The BNP’s quest for ‘paradise on earth’
BNP leader Nick Griffin is a figure who is polarising the British far-right. For many die-hard ‘white nationalists’, Griffin’s attempt to re-brand the BNP as a more ‘moderate’ party – modelled along the lines of European far-right parties that have managed to gain ground in recent years – is a shameful case of ’selling out’ to make short-term gains.
There are some within the ‘new BNP’, however, who are overjoyed by Griffin’s modernisation programme and see him as the future saviour of Britain. An interesting example of this is found in the Griffinite BNP supporters’ blog ‘The Green Arrow’.
In a post worthy of entry for Private Eye magazine’s ‘Order of the Brown Nose’, today we find the Green Arrow extolling the virtues of the Glorious Leader:
Let us take us an example of the principles and integrity of the British National Party, its Chairman, Nick Griffin.
Highly intelligent, charismatic and with a political vision not seen since Enoch Powell. Had this man wished he could have joined ANY political party and rocketed to the top. Being in politics now for over three decades he would most certainly have been a Cabinet Minister if not Prime Minister and earned a fortune along the way.
But he did not join the “establishment“. He knew what was being done to Our Country was wrong and he chose the side of right and truth. And in doing so he spurned wealth and chose instead hardship, the daily risk of death and constant vilification by the enemies of the people.
Elsewhere, the Green Arrow has more to say on the mighty Griffin:
What Our Country needs now and what we in the British National Party need now is a War Leader and we have one in the shape of Nick Griffin, intelligent, hard working, patriotic and most certainly the most politically aware politician of any political party in decades. He is a natural War Leader for both Our Party and Our Country …
You get the picture. That is what we want now and more of it. Every single day. We want it.
British National Party activists want hard leadership now. They demand it and Nick Griffin is the man, our man, to do the job.
Come on Chairman. Do not just kick the establishment. Kick us also. No more Mr Nice Guy.
The Green Arrow doesn’t just want ‘hard leadership’ and a kicking ‘every single day’ – he also wants more of anything related to the Great One. Of a Griffin video, the Green Arrow gasps:
Damn this dial up connection. I have still only seen the first two minutes and I want more. More I tell you more.
He wants pictures too:
But again we are waiting. And what are we waiting for? Images. Images of Richard Barnbrook and Nick Griffin entering City Hall. Images of BNP activists sat in Richards Office. We want images, images and just for the heck of it, more images.
Thanks to BNPtv, the Green Arrow can join in the Griffin worship even if he can’t be there in person:
After a bit of messing about downloading Flash, or something, I tuned in to BNPtv on Sunday to watch Nick Griffin give an excellent live speech from a meeting in Cornwall. He then answered questions, some of them from people like me watching on their computers.
It had a shaky start but was very enjoyable and satisfying viewing; it was almost like being there, and when Nick Griffin suggested they all go off for a pint at the end I even went so far as to have one or two myself. Next time I think they should include a live broadcast from the pub as well.
When the Green Arrow explains the vision of the BNP, the message only gets stranger:
Most of us in the British National Party know that we are in a war to save Our Country for Our Children’s Future. This is not a game. This really is a war and the stakes are high and in all wars there are going to be casualties and people will be affected to varying degrees. Some may even die. We are fighting for not just a Country but our very existence.
Some may even die? The future victory of the BNP is apparently inevitable nonetheless:
But now, with the British National Party and its Leader Nick Griffin, those of us who started the fight, so long ago can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Many of us will not reach the end but at least for the first time we can truly see the light and that to me makes every sacrifice that those who served before us worthwhile.
Indeed, victory is ‘assured‘:
Now that the British National Party has led the way in getting the truth out to the people of Our Country through the magnificent leadership of their chairman Nick Griffin and his motivation of the hardest working activists ever seen in the history of British Politics success is now assured.
And the BNP will prevail and Our Land will, one day, really be the home fit for heroes that our ancestors have fought and died for.
According to the Green Arrow, Britain ruled by the BNP would not just be ‘a home fit for heroes’ but a ‘paradise on earth‘:
But what of the older members of The Party who have died in harness? They knew that because of their advancing years they would never live to see our final victory but still they fought.
