Beate Zschape, the alleged ringleader of the National Socialist Underground, will face murder charges

 The trial of a group of German neo Nazis accused of involvement in the murder of nine immigrants and a policewoman is to begin on Monday.

The Union Exec has called for students to “come together” against racism ahead of a student rally this weekend, organised in opposition to an English Defence League (EDL) demonstration in Leeds.

On Saturday, the EDL will hold a protest against a community centre planned by the UK Islamic Mission, in Moortown.

The group state that they aim to stop their estate from “becoming another Muslim area”, and claim that Islamic residents are trying to “colonise” the area.

The Exec committee collectively states: “Wherever groups like the EDL congregate, we should come together to show that we do not want our communities to be undermined by racism and hate”.

The Leeds Students Unite Against Fascism (LUAF) society is holding a peaceful “celebrate and defend multicultural Leeds” rally on the same day.

David Lewzey, a member of LUAF, said they are hoping for a turnout of 50 to 100 students.

He said: “It’s important that we aren’t complacent about this at our University. Often we see Uni as a safe-haven from racism and it’s not. At Liverpool Uni there is an EDL student group that has recently formed.”

The Leeds Union Islamic society said:

“The EDL’s targeting of this venture highlights a dangerous presence of Islamophobia. They are somehow trying to convince people that British Muslims transforming a failed pub into community facilities (with their own funds) is an attack on Britain. As Britons, we disagree.”

The words “a mosque” were graffitied onto the side of the building in February. This followed the purchase of the site by the UK Islamic Mission, who applied for planning permission to develop the former pub into a public gym, IT suite, library, training facilities and a prayer room for up to 70 worshippers.

Over 400 letters of complaint from local residents were sent to the Council in response to the plans.

David Lewzey added: “There are two different issues in the area. There is the community centre that has been formed, and the residents don’t feel involved in the creating of it. But the fascist thing is a separate thing – they are opposing the centre on very racist grounds.”

The Exec were keen to add: “We urge all attendees of Saturday’s counter-demonstration, whether students or not, to look after each other and stay safe.”

Meg Ingham, an LUAF member, said: “It is important to stress that this is a peaceful rally. We don’t intend for, nor want clashes with the EDL.”

LUAF rally-goers will assemble at the Parkinson steps at 10.30 on Saturday.

From Leeds Student . Report by Ellie Parkes.

Anna-Marie Crampton

 UKIP candidate Anna-Marie Crampton is alleged to have said World War Two was engineered by Zionists and bankers to create the state of Israel

The UK Independence Party today suffered a string of damaging revelations about its election candidates, including one who reportedly claimed Jews murdered each other in the Holocaust.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage was forced to admit the party had not properly checked all 1,700 candidates it is fielding in next week’s council elections, raising the prospect of more embarrassments to come.

The row threatens to undermine the party’s hopes of making a major breakthrough in May 2’s elections.

Anna-Marie Crampton, a UKIP candidate in East Sussex, was suspended by the party over reports she posted extreme views on a conspiracy theorist website called ‘Secrets of The Fed’.

Crampton, 57, is allegedly quoted as saying: ’Holocaust means a sacrifice by fire. Only the Zionists could sacrifice their own in the gas chambers.

’The Second World Wide War was engineered by the Zionist jews and financed by the bankers to make the general public all over the world to feel so guilty and outraged by the Holocaust that a treaty would be signed to create the State of Israel as we know it today.’

Just two weeks ago Mrs Crampton posed with Mr Farage at a rally in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

A spokesman said: ’These comments are really way out there and really hard-core anti-Zionism.’

A spokesman for British Influence, which is campaigning against UKIP policies on Europe said: ’This sort of holocaust denial from a UKIP candidate is further evidence of the toxic mix of anti-semitism and cuckoo conspiracy theories that run rife in UKIP and she should be expelled from the party and not simply suspended.

’The fact is that UKIP has more than 1,700 candidates being fielded in next Thursday’s local elections  – almost as many as the Lib Dems – and one has to ask oneself how many more of them have skeletons in the cupboard.’

Anti-Zionist comments made from the Facebook account of Anna-Marie Crampton. She was later suspended.

 Anna-Marie Crampton pictured left with UKIP leader Nigel Farage at a rally in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Mr Farage admitted that not all candidates have been properly vetted to ensure they do not hold extreme views

Yesterday, Susan Bowen, from Boscastle in Cornwall, was dropped as a candidate in elections to the county’s unitary council after it emerged she was once a member of the BNP.

In county council elections UKIP is fielding more candidates than the Lib Dems.

But the dramatic election push could come at a cost, after Mr Farage admitted that not all of them have been properly vetted to ensure they do not hold extreme views.

He said that a ’rigorous testing procedure’ was in place to choose candidates for next years’s elections to the European Parliament, and the 2015 general election.

This tested ’people’s knowledge, their ability with media – you know, full credit checks, police checks and all the rest of it’.

But he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: ’I’ll be honest with you, we don’t have the party apparatus in a very short space of time to fully vet 1,700 people.

’We have made people sign declaration forms, expressing the fact that they’ve never been part of political parties that we consider to be wholly undesirable. By that I mean the BNP.

’And, you know, we ask people if there is a problem with a criminal record or whatever else it may be, please tell us.

’I have no doubt that amongst those 1,700 one or two people will have slipped through the net that we’d rather not have had.’

Mr Farage has previously criticised Tory leader David Cameron for his 2006 claim that ’Ukip is sort of a bunch of … fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists mostly’

From The Daily Mail . Report by  Matt Chorley . 26.04.14

CAMPAIGN: Tony Bamber, BNP candidate and secretary of the Preston Pals

Councillors say they are appalled after receiving leaflets from a BNP activist asking them to support a campaign blaming Muslims for the heroin trade.

Up to one in 10 members of the English Democrats have converted from the British National Party, their leader has told the BBC.

Robin Tilbrook said it was “perfectly fair” for people to “change their minds” and join a “moderate, sensible English nationalist party”.

He said between 200 and 300 of the English Democrats’ members were ex-BNP, most having joined a year or so ago.

Mr Tilbrook’s party campaigns for a separate parliament for England.

Peter Davies, who has served as English Democrat mayor of Doncaster since 2009, recently left the party, saying it was “odd, to say the least, and, to me personally, unacceptable” that former BNP members were being “hoovered up”.

But, speaking on BBC Two’s Daily Politics, Mr Tilbrook, said: “Peter is now someone who’s an ex-supporter of six parties and he’s simply one of those people who’s quite difficult to work with. He glorifies in the title of being the ‘maverick mayor’.”

‘Genuine converts’

He added that the recruitment of former BNP members had been “fairly small” and had mainly “happened a year or so ago”.

Mr Tilbrook also said: “I think probably out of about 3,000 members that we’ve got, we’ve probably got 200 or 300 that are ex-BNP.

“As long as they are genuine converts to what we are talking about, I’m not bothered about it…

“The fact is that people are able to change their mind and they should be allowed to, within reason.

“What you are looking at is a situation where people are becoming more and more concerned about English national identity.”

The English Democrats call for more equal public spending on services in England and Scotland, withdrawal from the European Union, the deportation of all illegal immigrants and making St George’s Day a national holiday in England.

‘Moderate, sensible’

Mr Tilbrook told Daily Politics: “It’s important that there should be a moderate, sensible English nationalist party that represents that view. We are that party.”

“The Conservative Party undoubtedly has people in it who are ex-BNP as well. Labour has at least two councillors who are ex-BNP activists and, in one case, a person who was a BNP councillor.

“It’s a completely ridiculous point to say that you shouldn’t allow people to change their minds. This is grown-up politics. People change their minds. It’s perfectly fair and reasonable that they should do so.”

No BNP spokesman was available for comment.

On its website, the party describes the English Democrats as “a part of the liberal-left attack on our nation”. It adds: “They are just another safety valve, designed to lead good people up a blind alley, and to divide the true nationalist cause.”

The English Democrats are fielding 38 candidates in next week’s English local elections, 23 of them in Kent.

From BBC News 23.04.14

Editorial. The intriguing bit about this report is not so much the fact that a large proportion of the ED’s membership is ex-BNP; that merely reinforces what we know about them already. It is the fact that Robin Tilbrook is claiming a membership of around 3,000. In fact it is widely known that, even by comparison with the other parties of the far right, the EDs are miniscule. A safer estimate, based on financial returns to the Electoral Commission, would suggest a figure of between 700 and 1,000. That estimate is borne out by the fact that they can only muster 38 candidates for next week’s local elections. 61% of which are in Kent! 

Marmite likes to see that fascist parties are kept small and ineffective and totally fatuous. Much better of course would be a situation where there were no fascist parties at all. 

Jim Dowson on a Life League domonstration

Dowson’s anti-abortion activities and close relationship with Loyalist paramilitaries were seen as positive attributes by the BNP’s leadership, who were dazzled by Dowson’s patter and promises of riches.

Nick Griffin eventually moved the entire BNP operation to Belfast – under Dowson’s control – with Griffin’s daughter Jennifer entrusted to Dowson’s care. We dubbed Dowson as Griffin’s consiglieri in 2009 and meanwhile, as the party faltered after the 2010 local and government elections, anti-Griffin factions within the BNP saw Dowson as Griffin’s Achilles’ heel and began campaigning against him.

Dowson and the BNP parted company in October 2010 but it was another six months before BF was formed. In the intervening time Dowson preoccupied himself with trying to undermine the BNP at every opportunity.

In May 2011 Dowson, along with Paul Golding, a former BNP councillor and editor of the BNP’s flagship magazine, announced the formation of a campaign group to protect “British and Christian morality” and sent an internet and glossy mail shot to some 40,000 names that Dowson had allegedly acquired from his time with the BNP.

Hoping to gain an invitation to join rebel BNP MEP Andrew Brons in a new venture, Dowson also sent another glossy brochure attacking a number of high profile BNP officials during the BNP’s July 2011 leadership election. BF was born to attack Griffin.

Close to a thousand people responded to BF’s launch with either cash or membership, but very quickly, aside from a few regional meetings, it became apparent that the organisation was not interested in being the alternative to Griffin’s party. BF was more interested in fundamentally changing the direction of the far-right to a trajectory later followed by the British Freedom Party. BF is squeezed between its fascist roots and its religious ambitions.

Key Personnel

(left to right) Jim Dowson, Paul Golding, Andy McBride, Gary Raikes and Kevin Edwards

Jim Dowson: Former Calvinist Minister who helped run the BNP between 2007-2010. Controversial businessman who has received funding from the European union in the past. Having built the BNP up, has made it his business to knock it down again. A powerful anti-Griffinite, if not an effective politician.

Paul Golding: The BF’s national chairman, Golding is former head of publicity for the BNP as well as a failed councillor in Sevenoaks, Kent. Golding was one of the high flyers in the BNP’s ‘Brat Pack’ during the last decade. Golding is the BF’s Chairman and a recent convert to Christianity which comes hand in hand with being a minor business partner of Dowson.

Andy McBride: Former South East regional organiser of the BNP, in 2010 McBride launched a series of factional attacks on Griffin’s enemies, before resigning in March 2011. McBride joined Dowson and Golding in plotting Griffin’s downfall and was a keynote speaker at last year’s “Way Forward” conference of the anti-Griffin crowd.

Gary Raikes: Former Scotland BNP organiser, Raikes was imposed on Scotland which caused some anger due to him being English. Has continued his fine tradition by doing nothing in his role as BF’s Scottish organiser.

Kevin Edwards: Former BNP community councillor from Wales who quit the BNP over its violence.

Britain First Key Politics

• Britain First is not a political party, its political wing – the National People’s Party (NPP) – was stillborn in June 2011 as Dowson appointed Paul Golding as chair in the hope that BF could merge with any new party formed with Andrew Brons as leader.
• BF claim it is not a racist or fascist organisation, yet it propagandises on the traditional far-right issues of Islam, immigration and abortion. It encourages its members to carry out actions like mass emailing and letter writing in a campaign to “Put Britons First”, which the organisation appears to define as anyone who is Christian. So far, it claims that over thirty thousand “actions” have been taken.
• The BF is closely aligned with the black-led organisation the “Christian People’s Party”, which also had a small dalliance with the BNP when Dowson was fundraising for them.
• If religion has replaced race as the clarion call in the BF, it does not appear to feel the need to proselytise or seemingly recruit to its cause either non-Christians or BNP hardliners.
• In a series of articles written by Dowson for the “British Resistance” website, which is one of the more vocal of the anti-Griffin factions, between August 2011 and March 2012 Dowson eulogised evangelically against Pagans, Odinists and nazis in favour of a society dominated by Christianity.
• Recently BF mailed out thousands of copies of a glossy publication it is alleged was lifted from the BNP’s offices about “Muslim grooming”. Its targets were mainly the Muslim community and politicians, not prospective recruits. BF is what the BNP most feared it would become.

From Hope Not Hate .

Editorial. Just when you thought we’d accounted for every fruitcake far right organisation in the country, here’s another one. Jim Dowson’s supremely “progressive” attitude towards women can be  experienced here .  We wonder how he equates groping ex-glamour models with his God and Ulster patriotic Protestantism.