"Free speech has no place in our society where the BNP are concerned..."

"... and this shows with the backing we receive from the prime Minister, David Cameron and other influential politicians who realise democracy is to fragile to be left in the hands and words of the nazi BNP.

Well done to the Police, shame you had no cause to lock him up."

This post by Dr Jason Sturgess at Saddleworth News refers to the hustings for the forthcoming Oldham West by-election, held in the fine old village of Delph, which I tootled through on my L-plated bike many a time in my youth, on that long ride from Worcestershire to Yorkshire (via EU Referendum). I think I'll let you be the judge on this one. More reports here and here :




BNP candidate is removed from 'open' hustings in Delph.

Dear Readers,
I was in email contact with Cllr Hulme who organised the event and he refused to invite 5 of the candidates included myself. I informed him that the meeting broke Electoral commission rules on hustings, the Millgate Arts Centre building recieves public funding and the meeting was advertised as an open event. The people of Delph should have been allowed to ask any questions to any of the candidates, in controlling the meeting like they did and only allowing on candidates whose parties are already discredited with scandals, deceit and lies was an insult to the people of Saddleworth and anti-democratic. Cllr Hulmes reasons were unjustified and when he lost the argument his emails reverted to All capitals and in bold ie, shouting in text language.
Stephen Morris English Democrats

Delph website disagrees :

After comments about the conduct of the Hustings Meeting held on sunday 9th January, the following statement has been issued by the Delph DCA & Traffic Group :

"Setting the record straight.

No hustings or candidates question time in this constituency has EVER had all the candidates on the platform and there is no legal requirement to do so. On Thursday night the Oldham Chronicle organised a question time with just three candidates on the platform.

It is simply not practicable to hold a question time with more than 5 speakers and with 10 candidates a choice has to be made. On Sunday the three main candidates were joined by the Green candidate Peter Allen whose party has a councillor on Oldham Council and Paul Nuttall the UKIP candidate who is also an elected member of the European Parliament for the North West.

The BNP candidate asked for and was given tickets to be part of the audience at the event. Unfortunately the candidate and his supporters organised a 'sit in' protest which disrupted the start of the meeting, their behaviour threatening a breach of the peace. Having repeatedly refused polite requests from the organisers to end their 'sit in' protest on the platform and return to their seats in the audience , the organisers had no alternative but to ask the police to escort the BNP candidate and his entourage from the building.

The organisers would like to thank the police for the calm and professional way they dealt with a difficult situation.

Delph proceeded to have a cracking election meeting which was lively, entertaining and informative.

We have to wonder why the BNP picked on a small village community group when as far as we know the Oldham Chronicle received no complaints from them about the candidates meeting they organised in Denshaw last Thursday night.'

Delph Community Association and Delph Traffic Group are non-political community organisations. No Councillor from any political party was involved in the organisation of this event"

I doubt that statement about never having all the candidates together is true. For years Oldham was a two-member constituency with usually only four candidates, and in the 50s Oldham West only had two candidates. Did they never sit in the same room ?

Candidates are :

* Debbie Abrahams (Labour)
* Derek Adams (British National Party)
* Kashif Ali (Conservative)
* Peter Allen (Green Party)
* David Bishop (Bus-Pass Elvis Party)
* The Flying Brick (Monster Raving Loony Party)
* Loz Kaye (Pirate Party of the United Kingdom)
* Stephen Morris (English Democrats)
* Paul Nuttall MEP (UK Independence Party)
* Elwyn Watkins (Liberal Democrats)

At the last election :

General Election 2010: Oldham East and Saddleworth[9]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Phil Woolas	14,186	31.9	−10.7
	Liberal Democrat	Elwyn Watkins	14,083	31.6	−0.5
	Conservative	Kashif Ali	11,773	26.4	+8.7
	BNP	Alwyn Stott	2,546	5.7	+0.8
	UKIP	David Bentley	1,720	3.9	+1.8
	Christian	Gulzar Nazir	212	0.5	N/A
Majority			103	0.2	−10.2
Turnout			44,520	61.2	+4.4

I've Never Seen Anything Like It In My Life

I've managed to avoid posting on it so far, but I cannot believe the amount of coverage the BBC are giving the BNP this week. I don't think I've heard a single news bulletin since the weekend where they didn't get a mention. Some kind of mass hysteria seems to be sweeping the liberal psyche - a moral panic on a grand scale. Could McCarthy's America or seventeenth-century Salem top this?

Today it ranged from Laura Janner Klausener (any relation to Greville ?) on Thought For The Day :

For me, a helpful way to understand conflict is to think in terms of perpetrators, victims and bystanders. In the context of provocation by extremists, we know who'd be the perpetrators and who'd be the victims but most crucial are the bystanders. The bystanders will be the spectators at home, watching "Question Time", some may be cheering, or others tutting and shaking their heads. Some may want to switch off completely.

There's certainly only one anointed victim for tonight's entertainment. Didn't the Fall have a record called 'Live At The Witch-Trials' ?

And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:

And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited ...

I digress. From that, to - at lunchtime - Victoria Derbyshire on R5 asking some hapless BBC executive words to the effect of 'will you be able to sleep in your bed at night knowing you've facilitated all the racist attacks which are going to happen" ?

The salivating ex-decents of Hebden Bridge are doomed to disappointment, I fear.

Tonight in the pub, by no means a bastion of bigotry, nevertheless much chat from sundry locals about Nick Griffin appearing tomorrow on Question Time. Much was seriously depressing. He "has a point" say people I have thought were decent. Many, it seems, will be watching with anticipatory glee.The ratings are likely to go through the roof- for entirely the wrong reasons.

My money is on the whole thing being called off after a series of bomb scares. Martin McGuiness wasn't at the Labour Conference for his health, you know.


UPDATE - Telegraph live-blogging includes this spot-on quote from Conservative Home's Tim Montgomerie.

7:23pm Conservativehome director Tim Montgomerie tells Sky that the only thing that will undermine the BNP is a mainstream party which opposes unbridled immigration.

More Telegraph - Richard Preston (any relation?) :

"Only hours to go now until the fascist takeover ..."

Mea Maxima Culpa

I can't remember where, but I posted somewhere that the Left seemed to be far less paranoid than the Right when it came to the malignant influence of Her Majesty's Government. The Respect split generated vast numbers of comments at places like Socialist Unity, but nowhere did I see anyone fingering MI5 as involved.

