Gloucester Arms pub Kentish Town
Sunday 6th December 2009 - Forty-five Hungarian fascist sympathisers met at a Kentish Town pub to raise funds for Jobbik, the Hungarian nationalist party, and to participate in a Q&A on nationalist issues like the threat of Israelis buying Hungarian property and the problem of gypsies.
The Hungarian courts have already made it clear that they find the values of Jobbik’s militia to be inimical to those of ordinary Hungarians (for the Nothing British Information Note on Jobbik, click here).
We see no reason why this sort of meeting should go unchallenged in the UK.
Sunday’s event was organised by The British-Jobbik Society and was hosted by Zoltan Fuzessy, Jobbik’s UK-based former webmaster and current Vice-President of Foreign Affairs. Fuzessy is, according to the invitation to Sunday’s meeting, Chief of Staff to Csanad Szegedi MEP, a militia commander in the Hungarian Guard, a Hungarian supremacist, a gypsy-baiter and a Israel-hater. Outside there was a 10-person anti-fascist demonstration.
Zoltan Fuzessy has met with Nick Griffin
The whole day was reminiscent of an expats’ meeting to moan about how the “Old Country” was going to the dogs and mutterings about those they held responsible (Israel, gypsies, socialists, etc).
The crowd was a mixed bunch. From well-spoken tweed-wearing aspiring town squires who claim to work in the City to construction workers such as (in one case) fire alarm engineers and the like. Some of the tough-looking blokes wore neo-Nazi insignia and Swastikas sewn onto their clothing. They all seemed passionate supporters for Jobbik, the Hungarian neo-fascist organisation with close ties to Nick Griffin MEP.
Most alarming is the Society’s apparent role as a revenue-raising outfit for Jobbik’s banned militia, the Hungarian Guard.
Nothing British has an undercover recording of the event which includes a financial collection request for the Hungarian by Fuzessy – click here to listen (it’s in Hungarian but being translated and transcribed). Following Fuzessy’s appeal, a red bucket with a sticker of the Jobbik logo and the Hungarian shield was placed on a table by the Hungarian in a tweed suit and most people contributed.
Nothing illegal happened, but the tone and content of Sunday’s meeting did little to dispel suggestions that the Hungarian Guard is not the sort of organisation that we want to see holding fund-raisers in the British suburbs.
The contribution of Hungarians to London life, particularly our cultural life, is well-known and much-appreciated, from the food of Egon Ronay, to the music of Bela Bartok and the buildings of Erno Goldfinger.
However, it is fair to expect anyone who lives and works in Britain to subscribe to some simple values. This point is well made in the Home Office’s introduction to visitors, “there is a general principle that all people should respect the law and the rights of others.” Whereas the Hungarian Guard is an organisation that is proscribed by Hungarian courts after it ruled that past marches have fuelled ethnic tensions and led to a disruption of public order.
The British-Jobbik Society disputed The Times’ coverage on Jobbik. You can read their statement on their website.
