BNP push for Copeland council by-election

The British National Party (BNP) has invoked electoral law to call for a speedy by-election for the vacant seat on Whitehaven’s Harbour Ward.

The Copeland seat, one of three representing the ward arose in July after Copeland’s councilllor, Anne Bradshaw, 53, resigned. Harbour ward, is also represented by Coun Henry Wormstrup and Coun John Kane.

Last night Copeland Council had a request from two Whitehaven electors asking for a by-election. The BNP then issued a statement through local organiser Clive Jefferson from Cockermouth saying they would be fielding a Whitehaven man as their candidate in the by-election. Copeland council confirmed that the by-election will be held on Thursday, September 20 and that nominations for candidates closes at noon on August 28.

Labour party chairman for Copeland, Coun John Woolley confirmed today that college lecturer, Jeanette Williams, from Distington, would be Labour’s candidate for the poll.

The Conservatives have adopted Brigid Whiteside, wife of their Prospective Parliamentary candidate Chris Whiteside, as their candidate for the Harbour ward.

Whitehaven News

Purged! British National Party councillor Simon Smith forced out

One of the BNP’s better known West Midlands councillors has been forced out of the party as Nick Griffin and his acolytes continue their long predicted purge of the “vermin” who supported Chris Jackson against Griffin in the BNP’s rigged leadership contest.

Ostensibly resigning his membership, a statement issued by Griffin’s deputy Simon Darby leaves little doubt that Smith’s resignation was anything but voluntary.

In a communication that should affront the intelligence of even the dimmest BNP member, Darby says:

It was well known that former Black Country organiser Simon Smith was a supporter of Chris Jackson in the recent leadership challenge. This was of course his democratic right and further to this two senior representatives of the challenger’s campaign spoke openly at a Black Country meeting freely promoting their candidate.

Unfortunately, at this meeting despite being asked to refrain from expressing his personal beliefs, during his own speech Simon Smith once again referred to 9/11 as being “an inside job”. In fact, despite having being told how politically damaging this form of pro-Muslim crankery could be, he emphasised his belief twice stating that “he would stake his life on it”.

Shortly after the Leadership election Simon Smith was made aware that an investigation was to take place concerning how a membership list had made its way to a former Birmingham organiser. This list, although sent to several people, was in fact never actually used. Further to this Simon Smith was told that the list dated back to the time when he was heavily involved in processing Party memberships and at one point during that time scale Simon Smith had actually left his computer at the home of that former Birmingham organiser. At no point however, was it inferred at that time that Simon Smith was actually to blame for the severe breach of security.

On the 27th July, after the leadership election results had been announced, Simon Smith sent an email to several BNP members as well as other people. Unforgiveably, one of the two attachments also contained in this email was an article complete with reader comments copied directly from a UAF site.

Simon Smith was shown a copy of the original email he had sent out early yesterday (August 14) afternoon and asked to explain the very serious implications as to what he had done. Three hours later Simon Smith admitted to having sent the email and announced that he was resigning from the BNP.

There we have the truth of the matter.

The “truth of the matter”?

Today Simon Darby told the Birmingham Post something slightly different:

“We had a leadership election which Nick Griffin won with 91 per cent of the vote. Simon could not accept that.”

Darby’s first statement is, of course, for internal BNP consumption. He brings in Smith’s frequently stated contention that the attack on the Twin Towers was “an inside job” (not exactly an uncommon opinion on the far-Right), and says that Smith was asked to refrain from making such statements having been told “how politically damaging this form of pro-Muslim crankery could be”. How this could be damaging in a meeting open only to BNP members isn’t clear - but that Jackson supporters like Smith were being told by Griffinites what they could and could not say in an internal election meeting speaks volumes for the paranoia at the top of the party.

The deputy chairman’s next trick is to effectively blame Smith for a BNP membership list falling into the hands of Sharon Ebanks, while claiming not to blame him at all. If “At no point… was it inferred at that time that Simon Smith was actually to blame for the severe breach of security” then why does Darby mention it at all? Why does Darby include the strange qualification “at that time”? Is it being inferred now?

Finally there is Simon Smith’s email. Darby does not disclose the contents, which presumably contain the real meat of the subject, but again pandering to his largely gullible BNP audience he lays stress on an attachment that apparently included an article complete with reader comments copied directly from a UAF site. How that could be seen as a crime, even by the standards of the BNP, is anybody’s guess - though we’d hazard a guess as to which site the post and comments came from ;-).

That Smith included such matter with his email gives us a very good idea of how that email must have read - unpleasantly, for Nick Griffin, we must suppose. And whatever it said was clearly used as a pretext to force Smith into jumping before the threat of being pushed was carried out. Reading Darby’s disingenuous words, you can almost see the gun being held to Smith’s head.

The simple fact is that Smith’s resignation has nothing to do with “pro-Muslim crankery”, missing membership lists and email attachments lifted from UAF websites.

It’s about retribution against those who have finally worked out that something is very wrong at the top of the BNP and dared to say so, and it’s about exterminating the last vestiges of internal opposition to Nick Griffin.

With the departure of Simon Smith the BNP has lost yet another councillor. The character of that councillor may leave much to be desired but in BNP terms he was just the ticket - he ungraciously walked out of a council meeting that elected a Sikh as mayor of Sandwell, and has compared Hitler with Christ, among other matters.

That Griffin - and it can only have been Griffin - was prepared to force one of his tiny band of councillors out of the party, risking attendant negative publicity for the BNP and yet another blow to the morale of its members heavily underlines the lesson for so long taught here and at our allied websites: whatever the average BNP member may think the BNP is, Griffin has different ideas. First and foremost it is, as the veteran fascist Martin Webster puts it, the Griffin Family Business.

It’s Griffin’s cash-cow and he’s not going to surrender it lightly, as his insane blog rantings against the “cranks” “Hollywood Nazis” “congenital losers” “thieves” and “vermin” who had the temerity to ask awkward questions and mount a challenge against him have discovered.

It’s only a matter of time before the next victim of Griffin’s paranoia is selected for the chop. Keep watching this space.

Hatewatch for the week of August 15th 2007

National Alliance Leader Sentenced to 87 Months in Prison
Shaun Walker, the national chairman of the National Alliance, was sentenced to prison for conspiring to violate federal civil rights laws...

