Nothing British features in today’s Jewish Chronicle. The article features the news that we have written to Lady Tonge about her invtitation to attend the Palestinian Return Centre conference in December.
A spokesman for her party said: “Baroness Tonge is currently in Ethiopia working with the Bill Gates Foundation and is not contactable. We will speak to her about this event upon her return. We, of course, abhor the fascist views of the Jobbik party in Hungary.”
The arrest of David Lucas, a Suffolk based farmer and former BNP candidate, on firearms and explosives offences this week elicited an implausible response from Simon Darby, BNP deputy chairman and spokesman.
“I would imagine that it is to do with his capacity as an agricultural rural chap. It is just one of the many things that ordinary rural people have to deal with when you have got a politically motivated police force.”
These words are roundly rejected by representatives of Britain’s shooting community.
”The shooting community in Britain is one of the most law abiding in the world,” said Christopher Graffius, Director of Communications at British Association for Shooting & Conservation. “We have no truck with people who disregard firearms law and thus put themselves and the general public at risk. To complain that unlicensed weapons are common in rural areas is to insult rural people for whom the safe and legal handling of firearms is an important responsibility.”
It is not good enough for a party that aspires to the highest offices in the land to brush off law-breaking by senior figures in its ranks.
An excellent piece by London expert Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the LSE, that says that the mainstream parties have lost traction in the fight against fascism and rightly calls for government policies that address the bona fide issues of Londons white working class. An excert here:-
The BNP has ruthlessly exploited a perception that public services are unfairly allocated between indigenous residents and new ones. MPs attest to this.
The transformation of the white working class in the imagination and vocabulary of the Left goes deeper than that. As recently as the early Seventies, many on the Left saw the working class as noble, expressing a culture to be celebrated.
Actors such as Albert Finney and Michael Caine built careers on working-class chutzpah. Today, the Left is often suspicious of such people, seeing them as a threatening, racist “underclass”.
The Labour Party has done much since 1997 to strengthen public services and make London a better place to live. Until recently, Britain enjoyed a 15-year period of economic growth with a huge rise in public expenditure. There has been significant redistribution towards the poor.
Yet this same period has coincided with the rise of the BNP. Some poorer Londoners – and greater numbers beyond the capital – simply do not see the benefits the Government has brought to them. Instead they perceive a threat from unexpected newcomers.
Migration to London and the UK will continue. Until government explains the good immigration brings, rewards the areas that provide homes for new arrivals and strikes a deal with the remaining poor white population, the BNP threat will remain. We can no longer count on our political parties to defeat them.
BNP farmer on explosives charge
A concerning story has emerged and reminds us about the risk posed by the BNP as acting as a ”conveyor belt” to extreme violence. David Lucas, a Suffolk based BNP farmer, was charged with firearms and explosives offences this week.
He has been charged with:
“possession of explosives under suspicious circumstances, possession of an explosives substance without an explosives licence, possession of a prohibited weapon, possession of ammunition with intent to endanger life, possession of ammunition without a firearms certificate and two counts of possession of prohibited ammunition.”
Simon Darby has this explanation:
“I think the police have got it in for him. I would imagine that it is to do with his capacity as an agricultural rural chap. It is just one of the many things that ordinary rural people have to deal with when you have got a politically motivated police force.”
The BNP are excusing this story by claiming that this sort of behaviour is quite common in the farming community. This is not tue and it maligns a community that takes arms control extremely seriously.
More on this story to come.
Outrage as BNP hijacks South Wales VE Day photograph
After our successful veterans campaign last week, the row with the BNP continues to rumble on. Welsh VE Day families add their voices to the debate and demand the BNP to apologise for using their image. The BNP have said they will not.
EHRC denies BNP recruitment campaign – Telegraph Blogs
When the BNP announced that the media circus from last week had helped them find 25,000 new members we thought it a little far-fetched and blog explains why.
EHRC accused of requesting its ethnic minority staff to join BNP
But this story isn’t exactly pleasing. The EHRC have got to start to understand that only by addressing ordinary peoples concerns will the BNP dissappear.
Times: Two polls show no significant Question Time bounce for BNP
In today’s Times there is a report on two polls taken since QT. The report reveals how data shows there is no evidence of any BNP bounce since last weeks media circus.
