Far right leader gets suspended prison sentence for race hate speech

Kevin Quinn, the leader of a right wing party convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence after a racist speech in South Oxhey, has received a six-month suspended prison sentence.

Quinn launched a tirade of abuse at a British First Party rally after setting up a stall with Union flags in the shopping precinct on Saturday, December 1, 2007. The 44-year-old was arrested after he was heard to shout all Muslims are b******s, while referring to the plight of British school teacher Gillian Gibbons, accused of blasphemy in Sudan after allowing children to name a Teddy Bear Muhammad.

Quinn was found guilty after a second trial at St Albans Crown Court in March and sentence was adjourned for reports until Monday. The jury in the first trial was discharged when they could not reach a verdict. A two-year suspended sentence imposed on the unemployed father of four, for disseminating racist literature had only just expired when he took to the stand in South Oxhey.

In mitigation Mark Kimsey, said although Quinn - who sat in the dock with his bag dressed in a blue tracksuit - held “extreme views” the court case had had a profound effect on the party leader and its 1000 members.

Mr Kimsey said: “The words uttered on that day weren’t to cause offence but the emotion was some what high. Earlier he had been handed an article in the Daily Mail about the woman in Sudan and the naming of a Teddy Bear Muhammad. The words were said in the heat of the moment and he apologises for the upset.”

He added: “One shopkeeper took exception to the words uttered, but there was no public unrest.”

One of Quinn’s children had been bullied as a result of the media attention to the case, which had caused the defendant to think about his place in the party. Mr Kimsey said: “He is reconsidering his role in the party. He has learnt a hard lesson by the impact the court case has had on him and those closest to him. He will now concentrate on his family rather than the political views he holds.”

Before sentencing, Judge Stephen Warner said: “The jury found you used abusive or insulting words directed towards those of the Muslim faith. There is a right of freedom of speech in this country, which extends to those such as yourself who seek to express in public views such as yours however offensive many may find them to be. That right, however, does not include the right to insult or abuse such members of the public that are exposed to that behaviour.

“A member of the public felt sufficiently strongly to contact police because you had abused that freedom of expression. You have a long history of involvement in extreme organisations and clearly hold deeply entrenched views consistent with that ideology.”

The judge noted the party operated on a small scale and was a “marginal less than sophisticated fringe organisation”. He concluded: “The option I face is to send you to prison today, which many would regard you thoroughly deserve, or an alternative course to mark the seriousness of the offence but allow you to stay in the community.”

Judge Warner suspended the six-month sentence for 18 months. Quinn was also ordered to carry out 250 hours unpaid work, and subjected to a four-month curfew from 7pm to 6am. He will be supervised by probation for six months.

Watford Observer

An open letter from Nick Lowles - Give one hour to stop the BNP!

Dear reader,

I am writing this open letter to you because I need your help. With the European election only a few weeks away it is absolutely vital that we all do what we can to stop the BNP from winning seats in the European Parliament. A significant BNP victory would herald the era of four-party politics and the BNP, with its leaders who peddle race hate, division and fear, would become a lasting national threat, and one that will play out in the ballot box and in our communities.

But they need not win. This election is being contested under proportional representation and so every vote counts. It is also a turnout election so we need everyone who opposes the BNP’s politics of hate to vote and convince others around them to vote.

This month Searchlight is launching its “Donate an hour” initiative. We are asking all our readers and supporters to give us a minimum of one hour to help us stop the BNP. Towards the end of this letter I will give you five ways you can help stop the BNP.

We are facing the biggest political challenge to date but if everyone who opposes the BNP’s message of hate does something then we can stop them.

The BNP threat

The threat from the British National Party in the forthcoming European election is very real. With just a small increase in the share of the vote the party secured at the last European election in 2004, the BNP could win three or more seats. Let there be no misunderstanding, a substantial breakthrough in the European election would change the British political landscape for years to come.

And it would change for the worse.

