Here is a typical group of BNP activists. It will be noticed that some of the men have
extremely short haircuts - skinheads possibly? Now the policy seems to be to exclude them.
NO MATTER how
long our experience in the struggle for race and nation,
there is a central truth of which we need constant reminders. This is
of
the almost infinite resources of human gullibility. Most of us are
acclimatised
to this where it concerns the general public of this or any other
country,
and we are obliged in our work 'in the field', as it were - that is in
our campaigns to win over prospective voters and members - never to
make
assumptions that enemy propaganda is so crudely ridiculous that masses
of people will not fall for it; and this imposes continual constraints
upon us to correct that propaganda in our own messages to those we seek
to win over.
Less obvious, but also never to be forgotten, is
that in the ranks of our own adherents - those who have overcome the
first
hurdle of anti-nationalist indoctrination and enlisted in the good
fight
- the temptation to swallow attractive-sounding slogans and
clichés,
without too much thought for what lies behind them, is something to
which
by no means everybody is immune.
In thinking about my own contribution to this issue,
I had hoped to give a rest to matters of internal controversy and
instead
focus on one or other of the important national and world issues which
our magazine needs to address. I vastly prefer writing about these more
general political subjects, and I am sure that most of our readers
vastly
prefer reading about them. Having dealt with some questions internal to
our party last month, I was of a mind to leave such questions alone for
at least a while.
This was before I saw the June edition of the BNP
house journal Identity, which in certain pages contained such
tendentious
nonsense that it could not be allowed to pass without comment.
'Key
enemies'
The main body of the nonsense is contained in an
article 'Moving Forward for good' by the journal's editor and BNP
chairman
Nick Griffin. The article focuses on what the writer calls "key
enemies"
which the party must overcome to ensure political success.
Mr. Griffin begins by speaking about the media
smears
with which the BNP has to contend and the need to avoid doing anything
to justify them - an assertion with which, so far, every sensible
person
in the party would agree, only with the rider that those same smears
will
come our way whether they are justified or not. But let us read on. Mr.
Griffin then says that...
... a few individual members - but more often 'supporters' and 'hangers-on' - have continued to associate with some of the failed ideas and attitudes which were commonplace in the party's long-gone days of careless, doomed extremism. Some people may have thought that such attitudes on the part of a few well-meaning 'old hands' could be tolerated. The reality is that such tolerance is neither possible nor desired."Now this covers a multitude of sins. Taken at broad face value and not analysed for detail, it is a statement with which few would quarrel. But it would be useful to know specifically what "failed ideas and attitudes" the writer has in mind. If he is referring essentially to the lunatic-fringe politics of such groups as Combat 18, with
Nick's 'Three H's'
Mr. Griffin then turns in his article to speak of
what he calls the 'Three H's' - Hard Talk, Hobbyism and Hitler. Again
we
find him here tilting at windmills, slaying bogys that simply do not
exist
in the BNP except among people on its outer periphery who have no
influence
whatever on policy and never have done.
Beginning with 'Hard Talk', the BNP chairman
castigates
those who, in the sanctity of pubs and drawing rooms, advocate violence
against minorities and opponents, and romance on about the genocidal
measures
they would like to see carried out when the BNP comes to power. And he
says:-
"Never say anything to anybody which your fellow members wouldn't be happy to see quoted on News at Ten. If you can't abide by that rule, then the time to leave is now, before you unwittingly provide some repulsive left-wing hack with a stick with which to beat us."I could not agree more! But why speak as if this is some sort of 'new' rule in the party. It has always been the rule, though I will acknowledge that there is no harm in repeating it from time to time. If Mr. Griffin's purpose is no more than that, I have no argument with what he says. He is stating the obvious, but to what he is saying I will only add something equally obvious: that the type of 'repulsive left-wing hack' to which he refers will not be deterred by absence of such 'hard talk' from reporting it in his column the next day or week as if it were verified fact.
Football
fans
What of 'Hobbyism'? Well, what Nick says here is
that nationalists should no longer court the support of football fans,
as happened in the past. To back up his words, he says that those who
were
recruited to our politics from the football terraces were few in number
and mostly useless anyway, and that even the 'muscle' they were
sometimes
able to supply is not now needed. And he continues:-
"The BNP is transforming itself into a sophisticated, professional party (which it never sought to do before of course!) that is recruiting more and more serious, mature and responsible men and women of all ages and walks of life. We are just not interested in young adult males who are more interested in wasting a Saturday at a football match - let alone risk getting arrested in utterly juvenile confrontations with other British males who probably share their political views."I can agree with much of this, though I think that in places it is somewhat oversimplified and over-generalised. It is true that a great many of the football fans induced to associate with us briefly in times past did not turn out to be very valuable recruitment material, but a minority did become good nationalists and it would be wrong to dismiss their contribution. The important question is that of whether, with maturing years, they got football thuggery out of their system and turned their energies to more constructive pursuits. Some did not, some did. Let us not tar everyone with the same brush.
'Muscle'
not needed?
As for saying that 'muscle' is no longer needed,
what kind of planet is Nick living on? Does he really suppose that just
because the BNP is recruiting "more and more serious, mature and
responsible
men and women" it is going to be left in peace by the militants of the
left? We can be quite sure that the more our party grows and is
perceived
by its enemies as 'dangerous' the more certain and the more vicious
will
be the tactics of physical intimidation employed against it. And on
such
occasions - taking into account the decreasing ability or inclination
of
the police to be on the spot to prevent law-breaking - we will be very
glad to have strong young men available to ensure the orderly conduct
of
our activities and the safety of our members, women in particular.
Of course it is true that we do not want yobbos
to whom the violence and excitement are more important than the serious
politics -the types who seek confrontation for confrontation's sake -
but
to imagine that in the present climate prevailing in Britain's
multiracial
cities we can be assured the facility to conduct our politics at all
times
in the manner of a vicarage tea party is to make us hostages to fate of
an extremely perilous kind.
This aside, the question must be asked: How sincere
is Nick Griffin really about the matters of which he speaks? Here he is
writing in Spearhead in April 1996:-
"The cringing liberals and the populists have got it all wrong. Far from confrontation frightening worthwhile people away, by strengthening the bonds of the group it actually attracts them - provided you win!"And again in November of the same year:-
"Of course, confrontation does still have a vital role to play in building comradeship between nationalists, and respect for our movement among the general public; but it must be confrontation with the right targets, and at times and places calculated to avoid unnecessary casualties and show us to be disciplined defenders of the interests of the British people, not a gang of adventurist hooligans..."If we are to take at face value what he is now saying in Identity, it would seem as if Nick has abandoned the view expressed above about confrontation "strengthening the bonds of the group" and "building comradeship." Well, we all have the right to change our minds but our Nick seems to do so rather more often than most - a topic to which I will return. A little further on in the same article, we find him speaking of racial tensions in British cities coming to boiling point, and saying:-
"This will create a need for local leadership and organisation to enable white communities on the frontlines to defend themselves effectively, both physically and politically. This is where the next decade will see a struggle for the control of the streets in which huge numbers of ordinary Britons will take a desperate interest, just as happened, for example, along the Shankill/Falls and Short Strand/Newtonards Road flashpoints in Belfast in the early 1970s. It will be essential for British nationalists to be at the forefront of such developments in mainland cities, for which the defeat of the Red/immigrant march on Southwark and the East End 'Rights for Whites' campaign were valuable early experiments."Is this the same Nick Griffin who is now saying that we neither desire nor need 'muscle' anymore? And should we not note that in the foregoing passage he speaks of "the next decade"? Well, we are still in that next decade. Is Nick telling us that it is he who has changed or that the situation 'on the streets' has changed - in less than a decade? I certainly do not believe that the latter has occurred, so that his forecast in that regard would be correct. But if it is, the assertion that 'muscle' is no longer needed is pure poppycock. No movement for great change across history has been able to do without 'muscle'; the important thing is that it is muscle that is disciplined, orderly, properly directed, and employed defensively as a last resort when police are not available and grave injury to members is the stark alternative.
