NIGEL FARAGE, the valiant champion of British liberties and freedom of speech, has complained to police about a remark made on the BBC satirical news programme 'Have I Got News for You', claiming it breached the 1983 Representation of the People Act. 

Since our Nige ("I'm just an ordinary bloke") had previously been upset about a spoof game made by schoolkids featuring a character called Nicholas Fromage, we needn't be surprised that he takes such things seriously, though it appears the Old Bill have decided they had better things to do.

What upset him this time was a remark by Sunday Times journalist and HIGNFY panellist Camilla Long, who had been challenged as to how well she knew the South Thanet area about which she 'd been disparaging. The panellist replied that she had been there more often than the UKIP leader, who is standing for election in South Thanet.  “By the time I arrived there he’d only been a few times,” she said.  

Farage complains that the BBC has not given his campaign in South Thanet enough coverage. For once I agree.  The other evening the Beeb did broadcast a clip about it, starting with a woman shouting at Farage, showing some drab seaside street, and giving a few locals' comments.  All pretty tame, inadequate, and disappointing.

By contrast here's what a young woman in Broadstairs reported last Saturday (April 25):

"I'm just back from canvassing leafletting etc where we were attacked by far right thugs shouting out support for UKIP as well as other abuse. This was witnessed by many people at Broadstairs sea front. The Police have interviewed us. The Thanet Stand Up To UKIP (SUTU) campaign had just packed up their stall when we were attacked by members of an organisation called South East Alliance, a breakaway group from the extreme right wing English Defence League.

The police were called but the attackers vanished.This followed remarks made by Nigel Farage at the meeting in Broadstairs Pavilion I went to last night in which he singled out and criticised Thanet SUTU as a local organisation vocally opposing UKIP. The same right wing thugs who attacked the Thanet SUTU stall were also there at the UKIP meeting. Farage should have known his remarks could be inflammatory. Labour party canvassers were also attacked. What can I say? "

We'd heard before about Britain First offering its services to UKIP, and a team of its heavies gatecrashed a meeting of UKIP's opponents in London as a reprisal for them staging a protest stunt at Farage's local.  But it seems the Far Right enthusiasts for Farage turning up in Thanet South go under a variety of labels, judging from a report in last week's Mail on Sunday.  

Nigel Farage was at the centre of fresh controversy last night after National Front members turned up to campaign for him in the South Thanet constituency.

The row started after a group of far-Right supporters calling themselves the East Kent English Patriots supported Mr Farage at an event in Broadstairs on Friday evening.

 They were led by Gary Field, a former regional organiser for the English Defence League, and enjoyed the protection of Ukip’s security teams, which encircled the Broadstairs Pavilion.

Mr Field, who has a criminal record for assault, drank beers behind the cordon with fellow members of his group and gestured to onlookers as a crowd waited for Mr Farage’s arrival.

Yesterday, Mr Farage’s Labour opponent in South Thanet, Will Scobie, claimed a group of his campaigners had been attacked by National Front members chanting for Ukip in Broadstairs late on Friday.

When Mr Farage realised that Mr Field and his supporters had been seen by this newspaper on Friday evening, he moved quickly to disown them, saying: ‘Members of an extremist group today arrived at a Ukip public meeting at the same time as a Mail on Sunday camera arrives.’

Mr Farage’s comments triggered a war of words with the patriots group, which immediately posted a message saying: ‘We went to Ukip meeting with members of Kent NF and after the meeting Nigel Farage went on Twitter saying we have far right extremists here... the question is nig, do you want our vote or not?’

.....

Shortly after the incident, Mr Field posted offensive messages about Mr Scobie, writing: ‘Will scobie you are a liebour [sic] paedo supporting ponse you won’t beat ukip in south thanet you dirty little scummy traitor.’ He added: ‘I have the lynx effect on lefties.’

Mr Field was tagged in 2013 for breaching a community service order after being found guilty of assault.

A Ukip spokesman said: ‘We don’t know who Gary Field is, and therefore we have no responsibility for the actions he takes or the events that he attends. We have made our stance on extremist groups clear. We have no truck with them. End of.’

If UKIP takes no responsibility for Gary Field and the "extremists" whom it attracts, maybe it will at least acknowledge its own members. Like the councillors it has in Great Yarmouth.

David Braniff-Herbert, a trade union activist and gay rights campaigner was in the east coast resort organising leafletters for the anti-racist campaign group Hope Not Hate, which had booked a town centre hall for them to meet. He was in the centre at around 11am when a volunteer informed him that two people were outside taking photos.

“They’re in a car – two UKIP councillors,” the volunteer told him. “They’re taking pictures of the people as they’re leaving with the leaflets.” This was, he said, an intimidation tactic usually employed by far-right parties. Braniff-Herbert said he then asked the people in the car to stop, but they did not do so, so he responded by taking pictures of the car and the people in i

Told that another UKIP councillor had entered the hall, David went back in and challenged the man.
“I said, ‘I think you should leave,and he said, ‘Well what are you doing?’ and I said, ‘Well, we’re campaigning against UKIP, so it’s not worth you being here.’”

The conversation became increasingly hostile, with David Branff-Herbert accusing the UKIP councillor of trying to intimidate people, and the councillor, Tom Andrews telling him to "fuck off" and slapping him in the face.

Later Great Yarmouth police confirmed that they had detained the 73-year old UKIP member and released him with a caution for minor assault. UKIP said its member had gone into the hall on other business, nothing to do with the campaign.

And so to Hayes, in Middlesex, or outer west London, where I had to go on entirely non-political business on a fine sunny day yesterday, rounding off my visit by repairing to a local hostelry for a lamb rogan josh and pint of ale.

Overheard behind me, a couple were discussing their difficulties with social security, and turning to the topic of the general election, the woman opined that if "this lot", i.e. the government got back in, they would make things worse. "They say they will cut spending on benefits, but they won't say where they'll make the cuts".

To this not unreasonable observation the bloke with her, who did not sound in the best of health, said that he was undecided how to vote. He had previously voted National Front, but they were not standing this time. "They say to vote UKIP, because that's the next best thing".

Not wishing to spoil the lunch I'd just enjoyed or linger longer than I need, having finished my pint, I did not turn to ask the poor patriot what UKIP might do for benefit claimants (Farage has said there are too many claiming disabled benefit, and complained the Tories were "hamstrung" in their welfare 'reforms'), but left to catch my bus. 

 Sure enough, I see the National Front is not standing in Hayes and Harlington constituency, nor is the British National Party, which gained about 1,500 votes there in 2010. But Cliff Dixon, who stood last time for the English Democrats, a right-wing nationalist party said to have been swelled by a number of disgruntled BNP supporters, and gained 464 votes, is now the candidate for UKIP.

Not that I suppose Labour's John McDonnell, whose posters adorn several premises in the centre of Hayes besides the Party HQ, has much to worry about. His vote in 2010 was 23,377 (54.8%), almost twice that of his Tory rival; and though John's health has not been good in recent years, his political vitality and standing seems as strong as ever.

Labels: BBC, Fascists, UKIP

JOSHUA BONEHILL-PAINE.   Will he come to London if not 'otherwise detained'?



IT had to happen some time, I suppose.

After all the excitement over murders in Paris, with Home Secretary Theresa May and local government minister Eric Pickles requiring mosques to prove they belong, and various bigots and provocateurs claiming to protect our freedom,  a publicity-seeking young man from Yeovil in Somerset has tried to give the theme a twist by declaring his intention of coming to "liberate" Stamford Hill in north London from Orthodox religious Jews.

