Kirklees Unity

From the British People. To Victory! We are With You!

2011-06-20T15:25:00.001+01:00

70th Anniversary T-shirt from Philosophy Football marking the seventieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Front.

Design based on an original wartime poster by the English artist Reginald Mount. These were attached to aircraft sent from Britain to aid the Soviet war effort. In 1941 this included RAF No 151 Wing Hurricanes and their aircrew joining the Red Army in their fight against the Nazi
invaders.

Available from Philosophy Football

Kirklees the lost jewel

2011-04-05T09:25:00.003+01:00

Rachel Firth

Kirklees BNP Organiser Rachel Firth blamed the dissident Eddy Butler’s influence on her party colleagues for her failure to find any candidates to stand in North Kirklees.

Kirklees, once described as the BNP’s jewel in the crown, has in the past fielded a full slate of 23 candidates. However it was announced today that the BNP will only be standing four candidates there.

Traditionally the BNP have always been far stronger in North Kirklees than in the more rural South. At its peak North Kirklees was a branch in its own right and had three BNP councillors.

Yet when nominations closed today it was revealed there wasn’t a single BNP candidate in North Kirklees, which is rather strange as a Kirklees resident can stand for election anywhere in the district.

When questioned by disconsolate BNP members on the Kirklees BNP Facebook page, Firth replied: “North Kirklees appears to have fallen under the spell of Edward Butler”.

Hope not Hate

'£1million bill' for Blackburn protests policing operation

2011-04-04T23:29:00.001+01:00

Lancashire's biggest-ever policing operation has been hailed a huge success after a mass demonstration by the English Defence League passed without major incident.

Around 2,000 EDL supporters descended on Blackburn from around the country on Saturday while an estimated 500 opposition protesters also gathered. Many town leaders had feared the eruption of widespread violence but only 12 people were arrested across the day.

It is understood that around 1,900 officers from across the North West took part in the operation and MP Jack Straw said the security clampdown would end up costing taxpayers around £1 million.

Mr Straw praised the skill of the police but said many people would be angry that the ‘self-indulgence’ of the EDL would result in such a high cost. Town centre shops also lost trade and Phil Ainsworth, of Blackburn’s Town Centre Partnership, said it had been a ‘disastrous’ retail day.

Eight-foot high steel barriers fenced in the 2,000 EDL demonstrators inside the King George’s Hall section of Northgate.

The only violence during the day was two large brawls, lasting up to 10 minutes, among the EDL protest. Those arrested - the majority of whom were from the EDL side - were questioned for alleged offences including assault, drunk and disorderly, affray and public order. Six of those were from Blackburn and rest from Yorkshire, the Midlands, North East and Bolton.

The counter-demonstration, said to be celebrating Blackburn’s diversity, in Sudell Cross passed without incident, except for concern over groups of youths throwing firecrackers on the floor.

Blackburn’s Mall Shopping Centre remained open from 9am until 5.30pm, with four shops deciding to close and another four closing earlier. While numbers of shoppers were a lot lower than a normal Saturday, there were no incidents inside the centre. Extra security guards and police were deployed throughout the Mall. Blackburn Market opened, but bosses decided to close the facility at 1.50pm amid fears of protesters descending on the area.

Around ninety officers remained on duty in the town centre until 5am, and there was no trouble reported in the evening or through the night.

Successful police tactics included:

A lead-in operation which saw EDL coaches escorted from the M65.
‘Fencing in’ all the access points around the EDL in the Mincing Lane, and Northgate area which kept groups separate.
Not using any officers in riot gear in a more non-confrontational approach.
Deciding not to split up the EDL brawls, instead letting the group’s own stewards sort it out.
Escorting the EDL out of town and holding back counter-demonstrators until they had left.

Chief Superintendent Bob Eastwood said: “Lancashire Constabulary and Blackburn with Darwen Council pulled off a successful operation that passed off relatively peacefully. People were continuing their shopping and we identified a strategy to cause minimum disruption. We had sufficient resources in place because of the obvious threat to community cohesion, and we were able to pull everybody together very well.”

Police said the decision to keep pubs closed until 4pm meant that, when the premises re-opened in time for the Arsenal versus Blackburn Rovers match live on television, the EDL protesters had left town.

Harry Catherall, deputy chief executive of Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council said he was pleased with the way the event had been managed. He said: “On the whole, it passed off peacefully. But I do apologise for the inconvenience that has been caused to businesses and residents on this unusual and difficult day.”

Lancashire Telegraph

Newsflash – Chris Beverley defects to the English Democrats

2011-04-04T23:27:00.000+01:00

Chris Beverley, a Leeds BNP stalwart and personal assistant to Andrew Brons, the BNP MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber has defected to the English Democrats Party (EDP) and is standing for them as a candidate in the forthcoming local elections in Leeds.

Beverley, who is also Brons Constituency Officer manager and the BNP’s long term link-man with the openly neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) in Germany is standing for the EDP in Morley South on 5 May. Beverley was also responsible for posting photographs of anti-BNP campaigners to Redwatch together with his then sidekick Mark Collett whose pronouncements on the virtues of the Hitler and the Third Reich became widely known as a result of the undercover television documentary Young, Nazi and Proud.

The move comes after Beverley, who is well liked and respected within the BNP, was recently suspended by the party chairman Nick Griffin as part of his on-going war on internal dissent within the party which has become increasingly vocal in its criticism of his lacklustre leadership.

Beverely who describes his decision to defect to the EDP as “huge” has promised to reveal his reasons to for defecting from the BNP tomorrow morning. “I am very excited about the coming campaign,” said Beverley, “and am proud to have been selected as a candidate for the English Democrats”.

Quite how EDP members themselves will react when news filters down that the party leadership have allowed a hard line fascist to join their ranks will be of interest.

Hope not hate

BNP member to be Padiham’s deputy mayor?

2011-04-04T08:49:00.000+01:00

John Cave

A Padiham town councillor’s bid to become Mayor is being hampered by political prejudice, he has claimed.

Coun. John Cave, who is a member of the British National Party, said party politics is the reason why some other town councillors have objected to him becoming Deputy Mayor of Padiham for the next civic year.

Although he has only served on the council for 12 months, Coun. Cave said under the rules of standing orders, he should be entitled to hold the post. But, according to Coun. Cave, some members of the council said the rules prevent him being nominated as Deputy Mayor because of the short time he has been a town councillor.

Coun. Cave, who is married to Coun. Sharon Wilkinson, leader of the BNP group in Burnley, said the objection, which he said was made by Coun. Andy Tatchell at a closed meeting of the town council, was actually voiced because of his links to the BNP and not due to the interpretation of the rules. To allay any confusion councillors and the town clerk Mrs Elizabeth Bolton are now waiting for clarification of the rules from Burnley Borough Council’s democracy officers.

“It strikes me as though he is keen to stop me being Mayor,” said Coun. Cave. “It is not supposed to be political, Padiham Town Council is apolitical. It’s because I’m BNP. I’m used to it to a certain extent, you expect it. But I’ve done my damnedest to keep politics out of it.”

Coun. Cave said he is more than equipped for the role after years of experience and would relish the chance to be Mayor of Padiham the following year, after Coun. Bob Clark.

Mrs Bolton added: “The matter is still under review and the democracy team at Burnley Borough Council is assisting the town council in its interpretation of the rules. As soon as we know that, the matter will be put before the full town council.”

A borough council spokesman said: “This is a matter for the town council.”

Coun. Tatchell and current Mayor of Padiham Coun. Jean Cunningham said it would be inappropriate to comment until clarification had been received from the borough council. Padiham Town Council’s next meeting is at Padiham Town Hall at 7 p.m. on Monday.

Burnley Express

12 arrests in Blackburn EDL protest and counter-demo

2011-04-02T08:54:00.000+01:00

A protest by the English Defence League and a counter-demonstration passed off largely peacefully in Blackburn today after a huge police operation.

Lancashire Police prepared for its biggest ever policing operation around the protests, taking place either end of Northgate separated by steel barriers.

The EDL protest started at 12.45pm around King George's Hall, Northgate, and finished at around 1.45pm. Blackburn with Darwen Against Racism's counter-demonstration in Sudell Cross began at 1pm and finished at 3pm.

Numbers were limited to 3,000 for each protest. However, police estimate 2,000 supporters of the EDL gathered and around 500 people at the Blackburn with Darwen United Against Racism counter-protest.

12 arrests were made for offences such as breach of peace, police assault, assault, drunk and disorderly, threatening behaviour, affray and obstruction.

Roads were closed and shops and pubs shut, with a large area of the town centre a no-go area for much of today. Other areas of central Blackburn were largely deserted. A heavy police presence remains in town in case there are any outbreaks of trouble.

Pubs re-opened at 4pm, ahead of the Arsenal and Blackburn Rovers match which is live on television.

The Lancashire Telegraph provided live updates from the protests.

Lancashire Telegraph

Shaming the St George's Cross

2011-04-02T08:52:00.000+01:00

Around 2,000 'protestors' - some dressed in makeshift Burqas
daubed in St George's Cross - took to the streets of Blackburn town centre

A demonstration by far-right group the English Defence League again descended into violence today as extremists began fighting among themselves.

Around 2,000 'protestors' - some wearing makeshift Burqas daubed in St George's Cross - took to the streets of Blackburn town centre, supposedly to demonstrate at the alleged spread of Sharia Law and militant Islamism.

The East Lancashire town, which has a large Asian population, was brought to a standstill by a huge police operation designed to segregate EDL marchers from a rival protest by Unite Against Fascism. But trouble flared as skirmishes broke out among EDL supporters. Thugs threw coins, a pint glass and exchanged punches. Police later confirmed they had made 12 arrests. One man was knocked unconscious in the fighting.

Despite the violence, organisers insisted the demonstration had been 'good'. EDL spokesman Tony Curtis claimed clashes had broken out between the main body of marchers and a more extreme splinter group. He added: 'Once we got rid of the troublemakers it got better. It was a good demonstration.'

This was the first EDL demonstration to take place in East Lancashire, after previous marches in Luton, Stoke and Bradford all ended in skirmishes between EDL supporters, police and UAF protestors. Some marchers concealed their faces with a St George's mask, while others covered their heads with mock Burqas. Others sparked flares and carried banners, some carrying the Star of David.

Roads were closed and shops and pubs shut, with a large area of the town centre, which is the constituency town of former Home Secretary Jack Straw, declared a no-go area. Other areas of central Blackburn were left largely deserted.

The region has a history of racial tension, with nearby Burnley the victim of rioting in June 200. But police thanked the local community for behaving peacefully.

Hundreds of officers - some drafted from Cumbria - were employed to maintain order, along with council staff and community volunteers. Divisional commander Bob Eastwood expressed some satisfaction that police, along with mounted officers and steel barriers, were able to keep the two sides apart. He said: 'We estimate that around 2,000 EDL and about 500 counter demonstrators took part in today's events. Although there were minor scuffles amongst the EDL demonstrators, there was no significant disorder. The events have passed mostly without incident and I would like to thank the local community for their help and tolerance during the events and the lead up to them.'

Daily Mail

Man broke window in EDL demo

2011-03-25T01:58:00.001Z

Gareth Mooney

A man who smashed a window during the English Defence League protest in Leicester has admitted causing criminal damage worth £1,500.

Gareth Mooney (29) of Sandown Court, Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, broke the shop window of Big John's Takeaway, in Humberstone Road on October 9 last year.

Liz Dodds, prosecuting, told Leicester magistrates that Mooney was one of about 200 protesters who broke through a police cordon in Queens Street at about 4pm to challenge a group of Asian youths. The trouble then spilled into Humberstone Road, where up to 20 members of the public had sought refuge in the takeaway.

She said: "Mr Mooney was caught on CCTV giving a forceful kick to the window, causing it to shatter in a spider effect. His behaviour instigated the subsequent attack on the building which caused a total of £5,000 damage."

Mooney said: "I'm very sorry for the trouble I've caused. It was down to stupidity."

He was bailed to appear at North Tyneside Magistrates Court on April 12.

This is Leicestershire

Party’s over as BNP disappear

2011-03-25T01:56:00.000Z

Far-right political party the BNP will not field a single candidate in South Tyneside in May.

A spokesman for the party said the move was a political decision in a bid to persuade national leader Nick Griffin to stand down. Martin Vaughan, fundholder for the party in South Tyneside, said the party was “finished” under Mr Griffin’s leadership. The move comes despite the BNP standing candidates in all borough electoral wards up for grabs at last year’s local elections.

Rival parties in South Tyneside today expressed their delight at the announcement. Coun Jane Branley, Independent Alliance representative for Westoe, said she believes the real reason is “disillusionment that they can’t get a toehold in what they thought were winnable seats in South Tyneside”.She added: “I am delighted that the BNP are not fielding any candidate as I abhor everything they stand for.”

Coun Iain Malcolm, the Labour leader of South Tyneside Council, also welcomed the party’s non-participation, adding: “I look forward to the day that the BNP as a political party is disbanded.”

But Coun George Elsom, Real Independent for Cleadon Park, described the withdrawal as a “big surprise”. He added: “I abhor the BNP and what they stand for, but I defend anyone’s democratic right to stand for election. Their candidate polled well in Cleadon Park last time round, so some people obviously agree with their policies.”

Mr Vaughan said: “Mr Griffin has attracted a lot of bad publicity and the party is in debt. There is a lot of disillusionment with him, and the party in South Tyneside want him to stand down. Under his leadership, the BNP is finished and we need him to go before we can rebuild. Previously loyal BNP members are being sacked throughout the country for speaking out against him. I don’t expect to remain in my role for much longer.”

Mr Griffin had been invited to meet his critics at a gathering at the High Lane Social Club in Hebburn at the weekend, but did not attend.

Mr Vaughan added: “He wasn’t even willing to answer his critics.”

Mr Griffin was unavailable for comment.

The Shields Gazette

Far-right groups confront each other in Dagenham

2011-03-23T02:07:00.000Z

The English Nationalist Alliance

Far-right activists turned against one another as they protested against a mosque in Dagenham on Saturday.

Protesters believed to back the English Defence League (EDL) confronted the English Nationalist Alliance (ENA), which staged its latest protest against the Muslim place and worship and community centre in Green Lane.

Both groups say they want to fund a judicial review in the High Court to try to overturn a council decision which gave the centre the go-ahead despite more than 1,300 objections in January.

Protesters were segregated on either side of Green Lane as police supervised the demonstrations.

The ENA said it had cancelled a meeting about the judicial review, due to take place tonight, because of Saturday’s confrontation.

An EDL spokesman said the counter demonstration was not organised centrally, adding the organisation did not oppose the ENA but merely did not want to be associated with its members.

Barking and Dagenham Post

Loyalists target BNP boss’s girl over £40K debt

2011-03-23T02:02:00.000Z

Jennifer Griffin

The BNP has fallen foul of a gang of loyalist heavies over a £40,000 debt, we can reveal.

Last week a handful of the gang – who come from east Belfast – travelled to England and Wales where they called at a number of addresses connected to BNP leader Nick Griffin. One of those visited was Nick Griffin’s daughter Jenny, who was running the BNP fundraising/membership office in Dundonald until it closed recently.

The Sunday World understands the debt is connected to a printer's firm based in the loyalist heartland. The BNP used the firm to print election leaflets and other promotional stuff in the run-up to the disastrous 2010 General Election. But soon after the BNP went into financial meltdown and today have debts estimated of at least £500,000.

We understand the BNP have been trying to come up with a financial plan which would see their creditors getting a fraction of what they are owed. They have offered a string of Ulster businesses as well as landlords and other people owed money just 5p in every pound.

Staff made redundant when the Belfast office closed are owed thousands in unpaid wages as well. On Tuesday lawyers acting for some ex-BNP staff served papers on the party demanding they be paid in full. And the printer's company is demanding the cash is paid in full as well and we understand they may have sold the debt on.

Last week the gang made an unannounced call at the home of Griffin’s daughter Jenny Matthys. But when she wasn’t in they called at the home of his father in Wales and delivered the message.

“These guys meant business,” said the source. “The printing company wants their money. They are run by a man who has plenty of friends in the loyalist paramilitaries. There were four men. They called at Jenny’s house but she wasn’t there so they went to Nick Griffin’s dad’s house in Welshpool, Powys,Wales. Griffin’s dad has money and bailed his son out before. The message from this gang was very simple - ‘Pay what’s owed or we’ll be back’. The BNP have left a lot of Ulster business’s in the sh*t. They owe hundreds of thousands of pounds but they have no way of paying up because they are practically bankrupt.”

The deal with the printers was secured by Scottish firebrand and convicted criminal Jim Dowson. At the time Dowson was in charge of the BNP nerve centre which was based in an enterprise park in Dundonald. Indeed Dowson had convinced the BNP hierarchy to base their major fundraising in Belfast promising they would be able to operate in peace. But the move was a complete disaster with rising costs not being met by donations and membership dues.

Dowson and the Belfast office were blamed by members in England for the election fiasco which saw the BNP fail to win a single Westminster seat and lose all their council seats in east London. The Belfast office went on a charm offensive in an attempt to persuade BNP members in the UK that things were OK.

This included an excruciating video tour of the Belfast operation, lead by Jenny and her BNP husband Angus, and showed us, amongst other things, how the membership card embossing machine works! But a few short months later and the Belfast operation (sadly including the embossing machine) was shut down.

Dowson sealed his own fate when he landed the BNP in a costly legal mess after they hijacked Marmite for an election campaign advert. Marmite producers Unilever threatened court action and eventually the BNP settled out of court at great expense.

During their short stay in Ulster the BNP was being run by Griffin’s daughter Jenny, who moved into a small flat in Comber, Co. Down. But she has returned to the mainland to work for the trouble-hit far right party.

Last year her father sent an embarrassing begging letter to all BNP members stating, in stark terms, that the party was doomed if they didn’t cough up some extra cash.

Hope not hate

Police investigate alleged links between BNP and Northampton charity Soldiers Off The Streets

2011-02-22T22:21:00.003Z

A SERVING soldier who helps to take struggling ex-servicemen off the streets was questioned by police after concerns were raised about his work.

Chris Mounteney, an outreach worker for the Soldiers Off The Street charity in Northampton, said he was quizzed last Thursday before he went out to help the homeless on his night shift.

The 44-year-old said: “I was told to stop my work because they believed the charity was set up by the BNP. It was ludicrous. Soldiers Off The Streets was set up by Bill Murray, who used to be in the BNP, but he has relinquished his support of them. The charity doesn’t have political links.”

The serviceman did however admit the group’s headquarters were rented off a current member of the BNP.

Mr Mounteney, who works as a welfare officer in the TA centre in Clare Street, Northampton, added: “We are a charity and people need our help. If somebody serves their country they should have proper care and, as a charity, we provide that.”

The row was played out through social networking website Facebook over the weekend with Northamptonshire Police issuing the following statement: “We can confirm that a number of concerns were raised to us by partner agencies. To clarify this, a meeting was held with a representative from Soldiers Off The Street.

“We support people’s right to engage with legitimate charities and undertake lawful work on their behalf. We have not instructed anyone to stop working with a charity of their choice and would not seek to prevent them from doing so. We are currently investigating this matter.”

Mr Mounteney said he was later told he could continue his charity work and had the full support of the police.

He added: “There was a sudden change. I’m hoping that now we can all work in partnership to help the homeless.”

Northampton Chronicle

EDL photo-SHOOT

2011-02-22T14:11:00.001Z

It would appear that the EDL are intent on bringing their terror closer to home. Not content with Jewish extremists who like to blow things up, here is the West Midlands Division of the EDL standing in front of the flags and paraphernalia of the outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force and what appear to be imitation firearms for the purpose of a photo-shoot.

Time after time we hear from the likes of the EDL's leadership how they are a non-racist organisation and how "Tommy Robinson" and Kevin Carroll are proud of their Irish roots.

Perhaps they would like to act now and tell us how their non-sectarian and non-racist organisation will deal with the further adulation of gun-toting extremists, in particular the UVF an organisation that made its name in Ireland by murdering people whose soul crime normally, was that they were born Catholics?

During the EDL's violent march in Leicester, "Tommy Robinson" (real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon) spoke angrily about the protests that had met the recent visit to this country by the pope.

Perhaps this further exposure of the true nature of the EDL and its band of thugs, sycophants and would-be terrorists will serve to remind people that the EDL is just the other side of a coin poisoned by bigotry, violence and hatred

Hope not Hate

BNP chief keeps the faith

2011-02-22T00:44:00.000Z

Colonel Gadaffi's "The Green Book" being sold by Harrington on his ebay page

This evening's London Evening Standard reports that Libya is "Ablaze" and further reports of "massacre" fears and sniper mercenaries' opening fire on the funerals of dead protestors.

There is turmoil, and a difficulty of getting an accurate picture of exactly what is going on in the country. The leader of Libya is at best described as erstwhile, a law unto himself; Occasional revolutionary, benevolent dictator, war monger, terrorist and occasional peace maker.

"The Colonel" as Muammar Gadaffi , Libya's dictator for 41 years likes to be known, has few ideological admirers in this country. If anything, he is more bewildering than enlightening. Further to that, he was once the go-to person for people wanting finance and equipment to carry out acts of terror. He didn't really seem that bothered who received his financial backing either. During the 1980s both sides in Northern Ireland's conflict courted Gadaffi. So too did one Nick Griffin, who led his Anti-Semitic National Front up a revolutionary garden path in admiration for the Colonel. This was at a time when Gadaffi was an international pariah not just for the Lockerbie bombing but also the murder of London Police woman Yvonne Fletcher.

Griffin and his sidekick Patrick Harrington, both of whom are considered to have ruined the National Front, were huge admirers of Gadaffi even going all the way to Libya's capital Tripoli, in an attempt to convince him to give them "Petro-dollars".

