January 20, 2008

Reader article: A journey worth making... (Part Two)

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Atreus. We welcome any contributions (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste) from our supporters. Please send your articles to us at lancaster.uaf@zen.co.uk

The events of 1979/80 seemed to come together in a rush. Faction-fighting was no-holds-barred and former friends were now bitter enemies. Locally, the three of us remaining in the official National Front did all we could to eclipse the far larger NF Constitutional Movement, pulling off stunts and firing off press releases as if they were going out of fashion.

Despite our tiny numbers we succeeded. The three of us were dedicated activists, and that was three more activists than the NFCM talking shop could muster. We had learned a lot from the divisions of 75/76.

This bout of factionalism, however, was much worse, and it was difficult, even for the most dedicated, to see how we were going to dig our way out of the hole in which we were firmly planted.

John Tyndall was removed from his positions in the NF and Andrew Brons installed as chairman. But everybody knew that the real power behind the throne was Martin Webster, whose homosexuality made him anathema to many NF members.

There was little we Tyndall loyalists could do but wait to see which way our leader (we considered him so) would jump, in the meantime fending off HQ's frequent demands for loyalty and cash. The wait wasn't too long. A phone call from JT's father-in-law, Charles Parker, summoned me to London and a small gathering of trusted Tyndallites, where the possibilities were discussed.

Nobody liked the idea of founding a new political party, so, as David Bruce said, we'd pretend we weren't!

JT talked of a "lifeboat" coming alongside the sinking ship of the NF to take off the crew, a simile we all liked as we could tell ourselves that we weren't "splitters". The next meeting, which I did not attend, decided on the name New National Front, which seemed just about right, given the task we had set ourselves, as it showed our continuing identification with the National Front.

The NNF was tiny. Branches, as we had known them in the NF, hardly seemed to exist over much of the country, and in our own West Midlands region members were particularly thin on the ground. Our purpose, though, was not to act like a political party (something that was beyond our means), nor was it to waste resources in recruitment leafleting; our task was to bring on board the worthwhile nationalists remaining in the NF or those who had gone over to the NFCM.

I baulked at the idea of bringing NFCM people into the fold, and on one of our paper sales drives in Brick Lane spent a lot of time bending JT's ear on the matter. JT was supremely confident that the NNF's autocratic constitution would allow him to nip any future populist plotting in the bud, but he allowed me the luxury of a veto on membership applications locally, which mollified me.
Despite appearances that were sometimes to the contrary, John Tyndall always believed that any nationalist party must necessarily be "broad church", even though this would (as it still does) bring with it the same problems that had plagued the NF in the 1970's. With himself as Leader with sole power to make internal party appointments, however, it seemed that the issue of factionalism might have been solved. To put it bluntly, the organisation's grass roots could become as populist as they wanted, but with Tyndallites installed in every position of power and influence, that would henceforth be of little consequence.

And it worked, until the conman in Nazi clothing came knocking at the door.

These were hectic days. We got ourselves over to the few National Front branches that continued to operate in order to poach their members, continued to pull stunts locally, supported NNF demonstrations wherever they were held, and made the journey to Brick Lane every Sunday morning.

It's all a bit fuzzy now, but even though my views have changed completely since those times it's still difficult for me not to look back on them with a certain amount of fondness. If I could go back now and undo everything I did then, I would do it without hesitation, but I did lead that life and I was involved in those events, and there's nothing I can do to change them.

Chief Constables in those days sought bans on far Right marches almost as a matter of course, but we learned to play this to our own advantage as we could often cause ourselves reams of publicity without ever really doing anything. We could also play the sometimes obvious Special Branch spying on us (through our mail and telephone calls) to our advantage, and gleefully did so.

Some years before a manager at my workplace called me in to his office. I knew him well, because he was a sympathiser, and so it was fortunate that when the SB came calling at the factory to gather information on me, he was the manager detailed to do it. As a result, we learned far more about the SB than they learned about us.