Aryan Brotherhood Expanding in New Mexico and Texas
Recent federal indictments show that the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison-based gang, is increasingly active outside of prisons in New Mexico and Texas...

Prussian Blue Documentary Contains 'Profoundly Creepy' Scenes
The new documentary "Nazi Pop Twins" is an equally revealing and unsettling look into the lives of Lynx and Lamb Gaede and their white nationalist stage mom April Gaede...

Police Increase Patrols After Racist Vandalism
White supremacist slogans and swastikas were spray-painted on the walls of a skate park in Fitchburg, Md...

New Trial Begins in Racially Motivated Baseball Bat Attack
Self-avowed white supremacist Brian Neilson, 29, will be retried for attacking a black couple with a baseball bat inside their home while they slept...

SPLC

Parliamentarians join hundreds calling to ban fascists

Investigation uncovers KKK propaganda and calls to ‘hang gollywogs’ on BNP Facebook groups - Parliamentarians join hundreds calling to ban fascists

Campaign group Unite Against Fascism today exposed how fascist BNP’s groups on social networking site Facebook are being used to spread their message of hate. Parliamentarians have joined hundreds in calling for Facebook to ban BNP groups.

Amongst other instances the investigation has uncovered images of Ku Klux Klan members posing with a sword under the subtitle "Local BNP meeting, blacks welcome". The group’s description calls on people to join to "help them fight evil and win the war of cleansing Britain" and includes a comment on its wall stating "If it aint white it aint right”(sic).

The petition has been signed by MPs Diane Abbott, Harry Cohen, George Galloway, Ian Gibson, Ex-Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart, Steven Pound, Alan Simpson and Keith Vaz and Claude Moraes MEP. The petition has gathered around 2,000 supporters since it was launched last week, with an average of 100 Facebook users joining per day.

Facebook has responded to the calls by removing an image from one of the BNP user group that equates Islam with murder. However, this image is still present on the same BNP site which promotes the Ku Klux Klan image.

Another group entitled "vote BNP and save the world" includes a message board which contains material evoking lynchings of black people under the heading "what to do with gollywogs." (for more details on content see notes below)

Keith Vaz MP said:
"I fully support the campaign to remove racist or inciteful images from Facebook. They have no place on a website which claims to want to bring people together."

Claude Moraes MEP said:
"Fascists are using the Facebook site to promote their hate-propaganda to young people. It is a direct threat to many of the site's users. We welcome the fact that Facebook has acknowledged that the BNP pages break the site's terms and conditions, removing inciteful images against the Muslim community from some of the BNP pages, however, it is unacceptable that fascists are still able to organise via the site. Facebook must use the maximum penalty at its disposal and immediately terminate the BNP's pages and accounts."

Gemma Tumelty, President of the National Union of Students said:
"Facebook is used by millions of young people across Britain and across the world. We believe that it should not be used as a rallying point for fascists who have a history of racist, homophobic and Islamophobic violence. NUS sees Facebook's inaction on this issue as unacceptable, as the BNP's hatred poses a real threat to the majority of Facebook's users, many of whom often post personal details and engagements on the site to share with friends. We welcome the withdrawal by companies of their adverts and hope that others will follow suit until sites promoting the BNP have been removed."

Denis Fernando, Joint National Secretary of Unite Against Fascism said:
"The BNP's Facebook groups reveal the reality of this fascist party. The BNP wants an all-white Britain. This would only be possible through violence and end to democracy. Our petition is attracting wide support from young people, parliamentarians, faith and community groups who believe that fascists should not have access to the social interactions of young people and others who they target with hatred.

Its main aim in setting up on such sites is to give itself the veneer of legitimacy, however its fascist policies result in violence against Black, Jewish, Muslim, lesbian and gay people and many others.

The fact that Facebook is allowing this grotesque use of its site to promote fascism is unacceptable. The BNP user groups clearly breach terms and conditions and should be closed."

The petition text can be viewed at http://www.uaf.org.uk/news.asp?choice=70803

For more information and interviews please contact Joint National Secretaries of Unite Against Fascism Denis Fernando and Martin Smith on 020 7833 4916 unite@ucu.org.uk www.uaf.org.uk

Notes:

1. BNP Facebook groups promoting fascist views include:

"Vote BNP and save the world"

An image spelling out I.S.L.A.M. with the "S" standing for slaughter, "A" standing for Arson. Facebook had already stated that this image was removed from a BNP group previously following pressure from Facebook users.

Image of Ku Klux Klan members with a sword with the subtitle "Local BNP meeting, blacks welcome". The groups description calls on people to join to " help them fight evil and win the war of cleansing Britain" and includes a comment on its wall stating "If it aint white it aint right."

"Vote BNP British National Party" · Includes a message board stating "what to do to gollywogs?" with the response "Hang em on your curtain pole and leave em there…. Nice ornament!"

"British National Party Supporters"

supporters include a skinhead with a swastika tatooed on his forehead with the words "skin head" - he is a member of groups for "deprogramming" gay people

Another group member’s main image is a badge with "enoch was right" on it

"Put the BNP in Wales"

Description of the group states "Cathay is full of fucking Polish people!"

2. Facebook's terms and conditions state that user groups can be removed for failing to adhere to its terms and conditions, which include agreement not to upload, post, transmit, share or make otherwise available content that can be deemed "harmful, threatening…harassing…hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable".

3. 7 companies have pulled advertising from Facebook; First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, the AA, Halifax and the Prudential. Virgin said it had to "protect its brand". The government's Central Office of Information has directed its advertising agency not to place adverts on user-generated sites including Facebook.

4. Unite Against Fascism is a broad based national campaign aimed at stopping the BNP, which brings together Black, Jewish, Muslim communities and other faith representatives, Lesbian and Gay activists, trade unionists and MPs into an alliance with all those who are threatened by and oppose fascism.

Unite Against Fascism

Nick Griffin's most recent Chairman's Blog post deconstructed...

