Thursday, March 11, 2010 

Boycotting boycotts.

There are times when I wonder just what some of my blogging comrades have been smoking. Why else would some respond in such a vehement fashion to the decision of Total Politics magazine to interview Nick Griffin, of which they have a perfect right to do and which really ought to cause no ructions whatsoever?

To call the justifications and calls for a boycott of TP's blog awards piss-poor would be putting it far too kindly. As an extension of the "no platform" position, it errs on being arguable, until you note that "no platform" has been an ignoble failure. No platform not only fails to confront the BNP for what it is, it also gives them carte blanche to claim that they're persecuted simply for who they are and for what they stand for; adhered to not just by Labour but by others, it's doubtless helped to result in two BNP MEPs and their highest ever number of local councillors. Just what do those proposing a boycott of TP's blog awards hope to achieve through doing so?

It equally doesn't follow that allowing Griffin to appear in TP will be a "further acquiescence to the BNP message being accepted as a normal part of British political discourse". We don't know how TP is going to approach the interviewing of Griffin: one suspects that he's hardly going to be given a soft soap interview. It's also an attempt to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted: unfortunately, Griffin and the BNP now are a normal part of British political discourse, and that they haven't been before has only added to their lustre in any case.

Lastly, it's claimed that this doesn't fit with TP's mission statement to be “unremittingly positive about the political process”. Even if you don't accept that bringing the BNP into the political process to expose them for what they are is a good idea, then why shouldn't a magazine which is dedicated to politics interview the leader of what is a major political party even if it isn't necessarily positive? The grouping continues by arguing "[L]est we forget, this is a party which abuses that process". As opposed to our current representatives, held in the highest esteem by everyone, and whom would never sink to such levels of political skulduggery. Rather than getting involved in daft, half-baked boycotts, we'd be better putting our collective efforts into exposing the BNP's manifesto for the general election when it arrives, which might just achieve something. Letting Iain Dale hang himself with his own rope is in any event a far better option.

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3/11/2010 10:21:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, January 15, 2010 

Hurrah for the Blackshirts!

Via Next Left, it's 76 years to the day since the Mail declared its support for those ahead of their time left-wingers known as the British Union of Fascists. By coincidence, the latest far-right nutjob to be found in possession of "improvised explosive devices", joining the ranks over the last few years of Neil Lewington, Robert Cottage and Martyn Gilleard was today convicted and sentenced to 11 years.

Unlike the others, whom were either connected to different far-right groups or whose membership to the British National Party had lapsed, Terence Gavan was a fully paid up member of the party, as the last leaked membership list makes clear (XLSB), a Mr Gavan appearing on the list from West Yorkshire with the postcode WF17 7HQ, which covers Healey Lane in Batley. Indeed, Gavan wasn't just a normal member but rather a "Gold" member, having opted to pay the £60 fee in return for his spangly yellow party badge. Still, the BNP, despite being unwilling to admit that Gavan was what they call an "elite" member, with the news being strangely absent from their current home page, admitted that the charges against him were "serious" and that the sentence passed "correct". Whether the members themselves agree is another matter.

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1/15/2010 09:33:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 

BNpeas.

From today's Viz:
Meanwhile, the Sun has figured out the best way to challenge the BNP: find a soldier who supports the party on Facebook, print a load of pictures of him doing things which 19-year-old BNP supporters do, and then claim that he brings shame upon his regiment. Bound to end the feelings of victimhood the party feeds off in an instant. Just to be consistently outraged by people doing things that others don't like which aren't directly harming anyone else, Jon Gaunt in his superb new blog attacks Harriet Harman for daring not to wear a poppy in the Commons, as well as namesake Jon Snow even though he's declined to wear one for years. Poppy fascism is still with us, and seems to be getting worse.

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10/28/2009 10:51:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, October 23, 2009 

Dick Griffin and the Question Time stalemate.

There was always going to be two ways which Nick Griffin and the BNP would react once Question Time had shown: if he put in a relatively good performance, they were going to crow about how the mainstream had been taken on and vanquished. If he wasn't so good, they were going to claim that it was the usual establishment stitch-up, and that when forced into such a bear-pit, Griffin was always going to struggle.

As it happened, Griffin and the party have actually done both. Within an hour of the programme ending the party had sent out an email filled with "quotes" from viewers of how well he did and how despite being roughed up by the other panellists he had came out on top. Even in that though there was the starts of the moaning of how it was all a set-up: no "current affairs" questions; how the show was filmed in central London in the "most 'enriched' and 'diverse' part of Britain". Since then, clearly worried by just how poorly he was perceived to have done, Griffin's gone into meltdown, claiming bias, that he couldn't get a fair crack of the whip because London has been "ethnically cleansed", that the audience was a "lynch mob", and that if the show was filmed in Thurrock, Stoke or Burnley then the true picture of the support for him and his party's policies would become evident.

This was always going to be the problem with inviting Griffin onto Question Time and not instead dedicating a programme to him and his party alone with set questions. The whole Question Time format is based on the audience asking the questions, and the audience was always going to be concerned first and foremost with him and his policies rather than what's actually been happening this week beyond the QT studio. Even in such a benevolent atmosphere though the panellists, with the exception of Bonnie Greer, were mainly incredibly poor, Sayeedi Warsi and Jack Straw especially so. There was next to no actual discussion or consideration of the BNP's policies outside of immigration and racism, and not even for example the bringing up of the party's policy on voluntary repatriation, which is such an open goal it was absurd not to mention it. Griffin still however managed to hang himself with his own rope, his gaffe on David Duke being from the "non-violent Ku Klux Klan" being both amusing and revealing. His only real success was that he didn't say anything objectively outrageous, instead doing his usual act on why Islam isn't compatible with the British society which he actively loathes. At times he was just cowardly, claiming that he couldn't explain his past reasoning on why he denied the Holocaust because he could be arrested if he did so. As much as New Labour has made this a less free society, there is not yet any law which explicitly criminalises Holocaust denial, although seeing as Holocaust denial and inciting racial hatred usually go hand in hand you could perhaps see some sort of reasoning behind his caution.