It had been obvious for a long time that my mail was being opened, and sometimes, usually just before a major NF or NNF event, I'd pick up the telephone and hear distant voices and random noises of movement that would suddenly disappear as the dialing tone came on. As I called JT and Charles Parker regularly after the formation of the NNF, we used other routes of communication when discussing party business, but used our home telephones or the mail when we wanted to feed the SB something.

That happened quite frequently. For example, I knew that the NNF was going to march in Burton on Trent, a march we knew would be banned. So we hatched a plan whereby midland NNF organisers received a bulletin calling them and their members to a redirection point at Corley Services, on the M6 in Warwickshire. Of course, the police were waiting for us, and would not allow us to leave. Charles Parker arrived, and the location of the march was quietly passed on. In the meantime, the main body of the NNF went sailing by on the motorway, hotly pursued by a large contingent of police vehicles.

Shortly afterwards, the police keeping us penned in at Corley Services said they were going to escort us out of the area. By then I had secretly passed on photocopied maps showing the back lanes of north Warwickshire and south Staffordshire by which everybody could make their way to Burton. The idea was that as soon as the opportunity arose, drivers would dive into the first country lane they could and try to lose the police by taking non-obvious routes. In our case, we headed four miles west, before shooting into a skein of lanes I knew like the back of my own hand, and played a thrilling game of cat and mouse with our police pursuers. We got the better of them by pulling into a wood, waiting for them to pass, then (suspecting that they would expect us to head back towards Corley Services and the M6), took a long-winded route to the west. We arrived in Burton with time to spare, and so, it appeared, had most of those trapped at Corley Services.

That kind of adventure builds comradeship like nothing else can. We had completely outwitted the police and were bloody proud of it. The escapade impressed quite a number of our old NF colleagues, and that was a large part of the point.

So was the march that never was, which again involved taking advantage of police spying. In a certain Midlands town the "Reds" were to stage a march in support of a highly unpopular cause. It came at short notice, and there wasn't much we could do to physically oppose it. We had a feeling that the police would ban the march if they could, but they needed a good reason. We decided to give them one, taking the credit for ourselves and reaping the publicity.

Despite knowing that if our bluff was called a derisory march of perhaps 50 NNF members would take place on the same day as the much larger Red march, we decided to pretend otherwise. I saw the local police and gave them the most provocative route I could think up together with wild overestimations of the numbers intending to show up, and JT played his part in sending out emergency bulletins that seemed to confirm this. And, naturally, we talked very loosely over the telephone.

I'd also learned to forget using the established local evening newspaper, where articles on the far Right, if they appeared at all, were always negative (the same newspaper had also run several exposes of our activities in the past). There was an independent free newspaper, delivered to every household whether they wanted it or not. Its headlines were rarely inspiring, and I had a good idea they would jump at the chance of an "exclusive".

They bit like a hungry shark. Their journalists, used to parish-pump stories, were as green as grass, and I sensed as much as they began to interview me. I did not play down the idea of clashes between ourselves and the Reds, and got them to take down a heck of a lot of disinformation, some of it at JT's instigation. It was all repeated in banner headlines two days later, and soon I had the hacks of the evening paper and the BBC on my doorstep infuriated that I hadn't broken the story with them. It was news all that weekend.

Three days later all marches in the town were banned. JT and I sighed with relief, but were cock-a-hoop that so much success had cost so little. We had earned ourselves a lot of publicity, and into the bargain many NF people came over to us. It was also the end of the NFCM in our area. Again, that was a large part of the point.

It was also virtually the last thing I did for a long time, as one day I went to work and woke up in hospital, where I remained for six months. I've never really had good health since.

I was on the sidelines when the NNF became the BNP, but did my best to return to activism. It was a chore by now though, as my old strength had gone, never to return. It was also very difficult to keep one's morale intact in those hard and barren days of the 1980's. I did keep up certain friendships, including that with JT (though it was now mostly by mail and the odd telephone call), and with one or two people who remained in the National Front.