After an astonishing five-month hiatus that illustrated pretty much everything that he thought of communication with the membership, Nick Griffin has finally updated his Chairman's Blog, earning himself the 2007 Pinnochio Award for most lies told in a single blog post. The first lie, although maybe it's a pig-farmer's idea of a joke which I just didn't get, is where he explains the reasons for not posting on his blog since Methusaleh was at kindergarten, where he states that 'I enjoy writing the blog too much...I am very wary of making it too regular'. You can stop worrying, Nick. One post after a five-month gap is not too regular, no matter how you try to spin it.

Griffin immediately goes on the attack against those around the recent leadership challenge. Obviously furious that anyone would dare to stand against him, you can almost hear the spluttering and see his face redden as the blood pressure rises.

'The challenge was not a genuinely legitimate one from a candidate with the genuine ability to run this party as it is, let alone take it further forward. It was a pathetic, pitiful, desperate attempt to cause trouble for the most modernised and most successful nationalist party in British history by a handful of cranks left over from the BNP’s most sterile past, aided and abetted by a gaggle of Hollywood Nazis, congenital losers and thieves.'

As the latest copy of Searchlight points out, five founder-members, two advisory council members, three councillors, eight branch organisers and 20 election candidates came out openly in support of the challenger Chris Jackson. Presumably, Griffin means them. But he isn't finished yet...

'...he should have known better than to allow himself to be wound up and manipulated by such vermin. I’m certainly not going to kick him out for standing against me (for one thing, by giving the membership the chance to give me a 91% mandate to continue with our current direction...)'

Interesting use of the word 'vermin' there. More important though is this frequently quoted '91% mandate' that Griffin received in the leadership vote. As has been pointed out elsewhere, Griffin and other BNP contributors crowed when Labour were voted in on a minority vote, claiming that the 'silent majority' had spoken by not voting at all. Curious how he seems unable to transfer this to his own situation where, because of the pitiful 43% turnout for the leadership election in the tiny BNP, it turns out that Nick Griffin's mandate is a mere 39%. Not a mandate at all, in fact.

Strangely, Griffin chooses discussion of the leadership challenge to discuss democracy within this least democratic of all political parties, dismissing as 'Tory nationalists' all those who call for a one-member one-vote (OMOV) system to replace the current 'Voting Membership' system within the BNP, which gives the vote on issues of importance only to those who can afford to pay more money for their membership; clearly votes for cash - exactly the phrase the BNP shouts at anyone who is accused of corruption at the ballot box. The attack on those calling for internal democracy within the party, and the inevitable result of such calls, is stated unequivocally:

'This group must now accept that their scheme to put the destiny of the BNP in the hands of anyone who deigns to pay their membership has been comprehensively and permanently rejected, in favour of a system that gives power only to those who have earned it, and who continue to earn it. The argument is over, and anyone trying to raise it again against the repeatedly expressed will of the vast majority of the party will mark themselves out as a would-be saboteur and a candidate for expulsion.'

So no OMOV and no discussion of OMOV allowed either. How very democratic.

Griffin's post then goes off into a curiously disturbing diversion about a young BNP member suspected of being a mole for Searchlight. In this section, he speaks of the young man corresponding with Gerry Gable 'from an email account set up for him by a BNP loyalist, so we were able to see precisely what he was doing...' Er, what? You read the guy's emails? Isn't that illegal? And does the BNP regularly read through the emails of members that have been set up for them by 'BNP loyalists'?

Whether that's the case or not we don't know but Griffin's BNP is certainly trying to control many aspects of the member's lives that aren't entirely to do with the BNP itself. Referring to those he calls 'conspiracy-mongers', Griffin states clearly that;

'They are perfectly entitled to believe whatever they want to believe, and to discuss their beliefs privately with others already of like mind. But they are not to go posting their fancies online...they are not to spout their theories at meetings, either as officials or from the floor. They are not to write to local newspapers...and they are not to pour their personal opinions into the ears of new or young activists.'

Did the phrase 'thought-police' just pop into your head? Because it did in mine.

Griffin then goes on to attempt to deflect two of the most recent accusations against him and the party, concerning Croatia and the Trafalgar Club money. Regarding Croatia, he attempts to dismiss all discussion with, curiously because up until now there has only been denial, an attempt at an explanation.

'We were offered a share in the profits for the party if we could provide the contacts needed to develop land there inherited by a long-term party supporter, and on that basis myself and several others made a brief exploratory visit. As it happens, for various reasons we concluded that the project was probably a non-starter, so that’s the end of that.'

Not so fast, boyo. As we mentioned here and Stop the BNP reported here, there is rather more to this story than is at first apparent. The fact that Roberto Fiore is lurking around in the background in all of this, gives the whole idea a lot more credibility, if only because Fiore has been involved in at least two previous attempts to start 'white nationalist' communities in the past (both of them with Griffin, oddly enough), one in France and one in Spain. The further facts that the land has been bought and paid for and is regularly and increasingly visited by BNP bigwigs and that there has been much talk of offshore accounts and so on, lead one to assume that Griffin is trying to deflect too much interest in the project at this early stage in its development. Hard luck - we're interested and we're staying interested.

Regarding the Trafalgar Club accounts, which Griffin certainly doesn't want anyone prying into, he refers to 'the allegation that the income and expenditure of the Trafalgar Club does not appear in the BNP’s accounts. Of course it does, every single penny...'

Er, where? Early last month, we printed an article that questioned the Trafalgar Club income. We received no answers then and we really don't expect any this time either but in a spirit of optimism, we'll try again.

'One of the emails [we had recently received] pointed out that the Trafalgar Club (the Trafalgar Club is the group for the wealthier BNP member - allegedly the 'elite') members pay £180 per year for the privilege of belonging to it which apparently entitles them to a TC tie and an annual blow-out with Griffin. Wow - that must be worth £180 of anyone's money! The email then went on to point out that there are about 200 Trafalgar Club members which, to my reckoning, comes to around £36,000 per year. Added to this are the emails we received which pointed out that the annual Trafalgar Club dinner saw a collection which came out at £10-15,000. Yet the only mention of the Trafalgar Club in the BNP's accounts for 2004/5 are of the £4000 it apparently cost to set it up in 2004, and income of £1155 in 2005. Clearly there is a major problem in the accounts there which we expect either the auditors or the Electoral Commission to watch for in a couple of weeks when the next accounts are due to appear.'

