A British National Party candidate for today’s European election aroused further controversy last week, after a video clip surfaced on YouTube showing her calling “dentistry and plastic surgery” positive outcomes of the Holocaust.
Marlene Guest from Sheffield made the comments during a television interview for Sky One in January of last year, during which she also minimised the number of Jews murdered in the Nazi death camps.
She said: “Now Nick Griffin queried numbers… I’ve read a thing called Did 6 Million Jews Really Die?… If they’d have kept the crematorium going in this little camp for 24/7 for 50 years they still couldn’t have burnt that amount of bodies.”
Guest is standing for the far-right party as its South Yorkshire candidate, acting as the local organiser for the BNP in that area, and has stood as a councillor for the party in five different elections but has never been elected.
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust said: “These comments are pure racism and an insult to the millions who died and survived the Nazi death camps. I encourage people to go out and vote next week and prevent those who espouse racist views from being elected.”
Sheffield Jewish figures Sir Irvine Patnick, former Hallam MP and current vice president of the Orthodox Synagogue, and John Speyer, chair of the Reform Synagogue, said in an open letter: “In a normal democratic party, a candidate who quoted such material would surely be expelled.
“We think the electorate should understand that this party remains a fascist organisation, in the tradition of Oswald Mosley.”
The letter, signed by Jewish residents from across Yorkshire, added: “We believe a party which is so comfortable with neo-Nazi material and denial of the truth of the Holocaust, which decimated Jewish families and communities, is not fit to represent the people of Yorkshire.
“We call on everyone to go out and vote. A high turnout will ensure the BNP’s message of division and hate is rejected.”
Gordon Brown also lent his backing to the anti-BNP campaign, urging Britons to get out and vote to ensure the party is blocked from gaining seats in the European Parliament.
In a letter in The Guardian on Monday, the Prime Minister was joined by sports and entertainment stars including Little Britain’s Matt Lucas and Manchester United defender Gary Neville urging voters to show up en masse and send a clear message rejecting the BNP, who are fielding dozens of candidates in today’s election.
The letter, which is also signed by Shoah survivor Ben Helfgott, says: “The British National Party and its allies are a threat to everything that makes us proud of this country we love. The BNP is working hard to conceal its extremism because it knows that people in Britain totally reject the politics of racism and hatred.”
Meanwhile, French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala has found a spot on today’s ballot, drawing on anti-Zionist narrative for his campaign which aims at “wiping out Zionism” and condemns “the pro-Israeli lobby and the tyranny of neo-Liberalism”.
Calling for the comic’s party to be banned from standing, France’s National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism said images of a crossed out Israeli flag over a map of France “constitute an insult and a threat to oust Jews from their country”.
A BRITISH National Party Euro election candidate from South Yorkshire has been condemned by Jewish leaders for remarks made about the Holocaust in a television documentary.
Marlene Guest, of Kimberworth Park, Rotherham, claimed ‘dentistry and plastic surgery’ were positives to come out of the genocide, while being filmed for Sky One documentary ‘BNP Wives’.
Mrs Guest, standing for the far-right party as a candidate in next week’s European Parliament elections, also questioned the scale of the atrocity, saying: “I’ve read a thing called ‘Did Six Million Jews Really Die?’.
“If they’d have kept the crematorium going 24/7 for 50 years, they still couldn’t have burnt that amount of bodies.”
Afterwards she claimed her comments had been ‘twisted’ and said that before the offensive remarks she had told film-makers: “You can’t say anything good came out of the Holocaust.”
But leading Jewish figures from Sheffield, former Hallam MP Sir Irvine Patnick, vice president of the Orthodox Synagogue, and John Speyer, chair of the Reform Synagogue, said: “In a normal democratic party a candidate who quoted such material would surely be expelled.
“The BNP, on its website, congratulated Marlene Guest on her TV appearance.
“We think the electorate should understand that this party remains a fascist organisation, in the tradition of Oswald Mosley.”
In a letter signed by other leading Jews from across Yorkshire, Sir Irvine and Mr Speyer added: “We believe a party which is so comfortable with neo-Nazi material and denial of the truth of the Holocaust, which decimated Jewish families and communities, is not fit to represent the people of Yorkshire.
“We call on everyone to go out and vote. A high turnout will ensure the BNP’s message of division and hate is rejected.”
Mrs Guest said: “I am not anti-semitic and never have been. I have grandfathers who fought in both World Wars and I think the Holocaust was a horrible, evil thing.
“I am sick of people going on about this film.”
She added she had asked the makers to remove her from the documentary after she caught them looking at her correspondence but they refused to edit her out and she said she ‘couldn’t afford a lawyer to stop them’.
EU elections: Nick Griffin prevented from reaching Manchester count by demonstrators as far-right party wins seat in Yorkshire and Humber
Martin Wainwright and agencies
Protesters prevent BNP leader Nick Griffin from entering Manchester town hall for the European parliament election results for the North West tonight. Photograph: Manchester Evening News
The British National party tonight won a seat on the European parliament for the first time in its history after receiving 120,139 votes in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
Andrew Brons took a seat from Labour with almost 10% of the vote in the region, up by 2% on the last election.
Andy Burnham, the health secretary, said the result was a “sad moment for British politics”.
William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, who is from south Yorkshire, said the party had taken votes from Labour.
The BNP won one of six seats in the region while Labour lost one of the two seats it held at the last election.
The BNP achieved 16% of the vote in Barnsley, nearly 12% in Doncaster and 15% in Rotherham – all Labour strongholds.
Brons said after the count: “The onslaught against us has been more than against any other party in recent times, but somehow we’ve overcome it. Despite the lies, despite the money, despite the misrepresentation, we’ve been able to win through.”
His victory followed particularly dramatic rises in the BNP vote in old Labour heartlands such as Barnsley, where it went from 8% to 17%, while Labour’s fell from 45% to 25%.
Brons retired last year as a politics and government teacher at Harrogate College, and re-entered active politics. He stood five times for the National Front in the 1970s after a brief spell as its leader, which ended in internal quarrels. He joined the British National Socialist party as a teenager.
Welcoming Brons’ election, Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, said: “We’re here to look after our people because no one else is.” He added that feelings were particularly strong in Yorkshire. “This is ordinary decent people in Yorkshire kicking back against racism, because racism in this country is now directed overwhelmingly against people who look like me.”
He said that immigration had become harmful to Britain, particularly with the spread of radical Islam. “Take Bradford – it isn’t immigration that’s happening there, it’s colonialism,” he said.
In Manchester, protesters prevented Griffin from reaching the European elections count for the constituency where he is standing: the North West.
Griffin finally reached Manchester town hall in a police van after his vehicle and bodyguards were pelted with eggs by a noisy group who yelled: “Fascist scum.”
His party was struggling against a strong showing by the United Kingdom Independence party and the Greens in its attempt to secure the figure of around 8.5% that would win one of the region’s eight seats.
At 10.30pm, declarations from around one-fifth of the North West’s 39 counting district left Griffin, who tops the party’s list for the region, just over a percentage point short.
The tally gave the Conservatives 112,710 – 25% of the vote – putting them on course for three seats.
Labour were running second, with 99,555 votes and many traditional strongholds still to declare, and the likelihood of two seats.
Ukip was close behind, with 68,340, and the Liberal Democrats had 60,315, guaranteeing the parties a seat each.
The BNP were on 39,352 and the Greens 36,260, leaving the battle for the eighth seat between either of them and Ukip.
“It’s on a knife-edge here in the North West,” Griffin said.
“We are on tenterhooks, but we’ve done well in Liverpool and over in Yorkshire, especially in Barnsley.”
Turnout in the North West was 31.9%, with the biggest population centres of Manchester and Liverpool well down at 24% and 27% respectively.
More people voted in smaller areas targeted by the BNP, including Burnley – where the party won a Lancashire county council seat last week – but other parties benefited.
