Norfolk Unity

Never willing to admit to incompetence but always willing to show bad faith to its most loyal supporters, over the RWB weekend the BNP fouled up yet another change of server and was hit – entirely coincidentally you understand – with another DDoS attack.

Well, that’s what webmaster Simon Bennett told members anxious for their daily fix of all the news that’s fit to bin – and since the trick had already been worked earlier in the summer, when Nick Griffin claimed the BNP website had been hit by the biggest DDoS attack “in recorded history”, there was little harm in repeating the exercise.

Of course, those who looked for evidence of this latest attack came up as empty-handed as they had when seeking after evidence of the first. The only real difference this time was that though the BNP blamed everybody to the left of Attila the Hun for its supposed plight, there were no wild statements to the effect that the police, MI5, Interpol, the FBI and Gandalf the Grey were beating a path to the offices of Searchlight purposed on hauling off Gerry Gable for a long stretch on bread and water (if he was lucky).

Eventually the BNP website resurfaced in all its turgid, screamingly slow glory, and all was well with the world.

Hmm. Not quite.

“Where’s our forum gone?” demanded nonplussed members of the small band who regularly used the BNP’s private forum – for gone it was, without a word of warning, even to its own moderators.

Bennett came up with a number of excuses, first claiming that the BNP forum had been “lost in transit”, then that it was “full of Reds”, and finally admitting that it had been closed on the orders of the leadership because “the forums were counter-productive and offered no real benefit to the party on the whole” and were “a hot-bed for gossip and distraction”.

Translated, that means: “Members were voicing their opinions, and we don’t do that sort of thing in the BNP.”

At its best, the BNP forum had around 250 registered users, of which 30-40 were regular posters. Such a low number of users from a party claiming 10,000 members might be explained by the frequency with which posters had their accounts deleted for transgressing Rule No. 1 (“Thou Shalt Speak No Ill Of Griffin, Not Even A Little Bit”) and other mysterious rules the administrators conjured up on the fly. Even moderators, their task made more difficult than usual for having to observe lists of proscribed and non-proscribed subjects, could find a boot from on high connecting with their cyber backsides for reasons rarely explained.

And so the dispossessed, muttering darkly about “egos” and “dictatorships”, move on to posting pastures new, but carry with them their unfailing loyalty to the very man who caused their discomfiture.

The closure of the BNP forum has led to a migration to the hitherto moribund Green Arrow forum – but if anybody thinks voicing an opinion there is a good idea, the spousally-challenged drink-loving Paul Morris has news for them, making it clear that nothing less than wholehearted support for Griffin and the Griffinite BNP is expected.

Now the pompous Morris is as much of a standing joke to his own fascist brethren as he is to the anti-fascist community. The online Colonel Blimpish persona and the over-frequent use of military metaphors are rather belied by his real-world persona as a vicious hater prone to subject his neighbours to drunken rants, and who urinated against his caravan while screaming and shouting at the now estranged wife who had locked him out of his own house.

Nobody reading this website needs to be reacquainted with the fact of Morris’s abject cowardice concerning his own identity and his fulsome support for Redwatch, nor his self-pitying whining (“I could be killed”) when anti-fascists gave him a taste of his own medicine and outed him. So we shan’t mention it.

Morris has long entertained a high opinion of his own abilities, his importance and his influence, even going so far this week to modestly pat himself on the back for the vital part he claims he played in the election of Griffin, Brons and Barnbrook – a claim that may not sit well in the minds of the BNP’s foot soldiers, who knocked doors and delivered the party’s literature while Morris tapped away on his keyboard.

So pompous has Morris become, so inflated is his idea of his own worth, that the self-proclaimed “maverick” (!) refuses to take direction from the Leader he so fawningly adores and has managed to work himself into a tizz over an instruction that he fall into line with other BNP bloggers and remove the BNP logo and masturbatory photographs of Nick Griffin from his site.

It’s all a storm in a cheap can of Tesco lager really, but in the sozzled mind of Morris assumes the importance of a Rorke’s Drift, for conforming would be “… like a warship striking its colours or a regiment throwing down their colours and running. I will not run again – no matter what the price.”

There speaks a true (internet) warrior.

Despite the ministrations of Welsh BNP organiser Brian Mahoney (purveyor of lies in the matter of Muslim-owned Cardiff post offices), Morris would not back down and resigned his membership, thus retaining his freedom of action to be a complete idiot while not (so he believes) damaging the hard-soiled reputation of the BNP.

Helpfully, for anti-fascists, Morris has decided to move away from the Google-owned Blogger and to set up his own bespoke website. I say “helpfully” since Morris’s new thegreenarrow.co.uk address places him firmly within the remit of British hate and libel laws and makes him far more easily traceable by the authorities, who seem daunted by the legal technicalities presented by racists using American Blogger accounts.

There is now, then, a local audit trail, which begins at the registrant’s address for the new Green Arrow site, being 50 Ammanford Road, Tycroes, Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, SA18 3QJ – which is also the address for the Patriot Products tat site (“for hygenic reasons we regret we are unable to refund underwear and hosiery products”).

In his hubris Morris may well have made a rod for his own back, and it’s up to us to ensure he feels it.

Assisting Morris in setting up his new site is scuba-diving enthusiast, software engineer, real ale lover and frequent Green Arrow contributor John of Gwent.

John, like Morris and Elizabeth Walton before him, isn’t too keen on having his real name and that of the BNP spoken in the same sentence. It may, after all, prove harmful to his online Velvetwood Consultants business.

John has been secretly testing various mock-ups of the new Green Arrow site on his own server over the past few days, using the https protocol to hide his efforts from prying eyes, including, presumably, those of his customers, as here:

In true BNP fashion, John of Gwent cannot help himself and feels bound to turn the relatively simple process of setting up a new website into a drama – “I also see a few spirited souls trying to destroy the site by running the ‘install’ script that came with it. Denise, Atreus and Weyman you really MUST get round to training your cybertroopers to READ the manuals”.

Now the name “John of Gwent” is, we suppose, intended to conjure up images of a handsome valiant medieval knight, one hand guiding his horse across the Welsh landscape while the other holds a lance ready to fell the foes of the nation (or those of the BNP, at any rate).

The reality is far less romantic. The knightly steed is stabled at the home of one John Roderick Voisey, of XXXXXXXXXX Close, Newport, Gwent, and the knight himself does not exactly exude an air of noble heroism:

For those struggling to make sense of the picture, Voisey is the one with hair, the other is an innocent snake.

Have a nice weekend, folks

Denise Garside

• Incident linked to BNP, says community leader
• Far-right Essex councillor denies members to blame

Racist attackers abducted a Muslim community leader at knifepoint, bundled him into a car and threatened his life unless he stopped running prayer sessions in a community hall that has been the target of a British National party campaign.

Police have confirmed they are treating the incident as a hate crime and are investigating links with an earlier firebomb attack on the same man’s home.

Noor Ramjanally (photo, top), 35, told the Guardian he had been the victim of a terror campaign which has also involved threats against his family after he began the Islamic prayer sessions in March. He said he fears for his life after the abduction at knifepoint, which happened at his home in Loughton, Essex, on Monday.

A BNP campaign has been blamed for rising tensions in the area. The party has been leafleting the area warning of “Islamification” which it says flows from the weekly two-hour prayer session, which it claims is a prelude to a mosque being built.

Ramjanally said he was abducted from his home in daylight by two white men who threatened him with a knife, bundled him into a car then drove him into woodland. They demanded he stop organising the Friday prayer sessions at Murray hall community centre. He said the words from his abductors matched the BNP propaganda opposing the Muslim prayers. The same demand was contained in hate mail he received last month threatening his wife and child, he said.

Councillor Pat Richardson, leader of the BNP group on the local council, said her party was not behind the attacks on Ramjanally. “Firebombing is not a British method. A brick through the window is a British method, but firebombing is not a way of showing displeasure,” she said.

Ramjanally said: “I believe the BNP campaign has inspired the violence.”

He said he was snatched at around 12.15pm and feared he would be murdered during his ordeal. “I was at home and the door bell rang. I opened the door and they grabbed my wrists, pulling me out by force,” he said.

“It was two white men. They put a knife upon my stomach, and said do what you’re told or you’ll get hurt.” He said he was then bundled into the boot of a 4 x 4 vehicle, with one of the men holding a knife to his chest.

Ramjanally said he was driven for 10 minutes to nearby Epping Forest, walked around, and then threatened: “They said ‘We don’t want your Islamic group in Loughton.’ I was scared, I feared for my life. I was in a forest, a knife was held against me, how would you feel? They said, ‘If you don’t stop, we’ll come back.’”

The attackers then left Ramjanally alone in the woods. Essex police said an investigation was under way into the incident and two earlier ones at Ramjanally’s home.

“Police are treating the incidents as ‘hate crime’ and a possible motivation would appear to be a link to the use of the Murray hall, Loughton by the Muslim community for Friday prayers,” the force said.

Superintendent Simon Williams of Essex police said: “We are treating these offences with the utmost seriousness and are putting considerable resources into the investigation.

“While that investigation continues we will be working with the whole population of Loughton to ensure that all members of the community are free to practice their religion and beliefs safely and freely.”The prayer sessions at Murray hall began on 27 March, with nine people worshipping. Now up to 80 people attend.

On 2 July, Ramjanally received an anonymous threatening letter telling him to stop using the hall for prayers and stating the author knew which school his child went to and which car he drove. The next day his flat was firebombed. The BNP has four councillors in the area and its leafleting campaign in late July has been attacked as inflammatory and divisive.

Richardson said she had seen the leaflet before it was released last month. She was sceptical of Ramjanally’s claims of a terror campaign. “I told the police we want to object that fingers were being pointed in our direction,” she said.

She also denied that BNP members were behind any violence. She believes that the weekly Muslim prayer meeting is a prelude to an attempt to encourage more Muslims to move into the area, and thus to vote out the BNP. “I was wondering whether it was a ploy to attract more Muslims to the area to try and vote out the BNP councillors,” she said.

Richardson said the Muslim prayer meeting did not fit in with the area’s mainly white population: “It’s not really natural for the area because there are so few Muslims,” she said.

At Murray hall yesterday there was little sign of the building being turned into a mosque. The hall’s caretaker said a children’s group was using the premises.

Passing by was lifelong Loughton resident Paul Luton, 57, who said: “Who says [the hall] can’t be used for different things. A community is a community. If there’s a local community of Muslims, they’re local people.”

Mohammad Fahim runs the nearest mosque to Loughton which was firebombed in 2000. He said racists have used the fears of new mosques in the area to stoke racial and anti-Muslim tensions.

The BNP describes Fahim’s mosque, in south Woodford, four miles from Loughton, as “notorious” and claims it has incited violence. In fact, Fahim works as a chaplain for the Metropolitan police.Loughton, which borders the eastern fringe of London, is affluent in parts, with a number of houses on its millionaire’s row, called Alderton Hill, owned by British Hindu families. It is also a road, said Fahim, where women wearing headscarves are racially abused by passing white motorists. He advised one Muslim woman to remove her headscarf to avoid being a victim of hate crime. According to the 2001 census, just over 1%of the area’s residents describe themselves as Muslim.

One owner of a takeaway, who said he would fear for his safety if either he or his shop were named, said he often faced racist abuse: “This area is rubbish. So many times there is trouble.”

Last year a 20-strong white gang attacked his shop, leaving one Asian employee with head wounds.

He said often the abuse and violence happened when people were drunk. “Tonight they call you Paki and tomorrow they come in for food.”

Abdurahman Jafar, chair of the Muslim Safety Forum, which advises the police, said: “The campaign of terror has followed a campaign organised by the BNP whereby they delivered hate literature to locals citing the small Friday prayer sessions as evidence of how ‘the Islamification process is almost complete’.” Recent months have seen a sharp rise in religiously motivated attacks against the Muslim community including attacks on outwardly Muslim appearing individuals, mosques and pogroms directed against the Muslim Community.”

How the hate campaign unfolded

27 March 2009: Nine people attend first Muslim prayers at Murray hall, Loughton, Essex, organised by Noor Ramjanally

2 July: Ramjanally receives anonymous hate mail warning his group to stop. The author says they know which school his child goes to, what car he drives. The letter is delivered by hand

3 July: Ramjanally returns to his flat at midday to find the door ablaze after a suspected firebombing attack

23 July: A BNP leaflet appears alleging Murray hall will be turned into a mosque and warning in other parts of east London that “the Islamification process is almost complete”. The BNP says: “We’ll do all in our power to prevent Islam creeping into our town.” BNP group council leader says she approved the leaflet before its release

24 August: Ramjanally abducted by two white men wielding a knife, driven to Epping Forest and again threatened if he does not stop running his prayer group

25 August: Essex police say all incidents are being treated as hate crime, with a possible motive being the use of Murray hall

26 August: At the hall the BNP says is being turned into a mosque, children of all races engage in soft play.

The Guardian

The BNP are facing huge fines and possible prosecution after they failed to submit records of donations.

The party faced an unprecedented warning from the head of the Electoral Commission after they also failed to submit their annual accounts to the watchdog, as required by electoral law.

Mystery surrounds how the BNP funded their European election campaign, which resulted in record gains for the party including the election of two MEPs.

Peter Wardle, the chief executive, issued a stark warning to the party.

“We have not yet received a donation return for this quarter from the British National Party. This comes on top of their failure to deliver their latest annual statement of accounts to the Commission. This is unacceptable and the party will be issued with fines for both reporting failures. We will also be assessing the systems they have in place to ensure compliance with the law.”

In May the party claimed that it has £500,000 for the European and county council elections.

The party has declared donations of £21,132 for the first quarter of this year. Only those of more than £5,000 must be submitted to the Electoral Commission and Mr Griffin said that the remainder of its funding for the campaign came from “ordinary” Britons.

However Searchlight, the organisation which campaigns against the BNP, claimed that the party had exaggerated its resources and was “essentially running a paper campaign”.

The accusation was denied by Mr Griffin, who told The Times in May: “The leaflets have gone out, the election broadcasts have been made. It’s everywhere. It’s a huge campaign.”

The Times revealed in May that Nick Griffin, the party’s leader, paid a £5,000 political donation into his personal bank account without declaring it.

The Times

It’s been a vintage summer of lies and deceit for the British National Party.

To pick out just a few highlights, there was the DDoS attack that never was, the Helen Forster/Colclough affair, a second DDoS attack that never was, and umpteen promises to sue Searchlight, the Mirror and Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

The BNP is very good at lying to the public, but even better at lying to its own members – which seems to be the sole intention behind half the tall tales which appear on its website. That, and, of course, the self-manufactured opportunities to scam yet more cash from the pockets of an all too credulous membership, which has even been got to believe that Nick Griffin cannot use part of his Euro salary (his personal income) to help fund the BNP.

No fool, that Nick Griffin.

No fools either are we, so when the screaming words Muslim Post Office Manager Bans Woman from Sending Parcel Because Her Son Serves in Afghanistan headlined an article from Welsh regional organiser Brian Mahoney on the BNP’s interminably slow website, we could be fairly certain that a Muslim Post Office Manager Did Not Ban Woman from Sending Parcel Because Her Son Serves in Afghanistan.

Now had the headline appeared in the Daily Mail there might just have been a kernel of truth to the story, twisted and sensationalised out of all proportion to be sure, but distantly predicated on a fact nevertheless. But this story originated with the BNP, a party which considers facts to be an optional extra.

The gist of the story is quickly told: the mother of a soldier serving in Afghanistan took a parcel addressed to the said son to a Muslim-owned Post Office, and was told in no uncertain terms that she could not send it due to the fact of her son serving in Afghanistan.

As Mahoney puts it: “A Muslim post office manager in Cardiff has refused to serve a British soldier’s mother — because her son serves in Afghanistan.”

You would have thought that something like that would – rightly – create something of a stir. Wouldn’t the local press have got on the case? Wouldn’t the Daily Mail have stopped the presses? Wouldn’t local councillors and MPs have got involved?

But none of that happened.

The first, and only news of this putative cause celebre appeared on the BNP website – the BNP had scooped the world!

To quote from the BNP’s version of events:

“Mrs [Maria] Davies’ 21-year-old son is a soldier in a Welsh regiment who recently began an eight month tour of duty in Afghanistan,” Mr Brian Mahoney, BNP leader in Wales, said.

…

“Imagine, then, Mrs Davies’ shock when the owner of her local post office in Wilson Road, Ely, Cardiff, a certain Mr Khan, asked her where her son was serving.

“When she told him Afghanistan, he informed her that she was not welcome to send him anything from her post office, either packages or money,” Mr Mahoney said. He also instructed his staff not to serve her.

“All this took place publicly in the shop in front of witnesses,” he continued. “It left Mrs Davies astonished, frustrated and upset.”

Even a neighbour who later offered to post her parcel was refused service because they had identified from whom the parcel was being sent.

Accompanying the article was a video interview with Mrs Davies, in which Mrs Davies confirmed to Mahoney that Mr Khan had told her she was banned from the Post Office “because my son was in Afghan” (sic).

The video left a number of us unconvinced that this was the whole truth, mostly because of Mrs Davies’ uncomfortable demeanour throughout, but more tellingly her assertion that “I know he [Mr Khan] can do bad things”, which suggests that Mrs Davies and Mr Khan have a history.

And so, it turns out, they do.

Mr Anjum Alam Khan owns or manages a number of shops in the same road as his Post Office in Wilson Road, one of them being a Nisa convenience store, at which Mrs Davies was a customer. Earlier this year a technical fault with the store’s electronic payment system led to several Nisa customers being repeatedly debited for items they had previously purchased, and among their number was Maria Davies, who lost £200.

Mrs Davies, who is unemployed and lives on benefits, was rightly aggrieved, particularly when her bank charged her for going overdrawn. “I can’t buy any food or anything,” she told her local paper. “This has taken my child support money, my tax credit, my child benefit, my income support and a portion of my next child support payment.”

Nisa promised to repay its serially charged customers, and to refund any bank charges incurred. There was no suggestion of impropreity on the part of Mr Khan.

We cannot help but to believe that the bad blood between Mr Khan and Mrs Davies might have something to do with this, and is the fount of Mrs Davies’ statement that “I know he can do bad things”, and that whatever passed between them is perhaps the reason Mrs Davies is banned from all of Mr Khan’s premises.

Whatever did pass between them we’ll probably never know, but we do know that Mr Khan felt provoked enough to impose a ban, and that the ban has nothing to do with Mrs Davies’s son serving in Afghanistan.

In fact Mr Khan supports the British operation in Afghanistan, and his Post Office has collected on behalf of British troops. He is considered a hard-working member of the community.

But, as an Asian Muslim, he is everything the BNP hates, and naturally the party has maliciously published his contact details, which can be for one purpose only.

For their part, Mr Khan, and Post Office Manageress Mrs Thomas, have issued the following statement:

“There is absolutely no truth in the allegation made to the British National Party that the Post Office in Wilson Road, Ely, Cardiff will not accept parcels for British troops in Afghanistan.

It should not be repeated and we reserve the right to pursue legal action against any person or body repeating the allegation and call for its removal from any website or other publication.

The Wilson Road Post Office has always accepted and continues to accept such parcels. Indeed the Wilson Road shops including the Post Office recently held a ‘Heroes Collection’ for British troops.

The allegation is false and malicious and related to a separate dispute with a customer.

As a result that customer is not welcome at these premises but our services can be accessed by someone else on their behalf if they so wish.”

And so there we have it.

Another BNP lie squarely nailed – but don’t blink, another one will be along very soon now.

Denise Garside

Equality and Human Rights Commission believes far right party discriminates against ‘potential or actual members on racial grounds’

The British National party is being taken to court over claims its membership criteria breach human rights law.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission said it had issued county court proceedings against the party leader, Nick Griffin, and two other officials today over the BNP’s membership rules. The party’s constitution limits members to people who are “‘indigenous Caucasian’ and defined ‘ethnic groups’ emanating from that race”.

The commission first wrote to the BNP in June stating that it believed the party is in breach of the Race Relations Act. The far right organisation responded by saying it intended to clarify the word “white” on its website.

However, the commission said today that it believes the BNP is still discriminating against “potential or actual members on racial grounds”.

“The BNP has said that it is not willing to amend its membership criteria which we believe are discriminatory and unlawful,” said John Wadham the commission’s group director. The commission has a statutory duty to use our regulatory powers to enforce compliance with the law so we have today issued county court proceedings against the BNP.”

Wadham said the BNP could still avoid court action if it moved quickly to change its membership rules.

However, a spokesman for the party said it intended to fight the move, claiming the action was politically motivated.

“It is strange that this is happening now when these rules have been in place for a long time,” said the BNP’s deputy leader, Simon Darby. “And we certainly resent the fact that some unelected body which is 70% ethnic can accuse us of racism.”

The commission said it had decided not to take action on two other grounds set out in its original letter to the BNP after the party agreed to comply with the law.

Guardian

A Blackpool hotel which plays host to the annual BNP conference has had its entertainment and alcohol licence revoked.

The New Kimberley on South Promenade was brought before Blackpool Council’s licensing panel for posing a risk to public safety, and failing to comply with health and safety notices.

The hotel caused public outcry after hosting three of the far-right BNP conferences since 2006, as well as this summer’s “celebration event” after two party members were elected to the European Parliament in May.

New Kimberley manager Peter Metcalfe, who was fined £1,000 for nine offences of breaching food hygiene safety rules last year, was issued with two enforcement notices from Lancashire Fire and Rescue, which found the hotel to had inadequate fire safety standards. And Blackpool Council officers had visited the 50-bedroomed hotel on numerous occasions, issuing a hygiene improvement notice in October.

At Friday’s meeting, Gareth Shaw, spokesman for Blackpool Council’s Health and Safety Enforcement Section, said: “We have had many unpleasant dealings with the people responsible for the New Kimberley. We issued a hygiene improvement notice in October after customer complaints since 2006. We also requested the hotel produce a certificate proving there was no asbestos risk on the premises, and that regular testing of electrical equipment took place.”

The hotel was sent a letter demanding action on April 22, but on June 10 the council was forced to issue court proceedings. Management was fined £525 for seven offences of failing to comply with health and safety notices.

Mr Shaw added: “We’ve since visited, but Mr Metcalfe has become very aggressive and we have seen no efforts made to improve health and safety.”

The fire service’s enforcement notices to the hotel, whose leaseholder is Susan Metcalfe, also demanded that smoke detectors should be fitted, and that designated fire exits should be identified. These requests were ignored, said fire chiefs.

Paul Roper, spokesman for Lancashire Fire and Rescue, said: “I’ve little confidence the managers of this hotel will ever comply with health and safety laws. We’ve been extremely accommodating with Mr and Mrs Metcalfe. We granted an extension when our enforcement notice, issued in July 2007, ran out, as Mr Metcalfe said the ownership of the hotel had changed hands, and now belonged to a Mr John Donut, of South Shore Travel.

“We’ve tried to get hold of this man, but we’ve never been able to, and therefore we have reason to doubt his existence. The managers of this hotel have continually failed to meet any safety standards and therefore we support the council in their call for a review of the licence.”

David Kelly, spokesman and “designated fire safety officer” for the New Kimberly, said: “We have tens of thousands of visitors every year, and we have never had any problems. I know everything has been dealt with on an ad hoc basis, but we have had many problems and I’m determined to sort them out.

“I’ve never met Mr Donut, but I believe he had some financial input and then moved to Indonesia, and he ceased to own the hotel from August this year. We have also had firebomb threats because of the BNP conference, so we have been distracted. We have recently installed a £35,000 fire alarm system, and under my guidance Mr and Mrs Metcalfe will run a pristinely clean, safe hotel that will be among the best in Blackpool.”

Mr Kelly claimed the council had taken action against the hotel due to its hosting of the BNP conference. The council denied the claim.

The hotel will have 21 days to appeal against the decision, after which time it will no longer be able to sell alcohol, or provide entertainment .

Blackpool Gazette

See also Grimy BNP-link hotel ‘a hazard to humans’

West Midlands Police have been urged to step in and ban a far right group from holding a march in Birmingham next month to avoid a repeat of the shocking scenes of violence witnessed earlier this month.

White nationalist organisation The English Defence League (EDL) and an associated group, Casuals United, are due to hold a rally against Islamic extremism in the city on September 5. Their first demonstration on August 8 ended with violence and bloodshed as supporters clashed with anti-racism campaigners.

One of those calling for a ban was Respect councillor Salma Yaqoob, who expected more street violence if EDL returned.

“When it comes to public safety we have every right to intervene,” she said. “But the ‘just stay away’ message we are hearing won’t wash with today’s Muslim youngsters who won’t put their heads down and carry on walking when they are subjected to racist taunts – they will react and fight back.”

Yesterday, those at a public meeting to discuss how the city should deal with the group’s next visit voted unanimously that the police should have the demonstration banned. West Midlands Police were urged to join forces with Birmingham City Council to apply to the Home Secretary for a banning order under the Public Order Act.

Luton is one of the places which has banned the EDL and other right-wing groups from holding marches for three months to avoid violence.

But a senior police officer said there were no current plans to do so as the EDL had a legitimate right to hold its march.

The Birmingham rally saw 35 people arrested, and running battles between protesters and police in riot gear in Victoria Square and New Street.

Chief Insp Adrian Atherley, head of West Midlands Police’s diversity and community cohesion unit, told yesterday’s meeting how both groups involved, the EDL and the Anti Facist League, acted within the law and the problem lay with their supporters.

“The people fighting were Brummies fighting each other. Why? Because they had been wound up and provoked by the groups who had left by then,” he said.

He said to obtain a ban they would have to jump through numerous legal and bureaucratic hoops. “We have considered it, but section 13 of the Public Order Act is very specific about marches,” he said. “In Birmingham the situation is very different to Luton where the Chief Constable felt he could not police that event. We did not lose control on August 8 , there were no major injuries or damage, and in terms of disorder there was no loss of control.”

He added: “Obtaining a section 13 ban requires the Chief Constable to go to the local authority to say in the event of a march I cannot police the streets and the local authority has to apply to the Home Secretary.”

But he said their decision was constantly reviewed and he would feed back comments to the Chief Constable.

Also at the meeting was Birmingham councillor Judy Foster, vice-chairman of the West Midlands Police Authority, who said she would be raising the issue of a ban during a meeting with the Chief Constable Chris Sims today.

Birmingham Post

Irish Nazis on fun day out

(From the Belfast Telegraph, August 19th)

A neo-Nazi gang is congregating in Dublin’s city centre, intimidating passers-by and singing anti-Semitic songs. The gang has become a common sight in Dublin’s tourist areas, including Temple Bar and St Stephen’s Green.

One woman has claimed that she saw some members of a 20-strong gang set upon a black man. She said: “They don’t seem to care about race, age or sex. They are just picking on people.” She said members of the group wore dark clothes and some of them had the swastika symbol on their sleeves.

The woman said: “They were in camouflage pants, leather jackets, boots and shaved heads. They chased a friend of my boyfriend’s through Rathmines.” The young troublemakers were aged between 15 and 20 years old, she said.

RTE’s Ryan Tubridy has also spoken out about the gang.

He told listeners to his Radio 1 show: “I was talking to a friend of mine, who was in Stephen’s Green shopping centre. He was there on Saturday with his wife and child and came across a group of between six and seven young Dubs with — this is quite an unpleasant story but I’ll tell you anyway — with Doc Martens on and the bomber jackets and the hair shaved. Neo-Nazis.”

He added: “They were walking around singing anti-Jewish songs in the Stephen’s Green centre on Saturday afternoon.”

But a spokeswoman for the shopping centre told the Herald: “They must have come in and gone out and carried on their way, as opposed to something noticeable in the centre.”

One Dubliner who came across the gang said she suspected they were part of a group that held meetings in the Dublin mountains and were “against multicultural Ireland”.

Meanwhile, business owners in the Temple Bar area say they have encountered the youths every day, but they generally move away when they’re told. A worker in a tattoo parlour said: “It’s bad for business to have them hanging around outside the shop. It could prevent customers coming in. We always tell them to move on because it’s not good.”

Another witness told the Herald the group sought out alcoves in Temple Bar, such as the area outside Eamon Doran’s pub, where they could hang out.

A spokesperson for Eamon Doran’s pub said: “They sometimes drink in here under strict warning because we don’t want any racist trouble in here. I’ve seen them around for the last six months. They are neo-Nazis and they’re all in their late teens and early 20s. We haven’t had any trouble in here. They usually hang around in the late afternoons and at the weekends.”

Another worker in the Temple Bar area said: “There are some small fights because people get annoyed by the look of them.”

Belfast Telegraph

A little girl grins with glee as she holds a golly over a fire . . . while a jeering BNP politician finds the doll guilty of BEING BLACK during a vile mock trial and execution. The baying crowd cheers when the toy – dubbed Winston – is condemned and dropped on to the flames to “die”. Goading on the assembled adults and kids, the politician, a local council candidate, yells out these chilling words: “Let’s get a real one . . . in the town we’ll find one or two.”

(Left, GUILTY: Golly ‘Winston’ is held by girl before being dropped on the fire)

The sickening stunt was staged at the British National Party’s annual FAMILY festival last weekend – yet the BNP insists it is NOT racist as part of its successful ploy to attract votes in elections. Around 1,200 members converged on fields at Codnor, Derbys, for the Red White and Blue “fun” weekend. Our undercover reporter, posing as a supporter to gain entry to the members-only event, secretly filmed racism everywhere.

For £1 a go, people were throwing wet sponges at a man in a Barack Obama mask locked in stocks. Elsewhere stalls were selling T-shirts with slogans like It’s A White Thing and books such as Race, Evolution and Behavior – which insists whites give birth to larger-brained babies and blacks are prone to crime. Supporters gave Nazi-style salutes and shouted Sieg Heil.

And in the “political tent”, party chairman and MEP Nick Griffin, 50, was setting out how his party would deal with proposed anti-discrimination laws forcing the BNP to change its whites-only membership policy. He said: “Since if we want to survive we will be forced to let them in, the key will be before we do so to change the party – to ensure that whoever’s coming in doesn’t have any control.”

Saturday night was the climax of the festival – and when the vileness reached its peak. Firstly, around 50 skinheads took part in a PAGAN ceremony to summon occult powers for their cause. They chanted incantations as they passed around and drank from an animal horn filled wth mead.

(Left, JUDGE & JURY: Coombes (seated), Hamilton (top left), and a BNP mate)

Two hours later, local council candidates John Coombes, of Maidenhead, Berks, and Dick Hamilton of Marlow, Bucks, were sitting with others around a brazier. Hamilton’s ghettoblaster blared out songs supporting Hitler and attacking “niggers”. Then began the “trial” led by Coombes, 45.

A 12-year-old girl there with her dad (we are protecting her identity) held a golly called Winston over the fire as Coombes “charged” him with “mugging, rape, drug dealing”. He sneered: “Right Winston, you’re about to get cooked. Anything else to say? Says he ain’t a drug dealer. He thinks he’s not black. He’s charged with being black. Now get on there.”

Skinhead Hamilton chipped in: “If he jumps off he’s innocent.” Coombes went on: “He’s guilty, guilty as charged. Let’s get a real one – in the town we’ll find one or two. They’ll also be guilty of the heinous crimes I charged him with – may God forgive your horrible soul.” Coombes repeated the charges then added: “He may have appeared innocent to you lot but I’m sure he done lots of things wrong.”

During the weekend the party’s other MEP Andrew Brons used his stint in the political tent to compare Muslims to SMALLPOX during his speech. He declared: “I’m less concerned about the presence of mosques than the presence of the people that use them. Being worried about the presence of a particular mosque is almost like looking at a disease like smallpox and saying it’s a problem with spots.”

Ex-BNP cultural officer Jonathan Bowden, 47, also attacked Islam, and dubbed Jewish Israel as “cancer”. He bleated: “The only way this (Muslim) problem will be solved is if they go back – go back to their civilisation. (But) we must renounce support for Israel. Israel is the cancer that lies at the heart of much of this.”

(Left, SICK SALUTE: Party supporters make the Nazi sign and yell out ‘Sieg Heil’)

And Greater London Authority member Richard Barnbrook joked about BLACKING himself up. The deputy opposition leader of Barking and Dagenham council boasted: “I’ve got balls made of steel. In my own ward, if I go around naked, and put boot polish on my face, they’d still love me.”

In the evenings, supporters sat round campfires venting hate. During one chat, Stockport area organiser Duncan Warner explained to our reporter in sick twisted logic why using the word “Paki” was OK.

“Paki means pure. So why do you get offended when all that they’re doing is calling you pure?” he whined. “You get called a Paki, how can you get offended by that?”

Elsewhere party supporter Danny Marshall, of Cotmanhay, Derbys, and his girlfriend Bev boasted of using intimidation tactics to rid the village of foreigners who’d moved there. Bev said: “Where I live is National Front. It’s BNP. There’s this black family that’s just moved in from Nigeria. An hour later they were out…They were coming to nick our jobs. They had an hour to get out of their premises – from us people, ourselves.”

Marshall said: “The Lithuanians and Czechs are sneaking in because they’re white. You find the fuckers on the doorstep.”

Bev added: “These guys from Poland came into Cotmanhay and did a car wash. Somebody wrote BNP on their sign – once that was there they were gone…guess who that was? Me and Danny. I wrote BNP.”

Elsewhere another man moaned: “If things don’t become any better, and I become older, so I’m 70 or 75, I’ll take a GPMG (machine gun) – seriously, I’m not joking here – and I’m going to fucking destroy lots of people.

On one occasion shouts of “Reds, reds” broke out. BNP members grabbed hammers and axes then charged to the perimeter fence. A lone anti-facism protester trying to get into the festival was stopped by police before the thugs got to him.

During the weekend police arrested 19 of the protesters outside – and one BNP member. Meanwhile, half an hour after the sick golly burning the BNP’s London organiser Bob Bailey arrived. With him was Griffin – who stated last October “the BNP is not racist”. Together they warmed themselves on the embers.

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