BNP wins 2 seats in Europe

Via Socialist Unity and Hope Not Hate:

Who is Andrew Brons?

Yorkshire and Humber constituency will return Andrew Brons (at the left of the picture) to the European Parliament if the BNP gets 11.5% across the constituency. So far the results coming in show it to be on a knife edge.

The BNP have 10% in Sheffield, much more in Barnsley.

If they do win a seat there, we will have to deal with that situation as we come to it.

But I imagine there will be some fun and games inside the BNP is Griffin fails to be elected in the North West, which would give Andrew Brons a higher profile than the leader, and his own significant budget.

So who is Andrew Brons. Certainly if he is elected the press should give this Hitler lover some serious scrutiny.

Brons, 61, started his nazi career in the National Socialist Movement, an organisation that was deliberately founded on Hitler’s birthday by Colin Jordan, the British nazi leader who died in April aged 85. NSM members were responsible for an arson campaign against Jewish property and synagogues in the 1960s.

Brons appears to have approved. In a letter to Jordan’s wife, Brons reported meeting an NSM member who “mentioned such activities as bombing synagogues”. He declared: “On This subject I have a dual view, in that I realise that he is well intentioned, I feel that our public image may suffer considerable damage as a result of these activities. I am however open to correction on this point.”

He also sent Mrs Jordan money to buy a swastika badge and other Nazi material, explaining he was about the undertake a “crash programme” of publicity for the NSM in Yorkshire by deluging areas with Nazi stickers, posters and slogans.

Brons was a prominent member of the National Front, notorious for its extreme racism and violence, from its early days and was voted onto its national directorate in 1974. Later as the NF’s education officer he hosted seminars on racial nationalism and tried to give its racism a more “scientific” basis.

After the departure of John Tyndall from the NF in March 1980 Brons was promoted to NF chairman. One of his allies during this period was Richard Verrall, the author of Did Six Million Really Die?, with whom he edited the NF journal New Nation. In 1982 Brons led an NF march through Northfield on which marchers chanted: “we’ve got to get rid of the blacks”.

In June 1984 Brons was convicted of behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace following his arrest in Leeds while selling papers in a shopping centre.

He and another NF member were heard shouting slogans such as “Death to Jews”, “White Power” and “National Front”. When approached by PC John Raj, Brons stated: “inferior beings like yourself probably do not understand the principle of free speech”.

Brons resigned as NF chairman in 1984 and later faded from public view. He has been a BNP member for around four years.

If you tolerate this...? The BNP are tools.

This is, I guess, a "Guest Post" of sorts. Actually, it's simply a reprinting (with permission, for once) of a comment made on the Green Left discussion list, but we Wombats thought it worth reproducing here and too good an opportunity to miss. (We're in the process of beefing up the posting quality, content and style - less reproductions, more comment. This is just the start...)

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by Duroyan Fertl

Britain's political answer to Homo neanderthalis - the BNP - have proved once again that fascism feeds on the dust left behind by the passage of evolution.

Apparently they can only understand eight words at a time. According to NME:

"The far-right political party were hosting a video on their website, and on a youTube account, under the heading 'The Cesspit Called London' which was soundtracked by the band's 1998 Number One single 'If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next'.

Ironically, the lyrics to that song concern the International Brigade – the group of volunteers, including Welsh farmers, who went to Spain to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War."

IRONICALLY!?!? If the knuckle dragging morons actually had the cerebral skill to understand English (now *that's* irony), they might have heard that the song in question is not only dedicated to the struggle against fascism, taking its name from a slogan on an anti-fascist poster from the Spanish Civil War, it also contains one of the best lines ever written in pop music: "So if I can shoot rabbits/ Then I can shoot fascists". YouTube link.

Of course, the Manics - who grew up in Thatcher-loathing working class Wales, living (well the lead singer, anyway) on the same street in Blackwood as Neil Kinnock, played in Cuba in 2001, met Fidel Castro, dedicated an award to the National Union of Mineworkers' Arthur Scargill (and later donated money to his Socialist Labour Party), and knocked the musical shit out of Blair's Nu Labour ("Change your name to New/ Forget the fucking Labour") - demanded that the offending material be taken down, which it was.

While we're on the topic of political commentary in music (viz Stuart's Lily Allen post), the Manics remain - in my opinion - simply the best in that field, over two long decades now... While the sharpest political commentary might not always make the Top of the Pops, sometimes it does:

Suffering a long love-hate relationship with the British music media (which loved to hate them because of their social comentary, their call for revolution, and their criticism of the truly shit noise that passed for the musical output of most of their contemporaries), the Manics released a deliberately "secret" stand-alone single in November 1999.

They forbade their music company from publicising it, allowing it's existence to be known only through their fan base. The record was deleted on the day of release and the song - The Masses Against The Classes - went straight to number one, and stayed there for 16 weeks. 'Nuff said, really.

The Manics have a new album - Journal for Plague Lovers - coming out in May, including left-over lyrics from their former rhythm guitarist, Richey Edwards, who disappeared 14 years ago.

Oh, and this: