****

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.

While many of these voters are quite possibly unaware of the extent of the BNP’s ideology and are basically only voting BNP as a protest vote, party members and activists have no such excuse, and their pathetic whitewashing of the party’s true extremism (which time and again have been shown to be shallow and dishonest) are nothing more than attempts to make the BNP cult appear as though it is a real, respectable political party.

Just as religious cults often draw in followers by preying on the desperate and the lonely by promising them a place where they will find love and purpose, so the modern BNP tries to draw in new supporters by claiming that it alone ‘cares’ about them, that it alone offers the ‘truth’, and that it is going to ’save’ Britain.

The underlying cult-like nature of the BNP is most clearly illustrated by looking at the words of its dedicated supporters. BNP supporters generally buy into a narrative that shares much in common with apocalyptic religious beliefs. According to this narrative, Britain is currently in the grip of an evil conspiratorial power that is working for its destruction, a conspiracy led by a ‘liberal elite’ made up of ‘Marxists’ (all three major parties are held to be Marxist fronts). These ‘Marxists’ (and ‘Zionists’, in the outlook of people like Lee Barnes) are seen to have a ‘plan’ for world domination, which revolves around committing ‘genocide’ against ‘indigenous’ Britons. Every aspect of society is seen to be under the control of this conspiracy, and it is claimed that we are now living in the ‘last days’ of Britain, with only a few decades left in which to ’save’ it. This worldview replaces Satan and his minions with the ‘liberal elite’, the apocalypse with the decay and destruction of Britain, and the Messiah and salvation with Nick Griffin and the BNP.

The extent to which this basic pseudo-religious salvation narrative is embraced by BNP supporters will be clear to anyone who monitors BNP supporting blogs or the comments left on the official BNP website.

The fact that BNP supporters have no understanding of politics and inhabit a fantasy universe is clearly illustrated in their response to Nothing British About The BNP, an anti-BNP campaign led by members of the Conservative Party. Despite its clear links to Conservative members and supporters, BNP members still insist that Nothing British is actually a front not for the Tories, but for ‘Marxists’. For example, back in November 2009 I reported on the absurd statements of Swindon BNP member Elizabeth ‘Red Squirrel’ Walton, who wrote:

I hear that it is a conservative blog as well.. Which just goes to show that there are as many dick head communists throughout the Lib-Lab-Con-Green spectrum as there are among the plebs of the revolting slimy UAF!

Now a Birmingham BNP member is claiming that ‘The website “Nothing British” is one of many the left have set up to attack the BNP and it’s supporters’.

For BNP supporters, there is only a ‘left’ and a ‘right’: the left is everything and everyone who isn’t part of the BNP, and the right is the BNP. This Manichean version of politics is not really politics at all – it is, rather, part of a belief system about the world that has more in common with religious fundamentalism in its presentation of a world caught between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. Unsurprisingly, then, BNP members are found to espouse other notions which parallel those of religious fundamentalism.

The writings found at the popular ‘Green Arrow’ blog (a group effort by BNP members and suporters which also includes a forum, a chat room, and a podcast) offer clear examples of the cultic nature of the BNP. Paul Morris writes:

And I laugh when I hear their pathetic excuses as to why the True British People are joining us and becoming not just a member of a political party but a member of a family.

A family with real family values. A family that cares not just for themselves but for their Country and their children’s future…

The avalanche of political faith in the BNP by the people is starting to move.

The BNP, then, is a ‘family’ based on ‘faith’, and for Morris this faith will ultimately lead to the BNP’s version of the Kingdom of God on earth:

But what of the older members of The Party who have died in harness? They knew that because of their advancing years they would never live to see our final victory but still they fought.

They fought because they believed in the same dream as you and I. That we, through Nick Griffin and the British National Party can turn Our Island Nations into the only real paradise on earth for it’s [sic] true people.

A recent post by a Green Arrow contributor called ‘rugfish’ illustrates the paranoia embraced by BNP supporters. He sees a huge conspiracy in the media, a conspiracy run by ‘Marxists’ which is seeking to corrupt his mind with ‘lies’ and ‘filth’. Writing under the headline ‘Green Arrows Attack British Media’, ‘rugfish’ states:

I say “attack”, because I’m convinced we are being waged war on by the media and I believe that attack is the best form of defence. I can name a few issues here but you’ll have your own. However one reason I will mention here is that I believe the media are attacking Nick Griffin and that it is in league with Marxists who all know the election date but have not bothered telling us. This is clearly the case since despite Gordon Brown has not announced a date, they all refer to us being in an election campaign period. If that is the truth, then I want to hear Nick Griffin and I don’t want to hear some slimy Marxist prat keep calling him racist, banging on about what he might have said 20 years ago or asking him stupid questions about the names of his dogs!

Just ask yourself why Nick Griffin is not televised and just ask yourself why the media won’t discuss British National Party policies but would rather attempt to malign him? – EVERYTHING HAS A REASON.

Just ask yourself if you really believe the media in this country works to bring you the truth, or whether it intentionally brings you lies and political persuasion.

