Fascists’ election lies exposed

By Nick West

Tribune, 14 April 2006

The attempted flooding of the London Underground by Islamist terrorists is just one of many lies being peddled by fascist British National Party candidates at the forthcoming local elections. Claiming to have a confidential Metropolitan Police source who revealed the plot to bomb the London tube, the BNP says the threat from Islamic terrorists is far worse than imagined, as its members step up their attempt to demonise the Islamic community.

The party’s publications are decribing the local elections as a “Referendum on Islam” and claiming the government’s “slack” asylum and immigration policies and the war in Iraq are responsible for Islamic terrosrism. A BNP leaflet, distributed only days after the bombings last July, said: “If only they had listened to the BNP”.

This approach has led certain sections of the BNP to hand out copies of the Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed, leading to one BNP canvasser being hospitalised. An even more controversial approach has been taken in Leeds, where the latest edition of the BNP’s Morley Patriot called for the banning of the burka and the removal of Muslims from any job that involves chemicals or electronics. Other tactics have seen BNP canvassers presenting themselves as “old Labour”. A recent BNP leaflet in Sandwell in the West Midlands proudly announced this was “the Labour Party your grandfathers voted for”.

Target areas for the BNP, which is standing a record 357 candidates, are where it has contested previous by-elections, thrown regional or national resources at a campaign and collected voter data. Target councils are Thurrock, Barking and Dagenham, Epping, Bexley, Stoke-on-Trent, Dudley, Oldham, Manchester, Burnley, Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale and Amber Valley.