Dominic Carman to fight Nick Griffin in Barking, East London, at election

The son of George Carman, QC, one of the Britain’s most notable barristers, is to take on Nick Griffin in the fight for Barking at the general election.

The Times has learnt that Dominic Carman, the unauthorised biographer of the British National Party leader, is to stand as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats in the East London constituency. The BNP hopes to topple Margaret Hodge, the Labour incumbent, to claim its first parliamentary seat.

Mr Carman said that his father, a leading barrister of the 1980s and 1990s who died in 2001, would have approved of his decision to run. He told The Times: “I would love to have seen my father have Nick Griffin in the witness box for two or three days and really take him apart: piece by piece, line by line, speech by speech.

“It would have a been a great pleasure and he would have done an excellent job. I just hope I can do a decent job exposing Nick Griffin to a wider audience than would be the case.”

Mr Carman said that his only motivation for running was to try to stop Mr Griffin from taking the seat. He intends to use information from his research into the biography to attack his opponent. It was never released because publishers were unwilling to associate their brand with the BNP leader.

“I will put it to good use in exposing Griffin beyond what’s already been in the public domain,” he said. “It’s very important to fight a strong campaign and it will be critical to challenge Nick Griffin every step of the way. I want to make people think long and hard about voting for him in Barking. It’s very, very important.”

Mr Carman has more than 20 hours of videotaped interviews with Mr Griffin over two years from 2003. He has interviewed Mr Griffin’s family and associates, including the National Front leaders who shaped his views, on numerous occasions. “I do not claim to have a silver bullet — one specific piece of info so damaging that Nick Griffin would lose all credibility. But the cumulative information I have can be presented in such a way . . . it will make him uncomfortable.”

Mr Carman hit the headlines in 2002 when he wrote a biography of his father, who was regarded as one of the country’s best libel barristers. George Carman, QC, was famed for his presence in the courtroom and his ability to captivate a jury. However, his public image changed after his death with the publication of the “warts and all” biography by his son. It detailed the destructive personal side of his father’s life with accounts of a chain-smoking alcoholic who beat his wives.

Mr Carman, who joined the Lib Dems last year, said that he would fight the campaign on local issues such as jobs and housing. “I’m not going to stand and say nothing against the Labour Government, I will argue Liberal Democrat policies in a normal way. But I’m not going to select Margaret Hodge for special criticism. I am going to select Nick Griffin for that.”

He said that his chances of winning the seat were slim. The BNP took almost 17 per cent of the vote in the 2005 general election, just behind the Conservatives, while the Lib Dems achieved 11 per cent. “I have to do what I can,” he said. “This is very important.”

His campaign will start tomorrow morning in Barking.

The Times

Anger at bid by SDL to march on Lockerbie

THE far right Scottish Defence League plans to march on the Lockerbie Memorial in a move that has been condemned by politicians of all parties and the families of those who died in the disaster.
The plans by the organisation, which has been holding protests against the "Islamification" of Scotland, were described as "disgraceful" by politicians who also called for the event to be banned.

The SDL has said it intends to hold a "peaceful vigil" at the monument, which was built in memory of the 270 people who lost their lives when Pan Am 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in 1988.

The organisation, which has been accused of being racist and fascist, has also chosen the venue in an attempt to get back at the justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, who spoke against the SDL at a recent Scotland United Rally held in Edinburgh.

MacAskill spoke of the importance of making "a stand against those who would seek to divide and saying to them that their views are not welcome".

In the publicity for the Lockerbie march, the SDL referred to MacAskill's decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Libyan intelligence agent convicted of the bombing.

"This is also a protest against the traitor Kenny MacAskill who denies the SDL free speech and defended the release of the vermin responsible for the Lockerbie outrage," the SDL said.

MacAskill's spokesman said: "It is hard to see how these people with their appalling and racist views could have sunk any lower, but that is what they have done.

Regardless of whether people supported Kenny MacAskill's difficult decision or disagreed with it, people in Lockerbie and across Scotland will come together to oppose this small unrepresentative group, and their disgraceful plans."

Mike Russell, the education secretary and South of Scotland MSP, said the rally was an obscene attempt to exploit the long suffering people of Lockerbie.

Scotland on Sunday

Simon Darby, BNP leader, interviewed by pupils in their classroom

A senior official in the British National Party was invited to address a classroom on whether the hijab should be banned, The Times has learnt.

Simon Darby, the BNP’s deputy leader, was phoned by 14-year-old students in Rochdale, Lancashire. The pupils, supervised by a teacher, asked him questions over the phone about the French ban on the hijab. The BNP’s policy is to ban Islamic dress in schools.

Andy Rymer, the head of Matthew Moss High School, told The Times that the students were doing a project on news reporting and had suggested contacting the BNP. He said: “We ask kids to be critically curious. This was something they were interested in and wanted to check out. They did so in a supported way with an intelligent teacher.

“(The school) is not encouraging people to contact or spread the philosophy of the BNP. Equally we have a significant number of kids in here for whom those issues are very real.”

However, the move raised concern from some parents and Paul Rowe, the area’s Liberal Democrat MP who separately participated in the discussion.

Mr Rowe said that there were plenty of other political parties that could have been consulted and that it was “inappropriate” for students to discuss issues with the BNP. He said: “I’m concerned that anybody is giving succour to the BNP.”

Some Asian parents at the school, in the Castleton area of the town, spoke of their concern at allowing the BNP a voice in the classroom.

Jamil Khan, whose daughter wears a headscarf to school, said: “I do not feel comfortable with the presence of the BNP in the classroom. They are extremists, full stop. They can only paint the picture one way.”

However, many parents said that they were happy to leave the matter to the discretion of the teacher and the school. Its governors said that as long as the issue was handled carefully, there was no reason to exclude the BNP as the party was active in the area and students would come across it eventually.

Ted Flynn, a governor and local councillor, said: “I’ve no sympathy with the BNP at all. But the pupils are intelligent enough not to be wavered by Nick Griffin and his compatriot’s opinions.”

Mr Raymer said that a group of Asian students were undertaking a project on news reporting and had decided to investigate the British reaction to the French Government’s decision to ban the hijab from schools.

He said they were not satisfied by Mr Darby’s response on the issue as he referred to British school uniforms.

Mr Raymer said: “At the end they were angry their question hadn’t been answered properly. The discussion turned to how journalists operate to get answers.”

On his blog, Mr Darby said: “It was reassuring to think that even in 2010 politically correct Britain there are still teachers who insist on the old adage that if you don’t have access to all the information, you will never come up with the right answer.”

It comes as a government review is due on whether BNP members should be prevented from becoming teachers. Police and prison officers are already barred from joining the party.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “We trust head teachers as professionals to ensure appropriate visitors are invited into their school and that pupil welfare and safety issues are considered.”

The spokesman said the promotion of partisan political views was forbidden, adding that there were safeguards in law to guard against biased or unbalanced teaching.

The Times

Hope not Hate A13 T-shirt

The A13 starts in Whitechapel, just round the corner from Cable Street where Oswald Mosley's BUF were stopped in 1936. Travelling east to the Essex coast it passes by Barking and through Dagenham where the Hope not Hate campaign will be seeking to stop Nick Griffin and the BNP in 2010. SPECIAL CAMPAIGN PRICE JUST £14.99 Our A13 shirt inspired in part by Billy Bragg's A13 song will help raise valuable funds for this campaign, wherever you live it wear in support. Sizes small (36 inch chest/90cms), medium (40 inch/100cms), large (44inch/110cms), X-large (48 inch/120cms) and xx-large (52 inch/130cms). Plus! Women's fitted skinny rib,(34-36 inch chest/ 70-90cms)

Philosophy Football

Black politician refuses to share hustings with BNP

The West's most prominent black would-be MP has refused to share a debating stage with his rival from the British National Party, to avoid race becoming an issue at the election.

