Independent community action is the key... (Part Two)

I unearthed the following article from a Staffordshire publication called The Sentinel, via the excellent anti-fascist resource blog Lancaster Unity.

As with the superb recent by-election victory by the Loughton Residents' Association (LRA) in a ward formerly held by the BNP, this latest development once again demonstrates the power of independent community action in defeating fascism where the politicians, whilst they talk a good fight, would appear to be powerless.


"Is BNP leader quitting now while he's ahead?"
from The Sentinel

The British National Party has been at the forefront of politics in Stoke-on-Trent for the past seven years, since outsider Steve Batkin stunned sceptical observers by coming third in the 2002 mayoral elections.

Since then, while more established political parties have crumbled and lost ground, the BNP has seized upon the slightest sign of weakness in its opponents.

Mr Batkin may have been a lone figure in the council chamber in 2003, but within five years he was joined by eight more members. In the same period, Labour's once total grip on power evaporated, leaving the party with little choice but to go into opposition for the first time in the city council's history. The Conservatives have had to form a tenuous alliance with centre-right independents to muster enough numbers to occupy key political posts.

The recent emergence of the Stoke-on-Trent Independent Group not only cut the Conservative and Independent Alliance to just seven members, but also made the BNP the outright third largest political group in the city, just five seats behind Labour.

When last year's mayoral referendum took place, the BNP backed the campaign to retain the elected mayoral system, leading many political commentators to speculate openly about the possibility of a BNP mayor running the city. In short, the BNP under Alby Walker's leadership had become a major political force. But that all changed on Wednesday evening when Mr Walker sent a tersely-worded email to council officers stating that he had quit as leader.

Of course, he would not be the first senior political figure to stand down for personal reasons. But the email made it clear that he was stepping down before his group had even begun to appoint a successor. In fact, that is not likely to happen until January. Then, when The Sentinel contacted deputy group leader, Councillor Michael Coleman, three hours later, he said he knew nothing of the resignation.

Leadership changes happen, but stable political parties try to plan ahead to smooth the transition and reassure their members and supporters. The BNP is not a localised council group operating in its own tiny bubble of influence. It is part of a large, organised political body with its own national and regional leadership structure. It is unthinkable that anyone in the BNP's hierarchy who knew of Mr Walker's intention would let him make his announcement without carefully managing the situation.

But party leader Nick Griffin certainly seemed to have no knowledge of the crisis developing in the city he likes to call the jewel in the BNP's crown. Speaking from the climate summit in Copenhagen, an obviously flustered Mr Griffin said: "I'm afraid I don't know anything about this. I've no idea what's happening in Stoke-on-Trent."

Clearly party chiefs, like the council group, did not know of Mr Walker's plans until after he had executed them.

When he confirmed his resignation that evening, he not only admitted that he was unlikely to stand for election to retain his seat in May, but also refused to say whether he would remain with the party at all. One source close to Mr Walker has suggested the announcement was timed to prevent someone else leaking the news of his planned resignation to "stab him in the back". But the fact that his own group did not know what he had done, even hours afterwards, implies that the attack he feared was expected to come from within, rather than from rival parties.

Since Wednesday, the group has been displaying a united front once again, and members are bullish about its chances of making yet more gains at the polls. Mr Coleman confidently expects to take 10 more seats in May and a further 15 in 2011. But he may have given an insight into the real mood within the group when he said: "It is going to be a difficult 18 months ahead of us. It's getting harder now, not easier."

He also said that he felt Mr Walker had "done the sensible thing" in resigning now, to let others take on the burden of fighting three Parliamentary and 20 council seats next year, as well as all 45 council seats in 2011.

Up until now, the BNP's successes have been victories against the mainstream parties on the back of mounting public discontent with New Labour, and the Blair and Brown Governments. It would seem that Mr Walker certainly has done the sensible thing – he is quitting while he's ahead, before the progress he has made begins to falter.

The current balance of power within the council means that, in order to continue their meteoric rise, the BNP is soon going to have to vie for votes with the independents – solid community candidates who are not shackled by party dogma and whips or hampered by the conduct of their representatives in Westminster.