Are they really stupid? I think not. I think they are really clever but we are cleverer still and there are more of us really clever people than there are of THEM.

Just ask yourself, if a box in your living room was pumping crap out across your carpet all day, what you would do? I know what I’d do, I’d stick it in the bin with the dog poop I scooped up today from my garden. But in this case, I’m not dumping my telly, I’m dumping THEM.

THEM THEM THEM who ‘in-filth-trate’ my head with lies.

This kind of thinking, with the idea of a Marxist controlled media, ‘everything having a reason’, and attempted brainwashing carried out by an evil ‘THEM’ is, again, far more cult-like than it is political or social analysis.

‘Rugfish’ is far from a lone and unrepresentative crank, either. A Facebook group accompanying the article has already attracted 122 members, and Green Arrow blog posts are regularly reproduced approvingly on a number of BNP supporting blogs (some examples here).

For BNP supporters such as Morris and his team, this mix of paranoid, conspiracy-based thinking, mixed with apocalyptic politics, is what attracts them to the BNP:

I believe that your average British National Party members are probably some of the most politically well informed people ever. Especially if they have served their Country as an Activist for more than six months.

They learn fast. This kind of knowledge sets them apart from the rest of their fellow slaves on this open prison Island that has been created by those building the New World Order.

But just some people knowing “the truth” is not enough to reclaim and save Our Country. We need to let the rest of the True British Population know that they are just slaves. Milk Cows only allowed to live providing they can feed the new “elite” with their blood and sweat. Then they can die, in fact be encouraged to die. Easily replaced by the colonisers imported to replace them.

The New World Order will NOT STOP untill [sic] they have EVERYTHING and control EVERYONE. Only the British National Party stands between them and success.

Morris may sound like an utter lunatic, but he is really only parroting the kind of material that can be found on the official BNP website, such as this article, which claims:

Political Correctness is being used by the Bilderberg Group and the Transnational Progressives, to promote Globalisation and create a New World Order.

This quasi-religious belief in impending doom at the hands of an evil conspiracy that can only be stopped via the salvific power of the BNP is even leading some supporters to want to shut themselves off from anything that does not acknowledge the message of the BNP as ‘the Truth’. BNP supporters on the Green Arrow blog are advocating throwing out their televisions (for them, all they need is ‘BNP TV‘) and boycotting newspapers. The Swindon BNP blog promotes the idea that people should refuse to pay their TV licenses. In one post, Elizabeth Walton states:

I have only just this moment had a visit from  BBC Licensing, trying to gain access to my home.

I told him quite literally to bugger off !

I have not actually watched a TV for about 4 years- but I carried on paying for a licence by direct debit , thinking that because I had a computer that I was still liable for costs.

WRONG.

There is no legal requirement to pay a TV licence. Just DONT sign anything and DONT let them onto your property!

As I told the snivelling little git at my door “I don’t watch TV because they tell lies!”

BIG COMMUNIST LIES FOR THE GOVERNMENT AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER!

BNP members also see a grand conspiracy in the British education system. We’re not talking about the criticism that there is a leftish bias in education, but the deluded belief that British schools teach an ‘anti-British’ curriculum, which is patently false. Commenting on a youth project which seeks to break down social and cultural barriers among British children, BNP Legal Director Lee Barnes claims that ‘liberals’ ‘want to brainwash our kids and pollute their minds with their liberal filth’ and that ‘middle class liberal traitors are brainwashing our kids with their diversity crap’.

This is typical of the way BNP supporters present the UK education system. Unsurprisingly, some hardcore BNP members are now talking about home schooling their children, on the grounds that:

You cannot be INDOCTRINATED being schooled at home.

And your Children might get some sort of Education.

ZaNuLabour do not like that.

Of course, the reality is that the kind of ‘education’ home schooled children of BNP members would receive would leave them totally unprepared for the real world, with their heads full of paranoid fantasies, racial bigotry, and ignorance of history, politics, and the wider world.

In his seminal book on the bizarre ‘mystical’ ideas that fed into the ideology of Nazi Germany, Professor Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke notes that in the Third Reich, we see an example of ‘apocalyptic hysteria in the leadership of a modern state’. In many respects, the same kind of apocalyptic hysteria is found in the worldview of committed supporters of the BNP. The BNP does indeed resemble a fundamentalist movement and a political cult, and perhaps this is the best way to view the organisation.

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.

The public do not pay license fees to have them abused by the BBC to help people spread hatred and intolerance. If the BBC continues with this policy it will share responsibility for the crimes against minorities which will follow.

Griffin: Signs of "bigotry, race and religious hatred"

The correctness of Ken’s sentiments in refusing to give platform to the BNP is laudable. In fact, very few have Livingstone’s public credentials in the fight against neo-Nazi politics in Britain in the late 20th Century. But the same cannot he said of his sincerity in opposing “bigotry, race and religious hatred” of any political group of any stripe.

Last month Livingstone had no qualms with providing platform to Khaled Meshaal, whom he interviewed for another media platform, this time the New Statesman. Meshaal is the leader of Hamas, an organisation which is classed by the European Organisation as a terrorist group (pdf). It seems Livinstone has no qualms with Hamas’ message of “bigotry, race and religious hatred”.

