Tag Archives: BNP

The BNP: Political party or quasi-religious cult?

By Guest | Published: January 15, 2010

This is a cross-post by Edmund Standing

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Commenting on the time he had spent with Mark Collett and the BNP while filming for the Dispatches programme ‘Young, Nazi, and Proud‘, film maker David Modell stated:

To me, this organisation is no army, or even really a political party, more a fundamentalist movement – a cult.

This analysis of the BNP is as accurate as it was when Modell made his remarks in 2002. In many ways, the recent rise of the BNP as a political force has served to obscure the cult-like nature of the organisation, especially as it has now picked up single issue voters who are only really concerned about immigration and would have no interest in bizarre ideas about ‘the Ethno-State‘, conspiracy theories about ‘Zionists’, or the whacky pseudo-scholarship set out in Arthur Kemp’s ‘history of the white race‘, not to mention the occultism of the BNP Legal Director, or the Holocaust denial that founder member Richard Edmonds has spent decades promoting.

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Posted in Anti Fascism, UK Politics | Tagged | 3 Comments

Terrorist? What Terrorist?

By Faisal | Published: October 22, 2009

The Times reports on a rally organised by United Against Fascism (UAF) at BBC Headquarters tonight to protest Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time.

Speakers at the rally will include Ken Livingstone and Peter Hain. Mr Livingstone is to be applauded for employing his stentorian voice to rouse the 1,000 protestors expected. The UAF website interview with Mr Livingstone contained this nugget from Ken:

The BBC should withdraw its invitation to Nick Griffin to appear on Question Time. A court ruled this week that the fascist BNP’s membership rules illegally discriminate on grounds of race. This is only part of the picture. When the BNP is given a major media platform for its message of bigotry, race and religious hatred, hate attacks by thugs on the streets increase.

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Posted in UK Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | 27 Comments

Is Ashley Cole British?

By Guest | Published: October 14, 2009

This is a guest post by Tariq

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Having listened to the two young ignoramuses put forward by the BNP to represent them on BBC’s Radio 1 last week, I began to think of a debate I had with some of my friends a few years ago.

You see, all my life up until then I had never considered myself British, I had always seen myself as English. My argument was that since I was born in England, spoke English as a first language and displayed a culture that was distinctively English, and different when compared to a Scottish, Welsh or Irish identity, I had a right to identify myself as English.  This right should be extended to my children, my children’s children, and so on regardless of the fact that my parents were born in Zanzibar.

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Posted in Anti Fascism, Identity Politics, Your View | Tagged | 119 Comments

Keeping the Pressure on the BNP

By Guest | Published: September 4, 2009

This is a guest post by Lucy James, a research fellow at Quilliam

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bnpflyerLast month, on the back of a paper entitled In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda (pdf), I called for Muslim communities, and the British public as a whole, to take a more united ideological stand against the BNP; one that systematically undermines their arguments in the British mainstream.

Last week we heard about Noor Ramjanally, a Muslim community leader in Loughton, who was allegedly kidnapped from his home late at night and taken to Epping Forest at knifepoint, where he was ordered to stop holding prayer meetings. A BNP campaign which distributed leaflets saying ‘No mosques in Loughton’ was held responsible for creating the tensions that led to the crime.

The local BNP councillor Pat Richardson bizarrely defended allegations of BNP violence saying ‘’Firebombing is not a British method. A brick through the window is a British method but firebombing is not a way of showing displeasure”.

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Posted in Anti Fascism, UK Politics, Your View | Also tagged | 2 Comments

BNP’s “Reverend” West Refuses to Answer Questions About His Ordination

By Guest | Published: July 12, 2009

This eyewitness account is cross-posted from Hope not Hate, Norfolk

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Three Hope not hate campaigners went to meet the fake Reverend Robert West in Norwich today. The three campaigners approached Robert West and asked him to explain where he got the right to use the title “Reverend”. The BNP activists, who were rallying in a car park at a closed pub, The Duke of Norfolk on Mousehold Lane, were surprised and angry that Hope not hate were there to greet them.

The BNP asked for volunteers to come to Norwich today. Only about twenty actually turned up, and it seemed their idea of a day of action was to attack local Hope not Hate campaigners.

Robert West, who as well as believing himself to be a Vicar, also now appears to believe that he is Winston Churchill, held out the V for victory sign.

