Nick Griffin Expelled as BNP Follows a Time-Honoured Tradition

 

When I stumbled by chance yesterday evening upon an article on the BBC News website breaking the news that Nick Griffin had been expelled from membership of the British National Party my first reaction was to laugh out loud.

My mirth was induced not by any desire to heap scorn upon a man whom I’d considered a friend and comrade in the days when we shared a political outlook which I’ve since come to despise. Rather it was the amused reaction of one who had once more been reminded of the perennial farce that is and always has been the far-right’s approach to organisational etiquette.

Griffin and I were both young men in the National Front in the late 1970s, when the racist party had emerged from an acrimonious split with a Strasserite faction, which had oddly allied itself to a right-wing Tory-inclined faction in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to wrest control of the organisation from the national socialist clique which had ruled with a hidden hand more or less since the NF’s inception a decade or so earlier.

MARGINS

During the latter part of the seventies the party mood had been upbeat and expectant as election results got better and better and the breakthrough for which it had hankered appeared increasingly imminent. When instead of achieving that breakthrough electoral support crashed, membership figures plummeted and the organisation was reconsigned to the margins whence it had come the then NF leader John Tyndall scarpered to form his own breakaway party, the New National Front (which, ironically, would later become the British National Party). So bitter was the manner of his parting that Tyndall and those who had followed him very quickly became non-people, whose names could no longer be spoken.

Nick Griffin, the NF’s National Student Organiser, was by this time already firmly ensconced on the party’s governing body, the National Directorate.

A shadow of its only recently former self the NF trundled along, holding badly-attended public activities in the back of beyond which had become more of an institutional nostalgia trip than a serious attempt at winning friends and influence, until the de facto leader of the party and “mastermind” of the failing strategy, Martin Webster, was ousted from his post of National Organiser following a carefully managed coup in which Griffin was instrumental. Needless to say the transition from deposed leader to expelled ex-member was, for Webster, a rapid one and he and his supporters very quickly became persona non grata, the more outspoken amongst them soon finding themselves the unwilling recipients of some pretty disgusting (if sometimes rather imaginative) hate material.

For a few years thereafter the National Front, sans Webster, ploughed new furrows, enjoying small oases of success amid a wider desert of failure as the party remained the retreat of the lonely, the obsessive and the eccentric. Nick Griffin was a major player, although there were other major players too. There were fewer though once the split of 1986 had taken place. At a historic meeting of the National Directorate in Slough factions led on the one side by Griffin and on the other by Martin Wingfield, Andrew Brons and the late Ian Anderson went their separate ways in a dispute which began with the almost gentlemanly exchange of letters of expulsion and culminated in the attempted car-bombing of Anderson’s motor vehicle and the breaking of the then Griffin supporter Patrick Harrington’s arm during a factional scuffle outside an East London public house.

For the remainder of the 1980s the two factions, both calling themselves the National Front, dedicated themselves almost entirely to the cause of trying either to harass or to embarrass the other out of existence. When the anti-Griffin NF announced its intention to stage a march against Middle Eastern terrorism the pro-Griffin version would distribute a press release declaring its undying love for the fathers of the Iranian Revolution. When the Griffinites denounced the Union Flag as an imperialist rag the Wingfieldites, for want of a better term, would bedeck every page of their propaganda material with it.

ITALIAN EXILES

Then, in 1989, Griffin and a few others got itchy feet and decided they would relocate what was left of the party (or at least their faction thereof) to the French countryside, much to the chagrin of Patrick Harrington who by now was running the organisation on a day-to-day basis from his Mum’s basement pad in Kensington. The result, inevitably, was not a mature discussion on the future direction of the party but rather its division into two further factions, this time neither of them laying claim to the name “National Front”. The Griffin group, backed by the Italian exiles around Roberto Fiore, became the International Third Position whilst what remained in England changed its name to the Third Way. The Wingfield/Anderson faction, whose existence everybody had all but forgotten, thereby became the one and only National Front by default. Every one’s a winner.

By far-right standards the ITP/TW split was relatively civil. Both parties decided to go fairly much their own way and to do fairly much their own thing. Both organisations still exist today, in one form or another, but Nick Griffin has nothing to do with either of them

When I parted company from the far-right and its ideology towards the end of 1991 – many years later than I ought to have done – Griffin was still a member of the ITP, although recovering from the shotgun cartridge accident in France which led to him losing an eye. It was some while later that he joined the BNP, apparently via an incident in which he managed to relieve an ITP colleague of his life savings through an ill-advised printing venture, and determined from the beginning that he would usurp the leadership from the now ageing John Tyndall. Within a few years he had achieved his objective of taking control of the party which he had once so disparaged. Before long, naturally, Tyndall had been expelled.

Under Griffin and his “modernisation” strategy the BNP achieved considerable, if temporary success. At one point it was able to count its councillors (including parish) in three figures, as well as boasting two MEPs and an elected representative on the Greater London Authority. His ability to achieve this was down to lessons learned from the experience of the NF in the 1970s coupled with an understanding of the importance of building from the grass roots, a strategy to which Webster had been oblivious. Add this to a political climate in which establishment politicians were held in low regard, low voter turnout and an element of personal media savvy and he and the BNP were away. Sadly for him the quality of his elected councillors was found wanting and his unwillingness or inability to train them conspired against any prospect of sustained growth.

DECLINE

As decline began to set in BNP members began to ask questions. They questioned Griffin’s tactics. They questioned his commitment to core principles – some traditionalists felt he had moved away from those great fictions that have sustained “nationalist” ideology in the UK since the Second World War whilst some of the newer recruits feared he was still old guard at heart. Most of all, they questioned his financial probity. Talk abounded of large sums of money unaccounted for, dodgy deals, debts not honoured, employees not paid and all manner of other irregularities.

A common by-product of the disputes that beset the BNP during its later days of decline was the emergence of leadership challenges. Chris Jackson, Colin Auty, Eddy Butler, Andrew Brons – all of them tried, failed – and ended up outside of the party in short order. Nick Griffin, as the far-right itself, has never done “ordinary” leadership contests in which the best person wins and the other shakes hands and lends his or her full support to the victor. For as long as I can remember, every leadership challenge in the recent history of the far-right has resulted in expulsions, resignations and bitter recriminations.

As the BNP’s star has faded with the emergence to major prominence of UKIP which, despite its undisputed commitment to democratic traditions, casts its net wide enough to enable it to embrace most erstwhile far-righters, so my own interest in keeping a watchful eye on the BNP and other far-right groups has mellowed. Nevertheless I have been periodically following with voyeuristic interest the fortunes of what very little is left of the BNP, from the moment when Griffin “stepped down” to make way for one Adam Walker (whom I’ve never met, but from his track record he seems none too bright) to his inevitable expulsion.

My amusement derives from the fact that Nick Griffin’s BNP career has ended in precisely the same manner as that of every one of his victims, from his expulsion without a proper hearing to the obligatory whinging about the unfairness of it all.

It is difficult to predict where Nick Griffin will go from here. Much depends on whether, at 55 and with 40 years of flat-out political activity behind him, he has the stomach for beginning all over again. Maybe he’ll fight for his job back which, with the BNP’s current fortunes, is akin to squabbling over the best seat on the proverbial Titanic. Or maybe he will regard it as a blessing and launch a new project of his own, one more suited to the current UKIP-friendly climate. His traditional support base has not vanished, it has simply relocated to a nicer home. For as long as it exists, it has the potential to return to the far-right if it gets its act together and the “moderate” UKIP fails to maintain momentum. To get rid of it for good we need to educate, not manipulate.

To some Nick Griffin is the man who almost took racism and fascism into the political mainstream. To others he is a charlatan who has run the BNP in the manner of some two-bit gangster, first cooking up spurious charges and later expelling all his critics within the movement. It is difficult not to see that the folk now running the party who have expelled him for bringing the organisation into disrepute are treading a well-trodden track.

From Lower Down You Just Seemed So Much Better

This line is from a track called All In All by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, from the group’s defining Too-Rye-Ay album recorded in 1982. It sprung oddly to mind a week or so ago as I watched a video on YouTube of one of my mentors of old pontificating about the threat that apparently exists to all mankind from the forces of "World Jewry".

I was inspired to watch the video by a curious chance encounter that had taken place in my home town of Isleworth that very morning.

My Independent Community Group (ICG) comrades and I had arranged to meet outside the Blue School for a short leafleting session in Old Isleworth. But as the rain intensified our Chair Ian Speed and I took refuge under the scant cover afforded by the doorway of the Swan public house.

Standing there I was vaguely aware of a man cycling past at some speed. My eyesight is poor these days and my vision was further obscured by the rain, so all I saw was a man on a bicycle wearing a cycling helmet. But when he spoke the immortal words "I’ve not seen you for a while, young man," without stopping, I instantly recognised a voice that I’d not heard for some 29 years.

Martin Webster was the de facto leader of the National Front when I first became a local organiser of the far-right party in the early 1980s. In my various travels around London and beyond on party business during that time I came into contact with him rather a lot - at meetings, seminars, social events and so on. He spoke at a Hounslow Branch meeting in Isleworth at least once, and drank with us at the very pub that I was standing outside when said encounter happened, on an evening when we were suddenly visited upon by about forty Labour Party activists who had been holding a meeting at the nearby Isleworth Public Hall, and this at a time when Labour members generally were considered left-wing and were often quite militant in their opposition to racism.