Meshaal and friend: No signs of "bigotry, race and religious hatred"

How do the New Statesman and Mr Livingstone get away with indulging the leader of a terrorist entity? The answer, by using the pretext that Hamas are a democratically elected party with mandate to operate in Gaza. It is a get-out clause that is often used by Hamas apologists who are comfortable with Meshaal’s “bigotry, race and religious hatred”, or are at least ready to ignore it.

It must be wonderful to live like Ken Livinstone. You can be a moralising, sanctimonious demagogue who badmouths and censures the BBC for defending its policy to allow the BNP on prime-time TV, in spite of the BBC’s function as a national media outlet which serves us, the British public, by giving access to elected members of political parties to present their case on a public access programme, such as Question Time. But you are free to break your own moral code for political expediency whenever you like.

You will have the privelege to forget to ask Khaled Meshaal any uncomfortable questions about the Hamas, that would not sit right in a fawning puff-piece published in a “well-respected” journal like the New Statesman. But no such privilege can be granted to any of Nick Griffin’s co-panelists on the BBC should they fail to give him a hard time on Question Time tonight. As Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens notes:

On Question Time [tonight], Griffin, like Meshaal before him, will try to present a moderate and sensible side of the BNP. It is the responsibility of his co-panelists to prevent him from doing so and therefore succeed in exposing his fascist ideology. Were he not an apologist for Islamic fascism, Ken would have done the same with Meshaal. Rather than accusing the BBC of “sharing the responsibility” for the crimes that will follow what he sees as an endorsement of the BNP, he should look at the role he has played in helping Hamas deceive the west while they impose strict religious codes on their citizens, kill political opponents and murder Israeli civilians.

Many people have the right to criticise the BBC’s decision to allow Nick Griffin on Question Time tonight, but not everyone. The question you must ask yourself is:
“Would I protest the BBC’s decision were it to have Khaled Meshaal on the panel of Question Time?”

If you answer “no” to the question, then you forego that right, as I suspect Ken Livingstone and his band of pro-Hamas hacks at the New Statesman would.

****

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.

For my two white friends, however, this assertion caused problems.  In the most amicable of terms they explained to me that, whilst they understood that I was a “British national”, the fact that I was both black and a Muslim meant that they believed that I was not even ‘ethnically British’, let alone ‘English’.  “You wouldn’t call a Chinese person living in Africa African would you?”, one of them said, and it did make me think.

Now I know my friends are not racists, the worst that can be said of them is that, at times, they go too far in trying not to offend my racial sensitivities!  I managed to somewhat bring them round to my way of thinking by using the examples of Black English footballer players, and why, for some reason, the public so readily regard them as English when they represent our country on the pitch and sing our national anthem.  And also the fact that so many people in our school had French or Jewish sounding surnames, yet we would never dare question their Englishness or Britishness.  Why the double standards with Black and Asian Britons?

So you can imagine my surprise listening to the BNP activists on the radio the other day, as I realised that my friends actually shared identical opinions with “Joey”, who we now know is Joseph Barber, the pleasant chap who runs the BNP’s record label ‘Great White Records’, and is apparently its “leading artist”, for anyone who dares to listen!

You see, “Joey” also agrees that I am only “Civic-ly British”, and any suggestion that I am British or English is an attempt at “denying (his) heritage” for “it would be an awfully long time before someone”, like me, could become “ethnically British”, (whatever that actually means).  This is something that the BNP have argued about before.  Earlier this year Nick Griffin caused outrage when he suggested that the term ‘Black Briton itself does not even exist’.  Instead, we should be called ‘racial foreigners’.  My attempts at assuming the English identity was an example of a ‘bloodless genocide’ that is currently taking place which, with the so-called Islamification of Europe, means that for Griffin both my racial and religious identities are trying to wipe out White Anglo-Saxon Protestants! No guesses as to who would be their main targets of persecution were they to get into power!

Now I wasn’t shocked at the views expressed by the BNP, they were to be expected.  I was more shocked at the fact that they shared similar sentiments to my close friends, and many of the people who commented on the issue, such as those commenting on the Mail on Sunday’s online article.  What they were basically saying is that although you may talk like us, dress like us, and act like us in every manner, you will never be truly ‘one of us’.  What is even more ironic is the fact that these are often the same people that, whilst arguing that people of colour cannot be described as British or English, also criticize Black and Asian Britons for not trying to integrate and assimilate.

Now, due to my personal certainty that I feel English (way more than I feel African, Arab or even British) I have a particular take on this debate- this should be enough.  I am sure that there are many people out there who would agree with me, as well as others who would disagree.  And I think it is important to debate whether those who disagree with me have a point.

Is my claim to being English or British as ridiculous as saying that ‘an Englishman living in Hong Kong is Chinese’, as Nick Griffin argues?  Do you have to be white to be truly considered English or British?  Is there a difference between being ‘ethnically British’ and being ‘civically British’?  Why is it easier for an Asian Scotsman like Hardeep Singh to call himself Scottish, whilst it is harder for me to call myself English?  Will Black and Asian people ever be able to call themselves English, or British, in the same comfortable manner that people of French or Polish ancestry do so? And lastly, is the so-called ‘indigenous population’ of England ready to accept people of colour as being ‘ethnically British’.