And now we get to the little matter of the resignation from the Deputy Chairmanship and the Advisory Council (though not the party itself) of Scott McLean, following the appalling Collet/Spence/Walker incident at last week's Red White and Blue annual piss-up. As we reported, having received a few emails from irate BNP members, 'Scott McLean, Griffin's Deputy Chairman and the person responsible for maintaining discipline in the party, has clearly stated that he is resigning, having told all his long-time pals in the party that his position has been undermined again and again by Griffin's constant refusal to take action against Collett. We're informed that McLean gave Griffin an ultimatum a few days ago - him or Collett - and Griffin is sticking to Collett.'

Nick Griffin has always rewritten history to suit himself and his blog post carries a fine example.

'By one of those strange coincidences that is probably nothing of the sort, Scott McLean, who has held the Deputy Chairmanship responsibility as a steady rock for seven years now, called me a week before the RWB and told me that he is stepping down from the position, and from the Advisory Council. He explained that he needs to concentrate on with a very hectic business and family life without the BNP Sword of Damocles poised to fall on his head at a moment’s notice without any warning.'

What a load of rubbish. If anyone in the BNP believes that, they're an bigger idiot than even we would believe. You'll remember that the BNP has tried this on on a number of occasions when things have been going pear-shaped for the party. One of the most notable was when Robert Cottage was arrested in October of last year for stockpiling chemicals that could be used to make explosives. The BNP announced that Cottage was no longer a member, though omitted to mention that membership then ran from January to December and that Cottage had stood for a council seat for the party in May 2006 and thus would have had to be a fully paid-up member at that time. A stupid lie that the party has tended to repeat ad nauseum despite the fact that everyone knows it's a lie.

Curiously, there is a section on the new voting arrangements within the party that absolutely no-one internally appears to be questioning - the peculiar 'Voting Membership activist elite' that will be deciding how the party is run in future.

Griffin has mentioned something similar before but now he's being more explicit. Torn between the desire to keep control of the party in the hands of his closest allies, and increasingly strident calls for greater internal democracy, he has apparently compromised by creating the new membership tier (the Voting Membership, who pay more to have that voting power).

This 'elite' who, let's face it, are all likely to be Griffin's chums anyway (organisers and so on) are to get a number of extra rights over and above their extraordinary voting rights. It should be noted that an ex-colleague of Griffin's back in the old days when the late and unlamented John Tyndall was in charge of the BNP, recently pointed out that 'the only thing consistent between now and then has been [Griffin's] desire for a multi-tiered membership. Something that has always seemed like an attempt to solve a problem that does not actually exist.' Indeed.

These additional rights for the elite include (don't laugh) 'effective powers of scrutiny over all central party finances', 'key failsafe powers over the leader and leadership elections at present vested in the Advisory Council and Deputy Chairman' (the role of DC going along with Scott McLean into the dustbin of BNP history), and 'to step up the level of ideological training for VMs'. Quite what this last bit means, we have no idea, but the phrase 'ideological training' sounds deeply worrying and something one would expect to hear from an internment camp for political dissidents.

Interestingly, Griffin then segues into a piece on the need to find a role within the BNP for Arthur Kemp. Kemp was mentioned in July's Searchlight as a former operative in South African Intelligence and, of course, the author of the monumental March of the Titans: The History of the White Race. A few chapter headings should give you a rough idea of which way Kemp's ideology leans.

'The rise and fall of civilizations explained in terms of their racial homogeneity; with the Near East civilizations as examples.'

'Roman conquest of mixed race Middle and Near East lands; Influx of mixed race peoples and slaves into Rome causes dissolution of original Roman population.'

'The White Race war against the non-White Muslims in Palestine; Egypt, North Africa and Portugal, under the guise of Christianity.'

'The non-White Moors invade Europe and are driven out by White armies; Jewish co-operation with the non-White Moors.'

'White civil wars caused by Christianity; One third of the White Race killed as a result.'

'Whites explore and start settling the world'

'The White Conquest of South and Central America and the creation of modern South American population; fall of Incas and Aztecs explained through racial mixing.'

'All significant inventions which shape the world originate with the White Race; comprehensive list of inventors, inventions, dates, places.'

'The Jewish role in the creation of Communism; Soviet anti-Zionism.'

'The dissolution of contemporary Western civilization through breakdown in racial homogeneity; racial discordance (race and crime); Current rates of non-White immigration will mean not one majority White country left on earth by 2090.'

I'm pretty sure you've got the gist. Kemp is a hardcore racist and white supremacist. Unfortunately, though not perhaps unsurprisingly, the job of ideological training within the BNP is to pass directly into his hands. It looks like a return to more hardcore racism and continued/increased adoration for the 'White Race' at the BNP in the future.

This sudden inclusion of the despicable Kemp into the inner circle of the BNP - in fact to the very top of the party - could well indicate a coming significant change to its stance on race and how the BNP deals with it. If I were Pat Richardson (Jewish), Laurence Rustem (Anglo-Turkish), both BNP councillors, or Sharif Abdel Gawad (Greek-Armenian), a former BNP council candidate, I'd be extremely nervous. In fact, if I was a BNP member at all, I'd be nervous. There is a feeling of great shift in the air, partly generated, I believe, by the leadership challenge and all the recent controversy around Griffin, money and (among other things) Croatia. When a dictator gets nervous, he tends to lash out in all directions. Griffin's most recent blog post reads like the first crack of the whip. We believe there are a lot more to come.

Fury as the BNP is given show slot

A row has erupted following a decision to allow the British National Party to have a stall at tomorrow’s Vale of Glamorgan Show.

Last year the BNP was allowed to have a stall for the first time in the event’s history. The party will again be setting up on the showground this year, alongside other political parties, including Labour, Conservative and Plaid Cymru.

All three mainstream political parties have expressed concern the BNP has again been granted permission to set up a stall on the showground at Fonmon Castle Park, near Rhoose. But show organisers say that the BNP is a legitimate, licensed political party and that if it was banned from the showground all other political parties would have to be banned too.

Councillor Margaret Alexander, who is Labour leader of the Vale of Glamorgan Council, will be hosting a “Business Brunch” at the authority’s marquee on the showground. She said: “I am not particularly happy at having to share the showground with the BNP. The Labour Party made representations last year that the BNP should not have a tent at the showground this year.”