We watched the antics of Nick Griffin and the NF with bewildered amusement. Much that went on in the NF in those days was known to us very quickly, and their internal bulletins always found their way into our hands. Even though we were no longer NF, we still had affection for our old political home, and it was difficult for us to watch as Griffin steadily ran the organisation into the ground, always managing to blame somebody else for every self-inflicted reverse.

Those who knew Griffin had learned the hard way not to trust him. They are still learning the hard way.

My memory of those bulletins and other internal NF literature of the time is that they came from the pen of a madman. I wish I had retained them: they are a salutory lesson in how, with Nick Griffin, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Nick's frequent political flip-flops aside, there was a hardening suspicion among my NF friends that Nick's number one priority was Nick.

More illness came my way. The 80's became the 90's and not much seemed to change. Nationalism was stuck in a rut that it just couldn't seem to get out of. I was unhappy at C18 involvement with the BNP - if you like, I thought they were the "wrong" kind of National Socialists! And the NF finally broke down, as, with the leaders available to it, it was always going to.

By now I was hardly active at all. Health and the call of family commitments saw to that. There was no local organisation, and as far as I can recall we had less than fifteen members in our city, most of them doing little more than meet up for drinking sessions. Then came the election of Derek Beacon, and suddenly the BNP was in the headlines - and out of the shadow of the NF.

I don't know for sure, but I presume that was the moment when a certain well known political acrobat sniffed the air, smelt money and power, and sat up and took notice.

My correspondence with JT was by now very infrequent. I was conscious that he was very busy, and I was hardly doing much for the cause. When news filtered back to me that Nick Griffin was making overtures to JT I wrote him at once reminding him of Griffin's previous antics in the NF. JT's reply was bland, and not at all what I expected of him.

This was odd, as I had mostly respected JT's judgement. At a London meeting I sought out Val Tyndall and asked her what she thought of Griffin. She simply didn't trust the man, was her flat answer. And so, I thought, all would be well: if Val thought that, then JT must be influenced by her, as Val was no fool.

Then I learned that Griffin was in the party. I was horrified. This ambitious man had done little but involve himself in factional wars for as long as anybody could remember his name. But never mind, he was just a member...

The biggest shock of all came when JT handed the editorship of Spearhead over to Griffin. It was unbelievable, and JT was starting to look all too fallible. He stopped answering my letters.

With Griffin as editor, I found Spearhead difficult to read. I felt that every word he wrote served another purpose, and that he lacked the sincerity of a convinced Nationalist. I wasn't the only one to detect that. It was also becoming obvious that the ageing JT would soon have to stand aside and pass the leadership on to a younger man. I had a queasy feeling that man would be Nick Griffin, who seemed to me to be sitting there like a spider in its web, biding his time.

With my health still bad, I needed the kind of job that wouldn't be too taxing and where my employer would be flexible. I found one, but it was 140 miles away from the city where I lived. I made the move and my family began anew. As far as I was aware, there were no other BNP members in my adopted town, and I wasn't inclined to kick things off. In many ways it was a relief to be away from it all. I let my membership lapse after 26 years, but continued to take Spearhead.

After a while I found I was reading Spearhead with a certain detachment. I wasn't even keeping my eyes and ears open for positive mentions of the BNP on the television or in the press, as all BNP members compulsively do. And my wife, long suffering but loyal, was glad to have me "back". I realised that all my activism had caused me to miss my kids growing up when my daughter said she intended to marry - I still thought of her as a little girl! And for the first time I talked to my kids, and finally listened to what they had been saying for years: that they hated my membership of racist parties, and were often ashamed by my frequent appearances in local newspapers, which led to them being taunted at school.

That really hit home.

I was still interested enough to follow Griffin's challenge to JT's leadership. For some reason the BNP didn't seem to know that I was no longer a member, and I got all the election bumpf from both sides. I also spoke to old friends by telephone, and from them heard what I expected to hear, namely that the political acrobat was up to his old tricks again.

Griffin's victory came as little surprise. The BNP had been growing its membership in the mid and late 90's, none of it to do with Griffin, but many old populists were now back, and (as ever) an increase in membership brought with it an increase in the numbers of those we Tyndallites sometimes called "National Tories" - or populists. This was inevitable, and it was the constituency Griffin directly appealed to. JT's comment to me, years before, that he would have the power to nip any plotting in the bud rang very hollow by now.

