Resistance:The Best Olympic Spirit.John Carlos,Doreen Lawrence and Weyman Bennett.

Golden Dawn leader,Nikos Michaloliakos denying gas chambers, endorsing Hitler and minimising the Holocaust on T.V.

The Golden Dawn's leaders  attitude over the Holocaust flips from Stuff Happens to minimisation to finally declaring there were no ovens or gas chambers at Auschwitz.
This is depressingly familiar to any Nazi watchers.It's the standard trajectory of most euro fascists, here condensed into 3 revolting minutes.




 This interview is from Greek television last week.The interviewer is left -wing  journalist Stavros Theodorakis and is an extract from his Protagonistes programme.

Golden Dawn Nazis attempting to intimidate journalists.

                                                           Nikos Michaloliakos

The Golden Dawn is now beginning to lash out at the free press.Clearly,they are beginning to feel the heat.There has been universal condemnation of the Golden Dawn's leader Nikos Michaloliakos assertion that there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz.

Since gaining 21 seats in the recent elections GD has been subject to much greater scrutiny,and their support seems to be taking a dive.Anti-fascists have been denouncing them as a Nazi organisation and they have seen their support ebbing away.

One poll even puts their support at below 3%,this would mean that in the re-run elections they would lose all their seats.This poll should be viewed with caution,as it was a phone poll,and people are not entirely honest about their voting intentions if it involves the far right.There is however no question that they are taking a hammering ,in the polls and they have decided to blame the messenger.

The ridiculous performance of Nikos Michaloliakos at the press conference after the first elections this year when journalists were instructed to stand up and show their respect for him set alarm bells ringing.

As Digital Journal reports:

"The Greek Federation of Journalists has sent a warning to the far-right Golden Dawn party that it will not be terrorized, following accusations that the newly elected neo-Nazi party has intimidated reporters. 

Greece's journalists' union is not alone in its stance as Sott reports International press freedom watchdogs are also monitoring the situation in Greece following mistreatment of journalists by Golden Dawn. The issue was first raised when journalist Xenia Kounalaki recounted how she was threatened following the publication of an article in Greek newspaper Kathimerini entitled "The Banality of Evil," about Golden Dawn's surge in popularity. She concluded the party should be banned. Following the publication of her story Kounalaki wrote a piece in Der Spiegel describing the threat her story provoked. She wrote "

An anonymous reply to my article appeared on the Golden Dawn website. It was a 2,500-word-long personal attack in which the fascists recounted my entire career, mocked my alleged foreign roots (I was born in Hamburg) and even, for no apparent reason, mentioned my 13-year-old daughter. The unnamed authors indirectly threatened me as well: 'To put it in the mother tongue of foreign Xenia: 'Kommt Zeit, kommt Rat, kommt Attentat!' In other words, watch your back."

Kounalaki is not alone in feeling threatened. During Golden Dawn's election victory press conference journalists were ordered to stand and salute the party or leave the room. Greece's journalists' union has released a statement. Ekathimerini reports it said

“The Greek Federation of Journalists (POESY) warns Hitler nostalgics and especially the ‘brave boys in black T-shirts’ that no journalist will be coerced, threatened or above all terrorized.”

Additionally the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) reacted to the situation by stating "I hope that these incidents will be isolated cases and that the Golden Dawn leaders will respect democratic principles."

Golden Dawn : Now they attack the LGBT community.

                                                “After the immigrants you are next.” 

This was the blunt heading on the top of leaflets Golden dawn members were distributing in the Gazi district of Athens.This is known to be a district with a high proportion of LGBT residents. This is of course not the first time that they have distributed anti-gay leaflets and attempted to intimidate the gay community.In 2005 they gave out homophobic leaflets during the Athens Pride March.

This is a classic fascist strategy of finding several minorities to scapegoat to build a movement.This follows comments from Michaloliakos about the gas chambers of Auschwitz which amount to Holocaust denial.

