BNP admits EU money pays for party staff (UK)

Councillor Emma Colgate has resigned as the British National Party’s staff manager to devote herself full-time to the election campaign in Thurrock, the BNP announced today (2 April 2010).

Colgate is standing for election to Parliament and also hopes to get more BNP councillors elected to Thurrock council, where she is the party’s sole representative. She told the BNP website: “We’re in with a real chance in Thurrock and I want to give it my best shot. I cannot properly work fill-time [sic] on the campaign while being paid by EU taxpayers to manage our European staff.”

Colgate is one of 11 staff paid by the European Parliament to run constituency offices for the party’s two MEPs and support them in their European roles. All of them also have major roles in the BNP party apparatus.
Searchlight has always accused the BNP of misusing taxpayers’ money to pay for party staff. Despite winning election to the European Parliament on the back of the MPs’ expenses scandal with the slogan “punish the pigs”, the BNP MEPs wasted no time in jumping onto the EU gravy train.

Colgate’s announcement that she has resigned from her party role, described on the current BNP contacts’ spreadsheet as “party manager, party staff manager, staff administration”, on the grounds that she cannot campaign while being paid by EU taxpayers, is a clear admission that the BNP is using EU money fraudulently to fund party staff.
Whether Colgate was truly motivated by a desire not to misuse EU money further is unclear. Several of the nazi web forums have reported that she and Eddy Butler, the BNP’s national organiser, were sacked. As yet the BNP has made no announcement about Butler’s role, nor about the accusations, also doing the rounds of the nazi forums, that there has been a huge falling out between Mark Collett, the BNP’s unpopular head of publicity, and Jim Dowson, its equally unpopular “consultant”, whom Searchlight describes as “owning” the BNP because of his extensive financial hold over the party.

Colgate still likes to quote a Searchlight description of her last year as a “hard-working” councillor, not appreciating that we were only noting that she attends all her council meetings, as any councillor should and in contrast to almost all the BNP’s other councillors throughout the country, who do as little as possible for their councillors’ allowances.
Nevertheless it is surprising that she repays the “compliment” by making wild accusations against Gerry Gable, publisher of Searchlight, most recently on the streets of Thurrock surrounded by a mob of BNP activists trying to prevent the distribution of an anti-BNP HOPE not hate newspaper in Thurrock as part of the democratic election process.
As for her claimed wish not to use EU money to fund her election campaign, we wait with bated breath for the nine other BNP EU-funded officers also standing for Parliament in the general election to follow her lead and resign.

originally posted by Hope Not Hate
 
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Ethnic divisions survive in Bosnian schools

Eighteen years after its devastating civil war, divisions still remain among the people of Bosnia.

Within the country's schools, Bosnian Croats and Muslims are being taught separately, attending separate classes and sometimes even using different parts of the school building.

Many are now concerned about what sort of future is being created through this type of system.

Mark Lowen reports for the BBC

Councillor Mark Logan quits BNP in 'racist' row (BNP)

A councillor has vowed to stand independently at the next election after walking away from the British National Party for being "a bunch of racists".

Cllr Mark Logan, who has represented Gooshays ward since winning a by-election in March 2008, said he would be "severing all links with the party and the political group of misfits" because he didn't agree with "the calibre of some people" being put forward as candidates for the forthcoming election.
He said: "There's been some really nasty rhetoric directed at coloured people.
"When I first of all moved in with the party I didn't see a racist element to start off with. But people change. I thought they were a group of patriots not racists."
Jason Douglas, BNP Havering organiser, rejected the racist claims and said: "There are certain people in the branch who didn't see eye-to-eye.

"Mark comes from a Conservative background and a lot of his influences run contrary to what the party believes in."
He said Cllr Logan had done "some sterling work for Gooshays" but his "presence is causing friction among other members in the branch".
In May, Cllr Logan had been due to stand in the local election for Gooshays again and as a Parliamentary candidate for Upminster in the general election. He announced he was cutting all ties with the BNP last Thursday following a series of disagreements.
The BNP argued they had pushed Cllr Logan out by deselecting him as a candidate at both levels prior to his exit from the party due to "continuous squabbles" and concern for his health, but were unable to substantiate their argument.
The last straw for Cllr Logan was with Heaton ward candidate Mick Braun who Cllr Logan branded "an out-and-out complete and utter racist" and a "loose cannon".
Cllr Logan, who has been receiving dialysis daily while waiting for a kidney transplant, highlighted a particular incident when he claimed Mr Braun made a foul personal verbal attack on him after a party meeting.