With the BNP appearing on Question Time next Thursday these questions seem ever more important, and need to be discussed openly.

****
Last 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”.

Yesterday, however, we heard that Ramjanally had been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. Today he has been charged and is due to appear in Harlow magistrates’ court later this month.

I strongly believe in the principal of innocent until proven guilty. The BNP appear not to, however. Even before Noor Ramjanally was arrested they had issued a statement that dismissed his story as a ‘fantasy driven by a desire to stir up racial tensions’. As soon as he was arrested the BNP issued another statement calling Ramjanally a ‘fantasy “Muslim abductee”’ and saying that they had known this all along given the ‘cursory’ nature of his facts and calling it a ‘smear’ against them.

The outcome of the case is irrelevant to the BNP. Whether he is proved guilty or innocent, it will provide valuable fodder for those racists who seek to portray Muslim communities as unethical.

Today, on the back of this debacle, we hear that the BNP are going to hire lawyers in order to change their admissions policy—the very backbone of their ideological structure—or, Griffin has remarked, face being ‘utterly crushed’. This follows the taking of the BNP to court by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission about the ‘whites-only’ nature of their admission policy. ‘Adapt or die’ declared Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, in a statement this morning. The BNP are in a financial crisis and obtaining the £80,000 needed to challenge the EHRC in court is a serious challenge for their members.

Whether or not Ramjanally is found innocent, what members of the British public, Muslims and non-Muslims, need to do is constantly confront and refute the BNP’s weak arguments. The BNP’s racist ideology is facing a significant legal challenge. Fingers-crossed that it may self-destruct on the impossibility of the task in hand: changing an admissions policy against the very ideological principles that hold the party together. The likelihood is that it won’t, and the British public needs to step up their game and continue to intellectually and systematically undermine the BNP’s arguments along the way.

****
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.

West told one Hope not hate campaigner that he would only talk to us if we called him Reverend. Whilst West was talking to us, one of his minders leapt the wall of the pub and attacked one of the three Hope not hate campaigners. The minder said that unless we “fucked off” immediately he would headbutt one of the campaigners.

During the kerfuffle, West, obviously fearing that his minder was out of control, contacted the police along with another BNP member.

Within two minutes, three police units had arrived at the public house, having been told that public order was under threat. They were somewhat surprised to see that the only casualty was a Hope not hate campaigner with a bad cut to his hand where he had been attacked by the minder. The police were not surprised to hear that the three Hope not Hate campaigners were the victim of the attack rather than the perpetrators, given that they were outnumbered by approximately 7 to 1, and they were the only people with injuries.

After making enquiries, the police offered the Hope not Hate campaigner the opportunity to press charges for assault but we declined in order not to further waste police time.

The campaigners expected the BNP to set off leafleting after the police informed them that we were not pressing charges, but they stayed for another hour in the pub car park, obviously waiting for someone to arrive. The BNP were extremely anxious for Hope not hate not to meet their VIP as they set off in dummy decoys on several occasions before sheepishly coming back to the pub car park.

Who were they waiting for? Well if national BNP figures are too afraid to meet three local Hope not hate campaigners armed only with a few Nick Griffin quotes, then perhaps they really are worried about how the public sees them.

After the initial assault by the BNP minder, the rest of the BNP declined the chance to talk to Hope not hate for over an hour, preferring to stay corralled in the pub car park. One BNP activist, apparently a BNP county council candidate for Kings Lynn, did venture over to say that she was sorry about the assault but that the BNP minder was a “working class man from a poor council estate who didn’t know any better. . .”

The BNP seemed to believe that even talking to Hope not hate would contaminate their minds with truth and honesty.

What the electors of Norwich will make of the BNP attacking a Christian Hope not hate campaigner who asked the fake Reverend to explain his title will have to be seen.

****
Yossarian adds:
All rather reminiscent of al-Macaroon’s response to members of the public refusing to be segregated for a debate at a neutral venue in central London.

******************************

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.

My only changes are to replace references to Islamist extremism with references to white racism and to change the examples given as appropriate. (With apologies to Andy Hull):

‘Stopping bombs and standing up for what we believe in’

We need a twin track approach to counter-terrorism and community cohesion. It has to be both principled and pragmatic. We must work with non-violent racists and mainstream whites, while practising the values we preach.

This has become clearer in the past few weeks, with the publication of an updated version of the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy, known as CONTEST.  It is an impressive statement of purpose: tackling violent white supremacist terrorists. However, a number of Cabinet ministers, former racists and others have argued before and since that we should also now go further and tackle not only violent racism but lawful, non-violent racism too.

Along these lines, Policy Exchange have published a report, Choosing our friends wisely, co-authored by former extremist Shiraz Maher, which provides a list of nine sorts of people the ‘government must not engage’. If government actually followed this advice, they would find themselves unable to engage, among others, the United States, Israel or the Catholic Church. The report insists upon the need for government to ‘do due diligence’ on the groups it engages.

