After a bit of prodding, I’ve received a response from the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) about the recent hosting of the British National Party’s Rev Robert West at Barton in the Beans Baptist Chapel (also known as Barton Fabis Baptist Chapel or Barton Chapel). West’s appearance at this venue was noted on a BNP blog, but specific details were removed after Seismic Shock drew it to wider attention. The FIEC administrator was keen to point out that each church is independent, that the Fellowship does not support any political party, and that it is working to make member churches aware of the dangers posed by political extremists. I was also directed to a related church body called ”Affinity”, of which the FIEC is a member and where further details about the chapel are listed. The specific entry is here; there is no minister listed, just a certain “Mrs C S Meller” given as the administrator. There are apparently regular services, though.
Mrs Meller is Christine Meller, and according to this site she and her husband Derek Meller maintain a museum at the Chapel, which is of historic significance and regarded fondly by British Baptists. There is no evidence that either of these persons support the BNP, but it just so happens that there is also a local BNP councillor named Ian Derek Meller, who is described as a member of the Chapel on the website of the North West Leicestershire District Council.
[Ian] Meller is a former member of the NF who in August 2000 was fined £400 with £55 costs for possessing an offensive weapon – believed to have been a chair leg. When he was arrested Meller was with a 15 strong contingent of NF members led by Mick Shore who was involved in the KKK and who is now also in the BNP. The gang of NF thugs of which Meller was a part were intent on attacking a Gay Pride march in Leicester.
Meller’s supporters claim he was carrying a flagpole.
West, meanwhile, believes that multiracialism is sinful, and that this is the lesson of the story of the Tower of Babel. He also shares Meller’s distaste for homosexuality, and in 2007 his Christian Council of Britain brought Paul Cameron to the UK.
Police in Hull say they are close to winning an extradition battle to bring two men back from America wanted for distributing racist material.
Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle fled the country last summer after been found guilty of numerous race-hate offences. The trial at Leeds Crown Court came after Sheppard's flat in the Avenues area of the city was raided in 2005. But now, as a judge is set to sentence them in their absence on Monday, Special Branch officers believe they are closer than ever to getting the pair back into the country to face justice.
Adil Kahn, head of diversity and community cohesion for Humberside Police, said: "I think it is a question of when not if for their return to the UK. This has been a lengthy operation, but will on Monday, if the judge decides to sentence them in their absence, be closer to conclusion. The US authorities have been great, but we have had to go through the due process. Sheppard and Whittle will be here to face justice for their victims and for the hard work of all the officers involved in this case."
Sheppard, 51, was found guilty of 16 race hate crimes, 11 in July 2008 and five in January 09. Whittle, 41, was found guilty of five race hate crimes in July 2008.
Sheppard, who boasts on his website about being banned from every library in Hull, was convicted for a series of charges relating to publishing racially inflammatory material, distributing racially inflammatory material or possessing racially inflammatory material with a view to distribution under the Public Order Act 1986. He had been responsible for a website containing anti-semetic views. He also published and distributed a leaflet likening notorious Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz to a holiday resort.
The investigation began when a complaint about a leaflet called Tales Of The Holohoax was reported to police in 2004 after being pushed through the door of a Blackpool synagogue. It was traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard. A lengthy police operation took place, with several forces across the country working together.
The pair, who have began calling themselves the Heretical Two, after the racist website Sheppard presided over, disappeared to Ireland, then flew to Los Angeles International Airport and surrendered to officials claiming political asylum. They are currently being held under the Department of Homeland Security at Santa Ana Jail.
On Tuesday a court hearing took place in the US with Sheppard and Whittle addressing the judge. Her Honour Judge Rose Peters reserved judgement which will be handed down in writing.
Sonia Gable investigates the BNP’s latest scam to get money out of its supporters
The fifth begging letter from the British National Party this year shows that the party may have reached the limit of its members’ and supporters’ financial resources and is resorting to yet more lies to fill its coffers.
The letter, printed on garish yellow paper and sent in the second week of March, was a second attempt to raise money for the party’s “Rapid Expansion Plan”. The party was “struggling due to unprecedented growth”, according to the first appeal sent out at the end of February. So many people were “flocking to the BNP” that “we cannot cope”. So “I need you to support the party’s ‘Rapid Expansion Plan’NOW”, demanded Nick Griffin, the party leader, followed by three exclamation marks.
The BNP needed to win a seat in the European election but it also had to have a “telecommunications system” and a “central administration office to deal with the current huge increase in enquiries, party membership and organisational growth” and the “40,000 – 75,000” enquiries and membership applications that would result from the distribution of “over 30 million leaflets across the UK” over the next six months.
On and on the six-page letter went, bandying about the word “professional” and claiming that £85,150 was needed to cope with a projected 400% growth in the party’s “database” in the next six months.
And the money was needed quickly: Griffin needed “to put the orders in next week”. There was even a marketing brochure for the “professional communications system for medium-sized enterprises” that Griffin said he wanted to buy for £28,650, though nothing about how the BNP’s largely incompetent staff would ever learn how to use it.
Clearly the money was not forthcoming, not in a week or even three. And the problem would not go away. In fact between the February and March letters “we have become even more popular”, Griffin claimed, because of the party’s “massive victory in the Swanley council election”. Only a party with so few councillors could trumpet a single council by-election win as a massive national victory.
Griffin’s marketing consultant, Jim Dowson, must have advised him that outlining the political need for the desired equipment was all very well, but the appeal might work better if supporters thought they were getting a bargain and at the same time benefiting party members. “Normally, the set up costs for what we are doing would cost over £200,000,” the March letter said, “but by using companies owned by members and supporters we have cut the cost down to £85,150”.
The brochure that came with the February letter had one strange omission, the name of the company that was offering the “HiPath 3000” system the BNP wanted to buy. A search readily revealed a five-year-old brochure with an identical front page, except for the inclusion of the company’s name and website. The company was Siemens, the Germany-based global conglomerate operating in IT, communications, energy and many other industries. It was hardly a company owned by a BNP member.
A spokesperson for Siemens Enterprise Communications, which makes the HiPath system, said the company was completely unaware of the BNP’s use of its graphics in its campaign. The system was normally sold to customers through resellers, who would use Siemens’s product information in their own branded brochures. However resellers would not lift Siemens’s images and design in this way and would certainly not produce a brochure without their own name on it.
She also thought it strange that anyone would issue a brochure produced in 2004 for an old version of the communications system that is no longer sold.
So what is going on? Is Griffin afraid to admit that he wants to spend his members’ donations on a product from a German-owned company? Or is the brochure just window dressing, the supplier’s name omitted to make it easier for Griffin to fob members off with some second-hand second-rate equipment bought from Dowson or his ilk, just like the BNP’s “truth truck”, better known as the lie lorry.