Each MEP is entitled to around £250,000 a year for staff and office support. Rather than benefiting voters in the region, the BNP would employ organisers to push its racist agenda in local and national elections.

That’s exactly what it has done in London, where its representative on the London Assembly employs two people, the party’s deputy leader, Simon Darby, who lives in Wales, and its Essex organiser Emma Colgate, who lives in Thurrock.

More importantly, a significant BNP breakthrough would fundamentally change the BNP’s fortunes and our ability to stop them. They would achieve a respectability and credibility that they can now only dream of. They would become regular fixtures on news programmes and we would no longer be able to pressurise the authorities to stop their activities.

As MEPs, they would be able to intervene on any issue and in any community they wish. We only have to look back to Oldham a few years ago to see how this can play out on the streets, winding up communities and pitting neighbour against neighbour. Increased tensions, fears and violence will likely follow.

Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, needs to increase his 2004 vote in the North West from 6.4% to just 8.5%. Simon Darby only has to increase the BNP’s 7.5% vote in 2004 to 10.5% to take a seat in the West Midlands. And Andrew Brons requires his share of the vote to grow from 8% to 10.5% to take a seat in Yorkshire and The Humber.

The BNP even pose a threat in the East Midlands and London. They need to double their 6.5% vote in the East Midlands but with 26% of the electorate having voted for the UK Independence Party in 2004, which is now a mere shadow of its former self, this is not unfeasible. The BNP might only have polled 5.3% in London in last year’s London Assembly election but this could easily rise to the necessary 8.5% if inner London, which came out strongly for Ken Livingstone and Labour 12 months ago, remains at home this time.

Turnout will be a major factor.

Few people appear interested in the European election. A poll taken towards the end of last year found only 3% even knew that there was an election this year at all. Most people who are interested probably dislike the EU all the same.

In 2004 the BNP was prevented from winning through a high turnout, caused largely by all-out elections in the Metropolitan authorities in the North and West Midlands on the same day, and a huge vote for the UKIP. Neither of these factors are likely to benefit us this time. With no local elections in the urban areas of the North West, Yorkshire and The Humber and the West Midlands, turnout is likely to plummet.

In 1999, when the European elections was held without other elections at the same time, turnout nationally was just 23%. It was even worse in the North West, where the biggest BNP risk is. Twelve of the 20 local authorities with the lowest turnout were in Greater Manchester and Merseyside, with just 13% of people voting in Liverpool.

If there is anything like a repeat of this turnout then we have little hope of stopping the BNP. One trade unionist in Burnley put it very succinctly at a recent meeting. If only one million of the five million registered voters in the North West bother to vote then Nick Griffin will only need 90,000 votes to get elected. And they will certainly get this.

If two million people bother to vote, achieving a 40% turnout, then the BNP will need 180,000 votes. Suddenly it becomes more difficult for them. If there is a 50% turnout then the BNP will need 225,000, which surely is beyond their reach.

Turnout is absolutely crucial. In a short election campaign we will try to depress the BNP vote but that is far more difficult, and time consuming, than turning out our anti-BNP vote. And this has to be our crucial task. A turnout of less than 30% and it will be virtually impossible to stop the BNP from winning seats.

Mobilising

It is against this backdrop that the HOPE not hate campaign is being organised. It will be our biggest and most sophisticated campaign to date. During May we are organising days of action and mass leafleting all across the country. So far we have activities organised in over 70 local authority areas, with more to be confirmed. Some will be small events, with just a handful of people, but others will mobilise hundreds. There is now a competition between Manchester and Liverpool for who can put more people on the street on 16 May. Wigan has set itself a target of delivering 50,000 newspapers and Barking and Dagenham is aiming for more than 250 people to take part in its day of action.

However, we also recognise that we alone cannot defeat the BNP. The HOPE not hate campaign is working with a number of partners who have their own networks, among them trade unions and faith groups. If the trade unions can increase polling day turnout among their 750,000 members in the North West they can really influence the outcome. If these trade unionists can persuade their partners to vote, that will push up the turnout even further.

