The EDL and “anti-fascists”: hypocrisy and gangsterism

The brutal murder of two policewomen near Manchester has highlighted both the blight of drug-fuelled organised crime and the hypocrisy of two supposedly opposed political factions, the English Defence League and the “anti-fascist” movement.

The EDL’s effective deputy leader Kevin Carroll has just launched an election campaign for Police Commissioner of Bedfordshire, in what is by far the highest profile activity so far by the EDL’s political front, the British Freedom Party.  Mr Carroll’s manifesto for this Police Commissioner election contains all the usual law and order cliches, including “aggressively targeting hard drug dealing …to significantly reduce street robberies and other drug-related offences.”  He promises that “as Commissioner I will institute a crackdown on possession of knives and offensive weapons, so that parents need no longer worry for their children’s safety when they are out.”  Lest anyone think that his own criminal conviction might make him unsuitable for the job, Mr Carroll boasts that “my experience of liasing [sic] with police forces across Britain in organising public events has strengthened my admiration for their dedication and professionalism.”

An article promoting Mr Carroll’s campaign uses rather longer words than we have come to expect from the EDL, but includes one especially unfortunate cliche: We need to insist that people in positions of authority do not “shoot the messenger”.

One of Mr Carroll’s followers decided to shoot two policewomen instead.

EDL supporter and Manchester City football hooligan Stephen Garvey was arrested on September 19th for conspiracy to murder.  The previous day two policewomen – Constables Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes – were lured to a home on the Hattersley estate, on the eastern fringe of Greater Manchester, where they faced a hail of gunfire and grenades.  Garvey’s friend and fellow gangster Dale Cregan has been arrested for the murders, as well as the earlier killings of two rival gangsters in the nearby areas of Droylsden and Clayton.

Garvey promoted the EDL on his Facebook page, and was involved in an EDL demonstration close to his home in Hyde on February 25th this year.  Kevin Carroll (now a Police Commissioner candidate) can be seen on this video speaking at the Hyde demonstration.

Some apologists for the EDL have already accused opponents of taking advantage of this EDL connection to gangland murder.  Yet the truth is that it is routine for EDL activists to be involved in violent crime.  Several of the EDL’s local organisers are career criminals, including drug dealers.  This is common knowledge to nationalists (including the present author) who have detailed knowledge of the serious crime problems blighting so many of our inner cities and council estates, and has been confirmed by retired police officers speaking to Heritage and Destiny on condition of anonymity.

Had genuine nationalist movements – even the BNP – had this sort of criminal in their ranks, the political wing of the police (i.e. Special Branch and other special intelligence units) would have targetted such people for heavy treatment, and the “anti-fascist” media would have exposed their every connection.

Yet the EDL has been given an easy ride.  For that matter the extraordinary ties between Paul Weston – leader of the EDL’s political wing – and an especially violent terrorist group based in Canada and the USA – the Jewish Defense League (JDL) – have been ignored by the mainstream media and the “ant-fascist” industry, despite being fully documented in a detailed article on this site.

Local sources suggest at present that Stephen Garvey was not a major player in the EDL – just an average grassroots supporter.  However this latest embarrassment is sure to cause further problems for Kevin Carroll’s Police Commissioner campaign, and raises more questions as to the long term viability of the British Freedom Party.

If the EDL is hypocritical about crime, what is one to make of the opportunistic article by Simon Cressy, of the Hope not Hate website (formerly Searchlight).  Mr Cressy highlighted the Daily Telegraph‘s revelation that “an EDL supporter has been arrested in relation to the murders of PC Nicola Hughes and PC Fiona Bone,” and we can expect him (or his associates) to make further capital from the affair when they discover Garvey’s involvement in the EDL’s Hyde demonstration.

Strangely “anti-fascists” are less keen to highlight their own close connections with notorious figures in Greater Manchester organised crime.  Coincidentally (or perhaps not) while the EDL gangsters and hooligans tend to support Manchester City (despite the club’s ownership by the Muslim ruling family of Abu Dhabi!), their “anti-fascist” opponents tend to be linked to the rival club Manchester United, and even produced an “anti-fascist” football fanzine, Red Attitude.

