Nick Griffin MEP and the BNP have been told that they must change their party’s rules to accept non-whites by February 14th. The BNP had previously been ordered to change their constitution by January 28th 2010, but the party had failed to do so, citing bad weather.
Griffin has urged party members to back the changes, saying it must “adapt or die”.
Despite it taking the Equality and Human Rights Commission so long to bring action against the BNP to accept non-white members, this still remains a victory for racial equality in Britain. Let’s hope that if there are any other organisations that exclude people on the grounds of religion or race they are forced to do the same.
This could have provided Nick Griffin a perfect opportunity to prove to the electorate that his party was no longer an officially racist organisation. But the BNP’s new constitution, which still states that it is “implacably opposed to the promotion” of racial integration (and so therefore racial segregation), will remind the public that the BNP’s party hierarchy are still racial hygienists that have swapped old school racism for ethnopluralism.
First the fear, then a sigh of relief, now the return to reality.
In the first major piece of new polling insight since BNP-QT, The Sunday Times’s David Leppard (a former-colleague of mine) has first sight of a Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) poll that says that BNP support in their core-vote communities like Stoke and Blackburn is set to rise by about 50% to 18%.
Some points:
1) The anger and frustration is still bubbling away.
After Griffin’s stumbling performance there was a temptation to hope for the best. That’s it. The worst is over.
In fact, BNP leader’s poor delivery on the night does not somehow miraculously defuse the sort of anger and frustration that readily feeds off the BNP’s brand of family-friendly racism and extremism.
Five drivers of this anger and frustration are particularly important.
a) In the heartland of Britain economic pessimism is still growing, despite the feel-good factor returning elsewhere in the economy. For instance, the manufacturing sector is still shedding jobs and public sector restraint is beginning to be felt at the front-line.
b) The Home Offices immigration regime is widely felt to be unfair, a sensation that is now being felt not only at the work-place and but also at the Job Centre. Mainstream parties refuse to address the issue, even in the run-up to the election, to the immense frustration of those who are losing out.
c) The EDL’s fortnightly marches, though often a damp squib, keep Islamism and “Islamification” in the headspace of these communities. Politicians are not trusted to solve this problem.
d) The war in Afghanistan – an important struggle of historic proportions – is increasingly confusing to voters and public support is falling. The BNP are taking a counter-intuitive, populist anti-war position.
e) Westminster’s reluctant efforts to clean up its act are a national embarrassment that re-inforces the sense of disenfranchisement felt by Britain’s dispossessed.
Despite his evidently poor debating skills and distasteful world vision, Griffin is far from a busted flush.
2) BNP support has spread beyond the pockets studied by the EHRC
A feature of the current “post-globalisation” burst of fascism – Britain’s fifth such burst in 100 years – is the use of the internet by the BNP to reach beyond the pockets of core-support in the Thames corridor, northern ex-mill towns and the West Midlands.
New BNP offices are being set up in unexpected places like Scotland and events are held in places like Salisbury, Thetford and Cheltenham. New communities are being targeted, such as veterans, agricultural workers and Christians.
The EHRC are wrong to focus their pollsters on a few areas because the politics of fear and resentment are seeping into dispossessed communities throughout the country – the results will be seen in the 2010 local elections when we’ll see red-white-and-blue victories spread like German Measles across the map in places around the country which have never seen the BNP before.
3) Westminster elections are not safe
It is an easy assumption that our first-past-the-post system is some kind of guarantee that prevents yucky extremists like the BNP from ever plonking their fat bottoms and cheap suits on the green leather at Westminster. This is probably still the case – they are unlikely to win a seat next year barring a disaster like the implosion of the Barking Labour party (this is a possibility). However, the hold the mainstream parties have on the country’s votes is diminishing – they had less than two-thirds of the overall vote in June ‘09 – as special interest parties (UKIP and the Greens) and regional-representative parties (eg SNP and Plaid Cymru) chisel away. The BNP are a mixture of both. In some three/four-way seats a candidate might win with less than 10,000 votes or less than 20% of the votes cast. The BNP are on 18% in three constituencies, according to the EHRC.
If the mainstream parties remain so highly focused on relatively few swing seats in Middle England, they could easily let extremists slip in the cracks where no one is paying attention.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The British National Party has caved in the legal case brought against them by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The EHRC agreed to adjourn its case following a confirmation from the BNP that it will accept changes its constitution and membership criteria. The BNP has also agreed to not accept any new members until its new constitution comes into force. The changes must be carried out as soon as reasonably practicable, and no later than three months from today.