Perhaps it is simply that the BNP is worried that any publicity will scare the reseller off. After all, nobody respectable wants to be seen doing business with the BNP.
Fed up
Even before the latest letter, BNP members and supporters were getting thoroughly fed up with the stream of letters from Griffin asking for donations to support this, that or other aspect of the BNP’s “growth” and its European election effort.
The year had barely started when Griffin’s “new year address” landed on hard-pressed supporters’ doormats, with a plea to contribute to the party’s “People’s Defence Fund”. The fund had been set up following the publication on the internet of the BNP members’ list last November, with the aim of raising money to “employ legal experts to defend those of our people suffering hardship, discrimination and persecution in their employment for being members of this party”.
The People’s Defence Fund also had a wider political purpose: to “give a bloody nose to all those little press creeps and the Lab/Tory/Lib Dem sycophants who have built careers on the back of attacking the BNP and our long-suffering people”.
The new year address followed six appeals in 2008 for the “Building to Grow fund”, the London election campaign, to buy the “truth truck” and to publish and distribute the outrageously racist Racism Cuts Both Ways pamphlet. Griffin claimed that all these appeals achieved “amazing results”.
Confident that his members and supporters had bottomless purses or a moronic level of financial acumen, Griffin did not even wait until January was out to launch the party’s appeal for funds to fight the European election. Headed “The Battle for Britain Commences”, it waxed lyrical on how winning “just one” seat in the European Parliament “would put us on the world stage and would lead to an avalanche of popular support throughout this country”.
Controversially a leaflet enclosed with the letter adopted the image of an RAF Spitfire, now revealed to be one flown by the celebrated 303 Squadron of the RAF, made up of Polish airmen rescued from France shortly before the Nazi occupation. The BNP has continued to use the image on its fundraising material in the face of ridicule and accusations of hypocrisy.
The leaflet invited supporters to attend the party’s “2009 European election campaign nationwide roadshow”, which promised “multi-media sound and vision”, speeches from “Chairman Nick Griffin and invited European mystery guest” as well as champagne reception, entertainment and light supper, all at a cost of £30. “I guarantee you will never have seen anything like this,” wrote Griffin.
The reality turned out a bit different. The European mystery guest never showed up and the “roadshow” encountered opposition from local people and last-minute venue cancellations wherever it went.
Hot on the heels of that exuberantly written appeal, full of bold text, underlining and italics, came a more personal and undated letter from Griffin asking supporters to make a standing order of “just £3.00 a week” to “save this country from destruction before it’s too late”.
It was recognition of how our HOPE not hate campaigning was hurting the BNP. “The Labour Party, the liberal media and a whole host of leftist fanatics, led by Searchlight, have now become so concerned about our success, that the latter has employed the services of the WORLD’S TOP campaigning team to prevent us from winning,” wrote Griffin. “Blue State Digital. They’re the team that co-ordinated Barack Obama’s campaign for the White House!
“Your £3 per week can help send Obama’s boys back to Washington with their tails between their legs,” claimed Griffin, after condemning them for being American. Griffin’s own longstanding connections with American nazis are of course quite different.
Those who have responded to these appeals may be regretting it. In January Mark Collett, the BNP’s head of publicity, had to admit responsibility for printing 700,000 “Euro warm up leaflets” without an official imprint, which meant they could not be distributed. We understand that dozens of BNP activists who could have been out canvassing are spending many hours peeling off thousands of tiny stickers to place on the leaflets as straight as they can manage.
The “HiPath 3000” brochure distributed by the BNP likewise has no imprint. Did Collett print that too, in bid to con BNP members into coughing up for their party once more?
·Since Searchlight went to press, the BNP has sent another begging letter, the sixth this year. This one purports to be the “Official Launch 2009 European Election Campaign Fund” – implying that all the fundraising to date, including the Battle for Britain tour, was in some way not official. It also claims that the “Rapid Expansion Plan” appeal succeeded in raising the required £85,000.
The extremist British National Party (BNP) is to launch an advertising campaign featuring Jesus Christ.
The Far Right party will use the advert which features a bible verse quoting Jesus' words about persecution, in the run up to the European Elections in June.
It comes after the Church of England passed a resolution at its General Synod last month banning clergy from being members of the party.
The advert features a picture of Jesus Christ on the cross and quotes a part of a verse from John's Gospel (John 15:20) in which Jesus says: "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you". The verse comes in the context of Jesus' teaching about love.
The advert then asks: "What would Jesus do?".
The thinktank Ekklesia has monitored attempts by the BNP since 2003 to present itself as a ‘Christian Party’. It has also warned that misleading stories about ‘Christian persecution’ in the UK, as well as appeals by church leaders to recover the idea of 'Christian Britain', have played into the Far Right’s hands.
In recent years the BNP has used religious rhetoric with increasing frequency. In recent local elections, the party's literature included copies of the controversial Mohammed cartoons. It also helped establish a 'Christian Council of Britain'.
The goal is to appeal to those in the population who identify with Christianity, but feel panicked both by 'liberal secularism' and the growth of Islam.
An analysis of the BNP membership list by the thinktank Ekklesia highlighted a number of members who were identified as Christian, taking part in Bible studies, running Christian businesses including bookshops or who were active in their churches.
In an email sent yesterday to BNP supporters, BNP leader Nick Griffin said: “The British National Party is the only political party which genuinely supports Britain's Christian heritage. It is the only party which will defend our ancient faith and nation from the threat of Islamification.
“What has become of the Christian church in this country? Instead of inclusively ‘embracing all’ which the church claims is its basis, certain groups within that body have banned people from their ranks simply because of their membership in the British National Party.
“Surely if God calls a man to his service, no church has the right to contradict HIS holy will! For many years, the churches in this country scrupulously avoided being politically biased. Nowadays however we see a small number of clerics and bishops openly preaching hatred towards the BNP.
“Church leaders actively shun the word of God on issues like sodomy, abortion and social justice.
“With this in mind I invite you to preview our European election billboard (pictured right) aimed at attracting even more Christian voters.
“Jesus was viewed as a revolutionary figure, hated and hounded to death, not by 'evil men' but by the corrupt hypocrites who ran the church. Has nothing changed in two thousand years?
“On June 4th, the leaders of Britain's churches will find out that millions of good decent people support the British National Party.
“It's not racist to support British jobs for British workers or to be opposed to militant Islam, it's just common sense and in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
But Jonathan Bartley, co-director of the thinktank Ekklesia said: “This is clearly a gross misrepresentation of both Jesus Christ and Christianity. Jesus was completely opposed to bigotry. He is recorded in the Gospels as challenging those who didn’t welcome foreigners - not as working for their exclusion.