An interview with Salford gangland assassin Dessie Noonan published in the “anti-fascist” magazine Red Attitude in 1997.
Click on the images to download a larger version.

The most notorious “anti-fascist” gangsters in Greater Manchester were Salford’s Dessie Noonan, responsible for more than twenty gangland killings before his own murder in March 2005, and Manchester’s Paddy Logan, who like Noonan was involved with both Anti-Fascist Action and various Irish republican terrorist gangs before falling victim to an internal criminal feud, shot dead in his own bedroom in July 1999.

2012 John Tyndall Memorial Meeting

Richard Edmonds, National Front activist, parliamentary and council candidate in Lewisham during the 1970s; founder member and National Organiser, BNP, 1986-99; Proprietor of the BNP Bookshop in Welling, 1989-99.  One of the closest associates of the late John Tyndall across three decades and in three successive parties: the National Front, the NNF and the BNP.

Peter Rushton, Heritage and Destiny UK deputy editor.  Founder and editor of JailingOpinions.com   Frequent television commentator on Russia Today and Press TV.  For the past decade has been among the most prominent activists developing an alternative to the political and financial corruption of Griffinism, initially as a key ally of the late John Tyndall and latterly as election agent for the England First Party when two councillors were elected toi Blackburn with Darwen Council, political base of then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

Dr. James Lewthwaite, co-founder of Democratic Nationalists, 2008-.     Bradford City Councillor, 2004-7, and later a candidate for Royds ward on Bradford City Council.   Parliamentary candidate for Bradford South, 2005 and 2010.  Former archaeology lecturer and key activist in moves towards nationalist unity during 2011-2012, speaking at several meetings alongside Andrew Brons MEP.

Steven Smith, founding organiser of Burnley BNP and parliamentary candidate for Burnley in 2001, when he polled 11.3% (the second highest parliamentary vote ever achieved by a nationalist in North West England).  Steven wrote a book about the building of the BNP’s most successful branch  How It Was Done.    He was a regular speaker at Friends of Spearhead events during John Tyndall’s lifetime and hosted very well attended meetings in Burnley where JT spoke during the early 2000s.  Sadly Burnley BNP has collapsed in the years since Nick Griffin forced Steven Smith out of the party.

Steven Frost, National Secretary of British Movement.  BM activist since 1976.   Yorkshire Regional Organiser and member of the 1984 Committee who saved the Movement after Michael McLaughlin closed the BM down.  Personal friend of the late Colin Jordan and represented BM at his funeral.  Recently compiled an important archive of Colin Jordan’s writings and photographic/video records of British Movement.

Jez Turner, founder and chairman of Iona London Forum.  Twelve-year veteran of Royal Corps of Signals.  Pashtun translator.  Has built the Iona London Forum into one of the premier meeting points for nationalists from across the English speaking world, with speakers such as the late Jonathan Bowden, Dr Alexander Jacob and Lady Michèle Renouf.

Meeting Chairman: Keith Axon, founder member and former West Midlands regional organiser, BNP.  A close ally of the late John Tyndall and his family, including the late Valerie Tyndall and Charles Parker.  Parliamentary candidate: Birmingham Perry Barr, 1979 (NF);  Worcester, 1983 (BNP);  Birmingham Northfield, 1997 (BNP).  Has chaired successive meetings of Friends of Spearhead and John Tyndall Memorials.

For full details and directions to the venue please call our office – 07833 677484. Or email – heritageanddestiny@yahoo.com

Update: EFP advance to second place in Preston

Mark Cotterill of the England First Party took second place in Ribbleton ward, Preston – the first time that a nationalist candidate has defeated the Tories in this ward.

Full result:

Lab 881 (66.1%)
EFP 293 (22.0%)
Con 158 (11.9%)

Previous EFP results in this ward were 15.5% in 2011 and 12.5% in 2010.