A court order states that from 15th October 2009, until the new constitution comes into effect, BNP Chairman Nick Griffin will close the membership of the Party to all new membership applications and prevent the Party from accepting into membership any new member.
A BNP spokesman told Nothing British: “We have no comment to Nothing British”.
UPDATE
The BNP have released a statement saying they have “outflanked” the EHRC. The BNP are saying that the court accepted a proposal by Nick Griffin to freeze membership until it has debated its rules in November at its party’s conference. The BNP are saying the EHRC’s actions are “highly malicious and clearly politically motivated”.
Yet more egg on Labour’s face as Gordon Brown steals another BNP policy
Gordon Brown: put mums in care
Britain’s national socialists have claimed that Gordon Brown’s authoritarian “pregnant mums policy” was borrowed from the BNP.
On the BNP’s web site it says that the PM’s announcement was the “most generous possible tribute” to the neo-fascist’s “hegemony in the battle of ideas”.
Not for the first time have Labour been accused of using the BNP’s language in a populist effort to claw back supporters. In 2007, Gordon Brown was caught out for using the slogan “British jobs for British workers” and at this year’s conference Labour have chosen the unfortunate title of ”Operation Fightback”, which was also the name of a BNP campaign to tackle what it terms as “smears” against the party.
The BNP’s and Labourpolicy on telling parents of ferrel children that they risk losing access to benefits unless they agree to accept support to improve their parenting skills, smacks of a Big Brother-esque approach to parenting.
Most people would agree that totalitarian policies such as forcing mothers into care, unless they abide by official parenting guidelines, is deeply un-British. However, unless we address the wider issues on areas such as immigration, education and the economy there is a strong risk that the BNP will play an increasing role in our political system where illiberal policies, such as these, become part and parcel of our society.
Court date fixed for battle with BNP
EHRC will meet the BNP in court on October 15th
Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, has announced in an email to party supporters that his court battle with the Equality and Human Rights Commission is set to resume on October 15th 2009.
The BNP are being taken to court over its restrictions on allowing non-whites to join its party.
But at the beginning of September the case was adjourned after the court had decided to allow the party more time to prepare a defence.
Since then there has been much speculation as to whether the party are capable of fighting the case to the ”bitter end” over fears that the party may financially implode, which we believe to be simply that, speculation.
The day after the case was adjourned, Nick Griffinsaid that fighting the court case was costing the BNP too much and that attending another hearing would mean “raising and risking at least £80,000″.
And last week the BNP’s chief ideologue Arthur Kemp, the South African white supremacist and foreign affairs spokesman, said that the EHRC’s case would be a “huge own goal” and will help the party to “destroy one of the biggest arguments against it”, namely that it will no longer be labelled as racist.
Only time will tell about what happens in the row between the EHRC and the BNP, but one thing is for certain -you will not defeat Nick Griffin and co by legislating them out of existence. Only by addressing the concerns of the people who vote for them will stop the BNP.
Arthur Kemp, the South Africa white supremacist ideologue and BNP foreign affairs spokesman, has said that the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s court case against the BNP’s racist admission policy is a “huge own goal” and will help the party to “destroy one of the biggest arguments against it”, namely that it will no longer be labelled as racist.
This is yet another indication of the BNP’s intention not to fight the EHRC to the “bitter end” as it fears it will run out of resources. The BNP believes, as Kemp said yesterday, the court case is designed to “use up party resources needed to fight the general election”.
Some are now arguing whether the EHRC have shot themselves in the foot over their handling of the BNP. Apart from squandering large amounts of taxpayers money and generating huge amounts of favourable publicity to the BNP, what have these proceedings achieved?
We already knew the BNP are a racist organisation and rule changes weren’t going to change that. (Why did the EHRC wait till after the Europen election? Why haven’t they enforced the rules on other bodies that enforce ethnic restrictions?)
The BNP, on the other hand, have gained a lot from this process. They now look like victims of a politically motivated attack and have turned a court case, designed to obliterate them, into a victory by announcing they can no longer be called racist as an organisation.
We believe this whole affair is a classic example of how not to defeat the BNP. You can not legislate organisations like the BNP out of existence. You can, however, seriously address the concerns of ordinary voters on issues like immigration, Islamism, job displacement and national identity.
Accepting money from the BNP has serious consequences
BNP offer help to Scot’s Veterans
As the recession bites and the economy worsens the BNP have offered their support to a Scottish veterans charity.