We are working with all the main trade unions, often customising specific literature with messages that are pertinent to their members.

Faith groups will be crucial. They have a credibility and authority in many of the communities where local politicians have disengaged. In Greater Manchester alone, the Anglican Church has over 500 full-time employees and a similar number of part-time workers, and the church as a whole has the largest community outreach project in the country. Give these people the arguments and tools to take the message to their congregations and we are really beginning to motor.

The Jewish community is already organising. In parts of north London turnout among Jewish voters in 2008 was almost 80%, largely mobilised based on the desire to defeat the BNP. A similar campaign in Manchester and Leeds is being organised and will obviously boost our vote.

High stakes

The stakes have never been higher. I’m presuming that you, as a reader of Searchlight, share my opposition to the BNP and its politics of hate. But now I must ask you to do a little bit more. If we are to defeat the BNP then we must all play a role, and we must do it now.

We have to say to ourselves, and our friends: If not me, who? If not now, when?

This is why I am asking you to donate a minimum one hour to fight the BNP. That’s my ask to you and I hope it will be your ask to your friends and family.

Many of you could probably donate far more than an hour to the campaign, but even if it is only one hour it can make a difference.

One hour is enough time to deliver 150-200 leaflets or newspapers. It is enough time to address a union branch meeting or send an email to all your friends and family explaining why you are voting in this election and to urge them to do the same.

If we all gave just one hour then we can do an enormous amount. If every Searchlight reader delivered at least 150-200 leaflets then over a million could be distributed. This could be doubled if we all found one other person to do it as well. This would be multiplied several times over if the 22,000 on our growing HOPE not hate email list also committed an hour.

And if everyone donated just two hours during May then really anything is possible.

We are building something very special this year at the HOPE not hate campaign. We are combining traditional anti-fascist campaigning with community organising. We are using new technology to bring in tens of thousands of new activists into the campaign in a way that the political parties cannot. We are doing all this because the threat is so real.

I hope you will give me the hour and in the process play your part in the HOPE not hate campaign. Please don’t wake up on 5 June thinking there was one more thing you could have done.

Yours in solidarity

Nick Lowles

Please get involved by visiting Hope not hate

Searchlight

BNP deputy leader addresses international fascist rally

Speakers enter the hotel greeted by fascist salutes

The deputy leader of the British National Party has spoken at an international fascist rally alongside a man convicted of a terrorism offence and a convicted Holocaust denier.

Simon Darby claims he addressed a 400-strong audience in Milan today (5 April). Representatives of extreme-right parties in Germany, France, Romania, Hungary and Cyprus were expected to take part in the meeting.

Darby, who flew out to Italy this morning, heads the BNP’s European election candidates’ list for the West Midlands, a region in which the party could win a seat. He has a “Mr Clean” reputation in a party in which many leading activists have criminal convictions, a nazi past or both.

The rally was titled: “Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Big Powers”, a change from the original, “Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Usury”. The term “usury” is traditionally used by Nazis against Jews and it may have been altered to avoid accusations of antisemitism.

It had been booked at a major conference centre in Milan, but widespread protests from MEPs and Italian partisan veterans, as well as a 20,000-strong petition forced its move to a private hotel.

Simon Darby (right) with Bruno Gollnisch MEP (left) and Roberto Fiore MEP (second from left)

The meeting was organised by Forza Nuova, whose leader Roberto Fiore, was convicted in Italy in 1985 for “subversive association” for his involvement in the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei. Two members of that organisation were convicted for the Bologna railway station bombing in August 1980 which killed 85 people, including two British tourists, Catherine Mitchell and John Kolpinski, and left over 200 wounded. It was the biggest postwar terrorist attack in Europe.

Fiore became an MEP after Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the Italian fascist dictator, resigned her seat to take up a post in the Italian government. He has been a friend, financial supporter and political mentor to BNP leader Nick Griffin since 1980, when Fiore arrived in Britain on the run from justice in Italy.

