Simon Darby claims he addressed a 400-strong audience in Milan today (5 April). Representatives of extreme-right parties in Germany, France, Romania, Hungary and Cyprus were expected to take part in the meeting.

Darby, who flew out to Italy this morning, heads the BNP's European election candidates' list for the West Midlands, a region in which the party could win a seat. He has a "Mr Clean" reputation in a party in which many leading activists have criminal convictions, a nazi past or both.

The rally was titled: "Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Big Powers", a change from the original, "Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Usury". The term "usury" is traditionally used by Nazis against Jews and it may have been altered to avoid accusations of antisemitism.

It had been booked at a major conference centre in Milan, but widespread protests from MEPs and Italian partisan veterans, as well as a 20,000-strong petition forced its move to a private hotel.

The meeting was organised by Forza Nuova, whose leader Roberto Fiore, was convicted in Italy in 1985 for "subversive association" for his involvement in the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei. Two members of that organisation were convicted for the Bologna railway station bombing in August 1980 which killed 85 people, including two British tourists, Catherine Mitchell and John Kolpinski, and left over 200 wounded. It was the biggest postwar terrorist attack in Europe.

Fiore became an MEP after Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the Italian fascist dictator, resigned her seat to take up a post in the Italian government. He has been a friend, financial supporter and political mentor to BNP leader Nick Griffin since 1980, when Fiore arrived in Britain on the run from justice in Italy.

Fiore helped Griffin run the National Front "political soldiers", described at the time as a "proto-terrorist organisation". When the political soldiers collapsed, they went on to found a new fascist group, the International Third Position.

Alongside his political activities Fiore amassed a huge fortune through business interests in London and later around the world. They included operating as a slum landlord and exploiting people brought in from eastern Europe, Italy and Spain, whom he passed on to gang masters to work on the land and in food processing plants.

Fiore was also one of the founders of the extremely violent Hammerskins skinhead movement, part of the nazi music and football hooligan gangs responsible for violence on the terraces. They have strong links with one of the most vicious fascist football hooligan gangs in Europe, the Roma Ultras, who recently attacked English football fans, stabbing one. Their most infamous episode was when they unfurled a banner down one side of their home stadium with the words "Jews to Auschwitz".

Hammerskins members recently marched through Bergamo in northern Italy armed with sticks and metal bars and with helmets on their heads. At their head were Fiore and Father Giulio Tam, a priest revered by Spanish falangistas and Italian fascists, who blessed the FN's new headquarters in the town. Father Tam was in the audience at the Milan rally.

Fiore is closely associated with the Catholic Society of St Pius X, in which Bishop Richard Williamson was a leading light. In January 2009 in a television interview Bishop Williamson denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers, a statement that caused a scandal when the Pope lifted his longstanding excommunication a week later.

Also in prime position on the platform with Darby was Bruno Gollnisch. An MEP for the French National Front, Gollnisch was given a three-month suspended prison sentence in January 2007 for denying the Holocaust. He was also fined €5,000.

The court, in Lyon, found he had "disputed a crime against humanity" in remarks he made during a news conference in the city in October 2004. Gollnisch, who was chair of the Identity Tradition and Sovereignty far-right official group in the European Parliament, had questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust and said the "existence of the gas chambers is for historians to discuss".

In April last year, just three days before polling day in the London Assembly election, in which the BNP won one seat, Griffin brought Gollnisch and other European extremists to a private meeting in a South Kensington hotel.

The meeting took place at a time when Griffin, a long-time Jew-hater who has a conviction for race hate, had approached the Jewish community in a bid to form a united front against Muslims, an invitation that the Jewish community firmly rejected.

Despite the BNP's anti-EU stance, Griffin is keen to build links with European far-right parties, hoping that if he is elected as an MEP, he will be able to join a far-right bloc. If enough far-right MEPs can put aside their nationalist rivalries and form an official group in the European Parliament, they will benefit from a further €1 million a year on top of their salaries and staffing and expenses allowances. They would also be entitled to committee positions and enhanced speaking rights.

In October Griffin addressed an open-air rally of the Hungarian hardline fascist Jobbik party and its private army heavy mob, the Hungarian Guard, in Budapest. Griffin has been flirting with the Hungarian fascists since May when he met the Jobbik representatives Bela Kovacs and Zoltan Fuzessy in London.

Jobbik, also known as the Movement for a Better Hungary, is strongly anti-Jewish. Although the BNP has courted the Jewish community and denies it is antisemitic, Darby said recently on a radio broadcast that BNP MEPs would welcome cooperation with Jobbik.

A few days after his return from Hungary Griffin was cementing his relationship with the tiny anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-Romani Czech National Party (NS) by addressing its rally to celebrate Czech independence. Griffin's trip, accompanied by several BNP activists, followed the visit by the NS leader, Petra Edelmannová, to the BNP's Red White and Blue festival last August.

That Darby has now joined Griffin in linking up with these far-right extremists in Europe shows that the BNP is still an out-and-out fascist and antisemitic party, despite the fine words and smart suits of its leaders.

 http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/index.php?link=BNP-deputy-leader-addresses-international-fascist-rally

The British National Party is facing an inquiry into its funding after its leader, Nick Griffin, paid a £5,000 political donation into his personal bank account without declaring it.

The party’s finances came under scrutiny yesterday after it declared donations with the Electoral Commission of £21,132 for the first quarter of this year. No donations were declared between March and December last year. It has pledged to spend £500,000 campaigning for next week’s European and local elections alone.

Under Electoral Commission rules, donations in excess of £5,000 to political parties and in excess of £1,000 given to party members to be used for political activity must be declared.

Mr Griffin’s handling of the gift raises questions about BNP efforts to provide anonymity to its supporters.

The BNP has fielded 450 candidates for the local elections and 66 for the European Parliament — at least one for every constituency in the United Kingdom, bar Northern Ireland. The candidates have been backed by a party machine that says it is providing 29 million leaflets and has acquired 50,000 random mobile phone numbers to lobby with text messages.

In its 2007 audited accounts, the party listed a total income of £611,274, including £198,023 from donations. It spent £661,856, leaving it with a deficit of £50,582. Mr Griffin said that nearly £70,000 of income was not included because some records were missing after an internal dispute.

The party has yet to file last year’s accounts but Mr Griffin told The Times that the bulk of the funds for this year’s campaign had been raised from “ordinary Britons” who made small donations.

Mr Griffin admitted that he had paid a £5,000 donation that appeared to be from a political supporter into his own bank account and then transferred the money to a sympathetic political organisation without alerting the authorities.

He said that he did so because the donor, an elderly North London woman who is a member of the BNP, wished to remain anonymous. He said that he gave the money in February to the nationalist trade union Solidarity, which has strong BNP links, because he believed that it would have had to be declared if he had given the donation to the party. He said that there was “no need” to declare it as the donor had asked him to put the money to “best use”. The commission will review the donation to Mr Griffin after a complaint from the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight.

Details of the transaction emerged as David Cameron, the Tory leader, mounted the most savage attack to date on the BNP by a major political leader. “They dress up in a suit and knock on your door in a nice way but they are still Nazi thugs,” he said.

Meanwhile, bowing to public pressure, Mr Griffin said that he would not attend a summer garden party hosted by the Queen, after anti-racism campaigners claimed that his presence would embarrass the monarchy.