Cllr Logan said: "I am not willing to stay in a party whereupon I'm being threatened and his last tirade of verbal abuse was appalling."
When questioned about it Mr Braun said: "I can't remember what I said.

"I might remember saying Joe Hunt. It's another term; a bit of rhyming slang."
He called Cllr Logan "arrogant" and "hard to work with" and said: "My son goes out with a Turkish girl. I rent my home from a lovely woman who is a Hindu. I'm not racist at all."

Cllr Logan was also angry at the secret political handshake Mr Douglas made with Graham Williamson of the National Liberal Party to agree to remove BNP candidates from South Hornchurch to give the The National Liberal Party a better chance of election.
Cllr Logan has promised to support his constituents till the end of term before continuing his political career as an independent.
A BNP spokesman added: "Mark Logan has issued a number of highly libellous lies about the party. If any of Mr Logan's new allegations were true he would not have tried to rejoin the party so recently. It's sad Mark Logan sees fit to reveal his personal problems in such a manner but the BNP is greater than any one individual and better off without such a disruptive and unstable hanger on."

Fellow BNP member Micky Joyce announced this week he would also no longer stand for election, as he had planned to in the Heaton ward, because he didn't want to get involved with all the rows.
Romford Recorder

Jobbik, riding a wave of disappointment (Hungary)

Having posted major gains in European elections last year, Gábor Vona's populist, xenophobic, anti-Roma (Gypsy) party, Jobbik, may attract an even greater proportion of the vote in general elections scheduled for 11 and 25 April, which could enable it to play significant role in the formation Hungary's next government.

Voters have been cruelly disappointed by the parties that have ruled Hungary over the last twenty years, and much of the support for the nationalist movement Jobbik (the name can be translated as "better" and "further right") is the product of a general despondency. But what does Jobbik exactly advocate and how does it go about promoting its programme?

Voters want a strong state
When you watch Jobbik videos on YouTube, the expressions most commonly used by the party faithful are "disappointment," and "I trust them." Speaking directly to camera, an extreme-right voter courageously announces that he supports the party because it has presented a programme, which is both "good and original." However, as the quote often attributed to Samuel Johnson puts it: "the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."
The alarmist noises made by left-wing intellectuals who insist that the movement is a party of Nazis and fascists are not wholly accurate. Jobbik is not a Nazi party. Gábor Vona's movement is in fact composed of three political parties. According to the latest polls, it draws significant support from regions in eastern Hungary, where voters want a strong state to take more action on everyday problems, and a hard line on law and order with a special police force to protect them from Roms.

Fed up with capitalism and EU
However, no leader of either the Hungarian Guard (a banned paramilitary organization linked to Jobbik, outlawed in late 2009) or Jobbik itself has been able to explain how public parades followed by courageous retreat can resolve any of the problems associated with the integration of Roms in Hungary. Nor have they been able to justify the need for a uniform in an organization, which purportedly limits its activities to charity work and delivering assistance to the population in times of flooding.
Jobbik's support base also includes voters inherited from other extreme-right parties, who are clearly inspired by the myth of the imminent invasion of Hungary by Israeli property developers and want nothing more to do with capitalism, the EU or government in general. Members of this subgroup are aware that their political leverage is limited, but console themselves with the thought that similarly radical parties in Europe have the capacity to influence government policy. They look to their political party to establish itself in a pedagogical role: with a number of seats in parliament, the members of Jobbik could exert pressure on the conservative opposition party Fidesz, which polls predict will be the main winner in the elections, to push it in the "right" direction.

An attachment to national-socialism
But none of the international models admired by the members of this faction, neither the Polish PiS nor the Austrian FPÖ indulge in the disgraceful diatribes against Roms and Jews and Holocaust denials that are commonly posted on official and semi-official Jobbik Internet forums. Even Ján Slota of the Slovak National Party does not dare to venture into this territory, though admittedly he has no qualms about stirring up hatred for foreigners in speeches targeting the Hungarian minority in Slovakia.