Wilfred Emmanuel Jones told the organisers of tonight's hustings event in Bradford on Avon he would boycott the event if BNP candidate Michael Simpkins was allowed to take part.

So the organisers, the town's Senior Citizens' Forum, decided to bar the BNP man.

Mr Emmanuel Jones, who runs a food-producing business called The Black Farmer, is standing for the Conservatives in the new Chippenham seat, which promises to be a key marginal battle between the Tories and the Lib Dems.

Mr Simpkins is one of the handful of BNP councillors in the West and his appointment to Corsham town council after no one stood against him in a by-election sparked a major demonstration by anti-racism campaigners and locals.

Hustings organiser Alan Knight told Mr Simpkins that every other candidate had agreed to take part in the debate if the BNP were included, except Mr Emmanuel Jones.

Mr Simpkins said Mr Emmanuel Jones was running scared.

"I am very disappointed with the outcome but thank the committee and other candidates for at least being prepared to allow me to join in the debate," said Mr Simpkins.

"Emmanuel Jones claims to be proud to be British but has yet to learn the British sense of fair play. The man is a coward and is obviously scared to debate the real issues that are affecting this country."

Chippenham's Liberal Democrat candidate Duncan Hames said the BNP's policies were 'disgusting' but that he wanted the opportunity to 'demolish' them.

"I'm not afraid of the BNP and would relish the opportunity to confront them and demolish their arguments," he said.

"None of us like the BNP and find much of what they say disgusting but it is important that our own feelings do not deny the public the chance to question the candidates."

A spokeswoman for the local Tory association backed its candidate's refusal to take part.

"The Chippenham Conservative Association has a clear position that it does not wish to give legitimacy to a political party which promotes intolerant and racist views that to most people in Wiltshire, including ourselves, are unacceptable.

"Wilfred is quite prepared to debate with the mainstream parties and answer questions from local residents which he will do."

This is Bath

Three in court following Edinburgh SDL demo

Three men arrested during counter-demonstrations by the far-right Scottish and English Defence Leagues have appeared in court in Edinburgh.

Two of the men were arrested on the city's Royal Mile on Saturday, as a police-approved march by anti-fascism group Scotland United passed nearby. A third was arrested outside the city's Central Mosque.

The official march was attended by around 2,000 people while around 100 were said to have arrived to take part in a counter action by the SDL. However, a heavy police presence kept the two groups apart and only a handful of arrests were made.

On Monday, three men who were arrested in connection with disturbances in the city appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

Scott Buchan, from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, pled guilty to breach of the peace. The 23-year-old was released on bail and ordered to report to his local police station in England every week until he is sentenced.

Fiscal Depute, Graham Fraser, told Sheriff Derrick McIntyre: "As you may be aware, there was a public order situation in Edinburgh on Saturday because of a rally by the Scotland United group and a counter demonstration by an organisation known as the Scottish and English Defence League."

Mr Fraser said there were concerns about serious disruption and violence and there was a high police presence on the High Street.

Members of the Scottish and English Defence Leagues, who had been drinking in the Bank Bar, were allowed to leave one at a time and ushered away from the area of the anti-fascism march.

However, some remained and started shouting and swearing at the marchers, which Mr Fraser said led to a number of passing tourists and children becoming upset and alarmed.

Buchan had come to Edinburgh to protest and had been among the Defence League group. He bumped into police officers and despite being warned to move away, he repeatedly walked into the road and tried to stop the traffic. He was also said to be making challenging signs to marchers.

Mr Fraser added that Buchan was being supported by friends and colleagues and did not respond in any way to police requests to stop his behaviour.

He said: "This is a very busy street in the centre of Edinburgh with a significant number of tourists even at this time of the year and it was an unattractive and unpleasant experience for them. He clearly intended to cause disruption".

Defence solicitor, Peter Winning, confirmed Buchan had come to Edinburgh for the protest, saying: "He has to accept he behaved in an unacceptable manner."

Sheriff McIntyre said: "This was a very sensitive situation", and deferred sentence on Buchan for background reports.

Also appearing in court on Monday were Graeme Stevenson from Largs and David Parslow from Edinburgh.

Stevenson, 21, is charged with acting in a manner likely to incite violence and public disorder, by shouting, swearing and refusing to leave the pub when instructed by officers.

He denied the charge and was released on bail on the condition that he does not attend any SDL or EDL demonstrations.

Local 52-year-old David Parslow admitted a breach of the peace charge for shouting and swearing outside the Edinburgh Central Mosque. He was bailed until later this week, when the details of his case will be heard in court.

STV

Nick Griffin's foreign fascist festival

Fresh from agreeing to allow blacks and Asians join his party, Nick Griffin is this week embracing a group of men who have funny names and speak foreign languages. Have his regular trips to Brussels and Strasbourg finally brought out the British National Party chief’s cosmopolitan side?

Of course they haven’t. Far from sampling the diversity of Europe, Griffin is to share a platform with some of the continent’s most narrow-minded politicians in Ghent today (Wednesday).

According to his Facebook fan page, Griffin is visiting the Belgian city to address a “student symposium”. Yet the poster for the event indicates there will be precious little of the academic chin-rubbing you’d normally expect at a meeting billed as such. The poster depicts a burqa-clad woman standing in front of a European flag studded with minaret spires.

This crass Islamophobia is typical of promotional material produced by the far-right party Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), whose de facto youth wing, the National Student Association (NSV), is organising the event. Like the BNP, the Vlaams Belang has had to amend its rulebook in recent years after its precursor, the Vlaams Blok, was banned for flouting anti-discrimination laws.

Frank Vanhecke, the Vlaams Belang leader who is also scheduled to speak in Ghent, is not as openly xenophobic as he used to be – he once denounced an Amsterdam mayor who named a square after Nelson Mandela as a “renegade towards his own people and race”. Yet he has no qualms about inciting hatred against Muslims. Women who wear a veil, he has said, have signed a contract for their deportation.

Another guest in Ghent will be Bruno Gollnisch, deputy-leader of the French National Front. Gollnisch has been helping the BNP finesse its electoral strategy, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. By turning to him for advice, Griffin evidently no longer appears as keen to emphasise that he is “not” an anti-Semite as he was during his Question Time appearance. In 2004, Gollnisch suggested that the Nazi gas chambers may be a myth.

Griffin is no “gravy train or career politician”, a message directed at his constituents in northwest England recently declared. How then does he explain his use of a budget that is supposed to be reserved for parliamentary researchers and secretarial help to pay his bodyguard? Or his use of the European Parliament chamber to score the most parochial points imaginable? During a debate on the Haiti earthquake in January, he argued that no humanitarian aid should be given to its victims because the disaster had happened “in somebody else’s backyard”. Griffin quoted the Bible to claim that EU governments only had duties to their own citizens. The central teaching of Christianity – “love your neighbour as yourself” – is conveniently omitted when fascists interpret scripture.

It would be comforting if Griffin and his ilk were confined to the political margins. But the truth is that “mainstream” parties and European institutions have happily stolen many of the extreme right’s clothes and invariably wear them with greater ease. For example, Griffin’s wish for boats carrying asylum-seekers to be sunk is not far removed from what Frontex, the EU’s border management agency, is already doing. Last summer this agency helped the Italian authorities force a vessel to land in Libya; in contravention to international law, the people on board it were not granted the possibility to apply for asylum. Frontex is also planning to use pilotless drones – the type of warplanes that have caused numerous civilian deaths in Palestine, Afghanistan and Pakistan – in future operations designed to prevent migrants entering Europe.

If there is one thing more nauseating than Nick Griffin himself, it is how “respectable” politicians pander to his agenda.

OpenDemocracy

Two Wavertree brothers jailed for racist abuse while claiming to be National Front members

  
TWO brothers screamed racist abuse at a Greek pub owner while claiming to be members of the National Front.