They fought because they believed in the same dream as you and I. That we, through Nick Griffin and the British National Party can turn Our Island Nations into the only real paradise on earth for it’s true people.
The BNP, it turns out, is more than a political party – it is in fact a ‘family’:
I laugh when I hear their pathetic excuses as to why the True British People are joining us and becoming not just a member of a political party but a member of a family.
A family with real family values. A family that cares not just for themselves but for their Country and their children’s future.
More than just members of a family, BNP members are ‘heroes’ of ‘the resistance’. Here’s what the Green Arrow had to say on the membership list leak:
No this is not a membership list. It is a Role of Honour and those genuine members on it are heroes.
Years from now that list of names will be engraved on a Brass Plate and placed at a suitable location where generations from now, people can read the names of the members of the resistance who fought back and led the way to the recovery of Our Country.
I am proud to say my name is on it. If yours is, you should be also and I am your brother and kinsman forever. Be doubly proud if you have Activist next to your name.
All of this is quite clearly loopy, but we’ve seen this somewhere before, of course.
- Fanatical and unrealistic devotion to a political leader who is seen to have sacrificed a normal life for a higher cause.
- Calls for ‘hard leadership’.
- A cult of heroism and talk of martyrdom.
- A manichean vision of the struggle of the forces of light against the forces of darkness: the ‘True British People’ vs the ‘enemies of the people’.
- Appeals to notions of folk community and a political movement seen as a family.
- A secular eschatology involving the vision of an earthly paradise to be brought about through epic political struggle.
The BNP’s ‘modernisers’ have toned down the blatant racism and overt connections to Fascist and Nazi ideologies and organisations, but if the ‘Green Arrow’ is anything to go by, the totalitarian fantasies are still alive and well.
Comments
| 8 February 2009, 6:16 pm |
After all that, did Green Arrow ejaculate?
| 8 February 2009, 6:43 pm |
Political party attracts sad loon -shocker! Hardly news. All party’s have them although the far left and right seem to get more obvious ones.
| 8 February 2009, 6:45 pm |
Well as a protectionist, command economy advocate, Nick Griffin and the BNP are to Right wing politics what your average steak ranch is to vegetarianism. But, I guess when it comes to politics, Orwellian inversions are all too common.
| 8 February 2009, 6:51 pm |
Many of us will not reach the end but at least for the first time we can truly see the light and that to me makes every sacrifice that those who served before us worthwhile.
Why can I see a small model of stonehenge descending from the stage roof whilst dwarves in medeival costume dance around below?
| 8 February 2009, 6:56 pm |
Why can I see a small model of stonehenge descending from the stage roof whilst dwarves in medeival costume dance around below?…because it’s virgin on the ridiculous?
| 8 February 2009, 7:16 pm |
“Fanatical and unrealistic devotion to a political leader who is seen to have sacrificed a normal life for a higher cause.
Calls for ‘hard leadership’.
A cult of heroism and talk of martyrdom.
A manichean vision of the struggle of the forces of light against the forces of darkness: the ‘True British People’ vs the ‘enemies of the people’.
Appeals to notions of folk community and a political movement seen as a family.
A secular eschatology involving the vision of an earthly paradise to be brought about through epic political struggle.”
Excepting ” the ‘True British People’ vs the ‘enemies of the people’.” I can see analogies with both Blair and Obama.
Or Netanyahu.
Well, you brought it up…
| 8 February 2009, 7:31 pm |
Nick (ex-SA)
Well as a protectionist, command economy advocate, Nick Griffin and the BNP are to Right wing politics what your average steak ranch is to vegetarianism
Nope, I can’t think of any traditional right-wing figures who backed protectionism. It must be completely alien to the Conservative tradition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Baldwin
All those Tories who looked to the Empire as a closed-off trading bloc for British goods, obviously closet left-wingers to a man.
| 8 February 2009, 7:35 pm |
Why does this blog condemn ethnonationalism among the English, Scots and Welsh in Britain and yet so openly support the Jewish ethnostate of Israel?
| 8 February 2009, 7:35 pm |
Well, most of those points (with a few slight differences of emphasis) sound pretty much like marxism/post-marxism, and the sort of politics favoured by quite a few of the regular authors here could certainly be described as manichean (heaven forbid that anyone even contemplate talking with someone designated as an enemy, be they the SWP, Islamist groups, or whoever. Icky how they will be contaminated by any sort of contact, and how no influence could ever flow in the opposite direction!). Seriously I think the Manichean thing is part of the obsession with George Galloway that has almost come to define this site over five years or so, odious as he is, but as a necessary “hate figure” like that one whose name I quite forget in 1984/”We”.
Anyway, coming as I do from a town where there are 12 BNP councillors, I honestly don’t think “the BNP are evil criminal bastards” spiel does a great deal of good, even though it is, in essence, true.
What needs to be done is to understand WHY people in such places are boycotting the “mainstream” parties (I really don’t think immigration is necessary the primary reason either), and to bring them back into mainstream discourse, their concerns appreciated and dealt with, etc.
Certainly if I lived in Barking constituency, there is no way in a million years I would vote for Margaret Hodge – and if the consequence of other people taking that, perfectly understandable, decision is – that the BNP win the seat there – - – horrendous though that prospect is – I hope that it would teach the main parties a lesson, and get them, finally, to pull their heads out of their arses and start (re)engaging with those voters that New Labour, above all, have abandoned.
Nick Griffin is obviously a lot more obnoxious, extremist, and anti-social than was Enoch Powell. And far more unscrupulous in his choice of buddies. Ulster Unionists are generally a fairly decent bunch. (Sure, any form of polticial nationalism or tribalism is odious and poisonnous, but as in all things there are degrees) ,And I quite agree than in most regards the BNP would fit in to a far greater extent with the description of a “left wing” party than a “right wing” one.
| 8 February 2009, 7:39 pm |
“After all that, did Green Arrow ejaculate?£
Probably !
| 8 February 2009, 8:01 pm |
The measure of Green Arrow’s willingness to suffer for the cause is not that he is prepared to watch video of Nick Griffin but that he’s prepared to watch it on dial-up.
| 8 February 2009, 8:05 pm |
yes that shows dedication
| 8 February 2009, 8:17 pm |
“All of this is quite clearly loopy, but we’ve seen this somewhere before, of course.”
Where? Are you on about the ’stoppers’ you love to hate again?
| 8 February 2009, 8:18 pm |
Why does this blog condemn ethnonationalism among the English, Scots and Welsh in Britain and yet so openly support the Jewish ethnostate of Israel?
Special circumstances, obviously. This ethnogroup was brutalized, in relatively modern times, more savagely than any other group. That’s my opinion.
| 8 February 2009, 8:32 pm |
Leader-worship is always nauseating to the sophisticated but a great many people find that it fills a gap in their lives. An Austrian Jewess, the mother of a girl I knew at Lancaster University, told me of being an eyewitness to Hitler’s entry into Vienna; her sensible and literate adult neighbours were caught up in a collective ecstasy of the kind we now think of as Beatlemania and confined to adolescent girls.
Distressingly though it is to the goodthinkful people who enjoy HP, the BNP’s stance on immigration – and the grotesque and demeaning idiocies of multiculturalism – is appealing to people who were kneejerk leftist-claptrap-spouters a few short years.
Plenty of people whom you know and like are willing to vote for the BNP. Most of them are still unwilling to discuss it aloud except with their very nearest and dearest.
| 8 February 2009, 8:34 pm |
Not everybody condemns it. Obviously, Venichka and many others do (calling it ‘poisonous, odious’ – i.e. complete failure to understand that people are tribal, that they want to belong to a culture, and culture is often closely associated with a nation/ethnos). But I don’t. I am in favour of a Welsh independent state, and a proper Scottish one (instead of the current disgraceful cockup).
| 8 February 2009, 8:46 pm |
Nearly,
No, cultural nationalism is one thing. That’s fine. It’s when it gets tied up with some sort of political supremecy over minority groups (i think generally Scottish nationalism has generally been pretty good at not doing this, at least in the most recent decades: both ulster unionism and irish republicanism – in the republic particularly – have been less successful: look at the outflow of protestants from the “south of ireland” since 1922 – - – and yes, that does mean, ideally, I would prefer the whole of Ireland to be absorbed into a decentralized UK run on the basis of subsidiarity), or where those not of the dominant group in a polity are, as a result solely of their birth in a given location, doomed almost invariably to second-class status.
Fairly clearly, any state must be a state of all citizens who reside in it, with no preference shown to those of a particular ethnicity.
So, no I decidely oppose Scottish or Welsh independent states. I think the status of the UK (and indeed of the USA) as non-nation states is a very fine thing.
Political nationalism is almost always a foul poison. Even in those nation states that in many ways run a decent ship, problems ensue – for a contemporary example, consider the plight of the “erased” in Slovenia
And I do understand that people often feel “tribal.” People feel lots of things though. Low and base things like that need to be overcome.
| 8 February 2009, 8:46 pm |
Just an odd dissent. All those who think Utopia exists in this world are
fools. They are fools if they believe in a racial Eden. They are fools if they believe in Communist Eden and its newest savior Hugo until the next savior and the next. They are fools if they believe in a Eden Caliphate. They are fools if the believe in Green Eden. They are fools if they believe in Anarcho Eden.
All of the above are dangerous as to achieve their paradise man is secondary
| 8 February 2009, 8:50 pm |
Don’t the various major ethnic groups in the UK (Welsh, English, Scottish etc) get on OK? A Scot wouldn’t worry about a Welshman or Englishman self-detonating in the pub, would he?
| 8 February 2009, 8:57 pm |
In and around the UK, I should have said. :D
| 8 February 2009, 9:00 pm |
There’s a significant section of Scottish public opinion that makes it a point of pride to be unpleasant about the English, often in terms that would be considered racist in other circumstances and you occasionally get reports of English people being physically or verbally attacked North of the border. English people sometimes get a cool reception in north Wales, too. But we can take it….
| 8 February 2009, 9:00 pm |
The people you have to engage with, Edmund, are not the BNP leaders, or even the members. It’s the people who are voting for them in increasing numbers.
The left is going to be punished, severely, at the next election, because we have allowed our own loonies to dismantle the principles which should have been at our core.
| 8 February 2009, 9:13 pm |
Thanks for the write up Harry. A nice collection of some of my work and hopefully as a result of your article, many more people will visit the Home of the Green Arrow and read some of the other articles.
I doubt I will be back here but I suspect you will be a regular reader of the Green Arrow.
Like they say. The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Bye Harry
| 8 February 2009, 9:14 pm |
For a moment I assumed ‘the Green Arrow’ was a wind-up, but then I remembered that the BNP is a totalitarian party with several thousand members, and that this probably is what they’re like.
| 8 February 2009, 10:12 pm |
I’m with Nick (ex SA) and Venichka above, the BNP come over with an anti capitalist and green flavour these days. Fairly recently I watched on the opulent BNP website, Nick Griffin deliver an hour long lecture in Staffordshire on the economic crisis (can’t find on BNP website today to post link). So help me, I found myself nodding along to lines implying for instance, perpetual economic growth is a hiding to nothing. Mr. Griffin struck me as neither a huge brain nor particularly charismatic. But he has a convincing blokeish intelligence and a seemingly unassuming, good natured personal presence. I felt uneasy that many of the tenets of my left wing inclinations have been co opted by fascists.
Today on BBC 1 the Big Questions ( the ‘God slot’ talk show after Andrew Marr), the very intense BNP GLA member and one time teacher Richard Barnbrook together with a BNP padre, argued against the barring of BNP members from public sector jobs. What I found remarkable was that Unite Against Fascism were invited to participate in the show but gave their apologies declaring their ‘no debate with fascists’ policy. That policy seems on this occasion – whatever about local public meetings – to be misplaced. And I could not help wondering if the fact that a leading member of the UAF who following a recent Gaza demo, was reported on Socialist Unity as calling on a megaphone for the repatriation of Israeli Jews to the USA, might have had something to do with the invitation decline.
| 8 February 2009, 10:19 pm |
There’s a significant section of Scottish public opinion that makes it a point of pride to be unpleasant about the English, often in terms that would be considered racist in other circumstances and you occasionally get reports of English people being physically or verbally attacked North of the border. English people sometimes get a cool reception in north Wales, too. But we can take it….