Plaid Cymru AM Chris Franks, who is also a Vale of Glamorgan councillor, will be attending the show. He said: “Whether it is appropriate to have their stand at the show is questionable. The way they play on people's fear is totally abhorrent.”

Councillor Michael Kemp, leader of the Conservative group on the Vale council, said: “I recognise that the BNP is a political party and as such has a right to be at the show. But their views, and the fact that they will be promoting them at the show, concern me.”

Nicola Gibson, general secretary of the Vale of Glamorgan Show, said: “The Vale of Glamorgan Agricultural Society is a non-political organisation. If we allow one political party onto the showground, we have to allow them all. Similarly, if we banned the BNP we would have to ban all the other political parties. We did have a few complaints about the BNP tent at last year’s show from people who just don’t like them.”

A spokesman for the BNP could not be contacted for comment. But at last year’s show a spokesman said the party had policies on rural issues affecting places like the Vale and people were interested in learning more about them.

icWales

30th Anniversay of the Battle of Lewisham

August 13th marks the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Lewisham – which was a decisive turning point in the fight against Nazis in Britain at the time. Over 10,000 locals from all different backgrounds – black and white, young and old joined together to confront the National Front (NF) who had planned to march through the racially mixed and culturally diverse area of Lewisham, South East London.

Then popularity of the NF rose in the 1970’s when they began to obtain more support from British voters. This rising level of support meant that in the May 1977 Great London Council elections, the NF now posed as a threat to the Liberal party as the third main party in British politics.

Amongst the rising levels of actual and prospective electoral success across the country, the Nazis were given further confidence by a number of racially motivated incidents and campaigns often set up by politicians and the media mainly during 1976. This all led to least four Asians being murdered in east London by white gangs, other incidents included throwing deadly weed killer into a woman’s face as she attended a street meeting of the Lewisham 21 Defence Committee – which was set up after 21 black people were arrested in what the police called ‘Operation Police Nigger Hunt’.

In the weeks leading up to August 13th various anti-racist and anti-fascist groups became aware of the fact that the NF were planning to march through the streets. In response, the All Lewisham Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (ALCARAF) called a demonstration against the public NF march. The counter demonstration was in no way advocating violence against the NF – the assembly point for the ALCARAF – led demonstration was actually on the opposite side of Lewisham to where the NF planned to assemble (which was actually in New Cross).

Over 10,000 people joined in to oppose the NF and aver 4,000 police took to the streets of Lewisham to protect the NF. Police also tested new methods of controlling the crowds by physically attacking and breaking up lines of anti-Nazi protesters, and “for their own safety, obviously”, allowing NF members through police cordoned area.

However, protesters did not give up - the Nazi’s and all their possible routes were continually blocked, NF banners were burned, and Bob Marley was played. The counter demo became a great example of black and white unity.

Nazi organizations such as the NF, and nowadays the BNP also believe that they can build a mass movement based upon racial prejudices. On 13th August 1977 the National Front believed they could intimidate and frighten the local black, asian and non-British communities by marching thorough the streets proclaiming their racial hatred.

They were wrong, and they were defeated.

Ted Parker who took part in the battle and is principal of Barking College mentions, “Thereafter the NF never again posed a serious political threat. Lewisham led directly to the formation of the Anti Nazi League (ANL) which, together with Rock Against Racism (RAR), and nowadays Love Music Hate Racism mobilised hundreds of thousands in collective expressions of solidarity between those of differing cultures and ethnic backgrounds. Organised racism was marginalised for the next quarter of a century. It is therefore correct to call Lewisham a decisive battle – though in a war that remains far from won”.

LMHR

Bowden, Spence, McLean and Potter gone - will Barnbrook be next?

Since the Spence/McLean debacle, information is pouring into the Lancaster UAF mailbox at a great rate - more than ever from those in the BNP who have finally started to get a grip on the fact that their party is led by a man widely regarded as a manipulative crook whose only interest seems to be in lining his own pocket.

Nick Griffin has long-protected the worst elements in the party - Tony Lecomber and Mark Collett spring immediately to mind - leaving the membership both bewildered and angry at his apparent contempt for ordinary members who lack the extremely subtle charm that some, these two in particular, seem to exert on him.

While protecting the least-deserving, Griffin withdraws support apparently randomly as people move on and off his list of current favourites. Lecomber lasted for years despite being a liabilty to the BNP in every way, while the Hitler-worshipping Collett, although an arrogant imbecile, manages to avoid censure despite his numerous gaffes.

Having lost Jonathan Bowden, Andrew Spence and Scott McLean, the last two thanks solely to Collett, in a mere fortnight, one would have expected Nick Griffin to have taken care not to lose any more prominent personnel but, we are told, this is not the case because the pornmeister of Barking and Dagenham, Richard Barnbrook, suddenly seems to have found himself in the firing-line.

Information reaches us, as it usually does one way or another, that Barnbrook's fake flat (the one he uses to pretend he lives in Barking and Dagenham but which is only actually used as a very expensive storeroom) is packed to the rafters with thirty thousand undelivered and unlikely to ever be delivered leaflets setting out the BNP's housing policies - strange little documents that carry the maximum possible number of permutations of the words 'indigenous', 'asylum-seekers', 'Africans' and 'Muslims' on each and every one of them.

Poor old Dicky (which we're told is what he bizarrely prefers to be called), his troubles are only just beginning. Sadie Graham, who took over the Group Development Officer role in the BNP after Lecomber got the boot, has been ordered to keep an eye on him after word began to spread about both his performance in the council chamber (which can charitably be described as erratic) and his poor and shabby appearance, which we're told his colleagues have tended to put down to a drink problem which seems to have developed over the past year or two.

The Barking and Dagenham BNP contingent - once the darlings of the far-right - have famously failed to deliver on pretty much everything in the council chamber. Attendance is so bad now that other council members tend to be surprised if more than four of them turn up at the same time (out of twelve) and, it has been noted, Barnbrook is hardly ever able to string together a coherent sentence, preferring to sit and rub his eyes to keep awake, except apparently one day last week when someone shouted 'Remember Stalingrad' at him in a meeting (again) and he totally lost the plot and began screaming and spluttering until he was threatened with being thrown out of the chamber.