On what is already looking a bad night for nationalists across the country, this is a very encouraging result for Mark Cotterill and the England First Party.

Many thanks to everyone who supported Mark’s campaign.  So far it looks as though this is the best result for any English nationalist in this year’s elections, aside from the English Democrat slate in Doncaster where the EDs control the mayoralty, the usual ED stronghold of Rochford, and the defending councillor Seamus Dunne.

In Doncaster there are still no ED councillors, but four of their candidates this year polled over 25%.

TOP 10 ENGLISH NATIONALIST RESULTS IN 2012

John Hayter, Trinity ward, Rochford, 32.2%

Ron Penketh, Wheatley ward, Doncaster, 28.3%

Nigel Berry, Finningley, Doncaster, 26.0%

Mick Glynn, Hatfield ward, Doncaster, 26.0%

Thomas Broad, Rayleigh Central ward, Rochford, 25.3%

Barbara Hewitt, Bentley ward, Doncaster, 25.1%

Seamus Dunne, Ashridge ward, Three Rivers, 22.4%

Mark Cotterill, Ribbleton ward, Preston, 22.0%

Gaynor Bennett-Spencer, Ravensthorpe ward, Daventry, 20.0%

Keith Hewitt, Edenthorpe ward, Doncaster, 19.9%

The Preston Mafia exposed

The England First Party has made political corruption in Preston a major campaign issue in the 2012 local elections.  Leaflets have gone out in the past week across Ribbleton ward highlighting the case of Frank McGrath, former deputy leader of Preston City Council, who in March 2010 was convicted of laundering money for a major drug trafficker and jailed for four and a half years.

Our leaflet, published in support of Mark Cotterill, the EFP’s anti-corruption candidate for Ribbleton, pointed out that McGrath – who was one of the leaders of the “Preston Mafia” whose influence extended across much of Lancashire  – had been ordered to pay almost £1 million.  This represented profits from criminal activity.

Today that anti-corruption campaign has been dramatically vindicated, as former councillor McGrath has been ordered to spend a further two years in jail.  He still owes more than £400,000 of his ill-gotten criminal loot.

The England First Party calls for a full inquiry into Labour’s “Preston Mafia” and the web of corruption that Lancashire police tried but failed to uproot during the 1990s.  Both the Labour and Conservative parties have questions to answer about this corruption scandal – especially with a new Lancashire Police Commissioner due to be elected later this year.

Click here for a full investigation of the Preston Mafia, which will be extended later this week.

England First Party exposes Preston Mafia

2012 is a Guild year in Preston – a year when Prestonians are meant to be proud of their home city.  Preston Guild is a unique civic celebration, held every twenty years since 1328.

Yet this year there is a shadow over Preston Guild – a ghost at the feast.

For the record of the man who was Preston’s Guild Mayor at the last festivities, and who had led the City Council for the previous decade – the late Cllr Harold Parker – is again under scrutiny as part of an investigation into what was termed the “Preston Mafia”, a description coined not by political opponents but by his own Borough Treasurer!

The England First Party believes that both the Labour and Conservative Parties have serious questions to answer about corruption and political chicanery in Preston, and that a full enquiry is needed to get to the bottom of the scandal.

—–

On 24th April 2012 the disgraced Labour politician Frank McGrath was ordered to serve a further two year prison sentence, after failing to obey a court order to repay almost £1 million of the proceeds from his life of crime.  This in itself might seem bad enough: but to understand the full dimensions of the affair we must look back to 7th August 1991, when a team of twenty Lancashire Police detectives carried out simultaneous raids across Preston.

The targets of these police raids included Preston Town Hall and the homes and offices of Cllr Harold Parker, leader of the council since 1982, and his deputy Cllr Frank McGrath.

Rumours had been circulating for years about the improper business relationship between these two senior Preston councillors and Owen Oyston, a millionaire businessman and supporter of the Labour Party, featured as early as March 1984 in an investigation by the BBC’s Watchdog programme.   A particular focus of these investigations was the redevelopment of Preston Docks.