Finally, Jobbik also includes a third faction who publicly acknowledge their attachment to national-socialism. In their view, Jobbik is a somewhat soft but realistic political option. Until now, the party has succeeded in reconciling its incomprehensible admiration for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Poutin, whose actions are often contrary to Hungarian national interests, and demands for the demolition of the Russian War Memorial in Budapest's Liberty Square.

Chicken thieves and lawlessness
In short, Jobbik's supporters are disappointed by everything except the state – even though the state has set an outstanding example in recent years. However, it is worth wondering how the state would function in the hands of a party that is dedicated to the cause of ongoing confrontation? Like any political party, Jobbik is not invulnerable to corruption. If it does succeed in obtaining a period in office, it will certainly be implicated in abuses of power that will be yet another bitter disappointment for the majority of its voters.

Chicken thieves, lawlessness, a shortage of steady jobs and an inability to implement change may be sufficient justification for rage and disappointment, but can these criteria really provide a sufficient foundation for the construction of a political strategy?

presseurop

Germany approves Neo-Nazi Davidović extradition

BELGRADE -- The extradition of Goran Davidović from Germany to Serbia has been approved, Serbia's Minister of Interior Ivica Dačić told Tanjug on Thursday.
Davidović, nicknamed Fuehrer, who is the leader of a neo-Nazi group, was arrested in Traunstein, Germany, on a Serbian interpol warrant, after he left Trieste, Italy, where he was awaiting the decision of the Italian judiciary on his extradition to Serbia.

The Appeals Court in Trieste adopted a request of the Serbian Ministry of Justice on the extradition in September 2009, and made a decision to extradite Davidović to Serbia, but his defense appealed the decision in the meantime.
Davidović was sentenced to a year in prison for national, racial and religious intolerance, since the Novi Sad Municipal Court determined that, in late 2005, he and a group of neo-Nazis verbally and physically attacked the participants of an antifascist debate of the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad.

The accused ignored the verdict, which is why the court in Novi Sad issued a warrant against him in March 2009.
AllVoices

Chapel built with remains of Hitler's luxury retreat 'becomes Nazi shrine'

A chapel built on a mountainside in Germany is turning into a shrine for neo-Nazis after it emerged that it was built with marble and grainte taken from the ruins of Adolf Hitler's luxury retreat.

A swastika was reportedly found carved into one of the wooden beams of the Wegmacher Chapel, which was built in 1997, while local residents claim a number of shaven-headed, leather jacket-wearing 'pilgrims' leave behind notes of praise to Hitler and candles burning in his memory.

It was only recently that the Bavarian government admitted that material from the wreckage of Hitler's retreat, the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, was used in the construction of the chapel.
Some of the stones are from the terrace of the Berghof - quarried by Jewish slave labourers in concentration camps.
"Many of the guests who attended the chapel's dedication are starting to wish it had never been built. It is difficult to ascertain, of course, whether the building is fulfilling is sacred function of protecting travelers. What is clear, however, is that the chapel is causing nothing but trouble in the secular world," reported Der Spiegel magazine on Thursday.
Deploying materials from Hitler's home is a contradiction of a post-war policy in Bavaria not to use anything from the sites associated with Nazism for such projects. While the Bavarian government set about demolishing underground bunkers at the Berghof discovered a decade ago it deployed security guards with dogs to stop locals entering them and making off with souvenirs.

But the bricks and flagstones were taken away to a stonemason's yard and later used for the chapel.

Matthias Ferwagner, the chapel's architect, said that his design "explicitly addressed" the use of the materials from Hitler's old home.
"The idea was that the stones somehow needed to be cleansed, blessed," Ferwagner said. He said he envisioned the roadside chapel as a place where people with "evil intentions" could stop "and purge their minds."
Hitler's Berghof was bombed into ruins by Allied planes towards the end of the war when he was holed up in his underground bunker in Berlin.

There is now a debate underway in Bavaria about whether some of those ruins, including the house's vast cellars and air-raid shelters, should be opened up for tourists.
Some locals are calling for the chapel to be demolished but Ferwanger said; "You can hardly find a mason in the region who isn't storing columns and stone blocks from Obersalzberg."