Sadie Graham's intervention and watchful eye is putting the pressure on Barnbrook. Recent remarks made over on Stormfront about his lifestyle are believed to have been made by a fellow BNP councillor in Barking and he has no-one who is prepared to co-operate with him to fend off Graham's interest in his performance. In fact, from all we hear he has been more or less deserted by his comrades on the council. Those who actually bother to go to meetings regularly tried to get him to clean up his act but have now washed their hands of him and finally it was they who asked Graham to get to London to sort him out.

Dicky seems to have been in quite a lot of trouble recently. Last month saw the demo that never happened at the Dagenham Show that caused huge embarrassment for the BNP, then there was the toe-curlingly awful St George stunt (one of many such stunts that simply haven't worked) then, just recently, Nick Eriksen was appointed to 'assist' him in his job as Councillor Liaison Officer to ensure that Barnbrook actually does the job he's meant to be doing within the party. Despite these indications that he has his act far from together, Barnbrook was recently selected as the BNP candidate for the London Mayoral election which prompted a number of pithy responses over at Stormfront, neatly encapsulated in the following sentence;

'Most people in the party know that the choice of Richard Barnbrook to take on Red Ken in the London Mayoral election next year is a disaster in the offing...'

We believe this is Nick Griffin's way of saying goodbye to Barnbrook. Nobody in their right mind would consider the BNP had any chance of even a reasonable vote when standing against Ken Livingstone and any attempt to do so is inevitably bound to end in dismal and deeply embarrassing failure. Given Barnbrook's condition and behaviour of late, Griffin seems to be placing him in such a position that he will be resoundingly beaten and thus left a spent force within the party.

Just a short while ago, Stormfronters were talking up Barnbrook as a possible eventual heir to Griffin - a dangerous game to play, particularly as Griffin seems to be trying to wangle his foul daughter into taking over from him when he finally stands down a la his old buddy Jean-Marie Le Pen. Even though still unaccountably popular with the rank and file, Barnbrook will find it difficult to come back from a major defeat, particularly if Barking and Dagenham BNP councillors continue with their consistently lacklustre performance, and there currently seems to be little possibility of improvement from the BNP's former flagship council indifferently led by the man in the shabby white suit with a vodka in each hand.

Solidarity - police called in

News has reached us that the Executive Committee of the BNP’s fake Solidarity trade union has called in the police to investigate the affairs of the strife-torn organisation. EC members Clive Potter and Tim Hawke have also involved the trade union Certification Officer and sought the help of Leicester MP Peter Soulsby. This confirms comments made on the Nazi Stormfront forum.

This comes in the same week that Solidarity’s 2006 annual return became available, showing that at the beginning of 2007 the union had only 42 members. In May Vice-President Tim Hawke emailed one of our correspondents claiming that the union had around 100 members.

We don’t intend to repeat the entire Solidarity saga here (links to the relevant LUAF articles are provided below), save to reiterate that the farce began at a quorate meeting of Solidarity’s Executive Committee, where allegations of irregular behaviour regarding the union’s funds were put to General Secretary Patrick Harrington, and which at a later Special Executive Meeting resulted in his suspension pending an investigation.

Harrington, an old friend of BNP leader Nick Griffin, refused to accept his suspension and sought Griffin’s support. This seems to have caught the BNP leadership off-balance, as the “rescue plan” they put into operation was badly thought out - completely disregarding Solidarity’s legally agreed constitution - and enacted with typical BNP heavy-handedness.

Any pretence that Solidarity was ever anything other than yet another BNP front was shattered when the union’s host provider, owned by failed South African school-bomber and BNP member Lambertus Nieuwhof, hijacked its website which remains in the control of Harrington’s version of Solidarity. An unconsitutional EGM was quickly called, it being agreed beforehand to expand the number of Executive Committee posts and to carve them up between the BNP and Third Way (the tiny organisation represented by Harrington), which the non-EGM duly ratified.

The BNP’s internal affairs may be conducted in this hole and corner manner, but the affairs of what is a legally constituted trade union are quite a different matter.

Any unbiased perusal of Solidarity’s constitution will show that the Special Executive Meeting which suspended Patrick Harrington was a legal gathering within the scope of that constitution. Whether Harrington was guilty or not of the charges made against him has no bearing on that inescapable fact.

Consequently, we believe that the actions of Harrington and his supporters since that time have been entirely beyond Solidarity’s constitution, that his and the BNP’s version of the union has no real legal existence, and, therefore, no right to utilise the official union’s financial and other resources, including its membership lists - hence the involvement of the police.

Solidarity update - BNP’s Nick Griffin heavily criticised for interference
Where next for the BNP’s amoeba-like Solidarity union?
Solidarity disaster goes critical as criminal investigation is threatened
BNP discards democracy completely to force takeover of 'independent' Solidarity
Solidarity - an email update from the Vice-President Tim Hawke
BNP's Solidarity situation worsens - fake union under threat
BNP's fake union Solidarity already up against the ropes
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Beaten and abused, but with an unshakeable belief in Britain

The first Muslim to become a government minister still feels aggrieved about how the police treated him during the 2001 race riots

It was in that overheated summer of 2001, when race riots broke out across the North, that a grainy police video showed a young Asian man walking from a group of youths towards a police line in Burnley with his hands in the air; the next moment he was on the ground.

That man was Shahid Malik, who was appointed this summer as Britain’s first Muslim minister. His account of what happened deviates substantially from that of the police.

“I walked up to this officer and said to him, ‘Listen, everything’s going to be OK. I’m going to move this lot and there’ll be no trouble whatsoever’,” Mr Malik said. “But when I looked into his eyes I could see that he couldn’t really hear what I was saying, because his eyes were kind of a bit zombied, he was all adrenalined up. Within seconds he had lifted his shield and started to smash it in my face. And then the batons came out and I was knocked unconscious.”

Mr Malik’s formal complaint, it has to be said, was dismissed by Lancashire police after an investigation that was overseen by the Police Complaints Authority. It concluded that there was insufficient evidence of an unprovoked attack. Six years later the officers are still in their posts, and Mr Malik, 39, is a junior minister in the Department for International Development.