Out
with skinheads
Anything more on the subject of 'hobby-ism'? Well,
yes. Another target of Mr. Griffin here is skinheads. Here he is
considerate
enough to make a distinction between natural skinheads like William
Hague
and Iain Duncan Smith (while very diplomatically excluding Yours
Truly!)
and those who are skinheads through choice, of whom for some strange
reason
he cites two black footballers as exemplars. "Skinheads," he says "-
even
in suits - scare the public. Of course it's unfair, but I don't make
the
rules; I'm just explaining some of the things we've got do to win the
game,
and ditching the last vestiges of this unfairly demonised youth cult is
one of them."
Now that is interesting. Again we find a
contradiction
between the Nick Griffin of 2002 and the Nick Griffin of not so many
years
earlier. Here is Nick in Spearhead in February 1996:-
"Attempts to 'clean up our image' through political education and the imposition of tighter discipline on wanton unruly elements are essential. But there is a world of difference between such credibility-boosters and, for example, the often related tendency to look down on skinhead supporters not on account of what they do but because of what they are" (JT's emphasis).Well, here we have another change in attitude over six years or so - but is it really as long as that? Those present at the Red, White and Blue Summer Festival in Wales in 2001 have testified - as do numerous photographs - that a not inconsiderable number of young men were present who certainly wore extremely short haircuts, though perhaps not skinhead dress. At meetings around the country at which I have spoken quite recently the same phenomena could be observed. Should I have ordered those fellows out of the meetings on the threat of refusing to speak if they didn't go? Should Nick Griffin do so when they are present when he is speaking? I think we have to accept that in the times in which we live this fashion of very short, even shaven, hair is with us whether we like or not, as is that of men sporting long hair and/or ponytails. Of the three, I tend to prefer the first. Nick is a great one for telling us that we must move with the times. I suggest that he do so in this case.
The
Hitler bogy
But it is where Mr. Griffin turns to the matter
of the third 'H' - Hitler - that he really opens up some challenging
questions.
We must identify and actively reject Hitler as an enemy, he says. Well,
that is a rather strange way of talking about someone who has been dead
for 57 years, but I assume that this is just Nick's quaint way of
saying
that the BNP should eschew any kind of public statements or imagery
that
are evocative of Hitler and the Nazis. Well of course we should! And I
just don't know anyone in the party who disputes this or ever did
dispute
it. It has been standard party policy since our foundation and, as with
other things, has been enforced with ever greater rigour since the
early
'nineties. To say that we must enforce it now rather sounds like
teaching
Grandmother to suck eggs. But let Nick explain further:-
"Thankfully, the time has long gone when the BNP would tolerate the known presence of deluded individuals as members or on our fringes with a perverted nostalgia for the 1930s. But we now have to promote our anti-Nazi credentials more vigorously, not just to dilute the impact of further media fantasy stories, but to leave no room for doubt in the minds of the British people about who we are and where we are going."I have two things to say about this. The first is that I have always regarded the matter of BNP members' attitudes to movements in past history, including National Socialism, as one of personal opinion and conscience. As long as they observe the rule that the BNP as a party wants no association with such movements, what they think about them privately is their own affair. Should there be members who have some admiration for some of the things Hitler did in Germany (such as, for instance, the promotion of patriotism and the restoration of national pride, the creation of full employment, the achievement of high standards of public health and the building of motorways many years before Britain started to do so), I see no reason to condemn them for that - least of all to insult them by calling their views 'perverted'. I take it as an unalterable fact, whether we would wish it or not, that there are going to be people present in modern nationalism who privately will see virtue in at least some of the policies carried out in the Germany of that time, just as there will also be people who see no good at all in that episode of history. The BNP, if it is to become powerful, must do what all powerful movements do: it must become a 'broad church', encompassing a number of different strands of nationalism and patriotism. It is impractical and it is silly to defeat this objective by creating wholly unnecessary divisions between British Nationalists of today by opening up arguments and quarrels over what happened in another country more than half a century ago. If some BNP speaker gets up on a platform and praises Hitler, then he must certainly be silenced and disciplined. If BNP members go out into the streets brandishing swastikas, then most certainly they should be kicked out. There is no argument about this. But what members think in their own minds - and indeed even what they may talk about in the privacy of their homes or the company of their friends - is their business, and to imagine that our party can 'police' such thoughts or discussion is to take us into the realm of Nineteen-Eighty-Four. I do not believe in treating BNP members like children.
