Nazis in the Town Hall: Now the BNP target Bexley

The BNP are hoping to gain a foothold in Bexley Council with the forthcoming Council byelection in East Wickham Ward. Apparently they have been campaigning hard although the date has not yet been fixed.

I was interested that some correspondents felt that my description of the British National Party as National Socialist or Nazi was unfair. This is a picture of the Party's founder John Tyndall - he's the one on the left and he's not on his way to a fancy dress party. Tyndall was also on record as saying: "Mein Kamp is my bible."

He did eventually fall out with his successor and protege Nick Griffin but they worked hand in glove for many years. Also pictured is Griffin with David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan. The BNP also has friendly links with the openly neo-Nazi German group the National Democratic Party.

In a speech in Burnley in 2004, the then Tory leader Michael Howard described the BNP as "a bunch of thugs dressed up as a political party." He said:

 

"I want to address directly what I see as a stain on our democratic way of life: the British National Party. There are those who say that it is better to ignore their presence on the political stage - that talking about the BNP gives extremists the oxygen of publicity.

I do not agree. It is important for politicians from mainstream parties to face up to extremists in any form, to tell people why we disagree with them and why they should be defeated.

Let's not mince our words. The policies of the British National Party are based on bigotry and hatred. Its approach is entirely alien to our political traditions.

Their leader, Nick Griffin, has described his party as '"a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan 'Defend Rights for Whites' with", as he puts it, "well-directed boots and fists."

"When the crunch comes" he says, "power is the product of force and will, not of rational debate".

He denies the existence of Nazi death camps and has written that he has "reached the conclusion that the 'extermination' tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter day witch-hysteria."

I happen to know that he is wrong about that. My grandmother was one of the millions of people who died in those camps.

In 1998, Griffin was found guilty of distributing material likely to incite racial hatred, for which he received a two-year suspended jail sentence.

He is not alone in his Party in having criminal convictions.

Tony Lecomber, the Director of Group Development, has convictions under the Explosives Act.

He was also imprisoned for wounding a Jewish teacher whom he beat up on the day of the BNP's annual conference in 1990.

Other BNP activists have convictions for assault, attacks on bookshops, football violence and distributing racist literature to schoolchildren.

This is not a political movement. This is a bunch of thugs dressed up as a political party."

I don't believe that the majority of residents in East Wickham Ward are neo-Nazis. Or of the Fenside Ward in Boston where the BNP won a seat last week. For the BNP to be defeated all that is needed is for the truth about them to be exposed.