The biggest failing of the evening by far was in fact the cowardice of the other panel members to challenge the overwhelming consensus on immigration, that it has been both uncontrolled and to the detriment of the country. This cowardice is centred on the view that on this point, the BNP actually has the upper hand, and indeed, the moral authority. Jack Straw, questioned on whether Labour's policies had helped the BNP, which they undoubtedly have, not so much on immigration but on the complete abandonment of their former base in favour of the mythical "centre" ground and aspirational middle class, simply prevaricated and waffled. Sayeedi Warsi advocated the equally unrealistic Tory policy of a cap and Chris Huhne brought up the old red herring of Labour's prediction of how many would come when the eastern European countries joined the EU, without mentioning that was an estimate based on the other EU states also opening their borders, when only ourselves, Ireland and Sweden did, without offering an real alternative to Labour's policy except the empty promise of "counting people out". How can you even begin to challenge the BNP when you won't even make the case for a policy which has been to the vast benefit of the country as a whole?

Apart from Griffin, it was Jack Straw who looked out of his depth. His claim that the BNP was different from the other political parties because they all had a "moral compass" while the BNP didn't was fatuousness at its finest, leading Griffin to score his only real point of the evening. How could Jack Straw claim to have a moral compass when he indirectly had the blood of 800,000 Iraqis on his hands? There was no answer to that, and the audience was also sheepishly quiet as he made it. Even stopped clocks are right twice a day, but it also underlined how Labour has still yet to have its real day of reckoning for some of the things that it has done.

At worst, the spectacle was the bear-baiting some have described it as. At its best, it was a show that will have done nothing to alter the views of absolutely anyone. Those already sympathetic towards the BNP will hardly have been put off, and may well have felt sympathy for the way Griffin was barracked. Those on the opposite side should perhaps be worried about just that, and how despite coming off badly, Griffin was hardly given anything resembling a knock-out blow. This is certainly not Weimar Germany, and Griffin is certainly not a Fuhrer in waiting, and while we shouldn't keep ourselves awake at night about the BNP's support, it still remains an indictment of our politics that Griffin should have achieved the votes necessary to make his appearance on our televisions a requirement of the BBC's "impartiality".

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10/23/2009 08:46:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 

The BNP, no platform, Churchill and Question Time.

Nick Griffin must be having what is almost certainly the greatest week of his political life. At last invited to join the political mainstream on Question Time, the target of an incredibly crass and perplexing campaign by the armed services of all people against their pathetic but predictable use of imagery from WW2 in their election literature, and now with the member list leaked yet again, he can't really have wished for more attention or publicity for either himself or his party.

At the very heart of the debate about how to deal with extremists, not just including the BNP but also the likes of the English Defence League as well as the more radical Islamists is whether giving them enough rope to hang themselves with is a good idea or not. As you may have guessed from that last sentence, I've always doubted the efficacy of the "no platform" stance which was taken against the party up until very recently. As much as the likes of Unite Against Fascism and other similar groups have the right intentions, their own authoritarian leanings and determination to stop the BNP from exercising their democratic right, especially when invited to student debates, is self-defeating in the extreme. There was perhaps a case when the British National Party was more anti-democratic than it currently is, and more openly racist and radical in its policies for it to be denied the right to spread their hatred, but even if Griffin's "sanitising" of the party is just for show as it almost certainly is, that time now has almost certainly passed.

The English Defence League, on the other hand, is probably the most dangerous organisation outside of the actual terrorist groupings currently active in this country. Their tactics, clearly aimed at inciting tension, have the very real possibility of starting race riots akin to those which shook northern towns and cities in the summer of 2001. If you're now expecting that I'm going to say that they therefore have to be denied the right to protest or make their point, I'm not. No, in this instance they both need to be exposed as the deeply racist morons which they clearly are, by more widely distributing footage and reports of their marches, and by being challenged by the likes of the UAF, which seems to have resulted mainly so far in the UAF being the clear winners. In some circumstances their demonstrations may well have to possibly be banned, much as I loathe the idea of outlawing any expression of dissent, purely because of the potential there is for widespread disorder.

Lastly, we have the likes of Anjem Choudary and his ilk. The main threat from such extremists is again, not from anything they are likely to do, but instead from the rage which their bile induces in others. The difference here is that the best way to deal with Choudary and co is to, simply, ignore them. The English Defence League speak for those who find the BNP too tame, which is a distinct minority, but a minority which is almost certainly far larger than that of those they are claiming to be demonstrating against. The remnants of al-Muhajiroun are best dealt with as internet trolls are: don't feed them, ignore them and laugh at them. There is after all something deeply amusing about the Islam4UK campaign, and their page on how Trafalgar Square would look under Sharia law itself is certainly a humourous attempt at trolling; either that or Choudary and his willing army of photoshoppers has cracked even further than before. The seriousness with which the likes of the Express treats this silliness only encourages them further, as almost certainly will the coverage their doubtless tiny march will receive. 5,000 marching for Sharia? They'll be lucky to get 500.

