BNP's Beacon track

With the Beacon & Bents ward in their sights, BNP activists are trying to draw in more voters. BNP top man Nick Griffin goose-stepped into South Shields and was seen leafleting along with local BNP stormtroopers, among them Regional Secretary and former National Front member Ken Booth. In an apparent attempt to move into 'respectable' politics, the party having allegedly "undergone major changes in the last few years to improve its image", the BNP is eager for portrayal as both anodyne and proactive, attempting to annexe the 'working class' as it's own heartland. But this soothing image is all a lie.

Possibly Griffin would like us all to forget his previous ode to democracy: "The electors of Millwall did not back a Post-Modernist Rightist Party, but what they perceived to be a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan 'Defend Rights for Whites' with well-directed boots and fists. When the crunch comes, power is the product of force and will, not of rational debate."

However, I'm sure that many of the BNP's coprophilic supporters will claim that was in all the past and point out to us that Things Are Different Now. Okay then. To get a real feel of this new image of the BNP, we should look closely at what they've been up to lately, and shockingly, it includes a remarkable diversity of assault, fraud and general dishonesty. A peruse of 'white power' website Stormfront fills in the gaps to give enough flavour of what the BNP is all about.

So no real change in BNP attitudes there then, a kind of 'BNP's not Working'.

Nevertheless, on his jackboot tour of Beacon & Bents 'Commandant' Griffin was quite positive, saying, "We are getting a great deal of support on the doorsteps in the area, so we're hoping for a breakthrough at the next election."

But apparently the breakthrough doesn't include the honesty and openness of it's own members though, as one BNP volunteer didn't want to be identified 'because he was a social worker'. Whether the BNP volunteer was ashamed of being a BNP canvasser or a social worker is hard to tell, but if the BNP's own foot soldiers can't bring themselves to be publicly associated with the party, then why should voters?