BNP "Victory Rally": Protests planned

Posted: Sat 20 Jun 2009 6 56 am

Protests at BNP's 'victory' rally

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090620/tuk-protests-at-bnp-s-victory-rally-6323e80.html

Press Assoc.

Hundreds of anti-fascist demonstrators are expected to picket a British National Party "Victory" rally.

Extra police will be on patrol as Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right party, attends the two-day event entitled Victory 09, at the New Kimberley Hotel on the promenade in Blackpool.

About 100 BNP activists are expected at the event, which has been held in the past as a party summer school but as the party now has two MEPs in its ranks, Mr Griffin said it will be a mixture of a victory celebration and a "de-brief" about their European election campaign.

Mr Griffin, one of the party's MEPs, will speak at the event just weeks after he was targeted by protesters who attacked his car and pelted him with eggs when he arrived for the Euro election count at Manchester Town Hall.

He had to be smuggled in by a back door after emerging from a police van.

And he was again attacked by demonstrators on the Green outside the Houses of Parliament as the BNP tried to stage a news conference the day after his election.

A spokesman for Unite Against Fascism (UAF) said he expects "hundreds" to turn up outside the hotel to protest.

The UAF said trade unionists, students and ordinary members of the public had pledged support to show their opposition to the BNP.

Lancashire Police said officers will be on patrol around the area of the venue to keep the peace.

Chief Inspector Karen Simister said: "A policing operation focused on ensuring the safety of the public has been put in place to ensure that the event and associated protests pass without incident."

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No doubt there will be "trade unionists, students and ordinary members of the public " inside, as well as outside, the meeting. And we can see that the BNP has something to celebrate.

I would find it hard to say which group of "trade unionists, students and ordinary members of the public" is the least distasteful. Hard, but not impossible. I would take the BNP over the UAF at any time.

There is "no place in British Politics" (as Gordon might put it) for howling mobs of violent thugs to attempt to silence elected politicians at lawful meetings.

What do you think?

Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 1237

wish someone would picket the green party meetings or sinn fein..

Posted: Sat 20 Jun 2009 7 56 am

Bestbear wrote:

What do you think?

I think people should have the right to protest.

Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 593

As the generally idiotic (but on this occasion right) Polly whatsername from The Guardian said, the BNP didn't get significantly more votes this time than in the last Euro election, they just benefited from the low turnout and the fall in Labour votes. They may have two seats because of the weird election system, each a long way behind the actual winner, but they don't actually have anything to celebrate.

If they ever take control of even a local council they might be able to claim a kind of victory. Until then, they remain a wannabe fringe party.

Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 1237

Sandman wrote:

If they ever take control of even a local council they might be able to claim a kind of victory.

and everyone can start wailing about it being 1933 all over again...

Posted: Sat 20 Jun 2009 4 38 pm

Bulldog wrote:

Bestbear wrote:

What do you think?

I think people should have the right to protest.

So do I. Peaceful protest is a basic democratic right. But I don't think they have the right to violent protest. Nor do they have the right to disrupt other people's comings and goings about their lawful occasions.

If they stood outside the hotel shouting slogans and holding up placards I would be fine with that. Will they stop at that though? I rather doubt it.

Joined: 13 Aug 2005 Posts: 2902

Bestbear wrote:

Will they stop at that though? I rather doubt it.

Before we run to the support of racists and fascists shall we see what the protesters actually do?

I think that the whole egg-throwing thing outside Parliament was silly and counter-productive, but I fully support the right of anti-fascist campaigners to picket this meeting if they feel so incliined...and I'm not going to make assumptions as to what they will do before they get chance to do (or not do) it.

Posted: Sat 20 Jun 2009 5 05 pm

"A plague on both your houses" seems to fill the Bill nicely. Sad

Posted: Sun 21 Jun 2009 1 01 pm

Seems as if it all went reasonable peacefully

A police spokeswoman described it as a â€˜largely peacefulâ€™ demonstration.

Four people were arrested, all of them on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1121776_four_arrests_at_bnp_protest

Posted: Sun 21 Jun 2009 2 42 pm

Bestbear wrote:

"A plague on both your houses" seems to fill the Bill nicely. Sad

one group smells of BO, wears stained denim and uses the word 'comrade' to people they shaft in the next central commitee of Hull Workers Party (membership: 4) - and the other wants deport (shoot) Jews, people with big lips and crinkly hair, men who prefer the company of other men and anyone with an IQ higher that the average shoesize.

very, very definately not a plague on both their houses...

Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 2977 Location: North of Watford

rogermellie wrote:

Bestbear wrote:

"A plague on both your houses" seems to fill the Bill nicely. Sad

one group smells of BO, wears stained denim and uses the word 'comrade' to people they shaft in the next central commitee of Hull Workers Party (membership: 4) - and the other wants deport (shoot) Jews, people with big lips and crinkly hair, men who prefer the company of other men and anyone with an IQ higher that the average shoesize.

very, very definately not a plague on both their houses...

