Far-right alliance fails to get EU parliament cash

Not smiling anymore you smug prick...

The European Alliance of National Movements, the coalition of far-right parties formed last month in Budapest, has failed in its an attempt to get its hands on European Parliament cash, as the jumble of reactionary rightists did not manage to file the application on time.

The alliance, which includes the UK's BNP, France's Front National and Hungary's Jobbik, says it wants its share of the around €11 million that the parliament hands out every year to pan-European political parties, informally known as ‘europarties'. This would have amounted to around €400,000 for the group to carry out advertising, research and campaigning atop the money MEPs already receive.

"Conservatives, socialists, Greens and communists all receive European funds. It is normal that we demand the same on behalf of our electors who have expressed their hopes," Front National MEP Bruno Gollnisch told reporters in the European capital announcing the Brussels launch of the group.

"As Margaret Thatcher once said: ‘We want our money back!'"

While the cluster of nationalists, white supremacists and immigrant-bashers managed to cobble together the group in Budapest on 24 October, as earlier reported by EUobserver, the cut-off for 2010 funding was 1 November and so if the chamber does ultimately recognise the formation, it will still not be able to access any money until 2011.

Conceding that the group had fumbled the deadline, Mr Gollnish told EUobserver: "The money is not the main purpose. While we want to get our share back, the share that is due the people who voted for us and sympathise with our goals, the real aim here is the formation of a political alliance where we can support each other."

Europarties vs. European Parliament groups

Pan-continental europarties are structurally distinct entities from the political families of MEPs in the Strasbourg chamber, though at the same time remain linked ideologically.

Liberal MEPs for example, join together in a group in the parliament as the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, while their pan-European political party, the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, brings together liberal-minded national parties from EU and non-EU states, and individuals, not just elected politicians, can join.

A grouping in the European Parliament requires a certain number of MEPs from seven EU member states; for a europarty, the rules are more relaxed and national MPs and regional representatives may also count towards the seven-country minimum. There is also no minimum number of deputies.

In the AENM's case, the alliance has had to depend very much on a tiny rightist groupuscules without MEPs: Belgium's Front National, which has one seat in the country's Chamber of Representatives and one seat in the Senate, and Italy's neo-fascist Fiamma Tricolore and Sweden's National Democrats. The former has a single deputy in the Umbrian regional assembly, while the latter has councillors in just two municipalities south of Stockholm.

But municipal representatives do not count towards the europarty threshold.

Excluding the Swedes, the group only has deputies from five EU member states.

The BNP's Nick Griffin, however, says that he hopes to soon have on board far-right parties from Spain and Portugal - which have no MEPs either - as well as from Ukraine, but this would not count towards the total, as the country is outside the EU.

Nevertheless, he also said that Austria's Freedom Party, which does have substantial support - it won 12.8 percent in the June elections, giving it two MEPs - may soon join.

Whites only

Once the alliance is legally registered, the Bureau of the European Parliament - the chamber's governing body - must rule on whether it meets the europarty regulations, which also demand an observation of "the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law."

"This could present a problem if certain parties are found to continue to refuse membership to certain ethnicities," Federico de Girolamo, a parliament spokesperson, told EUobserver. The BNP was ordered by a London court in October to end its internal whites-only policy.

Mr de Girolamo said however there was still a chance the alliance could eventually access EU funds if they meet all the rules.

"So long as [membership issues] are resolved, then there has to be a really good reason for them to be denied [europarty status]," he continued.

"Democracy means including all opinions. We cannot be seen denying them this just because we don't agree with them."

Hungarian vs Slovak nationalisms

A major block to forming a larger group is the inability of the different far-right parties in the European Parliament and beyond, who often adhere to mutually exclusive national mythologies, to get along.

It seems that one man's ubermensch is another man's untermensch.

Hungarian MEP Balczo Zoltan, Jobbik's vice-president, angrily told journalists at the press conference that the alliance will never permit the inclusion of Slovak or Romanian nationalists, as their brand of nationalism was exclusionary of the wrong type of people.

"Millions of ethic Hungarians live [outside] Hungary and the Jobbik Movement for a Better Hungary will never work together with parties that are not patriotic or nationalist, but instead chauvinist. We will never work with the Slovak National Party or the Greater Romania Party. This is a declaration!"

The SNP does not restrict itself to inflammatory rhetoric about Roma, Jews and gays and lesbians, but also Hungarians. Jan Slota, the party's leader, has in the past said: "We will sit in our tanks and destroy Budapest," and: "Hungarians are a cancer in the body of the Slovak nation."

Greater Romania Party leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor, for his part, regularly rails against the alleged anti-Romania conspiracies of ethnic Hungarians.

EUobserver

Fury after BNP poppy wreath laid among Sikh tributes at Birmingham ceremony

A BNP wreath laid deliberately amongst those left by members of Birmingham's Sikh community inside the Hall of Memory in Centenary Square.

SIKHS spoke of their “disgust” today after a BNP poppy wreath was laid among Sikh tributes at a Birmingham Remembrance ceremony.

The BNP laurel appeared to have been deliberately placed in the middle of those left by members of the city’s Sikh community inside the Hall of Memory in Centenary Square.

Guru Ram Dass Singh Gurdwara, in Balsall Heath, was one of the temples which had laid a decoration on the plinth inside the hall. Girval Singh, general secretary of the Moseley Road temple, claimed the British National Party, which restricts membership to white-only British citizens, had shown a lack of respect for Sikhs who had fought and died in the British Army.

“I’m absolutely disgusted,” he said.

“Many Sikhs were born in this country and many fought for this country so we deserve respect.

“They should be ashamed of themselves and show more respect for that particular event and day. I’m very, very disappointed.”

The wreathes had been laid to honour British soldiers who lost their lives in conflicts past and present as the square hosted ceremonies for Remembrance Sunday and yesterday’s Armistice Day.

Kulwant Singh Purewal, a 41-year-old electronics engineer from Edgbaston, attended the Armistice Day service in Centenary Square to mark the bravery of his father and uncle who both served in the British Armed Forces.

He said: “I’m a Sikh who was born in England and is proud to be a member of the British Empire.

“It gives me pride to remember the men who gave their lives to defend unity, democracy and freedom.

“Many Sikhs were born here and should not be subjected to this kind of insensitivity.

“What message is this sending out?“You are born in England and fight for England but then we have to kick you out.

“Members of my family spent 35 years in the British Army. They served proudly and this is a disgrace to their memory.”

Simon Darby, deputy leader of the BNP, said the party had every right to place wreathes wherever they wanted.

He said: “We have as much right to lay a wreath as anyone else.

“If we don’t lay a wreath we get criticised so we can’t win. Some of our policies are very popular with Sikhs.

“We don’t regard them as a threat - they are welcome to stay should they wish.”

Earlier this week BNP leader Nick Griffin MEP was accused of whipping up patriotism and support for his party when he joined mourners as the coffins of six British servicemen were presented through Wootton Bassett.

The Royal British Legion, which oversees the collection of wreathes for public remembrance services, said the BNP decoration had not been received by its staff and had been laid independently.

Mike Morris, county manager of the RBL in Birmingham, said: “As far as I’m aware they did not go through our secretary.

“We are not political animals, of course.

“Anybody is entitled to place a wreath - we do not police it.”

A spokesman for Birmingham City Council, which helped organise the ceremony, said: “Every member of the public is well within their right to lay a wreath as long as there is no offensive message.

“We would not want to turn it into politics - it distracts from the importance of the day.”

Birmingham Mail

BNP Slammed Over Anti-Muslim Pac-Man Spoof

Collett (R) with far-right BNP leader Nick Griffin

A British National Party official has been accused of racism over an anti-Muslim message posted on the internet

Mark Collett, the BNP's publicity director, created a spoof of the Pac-Man computer game with the caption "Sortin' out Muslims since 1980" and has uploaded it to a number of websites. The image, which shows caricatures of Muslim women in veils being attacked by the computer character, is accompanied by a personal message from Collett on his Facebook page.

He wrote: "Pac-Man knows how to deal with Muslims! I made this, I hope it makes you all smile! Feel free to send it out and spread the joy."

Collett was cleared in 2006 of inciting racial hatred after a jury heard he had told a meeting in Keighley: "Let's show these ethnics the door in 2004."




But Muslim MP Shahid Malik, a minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, has accused Collett of being "twisted" and said the game proves the BNP is racist. He told Sky News: "If this is the work of Mark Collett, it only serves as further demonstration of what a sick, twisted and vile individual he is. It is useful to highlight this type of attitude in the leadership of the BNP. It helps expose the true face of this racist and fascist organisation."

Collett's comments about "how to deal with Muslims" are at odds with his party's public statements on immigration and leader Nick Griffin's claims the party is not racist.

The policy section of the BNP website claims the party is not opposed to non-whites, so long as whites stay the majority. It states: "We accept that Britain always will have ethnic minorities and have no problem with this as long as they remain minorities."

Yet Dr Rob Berkeley from the Runnymede Trust, which campaigns to promote a multi-ethnic Britain, describes Collett's game and comments as "clearly racist". He said: "It is more evidence, if it was needed, that the BNP is a racist party, or at minimum a party of racists."