It's a similar kind of silliness which is behind the speaking out of past generals against the BNP's use war imagery and evocations. When neo or post-fascists in, Italy, say, use wartime propaganda, it's worrying. When neo or post-fascists in Britain use it, it's just ridiculous. A fascist party putting Winston Churchill on their leaflets, Spitfires and calling their European parliament campaign the "Battle for Britain"? It's almost Monty Python-esque, unless you take it seriously and get outraged. Here's a question for Nick Griffin: which side should have won WW2? For someone who has previously denied the Holocaust, his reply, or non-reply, would be fascinating. It's also hardly as if it's just the BNP using Churchill and faux-patriotism for their ill-gotten gains: UKIP had Churchill on their election paraphernalia as well, equally deceptively, while as the Heresiarch points out all parties and this government have abused history. The biggest insult to Churchill right now is that most people only associate the name with a nodding dog that advertises insurance, and no one's suddenly going to start a campaign about that.

It's dispiriting enough that Griffin is likely to come off reasonably well from his appearance on Question Time without giving him such an open goal to shoot into. The BNP did after all oppose the Iraq war, although I'm uncertain over what their position on Afghanistan was at the time and what is now; while Griffin's referral to the Nuremberg trials falls into the category mentioned above, just how does a general who commanded his forces in a war of aggression respond to being alluded to as a war criminal? How does the attack on the "Tory" generals not ring true? Who possibly thought this campaign was a good idea and would achieve anything other than giving the BNP further publicity?

All this said, the BBC's claim that they suddenly have to include Griffin on QT because they've now got a few seats on councils and in the European parliament is false. They primarily want Griffin on and have wanted him on because they know it'll make good television; now they finally have their excuse. It comes at a time when the BBC's interpretation of what their impartiality and legal responsibilities are is becoming ever muddied: refusing to show the appeal for Gaza mainly because of the fear of the Israel lobby, yet Griffin must be allowed on because of the law? Poppycock. There is a case for giving BNP much more coverage than it currently gets, giving Griffin a proper, Paxman or Humphrys grilling, even putting him before an audience as other political leaders are, where others have often come unstuck. Question Time though is just general discussion: Griffin will simply be the centre of attention, distract everyone, and subvert the whole programme to be all about him rather than questions from the public. This isn't to argue he shouldn't appear, but when Griffin is up against such a piss-poor panel, with Jack Straw, the horrendous, screeching Sayeedi Warsi and Bonnie Greer, with Chris Huhne the only person likely to be able to begin to hold him to account, you have to wonder whether the BNP themselves didn't leak their membership list, just to add to the free ride they're being given.

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10/20/2009 09:10:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, June 03, 2009 

Vote early, vote often, vote Green, and bash the fash.

It's easy to forget that amidst all the plotting there is an election tomorrow, albeit one that will probably result in a turnout around the 40% mark. For those of us in England, it's a special shame as this is the one election where our vote actually counts: we can vote for a party far more in line with our actual views without knowing that by doing so we're helping those we dislike the most to win.

Even so, you can't exactly say that you're spoilt for choice. Personally, the only parties worth considering are the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, NO2EU and possibly the Socialist Labour Party. The Liberal Democrats are without doubt now the best "big" party, and the one I'll most likely be casting my vote for come the general election. The Greens however are for the most part a breath of fresh air, whom although undoubtedly are rather authoritarian on some measures, and crackpot on alternative medicine, should now be the main home for those who consider themselves even vaguely left-of-centre, at least when it comes to Europe, for the reasons outlined by the (Daily) Maybe and Peter Tatchell. As interesting as NO2EU potentially could be, although I'm hardly much of a fan of Bob Crow, their ridiculous policy of not even sitting in the European parliament if they are elected ought to rule them out. You don't reform something by putting yourself above it. Likewise, the SLP is little more than a vanity project for Arthur Scargill, and while as a protest vote against Labour itself it might be worth a cross, otherwise the Greens are the best party to coalesce around.

The best reason to get out though is to deny the British National Party even the slightest opportunity of gaining any seats. As disenchanted with politics as many are now, the answer is not a party with a leader convicted of inciting racial hatred, whose elected councillors are so useless that they often hardly bother to turn up to the meetings where they are supposed to represent those who voted for them. While we shouldn't panic too much if they do gain a seat, as seems possible, it would still be shameful for the country which fought fascism, albeit too late, to finally succumb to the hatred which is all the BNP has to offer. Voting for any other party, even UKIP or the Christians, is preferable to not turning out when every vote counts. Don't think also that your area is unlikely to vote BNP; I thought they'd do poorly here, but last time round they got over 3,000 more votes than UKIP. The Greens deserve to do well, but anyone other than the BNP will do.

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6/03/2009 11:29:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It's reassuring to know that even if everything else is falling apart, the government can still be relied upon to be treating asylum seekers like shit. The Graun discovers that those who have deported back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been taken almost direct from the flights into the custody of the general directorate of intelligence and special services, where at least two "failed" asylum seekers were viciously tortured. Despite the Home Office's operational guidance, which admits that those detained in the country are highly likely to be mistreated, while the Foreign Office advises against all but essential travel to the country because of the political situation, the Court of Appeal ruled back in December that those who claim asylum in this country are not risking persecution back in the Congo purely because they have done that. This latest evidence rather undermines that judgement. Not that anyone far beyond the pages of the Independent or Guardian will care - instead they'll be focusing on the tabloid headlines of last week which while acknowledging the fall in immigration from the EU ascension countries, noted that asylum applications were rising again.