In both Burnley and its second target area, Pendle, in the Lancashire Pennines, the BNP was pushed into fifth place behind the Liberal Democrats, Labour, the Conservatives and Ukip.
But it pushed the Liberals into third place in Hyndburn and Blackpool and only dropped below 1,000 votes in a handful of the counting areas.
Earlier, Griffin had suggested that his party might pick up two North West seats, with its candidates polling an average of 13.1% in last week’s county council elections.
The Liberal Democrats’ lone MEP for the North West, Chris Davies, warned against counting the BNP out of the running.
The BNP polled 6.4% in the North West at the last European elections, in 2004, but the threshold has risen since then with the loss of one MEP.
European Union expansion has reduced the region’s tally of seats from nine – made up, for the last term, of four Conservatives, three Labour, one Liberal Democrat and one Ukip.
Anti-BNP protesters have stopped the party’s leader Nick Griffin from entering Euro election count in Manchester.
Placard waving demonstrators surrounded a number of cars – one of which was thought to be carrying Mr Griffin – when they arrived at Manchester Town Hall.
The cars, one of which apparently had a window broken, drove away without anyone getting out.
Several dozen protesters had gathered outside the town hall to await the count.
Mr Griffin is hoping to become the far-right BNP’s first MEP in the EU-wide election.
Small crowds of noisy demonstrators had gathered around both entrances to the Town Hall.
There was also a large police presence.
A Manchester City Council spokeswoman said: “Nick Griffin has been driven away to avoid the protests that they have set up at both entrances.
“He drove to one and could not get in then went to the other one and then was driven away.”
The protesters were carrying “Don’t Vote BNP” banners and chanting “BNP is the Nazi Party”.
The council spokeswoman said another attempt would be made to get Mr Griffin into the building.
She said: “Griffin, as one of the MEP candidates, will have to gain access to the Town Hall at some point for the count.”
The house in Burnopfield where Ian Davison was arrested
ANTI-TERROR police were last night questioning a North-East father and son arrested on suspicion of involvement with a white supremacist group.
Ian and Nicky Davison were arrested after officers carried out raids at their homes at about 5am yesterday.
The pair are suspected of being involved with a racist far right organisation.
Police sealed off the home of Ian Davison, at Myrtle Grove, in Burnopfield, County Durham, as they conducted a search of the property. His car was also removed for forensic analysis.
Detectives said last night the raids were part of a long-running operation designed to disrupt extremist groups operating in the UK.
Neighbours told of their shock after the arrest of the 41- year-old former lorry driver.
His next-door neighbour, a father- of-two, said: “The police woke me going into the house at 5am. I heard a commotion and thought there was a fight.
“I looked out and saw the police going in. I heard a lot of banging and shouting but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“I saw a couple of police officers by the front gate and one around the back. Another was looking in the garden bin.
“I have seen about 25 police officers coming and going with all the forensics.
“My neighbour’s car, a white Metro, was taken away by the specialist recovery unit.
“In his back yard, the forensic team moved his motorbike out and lots of junk from his shed.”
A 25-year-old woman, who lives nearby, said: “I thought he was a nice fella.
“We talked sometimes, but he was quiet.
“From the sort of person he seemed to be, I didn’t think he would hurt a fly.”
Mr Davison was detained on suspicion of offences under the Terrorism Act 2000 and is being questioned by Durham officers and the North-East Counter Terrorism Unit at a police station in West Yorkshire.
Stuart Slater, 19, of Maple Terrace, also expressed his surprise at the drama.
He said: “When I saw the police outside the gate I thought there had been a murder or something.
“People get on around here, and it is a nice quiet place.
There is never normally any trouble.
“It is mad to think of this sort of thing happening on your doorstep.”
Milkman Nicky Davison, 18, was arrested at Grampian Court, Annfield Plain, on suspicion of inciting racial hatred. He was taken to Consett police station for questioning.
The teenager lives at the property with his mother, two brothers and a sister.