They are now speaking up about "sick and abnormal " homosexuals.
 According to Greek reporter

   "The General Secretary of the far-right party told reporter Stavros Theodorakis during an interview that homosexuals are an abnormal part of Greek society. “I wouldn’t feel proud if I were a fag,” added party leader Nikos Michaloliakos.

When asked if Golden Dawn has homosexual members, Michaloliakos noted that there are no particular tests to perform on his party members to know for sure who is homosexual and who is not. Being openly homosexual and being a member of Golden Dawn at the same time is impossible, according to the General Secretary of the party."

There are also growing concerns about collusion between GD and the police .There have been reports of both organisations jointly attacking immigrants,and also a wealth of reports of Golden Dawn members attacking people whilst the police stand around doing nothing.

Clearly communities are going to have to organise their own self defence.


Spokesperson of the Homosexual Groups of Greece Gregory Vallianatos who has been victimised by Golden Dawn twice in the past is demanding action.

 “What Michaloliakos said was a direct threat against all homosexuals. He may be cool or not about him being a ‘fag’, but he beats anyone else who feels proud of being a ‘fag."

The line the Nazis are now taking is to associate Gay people with leftism and saying it is a product of decadent socialism.This is straight out of German National Socialism  of the 1930s.

Golden Dawn is now maintaining that homosexuality is completely alien to Greek society.


 Alexander the Great, Sophocles,  Euripides and Socrates were unavailable for comment.

Nazis get drubbing in German Elections.

                                 Holger Apfel NDP leader.


The National Democrats got a comprehensive pasting in the elections this week in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine Westphalia.Their vote declined in both localities.They got 0.7% in in Schleswig-Holstein and 0.5% in north Rhine Westphalia.
In Germany if you get a certain proportion of the vote you are entitled to claim expenses,unfortunately for the NPD they failed to hit the bar and are therefore not entitled to any reimbursement for any expenses they have incurred.

The islamophobic PRO movement did slightly better,getting around 1.5% of the vote.They are the EDLs spiritual cousins,who enjoy engaging in provocative demonstrations outside Mosques.

The main beneficiary of the elections appear to be the left.Although there has been little reporting of this in the American or British press.

Angela Merkel's Christian Democtats(CDU) managed to get only 26% of the vote,losing 9% of the popular vote.This is a clear sign that it is not just the French and Greeks who are sick of austerity policies.The cuts in working hours, welfare and pensions are testing the patience of the German electorate.


The Social Democrats (SPD) achieved 39% of the vote and therefore are in prime position to form the next government.They are also in a position to push hard for a loosening of Merkel's hardline austerity measures.

This will certainly have an effect on the growing anti-austerity movement which is sweeping the continent.

It can be presumed that the potential effect it might have on the anti austerity movement in Greece might be the reason some sections of the press are playing down the results.
As the human consequences of the Europe wide cuts agenda and its ensuing misery are one of the prime causes for the fillip the Nazis have been enjoying in France and Greece, how this new movement proceeds will be of more than passing interest to the anti-fascist movement.


 

Golden Dawn Nazis: Nikolaos Mihaloliakos engages in Holocaust denial.

Close on the heels of Golden Dawn having their website closed down their leader has been publicly questioning the existence of the gas chambers and the historical record of the Holocaust.There are hopes that this  will cost him dear in any ballot box rerun.
It's becoming fairly obvious that another election is almost inevitable .Since the election and his preposterous behaviour at Golden Dawn's press conference anti-fascists are hopeful that this will give added impetus to the electoral campaign against the Nazis.With their support seemingly ebbing away it could yet be the case that they do not have any seats to take in the next parliament.

Jennifer Lipman from The Jewish Chronicle reports:

The leader of the neo-fascist party that won seats in the Greek parliament for the first time earlier this month has denied some of the fundamental facts of the Holocaust.

Golden Dawn, which now claims 21 parliamentarians and whose members are known for giving Nazi salutes and for their staunchly anti-immigrant stance, is led by Nikolaos Mihaloliakos. According to Reuters Mr Mihaloliakos told an interviewer on Sunday that he did not believe that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
He described the figure as an "exaggeration".