Readers may remember another recent Policy Exchange report of a similarly negative vein, The hijacking of British Islam, based in part, according to the BBC, upon fabricated receipts. Choosing our friends wisely states that the government’s criteria for engagement with groups ‘are so vague and open-ended as to be almost meaningless… characterised by opaque and jargon-filled language – employing terms that are too often left undefined’. It promises ‘clarity and rigour’ to address this ‘imprecision’. And then its final recommendation reads: ‘The government must promote and incentivise good behaviour and disincentivise bad behaviour’.

Hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith have flown this flag in Cabinet and in their public pronouncements. Not content with tackling violent white racists and their apologists, they want to tackle views which fall short of breaking the law or inciting violence, such as advocating the forced repatriation of immigrants and the prohibition of mixed-race marriages, or promoting the view that minority – in particular white working class – communities are oppressed or repressed in society. Seeming to prefer freedom of opinion to freedom of expression, they contend that such views are all right so long as they are not voiced in public.

Many young whites growing up in the UK today buy conspiracy theories about Islam and Muslims and believe – against a backdrop of widespread deprivation among Britain’s white working class – that they are indeed repressed, and they say so. They may well not be right, but can they really all be extremists?

The argument [from certain anti-racist think tanks] runs that the linkage between non-violent and violent extremism is underplayed: that non-violent racism is a gateway drug – the marijuana to Nazism’s cocaine. This claim is unproven.

When the Home Secretary lambasts as extremists ‘the groups that fail to speak out and condemn violence when any reasonable person would be outraged’ one can’t help but worry that the Thought Police have arrived and a modern McCarthyism is just around the corner. We need government for all the people, not just those with whom we agree. Choosing our friends wisely must not mean we talk only to our friends.

We must have two aims in all of this: save lives and build a cohesive society. The two are inextricably linked. A surefire way to set community cohesion back in this country is for another bomb to go off. A community-based approach to counter-terrorism is required. Communities can provide warning, when Aryan terror groups won’t. They can help the police both to understand what might be of concern and to avoid unnecessary grievance. And, as a last resort, they can help them into a teenager’s bedroom – or give them the keys to churches and community centres – when they don’t want to have to kick the door down.

In this context, engagement with law-abiding, non-violent racists can play a valuable role. Shared interests, if not ideologies, are paramount: it is not in our interests or theirs for white supremacist terrorists to mount another attack. That is not to say we have to agree with them on the forced repatriation of immigrants or the genetic inferiority of black people, but it does mean we have some important common ground, and we should make the most of it.

In Yorkshire, a former National Front supporter, Nick Griffin, is now a politician denouncing terrorism as a bad thing. White working class individuals like Mark Collett running the British National Party out of a bedsit in Leeds are also doing vital counter-radicalisation work with young men in Northern England. In the US too, David Duke, working with former Ku Klux Klan members, is working to counter radicalisation among young whites in Alabama and Texas. These grassroots initiatives are delivered by charismatic individuals with real credibility among the vulnerable young people with whom they work.

We do not need dogmatic prescription at a national level proscribing partnership work on the ground. Radicalisation is a fundamentally personal process. The choice as to whom to engage should be left to professional practitioners in accountable public bodies who know the local characters. Disengagement should be a line for us to retreat behind, not start from.

Non-violent racists are much more likely to come across white power terrorist recruiters and recruits than moderate white people, who do not move in those circles. And unlike most mainstream white leaders, Nazism’s racist critics have the credentials to make their criticism bite. If, as seasoned former counter-terrorism officer, Bob Lambert, observes, ‘Aryan terrorist groups value dozens of recruits over hundreds of supporters’, can the government really afford to do business only with moderates?

This is not paying Danegeld or what Martin Bright, again writing for Policy Exchange, has labelled a ‘bizarre policy of appeasement’: it is the prevention of terrorism in a plural democracy. To suggest that government engagement – be it dialogue, debate, or judicious sponsorship – with the sort of non-violent white supremacists described above is tantamount to government endorsement of all of their views is lazy. We can and do engage and criticise simultaneously.

And let us not forget that people can change their politics over time. Our own Cabinet is replete with former extremists, radicals and revolutionaries: Alistair Darling was a supporter of the British section of the Trotskyist Fourth International, Alan Johnson was a Marxist, and Peter Mandelson was a member of the Young Communist League. Martin Luther King was a radical cleric and the Archbishop of Canterbury was once arrested at a CND march.

The Home and Communities Secretaries for their part display a fundamental lack of ambition. What allows extremist views to gain traction in some segments of our society is not the fact that we’re too quiet in defence of our values but rather that we’re too loud in espousing them while being too timid in their application.

The way to respond to the challenge, and to strengthen moderate voices over all others, is to acknowledge that our values are simultaneously the statement of the country we want to be but also the standard against which we identify how and where we’re falling short.  Where we do fall short, as we do in many areas, not least on the inclusion of minorities, it is the moderate voice that needs to shout loudest and the state itself that needs to come to its aid. When racking their brains for a hearts and minds strategy, members of the Cabinet could do worse than to think Bill of Rights.