“But the church must critically reflect on how it is aiding the Far Right. Leading figures within the Church of England have become far more vocal recently in their calls to ‘stem the tide of secularism’, and to defend the predominant 'Christian culture' of Britain. The uncomfortable fact is that this puts the Church into the position of arguing the same political point about national identity as the BNP.
“Of course the rationales of these messages are very different. The agenda behind the BNP's claims is essentially a cultural one - partly in opposition to an alleged liberal elite, and partly in an attempt to whip up fear of minority faiths. In contrast, few would question the commitment of the Church of England to combating racism. But the time has come to face the fact that when it uses 'Christian nation' rhetoric, it risks encouraging support for right-wing extremists.
“Church figures should also exercise caution in their uncritical backing for high-profile cases of ‘Christian persecution’ which have featured most prominently in the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. These stories have often been misreported, but used nevertheless by church leaders as examples of a wider move of discrimination against Christians. This is creating a victim mentality which will only serve to drive people into the BNP’s hands.
“But the latest advert from the BNP which quotes Jesus Christ should be seen by the church as an opportunity for a new approach. Instead of adopting a defensive stance which pleases those seeking to make political capital out of civic 'de-Christianization', the Church should refocus on the vocation of Jesus, who clearly challenged bigotry in all its forms. Whilst 'Christian nation' rhetoric will only create more BNP support, a focus on Jesus Christ will undermine the party's ideology completely.”
French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen told the European Parliament on Wednesday that the Nazi gas chambers were a "detail" of World War Two, a view which has already landed him in legal trouble.
As the oldest member of the parliament, the 81-year-old head of the National Front party would, if re-elected, preside over its inaugural session after this June's election.
"I limited myself to say that the gas chambers were a detail of history of World War Two, which is obvious," he said to boos and whistles from his colleagues.
Le Pen, who stunned France in the 2002 presidential election when he finished second, was charged over similar remarks made on French television in 1987 and then in Munich in 1997. In both cases he was fined for breaking French anti-racism laws.
In the 2007 presidential election, Le Pen only finished fourth. He has said he will not run for president again.
A Mass card like this depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary was sent to IrishCentral.com along with hate literature from a neo-Nazi group and the Real IRA
Hate groups find common ground
The letter has been widely distributed in the Irish community in America. I got mine today.
It came from the National Alliance, a notorious Nazi hate group with an address in Hillsboro , West Virginia .
Spilling out of the envelope was a picture of theBlessed Virgin , a plea to stop America turning into a Third World slum of "non-Whites," and a leaflet calling on me to support the Real IRA and the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, often referred to as the political wing of the Real IRA.
That the contents of one envelope could contain hateful propaganda from both the Real IRA and the National Alliance raises the startling possibility that these evil groups are now marching in lock-step.
The Real IRA claimed responsibility for the recent killing of two British soldiers in Northern Ireland , as well as wounding several others including a Polish born pizza delivery worker.
There is also a quote from dead IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands on the leaflet, and a photograph of a man armed with an armalite rifle ready to shoot. The words “RIRA#1” are written under the Sands quote.
The 32 County Sovereignty movement Web site address is also given under the Real IRA slogan.
On the back of the Virgin Mary portrait is a Prayer of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and a brief line: “resistance.com” That is the website of a neo-Nazi magazine and video and record label.
The letter is the work of people in the National Alliance, described by the Anti-Defamation League as, until recently, “the largest and most active Neo Nazi organization in America.” That is quite a claim, given that there are a documented 962 neo-Nazi groups in America at present.
The Real IRA was created after a split with Sinn Fein over the Northern Ireland peace process in 1997. They carried out the infamous Omagh bombing in 1998 where 30 innocent civilians were killed.
The National Alliance sticker I received stated “National Non-Whites are turning America into a Third World slum. Let’s send them home now!"
On their Web site their latest video intro states:
“Even if White culture is transmitted to future non-White populations, the racial stock capable of building on it will no longer exist. White culture will probably not be transmitted, but if it is, such a transmission is casting pearls before swine.”
Seems to me like the Real IRA should be looking hard at themselves, as should the 32 County Sovereignty Movement. With friends like these Nazis, perhaps they ought to start looking for the swastika within.
THREE teenage boys who scared to death a sailor have this afternoon been jailed for a total of more than 19 years.
Chay Fields, Stephen Pritchard and Daniel Rogers had attacked Indian sailor Gregory Fernandes "like a pack of dogs" minutes before he collapsed and died, Winchester Crown Court heard.
A terrified Mr Fernandes, 32, and his friend Vinod Pithilnaviram, 29, had been chased, punched and kicked by the young mob in Fawley whilst on shore leave from their ship.
Mr Fernandes had been rescued by a passer-by Jody Miles and driven back to the port gate before he collapsed as he tried to sign in.
The judge, Mr Justice Royce, jailed Fields, 16, Rogers, 18, and Pritchard, 18, to six and a half years each. All three had pleaded guilty to manslaughter during a hearing last month as well as a further charge of GBH on Mr Vinod.
A fourth teenager, now aged 15, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced to a 12-month detention and training order. He admitted GBH against Mr Vinod.
A fifth boy, aged 15, who also cannot be identified, was given a non-custodial 18-month supervision order.
He had admitted causing actual bodily harm against Mr Vinod.
Mr Justice Royce ordered that £250 be released from public funds for Mr Miles as a token recognition of his bravery.
Anti-fascists wishing to greet the BNP's Battle of Britain Road fund-raising event can meet up at 6.30 pm Monday 23rd March outside the Laindon West Community Centre on Hoover Drive Laindon Essex.
All people wishing to make a peaceful protest against Nick Griffin and his traveling circus are welcome to pop along.
A likely number is 01268 544231 if you would like to ring up and ask politely if British Heritage (a fake name frequently used by the BNP) is meeting there.
A man who regularly stands in elections for the British National Party has boasted about his disregard for “rules and regulations” controlling the use of firearms in the UK.
Steve Fyfe is standing in a council by-election on 26 March, his fourth attempt to get elected to North East Lincolnshire Council. He also contested the last general election for the BNP in Grimsby, where he lives, and was third on the BNP’s list of candidates for Lothian region in the election for the Scottish Parliament in 2007, when the party rounded up anyone in the UK with a Scottish-sounding name to stand, in the absence of more than a handful of supporters in Scotland itself.
Clearly a valued activist, the 34-year-old is also the BNP’s Grimsby organiser and has been a BNP member for seven years. But his numerous postings on internet forums also reveal an unhealthy obsession with guns and contain hints that not everything he owns is legal.