With Griffin as leader of the BNP, I lost any interest I ever had in the party, even allowing my Spearhead subscription to lapse. I can say, without benefit of hindsight, that I felt then that not only would Griffin fail to live up to his election promises, but that it wouldn't be a very long wait before he manifested his old paranoid NF ways. Every action of his since then has proved me right.

Mentally renouncing the BNP (but not my racism and Nationalism) did me a power of good. I stopped seeing conspiracy in every dark corner. I also took a new attitude to my fellow man, no longer seeing them as unenlightened "sheeple". And I began to read books that I'd never have dreamed of reading in my party days.

Some time in late 2000 I happened to be in my local library when I saw a poster advertising an open seminar to be put on by the local Community Relations Council. That raised my hackles, and I thought I'd go along to see what went on.

In my days as a Nationalist activist I always enjoyed people in the race relations industry making statements that could only inflame any existing tension. The more they alienated whites, even if unintentionally, the more I liked it. I held then, and I hold now, that if you pay people to seek out racism, then they will inevitably find racism wherever they look, even if it's completely undetectable to anybody else. If somebody's living is dependent on doing that, then as sure as eggs is eggs, that's what they'll do.

In my adopted town, ethnic minorities barely existed. But according to the agenda of this CRC seminar, their invisibilty was due to the racism they faced. It's the kind of sweeping, unproved statement that raises the hackles of more than dyed-in-the-wool racists, as it seems to be blaming the majority community for something they never knew existed, let alone imagined themselves to be guilty of.

That sort of thing is damaging and it is unnecessary.

I went into the seminar laden with preconceptions. The three CRC people were white, and around the room there were several Asians and blacks, all of them looking completely bored. The only whites were people I thought of as the usual local do-gooding suspects. The seminar started and it was the whites (and only the whites) who kept banging on and on about the "racism" supposedly stalking this peaceful town. It also became obvious that only three of the Asians and two of the blacks actually lived here. When asked to describe their experiences, they were stuck for something to say. One of the blacks said he'd been shouted at once, but that was it.

The meeting dragged on and on, and finally broke up for refreshments.

As we went for tea, one of the Asian gentlemen began talking to me. He was a shopkeeper, he said, and only came to the meeting after having been pestered into it. "There is no racism in this town," I said flatly, and not in the most friendly tone, "but this is the kind of thing that could kick it off." "Yes, you're right," said the Asian gentleman.

That surprised me. He introduced himself, and his wife, and both offered me their hands, which I reluctantly shook.

For the want of something better to do while I drank my tea, I carried on talking with the pair, and we found ourselves in agreement on our negative opinions of the seminar and its purpose. Several of the other locals gravitated towards us, and their general opinion chimed with ours. It wasn't what I was expecting at all. These people were quite happy with their lives, asked for nothing, certainly had no wish to be treated as somehow different from any other citizen of the town, and were a little disturbed that the intent of the seminar seemed to be to find wrongs that nobody else could.

Much to my own surprise, I found myself enjoying their company.

It was the first time most of us had met, and we got on very well. More or less distancing ourselves from the CRC people, who kept butting in, some of us repaired to a nearby pub to continue a jokey discussion that was a million miles away from the spectre of racism. That was the first time I had ever seen Asian or black women in a pub (and to judge by the landlord's face, the first time he had, too).

To cut a long story down to size, friendships were made that evening which endure today. My addiction to racism took a big knock that night.

There were no journalists at the seminar, so the local weekly paper printed a rehash of the CRC's press release. It was predictably heavy handed and hysterical; and, just as predictably, the letters page the next week was filled with diatribes from indignant readers unhappy that they and their town were considered a hotbed of racism, and wanting to know why the invisible ethnic minorities considered themselves victims of it.

