source of power. No such comparison had been made.
However, with no translator or historian to hand, Assembly members were forced to ask their questions all over again.
And frustrated as he was with the assembly's apparent ignorance of medieval and Crimean military history and their relevance to London government, Boris switched instead to his ever-trusty stock of Latin proverbs, none of which seemed to do the trick.
Eric Wimp or Bananaman
But as both the assembly and the audience started to drift off, the BNP's Richard Barnbrook pulled out a banana and began to chomp away. But unlike Eric Wimp, this act of defiance did not appear to have any visible transformative effect.
In fact when a City Hall official politely asked him to put the fruit away, he rose not like Bananaman to battle, but sank Wimp-like into a pliant concession.
But when his turn finally came to ask his questions, London's favourite fascist didn't disappoint. Due to ask a question on 'black cab drivers' (he wants more white ones) Barnbrook instead decided to thank Boris for having 'taken race out of the Rise festival'.
The Chair Jeanette Arnold, who has become a figure of hatred on far right bulletin boards since Barnbrook's election, ruled the point out of order and the assembly moved on. But when Barnbrook got his second chance to speak, he completely lost his rag.
His question on crime rates and Afro-Caribbeans was initially more third rate than Third Reich as he attempted to frame it as being asked out of concern for his 'black constituents'.
But when Boris replied that 'Londoners will be thoroughly dismayed by this racist breakdown' Barnbrook suddenly turned red and began to shout and thump the table.
And as he continued to rage and ignore the ruling of the Chair, all pretence of him being a serious politician peeled away. And as the session slipped by, the audience were left with little more than the off-colour sight of the BNP's very own Mr. Bananaman.
Tory Troll
Can music lovers mix? Rappers, rock fans, racism
Vile racist abuse of Lethal Bizzle at the Download Festival has led the rapper to ask why hip-hop has not been accepted by mainstream festival audiences in the UK
One of Britain's most successful hip-hop stars has revealed he was subjected to racist abuse by fans who pelted him with missiles during his appearance at a rock festival last weekend.
Lethal Bizzle, a Mobo-winning black rapper who once called David Cameron a "donut" for blaming youth violence on rap music, had to perform his set at the annual Download Festival on Sunday under a constant shower of objects, including bottles thrown by the crowd who appeared to dislike his inclusion in an otherwise predominantly heavy metal line-up.
But some of the items thrown at him had clearly racist overtones, including a cuddly toy monkey and a banana skin which he said had the words "Bizzle you black cunt" written on it.
Yesterday, Bizzle hit out at the racists and claimed that some "hard questions" had to be asked about why urban music has struggled to be accepted by mainstream festival goers.
The 24-year-old grime star, who was born to Ghanaian parents and grew up in Walthamstow, east London, initially declined to talk about the racist abuse but has decided to urge festival-goers to be more accepting of urban acts appearing at events which have traditionally featured more guitar-driven music. "The bottles I could deal with but the racist abuse was totally unacceptable," he said. "I know it was just a small minority of fans and I'm trying not to paint all rock fans with the same brush, but some hard questions need to be asked. If you don't like my music, don't come watch me. But my background or race has absolutely nothing to do with who I am as an artist."
Bizzle also plays a major part in the so-called "grindie" scene, a mix of grime and indie, which combines rapping with punk and rock samples.
His comments come amid a year of controversy over the reaction of some festival fans to an increase of hip-hop acts appearing at mainstream festivals such as Glastonbury and Reading. In February, the Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher created a storm of debate when he suggested that the inclusion of the US rapper Jay-Z in this year's Glastonbury line-up was wrong because it went against the festival's tradition of guitar music.
The behaviour of the small group of fans at Download will raise fears among Glastonbury's organisers that Jay-Z may be sub
jected to similar abuse when he headlines the last day of next week's annual festival. In 2004, fans at Reading Festival made their feelings known about the rapper 50 Cent by resorting to a similar salvo of bottles. Several comments on internet forums popular with rock fans are already promising to give Jay-Z a similar welcome to the one Lethal Bizzle received last weekend. One fan writing under the name "Doherty49" on the NME website said: "Jay Z beware because the same thing is gonna happen to you an [sic] Glastonbury".