After the Dunblane massacre in 1996, firearms legislation in the UK was tightened up and no member of the public can now own handguns or ammunition for them. Fyfe claims to have a shotgun licence, which enables him to own shotguns with a magazine capacity of no more than two shots. He also says he received a firearms certificate in March 2006, which permits him to own rifles, shotguns with a magazine capacity greater than two and certain types of airguns. He claims to own around £6,000 worth of legally held weapons and to be secretary of a gun club.
A firearms certificate is only granted to people whom the police consider fit to be entrusted with firearms without danger to public safety or to the peace. They must have a record of active membership of a target shooting club or permission to shoot over land.
The certificate imposes severe restrictions on the use of the weapons. In particular a certificate holder cannot permit other people to handle the guns unless they have their own certificate to cover them.
Yet on 11 August 2008 Fyfe, posting as sidneysausage, wrote on a gun trading forum: “However, I don’t do rules and regulations if there is absolutely no point in it whatsoever. If some of my friends want to ‘have a go’ they will bloody well ‘have a go’. Personally, I'll take my friends out to the field where I shoot, somwhere [sic] out of view, with a nice, big backstop, up to 300m away and they can use as many rounds as they care to fire. Who the hell are the police to suggest they might know my friend I’ve known for more than fifteen years better than me?”
On the same day he also boasted: “I have a Long Barrel Revolver”. On 9 January this year he declared: “I'd still prefer my .44 LBR and be able to use cartridges with my nitro”.
Fyfe, who works as a chemical process supervisor in the chemical industry, also has an interest in explosives and their illegal use. On 27 May 2008 he wrote: “I’ve a big box of fireworks in my attic, just waiting for the day when some muslim extremists fly a plane into westminster”.
While it is not surprising that Fyfe’s obsessions and desires do not make him unsuitable to be a BNP candidate, the same cannot be said about his membership of the Territorial Army, in which he serves with the 3rd Royal Anglian Regiment. His postings contain hints that he might be abstracting items from his TA unit.
For example on 21 July 2007 he wrote: “The new 30 round H&K mags for the SA80 work really nice in mine. I have ‘aquired’ [sic] one or two. However, if you aren’t in the TA/Army/Navy/Air Force, you can find one or two floating round on ebay.”
Fyfe claims to like extreme and outdoor sports. One of them appears to be driving at dangerous speeds. A long post in January 2006 described how he was caught driving his Subaru Impreza at over 140 miles per hour. Concerned that a conviction and almost certain driving ban would cost him his firearms and shotgun certificates, he said he was hiring Nick Freeman, the specialist motoring lawyer known as Mr Loophole, to get him off.
It is unclear whether Fyfe is a fantasist or whether he really owns restricted weapons and breaks the terms of his firearms certificate. Either way, he is clearly unsuitable for service in the Territorial Army or to be in possession of any lethal weapon.
He may see himself as a Rambo figure, but the reality is different. Writing on 21 November last year about British forces serving in Iraq he explained: “I described the chaps who went as ‘silly Bastards’ because they did not go out of any sense of justice, belief, national pride, or even camaraderie”.
The BNP's propensity for weapons as evidenced by its gun camp for kids
High-powered magnum handguns, almost identical to those used by Thomas Hamilton, the Dunblane child-murderer, are being legally kept and used by firearms enthusiasts.
They are able to procure the weapons and ammunition, both of which they are allowed to keep at home, by exploiting loopholes in laws brought in to ban such guns after the massacre at a primary school in the Perthshire town 13 years ago.
Hamilton, who shot dead 16 children and one teacher before killing himself, used two 9mm semi-automatic handguns and two .357 magnum revolvers manufactured by Smith & Wesson. After the massacre, legislation was tightened with a view to outlawing all such weapons.
However, guns almost identical to the .357 Smith & Wessons, and even larger calibre handguns such as .44 and .45, are easily available to British enthusiasts who possess a Section 1 firearms certificate, which police usually issue without objection to applicants without a significant criminal record.
To circumvent the legislation, the guns are equipped with longer barrels and wire stocks at the back which together extend their length to 2ft. Only “short” firearms are banned. Another loophole is for the barrel of the .357 to be kept short and the six-shot cylinder adapted to take “front-loading” bullets. Although the guns take longer to reload, they are in most other respects identical to Hamilton’s.
Both types of gun derive from a .357 made by Taurus which is almost identical to a Smith & Wesson. They are readily obtainable in the UK at prices starting at about £500.
Confusion among police forces about how to interpret the law has turned the issuing of firearms licences into a “lottery”, campaigners claim.
Those who have kept up their interest in guns since the ban include Stephen Fyfe, who is standing for the British National party at a by-election for North East Lincolnshire council this Thursday. Fyfe, 34, owns six guns including a seven-shot pump-action shotgun and a long-barrelled .44 handgun. He said that bearing arms was a “right”, adding: “Guns are one of the reasons I am standing for election. I take deep offence at being assumed to be a psycho just because of what someone else has done.”
Gerry Gable, publisher of Searchlight, the antifascist magazine, and a former gun hobbyist who turned in his weapons when the law was changed, said: “I have watched as obsessive single men and boys with access to guns and who play around in the hate-filled atmosphere of the extreme right have sparked dozens of firearms incidents across the western world since Dunblane. If I was the home secretary I would be very worried indeed.”
A former SS man alleged to have taken part in the extermination of 8,000 Jews in one day has been freed by Austria, a day after being extradited from the US.
The Austrian justice ministry said the former guard, 83-year-old Josias Kumpf, could not be put on trial because the statute of limitations had expired.
The US says he acted in the killing and burial in pits of Jewish interns at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
He left Austria in 1956 to settle in the US, and became a citizen in 1964.
The US justice department sued to strip Mr Kumpf, who lived in Wisconsin, of his citizenship in 2003.
Austrian justice ministry spokeswoman Katharina Swoboda said Vienna had warned the US that Mr Kumpf would not be prosecuted in Austria because the statute of limitations relating to his crimes had expired in 1965.
"We have always pointed out to the United States that he cannot be charged here with the crimes of which he is accused," she said.
'Orders to shoot'
The justice ministry also said Mr Kumpf had been a teenager at the time of the alleged offences and had never been an Austrian citizen.
The opposition Greens have called on the government to amend the law to allow for the prosecution of alleged Nazi war criminals regardless of the time elapsed.
The US justice department said on Thursday that Mr Kumpf had admitted that he stood guard over a pit where prisoners were being gunned down and "finished off" the wounded.
Mr Kumpf was found to have served as a guard at Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany and Trawniki in Nazi-occupied Poland, where the mass shooting took place in 1943.
His assignment had been to watch for victims who were still "halfway alive" or "convulsing" and prevent their escape, the US justice department said.
There was no immediate comment from Mr Kumpf or his lawyer, Peter Rogers. They have in the past denied that Mr Kumpf had a role in any atrocities.
