The True Face of the BNP

From Harry's Place:

Here are two articles which show the BNP for what it is – a party of racist thugs.

So, the BNP has apparently voted – at the point of a gun – to ’scrap’ its ‘whites only’ membership rule. I wonder if the new rule will maintain the stuff about ‘Norse-Scots-Irish-Celtic Folk Communities’. We will see.

But what’s this? James Bethell has the story:

His spin-doctors will say it was passed virtually unanimously on the day, but only 100 of the BNP’s 14,000 members could be bothered to attend the hastily-organised EGM in a remote East End pub (far from the party’s heartland in Yorkshire and the NE). Comment on the BNP’s network of blogs has remained hostile, despite a blizzard of begging emails and YouTube presentations from the Leader.

The country is looking quite hostile too:

The party is flat-lining in the polls – the Guardian suggested down from 4.8% in June 2009 to 1%.

The meeting was not without event: Meanwhile, BNP security guards assaulted and expelled Dominic Kennedy, the Times journalist who was reporting the party’s meeting.

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, declared after the meeting:

We will carry on throwing The Times out until they report the truth. That’s all we ask.

The Times reports:

The Times meets that request with journalistic scrupulousness and no little incredulity. If Mr Griffin wants the truth to be told about the BNP, we can recount it from direct observation. The BNP purports to be a legitimate party; yet its behaviour reveals it at every turn to be exploitative, cynical, xenophobic and thuggish.…

Political parties by definition have a point of view. A newspaper’s responsibility is to report their actions and statements fairly but with critical detachment. When Mr Kennedy entered the BNP’s press conference, Richard Barnbrook, a BNP member of the London Assembly, demanded that he leave. Mr Barnbrook had taken exception to a profile of him published in Saturday’s edition of The Times. That was enough.

Mr Kennedy was not attending the meeting covertly. He had expressly been invited to report on it by Simon Darby, the party’s national press officer. On pointing this out, Mr Kennedy was physically ejected. His nose was grabbed, twisted and bloodied. A punch was thrown. He was pushed into a parked car outside the building.…

The BNP now likes to pose as a normal British political party. In fact, they are no such thing. In this country, it is not normal for political parties to rough up journalists. In this country, it is not normal for people to disown racism for reasons of convenience, rather than conviction. In this country, it is not normal to hijack the birthday celebrations of a wounded soldier for electoral gain. The BNP like to boast their Britishness but seem to have forgotten the most essential British values: free speech and fairness, compassion and respect. Yesterday, the BNP showed they are many things, but not British.

Read the whole remarkable account. It is an eye opener.

By Alan A, February 14th 2010, 10:52 pm