He said: "There were no ovens, this is a lie ... there were no gas chambers either."
Holocaust denial is not illegal in Greece, but a government spokesman said he categorically condemned Mr Mihaloliakos's remarks.

"They distort history and offend the memory of millions of Holocaust victims," said Pantelis Kapsis.

Golden Dawn's success has sent shockwaves around Greece's Jewish community, which is estimated to include several thousand people. The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece called it a "serious blow" to Greek democracy.

Golden Dawn nazis have website closed.

The Greek Nazis Golden Dawn have had their website closed.

Normally service providers only close due to inappropriate contact,such as hate speech.So ,it is a matter of speculation as to why it has been closed.

However since they are an organisation which celebrates Hitlers birthday and excludes non-Aryans in its membership (something which even the British National Party over here aren't allowed to do under British law.),then it is a matter of speculation.

This report from JTA :

 ATHENS, Greece (JTA) --The Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party, which won nearly seven percent of the vote in last week's elections, has had its official website taken down by host WordPress.

"This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service," said a message from WordPress that replaced their homepage.


The web page hosting service bars sites that include "hate content" or "contain threats or incite violence towards individuals or entities."


The extreme-right Golden Dawn Party, whose flag closely resembles the Nazi swastika, received 21 seats in parliament, the first time it passed the threshold to enter the legislative body. It campaigned heavily on an anti-immigrant platform under the slogan "So we can rid this land of filth."


Despite its strong showing, it is not clear how many Golden Dawn members would ultimately end up as lawmakers, as Greece appears headed to fresh elections. A poll published Sunday in the local To Vima newspaper indicated that in a new vote Golden Dawn support would shrink to under 4 percent.


Last week's elections resulted in a fractured parliament as voters protested against the mainstream parties they blame for the country's financial crisis and for accepting harsh European austerity measures.


Greek President Karolos Papoulias was holding last-ditch effort talks with political leaders on Sunday, trying to form a national unity government after the three largest parties failed to put together a coalition. If that fails the country must hold new elections in June.


Greece's Jewish community has condemned the rise of Golden Dawn as "a serious blow for Greek democracy."

EDL in Liverpool hunt for celebrated activist.

This is beyond satire.

Melenchon takes the fight to Le Pen.

 From the BBC.

   

 

French left-wing party leader Jean-Luc Melenchon says he will run for the same seat as far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the forthcoming parliamentary polls.

Mr Melenchon says he will stand in the working-class town of Henin-Beaumont, near Calais, where Ms Le Pen resides.

Ms Le Pen's National Front won more than 30% of the votes there in the first round of the presidential poll.

In that poll, Mr Melenchon won 11% of the vote, achieving fourth position behind Ms Le Pen.
"I am coming here because there is a battle which has a national significance and, if I may say so, an international one too because all eyes are upon us in Europe," Mr Melenchon, leader of the Left Front party, told supporters in Henin-Beaumont.

"In this battle, two visions for solving the crisis will be confronted, so let's compare," he said.
"Is the problem with the immigrants or is it with the bankers? For us, it's the bankers."
Ms Le Pen dismissed Mr Melenchon's bid as a "secondary phenomenon".

French voters will elect a new National Assembly (lower house) in a two-round election, on 10 and 17 June.

Vidal Sassoon Style Icon and Anti-fascist dies.

Dubbed the Anti-fascist warrior hairdresser by The Daily Telegraph Vidal Sassoon is probably best remembered as a style icon who along with Mary Quant revolutionised fashion in the sixties,more than practically anyone else they made the sixties swing.
However he was also an Anti-fascist activist who was involved with the legendary 43 group.

After the war many of the British fascists who had been interned were released and were soon up to their old tricks.The returning troops were confronted with fascists scapegoating the Jews once again and stirring up Anti-semitism.
The Holocaust was a new outrage and fresh news,and a group of Jewish ex-servicemen decided to do something about it.In a completely uncompromising way.