Bigotry and xenophobia are rife in modern Italy, says Andrea Mammone – and the problem goes all the way to the top of politics
EMMANUEL is a young student from Ghana. In September 2008, he was arrested because the city police of Parma in northern Italy mistook him for a drug dealer. The only thing the police regarded as evidence – circumstantial or otherwise – appeared to be his skin colour. Both Emmanuel and the actual dealer were black. Emmanuel was then beaten in custody and humiliated. When he was finally released, the police gave him an envelope containing his documents. Written on the envelope were the words: “Emmanuel negro”. Ten policemen are currently under investigation over the shocking treatment of Emmanuel and four have already been arrested.
In an earlier incident, officers of the same Parma city police force arrested a Nigerian prostitute and left her in jail, dirty and on the floor. All this was documented by the media.
Italy is not an isolated case and, in the present financial crisis, people on both sides of the Atlantic face new challenges and are having to confront old fears. On June 4 last year, the International Herald Tribune reported that the United States was facing “a great immigration panic”. Acknowledging that some anxieties are linked with national identities and the fear of losing them, the newspaper stressed the key point as “the sense of who we are and what we value”. So how are we to preserve common values in a globalised world when national boundaries are breaking down, national identities are changing and people are fearful of losing them?
The response of right-wing ultra-nationalists is hardly sophisticated. But there is a horrifying clarity in their crude and poisonous pronouncements. Contemporary extremists, along with some other ultra-conservatives, allude to fascistic imagery to promote the rejection of foreigners, incomers or just anyone who seems different in order to preserve the notion of indigenous races.
Italy is a particularly notable and unavoidable example of this unhappy trend. It has become a bizarre nation. Prominent neo-fascist Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of Il Duce, and the would-be “post-fascists” of the National Alliance are working with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling conservative coalition. Berlusconi’s other key ally in government is the reactionary and ethno-regionalist Northern League. This powerful organisation proposes xenophobic responses to the “immigration problem” – the latest of which is a paradoxical “integration” of immigrant pupils through an apartheid-like segregation in state schools. This would mean the creation of separate classes for immigrant children with early – but normal and perfectly surmountable – difficulties with the Italian language.
No one should be surprised by any of this. When the United States was considering the possibility of electing its first non-white President, the Italian government was more interested in plans to use the army to fingerprint gypsies (including children) living in camps. It was also contemplating one of the strictest immigration laws in Europe with all illegal migrants facing the risk of a prison sentence.
Both the European Union and the Roman Catholic Church have warned against such virulent anti-immigrant policies. Unfortunately, many in the academic and intellectual milieu have remained silent. The only notable conference on Italian racism was organised – in English – by the American University of Rome.
While Barack Obama’s election as President of the United States was widely celebrated, including throughout Europe, some in Italy struck a discordant note. Maurizio Gasparri, a leading National Alliance politician, declared that: “With Obama in the White House, al Qaida is probably happier.”
Prime Minister Berlusconi attempted and failed to find humour, describing America’s first black President as “young, handsome and suntanned”. Many on the left and in the media were far too reticent in condemning this pathetic wisecrack as a throwback to old colonialist behaviour and hardly disguised xenophobia.
What is happening in Italy should concern everyone in Europe of a liberal and tolerant disposition. Italians were once the targets of racism. They were celebrated for their easy-going approach. Now statements from the likes of Berlusconi and Gasparri are symptomatic of all-too prevalent attitudes toward the “different” and the “other” in Italian society.
This leads to questions of people’s sense of belonging, the place of migrants in multicultural societies and the moral responsibility of the West for developing countries that have been exploited for centuries. These issues are linked with the extent to which anti-immigration discourses and biological or cultural forms of racism have been legitimised in some countries more than in others. Italy may be a prime instance of where these unhappy developments are unfolding, but it is not the only one.
There are instances of “ethnic competition” in many different countries – including Britain, with the recent protest against Italian workers in Grimsby. The growth of the British National Party shows that this country is also afflicted by racism and the fallout from economic chaos. And Britain has seen its own ethnic competition for jobs: indigenous workers against poorer migrants prepared to work for less.
And to be fair, the politicisation of immigration in Italy began later than in other European countries. Politicians only started to portray immigration as a national problem and area of conflict in 1989-1991. The role of the Northern League was significant here. Ideologically, anti-immigrant policies are founded on doctrines of exclusion and discrimination which are promoted by dominant political forces. A focus on immigration encourages the distraction of public opinion from an economy in serious trouble, and politics and society in general in crisis.
In Italy, crimes committed by immigrants can be discussed for weeks. Yet in May 2008, some neo-fascists in Verona murdered an Italian because he refused to give them a cigarette. This story disappeared from most newspapers after no more than a few days. Il Giornale, a daily newspaper which supports Berlusconi, even disputed that those arrested belonged to the far right.
So it is not just a matter of race. This case illustrates how the whole political climate in Italy has been changed by the electoral victory of Berlusconi and his allies on the far right.
The night before Obama’s capture of the White House, a group of young neo-fascists burst into the Rome headquarters of the RAI, the Italian public television station, to threaten journalists who had reported on violent attacks by neo-fascist thugs on high school students demonstrating against the government’s education policy.
This attack on democracy was hardly censured by anyone in Berlusconi’s coalition. In fact, the Prime Minister did not seem to have a word to say on the subject.
Can anyone imagine a group of yobs launching an assault on the BBC to protest against one of its programmes and politicians excusing their commando-style raid as “a childish act”?
So what’s next for Italy? The answer is probably the official sanction of the proposed – and in some cases already operating – citizens’ squads to “protect” local communities from acts of criminality and to deter illegal migrants.
This establishment of such groups might seem strange in a country that was terrorised by fascist squadrismo under Mussolini’s dictatorship and was liberated by outsiders – in this case, Anglo-American troops. But we should remember that there are still Italians who believe Mussolini’s only mistake was to make an alliance with Nazism. There are those in the current government who would like to see a revision of national history and a humanisation of Mussolini’s regime.
Berlusconi recently declared that he was not interested in anti-fascism per se, because he had much more important issues to address. And when the new mayor of Rome from the National Alliance was greeted with some fascist salutes after his election, not many on the right thought this merited criticism.
In such a climate, with mainstream politicians apparently unwilling or unable to stand up to racist violence and xenophobia, and some even prepared to justify these reprehensible acts, it is hardly surprising that right-wing extremists are not afraid or embarrassed to show their true, violent faces and broadcast their bigoted rubbish.
We might ask when Italy will be ready for its first black Prime Minister. Or should it merely hope for a suntanned one? And when will there be a non-white head of state in another of the so-called advanced European countries?