 Announcing his plans on a Facebook page which has since been taken down, 22-year old Joshua Bonehill, aka 'Liberate Stamford Hill', claimed that the religious community's Shomrim (watchmen) protecting synagogues were dressed as police, and enforcing "talmudic law" on the streets, and "white people" who ventured forth were spat upon.  ( I guess that means the many black people in the area are safe, or Mr.Bonehill is not concerned what happened to them).

In case anyone was too thick to grasp what this was really about (it's not religious restriction and it is certainly not "Zionism",though some comments kept on about that),  Bonehill said he was protesting the  "Jewification of Great Britain", and illustrated this with caricatured Jews with very long noses. He said he was calling a demonstration on March 22, had asked the police to close off several roads, and that the march would finish with a rally on Clapton Common.

His announcement came on January 30, a few days after Holocaust Memorial Day,marking the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.  It also comes as the Oxford Union has invited
the French National Front leader Marine Le Pen. French racists have a tradition of even-handed hatred against Muslims and Jews.

The online Hackney Citizen,  which quoted Bonehill describing himself as a "proud antisemite", says "He is a member of the far-right National Action party. He has previously supported the Conservative party, then the United Kingdom Independence Party, and the British National Party".  Bonehill tried to organise a march in Cardiff last year under the name National British Resistance Party.

He has claimed ten 'nationalist' organisations would support his march, though doubters suggest he will be lucky to get ten individuals, and he might just mean he is a member of all ten.  Whatever the reality behind his boasts, local people and organisations have promised a hostile reception if he shows his face.

Hackney Council has said it is committed to stopping the march from taking place in the borough’s parks. Deputy Mayor, Cllr Sophie Linden said:  “This is completely at odds with the long and proud history we have in Hackney of our diverse communities working and living together.

“Any attempt like this, by an individual from outside Hackney, to fracture our communities and create division through anti-Semitism is unacceptable and has no place in our borough. We are in contact with the police to urge them to ensure this divisive march does not go ahead and we certainly would not allow it to take place in one of our parks.”

“In the meantime, I have spent today talking to members of our local community and I am unequivocal that we won’t tolerate any activity in Hackney which seeks to stir up racial hatred or which is intended to frighten and intimidate people.”

Hackney Councillor Michael Desmond called the plans “a pathetic attempt to cause strife in an otherwise peaceful neighbourhood”.

The group Hackney Stand Up To Racism said: “”We are shocked that a far right group calling itself the National British Resistance is planning to hold an anti-Jewish rally on 22 March in the Stamford Hill/Clapton area, under the grotesque banner of ‘Liberate Stamford Hill’… We ask that people in Hackney are vigilant and prepared to mobilise on 22 March.”

http://www.hackneyhive.co.uk/index/2015/02/white-supremacist-joshua-bonehill-picked-wrong-borough/

http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2015/02/02/public-outcry-against-plans-for-stamford-hill-anti-jewish-rally/

One reason people are inclined to take Bonehill's proclamations with a sizeable helping of salt is that at 22 he has already plenty of form.  Last year on April25 the BBC Leicestershire reported:

'Moronic' hoaxer Joshua Bonehill-Paine spared jail

A "moronic" hoaxer who claimed a pub had banned military personnel to avoid offending the immigrant population has been given a community order.

The Globe, in Leicester, had to close temporarily after people threatened to firebomb the premises and kill or assault staff.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine invented the claims on his website the Daily Bale.

The unemployed 21-year-old must do 180 hours of unpaid work after admitting a charge of malicious communication.

Bonehill-Paine, of Hudson Road, Yeovil, will also be supervised by the probation service for two years.

He has described himself as "a rising star of the right-wing community".

He appeared at Yeovil Magistrates' Court wearing a union flag tie and accompanied by his mother.
The Globe's Facebook page The Globe defended itself on Facebook after the hoax spread on social media

In mitigation, Bonehill-Paine claimed he targeted the pub because he wrongly believed the landlord had been involved in an online hate campaign against him.

The magistrates told Bonehill-Paine he was on the cusp of a custodial sentence, but gave him a community sentence after taking his mitigation into account.

Graham Cluley, an independent computer security analyst, told the BBC that the Daily Bale is "utterly irresponsible and frankly moronic".

Bonehill-Paine and the Daily Bale have been responsible for other false claims published online.

Last year his website created a hoax missing person poster, claiming a six-year-old girl had been "kidnapped by an Asian grooming gang".

The hoax poster went on to be shared thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter, with many people believing the claim to be true.

Another article posted on the website in September falsely claimed an Asian youth had punched a two-month-old baby twice in the face, then thrown the infant against a brick wall in Middlesbrough. It contained a graphic photo of an injured baby.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-27161419

Oddly, this was not the first time the beaks had sentenced Bonehead to community service.

A former public schoolboy and Conservative Party member, magistrates sentenced him to a 12 month community order involving 100 hours' unpaid work and supervision by the probation service, following an incident on 11th March 2011 in which he broke into a police station in Chard, Somerset using his Conservative Party membership card, after being kicked out of a hotel for drunkenness. Bonehill-Paine kicked out when efforts were made to arrest him, assaulting two officers in the process. Bonehill-Paine also pleaded guilty to criminal damage to a flower bed in Preston Road, Yeovil, on 30th March 2011. He was found guilty of the offences of burglary, assault and criminal damage.[5][6]

In 2013, Bonehill announced plans to lead a "Stand Strong" march in Woolwich, a month after the murder of Lee Rigby, describing it as a protest against "extremism, terrorism and oppression".

(Wikipedia)

In September 2014, Bonehill announced that he was in the process of registering a political party in Yeovil, called the National British Resistance party. He described it as having "ambitions to replace the British National Party and gain mainstream support", with the intention of contesting elections in 2015. (ibid)

Not one to pass an opportunity for spreading alarm, Bonehill ran an exclusive on his website about a 32-year old Somali called Jamal Malouf with Ebola disease disappearing in Leicestershire. That would be quite a story, considering Somalia is the other side of Africa, about 4,000 miles from the areas of the Ebola outbreak. But it seems the reason Malouf was able to disappear so easily was that he never appeared in  the first place except on Bonehill's website.
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/if-it-wasnt-already-painfully-obvious-this-is-a-racehate-hoax--lyHqhLYt8g 

Tesco supermarkets on the other hand are  real, and that's why Bonehill is due in court in St.Albans this week, charged under S.38 of the Public Order Act 1986,  the "contamination of goods", for publishing an article on his website suggesting that fruit and vegetables from Tesco could be infected with Ebola. The offence carries a maximum 10 year sentence.

While  I doubt whether that's what he'll get, he could be unable to make it for that demonstration in Stamford Hill on March 22.  Announcing it in advance might be one way of presenting himself as some kind of leader, and confusing people about the reason he's in trouble. Or it could be a way of diverting attention from the anti-racism march through central London scheduled for 21 March, commemorating the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
This is receiving trade union backing. Hopefully we will not see a repetition of the disgraceful episode in 1949 when a threatened march by Oswald Mosley was the pretext for a blanket ban affecting the May Day march in London,using the Public Order Act. That was by a Labour Home Secretary.    

Meanwhile, in Golders Green...

If you want to keep and develop fairly good relations between different communities, the last people you'd want around are Britain First, an offshoot from the British National Party, founded by its former fundraiser after he'd made his name amid the flag-waving riots of  Belfast.

Since mounting its Special Brew Patrols in east London, and march ing on a kebab shop in Cricklewood because it thought the Muslim Brotherhood had its headquarters in the flat above, Britain First has come up with a new gimmick. It is apparently offering to patrol the streets of Golders Green, in north-west London, and protect Jewish people.

Some trusting souls unaware of the BF's background may think this a nice,albeit unnecessary gesture. The Community Security Trust (CST), which already handles security for Jewish premises and events, is not so naive, and is advising people to have nothing to do with Britain First.