Mr Walker was facing re-election in May, and would have been a prime target for his political foes. Defeat would have been a massive blow for his party and a major propaganda coup for his rivals. But his departure ahead of polling day means that, should another party take the seat, they will not be able to claim the trophy of toppling the BNP leader, and their victory cannot be recorded as a defeat for the far-right party.

Mr Coleman may make an even stronger leader for the group; only time will tell. But if he fails to deliver on his morale-boosting promises of sweeping electoral gains over the next two years, then he could find himself at the head of a declining party with no political weapons he can use to fight back at the formidable independents.

My interview with Ed Saunt of the Hounslow Chronicle

A week or so ago I was contacted by Ed Saunt of the Hounslow Chronicle who wanted to write a piece about me and my former association with Nick Griffin, the Chairman of the British National Party (BNP), in the wake of his recent appearance on the BBC's Question Time programme.

I'm always happy to be of assistance, particularly in the case of young local journalists looking to showpiece their talents, and to put my specialist knowledge of the far-right to good use. Heaven knows I've been offering to do so for the past eighteen years but, as someone who has issues with the Labour Party even if only in a strictly local context, many of the most vociferous anti-racists, being possessed of a political conflict of interests, have preferred to perpetuate the myth that I am still in some way involved with the far right and of course, in order to keep that particular ball in the air, have had to dismiss any intelligence that I am able to offer as a "smokescreen".

So when Ed informed me that he wanted to carry a major piece on me and on my experiences with the far-right I agreed, but insisted that we should conduct the interview by e-mail where there would be a paper trail leading back to what I had actually said if in the event that I was in any way misquoted or misrepresented (that wasn't how I actually put it, but he was smart enough to understand).

Whilst I maintain that this was the correct thing to do in view of the sensitive nature of the subject (and Ed readily agreed to my proposed way of doing things anyway), as it happened I needn't have bothered. The two-page article demonstrated that Ed had a talent - unusual amongst local journalists, particularly the younger and more ambitious ones - for being able to write a feature which catches the eye and draws the crowds (inasfar as the Chronicle readership could be described as a crowd) without having to resort in any way to fabrication or distortion. Indeed, after a well-written and cogent introduction, the larger part of the feature consisted of a simple but effective reproduction of the question and answer interview that we had conducted, warts and all.

I am grateful to Ed and to the Chronicle for the mature approach which was taken in the production of this feature and would be happy to help them, or any other potential interviewer who is prepared to adopt the same ethics in seeking out good information on this most topical of subjects.

The full text of the interview can be found here.

If Britain were a village of 100 people

Sometimes it's not possible to repair the damage we cause

Being a technological caveman it took me a couple of years longer than most to discover the phenomenon that is Facebook.

But, prompted by my twelve-year-old twins who use it as a means through which to communicate with the world, I have finally activated the account that I'd forgotten I set up some time ago and I spent most of last night trawling through lists of friends of friends to see who was on there that I knew. Throughout the night I fired off a couple of dozen friend requests, and have received several returns, some from people with whom I'd lost contact years ago.

Two of these were brothers who attended my primary school. For the purposes of this article I'll call them Jimmy and Robert. I remember both of them well, Jimmy being about my own age and Robert a couple of years older. There were both really nice lads, well liked by everyone. I can't remember either of them ever getting into an altercation with a fellow pupil - not even me, and as a kid I made it my business to upset most of the other kids at some point or another.

Jimmy's and Robert's roots are in the Caribbean. They hail from a very famous sporting family in the West Indies. My recollection of Jimmy was that he could throw a cricket ball seemingly for miles. He also went on to become a very good boxer, although his progress was hampered by a nose which gushed with blood whenever you called it a name.

I had seen Jimmy more recently than Robert. He provided the disco at mine and Caroline's wedding back in 1995 (I do hope I haven't got the date wrong!). Although he himself had moved out of the area some of his folks still resided locally and I was able to make contact with him.

Well last night I came across them both and I sent off a request to them both to become my Facebook friends. A few hours passed before Jimmy responded, accepting my request and joining my thus far embarrassingly small but thankfully growing list. But this afternoon I received a message from Robert informing me that he had no wish to have anything to do with me on account of my political history.

