- Update: Nick was scheduled to speak at an “Anti-Islamisation Congress” in Cologne, Germany over the weekend of September 19–21 but has now withdrawn (possibly in order to avoid arrest under Germany’s strict laws on Holocaust denial). “Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, had been on the guest list but after German anti-fascists, with help from Searchlight, published his comments denying the Holocaust, his name was withdrawn just before Cologne city council and the German Interior Ministry condemned the congress.” (Racists gather for Cologne anti-Islam rally, Hans-Peter Killguss, Searchlight, September 2008).
Singing too-rall, li-oo-rall, li-ad-di-ty,
Singing too-rall, li-oo-rall, li-ay,
Singing too-rall, li-oo-rall, li-ad-di-ty
Oh we are bound for Botany Bay
Oh we are bound for Botany Bay
Far-right British politician plans tour
Philip Dorling
The Canberra Times
September 11, 2008A leading British far-right politician is planning a controversial speaking tour of Australia. The Chairman of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, has confirmed his intention to visit Australia in December. Mr Griffin’s tour is sponsored by the anti-Asian [read: fascist] Australian Protectionist Party which was formed last year by breakaway members of the Australia First Party.
Announcing Mr Griffin’s visit, the president of the Australian Protectionist Party, Andrew Phillips, said that the British National Party leader would speak to Australian audiences ”on the experiences of the British National Party in their fight to protect Britain and its people from the demographic genocide that is threatening their homeland, caused by the large-scale immigration of people from the Third World”.
Phillips is one of two public figures belonging to the APP; the other is Darrin Hodges, who will be contesting for a seat on the local council of Sutherland Shire this weekend. A former member of the world’s most popular white supremacist website Stormfront, Hodges has since disavowed both his anti-Semitism and his admiration for Hitler, and transferred his hatred and resentment from Jews to Muslims, the latter of which is now identified as belonging to a more general wave of Third World “filth” and “scum” threatening to overwhelm White Australia. Hodges is also a supporter of the fascist New Right/’national anarchist’ grouping, appearing as a member of their ‘black bloc’ at the APEC demonstrations in Sydney last year.
Mr Griffin joined the neo-Nazi British National Front as a teenager and has led the British National Party since 1999. Like the anti-Semitic historian David Irving, he has disputed whether the Holocaust took place, calling it the ”hoax of the 20th century”.
According to HOPE not Hate: “Nick Griffin is one of the biggest deniers of the Holocaust, describing it as the “hoax of the 20th century”. He has even criticised the far-right writer and Holocaust denier David Irving for daring to suggest that some people might have been killed.” According to Danny Ben-Moshe: “Both [Frederick] Toben and [David] Bennett regularly attend IHR conferences, but the more active of the two through these networks is Toben, who has extensive contacts with deniers across the globe. His European contacts are well documented in his travel diary of a 1998 trip to Europe which was devoted to meeting deniers, visiting concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and delving into archives where his findings reaffirmed his beliefs. In London he met Germar Rudolf where they discussed the involvement of Adelaide Institute Online in an English language publication Rudolf is planning, and he stayed with Rudolf on the farm of British National party leader Nick Griffin.” See : Holocaust Denial in Australia, Danny Ben-Moshe, Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism, No.25, The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), 2005 (PDF).
In recent years, however, Mr Griffin has sought to ”mainstream” the British National Party, avoiding overt anti-Semitism and instead focussing on immigration, especially attacks on the Britain’s Muslim communities.
The British National Party has enjoyed modest but significant success in British local government elections, claiming more than 100 elected representatives, though some of these have reportedly split from the party. [See : Where now?, Nick Lowles, Searchlight, June 2008.]
In May 1998 Mr Griffin was prosecuted for incitement to racial hatred after he published an article that referred to non-white people as ”mongrel slaves”. He received a nine-month suspended sentence and a large fine.
In 2006 Mr Griffin was again prosecuted for racial vilification, but was found not guilty in two trials.
Mr Griffin attempted to visit Australia in August 1998. That proposed visit attracted strong criticism from the federal Labor opposition and then immigration minister Philip Ruddock reportedly banned Mr Griffin from entry. Mr Griffin told The Canberra Times yesterday that ”I was formally told I would not be allowed in.”
Mr Griffin said he hoped there would be no problems with getting a visa 10 years later.
Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council spokesman Jeremy Jones condemned Mr Griffin’s planned visit saying his past criminal conviction for inciting racial hatred should be sufficient to ensure his exclusion.
”A visit by Griffin ought to be a matter of concern for Australia’s Muslim community, indeed by all communities here who have found that tolerance and engagement is a better path than division and hatred.”
The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Evans, said all visa applicants must satisfy the character test of the Migration Act that includes provisions to ensure that a non-citizen will not vilify, incite discord in or represent a danger to the Australian community, or part of that community.
Whether or not Griffin will be able able to visit Australia in December is one thing, but the previous HoWARd Government certainly acted to exclude a number of other undesireables. In 2001, US ‘anti-globalisation’ activist Doyle Canning was denied entry to the country; in April 2005, Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Negri experienced some difficulties (later cancelling on the grounds of ill-health), while Scott Parkin continues his battle with Government authorities to discover why he was kicked out of the country in 2005. On the far right, two leading members of the neo-Nazi NPD have been excluded on character grounds: in 2003, Udo “Six million cannot be right. At most, 340,000 people could have died in Auschwitz” Voigt, the leader of the party, was told to piss off, while two years later, in 2005, the NPD’s Gerd Finkenwirth was also denied entry. On both occasions, their tours were organised by Darrin Hodge’s ‘national anarchist’ comrade Welf Herfurth.
Still, things change.
In May this year, Don Black banned the use of swastikas on Stormfront; and the BNP itself is now lauding the virtues of Zionism. Jews are OK, apparently, if they stick to Israel.
John Safran’s guide to unexpected Zionists
Australian Jewish News
August 25 2006White Supremacists for Zionism
THE British National Party (BNP) is a far-right group headed by Holocaust-denier Nick Griffin. They caused shockwaves in the White Power world a few years back by announcing they couldn’t be bothered hating Jews anymore.
Their rationale: there are so few Jews in England it was a bit like investing energy in loathing the Amish.
Besides, they hated Arabs more. White European Jews were even told they could join, although you had to be assimilated – so no turning up to meetings in a shtreimel. And tuck in your tzitzit for God’s sake.
The BNP even flouted the conventional White Power wisdom on Zionism. They respected Israelis’ sense of nationalism and admired its firm hand in dealings with the Arabs. On the current conflict in Lebanon, BNP legal adviser Lee Barnes says, “It is in our long-term interests that Hezbollah are ground into dust by Israel as that way we don’t have to do it in the future.”
Barnes also complains about media coverage of the conflict: “The obvious agenda for the media is to assist in ending nationalism as an ideology and the destruction of nationalist states like Israel.”
I don’t want to tell anyone how to run their white-supremacist movement but when you’re complaining that the Jews don’t control the media, maybe it’s time to go back to bonehead school.
See also : Nationale Sozialisten für Israel (June 28, 2008)
this part is curious:
“Hodges has since disavowed both his anti-Semitism and his admiration for Hitler, and transferred his hatred and resentment from Jews to Muslims, the latter of which is now identified as belonging to a more general wave of Third World “filth” and “scum” threatening to overwhelm White Australia. Hodges is also a supporter of the fascist New Right/’national anarchist’ grouping, appearing as a member of their ‘black bloc’ at the APEC demonstrations in Sydney last year.”
Troy Southgate’s National-Anarchist ideology is just the opposite: it is pro-Islamist (as long as they are fighting in traditionally Muslim areas) and so pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah, pro-Iran; and also anti-Semitic (into Holocaust Revisionism, Kazar theory, and elaborate conspiracy theories about the role of “International Zionism” in controlling the banking industry, media. etc etc). Southgate is anti-BNP for just this reason.
But Welf’s group seems to only use the National-Anarchist idea as a way to build a grassroots base for an NDP-like party; he doesn’t seem actually committed to it as an ideology at all. But these guys are so duplicitous, does it really make sense to point out their inconsistencies?
Geez @ndy still full of crap I see. Hodges a member of NA? Someone is drawing a long bow. Hell he may have gone to a demo but I think you will find that Hodges is APP all the way.
Boy you must truly hate those NA guys to do this. What’s wrong mate got to [sic] many enemies? Have to try and put them all in the one slot so you keep up with them[?]
May see you this weekend if you are lucky?
[Where’s your blog Kinky?]
The main thing that differentiates Jim from other Nazis is that he shoots the kangaroos he finds loose in the top paddock. I’d be surprised if he could find the time this weekend to find anyone, what with the Viking music and saluting to be done.
Here’s a clue Jim; Darrin throwing in his lot with the NA, being seen with them on at least one occasion, promoting their virtues etc. To be fair, Darrin does try to associate himself with anything that moves in far right circles (and if it doesn’t move, he pushes it).
curious:
To this point, Darrin has failed to acknowledge his presence at the rally, and it has not entered into any of the reportage on either the APP or his campaign. I imagine that a candidate for local council espousing ‘anarchism’ and forming part of a pseudo-black bloc is somewhat embarrassing. On the other hand, none of the others who were in attendance have identified themselves either — the 20 or 30 fascists who formed the mini-protest were wearing disguises for a reason, obviously. (The only, partial exception to this is Andrew Fraser who, while not forming part of the fascist bloc, lurked on its edges for a time.)
In my opinion, Darrin was there less out of an ideological commitment to ‘national anarchism’ or the ideas of either Troy Southgate or his local epigone Welf Herfurth and more out of opportunity and a need to try and bolster the New Right’s rather tiny numbers. (Subsequent protests in Canberra and Melbourne have been even more miniscule, attracting about half-a-dozen or so.)
Regarding the New Right/’national anarchists’ and Islam, Herfurth is one of a handful of fascists associated with these groupings to write for mathaba.net, a ‘news’ site which espouses the Little Green ideology of Muammar al-Gaddafi (see his 1975 magnum opus the three-volume Green Book). In an act of global solidarity, the tricksy mob at mathaba.net actually tried to close my blog down in April of this year.
Beyond this, like other fascist ideologies, Troy’s tinpot ‘nationalism’ is liable to change without notice, and its degree of coherency is rather, er, minimal. As you note: “these guys are so duplicitous, does it really make sense to point out their inconsistencies?”
Jim:
What flight are you on?
@ndy, actually i think that Troy’s ideology is very coherent and is in many ways the logical conclusion of ideological elements (Third Positionism and the New Right) that were present in the National Front in the mid-80s. Really the only new thing is the adaptation of “anarchist” imagery. Even the notions of decentralization are strongly present in ideas like “ethnopluralism” and the “Europe of a Hundred Flags”, both of which have been part of the far-right for at least 20 years. Here in the US we have had white nationalists advocate a separate white state in the northwest since the early 80s – an idea that leans on New Right formulations and could be read as a kind of “anarchism”.
Welf on the other hand is less tied to Troy ideologically, and thanks to your blog, it’s clear that even the 20 or so people at the APEC demo were not actually National Anarchists; rather they were a variety of Nationalists who Welf recruited to try out this tactic, but who were not necessarily on board with him otherwise.