For once there's some agreement, on that at least, between the CST and the Jewish Socialists' Group, which has issued a public statement:     

Labels: Fascists, Jews, London, racism

REMEMBERED.  Blair Peach, above, and on union banner

It is thirty years since Margaret Thatcher's government unleahed the police on Britain's miners, and two films now going around, 'Pride' and 'Still the Enemy Within' recall that year of struggle. 

"The Enemy Within" was of course the expression Thatcher used about the miners, and  we now know she intended to use it about the miners and the Labour movement in a public speech if the IRA Brighton bomb had not caused a slight change of plans.  Seems ironic that Thatcher had been briefed this way about Neil Kinnock and his advisers, while Kinnock was listening to those who said the working class and its struggles were over.

http://the-enemy-within.org.uk/the-film-3/

Thatcher is dead, but the struggle against the forces she represented goes on. The exposure of how police, press and prime minister lied about Hillsborough has spurred the demand for truth about the Battle of Orgreave.   'Still the Enemey Within'  challenges us to look again at our past so that in the words of one miner, “we can still seek to do something about the future”. 

In 'Who Killed Blair Peach?', David Renton takes up the thread of politics, police brutality and lies from the past, not thirty but thirty five years ago, to be precise, St.George's Day, April 23, 1979, just over a week before the general election which brought Thatcher's Tory government in.
James Callaghan, former Home Secretary, and before that Parliamentary Adviser to the Police Federation, was still prime minister.  Merlyn Rees was Home Secretary.  In Southall, west London, an area whose large population of Asian origin had become used to fighting off racist attacks,  the far-right National Front had booked the town hall for a meeting.

People had tried petitioning the authorities to stop the National Front coming to Southall. On the Sunday, April 22,  5,000 people marched on Ealing town hall with a petition signed by 10,000 urging the local authority to deny the NF the use of council premises.  When the protesters encountered a bunch of young white racists shouting abuse, police arrested a young Asian lad who'd sworn back at the racists.

On Monday, April 23,  many shops and businesses on Southall High street closed for the afternoon,  and several factories in the area were also shut by workers walking out to join the protest against the fascists.  People thought they could block the streets to stop the NF reaching the town hall.  Anti-fascists, supporters of the Anti-Nazi League from other parts of London were coming to reinforce them.

But the police, several thousand of them, with armoured vehicles and including members of the Special Patrol Group, took control of the centre of Southall. 

Blair Peach, a New Zealander teaching in a special needs school in London's East End, elected president of the East London Teachers Association in 1978, a member of the Socialist Workers Party and active anti-racist, had gone to Southall that evening with a group of friends.   As the police forced a way through the crowd for a bus carrying the National Fronters, he found himself among demonstrators pushed into a side street, Beachcroft Avenue, police coming after them. This offered no chance to retreat much further or disperse, as it only led into  Orchard Avenue and then back onto the Broadway.

Several people saw Blair hit on the back of his head by  a policeman, in Orchard Avenue.  He slumped to the ground.  A family who found him outside their house, dazed and injured, took him inside, to lie on their sofa, and phoned for an ambulance.  In hospital Blair was taken into intensive care, but  despite surgery he died at 12.30 a,m on April 24, as a result of a fractured skull.

How Blair Peach was killed, and who by, is not a secret.  On the day before his funeral his body lay in state at the Dominion cinema in Southall, and thousands queued to pay their respects.  In the years since people have commemorated his life and campaigned for justice for Blair Peach.  Yet in these same years the deployment of fully-equipped riot police has become common, the police have acquired more gear and greater powers, and they have claimed more victims.

As Susan Matthews, the mother of injured student demonstrator Alfie Meadows, writes in an introduction to this pamphlet, "... when I spoke live to the BBC World at One on 10 December 2010 after a night spent waiting to discover whether emergency brain surgery had saved the life of my 20-year old son, I found myself speaking about the death of Blair Peach".
Yet an inquest on Blair Peach in May 1980 reached a verdict of "death by misadventure".

Dave Rention came into anti-racist politics in his youth, the days of Rock Against Racism, and was impressed by the Battle of Lewisham. But Dave is also a barrister, and I'd say a good one, judging by the way I saw him demolish the representatives of a major construction company, in a test blacklisting case.

Besides carefully assembling the facts about what happened in Southall with the help of witnesses, he skilfully takes apart that 1980 inquest.  First, there was the reluctance of the coroner. John Burton, to have a jury hear the case, something only obtained in the Court of Appeal. Then there was his blatant bias, shown by constantly interrupyimg those acting for Blair Peach's family or the Anti-Nazi League, and his later memo to the Home Office  claiming the National Front and the police were blameless, and Asian witnesses were unreliable.

Above all,  neither Burton  nor the police, whose representatives cross-examined witnesses, disclosed the police's own  Cass report,which would have backed what those witnesses were saying, and made nonsense of Burton's assertion that blaming police was an "extreme" theory, on a par with suggesting one of the demonstrators might have killed Peach to make him a martyr.

It was not until April, 2010,  that Commander Cass' report was published. The officer makes clear he had little sympathy for Blair Peach's suppoters, saying his funeral had been  "akin to a political demonstration with left-wing political elements most prominent". But his report goes on to describe how police  in vehicles had gone into Beachcroft Avenue in pursuit of demonstrators, how SPG officers had dismounted to attack people, and how a Professor Bowen who carrried out the initial post-mortem thought Peach might have been struck with a police radio.  Though inclined to be skeptical about civilian witnesses - more than a dozen of whom had seen police striking Blair Peach, Cass accepts that Mrs.Balwant Atwal had given an accurate account of what she saw.   He concluded "it is now obvious that the officers concerned were Special Patrol Group".

Perusing the reports by Commander Cass and his team,  Dave Renton shows how an Inspector Murray of the SPG had left his vehicle at exactly the spot where Mrs.Atwal saw an officer strike Blair Peach. This officer initially lied about  it, and he further troubled Cass  by  having had a row with TV crew further along the road.   "Officer E was not as cool as he should have been , and the strain was showing. ...he has not given a credible account of his movements, and it s disturbing."

 On June 1 , 1980, having resigned from the Metropolitan Police, Inspector Murray gave an interview to the Sunday Times, in which he referred to the Southall demonstrators as the "loony left". and said the protest had promised to be a "tasty one". Boasting how he  and  his mates had been able to act on their own initiative, he reckoned he could always spot the ringleaders and "nasties" in a crowd.

Nobody who knew Blair Peach would recognise anything nasty or violent about the quiet New Zealander who worked patiently with vulnerable children.

Whereas we can recognise  a recurrent pattern of nastiness such as led to Blair Peach's death and the dishonesty of the inquest. In 2009 Ian Tomlinson was struck down by an officer of the Territorial Support Group, the successor to the SPG, during the G20 protests. Though this time the inquest recorded a verdict of unlawful killing, the officer was acquitted. In the case of student Alfie Meadows, a story was put around that he was hit a lump of concrete thrown by a fellow protestor, though there was no evidence for this.

From kettling to declaring protests illegal, police seem to keep discovering new powers for themselves on top of those they are given by parliament. 

As for new toys, they have tasers, and in July the Met received its first water cannon.

Dave Rention, and Defend the Right to Protest, believe that demanding a new, proper inquest  into the death of Blair Peach is important, not only for upholding Blairs memory, and forestalling any attempts to befog the truth and revise history, but to raise awareness and consciousness about the threat to our rights today.