Somewhat connected is that the mighty Tim Ireland has rather outdone the BNP's "Billy Brit" horror show by purchasing the exact same puppet (which happens to be American) and noting that some "white" heroes aren't all that they seem:

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5/27/2009 11:26:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 

How to tackle the BNP effectively.

Every few years, without fail, there is a scare regarding the possibility of the British National Party making a major breakthrough. By major breakthrough, this generally means winning the odd council seat, putting in an above average performance in an area where racial tension has been running at a high after some particular incident, or not losing their deposit when it comes to contesting seats during a general election. Compared to far right parties in other countries in Europe, some of which either share power, hold substantial seats in their respective parliaments or in the notorious case of 2002 in France, when Jean Marie Le Pen contested the French presidency against Jacques Chirac, come as close to seizing complete control as can be feasibly imagined, our rank of out and proud racists and fascists are a mostly feeble bunch.

This time round, the scare is probably as close to being justified as it has ever been. The BNP, despite having its membership list published online at the end of last year, is finally getting its shit together. Helped along by the economic situation, a backlash against "uncontrolled" immigration which has never been properly explained to the public, let alone the economic and political case argued for, the feeling of victimhood which followed the glee with which the leaked members list was greeted in some quarters, and the old grievances which the party preys upon, namely the immigrants/ethnics are talking all the jobs/houses/women then twists and fabricates further, support for the party seems to be growing exponentially. 800,000 apparently voted for them at the last European elections, while 238,000 crossed their box in the 2006 local elections. According to the email missives which regularly land in my inbox, after I signed up on the BNP website to argue with a knuckledragger who was linking here, BNP supporters have raised £300,000 for the European campaign, enabling them to send a flyer to every home in the country, as well as preparing a backroom staff more associated with the "major" parties. That's still £100,000 less than the Fuhrer himself, Nick Griffin, called for, but is hardly a figure to be sniffed at.

The latest to sound the alarm, as it always seems to be, is a Labour politician, even if Peter Hain has a well-established pedigree when it comes to battling against the far right. He worries that the BNP could win up to six seats at the European elections, which while hardly transforming British politics overnight, would mean that the party could claim up to £2 million in funding from the EU. That sort of money definitely would transform the party. At the moment, the BNP is restricted to running a mainly internet based insurgency: like organisations which, ironically, defend Israel, such as GIYUS, threads and comment pieces dealing with racism or mentioning the party are swiftly set upon, further giving the impression that there is a groundswell of opinion heading the party's way. Emails are sent out asking supporters and members to complain to newspapers which run articles the party decides are either inaccurate or which it simply decides cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged; one recent such campaign against the Independent resulted in the Press Complaints Commission receiving the most ever complaints about a single press article. The latest send out concerned the fear that the News Shopper was about to blame what even the BNP described as "major carnage" in Old Bexley on St George's Day on the party, which naturally, the party assures its subscribers "is utterly ridiculous and completely unfounded". According to this forum thread, the "carnage" occurred outside a known BNP pub, but was between football fans. In the event, the newspaper's article did not place the blame on the BNP.

While Hain is right to be concerned, he ought to know by now that members of the ruling party can only make things worse by writing such articles. Admittedly, the whole tackling the BNP policy is fraught with conundrums: does "no platform" mean that you don't just refuse to argue with them, but also completely deny that they even exist? However, this doesn't apply when it comes to the Labour party, and especially either ministers or former ministers. The example of what not to do was set by Margaret Hodge a couple of years back: don't predict the BNP is about to make a breakthrough, not only because such prophecies can become self-fulfilling, but because they alert the media to the idea, who descend upon said area, and even further potentially alienate the local population, especially if cack-handed idiots start asking whether they think they're racist as they're contemplating voting for the party. All it does is result in further publicity for the party.

The challenge in fighting the BNP has, instead, to be left to the grassroots and those who cannot be linked back directly to the Labour government. While the BNP seems likely to pick up some votes at the European elections from UKIP, whose vote seems likely to collapse, or at least plummet, Labour has to face up to the fact that the most defections will come from their supporters. This is not because, as some right-wingers love to argue, that the BNP is left-wing, and QED that means that fascists are also lefties, but because the BNP more than any of the other parties are prepared to get down and dirty with the actual voters themselves, reassure them that their concerns are not prejudices and that they will fight for them personally rather than the "outsiders". This is politics of the old school, in all senses, and it's what the other parties have increasingly abandoned. The white working class, for various reasons, feels this abandonment most acutely. In fact, the working class as a whole, regardless of colour distinctions, feels much the same. Labour promised them much and has not delivered sufficiently, and now they're the ones suffering the most while the others who benefited have far more resilience. The argument against the BNP then has to be made not just on policy grounds and on exposing their true, still disgustingly racist views, as shown by last week's party leaflet, but on the other facts: that the BNP make for the most part dreadful councillors and politicians, as the record conclusively shows. They also have to be personally argued against: the no platform policy has completely failed, and is now not principled, it's simply cowardly.

All this said, the BNP probably won't get those six seats, and if they do they'll only get them because of the European parliament's PR system, the same reason why the Greens will also win seats, and why many who would normally vote for the main three parties will switch their support. The BNP is not about to win parliamentary seats, which really would be a breakthrough. The party will remain one of the least successful relative far-right forces in Europe, and this country will also remain one of the most tolerant, least racist and least prejudiced in Europe. All of that should be remembered before we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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4/29/2009 08:21:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, February 09, 2009 

The British Cissy Party.

