Christopher Pryor writes that Far Right Catholic Integrationalist Derek Holland is a fan of unrepentant SSPX Holocaust denier Richard Williamson.
Derek Holland helped introduce Christianity to the British Far Right at a time when he was in the National Front alongside current BNP leader Nick Griffin. Both men are featured in this video:
This is in part why I don’t believe the BNP when they claim to be Christian.
Filed under anti-fascism, Holocaust
The BNP website reported on a recent event in Loughton in which Robert West spoke at Murray Hall – West being the leader of the BNP front group ‘the Christian Council of Britain’. According to the BNP:
Due to the anti-British and anti-Christian behaviour of the Churches in Loughton, Epping Forest British National Party had no choice but to arrange their own service in their own town. Over eighty members and supporters turned out to welcome the Reverend West and a collection taken during the singing of the hymn ‘Jerusalem’ took a ‘profit’ of over £500.00 and this was donated to Epping Forest British National Party.
The first thing to say here is that it doesn’t seem very Christian of the BNP to organise a religious service, and then collect the donations for themselves. If the ‘Christian Council of Britain’ wants to be seen as anything other than a BNP front group, then its leader really shouldn’t be raising money for the local BNP branch during his services.
The BNP complained of opposition they faced from Loughton Churches Together, who utterly reject the BNP’s racial divisiveness. Yet Loughton of all places seems an odd venue for the BNP to promote its Christian values, given the BNP’s track record there.
In February of last year, the Epping Forest BNP Watch blog reported that the BNP had portrayed local gang rivalry between pupils at Roding Valley and Davenant School as an attack by “ethnic youths” from Davenant against white children from Roding Valley, despite neither gang being ethnically homogenous. Yet Davenant itself is a Christian ecumenical school which claims to support ‘Christian values,’ making it an odd target for the ‘Christian’ BNP.
The EFBNPW blogger observed:
In its report, OFSTED notes that “about 13% of students are from minority ethnic backgrounds, a percentage which is significantly higher than that for other Essex schools.” Roding Valley School has a far lower proportion of non-white students, a proportion that is roughly the same as the 99% racially white town it is situated in.
So the BNP even put its racial agenda above its ‘Christian values’ agenda in its fear-mongering about Davenant students.
Moreover, the BNP website detailed that Richard Barnbrook addressed the ‘Christian’ service in Loughton.
In September 2009, Barnbrook was suspended from Barking and Dagenham Council for one month after broadcasting false claims about murders in his borough. At Barnbrook’s hearing, Councillor Val Rush accused him of having deliberately tried to stir up fear within the borough.
Last time we met Barnbrook in Loughton, he spoke in front of an upside-down flag of Essex.
With nothing to offer the people of Loughton but hatred and bigotry, the BNP are trying to win voters through fear, using its brand of Christianity as a way to divide people. In Loughton, the BNP have managed to alienate both the main coalition of churches and the local Christian ecumenical school.
This is no surpise, as the BNP’s “Christianity” has its roots in the International Third Position – a neo-fascist movement. The BNP presents itself as an anti-Catholic ‘Protestant’ party in Britain, whilst linking hands with an anti-Protestant ‘Catholic’ party abroad.
The Christian Council of Britain itself offers offensive comparisons between immigration into Britain and Hitler’s policies in Poland, and cheapens the horrors of the African slave trade too.
Happily though, with only eighty-plus people attending the BNP’s ‘service’ in Murray Hall, it seems the BNP are not fooling the Christians of Loughton.
Filed under anti-fascism
Read Edmund Standing on the BNP’s Robert West and the Christian Council of Britain.
Filed under anti-fascism
From the Jewish Chronicle:
Dr Tamimi told BBC’s Hard Talk: “Sacrificing myself for Palestine is a noble cause … I would do it if I had the opportunity.”
[…]
On Sunday Dr Tamimi is due to take part in Glasgow Palestine Society’s Gaza Memorial Day, together with LibDem MP John Hume. Next month he is speaking at the Federation of Student Islamic Societies’ conference, alongside the deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Daoud Abdullah, Ben White and Stephen Sizer.
Filed under anti-fascism
From the FIEC:
The FIEC issued the folowing statement concerning the British National Party on 23 December 2009.
To all FIEC churches
We would wish you to be aware of a statement being made on a website in the public domain by the Rev Robert West, a parliamentary candidate representing the British National Party (BNP).Mr West states the following: “I doubt very much that the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches oppose my views or the views of any genuine Christian and patriot, backed-up as they are by the holy Scriptures”.
Mr West has not contacted the FIEC office to find out what the views of the FIEC might be about this issue, and the FIEC regrets that Mr West has seen fit to make public reference to the supposed views of the FIEC without getting in touch with the office.
In fact, the FIEC strongly believes that the churches that make up the Fellowship would repudiate any idea that the Scriptures support the published policies of the BNP. There are elements within the policies of all political parties which are contrary to the Scriptures. In the case of the BNP, it appears to us that its policies seek to create an attitude of racial hierarchy which values people of some ethnic origins more than others. The Scriptures do not support any such policies, and we greatly regret that Mr West has asserted that they do, and in so doing, that he has linked the name of The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches with his own erroneous views. Mr West is not in any way accredited by or associated with the FIEC.
Richard Underwood
General Secretary
The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches
Well, this is about time!
Filed under anti-fascism, BNP, theology
…It might pan out like this.
Which is why, among other reasons, vicars and preachers should be unequivocal in their condemnation of the BNP.
Filed under anti-fascism
Read about this on There is Nothing British about the BNP.
Filed under anti-fascism, bigotry, BNP
On Liberal Conspiracy, Cath Elliot draws attention to the neo-Nazi discussion board Stormfront, who want to deport her in response to her article on the BNP’s lies in Norwich North, where the BNP’s clergyman Robert West ran for election.
Eliot notes an interesting contribution on the Stormfront message board from a BNP supporter:
“Its time to drop the reverend. Having a fake vicar puts us down with the crank candidates and thats where our vote has ended up.
People aren`t stupid ( well actually they are on the whole) but they have seen through this fake Reverend gimmick.”
And it seems that BNP supporters aren’t the only ones not entirely convinced by Robert West’s Christianity.
Have a look at this discussion:
Filed under anti-fascism, bigotry, BNP
Edmund Standing writes:
In 2000, BNP leader (and now MEP) Nick Griffin stood before an audience of American ‘white nationalists’ and proposed that while he had no intention of ‘selling out’ the BNP’s principles, he now wanted to ‘sell’ the party. So, he stated, the BNP would now use ‘salable’ words such as ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, and replace discourse about ‘racial purity’ with talk of ‘identity’. In recent years, particularly following the 7/7 terrorist atrocities, the BNP has sought to align itself with what is loosely termed the ‘anti-jihad movement’ and to shift its focus from attacking Jews and black people to opposing ‘Islamification’.
…
When it comes to Islam, the BNP hasn’t exactly had to work hard to whip up anti-Muslim bigotry and paranoia about ‘Islamification’. Looking at the scare stories on its website’s news section, a large number of them are drawn straight from mainstream media sources, and the party is being greatly assisted by the grossly disproportionate coverage given in newspapers to the outrageous statements and provocations of Anjem Choudary and his motley crew of social misfits who go under a variety of names but are essentially Al-Muhajiroun. In hysterical report after report (some of which I have documented here and here), a tiny minority of bin Ladenist fanatics and fantasists have been presented as a serious threat to our society.
The fact is, of course, that while Al-Muhajiroun is a dangerous group with many links to terrorism, it represents only the tiniest handful of Muslims in Britain, not that you would know that given the amount of time Choudary gets in the media. So, when the BNP claimed in its European election material that it would ‘ensure that British troops are not abused on the streets of our cities by Muslims’, it was in particular cynically appealing to the concerns of those who get the majority of their understanding of the world from reading simplistic and hyped up tabloid stories.
Filed under anti-fascism, BNP
This is now a guest post on Harry’s Place, where you can also read more on Lorant Hegedus Jr.
A couple of months ago, I took a look at the BNP’s connections with Italian Far Right party Forza Nuova, whose thugs have intimidated Italian Protestants. Forza Nuova’s priest Giulio Tam openly embraces fascism, and conducts memorial services for Spanish Falangists in 2007, and the Italian Far Right.
Now that news comes that UKIP is forming an alliance with Italian separatist party Lega Nord, bringing in other European hard-Right parties, it’s worth taking a similar look at UKIP’s ally in Italy. Whilst this alliance is probably a “marriage of convenience”, it is nevertheless worrying that UKIP are lending legitimacy to those involved in neo-fascist politics.
One of Lega Nord’s MEPs, Mario Borghezio, has a conviction for setting fire to the belongings of immigrants who were sleeping under a bridge. Borghezio’s links to neo-fascists in France have recently been exposed in a French video documentary.
According to the Huffington Post, SSPX priest Floriano Abrahamowicz is considered the ‘unofficial chaplain’ of Lega Nord.
Who is Floriano Abrahamowicz?
In late January 2009, British Catholic SSPX priest Richard Williamson made headlines due to comments in an interview on Swedish TV playing down the numbers of Holocaust victims (Williamson estimated the real count to be between 200,000-300,000) and denying that the Nazis employed gas chambers to kill Jews.
Some days later, in an interview with Italian newspaper Tribuna de Trevise, Abrahamowicz defended his fellow SSPX member, claiming that the gas chambers were only used by the Nazis for ‘disinfection’, and complaining about the importance given to the Holocaust. The SSPX promptly dismissmed Abrahamowicz, distancing themselves from Holocaust denial.
Earlier this month however, in an interview given to Stephen Heiner, Abrahamowicz suggested that Holocaust denial is far more widespread in the SSPX than most assume. Heiner claims:
My fellow-priests agreed with all that I said in my interview with the Tribuna de Trevise. But no one imagined the media effect it would produce. So it was the very fact of publicly attacking the Jews which made my confreres and superiors tremble and then shook their friendship.
In an extreme example of the Livingstone Formulation, Williamson’s Holocaust denial was merely ‘criticising Zionist policy’, which has become the ‘new Messiah’:
Touching the new Messiah, i.e. criticising Zionist policy, is the ultimate lèse-majesté. At present the Vatican is bowing down before the Zionist reign. So the Society, by entering into friendship with Ratzinger’s Vatican ought to sacrifice to the gods… In order to avoid saying that it is forbidden to touch the new Messiah, the affair has been classified as a “historical question”, falling outside the competence of a bishop.
If true, Abrahamowicz’s claim that he has support from other SSPX priests is of some concern. Equally concerning is that UKIP has entered into an alliance with a party that considers Florian Abrahamowicz as a moral authority.
UKIP have just run a campaign in Norwich North claiming to offer an alternative to the BNP. UKIP leader Nigel Farange has said of the BNP:
“There are no circumstances, no possible situations, in which we would even consider doing any type of deal with the BNP whatsoever […] I’m simply amazed that the BNP thought we would even consider such a thing, given that we are a non-racist, non-sectarian party.”
So, Mr. Farange, what makes Lega Nord any different?
Filed under anti-fascism, bigotry, Euro elections
Seismic Shock 