Andrea Mammone is a research fellow at the University of Leeds and author of Italian Neo-Fascism from 1943 to the Present Day
More than 14 percent of German teenagers in a recent survey said Jews must have deserved to be persecuted in the Holocaust.
The survey, which was conducted by the Hanover-based Criminal Research Institute, polled 44,610 German students and was called "Youth as Victims and Perpetrators of Violence," also found that about one in every 20 German teenage boys belongs to a far-right group. The survey found that far more German boys aged 15 belong to extremists groups than to mainstream political youth clubs. In some towns or cities, membership in far-right groups is as high as 10 percent, while in others it is virtually non-existent.
Among boys of German background, 7 percent in former East German states showed clear signs of anti-Semitism and xenophobia, as opposed to 3 percent in western states. The institute's director, Christian Pfeiffer suggested this might be due to the decades of anti-Israel propaganda promoted in the former Communist East Germany.
In all questions related to far-right identification and anti-Semitism, "boys are far above the girls," Pfeiffer noted, adding that in general, the survey also found that girls who joined far-right groups usually were following a boyfriend.
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the survey made clear that more funding is needed for youth sports clubs in trouble spots around the country.
Juliane Wetzel, an expert on educational programs at the Berlin-based Center for Research on Anti-Semitism, said, "It is important to get to these youngsters who feel there is nothing else out there for them."
THE Bishop of Bolton has signed a pledge urging people not to vote for the far-right British National Party in the European elections.
Bishop Chris Edmondson was among religious leaders from all denominations and faith groups to sign the Hope Not Hate coalition, organised by Searchlight, the international anti-fascism group.
The coalition is presenting a united front ahead of the European elections on June 4, in which BNP leader Nick Griffin is standing in the North West.
Mr Edmondson said: “The message is Hope Not Hate and is encouraging people to use their vote for the mainstream parties which have policies for all sections of the community.
“A lot of hard work is being done to promote community cohesion and we would be concerned by any group, such as the BNP, seeking to undermine that work.”
After carrying the dictator's torch for 60 years, the far-right National Alliance is to merge with Silvio Berlusconi's party. So is this the end of fascism in Italy? Quite the reverse. Peter Popham reports
The flames are going out all over Italy. Tomorrow, the flame which for more than 60 years has been the symbol of neo-Fascist continuity with Mussolini, will disappear from mainstream politics. The National Alliance, the last important home of that inheritance, is "fusing" with Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party to give the governing bloc a single identity and a single unchallenged leader.
The change has been a long time coming – 15 years and more. Mr Berlusconi broke the great taboo of Italian post-war politics after he won his first general election victory in 1994 and incorporating four members of the National Alliance into his coalition.
Embracing the Fascists and neo-Fascists was taboo for good reason. For one thing, their return after they had led the nation to ruin in the war was banned by the new Constitution, whose Article 139 states, "the re-organisation, under whatever form, of the dissolved Fascist party, is forbidden."
That veto had been honoured in the breach rather than the observance since 1946, when Giorgio Almirante, the leader of the Italian Social Movement, picked up the baton of Mussolini where he had left it at his death and led the new party into parliament. But the neo-Fascists remained in parliamentary limbo, far from power. Berlusconi blew that inhibition away.
Under the wily leadership of Gianfranco Fini the "post-Fascists" have been gaining ground since. Tall, bespectacled, buttoned up, the opposite of Berlusconi in every way, the Alliance's leader impressed the Eurocrats with his democratic credentials when he was brought in to lend a hand at drafting the EU's new Constitution.
He leaned over backwards to break his party's connection to anti-Semitism, paying repeated official visits to Israel where he was photographed in a skull cap at the Wailing Wall. On one visit, in 2003, he went so far as to condemn Mussolini and the race laws passed in 1938 which barred Jews from school and resulted in thousands being deported to the death camps.
"I've certainly changed my ideas about Mussolini," he said at the time. "And to condemn [the race laws] means to take responsibility for them." Statesmanlike: the word stuck to him like lint. Party hardliners such as Alessandra Mussolini, the glamorous granddaughter of Il Duce, were furious and split away to form fascist micro-parties of their own. But Mr Fini's strategy prevailed. Under Mr Berlusconi's patronage, he became foreign minister then deputy prime minister and now speaker of the lower house, a more prestigious job than its British equivalent. As Berlusconi's unquestioned number two in the new "fused" party, he is also his heir-apparent.
The puri e duri, the hardcore fascist elements, have been gritting their teeth and screaming defiance. One group wanted to stage a ceremony to mark the extinguishing of the flame at the "Altar of the Nation", the wedding cake-like symbol of Italy that towers over Piazza Venezia in Rome. The city's mayor, ironically himself a lifelong "post-Fascist", banned it.
But the puri e duri will not give up. "The National Alliance dies, the Right lives!" declares a flyer scattered about by one of the hard-right parties, whose symbol sports an oversized flame.
"Today, with the betrayal of our ideas, of our story and our identity," roars one of their leaders, Teodoro Buontempo, the national president of The Right party, "we have the duty to make clearer than ever that our party was born to assure the continuity of our ideals ... [Join us] to scream your indignation against a ruling class of trimmers and nobodies."
Black Bands, an investigative book into the hard right by Paolo Berizzi published in Italy this week, claims "at least 150,000 young Italians under 30 live within the cults of Fascism and neo-Fascism. And not all but many in the myth of Hitler." Five tiny registered parties account for 1.8 per cent of the national vote, between 450,000 and 480,000 voters. These are significant numbers, yet even combined they are not nearly enough to reach the 4 per cent threshold to break into parliament.
By this reading, the Fascist element in Italy is no more significant than the BNP in Britain: an embarrassing irritant that can make noise and win insignificant victories, but nothing more.
Despite the claims of the loony right to the contrary, the going out of the Fascist flame does not mean Fascist ideas have disappeared from the Italian political scene. Quite the reverse. Fifteen years after Mr Berlusconi brought the neo-Fascists in from the cold, their impact on politics has never been more striking, never more disturbing.
According to Christopher Duggan, the British author of Force of Destiny, an acclaimed history of modern Italy, the fusion of the two parties does not mark the disappearance of Fascist ideas and practices but rather their triumphant insinuation. "This is an alarming situation in many, many ways," he says.
"The fusion of the parties signifies the absorption of the ideas of the post-Fascists into Berlusconi's party ... the tendency to see no moral and ultimately no political distinction between those who supported the Fascist regime and those who supported the Resistance. So the fact that Fascism was belligerent, racist and illiberal gets forgotten; there is a quiet chorus of public opinion saying that Fascism was not so bad."