When Griffin re-entered the far-right, joining the BNP in the mid nineties, he claimed to have put all of that behind him. He and Harrington had parted company and gone their separate ways.

Nowadays however, the BNP look to be facing the same fate as the NF did under Griffin's leadership: Membership is falling, cliques are forming and the party is swinging from one extreme to the other ideologically. In such difficult times is it any wonder that Griffin has once more turned to Harrington for advice? Harrington isn't even a member of the BNP, but as well as being the General Secretary of the BNP-aligned and dubious Trade Union Solidarity , Harrington has also been involved in a series of clashes with people who have criticised Nick Griffin, no more so than former leadership challenger Eddy Butler and Griffin's former Consigliere, Jim Dowson.

Whenever his leader is in trouble, up pops Harrington to offer support. So, fear not Colonel Gadaffi. While people are being butchered on the streets of your country, Harrington hasn't forgotten you either: The seminal work of the Colonel "The Green Book" by which Griffin and Harington put so much stock into al those years ago is still being sold by Harrington on his ebay page. No matter how unpopular the dictator, nothing stops the double act of Griffin and Harrington searching for "petro dollars" no matter who or how many get hurt.

Hope not hate

EDL chief’s bank accounts frozen in cash inquiry

2011-02-20T00:47:00.001Z

The bank accounts of the English Defence League’s leader have been frozen as part of a money laundering investigation.

EDL chief Tommy Robinson, 28, said he was last year arrested for ‘financial irregularities’ and was issued with a Luton Crown Court order on August 11 preventing him from making any withdrawals from or charging any purchases to his accounts.

In a YouTube video Mr Robinson, who has just moved home to an unknown location from Lower Stondon, said he is entitled to take out £250 each week to cover living expenses while the investigation is ongoing. But other than that he cannot touch the money, the amount of which is unknown, although Mr Robinson, who led the 1,500- strong EDL rally in Luton town centre on February 5, said the figure is £6,000.

He said in the online video: “The £250 comes out of my own bank account which has my money in it anyway. I have had to stop working because if I do work, and say I earn £600, next week it goes into a frozen account and I am allowed £250. My solicitor has told me these orders are called disruption tactics in order to disrupt my life, disrupt everything I am doing and pretty much stop what we are saying, put pressure on me – and of course it has put pressure on me.

“This doesn’t cover my living costs. It prohibits me from dealing with any finances at all and that’s all in order to stop the EDL and our goals and what we are doing. They have given me this because between the years 2007 and 2009 I had more money going through my bank accounts than I paid tax on. Whoopy doo. It wasn’t all my money anyway. I bought a couple of properties and I have got partners that I am 50 per cent with. This will all come out if they decide to charge me.

“They haven’t charged me so they slapped this restraining order on me. I’ve been on it for six months. My bail date was February. My solicitor said they would probably bail me for another six months and I’ve been bailed until July again. They are just keeping my money frozen for 24 months. I’ve only got that £6,000 in my account and that’s going to run out soon. I can’t work because I can’t take any credit card payments at my tanning shop and the business is struggling.”

A police spokeswoman said: “A person has been arrested in connection with money laundering but as the investigation is still ongoing it would be inappropriate to comment further.

Luton on Sunday

MP rejects BNP claim after rant is published

2011-02-18T00:50:00.000Z

Cliff Le May

The British National Party is to make an official complaint against Gavin Barwell, after the MP publicised one of its candidate's rants about "violent immigrants" in New Addington.

The far-right party alleges Mr Barwell breached the Data Protection Act when he sent a questionnaire, filled in by Clifford Le May, to the Advertiser nearly a year and a half ago. In the pamphlet, Mr Le May urged the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to "stop ruining our community by stuffing New Addington with violent immigrants who have no right to live among decent civilised white people". He also referred to Mr Barwell, who he ran against for the Croydon Central seat in the general election last May, as a "traitor to his race and nation".

Now Mr Barwell has received a letter from the BNP threatening to take the matter to the Information Commissioner. Mr Barwell told the Advertiser: "It's completely bizarre. I've never heard of anyone in a political party complain about their views being made public. Perhaps he is ashamed of what he said, as he should be."

In the letter, Tony Martin, the BNP's Croydon and Sutton branch organiser, wrote: "In mid 2009, Clifford Le May received a questionnaire sent out by your organisation. Cliff filled in and returned the completed questionnaire only for it to be printed in the Croydon Advertiser. Recently I have been looking into the legality of this leak and who is responsible.

"It looks illegal under the Data Protection Act 1998 and Gavin Barwell has confessed to this indiscretion on his blog. I contacted the Information Commissioner's Office and was told to contact you first before making any official complaint."

When the Advertiser contacted Mr Martin, who has replaced Charlotte Lewis as Croydon and Sutton branch organiser, he pointed out a promise made on www.croydonconservatives.com not to share information with third parties. The disclaimer, under the heading Information Collection and Use, reads: "We never sell or share information to anyone outside the Conservative Party."

Mr Martin added: "I want to get the message across that we are not prepared to be trodden on.

"The Conservatives promise never to share information but this is exactly what they did. We're not looking for compensation, but an apology."

Mr Barwell admitted the privacy disclaimer existed but added: "Were it the response of a private individual I wouldn't have released it. But this was someone running for public office, so people have a right to know his views."

After giving Mr Barwell a deadline of seven days to respond to his concerns, Mr Martin says he now intends to submit an official complaint to the Information Commissioner.

This is Croydon Today

Jade's crossing defaced with graffiti

2011-02-17T00:58:00.000Z

A memorial bridge to a young girl who died crossing the A249 has been defaced with far right nationalist graffiti.

Slogans including “kill Muslims” “keep Britain British” and “EDL” - the acronym for anti Islamist group the English Defence League - have been scratched into the moss on Jade’s Crossing in Detling.

The bridge was erected as a memorial to Jade Hobbs, who was killed along with her grandmother while crossing the busy road in 2000. The tragedy led to a successful campaign by Jade’s mother Caroline Hobbs and husband Paul to build a permanent footbridge. They have since moved from the area as the memories were too painful.

The English Defence League was formed in 2009 in response to a protest against Royal Anglian Regiment troops returning from the Afghan War. The group organises street marches purportedly against “muslim extremism.”

Kent Online

EDL partners with far-right US Jewish group

2011-02-17T00:54:00.000Z

The head of the EDL’s Jewish division Roberta Moore has announced a partnership with far-right American group the Jewish Task Force on the EDL Facebook page.

The JTF leader Victor Vancier has also posted a podcast where he said: “We were contacted by the English Defence League last few weeks and we have agreed we want to work together on joint projects. They are a major organisation, with mass media coverage.

“I wanted to be sure they were not the BNP, we would never work Holocaust deniers or Nazis. They wave Israeli flags, they support the Jewish people. They want Jewish members. We are happy to work with them to save England from the millions of Muslim invaders. We want to work as a united front.”

He added: “The Jewish establishment in the UK, the ‘self hating Jews’ have condemned the EDL because they support the Muslim invasion. It’s pathetic, including the so-called Orthodox. They have to be politically correct, as we go to the gas chambers. We are not interested in this, and neither is the EDL. This will turn into something big.”

Mr Vancier is banned from entering Israel because of his allegiance to the late Rabbi Meir Kahane and his Kach party – outlawed in Israel in 1994 as “terrorist organisations.” The group now raises money for Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

He spent five years in prison from 1987 for 18 bomb attacks against Soviet targets in the US to protest the treatment of Soviet Jews. His website claims US President Barack Obama is a secret Muslim and calls Secretary of State Hilary Clinton “a vicious Jew hater.”

Jewish Chronicle

Drink sold early to EDL marchers, court told

2011-02-17T00:53:00.000Z

A landlord knowingly allowed alcohol to be sold in his pub to EDL members before a demonstration took place in Bolton, a court was told.

The court heard that Simon Kirkpatrick, who is appealing against a conviction, opened the Stags Head in Deane at 9am on March 20 last year and allowed drinks to be sold. In September last year, Kirkpatrick, aged 39, of Haynes Street, Morris Green, was convicted of displaying alcohol for sale and knowingly allowing the sale of alcohol otherwise in accordance with his licence.

Bolton Crown Court heard yesterday that the pub had been visited two days before the rally and officers reminded Kirkpatrick of his licence conditions, which included not selling alcohol before 11am. He was also advised to hire qualified door staff for the day and was told to serve drinks in plastic containers.

The court heard that on March 20, English Defence League (EDL) supporters were at the pub. Police had to organise buses to take people into the town centre because they were concerned about them walking through Deane — a predominantly Asian area.

Licensing officer Natalie Dolan told the court she arrived at the pub at about 11am. She said: “I could see quite a large number of people outside the pub. It was rowdy and there were police cordoning off areas to prevent them from going to the next-door pub. They were drinking and smoking and some were chanting. I could see Simon Kirkpatrick with what looked like a plastic cigarette and he was with acquaintances, laughing and joking. He was in good spirits.”

She added that she did not see any door staff and there were glasses on the tables.

The appeal continues.

The Bolton News

BNP councillor quits party in protest over assualt row

2011-02-16T01:07:00.000Z

Kevin Edwards

The Welsh wing of the far-right British National Party is said to be in turmoil after a Llandybie community councillor tore up his membership following the Guardian's coverage of an assault carried out by a party member.

According to Cllr Kevin Edwards, the Guardian's reporting of BNP member Roger Phillips' attack on Adam Margetts in Cross Hands on December 20 has set the party back years in Wales. The Llandybie councillor says he resigned after a meeting of party organisers went back on a pledge from BNP leader Nick Griffin to have Mr Phillips dismissed from the party.

Mr Griffin had sent Cllr Edwards an email regarding Mr Phillips' actions, stating: "He's got to go. I'm shocked that this was not dealt with in South Wales ages ago."

However, Cllr Edwards claims that the party's refusal to oust "thuggish" Mr Phillips, has left him no choice but to cut all links with the BNP.

"My mobile number never stopped with calls from distraught ex and current members who were deeply disturbed over this incident that has set the BNP back years in west Wales," said Cllr Edwards, who will continue to stand as a "Justice 4 Linda Lewis Campaign" councillor at Llandybie. Last year fellow Llandybie community councillor Meirion Bowen also resigned from the BNP.

Following his resignation, Cllr Edwards' blog was inundated with messages of support from party members.

"This is a very serious and major setback for the profile of the BNP in Wales," said one anonymous poster.

South Wales Guardian

'Nazi Leaks' And The NPD - Leak Of 60,000 Far-Right E-Mails Reveals Extremist Chaos

2011-02-15T01:10:00.000Z

A massive leak of internal communications, dubbed "NaziLeaks," has embarrassed Germany's far-right NPD. The roughly 60,000 e-mails which have been obtained by SPIEGEL reveal blatant racism, internal strife and shady financial dealings within the party.

Udo Voigt, the chairman of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), had hoped that 2011 would see the radical right make an important step forward in Germany. On Jan. 1, a merger with its rival far-right party, the German People's Union (DVU), went into effect, thereby combining their numbers just in time for a year that will see parliamentary elections in seven of Germany's 16 federal states. In a New Year's speech, Voigt confidently told his supporters that 2011 would be a "small super-election year."

"State elections, municipal elections -- Germans will finally get a chance to punish those at the top," Voigt said, looking straight into the camera. "We have a chance. We have a program for the future."

Now, less than six weeks later, Voigt's cockiness has given way to disillusionment. For the second time since 2008, tens of thousands of internal party e-mails have been leaked. SPIEGEL, along with other publications, has been given access to more than 60,000 e-mail messages from the accounts of NPD politicians. The party has labeled the people behind the leaks "criminal suppliers." It remains unclear whether the digital information came from a disgruntled individual within the party's headquarters or was obtained by a hacker.

The e-mails lay bare the chaotic internal life of the far-right party. They testify to the problems encountered during the merger with the DVU, shady finances related to state election campaigns and internal wrangling that often degenerated into hateful words and insults toward other party members.

The e-mails also document blatant racism. One senior Bavarian NPD official writes about "Kanacken," a racist term of abuse directed against people of immigrant descent, while a well-known neo-Nazi from the southwestern city of Aschaffenburg reflects on the "National Socialist movement." One NPD official from Hamburg complains about another party member having a "Negress" as a Facebook friend.

Sensitive Details about the NPD-DVU Merger

Still, the most awkward details from the data leak regard Voigt's prestige project, the NPD's merger with its former rival, the DVU. They disclose that there was massive resistance to the move within the DVU. One DVU member wrote in an e-mail sent ahead of Dec. 12, the day of the party convention where the merger was voted on, that DVU chairman Matthias Faust would get to experience his own "Waterloo" -- in other words, a total defeat. In order to help the merger go through, one NPD official from the southwestern state of Baden-Wurttemberg offered the support of a "Kampfgruppe" (a term associated with the Nazi era, referring to a combat unit) from the city of Schwabisch Hall. The unit, the official wrote, could be transported in a rental van to the DVU convention, which was being held in Kirchheim, a small town in the eastern state of Thuringia. "Nine men cost €524 ($710)," he wrote. The fee included €45 for meals, he explained, "as an incentive."

However, it would appear that not all of the van's passengers would be eligible to vote. The NPD official asked Faust to supply him with a "back-dated DVU membership card and a back-dated invitation" for his girlfriend, who would be coming along. When approached by SPIEGEL, Faust denied having supplied a back-dated membership card or invitation. Talk of the "Kampfgruppe" could only have been "a joke," he added, saying that "absolutely no combat units were present" at the convention. What's more, he said, guests wouldn't have been allowed to vote.

A majority of people attending the Dec. 12 convention voted for the merger. Since then, the right-wing extremists have been calling their common party "NPD -- The People's Union." Still, the merger is far from being a done deal. After the vote was held, senior officials representing DVU associations in four states complained of voting improprieties, such as not having been given enough time to properly review and respond to certain documents in the run-up to the vote. In January, a state court in Munich sided with the complaining officials, declaring that the vote did not meet democratic requirements and that a new vote would have to be held before a merger agreement could be signed.

Money Problems and Inflated Ambitions

In addition to such legal troubles, the NPD continues to struggle with financial shortfalls. The NPD is hoping that it will clear the 5 percent hurdle in the March 20 election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt and secure seats in the state parliament. But, to support its campaign, the party has apparently been forced to meet its financial needs with the help of private loans.

According to one of the internal emails, the family of Udo Pastors, the deputy head of the NPD in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, extended a €25,000 loan to the Saxony-Anhalt campaign organization under his wife's name. Ironically, Pastors, an avowed critic of capitalism, is charging the Saxony-Anhalt brethren 3.5 percent interest on the loan and only appears to trust his notoriously cash-strapped party to a certain degree: As collateral for the loan, Pastors demanded a guarantee from the NPD's national organization, which had to be personally signed by the NPD's national leader Udo Voigt.

This, in turn, does not seem to have entirely conformed to Voigt's understanding of loyal camaraderie. In an e-mail to Matthias Heyder, the NPD's lead candidate in the Saxony-Anhalt state elections, Voigt grumbled that it was "a joke that, of all people, a man as well-off as Udo (Pastors) still wants a guarantee in this case." Pastors has confirmed the existence of the loan but refuses to provide any additional details. Voigt opted to not respond to questions regarding the loan.

The financial shortages also have something to do with the costly campaign in Saxony-Anhalt as well as with Heyder himself and his at times ambitious campaign plans. For example, although he is just a regional politician, Heyder wanted to have a "documentary" filmed about him in which he flies "from appointment to appointment" in an airplane and is welcomed upon arrival at airports. What's more, as Heyder wrote to the NPD's media relations officer, he wanted to have members of the press accompany him on his flights, who would get to see "real rallies" whenever he landed. The point of all these staged events would be to portray the NPD as a serious party -- despite the fact that recent polls put its support at a meager 3 percent -- and to help it secure the votes it needs to win seats in the state parliament. Heyder has also declined to respond to inquiries.

NPD Struggling to Mobilize Supporters

While the NPD in Saxony-Anhalt have their heads in the clouds, their colleagues in Baden-Wurttemberg are having a hard time mustering enough people on the ground. The NPD in the state is suffering from mobilization problems: The far-right party has to collect 150 valid signatures in each election district in order to be allowed to field their own candidates in the state parliamentary election on March 27.

In December, Janus Nowak, a local party official from the town of Boblingen, wrote an e-mail with "ALARM" in its subject line. In the e-mail, he reported that, despite months of trying, party members were "apparently incapable" of even "getting merely a single signature per day." In order to increase the yield, the NPD official provided the would-be signature-gatherers with detailed suggestions on how they "could address people on the street and be successful." For example, he suggested that every pitch should begin with the words: "Hello, I'm not trying to sell anything. No vacuum cleaners or washing machines or anything."

Once they had gotten that far, campaign workers were instructed to make sure "to look people in the eye," rather than looking at their clipboards, and to avoid saying anything too "complicated." The most important piece of advice regarded what came last: "Say 'Thank you' and don't talk too much." The idea of deploying professional signature collectors, such as an "NPD organizational wizard" from the town of Volklingen, was even considered. But the man in question appeared to lack selfless dedication to the party. Instead, as Nowak complained in an e-mail, he asked for "€1,000 a week" in addition to "meals + additional helpers + information kiosks + accommodation." Nowak also declined to comment on the e-mail exchanges.

'Capitalist' Scheme

Rudolf Schützinger, a member of the NPD's executive committee in Baden-Wurttemberg, also gave some thought to how to increase the number of signatures being collected. He suggested paying €1 to "each collector who turns in an acceptable, unauthenticated signature" and €2 for every authenticated signature.

Schutzinger also had another idea up his sleeve: attracting campaign donors with a sort of "profit-sharing" scheme. He suggested that, if the party succeeded in winning more than 1 percent of the vote, donors would get their "entire donation back within a set time frame + 30 percent." But, if the NPD could "not master" the 1 percent hurdle, donors would get back half of their contribution, while still being able to write the donation off against their taxes. In doing so, they would "have a loss of only 25%." According to Schutzinger, this scenario offered the advantage that the party would not have to assume any "financial risk," while at the same time motivating "the gamblers among our sympathizers" to make donations.

In an e-mail, the NPD official admitted that the scheme had "a capitalist aftertaste" and noted that it would need "legal validation" as far as party finance laws were concerned. In the end, the idea was apparently rejected. Schutzinger also chose not to respond to SPIEGEL's inquiries.

Threat of Legal Action

NPD spokesman Klaus Beier has threatened legal action in response to the publication of the emails. According to Beier, the "e-mail traffic between both party officials and party members, which used encryption technology (was) copied in breach of (Germany's) communication secrecy law" and that "the texts, whose content was probably manipulated" were "provided to the compliant journalists." On Saturday, the news agency DPA reported that the NPD had filed a criminal complaint over the publication of the e-mails.

In any case, Beier refused to say anything about who was behind the data leak or how it came about. He did say, however, that one had to assume that "the system has far-reaching means at its disposal for reading all of the NPD's e-mail communication."

Beier's remarks are reminiscent of the stance that the party took back in 2008, when SPIEGEL published an earlier collection of internal NPD e-mails.

Free Internet Press

Q: When does a tabloid become crude propaganda? A: When it starts printing it

2011-02-14T01:16:00.000Z

Tory chairman Baroness Warsi recently complained that Islamophobic chatter had become acceptable at dinner parties. I hate to break it to you, Baroness, but if they're saying anti-Islamic stuff while you're sitting at the table, imagine what they come out with when you nip off to the loo.

A few weeks later, David Cameron delivered his speech on multiculturalism, and Warsi's notional dinner-mates doubtless nodded in agreement, even though the very word "multiculturalism" has so many definitions it almost requires translation. It's not black and white. Which is ironic.

As a result it was possible to draw almost any conclusion from Cameron's speech, from "segregation is unhelpful" to "send 'em back". Cameron is many things – including an android, probably – but a racist he is not.

So he was doubtless dismayed that his speech went down well with the BNP's Nick Griffin, who interpreted it as a "huge leap for our ideas into the political mainstream". When I read that, my sense of hope took a huge leap into a shit-filled dustbin.

The speech was also welcomed by Tommy Robinson of the English Defence League – and Stephen Lennon of the English Defence League. Who are both the same person, Robinson being Lennon's pseudonym. Mr Robinson-Lennon claims he's opposed only to extremist Muslims, not moderate ones, although how he hopes to tell them apart when he seems unsure of his own name is anyone's guess.

But then certain elements of the EDL seem confused by names in general. Several of them have been heard chanting "Allah, Allah, who the fuck is Allah?" If they don't know who he is, perhaps they ought to read that book they want to ban.

Robinson-Lennon recently appeared on Newsnight, up against Paxman. Not a classic battle of wits, but nonetheless the EDL's man came out on top: while middle-class viewers may have chortled at Robinson-Lennon's relative inarticulacy, others may have seen a member of the establishment sneering at a working-class white guy. Admittedly, Paxman sneers at everybody; he can't catch sight of his own reflection in the back of a spoon without asking who the fuck he thinks he is. But it reinforces the view that the white working classes are marginalised and looked down on by the media.

Not the entire media, mind. Some tabloids do little more but speak up for the white working classes – the Daily Star in particular. Which would be great, if the Daily Star didn't patronise its readers by repeatedly publishing lies.

Sometimes they're daft lies. Take the lie about the company behind Grand Theft Auto planning a game called Grand Theft Rothbury, inspired by the Raoul Moat saga. "We made no attempt to check the accuracy of the story before publication . . . We apologise for publishing a mock-up of the game cover, our own comments on the matter and soliciting critical comments from a grieving family member," read part of the paper's subsequent grovelling apology.