Collett told Sky News his spoof Pac-Man picture was "simply a joke" and said he did not want to "sort out" Muslims. He said: "The Pac-Man character eats ghosts, but to suggest that anyone in the BNP wants anyone to eat women in burqas is laughable. It's not suggesting that anyone needs sorting out, it was simply a joke.”

Sky News

BNP leader Nick Griffin tries to hijack homecoming of six British soldiers killed in Afghanistan

BNP leader Nick Griffin today risked accusations of hijacking the war in Afghanistan as he attended the repatriation of six British soldiers killed in the conflict.

Mr Griffin stood with a minder on the streets of Wootton Bassett, as the families and friends of the six fallen men were joined by veterans and members of the public to watch their final journey.

The move by the far-right leader, who wore a black coat and a poppy on his lapel, is certain to enrage figures across the political spectrum.

Other party leaders have deliberately shied away from attending the repatriations to avoid accusations they are trying to make political capital out of the deaths of British troops.

Mr Griffin has already been accused of hijacking Winston Churchill and World War II by using the leader's words and images from the conflict as he campaigns for his party.

Today, on the BNP website, Churchill's picture and the quote 'We will defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall never surrender' was in prime position as part of its pre-election campaign.

Mr Griffin's appearance in Wootton Bassett today comes weeks after his invitation to be on the BBC's Question Time show sparked a huge furore.

He insisted he was only there because he wanted to show his respect at what was the second largest repatriation which by coincidence has fallen a day before Remembrance Day.

'It's fitting that as many people as possible come here today. It's an absolutely tremendous and very moving display,' he said.

He said the crowd had been 'friendly' and that his presence was 'low key'. He refused to give his view on the Afghan war, insisting: 'This is not the time or the place for political statements. It's for remembrance. I have strong views on Afghanistan but I'm not prepared to discuss them here.'

Retired warrant officer Martyn Matthews, standing nearby, defended Mr Griffin's right to be there but said he hoped it would make him think about the results of extremism.

'We live in a democracy and everyone has a right to their own views. If people are going to give their lives for that freedom, Mr Griffin has as much right to his views as anyone else does. Although I do not stand by his views, I would encourage him to be here to see the impact extremism can have,' he said.
Enlarge Crowds look on as the six hearses pass through the Wiltshire town

The scene in Wootton Bassett has become a sombre ritual as Britain's fallen heroes return from the front line and pass through the town after flying into RAF Lyneham nearby.

Even as the number of repatriations nears the grim milestone of 100, the welcome they receive there remains undimmed with huge crowds turning out each time.

Today is the 98th such procession. Some watching have been at every single one.

This afternoon, they were filled with fresh horror and shock at how men in their prime have been killed as they battle to protect this country.

Of the six dead soldiers to be flown home today, five were gunned down by an Afghan policeman they had been training for two weeks in a mission key to the ultimate success of this grisly war.

They were so sure of their own safety that once back at the military compound, they removed their helmets and body armour and indulged in a restorative cup of tea.

It was there that Warrant Officer Darren Chant, 40, Sergeant Matthew Telford, 37, Guardsman Jimmy Major, 18, Corporal Steven Boote, 22, and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, 24, lost their lives.

Their killer, who was named as Gulbuddin after the attack, has still not been caught and the Taliban have claimed he is back 'safe in their hands'.

The sixth hearse bore the body of father-of-two Serjeant Phillip Scott, 30, who died a couple of days later in Sangin, felled by a Taliban roadside bomb. His brother is in the same Battalion.

The bodies were flown home as the latest soldier to be killed in the war was named as Rifleman Samuel Bassett. He was also killed by a bomb in Sangin on Sunday.

The 20-year-old, from Plymouth, who was in 4th Battalion The Rifles, only finished his training in May and had been in Afghanistan just a month.

In his last phone call to his family, he had said he was 'having the time of his life'.

His mother Coline said: 'Samuel was a real character, always the joker. He will be so, so missed and loved forever - our proud little soldier.'

His commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Nick Kitson said: 'The loss of a Rifleman brimming with so much joie de vivre and potential is a painful blow to the Battle Group.'

All six coffins draped with the Union Jack were flown back to RAF Lyneham this morning, where they were met by the soldiers' heartbroken families.

After a private ceremony, the cavalcade of hearses started their steady procession to Wootton Bassett where it has become tradition for residents to line the streets as a mark of respect.

Despite drizzling rain, the families and friends of the fallen soldiers had stood for hours with veterans and other members of the public from this morning as they prepared to welcome them home.

By the time the procession began, the crowds were at least ten deep. Guardsman Major's family and friends wore RIP Jimmy T-shirts in his honour while veterans held their standards aloft.

Many mourners had laid flowers at the war memorial, where they joined poppy wreaths put there on Remembrance Sunday this weekend.


Silence fell as the cortege pulled into the High Street, broken only by the tolling of church bells. Standard bearers lowered their flags as the coffins passed by.

Tearful relatives wept and stepped forward to lay flowers and wreaths on the vehicles as they edged down the street.

It is the town's 98th repatriation and yet support is still strong.

Anne Bevis from its Royal British Legion branch said: 'Each repatriation is different, and it does not get any easier. They have all done their job and paid the ultimate price so a few moments of our time is nothing in comparison.

'When we first started doing this it was a personal tribute but now we do it to represent the whole nation, but it is no less real to us.'

She spoke for the nation when she described the murders of the five soldiers by an Afghan policeman as particularly shocking.

'Roadside bombs and being shot can be expected in wartime, but training someone and working alongside them for them to turn on you is shocking. It must be terrible for their colleagues to have to carry on, but they go on because they have to,' she said.

Brian Freeth, 72, who served in Suez in the 50s, added: 'It hits you more today because there are so many coming back. What happened to those five lads was sheer murder.'

British troops should come home, he said: 'It was not our fight to begin with. Bush, Brown and Blair all have blood on their hands. There is no need for this loss of life and we should not be there.

'I think what happened to those five soldiers puts more pressure on the Government to withdraw. I would say 70 per cent of the people here today want out lads back home and want it finished with.'

Steve Blundell, from the Riders Branch of the Royal British Legion, rode in on his motorcycle for what is his 38th repatriation ceremony. He has now seen 87 dead soldiers pass by in the town.

'The fact I could see 100 within a year of doing this is horrific. I wish there was some way our guys could defend themselves better against the way they're being killed,' he said.

Sergeant Neil Skett, from the Royal Military Police, was there to pay tribute to his comrade Corporal Bootle.

'Boote was an excellent bloke. He always had a smile. He loved doing the job he was doing. He had an attitude of "Let's get on with it" and was the first to volunteer no matter what the conditions or the hardship. He was a very good friend,' he said.

Serjeant Michael Gibbons was replaced in Afghanistan by Serjeant Scott - who he knew as Scotty - when he came home recently and came along to represent the regiment.

'It has been a very hard week. The last memory I have of Scotty is his laughter - it was infectious, he was an amazing guy,' he said.

His comrades on the frontline had asked him to attend to 'deliver a message and our symbol which means to lead from the front which was what Scotty was doing when he was taken from us', he said.

'It is important to be here for the boys out there. They asked me to come here to bring Scotty home. I have never been Wootton Bassett before. You see and read about it but to be here brings tears to my eyes, it's an amazing place.'
Rifleman Samuel John Bassett

Rifleman Samuel John Bassett was killed by a roadside bomb on Sunday

Ahead of the sombre ritual, a stern Gordon Brown paid tribute to the men and all who lose their lives in service of their country.

Wearing a black tie and a poppy on his lapel, the Prime Minister appeared deeply affected by the row in the past two days over his letter of condolence to the mother of dead soldier Jamie Janes.

Today, he said: 'Again today, the fallen will return home in solemn ceremony and again I pay tribute to them and to the friends and families who will honour their return.

'Each life lost is an irreplaceable loss from a family. It reminds us of the stark human cost of armed conflict in the service of our society.

'So my thoughts and prayers today, as every day, are with those now struggling with the loss of loved ones and with all those whose loved ones are still on active service overseas.'

He admitted he felt constant pressure to justify the war in Afghanistan but insisted it was right that terrorism be tacked there rather than resorting to a type of 'Fortress Britain' approach.

Warrant Officer Chant, from Walthamstow, east London, was the top non-commissioned officer in 1st Battalion, the Grenadier Guards.

The 40-year-old, whose wife is six months pregnant with his son, was about to be told he was being commissioned as an officer when he was killed.

Guardsman Major, from Grimsby, was due to turn 19 this Thursday. His family had sent him a birthday cake and presents but he never go to open them.

This year has been the bloodiest for British troops since the Falklands war and 232 soldiers have now died in Afghanistan since the war began.

Daily Mail

Anti-terror police chief warns of growing threat from 'lone wolf' Neo-Nazi extremists

Neil Lewington

Britain faces a growing threat from violent right-wing extremists operating as "lone wolves", the country's most senior anti-terror officer said today.

Assistant Commissioner John Yates said more resources had been targeted at Neo-Nazis because of fears of attacks and warned of bombers operating alone and without an organised network behind them.

Mr Yates told the Commons Home Affairs Committee: "What we have seen in recent years is a growth around some of the far-right extremism movements.

