Harry’s Place

Maybe some of them wake up.He looks a violent man.

How do you know that he is a far-right racist?

Well, how do you spot members of the BNP if:

1. They give little or no indication of fascist or racist views, which is possible.
2. Everyone respects folk’s privacy as they should.

The recent revealing of the BNP membership list may cause glee for snoopers but it is still wrong. HP sometimes go in for this sort of name and shame thing, but there are drawbacks to it. Longer term, I don’t think the BNP can be fought using these sort of tactics - it won’t work.

He’s quite a catch. That tie/shirt combo reminds me of Ulysses: snot green and scrotum tightening.

P.

If you care so much about fascism why don’t you write about the racists and fascists trying to overthrown Evo Morales in Bolivia?

http://www.counterpunch.org/burbach11182008.html

And Morales was on Democracy Now! for an hour today talking about the U.S. trying to overthrown his democratically elected government, you should listen.

I tell you what if they don’t let me wear my bomber jacket in the winter i’m off,its very cold.

The recent revealing of the BNP membership list may cause glee for snoopers but it is still wrong.

I’m going to keep repeating this line, but:

They’re fascists. Fuck ‘em.

P.

As we all know the extremes of left and right blur into one another; in the case of the Greens and the BNP, the outcome of applying their manifesto policies would not differ greatly — they just spin them with different emphases. Look at last year’s Green Party manifesto and compare with the 2005 BNP one — guess which contains this policy:

“To be able to fulfil all our basic food needs locally. To grow as many other products as we can to meet our basic needs (e.g. for textiles, fuel, paper) on a local or regional basis. To enable all communities to have access to land which can be used for growing for basic needs. To ensure that all growing systems use only natural, renewable inputs and that all organic waste outputs are able to be recycled back into the soil or water system”

Paul Moloney

I am with you in being against the BNP - I have seen them at first hand in Bradford and they are very unsavoury. However, there is no way I can support breaching privacy and data protection, fundamental principles in a liberal democracy. That is not the way to go. The BNP is a legal political party and its law-abiding members should be afforded the same protections as everyone else. The person who leaked the information was wrong to do so. Its a very poor precedent and these sort of antics will not actually work in the fight against the BNP anyway.

Matt:

“If you care so much about fascism why don’t you write about the racists and fascists trying to overthrown Evo Morales in Bolivia?”

Why, do most of us live in fucking Bolivia?

*Damn* hit submit too soon; and guess which manifesto this one came from

“Britain’s farming industry will be encouraged to produce a much greater part of the nation’s need in food products. Priority will be switched from quantity to quality, as we move from competing in a global economy to maximum self-sufficiency for Britain, sustainable agriculture, decreased reliance on petro-chemical products and more organic production”

What sets the BNP apart from other parties, is that it is a racist party. It does not simply propose racist policies: its own membership criteria is racist.

So anybody who joined the party is a racist.

Should ordinary racists be named and shamed. I think not. What matters is what these people do. I’m pleased that we know that a Green Party PPC is a racist, for example.

I’m half in agreement with Benji, which is half too much. Yes, I’ve looked through the list, making me a bad person, I guess, but: a) I would have thought twice had it been taken down from previous sites by legal demand, which it hasn’t been; b) this is a candidate for a political party which claims to oppose what the B.N.P. stands for.

What is happening?

“Its a very poor precedent and these sort of antics will not actually work in the fight against the BNP anyway.”

Benjamin, you do know that the leak was from within the BNP? From some disgruntled group, apparently (much like the Galloway/Reese-German spat) I gather… so this was not an ‘antic’ undertaken by antifascists, it was the BNP in self-destruct.

If you care so much about fascism why don’t you write about the racists and fascists trying to overthrown Evo Morales in Bolivia?

That’s the plot from Quantum of Solace.

I’ll get my coat.