Satnam, the shopkeeper, rang me that night. He was very upset that the CRC had given such a distorted picture, and wanted to put things right. We got together with two others and presented ourselves at the local newspaper offices asking to see the editor. As it was, we were seen by a young journalist. And we wasted our time, as nothing ever appeared.

I saw my new friends occasionally, Satnam in particular. I'd never told any of them about my past, which increasingly seemed to be a fading memory, but one night I emboldened myself to do it. Satnam looked as if he was about to fall over, but he collected himself and started laughing. "I've been an idiot too," he said. "We're all entitled to be idiots, as long as we learn not to be."

The admission changed nothing between us, and nothing more was ever said about it.

By now I didn't even think about my BNP and NF days. It was as though somebody else had lived that life, and I'd merely tapped into a stray memory belonging to somebody else, but even I didn't realise how far away from my previous life I'd travelled.

A year or so later I walked through our local market place and came across a huddle of BNP paper sellers. They were doing no business at all, but an unexpected impulse came charging through me.

I wanted to rip their papers from their hands and kick them bodily out of the town! I really did.

In fact, I wanted to do more than that.

The BNP was beginning to make the news, especially when it began to win council seats. News like that would once have had me leaping for joy, but now it filled me with disgust. I was filled with disgust when I saw BNP people on television lying through their teeth about their racism, and with explosive anger whenever I saw Griffin dissembling, as if all he had written and said in the 80's and 90's had never happened. I knew all about the political acrobat. It's one thing to misrepresent yourself to the gullible members of the BNP, but to do it to the nation is something else again.

Those BNP paper sellers, it turned out, had come in from elsewhere as there was no organisation in this town, as I found out by calling some old contacts. The day, however, must come when the BNP would arrive here, and I thought "we" (there was only me, as far as I knew!) should be ready for them.

Certain things happened in this town at the time, mostly to do with Portuguese migrant workers and asylum seekers, which brought the small National Front presence here out to exploit the situation. I became aware of a small group of people actively opposing the NF's efforts, but had no idea how to contact them until by chance one of their leaflets came into my hands.

The leaflets were sensible and constructive, with none of the hysteria I associated with anti-racist literature (an old frame of mind dies as hard as an old habit), so, after giving it a little thought, I wrote off to the PO box number given, and was quickly invited to a meeting.

The four people I met weren't the raging Trots of far right legend. They were just ordinary people who looked at black faces and white faces, and saw only human beings. At that meeting I first met somebody you are all familiar with, and even as I laid my murky past out in the open I met only kindness. Their businesslike approach appealed to the natural activist in me, and before I knew it I was out and about with a map and my share of leaflets.

It had been nearly 32 years before that I first so enthusiatically joined the National Front, and now here I was, just as enthusiastically opposing them - and loving every minute of it.

Our little group went on for a couple of years until work relocations broke us up, but in that time we did a lot to oppose fascism and racism in our part of the country, and, as individuals, we continue to do so. Maybe we've just been lucky, or maybe our work has had a positive effect, but in this neck of the woods the BNP has failed to grow at all, and we aim to preserve that status quo.

Just ten years ago I could not have conceived that one day I would come to be writing as I have here, for the readers of what I would have considered to be a lying extreme Left website visited only by Trots, junkies and deadbeats. But it's not like that at all.

Others before me have made the same journey from fanatical racist to normal human being as myself, and others will again.

It's a journey well worth making, because it's great not to hate.

Atreus

27 comments:

Antifascist said...

@dishytrishy

Nothing to do with this post at all but thanks for pointing out the problem with the UKIP post (now gone). That'll teach me to check more carefully in future. :-)

Anonymous said...

A tremendous article. My compliments to Atreus and a belated congratulations for the move over from the dark side. A very inspiring story for those who may be wavering.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this -- an interesting read.

I was also once a racial nationalist (I still dislike the term "racist"), from soon after watching the 2004 BNP Election broadcast until about a year ago.

Fortunately, I didn't actually get involved with the BNP or any other party or activist group, beyond books purchases and some e-mail exchanges with their members. My nationalist activities were limited posting on blogs and internet forums, and I also wrote a 40,000 word book. I had intended to make this available for free to download. Thankfully, I never did so. The reasons for this is that, upon finishing it, my views were beginning to change.