Council worker Francis Parletti, 30, and his brother Richard, 27, threatened to burn their victim’s pub down while hurling racial insults at him and his dad.

They were both jailed for their vicious tirade.

Dad-of-three Francis, who was on bail for a previous racist incident, was put behind bars for eight months, while Richard was jailed for six months.

Judge Gerald Clifton said: “The facts of these two sets of offences just show a complete disregard by both of you of any decent behaviour or sensitivities to people of other ethnic origins.”

Simon Leong, prosecuting, told how the brothers, of Thornycroft Road, Wavertree, threatened to shoot pub owner Mario Blenkinsop and his dad Omeros Anastasi at the Cambridge Pub, on Picton Lane, Wavertree

Liverpool Echo 

"Fumble For The Fatherland" - Boxing's Fascist Fight Night

The sport of legends Muhammad Ali and Amir Khan, is being hijacked this weekend at the world-famous Caesars Nightclub venue at Streatham in South London. This coming Sunday, the 28th February 2010, a team of eight fascist-friendly semi-professional English boxers will supporting the neo-Nazi EDL, entering a boxing ring displaying EDL logo shorts and flags for an official EBC prizefighter contest.

This far right boxing night promoted in conjunction with Mean Machine Promotions, in the nation's capital, is designed to raise the profile of the cowardly racist political organisation whose last rally in England involved storming through a predominantly Asian area of Stoke, smashing up cars, windows and passers-by in what has been described by onlookers as an anti-Muslim pogrom.

Rather than being being a cage-fighting event in a derelect warehouse akin to criminal hoodlums, the EDL's event is being held in one of London's most famous boxing venues, Caesars, advertised as "London's largest and most luxurious nightclub", and is sanctioned by the European Boxing Council (EBC).

Caesars has hosted the likes of Lennox Lewis, Lloyd Honeyghan and Gary Mason, and outside of boxing, has been used to film scenes Footballers Wives (ITV) fight sequences from the movie "Snatch" starring Brad Pitt, chat-show goddess Trisha, Big Brother's Big Mouth (Channel Four), and Most Haunted (Living TV), with their legendary Christmas parties regularly featured on Sky.

Caesars is indeed a celebrity-frequented venue, and not some backstreet dive, all the more shocking when you consider that the BNP have to make do with the less than glorious surroundings of the New Kimberley Hotel for their shenanigans.

On their social networking web pages, self-confessed boxing fan and psychotic fascist thug Liam Pinkham devotes plenty of space to the merits of his "Great White (Supremacist) Hopes" of boxing, aiming to prove to the world that Aryans pack the best punch. Following the EDL's showcase sporting event, Caesars are laying on an "exclusive afterparty" where hardcore neo-Nazis Pinkham and steroidal busom buddy Wigan Mike can chase around siliconised Page Three models all night long, demonstrating the pro-active feminism of the EDL.

Over forty EDL members have already bought tickets. Tickets for the "Fumble For The Fatherland" are being sold on Ebay through the EDL's "merchandise shop" alongside their paramilitary hoodies and assorted nationalist and racist tat at £45 each, as well as other outlets.

(Like their "multiracial nationalist" idol Nick Griffin in the BNP, the EDL seem happy to rip off their own members by charging £5 for postage per ticket).

From Bolton to Sheffield, Cardiff to Brixton, boxing gyms all across the country pride themselves in offering sports and fitness training to young people from under priviledged backgrounds. Go in any inner city gym, and you will see black, Asian and white kids training together with mutual respect and admiration. The ethos of equal competition is one sadly lacking in most other sports, and for that reason, boxing is part of the government's sports development strategy to coincide with the forthcoming 2012 London Olympics.

Despite the EDL's recent setbacks, organised racism and religious hatred is steadily increasing year-in, year-out with the spirit of fervent Islamophobia fostered by politicians, state institutions and the scaremongering tabloid media who worryingly have turned their attentions from hooked-handed foreign bogeymen to British Muslims (the "enemy within"), to shore-up public support for the War On Terror and silence critics of an extremely unpopular and bloody Afgan war with casualties on all sides.

It is the misguided belief fostered by the rightwing newspaper industry and black ops foreign office "leaks" (the whole of the Taliban have Brummie accents) that has created the environment for a resurgence of the British far right exploited by violent neo-Nazi groups such as the EDL.

Egotist and publicity whore of the EDL Trevor Kelway sees mileage in turning media attentions from race riots to ringside aggression. Eight shameless racist boxers will be taking to the ring this Sunday in London for what the EDL leadership see as both a moneymaking opportunity and a cynical PR exercise, a chance to appeal to a wider fan base who might not otherwise warm to their hardcore Hitler loving British Freedom Fighters or the EDL's violently destructive racial football hooliganism.

Whilst a handful of potential boxing starlets of tomorrow fritter away hopes of fame and fortune through mutual association with English fascism, sweating tears of endurance as lackeys for an Islamophobic masterplan, spare a thought for Alan Lake and the EDL's other weathly far right backers who will be sipping extravagantly on champage on ice, playing millionairre war games with people's minds while the cancer of organised racism takes a foothold within the grassroots sporting world.

Since the defeat in the rematch of Max Schmeling by Joe Louis (Schmeling himself refusing to join the Nazi party or sack his American Jewish manager, and hiding two Jewish boys in his apartment during the Kristallnacht pogrom), with the rise of Jewish, black and Asian ring fighters, boxing has had an estranged relationship with fascism, and may seem like an unlikely target for the EDL.

Since the New Millenium, the Lonsdale boxing brand became momentarily popular with the European far right in the Netherlands, Belgium, northern France and Germany, especially because a carefully placed outer jacket leaves the letters NSDA showing; an acronym of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter (National Socialist German Worker), and one letter short of NSDAP, the German acronym for the Nazi Party, however the boxing world has generally embraced non-white people and immigrants (including Muslims) into its gymnasiums, alongside the white working class.

One thing's for sure, the undeniable patriotism and steadfast patriotism of Amir Khan who dedicated his victories after 7/7 to the victims of Islamic terror, will be affronted by the poisonous bile and misdeeds of the EDL, who, despite claims of being "only against religious extremism", regularly create disorder, race hatred and chaos in the city centres of England, Wales and Scotland with straight-armed Hitler salutes, banners calling for the banning of mosques, incessant racist chanting, and behind the scenes, plotting deadly large-scale race riots.

During recent invasions into British cities masked paramilitary followers of this violent anti-Islamic far right gang have physically and verbally attacked innocent (non-extremist) Muslims in the street, vandalised Islamic gravestones, and threatened Muslim taxi drivers with death, (hardly the behaviour of a genuine anti-religious extremist group).

Whatever are one's personal thoughts regarding boxing, with the Olympics approaching, it is important that anti-fascists everywhere show our massed opposition to hate-peddling British fascist bootboys infiltrating the corporate sporting world.

You can register your disapproval of the EDL hijacking boxing by contacting the venue direct and asking them to cancel the Prizefighter event (please be polite and courteous in all correspondance!!! Thanks!):

Contact:

Mr Fred Batt (Owner)
fred@caesars.uk.com
info@caesars.uk.com
Caesars Nightclub,
156-160 Streatham Hill
London
SW2 4RU

Or speak to Club Manager Vickie on 020-8671-3000
Fax: 01306-711660
http://www.caesars.uk.com/
vickie@caesars.uk.com

Mean Machine Promotions

Indymedia

BNP wants election violence but we will stop them, says minister

BNP thugs will try to provoke violence during the general election campaign in London, a government minister warned today.

Immigration minister Phil Woolas said there was no doubt that “bad people” in the racist party — whose leader Nick Griffin is standing for election in Barking and Dagenham — would “like to cause trouble”.

Mr Woolas said the Met police and the Crown Prosecution Service were preparing for a surge in public order offences and taking precautions.

“You allow free speech of course, but you take measures to ensure that inflammatory incidents and events are not juxtaposed,” he said.