Aye, Brett, after the unbridled pleasure of watched them in freefall last year, I didn’t dare hope for the ferrets to start fighting in the bag again…

Yes, Benji, but one of their own number leaked this list. If you are asking would I advocate someone, for example, hacking their computers to get this file, I would not agree. However, if you are asking me to give a shit or not laugh like a hyena now that it has already happened, unfortunately I can’t.

There’s at least five people from the Republic of Ireland on the list; do the BNP now recruit us Paddies?

P.

Brett

It matters not a jot whence the leak occurred. It is an antic by a member of the BNP (or ex-member). It was absolutely wrong that this information got into the public domain. This should not be supported by anyone. This is not the way to fight the BNP and it won’t work.

“Its a very poor precedent and these sort of antics will not actually work in the fight against the BNP anyway.”

You seem very sure of that. The impression I got from some of those squirming on the BNP blog that it was one thing to belong secretly to a party, but quite another if it was going to cost you anything. Heroes and martyrs they aren’t. They might consider that it might be better to belong to a party, the membership of which won’t cause you shame and embarrassment.

If I was outed as a member of Amnesty International, or Labour, or the RSPCA I wouldn’t be sweating over it.

I’m against outing on eg gays, but people who belong to a racist party which is standing for elections?

They’re fascists.

Fuck ‘em.

P.

“It matters not a jot whence the leak occurred. It is an antic by a member of the BNP (or ex-member). It was absolutely wrong that this information got into the public domain. “

Yes it was. But it did. The genie is out of the bottle.

Paul Moloney

Fair enough! Of course, if it is an indication of significant BNP infighting, then that infighting is good thing in the respect it weakens the BNP. However, he leaking of the membership list is still wrong, and if the law was broken then the person or people responsible should be taken to court. Data protection is a serious matter.

Paul Moloney: your own website contains a story about Yahoo’s passing information about a dissident Chinese journalist to the Chinese government, enabling them to jail the man.
The strong implication is that you disapprove of this.
Perhaps your website will soon contain stories of dissident English people being beaten up, razored and coshed by members of antifa, or of having their houses broken into by thugs sent by Special Branch informant Gerry Gable.
The strong implication is that you will approve of this.
Fancy you posting on a website devoted to free speech!
Or is this website actually something quite different?

Benjamin?

I’m against outing on eg gays, but people who belong to a racist party which is standing for elections?

This depends. I am for discussion of the possible racist views of candidates who stand for election.

However, I am against “outing” of members of legal organisations if the information that is based on was obtained through an illegal act, a basic breach of data protection and privacy. This is irrespective of whether that organisation is deemed good or bad (Amnesty or the BNP). You cannot conduct politics on the basis of fundamental breaches of the principles of liberal democracy: that is a basic nonsense.

I am not sure what the applicable law in this case is.

From what I remember of the Data Protection Act, it requires a person to be registered if the process data. Looking at it, or posting a link to it isn’t covered… I think. I’m not sure. I’m not sure how far ‘processing’ extends into ‘making available’. Certainly, the leak itself would have been a breach of some sort.

As for the law of confidence… well, the law is that there is no confidence in iniquity. Dressing up and spanking women while barking commands in cod German isn’t sufficiently iniquitous. However, trying to get a party which would impose racist laws on cultural minorities… hmmm. I’d like to argue that, if I could.

Ever since William Joyce, yes, Paul.

Remember, this is a party whose idea of campaigning, is to put shit through the letterboxes of the houses of cultural minorities. Many of them - including senior party members - have criminal convictions for crimes of violence and racism, including terrorist offences.

People who joined this party KNEW that this was the sort of party they were joining.

Yes, but that does not justify the breach of data protection, David T. It is still a legal party, and its members must be accorded the same protections as everyone else, whatever one thinks of their views.

Not a peep out of me until I hear from Peter Tatchell.

My question is: what legal protections do they have, once the information has been leaked?

None would be effective. I accept that the breach of the DPA is egregious.

But I am just not sure that, the information having leaked, there is any legal mechanism for preventing its further distribution.

I’ll have a little check, but if anybody wants to chime in, do.

OK, I’ve had a think.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/Acts1998/ukpga_19980029_en_7#pt6-pb2-l1g55

I think this means that it is improper to publish, or to post links to, this material

Accordingly, I will be editing this site to remove links. Sorry.

best comment on the matter:

“Paul Moloney 18 November 2008, 11:06 pm

They’re fascists.

Fuck ‘em.

P.”

only Benji would argue otherwise

I would say conducting politics on the basis of breaches of basic privacy and breaches of the DPA is wrong anyway. It’s an awful precedent.

You know, when China snoops on its citizens and carts them off to jail because of membership of an organisation or some other absurd infraction it is roundly condemned. It is easy to condemn: China is dictatorship that does not respect privacy in the same way as liberal democracies.

However, it’s a lot more difficult to defend the rights of members of a legal far right political party in a liberal democracy when its membership list of private individuals has been leaked. But its members’ privacy should be defended for the same reasons that dissidents in China should have their privacy protected: because such privacy is a fundamental underpinning of liberal democracy and freedom.

Without these basic protections, and a thorough respect for privacy, (irrespective of the political views of those that have that privacy), you will ultimately say goodbye to liberal democracy.

Does anyone know if the green party constitution has anything that would prevent members of racist/fascist parties joining? Sorry I’m too lazy to check. I don’t see why the greens wouldn’t have fascists in the party because its not got a political philosophy behind it, apart form being nice to carrots or something.

Regarding the leak, some jobs used to be reserved for people who weren’t in the communist party or any fascist party. I don’t know if this is still the case but I don’t think membership of this odious organisation should be private; they should be on a register, like paedophiles. Actually they’re probably on that one already.

Personally I think this is a useful list for those of us interested in combatting fascism. I don’t think we should be too squeamish about that, what’s right in the law and what’s right morally are by no means identical. Of course I’d advocate the sensible use of this data and so it’s a dangerous tactic to publish this so openly because there’s no guarentees what use the data will be used for.

It would be tactically regretable if there were incidents of violence for example and I hope that does not happen.

David T said “I’m pleased that we know that a Green Party PPC is a racist, for example.” Which isn’t exactly a fact is it?

Someone who once stood for the Greens is now a member of the BNP - which is not exactly great news but it isn’t quite the same accusation either is it. After all people change their politics, sometimes quite radically, and as others have said if he was a racist he could quite easily have kept that quiet…

Which isn’t exactly a fact is it?

The BNP is a party for racists, run by racists, with racist policies. I think if you join it, you can fairly be said to be a racist.

Personally I think this is a useful list for those of us interested in combatting fascism.

Interesting. ‘Lists’, indeed. You combat fascism by adopting the methods of the Stasi. Using illegally acquired information that breaches basic privacy. Count me out of that particular game. You call that “anti-fascism”; I would describe it as something rather different.

Anyone who can do this to BNP members, can do this to gay muslims, islamic apostates, battered women, members of Opus Dei, hunt saboteurs, swingers, and wife swappers.

But that does not mean we should.

You combat fascism by adopting the methods of the Stasi.

Yes, in a nutshell. You need to understand how fascists have operated in this country to know that they can only be dealt with as a criminal conspiracy.

Being a member of a legal political party is being part of a “criminal conspiracy”? Breaching the DPA and the basic privacy of private law abiding individuals is how you deal with the BNP? Would that stand up in court? Is it good politics? No to both.

And anyone who can do it to them, could do it to us.

HP sometimes go in for this sort of name and shame thing, but there are drawbacks to it. Longer term, I don’t think the BNP can be fought using these sort of tactics - it won’t work.

I love that spin; pretending this national news story is HP’s doing, then pretending somebody has said the leaking of lists is the way to fight the BNP.

You plonker, Benji.

Benji won’t be telling any of his pals on SWP blogs to stop running the list, of course.

It’s in the comments on LT. See you there, Benji!

Benji won’t be telling any of his pals on SWP blogs to stop running the list, of course

They should stop running the list. Not sure if I have any “pals” on SWP blogs. As I said before, come the revolution, I am likely to be shot by both sides.

You’ve never had a bad word to say about lenny’s blog in the many years you’ve been pottering around. I think that tells it’s own story. And the other day you lept to his defence when he was the target of a post over here. You can’t get clearer than that.

One rule for HP, another rule for the far left cranks, who you always defend.

I am quite happy to defend Richard if I think the attack on him is unjustified, needlessly unpleasant, exaggerated etc., i.e. worthy of defence.

However if Richard is posting that list, or condoning the posting of the list, I disagree. You may pass on my polite disapproval - which I am sure he will happily ignore! :-)

Benjamin for Attorney/Solicitor General!!! Data theft is easy if you have time on your hands. One of these days some Jacobin citizen will track all the porno sites accessed by the smart posters here. When that gets published I hope nobody will complain as its all for your own good.

“This is not the way to fight the BNP and it won’t work.”
It may work as a way of fighting the B.N.P. It won’t work as a way of foghting racism or fascism. It will encourage racists and potential fascists to become more secretive, more paranoid and as a result more conspiratorial and prone to violence. physically attacking people who do nothing more than giving small amounts of money to a party advocating their opinions- whatever we think of those opinions- is behaviour that fascists go in for themselves.
Either the right to privacy is absolute, in which case leaking this list and using this leak is wrong, or it isn’t, in which case the C.C.P. is perfectly entitled to demand the names of dissidents from Google.

” what’s right in the law and what’s right morally are by no means identical.”
Jim Jay, the law is not concerned with morality- and should not be- but with the prevention of bad behaviour which directly harms other people.

@David T. “The BNP is a party for racists, run by racists, with racist policies. I think if you join it, you can fairly be said to be a racist”
I think many members of the BNP may be motivated by resentment at the influx of workers from Eastern Europe rather than racism per se – I say this because I had a look at people on the list from my area (Cambridgeshire) and noticed that many of them came from villages in areas with a high number of Polish workers. I’m not saying this excuses such members – and perhaps you would still class them as ‘racists’ – but I think there is some distinction …
On another note I was sorry to see so many ‘ac.uk’ email addresses …

How does a left-leaning party manage to select a person like this as a candidate?

Well the BNP is distinctly Left leaning - they advocate protectionist, command economy policies, it’s all laid out on their website- and they do this all the time!

No, the myth of the causal corrolation between Leftist political views, and sweetness and good will, is precicely that, a myth.

Surely Orwell de-bunked this rather convincingly, back when god was a boy?

Now that is not to say that folks who hold Leftist political views are necessarily authoritarian, racist, undemocratic bigots, nor indeed that those of Right leaning veiws are not. Just that the…. ‘He’s a Lefty, therefore he should be a good-guy’ assumption should - especially after recent history and the writings of Kamm, Cohen, Hitchens et al - be out there with flat-earthism?

Nick

Do you think Hitler was a left wing dictator? What about Pinochet?

Perhaps we should just call them all totalitarians, authoritarians or dictators and stop the squabbling, lads.

Hey, lefty teacher, just live the Volk alone. Stormfront in a teacup and all that.

Very good.

Ja, hah hah hah. I’m in mein Hotel / in Hongkong / wondering vot / the Teecup storm’s / going on! I’m on the 15th floor / at my PC / I can see Shanghai Special Economic Zone / from my jacuzzi / you see!

Benjamin

“As I said before, come the revolution, I am likely to be shot by both sides.”

Indeed. Quite quickly. Though I suspect that you do not matter quite as much as you think you do.

Matt G

True enough, they will be zealots.

Benjipinkfloydnazibot

12th floor, actually. Can’t see the any Special Economic Zone for the pollution, old boy. In fact the habour is pretty hazy most days, and that’s without imbibing alcohol.

I will kill and be killed by the zealots. I say this to Henrietta George: when the revolution comes, we shall all be killed, the ex-tea boy (myself) and the all-powerful media person (you). Get a sense of perspective, lads.

But you tell us about the jacuzzi, no. You shall enjoy telling us about the jacizzi.

David T/Mods

I obviously cannot speak for anyone but myself (altho the Benjifloyd poster above seems to share my views) but I have not visited the comments threads for several days.

That is because they are quite consistently hijacked by that Idiot Benjamin.

I realise that you have a ‘non-censorship’ sort of policy, but in my view that works when you have the nasty rants of various people who have come on here before (and allows them to show themselves up); but doesn’t work when you allow Benjamin to drivel mindlessly on each and every topic, defaulting to a poorly thought out ‘contra’ position to whatever the topic of the day.

It seems that there are people/mods who prefer Benjamin in. I think it devalues the threads, sidetracks them, and is not in this blogs long term interests.

Your blog. Your decision. My thoughts.

“There is a name of person on the list who stood as The Green Party’s parliamentary candidate in the 2001 election and the last general election in 2005. It now transpires that he is a member of the BNP.

How the hell does this happen? How does a left-leaning party manage to select a person like this as a candidate? It there no screening process? Or did he go quite mad in the last two years and become a far-right racist?”

Do you have a name? Is it the same person in both cases? Are all the names on the list really BNP members? (There is the possibility there is a lot of sh!t-stirring going on here - how many known BNP members are there in the list?)

And you are wrong about the BNP being far-right. Ultra-authoritarian yes, but actually on the left. Check out the Political Compass.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/extremeright

Truth is, whether right or left, ultra-authoritarians are bad news. Where are you on the political compass. I’m out there with the Greens.

You shall enjoy telling us about the jacuzzi.

And the cocaine, champers and loose women obviously.

MattG

You stop fantasising about my demise. There’s life in the old dog yet.

Do you think Hitler was a left wing dictator?

No the National Socialists underpinned their authoritarian, undemocratic, genocidal imperialism - with a centrist economic policy. The Third Reich’s economy was mixed, with plenty of crony capitalism.

What about Pinochet?

Right wing dictator. In addition to the human rights violations of his regime, the ‘dissapearances’ and suppression of Leftists, he liberalised the market, practiced free market reforms, privatisation and encouraged free trade and private investment.

Much as I hate to say this, I think Benjamin has been proved right on this occasion. DavidT has been forced to take down the links. Data Protection *is* apparently sacrosanct.

Anyway, we’ve discovered the culprits who published the list.

http://thejewishconspiracyexposed.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/the-british-national-party-membership-list-has-been-published-online-and-mossad-was-involved/

You don’t need to click on the link - the URL says it all.

I think the position is unclear.

The more widely this information is circulated, the more confident I am that there has been no breach of the DPA.

The more widely this information is circulated, the more confident I am that there has been no breach of the DPA.

Irrespective of the precise legal arguments, do you think it was right or wrong to publish the membership list? I believe it was fundamentally wrong.

I think all parties have attracted nutters- Oswald Mosley himself was in both the Labour and Tory parties, the good news is that this swivel eyed loon is no longer in the Green Party.

I am quite happy to defend Richard if I think the attack on him is unjustified, needlessly unpleasant, exaggerated etc., i.e. worthy of defence.

They simply posted the new information on his book. You rushed to his defence, as you always do with the far left. Telling.

That’s fine - i totally expect this. What I object to is you pretending that you’re an anti communist who opposes far leftism just as much as anything else. You don’t. You are very sympathetic to far left loons across the board.

However if Richard is posting that list, or condoning the posting of the list, I disagree. You may pass on my polite disapproval - which I am sure he will happily ignore! :-)

Nice try, Benji, but the point is that you’re not doing it, of course. It’s only HP that you’re peddling your authoritanian draconian views on data protection to.

