The politics of the BNP a summary

The BNP and antisemitism

The leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, authored Who are the Mindbenders?, a pamphlet that asserts that Jews control and brainwash people through the mass media: "very few people in Britain are aware of the huge influence over the mass media exercised by a certain ethnic minority, namely the Jews". The booklet purports to provide a list of all Jews working in the media as proof of this thesis. The supposed Jewish manipulation of the BBC is 'proved' by a list of 19 Jews who work for the corporation, which employs thousands.

In the booklet, Griffin accuses Jews "of providing us with an endless diet of pro-multiracial, pro-homosexual, anti-British trash".

The Mindbenders is based on Who Rules America?, a similar pamphlet written by William Pierce, one of the world's foremost neo-nazis and a self-confessed ally of Griffin. Pierce is also the author of The Turner Diaries, a fictional account of a race war in America, which inspired Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma City bomber.

When the former MP Alex Carlisle reported Griffin for inciting racial hatred and Holocaust denial, Griffin commented: "This bloody Jew, our local MP who organised the raid whose only claim to fame is that two of his parents died in the Holocaust."

In Spearhead, Griffin has written, "Some 'antisemitism' may be provoked by the actions of certain Jews themselves and thereby have a rational basis".

The Group Development officer of the BNP is Tony Lecomber, a convicted bomber who also has charges under his belt for attacking a Jewish teacher on the underground. Lecomber took part in the assault after the man tried to remove a BNP sticker that had just been put up.

The BNP prints offensive cartoons of Jews in its publications which play up to racist stereotypes by presenting them as hook-nosed, wealthy and powerful.

The BNP and Holocaust denial

In 1998, Griffin was found guilty of distributing material likely to incite racial hatred. The incident related to his publication, The Rune, which in the issue in question denied the Holocaust took place. He received a two-year suspended jail sentence.

Referring to the Holocaust as the "Holohoax", Griffin launched an attack on Holocaust denier David Irving for playing the "numbers game" in Issue 11 of The Rune. This attack followed Irving's admission in an interview that up to four million Jews died in the Holocaust. Griffin wrote: "True revisionists will not be fooled by this new twist to the sorry tale of the Hoax of the Twentieth Century".

After his arrest he wrote, "I have reached the conclusion that the 'extermination' tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter witch hysteria".

The star witness testifying at Harrow Crown court on Griffin's behalf was Robert Faurisson, the French Holocaust denier.

The BNP produced Holocaust News in the early 1990s, a four-page broadsheet which denied the Holocaust. Issue one was headlined: "'Holocaust' Story an Evil Hoax". Issue Two was headlined "Auschwitz not a Death Camp". In both editions the Anne Frank Diaries were dismissed as a forgery.

Several of the world's leading Holocaust deniers have addressed BNP meetings. They have included, David Irving, Ernst Zündel and Fred Leuchter.

The BNP and racism

The BNP declared in its 1997 manifesto, Britain Reborn, "The horrifying future that awaits Britain as a result of the follies of Third World immigration can only be averted if we adopt two very firm policies:

1) Future immigration of non-whites must be stopped;

2) Non-whites already here must be repatriated or otherwise resettled overseas and Britain made once again a white country".

The BNP has dropped its policy of compulsory repatriation in order to remove the Nazi label that follows from such a policy. Yet it states that its main aim is to "protect and preserve the racial and cultural integrity of the British people - and of others too. The party believes in separation".

Throughout the Serb conflict with the Kosovans, the BNP made it clear that it was in favour of ethnic cleansing: "The Serbs' real crime isn't the harshness with which they have expelled so many of the Albanian Muslims who, having become the majority in the Kosovan heart of Serbia by a mixture of immigration, a high birth rate, and low level ethnic cleansing of the native Serbs... No! The real crime in the eyes of the powerful advocates of a multiracial New World Order is for any people to demand the right to preserve their own identity and freedom."

The BNP's tone in the Greater London Assembly elections in 2000 remained similar to its previous "Rights for Whites" slogans of the past. Under the title, "A voice for London's silent majority" it claimed that "London is becoming a foreign city", in which the "British" have become "second class citizens".

In March 2000, Griffin claimed, "The asylum seeker issue has been great for us... This issue legitimates us."

The cover of the November 2000 edition of Spearhead declares, "Time to stop feeling guilty about being 'racist'."

The BNP and extremist links

The BNP has a long relationship with William Pierce, leader of the National Alliance, one of the most hardline Nazi groups in the USA. In August 1999, Pierce addressed an American Friends of the BNP (AFBNP) meeting in Arlington, Virginia. Pierce's articles have regularly appeared in Spearhead, and in 1995 he addressed a BNP rally in London.

The AFBNP has invited some of the world's most extreme Nazis to address its meetings. Guests include, Don Black, host of the world's largest neo-nazi website; Vincent Edwards, campaign manager for the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke; and various members of the National Alliance.

Günther Deckert, arrested and imprisoned for five years in Germany in 1995 for Holocaust denial, addressed a meeting of the BNP in March 2001. Deckert has been closely associated with NPD in Germany, a far-right, racist party. Before his imprisonment he spoke at a number of BNP meetings, including a party rally in 1994. Throughout his imprisonment, BNP publications continued to champion his cause and express support for Deckert. The February 2000 edition of Spearhead contains a message for Deckert stating, "Gunther Deckert, former leader of the German NPD party, wishes to thank all those of the BNP 'family' who thought of him and who sent their best greetings".