Alienating
good patriots
That is one reason why I believe that for the party
to start promoting what Mr. Griffin calls its "anti-Nazi credentials"
will
achieve no good whatsoever. It will only alienate a number of very good
and sound members and supporters who will see in it a cheap and shoddy
piece of gimmickry that does not even have the virtue of being sincere,
and which would have to involve the BNP joining in the enemy game of
falsifying
history - in other words becoming a pack of liars no better than the
mainstream
politicians and mass media whom we despise. Is this what Nick Griffin
wants?
The other reason why such a policy should be avoided
is that it will not anyway have the slightest effect on the way the
media
think about us and treat us. We will still get called the same names
and
we will still be tarred with the same associations. Indeed, if
anything,
this will increase because the more the BNP shouts that it is
'anti-Nazi'
the more our gutter journalists and broadcasters can be relied upon to
pull out every stop to refute such a claim.
The sensible thing for the BNP to do with regard
to such controversies belonging to the past is to ignore them - at
least
as far as possible: that is to say that we should neither enter into
them
for the purpose of defending Hitler nor that of attacking him. We
should
treat him for what he is: history. We are in business to engage in
modern
politics in Britain, not to argue over historical questions belonging
to
Germany.
'Pollution'
But Mr. Griffin is not finished on this subject. Let him continue:-
"There are two main reasons for the pollution of British nationalism over three or four decades by this immensely damaging 1930s political necrophilia. First, there was the fact that several of the leading figures in the National Front and the old BNP had either flirted with Nazism in the early stages of their careers or, even worse, were still 'closet' Nazis, greatly excited by fantasies of huge parade grounds and 'government with the power to govern' (i.e. dictatorship). "Such people, even those who had grown out of their youthful enthusiasm for Mr. Hitler & Co. had a vested interest in allowing or encouraging careless extremism and identification with 1930s fascism among each new generation of nationalist activists, so as to minimise the chances of them concluding that their leaders' records were an albatross around our collective neck. Fortunately, these individuals are no longer a factor in the BNP."Now I wonder which individuals Nick has in mind here! Shall we have a competition to guess who - with a prize for the first correct answer to arrive in the post? As for people in the nationalist movement having a 'vested interest' in maintaining certain ideas and fallacies, that is a very interesting theory, and one which might take us along some revealing routes should we explore it more thoroughly. But enough of that for the moment. Much more fundamental to all this is the question of both Mr. Griffin's consistency and sincerity in the ideas he is now espousing. He is clearly anxious to talk about what some of his fellow nationalists said and did in the past. In this case it is of some relevance to enquire into what he himself has said and done in the past. I have given some examples, but there are more. First, however, we might return to his argument that the BNP must promote its "anti-Nazi credentials"
|
NICK GRIFFIN (Leader
article. Identity,
June 2002}
NICK GRIFFIN (Article 'Time
to go to
the ball'. Spearhead, January 1997)
NICK GRIFFIN (Article,
'Agents provocateurs
and destabilisation'. Patriot, Spring 1999).
|
'Nazi'
links
Well, there are two things that immediately come
to mind in this regard. One is talk of Jewish influence; the other is
what
some call 'Holocaust-denial'. No reader needs telling that the moment
anyone
dares to say anything critical of Jewish power or Jewish actions he is
liable to be labelled a 'Nazi'. It avails little to protest that
leading
politicians, writers and thinkers over the ages have crossed swords
with
Jewry long before the Nazis or Hitler were ever heard of. The equation
of Nazism' and criticism of Jews is the current media-fostered
perception,
and we have to live with it. Likewise, the same perception exists with
regard to those who question the veracity of all or part of the
'Holocaust'
legend. If you dispute that the orthodox and official version of the
'Holocaust'
is true, you are a 'Nazi' - despite the fact that the forerunner of the
modern Holocaust-revisionist movement was a French socialist, Paul
Rassinier,
who was not only an anti-Nazi but actually spent some time in a German
concentration camp for his pains.