“You take care that public figures are kept away from inflammatory points. I've been very impressed by the sophistication of the Met so I think we will prevent the problem.”

Mr Woolas, the MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, said: “We are going to beat the BNP. Nick Griffin actually stood in my constituency and we saw them off and we're doing the same in London by recognising the concerns of the people who vote for them and are tempted to vote for them.

“We don't pander to them and we don't pander to racism, but we do say that we understand the concerns of the BNP voter and we are addressing those concerns.”

Mr Woolas predicted that immigration would be the second most important issue of the election after the economy, leading to a “bruising battle” between the main political parties.

He claimed that Labour would win votes on the issue because of the success of the new “points-based system”, under which non-EU migrants can enter Britain to work or study if they meet criteria relating to their skills, wealth and earnings.

Mr Woolas revealed that from next year the system would be strengthened through the introduction of a “London skills shortage list”.

He said: “You can say you can work in this country as a teacher, but you can only work in London. If the employer who is sponsoring you doesn't play that game we can fine the employer.”

The minister said the Government was also planning new rules under which migrants who fail to pay for NHS treatment will be barred from Britain until they clear their debt.

“If you come and use the NHS and we send you a bill and you don't pay it we won't let you back in the country. That's 20p or £20,000… I feel quite strongly about this. If you are coming into the country and using the NHS, it's not a charity,” he said.

“It's paid for by the taxpayer for the taxpayers and although we respect the Hippocratic oath and we look after anyone who needs emergency treatment, we are not suckers. We won't allow people to come and use our health service unless they pay for it.”

Mr Woolas said it was wrong to assume that his support for immigration controls was an authoritarian position.

“I believe that we will only create a tolerant society when people are reassured that we are controlling immigration,” he said.

“Because people fear that we don't control immigration, the person who gets the backlash is the legal migrant and the British ethnic minorities. So I believe that controlling immigration is morally the right thing to do.”

This is London

'BNP' graffiti on Mansfield mosque

MABA treasurer Kasa Miah and secretary Runu Ahad inspect the damage left by the latest act of vandalism at the mosque on Goodacre Street in Mansfield

COMMUNITY leaders have united to condemn the racist vandals who carved a swastika and the letters 'BNP' into the door of a Mansfield mosque.
Police are investigating after Mansfield Jamee Masjid, on Goodacre Street, was targeted and have helped install a new CCTV system following a number of similar incidents.

But the nature of the most recent graffiti attack has been met with widespread outrage from politicians, police and religious leaders.

Runu Ahad, secretary of Mansfield and Ashfield Bangladeshi Association (MABA), which runs the mosque, said: "'BNP' has been scratched on the door three times – the latest one appeared as soon as we painted over the letters from the previous incident.

"We've had ongoing problems, we've had windows broken and we've had break-ins. It's a place of worship and these people have no regard for a place of worship. It's a constant issue of us having to repair it, then it gets done again."

The Chad

Pipe-bomb maker jailed for three years

A BLACKWOOD man, who admitted possessing an improvised firearm and making pipe bomb, was jailed for three years yesterday.

Darren Lee Tinklin, 24, of Waun Llwyn Crescent, Blackwood, appeared in Newport crown court for sentencing having previously pleaded guilty to possessing an improvised muzzle loading firearm, making the explosive substance 'black powder' and making a pipe bomb.

Prosecutor Bethan David said officers executed a drugs warrant at Tinklin's home on October 21 last year, but after a search of the house, he was arrested for explosives and terrorism charges.

When police entered the house, Tinklin was using a laptop, which was found to contain various searches for making fireworks and gunpowder, but also downloaded copies of a terrorist handbook and encyclopaedia and a CIA explosives and sabotage manual.

The court was told the terrorist charges were not proceeded with after evidence showed Tinklin never opened or read the files.

Miss David said Tinklin pleaded guilty on the basis that he was not pursuing any particular cause, he did not intend to injure anyone or create risks, he had given up any interest in the far-right British movement in 2005 and he had not opened the terrorist documents downloaded on to his computer.

She said that forensics found that neither the firearm or the pipe bomb had been used by the defendant and examination of the “black powder” found that it failed to burn.

Jeff Jones, representing Tinklin, said the items were made out of curiosity to see if he could.

He said: “This defendant is guilty of serious offences, but is essentially a stupid person involving himself in things that could cause serious harm.”

Sentencing Tinklin to three years, the Recorder of Cardiff, Nicholas Cooke QC, said: “It is of some significance that you have had a drug problem. Drugs can lead to irresponsibility and irresponsibility coupled with explosives is very dangerous.”

The court heard Tinklin previously had connections with far right extremist groups including the British movement and items of clothing bearing Nazi symbols and other slogans were recovered from the house.

Officers also found photographs of Tinklin posing with others in front of a “Blood and Honour” flag, a leaflet on the Holocaust denial and a book on Hitler’s domestic policies.

Mr Jones said Tinklin became involved in the British movement after attending “Skinhead music” gigs in the local area and agreed to join.

He said Tinklin’s membership ran out in 2005, but his interest in the group had ceased before that after he became “bored.”

South Wales Argus

Bomb-maker jailed for three years

 

A former member of a far-right group has been jailed for three years for making explosives in his home, including a pipe bomb.

Darren Tinklin, 24, from Blackwood, Caerphilly county, had admitted two charges of making explosives and possessing a firearm.

Tinklin had not wanted to injure and had not meant to create any risk, Newport Crown Court heard.

He had kept right-wing paraphernalia, including items with Nazi SS symbols.

He also had a t-shirt which said "100% fascist".

Cardiff Recorder Nicholas Cooke said he must send a "stern message to those who flirt with the manufacture of devices of this kind".

He said: "Ideas and political affiliations may come and go but there is a potential threat presented by someone who harbours an interest in explosives and extremist views.

"I cannot completely ignore that."

The court heard that Tinklin gave up his right-wing political interests in 2005, and although he had downloaded a bomb-making manual, he had never opened the files.

Mr Cooke referred to Tinklin's drug problem, saying it could lead to irresponsibility which coupled with an interest in explosives was a cause for concern.

He added there was the risk of explosive materials falling into the wrong hands.

However he gave him credit for his guilty plea but warned that people involved with explosives would face stern custodial sentences.

Tinklin was sentenced to three years, less the 119 days he has spent on remand.

BBC 
 

Asian TV millionaire set to join the BNP

A TYCOON who starred on TV's Secret Millionaire is joining the British National Party to RILE them - because he is Asian.

Mo Chaudry, 49, will formally apply today - days after the BNP had to change its whites-only constitution because it breached equality laws.

The Pakistan-born businessman, who is worth £60million, admitted last night: "I will not be welcomed with open arms."

Despite blasting the party as racist, he vowed: "I want to stand up and be counted - and expose the BNP for what they are.

"I want to antagonise them and attend their meetings, find out what makes them tick."

Muslim Mo, who made his fortune from water parks, appeared on Channel 4's Secret Millionaire in December.

He handed out cash to worthy causes in the Asian community of Leeds.

The dad of three, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs, said: "I live near Stoke, which is becoming a BNP stronghold - and don't want it being known as a racist city."

The Sun

SDL rally threat fizzles out

The Royal Mile was closed yesterday by a huge police operation to prevent a violent confrontation between the far-right Scottish Defence League and anti-fascist protestors.

Hundreds of police took to the streets of Edinburgh amid concerns that large numbers of SDL supporters would converge on the city at the same time as a rally by Scotland United, a loose coalition of politicians, Christian and Islamic faith groups, and trade unionists.

But only about 40 supporters of the SDL turned up, and they found themselves corralled into a pub at the bottom of the Royal Mile for several hours. There were five arrests for public order offences but the Scotland United rally, attended by about 2,000 people, passed off peacefully in Princes Street Gardens, about half a mile away.

Lothian and Borders Police had swamped the area with officers after violence broke out near a similar Scotland United rally in Glasgow last year. In all, more than 700 officers took to the capital's streets, with Lothian and Borders drawing on forces from across the country, including Strathclyde, Fife, and Tayside. About 50 officers from Northumbria Police, meanwhile, were also deployed.

The SDL members congregated in Jenny Ha's opposite the Scottish Parliament at about 11am yesterday, forcing police to erect two cordons on the Royal Mile, separating them from members of the Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliance.

While the majority of those in attendance – among them teenagers and women – said they refused to speak to the press for fear of being misquoted, others said they expected a considerable turnout from SDL supporters.

"There's people up from Leeds, Stockport, Wolverhampton, London, all over. We're getting 3,000 bodies here," said a member of the English Defence League.

"We're coming in from everywhere – Spain, Gilbraltar, Bulgaria."

The group unfurled banners with slogans such as "Say no to fundamentalist Muslims" and sporadically raised chants, including "We want our country back" and "Muslim bombers off our streets".

Despite attempts to break through the police cordon, they were contained in the pub, until two double-decker buses took them out of the city centre at about 4pm.

At the formal Scotland United rally, which included a march from Princes Street Gardens to the Meadows, speakers said the SDL had failed to gain support, but warned against complacency. Justice secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "Today is about making a stand against those who would seek to divide and saying to them that their views are not welcome."

Osama Saeed, of the Scottish Islamic Foundation and an SNP candidate for Glasgow Central, said it was a "further humiliation" for the SDL. "They only got ten minutes in the rain last November in Glasgow. They didn't even get that today."

The Scotsman 

BNP humiliated in Fazakerley

The racist BNP have been HUMILIATED in the Fazakerley by-election. Their vote was almost HALF what they got in the 2008 contest, due not least to the determined campaign run by Liverpool Anti-Fascists. Over 5,000 anti-BNP leaflets were delivered in the ward and the message hit home. Voters in a working-class area of Liverpool totally rejected the BNP’s message and the thuggish, intimidatory tactics that this fascist party tried in the election.

Despite having a candidate who lived in the ward, and who had stood there before, the BNP came a miserable third out of four contenders. This was regardless of the fact that the Conservatives and UKIP did not even stand candidates. In 2008 the BNP received 440 votes in the ward - this time they only got 234. Their percentage of the vote in 2008 was 14% - now, with less candidates standing, they have dropped to 8. 8% - complete humiliation.

On polling day, already knowing that the voters had rejected them, Liverpool BNP arrived outside the home of a Labour councillor, Steve Rotherham, and used loudspeakers and intimidation in a vicious last stand. The police were called and the BNP were forced to move on. THIS is the real face of the BNP — they pretend to be a normal, democratic political party, but when the voters turn against them, the old fascist tactics of fear and thuggery come to the fore.

Let the Fazakerley campaign be a lesson to anti-fascists everywhere. The way to combat the BNP’s appeal to working-class voters, and to counter their bogus slogan of ’British Jobs for British Workers’, is to clearly make the case that fascism and racism offer nothing but division and defeat to working people. There is no alternative in the struggle against the BNP but to get out onto the doorsteps, as they do, and put a class analysis against fascism. The BNP are nasty racists, but they are more than that. They are a fascist party, and fascism is a weapon, waiting to be picked up by the ruling class. The way to counter fascism is by promoting working-class solidarity.

The voters of Fazakerley have shown that they will not be divided by the BNP. Liverpool Anti-Fascists have shown that the BNP can be stopped by a vigorous and determined campaign, as they were in the Halewood by-election recently — another mainly white, working-class district in Liverpool that rejected a local BNP candidate and the BNP’s message of hate and division after a strong anti-fascist campaign. We are going to break the BNP in Liverpool. This is just the start.

Liverpool Anti-Fascists

BNP supporters accused of hurling abuse at home of Liverpool’s ex-Lord Mayor

A GROUP of British National Party supporters were accused of hurling abuse over a loudspeaker after gathering outside the home of a former Lord Mayor.

Labour Cllr Steve Rotheram last night hit out at the BNP, saying its tactics left one of his two teenage daughters shaken.

The far-right party allegedly honed cameras on his home in Aintree yesterday in the run-up to last night’s by-election in Fazakerley.

Cllr Rotheram said: “I always knew these were particularly nasty people.

“But this has really opened my eyes about how bitter and twisted they can be.”

He said Labour would not be intimidated by “fascists”.

Police confirmed during a patrol of the area a man was spoken to about his use of a loudhailer, but no offences were believed to have been committed at the time. No one was arrested.

The Daily Post approached one BNP supporter who Cllr Rotheram claimed was present, but when questioned about the incident he repeatedly answered “no comment”.

The incident flared up after Cllr Rotheram briefly left his home.

Liverpool Daily Post

BNP Supporter issues threat towards Kirklees Unity

Click to enlarge

Taken from Twitter

Details have been forwarded on to West Yorkshire Police and Twitter.

Don't be fooled, the BNP is really nothing like you

Times journalist Dominic Kennedy getting kicked out a BNP meeting

The British National Party has announced that, following pressure from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, it will now be admitting black members. Don't all rush at once, folks.

Still, only fair, isn't it? After all, black people have every right to be racist knuckleheads, too. Maybe this new branch of the BNP could take it a step further and enter a float at next year's Notting Hill Carnival. After all, no sense in just preaching to the converted.

This being the BNP however, the ground-breaking declaration was made from a boozer near Romford. And as Nick Griffin, party leader, promoted the new inclusiveness, his company goons were encouraging a reporter from The Times to leave.

That is the BNP term for it, anyway. The rest of us would say they were giving him a going over, nightclub bouncer style. Griffin said it showed the party was not going soft. 

Anyway, if a bloody nose is the trade-off for reminding folk what the BNP truly represents, the man from the Thunderer might consider it a worthwhile exercise after all.

A small episode of assault exposes the lie at the heart of the party because, incredibly, there are otherwise reasonable people who are actually convinced the BNP represents their views.

It is the grab-bag manifesto of populist policies that does it. Weekly rubbish collection. The return of grammar schools. Hey, people think, this BNP lot are just like me.

But they are not. You are nicer than them. You are fairer than them. You are better, so much better, than the BNP. Do not confuse yourself with them. There are many who believe in educational reform. There are plenty who are upset at juggling four wheelie bins.

These are legitimate opinions, right or wrong. They do not make you a fellow traveller with the BNP, though. This is the con. This is what the BNP wishes you to believe. They want you to think of them as just another option, no different to the other parties; but they are. They are beating up people who question them, and this in the middle of a charm offensive, remember. Could you imagine what they would be like if they had the power to move out of the margins?

Walter Wolfgang, 82 and a Labour Party member for 57 years, was ejected from the Labour Party conference in 2005 for shouting 'nonsense' as Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, defended government policy in Iraq. The BNP would like to equate this with what happened to the man from The Times at the weekend. It bears no comparison.

The treatment of Mr Wolfgang, who was laughably prevented from returning to the auditorium by police enforcing the Terrorism Act, is one of the most shameful episodes in the history of Labour, or any mainstream political party, and will not be quickly forgotten. By contrast, what unfolded at the Elm Park pub in Hornchurch was business as usual for the BNP.

Their slogan is 'People Like You'. So are you like Ian Hindle and Andrew Wells, two names on the BNP membership list, who in 2008 were convicted of sexually abusing 14-year-old schoolgirls? Maybe you are like Martin Glasgow or Anthony Weeks, who both received prison sentences in October 2008 for racially aggravated assault? No?

It is quite a roll call, the list of BNP members who are not so much men of conviction as men with convictions.Gang rapists, public nuisances, nail bombers, murderers, arsonists, football hooligans, benefit cheats, wife beaters.

Of course, every party has its share of bad apples, but in the BNP they do seem rather high in density. So are these people like you? It seems rather a lively bunch.

Some think if we ignore the BNP they will go away. I'm not so sure. If we dismiss them, if we do not continue pointing out that beneath the sheen of good schools and clean bins lurk the same old thugs who used to go Paki-bashing in the Seventies, then they stand more chance of taking some otherwise good people down with them.

They mobilise members to disproportionately invade message boards, chat rooms, or the letters pages of local papers, giving the impression that the BNP view is sympathetic, even conventional.

Yet the methods are insidious, like most propaganda campaigns. It is the blade of the stiletto, not the stomp of the jackboot: at first, anyway.

In the end, though, even on their best behaviour, the BNP can't resist beating someone up. And I don't think you are like that, because decent people are not. It is why violent thugs have to impersonate them in order to get elected.

Daily Mail 

Teenager, 15, who posted video of Ku Klux Klan hanging black man online becomes youngest to be charged with inciting racial hate

Members of the Ku Klux Klan in Jasper, Texas. The teenager posted footage of Klansmen hanging a black man online

A 'reclusive' teenager has become the youngest person prosecuted for inciting racial hatred by posting a video of the Ku Klux Klan hanging a black man online, a court heard.

The youngster, who 'lived in his bedroom' and cannot be named for legal reasons, set up an internet site on which he 'demonstrated how to stab a n*****'.

The teenager, who lives near Fakenham, Norfolk, is now 17 but was 15 when police found the website, magistrates in King's Lynn, Norfolk, were told.

He was given a two-year conditional discharge by magistrates after admitting distributing 'threatening, abusive or insulting' material meaning to 'stir' racial hatred.

Crown Prosecution Service officials said they thought it was the first time anyone so young had been prosecuted for inciting racial hatred by posting inflammatory material on a website.

Defence lawyers said the youngster had special needs and had been seeking attention.

But a CPS solicitor said teenagers should realise posting racist material on the internet was 'not a joke'.

'Young people need to realise that it is not a joke to post hate-filled material on video sharing websites or sites they set up themselves,' said CPS lawyer Viv Goddard.

'The material in this case was not just offensive but highly disturbing in its violence and imagery, particularly one clip which showed a black man being hanged by the Ku Klux Klan then his leg being hacked off and thrown into a fire.

'People are entitled to hold racist and extreme opinions which others may find offensive and obnoxious.

'What they are not entitled to do is to publish or distribute those opinions to the public in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner.'

Daily Mail 

Racist Northern Ireland Facebook webpage closed

A webpage containing hate-filled racist abuse against Roma rose-sellers in Northern Ireland has been shut down by Facebook.


Earlier this week the Belfast Telegraph reported how the group had attracted 16,000 members.

Among the posts on the website are: “dont be so horrible those poor smelly theifing (SIC) c**** they might feel unwelcome and f*** off back home haha”. After being contacted by this newspaper, Facebook said it would remove the page.

A spokesperson said: “We have removed the group as it violated our statement of rights and responsibilities.

SDLP MLA Conall McDevitt, who came across the site, welcomed its removal.

Belfast Telegraph

Boy posted racial hatred videos

 

A boy from Norfolk who posted "highly disturbing" white supremacist videos online has been given a two-year conditional discharge.

The boy, 17, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted two charges of inciting racial hatred on or before 22 April 2008 at King's Lynn Youth Court.

The boy was 15 when he was arrested for posting videos on YouTube.

The Crown Prosecution Service believes he is the youngest person in England and Wales prosecuted for the offence.

'Hate filled'

The boy also put material on a website he had set up himself, the court heard.

Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer Viv Goddard said: "This is thought to be the first time the CPS has prosecuted someone as young as this defendant for incitement to racial hatred after posting racially-inflammatory material on a social networking site.

"Young people need to realise that it is not a joke to post hate-filled material on video-sharing websites or sites they set up themselves.

"The material in this case was not just offensive but highly disturbing in its violence and imagery."

'Seeking attention'

Mrs Goddard said it was difficult for the youth to deny responsibility as he had either filmed himself expressing racist opinions or had supplied his own comments as a voice over.

He had insisted that those who wanted to view his site had to agree to statements before they were allowed access, the lawyer said.

These statements included "I do swear and verify that I am of the white race" and "I am not or have never been a follower of the Jewish religion".

The boy also stipulated that viewers "believe in the segregation of the races" and "have never engaged in an inter-racial relationship".

Defence lawyers told the court the youngster had special needs and had been seeking attention.

BBC 

  

Fears of violence as far-right group admits it can’t control followers

The Scottish Defence League march in Edinburgh will face a counter protest

With only a week to go before the Scottish Defence League takes to the streets of Edinburgh for a second time, the leaders of the far-right organisation have admitted that they have lost control over the supporters that follow their protests.

A recent English Defence League demonstration in Stoke turned into a “pogrom” against Muslims, according to anti-fascists, that was so violent it shocked even the Defence League leadership, who were quick to deny responsibility. Now Defence League organisers say that this Saturday’s planned demonstration in the capital is at risk of descending into chaos because leaders are losing control of the mass movement.

More than 1,500 people turned up on the side of the English Defence League in Stoke – the sister organisation of the Scottish Defence League – dwarfing the tiny number of anti-fascists that gathered to stand against them.

The mob turned over police riot vans, smashed the windows of Muslim homes and tried to attack a mosque. Organisers believe some 500 Scottish Defence League supporters will turn up in the capital next weekend.

Defence League leaders claim that hundreds of BNP supporters and other thugs turned up in Stoke simply looking for a fight.

Mickey, who leads Casuals United and is part of the EDL leadership, said: “Stoke was horrendous. It went mental. Hundreds of BNP members turned up. You can’t go around rioting like that, because eventually they’ll ban the movement. The people that came don’t care about the EDL, they just turn up for the riots.”

He added: “We’re not conspiring to cause riots. Yes, we have a lot of criminals attaching themselves to us and people that come along to kick off, but we’re trying to deal with that.”

The police are now so concerned about the Defence Leagues that the have set up a special unit to try and combat them.

Fear of infiltration is at fever pitch amongst the far-right group, with leaders even claiming that Special Branch tried to sneak into their ranks by disguising an officer as a Hells Angel.


The biker allegedly visited every regional Defence League leader in the county, asking for membership details and taking photographs. When enquires were made, no motorcycle gang had heard of him.

Police have also warned the EDL that Islamic extremists are plotting to attack their demonstrations and told them that any future protests in Birmingham could be attacked by suicide bombers.

Meanwhile, the Defence Leagues are making allegiances of their own, including with the Orange Order in Belfast, with the aim of opening a wing of the Defence Leagues in Ulster.

Mickey had this further warning: “People all around the country are kicking off against Islam. The government and police must be worried. Our movement’s gone from 30 or 40 people when we started doing demos in London, to thousands now. It hasn’t even been a year.”

Unite Against Fascism held its annual conference yesterday. The group feels that the threat from fascism is worse than ever and has warned that racist violence could become commonplace on the streets of Britain unless action is taken to combat it.

Weyman Bennet, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism, said: “There was an attempt to try and have a kind of pogrom in Stoke.

“You’ve got fascists becoming successful in elections. Fascists are also at the centre of bringing racist football thugs on to the streets. This brings us into a very dangerous situation and we are at risk of major conflict.

“We will protest against the EDL or SDL wherever they go. We will not allow them to intimidate a community.”

Herald Scotland

Far-right British party welcomes Hanson

 
THE leader of the British National Party says Pauline Hanson will be welcomed should she decide to play a political role upon moving to the UK.

BNP leader Nick Griffin also said he felt sorry for Ms Hanson because she had been "forced out of her country by this politically correct intimidation and bullying''.

"She would not be a sponger,'' he told Fairfax.

"We would regard her as a good addition.''

The One Nation founder has put her million dollar property up for sale in Coleyville, southwest of Brisbane, and has announced she's moving to Britain.