By contrast the BNP split of 2007, and even more the leaking of the membership list in 2008 generated reams of speculation about state involvement. And, to be fair, Occam's Razor seemed to point that way. I was as guilty as anyone.

Generally I am a firm believer in Mr Cock-up rather than Mr Conspiracy. But the thesis put forward by Nick Griffin yesterday - that the list was released by a senior ex-member who thought the party were too moderate - seems unlikely. I'm not a guru of BNP internal politics, but I thought last years split was over tactics and personalities rather than strategy.

What I obviously forgot was how very unpleasant a split over personalities can be.

A judge attacked an ex-member of the British National Party for living off the state today as he fined him £200 for releasing membership details online. District Judge John Stobart described Matthew Single's decision to publish the names and contact details of some 12,000 BNP party members as "foolish and criminally dangerous"...

The Crown Prosecution Service said that following his guilty plea, they were dropping the charges against his wife, 30-year-old Sadie Graham-Single. She was not at court today, having moved with her husband from Church Lane, Brinsley, Nottinghamshire, to a new home in the south of England, the address of which was not disclosed by the court. More than 160 complaints were made to the police from BNP members across the country after they became victims of revenge attacks following the publication of the list last November.

Outside court, Detective Sergeant Chris Reynolds said he was "disappointed" with today's result. He added: "It's taken a great deal of work to get the case to court. "There was pretty serious stuff after what happened. People were fearful for their safety. There was an arson attack on a vehicle; there were daubings and malicious communications. White powder was also put through people's letterboxes purporting to be anthrax and there were daubings of swastikas on garage doors and on homes."

The row between Single, his wife and the BNP started in December 2007 when the couple were expelled from the party for launching a blog, calling on Nick Griffin to sack a number of their colleagues. They then used the membership list to send out a bogus BNP mailshot demanding Nick Griffin change the structure of the party. After this, the BNP successfully sought a court order against Single, who trained its members in security techniques, and his wife, banning them from publishing the details of the party's members. Although Mrs Graham-Single had given the information to her husband he was prosecuted for publishing the details on the web.

The BNP says the dispute within the party started when Single and some of his former colleagues tried to install Mrs Graham-Single as leader and were frustrated because they were unable to make constitutional changes taking power away from the leadership. Single, on the other hand, claims the party had become entirely focused on making money and had turned in to a "cult" centred on Nick Griffin. He said he wanted to make the party seem more acceptable to mainstream voters and less focused on extreme politics. Outside court, Single, dressed in a checked shirt and brown pin-striped trousers, said the BNP had become a cult. He also denied rumours he and his wife were actually members of a socialist organisation who had infiltrated the BNP."The BNP at grassroots level has some very good and honest people but I think at the top of the party it's very corrupt," he said. "It seems to be more to do with about trying to make money than about trying to serve local communities. It's turned into a cult where all the members look to one person, that being the party leader, Nick Griffin. This happened because Griffin saw Sadie as a challenge to his authority, as a threat. We wanted to make the party something far more acceptable."

I know from the local papers that a couple of pensioners in Gloucester had their house graffiti'd when the list came out.

Just goes to show. How anyone can convince themselves that publicly outing a party membership, especially for a party whose members should be shot or duffed up in the streets, will encourage them to join a breakaway, I'm not sure. The SWP walked off with the Respect membership list, computers and passwords, but I didn't see them appearing on wikileaks. There appeared to be no possible reason why the breakaway faction would want to do such a thing, and I still can't see one now.

But in the meantime, I owe an apology to our government. They are not quite as anti-democratic as I thought them to be. In their Canute-like struggle there are still one or two things they won't do. Yet.

UPDATE - it still seems an unreal thing to do for any political activist who's not actually mentally ill. Most strange.

15%

A pretty impressive Labour performance in the EU elections. As Ross put it :

You have to admire Labour's strategic genius, they knew that there would be a shift in public opinion to minor parties, and so they have become a minor party in order to capitalise on this.

It looks as though the PLP is going to hold on tight to Nurse, although what they fear finding that's worse then 15% is hard to imagine.

The rebels admitted that they had faced opposition to their revolt from MPs who saw no alternative leader coming forward, and fears that a new leader would have to stage an early election, at which Labour would be crushed.

It looks as if, as so often, H.P Lovecraft had the words for it :

"There was something of stolid resignation about them all, as if they walked half in another world between lines of nameless guards to a certain and familiar doom."

And while the anti-BNP effort got higher, it turns out not to have been quite enough. The BNP now have their noses in the mighty Euro-trough. Mr Griffin and a chap called Andrew Brons were elected. If I were trying to scrap the 'Nazi' tag I'm not sure I'd want to run a candidate who apparently actually was a menber of a National Socialist group, even if it was a long time ago. And apparently the chap's only been a party member for four years. Perhaps Mr Griffin feels that a fellow-zealot is more likely to devote the hefty salary and expenses to the Cause rather than personal enrichment.

For commentators like Laban, who consider mass immigration with no attempt at integration to be an exceptionally dangerous development, one which is likely to transform the uniquely civilised and peaceful political culture of the last 300-odd years into something like Fiji at best, Bosnia at worst, what we're seeing is an inevitable consequence thereof :

" ... as long as the demographics all point one way, as long as continuing immigration (and continuing emigration of natives) continue to change the cultural landscape, above all as long as our white, wealthy liberal elite refuse to even think about, let alone face honestly, some of the less palatable issues raised by a multicultural society (being themselves insulated from these issues by their wealth) - then we will see politics in the UK, and particularly in England - split upon racial lines. That is what has happened everywhere else in the world where a nation has major ethnic divisions - and while I love the English, I can't see them being immune - they're not THAT special."

But, you may say, the BNP didn't actually get many more votes this time round than they did in 2004 ? Where's this inevitable split in politics ?

Well, the BNP wasn't the only 'stop immigration now' party contesting the elections. According to Harry's Place :

The parties that focused highly on immigration - UKIP, BNP, English Democrats, United Kingdom First - received a combined 3,795,632 votes.

When that many choose to vote for anti-immigration parties, it should be clear that immigration is an issue that needs addressing.

