Category Archives: Lincolnshire

2012/09/12

Look who’s going to Skegness

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

As the NF work themselves up into a frenzy about the importance of their national demonstration in Skegness, we thought it might be good to let the world know what a bunch of Nazi dregs will be turning up on Saturday.

Kev Watmough

Aging Nazi from West Yorkshire, renowned for grassing up his fellow fascists and running away whenever militant anti-fascists turn up to give them a kicking. Kev is the man behind Nazi hitlist website Redwatch, which posts pictures and the personal details of people who turn up to anti-racist and trade union events in the vain hope that other fascists will do something about them. He has quite a history of involvement with fascist groups in Leeds and Bradford, including the BNP and Combat 18. More recently he was the leader of Nazi groupuscle, the British People’s Party, best know for paedophilia and bomb making. Oh yeah, and opposing hip-hop… no, seriously.

In recent times the BPP seems to have imploded over the involvement of one of its few remaining members with a Chinese Nazi. Obviously such dangerous race mixing could not be allowed by Kev. Because, like most far right factions these days, the BPP has hardly anyone in it, in recent times Kev has been cosying up to the National Front, North West Infidels, Combined ex-Forces and anyone that’ll have him. Needless to say, his reputation as a grass mean that he has many enemies even within the fascist movement, such as the author of the “White Lies!” blog:

This blog deals with Kevin Richard Watmough who has systematically damaged the movement here in the UK and will expose him for what he is. A Liar, A Cheat, A Rapist and long time Agent Provocateur.

 

Shane “Diddyman” Calvert

Best mates with Llama abuser, John Snowy Shaw, and number 2 in the North West Infidels, Shane Calvert AKA Diddyman, has been getting excited about a weekend in Skeggy. Best known for climbing on a roof in full camo gear to say that paedos should get the noose or something, Blackburn’s Diddyman was also recently arrested for smashing up his ex’s house in Hartlepool. Probably realising the NWI are going nowhere, he has been trying to make links with the NF (also going nowhere) so that they can at least have a bit of company on their pointless journey.

Loyalist fascists

A number of those going to Skegness demonstrate their admiration of loyalist terrorist groups such as “Ulster Volunteer Force”, named after the paramilitaries who carried out bombings on civilian targets in Northern Ireland, and “Johnny Adair” named after the Ulster Defence Association commander also responsible for massacres of civilians. “Johnny Adair” is also a member of Liverpool Irish Fascists.

Miscellaneous Nazis

A number of other openly fascist skinheads have also notified their attendance including Leicester fan of Nazi band, Section 88, Sean Guilford and Ade Brooks, a Manchester NF bonehead and admirer of Hitler-worshipping paramilitaries, the British Movement, and white power gig organisers, Blood & Honour.

As you can see, this bunch are very keen on protecting animals and aren’t racist. Honest.

In good news on Skegness, Bristol Animal Rights have published this excellent statement clearly rejecting the far right’s attempts to use animal rights as a cover for xenophobia and racism:

The focus on halal slaughter is a sign of racial and cultural discrimination. When the U.K homes battery farms and companies like the East Anglian Pig Company (exposed by Animal Equality early in 2012) it cannot be argued that halal is “more cruel” than other practices in the UK. Instead, it gives fire to sentiments spread by far-right organisations such as the British National Party, National Front, English Defence League and others, who disguise racial hatred as patriotism, or in this case, animal rights. They have no interest in genuine animal liberation, only pushing their own political agenda.

They conclude:

We believe that groups struggling for animal liberation should have militant anti-fascism as an intrinsic part of their politics, and wherever and whenever fascism appears it should be met with strong opposition.

There has also been the announcement of a counter-demonstration against the NF’s planned demo.

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2012/09/08

Skegness slaughterhouse: Not a racist campaign?

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

We’ve already said quite a bit about the BNP and NF involvement in the anti-halal slaughterhouse campaign. But what about the supposedly mainstream page set up by Tess Turner? The admin of Say No to Halal slaughter in Skegness has said she won’t be demonstrating because she doesn’t “want to be part of something as extreme as the National Front.” However, a quick look at her Facebook page suggests that she does hold islamophobic and racist views.

A recent post complains about how “these barbaric people are all set to take over the world”.  “Our government are letting this happen to our Country,I fear for my children and my grandchildren” she continues. This looks like another reheated counter-jihad conspiracy theory about Muslim takeover of the world, in the mould of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Muslims are a small and widely discriminated against minority in this country and have a tiny influence in rural Lincolnshire. The idea that they are taking over is pure nonsense.

I notice that all of the page’s anger is directed at halal and Muslims rather than kosher and Jews, perhaps because Muslims seem like an easier target and fewer people are willing to defend them.

Further evidence that the page is motivated by xenophobia rather than a principled concern for animal welfare can be found in the fact that, like the BNP and NF, the campaign only focuses on halal slaughter and does not generalise at all to factory farming and cruel practices more widely. In the early days, a number of animal rights activists and vegans joined the group but they were kicked out for “having a go” at the meat eaters who dominate the group.

Turner justified this with some rather tortured logic. “i could quite easily become vegetarian it wouldn’t bother me”, which begs the question of why she doesn’t if she cares about animal cruelty so much? What is her agenda? “but” she continues ,”if a million people turned veggie tomorrow, no less animals would be killed”. That’s just rubbish. In 2011 the average meat eater ate 26.1 animals. If 1m of those went veggie 26.1m fewer animals would have to be killed each year. That sounds like quite a big deal for the level of animal suffering in farming if you ask me.

“If an animal is going to be bred to feed us, the least we can do is give it a good life … and a humane and pain free death” Turner concludes. That’s all well and good in principle but begs the question of why the campaign doesn’t tackle our “indigenous” factory farming practices and production line slaughterhousing? Is it because, in the logic of the National Front, these practices aren’t “alien”? Because they involve British cruelty for British animals? Until these questions can be answered, the “mainstream” Skegness campaign looks rather suspect.

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2012/09/05

National Front announces Skegness demo

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Not to be outdone by fascist rivals, the BNP, the National Front have said that they will be demonstrating against the halal slaughterhouse in Skegness. The explicitly racist party announced that it will be holding a demonstration in Skegness town centre, “possibly just off Lumley Road”, on Sat 15th September.

Apparently “ALL THIS EVIL” that the slaughterhouse generates is “FOR THE BLOODY IMMIGRANTS”, “FOR THE SAKE OF A PERVERTED SICK RELIGEON AND A BACKWARD CULTURE”. Whichever caps lock-deficient Nazi typed this left us in no doubt that xenophobia rather than animal welfare is the dominant issue.

The move has split the existing campaign against the Heath Road slaughterhouse. Tess Turner, who is admin of a number of Facebook pages and groups against the slaughterhouse has said she will not support any “political” march on the issue. She told the East Coast Target that “The reason I started the campaign page was nothing to do with politics and race, it’s just an animal welfare point of view.” She’s obviously realised that standing alongside a bunch of unreconstructed Hitler worshippers will be a bad PR move.

The National Front represent the white supremacist politics that the BNP have spent the past few decades pretending they don’t support any more in an attempt to be more “credible”. The NF’s constitution supports the halt of non-white immigration into the UK, the forced repatriation of non-whites already here, bringing back the death penalty and birching, the outlawing of abortion and discrimination against homosexuals. A typical post on their Facebook page supports “WHITE PRIDE NATION WIDE” with a very Nazi-like NF logo and quotes white supremacist David Lane’s 14 word phrase. Asylum seekers are referred to as “THIRD WORLD FILTH” and they state that anyone who opposes them is “RED FILTH” and “UNCLEAN SCUM”.

These wannabe “master race” members are probably still smarting from their humiliation at the hands of anti-fascists in Derbyshire a couple of years ago. An East Midlands NF “Day of Action” was brought to an abrupt end by the “reds” who took the NF’s flag and leaflets while the handful of Aryan warriors meekly surrendered. This time it’s a national demo so they may get as many as 20 to turn up and hide behind police lines. We hope the people of Lincolnshire give these Nazi chancers the boot.

1 comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/08/30

Skegness abattoir controversy attracts fascists

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Recent proposals to reopen an abattoir in Skegness have attracted local opposition, with a facebook group and online petition set up.  The Heath Road abattoir closed down in January after it ran into financial difficulties , and the proposed re-opening has generated opposition because slaughter methods used there would be halal.  Although the initial opposition was not overly linked to the far-right, fascists have been quick to take an interest in the issue, with the BNP’s Lincolnshire Coastal branch adopting it as their main campaigning theme.  Other groups have been sniffing around the issue as well, and it’s certain that none would have criticised the abattoir reopening if it were to be staffed by “indigenous” knifemen.

Ritual slaughter for halal is becoming an important focus for the far-right, with the BNP in particular targeting it; they recently held a (piss-poorly attended) national picket of a branch of Subway in Sunderland which sells halal meat.  They aim to portray their opposition to halal on the grounds of animal welfare, but unsurprisingly this rings rather hollow on investigation; there is no opposition from the fascists to factory farming in general, nor is there any indication of what they consider acceptable practice in a slaughterhouse might look like – the latest fundraising dinner of the Lincolnshire Coastal BNP featured Lincolnshire sausage, presumably obtained from consenting pigs who died quietly in their sleep, or something…..

The halal meat issue is (of course!) more complex than it is painted by the BNP.  It is often argued by muslims that slaughter without pre-stunning (which is the central issue giving grounds to accusations of cruelty) is actually less distressful for the poor animal than the conventional methods of stunning – although  almost every animal welfare organisation disagrees, and what scientific evidence there is suggests that stunning is less traumatic.  For what it’s worth, this writer would guess that pre-stunning is indeed “less cruel”, but hopefully I’ll never know for sure.

However, it is important to note that, contrary to general impression, halal rules do permit the pre-stunning of animals, as long as the stunning itself does not kill the animal.  It is also important to note that there are several interpretations of halal rules in practice – for example, there are differences about which methods of stunning are acceptable. The RSPCA cites an estimate, from the Meat Hygiene Service, that around 90% of UK halal-slaughtered animals are in fact pre-stunned – in other words, from a welfare standpoint, they are treated much the same as the majority of animals killed in non-ritual abattoirs. (The majority killed for kosher consumption are also pre-stunned, incidentally).

The BNP are yet again displaying their opportunism in portraying halal as “truly barbaric” and “un-British”, whilst showing no analysis of its complexities, nor any campaign on factory farming in general.  Their failure to mention kosher slaughter, which is very similar to halal in most practical aspects, also shows their expediency – it’s not considered strategic to be overtly anti-semitic at the moment.  A more progressive strategy for ensuring animal welfare in halal and kosher is not hard to imagine, perhaps involving campaigning for universal application of stunning to all ritual slaughter, for example.  Of course many would argue that a slaughterhouse can never be “humane”….and non-halal abattoirs are certainly not exempt from shocking breaches of welfare standards.

The key point here is that any worthwhile campaign on animal welfare must be careful to deprive the far-right of another opportunity to demonise British muslims.  The BNP and other fascist hangers-on will be unable to make political capital out of the Skegness abattoir controversy if they are opposed, and we hope that – yet again – they will be shown for the two-faced opportunists that they are.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/08/03

English Democrats fail in Lincoln East

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

The English Democrats candidate and leader of the party in Lincolnshire, Elliott Fountain, has failed dismally in the Lincoln East by election. Fountain, who is already a councillor for the Fenside ward of Boston Borough Council, only got a paltry 24 votes (2.1%) despite the extremely low turnout, something that normally favours small parties.

Fountain has said that at least half of the jobs available in Lincolnshire should be guaranteed to go to “English workers”, a call which was criticised by local farmers who said it would lead to a labour shortage. A speech of his is quoted on the now defunct Boston Casuals website in which he blames the “east euros” for everything from both school closures and local children not being able to go to their selected school, Boston Borough Council’s benefits bill and  drink driving. “1000 east euros get deported on euro warrants each year from UK for being criminals,” he rants, “people dont know if there living next door to rapists, murderers and paedophiles”. Unsurprisingly, he failed to mention that the vast majority of rapists, murderers and paedophiles in this country are British. He is trying to promote the same politics of fear and loathing of anything foreign that is shared by the rest of the far right. Thankfully only 24 people in Lincoln East have fallen for it.

Fountain has said that he will stand for the Lincolnshire Police Commissioner post in the Autumn. His credentials appear to be that “I am Lincolnshire born and raised – my family have been here for hundreds of years” and that he is “more in touch with the youth of today”. He campaigned to be elected as mayor of Boston last year, but had to pay people to support his bid.

If Fountain’s anti-immigrant politics of fear sounds rather familiar it might be because his stablemate, fellow English Democrats councillor for Fenside, David Owens, was a BNP member up until the 2011 local elections when he defected to the English Democrats. The English Democrats appear to be seen as a more “credible” nationalist party to join when jumping the “toxic” BNP ship but anti-fascists are not falling for it. It’s the same old xenophobic nonsense with a new label.

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2012/07/12

Lincoln Underground Collective skill share

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Lincoln Underground Collective are holding a skill share on Sat 28th July. As part of the day, there will be a discussion of anti-racism and anti-fascism. Here’s some information from their website:

Lincoln Underground Collective is pleased to announce its second Skill Share on Saturday 28th July 2012.

We hope to build on the success of last year’s event which featured workshops from Industrial Workers of the World, Anarchist Federation & Transition Lincoln, a report of which can be found here: https://lincolnundergroundcollective.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/luc-skill-share-report/

The event will take place at Croft Street Community Centre, a very well-equipped, accessible & spacious venue roughly 1/2 mile from the city centre. Venue website: http://www.croftstreetcentre.co.uk/

We are looking for local & regional groups who’d like to run discussions & workshops, so if you’d be interested in helping please contact us at lincolnundergroundcollective – at – riseup.net with details.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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2012/07/11

The BNP’s god delusion

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

The Church of England voted this week to ban clergy from joining racist or discrimatory organisations.  This ban, targetted mostly at the BNP, has predictably been condemned by the fascist party, whose persecution complex has been further reinforced.  The BNP would dearly like to believe that God is on their side; in common with most strains of European (and US) fascism, identification with some variety of Christian belief is very important to them, especially as a perceived counterpoint to Islam.

Although the UK’s established church may have pushed the BNP away, the party have their  own pretend church to comfort them – the “Christian Council of Britain”.  This BNP front group, named as a conscious counterpoint to the Muslim Council of Britain, is headed by the “Reverend” Robert West.

 

Bigoted bible-bashing bell-end : Robert West

West, from Holbeach in Lincolnshire, is an interesting character. He has not been ordained into any recognised church, and has been unable to explain how he earns the title “Reverend”.  Presumably it helps him get a better deal on his car insurance?  West was expelled by Lincolnshire Tories for addressing the BNP and agreeing to front the Christian Council of Britain in 2006, and ever since has played the strange role of the “BNP’s vicar”, saying grace at party events, blessing the pudding at fundraising dinners, and popping up at events all over the East Midlands.

His mission with the Christian Council appears to be aiming to establish a god-given racism, as the organisation’s constitution blathers about “the godly importance of race and nation” and the establishment of “national homelands – by the will of God”, and similar racist wet-dreams.  It’s no surprise to find that the Council also expresses very “traditional” views on issues such as homosexuality and the role of women.  Religion and fascism have often shared socially conservative agendas, and the Council is the BNP’s laughable attempt to make a link between god and Griffin.

Unfortunately for Robert and his tiny pseudo-church, his views are rejected even by the mainstream church in the UK, let alone with the overwhelmingly secular population at large.  The BNP’s desperate attempt to co-opt religion for their own ends isn’t doing so well; Robert’s racist prayers don’t seem likely to be answered anytime soon.

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2012/07/06

Boston anti-immigration march called off again

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Dean Everitt’s anti-immigration Boston Protest Group has voted not to hold a march against immigration. This is the second time the Lincolnshire group has cancelled a protest and on both occasions fears that it would be “hijacked” by fascists have motivated the decision. Indeed, the far right used Facebook to encourage people from outside town to attend the meeting and vote for the march but their attempt to influence the meeting seems to have failed.

Everitt, who was clearly disappointed with the result, has said that the march has been “postponed not cancelled” and is using the march as a threat against Boston Borough Council. The Council are in the process of writing a report into the effects of immigration and if they do not come up with a conclusion that Everitt is happy with the march will be back on. Everitt is quoted as saying he wants to be “heavily involved” in the writing of the report, although it is not clear what his qualifications for doing so would be.

Everitt tried to organise a similar march in October last year saying that “We are not racist…  but we are saying this place is now full and we should not have any more” and “they need to shut the floodgates.” Unsurprisingly, the BNP and EDL soon picked up on the alarmist language and fears about immigration and Everitt cancelled claiming that his event was being hijacked.

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2012/05/04

Bye bye BNP!

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Fascists had a bad night in local elections across the country. The BNP has, at the time of writing, lost all of the seats it was defending and failed to win any new seats. None of the smaller fascist groupuscles has fared any better.

In the East Midlands, the BNP lost their two seats in Heanor where their share of the vote was considerably reduced. Cliff Roper’s term as “the invisible councillor” obviously didn’t go down well with the electorate and his share of the vote has fallen to 19.1% from the 36.5% he won with in 2008. Beaten into third place, Councillor Roper has become simply another nationalist chancer, the Heanor Patriot. Lewis Allsebrook’s replacement, Adrian Hickman, also failed to impress and came last. In Heanor & Loscoe the BNP’s share of the vote was halved and in Ripley & Marehay it was reduced to a third of the 2008 result. Emma Roper did particularly badly, getting only 59 votes (4.2%) in Codnor & Waingroves. This is about a quarter of the share won by fascist farmer Alan Warner in 2008.

The National Front’s Amber Valley candidate, Timothy Knowles, only got 99 votes in Langley Mill, coming in last place.

Over in Lincoln, disgraced Nazi sympathiser and BNP candidate, Dean Lowther, got a pathetic 49 votes (2.8%) coming in last place. This is less than a quarter of the 12.2% he got last time around.

In Derby, the BNP did slightly less badly but their vote was still down on the 2008 results. Paul Hilliard’s black shirt campaign won him 14.7% of the vote in Chaddesden, but this was down from the 17.9% he got in 2008. The only good news for the party was that candidates in Derwent and Spondon beat the Lib Dems into last place, gaining 11.9% and 8.1% of the vote respectively.

Hope Not Hate are collecting the far right’s results on their website and you can compare them with the results from 2008 here.

It seems that electoral support for the fascists is well down from its peak. Nick Griffin’s troubled leadership of the BNP looks decidedly shaky and party activists and voters are leaving in droves. The new fluffier British Freedom Party, who are backed by the EDL, haven’t got off to a good start either. Their candidate in Basildon only managed to get 4% of the vote and none of the 4 candidates currently declared in Liverpool got more than 3%.

These are good results for anti-fascists but we should never be complacent. The BNP was still voted for by a little under 1 in 5 people in Heanor and they are consistently winning over 10% in parts of Derby. There is always the danger that the far right will rearrange itself around a new pole in the wake of the BNP’s plunge into obscurity and start building on these foundations. Their current failure is a cause for celebration. Let’s make sure they don’t come back from the dead.

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2012/04/20

Local elections round up

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

With a little under 2 weeks to go until polling day, 3rd May, East Midlands Anti-fascists bring you a round up of local fascist attempts to jockey for power.

BNP

Having finally concluded the messy power struggle within Amber Valley (Lewis Allsebrook jumped ship before he was pushed), the blackshirts of Derbyshire BNP have put up 8 candidates in Derby and Amber Valley.

The “invisible councillor” Cliff Roper is fighting to retain his seat in Heanor East, which should be a struggle if reports that he barely opens his mouth in public are to be believed. Not so long ago Roper was having a strop and resigned the party whip in order to get his way in the local party, and there have  been plenty of accusations of backstabbing and being a “red” flung his way. Aging bonehead, Adrian Hickman, will stand in Allsebrook’s former constituency of Heanor West. “Inept” Emma Roper will hope to get slightly more than the 2.4% she polled last time in the Codnor and Waingroves ward. Ken Cooper (Heanor & Loscoe) and Alan Edwards (Ripley & Marehay) are also standing.

Cliff Roper: actively working for his Heanor constituents again

Admirer of Mussolini’s blackshirts and “Grand Dictator of Derbyshire”, Paul Hilliard is standing in the Chaddesden ward in Derby and is joined by Julie Fuller (Derwent) and Vanessa Griffin (Spondon). Let’s just say you wouldn’t buy a second-hand car from the man.

Paul Hilliard: Would you trust this chump with your vote?

The BNP’s only candidate in Lincolnshire is neo-Nazi Dean Lowther, whose campaign is in a bit of a pickle after his openly racist posts on Facebook became the subject of a police investigation and front-page news in the local paper. His posts included cartoons portraying the Obamas as monkeys and the insignia of violent and openly Nazi groups, the Racial Volunteer Force, the British People’s Party, Blood and Honour and Combat 18.  Lowther is standing in the Bracebridge ward of Lincoln.

 

English Democrats

The entire North-West Leicestershire BNP branch has recently defected to the English Democrats in the hope that they can do away with secret meetings and redirection points and gain a bit of respectability, something which seems unlikely given that about half of the English Democrats’ candidates across the UK are recent defectors from the BNP. Alan and Gaynor Bennett Spencer are standing for the half-fascist party in Daventry.

National Front

Fascist failure, Tim Knowles, who was so dim he managed to fuck up being elected unopposed is trying for a second crack of the whip in Langley Mill, Amber Valley. Last time round he failed to fill in the acceptance form or turn up to any meetings so was booted out. We hope the Front will sink further into irrelevance during these elections.

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