Now if we are to take seriously Nick Griffin's
injunction
not to do or say anything that might, fairly or not, invite the 'Nazi'
smear against the BNP, this must surely include critical mention of
Jews
and engagement in the Holocaust-revisionist debate. So just what is
Nick's
record in this department?
I have in front of me an article from the January
1996 issue of Spearhead sub-headed 'Nick Griffin surveys the
machinations
of the movie industry as Jews 'sting' Japs'. The article, Nick's first
in the magazine, is about the attempts of Japanese big business to use
its financial power to get a foothold in Hollywood. Speaking of the
latter,
Nick says - as it happens, quite correctly - that Hollywood is "the
heart
of a Race War - a war to turn the white nations of the world into a
demoralised,
atomised, mongrelised rabble" And he continues:
"Having worked so hard to establish this deadly stranglehold on long-term opinion-forming, the controllers of Hollywood, almost entirely Jewish, were clearly deeply concerned when, at the end of the 1980s, the long boom in consumer electrical goods gave several Japanese companies the money and motivation to grab a piece of the lucrative Hollywood action."
A month later (February 1996) we find Nick saying
in this magazine:
"The Messianic nature of Judaism has clearly always been an important factor, at least subconsciously, in the hugely disproportionate role of racial Jews in both Communism and Capitalism."Now I do not object to these statements because I believe them to be fair comment; were it otherwise I would not have permitted their publication in Spearhead. But the fact is that if we are going to play the game of
Nick
the Holocaust revisionist
As I have said, the same thing is true of Holocaust
revisionism. Here Nick seems to be keen to erase any mention of this
subject
in BNP circles lest it might sound 'Nazi', and not long after his
taking
over the party leadership all books dealing with it were removed from
the
catalogue of the party's book distribution subsidiary Freedom Books. So
it might be interesting to enquire into what he was saying on that very
same subject not so long before. This is Nick in an article headed
'Populism
or Power?' in Spearhead in February 1996:
"For the last fifty years the vision underlying all the vile sickness of this age of ruins has been the so-called 'Holocaust'....In addition to these declarations of the Griffin faith, I have a fat wad of private correspondence in my files consisting of letters from Nick in which he bangs on about the need to combat the 'Holocaust Myth' in letter after letter. In fact, I thought at the time that he had got the issue totally out of perspective, and I advised him that it would be better that he devote his time and energies to other matters. Enough good material, I said, had been written on the subject for us not to need any more. Meanwhile as far back as 1990 or thereabouts, the whole topic was discussed at a BNP leadership conference after which I took the decision, not to 'outlaw' Holocaust Revisionism in the party, but to give it less prominence and devote less attention to it than previously. This was because, as with Hitler, it was a matter of historical debate that fell outside the proper range of issues with which the BNP should be connected. This decision was taken precisely because for the party to take up a corporate position on Holocaust Revisionism would invite avoidable 'Nazi' smears. That did not mean, of course, that the subject should not be discussed nor that the party's book subsidiary should not sell publications dealing with it, just as it did many other publications that were independently written and produced. Of course, though the BNP has never adopted any official standpoint on Holocaust Revisionism this has not prevented many mainstream media writers alleging that it "denies the Holocaust."
"The New World struggling to be born cannot do so until this lie is publicly exposed, ridiculed and destroyed....
"If nationalists don't bury this deadly lie, nobody will. In the case of Britain, that means that members of the British National Party have a duty to be involved as active participants in the revisionist struggle."
Praise
for Waffen-SS
Is that all on the question of Mr. Griffin's
credentials
as an 'anti-Nazi'? Far from it. I have before me a copy of a 
magazine
called
The Rune, published in 1995. It contains a three-page article
about the Waffen-SS. The
article consists of an almost uninterrupted paean of praise for the
fighting and political qualities of that branch of the German and
allied
armed forces, with no reference whatever to any 'crimes' its members
may
have committed, save one small paragraph about a single brigade made up
of criminals from Germany's prisons and another unit comprised of
Russian
volunteers, each of which got "out of control" on the odd occasion.