It is reported by The Times that FEBA — a military term Forward Edge of Battle Area — based in South Lanacshire, which costs £60,000 to run annually, originally contacted the MOD and the Scottish Executive after its income plunged. Explaining why he accepted assistance from neo-fascists, Tommy Moffat, a former soldier with the Queen’s Own Highlanders and founder of FEBA, said: “I am in turmoil. We don’t believe in the BNP’s policies but this offer of help would save us.”
As we have already said, helping worthy causes like veterans charities is commendable, but the Trustees of FEBA, as with The Royal British Legion and the Three Owls Bird Sanctuary, should realise, by accepting help from the BNP, they are giving a leg up for neo-Nazis, with values that inimical to those which their members fought for, and allowing them to worm their way into the fabric of British life.
FEBA, think twice before you accept money from a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” like the BNP.
The BNP is poised to give up its whites-only membership policy after a legal challenge accusing it of racial discrimination. Nick Griffin, leader of the neo-fascist party, indicated yesterday that the BNP would accept members of different ethnicities rather than face a court case that would “bleed the party dry”.
Griffin said that fighting the court case is costing the BNP too much and that attending another hearing would mean “raising and risking at least £80,000″.
In a sign that he as backtracking from his earlier statements about fighting this injunction through to the “bitter end”, Griffin added that this will “ban ethnically defined parties anyway”, meaning that the EHRC’s action is pointless.
Some critics of the EHRC have said their actions were a little too hasty, but perhaps they have demonstrated that if you seriously challenge the BNP they can be defeated.
The BNP are due to be back in court in six weeks time.
Migration Watch: Immigration affects population size
Andrew Green: The government are in denial about immigration
A report by the highly respected immigration campaign organisation Migration Watch claims that the UK population will hit 70 million in 25 years, even though the recession may temporarily halt immigration to Britain.
Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration, has said that ”population projections have been accurate to 2.5% for the past half century.”
Sir Andrew concluded, “The government are in denial about the impact of their failure to control immigration on the whole nature of our society. They must now respond to intense public concern with a firm undertaking to take the measures necessary to limit the growth in our population rather than yet more attempts at spin.”
See Sir Andrew Green giving a recent talk on immigration below:
The Guardian have reported that detectives are questioning Muslim community leader, Noor Ramjanally, on suspicion of perverting course of justice over claims that he made against the BNP.
However, the police are continuing to investigate allegations that he suffered a firebomb attack and received hate mail in July.
BNP member Peter Tierney is on a charge for assault
Well known Liverpool BNP member, Peter Tierney, has denied violently assaulting a demonstrator handing out leaflets protesting against the BNP earlier that day.
Tierney is charged with assaulting a protester, which allegedly left a man with a cut on the back of his head, in Liverpool during the 2009 St Georges Day celebrations.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s injunction against the BNP for breaking race rules has been adjourned to allow the party more time to prepare a defence, after the court was told the party had only instructed its counsel on Tuesday.
Judge Paul Collins has said, while the BNP’s criteria might breach race rules, it had taken a “long time for someone to get round to the idea” that the BNP was breaking the law – which was founded 27 years ago.
The Judge pointed out that the case appears to have been prompted by complaints made to the Commission after the BNP won two seats in the European Parliament in June.
He also added that the EHRC had not provided any evidence that there was “a long queue of black people wanting to join the BNP”.
But the Judge said the BNP had known since June about the possibility of legal action and said it was “unfair” of the party to have instructed its counsel at the last minute. He therefore ordered the BNP to pay the costs of yesterday’s hearing.
There are signs, however, that the EHRC’s court proceedings have unnerved the BNP with Nick Griffin – who did not attend yesterday’s hearing - recently writing: “Adapt or die is the only decision left to make, for failure to adapt would lead either to our being bled white through the courts or crushed by new criminal laws. Party unity is priceless, because a party of brothers standing shoulder to shoulder can be persecuted, but it can never be beaten or broken.”
Andrew Brons tabled a question on the welfare of horses
This week the BNP’s two MEP’s - Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons – have started back in Brussels.
Nick Griffin sat on the Environment Committee and warned that it was worrying too much about climate change and said, “you are all dealing with the wrong crisis”.
Griffin added: “The crucial point is … the impact of diminishing resources in our geologically finite world.” Later writing, “Peak Oil, not climate change, is the big issue.”
Andrew Brons tabled a question to the European Parliament on the welfare of horses. In his role as an MEP, Brons is supporting the World Horse Welfare’s Make a Noise campaign, which calls for new welfare laws for horses in transit.
Later on today Brons will be sitting on the “Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee” (LIBE), which is in charge of citizens and human rights within the EU.