He still harbours a grievance about the alleged incident. Mr Malik said that it remained one of the turning points “that formed the person that I am”. As he spoke about his life, a distinct pattern emerged: Mr Malik’s path to this comfortable Whitehall sofa has been marked, from an early age, by learning how to respond to hostility – often racist, and on many occasions violent.

His father came to Burnley in 1965, a time and place that Mr Malik described as “probably the most racist environment anybody could ever be brought up in”. He had been tempted from his post as headmaster of a large school in Pakistan by an offer from someone at the British Embassy, who said that Britain was looking for teachers. They lived in one of the poorest wards in the country, said Mr Malik, who was sometimes the only nonwhite boy in his class. “That sometimes used to feel like thirty against one,” he said. “This concept of Paki-bashing was something that was in vogue and a few times a week it would take place. Teachers were oblivious. Completely disinterested in it.”

Was he “Paki-bashed”? “I certainly was,” he said, reeling off incidents that ranged from being beaten “pretty badly” by four skinheads in his first week at secondary school, to being stabbed in the leg with a chisel during woodwork after an argument about race. He had to go to hospital to get stitches. “But again nothing was done – quite incredibly.”

The reaction – or lack of it – from the school authorities was “a real kind of eye-opener”, but so, interestingly, was the reaction of Mr Malik. “You just accepted it, and looking back on it I don’t bear any grudges towards any of those people. The truth is that they were ignorant. And so really it wasn’t their fault, they were just children.”

Did he ever wish that he could live in Pakistan instead? “Never. No, I always thought of myself as very much British, very much that this is my country . . . I still say it’s the best country in the world to live.”

It is obviously important for Mr Malik to show that he remains determinedly positive, that he tries to tolerate and understand – or at least not to generalise about – those who are against him. The day after he left hospital, during the unrest in 2001, he was out patrolling the streets with the police “to show that the police aren’t bad”.

This was despite the shock of what happened. “It was shocking to me at first. You can imagine, I was a commissioner on the Commission for Racial Equality, I was the only ever British commissioner to the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. I was on Labour’s National Executive Committee sitting with Tony Blair and others. And I’d been commended for my work in calming the situation for the last two days, and here I’d been knocked unconscious, my face was soaked in blood, I had cuts to my chest and arms.

“I remember a white woman stopping in a car and saying, ‘Leave him alone, we can see what you’re doing’. And that was very heartening. It was surreal because I still had handcuffs on me when I was in the hospital bed. It was just a bit unbelievable.”

In the years that followed, he struggled to find a seat. During this time he was the victim of a hit-and-run incident in a Burnley petrol station, his parent’s family car was firebombed and, while walking the street, he was surrounded by 20 members of the extreme-right group Combat 18, who said that they were going to kill him.

Although his father was once Mayor of Burnley and was appointed, in the late 1960s, on to what was then the Race Relations Board (a precursor of the Commission for Racial Equality), his parents wanted him to give up politics.

“They think it’s thankless. In the autumn of 2003, the family were just saying to me, ‘Listen, you’ve been through quite a lot, just stop it. You’re not going to get a seat.’ And I just thought, ‘These people are mad. Of course I’m going to get there’.”

Now, as one of the most powerful Muslims in the country, he faces attack from radical Islamists as well as racists. “There are extremists who think of themselves as Muslims . . . who see me as a hate figure, as the enemy.”

To say that his Dewsbury constituency is divided is something of an understatement. It has the highest British National Party vote in the country and was also the home of the leading suicide bomber from July 7, 2005, Mohammad Sidique Khan. “It doesn’t matter what I do, I’m going to annoy somebody,” he said. “I have just got to do what I believe is right on these big issues, these issues of extremism and morality.”

Once he made it to the Commons, was there an end to his racist encounters? Not quite. He described one incident at Westminster. “We’re on the terrace, there was me and there were two female colleagues, white. And one of the security guys ignored both of them and came up to me and said, ‘Sir, have you got any ID?’ I think you learn through experience to just be very patient and just be very relaxed about these things . . .”

He has been “disappointed” by the language of a few “unreconstructed Tories”, but the thing that annoyed him the most, he said, was still being confused, after two years in Parliament, with his fellow Muslim Labour MP, Sadiq Khan. “Everybody has got our names wrong – the Speaker has got us confused, the Deputy Speaker has got us confused. MPs get us confused constantly.”

After two years tt was “a bit unforgivable,” he said. “There’s about a foot difference in height. He’s a Cockney – I certainly am not,” he said, with a laugh. “And you just think, ‘Wow, how can you keep getting this wrong?’ And I just ignore it, because it’s deeply embarrassing for people when they realise that they’ve got the name wrong.”

We asked whether it was annoying, too, that his post (along with nine other ministerial appointments) was unpaid: did Mr Malik think that there was a touch of tokenism in his promotion? No, he insisted, it just proved that “the Government actually isn’t trying to be overly politically correct. It’s an unpaid role, he happens to be Muslim, so what? Big deal. It shouldn’t send out any messages.” Later, he added suddenly: “Forget about being paid, I would pay to do this job.”

He hopes to use his role at the department to shine a light on how the Government works to help the Muslim world, as part of the “hearts and minds” campaign that Gordon Brown has described.

“I think something like 40 per cent of our development assistance actually goes to Muslims and Muslim countries across the world. It’s very, very significant. We haven’t been good at talking it up, and that’s something we need to do.”

Was the overwhelming emphasis towards Africa, from Mr Brown downwards, a little skewed?

“You’re right about Africa in the sense that there are approximately a billion people in this world who live on less than a dollar a day. And 650 million of them actually are in Asia. And actually a lot of our resources and energy does go into Asia. We’ve got a massive programme in India, in Nepal, in Bangladesh, in Pakistan. I think that what we don’t do is talk that up enough.”

Mr Malik also wants to persuade the wealthy Gulf states to spread their aid beyond the Muslim world. “It cuts both ways in that sense. I think they concentrate their aid on Muslim countries in the same way as you get some organisations which might be Christian that concentrate their efforts on Christian communities.”

Many Westminster insiders described Mr Malik to us as overly ambitious, a self-promoter, whereas we found him to be thoughtful and interesting. Perhaps their reaction was another little piece of racism; was what they called self-promotion simply a necessary determination to overcome prejudice?