The report contradicts the weekend’s story in the News of the World which carried a YouGov poll saying that 22% of people would “seriously consider” voting BNP (although those who said they were certain to vote BNP had dropped from 6% to 4%).
Either way, Nothing British believes it is too early to tell whether Nick Griffin’s appearance on QT has helped or hindered his party’s chances at the 2010 General Election.
Daily Telegraph: Immigrant crime fear airbrushed from Government report
The Daily Telegraph are reporting that a 2001 Home Office report removed warnings of links between mass immigration and crime amid fears they would be used by critics.
After the revelation by Andrew Neather, a key advisor to Tony Blair, that the Government conspired to allow mass migration, doesn’t one get the feeling that the Government has been pulling the wool over people’s eyes for too long?
BNP Establishes Media Rebuttal Unit to Combat Lies
According to the BNP website, Councillor Paul Golding, the BNP’s man in charge of their Afghanistan”Bring them Back” campaign, has been put in charge of its “Media Rebuttal Unit”.
The BNP believes The Times report from yesterday, which claimed their is a split in the party after NG’s QT appearance, and The Sun’s report that the BNP’s Trafalgar Club failed to raise £250,000 had breach reporting rules.
Golding, who is a councillor in Sevenoaks, was recently accused by a council spokesman of not joining any council committees and local residents had complained he had not been in touch with them since his election or championed their concerns to the council.
The party has asked both papers to retract their stories and has submitted a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission.
A couple of weeks ago we reported the news of Liberal Democrat Baroness Jenny Tonge being invited to share a platform with prominent Islamists and Kristina Morvai, a close friend of BNP leader Nick Griffin MEP and leader of the extremist nationalist Hungarian party Jobbik in the European parliament. The event is being organised by the Palestinian Return Centre.
Below is a copy of a letter we have sent to Lady Tonge’s office in the House of Lords.
Nothing British is waiting to receive a reply from her office.
Dear Lady Tonge,
Nothing British recommends that Baroness Jenny Tonge rejects the Palestinian Return Centre’s invitation to attend its December 2009 London conference
I am writing to ask whether you will be attending the following event.
On Wednesday 14th October 2009 the Palestinian Telegraph announced that on the 16th December 2009 the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) is to hold an “international conference to discuss the future of Palestinian refugees” and “to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency” (UNRWA). Having spoken to the PRC, they have confirmed this event will be taking place.
The announcement was also made through the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA[i]. In the past WAFA has received funding from European diplomatic agencies including the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
Along with the former Labour MP Clare Short, you are reported to be one of the confirmed guests at this event. The PRC have stated that you will be attending the event.
The PRC is an organisation which was close to those factions within Palestinian society which opposed and rejected the Oslo Peace process, and is close to the terrorist group, Hamas.
Many PRC organisers have extremely close associations with the Hamas leadership, including Khaled Maashal and Ishmael Haniya. Moreover, in November 2008 PRC director Majed Al Zeer shared a platform with Hamas leader Khaled Maashal in Damascus.
I thought that you should be aware of the following people who will also be in attendance at the event on the 16th December.
Kristina Morvai- Lawyer, Human Rights Lecturer and leader of Jobbik in the European Parliament.
Jobbik is a Hungarian far-right nationalist party and is accused of being anti-Semitic, anti-Gypsy and racist. It proposes to abolish abortion, re-establish the death penalty and create a special police unit to deal with “gypsy delinquency.”
Until October 2009, Jobbik had its own militia which took up the colours of the Hungarian war time Nazi sympathising party, the Arrow Cross, and its uniforms are reminiscent of the Nazis. The militia would regularly march through Roma ghettos in Hungary, stoking up ethnic tensions.
In July 2009 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Ms Morvai as saying the following:
“I would be glad if the so-called proud Hungarian Jews would go back to playing with their tiny little circumcised tail rather than vilifying me.”[ii]
26th October 2009 – It was announced that Jobbik and the British National Party would enter a European nationalist alliance along with France’s Front National, Italy’s Fiamma Tricolore, Sweden’s National Democrats and Belgium’s Walloon extremists, the Front Nationalists.[iii] Nick Griffin spoke at an October 2008 Jobbik rally in Hungary and his speech can be seen on their website.[iv]
16th October 2009 – I spoke to Zsanett Makkai, Ms Morvai’s assistant in Strasbourg, who confirmed that Ms Morvai had been invited by the PRC to attend and speak at the PRC conference in London.
