Tag Archives: English Democrats

Flogging a dead horse : far right election candidates

This is a really bad time for the electoral ambitions of the far right.  In the run-up to the most unpredictable General Election for many years, the far right are nowhere.  With their own little parties in disarray, and most of their thunder stolen by the rise of UKIP (more on that later), only three candidates in the East Midlands are stepping up to lose their deposits on Thursday.  In Lincolnshire, the ludicrous pretend vicar Robert West is standing for the BNP in Boston & Skegness, whilst Cathy Duffy is the BNP candidate for Charnwood in Leicestershire.  The English Democrat’s one candidate in the region is the party’s National Secretary Derek Hilling, standing in Kettering, Northants; the ED were hoping to contest at least three seats in the county, but have decided not to spread their meagre resources too thinly, and are going all out behind Derek.  Hmm….

Rabbit in the headlights….Derek Hilling

 

There are more far-right candidates in the local council elections, also to be held on Thursday.

The BNP have Cathy Duffy (again) standing in Charnwood.  Duffy is an endangered species, being one of only two BNP councillors in the whole country, and the only one in the East Midlands.  We’ll see if she manages political survival on Thursday.  Meanwhile, the Derbyshire Blackshirt Paul Hilliard is standing, as usual, in Derby; and Marc Whitestone is standing in East Northamptonshire.

The English Democrats have two candidates, Oliver Healey and David Haslett, in Leicester.

The British Democratic Party, an Andrew Brons-inspired BNP breakaway, are standing five candidates in Leicestershire, which they regard as their stronghold – Kevan Stafford, Chris Canham, Julia Green and Paul Newman in Charnwood, and virulent muslim-hater Graham Partner in North-West Leics.


Euro election results

Last week’s elections for the European parliament were a significant national success story for UKIP, and the East Midlands echoed this unwelcome trend.  UKIP polled first in our region with 32.9% of the vote – one of the highest proportions returned from any region.  There are now two UKIP, two tory and one labour MEPs in the East Midlands.

The results for the small far-right parties were, happily, very poor.  Mirroring their national decline, the BNP polled only 1.64% of the East Midlands vote (down from 8.7% in 2009, the largest percentage downswing of any party).  They got even less votes here than the new and obscure AIFE eurosceptic party, and their disastrous electoral meltdown continues.  Ex-MEP Nick Griffin is vowing to continue as party leader – welcome news for anti-fascists, who applaud the greedy incompetent as he drags the BNP further into the political wilderness.  Keep up the good work, Nick!

The English Democrats polled just over 1%, down from 2.3% in 2009.


Far-right election candidates in the region

There are a number of fascist candidates standing in this week’s Euro Parliament and local council elections :

European parliament

BNP : Cathy Duffy, Robert West, Bob Brindley, Geoffrey Dickens, Paul Hillard.

English Democrats : Kevin Sills, Dave Wickham, John Dowle, Oliver Healey, Terry Spencer.

 

Cathy Duffy...she's not going to be an MEP...

Cathy Duffy…she’s not going to be an MEP

Cathy Duffy from Charnwood is the obvious choice for head of the BNP list, being a rare animal – one of the party’s two local councillors in the whole country.  The inclusion of Paul ‘Aloe Vera’ Hilliard as the last candidate on the list shows how his stock has fallen in the party, with outright fruitcake and twitter twat Bob Brindley selected above him.

 

Kevin Sills - nor is he...

Kevin Sills – nor is he…

The English Democrats are the usual mix of ex-members of other far-right parties, and people who find UKIP a bit liberal.  Veteran party-swopper Kevin Sills is their lead candidate.

 

Councils

Amber Valley : Alan Edward (Codnor & Waingroves), Ken Cooper (Ripley).

Derby : Paul Hilliard (Chaddesden), Carol Tucker (Derwent).