Thanks to my signing up some time back on the British National Party's website to argue with some knuckle-dragger that was linking here, I now get sent their irregular newsletter. Its usual content is banal in the extreme: the latest tales of where the Fuhrer himself and his "Truth Truck", or as it's otherwise known, the liar lorry, have visited this week in the multicultural hell-hole that is our fine country. Last week they were ecstatic about the Lindsey strikes, lying about how they had been given a warm welcome which in reality equated to them being told to go forth and multiply. This week they're outraged by a headteacher phoning up one of their local election candidates:

When BNP candidate for the Swanley by-election, Paul Golding, received a call from the Head Teacher of Swanley Technology College, he expected an adult conversation regards the election but instead found himself subjected to a tirade of anti-BNP hatred.

The Head Teacher in question, Julie Bramley, subjected Mr. Golding to a five minute ear-bashing during which she derided the BNP as "racist", "ignorant" "narrow-minded" and accused us of feeding on people's "insecurities" and "anxieties". She stated that Britain wasn't "full-up" with immigrants and that our people are not treated like second-class citizens.

Taken aback by this astonishing display of political intolerance from a so-called liberal, Mr. Golding ended the call. Nevertheless, we recommend that BNP E-News readers email Mrs Bramley and politely point out the terrible problems of immigration and multiculturalism and demand that she desist from attacking candidates in elections and concentrate on her job as a Head Teacher.

For a bunch of rough tough political realists the BNP really are a rather precious bunch, aren't they? This tirade of anti-BNP hatred, this astonishing display of political intolerance, known to the rest of us as statements of the bleeding obvious. While Julia Bramley's email inbox is probably already full to bursting with well-written, literate and polite criticisms of her vicious assault on a shocked, shy and retiring political animal, you might just want to email her as well with something approaching support: headteacher@swanley.kent.sch.uk

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2/09/2009 10:36:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, November 19, 2008 

Let's not have horrible double standards, shall we?

Exciting as it is having a list of British National Party members available at our fingertips, no one, perhaps with the exception of the serving police officer, who might well have already left the group, should lose their job as a result of being a member of a completely legal if highly unpleasant political party.

We ought to bear in mind what we would be saying and thinking if instead of a list of BNP members, it had in fact been a comprehensive list of convicted paedophiles that had been leaked. While most of us would probably have looked at it, just as we have the BNP list, we would be disgusted and deeply worried at the prospect and potential of vigilantes taking the law into their own hands. The chances, it has to be said, of mobs converging on the doorsteps of individual members of the party are rather low, but some are already reporting emails and abuse over the telephone. Amusing as it might be that Nick Griffin and Richard Barnbrook might be getting some sort of comeuppance for their rabble-rousing over the years against vulnerable communities by having their personal phone numbers exposed, what is not amusing is elderly individuals completely harmless to anyone but who have unreconstructed political views receiving the same treatment.

Similarly unacceptable is the Guardian publishing Google Maps, or at least the original one directly pinpointing where some live. Would they be doing the same were this a list of paedophiles? Very doubtful. It doesn't matter that no personal actual information is being disclosed, or that's it not detailed enough to pinpoint any particular individual, although a lone member in a town/village is clearly visible, it's still not the sort of depth we ought to descend to. Only slightly less objectionable is the "heat" map now up, which tells us precisley nothing really that we didn't already know: the BNP's major strongholds, outside Barking and Dagenham, are above the Midlands. The numbers in Wales are the only slight surprise.

The other thing this is doing, apart from severely embarrassing the party's leadership, is giving them the kind of press attention and media access which they can usually only dream of. Instead of being disastrous for them, if they get a sympathy vote (difficult to imagine I realise), and they're already playing on this being down to their imminent success at the polls, not the disgruntled worker, then it may have the opposite effect on the party's fortunes. Less members yes, but more anonymous donations potentially also. Whilst the one thing we should be doing is taking on the BNP in debate, we shouldn't allow this to turn into them getting a free-run, which is what it looks like becoming. All the more reason to shut this down now and instead target the party's policies rather than its actual membership.

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11/19/2008 04:11:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 

BNP paralysis.

Flying round the internet much like the identity of Baby P's abusers is now also the full membership list for the last year at least of the British National Party (not being linked to here for exactly the same reasons). Schadenfreude is rather understandably the dish of the day, and when it contains not just the home phone number of a certain N. Griffin but also the mobile phone number of one of his (activist) offspring, it looks like being a rather embarrassing few days for the party, which had otherwise been gearing itself up for a renewed fight in next year's European elections, as well as producing such cutting edge documents as "racism cuts both ways".

More pertinently, it's probably going to result in a good few people losing their jobs, although a quick look down the list suggests that there's just the one police officer currently an actual member of the party, although the number of teachers listed is far greater. The police is the one organisation I think where vigilance of members of extremist political parties is justified, although some will doubtless also not be best pleased by having fascists teaching their children.

Typically, as it often is with groups on both the far-left and far-right, this information has not been leaked as a result of the party being infiltrated either by a journalist, like the Guardian managed towards the end of 2006 which resulted in the fact that the ballerina Simone Clarke was a member coming to light (she's listed this time round too, although having split with her Chinese-Cuban partner and now married/engaged to Richard Barnbrook that's hardly surprising) or by the police or security services, but rather by a disgruntled former employee/member, of which the BNP has many. The real point is that many for obvious reasons want to keep their membership of such organisations secret, and not just necessarily because of the hassle they would receive at work were their political predilections to become known. As a result, this has the potential to severely damage the BNP - after all, why would you join a party which can't stop such information from entering the public domain? While it's far too early to suggest that this might be the nail in its coffin, it's surely the kind of blow which is bound to lead even more splits, and the further fragmentation of the far-right in this country, which can only be a good thing.