Sassoon spoke about it to Julian Kossoff in 2010:

"When I came back to London after the evacuation I was 17," he recalls. "I wanted to be a footballer but my mother insisted I get a profession, so I was apprenticed to a very distinguished hairdresser called Adolph Cohen, who was known by everyone as The Professor. It was a happy time. We lived on the fourth floor of a Petticoat Lane tenement building, where the smell of bagels wafted up from the bakery downstairs.

"The Lane was a maze of colourful humanity, people cared for one another, and showed a kindness that knew no barriers of race. But then that popinjay Mosley was released from prison, where he had spent most of the war. And our lives were to change for the worse.

"Suddenly, there were fascists preaching hate on every corner," says the cool pensioner, his voice tightening a little with anger that seems undimmed by the passage of time. "These rabble-rousers were the same Nazi sympathisers who had spent the war years in prison, and were now starting up where they had left off.


 Never Again!

"Their speeches and their literature depicted us, the Jews, as coarse, ugly caricatures with long beards and dirty finger-nails, dressed in black gabardine. And they hurled the same abuse that I remembered from the 1930s, when we had to walk through Paddington in a crocodile to school. I was too young to do anything about it then but I had never forgotten the fear. En masse, when you've got a thousand throats all screaming "The yids, yids, we've gotta get rid of the yids", that is pretty terrifying. They'd wear uniforms, insignia, the whole thing.
"I don't remember exactly when we decided to fight back, but the pictures we were seeing from Auschwitz and Buchenwald and Dachau changed the shape of our rage, and the slogan "Never Again!" became a command."




And so it was that the fresh-faced cockney (the measured, mid-Atlantic tones of the modern Vidal are the product of elocution lessons taken in the 1950s) signed up with the 43 Group, a crudely armed paramilitary force which began as 43 Jewish ex-servicemen and which by its peak was to number more than 1,000 Jews and gentiles, men and women. "We had turned the cheek for the last time," says Sassoon, who heard about it on the Whitechapel grapevine. "And as a 17-year-old recruit, I was proud to be involved. The men were mostly ex-servicemen, unsung heroes who had fought for five years and had come back to be abused by fascists as they walked down the street. They didn't want anything but peace, but it was disgusting that having just fought a war against Nazism, home-grown fascists were allowed to start reorganising. Something had to be done.

"As soon as I showed an interest I was assigned to a particular group, like everyone else. My guv'nor in the East End group was Jackie Myerovitch, and from him we would get a phone call to be in a certain place at certain time to disrupt a Mosley speech, or one of the pubs. There was even a plot to kidnap the quisling himself, strip him and dump him naked in Piccadilly Circus. Then these incidents, or actions, would begin. It was pretty terrifying. I remember Jackie being badly slashed, but there was no time to worry about such things."

A boy amongst hardened fighting men, Sassoon was to become one of the toughest and keenest of all the informal soldiers.

"He was only a kid, but he was a tough little shtarka", says a former group commander and comrade, retired paratrooper Gerry Lambert, using a Yiddish word that corresponds, more or less, to hard man. Many former 43ers remember Vidal well and his solid reputation of standing firm when the fists started flying. "To think what a big deal hairdresser he would become," said one of the veterans. "You would never have guessed to see him there, deep in the fray. At that time he was just the sort of guy you wanted standing right by your side when the fighting started. And back then, of course, we often had to break the law. It was out of necessity. We had to use the same weapons as the fascists did: knuckle-dusters, coshes, and cut throat razors".

Inevitably the police arrested hundreds of people during the five years of organised violence and on at least one occasion the young Sassoon found himself in jail. "I've lost count of the number of actions I was involved in," he smiles, "but I do remember the night we were told to go up to Kilburn [in north-west London], to break up a fascist meeting. There was a real punch-up. We chased the blackshirts into a pub, but we were ourselves being chased by the police. They arrested us on the spot, threw us in the back of the van and started calling us filthy foreign Jew bastards. They beat the hell out of my old friend Big Mo Levy and threw us in a cell for the night".