Dr Daud Abdullah – Deputy Secretary General of the MCB
In March 2009, Abdullah was a signatory of the “Istanbul Declaration”, a statement which sanctioned terrorist attacks on foreign navies, including possibly the British Navy, if they try to intercept arms smuggled into Gaza used for attacks on Israel.
Below is an extract from the declaration:
7. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard everyone standing with the Zionist entity, whether countries, institutions or individuals, as providing a substantial contribution to the crimes and brutality of this entity; the position towards him is the same as towards this usurping entity.
8. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard the sending of foreign warships into Muslim waters, claiming to control the borders and prevent the smuggling of arms to Gaza, as a declaration of war, a new occupation, sinful aggression, and a clear violation of the sovereignty of the Nation. This must be rejected and fought by all means and ways.[v]
Nothing British’s recommendations
We believe it would be a terrible mistake for you to attend the PRC conference and to share a platform with homophobes, anti-Semites, racists and Islamists whose values are inimical to the gentle British values of tolerance, fair-play and respect for one another.
Nothing British, the anti-racism and anti-extremist campaign group, calls on you to do the following:
1. Not to attend the Palestinian Return Centre event on the 16th December 2009.
2. Give a statement distancing yourself from the PRC’s decision to invite Ms Morvai and Mr Abdullah to its conference.
Yours sincerely
Maurice Cousins
Researcher at Nothing British
[i] http://english.wafa.ps/?action=detail&id=13237
[ii] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090959.html
[iii] http://euobserver.com/9/28888#
[iv] http://www.jobbik.com/videos/3112.html
[v] http://www.hurryupharry.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/istpdf.pdf
This morning’s article in the Times which says that BNP supporters are calling for Nick Griffin MEP to go after his much-maligned performance on QT last week should be treated with caution.
NG’s performance last week was certainly under-whelming for someone who had shown promise in recent appearances such as Andrew Marr and Adam Boulton. Many members will feel disappointed. However, NB doesn’t think a leadership contest is on the cards:
1. The panel for The Times’s poll was recruited from Stormfront, a well-known and notoriously wacky white supremacist forum where many members regard Griffin as a “sell-out”. It is not reprsentative of BNP members, informal supporters or voters. In fact, in our experience the membership/supporters are very committed to Griffin.
2. The BNP rules largely support Griffin’s hold on the party.
3. There is no obvious successor or agititator for change. Lee Barnes, the BNP’s legal officer is a senior, officeholder in the BNP, but his political judgement is regarded as suspect, even by the BNP leadership. His blog, 21st Century British Nationalism, regularly embarrasses the party with its anti-Semetic, homophonic, Nazi-sympathising articles.
Richard Barnbrook is apparently a leadership contender. Barnbrook is popular, particularly in the South, but he is not regarded as able to grasp a brief (his performances in the London Assembly are regarded as unimpressive). He is accused by his enemies of having a drink problem (this is a funny video of Barnbrook dancing at a wedding).
Andrew Brons MEP, a man with a history of neo-Nazism and racial hygiene theory, is also being muted as a possible contender. But his age and lack of mainstream appeal count against him.
Simon Darby, BNP deputy chairman and head of press, is probably the strongest performer in the BNP hierarchy. In 2006, Darby was lined up by Griffin to take control of the day-to-day running of the BNP if he was found guilty of incitement to racial hatred. But he is currently a Griffin loyalist and lacks any visibility outside the party.
Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail: Griffin, the BBC and the birth of a ’stab in the back’ myth http://bit.ly/2pM5J9.