P.S. The comments on the NorthWestNationalists blog are just too good to miss.

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11/18/2008 11:57:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, May 28, 2007 

Fascists or Islamists rise against British oppression?

There's much comment and confusion over just which organisation is behind a protest being planned for outside Downing Street on the 15th of June against "British Oppression". The site is written in the familiar radical Islamist screed, leading Pickled Politics to originally allege that it was the work of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, only for that to be dismissed when they personally denied being behind it. Faisal Haque, writing on the Telegraph blog, believes it to be the work of the successor organisation to Al-Muhajiroun, which currently appears to be Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah, which may well be right. There are however some discrepancies.

The whois for britishoppression.com lists the owner as:

Faruk Miah (faruk.miah2000@yahoo.co.uk) +44.07745 388 220 Fax: +. 24 Little Green Terrace, White Road, Manchester, Manchester M90 9JH GB

24 Little Green Terrace doesn't exist. Nor does White Road, or the postcode, M90 9JH. Nothing particularly strange in the whois information being false, considering the one for this very website is also an obvious fabrication, and it may be potentially clutching at straws, but what does Little Green remind you of? A certain far-right US blog, perhaps?

The potential demonstration has certainly riled up the fascist filth, that's for sure. As Postman Patel notes, Stormfront currently has a 22-page thread discussing the finer points of either staging a counter-demonstration, or signing a petition urging the authorities to ban it. The remnants of Combat 18 have also noticed, as has the BNP itself, which has sent a letter to an unnamed police officer complaining about the posters advertising the demo being pasted up in certain areas of Birmingham, although it has personally cautioned against any "official" counter-demonstration. (They also raise a legitimate point: has whomever's behind the protest already gained permission from the Met for such a demonstration within the "restricted zone"?) The National Front has no such qualms, to judge by this posting. A self-proclaimed "radical Muslim" who blogged about the demonstration found himself descended upon by various fascists and one or two Harry's Placers, although perhaps more interesting or predictable is that he claims to blog for human rights but is virulently homophobic, something he has in common with the very fascists he loathes.

Is it possible that this is a ploy by some far-righters to draw in radical Muslims, and then either start a riot or simply try and get a repeat of the infamous demonstration which took place outside the Danish embassy? Or are some of us simply reading too much into it? After all, the Islamist, the magazine apparently published by the remnants of Al-Muhajiroun, links to the "British Oppression" website.

One thing is for certain. The very last thing that we need right now, with both Blair and Reid proposing even tougher anti-terrorism laws is for a similar demonstration for the Motoons one to take place, or even worse, for there to be possible confrontation in Whitehall between fascists and Islamists. As the BNP's own propaganda states:
Let them protest against Blair and Co. in London and everywhere else for that matter and get ready to count the number of new BNP votes we will gain for each second of television broadcasting, every column inch of newspaper reporting and every photograph taken of some cleric calling for death to the West!

It could of course turn out that no one bothers to turn up; the Danish embassy protest at most was 500 strong, and both groups tend to be all mouth and no trousers. Nevertheless, the only ones to profit will be those who want the Muslim community to be even more isolated, attacked and loathed, and that additionally fits the agenda of both.

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5/28/2007 07:27:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, January 12, 2007 

Stop the fascist BNP, by err, shouting outside a theatre...

Sometimes anti-racist groups can be their own worst enemies. Continuing their campaign against Simone Clarke, their agenda is again presented in the Guardian, which also at times cuts off its nose to spite its face:

Around 100 campaigners are expected to mount a demonstration outside the Coliseum theatre in central London where Simone Clarke will take the lead in the English National Ballet's production of Giselle.

It is the 36-year-old's first performance since she was revealed as a member of the BNP last month as part of a Guardian investigation into the far right organisation.

Ms Clarke, whose partner Yat Sen-Chang is an acclaimed dancer of Chinese-Cuban extraction, went on to defend her membership in a detailed interview with the Mail on Sunday, saying the BNP was the only party "willing to take a stand" against immigration.

Yesterday campaigners said that she was using her position to promote the far right party's policies.

Weyman Bennett, of the group Unite Against Fascism, said: "We are calling on all who have an appreciation for the arts to demand that the promotion of racist and fascist politics is incompatible with an institution such as the English National Ballet."

The row is becoming increasingly difficult for the English National Ballet, which as a publicly funded organisation is obliged by the Race Relations Act of 2000 to promote good race relations.

Last night a spokeswoman said it was "not within the company's mandate to express any political view".

She added: "Any personal view expressed by one of our employees should not be considered as being endorsed by the company."


And this was the reality:

British far-right politics has changed a bit in recent years. Out have gone the bovver-booted bomber-jacketed skinheads. In have come the business suits and a ballerina.

And so, in the unlikeliest of turns, a dozen or so anti-racism protesters turned their foghorn vocal chords away from their familiar haunts to turn up on the steps of the Coliseum, the home of the English National Ballet in London's West End.

Bravo! This is the very worst kind of nonsense. No one knew that Clarke was a BNP member until the Guardian rightly exposed her, but to then claim she's using her position to promote the party is complete bullshit. All she's done is defend herself in a far from unsympathetic Mail article, and in the process proved that she isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. In short, she's exactly the sort of person the BNP tries to appeal to.