We will defeat extremism when we demonstrate even to those with a grievance that our values in their hands are a powerful weapon for redress. We will win this struggle, in other words, not by talking the talk more loudly but by walking the walk. Where is the companion to CONTEST, the statement that honestly acknowledges that as a society we still have a long road to travel towards deeper democracy and real equality and that explains how a Labour government intends to renew and refresh, for this generation, the historic struggle for a country that is more reflective of the values we profess?

With apologies to Andy Hull from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR).

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:

1) Islamist extremism is caused by the government’s foreign and domestic policies and laws directed at Muslims both here and abroad.
2) This extremism can be eradicated by upgrading radical extremist organisations from their current level of minority status to bear on government policy making on civil society.

Of the first of these, there is no doubt that a sense of grievance and victimisation is widespread amongst Muslims, coupled with a belief that consecutive governments, particularly the Labour party, at best no longer cares about them and at worst conspires against them. Islamists will be the first and the loudest to play on this sense of grievance with little or no nuance about the actualities of their motivations other than to claim they represent mainstream Muslim views. Many Muslims buy into the illusion that Islamists share their language and, worse, speak on their behalf.

But the question that must be asked is, ‘Will radical Muslim extremists suddenly abandon their ideology of religious supremacism and communal exceptionalism if the British government were to align foreign policy to their way of thinking’? Doubtful.

A useful analogy can be drawn here with the BNP. For BNP voters, immigration remains the dominant issue of failed government policy. They too feel a deep-rooted sense of victimisation and abandonment by the government, coupled with feelings of economic insecurity. However, there is no getting away from the fact that their alienation from mainstream politics is nurtured by shocking levels of racism and white supremacism. A new survey into the attitudes of BNP voters showed that 31% of them believed there was a difference in intelligence between the average black Briton and the average white Briton. Only 4% of BNP voters believed that recent immigration had benefited the country. And most startling of all, 44% (compared to 12% of all voters) disagreed with the statement: “non-white British citizens who were born in this country are just as ‘British’ as white citizens born in this country”. The BNP now have two elected members in the European Parliament.

This being the case, does that mean that the BNP should hold the government to ransom over it’s extremist views on immigration policy? Would it be a justfiable strategy for tackling the BNP for the government to shut down immigration to zero levels and begin a program of repatriation of Blacks and Asians?

Likewise when Islamists, like Abdullah Hasan, claims that Islamic extremism will diminish if British foreign policy is changed to suit their views is fallacious nonsense.

On the second of Hasan’s agenda points of the need for “acknowledgement” of certain Islamist organisations and their representative-ness of mainstream and grassroots Muslim viewpoints, nothing could be further from the truth. Specifically he suggests the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the Islamic Fourm Europe (IFE) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). Why these particular organisation and what do they represent exactly?

The MCB, once the darling of the British political establishment, set up under the aegis of the Conservatives and funded by consecutive governments, fell from grace after Daud Abdullah, in a bout of group-hysteria and radical ennui, unwisely signed-up to the pro-Hamas and anti-British document known as the Istanbul Declaration. Coupled with the advent of the directive of PVE funding, developed by its own network of mosque committees, the government now has multiple agencies and departments it uses to interface with Muslim communities at grassroots level, making the MCB appear for what it is: a redundant relic from a bygone age of Muslim policy making. The irony is that if it were not for the government-funded structure known as MINAB, architected by the dearly departed Hazel Blears, whom Islamists revile, the MCB wouldn’t have a credible leg to stand on.

The IFE are a front for the Southasian clerical fascist organisation of Jamaati Islami. Currently jostling for community representation in Tower Hamlets, they are a very nasty little group of entryists. The IFE and its affiliates, the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre (LMC) shares the ideology of the Jamaat. The mosque is no fringe organisation; it was at the centre of the campaign that helped elect the local Respect party candidate, George Galloway, in the 2005 general election.

The MAB was set up in 1997 by Kemal al-Helbawy who was then the London-based spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood thus making the MAB directly linked to the Islamist tradition of the Muslim Brotherhood founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. Today the Brotherhood claims more than 70 affiliations with branches in Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan etc. Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and is presented as a “moderate” scholar but has supported the religious necessity of putting homosexuals to death. They are still affiliated to the Jamaati-Islami. However, they distance themselves from al-Muhajiroon and Hizb-ut-Tahrir not because they are particuarly less radical than these amateur nutters, just much more politically canny. The MAB are religious supremacists who endorse the notion of the ideal Muslim society and state based on what they consider to be true Islamic culture, true Islamic philosophy and true Islamic custom.

Anas Altikriti replying in The Times (17 August 2004) to allegations that MAB is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood replied:

“MAB is an independent British organisation. Links with others extend simply to shared ideas, values and expertise, in which the Brotherhood is indeed rich, with around eight decades of experience”.

In short, the MAB is blessed by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and contexualised by the PR skills of  Anas Altikriti.