"Mostly they tend to be less organised, you tend to see the concept of the lone wolf.

"There have been several manifestations of that in past months and several arrests.

"That is something we take extremely seriously and we make sure we balance our resources to deal with that threat."

His response came to a question from Labour MP David Winnick who asked him about racist and fascist groups who turned to violence.

This summer the so-called "Bedroom Bomber" Neil Lewington (pictured) from Reading was convicted of planning a racist terror campaign on the streets of Britain.

The Old Bailey heard he wanted to emulate his far-right heroes, Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh and Soho nail bomber David Copeland.

His plotting was uncovered by chance when he was arrested for drunkenly abusing a train conductor and officers found he was carrying bomb parts.

Officers in West Yorkshire recently foiled an international plot to put guns and explosives in the hands of violent bigots in Britain.

At least 32 people were quizzed and 22 addresses searched across the North of England in April and May.

Mr Yates also told the committee of the danger of terrorists targeting Christmas shoppers in major shopping areas and outdoor markets in the run up to the festive season. More officers would be targeted at threat areas depending on intelligence, he said.

He said: "In the coming months we will look at Christmas markets, Christmas shopping areas where the threat is likely to rise."

24dash

BNP farmer faces weapons and explosives charges

David Lucas

A BRITISH National Party activist and Suffolk farmer has appeared in court this morning charged with a number of explosives and firearms offences.

David Lucas of South Road, Lakenheath stood before magistrates in Bury St Edmunds this morning facing seven counts relating to the possession of explosives and firearms.

The Lakenheath parish councillor appeared in the dock in a dark suit with a blue tie loosened at the neck and spoke only to confirm his name and address.

The clerk of the court read out to him the seven offences he is charged with, which relate to April this year.

They are; possessing an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose, possessing a prohibited firearm, possession of ammunition with intent to endanger life, possessing prohibited ammunition, possessing expanding ammunition derived from the military and possessing ammunition for a firearm without a certificate under two offences.

The charge of possession of explosives under suspicious circumstances can only be brought by police with the authorisation of the Attorney General and carries a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment.

The Chairman of the Bench, Lorraine Line, told Lucas: “The offences you are charged with can only be heard at a crown court.”

She said he will be given an opportunity to enter a plea to the charges at a hearing at Ipswich Crown Court on January 22.

As part of his bail arrangements he was told he must not leave the UK, or take steps to leave, and his passport must remain surrendered to the police.

Evening Star

National Front lays wreaths at Cenotaph

The National Front has laid wreaths at the Cenotaph in a move which the Royal British Legion said "desecrated" the monument to Britain's war dead.

Hundreds of members of the far Right party marched through the streets of Westminster to the London memorial on Remembrance Sunday. It emerged last night that they placed four poppy wreaths following the official ceremony attended by the Queen.

The Royal British Legion last night condemned the act saying that they had not been given permission to place the tributes, which were laid alongside those presented by Gordon Brown, the prime minister, and David Cameron, the Tory leader.

Robert Lee, the legion's spokesman said: "This is a terrible and unfortunate desecration of one of the nation's most important and treasured monuments.

"There was no official formation representing the National Front at the ceremony in any shape or form.

"Someone must have come there afterwards and placed these wreaths on the official pile."

A news item on the party's website reported that more than 200 members had marched from Victoria in London to the historic site on Sunday.

It said that the event "passed off with dignity and peacefully" despite threats of disruption.

It said the group observed a two minute silence at the Cenotaph before members laid the wreaths on behalf of the main, ex-servicemen's, youth, and Yorkshire branches of the party.

It concludes saying the march was a "sure sign of a revitalised and resurgent NF".

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which organises the official ceremony at the Cenotaph, said the National Front had not been allocated an official place for wreaths but had not broken any rules by leaving them later.

Only political parties with six or more seats in the Commons are allowed a space, however there is nothing to stop individuals or organisations from placing tributes after the service, a spokesman said.

Telegraph

Schoolboy confronts Griffin at memorial

BNP leader argues with a 13-year-old at WWI monument to Indian troops

Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, has paid a secret visit to a First World War memorial in Belgium - only to become embroiled in an angry confrontation with a 13-year-old schoolboy, The Independent has learnt.

On Wednesday the pupil, William Robey, was in Ypres visiting the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing as part of a school trip. It was built to commemorate the thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Ypres Salient in 1914-17, and its walls are inscribed with the names of 54,360 men who died for the British cause - including the 40th Pathans, an Indian infantry regiment which suffered great losses. But as "The Last Post" was about to be played, the schoolboy spotted Nick Griffin surrounded by some of his supporters.

William told The Independent: "I asked him if I could take his picture, next to the memorial for Pathan Indians. He reluctantly agreed, but as I went to take my photo I asked him, 'Isn't this against your party's policy?' One of his supporters put his hand over the lens, told me to 'get my facts straight', and grabbed my arm.

"I took the picture but it's very blurry. I said to him, 'Your party's built on hatred.' He started shouting at me, pointing his finger. The rest of his lot were all laughing and smirking. I just felt a bit sick inside to see him there to be honest. There they were with their poppies on, trying to put this respectable front on, yet they're happy to confront a 13-year-old at a war memorial to try and get their point across.

"He was just saying 'I've got lots of Sikh friends' when my teacher stepped in and took me away."

A BNP spokesperson said Mr Griffin often visits War Memorials when he returns to the European Parliament. He said the BNP leader "doesn't recall any jostling,." He also "It wasn't one of Nick's security entourage who put his hand over the camera. It was someone else who was there."

William's mother, Lucy, said that since the incident her son had been approached by a number of people who wanted to congratulate him for "standing up against racism".

She added that William was "very into his politics" and "knew his stuff", hinting that he might have a career in public life ahead of him - although his talent for asking difficult questions of politicians suggests that a career in journalism might also beckon.

Independent

Dissecting the Dowsons

The leak of the BNP membership list last month has turned the spotlight on the party's Belfast call centre, the tensions it has caused in the party, and the links between the man who runs it and a charity that has received a six-figure sum in EU funding. Matthew Collins and Simon Cressy investigate.

The posting on the internet of a British National Party membership list two days before the BNP leader's prized appearance on Question Time was a huge embarrassment to the fascist party. After the BNP lost an earlier list of members and contacts last year, the party promised to put security measures in place to ensure such a thing could never happen again. It was only because of this promise that the BNP managed to stem a walkout of members concerned about losing their jobs and friends because of the revelation of their racist adherence.

Searchlight can now reveal that the "security measures" consisted of handing over the files to Jim Dowson, a hardline anti-abortion activist with a string of criminal convictions, who runs the party's "secret" administrative lair in Northern Ireland.

In what has become known as the BNP's Belfast bunker, an office on an industrial estate in Dundonald, Dowson's private company, Adlorries.com, employs staff recruited through employment agencies, to handle BNP members' personal information. Staff are not security vetted, though East Europeans and Asians applying for work at the call centre are automatically rejected, in contravention of employment legislation.

Staff, one of whom is the wife of a police officer working at Castlereagh police station, do not even have to sign a confidentiality clause. Yet one of their roles was to persuade up to 3,000 lapsed members that their personal information and membership details would now be kept securely and encrypted in the secretive call centre.

Dowson has told the police that a former staff member leaked the membership data after leaving her job taking a laptop computer in lieu of £2,000 that she claimed she was owed in unpaid wages.

Who's who in the Belfast bunker

Jennifer Matthys (née Griffin):Newly married, Jennifer and her husband Angus moved to the village of Comber, where a number of the BNP's key Northern Ireland personnel already live. Until recently a checkout assistant at her local Co-op, the BNP leader's daughter (pictured with father) is supposedly entrusted with keeping a close eye on the activities of the Dowsons. A new car was thrown into the bargain to sweeten the move away from her long-time love interest Mark Collett, the controversial designer of BNP leaflets and newly appointed editor of the party's newspaper Voice of Freedom. It is Jennifer who has stopped James Dowson Jr getting his hands on the Young BNP after a battle of wills between them.

James Dowson Jr: Until Jennifer Griffin's arrival, James Jr, Dowson's eldest son, was cock of the north around the village of Comber and in the BNP call centre from where he ran his plumbing firm, Ultraplumb.com Ltd, set up with his father's financial help. Dowson Jr, 21, is a senior member of the Goldsprings flute band, a favourite of Protestants who want to "kick" the Pope. His planned rise in the BNP has been curbed since Ms Griffin came on the scene. His father is alleged to have bought him a Russian bride who upped and left not long after arriving in the Dowson home.

Marion Thomas: Unknown until now, Marion Thomas has emerged as the key link person to the Dowson empire. Thomas, Dowson's sister-in-law, is the administrator of Dowson's various business and campaign interests and signs various documents on Dowson's behalf. Her husband, Alex Thomas, is a business partner of Dowson and chair of Solas NI, the victim support group linked to Dowson. Allegedly no great fan of Dowson, Marion allegedly keeps a record of all the business transactions that go on in Dowson's offices.

