SPOTLIGHT ON THE BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY

This 1999 article is still of special interest to other young National Parties

As reported in recent issues of The Spotlight, France's populist party, the National Front - the largest of its type in the world - has been split. The breakaway faction calling itself the "National Front National Movement," led by turncoat Bruno Megret, held its first congress recently and has now set itself up as a separate party. Megret, who was No. 2 to National Front President Jean Marie Le Pen in the old party, said that his new party "will pursue the same nationalist policies" as the National Front did, but "without the excesses, the blunders and the provocations" of that party.

However, all is not well in Megret's new party and the leadership have already started to fall out among themselves. It now seems that the split in the National Front came from both inside and outside the party. Foreign intelligence services, including Americans, have been working to destroy Le Pen and his party for a number of years now. Although Le Pen has not been toppled, he and his party have been shaken by Megret's sabotage and will go into the June 1999 European elections weaker than they were a year ago. They will also face opposition from Megret's party which will divide the populist vote. Before the split, Le Pen could have polled as high as 20 percent of the national vote. Now opinion polls give him around 10 percent, with Megret's party at 5 percent. Watching all this from across the English Channel, Britain's largest and most successful populist party - the British National Party (BNP) - is going into the June 1999 European elections stronger than ever. Party membership is at an all time high and new chapters of the BNP are starting up all over the United Kingdom. They even have a chapter now in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, which has always been a very difficult area for British populists to get a foothold in. The BNP was formed in 1982 by a small group of patriots from different organizations who were tired of watching their once-great country being sold down the river by the old political parties. They made little headway until the start of the 1990s, but since then the party has been going from strength to strength. In 1993 the BNP elected its first local councilor in Millwall ward (in East London), polling more than 30 percent of the vote and beating the three "old gang," parties (Labor, Liberal and Conservative). In the 1997 general election, the BNP ran 55 candidates nationwide, which earned them TV and radio broadcasts. In Britain a "third party" has to run at least 50 candidates to qualify for air time On TV and radio. Such time cannot be bought as happens in America. A deposit of 500 pounds (about $800) is required to run a candidate in any one district, and if that candidate gets less than 5 percent of the vote in that district the deposit is lost (i.e., the state gets it). In three districts the BNP polled more than 5 percent of the vote and thus saved three deposits, which is very rare for a third party to do in a general election.

The election of Tony Blair's "New Labor' party government, with its poisonous mix of political correctness and cultural communism, has lead to the BNP becoming the unofficial opposition to them in many inner city areas. The BNP is the only party standing up for the interests of native Britons in the former industrial areas of England, where Islamic militancy and anti-white racial violence are sharply on the rise. In these areas, working class Britons are being turned into oppressed second class citizens in their own country. They don't like this situation and they are turning to the BNP in droves.

The BNP is also now well-organized in most of Scotland and in South Wales as well. It even has a new chapter in Northern Ireland. And its expansion should continue, as the BNP's populist message appeals to a great mass of disillusioned people all across the United Kingdom. The BNP's growth in Britain, as with the success of the National Front in France, has not gone unnoticed by the Establishment. On February 8, the Daily Express (one of Britain's most-read daily newspapers) ran a front page story with the headline: "MI5 To Smash Race Gangs."

This was not, as many of you think, a story about Britain's police force planning to smash the many black and Asian street gangs that have been terrorizing elderly Britons for many years. According to the Daily Express, "Scotland Yard and M15 [Britain's political police] are planning a huge covert operation to break up violent racist organizations. The Express has learned that intelligence officers will infiltrate Far Right groups such as the British National Party."

The article continued, "Other officers will tap telephones, open mail, and scrutinize bank accounts and medical records. We plan to close down these organizations by using every administrative device available to us," said a Scotland Yard source. "These may include tax and VAT (Value Added Tax) details, local authority planning infringements and breaches of charity regulations. You must remember that Al Capone was brought down by the American Internal Revenue [Service] - not the FBI. At the end of the day we will know everything about the people in these groups, more than they know themselves. Mr. [Deputy Assistant Commissioner John] Grieve, former head of the anti-terrorist squad, is aiming to build comprehensive computer files on the country's active racists and their relatives and associates. He will be using all his skills and techniques used against the IRA in the fight against the racial terrorists polluting our inner cities. The files will detail racist groups' views and the extent to which they use violence. The ultimate intention is to bring a series of criminal charges against the ringleaders of racist organizations and the thugs who follow them."