None of these organisations are either “mainstream” or representative of British Muslims any more than the BNP is representative of the white population of Britain. And nor should they ever be no matter how much they claim to be.

If the BNP were to say:

“In order to reduce racial attacks of Muslims and Jews and the fire-bombing of mosques and synagogues, the government needs to work with mainstream British organisations such as the BNP, the National Socialist Movement, Combat 18 and the White Nationalist Party. These organisations are working at the grassroots level and have the support of many Britons.”

We would know that for the blatant and dangerous lie that it is. It should not be any different when radical Muslims claim the mainstream respectability they crave for Islamist organisations.

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.

“Under the law, it has been extremely difficult to mount a prosecution against extremism and hate speech,” said Herbert. “But with the rise of the BNP, and the subsequent rise in racist attacks and the fear the party’s leaflets can provoke, it is essential we are given the tools to deal effectively with this threat.”

Herbert said the law should protect people from material that creates a fear of racist attacks as well as those that are deemed to incite racial hatred. “All the evidence suggests that it is people from minority communities and the faith communities that are put in fear of violence when racist leaflets are delivered in town centres or on estates. If someone handed out the same thing in the workplace, most employers would consider that gross misconduct; if someone does the same thing in the street, there is very little we can do.”

With anti-Muslim bigotry manifesting itself increasingly in the form of rising levels of physical attacks of Muslims and firebombing of mosques and places of worship, pressure should be further exerted on the government to increase legislation to close these loopholes.

‘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.

For the first time, ‘racism’ was not considered to be the active discrimination against individuals because of their ethnic background. Now, ‘racism’ was asserted to be anything that remotely offended the sensibilities of religious Muslims, including those from within the Muslim community who dissented from a certain line on any range of issues.

What a victory. To weld together the protection of religion and theo-politics with the whole idea of racism. To no longer privilege the dignity of the individual against racial prejudice, but to privilege the ‘dignity’ of the religion of Islam, and the politics of Islamism, and providing them with an immunity — the righteous immunity of protection from ‘victimisation’. [...]

The concept of ‘Islamophobia’ not only privileges the communal, and privileges a single religion, it also privileges the ‘grievances’ and ‘plight’ of Muslims over other minority groups in Britain, and it can be seen as an attempt to bully wider British society into submission to certain religious and theo-political norms.

There is a pervading confusion within what Sikander writes. He accepts uncritically the definition of Islamophobia as used by Islamists to defend their ideology and thereby seems to suggest that there is no legitimacy to any claims of Islamophobia; that there is not a specific kind of bigotry directed at Muslims.

But there most definitely is. After the 7/7 attacks, British Muslims faced a rapid rise in attacks. On July 14, 2005 the Washington Post reported on the situation here:

Several mosques have been damaged, and there have been more than 100 incidents of threats and attacks against Muslims since the July 7 bombings, although community leaders reported no upsurge in attacks Wednesday. The worst incident took place Sunday when a Pakistani man was beaten to death by young men in Nottingham, in the Midlands region north of London.

Police said Kamal Raza Butt, 48, who was visiting friends and family, was set upon outside a shop by black youths who demanded he turn over his cigarettes, taunted him as a “Taliban” and then attacked him. Nine people have been arrested in connection with the killing.

Then there was the aftermath of Jack Straw’s veil row which kicked off in late 2006:

At least six Muslim women have been abused for wearing scarves or veils after Mr Straw said last week that he asks Muslim women who visit his constituency surgeries in Blackburn to remove their veil.
In one incident a Muslim woman aged in her 20s had her hijab or headscarf pulled off her head and thrown to the ground by a young white man while she was at Canning Town Tube station in east London. The attack happened on the same day that a Muslim woman had the veil torn from her face by a white man who uttered racial abuse as she waited at a bus- stop in Liverpool’s Toxteth district. Both incidents occurred last Friday – the day after Mr Straw described the veil as, “a visible statement of separation”.

There were also reports that a young Muslim girl wearing a veil in Mr Straw’s Blackburn constituency was confronted by three youths last Friday night. One allegedly threw a newspaper at her and shouted: “Jack has told you to take off your veil.”

Three days later, a 21-year-old Turkish student told Muslim News that she was standing outside a supermarket in Canterbury, Kent, wearing a hijab when she was verbally abused by a middle-aged white woman. The older woman told her she hated her being in Britain and wanted her to leave.

On the same day in Hackney, east London, a black Muslim woman wearing a veil was getting off a bus when a passenger shouted out: “Why don’t you show your, lovely hair?”

The sixth incident involved a Muslim woman wearing a hijab, who reported that when she got on to the London Underground two men standing next to her deliberately started discussing their support for a ban on veils.

Even before Mr Straw’s remarks police had been receiving complaints of abuse towards Muslim women wearing veils. Police officers in Gloucestershire have investigated two allegations of verbal abuse against veiled Muslim women by white men. No arrests were made.

The BNP have tried to get mileage out of attacking Islam. They published this leaflet simply entitled ‘Islam’. In it is talk of “Militant Muslims” and “Muslim extremists”, but it then goes on to say:

Only the British Nationalist Party speaks out against both Muslim extremist terrorism and the threat that ‘mainstream’ Islam poses [my emphasis] to our British culture, heritage and ways of life. We are not against individual Muslims, who should not be blame for the attitudes taught by their religion.

This echoes what Nick Griffin wrote on his blog on the thirteenth day of his trial in early 2006:

It was clearly a mistake not to fight harder to stress the material I came across in my studies of Islam which convinced me that it is inherently ‘extreme’, fundamentalist and dangerous, [my emphasis] as the impression can all too easily be gained from this review that it’s only obvious fanatics like Qatada and Hamza who are dangerous. This can be taken to suggest that it is unfair to tar the whole religion with their brush. Here is something else that, in the light of the way my views have not been adequately presented in this trial, will have to be put right if we get a hung jury and a retrial.

There are some who suggest that these are examples not of Islamophobia but of old school racism, and it is impossible to deny that racism had a role in much of this. But when “Taliban” is shouted as a Muslim man is stabbed to death, or all Islam is conflated with terrorism, or converts are targeted, or Muslim women are abused and have their hijabs ripped off their heads it becomes clear that the attackers have a problem with Islam and phenomena related to it; that the victims were targeted not on the basis of their ethnic background but of their (perceived) religious adherence.

What Sikander omits to mention is that, whilst it is completely legitimate to criticise terrorists who seek to justify their actions in relation to Islam or to discuss the wearing of the hijab and/or niqab in Britain, there are certain bigots who go far beyond what is acceptable in debate and turn to victimisation and violence. In short, bigotry against Muslims. This is, in my view, Islamophobia. Much more importantly than my opinion on this topic, “Islamophobia” is what most Muslims call their daily experience of bigotry directed against them for being Muslim.

At this point I should probably clarify what Islamophobia isn’t. And that would mean much of what Islamophobia Watch et al claim. For example, there is nothing bigoted about calling for Daud Abdullah to resign from the Muslim Council of Britain for signing a document justifying attacking British naval units, or suspending Azad Ali for justifying attacks on British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor is there anything bigoted about calling for an official representative of a terrorist organisation to be refused entry to Britain or, as Edmund Standing observes, a head teacher introducing multifaith assemblies. These events had nothing to do with bigotry and therefore nothing to do with Islamophobia.

Which would appear to support what Sikander is complaining of when he writes:

‘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.

And it is for this reason that some people avoid the term “Islamophobia”, opting for “Anti-Muslim bigotry” or, like Fred Halliday, (in Islam and the Myth of Confrontation) “Anti-Muslimism”. But these terms are rarely used in day-to-day speech, whereas “Islamophobia” is – frequently. Furthermore, it is exactly because the term “Islamophobia” has sometimes been misused so badly that we should use it more often and (crucially) more accurately to describe the kind of bigotry outlined above.

In that way we can delegitimise Islamophobia Watch’s claim to defend all Muslims and show their “Islamophobia” is nothing of the type. And at the same time we will be joining Muslims in standing up to the bigotry which sadly confronts them daily in this country.

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.

Mr Mullins said that a recent intelligence community report had warned of large scale unrest this coming summer, spurred on by the economic crisis. “This is bound to be exacerbated by the presence of large numbers of people in Britain who are hostile to everything for which this nation stands,” he said.

But now it’s the turn of the Express to use the Luton protests to advance unpleasant views of a different variety. Reporting on the news that three of the al-Muhajiroun lot have been arrested on suspicion of breaching public order, the Express itself attacks the basic precepts of law and order.

To compound the injustice, police stepped in to defend the militants from patriotic well-wishers who tried to oppose them.

Don’t get me wrong, what those protesters were doing was despicable and if they have broken the law they should be prosecuted. But the Express is calling for the police to stand by whilst people, albeit people with unpleasant placards, get attacked. Here is a video which makes pretty clear what kind of objection those “patriotic well-wishers” were going to raise to the al-Muhajiroun protesters.

It seems pretty obvious that the protesters were in physical danger and that the police were right to stand between them and the very angry crowd. Even if you are expressing deeply offensive views and have caused a breach of the peace, the police should still protect you from an angry mob.

It gets worse though. The Express then suggests that it should be a matter for outrage that the police gave protection to one of of the protesters after his home was attacked.

Bashir, who is in his 20s, sparked further outrage when he was given 24-hour police protection after the windows of his home were broken.

However unpleasant your views, whatever crimes you are suspected of, the police are there to guarantee your safety. Even if you belong to an al-Muhajiroun front. But, on another note, this man should not even be in the news. He and people like him are best ignored, not put on frontpages. The BBC’s continued habit of inviting Anjem Choudary onto their programmes and the tabloid press’s obsession with reporting every crazy utterance that leaves his mouth only helps him, the BNP and those who have no respect for the rule of law.

It’s time to give Anjem Choudary and his chums exactly as much recognition as they deserve. None. They can spend the rest of their lives making waves in a dirty little puddle of obscurity rather than across the entire British media. We must not let their unpleasantness continue to provide fuel for the unpleasantness of others.