As someone who thinks mass immigration is dangerous but doesn't hate Jews or love Odin, it's good news that other parties are carrying the torch. The three main parties are all pro-immigration - Labour because they love the taxes and the client voters, Tories because they love the cheap labour, Lib Dims for a mixture of the two. The Greens would open the borders altogether if their activists had their way - a great many of the permanent student or idiot self-hating left have moved there from the Labour party.

UKIP have been given an easy ride in the media, as the safety-valve option approved by our rulers. Their large number of MEPs last time out have been pretty invisible, save Mr Farage's savaging of GB a few months back, and I had been wondering if their voters last time round would split between the BNP on one side and Cameron's revived Tories on the other. But the expenses scandal cut down on the number of defectors to the Tories, and the unprecedented anti-BNP campaign, while not sufficient to prevent them winning seats, coupled with the undoubted damage which will have been done when their entire membership's names, addresses and contact details were put on the web, kept the defector rate low. Oh, and they magically found an ex-Tory sugar daddy to fund them, just before the elections.

You'd almost think there'd been a tacit agreement to cut UKIP some slack. They have plenty of unreconstructed old-style Tory characters with decidedly un-PC views on the Brits and immigration (not to mention cleaning behind the fridge), there have been cases of financial impropriety and expenses fraud. Yet no one in the big three parties or the media has turned their guns on them. Only Caroline Lucas of the pro-immigration Green Party switched on the abuse on 28th May's Question Time, with thinly-veiled insinuations of racism directed at Farage. Hasn't she read the script ? Even the SWP have :

UKIP candidates came to join the protesters, (against the BNP's Nick Griffin- LT) and were met with fierce accusations of racism from several anti fascists. A SWP member and UNISON steward intervened, arguing that it was not the time to be exposing UKIP.

There can be no doubt that if the BNP didn't exist, all the fire now directed at them woul be incoming on UKIP. The pro-immigration Left hate anti-immigration Tories just as much as they hate the BNP. But for the duration, the lefties have buried the hatreds and donned the "butchers apron" with everyone else. The Labour, Tory and BNP leaflets through my door all featured the Union Flag. We've seen the bizarre sight of far-left bloggers linking to the Tories - who they'd usually be accusing of being racists - or citing Churchill as the sort of decent chap who'd never vote BNP rather than his usual depiction as a racist who told the troops to shoot miners.

Instead, the BNP are a diversion and shield - perhaps even a necessary one - to the non-BNP parties wishing to stop mass immigration. Like Sinn Fein's twin-track strategy of the Armalite and the ballot box, the stoppers have the jackboot on one foot and the comfy tartan slipper on the other.

Spot The Difference

Iain Dale notes the BNP-flavoured nuLab leaflet being dished out in the North West, and asks :

When you first looked at this leaflet, which party did you think it was for? It's no surprise that this is Labour's Euro election leaflet for the North West of England - the region which is most likely to return a BNP MEP. Wonder who this leaflet is aimed at, then?

Well, it's not just the North West of England - I was up visiting family in Bromsgrove (West Midlands Euro-constituency) and they had the same one there. I imagine that's also a BNP target seat.

They also had this leaflet :



And this one :



It's the Battle of the Spitfires !

If the BNP change nothing else, they're changing Labour Party iconography. I told you it would be entertaining to watch El Gordo wrapping himself in the Union Jack.

Euro Election Campaigning Starts In Earnest

Sack them.

Vote for anyone but them.

Residents' fury at them (aka one Lib Dem councillor. Do they do fury, the Lib Dems ?)

"peddling their own brand of snake-oil"

Don't ignore them - confront them.

"the last thing Cumbria needs"

"outcasts in the north" - oops, sorry - that appears to be the Tories.

Listen to the BBC next Thursday where will be revealed their campaigning secrets.

Which include "dress smartly" and "do not express extreme views or advocate violence of any description. Your e-mails are probably less secure than you think". I wonder what gave them that idea ?






I think the last - re expressing extreme views - is a bit of a forlorn hope from a BNP perspective. If we cross the Atlantic to Canada, we find "anti-racist activists" who specialise in joining nasty websites, posting nasty stuff on said websites, waiting for an equally nasty response, then suing under hate-crime legislation. I'm sure there'll be a few such lurking under some dank BNP stone - and they're all pretty dank, aren't they, children ?

Take the interesting debate at Conservative Home, which I linked to above and which features a number of commenters addressing what IMHO is and has been for the last seven or eight years the key driver behind increasing BNP support - namely the demographic changes which are likely to see my children members of the British ethnic minority in their old age*. They point out the poor old elephant in the drawing room that dare not speak its name.

"If things are allowed to continue, within about 30 years the indigenous population will be a minority"

"In real life, people want a strict immigration policy. Both major parties have failed to do what Britons want."

"Cultural existence is whether you like it or not - a very important matter to most Brits."

"do you want to become an ethnic minority?" - this issue has to be addressed, if we ignore it the BNP will score yet another propaganda victory.

"Creating a firm, common sense immigration policy that British people really want is the way forward. The fact that that would smash the BNP to bits is just a bonus"

On the whole a reasonable debate with points being scored on several sides. Lots of people (Tories, mind) pointing out neo-Nazi BNP roots, lots of obviously non-Nazi reponses. Then towards the end, in comes commenter 'Jack' ...

"There's absolutely nothing wrote with advocating an all-white Britain ... I would not feel the slightest bit guilty about loading them all onto boats and shipping them back ... I have not met a single decent non-white yet! ... As for the BNP been Nazis (sic), while he had his faults, Hitler did have some good ideas regarding the fact that a nation is based on its race, and that the white race should be put first in Europe. I for one would rather someone like Hitler was in power ... Hitler would look after the interests of white people ..."

followed by this delightful touch :

"I'm not saying the man was a saint- his attitude towards our fellow white Slavic people was insanity."

Obviously a chap who can see both sides of an argument. While I know there are some nutters in the world, he seems too good to be true, doesn't he ?








* yes, I know my father was an immigrant, but he walked out when I was three so didn't have a major impact on my cultural upbringing - which was Welsh Baptist ... the children are rooted enough that they support England against Wales at rugby, to my eternal sorrow. There's zero cultural input from my father's native land, "an accursed place which God will one day hold to the reckoning", as the worthy Zahar put it.

BNP Brouhaha

Laban, way back :

"as long as demographic change on this scale continues, banning the BNP from Facebook, harassing and sacking its activists, "duffing them up in the street" (copyright B.Bragg) are in the long run not going to make a difference.

The BNP may have many idiotic ideas. They may also have some very nasty ones at the heart of their ideology and among their senior people.

But that isn't why people are voting for them. The native Brits haven't suddenly become swivel-eyed types with obsessions about black IQ, Jewish conspiracies and the other things that make a BNP ideologues eyes light up. The English don't do fascism. They just don't want to be a minority in their own country."

And again :

"a big heave this election might keep the BNP vote down. But the effort needed will be higher each time as the tide rises."

Well, the effort gets higher. Yesterday's news that the entire BNP membership - names, addresses, phones, email - was out there on the internet, along with news that mass immigration continues at historically unprecedented levels, marks a new escalation. It's likely to be very damaging - no-one likes receiving threats, the witch-hunts and sackings have begun, chaps are piteously pleading their innocence of the grave charge of belonging to a legal political party. Early 50s America, or seventeenth century Salem ?

Generally I am a firm believer in Mr Cock-up rather than Mr Conspiracy. But the thesis put forward by Nick Griffin yesterday - that the list was released by a senior ex-member who thought the party were too moderate - seems unlikely. I'm not a guru of BNP internal politics, but I thought last years split was over tactics and personalities rather than strategy.

No, this looks like Labour really are crapping themselves as the economic crisis deepens (seen bank shares this week ? the sector's dropped 20% in three days), the country feels more and more Weimar-ish, and the Govt, having long given up on enforcing existing laws, are passing new ones criminalising men who pay prostitutes. I thought it was not paying them that was the crime.

I'd say State involvement is as likely as not. You would tend to assume that MI5 have someone at a senior-ish level in the party - after all, the late Julia Pirie, PA to the general secretary of the Communist Party, was a State agent. I take it as a matter of course that every visit and email to the BNP site is logged.

But it's a sign of desperation. As I said, the effort needed gets more each time. After this there's only really one escalation left, short of making the party illegal.

As you know, the secret ballot isn't in fact terribly secret. Each voting slip has a number, the number of your slip is noted as your name's ticked off on the register and it's handed to you - it would not be beyond the wit of our rulers (with a major track record on vote fraud) to organise a reconciliation. What happens, I wonder, to the voting slips and polling station returns after the count ? Anyone know ?

If, as I think quite likely, the BNP get Euro seats next May, the only list left to publish will be that of their voters.

Ravensthorpe Ravers - BNP Bomb Boys

More on the New Wave of British Jihad (© Laban Tall 2007).

When Dewsbury's Hammaad Munshi, "Britain's youngest terrorist" (do I sense the genesis of a new reality TV show, perhaps on Al-Jazeera - "Britain's Got Bomb-Making Talent" ?) was convicted of terrorist offences in August, I wondered if he was the same chap who'd featured in this story a year ago. I commented :

The age is right. I may be wrong, but I reckon Mr Munshi is the same guy. How many more teenagers in Dewsbury have been charged under the Terrorism Act 2000 ? I'd like to hope it was only one more, but if anyone knows different please tell me.

Well, it was two separate cases. Are these guys linked to the Ravy Terror Squad ?

Two West Yorkshire school boys cooked up a plot to blow up a BNP building, Leeds Crown Court heard. Dabeer Hussain and Waris Ali, now both 18 and from the Ravensthorpe area of Dewsbury are accused of possessing a terrorism manual called the Anarchists Cookbook on their computers and of discussing a plan to spy on and blow up a building connected to the far right politicals group, British National Party, the jury at heard.

Sounds sinister. What exactly did they do ?

Ali, of Dearnley Street, Ravensthorpe, Dewsbury is also accused of downloading a copy of the Proper Anarchists Cookbook onto his computer and possessing small amounts of potassium nitrate and calcium chloride, the court heard.

Both chemicals can be used in the preparation of a bomb, the court heard.

Well, you can certainly make a bang with potassium nitrate, finely ground charcoal and sulphur - aka gunpowder, but calcium chloride ? If these guys know how to make explosives out of that, GCSE chemistry is less dumbed-down than I thought. Not only that, but I'm worried - as there are a couple of pounds of the closely-related sodium chloride in our kitchen - and a couple of hundredweight of the stuff in a big yellow bin at the roadside.



Lancaster jihadis position a massive roadside sodium chloride device in an unsuspecting Cumbrian village.

I digress - where was I ? Ah yes ...

At the time of the offences between May 2006 and September 2007 Ali was still 15, and Hussain of Clarkson Street, Ravensthorpe was just 16.

Looks like Mr Munshi's "Britain's youngest terrorist" title is in danger (update - both acquitted).

As I've said before, I'm a little - more than a little - concerned about the legislation under which you can be charged with possessing items "likely to be of use for terrorism" - a category so vague and wide-reaching as to render pretty much the entire UK population liable to arrest. A road map ? A Stanley knife ? Every arable farmer with a bag of ammonium nitrate is a potential mass-murderer. Perhaps they should be taken into preventive custody.

Motivation is all. Possessing items "likely to be of use for terrorism" is such a broad concept that in practice the 'likeliness' is decided not by what the items are, but what the accused may have wanted to do with them. The 9/11 murderers used Stanley knives and Microsoft Flight Simulator, but those of us who possess both are unlikely to get arrested at 5 am unless we start posting on jihadi websites while simultaneously researching flight deck door locking mechanisms and when the stewards bring the pilots coffee.

Similarly Omar Altimimi got nine years despite the police admitting that "we will never know exactly what Altimimi was preparing to do". He had built up a library of terror-related literature - but on those grounds Professor Paul Wilkinson should be inside.

You see what I mean ? Young men have enjoyed making things go bang ever since gunpowder was discovered. I'm sure these two are very naughty boys - but does possession of information about making explosives, plus a very small quantity of an oxidiser, make these young men terrorists ?




("NWOBJ" and "New Wave of British Jihad " are registered trade marks (© Laban Tall 2007))

NWOBJ - Junior Section

If the New Wave of British Jihad (© Laban Tall 2007) has an epicentre, it must surely be Dewsbury, although Brum might run it close.

A West Yorkshire schoolboy who possessed a guide to making napalm on his computer and notes on martyrdom under his bed today became Britain's youngest convicted terrorist. Hammaad Munshi, whose grandfather is a leading Islamic scholar, was 16 and taking his GCSEs when he was arrested.

Munshi, now 18, was convicted of making a record of information likely to be useful in terrorism following a three-month trial at Blackfriars crown court in London. He was cleared of one possession offence. The judge, Timothy Pontius, remanded Munshi in custody until sentencing at the Old Bailey on September 19 when, Pontius warned, it was "inevitable" that he would be jailed. The Crown Prosecution Service said Munshi, of Greenwood Street, Saville Town, Dewsbury, was the youngest person to be convicted under the Terrorism Act.

Hmm. Evidently Saville Town. But ... what happened to this chap, in court last year ? or is it the same person, and if so, what's happened to the saltpetre under the bed ?

A British teenager who is accused of plotting to blow up members of the British National Party appeared in court today. The 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court in London to face two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000.

It is alleged that he had in his possession a copy of the "Anarchists' Cookbook", containing instructions about how to make home-made explosives. The charges are that he was in possession of material for terrorist purposes in October last year and that he collected or had information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism. The teenager, who is a British national but has dual nationality with Pakistan, stood in the dock wearing a baggy, blue hooded top. He said nothing other than to confirm his name and date of birth, before prosecuting counsel Piers Arnold outlined the evidence before Judge Daphne Wickham. He was arrested at an address in the Dewsbury area of West Yorkshire on Monday and taken to London this morning.
Judge Wickham ruled that the offences were not within the remit of the magistrates court and set a date for a committal hearing on October 25th.

There were two arrests - the second one being a young man from Ravensthorpe, who according to reports at the time had chemicals under his bed.

The story hit the papers last year then vanished - no reports on any convictions.

The age is right. I may be wrong, but I reckon Mr Munshi is the same guy. How many more teenagers in Dewsbury have been charged under the Terrorism Act 2000 ? I'd like to hope it was only one more, but if anyone knows different please tell me.

The bit about wanting to kill BNP members also vanished from the stories - the BBC replaced it within a few hours and the police actually rang the BNP to deny the story. Shades of the disappearing rocket launchers in the Robert Cottage trial.

The press stories were pretty confusing anyway - the original BBC story had two boys from Dewsbury, one of whom wanted to blow up BNP members, the Dewsbury Reporter had two boys, one thought to be, and the other definitely, from Ravensthorpe, same for the Yorkshire Post with the information that the material was saltpetre.

Hmm. While Savile Town isn't far from Ravensthorpe, you couldn't mix them up. But if Mr Munshi (I think the name is Hindi for a clerk or scribe), "Britain's youngest terrorist", isn't our man, what happened to the two Ravensthorpe Ravers ?

One Woe Doth Tread Upon Another's Heels

When Gordon Brown told us all to stop wasting food immediately before flying off to an umpteen-course G8 dinner, those of us interested in such things wondered what on earth his political advisers were thinking of. You can't expect GB, who does as PM have a lot on his plate (groan) to have the time to think about everything "what's this going to look like ?", but where were the people who are paid to spot approaching banana-skins ? They can't be very good.

Now this in the Sunday Times, if true, throws a glaring sidelight on Brown's administration.

A still ambitious cabinet minister was telling me the other day that the slogan “British jobs for British workers” had been a surefire hit with every focus group. Thus market-tested, Brown proudly launched it in his first Labour party conference speech as leader. After he repeated the pledge, Brown’s former liberal friends in the press poured a great big bucket of manure over his head. Many compared the slogan with British National party propaganda. One Labour MP called it a recipe for “employment apartheid”. Another wedge, another loss of liberal support.

A few points here. First, I can easily believe that the slogan was a surefire hit. After all, if you throw most BNP policies at focus groups, without telling them the source, they're pretty popular. (I would have thought that Brown's scheme was actually illegal under British and EU law - anyone fancy advertising a job to British nationals only ?)

But - it was obvious that while it might cheer up some core Labour voters, this would enrage the core Labour activists - the teachers, academics, social workers, housing benefit support officers, anti-racist 5-a-day smoking cessation co-ordinators and other horny-handed sons, daughters and transgendered dependent children of toil. Once again, where were the Alistair Campbell-equivalents and Downing Street policy units ?

If Blair had made a speech like that, he'd have been prepared for the outrage, would actually have played it up and had his responses ready. The row would have been deliberately manufactured to position him as a guy with the voters interests at heart, his own supporters used as props - assuming, that is, that there was political advantage to be gained by so doing. GBs people appeared to have been surprised by the furore. If there was a planned follow-up aimed at positioning True Brit Gordon against the liberal multicultis, it passed me and everyone else straight by.

Point three - the Cabinet ! You have from the evidence to assume that at least one cabinet member was aware of the speech well in advance. I'd have thought others would have been too. Why didn't anyone say anything ? After all, if a good focus group rating is all that's required, I look forward to GBs next speech on the death penalty, the abolition of early release, and stopping mass immigration. The minister/s must have known this wouldn't go down well with the Guardianistas - why did no-one speak up ?

Four possibilities

a) they did and he ignored them
b) they thought it was a bad idea but kept schtum because they couldn't think of anything better
c) they thought it was a good idea as well - which seems to indicate such a distance from reality in an entire cabinet that I can hardly credit it.
d) they didn't even think about it

You have to remember he was still riding high in the polls at the last Labour conference, so I'm assuming no one kept quiet hoping to see him put his foot in it. All the possible options reflect badly on GBs back office - and on his Cabinet.

Well Strike A Light ...

The Guardian does its bit for the struggle against fascism.



(hat-tip - CommanderKeen in the comments to this post)

State Broadcaster Does Its Bit

Maddy frets because it creates low paid, insecure jobs.

Johann frets because it creates BNP voters.

Laban chips in :

Mass immigration is IMHO the main engine of insecure employment/low wages - and that's what it's there for.

Jon Cruddas pointed out two years back that the govt "tacitly used immigration to help forge the preferred flexible North American labour market. Especially in London, legal and illegal immigration has been central in replenishing the stock of cheap labour across the public and private services, construction and civil engineering."

Immigrant labour "is the axis for the domestic agenda of the Government".

They certainly have a flexible labour market in the States, thanks to mass illegal immigration from Mexico and points South. During the Republican primaries it seemed that every other day some populist anti-immigrant candidate was busted for having an 'undocumented' gardener or nanny. Might be hard to credit, but evil fascist GWB was only stopped from 'regularising' millions of illegal migrants by a revolt from his own party.

Some say mass immigration is the Left's revenge on the working class for the Thatcher years, but that implies a degree of planning and forethought so is unlikely. It's more a cultural thing, but it does neatly coincide with a need for cheap workers.

People like Johann Hari and some Guardian commenters are calling for an increase in the minimum wage as the answer to the "problem" - the problem being that the natives are restless. They've missed the point. Keeping wages low are what it's all about.

(Of course if immigration stopped tomorrow and all the Poles went home OR if the minimum wage was doubled then yes, wages would rise and that would cause a rise in inflation. But to a great extent inflation has been 'hidden' over the last 10 years via a combination of the Chinese miracle (goods) and mass immigration/offshoring (services). In one sense it OUGHT to rise - that would give a truer picture of where we actually are economically. Then we might look hard at our education and manufacturing disasters and start doing something about them)

And talking of restless natives, did you see the State broadcaster doing its little bit for social cohesion on all its news bulletins tonight, with the video (kindly provided by HMG) of the UK Border Agency (60 guys in Clockwork Orange white boiler-suits, backed by police) in action ?

"Shocked, scared, confused - 56 workers are lined up"

Putin can't teach this lot anything about media control.

"There are dodgy employers out there who are trying to undercut their competitors and drive down British wages by employing people illegally, so we've come up with this new way of taking much faster on-the-spot action," Immigration Minister Liam Byrne told the BBC.

Ah, those British wages ! Can't you just see Britannia on the coins and the Queen (God bless her) on the notes ? Drive them down illegally and the white boiler-suits will nail you ! (drive them down legally and anyone who doesn't like it is a Nazi).

Thus far has the party of Keir Hardie advanced. But hey, it'll help convince the stupid natives that 'they' are doing something.

(There was also an interesting discussion on utility which alas time prevented me from joining)

A Free Media

I found myself in Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, a few weeks ago, and I was horrified by the political bias in the state controlled press.

The Herald had this banner headline on the front page :

MDC'S CITY ELECTION BID SPARKS OUTRAGE

and the following "story" :

The news that opposition politicians will once again be fighting for votes at next month's local elections has sparked outrage in Harare.

Council leader Musiiwa Chikorobho (ZAPU) said the announcement that the MDC is targeting the area in next month's council election has left him "devastated".

As nominations for the May elections closed yesterday, the MDC had registered four candidates in Harare and two in Chitungwiza.

In Harare, Alex Gweru, of Seza Road, Timba, is standing in Timba township and Alicias Denhere, of Mangisi Heights, Mutare, is standing in Madziwa.

Johane Masowe, of Lon Gutu, Manatsa Town, is hoping to be elected in Manatsa, while Samuel Moyana, of Rhodes Settlement, Chavhunduka, is appearing on the Makomeke ballot papers.

Councillor Chikorobho said: "I am absolutely devastated.

"I think the ordinary people of Harare will be absolutely devastated that these particular people have been able to get a nomination paper signed.

"I think the citizens of this city will be wise enough to see these individuals do not, and will never, represent their feelings."

ZANU-PF group leader Councillor David Phillips said: "It is regrettable the MDC thinks Harare is fertile ground for them.

"I sincerely believe they are mistaken.

"Neither I nor any ZANU candidate will share a platform with them.

"This is a party that deserves no support."

In Chitungwiza, Adie Kembo, of Manicaland Road, Honde Valley, Penhalonga, is standing in the Penhalonga ward and Kevin Netsai, of Tokoloshe Drive, Raphela, Lalapanzi, is standing in that ward.

Two things struck me about the story - the main headline in the weekend edition of the paper.

First, it was essentially a non-story - or a manufactured one. Stripping out the outrage and devastation revealed the fact that two politicos didn't like a third party that was about to stand against them in the elections. Giving them a free front page for this non-story was ostensibly journalism, in practice a non-declarable donation of election publicity that would have cost them tens of thousands to buy themselves, and which would have broken electoral funding rules.

Secondly, and most sinister, the addresses of all the opposition candidates were published - on the front page of the main local daily. The "devastated" ZAPU and ZANU politicos were also standing, but their addresses weren't published. The addresses of all candidates are public, but are rarely splashed (in a negative story) over the front page. It looked as if the intention was two-fold - to remind opposition candidates that "we know where you live - and so, now, does everyone else", and to make it easier for ZANU's politically motivated thugs to attack them.

The editor of the Herald may be a despicable dirtbag, but he's a paid hireling of the government. We in Britain should be thankful for our free press, the tool of no political party - and should be both grateful that this doesn't happen here - and vigilant to ensure that it never does.












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... I say ! Where am I ?


Gosh. I've just had the strangest dream ... sorry, I'm still half asleep ... all about Zimbabwe and the elections ... whatever made me dream that ? ...







Oh Lordy. I've just remembered. I wasn't in Harare. I was in Swansea, this weekend.


And the paper with the front page story was the South Wales Evening Post.

Blimey

I've been saying this for six years :

The philosopher Hannah Arendt argued that the origins of totalitarianism lay 'in one great unorganised mass of furious individuals" who had nothing in common except their apprehension that the most respected and representative articulators of the existing culture were fools, and the elected holders of public office were fraudulent.

The problem is that the most respected and representative articulators of the existing (2008) culture are fools, and many of the elected holders of public office are fraudulent. Where does that leave us ?

Take a look at the comments on this CiF piece warning of the dangers of a BNP London Assembly member. The usual anti-BNP Guardianistas are simply overwhelmed - not by BNP supporters, but by people totally disillusioned with NuLab, some of whom are almost nihilistic in their desire to give them a shoeing. I've not seen so much weary contempt for a party ... I'd say a rough split in the comments is 10% basically supportive (anti-BNP), less than 5% pro-BNP, another 5% who might vote for them to poke a finger in the NuLab eye, and 80% a-virulent-plague-on-your-house stuff - the most wounding coming from ex-Labour voters.

Interesting times.

BNP Brouhaha

I've been dithering about this post, writing and discarding a previous version. As an ex-lefty I can grasp pretty much exactly what's going on in the non-communalist bits of the Respect split - but with the BNP I felt I just didn't know enough about the internal dynamics of the party to produce anything meaningful or interesting. Then I read this pretty damn poor piece in the Guardian and thought "I know more than he does, anyway", scrubbed the original post and decided to shoot from the hip.

I won't revisit all the reasons we are where we are, the long journey from Windrush, via Notting Hill and Enoch Powell to Gordon "Union Jack" Brown and the prospect of the natives becoming a minority in the next 50 years. Read the posts on demography, immigration and the BNP.

Let's just draw a few straw men in the sand and see who salutes. A great deal of what follows is guesswork. Comments will be opened for anyone who wants to fill me in on where I'm guessing wrong.

You have to assume that Nick Griffin and his closest followers are driven by either extreme ideology, which may not be National Socialism but partakes thereof, or hatred of non-Brits. How else have they stayed motivated through all the long years of struggle after the National Front fell apart ? Given the amount of harassment - up to and including violent assault - that they must have had over the years, they must be pretty committed to have stayed the course.

All that struggle and toil - and paradoxically, that which they feared, the cleansing of the Native British from large parts of their homeland, is becoming their great asset. As the natives see the (non-integrated) immigrant population grow, and find that they are strangers in more and more areas of what used to be their country, so will any nativist party find votes just waiting for a home. The BNP brand, thanks to constant negative publicity, is well positioned for the 'plague on all your houses' vote - and commentators from Jackie Ashley to Nick Ryan in the Cif thread above have testified to the strength of this political current.

But the new BNP voters - and activists too - don't do fascism. They're British, damn it !

I'm never sure if this is a difficult one for the left to get their heads round or whether the accusation that 'you hate black/brown/Muslim/Polish people' is just a useful way of abusing a political enemy. Let's have an example. I have a favourable prejudice, born of good times drinking with them in ski resorts, towards North Italians. But that does not mean I'd be happy if the entire population of Turin decided to move to Gloucestershire. Some of them, yes - that would be fine - but not so many as to wipe out the local culture and leave me living in Lombardy on the Severn. I like my North Italians in North Italy, thank you.

And that's IMHO how many Brits feel about mass immigration. They don't hate the immigrants as individuals - indeed they're hardly to be blamed for grabbing a chance to better themselves. But they don't want to be strangers on their own streets. A proportion (IMHO a significant one) of these people are potential BNP voters. And the less jackbooty the BNP, the more of these voters they'll pick up.

So - you've got a leadership - and the leader has his old, trusted comrades - who are well to the right of the new followers, new activists, and potential new voters. Perhaps a few of the trusted followers ARE Nazis. While others aren't apparently very good organisers.

I know not what prompted the BNPs webmaster, head of events and group development, and the head of administration, to set up a blog attacking one Mark Collett and one Dave Hannam, both close to leader Nick Griffin. Apparently the one is a liability and the other incompetent. But the leadership found out, they were expelled (one having her house entered by what appears to be deception and her computer taken) - and it was discovered that a huge number of activists, some pretty senior, agreed with the rebels rather than the leader.

There are ongoing suggestions that the individuals concerned have a hold on Mr Griffin which makes him want to keep them on board. Maybe a few skeletons rattling in the back of a cupboard.

Another leader of a nationalist party, some seventy years back, had to make a choice between jettisoning his old comrades of the early days and potentially losing a new-found power base. He chose to stick with the new power and ruthlessly cast off (or shot) the old brigade. But Mr Griffin's nowhere near power yet.

Guessedworker, posting with his usual readability at what otherwise IMHO seems to be an increasingly eccentric Majority Rights, maps out a few possible scenarios - none comforting for Mr Griffin. I get the impression that a compromise is being sought - certainly the "Real BNP" website is but a cached shadow of what was there a day or two back.

I would guess that there's a tremendous desire to try and get things sorted, given the possibilities for all that EU Parliamentary dosh in next year's Euroelections. From their perspective the one good thing is that the split has hardly registered on Joe Public's radar. But a lot of hard words have been spoken - and they'll all be on anti-BNP leaflets though letterboxes next year.

(In the long run, the demise or otherwise of the BNP won't IMHO affect the future shape of divided politics in divided Britain, which will still be driven by demographics. There'll be a party for the Native Brits, but it's somewhat less likely to be the BNP).

Any (non-actionable) ideas, you who read this ?

Post In Haste ...

Bloggers4Labour is an excellent blog, bringing together the posts of a load of lefty bloggers who I might not bother reading individually (there being only 24 hrs in the day). Alex Hilton is to be congratulated on it - not a sentence you'll see very often here. Would that there were a rightish equivalent.

Seems to be a pretty broad church, too - quite a few "bloggers 4 labour" don't seem to be big Labour fans. I digress. Browsing the bloglines feed today, I raised my eyebrows at this piece by Labour councillor (in Scallyland) Louise Baldock, on the BNP crisis. My thoughts on the subject are still in gestation, as I don't know much about the internal dynamics of the dispute - whereas as a reformed far-lefty, I have no trouble working out where most of the actors in the Respect disaster stand.

It's changed a bit from the piece I read though. Ms Baldock has obviously had second thoughts. It now reads :

I wont be taking sides when one facist criticises another, but I will be jubilant to learn that the BNP is falling apart at the seams.

And when you represent a seat like mine with new immigration and lots of uncertainty about the pace of change then you have to be very sensitive and thoughtful to how this is managed. And believe me, it is not managed through fascism.

I sincerely hope it is years if not decades before the bastards can regroup.

A truly great day for community relations.

Whereas the original post (atom feed on bloglines) read :

I wont be taking sides when one facist criticises another, but I will be jubilant to learn that the BNP is falling apart at the seams. I am NOT on the side of the enemy's enemy, I KNOW they are not my friends. I hope you all die a long and slow and horrible death.

And when you represent a seat like mine with new immigration and lots of uncertainty about the pace of change then you have to be very sensitive and thoughtful to how this is managed. And believe me, it is not managed through fascism.

