Ex-BNP councillor switches to Labour

'Maureen Stowe, the Burnley councillor who left the British National party in February, has joined Labour in the wake of last week's local government elections.'

More here in The Guardian . Any coverage on BBC or does this go against their narrative?

When was free speech outlawed in this country?

The above is video of the Police removing the BNP candidate, Derek Adams, from a hustings in Delph during campaigning for the recent Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election. It seems that the organisers of the hustings invited some but not all of the candidates; five were not invited, Derek Adams being one. Here is a full list of the candidates for Thursday's by-election:

• 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)

I assume that the Labour, LibDem and Conservative candidates were invited as they are the main political parties in the country, but which of the minor parties were invited and which were not? I would be interested to see if those invited are the five highest polling candidates or not on Thursday.

The interests of democracy are not served by muzzling the BNP. However vile one finds some of their opinions they are a legitimate political party with views no worse than some parties on the far left of British politics who are never denied a platform.


Thanks to EU Referendum and The Saddleworth News for the spots.

Peter Tatchell penetrates the BNP's Nick Griffin's 'security cordon'

Not very good security people are they and on what grounds do they bindle Peter Tatchell away?

I am not a huge fan of Peter Tatchell but you can't doubt his bravery in confronting some very unpleasant people.

The BBC take some extreme parties more seriously than others

I see that the BBC are reporting quite seriously that:

'Respect have set out their conditions for supporting a Labour government in a hung Parliament.

As they launched their manifesto the party said they would not back a Tory government "under any circumstances".

But they would support Labour if troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan, more council houses were built, there was electoral reform and an end to cuts.

The anti-war party is hoping to gain up to three MPs on 6 May, which could leave it holding the balance of power.'

I wonder if the BBC would report the BNP's demands as equably? Somehow I think not.

Norman Tebbit update

I see that Norman Tebbit is today covering the threat of the BNP and putting the BNP firmly where it belongs, on the left not the right of the political spectrum. I have been saying for many years that the BNP are a left wing organisation but that the BBC and others describe them as right wing as that way they can taint all right wing parties with the stigma of racism.

As Norman Tebbit writes:

"So what about the BNP? The trouble is that it is a national socialist party. Take a look at its 2005 election manifesto. You won’t find much about reducing the power of the state and increasing that of the individual. It has a curiously dated air of the 1960s and 1970s, with talk of controlling the commanding heights of the economy and building barriers to trade. To be kind to the BNP, one might call it a corporatist party. To put it more roughly, one might say that it is a fascist party, a Left-wing authoritarian party. One thing is certain. As a socialist party, the BNP can only be part of the problem, not part of the solution."

And as I have also pointed out before:

"across the world, the greatest butchers have been socialists: Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Hitler – not a free market capitalist, low tax, small government man among them."

A perfect double of guilt by association for the BBC

Such joy at the BBC to be able to associate climate change denial with the BNP, as they start this story with the sentence

"BNP leader Nick Griffin, who has said global warming is "essentially a hoax", will be at the Copenhagen climate change conference."

The rest of the article explains how wrong Nick Griffin is and leaves one wondering what is worse in the minds of the BBC denying climate change or belonging to the BNP?

Glenrothes mark 2

The Glasgow North East by election is later this week and Rantin Rab has spotted something odd. Apparently:

"Postal vote applications granted - 6,065 (2005 figure 2419).

Constituency voters roll total on the 1st October 2009 = 60,037. Voters roll at the end of October = 62,475. A huge increase of 2,438.

The massive increase in postal votes mirror those in the Glenrothes by election last year. 80% of the postal votes granted in Glenrothes were used."

I wonder if as in Glenrothes the electoral register will conveniently disappear after the Labour by election victory...


Meanwhile I see that the BNP think that something odd is going on in some Council by elections where Labour are seeing large increases in their vote, somewhat against trend. The Green Arrow website has more details, two links are here for St Helen's ward, Barnsely and here for Hayling, Three Rivers District, Hertfordshire. Please note that whilst The Green Arrow website is a BNP supporting website, mine is not.

The known and ignored risks of an “open door” immigration policy

The Times reports that:

"Labour's “open door” immigration policy knowingly risked allowing dangerous people to settle in Britain unchecked, according to documents seen by The Sunday Times.

The Whitehall correspondence, which was illegally withheld by the Home Office for four years, shows how ministers were told by the country’s most senior immigration official that his staff were to be “encouraged to take risks” when granting visas, work permits and extended residency to hundreds of thousands of new migrants.

The cover-up of this policy of risk-taking was so concerted that Richard Thomas, the then information commissioner, sent a team of investigators into the Home Office to trawl all the relevant papers. Earlier this year he rebuked the department for breaking the law and ordered it to release the material under the freedom of information (FoI) law.

The documents help to explain the huge rise in the flow of migrants into Britain as the Home Office rushed to clear a backlog of 45,000 cases.

Officials agreed to fast-track 337,000 applications with minimal checks. This led to a rapid rise in immigration. In 1999, 170,000 visas were granted; by 2002, this had risen to 300,000.

As officials were being ordered to take risks, several potentially dangerous people entered the UK. In late 2001, more than 20 Taliban, who had fled from Afghanistan after their defeat by American and British forces, were allowed to stay in the UK. "

This latest revelation follows several other recent pieces of news that show this Labour government have lied, lied and lied again to this country about immigration and are mostly unrepentant. Do read the Times article to remind yourself of the duplicity of Labour over immigration policy, from Beverley Hughes's lies about the implementation of the "Brace" policy, the deliberate Home Office cover-up with the adding of the words “to be withheld” to the top of at least one document, Steve Moxon's efforts to get to the truth that he knew was being withheld. The article also reminds us of David Neather's recent claim that that uncontrolled mass immigration had been a deliberate, covert policy to change the country’s demographics.

The Time piece ends with what may be a key passage and no doubt one that the BBC will ignore for as long as they can:

"Chris Mullin, a former minister, recalled in his memoirs that ministers had “barely touched the rackets that surrounded arranged marriages . . . terrified of the huge cry of ‘racism’ that would go up

. . . There is the added difficulty that at least 20 Labour seats, including Jack (Straw’s), depend on Asian votes”.

With up to 80% of ethnic minorities voting Labour, it is obvious that the more immigrants who get the right to vote, the greater is Labour’s electoral share. Perhaps Mullin has stumbled on a smoking gun. "

And yet the BBC and others in the ruling elite wonder why the BNP are gaining popularity at the expense of the Labour party. Meanwhile a number of areas of some UK cities bear more resemblance to Ludhiana, Dhaka, Lahore or even Mogadishu rather than a European city.

Are there different types of evil?

The political establishment and most of the media are united by their detestation of the BNP and I understand why. Elements of the Labour party think that even allowing them free speech is beyond the pale and that the BNP should be proscribed. However that view does sit rather oddly with the revelation that:

"Leading members of a group that wants to bring down the British state and replace it with a dictatorship under Islamic law have secured more than £100,000 of taxpayers’ money for a chain of schools.

Accounts filed at the Charity Commission show that the Government paid a total of £113,411 last year to a foundation run by senior members and activists of Hizb ut-Tahrir — a notorious Islamic extremist group that ministers promised to ban.

The public money helped run a nursery school and two Islamic primary schools where children are taught key elements of Hizb’s ideology from the age of five. "

Do read the whole of The Telegraph's report and the wonder how the Labour government can gibe over £100,000 to an organisation that in the words of The Telegraph

"regards integration as “dangerous” and says that British Muslims should “fight assimilation” into British society. It wants to create a global Islamic superstate, or “caliphate”, initially in Muslim-majority countries and then across the rest of the world.

It says that “those [Muslims] who believe in democracy are Kafir”, or apostates. It orders all Muslims to keep apart from non-believers and boycott “corrupt” British elections and political processes."