The protesters may have had a point had she actually said something racist in the article, but she didn't. What she did make clear is that she thinks immigration is out of control, which is something a lot of ordinary people think. It's obvious that believing that isn't racist, neither is it particularly controversial. Believing that the BNP are the only ones talking about it, or that they're the only ones who could solve it, is something quite different. However, this is where the anti-racist groups behind today's protest have so often slipped up: they're more concerned with denying the party any air of publicity, rather than actually fighting their message. Shouting slogans outside buildings is a lot easier than arguing against them in debates. Going after a woman who's simply expressing her own, however misguided personal political beliefs, is not just counter-productive, it's cowardly.

For instance, look at the huge open goal that Richard Barnbrook has created simply by attending Clarke's performance. Could there be a better opportunity to point out just how hopeless the BNP are at actually being councillors once they're elected and how he's a leading member of a political party that is virulently homophobic, when he directed and starred in a film described as arty gay porn? Then there's Barnbrook's own comments about Clarke's relationship with her husband:

"I'm not opposed to mixed marriages but children [of these relationships] are washing out the identity of this country's indigenous people. That's my view. It's not the party's view."

Not true. That is exactly the party's view, as expanded at length here from their 2005 manifesto. You only have to read the views of actual members of the BNP here in a thread about Clarke from the Stormfront forum, to notice that she's regarded as a "race-mixer".

Instead, the protesters are probably still there, shouting "STOP THE FASCIST BNP!", while everyone around them rightly sees their presence as either daft or as someone remarks, pathetic. And the BNP? They're still winning.

Related post:
Doing the goose-step to Swan Lake, and other stories.

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1/12/2007 10:40:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, January 02, 2007 

Doing the goose-step to Swan Lake, and other stories.

I somewhat missed the full extended fallout from the Grauniad's infiltration of the BNP, but the majority appears to be around the less than interesting news that surprise, surprise, some at least halfway prominent people appear to be members. The most attention has been predictably on the telegenic and least likely member on the face of it, the ballerina Simone Clarke, who just happens to be married to a man of Cuban-Chinese descent. Defending herself, she gave an interview to the Daily Mail:

The reason is summed up in one word: Immigration. It has, she told the undercover journalist who exposed her, "really got out of hand' - and today she maintains the BNP" are the only ones to take a stand' on the issue that she believes troubles the majority of voters, even though such views have led to her being branded a racist and a fascist. "Using the word immigration is now a greater crime than cold-blooded murder," she claims.

Quite right. I mean, the journalists who expunged the huge amount of words over the last couple of days about the ascension to the European Union of Romania and Bulgaria and whether it'll mean a repeat of the mass migration of mainly Poles which happened in 2004, not to mention months of articles in the tabloid press scaremongering about invasions of gypsies and mongrel hordes, have all been charged and are currently waiting in the Tower of London waiting to be executed. Similarly, John Reid, who attempted to impose restrictions on the amount of said Romanians and Bulgarians allowed to come here has been stripped of the Home Office, had his bollocks zapped with a cattle prod, and his head now rests on one of the railings outside Buckingham Palace.

Like Melanie Philips, who spends her time ranting that no one is talking about subjects like Londonistan, before going on to spend 1000 words doing just that, with Michael Gove and others running behind her like dogs chasing a bitch on heat, there are numerous people out there who are convinced that some subjects just aren't talked about. Sometimes, they're just waiting for the chance, like the range of invective which followed Jack Straw's measured comments about the wearing of the veil, which quickly turned into the Express demanding the banning of said garment and Blair and cronies saying it was a mark of separation. When it comes to immigration however, the supposed lack of comment on it is complete nonsense. The tabloids are banging on about it every day almost. Today's Express for instance has another load of lies on its front page about foreigners stealing all our money.

There is a grain of truth in the allegation that politicians themselves are ignoring the issue of immigration. David Cameron, in his efforts to reposition the Tories, has notably put the issue down the party agenda. Yet it's only a year and a half since the Tory election campaign which told us time and again that "It's not racist to impose limits on immigration". Quite right it isn't. Since then John Reid, Ruth Kelly and others have told us repeatedly that we have to abandon "political correctness" about things as various as multiculturalism and immigration. The reality is that the issue has dropped down the political agenda, not just the Tories', in the last few months, probably helped by Reid's imposition of quotas on the new EU member states. If anything, it's been replaced by renewed fear and controversy over Muslim dress, the general integration of "them" into society, with terrorism not too far behind.

But her story has wider implications. When one of the country's principal ballerinas, a 36-year-old woman who spent much of her recent working life as the Sugar Plum Fairy, decides to join the British neo-fascists, there is an argument that something has gone badly wrong with democratic British politics.


Really? Perhaps this is explained slightly more further on in the interview:

"I'd never been a member of any party before, although I'd voted Conservative a couple of times,' she explains. "I'm not a particularly political person but I read the manifesto and I took it on face value. Sometimes it feels as though the BNP are the only ones willing to take a stand.

“I am not too proud to say that a lot of it went over my head but some of the things they mentioned were the things I think about all the time, mainly mass immigration, crime and increased taxes. I paid my £25 there and then”

"I have been labelled a racist and a fascist because I have a view on immigration - and I mean mass immigration - but isn't that something that a lot of people worry about?

