### here

Posts Tagged ‘Soldiers off the Street’

Beware – there’s nothing British about exploiting our Armed Services

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

BNP email

Another tasteless attempt by the BNP to exploit the warm feelings the British public has towards our Armed Forces arrived in my in-box.

This innocent-looking email purports to be a disinterested appeal for support for a wounded British soldier. But, beware.

  • It claims to be a personal plea but it is not signed.
  • It claims to be non-political, but the web-version of the email is on the BNP website and the return address is the BNP HQ.
  • It claims to be on behalf of Fusilier Tom James, but he is not quoted, nor is anyone related to him.

It smacks of the BNP. Their clumsy attempts to associate themselves with the heroism of Britain’s armed forces are deeply resented by our soldiers who fight for the British values Nick Griffin seeks to destroy: fairness, tolerance and looking out for the little guy.

Give it a rest, Nick.

Astro-turf-watch: coverage of NB campaign against fake veterans “charities”

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Third Sector

Third Sector, the charity industry magazine, has highlighted the dangers of BNP-related veterans organisations preying on the warm feelings the general public feel towards our soldiers, an issue first raised by our investigation into Soldiers off the Street.

The article describes Nothing British’s complaint to the Charity Commission and repeats our warnings to bona fide charties to treat appeals for collaboration from unknown veterans’ organisations with caution (a copy of the article is here).

Third Sector also spoke to the Charities Commission who said it was reasonable for organisations with incomes of less than £5,000 to say they were “charitable” provided they did not say they were registered charities. She said people with political affiliations could establish charities provided the organisations did not have political purposes. The commission would treat Soldiers off the Street’s application “in line with the registration criteria”, she said.

Bill Murray, SOTS Director and Leader of the BNP in Wales

Bill Murray

Bill Murray, director of SOTS, claims his organisation is not a front for the BNP and that he is no longer involved with the extremist party. But he remains friendly with some of the high command and many of its BNP supporting blogs.

On Murray’s Facebook page he is “friends” with Andrew Brons’ chief of staff Chris Beverley. He also says he is a Facebook “fan” of Richard Barnbrook, French fascist Jean Marie Le Pen and the extremist organisation March for England.

Murray also says that he is a fan of Simon Weston. Murray may be interested to watch Simon’s film for Nothing British on his strongly-held views on the BNP.

(For more information on SOTS please see our SOTS Briefing Note.)

Maurice Cousins.

Charity Commission statement on our campaign

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

The Charity Commission has responded to our campaign with the following statement. What is particularly interesting about this statement is the last paragraph. And yet, when NB spoke to SOTS back in September we were told that it would become a charity “by the end of the month”.

“The Charity Commission is aware of the press coverage regarding Nothing British about the BNP’s report, Stolen Valour, in which the Commission is mentioned. We have obtained a copy of the report and will be responding directly to Nothing British on the points that they have raised.

“Charities should usually seek to maximise their income. However, in some circumstances trustees may decide that it would not be in the best interests of their charity to accept a donation, if this would damage the charity’s reputation or its ability to do its good work would be compromised. Trustees should be able to demonstrate how and why they have made any such decision and the Commission is happy to advise in such cases.

“There is nothing in charity law that prohibits members of a political party from establishing and/or being the trustee of a charity. However, no charity can have political purposes or support a political party. All trustees must act only in the charity’s best interests and must not represent the interests of any outside organisation or their own personal interests. To do otherwise would be a breach of trust.

“‘Soldiers off the Street’ is not a registered charity, and must not claim to be a registered charity. We have not received any application to register from an organisation by that name. Any application to register as a charity would be considered in line with the registration criteria as set out on our website. In order to register, charities must be established for exclusively charitable purposes for the public benefit and must not have any political purpose.”