Anti-fascist campaigners waving flags and placards gave BNP leader Nick Griffin a noisy reception as he arrived at Leeds Crown Court to answer race-hate charges yesterday. Mr Griffin was also greeted by a handful of far-right supporters as he arrived with co-defendant Mark Collett.

The BNP leader is charged over a speech he made in West Yorkshire in 2004, which was filmed by an undercover BBC reporter. Mr Collett faces four similar charges relating to two speeches that he made in the town during the same year.

Rodney Jameson QC opened the prosecution’s case by detailing the alleged racist remarks. He said that Mr Griffin had told a crowd at the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley, on January 19 2004, that Islam was a “wicked, vicious faith.” Mr Griffin is also alleged to have said that Asian Muslims were turning Britain into a multiracial “hell” as they tried to conquer the country. Mr Jameson said that Mr Griffin had urged the gathering to vote BNP to ensure that “the British people really realise the evil of what these people have done to our country.”

The court heard that Mr Collett had addressed the gathering on the same evening, saying: “Let’s show these ethnics the door in 2004.” The QC said that, instead of contributing to a debate on multiculturalism, the BNP activist’s speeches had been “little more than crude racist rants.”

In a second speech delivered at the Crossroads public house in Keighley on March 31 2004, Mr Collett said: “I honestly don’t hate asylum-seekers. These people are cockroaches and they’re doing what cockroaches do because cockroaches can’t help what they do. They just do it, like cats miaow and dogs bark.”

The Recorder of Leeds, Judge Norman Jones QC, adjourned the retrial till Monday, when the case for the defence will begin.

Morning Star, 4 November 2006

See also Guardian, 4 November 2006

Of course, we have it on the authority of Giraldus Cambrensis from Western Resistance that the BNP has long ceased to be a racist organisation.