John Thompson: Dowson's long-time accountant, Thompson was taken on last April to sort out the BNP's books and records after a succession of changes in the BNP's treasury department, which had been widely accused of incompetence at the time of the winter 2007-08 rebellion in the BNP. Although the BNP described him as a "professional chartered accountant" he appears to have been unequal to the task and the BNP's 2008 accountants, due with the Electoral Commission by 7 July 2009, are still missing. Since the election of the BNP's two MEPs, Thompson has taken on the role of "paying agent" for the MEPs' staff on the European Parliament payroll.

One of the employment agencies that supplied staff to Adlorries was Office Angels. The firm would only speak to Searchlight through a PR company but confirmed that it had supplied staff to the call centre. A statement from Office Angels said it had terminated the contractual arrangement once it learned that Adlorries was a "third party supplier to the BNP". It added: "We do not discriminate against a person's race, age or sex. It is totally against Office Angels' values to do this, not to mention against the law."

The BNP claimed that Northern Ireland was a "safe haven" away from the strong opposition the party faces on mainland Britain. Since spring this year the BNP has carried out almost all its telephone fundraising and recruitment activities from the Dundonald office and another in nearby Ballyhackamore. Staff solicit donations and send out information packs all over the UK for a wage of £6 an hour plus commission based on the amount they raise.

Since the move to Northern Ireland the party has been trying desperately to plug a succession of embarrassing leaks to the Irish press identifying key personnel in the Irish operation and exposing the gradual and almost forced takeover of the BNP by a man who claimed publicly to have "stepped down" from fundraising for the party, but who still has his hand very firmly on the BNP's purse strings.

Gradually, since Dowson first became involved with the BNP in late 2007, he has taken over more and more of the party's operations and drawn the BNP further into his web of business, campaigning and charity interests.

Until the membership list leak, BNP members were receiving an average of three telephone calls a month from the call centre, soliciting donations and encouraging people to renew their membership early or upgrade to the life or gold membership schemes.

Legal action by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has forced the BNP to suspend recruiting members while it makes changes to its constitution. Instead, Dowson is now desperately trying to revive the near moribund Trafalgar Club, members of which contribute at least £15 a month in exchange for an annual dinner with speech by Nick Griffin, the party leader, usually in a smart country hotel, on the Saturday nearest to Trafalgar Day, 21 October.

Dowson has also put his staff onto increasing subscriptions to the party periodical Voice of Freedom as well as making begging phone calls for donations to fight the EHRC's case against the BNP. In reality the funds are being raised to pay the EHRC's costs, which are likely to be awarded against the BNP, after Griffin gave up the hopeless battle.

All these calls are made from the same telephone lines that the Dowson family use for their charity, anti-abortion work and the plumbing business run by James Dowson Jr. In overall charge of answering and dispatching calls to the correct part of the set-up is Marion Thomas, Dowson's sister-in-law.

Marion Thomas is married to Alex Thomas, who acts as chair of Solas, a Northern Ireland charity, which he runs together with Dowson. Solas NI is a victim support group set up in 2003 to help bereaved and injured victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles. It says its aim is "to ensure that those most affected by the Troubles have recourse to a non-political and non-sectarian organisation which caters specifically for their needs".

Solas operates from the same address and uses the same telephone number as another Dowson organisation, the Christian Youth Fellowship.

When Searchlight telephoned the number it was answered by a woman with a Scottish accent who gave her name as Marion. We then asked to speak to Jim [Dowson] and she proceeded to connect us.

Searchlight has discovered that up to March 2007 Solas received £111,479 of funding under a European Union programme for peace and reconciliation. The money, part of a £6.8 million allocation for projects in Northern Ireland in 2006-07, came via Proteus, an intermediate funding body.

Announcing the grants, Pat Donnelly, chief executive of Proteus, said: "There is real evidence that projects funded by PEACE II [the EU programme] have contributed to a significant change in mindset and created the necessary preconditions for genuine cooperation and improvements to take place".

Dowson's past record and current involvement with the racist BNP, which only seeks to divide communities, shows that cooperation is the last thing on his mind.

As well as controlling income coming in through the call centre, Dowson has placed his own accountant John Thompson to look after the BNP's books. Thompson, who is based in Comber, also looks after the accounts for Alex Thomas and Dowson's anti-abortion campaign, the UK LifeLeague.

Last April, Griffin announced that the "current and anticipated growth" of the BNP had necessitated the formation of a "full Treasury Department" headed by a professional chartered accountant", whom he did not name. Thompson's main achievement in that role appears to be the failure to produce the party's 2008 accounts on time, incurring a fine of at least £1,000 under electoral legislation.

Thompson was supposed to work under the oversight of the BNP's treasurer. At the time of his appointment this was one of the many party positions held by Simon Darby, the deputy leader. Thompson is believed to have clashed a number of times with Darby over the payment of bills, in particular to Romac Press Ltd in east Belfast, which now does the party's printing, including the endless begging letters the party sends out to an esoteric mailing list.

It appears that Romac Press, which also prints for Dowson's other operations, is being lined up to print Voice of Freedom. Senior party members on the mainland are said to be resisting the move, but Dowson hopes this may placate the owners who still have a large bill to be settled.

Senior BNP officers on the mainland have also voiced concern over the apparent independence of the Irish operation. They include Simon Bennett, the BNP's webmaster, Eddy Butler, the national organiser, Martin Wingfield, the Communications and Campaigns Officer for the two BNP MEPs, and even Darby. Bennett is especially aggrieved because Dowson is earning commission on the money he raises for the party. Bennett was offered commission on donations raised through the BNP website but the party appears to have reneged on the promise.

Searchlight can reveal that it was Griffin's sole decision to give Dowson free rein to run major BNP administrative functions. Perhaps it was to pacify them that the BNP announced in June the appointment of Emma Colgate as the party's administration officer in place of "consultant Jim Dowson", though in fact Dowson's role has not changed.

Dowson's remit is not limited to Northern Ireland, however. During the European election campaign the BNP announced proudly that it had acquired a number of office premises to house its growing operations, but kept the locations secret.

Searchlight has discovered that early this year the party leased three rooms in a smart building on the Salmon Springs Trading Estate in Stroud Gloucestershire for "training" at a cost of £5,000 per year. However it was not the BNP's name on the tenancy but that of Adlorries.com. The three-year lease was a waste of the BNP's money. Except for one meeting, at which the party sacked Michaela Mackenzie from her positions as administration officer and national nominating officer, the offices have remained unused and unfurnished.

West Midlands organiser Alwyn Deacon: runs a secondary BNP call centre in Nuneaton

It is different in Nuneaton, where the former pub landlord Alwyn Deacon is fronting the BNP's merchandising operation, Excalibur, complete with a mini call centre with 20 phone lines, in a property leased in his own name from the local Conservative council in Slingsby Close on the Attleborough Fields Industrial Estate. Deacon and his wife follow a series of fundraising guidelines set down by Dowson, under which former customers of Excalibur as well as all other party members and even members of the UK Independence Party are bombarded with phone calls and special offers.

How the BNP will afford these new premises is unclear. Any attempt to hide the costs in the party's expenses claims for the new MEPs would of course be fraudulent.

Partly to meet the concerns of members of the Party's national advisory council about Dowson's power in the party, Griffin's daughter Jennifer and her new husband Angus Matthys moved into a flat in Comber last month to begin work at the Dundonald call centre. Ms Griffin, a former leader of the Young BNP, once manned the tills at the same Co-op store where her father was briefly employed. Now she is allegedly forging her father's signature on the photograph of the revered leader that gold party members receive as thanks for their generosity.

Since moving to Northern Ireland, Jennifer is believed to have concurred with Arthur Kemp, the South African former apartheid intelligence agent who now edits the BNP website, that despite his father's wishes, Dowson's eldest son, James, could not be publicly anointed as the head of the BNP's youth wing. The decision has apparently caused resentment in the Dowson family as the Griffin and Dowson heirs vie for supremacy in the call centre.

However, this has not stopped Mr and Mrs Matthys joining Dowson Jr as members of the Goldsprings "kick the Pope" marching and flute band, a clear sign that despite the BNP's protestations to Anglo-Irish members on the mainland, a strict evangelical, racist and sectarian policy still runs through the very core of the BNP.

Another of Dowson's religious cohorts unpopular with senior members on the mainland is Zak McAdam. An IT specialist who has clashed with the BNP's webmaster Simon Bennett on a number of occasions, McAdam recently made a name for himself with a one-man campaign against lesbians and computer games. A number of holders of party laptops were furious to discover that they could not access pornography after McAdam blocked access to some of the party employees' favourite porn sites.

Although the latest BNP membership list leak has been overshadowed by Griffin's Question Time appearance, limiting the damage in terms of bad publicity, advisory council members are angry and are blaming Dowson for the embarrassing loss of data that were supposedly kept encrypted.

Wingfield, whose wife Tina used to be the party's membership secretary, was the first to comment shortly before midnight on the eve of the anticipated leak. Wingfield blogged: "I know the leak certainly didn't come from our end here."

Days after Griffin's disastrous performance on Question Time and the membership list loss, Jennifer and Angus Matthys attended this year's Trafalgar Club dinner alongside Dowson at a smart country house hotel near Ross-on-Wye. The tension between senior BNP officers and Dowson, and the animosity between Griffin's daughter and Dowson Jr, cannot have made for a congenial evening.

Searchlight thanks all the people in Northern Ireland and England who have helped in this investigation.