Sometimes they're visual lies. Take the time it Photoshopped a bald scalp and headscarf on to an image of Jade Goody in a wedding dress, to make it look as though she'd posed for the picture during chemotherapy.

Sometimes the lies appear on its front page, in a way that might alter a reader's view of Muslims. When not furiously recounting whichever grotesquely offensive stunt professional button-pushing irritant Anjem Choudary's come up with this week – stories which are not lies – it gets worked up over other "Muslim outrages" with little or no basis in fact. Take the story "MUSLIM-ONLY PUBLIC LOOS: Council wastes YOUR money on hole-in-the-ground toilets". Weeks after that appeared, the Star admitted that "the loos may be used by non-Muslims and were paid for by the developer".

And sometimes it doesn't quite lie, but misrepresents by omission. Take the story on 8 February "WE'LL STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR BRITAIN'S BRAVE WAR HEROES", in which it is reported that "The English Defence League is planning a huge march after two Muslim councillors snubbed a British war hero given the George Cross". It refers to an incident in Birmingham where two Respect party councillors remained seated while more than 100 other politicians gave a soldier a standing ovation. Nowhere in the article does the Star mention that there were many other Muslim councillors (Tory, LibDem and Labour) present at the same event – all of whom did stand and applaud.

In other words, the Daily Star is either grossly irresponsible in its sloppy representation of the facts, or engaging in overt anti-Muslim propaganda.

Who can blame a reader who, after reading such a skewed version of events, is gripped with anti- Muslim fervour?

On the same page was a phone poll: DO YOU AGREE WITH THE EDL POLICIES? 98% of the respondents did. If I read the Star every day, and believed it, I'd join the EDL too.

Not that you have to be a dedicated reader to be exposed to its influence. Just pop into WH Smith's. There they are, those headlines, the steady drip-drip-drip: MUSLIM-ONLY LOOS and BBC PUTS MUSLIMS BEFORE YOU and MUSLIM SICKOS' MADDIE KIDNAP SHOCK (No, I haven't made that one up). Drip drip drip. Bullshit or exaggeration masquerading as fact. And to what aim?

On 9 February the Star ran a front-page headline claiming ENGLISH DEFENCE LEAGUE TO BECOME POLITICAL PARTY. Even that turned out to be dubious – their leader had merely said "we aren't ruling it out". Inside, another phone poll asked whether readers would vote for the EDL. 99% said yes.

Do they believe what they read in the Daily Star?

I believe this is a wonderful country. All of it. The people are inherently decent and fair-minded. All of them. We should resist crude attempts at division, wherever they come from. Because we deserve better. All of us.

Charlie Brooker in The Guardian

MP Ben Bradshaw criticises English Defence League's burka protest a 'scandalous waste'

2011-02-14T01:14:00.000Z

Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw has called a city centre clash between a right-wing group and rival campaigners a "scandalous waste" of police resources.

Describing the views of English Defence League (EDL) supporters as "obnoxious and racist", he said there was no place for their opinions on the streets of Exeter. He was speaking after angry exchanges as a group of men claiming to represent the EDL clashed with Unite Against Fascism (UAF) supporters in Exeter's High Street.

The EDL Exeter Division had organised a "ban the burka" demonstration with leaders suggesting in advance that 140 people were expected to attend. In response, anti-fascists planned a "celebration of diversity" in Bedford Square. This was attended by an estimated 300 people including representatives from UAF, the Devon branch of the National Union of Teachers and Exeter Anti-Cuts Alliance. It was supported by Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem city councillors.

A spokesman for the EDL Exeter Division said the High Street protest was called off at the last minute to avoid "inevitable friction" with opponents. He said the group of around 15 people in the High Street – who were wearing balaclavas, waving St George's Cross flags and chanting "EDL" – may have been EDL supporters, but they were not members and did not represent the group. He said: "Our members did not go into the High Street. We heard about the counter demonstration and we knew there would be trouble, so we decided not to go ahead.

"We did not want to cause any friction or a drain on police resources. We wanted to hand out leaflets in a peaceful demonstration. We told the police on the day that we would not be there. Everybody had a message to say the plan had changed and to contact us. Instead of going to the High Street, around 30 members went around other parts of Exeter. We will look into further events in High Street."

Anthony Harris, 19, from Heavitree, Exeter, was among the group of EDL supporters in High Street. He said: "We've come to peacefully demonstrate, show who we are and what we're about, and speak to members of the public about what we believe. We're here to stand up for our country and stand up against militant Islam. We're not safe. We're not against Muslims, but Islam needs to be put into the 21st century."

Dimah Mahmoud, a 25-year-old Muslim student, was wearing a burka when she met the group in the High Street. Miss Mahmoud, who comes from Sudan but lived in various countries before moving to England in 2006, told the Echo: "I tried to have a debate with them but they weren't knowledgeable. They seemed to think all women are forced to wear a burka.

"This is supposed to be a free country. A woman might choose to wear a burka because she has a scar or skin disease, or she's beautiful and doesn't want to be envied or raped, or she likes the mystery, or she's convinced it's the right thing to do. To focus on being forced to wear a burka is very misleading. They say we need to forget our traditions – how welcoming to a country is that?"

Around 20 police officers were in High Street to ensure there was no significant trouble. Inspector Mike Robison said: "Our role was to facilitate lawful protest by both groups. From our perspective, it went relatively well. There were no arrests."

But Mr Bradshaw said: "This was a scandalous waste of police time and resources at a time of swingeing Government cuts. We don't need or want these obnoxious, racist views being expressed on the streets of Exeter. The turnout indicates that most Exonians abhor the views of this fringe neo-fascist group."

Mike Gurney, from Exeter UAF, said: "It was a great day for Exeter, for anti-racism and for all those who oppose prejudice. It was great to see Christians, Jews and Muslims standing together side by side to oppose the EDL. The people of Exeter showed that the EDL's politics of hate are not welcome here and will be challenged whenever they arise. Burkas aren't an issue in Exeter. Scapegoating one section of the community for society's problems is just trying to divide people."

Lib Dem leader Cllr Adrian Fullam attended the counter demonstration. He said: "I was thrilled with the turnout and support for the diversity of Exeter. The EDL are a minority and their views don't have any place in Exeter."

Exeter City Council and Labour leader Cllr Pete Edwards said: "I'm totally opposed to the views of the EDL but if they want to protest, it's up to them. There are more important things to focus on, like the massive budget cuts."

The Lord Mayor of Exeter, Cllr Marcel Choules, added: "Exeter is a friendly and welcoming place for everyone, and everyone has a right to march and protest. Diversity exists in the city and that is a good thing."

This is Exeter

Hard-core porn star to run BNP “family festival”

2011-02-11T01:20:00.000Z

Linda Kitchen

With the Barnsley by-election set for 3 March, the British National Party appears increasingly uninterested in promoting its faux family image and the party’s diminishing number of members in Yorkshire are once more calling into question the judgement of their leader, Nick Griffin.

The surprise appointment of Ian Kitchen as a replacement for the highly regarded Chris Beverley as the new Yorkshire and Humber regional organiser in January, with Simon Goodricke, one of Griffin’s regular bodyguards, as his deputy, brought to the fore one of the worst kept secrets in the BNP’s recent history.

Kitchen, from Hemsworth near Pontefract in West Yorkshire, has long been regarded by members as an oddball and a Griffin sycophant. Most see him as a harmless crank who allegedly suffers from brain injuries resulting from a car accident.

Kitchen attracted attention for his strange and rather awkward looking cameo appearance at the launch of the BNP’s 2010 election manifesto in Stoke-on-Trent. Standing behind Griffin and Simon Darby, then the party’s deputy leader and a local parliamentary candidate, he appeared with what looked for all intents and purposes a saucepan on his head as he mimicked a poor man’s pantomime St George.

Alongside his promotion to regional organiser, Kitchen and his fourth wife Linda have been entrusted with running and promoting the party’s annual booze-fuelled punch-up, bean feast and “family orientated” Red, White and Blue festival. Their appointment has the potential to cause acute embarrassment for the party and adds to suspicions among members that the leadership is running Yorkshire region into the ground.

For alongside promoting the BNP’s alleged clean-cut image and Christian beliefs, Mrs Kitchen is a hard-core porn actress and the star attraction on a number of websites that show and sell films for a particular market in mature and genitally pierced “grannies”. There are also a number of explicit photographs of Linda, who has the word “slave” tattooed across her abdomen, engaged in sexual acts not with her husband but with alleged and consenting strangers.

The availability of the photographs and film, which rejoices in the title Freddie’s British Granny F*** 15, on a number of porn websites has long been an open secret in the BNP and one of which Griffin is believed to be aware. Their explicit and extreme nature prevents Searchlight from reproducing the evidence here.

The appointment of Kitchen irked Eddy Butler, the unsuccessful BNP leadership challenger, who has encountered Kitchen at the BNP’s offices at the European Parliament in Brussels, where Griffin sits as an MEP for the North West and Andrew Brons, a former chairman of the National Front, represents Yorkshire and the Humber.

Linda Kitchen with husband Ian and stepson also called Ian

According to Butler, Griffin lied to Yorkshire members when he claimed he did not know that Kitchen had allegedly been jailed for violence and “gives out DVDs of his wife engaging in hard core pornographic acts with strangers”.

Certainly the language used by the film’s promoters to market it is not what one would expect from the self-appointed moral guardians of the nation. Mrs Kitchen is described as a “slutty granny” among other degrading and offensive descriptions for women.

Interestingly, Butler claims that the disgraced Barnsley Labour MP Eric Illsley was forced to resign as a result of the work of the former BNP “sleaze buster” Michael Barnbrook, now out of favour with Griffin. Kitchen helped kick off the Barnsley by-election campaign for the BNP by attempting to charge £1 entrance to a party meeting. Perhaps this is typical of the ideas Kitchen brings to the table in a now morally as well as financially bankrupt BNP.

Goodricke, Kitchen’s deputy, is also far from a fine upstanding member of the community. One of Griffins regular bodyguards, Goodricke was thrown out of the police service in disgrace and conned an 80-year-old woman out of £1,000 as he awaited trial for perverting the course of justice.

The former West Midlands Detective Constable, described as “an unremarkable detective”, was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment at Birmingham Crown Court in January 1998. He was found guilty of perverting the course of justice after he tipped off fraudsters attempting to swindle £100 million from Columbian drug barons.

An international police investigation was under way but collapsed after the tip-off. Goodricke was a gambling addict who had borrowed £200,000 from one of the fraudsters, to whom he later gave insider information.

While on bail he tricked a pensioner into loaning him £1,000. He had first met her some years earlier while investigating a broken window at her house. When Goodricke tried to beg more money from her she became distressed and wrote a letter asking him to leave her alone. He was said to have duped her with a sob story telling her he owed £3,500 on his mortgage and his house was about to be repossessed.

The court heard however that he was not in arrears and there had been no threat of repossession.

Goodricke was dismissed from West Midlands Police in 1996, two years after being suspended on disciplinary charges.

Hope not Hate

Has Richard Desmond decided to back the English Defence League?

2011-02-10T01:23:00.000Z

The far-right English Defence League draws many of its supporters from football fans

'Daily Star' front page suggests media mogul wants to bring far-right [group] into mainstream

"Front page", boasted the Facebook page of the right-wing English Defence League yesterday as it triumphantly linked its followers to a headline in Richard Desmond's Daily Star that noted that the anti-Islamic organisation was to become a "political party".

It's a rare thing for the Star to "splash" on politics. And although the coverage referred to the EDL as being a "far-right group", it reported its activities in an uncritical manner and noted that, in a phone poll of readers the previous day, 98 per cent of respondents had "said they agreed with the EDL's policies".

The media website Engage immediately asked "Is the EDL the Daily Star's New Friend?" A day earlier the newspaper had run a story saying that the EDL would "fight for heroes" and claiming that two Muslim councillors had "snubbed" a soldier by not rising to their feet when he was being given a standing ovation for winning a George Cross.

Yesterday's story carried the headline "EDL Chief: Vote Us Into Parliament!" It reported the wish of the group's leader – who uses the pseudonym Tommy Robinson – to appear on the BBC's Question Time.

"The EDL boss said that, unlike bumbling BNP leader Nick Griffin, 51, he would be a surefire hit on the show," the paper said. The article appeared alongside the Star's coverage of upheaval in Egypt, a piece that began: "Thousands of illegal immigrants will flee riot-torn Egypt and flood to Britain."

The paper's report that the EDL was preparing to field MPs was accompanied by Mr Robinson's observation that the group's 74,000 following on Facebook would exceed the online support of the three main political parties by the end of the year.

Among those Facebook followers yesterday, the Daily Star's apparent warmth to the group and a lead editorial headlined "Don't dare ignore EDL", was a source of pride and exhilaration.

Stephen Martin, who uses the slogan "British by Birth, English by the Grace of God", described his morning commute. "TODAY i sat there with my daily star with PRIDE, the pictures and banners were fair, the write up was fair, the Star comment was fair and 98 per cent back us (including everybody sat with me)," he wrote. "We have a voice now, 25p a day, if they have 74,000 new readers, we have a BIGGER voice."

Tom Evans ("English and Fuckin' Proud of It") agreed. "i think everyone should support the daily star and buy it a couple times a week at least lol... they are the only one to stand up for the EDL." He said other EDL followers were thrilled at the "awesome" and "amazing" 98 per cent approval rating from Star readers.

The newspaper's long-standing editor Dawn Neesom is one of Fleet Street's stalwarts. A proud East Londoner and keen kickboxer, she follows West Ham United home and away and prides herself on being in touch with the instincts of the Star's working-class readership.

The EDL draws much of its support from football followers. Sources said it was Ms Neesom's decision to give the group such a high profile, and not that of the paper's owner Mr Desmond.

Ivan Lewis, shadow Culture secretary, said: "Newspapers have a right to cover whatever they want in a democracy within the constraints of the law and their code of practice."

Independent

EDL men arrested on suspicion of publishing anti-Muslim videos online

2011-02-10T01:22:00.000Z

Props to the EDL for making the press’ job easier. Today, they happily filled in the blanks with regard to the arrest last night of two men on suspicion of publishing hateful material on the Internet. The EDL’s astonishingly ill-advised Media Department gladly informed us that the arrested men were EDL members.

The Devon News article is reproduced below:

Police arrested two men yesterday for allegedly publishing a catalogue of vile and racially inflammatory material on the internet.

One of the men, from Paignton, is thought to be responsible for a series of anti-Muslims videos. He was one of two men arrested by Devon and Cornwall police on suspicion of publishing racially inflammatory material at 8.30am yesterday. He and a 41-year-old unnamed male, also from Paignton, were yesterday bailed by Police until May

Material was confiscated from an address in South Devon and a banner was removed from the boot of a car.

One neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said: ‘‘I saw five uniformed officers outside this morning and one female officer in plain clothes. I don’t know the man in question very well myself, he lives alone and keeps himself to himself a lot of the time.’‘

A police spokesman said: ‘‘We have investigated a number of incidents across the internet after they were brought to our attention last year. ‘We have yet to analyse what has been seized and will then be in a better to look at what, if any, offences have been committed.’‘

This is Devon

Full article from One Million United

Luton: The day extremism lost

2011-02-09T01:26:00.000Z

Police contain the EDL thugs

Now the dust has settled it is perhaps a good time to reflect on the weekend’s events in Luton. Despite the huge media coverage the day was a failure for both the English Defence League and the Islamist extremists of Anjem Choudary’s Islam4UK.

The EDL must have been disappointed with their numbers. At its height there were somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 EDL supporters on the march, far fewer than everyone had expected. The EDL had been telling journalists that they were hoping for up to 8,000 to be there. Police briefings in the days running up to the march suggested 5,000 to 7,000. I put the figure at 4,000 to 5,000. We were all wrong.

EDL supporters came from across the country. There appeared to be almost 50 coaches, though many were far from full. Hundreds more made their way on trains and in cars. What was clear, however, was the lack of Lutonians there. Despite the bravado of claiming mass local support the vast majority of local people shunned the demonstrations. The profile of the EDL demo was the same as for previous events. It was largely made up of white men, aged between 20 and 45, many either former or current football hooligans.

There was a splattering of women and older people and literally a handful of non-whites, but to all intents and purposes the composition of the demo was the same as it has always been.

The day passed off relatively peacefully, with just seven arrests. Despite some provocation and the now customary fire crackers thrown at police horses, the police did a good job in containing the EDL and keeping them away from the general public. The authorities were helped by the absence of Islam4UK as we believe it would have only taken a handful of these extremists to parade around with their provocative placards for serious disorder to break out. While I had been critical of the approach taken by the police in the run-up to the demonstration they did a good job on the day.

The fact that there was no violence was largely down to the excellent work of the local Muslim community who self-organised, debunked rumours and calmed tensions. There were over 300 stewards on hand and several mediation teams who were used to intervene when tensions rose. At one point during the afternoon over 1,000 Muslim youths began gathering on the Dunstable Road following rumours that a mosque had been attacked. The mediation teams and stewards went in and the group soon dispersed.

Across the city, the council's cohesion team, faith and community groups did an excellent job in reassuring local people and showing solidarity to one another.

We were happy with our intervention in the overall campaign. Once again we avoided counter-demonstrating on the day, preferring a strategy of constructive community engagement which sought to educate people about the EDL, provide experience and good practice from previous EDL demonstrations and reassure local communities. In the run-up to the day there was considerable tension between the police and the council and the police and the local Muslim community. Given the lack of trust, particularly from many in the Muslim community towards the police approach, we played a vital role in supporting key community leaders and activists. Because of our relationship building, the information/background we were able to provide via the magazine, briefings and one to one meetings, coupled with our sympathetic stance on building community, we were a trusted source of information on the day. The community mediation teams in the Muslim community found it useful to speak to our team on the ground and share information on how events were unfolding direct from the scene. They wanted to know about numbers of EDL, the mood, what was being done by the EDL etc. As rumours flew around about Qur’an burning by the EDL (for example) we were able to scotch those rumours instantly as a trusted and 'on side' source. This helped the community mediators calm young people down and counteract the rising tensions.

Also losers were the Islamist extremists. They boasted of making an appearance on the day but in the end they were nowhere to be seen. They had claimed that only they could defend the Muslim community but in their absence local people were able to cope just fine.

It is unclear where the EDL will go from here. Given Luton’s importance, both as a birthplace of the EDL and the link with Islamic terrorism, its relatively small numbers will be a major disappointment to its organisers. Future street mobilisations will only be smaller. There are some inside the EDL who are pushing for a more political approach in preference to street actions but this will alienate many of its current supporters. With the obvious thuggery of the EDL a political path looks slim.

Luton survived the EDL demo and it appears that the vast majority of local people – of all races and religions – shunned the extremists. The job now is to build on this by actually bringing people together in a town where fear has for too long reigned over hope.

Hope not hate

NAZI PARTY TIME

2011-02-08T01:43:00.001Z

As always, the English Defence League are pissed off about Muslims infiltrating all their skinhead drinking clubs and hooligan firms, and they’re not afraid to walk around like jagoffs to show it. Last weekend various regional chapters of the EDL got together in Luton to ruin everyone’s weekend.

Before the day’s event, the EDL promised that 7,000 of their members would be joined by Defence League comrades from mainland Europe in order to “reclaim” the grim provincial airport town for the white working class. In reality only about 1,500 people showed up and one of them punched EDL leader Tommy Robinson in the face. That was the best bit.

Robinson had been on a massive recruitment drive before the march, banging his drum on the radio and even securing the chance to rant like a daytime drunk in a suburban pub to Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight.

Robinson’s deputy, Kevin Carroll, pitched in too. He came up with a story about a Muslim coming to his house and shooting at him with a sawn-off shotgun (but missing from a distance of 10ft) in an attempt to enrage people into attending. It didn’t work, really.

The 2,000 police who had been drafted from places where they don’t have any crime like Devon and Gloucestershire were met with 20% of the expected EDL turnout. Cost to the taxpayer? A million pounds. None of which the EDL were able to immediately pour back into the treasury’s coffers as police had ordered a blanket ban on the sale of alcohol across Luton starting at 11am. This didn’t stop them from bringing a shitload of glass bottles with them to hurl at me and the other photographers, though.

Here are the EDL with some of their new BFFs from Holland and Germany. You’ve got to assume that these shaky friendships crumble after three bottles of whiskey when the EDL start rolling out the “Three World Wars and one World Cup” at the German Defence League’s neo-Nazis.

As usual Unite Against Fascism showed up to protest against the EDL. Some of them managed to get into the train station and stop a large group of EDL members from getting off trains. The police responded by shutting the station and diverting the EDL to Luton Airport, two miles away from the designated muster point. As funny as that is, imagine having to be the conductor who has to explain to 300 fat skins that they’re being taken away from a race riot.

As usual the EDL “Angels” were at the demo in force. While I don’t agree with the politics, it’s hard to deny the quality of the babes, huh? I can see us together now: me drinking Fosters in the bath; she gets off the toilet, wipes her ass with yesterday’s Star and hops in to join me.

The EDL put their new token Asian on show after everyone found out the last one was a massive racist. Having an Asian racist in your gang to prove that you aren’t racist is the equivalent of repressed gays who hang outside clubs beating up men who suck them off.

The best bit of any EDL rally is when all the pricks start fighting each other; one football firm finds themselves crammed into the same small space as a pack of their hated rivals and suddenly white brotherhood seems unimportant. This is why no one should worry about them as a political force…

Here’s Rabbi Shifren having a little cry, surrounded by bald men. Perhaps he realized that hanging out with Nazis is a bad look for a Rabbi.

The shitty atmosphere Tommy Robinson (third right) helped whip up backfired on him when one of his own men punched him in the face.