Mr Griffin said the BNP's leaders had long observed Ms Hanson's career and "persecution'' by Australian mainstream parties.

He offered a bit of advice about where Ms Hanson should live, warning she should stay away from central London because it had become overrun with "spongers''.

He said more than 100,000 "indigenous'' Londoners had fled the capital every year over the past two decades after being driven out by immigration.

"It has been a relentless flow because they can't stand living there and feeling like foreigners in their own city,'' he said.

Ms Hanson's hardline views on race sparked a national debate over immigration policy and Aboriginal disadvantage from the time she entered federal parliament in 1996.

In her maiden speech, she said "we are in danger of being swamped by Asians'' and questioned multiculturalism.

News.com.au

Australia's Far - Right Hanson to Move to Britain

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's former anti-immigrant politician, Pauline Hanson, is to become an immigrant herself, moving to Britain to escape lingering controversy over her warning that Australia was being swamped by Asians.

Hanson, who went from fish-and-chip shop owner to form the One Nation party and turn it into a political force more than a decade ago, told Australia's Woman's Day magazine that she is selling her Queensland home and moving to the UK to find "peace."

"I'm going to be away indefinitely. Its pretty much goodbye forever," she said. "I've really had enough. I want peace in my life. I want contentment, and that's what I'm aiming for."

Hanson won fame in 1996, entering national parliament as an independent calling for cuts to Aboriginal welfare and immigration from Australia's regional neighbours.

Her nationalist One Nation party drew a million votes at its 1998 peak, but she lost her seat and was later convicted of electoral fraud and briefly went to jail.

Released in 2003 after her conviction was overturned, the red-headed mother of four left politics and became a minor celebrity, at one time entering a TV dancing competition.

Hanson said Australia has changed too much for her liking, even though some political analysts had speculated in recent weeks that the mood of the country ahead of elections later this year once again favours her views.

"Sadly, the land of opportunity is no more applicable," she told the magazine.

A surge in asylum seekers arrivals over the past year has again divided Australians and threatens to become an issue for elections later this year which Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is on track to win, despite recently slipping opinion poll support.

Immigration is expected to push Australia's population from 22 million to around 35 million by 2050, with Rudd backing a "big Australia" that would be more economically self-sustaining, but which critics say would be unable to cope with accelerating climate shift and ageing infrastructure.

New York Times  

BNP accused of muscling in on campaign for wounded soldier

Fusilier Thomas James

The British National Party was last night accused of plumbing new depths after it hijacked an online campaign to celebrate an amputee soldier’s birthday. Military officials described the political stunt as shameful and condemned the far-Right party for exploiting the predicament of wounded soldiers.

In its latest attempt to use the military for political gain, the BNP usurped an internet campaign to gather birthday greetings for Fusilier Thomas James, who was badly wounded last year in Afghanistan.

The Times has learnt that the military support group behind the campaign was approached by a BNP official who offered to send out an e-mail appeal to tens of thousands of people. However he is said not to have disclosed his political affiliation.

The e-mail was then sent from a BNP address to party supporters. It asked for the birthday cards to be sent to BNP headquarters, raising fears that they would be used for a political stunt. Nick Griffin, the party’s leader, highlighted the campaign on his Facebook page. Military officials accused the BNP of a lack of transparency and said a vulnerable soldier was being unfairly linked with the party.

A senior military source told The Times: “Where a political party uses sleight of hand to gain an advantage like that, it is completely out of order. It makes us very uncomfortable.”

In October a group of former generals gave warning that the BNP was exploiting the Armed Forces by highlighting its donations to military charities and repeatedly using imagery of soldiers.

Major-General Patrick Cordingley, one of the group and the commander of the Desert Rats in the Gulf War, said last night that the BNP was “stooping very low indeed”. He told The Times: “I am irritated by the way they are using members of the Armed Forces and not being transparent in their aims.

“One would be very concerned that this young man would now be associated with the BNP when I am quite certain that is far from his mind.”

Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the Army, said: “It is entirely shameful that wounded soldiers are used for political purposes.”

The online effort for Fusilier James was started by the “British Armed Forces... The best in the World... Support Group”, the organisation behind a recent campaign that stopped Muslim hardliners marching through Wootton Bassett.

Joanna Cleary, its founder, said that it was a “nice and genuine” attempt to surprise Fusilier James, who lost an arm and an eye during a bombing in Helmand province last August, on his 21st birthday last Friday.

Ms Cleary was approached by Simon Bennett, the BNP’s webmaster, who offered to use a mailing list to spread the word. She said she had “no idea” he was a member of the BNP and did not agree for the party to be affiliated with the campaign.

“I am absolutely furious that something genuine has been made political. Soldiers do the job that most of us wouldn’t do. Any political party that uses them to forward their agenda should be ashamed,” she said. Fusilier James could not be contacted for comment.

James Bethell, from Nothing British, an organisation that campaigns against the BNP, said that the party was taking advantage of the public affection for war heroes.

The BNP has repeatedly said that it will use veteran and military issues during the general election campaign, and has a strategy of cloaking itself in the military. It named its campaign for the European elections, in which it won two seats and nearly a million votes, the “Battle for Britain”. Its campaign logo was the Spitfire and it regularly evokes the “spirit of the Blitz” on its website. The party has also highlighted on its website individual donations by its members to organisations including the Royal British Legion and the Gurkha Welfare Trust.

The Times reported last year how charities were concerned that individual donations were being used for political gain, placing them in an awkward position because it was impossible to track the origin of payments. Mr Griffin repeatedly wears a poppy badge despite objections by the Royal British Legion.

The Times

Brute Force

However hard the BNP tries to present itself as a normal political party, it portrays a face of cynicism and thuggishness at every turn

The British National Party voted yesterday to abandon its bar on non-white members. This was not a belated and humbled acknowledgment of historic bigotry but an expedient to avoid a court injunction under human rights legislation. Meanwhile, BNP security guards assaulted and expelled Dominic Kennedy, the Times journalist who was reporting the party’s meeting.

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, declared after the meeting: “We will carry on throwing The Times out until they report the truth. That’s all we ask.” The Times meets that request with journalistic scrupulousness and no little incredulity. If Mr Griffin wants the truth to be told about the BNP, we can recount it from direct observation. The BNP purports to be a legitimate party; yet its behaviour reveals it at every turn to be exploitative, cynical, xenophobic and thuggish.

Mr Griffin also said after yesterday’s amendment to the BNP constitution: “We have done it and now, for one thing, they can’t call us racist any more.” The BNP is racist. Racism is an attitude, not a legalistic nicety. Mr Griffin made clear that the vote was merely an acknowledgement of “legal reality”. The party does not throw off a history of ideological conviction by acquiescing in what the law demands.

Political parties by definition have a point of view. A newspaper’s responsibility is to report their actions and statements fairly but with critical detachment. When Mr Kennedy entered the BNP’s press conference, Richard Barnbrook, a BNP member of the London Assembly, demanded that he leave. Mr Barnbrook had taken exception to a profile of him published in Saturday’s edition of The Times. That was enough.

Mr Kennedy was not attending the meeting covertly. He had expressly been invited to report on it by Simon Darby, the party’s national press officer. On pointing this out, Mr Kennedy was physically ejected. His nose was grabbed, twisted and bloodied. A punch was thrown. He was pushed into a parked car outside the building.

Mr Griffin complained recently that the press would “go overboard to demonise \ and create an atmosphere in which lunatics will feel justified in physically attacking us”. The extravagance of his rhetoric betrays the ugly underlying reality. Even the BNP’s extremist associates in the European Parliament are at pains to present themselves as wedded to constitutional politics. The BNP, by contrast, just cannot help its lineage from showing. It affects a respectable and patriotic face, and a concern with popular welfare. But its ideology draws on extremist currents and its attempts at concealment are dishonest.

