Long Lawford and New Bilton ward by-election: another failure for the BNP

Since suffering the excision of large tracts of its administrative area in the local government reorganisation of 1974, the ancient Midland county of Warwickshire has had a distinctly odd and artificial appearance - there is nothing where Coventry, Solihull, Birmingham and their hinterlands should be.

Industrial Coventry marked something of a boundary between the two distinct parts of Warwickshire, anciently divided into Arden in the north and Feldon in the south. Coal-mining became a major (if not the major) industry of north Warwickshire, which also boasted a sprinkling of manufacturing towns such as Nuneaton and Bedworth. South Warwickshire remained largely agricultural, and is linked in the minds of most with Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare, and the beautiful rolling countryside that runs down to the Cotswolds.

East of Coventry lies Rugby, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Leicestershire.

Apart from its famous school and large cement works, it's really quite difficult to find anything of interest to say about Rugby, which resembles the towns of the northern county more than it does those of the genteel south.

It is, though, one of those Midland towns undergoing demographic change, reflected in the fortunes of the major political parties. In 1999 the local borough council comprised 22 Labour councillors, 11 Conservatives, 7 Liberal Democrats, and 8 others, mostly independents. A steady annual decline in Labour support last year saw the Conservatives take control with 27 seats, against Labour with 11 and the Liberal Democrats on 7.

In the 1970's a small National Front group operated ineffectually in the town, allied with the larger but equally ineffectual Coventry branch. The Rugby group seems to have disappeared altogether in the NF's 1979/80 fragmentation, since when racist activity in the town has been barely detectable.

Racism has returned to Rugby twenty-eight years on in the form of the British National Party, which is running a candidate for the Long Lawford and New Bilton division of Warwickshire County Council in tonight's by-election.

New Bilton is a part of Rugby, while Long Lawford is a largish village-cum-suburb lying to the north of the main Coventry road.

New Bilton comprises a large proportion of late-Victorian terraced housing, and - though we don't have the latest figures - according to the 2001 census in occupational terms the inhabitants were roughly evenly split between those describing themselves as supervisory, management or professional and those describing themselves as skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled manual workers or similar. In 2001, census figures put the ethnic minority population at around 8% of the total, mostly comprising Asians, and the vast majority of those Hindus.

Long Lawford, for which we have no recent data (but some personal knowledge) is more obviously compartmentalised, a council estate and private developments growing around a not unattractive old village.

In the 2005 elections to Warwickshire County Council the Conservatives made some progress at the expense of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, overtaking Labour to become the largest party, but maintaining a long-standing situation in which no party has overall control.

In 2005 Long Lawford and New Bilton voted as follows (percentages in brackets):

Con 1191 (29.02)
Lab 1712 (41.72)
L-D 585 (14.25)
Ind 616 (15.01)

Safe-ish Labour territory on the surface, then, but the absence of an Independent and the intervention of the Greens and the BNP, together with government unpopularity, could well put a different complexion on matters for the defending party in the face of an aggressive Tory campaign.

Again we have a by-election falling close to general area where the BNP has obtained worryingly good results. Nuneaton and Bedworth are not far away, and it's not much further to Tamworth and the south Derbyshire/north-west Leicestershire districts that have proved so fertile for the racist party.

Long Lawford and New Bilton ward is untried turf for the BNP, but they should - given the location and its proximity to other BNP units - be capable of mounting a half-way decent campaign aimed at gaining 15-20% of the vote.

The BNP candidate is George Jones, who lives some distance away in Kenilworth, as he has done for the best part of three decades.

George has a long history in extreme right wing politics. In the late-1970's he was a member of the British Movement, then run by "Mad Milkman" Michael McLoughlin, but somehow became associated with former members of the National Party splinter group in Coventry and Warwick - notably with Michael Cole, the National Party's hyperactive (and not entirely trusted) Warwick organiser, and also with Robert Relf, the Leamington "race rebel" imprisoned for displaying a sign declaring his house for sale to "English people only".

Relf had long been associated with the British Movement and Colin Jordan (who lived in nearby Coventry), while Cole, who - like Relf - made no secret of his Nazi views, eventually found his way to Denmark to help in the running of a now forgotten Nazi organisation.

Jones, Cole and Relf were also close associates of the hardline elements within Coventry National Front, who followed John Tyndall into the BNP's New National Front predecessor.

Like most of the racists in the Coventry/Warwick area, keen rambler George had an abiding interest in all things Nazi. We feel pretty sure that if George's interest in such dubious matters is on-going then he may well have neglected to mention as much to the electors of Long Lawford and New Bilton - as he may well have neglected to mention the contents of a letter published by the Leamington Courier all those years ago, still existing as yellowed archival hard-copy, wherein George suggested that the release into the air on a favourable wind of a few grammes of a certain noxious substance would solve the problem of Third World overcrowding at a stroke.

Ho hum.

Long Lawford and New Bilton ward result:

Lab 724 (33.78)
Con 723 (33.74)
BNP 313 (14.61)
L-D 235 (10.97)
Grn 148 (6.91)

Total 2143

The result was declared following two recounts, and is clearly bad news for Labour, despite retaining the seat. On this occasion BNP intervention seems to have favoured the Tories, as much of Labour's almost 8% loss of vote share can be attributed to them (and, in smaller measure, to the Greens). There was no joy for the Liberal Democrats either, losing over 3% of their vote, while the glory days of the Greens would appear to be well and truly over.