:D
That sounds normal. :D
I’m hoping racial tensions will ease a bit in the US now that we have a black President. The glass ceiling for black folks has officially been shattered. I finally don’t have to feel guilty for being white.
| 8 February 2009, 10:24 pm |
Hmm. We have a Scottish Prime Minister (hmmm Jeremy Clarkson’s description – which I even read mention of in the Romanian press – was spot on), a Scottish chancellor, and the last PM (however much he had an Edinbourgeouisie public school accent – no doubt he was one of “Scotland’s Most Eligible Men” in his day – - -sorry, that’s a Scottish press thing, announced on the 2nd sunday of every February) was too.
So the nastiness towards the English by the Scots (who it must be said played a not inconsiderable role in the conquering and ruling of empire) is entirely unwarranted. Self-pitying, whining, whinging, adopting the status of a victim so as to apparently warrant special pleading has been built up to a fine art in some quarters in recent years and decades. And that is contemptible.
| 8 February 2009, 10:50 pm |
“Why can I see a small model of stonehenge descending from the stage roof whilst dwarves in medeival costume dance around below?”
All I saw was a load of over-wrought text on a computer monitor. You might have seen a bit more, if you were there at the time.
| 8 February 2009, 10:51 pm |
Not all Scots minds you! My Scots born-and-bred mum hates any Scot who hates the English! And my Scottish uncle is even prepared to support England once Scotland get knocked out of the World Cup!
| 8 February 2009, 11:12 pm |
And my Scottish uncle is even prepared to support England once Scotland get knocked out of the World Cup!
Bloody hell. My Scottish father would never do that, and still goes on about the stellar (well, same as usual, when they qualify) performance of the Scottish team (with great support from Rod Stewart) in 1978, and the fact that England (who have, unlike Scotland, got past the first round, but who are never really good or pleasurable to watch) didn’t qualify at all.
And, yeah, I was exaggerating a bit,
But still – I’ve never seen so many Romanian flags (not even in Romania) as on the day I was in Glasgow when England were playing Romania in the 98 world cup.
| 8 February 2009, 11:50 pm |
“Thanks for the write up Harry. A nice collection of some of my work and hopefully as a result of your article, many more people will visit the Home of the Green Arrow and read some of the other articles.
I doubt I will be back here but I suspect you will be a regular reader of the Green Arrow.
Like they say. The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. ”
Morris – you are Laughed at.
As a lonley 34 year old virgin Green Arrow – better known as Paul Morris, you blogged into a honey trap and revealed your name, address at Nantyglow, and the address of your caravan in Treco Bay.
All of which was freely given on the promise of a blow job !
This can be verified by visiting Lancaster UAF or Nolfolk Unity.
You were so shit scared that your “cover” was blown that you made a request to Facist Central to use a box number rather than your reAL address. This can be verified by downloading that list from Wikileaks – Under “Paul Morris” is an entry maked “agreed NG” giving your real addresses and the box number.
In the last few months you and other areseholes have been trying to identify me and other anti facists.
Remember, I live closer to Nantyglow than you would wish, and I have an interesting photo collection.
Oh, and by the way are these still British Nonces Party Members ?
http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2008/11/evil-paedos-are-secret-bnp-thugs_23.html
And are the Gwent Plods monitoring your IPS address for child porno ? – Perhaps they should !
Old Sailor.
| 8 February 2009, 11:51 pm |
The BNP is not right wing. Look at its policies. They are left wing. Therefore the party is left wing. That explains in part why most of their new support comes from people who have stopped supporting Labour due to Brown’s obvious incompetence.
| 9 February 2009, 1:00 am |
Griffin could do with a professional website makeover, his photograph on the website looks looks sinister. The other guy looks like the cashiered Major who stole the regimental silver.