Bizzle was the only hip-hop act on the bill at this year's Download Festival, which predominantly caters for the heavier end of the rock scene. As soon as his troupe walked on stage at Donington Park in Derbyshire on Sunday afternoon, they were pelted with bottles. He continued his 30-minute set but was visibly taken aback by the reception, shouting at the crowd: "We got set up didn't we? But we're still gonna play."
Online videos showing the latter stages of his set show that the number of bottles landing on stage died down as people began to be won over by the music. But he said he paid more attention to some of the cruder objects that were thrown.
"There were bottles flying everywhere but I just decided to carry on with the show," he said. "Just before my last song I noticed a banana skin on the ground. I picked it up and read what was inside and just thought 'Oh my God'. I didn't want to make a big deal about it and just threw it down, but the rest of my band were fuming. It was a really sad end to the show because I really felt like we'd worked the crowd."
Hattie Collins, editor of the hip-hop magazine RWD, believes the reception at Download was an extreme illustration of how rock and metal enthusiasts are often dismissive of urban music. "I'm not sure why it is but for some reason it seems to be OK for rock fans to be dismissive about hip-hop music – it's like hip-hop has become this acceptable punchbag," she said. "I'm sure that those throwing the bottles were just a small number in the crowd, but you have to ask yourself whether there is an underlying ethic that rock is somehow a white-only genre."
James McMahon, festivals editor at NME, said he believed most fans were simply expressing their dislike of Bizzle's music. "You have to separate racism – which is always totally unacceptable – from just disliking hip-hop, which is allowed," he said.
A number of rock and metal fans have since rallied to Bizzle's cause. One fan called Jonni wrote on the rapper's MySpace page: "I'm not joking when I say that you were one of the highlights of the festival. Just was a shame that some narrow-minded people have to put a downer on it."
Bizzle, meanwhile, said fans of guitar-based festivals would have to get used to seeing more urban acts appearing on the bill. "In a few years, urban acts will be all over mainstream festivals – it's just a matter of time," he said. "It is early days, so some people are a little resistant to change – but they will just have to put up and shut up."
Independent
One of Britain's most successful hip-hop stars has revealed he was subjected to racist abuse by fans who pelted him with missiles during his appearance at a rock festival last weekend.
Lethal Bizzle, a Mobo-winning black rapper who once called David Cameron a "donut" for blaming youth violence on rap music, had to perform his set at the annual Download Festival on Sunday under a constant shower of objects, including bottles thrown by the crowd who appeared to dislike his inclusion in an otherwise predominantly heavy metal line-up.
But some of the items thrown at him had clearly racist overtones, including a cuddly toy monkey and a banana skin which he said had the words "Bizzle you black cunt" written on it.
Yesterday, Bizzle hit out at the racists and claimed that some "hard questions" had to be asked about why urban music has struggled to be accepted by mainstream festival goers.
The 24-year-old grime star, who was born to Ghanaian parents and grew up in Walthamstow, east London, initially declined to talk about the racist abuse but has decided to urge festival-goers to be more accepting of urban acts appearing at events which have traditionally featured more guitar-driven music. "The bottles I could deal with but the racist abuse was totally unacceptable," he said. "I know it was just a small minority of fans and I'm trying not to paint all rock fans with the same brush, but some hard questions need to be asked. If you don't like my music, don't come watch me. But my background or race has absolutely nothing to do with who I am as an artist."
Bizzle also plays a major part in the so-called "grindie" scene, a mix of grime and indie, which combines rapping with punk and rock samples.
His comments come amid a year of controversy over the reaction of some festival fans to an increase of hip-hop acts appearing at mainstream festivals such as Glastonbury and Reading. In February, the Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher created a storm of debate when he suggested that the inclusion of the US rapper Jay-Z in this year's Glastonbury line-up was wrong because it went against the festival's tradition of guitar music.
The behaviour of the small group of fans at Download will raise fears among Glastonbury's organisers that Jay-Z may be sub
jected to similar abuse when he headlines the last day of next week's annual festival. In 2004, fans at Reading Festival made their feelings known about the rapper 50 Cent by resorting to a similar salvo of bottles. Several comments on internet forums popular with rock fans are already promising to give Jay-Z a similar welcome to the one Lethal Bizzle received last weekend. One fan writing under the name "Doherty49" on the NME website said: "Jay Z beware because the same thing is gonna happen to you an [sic] Glastonbury".
Bizzle was the only hip-hop act on the bill at this year's Download Festival, which predominantly caters for the heavier end of the rock scene. As soon as his troupe walked on stage at Donington Park in Derbyshire on Sunday afternoon, they were pelted with bottles. He continued his 30-minute set but was visibly taken aback by the reception, shouting at the crowd: "We got set up didn't we? But we're still gonna play."
Online videos showing the latter stages of his set show that the number of bottles landing on stage died down as people began to be won over by the music. But he said he paid more attention to some of the cruder objects that were thrown.
"There were bottles flying everywhere but I just decided to carry on with the show," he said. "Just before my last song I noticed a banana skin on the ground. I picked it up and read what was inside and just thought 'Oh my God'. I didn't want to make a big deal about it and just threw it down, but the rest of my band were fuming. It was a really sad end to the show because I really felt like we'd worked the crowd."
Hattie Collins, editor of the hip-hop magazine RWD, believes the reception at Download was an extreme illustration of how rock and metal enthusiasts are often dismissive of urban music. "I'm not sure why it is but for some reason it seems to be OK for rock fans to be dismissive about hip-hop music – it's like hip-hop has become this acceptable punchbag," she said. "I'm sure that those throwing the bottles were just a small number in the crowd, but you have to ask yourself whether there is an underlying ethic that rock is somehow a white-only genre."
James McMahon, festivals editor at NME, said he believed most fans were simply expressing their dislike of Bizzle's music. "You have to separate racism – which is always totally unacceptable – from just disliking hip-hop, which is allowed," he said.
A number of rock and metal fans have since rallied to Bizzle's cause. One fan called Jonni wrote on the rapper's MySpace page: "I'm not joking when I say that you were one of the highlights of the festival. Just was a shame that some narrow-minded people have to put a downer on it."
Bizzle, meanwhile, said fans of guitar-based festivals would have to get used to seeing more urban acts appearing on the bill. "In a few years, urban acts will be all over mainstream festivals – it's just a matter of time," he said. "It is early days, so some people are a little resistant to change – but they will just have to put up and shut up."
Independent
Labels:
Download Festival,
grindie,
Lethal Bizzle,
racist abuse
June 18, 2008
Terror suspect 'spoke of bombs under bed'
A man accused of terrorist offences who had links to white supremacist organisations made racist comments to workmates and spoke of having bombs under his bed, a jury heard yesterday. Police later recovered four nail bombs hidden in a holdall among other items seized during a raid at Martyn Gilleard's flat in Pool Court, Goole, which the prosecution claim he intended to "further his political cause."
Gilleard, 31, an admirer of Hitler and Nazism, denies conduct in preparation of terrorist acts, possessing articles for terrorist purposes and collecting information for terrorist purposes. He has admitted possession of 34 .22 cartridges.
Witness John Percival told Leeds Crown Court that Gilleard was already a fork lift truck driver at Howarth Timber when he began working there aged 18 last summer. He was waiting to go into the RAF, which he had now done, but his start had been delayed because his jaw had been broken in an assault.
He told the jury he got to know Gilleard by mixing in the smokers' area at the branch of the timber merchants at Breighton Airfield, Bubwith, near Selby .
"He once mentioned in jest of having bombs under his bed and if they blew up he would be nailed to the wall."
He said he did not take any notice of it "because nothing said at work was meant to be taken seriously."
Gilleard also spoke of what he used to do with gunpowder from fireworks when he was younger to make them have a bigger bang. "He said it's not making the fuse that's the hard part, it was putting it in without blowing yourself up."
He told the court he and Gilleard also spoke together about football, drinking and target shooting with air rifles. He was aware Gilleard's political views were to "the far right, the BNP, the BPP and the National Front."
Gilleard had put up some racist cartoons from the internet on the canteen wall and on occasions wore T-shirts with BNP or National Front logos on. He also expressed racist views particularly relating to Muslims. When two paratroopers were killed in Iraq, Gilleard commented "what would happen if we blew them up back here."
He told the jury because he was the youngest he thought it would make him feel older, more of a man and fit in by associating with Gilleard and the others. He had given Gilleard his e-mail and did receive a message from him referring him to a site about a Russian beheading. "I saw a Russian man, obviously a Jew, getting beheaded and slaughtered on camera. There was a swastika in the background."
Gilleard also spoke to him about joining the BPP but he had never taken it further out.
He agreed under cross examination by David Hatton QC defending Gilleard the name "Bulls...t Corner" was used to describe the smoking room because of all sarcastic comments and jokes there which were not taken seriously.
Production manager Robert Belton told the jury he dropped Gilleard in Goole on October 31 after the fork lift truck driver said police had raided his flat. He seemed panicky and on edge. Gilleard was arrested in Dundee at 1.40am on November 3. They were shown items found at his flat including swords, knives, an axe, a machete, balaclavas and a strip of nails.
The trial continues.
Yorkshire Post
Gilleard, 31, an admirer of Hitler and Nazism, denies conduct in preparation of terrorist acts, possessing articles for terrorist purposes and collecting information for terrorist purposes. He has admitted possession of 34 .22 cartridges.
Witness John Percival told Leeds Crown Court that Gilleard was already a fork lift truck driver at Howarth Timber when he began working there aged 18 last summer. He was waiting to go into the RAF, which he had now done, but his start had been delayed because his jaw had been broken in an assault.
He told the jury he got to know Gilleard by mixing in the smokers' area at the branch of the timber merchants at Breighton Airfield, Bubwith, near Selby .
"He once mentioned in jest of having bombs under his bed and if they blew up he would be nailed to the wall."
He said he did not take any notice of it "because nothing said at work was meant to be taken seriously."
Gilleard also spoke of what he used to do with gunpowder from fireworks when he was younger to make them have a bigger bang. "He said it's not making the fuse that's the hard part, it was putting it in without blowing yourself up."
He told the court he and Gilleard also spoke together about football, drinking and target shooting with air rifles. He was aware Gilleard's political views were to "the far right, the BNP, the BPP and the National Front."
Gilleard had put up some racist cartoons from the internet on the canteen wall and on occasions wore T-shirts with BNP or National Front logos on. He also expressed racist views particularly relating to Muslims. When two paratroopers were killed in Iraq, Gilleard commented "what would happen if we blew them up back here."
He told the jury because he was the youngest he thought it would make him feel older, more of a man and fit in by associating with Gilleard and the others. He had given Gilleard his e-mail and did receive a message from him referring him to a site about a Russian beheading. "I saw a Russian man, obviously a Jew, getting beheaded and slaughtered on camera. There was a swastika in the background."
Gilleard also spoke to him about joining the BPP but he had never taken it further out.
He agreed under cross examination by David Hatton QC defending Gilleard the name "Bulls...t Corner" was used to describe the smoking room because of all sarcastic comments and jokes there which were not taken seriously.
Production manager Robert Belton told the jury he dropped Gilleard in Goole on October 31 after the fork lift truck driver said police had raided his flat. He seemed panicky and on edge. Gilleard was arrested in Dundee at 1.40am on November 3. They were shown items found at his flat including swords, knives, an axe, a machete, balaclavas and a strip of nails.
The trial continues.
Yorkshire Post
Labels:
BNP,
BPP,
Martyn Gilleard,
National Front,
swastika
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