The BNP share falls just below the bottom end of our expectations, but almost certainly very much below their own. This was an indifferent BNP performance, the only comfort for them being that of coming in ahead of the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, neither of which had realistic hopes of making an impact in what for both parties is a difficult ward.

Long Lawford and New Bilton decisively rejected George Jones and the BNP, and if this result is even vaguely suggestive of the electoral possibilities open to the BNP in this area, then Rugby isn't going to go racist anytime soon.

'Neo-Nazi' accused of hoarding bomb-making materials

A suspected neo-Nazi accused of hoarding bomb-making materials at his Grimsby home has appeared in court to face terrorist charges.

Nathan Worrell, 34, appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court via video link from Blakenhurst Prison, Worcestershire, for a short hearing. Police allegedly found bomb-making manuals, weedkiller and dismantled fireworks at his Cromwell Road flat, which was raided on January 24. Unemployed Worrell is also accused of possessing a collection of far-right wing political literature and propaganda.

He is charged with possessing material for terrorist purposes and information useful for an act of terrorism. He also faces a third charge of waging a racist campaign of harassment against an Asian man and his partner.

District Judge Nicholas Evans adjourned the case until March 13, when the case will be committed to crown court.

Shaven-headed Worrell wore a grey sweatshirt and spoke only to confirm his name. There was no application for bail and no formal plea was entered.

Doncaster Free Press

Police and British Legion probe 'appalling' BNP leaflet

A police probe has been launched into a leaflet posted to homes across Burnley and Pendle which blames Muslims for the heroin trade in Britain.

A British National Party councillor from Pendle and a former Burnley BNP election candidate are named in the leaflet as endorsing the views.

Councillors have called for Coun Brian Norton Parker, a BNP councillor for the Marsden ward in Nelson, to quit. But both he and John Rowe, a former BNP candidate for Rosegrove with Lowerhouse in Burnley, have spoken out in support of the leaflet.

Colleagues on Pendle Council are now considering reporting Coun Parker to their watchdog, the Standards Board, on suspicion of bringing the authority into disrepute.

Police have confirmed that an investigation has been launched into the leaflets - of which hundreds were delivered to homes - after a number of complaints were lodged with Lancashire Constabulary. The question of whether the leaflets amount to incitement to religious hatred is now being considered by Crown Prosecution Service lawyers.

Another inquiry looks set to be launched by the Royal British Legion, as the leaflets claim to be a 'Preston Pals' publication. The Pals represent a Lancashire regiment,the 5th Battalion, which endured heavy casualties in the First World War.

Coun George Adams, chairman of the legion's Nelson and district branch, said he was furious that the organisation's name has been linked to the "racist" flyer. The Walvderden councillor told a meeting of Pendle Council's Nelson committee: "I am asking if Coun Brian Norton Parker will distance himself from the leaflet as his name is on it."

Insp Russ Procter, of Lancashire Police, who was also in attendance at the meeting, said: "This leaflet has been distributed around Burnley, Pendle and Preston. I am also aware that this leaflet has been distributed in the Brentwood Road area and we have had a number of calls about it and we have passed this on to our hate crime unit. There is now a file which has been submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service. There are a number of residents who have been concerned."

Coun David Foster, Nelson committee chairman, added: "I think it is absolutely appalling that that sort of leaflet is being put out."

But Coun Parker declined to dissociate himself from the leaflet or its contents.

Coun Parker said: "I have been asked to apologise for it but I think that the heroin trade has to be highlighted because it causes so many deaths. One person dies every day in Scotland, I have read, because of heroin. This is a campaign by my colleague Tony Bamber which I support if it highlights the number of deaths from heroin."

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Rowe, of Cowper Street, Burnley, said: "I do not think that this (leaflet) is unreasonable."

A note on the leaflet says it had been produced by a Tony Bamber of Preston.

Burnley and Pendle Citizen

Police probe into BNP heroin leaflet

A British National Party member could face police investigations after he distributed hundreds of leaflets across Preston which blame Muslims for the heroin trade in Britain.

Tony Bamber, who stood in local elections for the BNP in Tulketh ward in 2006, denied being solely responsible for the distribution of the leaflets but admitted he was involved.

Mr Bamber, 52, said: "The leaflets are not making a comment about the Islamic religion, they are making a statement about the activities of Muslims. The leaflets were made by Preston Pals, a group of concerned indigenous people in the city."

The question of whether the leaflets amount to incitement to religious hatred is now being considered by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Detective Sergeant Graham Gallagher, head of the Hate Crime Diversity unit at the Lancashire Constabulary, said: "This leaflet has been distributed around Preston, Burnley, and Pendle. We received a number of complaints after the leaflet was distributed to a number of addresses and we have now submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service to see if we have sufficient evidence to progress with our inquiry."

Another inquiry looks set to be launched by the Royal British Legion, as the leaflets claim to be a Preston Pals' publication. The Pals represent a Lancashire regiment - the 5th Battalion - which endured heavy casualties in the First World War.

Mr Bamber, whose name appears on the leaflet, said he would continue distributing them.

Preston and Leyland Citizen

Hatewatch for the week of March 6th 2008

Ministers Accuse Police Of Destroying 'Greensboro Massacre' Records
Three ministers alleged that active duty Greensboro police officers in 2004 and 2005 destroyed 50 boxes of police files related to an infamous case of fatal shootings at an anti-Ku Klux Klan rally in 1979...

Grandson Of Auschwitz Survivor Victimized In Anti-Semitic Attack
A Temple University student who grew up listening to his grandfather describe the horrors of Auschwitz suffered a broken nose and a fractured orbital bone when he was attacked by seven men chanting anti-Semitic slurs...

Former Campus Hate Group Leader Blasts 'Cowards' In Conservative Movement
Kyle Bristow, the former chairman of the Michigan State University chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, revealed that national YAF leaders threatened to revoke the group's charter if it went ahead with plans to host a lecture by white supremacist Jared Taylor...

White Supremacist Bank Robbery Fugitive Arrested
David McFarland, 29, who is suspected of robbing several banks in Oregon while on supervised released for illegally trying to purchase a firearm, was arrested in Alabama by members of the Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force...

SPLC

BNP to fight two South Oxhey seats

The British National Party (BNP) has said it intends to fight for two South Oxhey council seats at May's local elections.

The controversial party, which many claim advocates racist and divisive policies, is to put forward candidates in the Northwick and Ashridge wards. Local pair Seamus Dunne and Deirdre Gates will attempt to unseat incumbent Labour councillors David Lake and Len Tippen who are both seeking re-election.

Spokesman Eddie Butler said the party believed South Oxhey provided fertile ground for its anti-immigration and nationalistic policies, adding that door-to-door polling indicated strong support. Despite previous campaigns in the area attracting little support, he feels the time is right for another attempt to gain a seat on Three Rivers District Council.

He said: "People are fed up with what's going on in this country. South Oxhey is an area where a lot of self employed people are suffering from the influx of foreign workers. It fits the profile of the seats we target. If we were to sell our party newspaper door-to-door on the estate I reckon about one in three people would buy it - which is much more than any other party could claim."

At last year's local elections the party achieved 50 councillors at district and borough level and is hoping for more this time out.

Existing councillors, however, are appalled by the announcement.

Labour group leader Kerron Cross, who also represents the South Oxhey area, said: "Everybody who has had dealings with the BNP will know what they are. Racist behaviour and far right extremism is something that everyone needs to take seriously and I am confident that residents in South Oxhey will be appalled to hear that the BNP is standing and I am sure they will reject them at the ballot box, as they always have done when given the opportunity to do so.

Council Leader Ann Shaw added: "The BNP is, of course, entitled to put forward candidates in elections. But South Oxhey people are sensible enough to recognise its divisive and hateful politics. The Liberal Democrats will be fighting a strong campaign with candidates dedicated to working for the local community."

Harrow Times

Schindler's List survivor tells stories of camps, Nazi regime

In 1946, Oskar Schindler (second from the right) poses with a group of Jews he rescued. Among those pictured are: Manci Rosner, Edmund Horowitz, Ludmila Pfefferberg-Page, Halinka Horowitz, and Olek Rosner.

Zev Kedem spent much of his childhood seeing sights. He saw the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, the factory of Oskar Schindler and, eventually, the downfall of the Nazi regime. Looking back over 60 years, Kedem, 73, is amazed that he came out alive.

"The most amazing thought is that the Holocaust overtook me when I was five," Kedem said in a telephone interview on Monday. "That's amazing for a child."

Kedem will speak at CSU today as part of Holocaust Awareness Week. His presentation, titled "Schindler's List: A Survivor Celebrates Life," will take place in the Lory Student Center's North Ballroom at 7 p.m.

In the early years of the Holocaust, Kedem lived with his family in Katowitz, Poland. When Nazi soldiers began rounding up Jews in Poland, he and his family went into hiding. Kedem ended up in a concentration camp. It was while he was in a concentration camp that his name miraculously found a place on Schindler's List. Schindler's List was written up by Oskar Schindler, a German who compiled a list of 1,100 Jews to work in a factory in Brinlitz, Czechoslovakia. Being taken to the factory meant avoiding death in the gas chambers for the Jewish people. For young Zev Kedem, Oskar Schindler was a life-saver.

"I am very grateful to Oskar Schindler to this very day," Kedem said.

Although Schindler's List saved Kedem initially, his journey was far from over. Less than a week after arriving at Schindler's factory, the local commandant charged that no child under the age of thirteen could work in the factory. For Kedem, this meant a trip to the dreaded death camp of Auschwitz in Poland. That day, five boys, including Kedem, and their fathers were transported to Auschwitz. They arrived Nov. 3, 1944.

For Kedem, death seemed imminent, but once again, luck was on his side. The day before he and the other transported prisoners were brought to Auschwitz, Adolf Hitler ordered the gas chambers closed. Decades later, while examining a log of prisoners brought to Auschwitz, Kedem located his prisoner number, B14433. He found that he and his father were among the last ten prisoners brought into Auschwitz before the camp was closed.

"Had we arrived one day earlier you wouldn't be talking to me," Kedem said.

Upon arriving at Auschwitz, Kedem was turned around almost immediately and forced to march across Poland, a miserable, wearisome journey. At one point, one loaf of bread was his means of sustenance for nearly two weeks.

"We didn't know how long we'd be on the road," Kedem said.

Eventually, Kedem and the prisoners were loaded on cattle trucks and taken to a concentration camp at Mauthausen, Austria. Kedem was taken to a labor camp where he and other prisoners manufactured ball bearings and other war materials for the German army. Work in the labor camps was dark and dank; the factories in which Kedem worked were hidden in caverns dug inside the mountains of Austria.

After working in the hidden factories for a period of months, Kedem was sent back to Mauthausen. Then, on May 3, 1945, just before the surrender of German forces, Kedem was liberated. His liberation took place just sixteen days before his 13th birthday. Kedem had been a German detainee for nearly six years. Unfortunately, however, liberation did not mean safety or celebration.

"We had been reduced to sub-animal level," Kedem said. "Celebration did not occur."

One of the first prisoners to leave Mauthausen when the gates were opened, Kedem immediately sought a safe place to hide. Germans soldiers were still on the loose and shooting any Jews they encountered.

"You could not depend on anyone," said Kedem, going on to say, "people were like zombies and living skeletons. I was shot at more often after liberation than while in camps."

As he moved from place to place seeking help, Kedem was often turned away. Finally, he was introduced to a U.S. Army unit helping displaced persons. He travelled with the unit for a time, acting as a sort of unofficial mascot. Then, in November 1945, Kedem was transported to England along with 800 other children. He was finally safe.

In England, he was educated at St. Philips and St. James primary schools and went on to graduate from Oxford University. Kedem noted, however, that his preschool education took place in the violent, death-plagued camps of Auschwitz and Mauthausen.

"You're just focused on staying alive," said Kedem of his time in concentration camps. In retrospect, Kedem feels enormously fortunate to have survived.

"Life is wonderful and should be celebrated every day. People take life far too much for granted. Individual freedom is taken too much for granted," Kedem said.

Rocky Mountain Collegian

Stop the Red, White and Blue Festival 2008

For too many years the BNP have enjoyed their annual Red, White and Blue festival without major opposition. They have usually kept the location secret for as long as possible but nevertheless have often brought numbers in their hundreds for a weekend of morale boosting, party-building and scarcely concealed, well-documented Nazi and fascist celebration.

This year we already know where the RWB festival is to be. Immediately after their festival in 2007, they announced it will be in the same location in Denby, which borders Nottingham and Derby and is only a few miles from the M1. This part of the East Midlands has been one of their prime areas of recent growth as well as having been a long established area of fascist activity and the birth place of the violent Combat 18.

Despite the still developing split in the BNP, they are insistent that their festival will go ahead. If it does then it will allow them to regroup, reorganise, fix and expand after the damage to them by their recent political in-fighting.

East Midland Anti-Fascists reorganise

Over the last year anti-fascists in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire have been working together to harass the BNP. Primarily this has been facilitated by the Nottinghamshire Stop the BNP campaign but it has also been supported by Derby UAF as well as a multitude of trade union organisations. All of these campaigns are determined to stop the RWB festival being a successful recruitment event for the BNP.

Already 150 people were mobilised in October, 2007 and physically blockaded and stopped a local BNP rally being held and addressed by Nick Griffin. In addition leaflets and stalls have been held in towns and villages where the BNP have been known to be particularly active.

Nottingham conference call for national mobilisation

A local anti BNP conference was called in Nottingham on Jan 19th and attended by 100 people. The conference was sponsored by many trade unions in the region including the FBU, UCU, UNISON and NUT.

Delegates called for a mass protest against the BNP festival; demanded that councils block permission for the event and asked trade unionists as far as possible to refuse to do any work that might help facilitate the BNP event; and for thousands of people including trade unionists and anti-fascists throughout the country to join us in filling the surrounding area in mass protest.

The BNP festival is still going ahead. We call on all local and national anti-racist campaigns and bodies opposed to the BNP to support the call of the Nottingham conference.

Please raise support for this mobilisation within your organisation. Contact us by emailing nobnpfestival@riseup.net. Watch for news on the plans for this mobilisation at http://nobnpfestival.wordpress.com

The leaflet (above) can be downloaded by clicking here.

Fighting poverty 'key to better racial integration'

Fighting poverty is the key to better integration between whites and Asians in a town which suffered race disturbances seven years ago, MPs heard today. People in Burnley, Lancashire, still lived "parallel lives" in segregated communities but increased economic prosperity would help break down those barriers.

Burnley Council's chief executive Steve Rumbelow told a cross-party parliamentary select committee that fixing the economy was the "real issue".

The Communities and Local Government Committee completed a two-day visit to the town as part of their investigation into community cohesion and migration.

In June 2001 up to 200 white and Asian youths clashed in a night of violence which involved attacks on pubs and shops. Two years later the British National Party (BNP) won enough seats in the local elections to become the second largest party on the borough council.

The select committee has already visited Peterborough, where there has been a large influx of Eastern European migrant workers, and will next go to Barking and Dagenham, where the BNP won 11 of the 13 local election seats it contested in May 2006.

Today, the committee was told by Mr Rumbelow that community relations were better than 2001 despite raised levels of deprivation.

He said: "The real issue is fixing the economy and making sure we have opportunities for all the communities. That will deal better with cohesion issues. It is true to say that living, to a degree, in segregated communities is not in itself a problem. The biggest problem is deprivation. The most urgent need is to turn the economy around. It is not the total answer but is the biggest part of the answer."

Economic development would help people crawl out of poverty and move away from poor areas and enable them to mix better, he said.

He said the council had not always got it right in the past with communicating how and why regeneration funding was distributed but their thinking was now clear. This had previously led to a perception that poor white areas were being neglected in favour of poor Asian areas.

Clive Betts, Labour MP for Sheffield Attercliffe, asked if it was accepted different communities lived parallel lives then was there a need to integrate unless it led to a riot.

Burnley Council leader Coun Gordon Birtwistle replied: "You do have parallel lives in Burnley but providing the parallel lives meet and achieve cohesion I do not have a problem."

Shufqat Razaq, Chair of Burnley Action Partnership, told the committee the historic matter of the distribution of regeneration funds and, to a greater extent, the knock-on effects of violent acts committed by Muslim extremists were the main sources of racial tension in the town.

He agreed that the downturn in economic fortunes in Burnley was also a factor. He said: "When you speak to my parents, thing did not start out bad. They were made welcome.

"There were racial tensions in the late 60s and 70s but it was not bad. There were plenty of jobs in the factories. When the decline started the jobs disappeared. There is a correlation between the tensions building up between the communities."

Yesterday, committee chairman and Labour MP for Milton Keynes South West Dr Phyllis Starkey said she was surprised that communities in Burnley were still living separate lives as they were in 2001. She added there were not enough jobs and a lot of poor housing, and those things affected the whole community.

The committee is expected to reports its findings and recommendations to Hazel Blears, Minister for Communities and Local Government, next month.

24dash

Move to fight Amber Valley BNP festival

Battle lines are already being drawn over plans to hold the British National Party's annual Red, White and Blue festival in Amber Valley again this summer.

Party member and former Heanor councillor Alan Warner hosted the event on his land near Denby last summer and despite major complaints from nearby residents says he plans to do so again this year.

Mr Warner said: "The application for a liquor and entertainment licence has already gone in and we're waiting for the outcome of that. We wanted to get it banged in early because there will be more things going on here this year and more people. We've got another 14 acres to use this year thanks to a neighbour of mine opening up his fields. He was put off last year but everything went off all right so he says he's not going to be dictated to by the protesters and we can use his land. There was no trouble last time according to the police. They came onto the site four times a day and were quite happy."

Mr Warner promises the festival will be bigger and better than last year with a big wheel, dodgems, children's rides and even a massive blimp bearing the BNP logo hovering overhead.

A website has been set up to call for more organised opposition than last year when a lone protester with a placard saying "no to racism" picketed the site.

A spokesman for the nobnpfestival website said: "The BNP is a far right nationalist party. Its politics are divisive and designed to stir up hysteria around immigration. The RWB festival is intended to draw new recruits into the party and consolidate these disgraceful politics. In 2007, Amber Valley Council granted the organisers entertainment licenses in spite of widespread local protest. Anti-fascists did not mobilise in time to help stop the festival. We are determined that will not happen this year."

The site's organisers say they intend to draw together thousands of people who oppose the BNP and protest against the festival.

Mr Warner said: "If we're going to have thousands here protesting then let them come. This is a family festival and there'll be no trouble from us. I don't know where they're all going to park because they can't park on the road - we have on site parking for BNP members."

Belper News

Of cameraphones, court and Cromie's crap...

Simon Darby breaks the law again...

How intriguing it was to see the public face of the British National Party, its Press Officer Simon Darby, showing his utter contempt for the law by taking snaps on his cameraphone while he zoomed along the motorway back in November and how interesting it was to note that, as far as we know, he was never done for it despite the evidence being on the internet for all to see.

Still, never mind. There's another opportunity for the law to boot this dangerously arrogant driver off the road because he's done the same thing again. Above (the images to left and right of November's illegal picture) are the pictures taken on Darby's mobile while driving - a clear breach of the law that we're going to send directly to the police in the probably forlorn hope that somebody will do something about this idiot before he kills someone.

Another day, yet another court case

The BNP, ever willing to go to court for no reason at all only to lose and have to face the usually disastrous consequences, are to oblige us with yet another courtroom comedy, this time involving five of the party's activists who were nicked while distributing one of their lying leaflets in Swansea.

At least one of the five, who were arrested on suspicion of committing public order offences nearly two years ago, has decided to attempt to make a claim for trauma after being banged up for thirteen hours before being released on bail.

'We sincerely hope that no taxpayers’ money will be provided to a member of this organisation to take action against the police,' said Dominic MacAskill of Searchlight Cymru.

We'd all hope that but it looks like the people concerned have now been awarded legal aid to make their claim. What a pity that the police-despising BNP, which will go out of its way to slag off the force using any pretext, can now attack it in court using the money contributed by taxpayers to keep riff-raff and thugs like the BNP off our streets in the first place.

Paul Cromie and that 'shit' email

Recently-appointed Bradford BNP organiser Paul Cromie, darling of the Standards Board (see here and here), has come under fire from those within the Voice of Change dissident group for sending out 'an unsolicited and illegal email entitled "King Midas in Reverse – LOL"'.

The email, sent out by the man who claimed to be 'computer-illiterate' when investigated by the Standards Board for a number of pornographic emails that were sent from his council email address, was sent to a large number of Voice of Change supporters and BNP members and is a clipping of a newspaper report regarding a six-month driving ban handed down for speeding to James Lewthwaite, a former Bradford councillor and one of the rebels, who has an ongoing conflict with Cromie. The full text of the email, such as it is, is below;

'Here we go again folks, another fine mess "King Midas in Reverse" has got himself into. Unlike the real King Midas,everything Lewthwaite touches turns to (shit) I cant stop laughing. Regards Paul'

It's hard to believe that a cretin like Cromie is a retired (and wealthy) businessman and currently a Bradford councillor, and it's difficult to work out why Cromie would apparently breach the Data Protection laws just to cock a snook at Lewthwaite. Perhaps he's just over-excited at having recently been appointed to the organiser role at Bradford, much to the disgust of the rest of Bradford's BNP except for the also-recently-appointed Yorkshire Regional Organiser, ex-Combat 18 thug Adrian Marsden. Marsden and Cromie are friends from way back.

The Voice of Change mob were not pleased at this unwarranted attack, describing Cromie's childish behaviour as 'disgraceful and shocking' though not entirely surprising. Nor did they let the opportunity pass for a quick sideswipe at Nick Griffin.

'Cromie has been a big donor to the party and therefore is likely to receive no punishment for his recent slanderous comments...this ridiculous appointment by Griffin just shows his total lack of judgement and is another example of the kind of people that Griffin is surrounding himself with nowadays.'

Well, we won't argue with that.

Play it again, Rock Against Racism

Thirty years on, a new generation is being recruited to counter growing threat from the far right

Thirty years after it politicised a generation of activists, Rock Against Racism is being restaged at its original venue of Victoria Park, in east London, in what will be the biggest anti-racism concert ever held in Britain.

When the Clash took the stage in 1978, joining forces with the Tom Robinson Band and Steel Pulse, they ignited a movement that was to propel protest gigs into the mainstream and lead to campaigns such as Live Aid.

But now a new generation of fans is being targeted by campaigners, who expect thousands to march from London's East End to the all-day concert next month, where original headliner Tom Robinson will lead Jerry Dammers from the Specials, Clash collaborator Don Letts, Babyshambles, Kate Nash and others in front of an expected 70,000 people.

Dammers, who is putting together a band featuring former Sham 69 frontman Jimmy Pursey, said: "We can't be complacent and relax the struggle against [the far-right British National Party]."

Babyshambles' Pete Doherty added: "We need to encourage people to fight racism whether with words or actions."

The 30th-anniversary event – the Love Music Hate Racism carnival, on Sunday 27 April – is a response to fears that the BNP could secure its first seats on the Greater London Assembly in elections on 1 May.

Two stars who will not be playing are David Bowie and Eric Clapton. Comments made by the pair in the 1970s were credited with prompting the original Rock Against Racism concert. Bowie was quoted in 1976 saying, "Britain could benefit from a fascist leader"; the same year Clapton told an audience in Birmingham that the politician Enoch Powell – infamous for his "rivers of blood" speech opposing mass immigration – was right and Britain was "overcrowded".

Lee Billingham, national organiser for Love Music Hate Racism, said: "Bowie actually gave £1,000 to the Anti Nazi League in the early 1990s. He's been forgiven, but not Clapton – he's never retracted what he said."

The BNP's vote soared from 3,000 in 2000 to 300,000 in 2007, say anti-racism campaigners, who claim the party missed getting elected to the London Assembly by just 0.1 per cent in 2004.

Independent

The Muppet Show

One night, idly modding the comments on here, I came upon ten successive posts all plainly from the same individual, whose burblings grew increasingly more deranged the further up the list I worked.

"Am I getting to you yet?" demanded this idiot at one point (well, no, because I can hit "reject" quicker than - say - a mad BNP legal eagle can bash out insults).

The final comment ended with the epithet "Muppets!", a plural noun coincidentally much beloved of one Lee John Barnes, the man who managed (belatedly) to join the BNP for a fiver less than anybody else, if we are to believe his Walk Towards The Light postings on Stormfront (regular Stormfronters were a little surprised that Mr Barnes did not seem to know the cost of the BNP membership he had apparently just paid).

It may be remembered that Barnes, known by many on his side of the fence as "Bagel" or "Bonkers", made a threat to sue Lancaster UAF (as was) and me personally to force us to hand over the details of friends and supporters here making comments not to his liking:

What I found most disgusting about these comments was the allegation that I have been making death threats ... I do not have any money to defend myself over any allegations like these by hiring a solicitor, but I am prepared to sue Denise Garside personally and Lancaster UAF and order their ISP provider to hand over the details of anyone making such an allegation on their site ... I suggest that the Lancaster UAF now remove that posting before I issue a writ for it.

(I had better point out here that all Barnes's words as republished in this article have been copied and pasted "as is", and apologise in advance to those who are offended by bad language.)

Barnes made his threat on December 24th. We're still waiting for the writ - in fact, we're desperate to receive it!

Over the years Barnes has been a great source of amusement for anti-fascist Stormfront watchers as he stalked the threads in his various guises, fooling almost nobody (least of all the resident Nazis) as he puffed and preened and polished whatever reputation he imagined himself to possess.

As Walk Towards The Light, a nom-de-guerre Barnes has retained longer than is normal for him, the 21st Century British Nationalist appears to function as Nick Griffin's attack dog, disrupting threads and posting insults whenever the bona fides of the BNP's leader are called into question, as they are with monotonous frequency.

Barnes also functions as moderator on the BNP's own dissent-free internal forum, and in his Stormfront persona as Walk Towards The Light recently appeared to confirm to suspicious fellow posters that the IP addresses of BNP dissenters posting on Stormfront were passed over to the moderators of the BNP forum. The supposition of the suspicious Stormfonters was that since BNP members need to supply their membership numbers to join the BNP forum, dissenters could be easily identified if their logged Stormfront and BNP forum IP addresses matched.

We couldn't possibly confirm such an outrageous allegation, and therefore won't be repeating it here...