There is something wrong when people fight for the right for terrorists yet denigrate the views of this shower. The BNP views are becoming main stream not vice versa!
| 9 February 2009, 7:43 am |
comstock
There is something wrong when people fight for the right for terrorists yet denigrate the views of this shower. The BNP views are becoming main stream not vice versa!
Yes.
And partly because of the activities of militant Islamists and their righteous supporters who would have no place in an Islamist regime.
History will see the extreme leftists as the joke of the early 21st century.
| 9 February 2009, 8:00 am |
BNP chap could have chosen a better name for his blog. As any DC comics geek knows, the REAL Green Arrow is a louche, moustachio’d anarcho-leftist: “…a hot-tempered anarchist to contrast with the cerebral, sedate model citizen who was the Green Lantern.” Perhaps this would be a better option?
| 9 February 2009, 9:51 am |
A shame you didn’t include the fool’s comment that he worries for Nick’s safety and prays for him every night. That had us in stitches.
The lowdown on Paul Morris (aka the Arrow) is pretty much as Old Sailor comments – except that Morris is a lot older than 34.
Due to his admiration and fulsome support for Redwatch we at Norfolk Unity felt a little of the same treatment wouldn’t go amiss for him and published his details, which led to hysterical yelps of “foul” and “I could be killed” from Morris.
That was the point at which Morris did what he had thus far avoided doing – associating with BNP members in the real world and attending BNP meetings. Safety in numbers?
Despite his frequent attempts to pass himself off as a be-medalled fascist veteran, Morris has no record of activism. He only got around to joining the BNP a little over a year ago, and when pressed to come up with something to support his claims by dubious Stormfront Nazis could only mutter something about being in his local newspaper circa 1976 for selling the National Party’s newspaper (and even that is doubtful).
He is a running joke, and – as you surmised – best treated that way, much as he is by us:
| 9 February 2009, 12:17 pm |
Not that the BNP haven’t got some thoroughly horrible members, but ‘Norfolk Unity’ and Old Sailor seem like the thin end of a very fat Orwellian wedge.
Can’t you just shove off and start your soviet socialist republic a bit further east? I hear Yarmouth Council are looking for thought police to inform on smokers at local pubs….jeez
| 9 February 2009, 12:45 pm |
“He is a running joke, and – as you surmised – best treated that way, much as he is by us:”
Us? You mean Atreus, ex-National Front (but still obviously a fascist), and you, an ex-Tory lesbian (with obvious mental problems), who were both fired from your jobs (because of your obnoxious and aggressive attitudes, no doubt) last week? You must be joking if you think anyone values your opinion.
| 9 February 2009, 1:52 pm |
BNP left wing hahaha- Can’t you tell the difference between Corporate protectionist fascism and Socialism.
| 9 February 2009, 1:54 pm |
| 9 February 2009, 6:36 pm |
BNP left wing hahaha- Can’t you tell the difference between Corporate protectionist fascism and Socialism.
You made me look that up. Zero hits. Doesn’t exist.
Sort of like socialism then, as a matter of fact. So the difference, if any, must be just the hot air.
| 10 February 2009, 11:39 pm |
Oh Dear – the usual crap from crypto liberals – And Green Arshole aka Paul Morris of Nantyglow and Treco Bay keeps schtumn.
Bearing in mind Green Arsehole.Griffin and others are Holecost Deniers.
Old Sailor
| 11 February 2009, 12:13 pm |
Old Sailor: “Bearing in mind Green Arsehole.Griffin and others are Holecost Deniers.”
Indeed, and hole diggers have suffered for years from these people. Denying the cost of a hole is a terrible crime and they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
I think you’re clutching at straws here – not to say that you haven’t been right and written some damn insightful stuff before. Many of the themes of Green Arrow’s writings are reflected in similar speeches and writings about Tony Bliar and Barry Obama.
He/she does of course get it right with regard to Enoch (Highly intelligent, charismatic and with a political vision not seen since Enoch Powell.)…but I don’t see Griffin in the same vein.