Now, it would be incredibly easy to make fun of Clarke because she couldn't even understand the BNP manifesto, as other blogs have. This though is potentially sneering at the dispossessed, poorly educated through no fault of their own, and as the Mail interview describes her, the politically naive. There's a reason why the BNP manifesto documents are relatively easy to understand, while also being written with enough political jargon in order to convince of their relevance and authenticity, not to mention integrity: these documents are targeted at those who have no time for in-depth political discussion, let alone wider knowledge of the intricacies of the legislative process, say. They're meant to appeal without being overbearing, pretentious or full of the technocratic New Labour speech which permeates everything they produce. As such, they're a success, and as Clarke points out, the documents are relatively honest, but only relatively.

Just take a look at the 2005 manifesto: 18 themes set-out straight away, with no room for nuance. Leaving the European Union; Immigration: a crisis without parallel; abolishing multiculturalism, abolition of income tax; tough on the causes of crime: criminals, etc. Your average Joe isn't going to read every single word, so they're only going to look at what appeals to them. For instance, many might miss what is hiding at the bottom of abolishing multiculturalism, if they hadn't already been appalled by the belief in eugenics at the top of page:

10. A massively-funded and permanent programme, using and doubling Britain's current foreign aid budget, will aim to reduce, by voluntary resettlement to their lands of ethnic origin, the proportion of ethnic minorities living in Britain, for as long as the majority of the electorate are willing to fund such expenditure.

In other words, as much as we say that if you're here legally you're more than welcome, we actually want you back to your land of "ethnic origin". Hey, we'll even help you out! What kind be kinder than that? How would Miss Clarke like her husband to feel as if he isn't welcome, when he knows that the party that even he apparently supports would really like it if he went back to either China or Cuba?

But oh, she complains, you don't have to agree with all the parties policies to support them:

"As with all parties, you can't agree on all things. You have to take the good bits and ignore the bad bits and that goes for any party. When I think about it I wonder, "Well, who's going to look after people like me?" People who work hard, who like to celebrate Christmas; people who are law-abiding citizens who pay their taxes - more and more of them - but feel that no one is speaking for them."

This though isn't like turning a blind eye to the equivalent of not agreeing with Labour on introducing ID cards or the Iraq war, but still supporting them in general; none of their, or the other party's plans (except the far far left and arguably UKIP on leaving the EU) are so radical that they could result in the break-up of British society or in the reintroduction of capital punishment for instance, as mooted here:

4. We support the re-introduction of corporal punishment for petty criminals and vandals, and the restoration of capital punishment for paedophiles, terrorists and murderers as an option for judges in cases where their guilt is proven beyond dispute, as by DNA evidence or being caught red-handed.

12. While every effort will be made to help addicts to recover, individuals convicted of the importation and large-scale dealing of hard drugs will face the death penalty.

This is only scratching the surface of the document. Hidden further inside it are references to the Iraq war being a neo-con project on behalf of the "Zionists", remarks about "the creeping Islamification" of Britain, and various other nonsenses. What marks the document and most of the BNP's output is just how "moderate" it has become. There is as little openly racist language as possible, masking their views in an air of respectability. As the actual Grauniad investigation found, and others have known for a while, the BNP strategy now is to appear just like any other political party, and hide behind the mask of being merely nationalist and economically to the left of Labour, when in fact their belief is in pure white nationalism. Their actual foot soldiers, rather than the middle class ones they're trying to lure, are the same old racists and hooligans of before, as evidenced by the likes of the Stormfront forum. In fact, let's go over there and see what they think about Clarke etc, shall we?

There's two threads, the first mainly based on the Guardian article published yesterday, and the second on the Mail's article:

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/sack-bnp-ballerina-says-lee-351659.html

Click on the images to see them full-size:





The comments on the Mail thread, are however, far more telling:

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/bnp-ballerina-351496.html




Simone Clarke to the BNP rank and file is a dream come true. She is in essence the archetypal useful idiot: so much so that there's no way she can be accused of racism, as the posters point out. It's a win-win situation for them; if she's sacked by the ENB, then she's a martyr for free speech. Since she hasn't recanted her support, she can be used as a propaganda piece for the "changed party". Yet the true BNP strategy shines through in these comments: moderation while out of power, no compromise once they are in power.

Nick Griffin, in his speech to the white nationalist conference in New Orleans of all places, made clear that they are waiting for a disaster of some sort that reflects the hyper inflation, mass unemployment and economic collapse that occurred in Germany in the run-up to 1933, leading to the rise of both the Communists and the Nazis, which along with the Reichstag fire enabled Hitler to come to power and liquidate his opponents and then democracy. In the mean time, they're preparing the ground for mass support by appearing to be everything they are actually not. That the middle-classes, drip fed the outrage by the tabloids which so often reflects mainstream BNP rhetoric are coming to support them shouldn't be a surprise, nor should they be condemned for doing so. The axis of the Guardian and Lee Jasper calling for Clarke's resignation simply confirms that the elite are against them and their beliefs.

What is so desperately needed is a genuine political alternative that reassures while it listens. Labour isn't doing this, the Tories still aren't trusted, and the Lib Dems are a joke. That the BNP aren't doing immeasurably better should be the real shock. If we don't acknowledge the threat, and move to counter it (ignoring it does not work) then if in a few years the BNP could possess the same amount of power as Jean Marie Le Pen's National Front.

Related posts:
Tim Worstall - Simone Clarke and the BNP
Five Chinese Crackers - Hurrah for the Blackshirts!
Pickled Politics - She won't play the black swan
Not Saussure - The BNP Ballerina

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1/02/2007 07:58:00 PM | | | links to this post

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