Sassoon pauses to reflect on his days of valour in a different world, before he succeeded Teasy Weasy Raymond as crimper to the stars, style pioneer to the sixties counter culture, and went on, after laying down his scissors in the 1970s, to create a range of hair products that have helped him to amass a 100 million fortune, part of which funds the renowned Vidal Sassoon Centre for the Study of Antisemitism and Xenophobia at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Now the most famous hairdresser in the world he recalls:

"When we went up before the judge the next morning we told him about the police brutality, but he just said, 'those sort of things do not happen in Britain, now go home and be good boys'." He laughs and repeats again what he has been saying all along: "I was just a private, foot-soldier. I wasn't a particular hero".

In 1948, he left Britain to fight in the Israeli War of Independence. He would have liked to have stayed in the new country, attended university and become an architect, but his family's East End poverty forced him back to London. "I thought if I had to do hairdressing I'd try and be the best I could at it," reflects Sassoon. The rest is history.

At every turn, his modesty will not allow him to describe his double life as anything out of the ordinary for the time and place. "I took a few knocks, but we did physical damage to them, too. That's what happens when there is hate. Violence for its own sake is nonsense, but in defence of one's children and one's elders is a necessity." But to show up for work, in a ladies hairdresser's salon of all places, battered and bruised from a night's fighting, must have been a surreal position for a young man to find himself in.

"Well yes," he says gently, "I had to have a sense of humour. There was one occasion one morning after a particularly nasty tear-up, I went to work at the salon in Mayfair with a badly scratched face and this refined client looked at me and said, "Good God, Vidal, you look terrible. What happened to you?"

"Nothing much, I said. I just fell over a hairpin."

This is not England . This is Brighton.

A Brosnan and Godfrey film.


Excellent video of the recent events in Brighton.

Greek Nazis Breakthrough.Golden Dawn wins seats in Elections.

 "The time for fear has come."

  "The time for fear has come for those who betrayed this homeland," Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos announced at a press conference at an Athens hotel, flanked by menacing shaven-headed young men.
It is important to point out that Greece's Golden Dawn Party are not Post-Fascist ,Proto-Nazi Crypto-Nazi or Semi Nazi.

They are Nazis.

Old school ,Holocaust denying ,racial supremacist,violent ,Mein Kampf reading Nazis.

The background of Golden Dawn is strictly old school and has been discussed on this site before.
Golden Dawn has gone from an irrelevant movement barely getting 0.3% of the vote to now polling around 7%.

Nazis thrive on misery and the financial bailout of Greece has caused plenty of that.
More than two years of repeated austerity measures that have included pension and salary cuts and waves of tax hikes have pushed Greece into a deep recession that has seen the jobless rate explode and tens of thousands of businesses close.
There is now talk of an additional 15% cut in wages.

 According to The Guardian reporting in February:
"Greeks have already suffered a 30% cut in wages and can look forward to steep cuts in the minimum wage as well as pensions as the price for securing the latest €130bn bailout which, with €34.4bn rolled over from the original €109bn rescue package, gives €164.4bn available over the next three years.

The sheer scale of the fresh dose of austerity, doubts over the ability of both the Greek government and the eurozone to reach targets and gaps in the eurogroup deal prompted cynics to suggest the agreement would hold together for only a few months. Some non-eurozone diplomats have already begun speculating about when a third package will be required to keep Greece within the euro.


Papademos, who flew to Brussels to help broker the deal, secured significant backing from a large group of private bondholders for the increased 53.5% nominal "haircut". He also won an extra €10bn in the package for the recapitalisation of Greek banks which now see €50bn set aside.


The proceeds from privatisations, already scheduled to raise €50bn, have so far been a paltry €1.6bn from five transactions and the new programme envisages raising €19bn from 35 transactions. But the full proceeds will only be raised if the Greek state sells off huge tracts of land and buildings, the officials conceded."


Every other week more and more demands have been made on the Greek people to bear greater burdens for the crisis.There have been constant strikes in response to the austerity measures.
The question has been not whether Greek anger would explode but when.

