The Madness of King Nick - the infamous Identity article examined at last

Before we take a belated look at Nick Griffin's bizarre article in September's Identity (the BNPs glossy in-house magazine), we have a couple of comments to make. First of all, thank you to the person who sent the magazine to us here at LUAF Towers - we really appreciate getting a chance to see the kind of nonsense the leadership throws at the membership. Second, an apology to the people we know have been waiting to read our take on the article; we've been busy but you can stop emailing now, thank you. :-)

The first thing that strikes the eye about the article is the use of the rat tipping over a drum of toxic waste to illustrate it. This motif is repeatedly used, presumably as a visual reference to the 'vermin' within the party and the stories they (and we) spread about in an attempt to show the public and BNP members exactly what is going on inside the BNP itself, thus keeping the membership au fait with what Nick Griffin and co would conceal from them. What worries us most about this article is not that Griffin uses it as a vehicle for his lies but that he clearly believes them himself.

Given the BNP's propensity for gimmicky stunts like litter-picking (when what the party should actually be doing is reporting litter to relevant local authorities and demanding they should clear it instead) and the party's stance on graffiti artists (hanging's too good for 'em), one wonders why Griffin chose to illustrate his article with illustrations stolen and cropped (one assumes without permission) from the most famous graffiti artist in this country, Banksy. The complete image used can be seen here.

The whole point of the piece in Identity, entitled 'A tidal wave of anti-BNP propaganda', seems to be to whine about the fact that the BNP is opposed on various levels by several organisations for a number of perfectly valid reasons. Naturally enough, Searchlight comes in for particular criticism (though we don't, which is irritating but just means we'll have to step our work up a bit) with a good deal of waffle about a BNP election candidate and activist (who stood for the party as recently as May 2007) who, according to Griffin, turned out to be a 'paid informer' for Searchlight. This was allegedly discovered after what Griffin describes as an 'internal intelligence review', which appears to have largely consisted of illegally checking through his BNP email account.

Right from the start of this article, Griffin's paranoia and control-freakery are both evident and disturbing but it is his clear ability to treat his own blatant lies as fact that should most concern any BNP member who is able to view the BNP leader and his party objectively. One of the more startling examples of this is Griffin's brief mention of the continuing Solidarity fiasco:

'As in the earlier instance where a Searchlight agent effectively took over Bradford BNP and then provided 'cover' for BBC mole Jason Gwynne and his 'Secret Agent' stunt and as appears to have happened in the recent failed coup attempt to derail the nationalist trade union Solidarity...'

Regular readers will know full well that there was no 'coup attempt' within Solidarity until the former General Secretary Pat Harrington, long-time friend of Griffins, was suspended for, among other things, accounting irregularities. Following his suspension, the BNP-supported Harrington, with the direct collusion of Nick Griffin, himself engineered a coup, taking Solidarity's PayPal account, website and money with him. This is fact - we know it and Griffin knows it, yet without a qualm, lies and tells the membership that this is not the case...

Much more here:  http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2007/10/madness-of-king-nick-infamous-identity.html