He could have come off a lot worse to be fair–in the build-up to the protests, there’d been rumors that a local gang of Muslim heroin dealers who’ve taken to calling themselves the Gambinos were gonna come along and attack the EDL with weapons. Absolutely no one shot him though. There wasn’t as much as one tiny, little bullet.

This guy was disappointed the Gambinos didn’t turn up. You can’t see it in this picture, but he was wearing arseless chaps and

kept telling everyone his name was “Tommy Martyr.”

After the march the EDL gathered in St George’s Square (durr). Once there, they did whet they do best: telling me I look like shit comedian Russell Howard and doing bad impressions of this guy. Some other bloke was singing “Pretty Vacant.” These guys had come up from Reading for the day and they were loving it. It’s great to see young people involved in politics, huh? If only mainstream politics had fun policies like “hang the Muzzers.”

After a while the EDL got boring so I ventured over to the UAF’s gathering on the other side of town. They’d all been stirred up into a liberal approximation of A Baying Mob by a (false) rumor that the EDL had attacked a local mosque. Here they are having a bit of a barney with the po-po about it.

If you wondered what all the students were moaning about last year, this is what a kettle looks like. It’s rubbish.

As some of the protesters broke free of the kettle this guy got body checked by a policewoman. A policewoman! In your face Andy Gray.

With the kettle failing and the UAF looking increasingly likely to break free, the police went all Teenage Riot and sent in the horses. Cue chants of “Get that animal off that horse” and a girl called Jemimah falling over in some horseshit.

Eventually everyone got bored and decided to head home. Inevitably the UAF and the EDL ran into each other on one of the station’s platforms, leading to this little exchange.

All in all it was a fairly quiet day for what was meant to be an orgy of chaos and destruction. The EDL’s numbers were small, no mosques were burnt and no local Asian gangs came to kill Tommy Robinson. Maybe they should just give up and listen to what this guy has to say.

Viceland Today

Waiting in the wings

2011-02-08T01:29:00.000Z

White van man. From flickr LoopZilla

The crisis engulfing the British National Party opens opportunities for other right-of-centre parties and might perhaps lead to the formation of a new party altogether. Beginning a series of articles on right-wing alternatives to the BNP, Searchlight takes a look at the English Democrats Party.

Robin Tilbrook senses that this might at last be his moment. After several years struggling to get his party, which he has personally bankrolled, noticed he believes that the time for the English Democrats Party (EDP) has arrived.

The EDP was formed in 2002 to call for the establishment of an English Parliament. It positions itself on the right but denies it is racist, though this claim is undermined by the involvement of many leading activists from the English Defence League. It has contested European, parliamentary and local elections but with very little success. Its one moment of glory was when Peter Davies, son of Philip Davies, the Conservative MP for Shipley, was elected Mayor of Doncaster in 2009.

With some high profile supporters, such as the columnist and TV critic Garry Bushell, the EDP thought the Doncaster result would herald a new chapter for the party. This failed to materialise and it continued its poor run of election results.

In the 2010 general election the EDP fielded 107 candidates, enabling it to qualify for a party election broadcast, but only saved its deposit in Doncaster North, the seat of the Labour leader Ed Miliband. Last month the party stood in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election but despite running a vigorous and expensive campaign it received only 144 votes, one less than the Monster Raving Loony Party. By contrast the BNP received 1,560 votes.

And this is the heart of the EDP’s problem. Whatever its internal and political deficiencies the presence and profile of the BNP has restricted opportunities for the EDP. Tilbrook has long understood that his party would be able to prosper only if the BNP collapsed.

In the run-up to 2009 European election the EDP formed an alliance with the England First Party in the North West region. The EFP, led by Mark Cotterill, is a minuscule hard-right group based in East Lancashire. Its politics are quite different from the EDP, but they share a belief in an English Parliament and a hatred of the BNP.

The two parties worked together, the EFP providing organisational and logistical support for the EDP. It was unclear whether the EDP would have been able to stand without it.

The driving force behind this link-up was Steve Uncles, the EDP’s national membership secretary, and Michael Cassidy, its Yorkshire chairman. Both are on the right of the party and appeared to favour a deeper link with the far right. Tilbrook agreed with the plan but he was driven more by short-term advantage, namely trying to stop Nick Griffin being elected as an MEP, which he believed would massively boost the BNP and end EDP hopes of becoming a major political party.

The plan only narrowly failed, but although Griffin was elected the BNP has not made the expected wider breakthrough and with its current internal problems and financial crisis the EDP senses another opportunity.

Tilbrook appears to have been keen to bring disillusioned BNP members into the EDP. However when former BNP members in Merseyside, Cumbria and Yorkshire began joining the English Democrats, it caused some rumblings of discontent.

It was the courting of Richard Barnbrook that caused most anger. Last November Barnbrook, who resigned from the BNP in August, approached the English Democrats. He knew that to retain his seat on the London Assembly, where he sits as an independent, he needed the financial and organisational support of a political party. Cliff Dixon, the party’s vice chair in London, voiced his concern but was told by Tilbrook to keep an open mind and that the final decision would be taken by the London Committee, chaired by Roger Cooper.

Uncles had other ideas and was keen to push Barnbrook’s application through as fast as possible.

Separately, Tilbrook had been in discussions with Eddy Butler, the former BNP national organiser who was expelled from the party after challenging Griffin for the leadership. However the two had different agendas. Tilbrook was looking to build the EDP while Butler was not convinced that the EDP, particularly in its current form, was the right party for him. Conscious that he had to keep the racial nationalists on board, Butler was unhappy with the EDP’s moderate nationalist programme. Rather, he preferred the idea of uniting the broad nationalist movement, from the racial nationalists to the right-wing populists, around a few shared themes while a longer discussion took place about what kind of party was needed.

Some have argued that Butler was biding time for Andrew Brons to make his move. While the Yorkshire MEP has stayed loyal to the BNP he is increasingly acting independently and separately from Griffin. Butler, though no longer in the BNP, works for Brons.

Dixon became increasingly concerned about the actions of Tilbrook and Uncles. Eventually he decided to speak out after the party hired Jim Dowson to run its fundraising. Not only did the EDP’s appeal letters look remarkably similar to those Dowson wrote for the BNP during the three years he worked for the party, but Dixon believed that Butler now had the EDP’s entire membership list.

After Barnbrook was accepted into the EDP at its January national council meeting, Dixon broke ranks and went public with his outrage.

He was quickly followed by Ed Abrams, a member of the EDP’s national council, who had already resigned from the party in disgust at the courting of BNP members.

“It does not please me one little bit to see the current turmoil that the party that I still consider to be my political home is in but if it is to survive then Tilbrook and Uncles have to go,” Abrams declared.

“I therefore call upon the loyal members of the English Democrats Party to call for a EGM and propose a vote of no confidence in Tilbrook and Uncles.

“Please remember that ENGLAND comes before everything, Uncles and Tilbrook have had there [sic] day, the cause and the good name of your party comes first and only by passing a vote of no confidence in these two will you be able to wipe the slate clean and move forward.”

Also supporting this position was Alistair Barbour, the BNP’s former Carlisle organiser who switched his allegiance to the EDP in protest at the extremism of the BNP. He too resigned from the EDP after other BNP members began to join though claims still to be loyal to the party’s overall aims.

“Do yourselves a favour, stay a progressive moderate party and do not allow the likes of Butler Barnbrook etc to take you to the right,” he wrote. “Tell them to crawl back to Griffin were [sic] they belong and take Uncles with them. Don’t let another so called nationalist party destroy England’s chances of recognition and salvation.”

The EDP is in a state of flux. The crisis in the BNP, which appeared to present an opportunity to the EDP to emerge out of the political margins, now seems to be spreading to the EDP. Whether the party can emerge stronger will be determined partly by what happens to the BNP but also by its own members’ reactions to the arrival of former BNP members in their ranks.

Searchlight

Police confirm Shotton club fire being treated as arson

2011-02-08T01:28:00.000Z

Wales Police has confirmed a fire at Shotton Lane Social Club - which was set to become an Islamic cultural centre - is being treated as suspicious.

Community leaders condemned what they believe is a 'hateful' attack by racist arsonists on the disused community club, which happened at around 4am on Friday (February 5). About 100 people in the surrounding area were forced to evacuate their homes as huge clouds of smoke and flames were blown toward properties by strong winds.

A joint police and fire service investigation has been launched, with CCTV footage studied and house-to-house enquires carried out. The cause of the blaze, which destroyed the empty building, has yet to be determined - but North Wales Police is treating the fire as suspicious.

Detective Chief Inspector Graham Talbot said: "The site continues to be secured as a crime scene by police. A structural engineer has assessed the building over the weekend and it is unsafe for anyone to enter. Once the site is safe to enter further forensic examination will be carried out. I am, therefore unable to establish at this time whether deliberate ignition was the cause. However, it is suspected at this stage and the investigation is being treated as such."

Resident Joe McGarry, who lives very close to the smouldering wreckage of the club, said he and his family, including three young children, had to leave their home at about 4.30am. He said: "We heard one of the walls fall down and thought it was the council recycling van at first. Then we saw the flames out of our daughter’s bedroom window. It was terrible, like something out of a film. My wife said she had never been so scared in all her life, because it was so close to our house."

The McGarrys had to leave their home immediately and were sent to Deeside Leisure Centre, where Flintshire County Council had set up a rest centre. About 30 people set up home there temporarily until emergency crews gave the all-clear for them to return to their homes, which were left without electricity or hot water. The rest went to stay with family or friends.

Fire crews from Deeside, Flint, Mold, Rhyl, Holywell and Wrexham were called to battle the fire, which took about six hours to bring under control. A section of Shotton Lane had been closed to motorists and pedestrians because the gutted building is structurally unsafe.

The club, which closed in August, was the proposed site of an Islamic centre. Monchab Ali, chairman of the Flintshire Muslim Cultural Society and owner of the Bengal Dynasty restaurant in Queensferry, was looking to buy the venue for £150,000, but it is now understood the group will look elsewhere. The plans divided public opnion and there was a protest march in Shotton on January 22 by the right-wing English Defence League.

One resident near the club, who also had to leave her home, asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. She said: "We were woken up by our neighbour banging on the door saying we had to get out. We left in our pyjamas because there wasn’t time to take anything with us, and now we’ve got no heating or water. Whoever has done this has put everyone’s lives at risk without caring about what they are doing. It’s because of all the controversy that has been whipped up about the plans for the club. We had people from the English Defence League marching down our street claiming it was theirs, and they were not even from round here. We’ve even had leaflets through our door telling us not to go to the Bengal Dynasty. It’s absolutely disgusting and I hope they catch whoever is responsible."

Cllr John Beard, chairman of Shotton Town Council, was woken at 6am as people living next to the centre were being evacuated into his neighbour’s house further down the road. He said: "It’s such a shock. It’s a hateful thing to do, whoever did this has no respect for human life or the effect it could have on people. What’s so sad is no plans had even be submitted for the Islamic centre. Some people didn’t like the idea, some were OK with it, and some didn’t care. This is meant to be a democratic society where we discuss things. It doesn’t help to have a couple of yobs inflame the situation."

Superintendent Dave Owens, of North Wales Police, said: "Because of the windy weather the fire took hold very quickly and was difficult to bring under control. There were also compressed air cylinders in the club, which popped. It was very close to houses and if the wind had been blowing in another direction people could have lost their homes."

Assistant Chief Constable Gareth Pritchard said: "North Wales Police launched a thorough investigation. We are also supporting the community to provide reassurance. The dangerous condition of the building has held up the investigation and the cause of the fire has not yet been determined."

Anyone with information should call police on 0845 607 1002 or CrimeStoppers on 0800 555 111.

Flintshire Chronicle

The faltering light of Little England

2011-02-07T01:31:00.000Z

EDL supporters listen to founder Tommy Robinson speaking. Photograph: Getty Images

On Saturday, the British lion roared. The roar of monoculturalism

By train, coach and car, they came. To Luton, birthplace of the English Defence League. A journey home.

As they travelled, they were buoyed by words of acclamation from none other than their own Prime Minister. Speaking in Germany, a nation historically renowned for its unique take on muscular liberalism, David Cameron reached out. "Passive tolerance" had created a monster. Islamic extremism. Terrorism. An alien disregard for democracy, equal rights and freedom of speech.

The EDL leader, a good English Tommy (though his real name is Steven), could not contain his delight: "He's now saying what we're saying. He knows his base."

That base was now encamped in Luton town centre. Here the flower of English youth, or rather, the bramble bush of English middle age, fanned the debate on multiculturalism the country has been denied for so long: "We've fucked all of Allah's wives," they sang with gusto. Strangely, the people of Luton did not seem overly keen to participate in this dialogue, voting with their feet, and in many instances with plyboard and hammers, as the city-centre shops lay shuttered and deserted.

Others wouldn't have missed it for the world. The Swedish Defence League had arrived the night before, slumming it in the nearby Hilton. Muttering darkly about "revenge" for the actions of the Stockholm suicide bomber Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, they were on what appeared to be a sort of extremist's busman's holiday.

The German Hanover Division, by contrast, acted like typical tourists, posing happily for photographs while watching with a connoisseur's disdain the half-hearted attempts by local EDL activists to sieg heil. They were certainly happier than the coachload of Polish pensioners who were mistakenly pulled off the motorway by the police and forced to form part of an EDL convoy.

Back in the town centre, tempers began to fray as members of the Scottish Defence League – who, in solidarity with their German brothers, like to refer to themselves as the SS-DL – began taunting their English counterparts. Then, just as it seemed that British monoculturalism was facing its first schism, a frisson of excitement ran through the crowd.

Two of the "star guests" had arrived: Rabbi Nachum Shifren, the self-styled "surfing rabbi", from California, with links to Sarah Palin's Tea Party movement; and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, an Austrian political activist currently facing prosecution under "hate speech" laws. Within the admittedly niche circle of international Islamophobe speakers, these constituted A-list arrivals.

Then the march was under way, stuttering, jostling and meandering its way towards the reclamation of a nation and its identity. There were a couple of minor interruptions, the first when Rabbi Shifren suffered a panic attack, the second caused by an attempt at reorganisation so that the women, of whom there were a handful, were strategically positioned at the front. According to the EDL, this was to demonstrate the "peaceful" nature of the march, though the gesture was slightly undermined by the fact that your average EDL woman appears far tougher and more aggressive than her male counterpart.

On they marched, generating if not a carnival atmosphere, certainly a vociferous one. Many of those in attendance were clearly on their first demonstration, hence the confusion over the relatively novel chant "No surrender to the Taliban", and its rapid replacement with the reassuringly familiar "No surrender to the IRA". To the untrained ear, this created the spectacle of burly, tattooed men pledging with their dying breath never to surrender their tiaras.

Meanwhile, the police maintained a keen but restrained vigil, clearly relieved to be facing a crowd of hardened anti-Islamic extremists, rather than Oxbridge undergraduates.

Then suddenly, they were at the square, surging, pouring triumphantly forward. For an instant it seemed a Burberry bomb had exploded in the centre of Luton. One man rushed ahead, gesticulating exultantly, challenging someone to "come on, have a go!". But it was fake bravado. He was talking to the wall of an adjacent shopping centre. A second sprinted to the front, unfurling a giant banner of St George. Sadly, it was too large for even this son of Albion – he tripped, tumbled and lay prone for several seconds, wrapped literally in the flag, like a fallen sailor awaiting burial at sea.

There were speeches. Tommy Robinson, an EDL founder, insisted bellicosely that "there are no racial divisions in Luton", while Sabaditsch-Wolff – slightly misjudging her audience – chose to recite Tennyson. They were met with cheers, and chants of "E-E-EDL!". But I recognised those cheers. They were like the first 15 minutes that follows another English defeat on penalties. The voice of the defiant, rather than the victorious.

And then they were gone. The surfing rabbi and the Viennese aristocracy, the Hanoverians, the Polish tourists, Swedish busman and Scottish Nazis were no more. Like a surreal, anti-Islamist Carry On film, the march on Luton was over.

Only Tommy Robinson, and the small band of his followers who actually live in the town, remained. They retreated to a local pub to regroup and relive the day. They had made their point. Though what that point was, only they really knew. Maybe they felt had simply stood tall, raged against the dying of the light.

The faint, faltering light of Little England.

Dan Hodges at the New Statesman

EDL protest attracts European far-right activists

2011-02-04T01:33:00.000Z

Up to 7,000 due in Luton for English Defence League rally, as anti-racist and Muslim groups prepare counter-demonstrations

Far-right activists from across Europe will join thousands of English Defence League supporters tomorrow for the biggest rally in the group's 20-month history. Police expect up to 7,000 demonstrators will descend on Luton, the Bedfordshire town where the EDL started in spring 2009, amid evidence of the group's growing influence among young people. The organisation has staged more than 30 protests since it was formed, many of which have been marred by Islamophobia, racism and violence.

This rally will see more than more than 25 coaches transport members to Luton from across the UK, with thousands more activists due to make their way by car or train. One EDL activist said 800 far-right supporters would be meeting at Kings Cross train station in London before travelling north. UK-based members will be joined by activists from recently formed copycat "defence leagues" in Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands – as well as supporters of more established far-right groups from France, Germany and Denmark.

Nick Lowles, from the anti-racist campaign group Hope not Hate, said the presence of these groups underlined the EDL's growing international links.

"The significance of the EDL marching in Luton extends way beyond our shores," said Lowles. "Across Europe and in North America anti-Islamic groups are watching the EDL with interest, increasingly copying their tactics, even replicating their name. The attendance of so many international supporters is testament to the EDL's role in the international anti-Islam movement."

There is widespread fear of disorder during the rally and the Bedfordshire police force is planning its biggest operation, with 2,000 officers on duty and hundreds more on standby. It is expected to cost more than £800,000.

The demonstration comes amid concern that the EDL is attracting young people into extreme racist, nationalist and Islamophobic politics. The group now has 70,000 followers on its Facebook site.

Luton youth worker Mohsin Malik, who works with young people up to the age of 18, said he could detect the group's influence in the town.

"No one comes out and says 'I'm an EDL member' but the telltale signs are there," he said. "It comes out in the arguments that they make – the idea that social minorities get priority in social housing, that the police are scared to stop and search Asians."

Malik said the group was specifically targeting teenagers and young people.

"For some of the young people I work with the EDL are very appealing – people like street cred. When you're young you want people to respect you and this is one way of gaining respect. There are some kids who are being manipulated – they think they're the big guns."

Sam Adofo, the director of the Salmon youth centre in Southwark, south London, echoed this view.

"People who say the EDL are stupid are naive ... The way they are targeting youth now is extremely strategic, and it's working for them. They've tried to be inclusive and add young people to the whole idea of what it is … The techniques they are using are the basics – interacting with the working class, meeting in the pub, watching the games. It gives young people a sense of belonging that is key."

Keith Vaz, chair of the home affairs select committee, called on politicians to take the EDL threat seriously.

"The government really needs to find out why young people in particular are turning to the far right for answers," he said. "Whether it is because of the recession and unemployment, social problems within their community or a general disillusionment with politics, we cannot afford to lose people to a group that is so prejudiced against the idea of a multicultural Britain."

Anti-racism campaigners are holding a counter-demonstration in a separate part of Luton. Unite Against Fascism, which is organising the event, says it expects thousands of supporters to travel from across the country. A separate event is being organised by sections of Luton's Muslim community.

The town has had links to Muslim extremism in the past. In December, it emerged that Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, an Iraqi-born Swede who set off a car bomb in Stockholm before killing himself with a second device, had spent time in the town. But community leaders claim it is being unfairly stigmatised and warn that the EDL is increasing tensions in the town.

"This group is having a severe impact on the people of Luton," said Fiyaz Mughal, the director of Faith Matters who co-authored a report on the EDL last year. "The tensions between communities are rising and fractures are starting to appear. The Muslim community is under real pressure and feels it is being persecuted and becoming the main target for the EDL."

The far-right group was formed after a small number of protesters from an extremist Muslim group held up placards at the homecoming of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment in Luton, reading "Butchers of Basra" and "Anglian soldiers go to hell". At a subsequent protest scores of EDL supporters attacked Asian businesses, smashed cars and threatened passersby.

The group has "divisions" across the country and its leadership insists it is not violent or racist, opposed only to what it describes as radical or militant Islam. However, many of its demonstrations have descended into violence and racist chanting. Some of its supporters are extreme far-right activists and football hooligans.

The Guardian

Landowner and BNP donor facing court on dog charge

2011-02-03T01:35:00.000Z

Charles Wentworth

A landowner who was one of the biggest individual cash donors to the British National Party is facing court action accused of failing to keep his dog under control after it is alleged to have bitten a woman.

Charles Wentworth, 53, who lives at Friston Hall, near Aldeburgh, had his case listed before magistrates in Lowestoft on Monday following the incident on November 17 last year. It was reported to police that Hannah Burns, a 47-year-old woman from the local area, was bitten on the thigh by a Doberman dog on a footpath between Benhall and Friston.

Mr Wentworth, who also owns Friston Village Hall and the village green, is accused of “being the owner of a dog which was dangerous and was not kept under proper control”.

The complaint was made by Ms Burns, and an application has been made for an order that the dog is to be kept under proper control or destroyed. The case was adjourned and is next listed for the magistrates’ court on February 28. No plea has been entered yet. Richard Barker, of Barker Gotelee solicitors, who is representing Mr Wentworth, said his client would be denying the charge.

Mr Wentworth made headlines in 2009 when it emerged he was one of the largest individual donors to the BNP, having handed over more than £38,000 in six cash payments between October 2006 and October 2007. The largest individual payment was for £9,763 and the smallest was for £5,000. Speaking to a national newspaper in 2009, he denied being a racist and said he had joined and helped fund the party because he believed that Britain was “overloaded”.