Cllr Harold Parker effectively controlled Preston Council’s decisions over the dockland development while being paid a £450 monthly retainer by Oyston, who had a major financial interest in the project, and receiving numerous other benefits in kind from Oyston interests.  Meanwhile his deputy leader Cllr McGrath became a millionaire in 1987 through his investment in Oyston’s company Red Rose Radio, which owned local radio stations in Preston, Manchester, Leeds and Cardiff.

The police raids in 1991 were codenamed ‘Operation Angel’ and led to criminal charges against Frank McGrath and several of Preston Council’s most senior officials, including the chief executive and deputy chief executive.  Also raided were the offices of Tustin Developments, a company owned by Iranian exile Hossein Ghiassi and his California-based brother, who had won substantial contracts for the Preston Docklands project.

Frank McGrath was charged with multiple counts of fraud and theft in January 1992.  Yet despite millions of pounds being spent on ‘Operation Angel’, his trial and almost all of the subsequent ones collapsed.  It now seems that the interests of justice took second place to political machinations.  Much of the campaign against Owen Oyston and his corrupt Labour cronies had been funded and organised secretly by prominent Conservatives, notably:

• Lord Blaker, former Conservative MP for Blackpool South, who served as a Foreign Office and Defence minister in Mrs Thatcher’s governments during the 1980s.  He died in 2009.
• Sir Robert Atkins, Conservative MP for Preston North from 1979 to 1997 and an MEP for North West England from 1999 to 2009.
• Bill Harrison, property tycoon and millionaire Tory donor who regularly hosted Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at his Preston home during her visits to the North West.  He died in August 1999.  (Like his arch-enemy Frank McGrath, Mr Harrison lived in the affluent Preston suburb of Fulwood, though in even grander style at Greyfriars Hall.)

This Tory trio worked through local Preston residents activist Michael Murrin and Blackpool based private detective Chris More, who managed to access the confidential bank and income tax details of Cllrs Parker and McGrath.  Yet when it came to prosecuting the targets of Operation Angel, the Tory party at national level proved most unhelpful, as did some very senior police officers.

Mrs Thatcher’s Attorney General Nicholas Lyell prevented the release of files implicating Balfour Beatty, the construction giant and major Tory donor, in the web of corruption surrounding the Preston Docklands development.  This was very good news for Labour’s Cllr Frank McGrath, as it seriously handicapped the Operation Angel investigation into his affairs.

Fortunately for McGrath, although the Conservative Party were no friends of his, they were on very friendly terms indeed with Balfour Beatty, which had been founded a century ago by the Conservative MP for Hampstead, George Balfour, and retained close links to the Tories.  Operation Angel happened to coincide with the controversy over the construction of the Pergau Dam in Malaysia, with more than £200 million of British taxpayers money authorised by Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd.  A judicial review later found that Hurd had acted unlawfully in approving the Pergau project, which was being constructed by Balfour Beatty and another company with strong Tory connections – Cementation International, employers of the Prime Minister’s son, Mark Thatcher.

So although Balfour Beatty’s own offices had been raided and police had discovered a payment of £140,000 from Balfour Beatty to Cllr Frank McGrath’s Isle of Man company bank account ‘Global Enterprises’, Attorney General Sir Nicholas Lyell decided at the end of 1993 to drop all aspects of the case that involved this major Tory donor.  Cllr McGrath arrogantly told the press: “I offered no comment to the police when they questioned me and I understand the company did the same.”

No doubt Balfour Beatty were relieved when they were able to resolve their own embarrassing involvement in the Preston Docklands scandal by paying back £1.3 million to Preston Council in 1998.

Owen Oyston might have thought he had escaped the long arm of the law with the collapse of Operation Angel, but justice caught up with him in May 1996 when he was convicted of rape.  Oyston’s friend Peter Martin, a former policeman, had regularly supplied girls from his model agency.  One of them – a 16 year old girl – was raped by Oyston, who was jailed for six years.  Later that year Peter Martin was jailed for 20 years after admitting a series of rapes and assaults on young girls recruited through his model agency.

Cllr Frank McGrath went on to become Chief Executive of the Oyston owned Blackpool Football Club, and it took a few more years for his luck to run out.  During 2003 McGrath met convicted criminal Silvano Turchet, who was on day release from a prison sentence.   McGrath described himself as an accountant and business adviser, though he had no accountancy qualifications.  Nevertheless for some reason Turchet decided that McGrath was the ideal man to help him with his next business enterprise.

This turned out to be the large scale importation of heroin, which Turchet brought in via a private plane, flying into a small wartime airfield at Sleap, Shropshire.  In May 2006 Turchet was caught red-handed when police raided the airfield and found him about to unload a cargo including heroin, cocaine and ecstasy.  He is now serving a 21-year prison sentence.

During 2004 and 2005 McGrath had laundered hundreds of thousands of pounds of drug money for Turchet.  Despite claiming that he was entirely ignorant of the source of these funds, McGrath was convicted of money laundering in February 2010 and given a four-and-a-half year prison sentence.

Ian Cruxton of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) commented:

“Serious organised criminals are motivated by money which buys them lifestyle and influence. Those who help them through money laundering enable the profits of crime to be invested in further criminal activity and this affects us all.
“SOCA doesn’t stop when it has caught and convicted the criminals. We will go after their wealth and we are determined to make sure they can’t use it or enjoy it.”

This SOCA policy led to the current attempts to recoup some of Frank McGrath’s ill-gotten gains.  He was ordered to repay £925,000 and this week failed to do so, resulting in an additional two year prison sentence.

Yet many Prestonians are left wondering whether justice was really done over Operation Angel twenty years ago, when Frank McGrath and others succeeded in escaping jail.  His old boss Cllr Harold Parker was never prosecuted, despite extensive investigations into his role as Owen Oyston’s representative during the Docklands development.

Cllr Parker retired from Preston City Council in 2009 due to ill health and died a few months later, after 45 years on the city council and its predecessor, Preston County Borough.  He was made an Honorary Alderman, after previously being awarded the Freedom of the City and given the title “Guild Burgess”, which dates back to a 12th century award to Preston by King Henry II.  Cllr Parker’s portrait hangs in the Town Hall, a public insult to anyone who cares about honesty in public life.

If Preston council tax payers are to have confidence in their political representatives and their police force, it is time for the criminal career of Frank McGrath and his cronies – whether Labour councillors or Tory businessmen – to be fully investigated by an independent inquiry.

Jack Straw in trouble – again!

Blackburn MP Jack Straw – who served as Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary under Tony Blair, and later as Justice Secretary under Gordon Brown – has been served with legal papers by solicitors acting for Abdel Hakim Belhadj, one of the commanders of the anti-Gaddafi forces that took control of Libya last year.

This follows detailed allegations in the Sunday Times published last weekend (April 15th) suggesting that Straw personally authorised an operation which amounted to a judicial kidnapping, and ended with Mr Belhadj being handed over to Gaddafi’s torturers.  This illegal process known as “rendition” took place in 2004, when Mr Belhadj and his wife were seized by CIA agents in Bangkok and flown to Libya, where they suffered “torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, batteries and assaults.”

Last autumn Straw claimed in a BBC Radio interview:
“The position of successive foreign secretaries, including me, is that we were opposed to unlawful rendition, opposed to torture or similar methods and not only did we not agree with it, we were not complicit in it, nor did we turn a blind eye to it.”

It seems that MI6 were concerned by this denial and feared that they might have to take the rap.  According to a source quoted by the Sunday Times, senior MI6 officers therefore met with Straw within days of the above interview and “reminded him that he had signed off on it.  He was shown evidence and he did accept that he had signed off on the rendition.”