Irish TUC calls for enquiry

Searchlight’s investigation into the business activities of the BNP front man Jim Dowson has led to a call for an enquiry into whether the employment practices at the BNP call centre are in breach of Northern Ireland’s Race Relations Order of 1997, which prohibits racist employment practices.

The Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities (NICEM) issued a joint call last month for an investigation by the Department of Employment and Learning, after Searchlight passed them evidence that employment agencies had been duped into providing staff for the BNP.

In response to Searchlight’s investigation, the employment agency Office Angels issued a statement through its London PR company admitting it had supplied a “small number of staff to a call centre called Adlorries” but withdrew them and terminated the agreement once it became apparent who the customer really was.

The statement went on to say that Office Angels “would not support any client who appeared to discriminate and would review our contract with them forthwith. Our philosophy is to not only uphold the word of the law but also our company morals, standards and policies.”

While there is no suggestion that Office Angels has contravened the law or in any way behaved improperly, Searchlight does have evidence that at least one other high profile employment agency is not only still supplying staff to Adlorries to work for the BNP but is also allegedly “cherry picking” prospective employees based on race, religion and sexuality.

Launching the joint call for an investigation, Peter Bunting, ICTU Assistant General Secretary, said: “The BNP are fascists. They misrepresent facts about public housing going to immigrants, about foreigners taking our‚ jobs, about Muslims and crime and about the Holocaust. They even deny what Britain fought during World War II. The truth is that Britain fought against fascism, and this clearly is a fight that is not over yet.

“These are tainted jobs from an evil employer, and no employment agency should have any truck with them.”

Searchlight is also calling for an inquiry and we will be handing our dossier to ICTU and NICEM to present to the authorities leading the investigation.

You may also be interested to read
• Dissecting the Dowsons Part 3 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
• Dowson's empire Part 2 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
• From rags to riches Part 1 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
• BNP Bosses Uncovered A former employee lifts the lid on life working for 44-year-old Jim Dowson and the BNP in Belfast by Steven Moore Sunday World October 2009
• 'Cash strapped' BNP fails to deliver accounts Sonia Gable on the BNP’s current financial problems Searchlight Magazine September 2009
• The man who bought the BNP Sonia Gable untangles a BNP financial web Searchlight Magazine July 2009
• Truth truck or lie lorry? Sonia Gable uncovers another BNP financial scandal Searchlight Magazine August 2008
• BNP accounts don't add up Sonia Gable analyses the BNP’s latest figures Searchlight Magazine September 2008

Hope not Hate

Dowson's empire

Sonia Gable shines a light on Jim Dowson's string of business and campaigning interests

Solas NI

Solas NI, a charity with the registration number XR86269, describes itself on its website as a victim support group set up to help bereaved and injured victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles. It says its aim is "to ensure that those most affected by the Troubles have recourse to a non-political and non-sectarian organisation which caters specifically for their needs". It was formed in 2003 and up to 2007 had received £111,479 of funding under a European Union programme for peace and reconciliation.

Jim Dowson is not known to hold any position in Solas, but its chair is Alex Thomas, a business partner of Dowson and husband of his sister-in-law, who is also involved in Solas. The charity also uses the same address and telephone number as another Dowson organisation, the Christian Youth Fellowship.

Adlorries.com Ltd

Jim Dowson is the sole director of Adlorries.com Ltd, the company that hired the Belfast staff. Incorporated in October 2004 it describes itself as "an independent company providing professional services without prejudice to NGOs, charities and political organisations … We are the complete business solution," its scanty website claims.

The BNP's "truth truck", better known outside the party as the lie lorry

The company owns little of substance. Its latest accounts show fixed assets plus cash of nearly £27,000 against £25,000 owed in debts and long-term loans.

One of its assets is the BNP's "truth truck", better known outside the party as the lie lorry. Last year the BNP claimed to have bought the truck after a successful appeal to supporters to raise the £26,550 needed. However when bailiffs tried to enforce a county court judgement against the BNP, the party's solicitors responded that the vehicle was "registered in the name of another person who … has no connection with the judgement debtors".

In fact the truth truck turned out to be the same vehicle that Dowson had bought two years earlier for the anti-abortion UK LifeLeague, after appealing for donations from supporters. It even had the same name. A press release issued in April 2006 claimed Operation Truth Truck would "enable the pro-life message to reach the unreached across the towns and cities of Britain". The UK LifeLeague and the BNP had milked their gullible supporters twice over for the same "truth truck" which never left the ownership of Adlorries.com.

Albion Logistical Solutions Ltd

Incorporated in February 2009, Albion Logistical Solutions Ltd has an address in Loughborough and one director, Jim Dowson. It was this company that organised the printing of over 28 million glossy BNP European election leaflets earlier this year.

Midas Consultancy

Early in 2008 BNP senior officers and activists were invited to attend "high level management training" arranged by "a professional management consultancy and training company", which "uses a property in Spain as its main training base". Searchlight quickly established that the organiser was a Belfast-based business called the Midas Consultancy, the name under which Jim Dowson marketed his management and fundraising skills, and that the training base was in Valencia on the Costa Blanca.

Christian Youth Fellowship

The Christian Youth Fellowship shares premises with Solas NI and its contact person is listed as J Dowson. Its activities centre around anti-abortion and anti-gay campaigning, though in May it took part in the launch of TIDY Northern Ireland's Clean Coast Programme on Portrush, Whiterocks beach.

UK LifeLeague

Jim Dowson is the main public face of the hardline anti-abortion UK LifeLeague, which uses highly provocative tactics, such as publishing the home addresses of abortion clinic staff. Similar actions by anti-abortion groups in the US have resulted in the murder of doctors.

Formed in 1999, the LifeLeague claims to be committed to peaceful campaigning "to end the violence of abortion". Although its website states that "campaigning is an important part of what we do", the organisation appears to have done nothing since early 2008 apart from raising money.

Ultraplumb.com Ltd

Jim Dowson helped his eldest son, James Dowson Jr, to set up Ultraplumb.com Ltd, a company registered at Dowson's address in Cumbernauld, Scotland, in 2007. Dowson Jr, 21, (pictured) is the sole director and Marion Thomas, Dowson Sr's sister-in-law, is the Company Secretary. Ultraplumb styles itself as "Northern Ireland's premier plumbing company" but of the three testimonials on its website, dated 2007, one is from Thomas herself. Its accounts are several months overdue for filing at Companies House.

After the exposé of the BNP's Belfast bunker operation in the Irish press, Dowson Jr painted out the signs on his company's vans, fearing reprisals from the local population.

BNP offices in Stroud and Nuneaton

Stroud: The large grey stone house on a Stroud industrial estate is not the sort of place one might expect the BNP to occupy. Jim Dowson's company Adlorries.com Ltd leased three rooms at Unit 13, Salmon Springs Trading Estate, Painswick Road, Stroud for three years, paying £5,000 a year in rent to the owner, D J Melsome Ltd. They were to be used as a training centre for the BNP run by Michaela Mackenzie, but have remained empty after the party sacked her from her posts as administration officer and national nominating officer. Like many in the BNP it appears she clashed with Dowson, but came off second best. Unfortunately for Dowson, the lease has no cancellation clause.

Nuneaton: Alwyn Deacon, the BNP's West Midlands regional organiser, leases Unit 3 Slingsby Close, Attleborough Fields Industrial Estate, Nuneaton from Nuneaton and Bedworth council, where the BNP has one councillor following the resignation of a second last month. Deacon is also the BNP's enquiries secretary and national dispatch manager, a job he carries out at the unit.

Like the unit the BNP secretly occupied on a Deeside industrial estate last year, until the landlords evicted the party following a Searchlight exposé, the Nuneaton premises also houses Excalibur, the BNP's merchandising operation. Since May Excalibur has been run privately by Arthur Kemp, the BNP's foreign affairs spokesman, under an annually renewable licence from the party. Excalibur's range of tatty cringe-making and overpriced goods include golliwogs, Replica Victoria Crosses, condemned by the Ministry of Defence as an insult to British troops' heroism, Enoch Powell t-shirts and copies of Kemp's own dismal books.

The Nuneaton unit also houses a call centre with 20 phone lines, where BNP staff try to solicit as much money as possible in donations and merchandise sales from past Excalibur customers, party members, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be on their phone number list.

Friday: Dissecting the Dowsons The leak of the BNP membership list last month has turned the spotlight on the party’s Belfast call centre, the tensions it has caused in the party, and the links between the man who runs it and a charity that has received a six-figure sum in EU funding. Matthew Collins and Simon Cressy investigate.

Hope not Hate

Russian far-right activists arrested for murder of journalist and lawyer

Human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and reporter Anastasia Baburova were gunned down in Moscow earlier this year

Alleged killer Eugenia Khasis, in a black hood, is led by police to court in Moscow. Photograph: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

Investigators today said they had solved one of Russia's most notorious killings and had arrested two far-right activists for the murders of the human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and the journalist Anastasia Baburova.

Markelov – a friend of the assassinated journalist Anna Politkovskaya – and Baburova were gunned down in January in central Moscow. They had been walking towards the metro when a hitman shot Markelov in the back of the head. Baburova may have tried to grab the assassin and was also shot, dying in hospital.