The Wentworth name has links to the village of Friston and nearby Aldeburgh back to the 18th Century with the family having owned about 100 cottages and farmhouses in the area. Mr Wentworth’s farm is about 660 acres. He is known to support events in the village and has thrown Christmas parties for the village’s children.

Evening Star

Oh! To Be In England (Now the EDL's in Town)

2011-01-31T21:24:00.001Z

My father, the racist

2011-01-31T01:03:00.001Z

Chris Fox and his Indian partner are having a baby. Her family are thrilled and so are his – all except his father, who votes BNP and can't see past skin that isn't white

A baby's birth is surely the most joyous of all family events. With a new life and fresh innocence, the bonding of two families cooing over the new arrival seems inevitable. My partner is expecting our first child and her liberal Indian family have gone into overdrive to help us prepare for the baby and move to a new home. They are carrying boxes, buying appliances, giving us things for the baby and delivering unbelievable homemade Indian food.

We're grateful, not just for the amazing dishes, but for the support they have given us during the stress of house-buying and pregnancy.

In contrast, I'm getting the opposite of support from my father.

I've always know my dad was racist. I've disagreed with him all my life, not that he's noticed. No one else in the family shares his views, but he is oblivious to the opinions of others.

When it became clear that Mira and I were committed to being together, I tried to ease my father into the news, first telling him of my Indian friend, who was born in Kenya. He wasted no time in registering his objection. "Don't introduce her to me. I'm trying to send them all back," he harrumphed, about the sweetest girl I'd ever known.

Meanwhile, I was meeting, and being welcomed by, Mira's family. We went to her cousin's wedding in Gloucestershire and I was struck by the fondness between the elder uncles and aunts and the young nieces and nephews. Everyone mucked in to help, all the generations danced and celebrated together. It hit me that this is what a family is supposed to be like. They had a lot of love for each other and weren't shy about showing it. They also knew how to enjoy themselves. The laughter and dancing went on all night, and one or two of the old boys could be seen loitering by the door in the hope that the young ones were smoking more than tobacco. The ladies howled as a saucy aunt took the opportunity to cop a feel of my backside as I shook my generous booty.

On returning to London I visited my parents. After spending three happy days with Mira's family, it only took an hour with my dad for me to despair. I was subjected to a relentless torrent of bitterness about the government, immigration, television, the NHS, Tuesdays … it was all terribly, irredeemably foul. And it was all better in his day when you could leave your door open and be a hateful racist without anyone batting an eyelid.

Out of earshot of Mum, my dad told me I should "be careful" with Mira. It was a bit late for that, as we had just found out we were to have a baby, though it was too soon to make an announcement. His warning wasn't based on any knowledge of the person she is but on his assumptions about race and immigration. He suggested I would soon be putting up her relatives, and, even more absurdly, harbouring terrorists.

Depressed by his descent into risible paranoia, I took my leave, wondering how he had become such an ogre.

"He wasn't always like this," Mum said at the door. "I don't know what happened to him."

My dad was born into a large, poor, south London family in the 1920s. Seventeen at the outbreak of the second world war, he became a stoker in the Royal Navy. By the time he was 21, he had sailed round the world, been sunk twice, seen good friends die and earned the eternal thanks of his country. By the time I was 21, the greatest suffering I had experienced was bleaching my hair.

When he introduced my mother to his parents, my grandfather walked out. My mother's from Tipperary and the Irish were "coming over here, taking our jobs" and all that jazz. A generation on, not much has been learned.

Dad worked hard all his life and retired in his 50s. He had no idea what to do with himself without work to define him and, still haunted by his experiences in the war, he became an alcoholic. It took the threat of divorce from his devout Roman Catholic wife to drag him back from the brink.

Since then, his world has narrowed. He mourns a lost England, unable to recognise the multicultural country it has become as the one he fought for. "That's not patriotism," I tell him. "It's nostalgia."

In the last couple of years, he's spent all his time in a wheelchair and has only left the house to vote – for the BNP. The Daily Mail, television and the occasional like-minded visitor inform his perspective. So he has become a sour, entrenched, dogmatic bigot who only hears views that chime with his own racist – and even fascist – position.

With Mira pregnant, I knew I had to introduce her to my parents before announcing our news, lest I expose her to an even more difficult scenario. ("Hi Hitler. Let me introduce you to the mother of your Indian grandchild.")The reaction of friends and siblings to our happy surprise has been joyous and life affirming. I was a little nervous about telling my 23-year-old daughter, Dixie, that she was going to have a brother or sister but she was pragmatic and honest. She didn't know how she would feel about sharing her father for the first time, but she wanted to be involved. She is the reason I know how uplifting raising a child is. She constantly fills me with pride, not because she's doing so well, but because she's a great addition to the world.

Her first reaction was, "Ha! Your life is over." Her second was, "What did Granddad say?"

Mum assured me Dad would behave when I brought Mira over to meet them. He would only have to be civil for five minutes before the three of us went out. "You're different to what I expected," he said, shaking her hand. "I heard you were from Kenya, so I thought you'd be a 6ft Zulu with a bone through your nose."

Really. That's what he said. And that's him on his best behaviour. If only Prince Philip had been there to laugh. He asked a few questions about her family background – very important to any self-respecting doctrinaire – and we parted. The introduction had gone well. Mum thought Mira was lovely and Dad hadn't expressed an opinion. I couldn't ask for more.

Mira had said it would be harder for me than for her, and she was right. She was untroubled before the visit and untroubled afterwards. She hasn't experienced much racism since coming to London at the age of nine and has a soft spot for old duffers. She's not easily offended and was quite happy to meet my dad and engage him, should he kick off. It might have been better than the faux civility.

Having breached introductions, it was time to drop the bombshell. I enlisted my brother and sister to join me, mostly so my dad could see how normal people react to good news.

Loyalty, respect and decency are central to his generation's values: loyalty to the country and your family. So could I expect him to be loyal, respectful and decent when I arrived to tell him that, after 23 years, I was to be a father again?

There's really only one way to put it. "Mira and I are going to have a baby!" Cue almost universal joy, screams and congratulations. Mum was thrilled and my brother and sister were delighted. "That's wonderful!" Mum said.

"Is it?" huffed my dad, who wheeled himself out of the room to calm down. The only person not to have congratulated me on the news was my father. He stewed all day, silently.

Meanwhile, Mira's family were cranking up to hysterical levels. Offers of help abounded and stamp-duty money was proffered for our new home. Food deliveries were increased, and I was getting progressively larger portions.

I was even more endeared to them by a tale from Mira's childhood. During the summer holidays, the extended family would cram into a car, including aunts, uncles and cousins. The kids would be in the boot and the adults squeezed into the seats as they headed excitedly for the airport. There they would sit in the departure lounge and watch the unfolding drama of people parting, while they had a picnic. For a treat they would go to arrivals.

I had to wait some weeks before my dad could broach the subject. He was "disgusted", he told me, that I was having a child "out of wedlock".

I laughed. "How could I marry an Indian girl with you?"

"I wouldn't come!" he barked, thinking it quite rational that I should marry because of his sudden bout of religious propriety, even if he wouldn't attend. But I knew it was his way of protesting without mentioning his real objection – her ethnicity was the problem.

There have been many mixed marriages in Mira's family, so race is not an issue for them. They, too, would like us to be married but accept that it is our choice.

Dad said he couldn't believe how "daft" I'd been, not even considering that I might be happy. He wanted nothing to do with it. He didn't want to know anything about the baby's progress. He maintained it was my Roman Catholic mother's feelings that concerned him, as according to him, she was secretly disgusted too.

That he hadn't even spoken to my clearly delighted mother about their imminent fifth grandchild seemed inhuman to me. I resented his lying about her to express his own opinions. I returned a similar level of vitriol, making clear that it was he, not me, who should be ashamed of his behaviour. We left it there. I told him not to bother getting in touch if he wasn't going to apologise and, predictably, I haven't heard from him.

For the first time in my 49 years we're not talking. We've never had much in common, but talked most weeks, making each other laugh about football and family. I wasn't surprised, or that hurt, by his diatribe, but I was disappointed to see his lack of interest in my happiness and disrespect for my choices. He didn't ask about the woman who will be the mother of his grandchild, or how happy we are. His concern was how he felt about my situation: a triumph of ideology over parental concern.

Some have questioned the wisdom of a dispute with a father who is 88, in case "something happens". I can understand that, but it doesn't allow me to forgive the unforgivable. Having provided for it, he has dominated the family, laying down the law, mostly unchallenged. I'm not going to allow him to disrespect the woman I love, her family and our unborn child, and then go on to chat about the woes of Charlton Athletic.

It's a shame he won't know Mira. He would love her to bits if he could see past the colour of her skin. To me, it's shameful he has attempted to poison such a proud and blessed moment in his son's life. I can only hope the sight of a new baby will soften his silly head, but I'm not confident.

It took another generation to put it into perspective. As my daughter Dixie said: "Think of it this way, Dad – he'll be the last racist in the family."

Names have been changed

Guardian

St Ethelwold’s Church, Shotton, criticises BNP and EDL Islam centre opposition

2011-01-31T01:00:00.000Z

John Walker

A church leader has criticised the British National Party’s (BNP) leafleting campaign against the proposed Shotton Islamic centre.

St Ethelwold’s Church was pictured in the leaflet co-ordinated by BNP community councillor John Walker without authorisation. And vicar Rev Steven Green wants to make it clear the church does not support the far-right organisation’s opposition to the controversial plans.

Within the leaflet Cllr Walker said: “With declining church attendances and the local clergy falling over themselves to welcome other religions into the area, what future does Christianity have in Deeside?”

Mr Green said: “I would suggest the author of this letter should be better informed, as all the churches on Deeside work well together and are involved in many projects such as Fairtrade, community development and many other initiatives. The Christian communities are faithful and confident in their own faith, but that faith reflecting the love of Jesus seeks to welcome and offer hospitality. Church life on Deeside is in good heart, supported by loyal, faithful and generous Christians who stand for peace and tolerance on our streets and respect for all people of peace and goodwill.”

Mr Green also criticised the English Defence League’s town centre protest on Saturday.

“I find it difficult to believe such a demonstration has anything to do with the people of Deeside,” he said. “Deeside people are warm, generous and tolerant people who have witnessed and adapted to many changes over the last 30 years.”

The Flintshire Chronicle

It’s not all what it appears

2011-01-29T01:04:00.000Z

A strange night in Luton last night. Not long after midnight word came that joint EDL leader Kevin Carroll had been the victim of a gun attack on his family home. According to the EDL's facebook administrator, Carroll had been shot at several times by Muslim gunmen and armed police were sealing off the area.

Twenty minutes later, "straight from the horses mouth" it was reported that Carroll's window had been broken and that Kevin Carroll had chased the assailant/assassin in his van and then on his return home was shot at by a man (no longer Asian?) and Kevin suffered a broken toe.

Not to be left out, and not for the first time, Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley Lennon) then reported that armed police were at his house (again) and that the Luton demo would still go ahead "even if one of us was killed." Indeed, as relayed by Wigan EDL, "it's Fucking on!"

By the time the BBC were reporting the event this morning, Carroll had merely gone to "investigate (his broken window) and saw a man who appeared to be holding a shotgun. No shots were fired."

Of course, the truth has come too late as for hours and hours now and as far away as America, it is being reported that Muslims have tried to assassinate an EDL leader. The vile outpouring of anger and threats from those who have swallowed the false story of an assassination attempt is a real cause for concern.

Still on the EDL facebook page they're reporting "that Kevin Carroll lead the gunman away from his family thru gardens & expected to die when landed poorly. His ok and said nothing has changed for Luton... A true soldier & joint leader to the cause!"

And of course, there is a reminder that there still remain a few tickets left for the trip to Luton. They write that "After the events of last night I hope the people that werent (sic)going to Luton are changing their mind." And for those unsure, the £20 they charge for the trip gets you there (Luton) "and back!"

Draw your own conclusions as to how and why things have gone bump in the night.

Hope not hate

BNP plays musical chairs

2011-01-28T01:06:00.000Z

Ian Kitchen

Nick Griffin has reshuffled several of the top positions in his dysfunctional British National Party in an attempt to maintain control, reward his supporters and sideline any criticism of his dictatorship.

Chris Beverley has been sacked as regional organiser of the big Yorkshire and The Humber region, one of the two that elected BNP representatives to the European Parliament in 2009. His replacement is Ian Kitchen, the party’s Wakefield organiser and Griffin loyalist. The BNP claims this will allow Beverley to spend more time on his European constituency job for Andrew Brons, the region’s BNP MEP.

Eddy Butler, who was expelled from the BNP after unsuccessfully challenging Griffin for the leadership last year, took a more jaundiced view. Claiming the party was desperate for Beverley not to show up Jefferson by achieving a better result in the coming Barnsley by-election than in Oldham, he added: “Chris Beverley was one of the last remaining competent Regional Organisers, one of the last capable election campaigners and one of the last independent voices left on the Advisory Council. As such his replacement was inevitable and long overdue.”

Stephen Squire has taken over as the party’s London organiser after serving a six-month apprenticeship under Griffin himself, who stepped in as the acting London organiser after the party’s May election debacle and the departures of a series of previous organisers.

Clive Jefferson has given up his job as North West regional organiser, to spend more time on the elections department, according to the BNP. The party’s elections function is sorely in need of competent leadership after a string of by-election failures, but whether Jefferson will be able to devote any more time to it is unclear. He also heads the BNP’s failing treasury department, which for three years has failed to maintain anything near adequate financial records, resulting in the party failing to achieve clean audit reports for 2008 and 2009, with 2010 expected to be similar.

In addition Jefferson, who has difficulty writing coherently, has just been appointed editor of the party’s Voice of Freedom newspaper, replacing Martin Wingfield, who Butler says is very “much out of favour”, though he remains communications and campaigns officer for Griffin’s European constituency.

Jefferson’s replacement in the North West region is Mike Whitby, the party’s Liverpool organiser. Whitby became Liverpool organiser at a heated branch meeting last July when Jefferson kicked out all the existing officers in a purge of dissidents. They had committed the crime of supporting Butler’s challenge.

Whitby seems suitably qualified to move the party towards the “increased militancy” that Griffin promised last December. After clashes between BNP activists and anti-fascists in Liverpool, which resulted in an assault conviction for one BNP man, Whitby promised that anti-fascists’ identities would end up on “a website far worse than Red Watch”, the hate site that encourages supporters to attack anti-fascists and their homes and families.

Another post Jefferson has given up is National Organiser, which has gone to Adam Walker, who also regains his job as staff manager. Walker works closely with Patrick Harrington, Griffin’s old mate from their days in the National Front Political Soldiers. Harrington was appointed the BNP’s head of human resources last autumn, but appears to act more as a general manager for Griffin. Many party members resent Harrington’s presence at the helm because he remains leader of a rival political party, albeit a very small one.

Butler claims that Walker was promoted “just to boost his profile in case he is needed as an alternative Chairman, should something ghastly in the realms of the judiciary happen to Nick Griffin”.

Finally, Jennifer Matthys, Griffin’s eldest daughter, is gradually assuming a greater role and now runs all party operations from a small office in Wigton, Cumbria. But according to Butler, “not enough money is coming in each week to cover the basics, via the appeals that Pat Harrington is now tasked with producing”. Perhaps engineering the departure of Jim Dowson, Griffin’s fundraising consultant, and Paul Golding, the party’s former national communications officer, was not one of Harrington’s smartest moves.

After Griffin announced last summer that he would relinquish the leadership of the party in 2013, speculation mounted that he was grooming her as his replacement, following the example of Marine Le Pen, who has just succeeded her father as leader of the National Front in France. However unlike Ms Le Pen, a lawyer who has held senior roles in the party for over 12 years and has built a firm political base as a regional councillor, Matthys has few qualifications for leadership and is unlikely to be accepted by party members in that role for some considerable time.

HOPE not hate

Two people sought over Portsmouth Jami Mosque protest

2011-01-27T01:10:00.000Z

Detectives released pictures of a man and a woman they wish to speak to

CCTV images have been released of two people sought by police over disorder outside a Portsmouth mosque.

A protest was held at the Jami Mosque on 13 November in response to the burning of poppies by Muslims Against Crusades in London on Armistice Day. Hampshire Constabulary released pictures of a man and woman they wish to speak to in connection with allegations of bottles being thrown.

One man has already been charged with affray and assaulting a police officer.

BBC

C4 'Come Dine With Me' contestant stood against Jack Straw for BNP

2011-01-25T01:13:00.000Z

Kicking back with a cold one yesterday to watch his favourite TV show (Come Dine With Me), Jack Straw may have recognised one of the contestants. A star of the East Lancashire edition of the fly-on-the-wall cookery programme, “old-fashioned plumber” Nick Holt is in fact one of the region’s most notorious BNP activists and stood against Straw in the 2005 general election.

Holt is certainly no stranger to Conservatives in the area. CCHQ found itself fire-fighting in 2009 after Local Tories were exposed by the Lancashire Telegraph’s Tom Moseley for approaching the BNP activist to stand for them in council elections. Holt even attended a party planning meeting alongside then Conservative PPC – now MP for Rossendale and Darwen – Jake Berry.

With a menu featuring the suspiciously French-sounding beef bourguignon, Scrapbook assumes Holt did not clear his cuisine with party headquarters prior to broadcast.

Political Scrapbook

EDL supporters fined for on-train racist abuse

2011-01-23T12:02:00.001Z

Three English Defence League supporters have been ordered to pay more than £350 each after being found guilty of subjecting rail passengers to serious racist abuse.

Tracey Hurley (33), Stuart Parr (28) and a 17-year old youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at Wigan Magistrates’ Court on 20 January for trial.

The court heard that, on Friday 25 June last year, the trio had attended an EDL march in Bradford and had been on their way home when they travelled from Manchester Victoria to Wigan on a Northern Rail service. During the journey they became abusive and intimidating, subjecting several passengers to a torrent of racist abuse.

The abuse began when the three sang songs relating to the EDL and Taliban. At Salford Crescent an Asian man boarded the train and was immediately targeted by the group who shouted derogatory remarks about Allah to the man.

PC Tony McGibbon, of British Transport Police, said: “The abuse continued for some time and was directed at anyone on board the train who the three perceived to be anything other than white British. The behaviour of the three was offensive in the extreme, completely unacceptable and made everyone on the train feel incredibly uncomfortable.”

A passenger advised a member of rail staff who reported the behaviour of the three to BTP officers. After witnesses were spoken to the three where arrested and interviewed. During interviews they admitted having been at the EDL march and drinking heavily, but denied making any racist remarks or behaving in a racist manner.

PC McGibbon added: “Despite their initial denials, there is no doubt that these three behaved in a deeply offensive manner and subjected rail passengers to unacceptable and unwarranted abuse. BTP, the rail industry, and the wider criminal justice system, takes a dim view of anyone who behaves in such a way and the sentence handed out should serve as an example and warning to others.”

Hurley, of Kingsley Avenue, Goose Green, was fined £150, ordered to pay £200 costs and a £15 victim surcharge after being found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence. Parr, of Golborne Place, Scholes, was fined £150, ordered to pay £200 costs and a £15 victim surcharge after being found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence.

The youth, from Ashton-in-Makerfield, was fined £150, ordered to pay £200 costs and a £15 victim surcharge after being found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence.

British Transport Police

The time for games is over

2011-01-23T12:01:00.000Z

Paul and Lynda Cromie

Several councillors and media outlets in Bradford have recently received an email from Paul and Lynda Cromie, the two BNP councillors from Queensbury ward, alerting them to a planned National Front activity in Bradford on 20 April, the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth.

Pulled up on their own political allegiance the two councillors claimed that they are not currently BNP members. Have they finally changed their views or simply not got round to renewing their membership? I guess only they can tell us.

You'll forgive me for being slightly sceptical of the Cromies' real motives. Over the past three years there have been a number of occasions when Paul and Lynda looked like they were going to ditch the BNP, only for them to scurry back into the fascists' nest.

I, for one, have had enough of their games. It's time they dropped the BNP publicly or Lynda, who is up for re-election in May, will face a national HOPE not hate campaign to oust her.

Hope not hate

BNP’s delayed accounts reveal financial disaster zone

2011-01-20T12:11:00.000Z

Clive Jefferson: Clueless

The British National Party’s treasury department appears to have “lost” nearly £90,000 of funds belonging to its local groups, according to the party’s 2009 accounts, released today.

The BNP’s national and regional accounts were submitted to the Electoral Commission on 6 January, two days before the fines for their late submission would have doubled to £2,500. They reveal the full horror of the disaster area that is the BNP’s treasury department.

Even Griffin could not deny it. “The patchiness of our professionalisation programme inevitably produced internal stresses and gaps, including in due course the late submission of accounts,” he wrote in his introduction.

Clive Jefferson, the BNP’s fifth national treasurer since the start of 2009 – four are listed in the accounts, Jenny Noble being omitted – spoke more plainly. “From what I have been able to determine, the root of the problem was the inability of central treasury and accounting unit staff to implement new system adequate to cope with the massive increase in income and expenditure in 2009, compounded with the failure of professional accountants brought in to address the weaknesses they were expected to rectify. Both I and the party Chairman are frankly at a loss to understand why this was the case”.

It was not of course the moronic Jefferson’s fault. “I was appointed the Party’s Treasurer on 28th October 2010, which was subsequent to the records for 2009 being made available to the auditor. I can provide no information of any value regarding the accounts.”

The “professional accountants” were those supplied by Jim Dowson in Belfast, until late last year the much hyped fundraising and management consultant, until he fell out with Griffin and Patrick Harrington, Griffin’s old comrade from his National Front political soldier days, who now helps Griffin run the BNP.

The regional accounts, which bring together the income and expenditure of all the party’s local groups, similarly include an “I know nothing” claim by the new regional treasurer James Mole, who took over from David Hannam in mid September 2010. No doubt he is hoping not to be blamed for the dire consequences of the party’ inability to maintain bank reconciliations and account properly for its income and outgoings. A reconciliation of branches’ and groups’ balances on the very last page of the regional accounts shows that only £4,496 is available to meet the £93,579 the party supposedly owes its branches, which means that local units are only “entitled to 4.8p in the pound”.

No explanation is given for how this happened. But on 16 January, Eddy Butler, who last summer failed in his challenge to Nick Griffin for the party leadership, wrote: “I recommend that all local units open their own bank accounts … If you want to be able to hold on to your locally raised money it is vital, no it is essential, that you do this. …

“If you pay into the BNP bank account your hard earned money will be drawn out and wasted by Nick Griffin to pay for the court cases he has negligently embroiled the BNP in.”

That wastage is not yet apparent in the 2009 accounts, which show only £52,122 spent on “legal costs”. Far more can be expected in 2010, which includes the damages paid over the stupid Marmite copyright breach, and 2011. However, in his introduction to the national accounts Griffin gave full vent to his hate for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which took legal action to force the party to end racial discrimination in its constitution. “Parallel to the officially sanctioned mob violence against us [a reference to the demonstrations against Griffin’s appearance on Question Time in October 2009], a campaign of ‘legal’ persecution was also launched,” wrote Griffin, an action “motivated not by genuine concerns about alleged ‘discrimination’ but by political malice”.

Griffin also reveals his continuing anger at having to admit ethnic minority members, who were “hitherto excluded primarily in order to provide at least one forum in which members of the indigenous community could discuss the problems inflicted upon them by the ruling elite’s policies of enforced multiculturalism”.

Griffin judges that 2009 was the party’s “best year ever” because of its European election success, but that victory held within it the seeds of the party’s subsequent decline. Admitting that the party’s activity had fallen off in the second half of 2009, Griffin ascribes it largely to the “energy that had to be expended at the top of the party getting to grips with the mechanics and responsibilities of representing British interests in the European Parliament”. In other words he accepts the criticism Butler has voiced recently that being an MEP means he cannot lead the party properly.

“Several new members of staff were brought in with the intention of avoiding this new focus leaving a management gap back at home, but by November it was becoming clear that this measure had failed and that clearing the problem up was likely to involve tough decisions and key personnel problems early in 2010,” Griffin continues. The results, in terms of legal expenses and settlements with former employees, will no doubt be revealed in the 2010 and 2011 accounts.

The audit report, by Silver & Co, who have audited the party’s accounts for many years, is surprisingly less devastating than the previous year, considering the admitted failures to keep adequate records, many of which are detailed in the accounts. Unlike in 2008, they consider that the financial statements “give a true and fair view of the state of the Party’s affairs as at 31st December 2009 … in so far as a full disclosure of the facts has been made in these accounts. But they cannot be classed as ‘true and fair’ under the usual definition of that term.”

Quite what that means is anyone’s guess, especially as the audit report goes on to state: “we have to accept that we cannot form an opinion as to the completeness of the financial statements, as we have had to base them on the information submitted, and controls were not in place to ensure the information on which these financial statements are based is complete”.

One suspects that the fudge of a report was the product of long and hard negotiations between Jefferson and the auditors to avoid a second wholly negative judgement and another investigation by the Electoral Commission of the party’s failure to comply with the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

As for the accounts themselves, they confirm that the party did indeed increase its income to nearly £2 million although only £1.3 million is shown donations, the result of the controversial appointment of Dowson’s Midas Consultancy. The figures may be way out, however, as “whilst details of donations made were entered into the membership data base that information was not reconcilied [sic] to the bankings”.

Membership income rose from £166,006 in 2008 to £626,180, although membership numbers only went up from 9,801 to 12,632. Noting the inconsistency, the accounts add: “The figure shown seems high and may include an element of donation income”.

Income from commercial activities is well down – from £130,000 to under £30,000. Partly that is due to the party apparently not being able to sell a single copy of its two publications, Voice of Freedom and Identity. Income from “merchandise” – books, mugs, t-shirts, etc under the Excalibur operation – is down because it was franchised out to Arthur Kemp, the party’s South African website editor, during the year.

Costs of commercial activities grew to £450,000, resulting in a huge loss. However a note admits that this is the result of the party not having systems in place to split the huge costs of printing, postage and delivery between commercial activities and election material. If that split could not be made, it must surely follow that the party’s return of expenditure for the European election, which showed £283,000, cannot be correct. The accounts themselves declare £271,000 spent on the European election.

The list of admitted accounting failures goes on. “A considerable amount of the ‘Trafalgar Club’ costs could be considered to be more to do with printing costs. The total cost covered is £23,900,” another note states, adding: “In the nominal ledger the ‘description shown’ is either ‘inv Held by D Hannam’ or simply ‘D Hannam’, indicating that the invoice is not available within the Party’s records.

Hannam was widely derided as incompetent at the time of the internal rebellion in winter 2007/08 when he was regional treasurer, but was promoted to national treasurer in February 2010 and in July boasted that everything was in place to ensure all financial statements were submitted on time. By October he was out of the job.

Simon Darby, the BNP’s former deputy chairman, also failed to account for expenditure, with “no documentation” available to cover a payment of £3,000 for “security costs” during the period while he was treasurer.

And in the first four months of 2009 a total of £37,450 was “entered in the Purchase Ledger as J A Walker payments” for which “No documentary evidence was put through the records to show what these payments covered”. John Walker has held various jobs in the party, including national treasurer, and is currently on the staff of the BNP’s MEPs, paid out of European Parliament funds. The unexplained payments to him occurred while Noble was treasurer, but the accounts for some reason avoid mentioning her name.

The accounts also show the party spent £168,000 on additions to its vehicles, equipment, fixtures and fittings, much of it the result of appeals during the year. Such an investment might be expected to stand the party in good stead for the future, except that “The Treasurer is in the process of reviewing the schedules which back-up the schedule above, which the auditor has provided, both in terms of what assets were in existence at 31 December 2009, and after the current re-organisation of the Party and the closing of certain offices”. In other words the BNP has no idea whether its assets still exist or ever existed, and many have been scrapped because the party has closed most of its offices, including the Belfast call centre, which was under the control of Dowson.

Writing off the doubtful assets in the 2009 accounts would of course have increased its loss of £57,202 for the year, a far cry from the profit the party has at various times claimed it achieved in the year. The loss increased the party’s net insolvency to £361,000, as a result of which it owed over £355,000 to suppliers and £37,000 to HM Revenue and Customs in PAYE tax and national insurance on staff wages and VAT.

Among those owed money was “Ad Lorries Ltd”, actually Adlorries.com Ltd. The accounts confirm what Searchlight revealed many months ago, namely that “a considerable amount of transactions were paid through and processed through” this company, which is owned by Dowson. The full amount the party was invoiced by Dowson’s company in 2009 was £741,290, which included £58,680 of management fees for running the Belfast call centre, part of the £162,000 a year Dowson was paid by the party. However even Dowson had to wait for his money. At 31 December 2009 the BNP owed his company £71,967, the accounts reveal.

The amount going through Adlorries represents a huge proportion of the party’s total expenditure of just over £2 million, justifying Searchlight’s accusation that Dowson virtually owned the BNP. Another accusation that the accounts prove correct is that the party massively inflated its payroll, providing jobs for those in Griffin’s favour. Expenditure on staff costs more than doubled to £660,000 in 2009, though this includes around £100,000 of consultancy fees paid to Dowson.

One person who always gets whatever he wants from the party is its chairman. During 2009 the party spent the huge sum of £33,519 on installing a security system for him. Andrew Brons, the party’s Yorkshire MEP, only merited £9,136, as did a person by the name of “Ms E Uttley”.

Jefferson states that a programme has been agreed with the auditor to ensure that the 2010 accounts are submitted on time and that “we are able to repair to a large extent any possible deficiencies in the operation of the Treasury department in 2010”. Deficiencies in the party’s finances will be harder to repair. The party ended 2010 unable to pay its printers, with staff waiting for their wages and mounting legal expenses from failed court actions and employment tribunal cases.

On 18 January 2011 Griffin was required to pay £45,000 into court as a result of having to withdraw a court case against four former employees. The total cost is expected to be £115,000. He failed to make the payment. And with donations drying up and demoralised members deserting the failing party, the BNP is unlikely to dig itself out of its deep financial hole.

HOPE not hate

The BNP's Statement of Accounts can be found here

Carlisle man arrested after 'Koran burning' in city centre

2011-01-20T01:16:00.000Z

A police officer next to the burning book

A man has been arrested after he allegedly burned the Koran holy book and made an anti-Islamic speech yesterday in Carlisle city centre.

One eye witness who spoke to the News & Star described seeing the man standing in the city centre, near to the market cross, loudly making anti-Islamic pronouncements in front of a large crowd. He then set fire to the book he was holding, which said the witness was a Koran, before discarding it and hurrying away.

Police arrived at the scene a short time later and are now investigating. A spokesman for the force confirmed that a man has been arrested.

The incident came just a day before a controversial American preacher, who had threatened to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in new York, was told he would barred from visiting the UK.

A spokesman for Cumbria police said today: “Just after midday on Wednesday, January 19, police received reports that a Koran was being burned by a man in Carlisle city centre. Police have seized the remains of the book and a 32-year-old male has been arrested on suspicion of using racially aggravated threatening words or behaviour. The man remains in police custody where he is helping officers with their inquiries.”

Police confirmed that the man was arrested at his home address in Carlisle.

A woman who saw the book burning incident said: “There was a big crowd gathered in the city centre and he was basically burning the Koran in the middle of town. He was carrying the book around while it was burning and then threw it on the floor for a second and then left. He was shouting anti-Islamic comments. People were horrified. It was a bit shocking to see that in Carlisle city centre. The whole thing lasted about three or four minutes.”

Meanwhile, Pastor Jones said today that he was disappointed to be barred from the United Kingdom, describing his exclusion from the country as “unfair”. Speaking after the Home Office announced it would not allow him to enter the UK, he insisted he was not against Muslims or Islam, only the “radical element of Islam.”

News and Star

Imprisoned Neo-Nazi claims he’s the victim of religious discrimination

2011-01-07T18:50:00.001Z

Heaton

A Neo-Nazi prisoner jailed for encouraging people to ”destroy all Jews” claims he is the victim of religious discrimination – after being banned from wearing a ‘fascist’ necklace.

Michael Heaton, 43, who is a former leader of the British Freedom Fighters, was jailed last year for posting more than 3,000 hate-filled comments on far-right websites.

But the Aryan Strike Force member has complained to prison chiefs at HMP Wymott, Lancs., after he was banned from wearing a Thor’s Hammer pendant.

He claims his rights are being infringed but prison bosses have ruled that the necklace has a ”fascist meaning” and ”Neo-Nazi overtones”.

In a letter sent to inmates’ magazine Inside Time, the ex-English Defence League activist complained he was being singled out for religious discrimination.

He said: ”Moslems (sic) can wear hats in prison when nobody else can, Christians are allowed their crosses, so imagine my shock when I enquired about wearing my religious pendant and was refused.

”I am what is called an Odinist. So that I can feel nearer my god I requested to be allowed to wear my pendant.

”The reply I got was that my application had been refused on the grounds that the pendant ‘looks a little like a Maltese cross, which has a fascist meaning and neo-Nazi overtones’.

”To say I was shocked at this would be an understatement! Other religious groups are afforded the respect for their religious symbols in prison, so why not me?

”His (the governor) response was that Thor’s hammer is on the prison ‘banned list’. Surely this cannot be right? Is there anything I can do about it?”

Heaton, serving 30 months in jail for using threatening and abusive language likely to stir up racial hatred, claims that his pendant is an Odinist rather than a Nazi symbol.

However, prison staff refused his request to wear it after learning that far-right groups have adopted the symbol as a depiction of aryan supremacy.

A trial at Liverpool Crown Court in June last year heard food packer Heaton, who has a scorpion tattoo on his neck, wanted to ”clear the country of all ethnic minorities”.

He posted a series of racist comments on the Aryan Strike Force website including: ”Jews will always be scum and must be destroyed.”

He added: ”I would encourage any religion or race which wants to destroy the Jews, I hate them with a passion.”

When cops raided his home in Greater Manchester they found large quantities of Nazi and Hitler memorabilia, a semi–automatic BB gun and a samurai sword.

Judge Stephen Irwin said: ”You wanted to start a race war. You were clearly filled with racial hatred.”

A Prison Service spokesperson said it would not discuss complaints made by individual inmates.

He said: ”The provision of religious artefacts in prison is at the discretion of the governor following a thorough risk assessment.”

Norse gods Thor and Odin are worshipped by Odinists and Pagans but their symbols have been hijacked by many white supremacist and Neo-Nazi groups.

Heaton’s co-defendant Trevor Hannington, 58, of Cardiff, was sentenced to two years for six offences.

SWNS

BNP paedophile locked up

2011-01-07T16:47:00.001Z

Nigel Hesmondhalgh

A British National Party supporter who launched a four-year race hate campaign against his neighbours has been jailed for possessing child pornography.

Nigel Hesmondhalgh from Hyndburn, Lancashire, was imprisoned for nine months at Burnley Crown Court after a series of degrading photos and videos of children were found on his home computer. Judge Simon Newell also ordered him to sign the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

Hesmondhalgh, 37, had only just been released from a 30-week prison sentence for racially aggravated harassment imposed last March when police raided his home in November.

His computer was seized and found to contain no fewer than 29 indecent images of children, and 11 similar videos. Four of the pictures, and three of the videos, were graded at level four, the second most serious category of child pornography.

Police had obtained a two-year antisocial behaviour order against him before his release to prevent him from throwing dog dirt into his neighbours’ garden and using racist language towards an Asian family.

In July 2009 Hesmondhalgh narrowly escaped jail after repeatedly abusing and insulting his Asian neighbours. He piled dog dirt up in the alley outside their home and told them: “It’s a white country, not a Muslim state”.

Hesmondhalgh, who had a BNP sticker in the window of his home, repeatedly picked on the wife of the couple and told the husband that he should be scared and shouted support for the BNP.

He admitted racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress. Burnley Crown Court heard that he had almost 90 previous convictions and has been flouting the law since he was 11. At the time of the offence he was on bail for similar allegations which were left to lie on the file. He was given 36 weeks in custody suspended for two years with 18 months supervision and a requirement to attend the Thinking Skills programme.

Hesmondhalgh’s conviction follows those of two BNP members in November 2008 for sexual activity with 14-year-old girls. Ian Hindle and Andrew Wells gained further notoriety when they appeared in an investigation in The Times this week on grooming of young girls for sex by men of south Asian ethnicity. Hindle and Wells were two of the only three white offenders among the 56 on-street grooming cases the paper examined. The BNP said it expelled the two after publicity about their convictions.

Hope not Hate

Tommy Robinson defends a convicted paedophile

2011-01-05T11:19:00.001Z

The EDL's statement - click on image for full-size

It's been a rather turbulent 24 hours for the EDL and its leadership following the revelations in the Times newspaper that one of its founding fathers Richard Price is a convicted paedophile.

Last night a hastily cobbled together statement was released by the EDL informing its membership that Price was arrested by West Midlands police back in October 2009.Police seized his computer along with various other items and following analysis it was discovered Price had a number of indecent images of children held on his computer.

The EDL claim Price had no idea how these images appeared on his PC and claim the police told Price that if he pleaded guilty to possessing the images he would be quietly put on the sex offenders register without public knowledge. If however he pleaded not guilty a public trial would take place complete with media coverage.

The EDL try to convince us (badly) that following legal advice and despite his claims of innocence Price had no choice but to plead guilty in June 2010 at Birmingham Crown Court of making four indecent images of children, and possessing cocaine and crack cocaine. He was banned from owning a computer for a year, given a three-year community supervision order and ordered to sign on to the sex offenders register for five years. According to the EDL leadership the Price story is a left wing conspiracy cooked up with the Times newspaper to stop the EDL from functioning.

It was also claimed that Price had never been part of the EDL leadership. More on that later.

Following the release of the statement on Facebook the majority of the EDL membership initially jumped to the defence of their paedophile comrade, however, a sizeable number were obviously not convinced. Comments were left doubting Price's version of the story.

One comment said " I'm quitting the EDL, it's sad but a great street movement now has a paedo in its leadership ranks. The leadership think he is innocent but he pleaded guilty if (sic) kids in sexual poses and being a crackhead... I will not be a member of an organisation that defends a guy who pleaded guilty himself to downloading kiddie sex pics"

As the number of comments attacking Price and the leadership grew, the EDL admins began to delete comments they found was no longer on message.

Following constant criticism the EDL removed their initial statement and said that an investigation was being launched into Richard Price's conviction and that a further statement would be released. However this in turn was deleted and there is currently no mention of Richard Price and his conviction at all on the EDL Facebook page.

As for the claims that Richard Price was never part of the EDL leadership, Tommy Robinson obviously has a short memory.

In a statement released by Tommy Robinson himself back in June 2010 said " The EDL have only this "Leadership" just for the record....Myself, Trevor Kelway, Marshy, Jack Smith, Joel Titus and Richard Price, we are the earliest founding members."

Can the EDL leadership dig themselves out of this hole? Only time will tell.

Hope not hate

Far-right ‘hero’ is a convicted paedophile

2011-01-04T00:39:00.004Z

Paedophile: Richard Price

A leader of the English Defence League who was described as a “political prisoner” after being jailed for violence at a march had already been placed on the sex offenders register for downloading indecent images of children, The Times can reveal.
A leader of the English Defence League who was described as a “political prisoner” after being jailed for violence at a march had already been placed on the sex offenders register for downloading indecent images of children, The Times can reveal.

The far-right group launched a campaign to free Richard Price, co-ordinator of the West Midlands division of the EDL, after he was jailed last month for violent behaviour. But Price, 41, had been convicted in June 2010 of making four indecent images of children, and possessing cocaine and crack cocaine.

That conviction followed an earlier arrest in 2009 for public order offences believed to have been connected with EDL marches. Police were understood to have seized and analysed his computer, leading to the discovery of sexual images of children that he had downloaded. His home was also searched and the drugs were found.

Price admitted four counts of making indecent images of children and two charges of possessing cocaine when he appeared at Birmingham Crown Court. He was banned from owning a computer for a year, given a three-year community supervision order and ordered to sign on to the sex offenders register for five years.

Price, from Quinton, Birmingham, and Collum Keyes, 23, also from Birmingham, were among 12 people arrested when they surged through police lines during a protest in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in May 2010.

When that case came to court in December, Price admitted using threatening behaviour. He was jailed for three months and given a ten-year Criminal Anti-Social Behaviour Order banning him from attending marches outside Birmingham. Keyes, who admitted disorderly conduct, was fined £150.

When Price was jailed, EDL members launched a campaign urging supporters to write to the Prime Minister and MPs to try to “win justice for Richard Price, EDL”.

The Aston Villa supporter, who has also been linked to football hooliganism, was even likened by his supporters to a modern-day John Bunyan, the Puritan Christian preacher and author of Pilgrim’s Progress who was jailed for continuing his sermons without the permission of the established Church in the 1600s.

But today’s revelation that one of the EDL’s leading members has been convicted of sex offences will come as a huge embarrassment to a group that has struggled to shrug off its reputation as a new version of the National Front.

In recent months, particularly following the political demise of the British National Party, the EDL has begun to attract more support. Its leader, who had previously used the alias Tommy Robinson, was traced by The Times and gave his first interview using his real name.

Stephen Lennon has vehemently denied that the group he started in Luton, Bedfordshire, is racist, saying that it has even set up a gay and lesbian division and given a prominent role to a Sikh supporter opposed to Islamic extremists.

Supporters of the EDL had claimed that Price became a political prisoner after he, along with Keyes, was banned from organising, controlling or travelling to any open-air protest outside Birmingham for ten years.

It was the first time a Criminal Anti-Social Behaviour Order, sought by Thames Valley Police in conjunction with the National Domestic Extremism Unit, had been issued to a demonstrator connected to the EDL.

Last month, a database of EDL supporters was published on the internet. Hackers had attacked the group’s database of those who had made donations to the EDL and people who had bought clothing from its merchandise wing.

The Times

Does the BNP have a future in Kirklees?

2011-01-03T14:18:00.001Z

This leopard will never change it's spots: David Exley.

The British National Party had hoped for a surge in support in May’s general and local elections. But the party’s sole Kirklees representative on Kirklees lost his seat, leader Nick Griffin finished a distant third in the BNP’s target Parliamentary seat of Barking while in Dewsbury the party’s vote fell from 5,000 to 3,200. Local government reporter BARRY GIBSON asks if the party has a future.

David Exley used to be the face of the BNP in Kirklees. He sent shockwaves through the district when he was elected to represent Heckmondwike on the council in 2003. But the Birstall man revealed to the Examiner that he left the party in June – just a month after standing as BNP candidate in Cleckheaton in the Kirklees poll and for Batley and Spen in the general election.

He said: “I resigned from the BNP. I shouldn’t really have stood at the elections. The party is not putting the emphasis on policies that appeal to the general public. At this time of year we should be asking about what’s going on with the winter provisions, we ought to have been talking about the economy and what we can do to alleviate those problems.”

Mr Exley blames the party leader for many of the BNP’s problems.

“I think it’s down to the leadership,’’ he said. “I totally lost faith in Nick Griffin’s ability to lead and prioritise. The worst thing that happened to Nick was to be elected to the European Parliament because he’s not able to do that job properly and run the party properly. I know there are a lot of people who are disillusioned.”

Mr Exley is the second former BNP Kirklees councillor to leave the party. Colin Auty, who once represented Dewsbury East, quit the party in 2008 after clashing with Mr Griffin. That leaves just Roger Roberts, the one-time Conservative who represented the BNP on Kirklees until he was defeated at May’s council election. The former Heckmondwike councillor admits the party has problems – but he believes the BNP can rebuild in Kirklees.

“There has been a lot of internal feuding and splits within the party,” he said. “The big problem is Nick Griffin and it has been for a long time. When he was elected to the European Parliament he should have stood down as leader. He has brought the party as far as he can and he should stand down now.”

But the Dewsbury man, who chairs the Kirklees branch of the party, insists the BNP is not finished.

“Within Kirklees there are some members who have withdrawn their support but only two activists have left the party,” he said. “The main nucleus is still there and we have to look to rebuild. We should be moving forward in leaps and bounds because the people have been let down by the two main parties.”

The party ran candidates in every Kirklees ward except Greenhead at May’s council elections. But Mr Roberts revealed that most voters in Huddersfield and the Valleys will not have the chance to vote for the party in next year’s council elections. He said: “I’ve always said it was silly contesting every ward and I think we should concentrate on half a dozen wards – most of them in north Kirklees – where we have a chance.”

The party’s opponents agree with Mr Roberts on one thing – the BNP is not finished in Kirklees. Council leader Clr Mehboob Khan said: “I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them. They are still around, still active and still exploiting issues in the local community.”

Clr Khan believes the party’s three Kirklees councillors were unseated because they failed to deliver for their voters. The Greenhead Labour man said: “The party’s honeymoon was over very quickly because people saw they weren’t offering an alternative. Their wicked lies and myths designed to divide communities weren’t appealing to local people. Therefore, they suffered at the ballot box.”

Clr Andrew Cooper, who leads the Green Party on Kirklees Council, agrees. The Newsome man said: “The BNP had a high watermark of three councillors which fell away very quickly. We’ve always got to be vigilant about these sort of far-right organisations. The views they put forward do not reflect the values we have as a country.”

Huddersfield Labour MP Barry Sheerman believes his party can take credit for the BNP’s downturn. He said: “We did get it wrong in areas where we are strong because we weren’t listening to people. But we’ve learned the lesson that if you don’t talk to people about issues which concern them – like immigration – you leave space for the BNP. That doesn’t mean we must take on the BNP’s policies, but we mustn’t exclude people who have concerns.”

University of Huddersfield politics lecturer Dr Andrew Mycock believes the party risks losing out to the English Defence League (EDL) which has held marches in cities across the country against the so-called Islamification of Britain. He said: “Internally the party has started to collapse into huge schisms and there are a lot of questions about Nick Griffin’s style of leadership. But the thing that’s really undermined them is the EDL which has outflanked them.

“The BNP became more mainstream and had to change its constitution to let non-white members join. Many of those on the extremes don’t see it as a party they adhere to any more. The EDL is a far more radical challenge. The BNP has tried to change things through democracy while the EDL is a return to the streets which is deliberately trying to promote conflict.”

Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Ex-BNP boss behind anti-abortion group

2011-01-03T14:14:00.002Z

Alice Kernaghan

Ex-BNP mouthpiece Jim Dowson is putting his weight back behind his anti-abortion fundraising.

He’s turned the old BNP Belfast bunker into a fundraising office for a controversial anti-abortion pressure group who like to hand-out shocking pictures of aborted foetuses to make their point.

Dowson denies being at the helm of the UK Life League which raises thousands of pounds a year. But when we called the secretive ‘not-for-profit’ organisation on Wednesday it was Dowson who answered the phone.

Meanwhile his daughter, who until last month was working for the BNP, is the only named employee on their website. Alice Kernaghan – who got married earlier this year – is named at the end of an anti-abortion campaign letter as the UK Life League’s ‘National Coordinator’. Dowson is also pictured on the website protesting on the steps of Stormont holding a picture of an aborted foetus.

Convicted criminal Dowson walked away from the BNP after a fall-out about funding. He had enjoyed a rocky road with the English-based race hate party which is led by his pal Nick Griffin. This week he told us he was “glad to be shot” of the BNP. And he continued to claim he was never a member of the party – adding that he dislikes what they stand for.

“No I’m not running it – I’m just doing a bit of design work for them [the UK Life League],” said Dowson on Wednesday. I’m glad to be shot of the BNP. It was a very difficult three years. I’m turning my attention to a private marketing project in Spain. But I’m very much a big supporter of the UK Life League.”

The rabid self-proclaimed reverend, originally from Cumbernauld in Scotland, first hit the headlines eleven years ago when he quit his post at the head of anti-abortion group Precious Life over his involvement with loyalists. The Catholic Church, which had previously supported Dowson’s antiabortion stance, distanced themselves from him after he was revealed as the organiser of a flute band which recorded a tape in honour of UFF Milltown Cemetery killer Michael Stone.

For the last three years Dowson has been effectively running the fundraising and membership wings of the BNP. He set up the Belfast office on the outskirts of Belfast where he hoped he could operate without attracting any attention. But in the summer of 2009 the Sunday World infiltrated the office and we later revealed how BNP leader Nick Griffin had sent over his own daughter Jenny to help run things.

The Sunday World understands that the UK Life League has attracted tens of thousands of pounds in funds throughout the last three years – despite being virtually inactive.

Sunday World

EDL gloating backfire

2010-12-31T11:21:00.000Z

The EDL took great delight in reporting the death of Bertie Lewis, a 90 year old from Bolton who recently spoke out against them. "This was the old clown from Bolton who went on tv being a little daft dhimmi mouthing off about edl. 1 less commie rat to worry about," wrote the EDL on their Facebook site.

The only problem was that Bertie had a distinguished war record in Bomber Command and it wasn't long before EDL supporters turned on their leadership.

Michael Jones said: "Man was a war hero, regardless of who he supported. Get a grip admin, you sound just like the idiots we oppose."

Wayne from Blackburn joined the fray. "Stuff like this gives the Muzzies ammunition to ridicule. Remove this post."

Anyway, unlike the EDL I would like to pay our respects to Bertie. He was born in Chicago and grew up in New York and was one of the few Americans to enlist with the RAF. He was 19 when WW2 broke out and two years later worked his way across the Atlantic shovelling coal on a Norwegian ship intent on joining the RAF. He was eventually to become a Flight Sergeant in Bomber Command and took part in 40 missions over Germany.

In more recent years he became an active anti-war campaigner and every weekend would take to the streets of Bolton to spread a peace message.

Last year he took part in a demonstration against the EDL in Bolton. He was knocked over by police but continued his protest from a chair. He later told the Bolton News: “I fought the fascists during the Second World War and if I let someone like the English Defence League, which are the enemy, get away with coming here and protesting then what did I fight the war for?”

Hope not hate

‘Scared’ by English Defence League protest

2010-12-30T14:25:00.000Z

Ronald Peterson (centre) claimed he was staging a one-man protest against the Oxford Road mosque

An English Defence League (EDL) member who displayed a St George flag outside a partially built mosque and shouted “EDL” and “England” was staging a one-man protest against the “monstrosity”, a court heard.

Ronald Peterson, of Elvaston Way, Tilehurst, told Reading magistrates he wanted to speak out against what he believed to be the flouting of planning regulations and public funding of the building in Oxford Road, West Reading.

Two Muslim men who heard the shouting on May 30 said they thought a march was taking place and were afraid the situation would escalate, the court heard.

Police were out in force on Thursday last week when about 20 members of the EDL, who say they are against the ‘Islamification’ of England, demonstrated outside the court in support of Peterson.

The 37-year-old denies two public order offences, one of them being racially or religiously aggravated, and faced trial.

Giving evidence, Urfan Azad told the court he was in the Tea House, in Oxford Road, with friend Amar Nazir on the evening of Sunday, May 30, when they heard “EDL, EDL” being chanted. He said: “We thought it was a demonstration. We went around the corner and saw three guys raising their hands up and they had a St George’s flag on the fence around the mosque which is being built. I felt a bit scared and called the police.”

Mr Azad said prayers were due to take place in the existing mosque about 100 yards away in Valentia Road and he was afraid the situation might get out of control.

Mr Nazir added: “Me and my friend discussed it and we thought it could turn into something ugly. Any other Muslim could drive past and do something stupid and start a fight so we decided to call the police.”

The court heard the police arrived within about five minutes of the call to find two men standing by the St George’s flag.

Sergeant Lee Barnham said: “I asked Mr Peterson what his intention was and he told me he was staging a static protest against this monstrosity and motioned towards the mosque.”

He said he spoke to Mr Azad and said to the court: “He told me he was offended by the use of what he considered to be a religious cross against the site of worship. It was clear to me he was upset about what happened and felt intimidated and I was convinced an offence against the Public Order Act had been committed.”

Peterson, bearing facial cuts and bruises from an alleged assault, said he had planned the one-man protest because he believed the council had given the people behind the mosque preferential treatment and public money to finish the project.

He said he had the England flag with him because he had been watching England play Japan in a football match on the TV at home.

Peterson said: “I’m not a religious person. I don’t follow any religion. I see the St George Cross as being the flag of my country and there is nothing more to it than that.”

He said he had been joined by another man he had never met before as he walked to the mosque and then by another stranger at the site.

Peterson said ‘EDL’ was only shouted twice and ‘England’ once as they posed for photos which he was going to use as part of his protest against the mosque development.

He described the EDL as an organisation against Islamic extremism and said he had been prompted to join because of the issues he had with the new mosque.

Asked if he intended to offend anyone, he said: “’Course I wasn’t. I didn’t think anyone would be offended by the flag of my country.”

Peterson was bailed unconditionally to appear before the same court on Thursday, January 13, when district judge Andrew Vickers is due to give his verdict.

Get Reading

78 English Defence League fanatics claim whiplash injuries...but only 25 were coach

2010-12-26T11:33:00.002Z

Alan Spence with his hero Nick Griffin

Seventy-EIGHT English Defence League supporters are trying to claim for whiplash injuries in a coach crash... when only 25 of them were on board.

The claims were lodged after the coach carrying party members from Gateshead to a rally in Preston, Lancs, was involved in a minor collision.

Days later dozens of EDL supporters submitted a bid for compensation for whiplash injuries which they said were caused by the crash.

But the coach firm says only 25 people were on the bus - and the vehicle has just 57 seats. Maria Caris, spokesman for Caris Coaches in Gateshead, said she is now considering legal action amid fears her firm is being scammed by members of the extremist party, which opposes the spread of militant Islam.

She said: "They must think we're idiots.

There are 78 claims in so far and the phone is still going with people asking for our insurance details. They are all saying they were on the coach."

Recalling the rally - which ended in violent clashes with police - she added: "These 'whiplash injuries' could have been caused when they were fighting with the police in Preston."

Driver Christopher Cartwright said he'd be amazed if any of the 25 on board were hurt in the crash last month. He said: "There was not much more than a scratch on the back corner of the coach."

Yesterday even their own supporters were protesting. EDL's Alan Spence wrote on the party's Facebook site: "Are you taking the p*** or what? There were only 20 people on the f*****g coach."

The Mirror

Police arrest EDL protest’s leader

2010-12-22T11:50:00.002Z

Guramit Singh

ONE of the leaders of the English Defence League (EDL) has been arrested after police received complaints about his speech during their protest in Peterborough on 11th December.

Guramit Singh (28), from Nottingham, was arrested yesterday (22nd December) on suspicion of intentionally causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress.

Cambridgeshire Police received two complaints after Mr Singh, an unofficial leader and spokesman for the EDL, gave a speech during the EDL’s two-hour protest in the city on Saturday, December 11.

Mr Singh was addressing around 1,000 EDL supporters and hundreds of onlooking members of the public during his speech, which was delivered outside Peterborough Magistrates’ Court and has since been uploaded onto YouTube.

A spokeswoman for Cambridgeshire Police said: “A 28-year-old man from Nottingham was arrested on suspicion of intentionally causing religiously aggravated harassment alarm or distress, under section four of the public order act 1986.

“He was questioned in Nottingham and has now been bailed.

“Police are investigating whether any further criminal offences were committed during protests in Peterborough.

“The arrested man will return to a police station in Cambridgeshire in February.”

The EDL held its protest claiming to be against Islamic extremism and its perceived rise in England.

The protesters went from outside the Peterborough United Football Ground, in London Road, to Peterborough Magistrates’ Court in Lower Bridge Street, where they gathered for a static protest and were addressed by Mr Singh.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the other unofficial leader of the EDL, confirmed that Mr Singh had been arrested.

Mr Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, said: “Guramit was arrested in the morning.

“The EDL are fully behind him and we don’t think there was anything wrong with his speech.

“It doesn’t surprise me that he has been arrested but it does disappoint me.”

The EDL’s decision to come to Peterborough to march and protest sparked the biggest policing operation in the history of the city.

Around 1,000 officers from 18 forces across the country were drafted in to police the EDL march as well as the counter demonstration which was organised by Peterborough Trades Union Council.

The operation cost Cambridgeshire Police an estimated £750,000 to pay overtime and draft extra officers in for the day. It resulted in 10 arrests on the day.

Police investigations are ongoing following the marches and officers have asked anyone with information to contact them on 0345 456 4564 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

Peterborough Evening Telegraph

Killers were EDL supporters

2010-12-22T11:44:00.002Z

Daryll Jones and Mark Jackson

Day by day the true nature of the English Defence League is becoming clearer. Alongside fascists, racists, drug dealers and football hooligans we now have murderers.

It has been reported that two of the murderers of a vulnerable Lincoln man had links to the English Defence League.

Daryll Jones, 17, and Mark Jackson, 21, were also two known football hooligans and the target of a police operation to ban troublemakers linked to Lincoln City FC..

Jones and Jackson, of Yarborough Road, Lincoln, were convicted of killing football enthusiast and Asperger's sufferer Shaun Rossington. The victim, who suffered from Aspergers, was kicked and beaten to death in June. He suffered more than 40 separate injuries in the attack.

This is just the latest criminality linked to followers of the EDL and says much about the organisation.

Hope not Hate

Travel ban for English Defence League Birmingham men

2010-12-18T22:20:00.001Z

Richard Price

Two English Defence League supporters have been banned from joining protests outside their home city for 10 years

Richard Price, 41, and Collum Keyes, 23, were given Anti-social Behaviour Orders (Asbo) restricting their protests to Birmingham until 2020. Police said it was the first time the ban had been applied to anyone linked to the group, which says it is against Islamic extremism and terrorism.

The pair previously pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct at a march in May. They had also pleaded guilty to using threatening behaviour during the protest in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and were sentenced at Aylesbury Crown Court on Friday.

Judge Lord Parmoor sentenced Price to 12 weeks in prison and and fined Keyes £150. He said both men travelled with the group to foment disorder and gave them a 10-year Asbo to stop them taking part in or controlling any protest more than 10 miles away from Birmingham city centre. They have also been banned from distributing any material for the group or encouraging others to attend protests outside the city.

Det Con Andy Haworth, of the National Domestic Extremism Unit, said: "While the defence leagues are entitled to protest, violence has been a persistent feature of their demonstrations, and we hope the success of today's application will prevent that violence."

Pc Mike Ellis, of Thames Valley Police, said: "This is a clear signal to those who would use violence and disorder to further their extreme and racist views, to intimidate and create fear within minority communities."

BBC

EDL protesters fined for threats to police

2010-12-18T21:55:00.004Z

Two protesters involved in the English Defence League (EDL) march in Peterborough have been fined for using threatening behaviour towards police.

Scott Whitehead (32) and James Black (22) appeared separately at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court yesterday (17th December). They both pleaded guilty to using threatening or abusive behaviour likely to cause harrassment, alarm and distress and were both fined £150 by District Judge Ken Sheraton.

Black, of Heathyfields Road, Farnham, Surrey, was punished for throwing a coin at mounted police officers last Saturday as the EDL march proceeded across Town Bridge towards Bridge Street. Prosecutor Graham Dalley said that although Black’s coin did not hit anyone, mounted police put their helmet visors down to protect their faces.

Black appeared at court wearing a dark-hooded top bearing the writing: “English Defence League. Surrey Division”.

Defending himself, Black said he only acted in that way to get the police’s attention as he felt threatened by the proximity of the mounted officers. He said: “The horse came towards a group of EDL on the bridge. Some went down the steps at the side of the bridge, I was following but the horse came straight in front of me and trod on my foot.”

Meanwhile, father-of-four Whitehead, of Pilton Close, Peterborough, apologised for his drunken behaviour after shouting abuse at the mounted officers following the march.

Mr Dalley, prosecuting, said Whitehead had shouted insults at the officers at around 5.15pm, a few hours after the EDL march had finished, before attempting to grab the reins of one of the horses in Bridge Street. Whitehead, who also represented himself, said: “I just want to apologise for my behaviour and for wasting both police and court time.”

Judge Sheraton, while sentencing Whitehead, said: “I think it’s about time you grew up.”

He fined Whitehead and Black £150 each and ordered them both to pay £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Speaking after the court hearing, Inspector Matt Snow said he could not say whether a horse trod on Black’s foot but he rejected Black’s claims that a mounted officer had acted inappropriately during the march.

He said: “The riders have to make a judgement under the circumstances as to the amount of force that is required. I presume in that officer’s mind there was a reasonably large number of EDL protesters in the area at the time and that he acted for the public safety.”

Peterborough is being held up as an example of how to effectively police an EDL march and associated counter-protests. Supt Paul Fullwood said Cambridgeshire police had received calls from other forces including police from Luton who are preparing for an EDL march in February, asking for information about how they handled the event.

Ten arrests were made on the day, with the EDL and the Peterborough Trades Union Council marches passing generally peacefully.

Supt Fullwood said: “We learned from forces that had policed similar protests, taking into account the good and the bad aspects, and formed our own plans. Since then we have been approached by a number of different forces asking how we handled the situation.”

Peterborough Evening Telegraph

Young hooligans given match ban

2010-12-17T22:55:00.000Z

Two Preston North End fans have been banned from football matches for three years

Ryan Parker, 19, of Moorside Avenue, Ribbleton, and Craig Billington, 22, of Newfield Drive, Blackburn, were allegedly involved in disorder at games, Preston Magistrates’ Court was told. Police say the pair were members of the Preston Foot Patrol (PFP) gang, made up of around 30 people aged between 16-22.

Parker was allegedly involved in violence or disorder around matches. Police said he had “caused or contributed” to the trouble between March 2006 and September 2010. And Billington was allegedly involved in disorder between July 2007 and September 2010, the court was told.

Officers applied for civil banning orders for the pair, meaning police have to prove to the court that the pair are “likely to engage in violence and disorder” and a banning order would prevent them from doing so. Both Billington and Parker have been convicted of violent disorder over a brawl in the Academy pub on Church Street, Preston, on St George’s Day, for which they will be sentenced on December 23 along with three other defendants.

PC Paul Elliott, Preston police’s football intelligence officer, said the Academy incident was a “trigger offence” which led to police applying for the bans. He added: “They are in relation to lads who were part of the PFP risk supporters.Over a period of two to three years they have been profiled by myself in relation to their activities at football matches, associating with that risk group and they have previously been involved in disorder in Hull and Staffordshire.”

He said that the PFP group are “fairly well organised.” But because of the powers of civil banning order, which stop hooligans going into the city centre for four hours before or after a match and prevents them from going to Deepdale or any other ground, the activities of the PFP at football have reduced.

Some of the group attached themselves to the English Defence League, which held a protest in the city last month.

PC Elliott added: “They have declined over the past 18 months since we started getting these banning orders. We have not really seen them. At the last Friday night game against Hull on November 12 there were 20-25 Preston Foot Patrol lads out in the New Hall Lane area handing out EDL leaflets for the Preston EDL event. They have moved away from football because of the restrictions we have placed on them. It has been years since there has been disorder at Deepdale stadium itself.”

Lancashire Evening Post

BNP leader Nick Griffin avoids contempt of court penalties

2010-12-17T22:50:00.001Z

BNP escapes penalties but equality watchdog still claims victory saying legal action forced changes to party constitution

BNP leader Nick Griffin has fought off a bid to have him declared guilty of contempt of court. The Equality and Human Rights Commission accused him of failing to comply with a central London county court judgment ordering the removal of potentially racist clauses from his party's constitution.

Robin Allen QC, appearing for the watchdog, said the BNP was "playing with" the commission and its officials instead of obeying the judgment. But Lord Justice Moore-Bick and Mr Justice Ramsey, sitting at the high court in London, refused to take action against Griffin, BNP deputy Simon Darby and party officer Tanya Lumby.

The commission was seeking fines against them for contempt, or possibly the sequestration of party assets. The application stemmed from the county court's ruling that the BNP constitution breached discrimination laws because of a clause banning non-white members. The constitution underwent revision, but last March Judge Paul Collins ruled at the county court that the new version was indirectly discriminatory against those of mixed-race because it required party applicants to oppose "any form of integration or assimilation of ... the indigenous British".

Another section required new members to submit to a two-hour vetting visit at their home by BNP officials, which Collins ruled could be seen as "intimidatory". The county judge ordered both sections to be removed from the constitution.

The commission took the BNP to the high court accusing it of being in contempt by failing to comply with that order. Today, as BNP supporters demonstrated outside the royal courts of justice, Lord Justice Moore-Bick said he had reached "the clear conclusion" that the commission's legal action could not succeed.

The commission's legal group director, John Wadham, said today's ruling "makes no difference to the substance of our action against the BNP", which had finally obeyed the county court judgment.

"Mr Griffin failed to properly implement that judgment until we took these proceedings in the high court. When the commission began proceedings against the BNP in June last year the party's constitution was plainly illegal. We asked that they amend it at the time. Had they done so we could have avoided court proceedings. Eighteen months and seven court hearings later Mr Griffin has finally amended the constitution to bring it in line with what the commission had originally requested."