Fiore helped Griffin run the National Front “political soldiers”, described at the time as a “proto-terrorist organisation”. When the political soldiers collapsed, they went on to found a new fascist group, the International Third Position.

Alongside his political activities Fiore amassed a huge fortune through business interests in London and later around the world. They included operating as a slum landlord and exploiting people brought in from eastern Europe, Italy and Spain, whom he passed on to gang masters to work on the land and in food processing plants.

Fiore was also one of the founders of the extremely violent Hammerskins skinhead movement, part of the nazi music and football hooligan gangs responsible for violence on the terraces. They have strong links with one of the most vicious fascist football hooligan gangs in Europe, the Roma Ultras, who recently attacked English football fans, stabbing one. Their most infamous episode was when they unfurled a banner down one side of their home stadium with the words “Jews to Auschwitz”.

Father Giulio Tam raises his hand in support of fascism

Hammerskins members recently marched through Bergamo in northern Italy armed with sticks and metal bars and with helmets on their heads. At their head were Fiore and Father Giulio Tam, a priest revered by Spanish falangistas and Italian fascists, who blessed the FN’s new headquarters in the town. Father Tam was in the audience at the Milan rally.

Fiore is closely associated with the Catholic Society of St Pius X, in which Bishop Richard Williamson was a leading light. In January 2009 in a television interview Bishop Williamson denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers, a statement that caused a scandal when the Pope lifted his longstanding excommunication a week later.

Also in prime position on the platform with Darby was Bruno Gollnisch. An MEP for the French National Front, Gollnisch was given a three-month suspended prison sentence in January 2007 for denying the Holocaust. He was also fined €5,000.

The court, in Lyon, found he had “disputed a crime against humanity” in remarks he made during a news conference in the city in October 2004. Gollnisch, who was chair of the Identity Tradition and Sovereignty far-right official group in the European Parliament, had questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust and said the “existence of the gas chambers is for historians to discuss”.

Security for the fascist rally - almost as ugly as Martin Reynolds

In April last year, just three days before polling day in the London Assembly election, in which the BNP won one seat, Griffin brought Gollnisch and other European extremists to a private meeting in a South Kensington hotel.

The meeting took place at a time when Griffin, a long-time Jew-hater who has a conviction for race hate, had approached the Jewish community in a bid to form a united front against Muslims, an invitation that the Jewish community firmly rejected.

Despite the BNP’s anti-EU stance, Griffin is keen to build links with European far-right parties, hoping that if he is elected as an MEP, he will be able to join a far-right bloc. If enough far-right MEPs can put aside their nationalist rivalries and form an official group in the European Parliament, they will benefit from a further €1 million a year on top of their salaries and staffing and expenses allowances. They would also be entitled to committee positions and enhanced speaking rights.

In October Griffin addressed an open-air rally of the Hungarian hardline fascist Jobbik party and its private army heavy mob, the Hungarian Guard, in Budapest. Griffin has been flirting with the Hungarian fascists since May when he met the Jobbik representatives Bela Kovacs and Zoltan Fuzessy in London.

Jobbik, also known as the Movement for a Better Hungary, is strongly anti-Jewish. Although the BNP has courted the Jewish community and denies it is antisemitic, Darby said recently on a radio broadcast that BNP MEPs would welcome cooperation with Jobbik.

A few days after his return from Hungary Griffin was cementing his relationship with the tiny anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-Romani Czech National Party (NS) by addressing its rally to celebrate Czech independence. Griffin’s trip, accompanied by several BNP activists, followed the visit by the NS leader, Petra Edelmannová, to the BNP’s Red White and Blue festival last August.

That Darby has now joined Griffin in linking up with these far-right extremists in Europe shows that the BNP is still an out-and-out fascist and antisemitic party, despite the fine words and smart suits of its leaders.

Searchlight

BNP man jailed for attack on woman

The Wakefield Express reported today that a Mapplewell man has been sent to prison for attacking his ex-partner. What was not mentioned in both the newspaper and the courtroom was that the convicted man was none other than John Aveyard, former organiser of the BNP's Wakefield branch.

Aveyard, who has stood for the BNP in the general and European elections and has also been a BNP council election candidate on three occasions including last year when he stood in Wakefield South, was sent to prison for 22 weeks for assault and harassment. This is not the first time Aveyard has had a brush with the law. In 2005 he received a £100 fine with £75 costs for failing to maintain proper records at his Wakefield taxi firm, which is a condition of his private hire licence. You can read full details about his latest conviction in the following article taken from the Wakefield Express.

Kirklees Unity

Jailed for attack on ex-partner

A man who sneaked into his ex partner's car, attacked her and said he was going to 'do her in' has been jailed. John Aveyard opened the passenger door of Jane Skeet’s car and climbed in city magistrates were told. Prosecutor Joseph Spencer said "She asked what he was doing, and he grabbed her by the hair and punched her in the face".

He grabbed her mobile phone, told her he was going to drive her away and 'do her in' Aveyard punched her repeatedly, trapped her in the footwell and got into the drivers seat, but Ms Skeet managed to escape.

The police officer investigating said in six years of service, he had never seen anybody as frightened or as upset as Ms Skeet. Aveyard was on bail for harassment when be attacked Ms Skeet on October 17. He had been harassing her for months, turning up at her home in the middle of the night and confronting her new partner before the attack. They had been together for 12 years and lived in Woolley before they split in April last year. Ms Skeet moved out and began a new relationship with Ian Tippett.

The court heard Aveyard, 47. had been stalking Ms Skeet and making threatening phone calls. He turned up at Ms Skeet's partner’s home in York, demanding to speak to her. Ms Skeet reported it to police the next day and Aveyard called her as she spoke to an officer.

Mr Spencer said: "The police officer heard the defendant admitting turning up to the address in York. He stated 'There are lots of ways to find out where someone lives, it's not difficult,'"

Police found an envelope at Aveyard's house with Mr Tippen's car registration number written on it and diary entries about the couple. Matthew Standbury. mitigating, said Aveyard had admitted the offences at the earliest opportunity.

Aveyard, of Towngate, Mapplewell, was jailed for 22 weeks for assault and 11 'weeks concurrent for harassment. A restraining order was made banning him from contacting Ms Skeet and Mr Tippett.

Wakefield Express

Dirwasgiad a’r bygythiad Ffasgaidd

Plaid Cymru, the progressive Nationalist Party of Wales hosted a Searchlight Cymru fringe meeting at their spring conference, addressed by Matthew Collins [yesterday].

Searchlight Cymru (previously Wales Friends of Searchlight) enjoys cross-party support in Wales and, the day before, the main parties of Wales agreed once more to back an all-party anti-BNP campaign in the European election. The meeting began with the delegates wishing Matthew a happy birthday in Welsh though he was not willing to divulge his age to the fifty-strong audience!

The meeting was titled “Dirwasgiad a’r bygythiad Ffasgaidd” or for our non-Welsh speaking readers, “Recession and the Fascist Threat”. Plaid Cymru AM Nerys Evans chaired the meeting and called upon all parties of Wales to back the Searchlight Hope not Hate campaign. “We must recognise [the BNP] as a threat that is ever present, and we must remain eternally vigilante, whatever party we support in Wales.”

Martin Shipton of the NUJ, a man who has more than once exposed the BNP in Wales, spoke warmly of his own connections to Searchlight and our publisher Gerry Gable and called upon other journalists working in Wales not to be fooled into filling copy verbatim from BNP press releases.

“As journalists, we must investigate and expose the fascist nature of the BNP when and wherever possible,” he said.

Rob Griffiths, chair of Searchlight Cymru, called upon all those present to make 17 May a Wales against the BNP day. “We may have a good tradition of fighting fascism, but we are not inoculated at birth against it. It is an ever present threat here and they must be driven out.”

