Reacting to today’s sickening and barbaric terrorist attack in Woolwich, believed to have been carried out by Jihadists, Prime Minister David Cameron correctly said that all communities would utterly condemn it. This evening several spokesmen of the Muslim community have done just that and reminded those who needed reminding that the great majority of Muslims in Britain are peace-loving. The victim is understood to be a British soldier from the nearby Woolwich barracks and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and the local community.

The Bishop of Woolwich The Rt Rev Michael Ipgrave and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe have called for calm. Disgustingly the racist thugs of the English Defence League are doing the exact opposite. This evening around 60 EDL supporters have gathered in Woolwich with the despicable aim of inciting community tension. Their presence is the last thing the people of Woolwich need, and by diverting police resources, can only hamper the investigation of this crime.

Equally disgusting are two reported attacks on mosques. A 43-year-old Braintree man was arrested for attempted arson on a mosque in the Essex town and another man was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage to a mosque in Gillingham, Kent. We don’t know whether these men are connected with the EDL or any other racist organisations, but they share the same evil motive of exploiting Jihadist terror to provoke violence and hatred. That puts them on the same level as the Jihadists themselves. 

For your freedom and ours - Remember Szmul Zygielbojm
Remember the Warsaw Ghetto Resisters

SZMUL ZYGIELBOJM was a Jewish socialist political activist – a Bundist – in Poland in the 1930s who went on to become a representative of the Jewish community in Poland under Nazi occupation.

His activities meant he had to flee to London where he was a part of the Polish government in exile.

“Right now, we are putting the finishing touches to a hugely exciting new project,” proclaimed an email from Charlie Wythe, the British National Party’s head of publicity, on 12 May. The BNP was “poised to become the first political party in Britain to effectively harness the power of online social media in a new recruitment drive”. All the party needed was “your help to make the awesome power of social networking and Internet technology work for us.”

We waited with bated breath. Well perhaps we weren’t that excited, recognising the email as yet another BNP fundraising pitch. But we didn’t have to wait long. “Launch date 3pm Sunday 18th May” hyped the BNP website, and indeed, there it was. And as promised it does seem to use “the most popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to connect with thousands of potential activists, new members, supporters and voters”.

The project is plugged as a game. Under the heading “how to play” there are four steps to becoming a “BNP online activist”: choose your social network; “check your email for official content”; share it; earn points for “exclusives & prizes”. Er, that’s it.

As was inevitable, the British National Party lost the county council seat it was defending and failed to secure election of any of the 100 or so candidates it fielded in last Thursday’s local elections. Most polled below 10%, some even below 1%. The results have left the BNP with just three elected representatives in the whole of the UK: two borough councillors and Nick Griffin, the party’s leader and sole MEP. All three face the voters next May and their prospects are not looking good.

The one ray of light for the BNP was Maryport South, where Dawn Charlton came second out of six candidates with 40% of the vote, polling 811 votes against Labour’s 905. The BNP was quick to claim electoral “chicanery” on the grounds that several potential supporters were not sent postal voting forms and turned away from polling stations. At the same time the BNP claimed the result was a triumph for “new campaign techniques” and had shown how “despite all the hype and against all the odds we can win or come close to winning”.

The UK Independence Party polled only 127 votes, making Maryport South one of the very few places where it did significantly worse than the BNP. The BNP claimed the result showed: “how we can take UKIP head on and beat them”. A more accurate assessment is that it was the proverbial exception that proves the rule.

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