I have to say I was quite hurt when I read Robert's response. Their different ethnicity hadn't even registered when I had sent off the request, just as it had seldom registered at primary school. It just simply wasn't an issue. I had almost forgotten that for so many years I had been an active member and organiser of the National Front. Robert's reply to me provided a disarming reminder of that dark period of my life.

The sense of hurt which I felt upon reading his words was not directed at Robert himself, but was more a reflection of my own feeling of shame at the unhappiness that I must clearly have caused to such a decent man to inspire him to react in that way. During the course of my political work as an independent community councillor I come across politicians all the time who speak to me and even drink with me privately one evening and then announce publicly the next day that they would never have anything to do with me because of my past political activities. This is tacky politicking at its worst and I really couldn't give a toss for the feelings of such people. But Robert's comments provided me with a sobering reminder that it is sometimes wrong to assume that any damage caused by our actions can always later be repaired.

If my experience today strikes a cord with anybody who is still labouring under the illusion that they can reconcile their far-right activity with a "normal" life outside of extremist politics then they should think again, and think carefully. The deeper you sink, the more difficult it is to get back to where you need to be should you ever wish to reconnect with the real world.

Keep fascism out of football

According to the Searchlight-backed campaign Hope Not Hate one of the ringleaders of the enigmatic but distinctly unpleasant English Defence League, which draws most of its recruits from soccer hooligan firms around the country, is a regular at Brentford FC home fixtures.

The EDL claims to be non-racist and has attracted criticism from the BNP, however given its anti-Muslim appeal it is likely that the primary cause of any antipathy is its potential as a rival. Embracing as it does the militant street activity which the BNP rejected some years ago in favour of its new suited and booted electoral approach it has the potential to recruit younger, more excitable BNP types and thereby to starve the BNP of valuable membership dues.

As a local activist though it is the Brentford connection which bothers me. Brentford has an excellent record as a family club which speaks out against racism, and I'll be contacting the club in my capacity as Hounslow Council's (non-Executive) lead member with responsibility for liaison with Brentford FC to impress upon it the need to put some distance between itself and the EDL.

SORTED!

"BNP will not be back!" says pub landlord

The landlord of an Isleworth pub which unwittingly played host to a meeting of the far-right British National Party (BNP) on Wednesday evening will not be re-admitting his unwanted guests after the ICG exposed their true identity.

The "Hounslow" BNP (in reality a motley collection of activists from all across West London and beyond) had used the venue to discuss plans for its forthcoming general election campaign in the Feltham & Heston constituency, as well as its proposed participation in the local elections. Although it aspires to contest all sixty council seats, it currently admits to having only four volunteers, at least one of whom is believed to live in Brentford.

ICG councillors have worked hard to promote unity and cohesion in their wards and believe the BNP strategy was to destabilise these communities and to divide residents on the basis of their ethnicity. The landlord of the pub, which has a multi-cultural clientele, was grateful for our intervention.

Our work against the BNP is actively supported by council colleagues from all the major political groups and we would like to acknowledge and thank them for their help in achieving this result.

More readily fall victims to the Big Lie than to the Small Lie - unless you get caught

We all know that what Churchill might have described as "terminological inexactitudes" are prevalent in our politics. In my borough one party publicly proclaims its acceptance of untruthful campaigning as a fact of political life without any suggestion that it rues the fact.

However, whilst not accepting the inevitability of deceit in political life I do reluctantly accept that there is in politics, as everywhere else, a question of degree. Put another way, there is a world of difference between the sometimes irritating ways of the mainstream politician and the persistent and quite deliberate efforts of the far-right to destabilise our multi-ethnic community by resort to shameless scaremongering and often quite outrageous lies.

This week we witnessed the suspension of Barking & Dagenham councillor and BNP Greater London Authority (GLA) member Richard Barnbrook after he admitted that claims he had made about three alleged murders having taken place is his borough were completely untrue. The disgraced councillor claimed that "dyslexia" had led his extraordinary claims to "come out wrong" (and also, presumably, inspired him to repeat the claims on his blog and to refuse to remove them when it was pointed out to him that there was no factual basis for them).

Although Mr. Barnbrook is of a similar age to myself I never knew him in my far-right days. He clearly arrived on the scene after my time. I can offer no personal insight into the man nor into what makes him tick. However as I write I have heard no word of any impending censure or disciplinary action to be taken against him by his superiors in the BNP, many of whom I did know personally.

