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Author Archives: East Midlands Anti-Fascists
Hardline fascists meet in Leicestershire
According to Hope Not Hate reporter, Matthew Collins, a new hardline fascist party was launched at a village hall in Leicestershire at the weekend. Andrew Brons, who resigned from the BNP in October last year, is trying to bring together members of the National Front, the British Movement and Combat 18 to oppose the BNP. He is a former member of the openly Nazi National Socialist Movement and has long struggled against Griffin’s modernisation of the BNP.
Hope Not Hate claim to have infiltrated the meeting of about 60 boneheads and photographed them. They reckon former C18 Nazis and EDL activists were providing security. Despite saying that “people have a right to know that these groups of people are lying and cheating their way onto public property to cultivate their message of hate”, HnH declined to reveal the location of the meeting.
Boston EDL member arrested for racial abuse
Matt “NFSE” Hickman, a member of the EDL from Boston, has been arrested for a suspected racially-aggravated offence, in what may be the start of a round up of the far right. According to Hickman, police arrested him under S.4 of the Public Order Act (Fear or provocation of violence), in relation to posts made on his Facebook page. He said the police have told him more arrests will be made.ide
Whilst it is sickening that the state can simply round people up based on posts made on Facebook, we won’t be shedding any tears for Muslim-haters like Hickman. There is no doubt that a great deal of fascist organisation to attack people based on their skin colour or religion occurs on Facebook and this organisation should be disrupted as much as possible.
But which of Hickman’s “top lads” is the grass? And who will be called down to the station next?
Hilliard gives up on uniting the right
It is with sadness that we announce that Derbyshire BNP organiser, Paul Hilliard, has decided to close his ridiculous “Nationalists Must Unite as One to Achieve Victory” page. NMUOAV has given us a load of laughs over the past few months as fascist dinosaurs have waged bitter battles with one another about who the most corrupt, untrustworthy and compromised far right leader is and who to hate more, the Muslims or the Jews.
Now Paul has called it a day saying “I struggle to wonder how we can bring nationalists together” and that a proliferation of such pages “is playing back into our enemies hands”. The page, he says, “does not work as it should and is counter productive”. We would have to agree. The page has been a prime battleground for infighting between the various loony sects of the far right and has done plenty to harm the fantasy of unity amongst fascists.
Probably part of the reason that no one likes his page is that it is a racist, anti-Semitic swamp, something that has caused much of the fighting between old school Nazis who think the ultimate “enemy” is the Jews and those coming from the EDL perspective who want to blame everything on Muslims instead. To attain “unity”, Hilliard purged the page of those who didn’t hate the Jews enough to fit in with his gang. His latest offering is that “Rupert Murdoch, jew is top ten most influential people in the world brainwashing our people … We are being taken over by jews.”
Let’s bid “Nationalists Must Unite” farewell with a few highlights:
Freedom Bookshop firebombed
We were saddened to hear that Freedom Bookshop in London has been firebombed. The long-standing anarchist bookshop was attacked on Friday morning, with the fire causing extensive damage to electrics and stock. Fortunately, nobody was in the building at the time, so there were no injuries.
A solidarity cleanup was organised and the shop will be open again tomorrow (Monday) morning, “not quite as usual, but reasonably close.”
Police are investigating the incident and nobody has so far claimed responsibility, but as explained in this interview on YouTube, suspicion has fallen on the far-right. The bookshop has a long history of supporting anti-fascism and was attacked by Combat 18 in 1993.
If this was a fascist attack, it is something of a step-up from the pork product-based approach which seems to have dominated their tactical thinking in recent years. It is also notable that whoever was responsible was not in police custody within hours, suggesting a degree of competence few of today’s master race have achieved.
Hopefully this is an isolated incident rather than the beginning of a new trend. We, and no doubt anti-fascists across the UK, will be monitoring the situation closely.
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Racist attacks in Bingham
A worrying article on the BBC news website, reports that a Muslim family have been forced to leave the Nottinghamshire market town of Bingham following a string of racist incidents.
Offensive graffiti was sprayed on the path outside their house and, in one of the more bizarre racist incidents we’ve encountered, a cross wrapped in ham was left outside their home.
“The first incident was when the big, wooden cross, wrapped in ham, fell into the house after a knock at the door,” Murad Alam told the BBC. He said that names such as “Paki” and “tramp” had been shouted at them in the street. “The kids have been abused a number of times; the eldest had smoke blown in his face by an elderly local gentleman.”
Mr Alam told the BBC that he thought Bingham was generally a nice area: “The week before we moved there, Bingham was named the eighth best place to live in the UK – but that’s if you’re white – there are not many Asian or black faces there. It is a nice, generally middle-class village and I’m sure most of the people there are great, it’s just these choice few.”
Exactly who “these choice few” are isn’t entirely clear. The police seem to have conducted an extensive operation to find those involved, but seemingly without success. A thirteen year-old boy was arrested, but later released without charge.