 Although the left have been the principle beneficiaries of the anger the growth of the Nazis must not be overlooked.

In it's TV campaign it's slogan was “Let’s rid this country of the stench.”

Golden Dawn's official  motto is, “So we can rid the land of filth.”

Golden Dawn’s charter says its “main ideal and belief is the nation-tribe” and that “only men and women of Greek descent and consciousness should have full political rights.”

There have been many reports of violence against dark  skinned Greeks ,or anyone who might be an immigrant,legal or not.
It is also very clear that their violence is not being challenged by the police and many feel that the police are in some sort of alliance with Golden Dawn.

Javad Aslan, a spokesman for Greece’s Pakistani immigrant community,voiced his concerns over Golden Dawns electoral success..

“This is dangerous for everyone who is living in Greece,” Aslan said.
 “This (result) unbelievable for me. It is very serious, very dangerous. I can never believe a political party that comes with knives and bars against us, that hurts people and puts them in hospital.”

The black-shirted thugs of GD have also been attacking political opponents. A Pasok candidate was chased down the street and attacked with bottles and bricks.

Golden Dawn conforms to all the aspects of classical fascism.It clearly now is a political and physical threat.

 The rise of Marine Le Pen in France has given hope to GD. The right in France have tried to appeal to the rise of the Fascists by directly appealing to their base.

Antonis Samaras,leader of New Democracy has aligned himself with the church and announced it's centrality to Greek identity.He has also made a commitment to  repeal a law giving citizenship rights to the children of legal immigrants.Unfortunately much as in France it is not only the right wing who attempt to appeal to racist attitudes.

 As Mario Margonis points out in The Nation:
 "But populist nationalism is not confined to the right. At least since the rule of the first Pasok prime minister, Andreas Papandreou, in the 1980s, parts of the Greek left have had a strong nationalist streak, rooted in the anti-imperialist opposition to the CIA-backed junta and to decades of cold war meddling in Greek politics. Now, with Greece’s sovereignty once again hemmed in by foreign powers, those buttons are easy to push, and make for strange bedfellows. Politicians of all stripes reach for ugly metaphors of disease and war.
 In April Pasok ministers called the migrants in Athens a “hygenic time bomb” and began turning military bases into detention centers.
 A Russian prostitute who tested HIV-positive was locked up on criminal charges and had her picture plastered all over the media; when several Greek hookers were also found to be carriers, the immigration panic morphed into a moral one. Half the worried johns who called a public helpline turned out to be—shock, horror—married men, carrying infection into the heart of the “Greek family.”

The Nazis are also going into deprived areas with food to give to the poor, whilst propagandising, a tactic lifted from Hitlers Nazi's.
The BBC reported  these comments from their supporters:

"We believe in our race, we believe in our nation's power," Athina says. "These immigrants have not been checked for diseases. If a Greek person feels threatened by an immigrant, I justify someone trying to give them justice.


"I don't know why I should care about violence against immigrants."


"We are not racist," Rosalie assures me. "They [immigrants] are [racist] towards us, because we love our country. Is this wrong?

"We brought civilisation, we brought everything. They kill us and they rape us."




They are now likely to have about 21 seats.

This is their leader ranting at a post election press conference.

With the Elections now over in France and Hollande victorious,arguments against austerity are now far more mainstream.

The crisis in Greece is the most extreme crisis in Europe ,which means anything is possible.

In these situations anything can happen.

Greece faces an acid test next month when it must give parliamentary approval for over 11 billion euros in extra spending cuts for 2013 and 2014 in exchange for more aid from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Considering the results that is going to be a tough call.
 With the rise of various competing lefts, Golden Dawn should be easy to neutralise,however with an emerging paramilitary wing seemingly acting with the connivance of the police and a political wing,the time to act is now.

If they are allowed to grow it could be disastrous.Elements in the Greek establishment have turned to Fascist solutions before,and if it is a realistic option might do so again.

Luton : More Failure for the EDL.

The day started with a big failure for the EDL and just got worse.

