The BNP like to claim that Britain’s leading fighter against fascism Winston Churchill would have supported them and their “Battle for Britain” campaign.  Not only is this a laughable misinterpretation of history , but the BNP have also regularly showed their disdain for Britain’s greatest war time Prime Minister.

The BNP are trying to take advantage of the “Battle for Britain” spirit.

As Nothing British have highlighted, the BNP are regularly making use of World War II related imagery: the Spitfire, Churchill,  and the spirit of the Blitz.

When Nick Griffin was confronted about this he claimed:

“[Churchill] would have been full-square behind the British National Party”.

Simon Darby, the Deputy Leader of the BNP, also waded into the debate. Darby said that if Churchill was alive today he would be a BNP supporter. If Churchill:

“… was here today and had a choice of voting Tory or BNP I think he’d vote for us. He would have more in common with the BNP than with the Tories, that’s for sure.”

This, of course, is nonsense and has been attacked by Winston Churchill’s family on several occasions and by Nicholas Soames MP, his grandson, during Nothing British’s Stolen Valour campaign.

The BNP thinks we were on the wrong side.

In an undercover documentary for the BBC, Mark Collett, BNP publicity director and Sheffield BNP election candidate, said:

“Churchill was a f****** c*** who led us into a pointless war with other whites [ie the Nazis] standing up for their race.”

In a January 2010 BBC interview, Chris Beverley, Andrew Brons MEP’s chief of staff and BNP candidate for Morley, told the interviewer:

“I don’t hate Hitler.”

On Hitler’s Waffen SS Griffin praised their:

“… limitless courage and sacrifice”.

David Duke, a personal friend of Nick Griffin, blames Churchill for World War Two.

In January 2010, Duke carried an article called “How organized Jewry pushed America into WWII”. The article derogatorily describes Churchill as a “Jew lackey”.

Churchill despised all fascist leaders.

Sir Oswald Mosley was a friend of Adolf Hitler and the wartime leader of the British Union of Fascists, a Nazi sympathising party.

Nick Griffin has proudly said:

“There is a strong, direct link from Oswald Mosley to me.”

Even before the war Churchill attacked what he called the “Heil Hitler brigade in London society”, which included “those like Mosley who are fascinated by the spectacle of brutal power. They would like to use it themselves. They grovel to Nazi dictatorship in order that they can make people in their turn grovel to them.” Churchill regarded Mosley a Fifth-Columnist (a traitor) and felt “not the slightest bit of sympathy” towards him.

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Nothing British is launching a new campaign on why there is nothing patriotic about voting for the BNP. This blog series will reclaim patriotism and British identity from the clutches of ethnic nationalists. It will show how rather than being patriotic – creating a common identity for all – the BNP is a party that seeks to divide Britain.

The BNP’s shameful use of respectable icons, symbols and institutions like Churchill, the Union Jack and the Church to cover up for the fact that it is a party mired in corruption, criminality and violence is a disgrace.

In no particular order, our new series will show how in Britain there is nothing British about:

1. Exploiting wounded soldiers and veterans for political capital.
2. Denigrating the contribution of non-white soldiers.
3. Admiring the enemies of Britain.
4. Selling out British interests to foreign extremists.
5. Abusing the Queen and the Royal Family.
6. Using authoritarian and wealth-destroying ideas from the Continent.
7. Roughing up journalists.
8. Tolerating misogyny, sexism and homophobia.
9. Sneering at injustice.
10. Accepting anti-Christian behaviour.
11. Romancing foreign fascists.
12. Denigrating our heritage.
13. Breaking the law.
14. Destroying individual identities through collectivisation.
15. Dividing our country.
16. Isolating Britain from our friends.

Patriotism, as George Orwell defined it, is a “devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people.”

The BNP, however, is not devoted to our “particular” way of life. It is committed to its own hate-filled, racialized version of Britishness. Nick Griffin’s political vision is un-patriotic. It looks backward not forward. It is closed not open. And it is divided not united.

During the European elections nearly 1 million British voters were so concerned about their future they decided to vote for Nick Griffin and the British National Party. For a country that is a tolerant and respectful believing in fair-play, this was deeply shocking.

Nothing British’s Policy Focus series has already exposed the BNP’s loony policies and shows how Nick Griffin - among other things – would:

1. Cost jobs, particularly amongst the working classes.
2. Push up prices and reduce choices for consumers.
3. Divide Britain into an apartheid state.
4. Isolate us from the our friends around the world.

Put simply: this series will show how voting for the BNP is about as British as voting for Sinn Fein, Anjem Choudhury or Fidel Castro

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