This story was clearly placed in the Express by spin- doctors, after the release of the highly critical "Lawrence Report." (Stephen Lawrence was a black teenager killed by white youths five years ago). In so doing, Grieve, now head of the new London Metropolitan Police race crime unit, has given Britons a chilling glimpse of the totalitarianism which lurks inside the liberal mind.

The London police have taken a lot of heat from the cultural communists since the Lawrence Report for their failure to catch and convict Stephen Lawrence's killers, and also for the death in early February of another young black man, who was being held in police custody in North London. The story in the Express was designed to take off that "heat," but it should also be noted that Grieve, a very politically correct policeman if ever there was one, has his own personal vendetta against the BNP.

A few years ago at a BNP election meeting in East London, Grieve tried to incite a number of Communist demonstrators to attack a group of elderly BNP members going into the meeting. However before the Communists could attack, a large group of younger BNP supporters arrived at the meeting hall and faced down the Reds, who then made a hasty retreat. Grieve was so angry at this that he was literally jumping up and down, screaming that "my boys [the ordinary police constables] will do in your boys [the young BNP members]." Interestingly, nothing of the sort happened, as the ordinary police constables, many of whom are sympathetic to the BNP, failed to act on Grieve's instructions.

The BNP have long worked on the assumption that the political police tap their phones and open their mail, but since all their activity is legal, there is nothing such police-state snooping can find out which can be used against them in court. At the same time, Grieve's political police need to be seen taking action against the "racists" and this alone may push them to take illegal action against the BNP. Not being the type of organization which would dilly dally around, the BNP hit back the very same day the Express article appeared. BNP spokesman Michael Newland faxed a formal complaint against the way Grieves had broken his police oath of impartiality and ignored the British tradition of non-political policing. A complaint was also lodged with the Police Complaints Authority.

The groups Liberty and Amnesty International are being pressed to speak out against the threat to target BNP members' relatives, which may be too much even for them to accept. Details of the proposals by Scotland Yard and M15 to "close down" a legitimate political party are being sent to the myriad of free speech web sites around the world.

A few days after the Express article, another attack was launched on the BNP's European election campaign. This one came from the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), Britain's state-run TV and radio network. The BBC decides how third parties such as the BNP can qualify for TV and radio time during the European Election campaign in June 1999.

Normally a third party would have to run candidates in one-sixth of the districts to qualify for such air time. However the BBC has recently announced that third parties must henceforth run candidates in every district in England to get the air time. This change in BBC policy is a clear attempt to thwart the BNP's participation in the democratic process. The move away from the one-sixth criteria, which the BNP had already exceeded, will also hurt and probably stop a number of other third parties, such as the Greens, Liberals and Socialists from being able to obtain TV and radio air time.

The BNP reacted to the news by declaring that the party would be running candidates in all nine English districts (they had planned to run in just half of them). Party leader, John Tyndall, said, "I'm not about to let the bureaucrats of the BBC stop the BNP or prevent our party from obtaining its democratic rights." Nevertheless, the new conditions mean that the BNP must redouble its efforts particularly with regard to fundraising. The party's original $80,000 European election campaign fund target has been increased to $120,000. At press time, just over half of this has been raised.

To help the BNP reach its target, an American support group for the party has been set up. "American Friends of the BNP" was formed in January by a number of expatriate Britons, now living in the United States, and some American supporters of the party. Long-time Liberty Lobby and Spotlight supporter Stan Hess of California traveled to Britain in early January and held talks with BNP leaders Nick Griffm and Richard Edmonds. Hess is very keen on promoting closer cooperation between populist activists and organizations around the world.

"Our opponents exchange information and tactical ideas," he told The Spotlight. "We need to do the same, otherwise we will always be one step behind them. Most of all, I want to see an international information technology conference of those groups around the world, which, like the BNP, are at the front of the bell curve on using opportunities such as the Internet for spreading our ideas."

Opponents of free speech are reported to be dismayed at the underlying strength of the BNP, which has been able to mount such a concerted effort to surmount all of the obstacles from the political police, the BBC and the cultural communists to reach its target: the hearts and minds of the British people.

The BNP will enter the June 1999 European election more determined and more united than ever before. It is hoped that its French counterparts in the National Front will take a look at what's happening across the English Channel, reunite their party under the leadership of Jean-Marie Le Pen, and again march forward as a united force to win France back for the French, just as the BNP is working to take Britain back for the British.

 

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Article originally posted 1999 in "SPOTLIGHT"