However what none of us need is for the BNP to stir things up even worse

I sincerely hope it is years if not decades before the bastards can regroup.

A truly great day for community relations.

I love that bit about being very sensitive and thoughtful. "She is also a member of the Christian Socialist Movement." You'd never guess.


(one other B4L post that raised my blood pressure - this review of the Pogues - of all people.

Overall, an excellent gig, only spoiled by the incompetent security failing to stop people smoking.

I'm not sure the Pogues are really the band for this blogger - unless they've changed a lot)

BNP Bomber Update

No, the one who allegedly wants to blow up BNP members.

More detail.

He is accused of plotting to make bombs following a trip to Pakistan and to have had a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook on his computer.

During an anti-terror raid on his home about 500g of potassium nitrate was allegedly found under his bed in the room he shared with his younger brother. Potassium nitrate is a critical oxidising component of gunpowder.

While gunpowder can kill people - it's what David Copeland used - it's not exactly a weapon of mass destruction. Given that from next week you can buy 90-shot firework cakes for around seven quid from Lidl, it should put into context the possession of a pound of saltpetre. Semtex it ain't.


Previous posts here and here.

"plotting to blow up members of the British National Party"

Looks like the original BBC story - which they hastily pulled to replace with something more anodyne - was kosher.

Yorkshire Post and icHuddersfield also report that BNP members were the potential target of the two young men arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000.

We're in new territory here. I can't remember any previous cases in UK history of trying to kill people for their party membership, although one Billy Bragg did call in a Guardian interview for BNP members to be "duffed up in the street", while a Jeremy Hardy said on the BBC that they "should be shot in the back of the head".

UPDATE - when one considers the relatively peaceful past of UK party politics, one does tend to forget Erin's green isle, where killing politicians is an old and dishonourable tradition both North and South of the border - although even then, did people try to target ordinary members of, say, the DUP ? The situation is complicated when you consider that some parties were terrorist front organisations.

Which countries have traditions of political violence aimed at ordinary party members or supporters ? Well, pretty much all of them outside the Anglosphere and some parts of Europe, really. Pakistan and Bangladesh for starters. India's not immune. The Land of Wood and Water.

Looks like we're not just getting the voting practices of the subcontinent along with the kuthlama and the dosa.

New Wave Of British Jihad Update

Alum Rock, Ward End, Perry Barr - within living memory the home of working class Brummagem boys, now changed utterly.

One of the men, Parviz Khan, 36, is charged with engaging in conduct to kidnap and kill a member of the British Armed Forces. Mr Khan, of Foxton Road, Alum Rock, Birmingham, also denied two offences of having CDs on jihad, likely to be useful in terrorism. Mr Khan, Amjad Mahmood, 32, Mohammed Irfan, 30, Zahoor Iqbal, 30, and Hamid Elasmir, 44, denied assisting terrorism by supplying equipment. Basiru Gassama, 30, of Radstock Avenue, Hodge Hill, Birmingham, and Mr Mahmood, of Jackson Road, Alum Rock, denied failing to disclose information about the alleged plot. Mr Irfan, of Asquith Road, Ward End, Birmingham, denied having a CD containing information about explosives. Mr Iqbal, of Elmbridge Road, Perry Barr, Birmingham, denied having a CD on jihad.
Mr Elasmir, of Bristol Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, denied having information on how to make a suicide vest on his computer hard drive.

Dewsbury. Again.

Mohammed Asha & Co. Such an apt name, considering.

Hold on a minute - that Dewsbury story. What's this Google News heading ?



I don't remember that on the BBC story. Time to look at Revisionista. Strike a light.

"Before"

Boy 'plotted to kill' BNP members
Fri Oct 05 13:40:12 UTC 2007

A British teenager accused of plotting to blow up members of the British National Party has appeared in court ...

After the 40-minute hearing, the teenager was released on bail under several conditions. These include reporting daily to police, living at his home address, only leaving home in the company of a named adult, and not being allowed to access a computer, use an internet cafe or mobile phone.


"After"

Boy in court on terror charges
Fri Oct 05 16:01:11 UTC 2007
A British teenager who is accused of possessing material for terrorist purposes has appeared in court.

Dewsbury Reporter adds :

Another 17-year-old, from Ravensthorpe, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on September 19 to face the same charges. He had allegedly been found with bomb-making chemicals under his bed after a trip to Pakistan.



Hmmm. Dewsbury already has quite enough racist attacks.

Errol Gentles said: “I think this is all because we are black. My two children are frightened of this gang - they are too scared to go outside. The oldest can’t go anywhere in Ravensthorpe – he can’t go to the park.” Mr Gentles said his car had been smashed up and shot at with pellet guns twice in the last two weeks, and he had seen the gang running away.

He said: “They have thrown stones through the window and smashed everything up. They are young Asian boys from about 13 up – there are about 20 of them. At night they all linger in the park. I think they will come back and smash my house windows – I’m really worried about it. I don’t know what else they will do.”

Stale News

So the BNP website is the most popular UK political website, according to Hitwise.

Just like they were (according to Alexa) when I wrote about the site in December 2003.

The reasons I gave at the time still stand, too. The BNP site has news - the others don't. If I want news on a Tory site I'll go to ConservativeHome, likewise Bloggers4Labour.

Mind, the MI5/Searchlight mole in the webmaster's office is doing his best to trash the appeal of the site - recently replacing the story links index on the regional news pages, where the casual browser can at a glance spot anything interesting and click through, with a blog-like set of postings that I have neither the time nor patience to scroll through on the chance that something will jump out.

The Telegraph report is a little confusing :

The study of over eight million internet accounts found that people who struggle to hold down a rewarding or well paying job, and rely on state benefits and the council for their accommodation were most likely to visit the site.

So the readers are the people Labour used to be about, are they ?

The proportion of the site's visitors that come from the middle classes is also increasing: 59pc are from the more affluent ABC1 social groups, and this figure is up from 50pc two years ago, Hitwise said.

I'm sure you can reconcile these two seemingly incompatible statements if the proportion of ABC1s in the population is very large and the number of "people who struggle to hold down a rewarding or well paying job" is very small, but it would be nice to see the underlying data. Alas the Hitwise UK site, likewise the blog of Hitwise analyst Robin Goad, is as bare of information as the cupboard of Old Mother Hubbard.