We can, however, confirm that notoriously pro-Griffin Stormfront moderator John Joy Tree, aka Andy Robertson, this week openly celebrated renewing his BNP membership. Of course, the fact that Stormfront is allegedly proscribed to BNP members under pain of expulsion (step forward founder member Keith Axon) is of little consequence to the likes of Robertson and Barnes - at least, while they are in Griffin's good books.

Those who can be bothered to plough through the primary-school grammar, foul language and execrable spelling of Barnes's 21st Century British Nationalism blog will have found themselves periodically confronted by his side-splitting attempts at poetry. As these are close relatives of Monty Python's Funniest Joke in the World, and as our readers may not survive the experience of their repetition here, we elect to publish only the visitor comments to Barnes's "Cry Africa":

"You're a shite poet, crap lawyer...why do you bother to wake up in the morning?"

"Do try to learn to spell and use apostrophes."

And:

"We've just been in touch with Fergal Keane. He was really interested in what you had to say about him. All that libel and lies in one post. And he wasn't happy at all. Not at all ... No point in taking the post down. Copies off it stored at many locations ... Hehehe."

Which interjection brings us to the fact that while Lee John Barnes is famously thin-skinned when insults and (alleged) libels are heading in his direction, he is just as famously unrestrained when it comes to handing them out.

The person claiming that journalist Fergal Keane had been contacted was referring to an earlier boggle-eyed Barnes rant, "Fergal Keane and the blood on his hands", which contained the following observations:

"Keane was one of the main propagandists for the ANC during his years as a BBC journalist in South Africa... Like the rest of the verminous journalist sub species ( Homo Ratus ) Keane was one of the first to jump the sinking ship once he had finished gnawing away at its foundations sufficently to ensure it sunk... It was journalists like Keane with their biased, political pro-ANC propaganda that ensured the world had a distorted and one sided view of South Africa under apartheid... It was people like Keane who supported the ANC and who propagandised the ANC who now bear the shame and guilt of the way that South Africa has descended into a corrupt and criminal ochlocracy under the control of ANC thugs and killers."

Several thousand quids in compo for Fergal there already, methinks, but Lee was on a roll:

"The youth brigades that Keane propagandised to the world as the liberators of South Africa, were nothing more than insane criminals and murderers... It was Keane and his ilk who sought to portray those animals as heroes, who destroyed South Africa and who know bear the blood guilt of the 50 murders a day that afflict that tortured nation."

Why stop there?

"It is white liberal wankers like Fergal Keane who propagandised and demonised white rule who are the agents of this crisis."

Any more?

"The white boss man Keane made sure the natives did as he demanded and got their ANC government and then fucked off out of the country and left them to rot whilst the legacy of his liberal delusions destroyed the country and their lives."

Finished yet?

"If idiots like Keane hadnt propagandised the ANC and acted as its recruiters and got innocent Africans to join the ANC movement, then the thousands of deaths caused by the ANC waging wars against its enemies during aparheid would not have happened and nor would South Africa be in the crisis it is in today It was white scum like Keane who beat the drum for the killers in the ANC that bear the guilt of the killings today."

That it?

"It was you Keane who glorified ANC crimes and killings... It was you Keane who created the culture of death and violence in South Africa that was the resut of the ANC existing and coming into power... It is you Keane who has the blood of the thousands upon thousands of innocent people on your hands."

Even more?

"You beat the drum for the ANC, you propagandised the ANC, you glorified the children dragged from their schools by the ANC and turned into killers and criminals... It is you Keane and all those liberal filth with their propaganda and lies that bear the guilt and shame of South Africa today."

I think we can see where Lee is going with this so we'll leave it there.

Curiously, that post attracted no comments at all until the person who was allegedly party to the contacting of Fergal Keane made his remarks. Barnes retorted to him: "As for you, you leftist pond slime, crawl back into the arsehole that you crawled out of. Degenerate scum."

Suddenly, and in the same few hours, several supportive comments appeared on the Keane post, replete with Barnsian terminology ("murder-enabling scum") and spelling ("hipocrisy"). Was Barnes getting worried?

If he was, he quickly blew any defence to the four winds.

Dear Fergal,

If you are reading this please sue me.

That way I can declare myself bankrupt after the trial and cost the BBC hundreds of thousands of pounds when I opt to fight the court case all the way in open court.

Please, please sue me. This blog could do with the publicity.

Taking on the BBC would give me a publicity boost equivalent to a viagra.

To be honest I have only managed to get one libel case into the Royal Court of Justice as a Mackenzie friend and need the experience of fighting one involving myself.

If anyone else wants to sue me for libel please feel free.

I shall check the email on a regular basis for any legal letters etc.

P.S Fergal how did it feel watching the Black African guy say that he wanted the National Party back in power because the ANC was such a nightmare.

Instead of listening to the man you just dismissed him with a ' you must be joking'.

No Fergal he wasnt joking - and the fact you even suggested he was in order to 'shame' him for telling you how he felt was evidence of your liberal bias, contempt for him as a real person (other than as a black who should act as you as white liberal demand he should )and your adherence to the beliefs of liberal bullshit.

He told the truth as he saw it, and you ridiculed him for it. It is you as a white liberal journalist in South Africa at the time of the ANC war who is responsible for much of the carnage that has resulted from the takeover of power by the ANC. But you could not accept that truth, as to do so would mean you would have to accept your role in creating the nightmare.

You and the BBC are the agents of the demise of South Africa as you propagandised and eulogised the ANC, and as such are complict in the murders committed by the ANC and also the social collapse of African society.

Now scuttle along to your lawyers and get your writ typed up.