When writing the book, I had searched the internet for anti-racist articles and websites. My purpose in doing this was simply so I could argue against the points that were made in them. I was curious as to how anyone could possibly regard “diversity” as a good thing.

Like the writer of the above article, I was certainly not converted by the "anti-racist" organisations.

I could easily find rebuttals to arguments such as: "there is no such thing as race"; "racism is a tool to divide the working class"; "racism leads to suffering", and so on.

But I found the libertarian arguments far more difficult to deal with.

As a racial nationalist, I was particularly influenced by Richard McCulloch’s “philosophy” of “racial rights.” But, as the libertarians pointed out, why should races have more rights than the individuals which made them up?

I was also fixated with the idea that having a preference for ones own race is a part of human nature. But I began to see free market capitalism - an ideology that I, like most nationalists, had once despised for its materialism – as being far more conducive to human nature than ethnic preference. Also, the “people are more happy and comfortable living around their ‘own kind’” argument is basically utilitarian. Justifying mass ethnic cleansing using a utilitarian argument struck me as being a little absurd.

More than any of this though, I found that my beliefs didn’t fit with reality. The vast majority of white people, and people of all races, are happy living in a multiracial society. They may not see it as particularly beneficial, but they don’t see it as a problem either. Races may differ in average intelligence and personality type, but there is such a vast variety within races, and so small an average difference between them, that it makes little sense to judge people before you’ve met them because of this. I am now able to feel happy in the company of all races, and can count several people of Asian origin among my friends.

Interestingly, before I became a nationalist, I had loads of Asian friends. I don’t think that I have a "racist" dispossission, if there is such a thing. When I became interested in nationalist politics, I was feeling a bit depressed and particularly unhappy about my physical appearance, as I had bad acne at that time. As guilty as it makes me feel to admit it, perhaps the idea that other people could be made to feel unhappy about their appearance, due to their skin colour, gave me some satisfaction, a kind of consolation. I didn't feel that way at the time, but there may have been some sub-conscious motivations there. I don't know...

Of course, Lancaster UAF and other anti-racists still won’t like me, because I believe in free speech and the freedom to discriminate; because I’m still not an egalitarian or a socialist; because I'm still politically incorrect on some issues, including genetics; because I think that non-whites have, on average, more "racist" attitudes than whites; because I can still laugh at "racist" jokes if they’re told without hatred; because I think that it is morally wrong – and should perhaps be legally wrong – to infiltrate an organisation by pretending to be something you’re not and film people without their permission (as has been done on undercover documentaries on the BNP); because I have no intention of wasting my time campaigning against a party that doesn’t stand a hope in hell of gaining power, and for many other reasons.

But I can honestly say that I am not a racial nationalist, and would not discriminate against someone because of their race.

Anonymous said...

Well done and well written Atreus.

Anonymous said...

Thanks to LUAF for publishing my articles. They could have been better, but it's too late to revise them now.

A couple of things I want to clear up from the comments made on the first article.

Webster's homosexuality: outside London this wasn't well known. I was told of it in 75 by Kingsley Read himself but he was implying that as John Tyndall had shared a flat or something with Webster both men were gay, so I dismissed it as populist muckraking. I never heard any more about it until 79.

To Joe Chapman: to write this I had to put myself in the frame of mind I was in back then, which you've mistaken for something else. I could have knocked my former beliefs every few sentences, but that would have come over as protesting too much and interupted the flow. I don't see how I could have done it any other way.

You'll have to take my word for it, but I've done more than most to oppose fascism in the last few years, sometimes (as you probably know by now) using underhand cyber tactics to get information and/or to cause arguments. I can talk the talk and walk the walk, so I use it.

My nom de plume: I don't have any interest in Greek mythology and I haven't read Hartley's book. I just liked the sound of the name!

To midlander: You should get in touch with LUAF. You'll get a fair hearing. If you are a Midlander and were involved pre-1990 we might know each other. By the way, I fell into a Searchlight operation too. My pride is still stung that I was deceived, but their intention was good and succeeded in showing us up for what we were.

Thanks to everybody for the positive comments.

There were a lot of things I had to leave out because they would have identified me to people involved in the same events and who are still around. The local fascists know who I am (they even tried to recruit me back) but those in my old stamping grounds don't. Yet!

I was never involved at a high level, but I did know all the main players at some time or other. My articles are just an activist's eye-view on what happened. I'm a lot older now, and all this was a long time ago, so I may have got one or two things wrong. If I have then I apologise.

Anonymous said...

Really good. Some of us are Trotskyists and therefore believe in the "united front" against fascism which means uniting with ex-fascists like Atreus.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Atreus for sharing your journey with us. On reading we are probably of the same age, and with that comes wisdom and certain knowledge that people can change.

Our younger posters on this site may not agree with that statement but it is a true one.

Anonymous said...

I think we should perhaps leave off on Joe Chapman, he appears on previous post to have got a bit of a bruising, when in truth he was asking valid questions having only read the same as all of us part 1 of the article.

In one of his posts Joe outlines the fact that he works against racists on his own, which is great, but like many of us has picked up that in the past the relationship between Searchlight and UAF has not been friendly.

What this blog site has done/achieved is pretty remarkable, it has brought together a community from all sections, individuals, members of either of those organisations post on here as individuals. We trust one another, the growing respect for Ketlan, Denise, Illacus and many others has come through our growing community.

This site is now recognised nationally as the No.1. the moderators are fair, the articles are good, in fact fantastic.

It really does not matter whether you are Searchlight or the UAF what really matters is that you fight the NAZIs.

So can we back off Joe, and continue to be the community that i know we are.

Anonymous said...

"What this blog site has done/achieved is pretty remarkable, it has brought together a community from all sections, individuals, members of either of those organisations post on here as individuals. We trust one another, the growing respect for Ketlan, Denise, Illacus and many others has come through our growing community.

This site is now recognised nationally as the No.1. the moderators are fair, the articles are good, in fact fantastic.

It really does not matter whether you are Searchlight or the UAF what really matters is that you fight the NAZIs."

I agree with every word of that. Bravo to Atreus for giving us his story and well done to LUAF for posting it.

Anonymous said...

Interesting article posted on Eie today. worth a read.

Anonymous said...

This is one of the best articles I've read here. Truly excellent.

Anonymous said...

Great stuff Atreus.Well worth reading.

Anonymous said...

This is one of the best LUAF articles I've read. Well done Atreus and kudos to LUAF for putting it up.

This bit struck a chord with me:-

I held then, and I hold now, that if you pay people to seek out racism, then they will inevitably find racism wherever they look, even if it's completely undetectable to anybody else. If somebody's living is dependent on doing that, then as sure as eggs is eggs, that's what they'll do.

I agree 110% with that. Our community relations people seem to exist just to piss off whites, Relations in my town are excellent but you'd never know listening to them.

Anonymous said...

Bloody brilliant.

Anonymous said...

I have seen whites respond with unnecessary defensiveness to community relations issues but have yet to see community relations workers who existed only to antagonise whites but I suppose this could happen.

Anonymous said...

An excellent article.Thank you to all concerned.

Anonymous said...

This forum has been trolled out by the Nazis. They really hate Ketlan and Denise.

http://www.oxfordshireforums.co.uk/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=69

Support please!

Anonymous said...

Atreus, as an old enemy of the NF from the 1970's I'm glad you're now one of us.

Bloody good job we didn't realise there were lost NF people in our crowd at Lewisham too or you probably wouldn't be alive to write for LUAF :-)

Well done, Atreus. Glad you survived.

Anonymous said...

A very good article.

Nazi leaders have a legendary tolerance of homosexuals, until the homosexual becomes an opponent.

There's a good article on Shazza's forum by Martin Webster that really craps on Griffin http://www.fos4us.com/showthread.php?t=2841

Lots of cut and paste there to post on other forums.

Anonymous said...