This isn’t the first time that Mr Straw has been at the centre of controversial and perhaps illegal conduct in the senior ranks of a Labour government.  At the very start of his political career in the mid-1970s he was drawn into a plot by then Labour leader Harold Wilson to leak damaging information to the media about then Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, who Wilson feared might be about to enter a coalition with Conservative prime minister Edward Heath.  Wilson knew that Thorpe was a secret homosexual, and that his unstable ex-lover Norman Scott could ignite a scandal that would destroy him.

Straw’s role was revealed in 2002 by the former Downing Street press secretary Joe Haines in his book Glimmers of Twilight.  Wilson was building up a dossier of evidence against Thorpe which could if necessary be leaked to the press.  Some of the key evidence was in Norman Scott’s national insurance file, and Wilson therefore asked his Social Security minister Barbara Castle to obtain the confidential file from her department.

Castle wasn’t happy about taking part in this dirty tricks operation, so Prime Minister Wilson told her to “get Jack Straw” (then Castle’s special adviser) to do it.  The file was obtained by a civil servant and Jack Straw duly wrote a report on the affair which was passed via Castle to Downing Street.

Within a few years it had all ended in tears, for everybody except Jack Straw.

Jeremy Thorpe was exposed and had to stand trial at the Old Bailey for conspiracy to murder his ex-lover.  He was acquitted but the scandal cost him his seat in Parliament.

Harold Wilson resigned as Prime Minister in 1976, for reasons which have yet to be fully explained.

Barbara Castle was put out to grass by Wilson’s successor Jim Callaghan.  She left Parliament in 1979 to become an MEP, and Jack Straw succeeded her as MP for Blackburn.  He has been in the House of Commons now for more than 33 years.

Local Elections 2012

As many of you will already know – if you regularly check with the England First Party office – the EFP are fighting the Darlington – Harrowgate Hill ward by-election (polling day – Thursday April 12th) with Paul Thompson as our excellent candidate. We are also fighting Preston’s Ribbleton ward in the May local Council elections (polling day Thursday May 3rd) with EFP leader Mark Cotterill as candidate.

Paul Thompson and his team have fought a good campaign up in the north east, and we now wait and see what sort of result we get on Thursday night.

The EFP team in Preston have just started our campaign here, and we need all the help we can get to secure another good nationalist vote in Lancashire.

If you can help with our election campaign in Preston, please call our office now – 07833 677484. We need as many nationalists as possible to come and help leaflet and/or canvass Ribbleton ward. Please don’t let us down – we are counting on you.

If for whatever reason you can’t help the campaign physically, please dig deep in your wallet or purse and send us a donation towards our campaigns instead. One very generous supporter in Birmingham has already sent in £100 – and I know another Patriot in Milton Keynes who will be matching that so we are off to a good start. So all I’m asking of you – loyal subscribers – is to send in whatever you can afford. Every Pound will help, so please dig deep today and help our brave candidates get elected.**

So send a Cheque or Postal Order, made payable to “England First Party” to – EFP, 40 Birkett Drive, Preston, PR2 6HE

Or for those online you with PayPal donate direct to – englandfirstparty@yahoo.com

** Please note the England First Party can only accept donations of up to £200.00 from non-British citizens and British citizens not on the electoral register.

Nationalist Unity in Burnley

Fifty nationalist activists from across three regions of northern England met in Burnley last Saturday (10th March) in the latest of a series of meetings dedicated to renewing our movement in a spirit of post-Griffin unity.

An unexpected highlight of the meeting was the return of Steve Smith, architect of Burnley BNP’s breakthrough in 2002, who reminded the meeting of “How It Was Done” a decade ago, and can be done again.

Other speakers were Andrew Brons MEP; Heritage and Destiny deputy editor Peter Rushton; Ken Booth of North East Patriots, former NE regional organiser of the BNP; former Bradford City Councillor Dr Jim Lewthwaite; and Adrian Davies, former chairman of the Freedom Party.

