The Battle of Trafalgar

One of the many contradictions in the BNP’s ideas is their views on foreign policy.

On the one hand, the BNP are keen to take advantage of Britain’s proud history. Their annual fundraising dinner every year is entitled the “Trafalgar Club”, and Nothing British has of course frequently referenced their use of World War II imagery. One of their surrogate websites British Pride asks its readers to choose who was the greatest British commander out a list including Montgomery, Nelson or Alfred the Great. Articles sing the praises of Britain’s heroes, and claim that we should “never be embarrassed of the Empire or ashamed of it.”

But on the other hand, the BNP’s policy is to withdraw from the world, to institute a new age of isolationism. They would withdraw from all international institutions, leave the European Union, NATO and the WTO, end foreign aid and retreat to a new era where Britain focussed on its own interest.

Imagine if Britain had followed the BNP’s policy throughout our history. Wilberforce would have decided that, no actually, the slave trade is none of our business, while Pitt let Napoleon trounce through Europe. Germany could do whatever it liked with Belgium or Poland, while Churchill stuck to his painting. The Falklands and Gibraltar? Let them look after themselves.

There are many strategic challenges in the upcoming century. The rise of China and India. Terror, and Islamic extremism. The global debates over climate change and energy shortages. The moral urgency to help the poorest billion in our wold.

Does Britain have something to offer in confronting these problems?

Or are we too weak, too small, too unimportant as the BNP would have you believe. Compared to the big boys of America and China, what can we do?

It is difficult to see the BNP’s supposed heroes such as Churchill or Marlborough agreeing with such defeatism. It is difficult to see how the world of Britain or the world would have been a better place if we’d turned a blind eye to the Nazis or Napoleon.

If you’re proud of your country, you don’t try to hide away and hope the global problems will pass without your involvement. You think the world would be a better place if Britain had more say in it, not less.

There are countries such as Switzerland that have a long history of remaining neutral and keeping out of world affairs. Britain is not one of them – instead, we have sought to lead the world, and for the most part, the world is better because of it.

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To be truly patriotic is not just to be proud of your country’s past, but confident in its future.

Britain has one of the proudest histories in the world, which the BNPare all too happy to exploit. We are the country of Agincourt and Dunkirk, Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution, the Principia and Hamlet. Britain gave the world far more than our fair share of its language and poetry, its democracy and freedom, its sport and its science.

There are many challenges in the upcoming decades. Economic challenges, as we look for new jobs in the wake of the new age of Asia, abundance and automation. Social challenges, as society adapts to our new cultural liberalism and mores.  And international  challenges as new superpowers emerge, the world struggles with the debate over global warming and tries to lift up the poorest in the world.

The BNP believes that Britain can’t cope.

That we’re not creative enough to come up with new jobs and industries. That our people are morally bankrupt, and need the harsh hand of the law to set them straight again. That we need to cower behind our borders, and hope that the external threats in the world don’t notice us. Rather than take a lead in the world, the BNP argues that we should hide from it.

The BNP’s response is a manifesto which seems specifically designed to turn us back to the 1950s. The BNP believes that our only possible future is to return to jobs of the past (even if that means a return to the living standards of the past). That the people will only be brought back under control if we bring back the cane, guns and death penalty, and censor popular entertainment. If we just pretend that China and Russia will keep to themselves, and that we never heard of global warming.

That’s not “standing up for Great Britain”, as the BNP claims. That’s being ashamed of it.

If you believe in Britain, you believe in its people and potential, that the future will be better than the past.

Britain is a creative, tolerant, friendly, dynamic country. While times are tough, we’ve seen off bigger challenges in the past. It’s not like we haven’t faced hostile foreign superpowers, economic revolutions and natural disasters before. In the end we always come through, stronger than before.

The BNP should start having faith in the country it claims to represent.

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Nick Griffn would surrender our national interest

Nick Griffin says that the BNP is the only party prepared to stand up and fight for Britain’s national interest. Mainstream political parties are regularly referred to as traitors.

But the BNP’s foreign and defence policy would sell out British overseas territories and surrender to rogue states and terrorism: putting British lives at risk.

In November 2009, Griffin told an audience of Spanish neo-fascists that if he was in power he would be prepared to negotiate over the sovereignty of Gibraltar.

Without even attemtping to defend Gibraltar and Britain, a cowardly Griffin told fellow fanatics:

“… I would prefer to see a Spanish flag fly in Gibraltar before an Islamic one … It would be much easier to sort it out if we had nationalist governments in Britain and Spain because it would then be an agreement between equals.”

In December 2009, while British soldiers were fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, Andrew Brons said:

“… there is considerable doubt about [Al-Qaeda’s] existence as an [organisation]“.

And he questioned the justification:

“… for placing the Taliban in the same category as Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida”.

In October 2009 Arthur Kemp, BNP foreign affairs, said that accusations about Iran’s thermo-nuclear weapons programme come “direct from the lie-machine in Washington”.

Kemp said he believed that the “allegations” made against Iran are “politically motivated and totally baseless” and “nothing short of a wicked lie” amplified by the “controlled media”.

Kemp was more concerned about Iranian immigrants than about a nuclear armed Iran. On the issue of a potentially nuclear armed theocracy, Kemp said:

“As long as nations such as Iran keep their excess population from swamping Britain, we have no interest in interfering in their internal affairs”. 

Whenever difficult issues arise abroad the BNP retreats to its comfort zone of conspriacy theories and an obssession with immigration. Instead of flattering fellow nationalists from Spain and around the world, the BNP should concentrate on not selling our sovereignty, national interest and British citizens simply to avoid an uncomfortable argument infront of foreign journalists.

Most British voters can see if you can’t trust Nick Griffin on Gibraltar or terror then how could you trust him on other issues like the Falklands or Britain’s economy?

Maurice Cousins 

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Whether it is on its website or in official party literature and videos, the BNP’s propaganda features heavily with the sacrifice of veterans.

Some recent examples:

1. World War II veterans – The BNP says that Normandy veteran Bob Head, 85, has publicly declared his support for two of its candidates in the forthcoming election. The party claims Mr Head said: “I am also appalled at the mass immigration which is ruining our country and which is not the Britain for which I and my comrades fought”.

2. Afghanistan - In February 2010 the BNP’s web master Simon Bennett sent out an email to organise s”urprise birthday cards” for a badly injured servicemen who has served in Afghanistan. Nothing British exposed the BNP’s attempts to hijack Fusilier Tom James’ birthday and the lack of transparency used to obtain good will from the public.

3. Homeless veterans – The BNP’s Bill Murray, the party’s former head of its Welsh division, has set up an astroturf organisation called Soldiers off the Street that claims it wants to rescue homeless servicemen off the street. Nothing British exposed this group’s links to the extremist BNP in October 2009.

Britain is proud of its Armed Forces and the sacrifices they make to keep us safe. We are grateful for their courage. Ordinary voters will, rightly, regard the shadowy attempts to use the heroism of veterans as an untapped source of political capital as utterly shameful. 

As former military commander told Nothing British in February 2010, ”There is nothing British about exploiting the boys and girls of the British Armed Forces.”

Maurice Cousins

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The BNP say they are the only true patriots. But their words and actions tell a different story.

Nick Griffin continues to tolerate and promote Mark Collett who claims the Royal Family have “betrayed” Britain and should be ”wiped out”. Collett has said,

“The Royals have betrayed their people. When we’re in power they’ll be wiped out and we’ll get some Germans to rule properly.”

Griffin used the Buckingham Palace summer 2009 invite to his political advantage, knowing that it would mask the unpatriotic beliefs of BNP core supporters who believe the Queen is a “traitor” a “liar” and a “bitch”.

Equally, the BNP refuses to condemn supporters such as the Green Arrow, who said on the Queen’s 2009 Christmas message:

“F**k you and your descendants you treasonous bitch”.

The Green Arrow then wrote:

“She is no Monarch of England or the UK, she is a craven coward who has betrayed Our Trust … The Queen has committed Treason, we must now commit Sedition as Our Patriotic Duty. Long Live the British National Party.”

In January 2010 the Green Arrow, a BNP supporting blog, attacked the Queen for signing government legislation. The GA author said on his personal blog: “[She is a] liar and a traitor to her people”.

Ordinary voters will have nothing to do with a hypocritical and unpatriotic party that refuses to condemn revolting insults to the Queen.

Maurice Cousins

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Times reporter Dominic Kennedy is evicted from the BNP meeting in Hornchurch

Nick Griffin has said there will be “faces of horror” displayed by the media after the BNP’s “Communications Unit” hits the road. We are not so sure.

Candidates in the running for “Director of Communications” include:

• Mark Collett- Collett’s views on Britain’s wartime premier: ”Churchill was a f****** c*** who led us into a pointless war with other whites [ie the Nazis] standing up for their race.”
• Simon Darby – Darby’s special relationship with The Times’ Fiona Hamilton resulted in the Dominic Kennedy  fiasco: “This morning, whilst perusing The Times, I see that a certain journalist has even managed to surpass my satirical talents with a report on the BNP campaign in Barking. It’s a joke surely, a parody of the multicultural totalitarianism of the 1980’s and 1990’s complete with all the simplistic and emotive rhetoric one could possibly inject into such a crude, almost primary school level offering. “A joke surely”, that’s what I’ll be saying when the inevitable call comes in from this woman begging me to let her have access to our meeting on Sunday.”
• Or may be the prize will go to this “External Communications Officer” who told one of our researchers to “f*** off!”.

There is an important subtext to this. The BNP was clearly shaken by the Dominic Kennedy affair. It showed how the BNP had not advanced as far as it claimed, but just a bunch of violent bouncers. The BNP and its supporters, however, will have to learn that it will taken more than PR, “fax machines” and “software” in order to improve their image: the reform needs to come from within and with the current leadership’s mentality that seems almost impossible. The problem is not presentational but revolting and unpatriotic views at the core.  

Maurice Cousins

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Nick Griffin with ND president Marc Abramsson at RWB in Derbyshire (August 2009)

Nick Griffin wants to portray himself as a “British Bulldog”, but his courting of international fascists and extremists is anything but patriotic.

BNP propaganda regularly abuses the images of Churchill and the Spitfire, ignoring both their original purpose and meaning in the fight against enemies of Britain. To ordinary Britons these patriotic symbols represent the defence of our liberal democratic values of tolerance, fair-play and compassion – the very opposite to what Nick Griffin’s overseas extremists and nationalists admire.

Britain is a law abiding country, with a long history of strong, independent and liberal institutions such as Parliament and the Church. We have respect for the Armed Forces and proud of our great historical achievements, such as our role in ending the inhumane Slave Trade, exporting liberal democracy and free trade, and helping to stop genocide in Europe.

But Nick Griffin’s foreign fascist friends – like the BNP – are:

•  1. Violent -  In July 2008 Budapest’s Gay Pride event was attacked by Jobbik supporters. 48 people were arrested and 10 were injured. The violence was reportedby BBC news. The BNP recently entered into a political alliance with Jobbik in the European Parliament.
• 2. Law breakers -In January 2007 Front National’s European Parliamentary leader Bruno Gollnisch MEP was convicted by a Lyon court for “disputing a crime against humanity”. He was handed a three-month suspended jail sentence, fined €5,000 and ordered to pay €55,000 in damages to the plaintiffs and to pay for the judgment to be published in the newspapers that originally printed his remarks. In April 2009 Simon Darby, deputy-chairman of the BNP, has paid tribute to Gollnisch by referring to him as a “longstanding Frenchman”.
• 3. Sectarians – In September 2007 Roberto Fiore’sForza Nuova (FN) were accused of delivering leaflets that incited religious hatred against Protestants in Rome. According to the Italian Waldensian movement, a Protestant sect, FN called for “Waldensians to the stake!” and FN supporters drew neo-Nazi symbols on the sides of one of their churches. Fiore has been a close and personal friend of Griffin for over thirty years.
• 4. Intolerant – In Sweden, the homophobic National Democrats’ (ND) manifesto states: “Perverted forms of the family should not get social recognition as acceptable alternatives to natural families.” ND regards homosexuals as “paedophiles” and “victims of incest”. In 2003, Marc Abrammson, ND leader, friend of Nick Griffin and regular attendee of Red, White and Blue festival, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for assault and rioting after he and a violent fascist mob attacked a Gay Pride festival in Stockholm. His sentence was then reduced to four months.
• 5. Conspiracy theorists – In October 2008 Roberto Fiore spoke at Jobbik’s Budapest rally to commemorate 1956, Fiore delivered an anti-Semitic rant against the banking system. He told the crowd: “This is the same capitalism that is pushing thousands and millions towards poverty. But it is lead and it is directed from the same people who put Christ on the cross!” 

True patriots are unimpressed by Nick Griffin’sromance with foreign fascism and regard this list of bigotries as alien and, more important, very un-British.

Maurice Cousins

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The BNP’s constitutionally entrenched committment to racial segregation is both un-British and unpatriotic.

Despite Nick Griffin claiming the BNP is no longer racist because it has changed its membership policy to accept non-whites, the newly amended constitution contradicts him by openly promoting racial separatism, stating the BNP is:

“… implacably opposed to the promotion by any means of any form of integration or assimilation of any indigenous people, including the Indigenous British”

Britain has never been a country defined by ethnicity, but by an idea and the common bond of our institutions. We are, and always have been, a union of different peoples and races, united under the rule of law and a democratic parliament. Throughout the centuries peoples from all corners of the world have fought to preserve British ideals of freedom and tolerance.

Apartheid, racial segregation and preferencial treatment for certain ethnic groups, was a foreign means of state rule famously enforced in South Africa between 1948-94. Throughout its years fifty years of rule a majority of Britons were understandably horrified by the injustice and indignity imposed on the Black majority by their white minority masters.

Segregatiom’s harsh ideological core, racial supremacism, anti-personal freedom and lack of human compassion, is inimical to Britain’s gentle liberal democratic values. Victorian Liberal thinkers such as John Stuart Mill were great advocates for non-whites to enjoy the benefits of liberal democracy. In his Considerations on Representative Government Mill says that England was “incomparably the most conscientous of all nations … which of all in existence best understands liberty.”

But Nick Griffin justifies his racial segregation beliefs by claiming he is defending the ”identity of Britain and the British people” and fighting the “liberal elite’s master race theory”. In a March 2009, Griffin said:

“… you only have to turn on the BBC, you only have to look at your kids, your grandchildren, your nephews and nieces are taught in schools and you will see indeed that there is indeed a new master race theory. The master race of the liberal elite is a coffee coloured, mongrelized rootless proletariat and you cannot even turn the television on without seeing it … we are the people whom the head of the BBC referred to as being “hideously white” … we are the new sub-humans … we are the new Jews.”

British patriots are not fooled by Nick Griffin’s Trojan Horse attempts to defend his racial hygiene theories by pretending he is a champion of diversity and sticking up for “indigenous rights”. Voters are understandably horrified by Griffins absurd effort to draw an equivalence between government policy failures on social cohesion and the Nazis’ organized mass extermination of millions of European Jews.

True patriots see that it is the BNP who are the real enemies of British identity as they recognise there is nothing British about Griffin’s inverted multiculturalism, which seeks to compartmentalize, eradicate individual identity and segregate people along racial lines. Ture patriots prefer, instead, to admire compassion, tolerance and fair-play.

Maurice Cousins

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In its fourth annual report into racism and intolerance, EU anti-racism quango the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) states that there have been “positive steps in fighting discrimination” in the UK, but argues for greater intervention in the media.

The ECRI says it is encouraged by measures taken by the UK government, including:

• 1. The strengthening legal framework for combating racism and discrimination.
• 2. New criminal provisions on the prohibition of religious hatred have been enacted and police forces now apply a uniform definition of racist incidents.
• 3. Continuing improvement in educational attainment among black and minority ethnic pupils and the narrowing gap between minority ethnic groups.

The report also - worryingly – salutes the introduction of Harriet Harman’s barmy Equality Bill, which has been condemned by the Pope and right across the political spectrum.

The ECRI acknowledges that although positive steps in fighting discrimination have taken place, racist violence is -sadly – on the rise and is a “cause for concern” for the Commission. The report stresses that the UK government makes more effort to “prevent such violence from occurring at all”.

Disappointingly, the report is an out of date textbook in how to look at racism in modern Britain. For example it blames the tabloid media for “regularly” presenting immigrants and minorities in a “negative light”. This ignores why support for political extremism is on the rise relying on muddled and lazy criticisms of the tabloid press instead.

Of particular concern is one of the ECRI’s recommendations for combating this popular perception: calling for greater Government interference in the free press.

The ECRI “strongly” calls for the Government to “continue and intensify their efforts to impress” on the media that reporting does not “contribute to creating an atmosphere of hostility and rejection” towards ethnic minorities. It then urges the Government to be “proactive” in countering such an atmosphere.

Unless Europe’s elite recognises the legitimate concerns of EU working class voters, who are victims of policy failures stemming from globalisation, noble efforts against racism and intolerance will be utterly meaningless.

Maurice Cousins

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Alan Turing

The BNP claims that it is the party of traditional values and yet its outlook on modern day Britain is based entirely on irrational hatred and resistance towards change.

Modern Britain is proud of its international reputation for not persecuting those who are perceived as being different from the norm. This – in the eyes of many – is what makes us great and admired around the world. British values are born out of a long standing tradition of constantly evolving values and and an ability to adapt to the changing times.

This means we accept that in the past we haven’t always got it right. Whether it be on the Slave Trade or Gay Rights, Britain has been one of the most advanced countries in the world. We may be ashamed of our role in exporting slaves from Africa, but proud of abolishing it. Ashamed of our treatment of World War Two heroes like Alan Turing, but patriotic of the fact that he was British and proud he would be welcome in modern day Britain.

On patriotism George Orwell got it right when he said: “… it is a devotion to something that is always changing and yet is felt to be mystically the same. It is the bridge between the future and the past.”

But Nick Griffin’s anachronistic political vision does not look forward; it is obsessed with the past. An example of this un-patriotic behaviour is his party’s deep rooted homophobia.

Nick Griffin says the BNP’s policy on homosexuality is not to recriminalise it, but instead to extend Clause 28. In yet another example of Griffin’s attitude towards undermining the free press, he wants government to interfere and stop the media from promoting what he calls “homosexuality as a wonderful lifestyle”.

The BNP’s hostility towards that very British quality of tolerance is best exemplified by the party’s Legal Director, Lee Barnes:

“When I see a Gay Pride march on the TV it doesnt make me tolerant – I simply think ‘what a bunch of wankers”

But, most shocking of all is Nick Griffin’s hostility towards another British and Christian value, compassion. After the David Copeland (a former member of the BNP) Soho bombings in 1999 Griffin said:

“The TV footage of dozens of gay demonstrators flaunting their perversions in front of the world’s journalists showed just why so many ordinary people find these creatures so repulsive.”

Griffin attempts to dress his personal prejudices up as being Christian based. On BBC Question Time he said that he found the sight of two men kissing disgusted him:

“I understand that homosexuals don’t understand that, but that is how a lot of us feel. A lot of Christians feel that way.”

But Griffin should know there is nothing Christian about intolerance and there is certainly nothing British about homophobia. Modern Britain takes great pride in being a fair and tolerant country, Nick Griffin doesn’t.

Maurice Cousins

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