Who Killed Blair Peach by David Renton, is available for £2.60 (inc. post and packing) from Defend the Right to Protest.
http://www.defendtherighttoprotest.org/who-killed-blair-peach-buy-now/

Further reading
http://www.defendtherighttoprotest.org/

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/03/thatcher-labour-miners-enemy-within-brighton-bomb

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/apr/27/blair-peach-killed-police-met-report

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n10/david-renton/the-killing-of-blair-peach

Labels: Books and Writers, Fascists, police, racism

Labels: Eastern Europe., Fascists, Jews, London, Poland

ERICA AND HUGH DUGGAN fighting for truth and justice for their son.

ERICA Duggan, whose son Jeremiah was found dead by the autobahn outside Wiesbaden in Germany after he attended a supposed peace conference in that city, in March 2003, has released a video of herself speaking outside the German embassy, where she had gone to accuse Chancellor Angela Merkel of complicity in a cover-up over Jeremiah's death. 

Earlier in the day on May 28, Mrs.Duggan had given evidence at a pre-inquest review in Barnet, accusing German police of institutional racism in their refusal to investigate fully the circumstances of Jeremiah's death, including the likelihood that he was murdered.

Jeremiah, aged 22, had been studying at the Sorbonne, in Paris. In 2003, worried about the world situation and the build-up to war on Iraq, he bought a copy of the paper Nouvelle Solidarite from a regular seller, and they discussed the imminent US-led assault. Jeremiah agreed to attend an anti-war conference hosted by the Schiller Institute in Germany.

What he probably did not know was that both Nouvelle Solidarite and the Schiller Institute were fronts for the political cult led by Lyndon LaRouche, a one-time American leftist who veered sharply to the Right. After acquiring a name for organising violent attacks on genuine left-wing groups in the States, and serving a prison sentence for fraud, La Rouche seems also to have acquired influential friends and considerable funds.

Former members of the cult allege it used brainwashing techniques. But supporters' loyalty is reinforced by belief that their leader survives in defiance of conspiracies against him, which have at times involved the Queen and Raisa Gorbachev, familiar agencies like the CIA, MI6. and Mossad, and the Tavistock Institute for psychiatry, in London.

At the Wiesbaden conference, Jerry Duggan was reportedly perturbed by speakers blaming the threat of war and nuclear holocaust on the British and the Jews. "But I am a Jew!", he reportedly protested. He was still interested in attending a cadre school scheduled to follow the conference. But before that, something happened to make him 'phone home, and his girlfriend, telling her and his mother that he was "in big trouble" and desperately wanted out.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2004_48_mon_01.shtml

Within an hour of his terrified call to his mother, Jeremiah Duggan was dead. According to the version of events accepted by the German police, Jerry must have run three miles from where he had been staying, to the outskirts of Wiesbaden, then decided to take his own life by rushing out into the traffic. This was about 6am on March 27, 2003. An investigator hired by the Duggan family discovered the police had not even questioned the drivers of the two vehicles that were supposed to have hit the young man, nor made proper forensic examination of the vehicles or Jeremiah's clothes. He suggests Jerry was beaten up somewhere else, then taken to the autobahn where his body was found.

Rather than be eager for a full investigation, the La Rouchites have claimed Jeremiah was an unstable young man who committed suicide, and accused his mother of being party to a plot against them by the British Foreign Office and Tony Blair.

In fact, Erica Duggan has had little help from any authorities in her search for truth and justice for her son. After his phone call, mentioning Nouvel Solidarite, she called the police, who put her on to Scotland Yard, but they said they had never heard of it.  At an inquest in London in 2003 the court heard that a London Metropolitan Police memo described the LaRouche movement as "a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections." The coroner, Dr. William Dolman, accepted that Jeremiah had received fatal head injuries when he ran into the road and was hit by two cars, but added: "I really must add that he had earlier been in a state of terror. It is a word not commonly used in a Coroner's court but no other word would reflect his state of mind at the time."

Having obtained evidence that put the official explanation in further doubt, Erica Duggan and her family petitioned the Attorney General to let them approach the Higher Court for a second inquest. This was convened in June 2010. The court heard that Jeremiah may have been killed elsewhere, then the road accident staged to conceal this. It was also said that members of the LaRouche organisation might have decided Jeremiah was some kind of spy. The case was adjourned to let the Metropolitan Police make further inquiries. But their investigation does not appear to got very far.

Following the pre-inquest hearing on May 28, a full three day inquest has now been promised at North London Coroner's Court in February. But evidently Erica Duggan is not leaving it at that. By going to the German embassy and accusing Angela Merkel she is not only going for full publicity, but dragging out the whole question of the LaRouche organisation's real relations with the secret state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY4E8vXKROc#t=10

Racism Today?

Among interesting points emerging from Erica Duggan's statement is that although the place where Jeremiah Duggan's  body was found is some distance from the apartment where he had been staying with a LaRouchite couple in Wiesbaden, it is not so far from the offices of Executive Intelligence Review, the magazine published by the LaRouche organisation.

That brings me to another strange, if as yet tenuous, connection.

It's some time since I stopped bothering with the RT (Russia Today) television channel, partly because the brash novelty had worn off, but also because I got sick of UKIP leader Nigel Farage being introduced as the reasonable voice on events in Britain. Couldn't they persuade anyone else to come on?  This was before Farage became a regular feature on the BBC's Question Time.

In the current issue of Searchlight, the anti-fascist magazine, editor Gerry Gable remarks about some other guests of the RT channel. One is Paul Weston, leader of a UKIP breakaway called Liberty GB, who has also been linked with the anti-Islamic English Defence League(EDL). Another is Manuel Ochsenreiter, editor of Zuerst! , a right-wing German magazine.

  (Shortly after Zuerst! began publication in 2010,  workers for its distributor, Bauer Media, threatened to strike, refusing to handle a pro-Nazi magazine.After more inforation about Zuert! was exposed , Bauer decided to drop the publication).

"To cap it all", says Searchlight, "a leading LaRouchite appeared again, presented as an expert from the Executive Intelligence Review, which is Lyndon LaRouche's weeekly international news briefing".





 

Labels: Duggan, Fascists, Germany

IT was forty years ago, on June 15, 1974, that Warwick University student Kevin Gately was killed in the 'battle' of Red Lion Square.  He was a few days short of his 21st. birthday. No one has ever been found responsible for the killing.

That day the fascists of the National Front were marching to a meeting in Conway Hall, traditionally a venue for left-wing and progressive meetings. Just how the hall's owners, the humanist South Place Ethical Society, had been persuaded to let their premises to a bunch of racists, I don't know.
 
A crowd assembled to demonstrate against the National Front. Among the organisations taking part in this protest were Liberation (the former Movement for Colonial Freedom), the Communist Party, the International Socialists (who later became the Socialist Workers' Party), and the International Marxist Group (IMG), then a growing influence among students.

Kevin Gately, a second year maths student, was not a member of any of these organisations. But he was opposed to racism and fascism, and was persuaded to go on this, his first, demonstration, particularly when he heard his girl friend was going.

Besides the fascists and their left-wing opponents, another element was out in force that day, and probably better prepared, and equipped, to determine the outcome.  This was of course, the Metropolitan Police, including the elite Special Patrol Group, formed to deal with "serious public disorder".

.At some point there was disagreement among the organisers as to whether to chance a serious confrontation with the police. This was not Cable Street in 1936, when a working class population aware of what fascism was doing in Europe, and sick of Mosley's Blackshirts' activities in the east End, turned out to say "they shall not pass".  The students might adopt the same slogan, but did they really know what they were getting into?

By the end of the afternoon the debate might have seemed irrelevant. Groups of demonstrators were not only attacked by police, but found their retreat blocked by more police. A section of the anti-fascist demonstrators apparently led by the IMG had managed to get into Red Lion Square, hoping to deny the National Front access to Conway Hall, but were subjected to repeated charges by police. The Warwick students, some of whom were IMG members, were caught up in this. Among them, standing out by his height (6 foot) and red hair, could be seen Kevin Gately.  

Photos show Kevin moving through the crowd, apparently trying to get away from the crush of bodies at the front being shoved back and forth against the police cordon. Later, the Warwick students got away from the square and were returning to their bus when they noticed they were without Kevin. The clashes in Red Lion Square had only lasted a quarter of an hour, but after them a St.John ambulance crew found the Warwick student lying on the ground.

A student who went to University College Hospital was shown Kevin Gately's body and asked to identify him. A pathologist later confirmed that Kevin had died from a blood hemorrhage as a result of a blow to the head.  Some say his height above the crowd, and red hair, made him a target for police batons.  The Warwick student on his first demonstration was the first person in over half a century to be killed on a demonstration in Britain.

Five years later, on April 23, 1979, it was the turn of New Zealand born teacher Blair Peach, killed by a blow to the head in Southall. Eye witnesses said he had been attacked by members of the Special Patrol Group. Thirty years later, after much campaigning, the Metropolitan Police issued a report acknowledging its men had killed Blair Peach.


A painting in honour of Kevin Gately hangs in the student's union at Warwick. But though there was a demonstration over his death in the immediate aftermath, neither he nor the circumstances of his death have received much attention over the years.

An item in the current issue of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, part of an editorial by Gerry Gable, says "Like we still remember Blair Peach, so should we recall the unresolved death of young Kevin".

"Some claim it was from a lethal akido blow, a martial arts technique favoured by many riot squad officers", observes Gable, going on to regret that "Nobody appears to have pursued the idea that the blow may have been struck by one of the agents provocateur who were seen seen assaulting people on what was supposed to be their own side and pushing people under the hooves of the police horses."

Maybe the idea has not been pursued because these suggestions have not been aired before, or perhaps because applying Occam's Razor, if a simpler explanation appears to hand, namely that Kevin was killed by a blow from an unidentified police officer, there is no need to chase after more complicated explanations. These might be put out by a police source keen to confuse and divert any investigation of their direct role. It would not be the only time they used such tactics.

On the other hand, if Gerry Gable or anyone else has evidence that provocateurs were at work in or around Red Lion Square that day, this should be looked at, not as any kind of excuse for the police, but on the contrary, to fully expose the methods used by the state and what the game was.

Gerry mentions the inquiry conducted by Lord Scarman, which "failed to establish the circumstances of Kevin Gately's death".  But this was not the focus of Scarman's inquiry, which was to "review the events and actions which led to disorder in Red Lion Square, London, on 15 June, and to consider whether any lessons may be learned for the better maintenance of public order when demonstrations take place".  

The IMG held its own internal inquiry into the events in which its members had been involved that day. The late Bob Pennington and Gery Lawless took part in the proceedings, and IMG members who had been at Red Lion Square gave evidence. I don't know whether any of this was published, or whether any of the IMG's successor organisations (Socialist Resistance,Socialist Action, etc) have had anything to say on the matter.
 
Sadly, the anniversary of Kevin Gately's death seems to have passed without much in the way of commemoration, or comment.

For additional reading:
http://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/red-lion-square-and-the-death-of-kevin-gately/

Labels: Fascists, Left, police, students

A young friend in London has been excited to post a picture on Facebook of some Italians whom he says are going off to fight fascism in Ukraine. He naturally admires their bravery, and wonders if he could emulate it. In the discussion people evoke romantic memories of those from many countries who went to fight fascism in Spain.

Aside from the fact that the International Brigade fought on the side of the Spanish Republic against General Franco's right-wing Nationalists, whereas Ukraine has more than one right-wing nationalist side, and these Italians were rallying to the side of the Russians in Donetsk, my immediate thought was that it was a pity they felt they had to travel so far to fight against fascism, when Italy itself has some nasty violent fascists to be fought against.

My next was to feel sorry for these young militants. If they thought they were going to join genuine anti-fascists, democrats and comrades on the Left, they would find themselves under peculiar flags and with some strange comrades in arms.   We already know the antisemitic and anti-Roma Hungarian fascist party Jobbik supports the nationalist Russians, and besides the Polish group Falanja it seems the British National Party sympathises.

There have been genuine fears of Russian-speakers in the Ukraine, with bitter memories of World War II, seeing the rise of right-wing Ukrainian nationalists and fascists in Kiev. There is not unreasonable concern as to what the EU's promise of prosperity might really mean for the mining and steel industries of the Don Basin, with their Russian links, and for the public good. People have seen what was done to Greece.

The flames which murdered more than 40 people taking refuge in Odessa's house of trade unions, besieged by Ukrainian nationalists, on May 2, while police stood aside, must also have destroyed many people's hope for compromise, or faith in the protection they could expect from the 'moderate' Ukrainian state. 

But the thuggish Russian chauvinist Vladimir Zhirinovsky has been one of several  right-wing politicians out to exploit the conflict in Ukraine from the start.  The well-armed separatist militias look more like trained professionals than ordinary people defending their rights, and reportedly include mercenaries fetched from afar as well as Russian regulars unsure why they are there but having their orders. As for the supposed 'anti-fascists' who have sprung to prominence in Donetsk,
Western observers have found them at least as easy to point out as any fascists in Kiev.

Pavel Gubarev, the self-styled "people's governor" of Donetsk, was a member of the ultranationalist group Russian National Unity, whose symbol bears a disturbing resemblance to a swastika. 

The far-right paramilitary organization was founded in 1990 by nationalist leader Aleksandr Barkashov, and its members have been implicated in violent crimes against ethnic minorities and in the 2009 killings of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova.

Aleksandr Borodai, a Russian citizen who is the "prime minister" of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, was an editor and remains a contributor to the far-right -- and often anti-Semitic -- newspaper "Zavtra," founded by ultranationalist Aleksandr Prokhanov in the 1990s. The newspaper's website now serves as a recruiting platform for mercenaries fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Prokhanov, a fringe figure in the 1990s, has enjoyed a resurgence with the Ukrainian crisis, with his articles appearing regularly in the mass-circulation pro-Kremlin daily "Izvestia.'

The Donetsk People's Republic's self-styled "defense minister," Igor Girkin, aka "Strelkov," is also a contributor to "Zavtra"  Girkin, who Ukrainian authorities claim is an agent with the Russian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), also reportedly served as a mercenary in conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Transdniester, and Chechnya.

http://www.rferl.org/content/gangsters-and-fascists-and-separatists----oh-my/25411895.html 

I first came across the Russian journal Zavtra when researching the career of Israel Shamir, the Russian-born Israeli "dissident" who appears to have doubled as an antisemite called Joran Jermas in Sweden, but was also employed by the BBC Russian service before writing for Zavtra.  The British Holocaust revisionist David Irving says he turned down an offer of World War II documents from Shamir, acting for some Russian group, because he suspected they had been stolen. But Shamir has boasted former National Front leader Martin Webster as a friend.

Prokhanov of the Zavtra journal was responsible for inviting American white supremacist David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, to visit Russia. There's a lovely bunch of friends and comrades in this game.

But then this might not come as much surprise to the Italian "anti-fascist" group Millenium, which is rallying to the cause of Donetsk. Because it seems they are not genuine anti-fascists themselves, even if they had some wishful thinking leftists elsewhere fooled.
http://anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/italian-fascists-from-millennium-ally.html

Labels: Fascists, Russia, Ukraine

BRITAIN FIRST's Jim Dowson stirs the crowd in Belfast.
Daily Record, January 9, 2013 
WITH Tommy Robinson, aka Stephen Yaxley Lennon, having defected from the English Defence League (EDL) for greener pastures, and Nick Griffin of the British National Party (BNP) declaring himself bankrupt, who is likely to elbow their way to the front and take up the flag for Britain's Far Right crusade?