Nicely put, Rog, as always! There were some SWP types in Newcastle at the weekend, selling what looked, by the headlines, to be the same edition of their unspeakably dreary paper as they were selling twenty years ago. And wearing much the same togs ... Didn't get close enough to check out the BO! Wink

But no harm to anyone but themselves, unlike the crop-headed thugs who mull together in safe numbers to kick non-aryan ass in the West End after closing time.

Spartacus

Posted: Sun 21 Jun 2009 3 47 pm

rogermellie wrote:

one group smells of BO, wears stained denim and uses the word 'comrade' to people they shaft in the next central commitee of Hull Workers Party (membership: 4) - and the other wants deport (shoot) Jews, people with big lips and crinkly hair, men who prefer the company of other men and anyone with an IQ higher that the average shoesize.

Although of course, as history demonstrates, when either ideology gets any real power, the outcome is inevitably disastrous.

Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 2977 Location: North of Watford

Trying to remember the last time the Trotskyists got into power .... Wink

And I don't think the SWP has been doing terribly well in the local or European elections ...

Spartacus

Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 809

Trotskyists? I know the Communists were still in power in Belarus fairly recently, the last bastion of the KGB, although they were possibly more Stalinists than Trotskyists. Were the Trotskyists themselves ever in power, other than running the odd union?

That said, it's probably more about what both these groups under discussion represent rather than who they are. Very thin lines, old boy. Wink

Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 2977 Location: North of Watford

Highlander wrote:

Trotskyists? I know the Communists were still in power in Belarus fairly recently, the last bastion of the KGB, although they were possibly more Stalinists than Trotskyists. Were the Trotskyists themselves ever in power, other than running the odd union?

That said, it's probably more about what both these groups under discussion represent rather than who they are. Very thin lines, old boy. Wink

I don't think the Trotskyists ever were in power, or ever will be.

The BNP and their fascist and neo-Nazi comrades, on the other hand, seem to be very much in business in the UK and Europe at the moment.

Spartacus

Posted: Sun 21 Jun 2009 9 04 pm

Spartacus wrote:

I don't think the Trotskyists ever were in power, or ever will be.

The BNP and their fascist and neo-Nazi comrades, on the other hand, seem to be very much in business in the UK and Europe at the moment.

Spartacus

And have the BNP and their fascist and neo-Nazi comrades ever been in power?

Are they likely to be?

They pose as much of a threat as the SWP.

That's not to say they aren't a vile bunch of bigots of course, but, imo, they are taken far too seriously.

Best ignored.

Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 2977 Location: North of Watford

Bulldog wrote:

Spartacus wrote:

I don't think the Trotskyists ever were in power, or ever will be.

The BNP and their fascist and neo-Nazi comrades, on the other hand, seem to be very much in business in the UK and Europe at the moment.

Spartacus

And have the BNP and their fascist and neo-Nazi comrades ever been in power?

Are they likely to be?

They pose as much of a threat as the SWP.

That's not to say they aren't a vile bunch of bigots of course, but, imo, they are taken far too seriously.

Best ignored.

Yes. They are part of Berlusconi's coalition in Italy and influential in several of the former Warsaw Pact countries. And two of them now "represent" the UK in the European Parliament.

Indeed, David Cameron seems to regard the racist right as more in sympathy with the British Conservative Party than are the Christian Democrats of France and Germany.

By contrast, the performance of the Trotskyist (and Marxist) left in the recent European elections was derisory.

Spartacus

Posted: Sun 21 Jun 2009 10 34 pm

As a member of the reactionary bourgeoisie, I find one Red much like another. "Progressives" no doubt welcome them all into their company, and understand all the subtle little differences between them, but you can't expect us to share this wisdom.

These are the people of the gulags, Pol Pot's cambodian massacres and the Chinese executioners. Hardly small fry in the world today. While the BNP does not even advocate all the terrors evoked by Roger's caricature - although some members of it may, for all I know

As the Dog says, whenever either fascists or communists have attained power, the results have not been good. Come to that, whenever our milder "progressives" have attained power, as they have today, the results have not been great either!

Personal liberty seems under greater threat in our country than at any time in my experience. We are practically brought to ruin. Every Labour gummint has ended in the same way, with the public finances shot to pieces, leaving their successor to cure the poison with years of austerity.

So - a plague on both their houses, I say - and far and away the greater plague on the socialist "progressive" enemies of freedom of assembly, free speech and personal liberty.

Twisted Evil

Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 2977 Location: North of Watford

YAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Wink

Posted: Mon 22 Jun 2009 6 45 am

Anyone seen my ice-pick? Rolling Eyes

Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 2977 Location: North of Watford

Bestbear wrote:

Anyone seen my ice-pick? Rolling Eyes

Spartacus