CORRUPTED BY PARTY POLITICS

By Robert Edwards

(published in European Action number 11, July/August 2007)


In the previous issue of European Action, Bill Baillie asked what is the point of minority far-right parties entering the arena of both the local and national elections when the mainstream parties seem to have it all sown up in their favour and for themselves alone. The best they can do, he said, was to influence government policy now and then.
The results of the last local elections in May were devastating for the British National Party after putting up a record number of over 800 candidates. Most of them were paper candidates, of course, with at least one in the South East of a very dubious moral background.
The BNP, under Nick Griffin, has struggled for the past several years in order to re-invent itself, bending over backwards to follow similar groups on the continent that have adopted a stridently pro-Israel line. They think that being anti-Muslim and pro-Jewish will open the doors to mainstream politics, when recent election results have proven that this is not the case. Some people, you see, have long memories, especially Jewish people.

"The popularism [sic] in British nationalist circles means the idea that if we change our image the Jews will not say bad things about us … The BNP should not try and appeal to middle-class notions of respectability, which take issue with the fact that a minority of nationalists wear large boots and short haircuts, or that the BNP activities often 'provoke violence'. It is more important to control the streets of a city than its council chamber". Nick Griffin, The Cook Report, 1997

Quite often, this transformation took the form of attacking nationalistic critics of Israel by labelling them anti-Semites with the implication that they are largely influenced by the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. The BNP’s leader, Nick Griffin, was the author of a booklet entitled ‘The Mindbenders’, an exposé of alleged disproportionate Jewish influence in the British media. This was published within recent memory with the BNP now attempting to erase aspects of its history by saying Griffin had nothing to do with it.
Unfortunately for him, we have the following quote in stark contradiction to the latest ‘in denial’ struggle of conscience. In issue number 3, on page 11, of The Patriot 1999, he declares, "I have been busy writing The Mindbenders". Indelible, unambiguous and unequivocal!
What makes people like Griffin believe that political somersaults and twisted contortions will benefit them in the long run when inconsistency and downright opportunism does not go unnoticed and will surely follow them for the rest of their lives?
John Tyndall could never shake off his penchant for Nazi uniforms in the early 1960s, paraded for the whole world on the front page of the Daily Mirror. It was a propaganda gift to his enemies on the extreme-left and to his own internal rivals. They used it against him time and again.
After years of servility to JT, Griffin decided to challenge him on the issue of modernising the party and ridding it of the old guard anti-Semites, even though he was one himself, referring to the ‘Holohoax’ in his Rune magazine. Tyndall was given the ‘let’s get rid of the Nazis’ treatment that became more acrimonious as time went by. Griffin, as we all know, won the contest.
The Griffin gang also discovered a substitute for the old anti-Semitism in the form of a wildly exaggerated anti-Islamism, with the foul-mouthed Lee Barnes appointing himself the BNP’s Witch-Finder General. On April 9, 2006, Barnes informed me, “Islam is a direct threat to our safety. Jewish power is a mere political threat. When faced with two tigers trying to destroy you but you have only one bullet in your rifle what do you do?”
The cynical opportunism is plain to see but the logic is flawed. Having shot one tiger, what do you do about the other? Go on your knees and beg?
Just before last May’s elections, it was not surprising that Jewish leaders were to warn British Jews to unite against the BNP. One Jewish website declared, “The Board of Deputies of British Jews is calling on all communities to unite in making sure voters across the country reject the far right British National Party in May's local elections”.
It appeared that all the crawling and toadying to Jewish feelings and aspirations had been for nothing.

“The Messianic nature of Judaism has always been an important factor, at least subconsciously, in the hugely disproportionate role of racial Jews in both Communism and Capitalism”. Nick Griffin, Spearhead, February 1996

European Action has no problem in confronting the crimes of Israel and giving its support to the persecuted Palestinian people. We know that we are condemning people for what they do and not for what they were born. Anti-Semitism is attacking Jews merely because they are born Jews. Messrs Griffin, Barnes and Bean have still not quite grasped that simple definition of a term they are now so fond of throwing at any critic of Israel or even their own BNP policy on the subject.
The octogenarian editor of the BNP’s Identity magazine has a past history of far-right fringe activity, rubbing shoulders with anti-Semites throughout all that time in the 1950s and early 1960s. He was five minutes in Mosley’s Union Movement but then preferred those groups more interested in the ‘international Jewish conspiracy’ rather than serious solutions to Britain’s problems. Now he emerges as an ‘elder statesman’ of the BNP after disappearing completely from political life, after the founding of the National Front in 1967. Up on his pedestal he now dismisses the ’Judeo-obsessives’, as if he were as pure as the driven snow and never said “boo!” to a rabbi.
The attempt at appeasing Jewry has failed. It was never going to work because it was only ever viewed as a tactical ploy by anyone who could see through it. But why is supporting Israel and Jewry so important to a politician who wants to get on? What is the significance of leaked stories such as an alleged midnight call from the Jewish journalist Barbara Amiel, wife of Conrad Black, to Nick Griffin along the lines of, "Isn't it about time that we started to work together for mutual defence against the Muslim threat?". The authenticity of the exchange is highly questionable but the ‘leak’ was not condemned by Griffin because the purpose of relating such an unlikely tale was to send out a message to Jewry at large, preying on fears of Islam. It was Barnes’ dilemma of two tigers and only one bullet.
It is not wrong to condemn Israel for what is done to the Palestinians and it is not wrong to point out that some sections of Jewry put the interests of Israel above those of the countries of which they are citizens.
I recall an article in an old issue of Action of the early 1960s pointing out that there is something just as equally unacceptable as attributing all the world’s ills to a malevolent ‘international Jewish conspiracy’ ... and that is the idea that organised Jewry is blameless, always morally correct and, thus, should be completely immune from criticism. In other words, we should avoid all mention of them for fear of offending. Both views are, of course, irrational and morally unacceptable