Can they outdo the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and its increasingly oddball looking characters, to harness that combination of popular disillusion with parliamentary politics, and backward prejudice against Johnny Foreigner, that has brought remunerative seats in the European parliament? 

Britain First, set up as a campaign group before deciding to call itself a political party in September 2012, is led by former members of the BNP, like Paul Golding, Andy McBride, and Jim Dowson, who was the BNP's top man in Scotland and leading fundraiser before he fell out with Griffin and quit, leaving his former pals potless. A report in the Scottish Daily Record in 2009 linked Dowson with hard-line Loyalists and criminal activities.

It said Dowson, expelled from his Orange Lodge after accusing fellow members of not being extreme enough, called himself a "dyed in the wool Protestant". But this did not stop him meeting members of the right-wing Catholic Youth Defence group in the south of Ireland, trying to emulate their anti-abortion protests. Plainly when it comes to ecumenism the far Right can set an example to us all!

Last year Searchlight reported that "Dowson is currently busy in Belfast helping to stir up loyalists to protest against the democratic decision by Belfast council to fly the Union Flag at Belfast City Hall only on 20 days a year,...Golding has also visited Belfast for the protests."  

It also reported that Britain First held a meeting in Dartford, Kent, on January 13, 2013, with the EDL and others, at which according to the BF website, they discussed "the disintegrating situation in the street protest movement and were unanimous in their resolve to salvage the situation and start again."

One year later the Britain Firsters decided to come to Cricklewood, in north west London, and wave their flags. Whether they were able to salvage anything from this adventure was not clear, as experts tell me even their flags were upside down.

The ostensible occasion for this was the news that the Muslim Brotherhood, only recently forming Egypt's first elected government, but now being repressed, had opened a small office in a flat over a shop in Cricklewood Broadway. To confront this peril to the populace and civilisation as we know it, the BF brought out just over a couple of dozen flag-waving patriots on Saturday, January 18.

Having heard they were coming, Brent Trades Union Council and local Unite Against Fascism(UAF) supporters managed at a few days' notice to mobilise a larger counter-demonstration.. I was not able to go myself, so here is an account by fellow-blogger Martin Francis:  

Around 27 members of Britain First were confronted by three times as many local activists and residents when they turned up in Cricklewood Broadway today. Ostensibly they were demonstrating against the Muslim Brotherhood office above a shop but their agenda was really anti-Muslim, anti-Mosque and anti- immigrant, using the MB office as a pretext.

In fact they had no placards or leaflets to explain to the local community why they were there. Brent people were present, not to demonstrate in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood, but to say that they did not want Britain First to come into the area and disrupt and divide their diverse local community.


Brent and Harrow Unite Against Fascism gave out a leaflet to passers by, many of whom joined them,  explaining the origin of Britain First in evangelical Protestantism and anti-abortion campaigns, and its associations with Loyalist paramilitaries. The BNP had found them too extreme and their leader James Dowson is on bail for violence.

Local campaigners and residents told Britain First they were not wanted in Cricklewood and a 9 year old boy used his megaphone to passionately tell them that his best friend was a Muslim.

The numbers of Britain First supporters gradually reduced during the afternoon and eventually the dozen or so remaining were escorted by police to Cricklewood Broadway accompanied by cries of derision from local residents and the chant of 'Brent united will never be defeated'.

LESS IMPRESSIVE in Cricklewood.  A local mother comments "These are the imbecilic excuses for grown men that offered out my nine year old son for a fight when he pointed out that his best friend is a Muslim. I am sure they are very proud of themselves".
  photo from Martin Francis blog "Wembley Matters"   


Meanwhile ....Galloping Galloway Enters Fray

CRICKLEWOOD lies partly in the Hampstead and Kilburn parliamentary constituency which straddles the Watling Street border of the boroughs of Camden and Brent. Sitting Labour MP Glenda Jackson is about to vacate the seat at the next election, and as the candidates hoping to replace her line up, a surprising outsider - in every sense -has made an intervention.

Respect MP George Galloway first entered parliament as Labour MP for Glasgow Hillhead, went on to win Bethnal Green for Respect, and now sits as MP for Bradford West, though several councillors there fell out with him and Respect after hearing he might decide to stand for Mayor of London. Since then he has been campaigning for a "No" vote in the Scottish independence referendum, but this week he turned his attention to Hampstead and Kilburn,

Here's the Kilburn Times: 

 Denouncing Lib Dem candidate Maajid Nawaz as “rancid” and Labour hopeful Tulip Siddiq as a “New Labour apologist”, the outspoken MP for Bradford West revealed yesterday his party would be inviting applications from those interested in standing for his left-leaning party.

It comes not long after Mr Nawaz, a former Islamist who now runs a leading anti-extremist organisation, caused outrage among some sectors of the Muslim community after publishing online a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Mr Galloway MP was among those condemning him, saying: “No Muslim will ever vote for the Liberal Democrats anywhere ever unless they ditch the provocateur Maajid Nawaz.”

He later added: “Respect will take the Hampstead and Kilburn fight right to rancid Maajid Nawaz and the New Labour apologist for Awami League.”

The latter was a reference to Labour candidate Cllr Siddiq’s family ties with Bangladesh’s current ruling political party the Bangladesh Awami League.

The prospects of a Galloway-backed campaign could make the Hampstead and Kilburn 2015 election battle one of the most animated in the country, with the constituency already known as the most marginal seat in the country.

The last election saw the constituency’s current Labour MP, Glenda Jackson, win with a majority of just 42.

http://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/george_galloway

So all Galloway needs now is a candidate, and though I'd hazard a guess that Respect would fare little better than Britain First in the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency, it could make enough of a dent in the Labour vote as to let the Tory in.

I can accept there may be more to Nawaz than a cartoon he tweeted. He is a founder of the Quilliam Foundation which opposes "extremism" and facilitated Tommy Robinson's announcement that he was leaving the EDL. All the same, is this such a burning issue in Hampstead and Kilburn as to bring George Glloway's intervention?

As for the Awami League, in Bangladesh, it is  certainly no worse than some of the regimes which George Galloway has defended, and it has the merit of having prosecuted the enemies of Bangladeshi freedom who committed war crimes in the service of the Pakistan military against their own people.  

But that brings us to the Jamaat e Islami party which took that stand, and which has a well-established presence in George Galloway's old Bethnal Green constituency, where it has been said to influence local politics as well as doing successful fundraising. Surely Galloway is not trying to help them extend their reach into Camden?

If so, Britain First are not the only intruders attempting to divide communities.

Labels: Fascists, London, South Asia

ON Saturday, September 7, the right-wing English Defence League was prevented from marching into the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and its leader Tommy Robinson, or Stephen Yaxley Lennon to use his proper name, arrested for incitement. Permitted to march by Tory Home Secretary Theresa May, the EDL's flag-waving army of Islamophobic bigots and boozy brawlers had apparently been promised a rally in Altab Ali park, by Aldgate East, and the prospect of chanting their provocative insulting slogans by the East London Mosque, then marching into Cable Street, symbolically avenging the humiliating battle, when police gave up trying to force a way through hostile crowds for Mosley's fascists, on October 4, 1936.

This time the police did not try to force a way through. Allowed to march from Southwark over Tower Bridge, the EDL were allowed no further than Aldgate, allowed a half hour rally then sent home.