We don’t know of any of the local far-right are involved, but as we commented at the time of the ham cross incident, “This is exactly the kid of spiteful childish act that the local EDL specialise in. After all, it’s not long ago that Nottingham EDL activists Chris Payne, Nicky Long, Wayne Havercroft and Robert Parnham left a pig’s head on a stick at the site of a mosque in Nottingham.”
Since then Liam Ferrar, of the EDL-associated “Forgotten Estates” group has admitted religiously aggravated harassment after after he left a pig’s head at the door of a community centre on Christmas Day.
The main indication that the EDL (or one of their multitude splinters) aren’t involved is that whoever is responsible managed to do it without getting nicked withiin a matter of hours.
Even if the organised far-right aren’t involved, these incidents illustrate how divisive racism can be in communities. They also point to an anti-Muslim sentiment which the EDL and others have helped to foster and could all to easily exploit.
Nottingham EDL moonlighting with EVF
Clearly realising that the EDL now offers less opportunities for excitement than a soggy chip wrapper, several former Nottingham EDL activists signed up to go to the EVF’s demo in Birmingham yesterday. Adam Bilyk, Adam Repton, Ian Firmstone and Jack Stevens all said they were going on the event’s Facebook page.
Adam Bilyk at EVF demo
Adam Repton
Ian Firmstone
Jack Stevens
It’s no particular surprise that they have jumped ship. Nottingham EDL hasn’t been active for a long time. Their website has gone, the Facebook site is being trolled by anti-fascists and has been abandoned and their last tweet (from October) is about the weakness of the East Midlands divisions.
Casuals United caught out lying again
They will have been disappointed by the EVF demo though which was small and completely pointless. Despite mouthing off on the internet about how they were going to steal the EDL’s crown, only 50 racists turned up to stand around in a deserted square for 30 minutes talking to themselves. A few deluded fans have been claiming this as a success and inflating the numbers by fantasy proportions but the fact is they hoped for better. Seems like another tiny far right splinter doomed to failure.
The actual turnout
Pig’s head man had links to EDL
Liam Ferrar has admitted religiously aggravated harassment of the Muslim community after he left a pig’s head at the door of a community centre on Christmas Day. Much was made of his drunkenness in court, although the act seems to have been premeditated – he acquired the pig’s head during the summer and kept it in his freezer and the As Salaam group’s imam, Mohammed Lockhat had received “malicious communications in relation to pig’s heads and blood” before the head was left.
Ferrar is clearly none too bright. He played a police liaison role during the Thurnby Lodge protests so was well known by police. He carried out the act in full view of CCTV and was easy to identify by officers.
Ferrar was described as a member of the Forgotten Estates group, a group led by EDL activist Chris Hopewell. As if to further underline the central role the EDL have played in the protest movement, well known EDL drunkard James Elliott has also been arrested on charges relating to unauthorised protests against As Salaam this week. Members of the Muslim group have claimed that protestors have been intimidating and used racist language against them.
Unfortunately, Forgotten Estates have been rewarded for their threatening behaviour. Earlier this month, Leicester Mayor Peter Soulsby agreed to give Forgotten Estates the lease on the disused Scout hut that had been promised to As Salaam without paying rent for 2 and a half years. The idea that an EDL-run organisation will provide a centre that welcomes the whole community is laughable.
Unite the shite
Derbyshire based far right kingpin, Tony Curtis, never ceases to give us a good laugh. When he’s not in his bedroom playing computer games or collecting ghost stories (usually about “the muslamic menace”), Curtis assures his handful of loyal worshippers that he’s working behind the scenes on a top secret plan to “unite the right”. Any day now, he keeps saying, he will achieve unity of the tribes and crush the evil multicultural empire.
Seeing as it was precisely these kind of shady deals that got him kicked out of the EDL in the first place, we’re a wee bit sceptical about whether Tiny Tone can really pull it off. But if he did, who would be the key players?
EVF
The English Volunteer Force seems to be the destination of choice for those leaving the EDL in droves at the moment, although their first outing in London drew less than 10. They’ve got a demo about something in Birmingham at the weekend and Tony will be guest of honour, so they are obviously close to his heart.
The EVF is run by Chris Renton AKA”John Sheridan”, a former member of the EDL leadership and former BNP activist from Weston-Super-Mare. Renton tried to make links between the EDL and neo-Nazi bootboys, Combat 18 and was an enforcer on the EDL’s web pages. Former EDL leader Paul Ray described how a 57-year old grandmother emailed the EDL leadership offering support and was “met with a barrage of hate mail including messages from the Sheridan alias himself, many of which had a crude sexual twist to them”. EVF “number 2” and organiser on the ground is Will Anderson AKA “Jason Lock”, also from Weston-Super-Mare. He has made a name for himself by posing with a pair of pants on his head on the internet.