Chief Inspector Stu Exley said he could not give details of the nature of the activity the Davisons were suspected of being involved in, or the name of the extremist group.
He said: “There is no specified or identified threat.
“We are nipping things in the bud before anything does escalate further. We are trying to respond in a proactive manner.
“There were no identified groups targeted and no specified threats. But it is the white supremacist kind of rightwing extremism.”
Chief Insp Exley said there was no connection to the upcoming European elections.
He added: “We are just following inquiries that have been going on for several months.”
BNP members Barry Bennett (left) and Lee Barnes (right)
Prominent members of the British National party are today revealed as Nazi-sympathisers and racists with abhorrent views on such diverse issues as teenage violence, David Beckham and even David Cameron’s deceased son, Ivan.
The revelations undermine the party’s attempts to paint itself in a more moderate light before the local and European elections and threaten to derail the electoral ambitions of its leader, Nick Griffin, who is standing as a prospective MEP.
At a time when BNP activists are claiming a surge in support in the polls, a reflection, they say, of mounting public outrage over MPs’ expenses, the party has been keen to portray itself as a viable alternative to mainstream political parties.
The BNP website boasts that money is flooding into its campaign headquarters. Its administration consultant, Jim Dowson, claims the party’s call centre alone received just under 12,000 calls in the first 15 minutes following the BNP’s first national television broadcast. And in emails to supporters – or “patriots” as the BNP calls them – Griffin claims almost £400,000 has been stumped up by supporters to help fund the party’s European election campaign.
It claims the apparent groundswell in support is down to the “British public waking from the long, deep sleep”. Much of the BNP’s recent success has been down to its ability to shake off the patina of far-right extremism that has alienated most voters since its inception. But this month the veneer slipped when it emerged that a Salford-based BNP candidate in the European elections had set his Facebook status to read “Wogs go home”. Eddy O’Sullivan, 49, wrote: “They are nice people – oh yeah – but can they not be nice people in the fucking Congo or… bongo land or whatever?” O’Sullivan, who also joined an internet group called “Fuck Islam”, denied that the comments were racist and insisted they were made in private conversations between individuals. “I also may have had a drink at the time,” he added.
Amid the furore, the BNP’s leaders promised an investigation into O’Sullivan’s comments. The party’s officials also circulated urgent emails urging its members that “particular care should be taken when making comments on chat forums and other sites such as Facebook. Do not make the mistake of thinking that comments posted on these sites are secret or hidden. Making inappropriate comments on these sites will be regarded as a very serious disciplinary offence. Please ensure that this message is passed quickly to all members in your area and that it is acted upon. We are entering a very critical time in our party’s history and cannot afford careless and stupid talk that can undermine the hard work of our activists.”
But the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight has spent months infiltrating the far right’s network of websites and chatrooms and found that many BNP activists share O’Sullivan’s views.
They include:
• Jeffrey Marshall, senior organiser for the BNP’s London European election campaign. Following the death of David Cameron’s disabled son Ivan, Marshall claimed in an internet forum discussion: “We live in a country today which is unhealthily dominated by an excess of sentimentality towards the weak and unproductive. No good will come of it.”
Later, in response to comments made by others on the site, Marshall is alleged to have written: “There is not a great deal of point in keeping these people alive after all.” He said the comments were private and some had been paraphrased and taken out of context. He admitted making the former comment, but said he could not recall making the latter one in an email to the forum, a copy of which is in the Observer’s possession.
• Garry Aronsson, Griffin’s running mate for the European parliament in the North West, posts an avatar on his personal web page featuring a Nazi SS death’s head alongside the statement, “Speak English Or Die!” Aronsson proclaims on the site: “Every time you change your way of life to make immigrants more comfortable you betray OUR future!” He lists his hobbies as “devising slow and terrible ways of paying back the Guardian-reading cunts who have betrayed the British people into poverty and slavery. I AM NOT JOKING.”