There was a rally in Altab Ali park, but it was much bigger, and composed of anti-fascists, local people mobilised by United East End, and Unite Against Fascism. Speakers ranged from Muslim youth to 98-year old Max Levitas, a veteran of the battle of Cable Street, and included trade unionists, a local vicar, the Labour member of the Greater London Assembly, and Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets. Reminding the crowd that Altab Ali, after whom the park had been renamed, was a young Bengali clothing worker murdered by racists, Dave Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialists' Group said allowing the EDL to gather there would be "like dancing on his grave".

Several speakers linked the fight against prejudice and fascism with the need to unite working people against the Con-Dem coalition's austerity cuts and bedroom tax, and for housing and health, while Steve Hedley of the RMT went further, calling for an alternative to Labour, a real workers' party.

Later in the day the crowd surged out to occupy Whitechapel Road and make sure there would be "no pasaran" for fascists.  Only after we had heard the EDL had been sent back over Tower Bridge and away from the East End did we turn and march the short distance past East London mosque before ourselves dispersing. "Whose streets? Our streets!" people chanted in triumph.

Well, unfortunately that was not quite true. Earlier that afternoon a section of the crowd, mainly young people, had left the rally in Altab Ali park and, with black-clad anarchists and supporters of the Anti-fascist Network to the fore, marched off eastward with the aim of wheeling around to evade the police and confront the EDL directly. With 3,000 police on duty and helicopters monitoring the streets from overhead, they were blocked, and kettled for several hours. Almost 300 arrests were made, mostly under the Public Order Act, and those arrested, who included legal observers, were taken to police stations some miles away.

Whose streets? The Metropolitan Police had no intention of letting us get away with any illusions on that score.

It was after the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 that parliament passed the first Public Order Act. Though it forbade setting up forces and wearing political uniforms, its main thrust was giving police powers to control marches and public assemblies. The first victims, in 1937, were striking Nottinghamshire miners, who were certainly not fascists, though some of the coal owners were.
In the early 1960s, following a revival of activity by the Mosleyites and other fascists, and clashes with their opponents, petitions to the Home Office to do something were followed by a strengthening of the Act, and it was used to arrest trades unionists again, supporters of Lambeth trades council who were demonstrating against a colour bar operated by a pub in Brixton.

The 1986 Public Order Act strengthens police powers, making it an offence to organise a demonstration without giving police at least six days notice, ennabling police chiefs to ask the Home Office to ban any public procession for three months, and allowing police to set conditions on any public assembly if they think it might lead to "serious disorder", criminal damage, or "serious disruption to the life of the community". It seems most of those arrested on September 7 were charged under sections 12 and 14 of this Act, simply for being there. Some are getting used to it.    

The discretion given the police to decide what constitutes "serious disorder" is striking.
In 2005 the Labour government inserted a clause restricting demonstrations near parliament into Serious Organised Crime Bill, and the first person charged under this was peace campaigner Maya Evans, whose only offence was standing near the Cenotaph reading out the names of British soldiers killed in Iraq. The following year half a dozen protesters were charged for demonstrating against the Israeli raid on Jericho prison, which took place with what looked suspiciously like British collusion, because they had not given police sufficient notice when requesting permission. As Betty Hunter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign objected, "We did not have 24 hours notice of the Israeli army's attack on the prison".

This reminds me of the way workers who walked out on strike over an immediate issue, safety or even a death on site, say, could be told they were in breach of anti-union law, for not giving notice of a ballot first, by which time, even without employers' lawsuits the issue and the job could be long gone. Police come into industrial relations when unleashed on pickets, as we well recall from the miners and Wapping disputes. On the other hand, they sometimes seemed uncertain what to do when taken by surprise by novel tactics during the electricians' struggle. With all their powers, they may be wary of acting without explicit encouragement from above.

A few days after the September 7 arrests, MPs debated a bill which would not only restrict the right to protest, but to engage in any kind of campaigning.  The government's Lobbying Bill comes after years of public concern, not to say contempt, for politicians who front private interests, and lobbyists who sell access to them; but these, together with press barons who want to influence policies but avoid taxation for them, are the last people to be threatened by this Bill.

On the other hand, if your union, instead of handing money over to the Labour Party, spends some of it paying for advertisements and campaign posters on matters of concern during the period leading to an election, it could be in trouble under these restrictions.

A top medic has warned that doctors could be gagged from raising concerns about privatisation of the NHS. The Bill's proposed cap on spending “for election purposes” could stop them speaking out about the impact on patient safety of private companies running NHS services, British Medical Association chairman Dr Mark Porter has warned. “We don’t want to be muzzled or subject to spending caps just because the Government doesn’t like to hear anyone but themselves talking.”

Dr Porter told the Daily Mirror : “The test will change from ‘do you intend to cause people to vote for one party or another’ to ‘could what you say have the effect of causing people to vote for one party or another’. Dr Porter added: “Privatisation of the NHS is a key issue which is bound to be an election topic. Doctors have a right to say what they think about how the NHS is run for patients. ”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lobby-bill-doctors-face-being-2263099

The Lobbying Bill — or, to give it its full name, the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill - is so slanted away from touching business interests and towards restricting others that opposition has come from well beyond the 'usual suspects'
Some are saying it is an "assault on democracy itself"

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations  has written to Parliament with the backing of charities including Shelter, the Royal British Legion, the British Heart Foundation and Guide Dogs.
Karl Wilding, the NCVO’s policy director, explains: “At the moment you have to intend to influence an election to be in trouble. "But the wording is being changed to ‘if you have the effect’ of influencing an election.What is really dangerous about this is that you may not intend to influence the outcome of a local election — yet the punishment is you could go to prison. We think this legislation will make people frightened of speaking out.”

The Government has said campaigning by charities or voluntary sector organisations should not be caught by the legislation. But Mr Wilding says: “The amount you have to spend to get captured on this is too low.

"If you spend £5,000 or more in trying to raise awareness about your issue, you will now have to register with the Electoral Commission as a third party. All you need to do is hold a meeting in the village hall, feed everyone and give them all a drink a couple of times a year, spend £5,000 — it soon mounts — and not register with the commission and you could go to prison.

“I am convinced this will deter people from campaigning about things they think are important in their area, whether it be about greenbelt, jobs for young people or beer. This is not the kind of legislation I expect in a country like Britain which has a proud tradition of people being allowed to speak out.”

The anti-racist organisation Hope Not Hate fears the bill would slash the amount it can spend on campaigning in the run-up to the election by up to 70 per cent — while the British National Party would still be allowed huge spending.

Hope Not Hate co-ordinator Nick Lowles says: “This is one of the biggest attacks on charities and campaign groups for many years. It is basically an attempt by government to silence groups that might criticise them."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lobbying-bill-charities-slam-bid

On September 11, as MPs finished debating the Bill, Chileans and their friends were outside their country's London embassy, as at many other locations, remembering the military coup forty years ago which ended democracy in Chile and brought death and suffering to so many of their people. Tanks on the streets, 'planes strafing the presidential palace, trade unionists rounded up in the football stadium, students "disappeared" for torture or death, was the price Chileans paid for touching big business, especially US big business, and trying to gain something like a welfare state. Right-wing dictatorship was the way that capitalism and the CIA imposed the kind of policies  we came to know as Thatcherism, monetarism, and the Con Dem austerity measures we face. And we should not forget that among our rulers there was not only admiration and sympathy for General Pinochet, but willingness to consider if necessary imposing his kind of regime here.

Of course, bourgeois democracy, however repressive, is very different from fascism, and we should not make the stupid mistake that some have made in the past, of devaluing the f word by throwing it around so much it becomes a joke, and we at very least are crying wolf. All the same, we should not make the mistake either of complacently thinking the different forms of capitalist rule are absolute opposites, ignoring the real erosion and attacks on our rights, or imagining fascism can only come wearing sinister uniform and a silly moustache, or even stagger in drunkenly draped in an England flag.