PoliticsHome: Consensus view on Question Time: Warsi shone, but BNP benefited* http://bit.ly/wTvLd
MELANIE PHILLIPS: The outrageous truth slips out: Labour plotted to transform make-up of Britain without telling us http://bit.ly/q8DGW
Sir Andrew Green: Mass immigration deliberate Labour policy http://bit.ly/2T3EJw
Spectator – Still no room for complacency about the BNP http://bit.ly/OJRfg
Melanie Phillips – Trying to stuff the cat back into the bag – Is Andrew Neather backtracking? http://bit.ly/178p3J
Gaby Hinsliff, the political editor of the Observer, has written that Nothing British’s Stolen Valour campaign can teach the left a lot about how to take on the BNP.
Nothing British ”co-ordinated this week’s letter from former army chiefs of staff attacking the BNP for hijacking the good name of the military in an attempt to boost its patriotic credentials, with a powerful “not in our name” message using veterans including the Falklands hero Simon Weston.
Griffin’s uncharacteristically hysterical reaction – suggesting they were traitors – successfully wrecked his credibility among the kind of voters he might be trying to attract.”
On the stale approaches of the left she wrote:
“The left tends to dwell on immigration policy and whether it should appease BNP supporters by talking up British jobs for British workers, or restricting access to council houses. The right is more confident that its stance on immigration is populist and is therefore less hung up on it, but has in the past seen the BNP as not really its problem (particularly when it was taking votes largely from Labour supporters).”
Gaby encapsulates the Nothing British campaign as follows:
“The launch of Nothing British was another important moment, reflecting a recognition that Griffin had widened the BNP’s appeal and was trying to steal ground – on patriotism, or law and order – held by the mainstream right that was not overtly to do with race (such as its misleading campaign on rights for squaddies).”
“‘Open-door’ Labour has betrayed us all” – Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun
Reacting to the news that Downing Street (read Andrew Neather’s Evening Standard column) has lied about the scale of migrants entering the UK, Trevor Kavanagh writes this damning conclusion:
“It is now likely the BNP will win a seat at Westminster at the next General Election. In the BBC view, that akes them ’respectable’.
It is impossible to predict how Labour’s irresponsible experiment will pan out.
We might end up like New York – a dynamic, energetic and creative economic powerhouse.
We might become a troubled, divided and quarrelsome country with too few immigrants who really want to work and too many who wish to bring this country crashing to its knees through violence.
But whatever the outcome, thanks to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Home Secretaries like Jack Straw, none of us had a damn thing to say about it.”
Our smug leaders have done nothing to see off the BNP – Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph
On Saturday, Charles Moore, Chairman of Policy Exchange and author of the foreword to Stolen Valour, points out that society has a slipshod definition of the term “extremist” and says:
“The BNP certainly is extreme, because hate is intrinsic to its message. But our Government has active links with people who are more extreme. There are Islamist groups which support Hamas suicide bombings, the killing of homosexuals (Mr Griffin merely finds it “creepy” when they kiss in public) and the killing of British troops in Afghanistan. These groups engage with the state, and even get taxpayers’ money. The Government justifies this with the weird theory that it is only the hard men who can hold back the even harder men from violence. So the hard men get the leverage.
In Northern Ireland, Labour has set up a system which permits and pays Martin McGuinness to be Deputy First Minister. Mr McGuinness was for many years Chief of Staff of the IRA, planning its terrorist operations. He has dropped this occupation, but never renounced it. He has proved the favourite terrorist argument – well-calculated murder wins you power. When Martin goes on Question Time these days, there is no Griffin-style bashing, just the solemn nodding of panel heads when he explains how to bring peace to our troubled world.
On Thursday night, Jack Straw fiercely engaged Nick Griffin on the subject of Holocaust denial. But when he was Foreign Secretary, Mr Straw led the attempt to appease President Ahmadinejad of Iran, who denies the Holocaust on the global stage and is trying to build a nuclear bomb to wipe out Israel.
When establishment figures say that the attitudes of the BNP help prepare the ground for violence, they are right. But they do not apply this logic to their engagement with Islamism – the only form of extremism which nowadays kills large numbers of our fellow citizens.”
Charles then writes: “The second error shown by the Question Time panellists – and by virtually all political leaders in this country – is to ignore the problems that are winning the BNP votes. Exposing Holocaust denial is worth doing, but easy. The hard bit is the real resentment on which the BNP can capitalise.”