Mike

You really are amusingly bizarre - I love you.

Tying you up in knots for your hypocrisy is fun. It’s sort of addictive.

“There is a name of person on the list who stood as The Green Party’s parliamentary candidate in the 2001 election and the last general election in 2005. It now transpires that he is a member of the BNP.”

I’ve found the list now and found the person you allude to. He is noted as “Activist. Independent Green Party candidate (local elections)”. So, nothing to do with parliamentary elections. It was actually the local Parish Council. What does “Independent Green Party” mean exactly? With your great knowledge Brett, perhaps you can enlighten us?

Or did you just happen across a name that was the same as another name?

Mark, we may not be talking about the same person. The person I know about I have verified was a Green *Parliamentary* candidate. Though I am intrigued to know there might be another with Green links.

If the man was “Independent Green Party” he would not be a Green Party of England and Wales.
If his is a GPEW member - not for long obviously, I’m sure the same would go for Labour Tory and Lib Dems etc…

Some of this really is such ill informed rubbish.

To answer some questions, yes, the Green Party of England and Wales do have a philosophy, it’s called the Philosophical Basis in fact: http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/mfsspb.html

We also have a rule against being a member of any other non-Green party. The party is a federation of Local parties, and is not in general subject to centralised control, particularly over things like selection procedures. If someone is a secret racist, there’s not a lot you can do about it until they out themselves, seeing as we cant yet read people’s minds. Anyway if you want to throw accusations around, why not search the BNP list for Labour, Lib-Dem, Conservative, UKIP (though, alot of them are the same person…)

You combat fascism by adopting the methods of the Stasi.

Yes, in a nutshell.

“The only way to fight hate … is with more hate!”

“If someone is a secret racist, there’s not a lot you can do about it until they out themselves, seeing as we cant yet read people’s minds.”

You appear to be saying that all through the early local organising, selection process, fighting not one but two general elections, no one had the slightest inkling that this man harboured unsavoury views. Not in this case or any of the others?

What if he had won the election? Would have been a bit of a nasty surprise to have a nazi MP heading for Westminster on a Green ticket, no? You really do have to be more careful.

Some of this really is such ill informed rubbish.

Just the part between the post’s title and its keywords (and surely the title should have included “hair shirt”?)

I’m looking forward to Brett turning his ire on other political parties after these events. Right after he’s brought down amazon.com, HMV and much of the Jamaican recording industry.

I believe it was fundamentally wrong

Of course, in your beloved democratic China this would be a hanging offence. We can learn so much from your mates.

come the revolution, I am likely to be shot by both sides.

The first true thing you have ever said here.

Would have been a bit of a nasty surprise to have a nazi MP heading for Westminster on a Green ticket, no?

Oh, so now he is a Nazi, eh?
And of course, the ‘Green’ party’s national manifesto isn’t just a teeny-weeny antisemitic …
What do they put in the water in N1?

Ah the idle chatter of HP. It is to be welcomed that the BNP, who have assiduously collected names and addresses of their opponents and publicised all such information on Redwatch, have a taste of their own medicine.

Those who would introduce concentration camps and deport non-whites have no right to privacy and anti-fascists (of which admittedly there are few on this list) should take full advantage of the membership leak, not to attack individuals in their homes but to ensure that politically and socially they are isolated and where possible sacked.

First prize to Meyer re the attempt by the ‘liberal democratic’ USA to overthrow its first elected President who doesn’t owe his position to the oligarchy. ‘Why, do most of us live in fucking Bolivia?’ Err no. So you only oppose fascism if you live in a fascist state. What did this moron have for breakfast?

He doesn’t look like a member of the master race.

Nearly Oxfordian,

Do you think all critisism of Israel is antisemitic? Do you think Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu are Antisemites?

wow thise entire thread seems to offer zero solutions to any real problems, & also seems to spend large amounts of time & effort on splitting hairs.
good luck to you continueing wasting your time :)