Here
is the final paragraph:
"Many historians have stated that probably no troops in the West today could be compared with SS troops. The culture of National Socialist Germany idolised heroism and self-sacrifice, and SS troops were hardened to outdoor life in the Hitler Youth. Today, the US Army discusses 'homosexual rights', the Union Jack flag is hidden in Northern Ireland to avoid offending sensitive IRA sympathisers, and the 'Professionals' are riddled with selfseeking careerists. What comparison could there be to the religiously fanatical 'Political troops of yesterday' whose motto was 'Believe, Obey, Fight'."Actually, I thought the latter was the motto of the Italian Fascisti, but that is a detail. This article is unsigned, but whoever wrote it responsibility for its publication must lie with the editor of the magazine. And who might that editor be? It is clearly stated on the inside of the front page: Nick Griffin!
"The electors of Millwall did not back a Post-Modernist Rightist party, but what they perceived to be a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan 'Defend Rights for Whites' with well-directed boots and fists. When the crunch comes, power is the product of force and will, not rational debate."
The quest for 'respectability'
It will now perhaps be understood why I and numerous
others cannot attach too much sincerity or seriousness to Nick
Griffin's
recent Identity article, in which the themes of 'respectability' and
'moderation'
are everpresent, with the former appearing in his closing words 0
While we are talking about 'respectability' it is perhaps opportune to
read what Nick had to say on the subject in Spearhead in December 19960
There he spoke of...
" ... the perennial heresy of British and many European nationalisms, whereby basic principles and fundamental matters of ideology are sacrificed in the quest for 'respectability' and rapid electoral success. Since 'respectability' is a commodity bestowed or withheld entirely by a mass media which is, for political and racial reasons, unremittingly hostile to any manifestation of European ethnic consciousness, such a quest is a hunt for fools' gold (NG's emphasis in the original). This tendency always starts with well-meaning suggestions about the benefits of tidying up a policy here or keeping quiet about a particularly unfashionable issue there, but, if given way to, develops a momentum of its own down an ever more slippery slope. This is why such moves are doomed to end in either rapid and abject failure, or slightly longer term betrayal and splintering."The contrast between what Nick Griffin was writing here and what, more lately, he has been advocating - and carrying out - in the BNP is so glaring as to need no further elaboration. .
Where
the argument started
Some may ask: why drag these matters up? Why not
just occupy the whole of the space in Spearhead with positive items of
news and views, steering clear of internal controversy? Well, there is
nothing I would rather do more; but it is Mr. Griffin who has raised
these
matters and not I. As they have been raised - and as the manner of
their
raising is obviously as divisive to our party as it is possible to get
- I feel that what has been said must be answered. I believe that Nick
Griffin's article 'Moving forward for good', as published in the June
2002
issue of Identity, is one of the most blatantly mendacious pieces of
humbug
I have ever read in a lifetime devoted to the patriotic cause in
Britain.
I also believe that it is quite cynically aimed at the wide-eyed and
the
gullible within our party - a constituency which Mr. Griffin seems to
make
a habit of cultivating with special care, since it is the least
critical,
the least inclined to look behind the fine phrases to the reality
beyond,
and the most anxious to read good intentions into everything said and
written
which bears the party's official stamp.
Mr. Griffin has spoken in his article of the 'Three
H's'. Well, I might term what he has written as the 'Three D's' -
Divisive,
Dishonest and Daft. No other description is appropriate.
We might conclude this study of Nick Griffin past
and present by asking the question: what are all his current
protestations
for? Well, here is a guess. Could it be that Nick's ultimate purpose in
'Moving forward for good' is to prime people in the BNP for an imminent
wielding of the axe against dissenters and 'heretics' - in other words,
all those people remaining in the party with whom he feels
uncomfortable?
In that case I look forward to meeting him on the scaffold.
Reproduced with acknowledgements to John Tyndall's former Spearhead magazine