Days of action will now take place in Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham and Newport, as Wales commits itself to remaining Nazi-free.

Hope not hate

Reader report: BNP's Lie Lorry comes to Lancaster (but not for long)

A van towing a large mobile advertising hoarding promoting the BNP was spotted in Lancaster today (Friday 3rd April). It drove around the one-way system several times with loudspeakers blaring out its racist messages, and also parked for a while in Dalton Square. BNP footsoldiers were spotted handing out leaflets promoting their campaign for the forthcoming Euro-Elections that will be held this June.

This BNP incursion encountered spontaneous opposition from Lancaster people, who don't want these fascists whipping up racist and xenophobic hatred. Local people are proud of our diverse and tolerant city. Within an hour of the BNP's appearance, locals using text messages were assembling a crowd of devoted anti-fascists in Dalton Square. However, the BNP fascists had fled before this crowd could mount an organised protest! So instead, the local anti-fascists busied themselves by handing out hundreds of leaflets exposing and opposing the BNP to local shoppers.

The BNP were almost certainly from the small but highly active unit that party has in Cumbria. They are focusing all their energies on the Euro-election, and hope to get their leader, Nick Griffin elected as a Euro-MP for the North West Region, which is their main target. They only need around 8% of the vote to win a MEP seat here in the North West, and received 6.4%. last time in 2004. That's why they are standing their fuhrer Nick Griffin in our region. We could therefore possibly wake up to find a neo-Nazi, convicted racist and holocaust denier as our MEP. He would then be provided with an local office, plus staff and £250,000 a year from the taxpayer to fund his propaganda machine.

He would also get to hang out at the European Parliament and enjoy the EU gravy train with his old friends from the growing band of European neo-Nazi parties, which have MEP's from racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic ultra-nationalist formations in Poland, Latvia, Italy, Austria, France, Romania, Bulgaria and elsewhere. These are the old allies of Griffin.

Local community campaigners will be taking a stand, and building a campaign against the BNP. Info-stalls are planned in Lancaster City centre in the next few weeks - watch this space. Volunteers needed.

This Saturday (April 4th) anti-fascists will also be leafleting in Barrow-in-Furness, South Cumbria, Manchester and other parts of the North West. Please prepare to help the campaign over the coming weeks - with money, offers to distribute leaflets and any ideas you have.

The 'Hope Not Hate' campaign commented:

"Nothing is certain in politics and while the terrain is certainly getting tougher the BNP can be defeated. However for this to happen requires a massive campaign to mobilise everyone opposed to the politics of hate to turn out and vote. We have shown time and again that there is a huge anti-BNP vote out there and if it is organised and motivated then it will turn up at the polling stations and be decisive in an election".

Barry Kade

Asylum seeker gallery protest

A man heckled from the public gallery at a Town Hall meeting as Sheffield councillors pledged to support a family of asylum seekers facing deportation.

The man, thought to be a member of the British National Party, shouted repeatedly that Priviledge Thulambo (above, centre) and her two daughters, who fled Zimbabwe, had "no right to be here". The unexpected outbursts interrupted Council Leader Paul Scriven who looked stunned before continuing his speech. And Labour councillor Gill Furniss said afterwards that she was "outraged" at the man's comments.

The shouting came as church leaders urged the council to help Priviledge, 39, and her daughters Lorraine, aged 18, and 20-year-old Valerie. Priviledge says she was tortured and raped in Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe's men and her husband killed. She arrived in the UK in 2000, her daughters followed in 2004, and they settled in Heavygate Road, Walkley.

But the Home Office has refused to grant the family asylum because their documents said they were from Malawi, a country to which it is safe to return. The Thulmabos insist they are Zimbabwean – and that their Malawian passports were fakes used only as a desperate means of escape.