The most contemptible of the BNP’s tactics is to associate itself with the Armed Forces and Services’ charities. A group of generals expressed their concern last October that the party was hijacking the reputation of the Forces. BNP organisations have masqueraded as servicemen’s support groups. It would be an affront to public service for any political party to claim a special relationship with the Armed Forces. It is repugnant for it to be done by a party that reviles the values of fairness that the Armed Forces exemplify and defend.

The BNP now likes to pose as a normal British political party. In fact, they are no such thing. In this country, it is not normal for political parties to rough up journalists. In this country, it is not normal for people to disown racism for reasons of convenience, rather than conviction. In this country, it is not normal to hijack the birthday celebrations of a wounded soldier for electoral gain. The BNP like to boast their Britishness but seem to have forgotten the most essential British values: free speech and fairness, compassion and respect. Yesterday, the BNP showed they are many things, but not British.

The Times

The day the BNP said it had changed its ways

Cllr Richard Barnbrook remonstrates with Times reporter Dominic Kenneday in Essex about article in yesterdays Times.

One man grabbed my nose and tried to remove it from my face. As I was shoved towards the back of a parked vehicle and threw my hands out to steady myself a BNP thug snarled: “Don’t touch people’s cars mate.” Obviously, I offered no resistance.

I had gone to the Elm Park pub in Hornchurch to report on a press conference at which Nick Griffin, MEP for North West England and chairman of the British National Party, was to explain how his activists had just passed an historic membership reform.

Although I had been invited, one prominent BNP politician had taken exception to an article in Saturday’s edition of The Times. After he lost his temper with me I was quickly shoved and lifted out of the building, hit in the back and had my face squashed.

The BNP, the most successful hard-right party since Oswald Mosley’s 1930s neo-Nazi Blackshirts, had been forced by equality legislation to hold an extraordinary general meeting to let non-whites become members.

The party faithful had gathered at Upminster railway station at 11am to be given directions to a secret location — all part of the effort to outwit any left-wing agitators who might have been leaked Mr Griffin’s location.

The activists soon found themselves on a five-minute drive through East End suburbs to the Elm Park pub.

It was Valentine’s Day but the hundred or so white activists, mainly men and almost all clad in black, walked past the florists into a room with a bar, snooker table and stage festooned in St George’s crosses, Union flags and posters saying: “Support our troops — bring our boys home”.

Everybody in the BNP looks like a bouncer, so it is only by the “Security” signs on the back of their jackets that the real protection team can be spotted, ready to save their leader from the Lefties who had, frustratingly, failed to appear.

I recognised Richard Barnbrook, the BNP’s London Assembly member and a local councillor, outside the pub and approached him for a quote. When I introduced myself, he became extremely angry, objecting to an article in The Times on Saturday that said that in his local area he was spat at on the street and that some of his neighbours were worried about kind of visitors he had at his house.

A few minutes later he stormed across the road carrying a copy of the story, printed from Times Online at 10.57 yesterday morning, just before the party get-together. He made it clear that The Times was not welcome in his manor. I listened patiently to his objections but made no comment.

While the BNP met behind closed doors I visited people from ethnic minorities in the neighbourhood to see if they would join when the rules changed. A Turkish man serving at a general store had no idea what they stood for and was unable to comment.

I followed the sound of clapping upstairs to the Redeemed Christian Church of God, where one of the elders. Peter David, 56, who came to Britain from Trinidad in the 1970s, left the worshipping to tell me that, yes, he would consider supporting the BNP.

He said that he was a former Labour councillor but had become disillusioned. “I have come to the point where this small island, if you put too many people on it, the island might sink. It’s only now the British Government have decided the borders have got to be tightened and secured. The BNP have been talking about this for some time. People have the wrong idea of the BNP as a racist group.”

With this viewpoint in my notebook, I headed back to the pub, where a press conference was being organised. Simon Darby, the BNP’s national spokesman, had been speaking with me on the telephone during the day and had briefed me for ten minutes about the constitutional reform while we stood on the pavement outside.

The press were led to the entrance to the pub, where we could hear a tape of Jerusalem being played, followed by enthusiastic applause. The security guards checked each individual into the room. The Times photographer and I were clearly identified. Mr Darby called me by my first name and said that I could come in, although he added: “Don’t send Fiona” — a reference to my colleague Fiona Hamilton, who has a series of BNP scoops behind her. In my job I have to try to speak with people from all walks of life. I have met Mr Griffin before and spoken with him plenty of times on the telephone. This was the first time I had met Mr Darby in person although we had often discussed matters by phone. Both are quite capable of displaying basic manners, when they wish to do so.

Mr Griffin, wearing a smart suit and looking younger and fitter than I last remember, was preparing to do some interviews for TV cameras and I prepared to take notes of what he said. At that point Mr Barnbrook appeared and said that I was unwelcome in the pub because I worked for The Times.

I tried to explain to an official that I had been invited in by the press officer but I was told to leave. A security official gave me a sneaky hit in the small of the back. I pointed out that he had assaulted me. He denied it.

I stood my ground. The official asked me whether I would leave, and warned me that I would be ejected. I declined to give a yes or no answer since I thought that there must be a misunderstanding and that Mr Darby, or maybe Mr Griffin, would sort it out. It was a long way to the door, and I could hardly believe that they would physically force me out of the room in front of the massed media, having invited me in by my first name. In a matter of moments I found about half a dozen security guys enthusiastically removing me. One threw a punch but it failed to land, unlike its intended recipient in the pub car park.

Inside, Mr Griffin gave a series of interviews. Asked about my rough ejection, he said that it was “because he is from The Times, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and it lies and it lies and it lies about this party. So he was told, ‘We’re sorry, you told one lie too many’, so we are not allowing anyone from The Times in — kindly leave. He refused to leave so he had to be encouraged to leave.”

No such exchange of words took place. I was simply invited in and then ambushed by his henchmen.

Maybe they were all just frustrated because the Anti-Nazi League failed to turn up. I never thought I would actually get my nose bloodied trying to cover a press conference for a political party — but that is the true face of Nick Griffin and his BNP.

The Times

BNP attack Times Journalist at EGM

Dominic Kennedy, Investigations Editor of The Times, is evicted from the BNP meeting in Hornchurch

BNP changes all-white constitution and ejects Times reporter from meeting 

The British National Party voted today to change its constitution to allow black and Asian people to become members.

The decision came at an extraordinary general meeting in Essex that was called after a court ordered the far-right party to comply with race relations laws. A court will decide in March whether the changes bring the BNP within the legislation.

However, the party’s democratic credentials were called into question when a reporter from The Times was bundled out of a press conference shortly before Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, was due to speak. A party official objected to a profile which had appeared in the newspaper at the weekend.

The Times had been invited by Simon Darby, the party's press officer, with other media, to hear Mr Griffin describe the constitutional changes.

However Richard Barnbrook, a local councillor and a member of the London Assembly, who was upset by an article about him in The Times on Saturday, said that the newspaper was unwelcome inside the Elm Park pub in Hornchurch, where the meeting took place.

After The Times tried to explain that the newspaper had been officially invited into the building, the BNP's security staff lifted and shoved its reporter out of the building, grabbing his nose. A punch was also thrown by security staff and the reporter was flung at a parked car outside.

Mr Griffin said The Times had lied about the party. He said: “Because he is from The Times, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and it lies and it lies and it lies about this party.

“So he was told ’we’re sorry, you told one lie too many’, The Times, so we are not allowing anyone from The Times in – kindly leave.

“He refused to leave when he was asked so he had to be encouraged to leave.”

A BBC reporter asked if he would be removed if he said the wrong thing. Mr Griffin replied: “If you utter some outrageous lie about me... you won’t be welcome again.”

Mr Griffin told Sky News he expected a “trickle, rather than a flood” of applications from black and Asian people.

He said: “Anyone can be a member of this party. We are happy to accept anyone as a member providing they agree with us that this country should remain fundamentally British.”

The Times