Today Russia's federal security service (FSB) named their killers as Eugenia Khasis, 24, and Nikita Tikhonov, 29. While Khasis appears to have no previous convictions, Tikhonov is a veteran neo-Nazi activist wanted in connection with the murder of an anti-fascist campaigner.

According to the Kommersant newspaper, citing FSB sources, the young woman and young man worked in tandem. Khasis acted as a "spotter" – trailing Markelov and Baburova as they set off from Moscow's independent press centre. Tipped off, Tikhonov then shot them using a silencer-fitted pistol, sources told the paper.

Today however, friends of the murdered lawyer and journalist urged caution. They said it was too early to say whether the suspects were involved in the killings, and pointed out the murders did not resemble other bloody attacks carried out by violent ultra-nationalist gangs. Their hallmarks are large groups and knives.

The murders 10 months ago proved deeply embarrassing for the Kremlin, and followed the killing of Politkovskaya in October 2006, in her Moscow apartment. Both Markelov and Baburova were associated with Politkovskaya's paper Novaya Gazeta – with Baburova working as a freelance.

"Markelov's killing is a high-profile case under the control of the head of Russia's investigative committee. This means that they have to find someone," Alexander Verkovsky, director of Moscow's Centre for Information and Analysis (SOVA), which monitors hate crime in Russia, said today.

He went on: "There are two ways to do this. You find the proper offender. Or you find someone who may easily be accused in this affair. Which case we are dealing with now I don't know. It's possible. But the crime is very unusual for xenophobic violence, unique even. At the same time, the name of the man is known to us."

President Dmitry Medvedev has promised to improve Russia's dismal human rights record following a string of unsolved killings of human rights workers and reporters. The head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, took the rare step of personally briefing Medvedev about today's arrests – claiming the killer had "confessed".

According to Verkhovsky, Tikhonov is a member of the United Brigade 88, one of several fanatical neo-Nazi outfits active in Russia. (The numbers 88 correspond to HH in the alphabet – "Heil Hitler".) Detectives say he was one of six extremists who took part in the murder of Alexander Ryukhin, a 19-year-old student.

Ryukhin was stabbed to death in April 2006 on his way to an anti-Nazi punk concert. Three of his attackers escaped, allegedly including Tikhonov. But three others went on trial with Markelov representing the family of the victim – a perfect motive, prosecutors are likely to argue, for revenge.

Investigators said that Tikhonov and Khasis were both members of Russia National Unity – another now-defunct far-right party. The group's leader, however, said he had never heard of either of them. Other well-known nationalist organisers said the pair were victims of a political campaign directed against Russia's far-right.

"I don't know why investigators are talking about Russian National Unity. It hasn't existed since 1999," Dmitry Demushkin, leader of the Slavic Union said. He added: "I don't have any concrete version of this murder. It could have been Chechens or nationalists. Or someone else."

Khasis worked as a sales manager in a Moscow accountancy software firm. Today her colleagues said she had last appeared for work on Monday. She had shown no signs of neo-Nazi proclivities, they added. "I'm shocked. She is an attractive tall girl, friendly, chatty, open, and sociable," her colleague Alexander said. "You would never imagine her being involved in something as terrible as this."

The Guardian

Iraq commander and former SAS hero, Tim Collins, against the BNP

Unions back decision to keep BNP leader out of Sellafield

Allowing BNP leader Nick Griffin onto the Sellafield site would have damaged chances of attracting investment and safeguarding jobs, it has been claimed.

Sellafield unions last night backed the management decision not to allow the BNP leader Nick Griffin onto the site.

Unions GMB and Prospect said when Sellafield was working to attract overseas investment from foreign governments and companies, the presence of a far right, anti-foreign politician who was not a locally elected representative would damage the chances to safeguard jobs and attract investment.

A joint statement said: “The facts are that any association with the BNP would damage public support for the industry, jeopardise international investment in the Sellafield site, and drive jobs out of west Cumbria.

“Equally, at a time when nuclear generation is recognised as one of the world’s most effective weapons in the war against climate change, we do not believe that any association with climate change deniers such as Nick Griffin would benefit the Sellafield site or workforce in any way.

“As trade unions, we have campaigned long and hard to improve the reputation and standing of Sellafield in the eyes of local, national and international stakeholders. Allowing any visit from the leader of a far-right racist organisation could only have helped undo this work and damage the reputation of the site.”

Last month hundreds of people protested outside BBC television centre in London when Mr Griffin appeared on Question Time. Six protesters were arrested and three police officers injured in the demonstrations.

North West MEP Mr Griffin said he wanted to visit the site which is in his patch, as he is pro-nuclear.

The unions added: “The entire country recently witnessed the acute safety and security issues posed by the leader of the BNP prior to the recent filming of Question Time and security problems of this type should not be imposed upon the Sellafield site by any visitor at any time.

“Sellafield also operates an equal opportunities policy which we fully support. Allowing the head of an organisation onto the site which has recently been prosecuted for its racist whites-only membership policy would damage the site’s well-deserved reputation as an equal opportunities employer.

“On the grounds of safety, security, corporate reputation, international investment, and for the benefit and the security of west Cumbrian jobs we welcome the decision of the Sellafield management team to refuse entry to the BNP and we expect this decision to remain in place for the future.”

Mr Griffin said the decision prevented him from doing his job as an MEP.

News and Star

BNP GRIFFIN: 'HE HATES JEWS SO MUCH'

BNP leader Nick Griffin describes his predecessor and BNP founder, John Tyndall ' he hates Jews so much.'

He then launches into anti-zionist rhetoric - that 'the Jews have bought the West, in terms of the press, for their own political ends' before concluding 'if Hitler hadn't been so daft they'd have exterminated the German Jews.'

Kirklees BNP Councillor Attacks Nick Griffin

Roger Roberts

The Dewsbury and District Press newspaper last week reported an extraordinary verbal attack by Roger Roberts on the BNP leader Nick Griffin.

Roberts, the lone BNP representative on Kirklees Council was interviewed regarding Griffin's shambolic appearance on the BBC's Question Time.

Roberts who quit the Conservative party after 40 years said of his leader "The problem with Nick is that he is not a politician. He is used to going to meetings and being treated with adulation "

Once described by Griffin as the party's "jewel in the crown", the BNP foothold has crumbled in the past few years.

At their peak the BNP had three councillors sitting on Kirklees council.

However the BNP in Kirklees has collapsed and has now turned into a complete laughing stock.

Taken from the brilliant "Not the blog of Nick Griffin MEP"

http://notnickgriffin.blogspot.com/

Owner of Chase Hotel in Ross expresses 'horror' over BNP meeting

THE owner of a Ross-on-Wye hotel has said he will take measures to stop the British National Party (BNP) staying at the venue in the future.

Angry scenes greeted a fund-raising dinner that saw senior BNP figures, including leader Nick Griffin, stay at the Chase Hotel.

Their presence led to nearly 100 protesters venting their anger outside the premises.

But Alan Porter, a member of the family that owns the Chase, has told the Hereford Times of his horror when he discovered the booking.

“This event was booked by a private individual,” said Mr Porter. “Nobody had any suspicions until 48 hours before.

“It cannot happen again and we are taking measures to prevent this.”

But with the dinner booked, the hotel’s legal advice was to honour the arrangement because there was a contract, he said.

“My reaction was of horror and shock. The policies of the BNP are abhorrent to me, my family and, to my knowledge, all members of the team.”

Mr Porter, who lives in Ross, said there had been no adverse reaction or cancellations since the event, which saw the hotel hiring its own security.

Mr Griffin’s arrival in Herefordshire came two days after his controversial appearance on Question Time.

Hereford Times

Jim Dowson: How a militant anti-abortionist took over the BNP

James Dowson

Through the keyhole

Today we start a serialisation from the current issue of Searchlight Magazine which features a special investigation into the heart of the BNP. We highlight the organisational set-up, the secret locations and the people running the fascist party. We expose how the running of the party has been outsourced to a rabid Loyalist anti-abortionist in Belfast and we reveal that this man is receiving European Union money for peace and reconciliation.

We have also been busy working with the media. Many of the revelations and exposés we have read in the newspapers over the past few weeks have originated from Searchlight.

Forty-seven years after Searchlight was first formed we are proving that we are still ahead of the game.

From rags to riches : Part I of a three part investigation.

By Gerry Gable

Ten years ago Jim Dowson (pictured) was a down-at-heel anti-abortion campaigner and hardline Protestant, who had marched with a loyalist band that played songs in praise of the convicted loyalist murderer Michael Stone

His luck changed when he formed an alliance with Justin Barrett, a far-right Catholic lawyer and leader of the notorious Irish anti-abortion group Youth Defence, which had previously stormed buildings in Dublin in their crusade against a woman's right to choose. In 2000 Barrett had attended a rally of the German nazi National Democratic Party, where he met Roberto Fiore, the Italian fascist friend and mentor of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader. The trip was arranged by Derek Holland, one of Griffin's old colleagues from the days of the National Front Political Soldiers.

Barrett attracted attention as the lead spokesperson of the successful Irish campaign against the Nice Treaty in 2001 and money started to flow from far-right anti-abortionists in the United States.