Muppet.

There's that word "Muppet" again!

Before moving on, let's just take a quick tour of the towering legal intellect's blog to see who else has recently been in line for a syntactically tortured mauling.

There's Jeremy Paxman: "Jeremy Paxman, BBC journalist on a million quid a year and hypocritical liberal arsehole... Paxman your a fucking arsehole mate."

The RMT's Bob Crow: "...retarded Marxist thug... The RMT is run by a clique of political dinosaurs around their own little tin pot Stalin, Comrade Bob."

BBC producer Nasreen Suleaman: "Stupid lieing Taqqiya bitch."

The Home Office: "(for members of the press / government / police reading this I have copyrighted the words THE MYSTERONS to describe the non-Muslim Islamist terrorists who are not motived by Islam/ Islamism. Therefore if any overpaid fifthwit in the Home Office uses my copyrighted phrase to describe Al Qaeda / THE MYSTERONS then I will sue your ass )."

Fifthwit? (Answers on a postcard to Lancaster Unity.)

Jon Cruddas: "Labour goon and hypocrite."

Billy Brag: "...twat..."

Miscellaneous verbatim:

The Hag Ebanks ( a delusional and hideous freak who lies even about her own ethnicity )

Adrian Davis ( The Mekon - sad, inadequate dwarf who has had a decade long sulk about the BNP not understanding his 'genius')

Kenny Smith ( Thief )

Steve Blake ( Data Thief )

John Brayshaw ( idiot )

Sadie Graham ( ringleader of the thieves )

That's enough of that, I think.

We could at this point move on to Barnes the Scientist's Mirror Neurone Theory: "For a while I have been working on a theory that links the Cro-Magnons, Western Culture and altruism. It is my theory that the basis of human altruism and our capacity for creating complex and advanced social structures and cultures is due to the increase in the numbers of mirror neurones in the human brain and the increased connections between the mirror neurones and the neo-cortex."

Or we could discuss Barnes and UFO's: "It was about six foot long and about six foot wide and rose up into the sky then disappeared back below the skyline as soon as I sighted it. The movement was deliberate and controlled. The object had been lifting itself above the woods from the ground and when it came into eyesight recoiled to the right with incredible speed. As soon it realised it was being observed it dropped back below the trees. This suggests to me that not only was it under conscious direction but that it was aware it was being observed and took direct action to ensure that it could not be observed."

As ever, Barnes has a Theory: "... as some the witnesses at some UFO sightings state that US military insignia are seen on the crafts, but if the latter is true then we have to start dealing with this in a serious way. That means getting the US to admit it has these craft, what technology they are using, what the capacity is of these craft, what threat they pose to our national security if the Chinese get hold of the technology and also what the bloody hell have they been doing not giving their closest allies access to this technology."

My theory is that Barnes really did see a UFO which silently scanned his brain and was so traumatised that it couldn't get back to Alpha Centauri fast enough.

Let's leave the last word to the "sad, inadequate dwarf" and barrister Adrian Davies, posting as Insurgent on Stormfront:

You've been smoking too much pot again, Bagel . . . Let me put that another way. You are a malicious liar, and have made that story up out of envy and resentment of your betters. If you don't like that comment, well, you know that I am rich enough to be well worth suing, so go ahead and make my day.

Now the Eddas tell us not to bandy words with ill bred oafs, and the moderators tell us not to get off topic, but since you have sorely provoked me, let me tell you a story about an incompetent saddo wannabe lawyer, who has been a failure all his life. Unlike your mendacious inventions, it has the merit of being true.

There is a train driver who lives in the South of England, in one of the Medway towns. He is a gutsy nationalist, and stood as a BNP candidate in a local election. His union, ASLEF, decided to expel him for being a BNP member, which was illegal under the law as it stood at the time (one of Maggie Thatcher’s better laws).

The train driver asked Wannabe to help him take on the union in the Employment Tribunal. Let’s be fair to Wannabe. He did a pretty good job at first, but then conceit or devilry or smoking too much weed got to him, and he began to play very silly buggers indeed.

Wannabe had the use of the train driver’s computer to help him to prepare the case. He used it to post grossly libellous attacks on several ASLEF officials on a website called trueaslef.com. These libels were complete inventions of Wannabe’s, but he used the train driver's name when posting, because after all, Wannabe is in his own estimation (though no-one else’s) a very important person indeed, and working class nobodies such as train drivers are expendable.

Not surprisingly, the union officials who had been falsely accused of stealing its funds and using them to pay for holidays with prostitutes in five star hotels in Cuba were not best pleased with the train driver whom they believed had posted the libels. Their belief was not unreasonable, considering that the e-mails were signed off with the train driver's name, and came from his e-mail address. So they sued the train driver.

When the case came to Court, Wannabe went on holiday to Cornwall because he is a coward and a liar, and was afraid to give evidence. The train driver went down for a huge amount despite his barrister's best efforts. The trouble was, the jury wanted to know why Wannabe wasn't there to 'fess up and dig the train driver out of the hole into which he had dropped him. Luckily for the train driver, his barrister was able to sort the mess that Wannabe had made out a few months down the line, but in the meanwhile, the train driver had to live with the prospect of losing his home, where he lives with his partner and their sick child. Wannabe however had a good holiday in Cornwall. Now he blames the train driver's barrister for not winning that case . . .

How would you like Wannabe to represent you?

How would you indeed!

All together now:

It's time to play the music
It's time to light the lights
It's time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight!