Norfolk Unity

Dudley council accused of caving in to far right after pulling plug on ‘Moonfleece’

A critically acclaimed play about the British National Party and homophobia which has toured the most racially sensitive areas of the country in an effort to “start a conversation about the far right” has been barred from a stage in Dudley for fear of community disapproval.

The play’s production team yesterday expressed their dismay at the decision to pull Moonfleece from the Mill Theatre in Dudley’s Dormston Centre, and claimed the move was tantamount to appeasing right-wing and BNP sympathisers.

The play – the latest offering from the controversial Philip Ridley – was scheduled to be staged in the West Midlands on Thursday, two days before a rally by the far-right group the English Defence League is due to take place in the same town.

Full story at The Independent (click)

The BNP’s London campaign chief was today facing suspension as a councillor after launching a racist “tirade” against Nigerian church-goers.

Bob Bailey, 44, took an “antagonistic and offensive” tone when a black pastor applied for planning permission to convert Barking offices into a church.

A meeting in Barking town hall was in uproar when Mr Bailey said: “We don’t want any more Nigerian churches in the borough.” The public gallery was packed with members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

He said he had visited the premises and told the planning committee meeting last July: “These people eat off the ground.” He added: “We don’t want the amount of black children.” A rival councillor called him a “racist pig”.

Barking and Dagenham council’s standards committee was meeting today to decide whether to suspend the leader of the 12-strong BNP opposition for up to six months.

A preliminary report by the council’s monitoring officer found that Mr Bailey, a former Royal Marine, had brought the authority into disrepute, failed to treat others with respect and may have breached equality laws.

Mr Bailey, who was said by a doctor last year to have a “possible personality disorder” when he claimed that he was banned from driving because of “conspiracy against the indigenous people”, is responsible for the BNP’s London campaign in the general election and borough elections.

Barking is the BNP’s number one target seat as its national leader Nick Griffin is standing against the sitting Labour MP, Margaret Hodge.

The church, whose 400-strong congregation is predominantly Nigerian, was granted permission to convert offices into a place of worship, despite Mr Bailey voting against.

He was said to have breached planning laws by “closing his mind” and being “biased” against the application. He claimed there were already more than 20 Nigerian churches in the borough — the most in London and more than any other denomination.

The council report said: “Mr Bailey made a series of comments expressed in a derogatory tone. The comments were intended to, and did in fact, cause offence on racial grounds.”

Pastor Thomas Aderounmu, 55, of the Redeemed Church, said today the remarks would encourage ethnic minorities to vote against the BNP in May. He said: “It was just derogatory statements. He was very specific on Nigeria. I don’t know what Nigerians have done to him. It was very personal. Their actions will work against them.”

This is London

Stoke-on-Trent BNP councillors have been reduced in numbers to 7 from the initial 9 earlier in the year.

After Alby Walker stepped down as BNP group leader in the city the group were reduced to 8 and at todays full council meeting Councillor Ellie Walker was sitting away from the rest of the BNP group and sat with her husband with the non aligned councillors.

During a vote on the nominations for appointment to school governing bodies which included Councillor Steve Batkin from the BNP being nominated as a governor at Endsor High School Ellie Walker abstained from the vote, effectively voting against the BNP group who all voted in favour of all the nominations.

We have been told that Ellie has moved away from the BNP and is just waiting for the paperwork to be completed by Member Services.

Alby Walker confirmed that Ellie has moved away from the party during his speech on item 14 of the agenda asking the council to arrange a suitable event each year to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

In a statement this evening Simon Darby Deputy Leader of the BNP said: “Well it would have been unusual had she stayed considering the circumstances with regards her husband. However, I would like to thank her for all the hard work she has done for the British National Party and for local people over the years. She is a kind and very brave lady and it is unfortunate that her husband has in effect terminated her political career as well as his own.”

Pits n Pots

Norfolk Unity adds: A vicious post on the BNP main website accusing Alby Walker of having psychiatric problems has been removed. The post attempted to link Alby Walker with football hooliganism and claimed that Ellie Walker remained part of the BNP group.

It is a mystery to us why the BNP continually prints falsehoods that it knows will be exposed very quickly.

Since Alby Walker’s departure BNP members have turned on their former comrade as only they know how. Accused of belonging to Searchlight, the State, of being a “communist”, a “traitor” etc., his name is usually spoken in the same sentence as the word “scum”, followed by sinister promises that the BNP will have its revenge on Walker.

A charming and peaceful Easter message from Nick Griffin, the visionary powerhouse who runs the BNP, arrives on my desk. As an illustration for the most important festival in the Christian calendar, I rather expected the BNP’s creative geniuses to come up with a white chocolate egg, or a pagan attack bunny with St George’s cross.

But no. Old Nick’s epistle has an etching (though they probably think it’s a photograph) of “English king Richard the Lionheart holding back the Muslim tide at the Battle of Acre in the Middle East in the 12th century.”

As a political model, I rather suggest the Coeur de Lion leaves something to be desired. The BNP’s bovines are always eager to circulate videos of Muslim beheadings: They should know that, after the siege of Acre, Richard decapitated 2,700 Muslim prisoners.

George Pitcher – full article (click)

British National Party leader Nick Griffin has admitted that he finds gays “creepy” and would ban civil partnerships – but claims he has removed the most homophobic elements from the party.

Mr Griffin spoke to Tory activist and blogger Iain Dale for Total Politics magazine and PinkNews.co.uk has been given exclusive extracts of unpublished parts of the interview.

He conceded that his party used to be “drastically” anti-gay but he now knows it has gay members, although he said it was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation.

Mr Griffin said of homosexuality: “It’s unfamiliar, it’s odd and I’m afraid it is creepy. Grown men kissing in public is creepy to most people. You don’t often see it but if you do see it, it’s not a matter of homophobia, it’s odd and you have to explain it to little kids and so on – that’s strange.

“We’re not anti-gay. I took over a party which had a total ban on homosexual members. We’ve got gay members now and people know who they are, but it’s don’t ask don’t tell.”

Full story at Pink News (click)

Black churches would not be welcome or receive grants from a BNP local or national government if their ministry and place of worship were to be in a “historically white area”, BNP leader Nick Griffin admitted on live TV last night.

Mr Griffin aired his views in a controversial live debate with the leader of the Christian Party and British-born, black pastor Rev George Hargreaves on Revelation and Genesis TV.

Both men are standing against Labour Minister Margaret Hodge for the Barking constituency in the up-coming general election.

The two were debating the motion: “That the election of any BNP MP or leader of a Local Authority will be detrimental to Black and ethnic minority Christians in particular and the wider church in general in Britain.”

Mr Griffin revealed that his understanding of Christian heritage was one of “national pride and history”, rather than a personal and corporate dedication to Jesus Christ. When asked about his own relationship with God, he stated his relationship was not so much with Jesus, but rather with an ideal of what the Anglican church as the ’state church’ should be.

Full story at Christian Today (click)

A message from Nick Lowles at HOPE not hate:

Over the past few days the media have been reporting that Griffin and his fellow BNP MEP Andrew Brons have been using vast amounts of taxpayer money to prop up their extremist party. Our research team have just sent me a dossier listing the benefactors of this action – and 10 of them are standing to be MPs in the coming election, including their election co-ordinator.

We are paying for the BNP’s election campaign.

This appears to be a clear misuse of public funds – and it’s up to us to demand that the EU take the strongest possible action to stop it. We’ve set up a simple tool that lets you write to four EU anti-corruption bodies at once.

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/fraud

According to our source inside the BNP, 14 party members are being paid with EU money. Several of them don’t even live in areas where the BNP has MEPs. And most of them are among the party’s lead candidates in the forthcoming General Election.

We can’t let this continue. If enough of us come together we can demand that the EU stamp down on the BNP’s dodgy activities – and stop each of us funding this nasty, extremist party. Our simple tool lets you write to the EU Anti-Fraud Office, the EU Ombudsman, the President of the EU Parliament, and the Secretary General.

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/fraud

Every taxpayer is currently funding the BNP’s election campaign. With your help we can stop this right here and right now.

HOPE not hate

Getting his excuses in first, BNP Stoke Central candidate Simon Darby blogged (or rather whined) about “BBC tricks”, despite being invited to record a piece for the West Midland version of the Politics Show in response to what he called a “below the belt attack launched by Alby [Walker] and the BBC”.

Until recently Alby Walker was BNP group leader on Stoke-on-Trent council. He was to have been the BNP candidate for Stoke Central until elbowed aside for Simon Darby, and now intends to contest the seat as an independent.

Not happy with the terms of the BBC interview, the idiotic Darby asked WM Politics Show reporter Colin Pemberton: “How are you going to feel when your children have to endure the nightmare of a future Islamic republic knowing that you took money to try and stitch up the BNP, the only organisation able to stop the process?”

Fortunately for Darby, Pemberton did not include that hysterical BNP gem in his broadcast report.

BNP knives are out for the “treacherous” Alby Walker in a big way, the former BNP golden boy variously being accused of being in the pay of the Labour Party, “the State”, MI5 or whoever else comes to mind. A clearly discomfited Darby blogged that Walker has been “given a directorship, fat salary and a brand new car from a Stoke-based windows company. This firm handles a large amount of contracts with various councils across the country.”

Darby never repeated that on the Politics Show, merely saying that Alby Walker was “a bit disillusioned with the party”, and that he had no chance of becoming an MP.

Walker’s appearance on the programme (Sunday March 21st) was brief but telling. He said:

“There’s a vein of holocaust denying within the BNP that I cannot identify myself with. They’ve still got senior members of the BNP who will be candidates in the generasl election that have Nazi sympathies. They’re good at stirring up emotions, but they really have no answers. When they do get elected as politicians they’re quickly exposed.

“Seeing what’s happened with Nick Griffin has pushed me towards leaving the party. He’s using the party as some kind of vehicle to make himself rich and famous.”

It certainly took the Griffin penny long enough to drop for Alby Walker, who remains for us as odious as Simon Darby, but at least we can say in his favour that he is certainly doing his best to shaft Darby and the BNP in Stoke.

Denise Garside

Dozens of people were arrested and several injured during a rally organised by a controversial rightwing group in Lancashire yesterday.

Hundreds of police used dogs, riot gear and a helicopter to control the English Defence League protest and a counter-demonstration organised by Unite Against Fascism, in Victoria Square, Bolton.

Police made 74 arrests, including at least 55 protesters from UAF and their organiser Weyman Bennett, as well as a number from the EDL. Two people were taken to hospital after being hit by missiles such as smoke bombs, coins and bottles thrown between opposing demonstrations. Police estimated the crowds at 2,000-strong from the EDL and about 1,500 from UAF and said officers had faced “a lot of hostility”.

Full story at The Observer (click)