“I don’t mind if people say that I’m here because I’m a Muslim in the same way that women have had to endure [discrimination] for years,” he said. “Women have to cross hurdles to get here that men don’t have to. The same is true of black and ethnic minority parliamentarians. And in that sense I believe this to be true: if you’re a woman or if you are black or ethnic minority, you necessarily have to be much better than your white male counterpart to achieve.”

The British body politic might have admitted Mr Malik, but it is still a long, long way from being colour-blind.

Times Online

The truth about Spence and the RWB punch-up - McLean resigns

It's a good job there are some people in the British National Party with integrity or we would never get to hear the truth about anything. Let's hope they've let someone who can look at them honestly to take a look at the accounts before they're submitted to the Electoral Commission. The membership might actually get a true picture of the state of the party then. But this article isn't about the accounts - it's about Andrew Spence, the BNP's ex-poster boy, who, to trumpets from on high, joined the party just six months ago only to resign in a huff last Saturday night.

The gist of the incident has already been reported here but until now we've been stuck for the detail - until, that is, a couple of angry BNP members got in touch to put this situation right. These kind people both pointed out that discussion on this subject has been censored dramatically on the BNP's own forum, with threads being closed as soon as they were started. We have also observed severe censorship over at the Stormfront nazi forum - the BNP member's favourite alternative to its own despite it having been proscribed by the control-freaks at BNP HQ. When will the BNP learn that the membership at least, deserve honesty and openness?

Anyway, back to Saturday night. This is the story as we have it...

Allegedly, after a bad row on the Friday night of the Red White and Blue, BNP Head of Publicity and chief dork Mark Collett spent twenty minutes on Saturday night goading and picking at Andrew Spence about money that was promised to him by the party over some damage that occurred to his car during the recent by-election campaign. Party Treasurer John Walker refused point blank to hand over the cash (shades of the Sharon Ebanks' fiasco there) and even refused to accept that the party was in any way liable, telling Spence to go see his insurance company about it. Eventually, we're told, tempers got frayed and Spence pushed (rather than punched) Walker. Collett, ever the coward, slapped Spence around the back of the head then did a runner pushing people aside, including the Norfolk Organiser and her young daughter.

This all took place after the row on Friday where, during a meeting to rehash the Sedgefield by-election, Collett made some stupid remarks about the campaign and Spence stormed out of the meeting in a huff, cursing Collett as he did so and promising that he would get even with him. This anger has been inspired, we're told, by Collett's inability to get the Sedgefield leaflets out on time on three separate occasions during that single campaign. Collett (naturally) blamed Spence for being picky while Spence blamed Collett for being a lazy useless bastard.

Spence, as you already know, has resigned from the party while Collett - who appears to have played a key role in provoking the incident - faces no action, as usual, despite having himself assaulted another party member.

This incident has caused fury in the ranks, so much so that Scott McLean, Griffin's Deputy Chairman and the person responsible for maintaining discipline in the party, has clearly stated that he is resigning, having told all his long-time pals in the party that his position has been undermined again and again by Griffin's constant refusal to take action against Collett. We're informed that McLean gave Griffin an ultimatum a few days ago - him or Collett - and Griffin is sticking to Collett. So much for loyalty then.

Griffin has been anxious to gain more control over the party for a while now and has already indicated that he personally will take over the role of party disciplinarian, stepping into McLean's shoes while his feet are still in them. One would have expected the party leader to have enough on his plate already but that's not, as we know, how dictatorships work.

One wonders precisely what hold Collett has over Nick Griffin. Clearly a liability, he has managed to act the buffoon on numerous occasions, causing numerous problems for the BNP's doomed attempts to appear to present itself as a 'normal' political party, praising the Nazis, verbally attacking gays and generally talking crap whenever a camera is stuck in his face. The fact that everyone knows him to be an outstanding idiot who is also lousy at his job, makes our correspondents believe that whatever he has on Griffin must be of enormous interest both to the membership of the party and, of course, us. If anyone has any information that might help us to discover what his secret hold over Griffin might be, please email us and give us a laugh.

In the meantime, we look forward to reading that Scott McLean is to be expelled because he's a) a Searchlight mole, b) an MI5 mole, c) a secret Red or d) he's moving to Croatia.

Talking of Croatia, Sadie and Matt left for Croatia on Sunday right after the RWB. Just a holiday or a look at the Nick Griffin Holiday Camp from Hell?

BNP breaching Facebook terms, say campaigners

Facebook is coming under renewed pressure to ban the British National Party from its site, with campaign groups and MPs claiming the content of BNP pages clearly breaches the site's terms and conditions.

More than 1,000 people have joined a new Facebook group demanding that the BNP is barred from the site. A separate offline petition initiated by the campaign group Unite Against Facism has collected 450 signatures including MPs Harry Cohen, Fiona Mactaggart, Stephen Pound and London MEP Claude Moraes.

United Against Facism said that until now, parents had been unaware that Facebook has been used by the BNP and that content on the BNP's profile pages - which detail the party's policies on immigration, law and order and foreign aid - breach the social networking website's own terms of use for the site.

An illustration on a BNP Facebook group includes an image of the word Islam as an acronym for intolerance, slaughter, looting, arson and molestation of women.

Facebook's terms of use state that users agree not to upload, post or share content that the site deems "harmful, threatening, unlawful ... inflammatory ... hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable".

UAF joint general secretary, Denis Fernando, told MediaGuardian.co.uk that the BNP is using Facebook to try and pitch itself as a political party while "promoting, intimidating and recruiting" through the site.

"My question to Facebook is: why have you not acted on this clear contravention of your own terms and conditions? Especially when eight companies have withdrawn their advertising," he said. "It is damaging to the Facebook brand and its revenue stream, because it should not allow anyone to breach the most fundamental terms of a site - causing offence and inciting ethnic attacks."

The five main BNP groups on the site count 377 members between them, though members often join multiple groups and the site also allows users to create hidden groups.

Several major advertisers pulled their campaigns from the site last week after it was revealed that their ads were appearing on the BNP's group pages and alongside other content that breaches typical in-house advertising policies. Facebook has since introduced an option that allows advertisers to opt out of the group section of the site, but also insisted that the vast majority of content on the site is brand-safe.

Facebook and the BNP had failed to comment by the time of publication.

Media Guardian