Jane Padgett, on behalf of 400 campaigners supporting the family, told the meeting: "In 2007, Sheffield declared itself a City of Sanctuary and we are calling on the council to make urgent representations to the Home Secretary. This family were arrested at 7am one morning last December and taken to an immigration centre. They have lived here for several years and made an enormous contribution to our community."

Coun Scriven said: "I personally know Priviledge, after dancing with her at an evening at St Mark's church a few years ago, and hers is a story of horror. Her husband was murdered for being a politician and opposing people in power. That was his only so-called crime. Priviledge has deep strength and compassion for social justice and a belief in Britain's democratic system which is now failing her and her family.

"They are a hard-working family who stood up against the evils in Zimbabwe and they deserve our protection. It will be a national disgrace if the Home Secretary exports them to possible death."

Councillors of all parties agree to write again to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith urging her to stop the deportation.

The Star

Germany's major neo-Nazi party faces ruin after €2.2m fine

Germany's largest neo-Nazi party is facing financial ruin after the Bundestag imposed a €2.2 million fine yesterday for filing fraudulent accounts. Leaders of the National Democratic Party (NPD) vowed yesterday to launch a legal challenge to the fine, due for payment in a month.

“Of course we are going to challenge it,” said Peter Marx, NPD general secretary. The party has little choice: long-running financial difficulties have left the NPD almost bankrupt. Last year, the former treasurer was imprisoned for two years and eight months for embezzling €750,000 in party funds.

Yesterday’s fine arises from falsely declared assets and funds in its 2007 accounts, a Bundestag statement said.

Although the NPD has no MPs in the Bundestag, it has representatives in two state parliaments, qualifying it for public funding although the party questions Germany’s democratic order. A Bundestag committee that audits party accounts said it found significant irregularities in the NPD’s 2007 figures.

The total fine imposed was €2.5 million, but NPD officials had already agreed to the withholding of €300,000 in state funds due this year.

Starved of funds, the party has let go over half its staff members in the Berlin headquarters. The financial difficulties will frustrate party ambitions in a series of state elections later this year. Yesterday’s fine is likely to cause further divisions between the NPD’s so-called “modern” and “Hitlerite” camps at this weekend’s party conference in Berlin.

Since entering the Saxon state parliament in 2004, the “modern” wing has pushed for the party to concentrate on a far-right social conservatism. They argue that bomber jackets and swastika flags scare away potential voters frustrated with the mainstream political handling of the financial crisis, social welfare cuts and bank bailouts. But the “Hitlerite” wing, drawn from extreme-right groupings, accuses the “modern” politicians of pursuing their careers at the expense of the party’s neo-Nazi, racist and anti-Semitic principles.

Party leader Udo Voigt has his own problems: he faces a challenge to his leadership at the weekend party conference. Then, later this month, he is likely to be convicted of defamation and inciting racial hatred over a party pamphlet published during the 2006 World Cup that ridiculed the German side’s only black player.

Earlier this week, the federal government banned a far-right youth movement for spreading Nazi propaganda.

Irish Times

Anti-fascist events planned for this weekend

Hope not hate leafleting against the BNP - Colchester town centre on Friday, Maldon on Saturday

We will be leafleting against the BNP in Colchester on this Friday 3 April from 12noon lunch time until 1pm. Meeting outside Colchester Town Hall.

We will also be leafleting in Maldon High Street on Saturday 4 April from 10am until 1pm at the Moot Hall. Please come along and help - the more the merrier! Hope not hate

Barrow and South Cumbria UAF Day of Action/leafleting

This Saturday 4th April, Barrow Unite Against Fascism are asking as many people as possible to help us put leaflets through doors in the area. Every house in the North West is due to receive a free mail-out from the fascist BNP, who only need 8 % of the vote across the whole region to have their Holocaust-denying leader Griffin elected as North West Member of the European Parliament. We need to cover as many houses as possible with anti-fascist leaflets, exposing the truth about Britain's Nazi Party.

Every leaflet you help deliver will make a difference in terms of hammering down the nazi vote and mobilising the anti-fascist vote against them. Please give as much time as you can. We meet12 noon at the Gazebo on Dalton Road, Barrow [from here we will take teams out leafleting] on Saturday 4th April. If you are a member of an organisation, please encourage your members to attend. Barrow and South Cumbria Unite Against Fascism

Greater Manchester Unite Against Fascism - Stop the BNP Getting Elected in the European Elections 4th June 2009

Reminder for this weekends national days of action – activities in Manchester - Sat 4th and Sun 5th April – UAF National Days of Action

Sat 4th April, 3-5pm on Market Street - UAF Campaign Stall and mass leafleting in Manchester City Centre

Sun 5th April - Help leaflet Moston Ward - The BNP are also standing in a by-election in Moston – so we are aiming to leaflet the ward. Meet 12 noon in the small car park next to Dean Lane rail station on Dean Avenue. There is a train from Victoria Station to Dean Lane every half hour or you can get a bus up Oldham Road and get off at Newton Heath. It is then less than a 5 min walk down Dean Lane. Greater Manchester UAF

If you have similar events/actions taking place and would like us to publicise them, email us with the details and we'll post them a day or two prior to the actions.

Parties unite against BNP ahead of Euro vote

Scotland's four main political parties have agreed a united stance against the far-right British National Party at this year's European Parliament elections. Labour, SNP, Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates will refuse to appear alongside the BNP during the campaign for the June 4 poll.

Scottish Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson said: "We learned the BNP will be running a full slate of six candidates in Scotland and we have all agreed we will not share a hustings with them. We will not share a platform with fascists and racists. If there is anyone who thinks they should invite a BNP candidate to a hustings or TV debate, they won't get the rest of us."

Lothians-based Labour MEP David Martin said: "Politics is about disagreement and competing visions and I'm happy to share a platform with people whom I don't agree 100 per cent with. But the BNP is different because they would deny other people such a platform. They are an anti-democratic party and a pure racist party."

Scotsman

Leafleting against the BNP: Colchester town centre on Friday, Maldon on Saturday

We will be leafleting against the BNP in Colchester on this Friday 3 April from 12noon lunch time until 1pm. Meeting outside Colchester Town Hall.

We will also be leafleting in Maldon High Street on Saturday 4 April from 10am until 1pm at the Moot Hall. Please come along and help - the more the merrier!

Dicky Barnbrook found moonlighting as mobile kissogram

Poor old Dicky. Always the bridesmaid but never the bride.

Discarded by his clog-dancing ex-fake fiancée Simone Clarke, dumped by someone he claimed to have shagged via the internet and left with only an unidentified item of intimate apparel that he claims once belonged to the unfortunate Tilda Swinton, he now leads a lonely and unutterably tedious life, brightened only by the consumption of vast quantities of alcohol and the occasional fight with a Welsh rugby player.

Constantly laughed and pointed at in the street for his bizarre taste in shabby suits and his peculiarly Mark Collett-like sideburns, the laughter follows the intrepid Dicky into the London Assembly, where he talks gibberish simply because it amuses Mayor Boris Johnson, and shares the odd sandwich with Bill Oddie David Bellamy Simon Darby, crap naturalist and pretend researcher.

But Dicky's dull, repetitive life may be about to change. After a triumphant demonstration yesterday outside the home of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, which drew a massive crowd of er, four idiots and for some obscure reason a half-naked female, Dicky has decided to come out to Lancaster Unity. No, not about that. He has at last confessed that he has been surviving on his pitiful pay as an Assembly Member by moonlighting as a mobile kissogram.

Although he's only been doing the job for the past three months, so far he has been able to tuck a staggering 23p (and a dented euro) away into his pension fund. Rather more successful is his ongoing bet with Nick Griffin to introduce spontaneous and unnecessary new words into the English language. At yesterday's disastrous demo, he managed this gem;

'...this taxpayer's money should not be used on frivolicies.'

Bravo, Dicky. That almost, but not quite, makes sense.