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BNP to stand in North EU Elections national |
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news report
 Tuesday October 29, 2002 19:35 by AFA - Anti-Fascist Action afa at ireland dot com C/o PO Box 3355, Dublin 7
 Report on BNP saying they will run in next Euro elections in the North. They said they would run in the last general election, but didn't. Could be just a press release for a quiet news day. Worth watching though. BNP to stand in NI elections The British National Party is to fight elections in Northern Ireland for the first time, it was revealed today. The far-right group is to field a candidate at the next European elections. A spokesman in Belfast said the party will urge voters to back its vision of keeping out asylum seekers and saving manufacturing jobs. He told PA News: ``This will give people in Northern Ireland a genuine alternative to sectarian, tribal politics.`` But the SDLP`s Alban Maginness claimed the brand of racism, sectarianism and ultra-nationalism offered by the BNP was not welcome. The North Belfast MLA said: ``Northern Ireland already has enough political madmen and cranks so there really is no need for this political export from Britain.`` The move was ratified during a BNP meeting in the greater Belfast area last month attended by party leader Nick Griffin. With fewer than 100 members in Northern Ireland, activists have set a £10,000 fundraising target to stage an effective campaign in the June 2004 poll. Limited funds forced the BNP to abandon plans to contest Stormont Assembly elections which were set for next May before devolution was suspended. ``(The European election) is better value because we only need to get a £1,000 deposit rather than the expenses of individual constituencies,`` the spokesman said. Northern Ireland`s three seats in the European Parliament are held by Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley, former SDLP chief John Hume and Jim Nicholson of the Ulster Unionists. The BNP`s candidate is not expected to be chosen until next year. Senior figures at head office have also warned the Northern Ireland plans could be pulled at the last minute if a bigger push is needed in England. Still buoyed by the election of three councillors in Burnley, Lancashire, the party is hoping to profit from the demise of the UK Independence Party and snatch seats at Strasbourg. Party officials preparing for the electoral debut in Northern Ireland do not expect to mount a serious challenge to any of the three sitting MEPs. Efforts to recruit more members over the last 12 months have so far failed, although it was claimed party strength has increased. ``Membership hasn`t taken off but the quality is better,`` the spokesman insisted ``We had to tell some people we didn`t want them because they believed the media image of us as an extremist party.`` However, Mr Maginness, who sits on the European Committee of the Regions at Brussels, insisted the party offered nothing but outdated policies more reminiscent of Europe in the 1930s than the 21st century. ``Racism, sectarianism and ultra-nationalism all come from the same political gene pool and the BNP`s distinctive brand of Alf Garnett politics is certainly not welcome in Northern Ireland,`` he said. ``One of the main reasons for the beginning of European integration in the 1950s was to ensure that there would never be a catastrophic return to the fascism and xenophobia peddled and eulogised by parties such as the BNP.`` |
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Comments (10 of 10)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10one way of getting johnny adair and the LVF into stormont
This is indeed most serious as it means even more posters to pull down.
I will be the BNP candidate. I have some previous experience of fascism from Wolverhampton and North Down!
what will the anarchists do now? Will they sit on the sidelines and tell the workers not to vote for genuine anti fascist candidates while they go around pulling down posters from other left wing groups that are standing in the election. Thereby assisting the fascist BNP get more support
This is stupid. The BNP unlike the ICP are a fascist organisation therefore a policy of No Platform opbviously applies to them. The idea of an anti-fascist candidate is a laugh in this case, are you advocating a vote for Paisely to stop some unknown BNP candidate for instance? Or are you just hoping your sect will run someone with no more hope then the BNP candidate of getting elected (0) but you can demand support on that basis!
You obviously have no idea of what fascism is if you don't understand how it cannot be stopped by electoralism! This is of course related to your obvious inability to distinguish between the BNP and the ICP. Recommended reading in the link below!
Anarchists in Belfast pulling down anti-fascist posters? What?
The BNP don't have a hope here- we have enough homegrown crypto-fascists that their market is overcrowded already. Add in the fact that the loyalists areas they run in are covered in stars of david and, well... If i was a nazi i wouldn't be getting my hopes up.
If anarchist do know all about fascism, tell me what exactly anarchist define as fascist. It seems to me many anarchists describe anyone to the right of Fine Gael as Fascist. What exactly is your method of calling someone fascist?
Those who when they learnt what we were doing killed one morning our dogs and cats and left their poisoned and some mutilated bodies on our doorsteps.
Q. What were we doing?
A. I and the mostly Italian / French community with whom I lived in Streatham of the London Borough of Lambeth wished to offer essential workers [nurses, teachers] and migrant workers [fast food logo sweatshop chain employees] room in squatted houses administered by our anarcho-syndicalist collective. We beleived that such a community based intiative would slow the rate of eviction in the London Borough of Lambeth. The newly instituted London Authority and Blair´s orignally pro-London urban thinktank had with various council and non council agencies secured significant funds to redevelop the borough and bring "squatted" property back into "public" leasing. We believed that the area by area clearances which had begun with the eviction of Brixton heartland resource centres would increase the homelessness and proerty speculation in London. In an initiative to counter speculation which had reached unheard of levels amongst the "illegal" migrant communities and "asylum issue" communities we made moves to welcome such in squatted homes. The slaughter of our animals was carried out on one morning preceeded by BNP graffiti tagging of some of the houses.
they are fascists.
and there are many many more.
mail me I´ll gladly furnish you with a few megabytes.
Jim if you followed the link I provided at the end of my post you would have found the answer to your question, ie
"Why is fascism different from the far right and racism.
Fascism tends to be used a lot on the left as a term of abuse. The workers party call Sinn Fein fascists, the CP used to refer to trotskyists as fascists and right wingers in general are referred to as fascists. The problem with this sort of thing is that when you then argue for no platform for fascists many see this as an attempt to silence all those you disagree with.
We use the term fascist in a very much tighter form. Fascists are those who seek to physically smash the left, unions and other progressive groups. Today most fascists use racism to recruit but they do not just promise repatriation when in power. They beat, maim and kill minority groups now. This use of physical violence now is what distinguished fascism from right wing racists like Enoch Powell."
If they followed their logic of branding "one side as bad as the other" pushing a false symmetry argument(even in the face of begrudgingly released RUC data), whereby they refuse to take a stance on the nature of the northern State, to its logical conclusion they would be leaving the BNP alone on the grounds that it is no worse than any other form of nationalism or loyalism because they are anti working class (and not vegetarian)