Wadham said the commission would continue to monitor any changes to the BNP's constitution "to ensure membership is made genuinely accessible".

"If we consider that it is not we will decide what regulatory action may again be necessary."

Guardian

Richard Barnbrook warned not to bully staff

2010-12-16T23:01:00.000Z

Richard Barnbrook has been warned not to bully members of staff at City Hall after a former employee accused him of "continual bullying" which reduced one member of staff to tears.

Neo Nazi activist Tess Culnane who worked for Barnbrook for nine months, alleged that he:

Failed to respond to requests from members of the public "on the few occasions he attended City Hall" and threatened the complainant with dismissal when she brought such requests to him
Had a "continual bullying manner" and constantly threatened to sack his staff and replace them with his own people.
Forced the Complainant’s colleague, X, to resign because of his perpetual hectoring manner. The Complainant alleges that, on one occasion, Mr Barnbrook reduced X to tears, followed her into the ladies’ toilet to continue to bully her, and then followed her into the City Hall café to continue to verbally abuse X and threaten her with the sack.

Culnane also submitted a recorded telephone conversation with Barnbrook and statements from three other witnesses.

The Standards Committee decided that there was not enough firm evidence to refer the complaint for further investigation. However they noted that they were still "extremely concerned about the nature of the allegations" and referred Mr Barnbrook for official guidance from the Monitoring Officer "as a precautionary measure, sought to safeguard existing and future staff."

Last year Barnbrook was suspended by Barking and Dagenham Council for making false claims about murders in the borough. He then went on to lose his seat on the council this May alongside every other BNP councillor in London. He has since been expelled from the British National Party and has indicated his intention to stand as an independent member of the London Assembly in 2012.

Tory Troll

US pastor who vowed to burn Qur'an will not be at EDL rally

2010-12-14T23:09:00.000Z

Far-right group announces that Terry Jones is no longer welcome due to his 'homophobic and racist' views

The US pastor who planned a mass burning of the Qur'an on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks this year will not be attending a far-right rally in the UK, it emerged tonight.

The English Defence League said at the weekend it was "proud to announce" that Terry Jones would be speaking about "the evils of Islam" at its rally in Luton in February. However it issued a new statement on its website today saying Jones was no longer welcome because it had "reservations" about some of his views.

"The EDL can confirm that Pastor Jones will not be attending the English Defence League demonstration against sharia in Luton on 5 February," it read. EDL spokesman Guramit Singh said the decision had been taken after the group carried out "further research" on Jones and discovered he held some "homophobic and racist" views.

This evening Jones, a pentecostal preacher who runs the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida, denied he was homophobic or racist, adding that the EDL had bowed to pressure from the government and media. "Of course there are issues they do not agree with us on just as there are issues on which we do not agree with them. But I was coming to speak on the dangers of radical Islam and I think on that there is agreement."

Jones said he still planned to come to the UK in February but would not be attending the EDL rally in Luton.

Tonight Nick Lowles, from anti-racist group Hope Not Hate, said a campaign to persuade Theresa May to ban Jones would continue. "We don't trust Jones or the EDL so we will continue to call on the home secretary stop this man coming into the country."

The home secretary has the power to exclude or deport Jones if his presence in the UK could threaten national security, public order or the safety of citizens, or if she believes his views glorify terrorism, promote violence or encourage other serious crime.

Jones made headlines earlier this year when his plans to burn copies of the Qur'an caused widespread alarm. Barack Obama warned Jones that his actions would boost al-Qaida and put US citizens and soldiers at risk. The president's intervention is believed to have persuaded Jones to call off the stunt with just a day to spare.

The EDL claims to be a non-racist, peaceful organisation. However, demonstrations over the past 18 months have attracted support from a number of known rightwing extremists – from convicted football hooligans to members of violent rightwing splinter groups. Many of its protests have descended into violence and racist and Islamophobic chanting, and during its last march in Luton, 250 EDL supporters rampaged through an Asian area, attacking people and damaging property. On Saturday, 500 people marched in Peterborough, leading to 11 arrests.

Guardian

BNP found guilty of 'failing to keep accurate financial records'

2010-12-14T23:05:00.000Z

The British National Party was guilty of a "clear failure" to keep accurate financial records for 2008, the Electoral Commission said today. But the commission said that although this was a breach of the law, no sanctions were available to punish the BNP.

After an investigation into the party's affairs for 2008, the commission said: "The registered treasurers for the party in 2008 breached the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 by failing to keep accounting records sufficient to explain, with reasonable accuracy, the financial position of the party at the time."

However, there was no sanction or penalty available to punish the treasurers. Penalties were brought into force this month, but cannot be applied retrospectively.

The commission said because of the state of the records, it could not be certain that the party's submitted reports of donations were accurate. But the investigation "found no specific evidence to lead to the conclusion that they were not accurate".

Chief executive of the Electoral Commission Peter Wardle said: "Political parties are required by law to keep accurate financial records, and this clear failure to do so is a serious matter. It undermines the party's ability to demonstrate, and the commission's ability to verify, that the party is complying with the law. It is frustrating that, although we established that the party breached party funding law by not keeping adequate financial records, there are no sanctions available to us in relation to this breach.

"This has now changed for breaches of the law that occur after December 1 2010, when we have access to a new set of powers and sanctions. We have written to the party setting out our concerns. We will be meeting with senior party officials as soon as possible to ensure that their procedures for complying with the law are adequate, and monitoring the party to ensure they implement any necessary changes without delay."

24dash

English Defence League and the hooligans spreading hate on the High Street

2010-12-13T23:11:00.000Z

They call themselves ‘patriots’ and wear masks emblazoned with the red cross of the Knights Templar.

But behind the inflammatory propaganda and war paint of the English Defence League (EDL) — the far-Right ‘anti-Islamic extremism’ group that is fast becoming an even more pernicious influence than the BNP — we find such men as Jeff Marsh.

Like all the other EDL ‘patriots’, Marsh — or ‘Marshy’ as he prefers to be known — insists he is not racist. And he is absolutely true to his word in one respect: he was happy to stab or stamp on anyone, black or white, during his career as a football hooligan. ‘Marshy’ wasn’t bothered about colour; violence was the thing. To him, ‘it was better than sex’. So proud is he of his exploits during his heyday in the Seventies and Eighties with the Cardiff City Soul Crew that he has published his ‘memoirs’ on the internet. It would be hard to imagine a more disturbing glorification of sadistic brutality.

‘As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a hooligan,’ he recalls. First match: Millwall. Mass fights. ‘I actually loved it. I was hooked. I’d never been interested in football and I wasn’t interested now, but I could see that football was an opportunity to involve myself in the ultimate gang war. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.’

He describes ‘systematically picking off Gooners’ (Arsenal fans), and ‘Stanleys [knives] glittering in the moonlight’ as they ‘slaughtered’ drunken Geordies. His trademark was ‘a stab wound or two in the leg, and I was famous for it’.

Just posturing? No doubt there’s some of that. But Marsh, now 44 and a father-of-four, has served three jail terms for violence, including a two-year sentence in 1989 for stabbing two Manchester United fans. But now Marshy’s back, and his pernicious influence is being felt — not on the football terraces, but on the streets of towns across Britain.

Marsh, it can be revealed, is not just a rank-and-file member of the EDL. He is one of the key figures in the organisation which has invited anti-Muslim preacher Terry Jones to address a demonstration in Luton early in February. The U.S. pastor caused outrage with plans to burn copies of the Koran at this year’s anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Though the Home Office has indicated that it’s unlikely Jones will be allowed to enter Britain, the news of his proposed visit comes as Adrian Tudway, the head of the police intelligence unit on domestic extremism, revealed that the EDL and related splinter groups have become his biggest concern. He says: ‘We look at the extreme Right and Left, but currently our biggest single area of business is the various groups which call themselves defence leagues.’

Certainly, no one should doubt the group’s intention to bring race conflict on to the streets. The last time the EDL marched through Luton, 250 of them went on the rampage in an Asian area of the town. Shop windows were smashed, cars overturned and a number of people were attacked.

The EDL — and sister groups such as the Welsh Defence League — have been stirring up trouble for the past 18 months by exploiting legitimate concerns over Islamic extremism. At the weekend, it was Peterborough’s turn to experience the face of prejudice when an EDL protest ended in a string of arrests for alleged public order offences, affray and possession of offensive weapons. In October, it was Leicester. Before that, Blackburn, Dudley in the West Midlands, Bolton, Stoke and Nottingham. In all, the EDL has held around 16 marches since being formed in 2009 — and the majority have ended in violence and invariably incur huge policing costs.

Some 1,000 officers from 18 forces were called in to police last Saturday’s Peterborough protests, which Cambridgeshire Constabulary said involved about 500 EDL members.

The aim of the EDL — to counter what it perceives as the Islamification of Britain — is just a cover. The members can’t fight in football stadiums any more because of increased security, so they have united and taken the fight somewhere else and found a new, convenient enemy. Of course, Britain already has one neo-fascist organisation in the BNP. But alarmingly, the EDL believes the BNP doesn’t go far enough. And this rhetoric is underpinned by a disturbing statistic: support for the EDL is increasing.

Though the organisation has no formal membership, it now has almost 40,000 supporters on its Facebook page. A year ago, it had just 1,500. It is also developing regional ‘divisions’.

Birmingham, the scene of previous EDL violence, is listed as a ‘division’ of the EDL along with Portsmouth, Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds and so on. Each ‘division’ is represented by the badge or emblem of the local football club. Next to the Millwall division, for example, is the club’s lion crest. Thugs and former thugs, then, under one EDL banner — if anyone can really tell the difference between the past and the present in men such as Jeff Marsh. So who are the other leaders of the English Defence League?

One leading light is Stephen Lennon, 27, a carpenter from Luton. Father-of-two Lennon was jailed for a year for actual bodily harm after punching and kicking an off-duty policeman during a domestic incident in 2004. Lennon is understood to have been one of the founders of the EDL.

The EDL’s spokesman is Trevor Kelway, of Portsmouth. They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. If so, Kelway’s Facebook page is particularly revealing. Among his friends, until recently, was someone who uses the emblem of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich as his screen avatar. The unit became infamous for its massacre of a French village in the aftermath of D-Day, when 642 men, women and children were shot or burned to death in Oradour-sur-Glane, Limousin.

Among Kelway’s other ‘friends’ is someone with a Sunderland ‘Vote BNP’ symbol prominently displayed. Another man in the set-up who has a BNP link is shaven-headed Chris Renton, 31. Curious how all ‘patriots’ seem to have shaven heads. Renton works in the construction industry and lives with his Spanish girlfriend in a flat in a Victorian house with views over the Severn Estuary.

He declined to comment when approached by the Mail. But he had plenty to say during a recent demonstration in Birmingham. Renton was pictured confronting black and Asian protesters, his face contorted in visceral rage, having been corralled on to a bus by anti-riot police. He later gave a two-fingered salute from the window.

Before being put on the bus, he was standing next to an EDL banner which advertised the group’s claim of being neither racist nor affiliated to the BNP. Yet when the BNP’s membership list was recently leaked, it showed Renton had been a BNP activist since 2002. (The group claims that he has now been forced to relinquish his membership.) And Renton is not just a rank-and-file member of the EDL. Internet registration forms reveal this is the same Chris Renton who set up the EDL’s website.

But not all members of the English Defence League are men. There is a small group of women, such as 42-year-old Leisha Brookes. Brookes, who has tattoos and works in ‘security and promotions’, lives in an ex-council block in Southend. She was not in when we paid her a visit.

But at the Birmingham riot, she told reporters: ‘If an English person went to an Arab country they would be expected to dress appropriately, and all we are asking is for them to do the same. We are protesting against Sharia law and the acceptance of our government of Muslim extremists.’

Few people would disagree with this. But less appealing was her Facebook profile, where Brookes — a Tottenham Hotspur fan — had posted a link to the author of a book called Life As A Chelsea Headhunter: It’s Only A Game. The Headhunters are the hooligans who associated with the National Front and its ultra-violent Combat 18 offshoot. Leisha Brookes has also been an administrator on the EDL website. But it is Jeff Marsh who is perhaps the most astonishing figure.

Marsh claims he is not — and never has been — an organiser of the EDL. Until recently, however, he was listed as the ‘global moderator’ of the EDL’s website — the gatekeeper, if you like — controlling access to its ‘inner circle’ forum, where members, vetted by a moderator, are trusted with details about meeting points before demonstrations.

After one such demo in Birmingham last year, which resulted in 90 arrests, one posting warned: ‘Next time we will be bigger. We’ll arrive unannounced and neither the police or the scum will know any details.’

In July, Marsh was also named as one of the leaders of the organisation in an EDL statement. Marshy is also frequently referred to in communications between EDL members.

Before a recent demonstration in Blackpool, this message appeared on the internet: ‘Me and 10 boys comin from wolves [Wolverhampton]. Day out then a protest before we go clubbing and strip clubs. what a f****** crackin day this will be. when will information on meetin times go out? Me and Marshy been speaking with Old Bill final details should go out tomorrow probably.’

All anyone really needs to know about Marshy, though, is contained in his online ‘biography’. One passage reads: ‘To a lot of us, putting a knife in your back pocket was as much a part of getting dressed as gelling your hair. You couldn’t leave the house without one. This was designer violence.’

Designer violence of the kind that, many would argue, is now infecting any town or city where the EDL rolls in. As Marsh said in one rallying cry on the internet: ‘The most ruthless street army in the country is arising and uniting in solidarity in the face of a threat that is now posed to the future of our Nation. Did people think that “Casuals” [slang for football fan or hooligan] would stay silent whilst their families, friends and the neighbours’ lives were endangered?

‘This coming football season will see the “truce” work itself out, and the brothers and sisters throughout the land unite in their common cause, against their common enemies, foreign and domestic. What has started cannot be stopped now. It has begun ...’

In other words, mindless terrace violence by any other name.

Except this time there is a different ‘enemy’ — one chosen by these Right-wing yobs specifically toprovoke far more damaging and troublesome consequences.

Daily Mail

Griffin promises 'increased militancy' from British National Party

2010-12-11T23:29:00.002Z

Nick Griffin has kicked this years BNP conference off with the promise of forthcoming “militancy” from his Party, in the face of protests from groups such as “Muslims Against Crusades”, during parades of returning British troops.

In his speech to a dinner at the Party Conference, Griffin said;
'We are going to start attending homecoming parades of British troops, and when the Islamic militants abuse our troops and threaten them, we are going to physically stand in their way',
But more worrying I think, is the indication that such “protests” will also take place where there [are] efforts to construct Mosques.

The concerns are obvious. Violence between members of the Muslim community, and BNP members trying to ferment racially motivated violence for political advancement, will pose a major threat to social cohesion wherever it happens.

Bizarrely, Griffin also says;
'The British people have already shown that they are willing to start supporting the British National Party in increasing numbers'
Perhaps he’s forgotten about the battering they took in May.

This could be one of two things. It’s entirely possible that this was simply intended as a crowd pleasing rant for members of an increasingly demoralised and fractured Party. A futile attempt at lifting the spirits of a group of people doomed to fail in the near future.

But it could also be an acknowledgment that the BNP’s efforts to legitimise itself, and add a little professionalism to its electoral efforts have failed. In which case this could be the first signs of a change in strategy to something reminiscent of the “National Front's” heyday. Perhaps it is an attempt to tap into what they perceive as an appetite for a more confrontational approach, such as that which has defined the EDL.

They’re changing the logo too. Maybe there’s a full re-branding taking place?

Though Cowards Flinch

Arrests at city protest marches in Peterborough

2010-12-11T23:24:00.002Z

About 1,000 officers from 18 forces policed the protests in Peterborough town centre
Eleven men have been arrested during an English Defence League (EDL) march and counter-protest in Peterborough. There were a variety of public order offences, including suspicion of assaulting police officers.

About 1,000 officers from 18 forces policed the protests. Cambridgeshire Constabulary said about 500 EDL protesters were involved. They said about 80 people took part in the Peterborough Trades Union Council protest and no arrests were made there. Both groups were escorted by police to and from the city centre.

Supt Paul Fullwood, from Cambridgeshire Constabulary, said the joint police operation had enabled the community to go about "business as usual".

"Peterborough stood firm and the city should be proud of the way it has responded to today's events," he said. "There were some issues of disorder dealt with promptly and professionally to achieve a peaceful outcome. Some arrests have been made, but both protests have been generally peaceful."
'Stir up hatred'

EDL leader Tommy Robinson said: "Militant Islam is probably at its peak in this country. The problem will get worse and worse unless it's tackled, and that's what the English Defence League is trying to do."

Shortly after 1300 GMT he gave a speech via a loudspeaker in Lower Bridge Street. Some supporters chanted "EDL" and "I'm England till I die". Police said most protesters had left the city by 1545 GMT and roads which had been closed ahead of the demonstrations had reopened.

Unite Against Fascism said it and Peterborough TUC had called for a "march for unity" from Bishops Road car park to show local opposition to the "invasion" by the EDL.

"The EDL hope to stir up hatred against the city's Muslim population and the many migrant agricultural workers who travel from across Europe to work on farms during the harvests," a spokesman said.

BBC

Nick Griffin stages what may be his ‘last hurrah’ in Leicester

2010-12-10T21:09:00.003Z

Leicester anti-fascists are calling for support for a protest at the Best Western Leicester Stage Hotel in Wigston, on the southern edge of Leicester, where the British National Party is holding its annual conference.

Over the past two days Leicester Police have been alerting leaders of the city’s communities that the racists were coming to town. Despite the BNP’s attempts to head off protests by posting on the party website that the three-day event was in South Derbyshire, all enquiries led to Leicester.

Tonight party members are sitting down to a “black tie dinner”, followed by a speech by Nick Griffin, the party leader, that will probably leave them with a bout of indigestion.

Tomorrow will start with a financial report and “questions to panel”. It is unclear whether delegates will learn more about the party’s dodgy finances than the Electoral Commission, which is still waiting for its 2009 accounts and investigating the 2008 accounts that were submitted late.

The session will be followed by debates on “policy motions” submitted by each region and a “constitutional debate”. Andrew Brons, the party’s Yorkshire MEP, has undertaken a “consultation” on proposed changes to the BNP’s mammoth constitution, adopted only at the beginning of this year, which gives dictatorial power to the leader and makes it almost impossible to overthrow him.

Brons announced several weeks ago that the party’s elite “voting members” would get a chance to vote on constitutional changes at this weekend’s conference, but Eddy Butler, who unsuccessfully tried to call a leadership election in summer, has pointed out that no constitutionally binding vote can be taken at the conference because members have not been given the required 14 days’ notice of the proposals.

There will also be training workshops running alongside the conference “in a small room”. Presumably the party does not expect delegates to show much interest in sessions on “make your petition stall work for you” and the party’s fake Solidarity trade union.

The highlight of the event was supposed to be a “Christmas Grand Ball” on Saturday evening “complete with three-course meal, entertainment, music and refreshments”. This has now been demoted to a “Christmas party and late evening sing-along” according to the BNP website this afternoon.

On Sunday the party will yet again wheel out its fake vicar “Reverend” Robert West to hold a half-hour “Sunday Service”.

The day was supposed to continue with a two-course lunch followed by “a BNP Veterans Parade, a leadership Question Time, an audio-visual British history presentation and finally the keynote address from BNP leader Nick Griffin MEP”. Instead the BNP veterans have been relegated to a workshop in the “small room” and the BNP leader has ducked out of facing awkward questions from the members.

The BNP claimed a few days ago that the conference hotel was “fully booked”, despite the whopping £299 cost for a couple, or £189 single, to stay both nights in one of the hotels 79 rooms and attend all events.

The conference was open to all party members except, that is, the “many voting members” who according to Butler have been “suspended without charge” or were expelled several months ago and are still awaiting for their appeals to be heard. The police thought there would be no more than 100 people attending, which would be down on previous years.

Hope not Hate

EDL MAN IS PEOPLE SMUGGLER

2010-12-05T21:57:00.004Z

ABOVE: EDL member Allan Hetherington-Cleverley left with leader Stephen Lennon EDL member Allan Hetherington-Cleverley spent four years in prison for smuggling Chinese immigrants across the Channel

A PROMINENT member of the English Defence League is a convicted people smuggler.

Ex-serviceman Allan Hetherington-Cleverley, 55, is a regular at protests for the far-right group that advocates kicking Muslims out of the UK.

But the Daily Star Sunday can reveal he spent four years in prison for smuggling Chinese immigrants across the Channel in an inflatable speedboat.

The former Grenadier Guard was paid £20,000 by an Albanian gangster to ferry the illegals from Calais in France to Newhaven in East Sussex in 2004.

In two dangerous night-time trips across the world’s busiest shipping lane he helped to sneak 20 Chinese into the UK.

The ex-soldier – who has changed his name from Allan Gallup – made the first trip alone but enlisted soldier pal Marcus Wakelin for the second a month later. But both missions were tracked by police from the air.

The men were arrested and charged with facilitating illegal entry to the UK.

Hetherington-Cleverley was sentenced to four years in 2005.

During their trial the court heard the pair showed little concern for the safety of the immigrants, who had paid £7,000 each to Triad gangsters.

Hetherington-Cleverley, who was in the Army between 1971 and 1977, is now good friends with EDL leader Stephen Lennon and has made speeches at their events.

And the smuggler, who has also worked as a mercenary in Africa, has no regrets about his past. He said: “I am not ashamed of what I did. I did not steal anything, I did not hurt anyone, it was not a drug or sexual offence. It has nothing to do with my beliefs or my support for the EDL.”

A spokesman for anti-fascist website 1millionunited, said: “The public will not take kindly to a group who invite people-smuggling, self-styled soldiers of fortune to represent them at their public events.”

Star on Sunday