• Barry Bennett, MEP candidate for the South West, posted several years ago under a pseudonym in a white supremacist forum the bizarre statement that “David Beckham is not white, he’s a black man.” Bennett, who is half-Jewish according to the BNP’s deputy leader, Simon Darby, continued: “Beckham is an insult to Britishness, and I’m glad he’s not here.” He added: “I know perfectly respectable half-Jews in the BNP… even Hitler had honorary Aryans who were of Jewish descent… so whatever’s good enough for Hitler’s good enough for me. God rest his soul.”
• Russ Green, MEP candidate for the West Midlands, posted recently on Darby’s web page: “If we allowed Indians, Africans, etc to join [the BNP], we would become the ‘British multi-National party’ … and I really do hope that never happens!” Darby said he echoed Green’s sentiments.
• Dave Strickson, a BNP organiser who helps run its eastern region European election campaign, carried on his personal “Thurrock Patriots” blog a recent report of the fatal stabbing of a teenager in east London beneath the words “Another teen stabbed in Coon Town”. The site also carried a mock-up racist version of the US dollar entitled “Obama Wog Dollar”. Darby said the BNP did not endorse these comments and described them as “beyond the pale”.
When confronted in the past about the extreme views of some of its members, the BNP senior hierarchy has often tried to dismiss them as unrepresentative of the party’s core membership. But it appears that they run right to the top of the party.
Lee Barnes, the BNP’s senior legal officer and one of Griffin’s closest allies, has posted a video on his personal blog of a black suspect being beaten by police officers in the US and describes it as “brilliant”. Barnes adds: “The beating of Rodney King still makes me laugh.”
Barnes told the Observer his comments were “nothing to do with colour” but were merely a reflection of his belief that the police should have more powers to punish perpetrators of crime by “giving them a good thrashing”.
But anti-fascist groups said such comments portrayed the BNP in its true light. “This is the face of the modern BNP,” said a spokesman for Searchlight. “The comments of Nick Griffin’s candidates and officials are sickening beyond belief. They have tried to hide their agenda of racism and hate from the voters, and they have failed.”
Separately, concerns exist about the historic links between the BNP and extremist groups. Gary Pudsey, a BNP organiser running the Yorkshire and Humber campaign, was once a regular at National Front meetings. A young Pudsey was also photographed with the late Max Waegg, a Nazi second world war pilot who wrote articles for the white supremacist magazine Spearhead
Martin Page is a BNP treasurer and his wife Kim is a senior fundraiser for the party. Both have been photographed alongside Benny Bullman, the lead singer of Whitelaw, the white supremacist band whose songs include Fetch the Noose, We’re Coming for You and For White Pride.
And Dowson, the BNP’s senior administrator, who appears on the party’s website talking about the success of its call centre’s fundraising activities, has also been dogged by allegations that he has enjoyed close relationships with hardline loyalist groups in the past. The 45-year-old has also been the public face of the LifeLeague, the militant anti-abortion group that has hijacked Britain’s pro-life debate. He has regularly appeared on television to pronounce terminations a sin and has published the names of abortion clinic staff, placing many in fear for their personal safety.
That the BNP has become a magnet for extreme-right sympathisers is understandable given Griffin’s own background. The Cambridge graduate was himself a member of the NF before going on to form the International Third Position, a neo-fascist organisation with links to the Italian far right.
But aware of the party’s need to raise funds from middle England, Griffin has repeatedly attempted to portray his party as the “reasonable” face of patriotism in its bid to broaden its appeal. The approach has paid dividends, with the party having gained 55 seats on local councils, including a seat on the Greater London Authority. This June it is contesting every UK seat at the European elections and there have been predictions it could win overall control of Stoke City Council.
Darby, Griffin’s deputy and the BNP’s spokesman, accused Searchlight of “distorting the BNP’s message” in a bid to derail its political ambitions. He accused the organisation of being “merely a front for the Labour party, paid for by National Lottery funds”. Darby said: “When you put it in the context of what’s been happening at Westminster, a few scribblings on Facebook hardly seems something to get worried about.”