What I can say is that it has been a typical tactic of the far-right down through the years to try to whip up the fear and mistrust that it simultaneously claims to be protecting us from. Despite claiming no longer to be a racist party, the BNP is content to allow one of its very most senior members to fabricate three serious crimes in the borough he has been elected to represent and then to try to associate those non-existent crimes in the public mind with the presence of immigrants in our community.

This is not a normal political party we are dealing with here, and institutions such as the BBC should not be treating it as such by attempting to ease it into the mainstream through such devices as its Question Time programme. Democratic politicians from across the board should be doing everything they can to highlight the moral chasm that exists between the likes of the BNP and themselves. And the best way to achieve that, apart from denying fascists the oxygen of publicity, is not to act like them ourselves. To any degree.

It's a conspiracy!

One thing which characterises the dedicated far-righter, and a thing which separates them from "ordinary" racists on the extreme fringes of other parties or in society in general, is a belief that more or less everything that happens in the world is the result of a gigantic conspiracy rather than circumstances or simple demographic trends.

At different stages during my time as a member of the National Front I adhered to various conspiracies - Jewish, Freemasonic, "State". My views changed from one to the other as my understanding of the world grew, but my belief in a conspiracy of some kind was consistent throughout.

This afternoon I was perusing one of the many neo-Nazi internet forums and happened upon the little conversation below, which hopefully gives us all a telling insight into the poisoned thought processes which underpin and sustain the fascist movement, not just in the UK but throughout the world. I won't link to the site but I'll supply the URL privately to anybody who should wish to verify my discovery.

What is particularly pernicious about the "Jewish conspiracy" idea, over and above all other conspiracies, is that to be a participant one only needs to be born. Unlike Freemasons, policemen or politicians the Jewish "conspirator" doesn't choose to enter the group at which the finger is pointed, neither can he or she ever leave it. Ordinary, everyday experiences such as falling in love, experiencing financial difficulty, relationship breakdowns, problems at work, illness, grief and tragedy form no part of the lives of this community, we are asked to believe, as several million people all around the world set relentlessly about their business of taking over the world and destroying the hated white race, for purposes which are not entirely clear.

Please read this exchange, and consider what a lucky escape I had. All spelling mistakes and typos are retained for maximum effect:


"Do the jews have a stranglehold on Britian?"

S: as seems to be the case in the USA with media etc.... is this the reason why left wing political correctness rules everything? just seems that nowadays anything or anyone right wing doesnt get a look in

O: Yeh a larage amout of the media is controled by jews, they could manipulate the general public to think anything, and they do as they do in the United states.

D: It seems to me the only alternate answer is that White indiginous Britain's have done this to their own people. If we know this to be the MO of jews who pretend to be Whites, why wouldn't we assume that yes, it must be, again, jews doing what jews do.

L: If you control the banks, especially the bank of England, then you control the country.

D: Apparently, everyone doesn't understand who the moneychangers are.

E: Yes, the Rothschilds took over Britain in the early 19th Century, any none Jews in positions of power or influence are in subservience to them.

D: And so it is the jews who have manipulated and are responsible for the Muslim invasion of Britain and they are also responsible for the empowerment of Muslims aimed at the persecution and anguish of native Brits? Is that not fair to say? Assuming it is, I only bring this up because of the boisterous and vociferous criticism of and apparent hatred of Muslims by European nationals whenever the topic is broached, which I hold total sympathy with, but I find they never mention the roll of jews in their plight. The jews are spared their hatred even though it is the jews who are responsible for their suffering. Of course, Muslims will act like Muslims. You can't change a tiger's stripes, but isn't it more the responsiblity of the evil jews who have not only brought in the savage tigers in unmanageable numbers and released them on the European population, but have empowered them and protected them by making it essentially illegal for the native populations to even identify the problem publicly so they may deal with the tigers effectively?

A: Off topic, but did the Jews get Obongo into power to use him so that if anything goes wrong in the US [and it will] it can be blamed on him and that in turn blamed on 'racism', leading to serious internal strife which, like wars, makes money and power for the Jews?

'Similarly' in Britain, remembering that Brown wasnt elected as PM by the people via a General Election, is the present gigantic cock-up being purposely generated for similar reasons? I think what Hitler said about the Jews in Germany on many occasions should be more closely scrutinised as to similarities today and the intended outcomes.

The Jews are crafty people, and leopards dont change their spots. Should we recall that a very famous Jew [Jesus] threw out the Jewish financiers from the Temple and ended up being stapled to a cross of wood at the age of about 33. The Romans departed, the Jews remained and they all lived happily ever after, until Hitler intervened.......! We know [?] what happene to Hitler, but the Jews kept on living happily ever after until the next war, and the next......!

Before Hitler, Lawrence was going back to Arabia to consolidate the united arab tribes, which would have halted the Jews' intended State of Israel at the time. Unfortunately, he had a nasty 'accident' in Dorset, but by that time Hitler was speaking to his people.....

It all sounds very cynical and 'conspiricycal', a bit like the Dr Kelly incident and the Iraq/Afghanistan wars more recently? Will there be a war with Iran? No, thats far too cynical.

'England is far too dangerous a country, but lets not worry cos our EU is going to see to that problem the day after tomorrow'.

Sick stunt reveals racism in its natural presence

When I was a member of the National Front in the 1980s there weren't enough members to be holding outdoor "family" festivals, but if there had been they would probably have been something like the BNP's annual Red, White & Blue event. Not that I've ever been to one, nor am I ever likely to, but by all accounts they are weekend activities at which BNP members and their families pitch tents, visit stalls and listen to political speeches whilst drinking lots of beer.

This year reporters from the News of the World apparently gained access to the RWB and recorded for posterity the video reproduced above. In it a man who transpires to be a BNP council election candidate stages a mock "trial" of a golly, which is found guilty of "being black" and dropped onto a bonfire. A suggestion is made that those involved should venture into town and "find a real one". The person who releases the doll onto the flames is, we are told, a 12-year-old girl, presumably the daughter of one of the people attending the festival.

During my time in the Front I'm sure I witnessed far worse things. However what brought it home to me just how sick the whole far-right experience is was the thought that my own twin children are the same age as this young girl. I imagined for a moment either of them being involved in a ritual of this kind, being surrounded by and taking in all that hate and irrationality with the blessing, indeed encouragement of their parents and I found myself literally, physically shaking with fear and anger. Fear because there but for the grace of God go my kids, and anger at the thought that anybody could poison the mind of an innocent child like the girl in the video in this way.

Thankfully my kids do not think in this way at all but would that have been the case if, instead of leaving the far-right and in due course meeting Caroline, I had continued along my earlier path and instead settled down with somebody who shared my old allegiances? Had I not walked away when I did could that have been me, and a child of mine, burning the golly at the RWB?

Sometimes I like to reassure myself that, in the later years at least, I was a more "sophisticated" kind of fascist than some of these cave dwellers. The NF in the late 1980s abandoned the rhetoric (if not the actuality) of race hate and indulged instead in endless high falutin debate about the merits or otherwise of popular rule in Burkina Faso, and suchlike.

And yet, so many of the people who occupy high positions in today's BNP were involved with the NF during that very period, including of course Nick Griffin himself. The guest speaker at the RWB was by all accounts Roberto Fiore, whom so many of us looked up to during that so-called "intellectual" period and followed, with Griffin, into the ITP.

This afternoon I spent a little time browsing the various far-right forums to see whether any remorse was being expressed over this disgusting incident. Certainly there was an element of regret that it had made the papers but most of this, alas, focused on attacking the reporters themselves. "In public we have to project a good image. Burning golliwogs? Sieg Hail? (sic)" asks a poster at the non-aligned neo-Nazi site Stormfront. "No. The jew is waiting for an opportunity like that to exploit." ("The jew", it seems, was at the RWB this year - he certainly gets around, this guy!).

I would appeal to those who might have joined this organisation or supported it in good faith to take a step back and ask themselves - is this what we signed up to? The public presentation may have changed, but the reality resurfaces under the cover of darkness over a few drinks.

There are ways and means of challenging disengagement and injustice in our society. Putting black people onto bonfires, even if only symbolically, is not one of them.

Walk Away

For over eleven years now I have been an independent councillor at the London Borough of Hounslow. Concerned by what I perceived to be a lack of community engagement by politicians in my own borough and in particular around Isleworth where I live, I helped set up a community action group which very soon found itself involved in electoral politics. In 1998 I became the first independent candidate ever to be elected to the London Borough of Hounslow. In 2002 two colleagues joined me and in 2006 we won six seats, and with it the balance of power on the local authority. We entered into coalition with the Conservatives - a decision taken purely on the basis of local considerations and not one that was based on ideological preference - which is where we remain today.

But for me it wasn't always that way. My first foray into the world of politics saw me riding the waves of the extremism which pervaded the latter part of the 1970s for many young people such as myself. At the age of fifteen I joined the National Front.

In a way it was an odd decision for me to take. I wasn't a natural racist. It sounds like a tired old cliche but some of my best friends honestly were black or Asian. But the dynamics of the age drove the more impressionable towards the political fringes, and in fascism I found a philosophy and a practice which satisfied my craving for excitement.

There was nothing particularly unusual about the story up till then. An awful lot of young people flirted with the far-right, as indeed others did with the far-left. If your respectable neighbour is a suited, booted family man in his late forties who works for a bank, there's a not insignificant chance that he too attended the odd NF meeting in his early days, either that or he ran with the Anti-Nazi League and harried NF members as they marched around the streets. What is different for me is that, as unfortunately befits my personality, I threw everything I had into my new vocation. I gave up my education, any hope I may have had of following a "normal" career, and almost certainly a great part of what otherwise might have been a very different and interesting social life.

It is difficult to explain to others what makes an otherwise reasonably intelligent person become more and more deeply involved with an absurd ideology which has it that almost everything that happens in the world is the result not of circumstance or even economic forces but of the dark machinations of a small group of people whose sole purpose in life is to perform evil deeds and to plot against anything that is right and good. But I could make a start by pointing out the obvious truism that when normal people start to shun you, and increasingly the only company available to you is that of others who share your affectations and prejudices, then before you know it the outside world - the real world - becomes a stranger and increasingly you hear only the things you want to hear.

As a member of the National Front I was not a bit-part player. I became a local official at the age of sixteen, and was elected to the party's National Directorate at the age of 22. During my five years at the top of the NF I worked closely with Martin Webster, Andrew Brons, Ian Anderson, Joe Pearce, Nick Griffin, Martin Wingfield, Patrick Harrington, Colin Todd, Roberto Fiore and Derek Holland. I knew all of these individuals, and at various times considered each of them to be my friends.

In 1989 I left the NF, but only as a result of a factional dispute which saw what was left of an already dwindling party break into two, with Griffin, Holland and Fiore leading what became known as the International Third Position (ITP), which I joined, and Harrington running the bit that was left behind, which very shortly afterwards adopted the name Third Way.

The ITP, very cleverly, sold itself as a "federation of autonomous groups". Thus it could work on many fronts simultaneously. For many it had a strong traditional Catholic ethos, for others its anti-Zionist (read anti-Jewish) enthusiasms were the dominating factor. It even had a vegetarian group! Speaking personally, during my later years in the Front I had already become very attracted to community politics (albeit, during those days, with a racist flavour) and the ITP was happy for my new locally-based group, Liberation, to operate with one foot in the parent organisation and one foot out.

It is difficult to say when I first began to question the prejudices that I had taken for granted throughout my adult life. But for whatever reason things came to a head and, by the end of 1991, I had decided that I'd had enough. I dropped out of far-right activity, left the house that I had shared with erstwhile comrades and which had become our local "base", and went "home" at the age of thirty to live once again with my parents.

Others who have walked away from the far-right talk of a Damascene conversion, of a particular incident which brought home to them the wrong that they had inflicted upon others, and themselves. In his book The Other Face of Terror Ray Hill, who worked as a mole within the far-right after having abandoned his once sincerely-held racist beliefs, talks of an encounter with an Asian family who had been evicted from their home as a direct result of his actions as a right-wing agitator in South Africa. For me there was no such experience, just a long overdue realisation that for nearly a decade and a half I had been living a lie.

