John Harris reports on the BNP’s local election campaign in Stoke-on-Trent. The fascists are focusing on plans to build a new mosque in Hanley. Their leaflet features a silhouetted minaret next to a row of terraced houses and the headline, “Is this what you want for Stoke?”

Harris talks to a BNP candidate named Neil Albert Walker, who tells him: “The white people living right by the mosque will have to move away. They’d feel intimidated. There’s already several mosques in the city, and if you were near a mosque on a Friday afternoon, you’d realise what we mean. It’s just absolutely awash with Muslims, and they’re aggressive towards people who… aren’t Muslims, basically.”

Walker says the problem is that “the Muslims will not live peacefully alongside any other religion” because “their religion tells them they must master everyone else”. The BNP seems to believe the UK would be better off without any Muslims at all, Harris suggests. “In my opinion,” Walker replies, “it would.”

Guardian, 22 April 2006

The BNP reports on the launch of its local election campaign:

“BNP leader Nick Griffin spoke of the significance of the day of the launch; Good Friday was deliberately chosen to emphasise that Britain was fundamentally a Christian country and that the elections on May 4th offer the electorate an opportunity to vote for the continued demise of our traditions and values under the failed trio of Old Gang parties who continue to pander to the twin evils of multiculturalism and globalisation and further have failed to grasp the very real threat posed by militant Islam, or a renaissance of traditional western European Christian values under the stewardship and guidance of the British National Party.”

BNP news report, 14 April 2006

Shirin Aguiar-Holloway reports on Abdel Sharif Gawad, the BNP candidate in Bradford, whose candidacy has produced dissent within the fascists’ own ranks. Gawad is of Armenian heritage, and his grandfather was a Muslim convert to Christianity.

Paul Maszarof, local TUC activist, said: “They [the BNP] think it’s a good old laugh, ‘Let’s get an Islamic-sounding name and see if we can whip things up.’ It can only be to cause trouble and provoke a response.”

Gerry Gable, head of the anti-fascist monitoring organisation Searchlight, said: “The Bradford organiser has actually resigned over this and some of the activists are refusing to work with this guy. By putting him up, the BNP are trying to pretend they are not really racist. It’s clearly a wind-up to the Muslim community.”

Mr Maszarof added: “They’re going through a different organiser each week. Dozens of their activists are refusing to lift their finger. It’s a fairly spectacular own goal.”

BLINK, 10 April 2006

At least one BNP member is happy with Nick Griffin’s strategy: “Of course some members are going to be upset at this latest move, but they have to realise that the BNP would have never got in unless they did change (and thank God for that), and Nick seems to be changing all the right things, while leaving the important things such as the absolute rejection of islam as anything other than a ‘vile, wicked cult’ in place. And good for him, now we all have a chance at seeing the next century out in a free country, or at least our children do.”

BNP and Me, 8 April 2006

“This party’s for white people, I make no bones about that,” says Simon Darby, the man leading the far right’s expansion in Birmingham.

The British National Party’s regional organiser – already a councillor in nearby Dudley and one of 23 BNP councillors in the country – believes the party can exploit increasing Islamophobia and disillusionment with mainstream political parties to make gains in local elections on 4 May.

The problem with Birmingham, says Mr Darby, is that there are so many non-whites. “Birmingham will become an Islamic city in 10 to 20 years, and to a lot of people that is quite startling, that a city in the middle of England can swap over to sharia law.”

Independent, 8 April 2006

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