The much vaunted public union between Paul Weston's British Freedom Party and Tommy Robinson's English Defence League was to take place on Saturday 5th May. The civil partnership from the inner circle of hell ,was to occur in a blaze of publicity at The Icon Hotel. in Luton .A lavish press conference had been planned to officially announce the previously much trailed announcement that Tommy Robinson was to become British Freedoms Vice Chairman.As British Freedoms Press Release trumpeted:

'Mr Lennon and Mr Carroll will share the role of Party Vice Chairman alongside Party Chairman Paul Weston.
This historic development marks the growing cooperation between British Freedom and the English Defence League, thus offering a political voice to the working men and women of this country who have effectively been betrayed by all the main parties – particularly the Labour Party.

The move establishes British Freedom as a new force in British politics – the only party with the strength and determination to call for Britain’s withdrawal from the unelected and totalitarian European Union, to confront militant Islam, halt mass immigration and defend democracy’s most vital ingredient – Free Speech.

British Freedom will also end the deliberately divisive policy of multiculturalism and reverse decades of destructive Political Correctness which exists only to promote division and Socialism – despite the appalling record of Socialist inspired mass murder, war, and the terrible economic, social and environmental carnage witnessed over the last century.'

This is part of The EDLs progression from an Islamophobic organisation to an overtly anti leftist and anti-socialist organisation.

 However before you could shout"Hold the canapes!" it was over.

The Icon Hotel cancelled the event.Evidently they didn't think the presence of EDL/BF conducive to their corporate image.

The press release was apparently released on Twitter.

It is reported that they rescheduled the event to The Parrot Pub (Tommy Robinsons local),later in the day.I don't know whether Paul Weston attended this as the rather well suited gentleman would have found the pub well outside of his comfort zone.




The EDL march itself was a rather lame affair.

Their  numbers have been going into sharp decline since the debacle in Tower Hamlet's .The events of that day have been pored over before.What the EDL cannot avoid is the reality that they did not have the numbers to force their way into Tower Hamlets.

You can lie about how many you have on a demo.However,if you say you are going to march through somewhere in defiance of the Police and you don't ,that is unspinnable.

“We overestimated our strength,” they wrote.
“We underestimated the strength of our enemies. Now is not the time for recriminations and infighting, we need to learn lessons and learn them fast.”

After their abject humiliation in Brighton recently, their morale must be very low.

They could only muster between eight hundred to a thousand people for the demo.Even Casuals United,the EDLs swaggerers in chief, were only claiming two thousand.Even if that were true it would mean a sharp decline of a third on last years figures.

The meltdown  of their BNP comrades at the elections couldn't fail to have demoralised them. In the end they just ended up throwing bottles and smoke bombs at the police,as it was clear they had insufficient numbers to break through Police lines and go on the rampage as they have done on previous occasions.As The Huffington Post pointed out:
"Many EDL members appeared drunk, leaving a trail of lager cans in their wake, and with one bemused spectator describing police efforts to control the group as "herding kittens"."

The We are Luton event attracted around 1500 people ,having the backing of local MPs, Councillors, trade unionists, religious and community groups.

Richard Howitt, MEP for Bedfordshire,spoke in Wardown Park, where  We Are Luton  started its demonstration.
He said: "There are those visiting and watching Luton today and who have seen it portrayed as a town at war. This is a peaceful, friendly, vibrant town."

There were many speeches from community leaders emphasising the importance of both diversity and unity.UAF had a noisy and peaceful demonstration.



In all probability it was a mistake by the EDL to call the demo  for a date so soon after the council elections.It would probably have been more prudent to wait for the dust to settle.
With the cutbacks just coming on stream and rising unemployment the coming months could be a potentially fruitful environment for the Nazis.

We are in a much stronger environment to combat fascism than in some other countries.Due to hard campaigning in the last few years the Nazis have been subjected to severe setbacks.However,this is no time to rest on our laurels.

The situation in France,although not too late, shows that the absence of a militant anti-fascist campaign in these economic circumstances can prove disastrous.In Greece it looks almost certain that the Fascists of Golden Dawn are going to make a breakthrough and win Parliamentary seats in the Election.