The Telegraph

The black man who could help the BNP win Barking

Labour is worse than Nick Griffin's 'racist' party, says the Rev George Hargreaves of the Christian party.
As protesters proclaiming themselves "the Workers of England" amplify the Beat's Stand Down Margaret into the busy high street, the Rev George Hargreaves tells me why his Christian party can't possibly do a deal with Labour. It's theological, he explains. Deep. Psalm 94, verse 20 warns that there will be a "throne of iniquity", and that's the Labour government, with its equalities act forcing Christians to make nice with gays; its education rules hampering them from running faith schools as they wish; its hostility to creationism. And how can I make any sort of deal with Margaret Hodge here in Barking, he asks me? In terms of morality, he says, she's the worst. "Abortion, gambling. She has no Christian credentials at all."

And this is fine as it goes, for Hargreaves probably won't win the parliamentary seat, despite his best endeavours. And the Christian party is unlikely to win the council. But with Hargreaves working the black churches in the area with what we can indeed call religious fervour, he could do Labour a deal of damage, leading to what many see as the most likely nightmare scenario, a BNP-led local authority.

So how could you, a smart black churchman, take that risk, I ask him.

But I come to see that his perception of "risk" is different. The BNP is bad, he says. "Racist at its core," but ultimately powerless. One MP or council won't change that. By contrast, Labour, says Hargreaves, with its history and ability to legislate against the interests of high-octane Christians, seems much worse.

There have been talks, he says, immaculate in a crisp blue suit and matt-white dog collar. Anti-BNP types have "begged, pleaded".

"But they are just a front for Labour." Nothing doing.

For his party is "here to win", Hargreaves insists, with backing from rich, disgruntled Tories and platforms hostile to Europe and continued immigration. "We are the feelgood factor. People can vote for us and feel good about it." And perhaps some will; black churchgoers and fed-up white people. But what if he has miscalculated? How will he feel on 7 May if it transpires that he was, in effect, Nick Griffin's secret weapon?

Bad, but not awful. Scary.

Hugh Muir  The Guardian

EDL protest man fined for threatening language

A MAN who exposed his backside to police in Bolton has been fined £165.

Aaron Green, aged 22, of Southern House, Halliwell, pleaded guilty to using threatening and abusive language during an English Defence League protest in Bolton town centre on March 20.

At Bolton Magistrates Court yesterday, Nicola Ormerod, prosecuting, said officers noticed Green because he was near a group of men they were monitoring as part of the police’s protest operation.

She added: “Police had been dealing with pockets of trouble across the town throughout the day.

“ At about 4.30pm, the defendant pulled down his trousers and flashed his backside to police.

“He then began swearing and shouting at police, who arrested him and later charged him.”

Green said: “What I did was stupid.
I was drunk and acting stupidly, that’s all I can say.”

Chairman of the bench Peter Jones said: “We cannot have this in our town. There could have been children about.
“Bolton is a nice town and it doesn’t need people doing what you did.

The Bolton News

BNP accused of exploiting murder victims in campaign (UK)

The British National Party have been accused of exploiting murder victims and their families.

The party has run a campaign featuring murders allegedly with a racial element, to call for support for BNP policies.
But the families of some of those involved are unhappy at being used in this way.
In response, the BNP accused the BBC of indulging in "simplistic and emotive propaganda concerning a campaign that is over two years old".

Freelance journalist Michelle Gribbon, who has worked at the BBC, has this personal report.

BBC News

85,000 JOIN FACEBOOK CAMPAIGN AGAINST VOLUNTARY ROMANI LESSONS IN SCHOOLS (Czech Rep.)

There’s been an unexpectedly negative reaction to a proposal by the Education Ministry to offer voluntary classes in Romani – the language of the country’s 300,000 Roma or gypsies – in Czech schools. A Facebook campaign against the proposal has already attracted over 85,000 supporters, although the authorities appear undeterred.

