Author: Nick Lowles | Date: April 2000

Is the BNP turning normal?

BNP FÜHRER Nick Griffin has a spring in his step. The new British National Party (BNP) leader truly believes that his party is on the verge of an electoral breakthrough. After 20 years in the political wilderness, British racial nationalism has come of age, and in line with events across much of western Europe, will become a political force in the very near future.

“It will not be easy”, he wrote recently. “It will not, from the standpoint of those involved, be quick. Our progress will not be without setbacks. But make no mistake, it can, and will, be won… This is going to be our century!”

Griffin’s optimism has been matched by a concerted drive to modernise the BNP to prepare it for the avalanche of interest awaiting it. Particular emphasis has been placed on reorganising and improving its internal structures and leadership skill base. All this is geared to transforming the BNP into a fully-fledged and accepted constitutional party fighting a legitimate political battle alongside Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Despite ample evidence that the BNP is simply playing a political game, it seems that a growing number of people are being taken in by its propaganda and accepting it as a legitimate constitutional party. While the new nature of BNP activity and political campaigning cannot be ignored, this willingness to accept the BNP at its

word is not only ignorant and misguided, but also highly dangerous.

Since becoming leader, Nick Griffin has continued to prioritise the internal restructuring that he and his supporters have been initiating for the past two years. Believing that political success is around the corner, Griffin has long argued that the BNP will only be able to capitalise on it if it makes the necessary changes to the party operation.

It has begun to diffuse party power to regional level to make the party more responsive to local needs and campaigns. It claims to be introducing greater political and skills education for activists and organisers to broaden the leadership base and create a more able middle party cadre.

Among the plans is the creation of a virtual party headquarters on the Internet. It has recently replaced the old party publications, Spearhead and British Nationalist, with a glossy bi-monthly magazine, Identity, and a tabloid-style newspaper, Voice of Britain. It has added to its existing working groups with the formation of the Association of British Ex-Servicemen and the Youth Group and is holding regular leadership meetings around the country to swap ideas and skills.

Abroad, the BNP has launched a highly successful operation in the United States. The American Friends of the BNP, led by Mark Cotterill, a former National Front and UDA activist, has raised thousands of dollars for the party and, perhaps of greater significance in the longer term, established it as the leading British far-right organisation in the eyes of the US right.

Cotterill’s conversion to the BNP has been matched by leading members of the Bloomsbury Forum, a far-right pseudo-intellectual group heavily involved with the quarterly magazine Right Now! and who for much of the mid-1990s thought a new nationalist organisation could only emerge out of a split in the Conservative Party. Steve Brady, Eddie Butler, Steve Smith and Adrian Davies are all Bloomsbury Forum activists who have been increasing their links to the BNP.

Adopting techniques long practised by the main political parties, the BNP claims to have identified key target wards around the country for the focus of regional activity in a bid to maximise support which in turn will replicate itself over a wider area.

In addition, Griffin and his close supporters are placing great stress on the social aspect of party activity. Branches and regions are being encouraged to adopt a more socially minded and family-friendly organisation, in an attempt to attract a wider array of people. The family “Fun Day” held last summer in the West Midlands is to become a two-day festival this summer, mixing sports and entertainment with political education and speeches.

Internal reorganisation has been matched by changes to the party’s uncompromising political stance. It is beginning to engage sections of the population previously untouched, on subjects that in the past were ignored. Over the past two years the BNP has initiated

a “Land and People” campaign to attract the farming and rural community, campaigned in support of

British truckdrivers and joined and encouraged anti-paedophile actions.

Additionally, the new BNP leadership has been keen to distance itself from the old regime of John Tyndall and Richard Edmonds in an attempt to portray a fresh image for the party. Tyndall’s key supporters have found themselves increasingly frozen out since Griffin’s election. Finally, in changing the party’s immigration policy to advocate voluntary repatriation instead of forcible eviction, the BNP hopes to appear more flexible and realistic in its outlook.

The changing nature of the BNP has been seen by some, including many in the police and the press, as proof that it has transformed itself into a constitutional party. Gone are the racist boot-boy, the provocative marches and crass antisemitism that accompanied BNP activity in the early 1990s, the BNP-inspired riots in Dewsbury and Bermondsey, the vicious racist attacks perpetrated by BNP leaders, and the production and distribution of Holocaust News.

In accepting this new BNP, some argue that it is no longer possible to confront it in the same way as before. While no one is denying that the BNP has reorganised itself into a far more efficient unit than it once was, and new arenas of political confrontation are necessary, this does not automatically imply that the BNP has become a constitutional party. In much the same way that the National Front strove for respectability and normalisation during the height of its success in the mid-1970s, so the BNP is trying to adopt a more respectable and constitutional image because it too believes that electoral success is around the corner.

This new BNP is, of course, a charade. While it is keen to portray itself as “racial nationalist” and "Euro-nationalist", it remains the party it always was. Greater public emphasis has been placed on image and parliamentary politics, but it is simply a tactical manoeuvre to attract voters. It is an attempt to address its poor credibility in the eyes of the voters, a major barrier that has been holding it back for many years.

The failure of the BNP to recruit disgruntled Conservatives and the sizeable vote for the UK Independence Party achieved in last year’s European elections illustrate this lack of credibility in the eyes of most voters. Indeed, despite attracting considerable media attention at a local and national level, its countryside campaign, launched in 1998, has failed to attract many recruits. Even the “Land and People” co-ordinator, George Jeffrey, has abandoned party activity in recent months, becoming increasingly disillusioned with its lack of success.

Over the past three years several of Grifin’s supporters have explained this modernising process as a means to increase the party’s credibility. Writing in Spearhead in 1998, Mark Deavin explicitly called for the BNP to moderate its image in a bid to court voters. Only that way, he argued, could they improve the party’s credibility and so attract former Conservative voters.

Does one really believe the BNP leaders, with their string of convictions and racist views, would remain faithful to its democratic and more moderate tone if it had a whiff of power? Of course not.

If the party were truly committed to ridding itself of its nazi past, it would have to remove most of its leaders, who continue to hold strong antisemitic and Holocaust denying views. The fact that Tony Lecomber (convicted bomber and thug) is number two in the party, Colin Smith (drugs, theft, violence) and Alan Gould (recently convicted for a racist attack) are two of its London organisers and Steve Cartwright (self-admitted Holocaust denier) remains in a position of power graphically illustrates that nothing has really changed.

If the BNP were so appalled by nazism, why is it strengthening links with the National Alliance, America’s leading nazi organisation? Griffin is in direct contact with William Pierce, leader of the Alliance and author of The Turner Diaries, the book that has inspired a generation of racist terrorists, while Cotterill is an integral part of the Alliance’s US operation.

One must also be careful to not take BNP propaganda at face value. Last month a BNP website pronounced a 91% increase in party membership last year. Yet at the time of Griffin’s election last September, he and his supporters claimed a 41% increase in two years.

Unfortunately, a growing number of people seem to be prepared to accept the BNP as the new constitutional movement it purports to be. Such acceptance is the first crucial step in normalising the BNP as just another political party, and giving it the credibility that it currently lacks.

Refusing to accept the BNP as a democratic constitutional movement does not mean underestimating its danger. With Labour continuing to alienate its core voters, and the rabidly racist campaign launched by the media in recent weeks, the BNP is likely to gain and in some areas, probably substantially. However, by refusing to give the BNP the respectability of being simply another political party and by exposing the BNP for what it really is, we go some way down the road of reducing its credibility.

The BNP is a growing danger, but do not believe everything it says.

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