It is not inconceivable the Nazis can regroup.
The launch of EDL/BF,is a classic Fascist strategy and is a potentially worrying development ,that could grow into a real force in the coming months.

This is far from over.

Nazis hammered in Gosport.

It was a truly disastrous election night for the BNP.Gosport candidate Sunny Martin also got an appalling vote.All seats that the BNP was attempting to defend were taken from them.The BNP are now finished as an electoral force.How much longer they can stumble on is anybodys guess.With a low turnout they can sometimes be guaranteed a better proportional vote.It was in the midst of the MPs expenses scandal that Griffin and Andrew Brons managed to break through,almost entirely due to public disgust turning into mass abstentions for supporters of the three main parties.

Although Labour were the clear winners in the elections it was on a turnout of less than a third ,which should be a cause for concern to the political class.

Whilst the BNP vote in proportional terms made up 3.9% this flatters the candidate.It may appear to be a small vote, it requires however further scrutiny.
At local elections the first thing you do is get your friends, family  and party comrades to gather round and support you.Even if you have the social skills of Vlad the Impaler this should add up to 30 or 40 people.

So how many people voted for the BNPs great white hope in Gosport?

48.

Oh dear.

By any estimation this is a piss-poor result.

There were many people who alerted people to the danger of voting for the BNP.We were very concerned that at a time of an anti-politiics atmosphere amongst the electorate,some might vote for them as an act of protest. Many people in Gosport lobbied against the BNP at the elections.

On the Saturday before the elections UAF did a mass leaflet of Gosport High Street.About 1500 anti BNP leaflets were given out.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who helped out.It Rained most of the time and was a thankless task.

Thanks are due  to the members of PCS , NUT , Gosport Labour Party ,Gosport Green Party and Solfed who braved the elements to make a difference.

Gosport remains Nazi free.

BNP Smashed at Council Elections.

The BNP have been buried at the elections.

I stand to be corrected but this looks like wipe-out.

Sorry,Nick. but not any more.

Consider yourself rumbled.





UAF roundup of results:


 The BNP has now been booted out of all the council seats it was defending in this year’s local council elections.

  Following the removal of Burnley’s last BNP councillor comes the happy news that the Nazi party has also lost its seat in neighbouring Pendle, where Adam Grant came second.

In Calderdale, former BNP councillor Tom Bates has failed to get re-elected as an ‘independent’, while David Jones of white power party the BPP has come in fourth.

Former BNP councillor Seamus Dunne has failed to retain his seat in Ashridge ward of Three Rivers council, Herts, by standing under the English Democrats flag.

The BNP’s Pat Richardson has been booted out comprehensively in Loughton Broadway ward, Epping Forest, Essex, coming in fourth on just 11%. BNP running mate Tom Richardson has done even worse on 5%.

Elsewhere in Epping Forest, English Democrats Party leader Robin Tilbrook has also failed miserably, on 13%. His party is the new home of disaffected BNP members, with more than a quarter of EDP candidates this time having previously stood for the BNP. Tilbrook’s EDP running mate, Eddy Butler – formerly the BNP’s national organiser and architect of its ‘rights for whites’ campaign – has crawled in last with 12% in Loughton Fairmead ward.

 The BNP have lost their council seat in Hapton with Park ward, Burnley, Lancashire – on a council that was once a notorious stronghold.
 . The BNP has lost its seats in both Heanor East and Heanor West wards, Amber Valley, Derbyshire. Its candidates were knocked well back into third place in each.

The BNP trailed in last with a poor vote in Barpool ward, Nuneaton and Bedworth. Another seat lost – and they also failed to regain the Camp Hill seat they lost in a 2009 byelection.

The BNP’s seats in the Brinsworth & Catcliffe and Maltby wards, Rotherham have gone too.
More results in areas where the BNP were defending seats are expected later today, along with results in areas contested by fascist candiudates from the BNP, English Democrats and National Front.