Nick Griffin, BNP leader
The British National Party leader, Nick Griffin, presents himself as a modern, respectable politician but he is nothing of the sort. For over 30 years he has been a hardline fascist. He is also a champion of the politics of factionalism which he uses to shore up and preserve his own position against those who would challenge his authority. Now in his bid to get elected to the European Parliament in June 2009, he is building links with openly Nazi and fascist politicians internationally.
Racism Cuts Both WaysAt the same time Griffin is spearheading the BNP's "Racism Cuts Both Ways" campaign. Launched in October 2008 it purports to prove the existence of a "silent epidemic of racist targeting of indigenous Britons". A 12-page glossy pamphlet (pictured left) being distributed as part of the campaign is full of racist venom directed especially at Muslims, whom it accuses of being "sickos", "paedophiles" and teaming up "to lure girls - often as young as twelve or thirteen - into a nightmare world of sexual abuse, rape, beatings, drug addiction and prostitution".
Muslims in Britain have been the main target of the BNP in recent years, although Griffin has by no means abandoned his antisemitism. Early in 2008 the BNP distributed a leaflet in the north west of England, where Griffin will head the BNP list in the European elections, which claimed Muslims were responsible for 95% of the heroin trade. Four BNP activists, including a local councillor, were arrested in November 2008 on suspicion of publishing and distributing leaflets intended to stir up racial hatred.
Griffin became leader of the BNP in 1999, after challenging its founder John Tyndall (pictured right) to an election for the party chairmanship. Born in 1959 Griffin attended his first meeting of the National Front, a fascist predecessor of the BNP, when he was aged just 15. However he did not officially join the party until he was a student at Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied law gaining a lower second-class degree. He rose quickly through the ranks, becoming the NF's national student organiser in 1978.
Roberto FioreIn 1980, Griffin launched Nationalism Today, in support of "Third Positionist" fascism, which claimed to transcend the evils of both capitalism and communism. During this period Griffin developed a close political relationship with Roberto Fiore (pictured), a convicted Italian terrorist, who was then living in the UK on the run from justice. When Fiore arrived in Britain he was a member of NAR, a fascist terrorist group active in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s. It was NAR members who bombed Bologna railway station in 1980, killing 85 people including two young British travellers. Today Fiore is an MEP and leads Forza Nuova, a hardline Nazi group.
Griffin NF leaflet 1970'sIn 1986 the NF was torn apart by an extremely bitter feud. The "radicals" grouped around Griffin and Derek Holland and proclaimed themselves the "official" NF while the "reactionaries" coalesced around Martin Wingfield and Ian Anderson, who established the NF "Support Group". During this split Griffin honed his skills at plotting against and smearing his colleagues, intrigue and using disciplinary tribunals and expulsions to manipulate himself into a position of strength.
Griffin turned his faction into a small core of trained political activists, which he called the "political soldiers". It was a forerunner of today's elite in the BNP, the voting members, who have to undergo ideological training.
Griffin travelled to Tripoli in 1986 as a guest of the Libyan Government to raise money for the NF Griffin travelled to Tripoli in 1986 as a guest of the Libyan Government to raise money for the NF
In 1986 Griffin and two NF leaders took a fundraising trip to Libya as guests of Colonel Gaddafi's regime. He also made contact with Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, the US black separatist leader Louis Farrakhan and both sides of the conflict in Ireland. But in 1989 he abandoned the NF for the International Third Position (ITP), Fiore's revolutionary "nationalist" sect.
Griffin finally joined the BNP in 1995. In the same year he became editor of The Rune, an antisemitic quarterly produced by Croydon BNP, which he used as a platform for opposing the "modernisation" of the BNP, accusing those who wanted change of "rainbow Conservatism". He also declared that the BNP should prioritise denying the Holocaust to schoolchildren.
It was his statements denying the Holocaust in The Rune that led to Griffin's conviction in 1998 of distributing material likely to incite racial hatred. He was given a nine-month prison sentence suspended for two years.
During the trial Griffin made his notorious statement: "I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the Earth was flat … I have reached the conclusion that the 'extermination' tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter witch-hysteria."
The Rune that led to Griffin's conviction in 1998 of distributing material likely to incite racial hatred
I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the Earth was flat … I have reached the conclusion that the 'extermination' tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter witch-hysteria
Nick Griffin 1998
Griffin was elected leader of the BNP in September 1999. During his election campaign he used Tony Lecomber, who had served two three-year prison sentences on explosives charges and for assaulting a Jewish teacher, as his hatchet man to circulate personal smears against Tyndall.
Attempting to emulate groups such as the French National Front, with which the BNP has close links, Griffin devoted himself to making the BNP electable by toning down the BNP's hardline Nazism. The moderation was only skin deep. Replying to criticism from other parts of the far right, Griffin told a private meeting of American nazis and racists that while the BNP needed to change to get elected, his core beliefs - that of the superiority of the white race - remained his driving force.
In the evening of 26 May, 2001, the Oldham district of Glodwick erupted into violence
In the evening of 26 May, 2001, the Oldham district of Glodwick erupted into violence
In the 2001 general election Griffin stood in Oldham in the hope of exploiting that year's race riots and gained 16%. In 2002 the BNP first won success in council elections (apart from Derek Beackon's short stint as a councillor in Tower Hamlets in 1993-94). In the 2005 general election Griffin stood in Keighley, West Yorkshire, again trying to exploit racial tensions. He polled 4,240 votes (9.16%).
Nick Griffin and Mark Collett in Leeds 2006In 2006 Griffin and Mark Collett, a BNP officer, faced two trials on charges of using words or behaviour likely or intended to stir up racial hatred. The charges arose from speeches at BNP meetings filmed for a BBC documentary. The first trial ended with the jury unable to reach a verdict. After a retrial both were acquitted.
Throughout his leadership of the BNP Griffin saw off several rivals and dissidents, including Tyndall himself whom Griffin expelled, was forced to reinstate and expelled again. In 2007 Chris Jackson mounted a challenge to the leadership under a procedure laid down in the BNP constitution that favoured the incumbent. After Jackson received less than 10% of the vote his election agent, Mike Easter, was expelled, one of several high profile resignations and expulsions during 2007.
Dissent in the BNP came to a head in December 2007 when a rebel faction led by two national party officers, Kenny Smith and Sadie Graham, called for the sacking of two other national officers, Collett and David Hannam, because of their incompetence and unacceptable behaviour. The biggest crisis in the BNP since its formation in 1982, it quickly turned into a challenge to the leadership of Griffin himself.
Chris Jackson, Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith (left to right) Chris Jackson, Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith
However Griffin is a crafty and manipulative tactician and the rebels proved no match to Griffin's ability to hold onto the reigns of party power. The rebel leaders were quickly expelled and, out in the cold, never managed to capitalise on their largely justified grievances.
Griffin has always had links with US extremists In 2006 he spoke at a conference organised by American Renaissance, a pseudo-scientific racist magazine, where he shared the podium with antisemites and Holocaust deniers. The audience was packed full of white supremacists including David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. It was his second turn at an American Renaissance conference; he had previously spoken there in 2002.
In October 2007 Griffin undertook an anti-Islam speaking tour of three US universities. The trip was organised and financed by Preston Wiginton, who also appealed for donations for Griffin on the Stormfront Nazi web forum.
Griffin and Wiginton have collaborated for many years. Wiginton spearheaded US support for Griffin during his trials in 2006, setting up an online petition calling on the British government to drop the prosecution. Wiginton regularly posts antisemitic vitriol to Stormfront, to which he also donates money, and is connected with international racist and Nazi skinhead organisations.
Nick Griffin in the US October 2007, Preston Wiginton (right)Nick Griffin in the US October 2007,
Preston Wiginton (right)
Wiginton also has close links with Russian fascist organisations responsible for the wave of racist murders in Russia. In November 2007 he spoke at a rally in Moscow, where surrounded by people giving Nazi salutes he proclaimed "Glory to Russia" in faltering Russian while the crowd chanted "white power, white power" in English.
Griffin endorsed Wiginton in an open letter to "European Colleagues" shortly after his US tour, praising him as a "very effective organiser and, rarely among American nationalists, understands the importance of image and popular acceptability to all nationalist parties". The letter explains that Wiginton "is very well connected in Russia, with good contacts with various nationalist organisations and elected politicians".
Referring to Wiginton's role in planning a "major march and rally" in Moscow Griffin continued, "the BNP supports this endeavour wholeheartedly and asks all our European comrades to do likewise, hopefully thereby creating the beginnings of an effective cooperation between patriots of both Western and Orthodox Christendom against our common enemies: Mass immigration; radical Islamism; Western liberalism and Wall Street/White House dollar imperialism". The language is typical of Nazis.
But it is European far-right leaders that Griffin has been courting most keenly in the run-up to the European elections in June 2009. In April 2008, just three days before polling day in the council and London Assembly elections, Griffin took time out to attend a secret meeting in London with three leading European extremist politicians.
Arthur Kemp, the former agent for the South African apartheid regimeThe meeting was organised by Arthur Kemp (pictured), the former agent for the South African apartheid regime and now in charge of the BNP's ideological training. Making the arrangements on behalf of the visitors was Georg Mayer, a senior officer in the Austrian Freedom Party. Mayer acted as the spokesperson for the short-lived Identity Tradition Sovereignty (ITS) group in the European Parliament until its collapse late last year.
Mayer brought with him Bruno Gollnisch, a French MEP and vice president of the far-right National Front, and Andreas Mölzer, an Austrian MEP and leading member of the Austrian Freedom Party.
Their presence confirmed Griffin's continued failure to break away from Holocaust denial and antisemitism. In January 2007 a French court handed Gollnisch a three-month suspended prison sentence and fined him €5,000 for denying the Holocaust. The court found he had "disputed a crime against humanity" in remarks he made during a news conference in the city in October 2004. Gollnisch, who was chair of the ITS group, had questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust and said the "existence of the gas chambers is for historians to discuss".
Andreas MölzerMölzer (pictured) is the publisher of Zur Zeit, an Austrian political magazine in which racism, antisemitism and xenophobia are staple features. In an interview with Zur Zeit in spring 2008, Griffin assured Mölzer of his firm belief in "nationalist cooperation" to deal with the "Islamic threat" and "the tide of Third World immigration" and to oppose the entry of Turkey into the EU.
Griffin continued his strategy of building links with the European far right by addressing an open-air rally of the Hungarian fascist Jobbik party and its private army heavy mob, the Hungarian Guard, in Budapest in October 2008. Alongside him on the platform was Fiore. Griffin has been flirting with the Hungarian fascists since May when he met the Jobbik representatives Bela Kovacs and Zoltan Fuzessy in London.
Griffin at a rally of the Hungarian fascist Jobbik partyGriffin at a rally of the Hungarian fascist Jobbik party
A few days after his return from Hungary Griffin was cementing his relationship with the tiny anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-Romani Czech National Party (NS) by addressing its rally to celebrate Czech independence. In his speech he railed against the accession of Turkey to the EU, saying that the introduction of millions of Muslims into the EU would "drive down wages, living standards and increase taxes". Griffin's trip, accompanied by several BNP activists, followed the visit by the NS leader, Petra Edelmannová, to the BNP's Red White and Blue festival in August.
Griffin hopes that these links will stand him in good stead if he gets elected to the European Parliament in 2009. Becoming an MEP is important to him because it would enhance his political respectability and influence, but the prime incentive for him is the chance to get his hands on a pot of money in the form of an MEP's salary and expenses. And if enough far-right MEPs can put aside their nationalist rivalries and form a bloc, they will benefit from a further €1 million a year as well as committee positions and enhanced speaking rights. It would transform the BNP.
