East London - BNP launch crash

On the Sunday the 5th of October the far-right British National Party attempted to meet in East London for the first time since the early 1990s. Clearly high on a string of council election successes over the last 5 years, they have announced candidates all over London and are trying get branches going in the capital – which they have avoided until now in the face of serious opposition. Confrontation is something the head of the Party has avoided under the ‘reformist’ leadership of Nick Griffin, and they have also adopted a seemingly bland Nationalist program urging pride in ‘the British way of life’, celebrate ‘our culture and heritage’ and of course ‘stop all immigration’.

But it would be a mistake if for a second anyone thought they were essentially a group like the UK Independence Party with tougher migration stances and a fetish for flags and patriotism. They are a racist group, with a neo-Nazi core. On their merchandise page you can find: supremacist books celebrating the achievements of ‘the white race’, t-shirts that say ‘It’s cool to be white’ and ‘It’s a White thing’ and golliwog caricatures or black people. The logo of the Young BNP youth-wing is a Hitler Youth symbol and the leader of the YBNP called Nazi Germany a great place to bring up your family on camera. At their annual Red White and Blue festival in 2008 they had a fake graveyard for white people murdered by black people – the message being that a) black people are determined to murder white people b) black people are just violent or c) races cannot exist together. The BNP want a racially segregated society, and at the same time believe white people are superior. This is all without going back even 5 years into the BNP’s long Nazi past, when members: desecrated graveyards with swastikas, beat up Asians, bombed bookshops, organised terror groups, gave refuge to European terrorists, and in the case of ex-member David Copeland, planted nail-bombs in public places to try and start a race war. The bombs killed three, including a pregnant woman, and injured 129, four of whom lost limbs. Meeting in a Bethnal Green pub last Sunday afternoon, the East London BNP hopefuls moved on to a nearby church hall. The vicar was quickly made aware of who he’d booked (the BNP generally book under a false name) and cancelled the meeting. He also called the police to escort the BNP from the premises and protect them from a large crowd of locals who gave chase, but were fought back by the police using steel batons and pepper spray. Around 5 people were arrested. The BNP and the rest of the far right can rest assured they won’t always have the police there to protect them. Update: charges were dropped against all those arrested.