Young, angry and on the rise

by Matthew Collins and Simon Cressy
(The following article appeared in this month's edition of "Searchlight" magazine. Readers may be aware that "Hope not Hate", the anti-fascist campaigning body that emerged out of the magazine is thinking of ending its fight with the BNP. This article is reproduced as a reminder to all that the BNP is not dead and the fight must go on)

The Young BNP, followed by the short-lived “BNP Crusaders” and now “Resistance” are intended to represent Nick Griffin’s personal ideological legacy to the “movement”. Having temporarily succeeded in masking elements of his own dubious political history, Griffin is trying to forge the future of his party on a quasi-paramilitary outfit for people aged 18 to 30 with lashings of hearty, white Britishness thrown in. These new “Young Turks” are presented as driven by the wholesome love of their country and untainted like so many of their peers by Nazism and racial hatred.
Since its inception, the BNP’s youth wing has been surrounded by older gun nuts and heavy drinkers. The YBNP with its Nazi volk imagery was supposed to encourage teenage party members to adopt a healthy outdoor lifestyle by playing with knives and airguns while dressed in paramilitary costumes. Around camp fires junior nazis got drunk and engaged in “healthy” teenage debauchery.

After a series of national newspaper exposés, the YBNP morphed into the BNP Crusaders as the party continued to search for a long-term replacement for Griffin. Because of that wider context, a position in the leadership of the youth, or now “young adult”, wing of the BNP is an honour for young white patriots who can thereby present themselves as the future leaders of the BNP.

Among the alumni of the BNP’s youth leadership are Mark Collett, who disgraced himself on national television (more than once), Griffin’s daughter Jennifer, the argumentative Danny Lake, who was sacked by a text message telling him to “p*** off”, and the party’s appalling karaoke recording “artist” Joey Smith. But now, raise your right arms for the fiery star of Channel 4’s 2010 documentary Young, Angry and White, Kieren Trent.

Trent, who is articulate and working class, was seen as something of a boutique acquisition for the party. Certainly angry and white, Trent had been filmed contemplating the temptations of the rival National Front and “autonomous nationalists” of the now-defunct English National Resistance.

Trent’s personal life was a bit of a gift to amateur psychologists. His mother had fled two abusive relationships with Kieren in tow while his father made a new life with a new wife and family elsewhere in the country. Trent, 20, also exhibited a puritan view on sex and relationships, castigating open-mouthed friends as “degenerate”, in particular on the issues of homosexuality and inter-racial relationships, courting unchallenged controversy in a bid for further attention. He even went as far as to check his girlfriend’s ethnicity.

Someone so young with so many insecurities and hang-ups was ideal to head the BNP’s youth section. In February, Trent was named as the leader of the latest incarnation of the young BNP, Resistance, at its launch in a London pub.

His elevation came despite a strange incident the previous month. An interest in European fascism and trips to Europe with other BNP officers and members had stirred Trent’s interest in his own Irish ancestry, always a tricky subject in the BNP. In January he tried to attend a Bloody Sunday commemoration meeting in Conway Hall, London, held jointly by the Republican Network for Unity and the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Support Group, both of which campaign, among other things, for recognition of dissident Irish republican prisoners.

Recognised by the stewards and barred, Trent entered into a long and pained discussion in which he portrayed his membership of the BNP as his own struggle for national liberation, likening it to membership of Irish republican groups. Not only could he reconcile the two, he claimed their interests were mutual. He also offered up some less than complimentary opinions about members of his party, but was still given short shrift.

However Trent has developed other new and potentially dangerous interests.

It seems the girlfriend whose ethnicity Trent doubted has been kicked to the kerb to be replaced by an older woman well known to BNP watchers. The new belle on Trent’s arm is none other than the North East organiser Cheryl Dunn from Hartlepool. This “love match” has caused no end of problems for Trent and the BNP as Dunn already had a partner, the one-time Hartlepool BNP organiser Peter King.

King was convicted last year for racially aggravated harassment and possessing an offensive weapon. Dunn described her relationship with King, a man blessed by a notoriously short fuse, as “violent and abusive” on an internet forum.

With Dunn at Northumbria University and King working in London, opportunity knocked and Dunn and Trent started an affair, sharing as much time together at BNP events as possible.

Eventually the inevitable happened and King found out.

When Trent and Dunn attended a recent BNP event in London together, King confronted the couple, violently assaulting Trent in front of several BNP members. The police were called and King was arrested and remanded in custody. Trent’s injuries were so bad that he was taken to hospital.

Another rising young star is Jordan Pont from Sheffield, the Yorkshire organiser of Resistance. Pont, 21, is known for his Facebook rants against people he feels are holding him back from achieving his ambitions in the party. In a high risk strategy, he even described some of Griffin’s most trusted lieutenants as “useless” when he was demanding last year that he be imposed on the BNP’s Sheffield branch as its organiser.

Now safely ensconced in this role, Jordan has become a loyal Griffinite, but initially toyed with joining the BNP Reform group, which wants to depose Griffin as leader. After a change of heart he dramatically stormed out of a meeting addressed by the party renegade Eddy Butler who is touring the country trying to organise the anti-Griffin movement.
Keen on self promotion, Pont filmed and posted on YouTube his own (dreadful) party political broadcast in support of his campaign to get elected to Sheffield council in East Ecclesfield. He is also a keener participant on internet forums, where he drives home his extreme dislike of Muslims and Islam. In one attack on a critic of the party, Pont rounded on an accusation that the BNP admired Adolf Hitler. Exploding into another of his semiliterate rants, he raged. “How can you say we admire Hitler. Hitler enjoyed having muslims [sic] in his SS, He loved the Islamic Faith! The BNP aren’t to [sic] fond on Muslims and i [sic] for one is against the Islamic Faith.”

Pont’s rise up the BNP ladder has cost him one friendship. Tom Holmes, another young party member with a rather colourful online persona, has taken to posting articles attacking Pont on the internet in a bid to draw unwelcome attention to Pont and thwart his ambitions.

Holmes and Pont initially fell out when Pont accused Holmes of grooming a young girl. Holmes did not deny it but said he had been duped. Holmes now spends time on the British Democracy Forum, Facebook and Indymedia website, posting messages against Pont and the BNP generally, which he feels has overlooked his own brilliant leadership potential. Their dispute could rumble on for a while yet.

Are the far right a spent force?

Every decent thinking reader of this blog will have warmly welcomed the news that the BNP have been reduced to only two councillors as a result of last Thursday’s election. One of the key reasons for this failure to retain their seats has been due to the outstanding work of anti-fascist and anti-racist organisations such as Hope not Hate. They should be congratulated.

The danger now is that those opposed to the far right now become complacent as we all enjoy the spectacle of Nick Griffin and the BNP tearing themselves apart. However, there is still much to be done.

Whilst the BNP and NF are capable of derisory results at the polls there are still far right groups that are achieving some disturbing successes.

The anti-immigration policies of the BNP are widely recognised, but less publicised is the stance of the English Democrats. Their vitriol is no different from Griffin’s crew. Take what they say on their website:

“Immigration is out of control. England is the third most densely populated country in the world and, for its size, the most densely populated country in Europe. We have neither the space nor the resources to permit more large-scale immigration. England is targeted by hundreds of thousands of economic migrants each year, who know they can come here easily, costing English taxpayers £billions a year in benefits. Worse still, immigrants are granted housing that young or needy English people are entitled to. In short, mass immigration has placed severe strains on England's housing accommodation, Education and Health Services, and exacerbated road congestion. It is time to close the door. Mass immigration must be ended. We would deport illegal immigrants and all those immigrants who are extremists, terrorists and criminals. We would regain control of our immigration systems by leaving the European Union.”

And on education ….

“The English Democrats support parental choice. Where there is a demand for it, schools should be able to free them-selves from local education authority control and be run independently in a way that suits local needs.”

Gays, women, minority groups had all better beware too. On the matter of political correctness they argue:

“The English Democrats unreservedly condemn this intolerant creed. We reject the self-righteousness of political correctness and condemn the ideology as an evil. Political correctness is incompatible with a free and democratic society.”

Now, ordinarily we might dismiss the English Democrats as a bunch of eccentrics, but the polls last Thursday showed that in some wards they were polling over 20% of the vote. On top of that, the Mayor of Doncaster, Peter Davies joined the English democrats in 2005 and has stood as their candidate since that time.

It is now time anti-fascist groups turned their attention on these anti-immigration groups and exposed their innate racism. The danger is that we concentrate exclusively on the BNP and NF, thus allowing other far right groups like this to gain a foothold.

So far they have failed to achieve any significant gains, but they are increasing and they are putting themselves over as moderates and decent people. They are neither. They are no different from other far right organisations and they need to be exposed and humiliated at the polls.

Let us not forget what happens when you ignore a threat in your own back yard.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Cash-strapped BNP 'turns to racist hardcore'

The Independent yesterday published a very good article exposing our favourite right-wing thugs, the BNP. For those of you who missed it I have published it in full. Please excuse the use of swear words. I would normally not have printed them but fascists have no idea of either decorum or decency. For those who might be offended I have used asterisks to obscure the word whilst retaining the content.

The Independent by Oliver Wright
The BNP was last night accused of turning to "a hardcore group of neo-Nazis and racists" to stand as candidates in next month's local elections.

The anti-BNP campaign group Hope not Hate said it had compiled a dossier of extremist postings of candidates standing on 5 May, either in council elections or those to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Among the postings the group collected from Facebook pages were:

* One BNP candidate in the North of England who posted on his Facebook page a mock advert for the gas Zyklon B – used in the Nazi extermination chambers of the Second World War – captioned, "Try Zyklon B. It's a gas!"

* One candidate urges his followers to "Stamp out diseases today. Spray pakis and poofs with hydrochloric acid".

* An activist in Wales, who has a photograph of his endorsement by BNP leader Nick Griffin on his Facebook page. Underneath it reads: "My grandfather was killed in Auschwitz. Apparently he got p****d and fell out of the watchtower!"

The candidate also posted, "Just popped round to see my Muslim neighbour's new baby. She asked me if I wanted to wind it but that seemed a bit extreme so I gave it a dead leg instead."

* A woman, describing herself as a "a big supporter of the BNP leader Nick Griffin", responded to a protest by Muslims Against The Crusades by saying: "They should all be burned."

* Another candidate posting about his arrest for "an out of date bus ticket", says: "They [police] have just made me hate them even more. From now on I will be celebrating the death of serving police officers when they are announced on the news. May sound a bit extreme but I hate them that much." He also posted that Labour's newly elected MP for Barnsley Central, Dan Jarvis, a former officer in the Parachute Regiment, "should have been shot from behind while facing the enemy".

Overall the BNP will be fielding just over 200 candidates in next month's elections – nearly 500 fewer than the in 2007. It said it "was having to cut its cloth" because of the amount of money it had had to spend defending a legal action against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

Hope not Hate said: "As his party crumbles, Nick Griffin has been forced to turn to what even by BNP standards, is a hard core of neo-Nazis and racists. These are not just activists, but people Griffin is putting forward as candidates for elected public office. They are literally the best the BNP now has to offer."

Hope not Hate, which is funded by the trades union movement, said the party had become hopelessly split – with many members defecting to the English Democrats and the breakaway party British Freedom Party.

The BNP has been engaged in a long-running court battle with the EHRC over its policy of restricting membership to "indigenous British people". It scrapped the rule but the Commission accused Mr Griffin of failing to comply with an order to remove potentially racist clauses from his party's constitution. In December Mr Griffin fought off an attempt to have him declared guilty of contempt of court at the High Court – which rejected the EHRC's attempt to seize the party's assets. Costs were awarded to the BNP but deputy leader Simon Darby said the battle had affected its ability to recruit members and had cost a huge amount in legal fees which had yet to be reimbursed.

Mr Darby said: "Unlike the Labour Party we cannot afford to be £19m in debt and we have had to cut our cloth accordingly." He said the unsavoury postings could be fakes to discredit the party.

'BNP postings' on facebook

* "7/7 – keep trying ya raghead b*****ds. This is our country our England our rules. Time2 packup and get the f**k out of dodge."

* "Fly your flag! no excuses. We stock them. £5 to p**s off your Muslim neigbours off big style. What a f*****g bargain."

* "Going to the polling station was a day out for the lazy African population as they don't work."

* "Unless we stand up and are counted then it's bye bye England."

Jenny Griffin is a busy girl

On 26 March, Clive Jefferson, the hapless BNP national elections officer announced on the BNP website that the local elections campaign was “hotting up” and, in an effort to chivvy along other activists, claimed that his patch, North West Cumbria, was going to stand 15 candidates “and counting” in Copeland and 15 candidates “and counting” in Allerdale.

“This year’s elections have a different feel to them. There are no unrealistic expectations,” claimed Jefferson. “There are a lot of new people coming forward eager to pin the British National Party heart to their chests,” he boasted. “People have worked quietly but systematically over the last year, and there is a feeling of real excitement in the active groups who are fielding big slates in 2011 … Cumbria has thrown the challenge down. Which region is going to beat the Cumbrian gambit of 30 seats?”

The BNP faithful lapped it up.

There appears to have been a problem though. Jefferson’s efforts to whip his colleagues into a frenzy of excitement were not based on fact. Indeed, when nominations closed it was revealed that there were only four candidates standing in Copeland which means that a number of BNP branches have managed to beat Clive Jefferson’s big push hands down.

There was little respite for Jefferson in Allerdale either where, despite claiming he had 15 candidates “and counting”, he could, at the end of the day, only muster six. And, what happened to their mayoral candidate for Middlesborough? He or she is also a no-show.

Two of the candidates were Jennifer Matthys, the daughter of Nick Griffin, and her husband, Angus. Angus is best remembered as the man who had to wear rubber gloves to open the BNP's post when he worked with Jenny at the BNP's Belfast office. Both are standing as candidates for the BNP in Allerdale.

But Jenny will be particularly busy come election day. She is standing on the Welsh Assembly regional list for South Wales East (fourth on the list) on the same day. And now we hear she's also standing in Scotland, Mid Scotland and Fife region, while husband Angus is also standing in Glasow, on the regional list! An unlikely proposition I know, but one wonders how they will divide their time between so many different countries should they get elected? Obviously, given their past there it's no surprise that neither made it onto the list for Northern Ireland.