The most interesting feature of the local candidate list is how sparse it is, with only four candidates from the BNP standing in our region, all in Derbyshire.  This reflects the general decline of the party, who are fielding 114 candidates nationwide, compared to 739 in the equivalent elections in 2010.  The party seems extremely unlikely to add to its pitiful national tally of two councillors.

 

Although these elections promise very lean pickings for the BNP and their ilk, it’s likely – and alarming – that UKIP will do well (taking votes from all parties, including the BNP).  They are standing numerous candidates in both Euro and council elections, have a huge campaign budget, and have a high national profile.  Although their politics are vague and vacuous, they are undoubtedly pushing the political discourse to the right and need to be opposed.  The results of Thursday’s elections will make interesting reading.

 


Election nightmare for BNP

The BNP’s election campaign turned out to be a disaster yesterday as their share of the vote was seriously cut down across the East Midlands and the country as a whole. Newcomers, the British Democrats, failed to make any impact and the English Democrats did very badly as well. UKIP’s populist right wing politics seems to have eclipsed the far right, perhaps for good.

Here’s how the BNP share of the vote looked in the wards in which they stood at the last elections in 2009 compared with the current results.

  • Derbyshire:                 2009: 19.2%    2013: 5.5%
  • Leicestershire:            2009: 14.3%   2013: 8.4%
  • Lincolnshire:              2009: 11.1%    2013: 4.3%
  • Northamptonshire:   2009: 13.2%   2013: 4.7%
  • Nottinghamshire:      2009: 10.9%   2013: 2.4%

In other words the BNP has done extremely badly, a view shared by their last remaining councillor, Cathy Duffy, who flounced out of the count in Leicestershire before her (poor) result was even announced.

Another welcome result at these elections was the booting out of Graham Partner, elected as BNP Councillor for Coalville in 2009 and being rejected by the electorate as a British Democrats candidate this year. We won’t be sad to see him go.

Whilst the further collapse of the BNP is to be welcomed, the rise of UKIP poses new questions and challenges for those who oppose anti-migrant racism and right wing populism. This analysis by the Independent Working Class Association is not a bad place to start in understanding the relationship between UKIP and the BNP and stating the challenges facing those who seek to oppose their right wing populism with a genuine working class politics.

 


More East Midlands far right candidates

The nominations are in for Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire County Council elections. In all three counties there are fewer BNP candidates than in 2009 suggesting the party’s support has collapsed across the region.

Lincolnshire

  • Holbeach – Robert Malcolm Brian West (BNP)
  • Louth Wolds – John Atty (BNP)
  • Skegness South – Robert John Ashton (BNP)
  • Spalding East & Moulton – Anthony John Williams (BNP)

BNP had 23 candidates in 2009

Northamptonshire

  • Brickhill & Queensway – David Peter Robinson (BNP)
  • Clover Hill – Victoria Hilling (Eng Dems)
  • Corby West – Marc Gordon Riddell (BNP)
  • Croyland & Swanspool – Terry Spencer (Eng Dems)
  • Delapre & Rushmere – Mark Andrew Plowman (BNP)
  • Desborough – Kevin Sills (Eng Dems), Clive Skinner (BNP)
  • Hatton Park – Rob Walker (Eng Dems)
  • Irthlingborough – John Elvis Whitestone (BNP)
  • Kingsthorpe North – Peter James Whitestone (BNP)
  • Kingswood – Stella Wright (BNP)
  • Lloyds – Gordon Riddell (BNP)
  • Oakley – James Andrew Gordon Campbell (BNP)
  • Towcester & Roade – John Hughes (BNP)
  • Windmill – Derek Hilling (Eng Dems)

BNP had 12 candidates in 2009 and English Democrats had 4.

Nottinghamshire

  • Beauvale  – David Michael Matthew Wright (BNP)
  • Eastwood – Alex McConnell (BNP)

BNP had 15 candidates in 2009.


Far right do badly in Corby

As well as seeing the far right fail to muster a single candidate for the Police & Crime Commissioner last week, they also did very badly in the Corby by-election. The BNP fielded Gordon Riddell who only got 1.7% of the vote (in 2010 the party got 4.7% in Corby) and the English Democrats’ David Wickham did even worse with 1.2%. That’s two more lost deposits for the fascists!