In 1999 Dowson had formed Precious Life Scotland and it was through cooperation between his group and Youth Defence that he met Barrett. The link proved beneficial when Barrett pitched £50,000 into Dowson's organisation to pay for the production of anti-abortion CDs and video tapes to be distributed to schools and churches in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Dowson was a "rent-a-cause" extremist who had been kicked out of the Orange Order. He has a list of criminal convictions including breach of the peace in 1986, possession of a weapon and breach of the peace in 1991 and criminal damage in 1992. Although a Protestant, he was happy to sell thousands of photographs of the Pope at inflated prices to Catholics in the Irish Republic.

Barrett faded from the public arena after the Nice Treaty vote was rerun and went the other way. His political demise was hastened after the publication of his book The National Way Forward, in which he described immigration as "genocidal". He also became increasingly antisemitic, influenced by the nazi leaders he had met in Germany.

In contrast, Dowson's campaigning activities grew. He turned his sights on gay people and encouraged his followers to abuse and threaten people who attended or worked in abortion clinics.

This resulted in Dowson parting company with some of his Precious Life fellow activists, but he was now in a financial position to go it alone, turning his faction into the UK LifeLeague. He never looked back.

Dowson, 45, started working with the British National Party late in 2007, and he quickly revolutionised its fundraising. His first appeal, launched at the time the BNP was tearing itself apart in an internal rebellion, was carried out as a free sample to show the party what he could do, but since then he has worked on a percentage commission.

His work for the BNP grew to encompass the provision of manage-ment training in Spain and revamping the party's administration. Early in 2009 he set up the Belfast call centre, piggybacking it on his successful fundraising for the LifeLeague, thereby cutting costs and perhaps giving doubtful BNP officers the impression of a larger operation than it actually is.

Over the past two years he has clearly raised huge sums for the party, although it remains financially strapped. Partly this is the result of scams, such as the truth truck, which Griffin claimed had been bought with thousands of pounds of supporters' donations. It turned out still to belong to Dowson's private company, Adlorries.com, and, like much of the other equipment the BNP claimed to have bought, it was only leased by the party.

Today Dowson practically owns the BNP, which he briefly joined to placate his critics but left as soon as the heat was off him. He remains at loggerheads with many senior party officers and employees. One, whom he sacked in spring, is heading for an employment tribunal.

Griffin's claim that the BNP is being flooded with donations via Dowson's call centre is a lie. Income is down to a trickle and membership is a mere 8,000 or so. People are not queuing up to join after the end of the three-month moratorium on membership, they are leaving in droves, especially since the latest membership list leak from Dowson's Belfast bunker.

All this comes on top of the party's forced climbdown over its racist constitution, the non-appearance of its 2008 accounts and concern over the number of senior party officers who have been put on the European Parliament payroll as staff of the two BNP MEPs.

Tomorrow: Dowson's empire by Sonia Gable

Friday: Dissecting the Dowsons The leak of the BNP membership list last month has turned the spotlight on the party’s Belfast call centre, the tensions it has caused in the party, and the links between the man who runs it and a charity that has received a six-figure sum in EU funding. Matthew Collins and Simon Cressy investigate.

Hope not Hate

Asian Man Cleared Of Abusing BNP Leader

An Asian man has been cleared of racially abusing British National Party leader Nick Griffin.

Tauriq Khalid, 23, denied shouting "white b*******" at a group of far-right demonstrators in his home town of Burnley, Lancashire, in November 2008.

A jury of five women and seven men cleared Khalid of one count of using racially abusive threatening behaviour.

They deliberated for 45 minutes at the end of a three-day trial at Preston Crown Court.

Khalid admitted shouting abuse as he drove past a gathering of far-right BNP demonstrators outside Burnley police station.

He told the jury he stopped his silver Vauxhall Astra and shouted "Nick Griffin, you f****** w*****" and made a V-sign with his fingers.

He also admitted he shouted several times "get the f*** out of Burnley, you're not welcome here".

He told the jury: "I shouldn't have done what I done really, it was just a spur of the moment thing."

Mr Griffin, giving evidence on the first day of the trial, claimed he was called a "white b******" by a young Asian man in a silver Astra.

He said the man "leaned out of the car and pointed at me and made a gun and gang gesture".

Mr Griffin also claimed the defendant threatened him by shouting "I'm going to...".

He said that although he didn't hear the words, he interpreted them as a threat to kill or shoot him, prompting him to leave the demonstration fearing for his safety.

Khalid was arrested after one of the protesters noted down his car's registration number and complained to police.

He declined to comment as he left court.

Mr Griffin said the verdict was "unfortunate" but that he accepted the jury's decision.

He said: "I think it's unfortunate and I think it's wrong but that's the jury's right. They saw all the evidence, I accept their decision.

"I know that man threatened me without a shadow of a doubt but he, or his defence counsel, have managed to convince them otherwise.

"I know it's the wrong decision - juries sometimes get it wrong - but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it."

Sky News

Former BNP whistleblower fights racism

A former BNP whistleblower is working with young people in Bradford helping to tackle racism.
Andy Sykes hit the headlines several years ago after helping the BBC infiltrate the party for an undercover documentary.

He is working with young people in Bradford as part of a 12-week project being run by community group, One In A Million.

Using workshops mixed with football and culminating in a tournament, the project will end with an awards ceremony at Bradford City Football Club.

One in A Million is among 31 groups nationwide to have been awarded One Game, One Community grants from Kick It Out, football's equality and inclusion campaign, and the Football Foundation, the country's largest sports charity.

One In a Million received £1,000 while another Bradford community group, The Manningham Youth Project netted £950.

Manningham Youth Project's funding has enabled the group to hold a series of educational forums over six weeks.

Piara Powar, director for Kick It Out, said: "These are two fantastic projects and we're delighted to fund groups with such a strong message."

Grants have been awarded to groups in some of the most deprived areas of the country to organise events and activities.

The activities being supported include youth forums, exhibitions, educational programmes and anti-racism themed football tournaments.

Yorkshire Post

Sellafield turns away BNP leader

BNP leader Nick Griffin has been refused permission to visit the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria on security grounds.

Mr Griffin said he wanted to visit the site, which sits within his North West European Parliament constituency, because he is pro-nuclear power.

But Sellafield Limited, which operates the site, said it was concerned about security and possible demonstrations.

Mr Griffin said the decision prevented him from doing his job as an MEP.

The BNP leader sits on the European Parliament's environment committee and in that capacity asked to visit Sellafield.

But the nuclear plant refused, claiming it could cause "an unnecessary distraction" and be a safety risk.

Mr Griffin said he wanted to tour Sellafield as part of his MEP duties and because he is against wind farms.

A statement from Sellafield Limited said: "He has expressed an interest in various aspects of the site's operations. We have offered to meet Mr Griffin and his team off site to discuss this in full, in accordance with our policy of being open and transparent with all stakeholders.

"Safety is our number one value at Sellafield and we were concerned that an on site visit by Mr Griffin and his team could cause an unnecessary distraction, with the potential for this to have a detrimental effect on safety."

A BNP spokesman hit out at the decision, saying that if on-site security could not cope with Mr Griffin's visit then Sellafield had "serious problems".

BBC NEWS

A "Premature Antifascist" -- And Proudly So

Clarence Kailin, a son of the Midwest whose lifelong commitment to social and economic justice led him to become one of the first Americans to take up arms against the fascist forces that swept across Europe in the years before World War II, has died at age 95.

Kailin was one of the last survivors of the 2,800 American volunteers who fought from 1936 to 1939 as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in defense of the elected Spanish government against a coup engineered by Generalissimo Francisco Franco with the backing of Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini. His role in "the good fight" of the international volunteers -- as it was immortalized by Ernest Hemingway and W.H. Auden -- gave Kailin, a scrawny kid from Madison, Wisconsin's multi-ethnic Greenbush neighborhood, a place in an essential chapter of 20th century history.

Yet, for Kailin, "There wasn't any choice. If you were against totalitarianism, if you were against injustice, you had to care about what happened in Spain. Spain was where the fight against fascism was focused in 1936. So Spain was where I knew I needed to be."

The years that Kailin spent fighting in Spain prior to the start of World War II would eventually earn him international recognition and praise as an iconic figure on the American left – his courage and commitment were recently celebrated in song by folksinger Si Kahnand a section of the latest book by Democracy Now's Amy Goodman is devoted to him. The Spanish government made Kailin a citizen of the country, where his visits in recent years have been greeted with hero's welcomes.

But Kailin never wanted to be an old soldier telling stories of distant battles.

He remained politically active to the last days before his death on Sunday, one day after he suffered a stroke.

On August 23, hundreds of family members and friends celebrated Kailin's 95th birthday with a party at Madison's Gates of Heaven Synagogue that featured a hip-hop performance, international visitors and, of course, political speeches calling for an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, for single-payer health care and for a reordering of the U.S. economy that would tip the balance away from Wall Street and toward Main Street.

Quick-witted and passionate to the last, Kailin laughed with his friend and comrade Bob Kimbrough -- as only old socialists could -- at the notion that a centrist Democrat from Chicago named Barack Obama was somehow turning the United States hard to the left. "If only Obama was a socialist!" Kailin mused. "But, you know, real change never comes from the top. It comes when people get organized and decide that they're going to make the change happen – no matter who the leaders are."

That was not just rhetoric. Kailin lived his politics.

As soon as he returned from the fight in Spain, Kailin got busy organizing workers into union locals, marching to integrate schools and housing and pressuring the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to add African-American historical and cultural texts to the curriculum. (The department eventually published and circulated a teaching guide he developed.) Active for many years with the American Communist Party and then with the Socialist Party – he founded Madison's monthly "Socialist Potluck" -- Kailin was a classic homegrown radical who demanded that the United States make real promise of "liberty and justice for all."

That did not make his life an easy one. As his daughter Julie recalled in her 2002 book Antiracist Education, "My father, Clarence Kailin, has always been devoted to antiracist causes. He fought as an antifascist in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, one of the international brigades of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), a ‘premature antifascist' as F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover was said to have put it. After returning from Spain, my father, like other veterans of that war, was considered persona non grata by the U.S. government. He was harassed by the F.B.I.; his employers, friends and neighbors were ‘visited' by them; and they made a point of interfering with any job opportunities. For most of my childhood, my dad worked on and off as a free-lance janitor. When white men wearing suits came to our door, I knew they were not our friends."

Eventually, Kailin found steady work at the University of Wisconsin, using his skills as a photographer and photo technician. But his real work, especially in the last decades of his life, was the struggle to radically redirect U.S. foreign policy. A militant foe of the Vietnam War and of U.S. interventions in Central America in the 1980s, Kailin threw himself into the struggle to prevent the invasion of Iraq. After the war began, he was a stalwart backer of the successful effort to have the city of Madison go on record – in an overwhelming referendum vote – for immediate withdrawal from that conflict; at 91, Kailin spent hours soliciting sitting soliciting petition signatures to get the proposal on the ballot.

Kailin, for whom the Madison Veterans for Peace chapter is named, had no taste for war. But he was not quite a pacifist. He believed there were times when it was necessary to fight. What irked him was a sense that his country often fought the wrong battles, or came to the right ones too late. "The United States should have backed the Spanish people against Franco," he said. "The reason we had to sneak into Spain as volunteers was because the U.S. government refused to get involved. They remained neutral, even though it was obvious to anyone who was paying attention that Franco was aligned with Hitler and Mussolini. We knew that if we didn't fight the fascists in Spain, they would keep grabbing other countries. And, of course, they did. It led to World War II. But even when we were proven right, the politicians in Washington never admitted it; they called us ‘premature antifascists.' Well, you know what? I can't think of a more honorable name that that one."

Kailin went to Spain as one of roughly two dozen Wisconsinites, most of them Jewish, all of them leftists, who traveled with passports stamped "not valid for travel in Spain" across the Atlantic, through France and ultimately over the mountains into Spain. There, they joined with the international brigades that fought side-by-side with loyalist Spanish forces in brutal battles with fascists who were armed by the Germans and Italians. Though they were outgunned and outnumbered on the battlefield, Kailin and his comrades relished the fight. "I was a member of the Communist party here (in Wisconsin), as many were. We understood the implications of the war in Spain," he explained in an interview years later. "We knew who Hitler was, we knew what fascism was. We knew what anti-Semitism was; I'm Jewish. Here was a chance to go over there and fight back."

John Cookson, a rural Wisconsinite who was Kailin's best friend, died in Spain, as did roughly half of the U.S. volunteers. Kailin was badly wounded in battle but made it home alive. And amid all his other activism, he dedicated himself to recalling the comrades with whom he fought. It was a lonely struggle at first, but over time historians began to reveal the story of the courageous "Lincolns" and their premature antifascism.

By 1999, when hundreds of fans cheered Kailin as he dedicated a monument in downtown Madison park celebrating the Wisconsinites who fought and died in Spain, he was lavished with praise. Madison's mayor issued a proclamation the memorial in James Madison Park. The Wisconsin state Assembly and Senate issued citations. Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, entered a statement in the Congressional Record. A "Citation of Special Recognition" came from the office of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin.

It would have been easy for Kailin to rest on his laurels on that sunny Sunday in 1999. Instead, he reminded everyone that "they shouldn't see this as a memorial to old soldiers. They should see it as a reminder that the struggle we joined in Spain, the struggle for economic and social justice, goes on. We're still a part of it."

That was how Clarence Kailin saw himself, as a part of a movement for economic and social justice that began before his birth and that will extend beyond his death. But what a remarkable part he played.

The great Spanish radical Dolores Ibárruri, La Pasionaria, told the international brigades as they withdrew from Spain late in 1938: "You can go with pride. You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of the solidarity and the universality of democracy."

Those words, uttered more than 70 years ago, when Clarence Kailin was a young idealist fighting fascism in Spain, were the ones he chose to emblazon on the monument to the Wisconsin volunteers of the Lincoln Brigade. They remain his most fitting epitaph.

The Nation

Britain’s shooting community condemns BNP sloppy attitude to firearms rules

The arrest of David Lucas, a Suffolk based farmer and former BNP candidate, on firearms and explosives offences this week elicited an implausible response from Simon Darby, BNP deputy chairman and spokesman.

“I would imagine that it is to do with his capacity as an agricultural rural chap. It is just one of the many things that ordinary rural people have to deal with when you have got a politically motivated police force.”

These words are roundly rejected by representatives of Britain’s shooting community.

”The shooting community in Britain is one of the most law abiding in the world,” said Christopher Graffius, Director of Communications at British Association for Shooting & Conservation. “We have no truck with people who disregard firearms law and thus put themselves and the general public at risk. To complain that unlicensed weapons are common in rural areas is to insult rural people for whom the safe and legal handling of firearms is an important responsibility.”

It is not good enough for a party that aspires to the highest offices in the land to brush off law-breaking by senior figures in its ranks.

Nothing British

Death of leading neo-Nazi set to cripple far-right

One of the driving forces of neo-Nazism in Germany, Jürgen Rieger, has died after suffering a stroke, his far-right National Democratic Party announced on its website Friday morning.

The 63-year-old Hamburg lawyer and NPD deputy chairman had been in a coma since Saturday night, when he suffered a stroke at a meeting of the party’s leadership in Berlin.

He was rushed to hospital, where his condition steadily worsened.

Rieger’s son Harald said the family was considering a cremation or a burial at sea because they did not want his grave to become a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), a government agency that monitors extremists, said Rieger’s death was a serious blow for the far-right movement.

Rieger was a key fund-raiser for the cash-strapped NPD, which was slapped with a €1.27 million fine in May for accounting irregularities.

The BfV’s Lower Saxony president, Günter Heiß, said on Friday that Rieger’s death would leave a hole in the far right scene that could not be quickly filled.

“I don’t see any such prominent personality,” he said. “Rieger was a one-of-a-kind phenomenon in right-wing extremism, because he was hyperactive in many areas. He was on the go, around the clock, on right-wing extremist issues.

“He was unbelievably hard-working.”

Rieger was particularly energetic in attempting to acquire property for far-right activities. He made news in August when he tried to buy an old hotel to convert into a neo-Nazi training centre in Lower Saxony, sparking a tense standoff between right-wing extremists and police.

Rieger was thought to have contributed several hundred thousand euros to far-right causes. But Heiß said it was not clear whether any of his assets, estimated at about €500,000, would be bequeathed to the NPD.

The Local

Police hoping BNP will move festival away from village

Lewis Allsebrook

Derbyshire police say they hope the British National Party will confirm an alternative venue for its annual Red, White and Blue festival.

Speaking after a meeting last night, Superintendent Howard Veigas said the event, held for the past three years in Denby, led to "the same community suffering year after year" from the upheaval it brings to local residents.

Supt Veigas said: "The police do not feel it is a suitable location for the festival. We have great concerns that it is such an imposition and a huge disruption to the local community. But if it has to come back we will have to take on the organisation."

His comments came after BNP councillor Lewis Allsebrook told the meeting at Denby Church of England School, in Church Street, that the party was looking at "two or three alternative locations" for the event. Mr Allsebrook, who represents Heanor West on Amber Valley Borough Council, reiterated that the party may move its festival away from Derbyshire.

He said: "The BNP is looking at alternative sites. The decision would be made at a central level. We came here to listen to what everyone has had to say and we are going to take on board their views."

Around 20 villagers turned up at last night's meeting. Almost all praised the police for the way they handled this year's event, which saw 18 people arrested – four supporters of the BNP and 14 protesters. One man, who did not wish to be named, said: "It was a fantastic job by the police. I felt very secure knowing they were there."

Another resident told the meeting: "I think the police response was absolutely excellent in the way they handled the different interest groups."

Villagers at the meeting, which was organised by the police to seek residents' views on the way the force handled the event, were shown video footage taken from a police helicopter. It showed demonstrators, marshalled by officers and police on horseback, as they marched down Heanor Road to a designated protest point on Codnor-Denby Lane. Police formed a cordon but were pushed back twice as the protesters shoved their way through.

Chief Superintendent Garry Sherwood, Commander for the Constabulary's A Division, which covers Amber Valley, told the meeting: "It reminded me of when I started policing more than 20 years ago – a thin blue line with arms linked."

Derby Telegraph