Romani teacher Helena Sadílková teaches me some basic phrases in one of Europe’s oldest languages. Helena is not herself Romani, but she teaches the language – part of the same family as Hindi and Bengali - to students at Prague’s Charles University. She was involved in a recent survey of more than 1,000 Romani schoolchildren, a survey that showed only around 30% of them were fluent in the language. Helena Sadílková supports the proposal by the Education Ministry to make Romani lessons a voluntary part of the Czech school curriculum, but says it’s also important to realise that there may be resistance among Roma parents themselves after four decades of official repression under the Communists.

“Parents were for forty years told by the teachers themselves or the social workers not to use the language, and they actually accepted the idea that Romani is a barrier to a good education or even acquiring good Czech. So if you now come to the parents and try to persuade them, let’s try to teach Romani to your kids, you’re actually totally reversing the position that they have taken, and that was taken by the representatives of the education system.”

The Education Ministry not only wants schools with large numbers of Roma pupils to be able to study their own language, it also thinks some non-Roma pupils might be interested as well. So they were unprepared for the huge response to a Facebook page called “Petition Against Teaching of Romani in Czech Schools”, which has so far attracted 85,000 fans. Education Ministry spokesman Tomáš Bouška says the campaign is proof of the need for more multicultural education in schools, not less.
“It’s a sensitive topic in general, and the only thing that the Education Ministry can do is introduce more integrated forms of education that would put both sides together and hopefully explain and declare that there is no need to fight, there is just need to speak. And what else can help than language. And as I said, it is just offered for certain localities, there will be course, we are just at the beginning, but it doesn’t mean that we are afraid of it or afraid of some groups of people against it. We have to educate – that’s our mission.”

The Education Ministry has repeatedly stressed the courses will be voluntary – it will be up to schools to offer them and only if parents, teachers and children are interested. That message seems not to have got through, with reports of some parents already contacting schools in protest, and a Facebook campaign against it likely to exceed 100,000 supporters.
radio.cz

Liverpool teenagers make own video of moving Auschwitz visit

Admin : Due to maturity that these students have shown in tackling the subject matter in this video. We believe it should have as wide a viewing audience as possible, and thus decided to post it here.

A GROUP of Liverpool teenagers have created their own documentary about their thought-provoking visit to World War II concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland.

Members of Croxteth Gems Youth Centre received a Government grant to carry out their very own real life history lesson by visiting the site earlier this year. They decided to embark on the heart rending journey after discussing the rise of extreme right-wing political groups in Liverpool with their youth worker, and the terrible consequences of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.
The hour-long documentary will be premiered at Croxteth Gems Youth Centre next month. All of the filming and interviewing was carried out by the young people, who applied for a £5,000 Youth Opportunity Fund (YOF) grant to fund the visit. Prior to the trip, they researched the history of World War II and the Holocaust, which saw the murder of millions of Jews and other minority groups.
Hollie Poxon, aged 16, from Croxteth, said: “If people of our generation know how bad war really is, then we will be much less likely to start war ourselves. I’ve been doing lots of research into the Holocaust at school and at the youth club, and the main thing I’ve learnt is you should never judge a book by its cover.”

Youth worker Jean Hannah, from Liverpool Youth Service, said: “The kids first discussed issues surrounding racism when they were sat in Croxteth Gems Youth Club watching Coronation Street.

“One of our members remarked that a Polish woman on the show was ‘stealing English people’s jobs’. We sat down and discussed the dangers of pre-judging people and the entire project came from there. I am incredibly proud of our young people who applied for this grant themselves to find out more about important events in history. The film is absolutely fantastic, they’ve done a great job.”

Last year the members of Croxteth Gems Youth Centre also visited Normandy in France to find out more about both the First and Second World Wars. They visited the battlefields and trenches of the Somme, along with a number of war memorials and museums.
Councillor Marilyn Fielding, executive member for Liverpool Youth Service, said: “It is fantastic that our young people are taking an interest in such a serious topic and going on this trip. I am sure the experience will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
“Education is the key to stamping out racism and discrimination and making our city a safe place for everyone to live.”
YOF is part of the Government’s Aiming High for Young People – a 10-year strategy from the Department for Children, Schools and Families to provide safe places to go and interesting things to do. Experience shows that young people are more likely to get involved in positive activities when they have a say in what is available, and that taking part helps them to learn new skills, as well as divert them from behaviour that might be considered by the wider community as anti-social.



Liverpool Daily Post

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