No English Democrat Police Candidates

We’re pleased to announce that there will be no English Democrats standing for Police & Crime Commissioner posts in any of the 5 East Midlands counties next week. Neither Elliott Fountain (Lincs) or Alan Spencer-Bennett (Northants) made it onto the ballot. That means that, UKIP aside, there are no far right candidates in the region.

We’d like to think our exposé had a little something to do with Fountain’s withdrawal – after all what party craving respectability would let an openly islamaphobic man, who can’t keep his arse in his trousers and supports far right violence against the police, run for head of the local police force? It’s about as sensible as a drug-taking anti-drugs candidate… Still, we’d have loved to have seen him come last with 25 votes again.


Foolish Fountain

We were amused to see that Elliott Fountain thought he would be able to salvage his seriously damaged reputation by responding to our article on Nottingham Indymedia. Instead he’s just dug himself into an even bigger hole. Our advice, Elliott, is never to comment until you’ve got your story straight. Better luck next time!

Fountain was barely able to get the basic facts right, suggesting that ecstasy wasn’t a class A drug (it is), stating that the EDL was formed after a poppy burning incident (it wasn’t) and stating that Muslims had demonstrated at Google over a cartoon (it was about the film The Innocence of Muslims). It doesn’t bode well for his candidacy for the Police & Crime Commissioner post that he can’t even use Google!

Fountain tried to deny ever having like Golden Dawn and claiming that racist comments were made by other people. It was all fairly unconvincing given that it was pointed out that his party, the English Democrats, are in a pan-European alliance with Golden Dawn and that his comments had been screenshotted. He denied knowing anything about Golden Dawn despite continually commenting on an article that went into some depth about their activities. He also denied being anti-Muslim whilst regurgitating some disgustingly prejudiced views about Muslims such as that they:

generally want to kill innocent westerners, have very evil ways with regards to treatment of women and people who dont agree with there beliefs… let underage marriages go on , halal meat which is barabaric , blatantly burn poppy’s on rememberance day, openly fly banners wishing death on westerners, dont wish to conform to british values, kill over cartoons the list is endless really.

That’s all Muslims, apparently. But he’s not a racist because he has Muslim friends who seem to not mind that he hates them.

Despite being challenged several times to produce statistics to back up his claim that East European migrants are more likely to commit murder, rape and paedophilia, he failed to produce anything more than “its quite easy for you to find the stories online, there is lots”. Crime stats are clearly not his strength.

Some commenters found Fountain’s rants hard to get to grips with and suspected his drug-taking might be to blame: “Total anarchy. No capital letters or full stops. I have seen symptoms like this before …. usually resulting from amphetamine use.” Fountain admitted that he was suffering from memory and concentration problems that seemed to render him almost completely unable to understand anything that was being written.

But @ wasn’t convinced:

Never give a straight answer, never take responsibility for your actions, just deny everything and hope for the best. If it wasn’t for your shit sense of PR you’d make a perfect politician.


Introducing Elliott Fountain: candidate for Lincolnshire PCC

Elliott Fountain, the English Democrats candidate for Lincolnshire Police & Crime Commissioner, is one of only two far right candidates standing in the East Midlands*. His political hero is Enoch Powell and he has expressed a strong dislike of East European migrants. Fountain has described his approach to crime as “zero tolerance“, which involves “throwing tenants out of houses faster”, expanding Lincoln prison, bringing back the death penalty and encouraging the harassment of migrants by the police.

So far, so far right. But is Elliott Fountain a fascist? Thanks to screenshots of his Facebook profile leaked to us we can safely conclude that he is.