Webster was a larger than life character in more than just the physical sense. He was acknowledged, even by his opponents, as a talented organiser, although when the rules of the game changed as mainstream attitudes towards the racist right hardened he revealed himself to have been something of a one-trick pony. He had charisma, oodles of it, and no matter how many people were sat around a table with him he was invariably the one who would hold court. He had a crazy temper, to the point that when he was in full flight there was little point in ever trying to reason with him. One admired his intellect – he was a clever man, although not really an academic – and more than anything else he possessed a rapier wit.

It is often claimed, in historical volumes written about the National Front, that Webster was expelled from the party because he was homosexual. This is not true. The NF of the 1970s and 1980s was at its heart a homophobic party, but not as aggressively so as other far-right organisations before and after it. Webster was held in sufficiently high regard, and his strength of character was such, that he became very much accepted for what he was – until, that was, his organisational talents began to fail him. When he was expelled from the NF in 1984, it had all to do with his control-freakery, his maniacal tantrums and, of course, his opposition to the influence of the Italians around Roberto Fiore on the Front’s emerging young leaders, and nothing to do with his private life.

The purge against Webster and his close supporters began in late 1983, when a neat little two-step conjured up by the then young radicals Joe Pearce and Nick Griffin began with their resignation from the party as a protest against Webster’s style of leadership, and ended with them being reinstated after being pleaded with by the remaining party leaders, with Webster himself being offered up as the sacrifice.

Partly because I had been a victim of Webster’s outbursts myself on one or two occasions, but primarily because I considered myself to be something of a young radical who was sympathetic to what Pearce/Griffin, and the Italians, were trying to achieve, I lined up behind them and the Hounslow Branch of the NF, of which I was Organiser, did likewise. For my support I was rewarded with a place on the National Directorate and with the post of National Organiser of the Young National Front, although the latter came to mean very little as so young was the bulk of the party membership that the YNF and the NF itself were to all intents and purposes the same organisation comprising the same people.

Webster himself formed a short-lived grouplet which he called Our Nation, boasting about forty members, many of whom were relatively well-heeled and being such sustained him for a while as he plotted on the sidelines and became a bit of a thorn in the side of the new NF leadership until it became clear to him that he would not be coming back. Henceforth he went into retirement from party politics, although he continued to play a role on the far right as a public speaker at non-aligned events, as well being regarded as something of an authority on any subject which had the foul machinations of The Evil Jew at its heart. He also, to his credit, took advantage of the opportunity presented by his change of circumstances to work on his physical condition, and became a keen cyclist.

Throughout my time in the NF, even after Webster had gone, there remained a grudging respect for his intellect and for his personality. I always saw him as a bigger man than myself – sharper, more learned, wittier and with a superior organisational brain. So when I saw his video last week – and I listened to his speech from start to finish – I was actually very surprised by just how ordinary he sounded. Adequate but unspectacular in his delivery, ill-informed and unscientific in his presentation of what passed for facts, and just generally amateurish. In the long distant past, because he was older than me and exuded intelligence and a veneer of authority I had never doubted the accuracy of the things of which he spoke. What I heard on the video was, frankly, little more than ignorant drivel.

There is a popular saying that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. It is only with the passage of time, and with the benefit of the life experience which I have since gained, that I have come to fully appreciate the magnitude of the blindness which surrounded me as an adherent of far-right ideology back in the 1980s.

The Demise of the BNP and the New Challenges it Brings

Some while ago I wrote on this blog about the emergence from the wreckage of the BNP of a grouplet calling itself the British Freedom Party and in particular about its professed creed of “cultural nationalism”. I expressed doubts at the time that the BFP would come to anything much. It appeared devoid of anybody with sufficient pedigree or charisma to overcome the enormous challenge of emerging from amid the confused mess that is the far right today and, as former NF leader Martin Webster is alleged to have once put it, of “kicking its way into the headlines” (Webster maintains that he used the word “crashing” as opposed to “kicking” but the point I am making remains).

Indeed it appeared even back then that some of the personalities the BFP did possess were of the destructive variety and were primed to bring embarrassment to the new party at any moment of their choosing.

I also remarked that, whilst I doubted the organisational potential of the BFP itself, the concept of cultural nationalism was one that could emerge when the smoke clears to cause very real problems.

Since its formation the BFP has hardly set the world alight, indeed one of its few actions of note has been to engage in its own acrimonious split which has lead the tiny party to divide into two even tinier, rival parties. However the faction retaining the party name surprised a few observers recently when it announced the formation of some manner of pact/agreement/merger (the precise nature of the deal depends very much upon whom one is listening to) with the controversial English Defence League (EDL).

The EDL itself, of course, preaches a similar cultural nationalist message in that it professes to be a movement solely opposed to militant Islam and one that is not racially exclusive. The reality is that its ranks are filled with racists and politically is to all intents and purposes a street army of the far right. It, too, has experienced splits and leadership disputes in recent months.

More on cultural nationalism anon, but in the meantime it is worth taking some time out to catch up with developments within the mainstream of the far right, if that is not a contradiction in terms.

The BNP continues to crumble under the weight of serious debt, poor votes and a massive decline in membership numbers. As it does so sundry factions squabble over the corpse, some opting for fight and others for flight.

Those inclined to fight are largely rallied around Andrew Brons MEP, a retired politics lecturer from Harrogate who was elected to the European Parliament alongside BNP leader Nick Griffin in 2009. After months of apparent indecision Brons, a former Chairman of the National Front, this year challenged Griffin for the leadership of the BNP and lost by a mere nine votes in an election that seemed to be conducted very much on Griffin’s terms to say the least.

Despite his youthful activities as a keen member of the late Colin Jordan’s National Socialist Movement (he once wrote to Jordan’s equally Nazi wife Francoise that he held a “dual view” as to whether or not burning down synagogues was a good thing to do, whilst ordering a consignment of stickers with swastikas on), Brons seems to have managed to gain for himself a reputation on the far right as a logical and reasonable man, as well as being something of a thinker. His genteel manner, his intellect and his maturity in years command him respect and he would appear to have been adopted as some kind of wise elder statesman within the movement, although some others accuse him of being a ditherer due to his apparent reluctance to make a decisive move in his ongoing quarrel with Griffin.

The current state of play is that Brons and his supporters have created what they refer to as a “parallel party” within the BNP, retaining their membership and professing their loyalty to the party whilst not to Griffin himself and organising around a website called “BNP Ideas”, effectively daring Griffin to expel them.

Meanwhile the flighters include 2010 leadership challenger Eddy Butler, who has joined the English Democrats, an organisation that seems to operate just within the pale although the infusion of ex-BNP bigwigs may have the effect of changing that. They also include one Jim Dowson, a businessman whose recruitment by Griffin as an “industry expert” to make the BNP money was one of the biggest bones of contention at the time of the Butler challenge, but who has since fallen out with Griffin himself and now heads his own breakaway group calling itself Britain First.

What this all has to do with cultural nationalism is the opportunity that the general realignment of the far right affords it to reassess the way in which it pitches its message. With the field awash with small groups and disgruntled individuals as the parent organisation reluctantly but most certainly disappears further into oblivion the potential for fusion around a new strategy is a worrying one. Particularly when the message essentially masks the same underlying racist philosophy.

For what has changed is not the type of individuals that we are dealing with. There is nothing about the EDL that makes it in any way more cuddly or more acceptable than the BNP, or the NF of bygone days. Fascists have not suddenly become nicer people. On the contrary all that is different is the demographic. The far right, for the most part, recognises that a seismic shift has taken place in the composition of our society since the days when the movement could say “Send them all home!” and still credibly maintain that “they” had an identifiable home to go to.

Anybody who wishes to understand the potential for cultural nationalism needs only to walk into any working men’s club and listen for a few moments to the conversation when it gets around to immigration. The message everyday people are getting from the tabloids is that a new generation of immigrants is receiving everything on a plate, has hostile intentions towards the (now multi-ethnic) host community and is challenging us all for resources that with the economic downturn have already become scarce. In the absence of any information to correct these false perceptions it is little wonder that they are held close by people who are otherwise normal and decent.

Generally people are not racist in the sense of having a conscious belief that they are in some way superior to other people (although ironically some “anti-racists” of my acquaintance would appear to make similar assumptions about themselves). However in my experience there is clearly a “dislike of difference” which leads them to be mistrustful of others whose looks, dress and mannerisms differ from their own and which, when coupled with a belief that the other community is in receipt of special favour, makes many an obvious soft sell for the cultural nationalist argument that “it’s not about race but…”.

Where there are myths perpetuated about the nature and intentions of the group, as in the case of Islam, this is even more so.

A cultural nationalist position furthermore gives the racist an unhealthy amount of wiggle room. In defence it is not about race or ethnicity so nobody need be offended, but in attack it means that everybody needs to be “like us” and, where the message is receiving a sympathetic hearing, opens the door to all the prejudices and hatreds that have historically informed the far right. It is an expandable, contractible ideology which can mean almost anything the intended audience wishes it to mean, yet retains racism and xenophobia at the core of its message.

Common sense suggests that there will be a regrouping on the far right and whilst we rightly celebrate the demise of the BNP this, perversely, has the potential to trigger it. While the economic conditions remain, and ignorance abounds, there is no logical reason why fascism should suddenly vanish, or why racists should cease being racists and not look to organise themselves again. With the “soft” nationalism of UKIP and the English Democrats enjoying some popularity and with a small army of stateless ex-BNP and soon to be ex-BNP followers looking for a new home, it is important that anti-fascists do not take their eye off the ball.

If I sound defeatist or fatalistic then it needs to be understood that I flag up this prospect because somebody has to, and in the hope that those whose task it will be to confront the new threat will be ready and waiting for it. A new wave of far right activity is inevitable, but its success most certainly isn’t.

A long shot

I see that in the light of the historic decision by a special elections court to strip erstwhile Labour MP Phil Woolas of his seat in Oldham East and Saddleworth on the grounds that he knowingly lied about an opponent and to re-run the contest Nick Griffin, Leader of the British National Party, has announced his intention to bring Barking Labour MP Margaret Hodge down under the same legislation, namely Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act.

Apparently at a meeting of black Christians in the run-up to the general election in May Hodge told her audience that the BNP would drop immigrants from aeroplanes if ever it was elected to power.

He seems to have overlooked a few minor considerations:

1. In order to challenge the outcome of an election a petition has to be submitted within 21 days of the result having been declared. As I write 211 days have passed since the general election and thus far no petition has been forthcoming.

2. The legislation requires deliberate falsehoods to have been levelled at a specific individual. Hodge's comments were directed at the BNP in general.

3. Woolas held onto his parliamentary seat by 103 votes. It is not unreasonable to suggest that in the absence of his smear campaign against his Liberal Democrat opponent the outcome could quite possibly have been different. Hodge on the other hand beat Griffin by 18,000 votes. He didn't even come second. The chances of there having been more than 18,000 black Christians at said private meeting who might have voted BNP had it not been for Hodge's remarks are remote to say the least.

4. Griffin is on record as having said that boats carrying immigrants into Europe should be sunk in the water. Now a boat is not an aeroplane, granted, but I suspect the sentiment is similar enough to present something of an obstacle to Griffin should he attempt to plead that Hodge's comments were an unfair reflection of his views.

I dare say this rather tacky publicity stunt/fund-raising gimmick will be treated with the contempt it deserves.

Understanding the threat of "Cultural Nationalism"

A little over a month ago I commented upon the upheaval currently taking place within the British National Party (BNP), with party leader Nick Griffin finding himself being challenged for his job by Eddy Butler, a former NF stalwart from London's East End.

In that article I explained that Butler had unsurprisingly failed to meet the ludicrously prohibitive nominations criteria to enable his challenge to proceed to a full ballot against Griffin, and stated that the formation of a breakaway party was "almost inevitable".

I can now report that the almost inevitable has happened, in the event against the wishes of Butler who believes his best chance of seizing the leadership of the BNP rests upon him playing a waiting game and standing for the post again in 2011. At least that was what he believed earlier this week. The arrival a day or two ago of his notice of expulsion from the BNP may yet of course induce a rethink of some kind.

The breakaway has been forced by a number of Butler's more impatient supporters, who refuse to wait another year for the privilege of mounting another, probably doomed challenge under rules which appear designed for the specific purpose of giving Griffin a job for as long as he wants it.

The new venture goes under the name of the British Freedom Party (BFP). I'll not link to it, but for those who wish to see first hand what it is about I am sure Google will prove helpful.

One of the cheerleaders of the BFP would appear to be one Lee Barnes, formerly the BNP's celebrated legal eagle but now an outspoken anti-Griffinite. Like many of those involved on both sides of the dispute Barnes seems to have appeared on the far-right scene some considerable time after I departed it, but he has a reputation in fascist circles as being a wordy and knowledgeable if sometimes rather eccentric kind of guy.

On his blog Barnes advises us that the new outfit will pursue a policy of what he describes as "Cultural Nationalism", which he differentiates from "Ethno Nationalism" (based on race - you're okay if you're white) and "Civic Nationalism" (based on citizenship - you're okay if you have a British passport). According to Barnes:

"Those who are British citizens must integrate into British culture and society, it is not for us to surrender our country and culture, and re-engineer our society, to suit immigrants.

"All immigrants must become British - Britain will not become colonised.

"All those of all races and religions who are British citizens and who are proud to be British and who respect British culture are welcome to join our party."

Whether the BFP will ever amount to anything or whether it will fizzle out as so many other BNP breakaway groups have in the past is still to be seen. It is not a good start, from their point of view, that the anti-Griffin faction would already appear to have split between those who still believe the party can be changed from within and those who feel a new party is the answer. The latter would certainly appear to be devoid of anybody who could by any stretch of the imagination be described as a political heavyweight. Rumours abound that MEP Andrew Brons could be about to join them, but the journey from former Nazi Party sticker displayer to "Cultural Nationalist" would be a considerable one.

What I find myself contemplating with a degree of trepidation is a redrawing of the battle lines in a way that I have for some time considered to be inevitable as the concept of a "racially pure" Britain slips further and further into the realms of unreality. Whereas in the 1960s and 70s it was (just about) possible, without having to undergo a complete credibility bypass, to talk of repatriating "racially unassimilable" minorities, the widespread assimilation of same over the years and decades that have followed has consigned the aspirations of the race freaks to the margins even within their own company.

Instead the argument that minorities will be "welcome" (read "tolerated") just so long as they "integrate into British culture and society" (undefined) emerges as an ostensibly more reasonable option and, I suspect, one that may resonate with the not inconsequential "I'm not racist but..." tendency in our society.

So why should minorities not "become British"? Why should they not accept "our" ways, and adopt them henceforth as their ways? What, to put it bluntly, is wrong with "Cultural Nationalism"?

The first and most obvious worry of course arises from the pedigree of the new party that heralds the concept. It is a breakaway from the unquestionably racist BNP, led and populated by people who had joined an unquestionably racist party to begin with. The objections cited by the rebels towards the BNP leadership throughout their campaign to wrest the party from Nick Griffin have centred not around any dissatisfaction with BNP policy but instead around internal issues such as nepotism and financial probity.

It is possible, of course, for an entire organisation or a faction within an organisation to change fundamentally. The National Front was doing it all the time throughout the 1980s, moving seamlessly from one ideological fad to another, albeit always within the confines of a race-focused overview that remained unshaken. The Social Democrats broke away from a Labour Party that was too left-wing, then merged with most of the Liberals to become the Liberal Democrats who now shun Labour for being too right-wing. There's nowt so queer as folk, especially in politics.

But the move towards "Cultural Nationalism" is not a clean break from racism in the way that I and others who have been where I have been and seen what I have seen would recognise. Rather it is merely a movement towards a more populist expression of racism in a form with which those who would baulk at the purist pretensions of National Socialism would identify.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with all our citizens sharing and celebrating a common British identity. I wrote about such a thing here over two years ago on Walk Away's sister blog, A Community In Action. But that identity arises from our rich diversity as a nation, not from the forced submission of myriad cultures to the one.

I find myself wondering exactly what it is that "Cultural Nationalism" requires of minorities that they might become "like us". Like whom exactly? Like white people?

And just how far is this requirement supposed to go? Is everybody required to eat English food, wear English clothes, adopt "English" religious beliefs? Will accents be acceptable?

It is difficult to imagine a society in which some citizens are required by order of the state to imitate the ways of others ever being able to embrace true equality. Integration is a process that emerges organically over time in an atmosphere of tolerance and respect.

"Cultural Nationalism" moves us away from a society based upon respect and equality. It is but a Plan B for race purists whose first idea passed its sell-by date without being bought.

Wherein lies the best option when one knows both devils?

I've been watching with some interest the increasingly acrimonious spat that has been developing between current BNP Chairman Nick Griffin and his challenger in a recent leadership ballot, Eddy Butler.

I have recounted in previous articles how I knew Griffin back in his National Front days. I worked closely with him on the NF's National Directorate and often saw him at close quarters. He is, or at least was, a man who has both qualities and weaknesses in great abundance.

I also knew Eddy Butler. I recall him during the mid-1980s as a fairly competent member of a fairly competent organisational team that ran the NF in Tower Hamlets, in London's East End. I often spoke at their meetings at Butler's invitation.

On a personal level I liked Butler. I can't recall recognising him at the time as being national leadership material, but I did always feel he was "one for the future". He was bright, and seemed to slot in well within the team at Tower Hamlets, a branch which was not massive in numerical terms but was considered consistent and dependable.

So I look upon the current BNP leadership squabble with a blend of voyeuristic curiosity and, as an anti-fascist, with an interest in the eventual result. Whilst no BNP at all would be the desired outcome, I am realistic enough to accept that it won't be. So a battered and divided BNP, possibly supplemented by the creation of a dead-duck rival party destined from the day of its launch for Boot Hill, would appear to me to be the next most desirable option.

The case against Griffin's leadership appears to have most of its roots in his appointment of a consultant, one Jim Dowson, to help market the BNP and raise funds in a way in which it is alleged by Griffin the party could not have managed using its own resources. Despite having procured donations and other income under Dowson's guidance on a scale that the NF of yesteryear could only have dreamed of, the party would appear to be skint. So much so, say Griffin's critics, that it is heading relentlessly for the abyss. Not unreasonably, assuming for the sake of this argument that there is some truth in the allegations, Butler's supporters are curious to know where all the cash raised as a consequence of Dowson's efforts has actually gone.

As is always the case when the far-right ventures forth into the chaos of internecine warfare a number of secondary, although in some cases even more serious, allegations have been levelled at Griffin and his entourage. Dowson himself has been accused of serious sexual assault, even rape. Lurid stories of illegal detention, the unlawful recording and bugging of members considered not to be in good standing, gratuitous suspensions of "malcontents" and suspected malcontents, accusations of being enemy infiltrators and incidents of what we in the 1980s used to describe as "petty terrorism" - threats, harassment and rumour-mongering - dominate the far-right websites as well as those of their active opponents. This is fairly much how fascist leaders facing the threat of impeachment invariably respond.

Furthermore it is claimed that Griffin has cost the BNP hundreds of thousands of pounds in court costs as a consequence of his reckless disregard for the law and its processes. An out of court settlement paid to Unilever after his bizarre inclusion of its Marmite product on the BNP Party Political Broadcast had clearly breached copyright is a case in point.

Despite clearly having a few disgruntled neo-Nazi hardliners on his team, Butler is generally considered to present a more moderate image (by BNP standards) than Griffin. Having gone to some considerable effort in recent years to repackage himself as a more touchy-feely kind of fascist - dropping compulsory repatriation and arguing the case for allowing a very limited and powerless non-white presence into BNP membership - Griffin now finds himself back in the position of having to appeal to the party's "hardliners" to support him against the encroachment of the "civic nationalism" allegedly promoted by Butler.

Butler's campaign to relieve Griffin of the party leadership was always going to be an uphill struggle under the rules laid down by the BNP's constitution, rules made even more draconian following a political sleight of hand by Griffin (and ironically supported at the time by Butler) at a recent Emergency General Meeting. Under these rules a challenge can only ever take place after the challenger has acquired the nominations of 20% of the party membership meeting the appropriate requirements according to length of service. Unsurprisingly Butler failed to achieve this, but the acrimony between the two factions (as in the NF split of 1976 the majority of the party's middle-management would appear to be behind the challenger whilst the core membership remains behind the leader) has rendered it nigh on impossible that the two sides will ever be able to bury their differences and rebuild their relationship.

And so we are faced with an almost inevitable two-party solution. Members of Butler's team seem to be in some disagreement as to whether to break away and form a new party now, to hang around and prepare for the demise of the BNP under a sea of debts before doing so, or to fight to take over ownership of the party. One thing though is certain - Griffin will not give up and call it a day so there will soon be two political factions emerging from the party formerly known as the BNP.

The question that anti-fascists everywhere will be asking is whether a BNP, or even part of a BNP, led by someone who is ostensibly "cleaner" than Griffin (who seems to be losing control in every direction in any case) would be a blessing or a bane. Is the desire for harmony across the community (and that's wherein lies my own anti-fascism, not in some sordid calculation of which scenario creates which particular party advantage) best served by a Griffin victory or a Butler victory?

Let us not forget that both sides are arguing over control of a fascist party. There is no democratic alternative, acceptable to most normal people, on the table.

For me the best outcome would be to see the two factions fight each other to an exhausted stalemate. Better still would be if such a process was to take place over a period of years rather than months, taking us to and beyond the next GLA, European and also hopefully Parliamentary elections.

In the meantime we can take a step back, watch and enjoy. In my considerable experience inter-fascist feuds are never resolved by consensus. BNP watchers should be prepared for the imminent emergence of two or even more fascist parties where once stood the BNP.

MPowering Youth Through Education and Experience

I spent a hugely constructive couple of hours yesterday (Saturday) afternoon at the Hounslow Community Centre as a guest at a workshop for young people organised by the MPower Hounslow Youth Project.

About fifteen youngsters - boys and girls mostly from a Muslim background - discussed a host of topics relating to political and social extremism, not just on the fringes of Muslim society but also street gangs and football hooliganism.


I was invited to the meeting in time to give my own presentation about my experiences as a National Front organiser in the 1970s and 1980s, but I arrived early enough to hear some of the earlier presentations and was amazed by the quality of the information that was being imparted. It occurred to me instantly that this project was deadly earnest about trying to keep potentially vulnerable young people who might otherwise find themselves receptive to extremist ideas on the straight and narrow.

When it was my turn to speak I simply gave it from the heart. Many of the people there were so young they had never even heard of the National Front, but most had heard of the BNP and I circulated some photos and written material demonstrating the extent to which I had been involved, including a fading snippet from a local newspaper showing myself and Nick Griffin, now leader of the BNP, addressing a rally in Isleworth and a letter I once received whilst in prison from an outspoken Ulster loyalist friend (writing from another prison) literally a few months before he was shot dead by members of a fringe Irish republican group.

I spoke of the way in which one becomes "ghettoised" when joining up with an extremist group, rightly shunned by normal society but with the result that one finishes up only speaking to and listening to others who share one's own prejudices, and sliding deeper and deeper thereby into an extremist mindset and way of life.

I think it fair to say that most of these very young people were ever so slightly taken aback to suddenly find themselves being lectured by this middle-aged, greying and nondescript old scruffpot and hearing about a way of life in which guns and bombs, whilst not perhaps a feature of everyday life, certainly existed as a feature of the political dialectic at the time.


I think I have said before on this blog that this is the kind of work, more than anything else, that I really want to be doing. I deeply regret my past as a right-wing extremist, but accept that it happened and believe that I am uniquely placed to offer warnings, advice and guidance to young people who may in the wrong circumstances found themselves being led along the same destructive and dangerous path.

MPower is a superb resource for vulnerable young people and I have already expressed to the organisers my willingness, indeed my eagerness to assist them in their future work should they wish me to do so. My respect for those who dedicated themselves to working with and helping young people in this way really does know no bounds.

Rise in hate crime follows BNP council election victories

Acknowledegements to The Guardian


Reports of racial and religiously motivated crime rose following the election of British National party councillors in several far-right strongholds, police statistics have revealed.

Complaints of hate crime increased in wards in the West Midlands, London and Essex after the election of a BNP member, in spite of declines in reported hate crime in the wider police areas. In other wards race crime reportedly rose in the run-up to BNP election victories, according to the figures, obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

The findings came as the party stepped up its campaign to win its first seats in the House of Commons with a "weekend of action" in Barking and Dagenham, where the culture and tourism minister, Margaret Hodge, faces a challenge for her Labour seat from BNP leader, Nick Griffin. Hodge said the new figures cast doubt on police assurances that there is no link between racially motivated crime and a BNP presence.

Yesterday, BNP member Terence Gavan was jailed for 11 years after police found nail bombs and 12 firearms at his home in the borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, where the BNP has councillors. The Old Bailey heard that Gavan harboured "a strong hostility" towards immigrants.

One of the biggest increases in hate crime came in Barking's Eastbury ward, where racially motivated violence, theft and criminal damage more than doubled in the year after Jeffrey Steed won a council seat for the BNP in May 2006. A year later, hate crime rose again and 45 racial incidents were reported in 12 months.

In several other BNP wards, race crime fell in line with declines in the wider areas, but anti-fascist campaigners believe rises may be linked to BNP election wins. "Voters have been emboldened in their racist views by seeing the BNP in power and that could have led to the increases in racist attacks in some areas," said Sam Tarry, campaign organiser for the Hope Not Hate campaign, set up by the anti-fascist group Searchlight.

"The figures suggest that if the BNP wins more seats, people from ethnic minority and gay communities could face greater persecution because racist and bigoted views will have been further legitimised."

The BNP denies that increases in hate crime are related to its activities and blames the rises on increased immigration. Bob Bailey, the party's London organiser said: "This is due to an increase in the ethnic [sic] population. There are more people who are prepared to go to the police complaining they are victims."

The Guardian has analysed data from 11 police forces covering 29 wards across England where voters have elected BNP councillors in the past six years. In eight wards reports of hate crime rose following BNP election wins despite a wider decline across the police force area. It declined in 14 wards, in line with force-wide reductions, and there was no change in four and an insignificant amount of data in three.

In Essex, complaints of race crime rose after the election of BNP councillors in parts of Epping Forest, while in Chelmsley Wood, a suburb of Birmingham, the average annual incidence of race crime almost doubled after George Morgan won a seat for the BNP in May 2006.

In the four years before his election, there were an average 11 incidents a year rising to an average of 21 a year in the following four years. West Midlands police said some cases involved assault, while most were incidents of verbal abuse in shopping centres, taxis and in the police station with white and Asian victims.

Detective Chief Inspector Sharon Goosen said: "None of the offences reported in the area since 2006 can be directly attributed to an elected member or political organisation."

The BNP is understood to be planning to field more than 1,000 candidates in local elections and 300 candidates in the general election. Griffin and the BNP deputy chairman, Simon Darby, who is standing for Stoke Central, are considered to have the best chance of winning seats at Westminster.

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.

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!