It is slightly surprising that Curtis is so keen on the EVF because he refused to work with Bill Baker’s New Patriot Alliance because they were “racist”. The EVF are as racist as any other far right group. To give two examples, a recent Merseyside EVF post compared black people to monkeys and Andy “EVF” Robinson, organiser of the Birmingham demo, has suggested that the EVF go smash some “browns”. The EVF has invited the openly racist West Midlands Infidels to their Birmingham demo. It would seem that, like most far right leaders, Curtis is an opportunist who will never hesitate to sell out in order to get more power for himself and his pet projects.
EVF in London: Nothing to write home about
NPA
The New Patriot Alliance in basically just Bill Baker. Baker is another far right chancer who’s been in every group going and been kicked out of them all as well. He has been in the BNP and the English Democrats and was booted out of the EDL in 2011 because of his links to Combat 18 and Redwatch. Because no one else wants the loser, he has had to set up his own group, the English Nationalist Alliance, whose latest incarnation is the NPA.
Bill Baker: No one wants him
Baker has said “Sooner we start killing Muslims the Better and their socialist pals” and has claimed he “used to kill for a living”, threatening that Muslims “can all be buried in your black flags when we finish with you”. As usual with these fascist muppets, Bill is all talk and no trousers. His biggest “achievement” in recent years has been taking his tiny band of keyboard warriors on an annual trip to Brighton to get battered by the locals.
Casuals United
Led by the ultimate keyboard warrior, Jeff Marsh, Casuals United are another group who like to talk a good game but never seem to actually turn up on the day. Their slogan, “We go where we want”, usually seems to involve a pub on the other side of town or just staying at home. They have a habit of being so undercover that we have a sneaky feeling that they don’t even exist. The latest example of this was their notable failure to turn up to “smash the reds” or whatever it is they pretend they’re going to do at a protest against Greek neo-Nazis, Golden Dawn. Once they’d had time to cook up a story, they claimed there’d been 500 of them in a pub in Paddington. Yeah right Jeff.
Jeff Marsh: the British Joseph Goebbels or just a very naughty boy?
“Marshole” divides his time between producing badly photoshopped pictures of Weyman Bennett, making up lunatic conspiracy theories about how the Crown Prosecution Service is a “commie”, anti-white organisation and flogging ghost-written books about his made-up hard man past to gullible supporters.
Most of the right wing football casuals who supported the EDL in their heyday have moved on with their lives. Sadly Jeff hasn’t.
Infidels
Probably the least likely bedfellows with Curtis, because of their open links with the National Front and other explicitly fascist groups, the Infidels are led by crack head and llama abuser, John “Snowy” Shaw. Snowy is none too bright, as shown by his recent outing of himself as organiser of a loyalist demo in Manchester and his belief that the anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is true. The Infidels’ second in command is Shane Overton AKA “Diddyman” who was recently up on domestic abuse charges against his pregnant girlfriend.
John “Snowy” Shaw: will dance for cash
Unsurprisingly, with losers like these in charge, the Infidels’ demos have been a string of disappointments. Most recently they had a very public falling out over the fact that only a tiny handful of them bothered to turn up to protest a proposed mosque in London. This was another attempt to “unite the right” that backfired. The possibilities aren’t looking good.
Unite the shite?
The possibility of gathering this bunch of bitching, narcissistic losers together in one organisation looks slim. They’ve all got past grudges with each other and their leaders all want to be Führer. Tony Curtis seems to be the latest in a string of far right figures who think that they can “unite the right” but it is just a fantasy.
Even if he succeeds, these groups combined are pitiful compared to the holy grail that all of these fascist failures chase after – the EDL at their peak. Tommy and Kev have squandered their support and sold their followers down the river and most of the footsoldiers have moved on with their lives. Only the most pathetic and incompetent are left.
Links between UKIP and the BNP
The last few desolate years at the BNP have prompted masses of defections. Many tiny hopeless extreme right parties were formed but activists also tried their luck by swapping to other far right parties. So many ex-BNP activists signed up to the English Democrats, for example, that almost half of their candidates in the 2012 elections were ex-BNP. What is less well documented, though, is that ex-BNPers also defected to the (allegedly) more mainstream UKIP.
In a recent post on his Northants patriot blog, recent BNP-to-English Democrats convert, Rob Walker, has exploded UKIP leader Nigel Farage’s myth that “[UKIP] are the only UK political party that bars you from becoming a member, let alone an officer or candidate, if you have ever been involved with the BNP.”:
I know for a fact that there are members of UKIP who have been past members of the BNP, I also know of three people in Northamptonshire alone that held memberships simultaneously of both Parties!
The truth is that many on the far right, including those in street movements like the EDL, admire UKIP and see them as a less “toxic” (and more likely to succeed) version of the BNP. UKIP’s extreme authoritarian policies on immigration and anti-crime crusades as well as their hysterical fear of multiculturalism mean they are not so far removed from their openly racist bedfellows on the far right. It is no surprise that they attract former BNP members craving the possibility of actually getting some votes.
As fascist parties like the BNP implode we might expect to see UKIP slide further to the right in a bid to mop up their supporters.