One example of the way things are changing is the treatment of the veterans of the Republic of Salo, the puppet Fascist state ruled by Mussolini on the shores of Lake Garda in the last phase of the war. Under the thumb of Hitler and responsible for dispatching Jews to the death camps, Salo was seen by Italians after the war as the darkest chapter in the nation's modern history.
But steadily and quietly it has been rehabilitated in the Italian memory. The latest step, before parliament, is the creation of a new military order, the Cavaliere di Tricolore, which can be awarded to people who fought for at least six months during the war – either with the Partisans against the "Nazi-Fascists", with the forces of the Republic of Salo on behalf of the Nazis and against the Partisans, or with the forces in the south under General Badoglio.
In this way, says Duggan, the idea of moral interchangeability is smuggled into the national discourse, treating the soldiers fighting for the puppet Nazi statelet "on an equal footing morally and politically with the Partisans".
Duggan contrasts the post-war process in Italy with that in Germany, where the Nuremberg trials and the purge of public life supervised by the Allies produced a new political landscape. Nothing of the sort happened in Italy.
"There was never a clear public watershed between the experience of Fascism and what happened afterwards. It's partly the fault of the Allies, who after the war were much more concerned with preventing the Communists from coming to power.
"As a result very senior figures in the army, the police and the judiciary remained unpurged. Take the figure of Gaetano Azzariti, one of the first presidents, post-war, of Italy's Constitutional Court, yet under Mussolini he had been the president of the court which had the job of enforcing the the race laws. The failure of the Allies to put pressure on Italy also reflects a perception that still exists: that the Fascist revival is not to be taken seriously because Italy is 'lightweight'. Whereas if the same thing happened in Germany or Austria, you'd get really worried."
The widespread defiance of the anti-Fascist Constitution can be seen in the profusion of parties deriving inspiration from Mussolini; in the thousands who pour into Predapio, Mussolini's birthplace, to celebrate his march on Rome on 20 October every year; in shops and on market stalls doing a lively trade in busts of Il Duce and other Fascist mementoes of every sort.
Far more alarming, Duggan says, is what is happening out of the spotlight to the national temper, where the steady erosion and discrediting of state institutions is playing into the hands of a dictatorial elite, just as it did in the 1920s.
"What is so disturbing is not just the systematic rehabilitation of Fascism but the erosion of every aspect of the state, for example justice, with the result that people have the urge to throw themselves into the arms of the one man who they believe can sort things out.
"You create very personalised relations with the leader, so that in Mussolini's case, he received 2,000 letters a day from people pleading with him to help. If the state doesn't work, you trust in one man to pick up the phone and sort things out. This is how liberalism disappeared in the 1920s, with the steady discrediting of parliament so that in the end there was no need for Mussolini to abolish it, he merely ignored it. Something very similar is happening in Italy today."
A visit by British National Party leader Nick Griffin to a village hall has been cancelled at short notice after pressure was put on the venue's booking secretary by anti-BNP campaigners.
Mr Griffin, whose party has been accused of racism because of its right-wing immigration policies, was due to address a black tie fundraising event at Broadclyst's Victory Hall this evening. But the group Hope not Hate, which campaigns against the BNP, used its website to publish the home telephone number of Roy Elkins, the hall's chairman and booking secretary, and urged people to contact him. It also sent out a number of emails containing the information.
Yesterday the BNP confirmed that its booking had been cancelled. Despite the setback, the party said it had found an alternative venue for the Battle of Britain-themed night, which is part of a national tour which organisers hope will enable them to raise £500,000 to allow the BNP to field candidates for every seat in June's European elections.
BNP spokesman Simon Danby said a campaign of intimidation and harassment had followed the party's roadshow around the country. "It is common practice for these groups to target village hall committee members," he said. "Some have had threats to their property and their homes. We are a legitimate political party and it is disgraceful that these people, many of whom have nothing to do with the BNP, have been targeted. It's very sinister."
He said he still expected between 100 and 200 BNP supporters from around Devon and Cornwall to attend the event, which would be held at a location due to be announced later today.
Gerry Gable, of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight and the Hope not Hate website, defended his actions in publishing Mr Elkin's telephone number.
"This is a tactic we have used around the country and it is proving effective," he said. "We always ask people to be polite to the person who answers the telephone when they make their point. We are perfectly within our rights to be doing this. With the BNP it's not just a few rotten apples, it's the whole barrel that's rotten."
The BNP outraged Broadclyst villagers last year when it held a public meeting in the Victory Hall.
Liberal Democrat councillor for Broadclyst and Whimple Derek Button said he was glad the village would not be hosting the party once again.
"Some people might say that we're a village hall committee and we're obliged to let the village hall without let or hindrance to anyone who applies," he said. "I might have been tempted to tell the BNP the hall was booked up for the next 49 years."
He said he was sorry Mr Elkins had been involved in the matter without his consent.
"Roy is a man who has given much of his life to the service of Broadclyst and it's a great shame that he's been dragged into this," he added.
Mr Elkins, of Beech Close, Broadclyst, chose not to comment.
Parents of children at Hereward Primary School have condemned the nomination of local BNP leader Pat Richardson as a school governor.
Richardson put herself forward for the role after no candidates came forward from the local community.
Speaking to the Epping Forest Guardian, Hannah Martin, who lives on the Oakwood estate and whose three year old goes to Hereward, said she was disgusted at the prospect of Richardson becoming governor. She said: "My son is mixed race and I know there are lots of black children at the school. Teachers and staff here have always been brilliant in making everyone feel welcome, and I think there is a danger that this would ruin all that."
Sam Kelly, a mother of two whose 10 year old son is at the school, said: "My son has been here for seven years and I have never known any problems over race. I think the school needs to think what kind of message this would send out."
Local father Lee Thurland said: "I don't know much about the BNP but what I have heard I don't like."
The school, which has been praised by OfSTED for its multi-cultural environment, will have to decide whether to accept the nomination of the councillor from the far-right party, which advocates the "repatriation" of non-white people.
Richardson said: "I would hope to bring some common sense to the decision-making process down there."
"Common sense" is what the BNP commonly refers to its policy of alienating and expelling non-white and mixed race people. Advancing such racist policies in a primary school is very ominous indeed.
If you think you would make a better school governor than the local leader of an extremist political party, you can submit your nomination via the town council:
Town Clerk : Enid Walsh Loughton Town Council Buckingham Court Rectory Lane Loughton Essex, UK. IG10 2QZ Tel : +44 (0)20 8508 4200 Fax: +44 (0)20 8508 4400 E-mail: contact@loughton-tc.gov.uk
Debden has a new library in a plush new building, with computers allowing free internet use and subscriptions to a wide variety of publications and newspaper archives. There are DVDs, CDs, children's books, etc. Next door, in the same building, is an excellent cafe with the best bacon butties in Loughton. Its an improvement on the popular but cramped little shop the library used on the Broadway.