Hey Clued, you might want to check out the thread that's discussing Martin Webster's claim that Martin Wingfield (current editor of the BNP’s newspaper, Freedom) sexually abused a 14 yr old girl:

http://www.oxfordshireforums.co.uk/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=74944

Anonymous said...

"This forum has been trolled out by the Nazis. They really hate Ketlan and Denise."

Actually it has probably destroyeditself as a forum. Monotenous (sic) right wing winges are going to put off more people than they can convince.

Whilst I am happy to leave it on my list of forums to visit, it will be soley for the purpose of anoying the fascists.

Anonymous said...

Simon R Smith, former Midlands Elections Officer in the BNP 1991/94, also made a similar journey to Atreus, from fascism to anti-fascism (don't confuse Simon R Smith with nazi BNP councillor, Simon Smith).

As Simon R Smith stated in Sunday Mercury (2003):

“The youth wing of the BNP, modelled on the Hitler Youth under Nick Griffin’s tutelage, is now breaking out of local confines and hopes to spread its race hate message to young students across the country. These are very small beginnings and no-one should believe that the YBNP is strong nationwide. But be warned that the fanatics of the BNP will stop at nothing to gain widespread political appeal.

Parents in particular should be concerned about this latest development and use education to steer their children away from the BNP’s evil programme of racial supremacy. I was recruited into the BNP as a naive 21 year-old in 1989 and my youth was eventually lost in a horrific whirlwind of human conflict caused by the party.I urge students to reject the BNP and throw its manifesto into the dustbin of history where it belongs".

In January 2004, Simon R Smith published a book (The Fanatics) exposing the BNP from the inside-out.

Unknown said...

@ Old Sailor

The Oxforshire forum was destroyed by BNP trolls in the summer, subsequent to the destruction of the Brighton Argus forum by largely the same group of people.

The dimwit keyboard warrior who calls himself Brighton Rock on Stormfront is one of them, as is Byron Boy.

They were soooo clever - whenever a thread went against them somebody adopting the witty nom-de-plume "Antifascist" would post huge amounts of text in thread after thread, rendering the forums useless to all users.

Everybody knew the BNP were doing it, so it did them no favours.

The idiot-in-chief Brighton Rock is well known for prancing about Stormfront taking kicks at active BNP members ill-disposed towards Griffin, when, as it turned out, he wasn't even a member (and for some reason failed to tell his wife when he did belatedly join.

According to this millipede, both the Argus and the Oxford forums "deserved" what they got.

So the sum total of his efforts on behalf of the BNP has been to disrupt forums used by hundreds of people and to stalk around Stormfront causing arguments.

On Stormfont, of course, he and that other keyboard warrior Green Arrow (also versed in the art of attacking long time BNP members while not a member himself) form something of a team.

Both of them were easily duped into making complete fools of themselves on Stormfront by a person I decline to name, but neither really needed that help.

Yes, give the Oxford forum a visit. I don't think anybody bothers with it any more except BNP trolls and a small number of anti-fascists, but to see them running around of there like the rodents they are is a delight.

Anonymous said...

Now there's a thought Denise.

Me thinks I must have some "cut & paste" from the Protocols of the Elders etc and "Mein Kampf" to post, suitably signed by say Eichman to dump on Nutzie troll posts.

No doubt the enemy are trying the same tactics againts LUAF, but can't cope with the electronic blue pencil and spike.

Unknown said...

Oh, they try. Five went in the bin just now and I think it was over 15 yesterday on this post alone. Whether Ketlan got shot of any more I don't know.

Their spelling - oh, it's "redeculous" as one of them puts it.

Anonymous said...

@ Atreus

"You'll have to take my word for it, but I've done more than most to oppose fascism in the last few years, sometimes (as you probably know by now) using underhand cyber tactics to get information and/or to cause arguments. I can talk the talk and walk the walk, so I use it."

They'll know who your by now, so how are you going to cover your tracks now?

Anonymous said...

"They'll know who your by now, so how are you going to cover your tracks now?"

Will they? They've guessed all wrong so far.