Read the whole article and wonder how this Labour government can allocate over £100,000 to an organisation whose (in the words of The Telegraph)

"website previously displayed a leaflet urging Muslims to “kill [Jews] wherever you find them” and at a rally in London earlier this year, Imran Waheed, its chief media adviser in Britain, said that there could be “no peace” with Israel, calling on Muslims to “fight” a “jihad… in the way of Allah” against it."

Read the whole article and wonder how this Labour government could allocate over £100,000 to schools where (in the words of The Telegraph)

"At least three of the four trustees are Hizb members or activists, including Farah Ahmed, the head teacher of the Slough school, who has written in a Hizb journal condemning the “corrupt Western concepts of materialism and freedom”.

On their website, the schools say their “ultimate goal” and “foremost work” is the creation of an “Islamic personality” in children The creation of an “Islamic personality” is a key tenet of Hizb’s ideology.

The schools’ history curriculum states that children are taught that “there must be one ruler of the khilafah [caliphate]”. The schools’ website says that “in the glorious history of Islam... the Sharia was the norm”."

It is more than a little odd that the BNP are derided by Labour ministers and the BBC for being racist whilst the same Labour government gives money to a Muslim organisation that has previously called on Muslims to “kill [Jews] wherever you find them”.

"mass immigration under Labour was not just a cock up but also a conspiracy"

This is one of the most incredible and maybe political landscape changing stories I have reported since I started this blog.

The Telegraph report that:

"The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote".

As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants.

Critics said the revelations showed a "conspiracy" within Government to impose mass immigration for "cynical" political reasons.

Mr Neather was a speech writer who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett, in the early 2000s."

If true and I have heard no Labour minister deny it, then this is political dynamite. It blows a hole in the side of this Labour government and destroys what is left of their fingerhold on credibility. Mr Neather was a man who worked at the heart of this Labour government and who saw the raw material that he helped turn into speeches; he knows what facts were deliberately excluded and why.

The Telegraph article continues with this damning passage, again about Mr Teather:

"He wrote a major speech for Barbara Roche, the then immigration minister, in 2000, which was largely based on drafts of the report.

He said the final published version of the report promoted the labour market case for immigration but unpublished versions contained additional reasons, he said.

He wrote: "Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

"I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."

The "deliberate policy", from late 2000 until "at least February last year", when the new points based system was introduced, was to open up the UK to mass migration, he said.

Some 2.3 million migrants have been added to the population since then, according to Whitehall estimates quietly slipped out last month."

I wonder if Barabara Roche is available for comment.


Mr Teather is keen to point out that:

"(he) defended the policy, saying mass immigration has "enriched" Britain, and made London a more attractive and cosmopolitan place.

But he acknowledged that "nervous" ministers made no mention of the policy at the time for fear of alienating Labour voters.

"Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.

"But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland."

This, if true, is going to play out very badly for the Labour party in its heartlands and should see a further erosion in their support to the BNP. (see end of this post for a cynics response)

The report ends with comments from various concerned individuals: first Sir Andrew Green of Migrationwatch who has been calling for the truth to be told on immigration for a long time and suffered being tagged as a racist when it was verbotten to even discuss the subject, second Frank Field and Nicholas Soames whose recent report I mentioned yesterday and finally from a Home Office spokesman who ignores the central point of Mr Teather's claims:

"Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think tank, said: "Now at least the truth is out, and it's dynamite.

"Many have long suspected that mass immigration under Labour was not just a cock up but also a conspiracy. They were right.

"This Government has admitted three million immigrants for cynical political reasons concealed by dodgy economic camouflage."

The chairmen of the cross-party Group for Balanced Migration, MPs Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, said: "We welcome this statement by an ex-adviser, which the whole country knows to be true.

"It is the first beam of truth that has officially been shone on the immigration issue in Britain."

A Home Office spokesman said: “Our new flexible points based system gives us greater control on those coming to work or study from outside Europe, ensuring that only those that Britain need can come.

“Britain's borders are stronger than ever before and we are rolling out ID cards to foreign nationals, we have introduced civil penalties for those employing illegal workers and from the end of next year our electronic border system will monitor 95 per cent of journeys in and out of the UK.

“The British people can be confident that immigration is under control.”"

There is a not a whiff of this story on the BBC who prefer to report under the headline "BNP support in poll sparks anger" that:

"Peter Hain says his fears have been proved right after a poll suggested support for the BNP has risen after Nick Griffin appeared on Question Time.

A YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph suggests 22% of people questioned would "seriously consider" voting BNP. "

A cynics response - Might it be that the appearance of this article within 36 hours of Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time is not a coincidence? Might the Labour government be playing their final card; the card of deliberately boosting the BNP vote in an attempt to move votes from Conservative as well as Labour voters in any future general election.

Moving from cynicism to conspiracy theory; might the Labour party be engaging in the most dangerous pastime of engineering social conflict, social conflict that then requires the hand (or taser) of firm government to suppress? Suppression here might include one or more of the following: brute force on the streets, suspension of democracy & the normal rule of law under the Civil Contingencies Act and maybe the use of EU law and order & army to "restore order". Could Labour be that desperate?

BNP get an opinion poll boost following Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time

The Telegraph report that the latest You Gov opinion poll shows that "More than a fifth of the public would consider voting for the British National Party". In more detail

"The survey found that 22 per cent of voters would “seriously consider” voting for the BNP in a future local, general or European election. This included four per cent who said they would “definitely” consider voting for the party, three per cent who would “probably” consider it, and 15 per cent who said they were “possible” BNP voters.

Two-thirds said they would not consider voting for the party “under any circumstances” with the rest unsure."

So that plan went well didn't it BBC? Or is the plan really to sow dissent and violence so that their newly armed police can take their revenge and then have an excuse to postpone the general election.

The Nick Griffin Show

So Question Time with the BNP as just one guest was actually the attacking the BNP and Nick Griffin show. The usual wide variety of topics was replaced by just immigration and race topics, apart from the Stephen Gately/Jan Moir story.

Key points:
Jack Straw's panicky and disingenuous way of answering the question as to whether the rise in the BNP is due to failings by the Labour party on immigration policy. Contrast his reply with Baroness Warsi's more honest one about resources. Baroness Warsi did fall into the trap that so many fall into of saying that we need "the brightest and best", this is what many argue by describing the benefits of allowing American bankers (maybe no more), French computer scientists etc. to come here but ignoring the sometimes workshy, violent immigrants from other cultures.

The question posed by the well suited gentleman to Jack Straw about Labour's culpability on the matter of immigration which was linked to Frank Field's comments as reported this morning. Listening to Jack Straw worry about "having to be authoritarian" was almost hysterical coming from just one of the sequence of authoritarian Labour Home Secretaries that have been inflicted on this country.

Nick Griffin did at least attack the BBC for being leftist, which is more than any Conservative MP or MEP has done on TV.

So what will the results of the Nick Griffin appearance be? I don't think it will be any sort of tipping point. The BNP may gain a little credibility but I don't think that much. Jack Straw's diminishing credibility has taken yet another knock. Baroness Warsi may be used even more on the media as she performed very well.

The "tolerant left"

The Guardian reports that:

"More than 100 anti-fascist protesters are staging a noisy demonstration outside BBC Television Centre about British National party leader Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time later today.

By 3.30pm, about 150 protesters had gathered outside the main Television Centre reception on Wood Lane, west London, chanting slogans including: "Build a bonfire, build a bonfire, put Nick Griffin on the top, put the Nazis in the middle, and burn the fucking lot.""

Is that chant "incitement"? Have the police taken names?

The BNP and Question Time

Well every other commentator and pundit is having their say, so I suppose I should too.

The BNP has some odious views but it is a legitimate political party which achieved a large vote at the last EU elections and if the Green Party are allowed a place on Question Time then so should they.

The problem here is almost entirely due to the Labour Party and the BBC's stupidity in ignoring the BNP for so long. The Labour Party's headlong rush for the votes of minority groups and its habit of appeasing its "bleeding heart" wing meant that white-working class voters left the party that seemed to have left them and found an alternative socialist party, the BNP. Recently some Labour MPs have reacted to the rise of the BNP by addressing concerns but Margaret Hodge in Barking and Jon Cruddas in Dagenham have been in the minority. Gordon Brown in his usual clod-hopping manner managed to exacerbate the issue with his "British jobs for British workers" speech, which gave more publicity to the BNP at a most opportune (for the BNP) time. Meanwhile the BBC managed to imbue the BNP with a degree of street-cred by demonising them at every opportunity.

Where the BBC have really fallen down is over the arrangements for tonight's Question Time. The whole programme is being dominated by Nick Griffin's presence on the panel, the debate over who is going to appear alongside him and the report I read yesterday that said that David Dimbleby will rigorously question Nick Griffin on points raised by the audience. The BBC are taking a big risk by doing this. It may make Nick Griffin look as though he is being attacked from all sides; the four other panellists, the audience, David Dimbleby and the protesters outside. It also risks making Nick Griffin look more important than he is: why is he so important that he has to be singled out for more attention than the other panellists?

The choice of questions tonight will also be important. By rights the 70 million population story should be one matter for discussion but that would play into Nick Griffin's hands so will the BBC ignore that subject and so try and neuter Nick Griffin's chance to talk about the consequences of immigration or will they try and let him have his head over the subject and pull him up on any "thought-crimes".

The views of the Unite Against Facism crowd and others on the vile Victoria Derbyshire's 5Live programme this morning were ridiculous. They seemed to argue that no racist opinions should ever be heard on the BBC; a deny them the oxygen of publicity type policy. The trouble is that the BBC already gives airtime to people with even more unpleasant and dangerous views than Nick Griffin; Anjem Choudary for one. People with unpleasant views need to have those views challenged not ignored. Peter Hain's calls for the BBC to rethink its invitation to the BNP show quite how illiberal many of those on the left of politics really are. Ken Livingstone came out with the comment that "Unlike any other party, when Nick Griffin speaks, or when they get elected in an area, what we see is an increase in racial attacks.". I would like to see the figures that Ken bases his claim upon and whether there are similar figures for attacks on Jews following speeches made by radical Islamists invited by Ken Livingstone to speak when he was London Mayor.

This Labour government decided for various reasons; some honourable, some not, to allow immigration into the UK to massively increase from 1997. The decision to lie about the levels and implications was a poor, if understandable, one. The BNP's rise in the polls is just one result of that imposed policy and the Labour party and their allies in the BBC will have to get used to the BNP making increasing inroads into the political life of the UK.

As the recession bites harder and the necessary spending cuts and tax rises are imposed (by whichever party is in government next year) the ground will become more fertile for parties such as the BNP who have scapegoats to lay the blame for the economic situation onto. What worked for the Nazi party in Weimar Germany during the last great depression of the 1930s may well work for the BNP and similar parties across Europe. That is a profoundly depressing thought for me and I am sure for many others, but ignoring the BNP won't make them disappear.


As I have said before, I sincerely doubt that either I or Mrs NotaSheep would be eligible to join the BNP (not that we want to) but unlike the many protesters who seem obsessed by that fact, I don't care. There were a number of black Britons interviewed on the BBC this morning who seemed distressed that they could not join the BNP; why would they want to? If a policeman, I would not be eligible to join the National Black Police Association, so what? If a lawyer, I would not be eligible to join The Association of Muslim Lawyers, so what?

Peter Hain and free-speech

Peter Hain, that bastion of probity, has threatened the BBC over its decision to invite Nick Griffin onto Question Time on Thursday. He is reported to have said that

"If you do not review the decision you may run the very serious risk of legal challenge in addition to the moral objections that I make.