As well as liking and promoting the English Defence League, Fountain also likes the British Friends of Golden Dawn. Golden Dawn is the Greek neo-Nazi political party whose leaders have openly praised Nazi party leaders and used Nazi imagery. Its leader proudly proclaims his racism and has called for vigilante attacks on migrants. Golden Dawn members are believed to have fought alongside the Serbs during the Bosnian war and may have participated in the Srebrenica massacre of Muslim civilians, have vandalised synagogues and sent death threats to critical journalists. Is this the kind of “zero tolerance” that Fountain wants for Lincolnshire?

Some of the pages that Fountain likes on Facebook

It’s not just foreign far right violence that Fountain promotes. He approvingly reposted a picture of a bloodied EDL member after the group’s Walsall demonstration, supporting the group’s violent clashes with the police. EDL members attacked the police with bricks, bottles and litter bins and 30 have been arrested in connection with the day’s events. I have a feeling that Fountain’s support for this disorder might not get the support of the police he wants to direct.

Fountain’s support for groups like Golden Dawn and the EDL seems to be motivated by his violent hatred of Muslims. Reposting a video of a protest by Muslims outside the US embassy, Fountain commennted “shoot the lot of them”. Commenting on Muslim outrage about The Innocence of Muslims film he said “they enrage us the goat  ragging backward rats”. Reposting a film of a Muslim protest in Australia getting attacked by a violent mob, he wrote “this is what muslims should get!!”. Promoting racist mob violence is a strange activity for a “law and order” candidate, unless you favour the kind of “law and order” practiced by the Nazis of course.

On that note, Fountain thinks “we should of never started a war with Germany” in the 1940s, “its all a giant conspiracy but cant say to much on here else i will be killed of mysteriously”. Fountain is a conspiracy theorist (perhaps an anti-Semite?) as well as a Nazi appeaser.

Fountain’s public zero-tolerance anti-drugs approach (“bang all smack heads up”) does not appear to extend to his private life. His posts are full of favourable references to taking ecstasy and asking his mates for pills. It’s all a bit strange coming from a man who has pledged to cut crime by targeting drug offences! “It’s all about helping younger people to keep them away from crime, from drugs, from doing things which are wrong” he told the BBC in a clear case of ‘do as I say, not as I do’.

He’s also not averse to drinking until he passes out. “who was sleeping with me 4 or 5 years ago” he asks Facebook,  “because i was in a drunken state for a year or two”. Maybe it was during this time that he was photographed getting his arse out in a public square in a German city. We can only imagine his response if one of the dreaded “East Euros” behaved in a similar manner in his hometown of Boston.

But Fountain’s real passion seems to be ogling at women with their tits out: Boobies, Phantom Models, Silks Gentlemans Lounge, Laptastic International, Nuts, EroticCapital.co.uk, EroticaUK, fetish burlesque, Hedonism Resorts and Nottingham’s infamous branch of Hooters all feature on his likes list. Whilst Fountain might be a xenophobe in his political career, he’s more of an internationalist when it comes to perving, even getting into Slovak Girls & Women (as long as they’re not taking English jobs, of course).

All in all, Elliott’s a bit of a sad case and the English Democrats must be really desperate to be standing him as their candidate. Fortunately, he doesn’t have a chance in hell of actually winning, only managing a grand total of 45 votes in his past two election appearances. There goes another deposit down the drain for one of Lincolnshire’s veteran fascist losers.

 

* The other is Alan Spencer-Bennett, also of the English Democrats, standing for the post in Northamptonshire


Fountain fails again

We’re a bit slow off the draw with this one so apologies for the delay. Back at the start of the month there was a by-election for the Lincolnshire County Council seat of Nettleham & Saxilby. Far right chancer, Elliott Fountain of the English Democrats, fresh from a resounding defeat in the Lincoln East by-election, thought he’d have another go. He came last with only 21 votes (less than 0.9%) in a truly shocking performance. This is even less than the 24 votes he got when he came last in Lincoln East.

This is another major failure for the rabidly anti-immigration Fountain, who is a candidate for the Lincolnshire Police Commissioner post. The EDs must be getting tired of him pissing their deposit money up the wall!