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Posted in Anti Fascism, Your View | Also tagged | Leave a comment

How to defeat white racist terrorism – the IPPR approach

By Guest | Published: July 6, 2009

This is guest post by Al-Qanaas Al-Masri

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During the weekend, the British police announced that they had arrested 32 white extremists in Northern England and uncovered huge stocks of rocket-launchers, hand grenades and explosives. The men, at least one of who appears to be a member of the British National Party, were apparently planning attacks on Muslims and mosques around the UK.

Andy Hull from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) has previously proposed for the government to tackle Islamist violence by working with and funding non-violent Islamists. Seeking to apply his theories to similarly tackling white racist violence, I have taken the liberty of editing one of his papers on this subject in order to see how it would likewise address the problem of white racist violence.

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Posted in Anti Fascism, Islamism, Terrorism, Your View | Also tagged , , | 4 Comments

Mainstreaming Extremism

By Faisal | Published: July 3, 2009

Abdullah Hasan writes his views on how the government can tackle Islamic extremism on the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE) blog:

The ways the government can eradicate extremism is by acknowledging that their foreign policy and their draconian laws against Muslims play an immense part in radicalising Muslims. They need to work with mainstream Muslim organisations such as MCB, IFE, MAB etc. These organisations are working at the grassroots level and have the support of many Muslims. They need to be provided more resources and room to carry out their work. They also need to allow the existing mainstream Imams in Britain to do their job effectively by providing them resources and platforms to preach a balanced Islam.

Hasan’s views are not particulalry novel or unique or even mildly groundbreaking. His statement is important, however, because Hasan is himself a textbook Islamist and here he is articulating an Islamist’s view of the political lay of the land. His explanation of how “extremism” can be eliminated, if deconstructed, amounts to:

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Posted in Anti Fascism, Islamism | Also tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Increase legal action against BNP leaflets

By Faisal | Published: July 1, 2009

Chances are you’ve seen this BNP leaflet circulated or have  had it passed through your letterbox:

londonbnpleaflet

BNP leaflet

It is a pernicious piece of race-hatred and anti-Muslim bigotry that has been around for years and has long required some form of legal action taken against it. The good news is that senior prosecutors are calling for laws on race hate crimes to be strenghtened which will counter the distribution of leaflets like this by the British National Party. From the Guardian:

Several BNP leaflets have been referred to the CPS over the last five years – some by senior police officers and one by a judge – but no further action has been taken.

Peter Herbert, the chairman of the Society of Black Lawyers and a part-time judge, submitted a complaint last year over a leaflet called The Changing Face of London that had two pictures, one depicting an all-white street party from the 1950s, the other showing three Muslim women wearing a niqab, one of whom is making a V-sign towards the camera.

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Posted in Anti Muslim bigotry | Tagged | 4 Comments

Knifey Spoony with Islamophobia

By Retired | Published: May 25, 2009

In a recent article on Harry’s Place, Edmund Standing quoted approvingly from this attack by Paul Sikander on the term “Islamophobia”:

‘Islamophobia’ is a constructed model designed to protect Islam and Islamic politics from criticism. It has little or nothing to do with protecting individual Muslims from discrimination. [...]

Anti-Semitism when it was expressed, the earlier racism of Europe, that had been present before the post war migration of black and Asian people to the UK, was simultaneously a similar and different mode of prejudice. But crucially, anti-Semitism when expressed and countered was not about defending the theology of Judaism.

The construction of the concept of ‘Islamophobia’ began in the aftermath of the Rushdie affair. The impetus for it was to stigmatise an entire range of individuals and opinions, from those who took issue with religious precepts of Islam, to those who questioned certain values of the religion, certain cultural practices recurrent inside the sub-culture of some British Muslim groups, all the way through to those who critically analysed Islamist politics.

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Posted in Anti Muslim bigotry | Also tagged , , | 3 Comments

Daily Express – With extremists, against law and order.

By Retired | Published: May 20, 2009

Why is it that the media keep paying so much attention to the tiny group of extremists al-Muhajiroun/whatever name they’re going by this week? It is very clear that the only beneficiaries are Anjem Choudary and his chums, who get free publicity for their views, and an array of other people of varying degrees of unpleasantness who can use events like the Luton protest to advance their own agenda.

First it was the BNP. I’m not going to link to their website to avoid helping its google ranking, but coverage of this story is unsurprisingly unpleasant. It is replete with lines like:

The shocking anti-British army protest by a group of Muslims in central Luton is a portent of what is to come unless the Islamification of this country is halted

This is in addition to references to “the colonisation of this country by Third Worlders” and “Luton is well known as a heavily Muslim colonised town” as well as dark warnings from their defence spokesman.

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Posted in Anti Fascism, Anti Muslim bigotry, Islamism | Also tagged , | 9 Comments

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