In the 1930s, while Hitler and Mussolini were crushing opponents and preparing for war, and Sir Oswald Mosley practicing his salute, not all his admirers wore blackshirts. But as Sir Thomas More, Tory MP for Ayr Burghs, enthused in the Daily Mail (where else!) after coming from a meeting of Mosley's British Union of Fascists in the Albert Hall:
“ What is there in a black shirt which gives apparent dignity and intelligence to its wearer. . . . All seemingly filled with the same emotions, pride of race, love of country, loyalty, hope. ... As I listened to the vibrant tones of Sir Oswald Mosley ... I got my answer. There was little if any of the policy which could not be accepted by the most loyal follower of our present Conservative leaders. The majority of the essentials and many of the details are part and parcel of strict Tory doctrines. ... In truth much of this national Blackshirt policy has already been initiated by the National Government. Why, therefore, the Blackshirts? The answer lies in the one word—Action ! . .   
(The Blackshirts Have What the Conservatives Need, Daily Mail, April 25, 1934).

Of course, More was just one MP, if not alone, belonging to a pro-Nazi wing of the Establishment. But even Winston Churchill seven years before had told Mussolini "Had I been an Italian I would have been with you from the start...You have shown the way in defeating the bestial appetites of Bolshevism".


Walter Eliot, (Conservative M.P. for Kelvingrove) advised a different approach:
“ If one wants to do a new thing in this country, one must do it as if it were an old thing. For that reason it seems to me to be courting failure to tell people that they have first to dress themselves in black shirts and throw their opponents downstairs in order to get to the corporative state. . . . This new economic order, i.e., the corporative state has already developed further in England than is generally recognised.”


That was then, and now is now, and a lot of things including a world war happened between. A lot of people came back saying "Never again", and they meant they would not tolerate either fascism or the conditions that led to it. But Europe is in crisis, and we see fascism rearing its ugly head again in more than one country, and its thuggery already claiming victims without waiting for power.

In Britain, while we oppose the far Right groups and racists that seek to exploit confusion and intimidate people, let us not lose sight of other threats. We have already got the worst anti-union laws in Europe, being followed by restrictions on our political rights, and trespass which was never a criminal offence rendered so by new laws on squatting. We have young people being forced to work without pay, and disabled people and long-term ill being forced into desperate poverty so that many are dying or committing suicide. Perhaps if Walter Eliot MP were here now he could say "it is courting failure, and unnecessary expense, to think you must put the unfit on special trains and send them to camps with the motto 'Work Makes Free' just to get rid of them."

 We don't want to over-dramatise or exaggerate. But just as in Russia the enactment of Section 28-type laws has encouraged barbaric attacks by fascists upon gays, so in this country government treatment of the disabled and the homeless has apparently spurred on lumpen thugs to violence against the most vulnerable targets, as a change from racial attacks. Fascism is always eager to find new victims. 

It cannot help to rouse opposition to fascism if people are numbed by seeming indifference to what they are already suffering. Let us not forget either, that when right-wing dictators and fascists come into power, they are only too happy to use precedents and powers that already exist, rather than having to introduce entirely new measures. Therefore, whether or not we like the term "creeping fascism" to describe what's being done, we should be opposing it.

_________________

The quotes from Sir Thomas More and Walter Eliot are from Simon Haxey's book 'Tory MP' (Gollancz, 1939), the quote from Winston Churchill can be found in 'The Trial of Mussolini', by Cassius (Gollancz,1943).     
                 

Labels: Fascists, Iran, Iraq, police, Tories

KAHANIST with Holocaust denier Richard Edmonds, caught on camera by Guy Smallman for Reel News.


http://reelnews.co.uk/evf-look-ridiculous-in-croydon/

LUNAR House in Croydon is a 20 storey office block housing the UK Border Agency, that is the part of the Home Office which deals with immigration.  It deals both with applications to stay and detention of unsuccessful applicants. Some unfortunate families have called in for interview only to find themselves detained without warning in conditions which HM Inspectorate of Prisons criticised as inadequate. But of course not every member of staff agrees with that sort of thing, nor has any say in it. Most are just ordinary civil servants, clerks and the like. Many of the workers are immigrants themselves, or sons and daughters of such. 

Staff have been working Saturdays to catch up with a backlog of applications.

But this Saturday the staff and visitors to Lunar House faced another worry.  The English Volunteer Force (EVF), a militant breakaway from the anti-Muslim English Defence League (EDL), had announced its intention of holding a demonstration against immigrants outside Lunar House, and then marching on to demonstrate at a local mosque.

This was at the end of a week in which the government had billboard wagons touring six London boroughs telling "illegal immigrants" to "Go Home". Business Secretary Vince Cable described the campaign as "stupid and offensive" but Prime Minister Cameron wants to spread it around the land.

The militarist-sounding  name "English Volunteer Force", plainly modelled on the Ulster Prorestant UVF, and the known links between some of its members and the far-Right National Front, were a fair indication that it wasn't coming to Croydon for a friendly visit or to spread peace and love.


The council and local people and organisations in Croydon had appealed for the EVF demonstration not to be allowed, and Muslim leaders pleaded that there should be no provocation during Ramadan at the mosque. But police decided the demonstration could go ahead at Lunar House.

Unite Against Fascism(UAF), the Croydon Trade Union Council, and the PCS union which represents many of the Lunar House staff, joined forces to mobilise a counter-demonstration.

Urging all "nationalists" and "patriots" to join them, the EVF had promised to bring thousands of people out on Saturday. It mustered about 40 people all told. They were outnumbered more than three to one by their opponents, who were kept away from them by the police. A couple of anti-fascists were wrestled to the ground by police when they tried to get closer to the EVF. Local journalists who complained that they had been assaulted by EVF members that morning were ignored by police officers.

Photographer Guy Smallman managed to get some good photographs of both EVF and counter-demonstrators, as well as the police, and one of his shots tells a particularly interesting tale. The young man in the photograph above claimed to be a member of the far-Right Zionist Jewish Defence League (JDL), which originated in the United States, where it was led by Rabbi Meir Kahane. Kahane emigrated to Israel and founded the Kach party, which even the Israeli authorities decided was a "terrorist" group. This did not impede its activities too much, ranging from inciting Gaza settlers to resist evacuation to holding provocative marches through Arab areas, and campaigning against African immigrants in south Tel Aviv. That is a Kach tee shirt the young man is wearing, unless I'm mistaken, on a demonstration against "extremism" and "terrorism" in Croydon.

But who is the old gent in the picture? That's Richard Edmonds,who during a career back and forth between the National Front and British National Party notched up certain minor and 'spent' criminal convictions. In 1988, The Sunday Times revealed that Holocaust News, a publication that claimed The Holocaust was an "evil hoax", was being published by Edmonds, on behalf of the Centre for Historical Review, and distributed by BNP members. Edmonds also spent three months in custody over a 'racially-motivated' assault in 1993^[5] and had previously been convicted for damaging a statue of Nelson Mandela on London's South Bank. For a time Edmonds seemed like Nick Griffin's loyal rival, then after the BNP's poor showing in elections in 2011 he announced he was contsting the party's leadership, but switched to the National Front.  He was the party's candidate in the 2012 Croydon North by-election, finishing eighth out of twelve candidates with 161 votes (0.7% vote share).^[14]

We don't know how real is the Jewish Defence League presence in Britain. Its website admits to being hosted abroad. When American Islamophobes Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer were banned recently from travelling to Britain for a rally of the EDL, the JDL protested. That does not exactly surprise us. But when the representative of an outfit that used to shout "Never Again" turns up in the company of a man who insisted the Holocaust never happened in the first place, that's worth noting. And rubbing their faces in.

Labels: Fascists, Jewish, London, racism