"In my view, your approach is unreasonable, irrational and unlawful."

Why is free speech so anathema to so many on the left of British politics?

Compare and contrast (part 2)

The BBC's decision to invite the BNP's Nick Griffin onto Question Time has aroused much anger from the usual suspects. The BBC's local council (Hammersmith and Fulham) are "worried" about protests and want the venue moved. United Against Facism is planning a mass blockade of the BBC studios on the day in a deny them the right to free speech protest. BECTU, The TV technicians' union, has attacked the BBC's decision and pledged to join a demonstration against the recording of the programme.
General secretary of BECTU Gerry Morrissey said: "We believe there should be no media coverage of the BNP." It seems that the argument runs something like this: the BNP must not be allowed to be heard as they are a racist party and their views are abhorrent and likely to cause inter-community strife.

Meanwhile Islam4UK are reported to have launched a campaign to impose Sharia law on Britain. The group have urged Muslims from all over Britain to converge on London on 31 October for a "March 4 Shari'ah" to demand the full implementation of Sharia law. Islam4UK declared "On this day we will call for a complete upheaval of the British ruling system its members and legislature, and demand the full implementation of Shari'ah in Britain." Have United Against Facism complained about this march in favour of implementing Sharia law in the UK? Have BECTU issued a statement decrying this march in favour of a law that would discriminate against women, subject homosexuals to the death penalty and in the words of Anjnem Choudary would mean that "people who commit adultery would be stoned to death and that anyone who becomes intoxicated by alcohol would be given 40 lashes in public" Surely the latter being something of interest to his members.


We seem to have from many on the left a willingness to deny free speech to a legitimate political party with more Local Council seats than the UKIP and as many MEPs as the Greens. Whilst the same people smile benignly as an extreme movement march in London. Double standards anyone?



Sharia law that would

Labour social engineering, where will it end?

The BBC report the news that:

"Campaigners have welcomed an idea to give poorer students a two grade "head start" to help them get places at the leading universities."

That should kill off what remains of Labour's middle class achiever vote. But then maybe Labour are more interested in shoring up their core "working class" (for which you can often read "not working and have no intention of doing so class") vote for fear of losing even more votes to the hard left BNP. "Hard left"? Have you read their policies, they are a party of the extreme left not the extreme right; don't let the Labour/BBC narrative that racism is a "right-wing" issue fool you.

Odd web item

Babes of the BNP. Real or spoof?

Are all BNP voters "racists"?

"If voting BNP makes you a racist, will the Labour party be prepared to welcome back voters who abandoned then for the BNP?"

So asks Al Jahom.



Thanks to Mrs Rigby for the spot.

BBC Today programme this moring - 8 June 2009

John Humphrys seems to be grumpier than normal this morning, I wonder why.

John Humphrys interview with George Osborne was a master-class in BBC/Labour attack interviewing. Cutting across George Osborne over and over again, attempting to slur the Conservative party by alleging all sorts of things about the Conservative party's new partner parties in Poland and the Czech Republic. Generally John Humphrys sounded both angry and dismissive of the Conservative's electoral success and George Osborne did well not to fight back with aggression.

John Humphrys interview with Nick Griffin was similarly angry, attacking the BNP, its elected MEPs and showing a complete lack of respect. I cannot remember John Humphrys being as agitated and angry when interviewing those on the hard-left some of whose views are at least as odds with those of the majority of the British people as are some of the BNP's.

John Humphrys interview with Harriet Harman was a much different exercise. He interrupted much less and more politely including an "I'm sorry" which was rather a contrast to his interview with George Osborne. The tone of the interview was one of anger but more with the circumstances than with the Labour party. He expressed irritation with Harriet Harman, it would be hard not to be, but also there seemed to be great sorrow at the state of the Labour party and the resulting prospect of a Conservative government.