What you don't find in Debden library is library users. Why is the place deserted? Because it is located within the newly redeveloped Epping Forest College, which has been the target of a vicious BNP propaganda campaign. The BNP portrays the college as a haven for armed ethnic minority drug-dealers - a lie repeated in this month's edition of "Debden Patriot". No wonder people don't want to enter the college premises.
Yet, located at the EFC's entrance are metal detectors and security guards. There probably isn't anywhere safer in Loughton than Debden library, in stark contrast to the dark alleyways around the Broadway where local kids sniff glue and get tanked up on Special Brew.
Epping Forest District commander Chief Inspector Jon Hill said at the time: "Basically they've been driving up unjustifiably people's fear of crimes which don't exist. You couldn't recognise our area from the picture painted. And it doesn't make the job of police any easier."
Loughton Inspector Denise Morrisey said: "We don't have black and Asian kids coming into the area running riot. It's just not happening ... In fact a lot of the crime is carried out by local youths. Many residents would agree with me on that they know the people doing it. People at the college have been victims of crime like anyone else. There's no suggestion they're responsible. These claims have caused problems for us and problems for the college. People hear this stuff and they're not sure they want to send their kids there. It's unfair."
The BNP's campaign of lies about college students could cost Debden its library. If the library is not used, Essex County Council will probably close it. A public facility will have been taken away as a direct result of the racist fear-mongering the BNP uses to secure votes locally.
Unsurprisingly, the BNP has been silent on the violence at the nearby Football Academy in Langston Road, where a massive gangland fight at the New Year ball led to charges of attempted murder. This is meant to be a facility for local young people to learn football and boxing. Why no complaint from the BNP? Because the thugs attending the Football Academy event were almost all white-skinned and can be glorified as "rough diamonds" in the same way the Kray twins were.
WINSTON Churchill's grandson has spoken of his outrage over the use of his grandfather's image in right-wing propaganda.
Mid Sussex MP Nicholas Soames reacted angrily after discovering a picture was being used as part of the British National Party's Battle For Britain election campaign.
BNP leader Nick Griffin visited Crawley Down's Haven Centre on Thursday last week to make a speech to local party supporters.
During his visit he posed next to a poster of Sir Winston.
A furious Mr Soames told the Courier and Observer: "I am outraged and appalled by the use of the picture by the BNP.
"They have no right to use my grandfather's name, who would have thought them a vile bunch.
"I am taking what steps I can and so is my family to see what can be done to prevent the name being used."
"I deplore the BNP action. It is a disgrace and I hope that anyone who looks at the adverts will find them repulsive."
The British National Party’s regional organiser in the North-East has been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated harassment, The Northern Echo has learnt.
Ken Booth, who lives in Fenham, Newcastle, was arrested yesterday by Northumbria Police and bailed pending further inquiries. Mr Booth’s arrest is understood to have followed a complaint made to police by a Muslim councillor in the city.
The 54-year-old, who is standing in the European elections in the spring and has previously stood for Newcastle City Council, in Fenham, took over the role of regional organiser for the party from Kevin Scott in 2006. He is expected to answer bail at a police station in the city in the middle of next month.
Mr Booth would not directly comment on his arrest when contacted by The Echo, but a spokesman for the party said it was an example of “politically correct Britain”. He said: “The public can see what is happening and I am sure that in this particular instance we, as a party, have got nothing to fear. People in the North-East are sick and tired of this politically correct nonsense.”
Mr Booth, who describes himself on the BNP website as the single parent of three boys and an elected parent governor, has stood for the party several times in local elections. In January, he finished in third place in a by-election for the Fenham ward. Last year, Mr Booth hit out at efforts to “destabilise” the BNP after his and the details of hundreds of other party members were leaked onto the internet.
A Northumbria Police spokeswoman said: “We can confirm a 54-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated harassment and has been bailed pending further inquiries.”
Acting Chief Inspector Sav Patsalos, of Northumbria police, added: “When any such incidents are brought to our attention they are treated very seriously and we take appropriate action.”
A spokesman for Newcastle City Council said: “It is a police matter and we are not prepared to comment.”
A slur by a right-wing politician has provoked an angry response from police.
British National Party leader Nick Griffin used Crawley as an example of rising crime across Britain, during a speech in the area last week. But his estimate of crime figures was more than 10 times higher than the reality.
Speaking at a party meeting in Crawley Down last Thursday, Mr Griffin said England only saw 300 burglaries a year in the 1930s. He added: "There must be more than that in Crawley in a month."
Police figures show there have been less than 300 in Crawley in the last year.
Chief Inspector Steve Curry, district commander of Crawley Police, said: "Mr Griffin is clearly not well informed and his comments are quite wrong. If allowed to remain unchecked, they could contribute to affecting some people's perception and indeed their fear of crime. From 1 April 2008 to today, 266 people have had their homes burgled in Crawley. I want to see this number reduced further so more people don't have to go through this experience."
Mr Griffin spoke as part of the BNP's Battle For Britain campaign for the European elections on June 4. During his speech at the Haven Centre, he branded Islam a "bizarre medievalist desert sect."
Arif Syed, chairman of Broadfield Mosque, said: "Within the democratic system we live in, Mr Griffin can hold what views he chooses. The fact of the matter is that three great religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have their roots in the desert regions of the Middle East. It is difficult to believe that any religion would survive the test of time if it was as exclusive and insular as Mr Griffin appears to suggest."
Speaking at the meeting, Mr Griffin promised to punish Britain's current leaders for "treason". He said handing power to Europe would see Britain, which he claimed invented freedom and democracy, "ruled by unelected foreigners."
Speaking about the increasing influence of Islam in the UK, he added: "We resent it, we reject it and we intend to stop it."
The BNP's Battle For Britain campaign likens the "flood" of immigration from Eastern Europe to the threat of invasion from Nazi Germany.
Mr Griffin said: "We are fighting exactly the same struggle in material terms as they were in 1940. They were standing for freedom then and we are the only ones standing for freedom now."
After a bit of prodding, I’ve received a response from the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) about the recent hosting of the British National Party’s Rev Robert West at Barton in the Beans Baptist Chapel (also known as Barton Fabis Baptist Chapel or Barton Chapel). West’s appearance at this venue was noted on a BNP blog, but specific details were removed after Seismic Shock drew it to wider attention. The FIEC administrator was keen to point out that each church is independent, that the Fellowship does not support any political party, and that it is working to make member churches aware of the dangers posed by political extremists. I was also directed to a related church body called ”Affinity”, of which the FIEC is a member and where further details about the chapel are listed. The specific entry is here; there is no minister listed, just a certain “Mrs C S Meller” given as the administrator. There are apparently regular services, though.