I cannot say that on the day I walked away from the ITP I was the dedicated anti-racist that I am today. Although recollections are hazy I am sure I met former colleagues on occasions, purely socially, in the months following my decision. Even today there is barely a day, and hardly ever a week, that passes without me bumping into somebody who was involved with me politically on the local scene at some time during my racist "career". Do I ignore them or bawl abuse at them in the street? Of course I don't. Many, like myself, have changed anyway. Any who haven't who have the misfortune to engage me in political conversation are left in no doubt at all as to where I stand today.

But so much for the background, on to the point. During the time that I was involved with the far-right I naturally encountered a not inconsiderable number of those people who call themselves anti-fascists. When I was active, anti-fascism was almost exclusively the preserve of those on the political left. That is not to say that others not on the political left were not opposed to fascism, but simply that it was traditionally people from the left who were motivated enough to become seriously involved in combating it.

Not unreasonably, when I was a member of the National Front traditional anti-racists considered me to be their enemy. What is perhaps more surprising is, since I walked away and denounced racism and fascism unequivocally as I still do today, they became more hostile still. The harder I work, as a councillor and as a community activist, to build community cohesion and a society free from fear and hatred - often in the face of well-intentioned but short-sighted opposition from colleagues on the democratic right - the more vociferous, and sometimes vicious, the attacks become.

I can handle it. But what does disappoint me is the effect that this negativity could have on others who might find themselves in the position I was in eighteen years ago, still waving the banner of the far-right but thinking twice about the morality of what they are doing and looking, perhaps without even completely realising it, for a way out of their present emotional morass. It is as though there is a door, half open, which leads to the real world but with those who have always hated them for being on the other side of the door standing in the way, blocking their way out.

There are, of course, many celebrated examples of racists turned anti-racists who have been championed by traditional anti-fascists and who are able to perform valuable work in the ongoing fight against the far-right. If I am asked why the attitude of the same people towards me is so fundamentally different I can only express my belief that it is down to my purely local quarrel with the Labour Party, a quarrel which is of an organisational rather than ideological nature. Usually when I express this view I am accused of being paranoid. So I ask for a better explanation as to why it may be, and an answer is never forthcoming.

About a year ago I established contact with a very active and well-respected anti-fascist operation, following a bit of cock-up in which the group in question managed to blow a very effective anti-BNP operation of mine out of the water. We spoke of some work I might do to help them in their cause. There was going to be a meeting. Then silence. To this day I'm still denied access to their online forum!

I have been offering for years to visit local schools and sixth form colleges to speak to young people and warn them of the dangers of becoming involved with the far-right, spreading the message of tolerance and countering irrational but sometimes widely-held prejudices. On one occasion not too long ago I managed to get a group of teachers from Hounslow together and put it to them that I could perform a valuable service by using my experience to counter racism in the borough's schools. Most of those at the gathering, not a few of them Labour Party members and supporters, blushed guiltily and some looked at their shoes. There was no way they were going to invite me to do any such thing, it didn't portray the correct image of me as a person with a rival (if temporary) political agenda. Better the kids should go unwarned than a political point should go unscored.

I believe passionately that we should be making it easier, not harder, for one-time fascists who genuinely see the error of their ways to put the far-right behind them and re-enter normal society. Often they will have valuable information and experience to offer, and in my view the most effective way to counter fascism is to understand who the people are and how they work rather than just seeking solace in our own prejudices and mythologies. Of course anti-fascism needs to be on its guard for the odd Trojan Horse, but that is not an excuse for throwing the baby out with the bathwater. People such as Searchlight, whose business anti-fascism is, will spot any such people sooner rather than later.

And that is why I have launched this blog. I hope it will be read, and enjoyed, by anti-fascists, but its target audience will be those members of the far-right groups themselves who are sincerely looking for a way out of their destructive lifestyles. Its purpose will not be to criticise other anti-fascist operations beyond the things I have already said, and in a spirit of goodwill and co-operation I will link to them and encourage my readers to visit their sites and see what they have to say. But my way will be different. My way is about combating fascism, with no party political strings attached.

Any member of any far-right group (or anybody else for that matter) can contact me in absolute confidence. My way is about imploring reluctant one-time dedicated fascists to do the decent thing, and WALK AWAY!