Mr Rushton reminded the meeting that Burnley had seen the BNP’s big election breakthrough in 2002, and urged all nationalists to support Sharon Wilkinson’s bid for re-election.  While local elections will not revolutionise Britain overnight, a truly revolutionary momentum is built when voters begin to recognise nationalists as their natural representatives, the natural defenders of their interests.

Key organisers present included Lancashire County Councillor and Burnley Borough Councillor Sharon Wilkinson; Burnley activist and former Deputy Mayor of Padiham John Cave; England First Party chairman Mark Cotterill; Dave Jones and Rosalind Gauci from Tameside BNP; Kevin Scott, webmaster of Civil Liberty and Newcastle BNP activist; Dave Jones of the British Peoples Party; former Blackburn with Darwen councillor Michael Johnson; Democratic Nationalists activist Ivan Winters from Bradford; veteran nationalist activist Rob Storey from Pendle; and many other party organisers from Lancashire, Merseyside, and Greater Manchester.

As Nick Griffin’s party sinks still further into the mire of corruption and failure, the necessary task of building a viable alternative continues.  Welcome news at the end of the meeting is that the Democratic Nationalists will be standing Neil Craig as their candidate for the parliamentary by-election in Bradford West on 29th March.

In a desperate effort to intimidate those attending the meeting, Griffinite attack dog Chris Vanns took photographs outside, then stood at the corner of the bar downstairs.  He was invited into the meeting, but showed his true colours by turning down the opportunity to put the Griffinite case.  Mr Vanns proved more cowardly than his Griffinite colleagues Adam Walker and Pete Molloy, who did at least turn up to put their case at the Newcastle meeting a few months ago.

Nationalist Unity Meeting – Burnley – 10th March 2012

All England First supporters are encouraged to attend the upcoming Nationalist Unity meeting, which is being held in the once nationalist stronghold of Burnley, in East Lancashire, on Saturday March 10th at 1pm.

The meeting is one of a series being organised by the Centre For Democratic Nationalism and the Democratic Nationalists.

Speakers – so far – will include:
Andrew Brons – BNP MEP
Dr. Jim Lewthwaite – Democratic Nationalists
Peter Rushton – England First Party
Richard Edmonds – National Front
Ken Booth – North East Patriots
Chris Jackson – National Front

England’s rotten boroughs

Councils across England are struggling with the consequences of the financial crisis, deciding how and where to implement cutbacks that can devastate the lives of some of the poorest English families, including the elderly and disabled.

In the Lancashire town of Rochdale – scene of recent racial disturbances – the senior councillor in charge of such decisions, designated “cabinet member for finance” dealing with £52 million of cuts this month, is Cllr Farooq Ahmed.

Cllr Ahmed was suspended from this position – and from the Labour Party – in January, after a video was leaked by factional rivals, showing him apparently smoking cannabis at Manchester Airport.

He claimed that he was being smeared by Labour colleagues, including Rochdale’s MP Simon Danczuk.  This reflects long-running ethnic and personal rivalries within Rochdale Labour Party.  Before Mr Danczuk’s election to Parliament in 2010 there were allegations that he had employed dirty tricks to win the Labour nomination ahead of local Muslim and Manchester councillor Afzal Khan.  Mr Danczuk claimed he had received death threats.

Long-suffering Rochdale residents will no doubt be relieved to hear that Cllr Ahmed was cleared by an internal Labour Party inquiry, which chose to believe his account that he had actually been smoking an entirely legal menthol cigarette.

Perhaps herbal cigarettes all round will help Labour politicians in Rochdale concentrate on providing services to residents!

Meanwhile in the neighbouring town of Bury, the former Conservative council leader and his gay partner (a fellow Tory councillor) have been arrested as part of a long running corruption inquiry.

Cllr Bob Bibby and Cllr Jim Taylor were arrested in a dawn raid by Greater Manchester Police on their home in Bacup.  They have been bailed until April, but have both stood down temporarily from the Conservative Party to spare their colleagues further embarrassment during the forthcoming election campaign.

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