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Posts Tagged ‘Harry Patch’

News round up: BNP on Australian TV | BNP Harry Patch tribute angers Legion | Griffin praises convicted Italian terrorist

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

BNP on Australian TV

Nick Griffin was on Australian television network SBS this weekend. “We are the Sex Pistols of British politics and we’ve got a number one,” he said.

My eye was caught by a UAF poster with this dubious slogan, “Unemployment and housing is not caused by immigration”. For further details on this statement, see the government’s Migration Advisory Panel report on workers being displaced by migrant workers.

March to the right – SBS Dateline

BNP tribute to Harry Patch angers Legion

Harry Patch

Harry Patch

In July Nothing British wrote about the BNP’s tribute to Harry Patch. We said that the BNP were using this tactic to counter claims that they are not patriotic because of the admiration for Nazis.

This week the Chairman of the Royal British Legion’s Wells branch in Somerset, Robin White, said, “Knowing Harry as I did, he would have no truck with the BNP … (it) is in no way related to peace and reconciliation.”

Mr White also accused Mr Griffin of trying to ­politicise “one of the nation’s most treasured and beloved symbols”.

BNP Patch tribute angers Legion – BBC

Griffin praises convicted Italian terrorist

Roberto Fiore

In a video posted on the BNP’s online TV channel the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, praises convicted Italian terrorist Roberto Fiore and worryingly claims he has been one of the greatest influences on his political outlook.

Fiore is an Italian neo-fascist with a 10 year conviction for being a member of the neo-fascist terrorist group the “Armed Revolutionary Nuclei”. According to The Times, the group was implicated in the Bologna bombing of 1980, which killed 85 people. Fiore went on the run and he was sentenced in absentia. His jail term was eventually “timed out” under Italy’s statute of limitation laws and he was able to return to his homeland in April 1999.

Nothing British believes that Fiore’s presence within the BNP – and their refusal to distance themselves from him – proves how they have not progressed since their more thuggish days during the 1970s and 80s.

Roberto Fiore at RWB – By BNP TV

Oxford University Conservative Association racism row

It’s far-fetched to suggest that the success of the BNP is any way related to the recent telling of a racist joke by a bunch of berks at the Oxford University Conservative Association hustings. However,  we do believe that continued presence of a neo-fascist party in British politics does lead to a greater tolerance of racism in mainstream society.

Nothing British thinks that this sort of behaviour from OUCA – who aspire to be potential leaders of our country – is a disgrace. There is no place for racism in any part of British society in the 21st Century.

Don’t use our name, Oxford University tells young Tories after race disgrace – The Daily Mail

BNP fields candidate in Billericay election

The decision by the Conservative Party to run candidates wherever possible against the BNP is a laudable one. There is little/no electoral gain for the party becuase at present the BNP is sweeping up mainly ex-Labour voters, but it sends an important moral signal.

It’s a shame they haven’t found a candidate in the Billericay by-election later this month but we hope that in the run-up to the 2010 council elections the Conservatives will try their hardest to find candidates to stand against the BNP and prevent them from picking up easy votes.

BNP fields candidate in Billericay election – Basildon Recorder

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BNP’s “tribute” to Harry Patch, the Last Tommy

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

A strategy often used by the neo-fascist British National Party is to eulogise Britain’s wartime past as a means to garner more support. This propaganda tactic aims to legitimize their party in the face of accusations that they admire the Nazis (i.e. not patriotic).

A recent example was the BNP’s “tribute” to Harry Patch, the Last Tommy who died over the weekend. After giving a history lesson on the First World War the author, going by the pseudonym “ Titvs Advxas”, lightly touches on Harry Patch’s life and then says, “ The British National Party, it seemed to me, was the only political party who remembered Henry Allingham in the previous week, at meetings and in their own press. This weekend, the shame from the other parties from their own neglect, has forced them to remember Private Henry John Patch”.

The BNP are perfectly entitled to remember Britain’s sacrifice, but to wrongly imply (see Gordon Brown here and David Cameron here) that they are the only party that cares for veterans and the war dead is politically arrogant and immoral. The legacy of our veterans should be left out of politics.

Having read Harry Patch’s obituaries (see here and here), it is obvious he was an honest and caring man. He had the gentle and very British qualities of tolerance and sympathy towards other peoples suffering. These aspects of his character are the very antithesis of the BNP who have sought to claim him, and Henry Allingham, as one of their own (notice how they wouldn’t have dared done this while they were alive. The dead can’t bring about legal proceedings).  

 

Harry Patch said that he was glad that he never killed a man, deliberately aiming instead for the ground. He was so deeply affected by his experience during the Great War that he would not even watch a war film. But even mild mannered Harry Patch, knowing the difference between good and evil, said: “Hitler wanted to govern Europe, nothing to it. I would have taken the Kaiser, his son, Hitler and the people on his side … and bloody shot them. Out the way and saved millions of lives.”

Contrast Harry Patch’s admirable views to the views of some of the BNP.

·         Barry Bennett – former BNP candidate for the South West in the European elections, once said “whatever’s good enough for Hitler’s good enough for me.”

·         Mark Collett – former head of the BNP Youth and now head of the BNP’s publicity unit said “Hitler will live forever; maybe I will”.

·         Nick Griffin – leader of the BNP said on Hitler, “Adolf went a bit too far.”

 

Could their obsessive use of Britain’s former military glories during the World Wars be a compensation for their fascination with Nazism? Some might say that they are using British military sacrifice as a physiological defence mechanism.   

 

David Cameron’s and Gordon Brown’s tributes show that it is possible to respect veterans in a non-political way. However, the amoral and emotionally insecure BNP’s idea of remembrance is to use our inherited freedoms, left to us by our hard fighting ancestors, as neo-fascist propaganda.   

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