Ordure! Ordure!

BNP aims to use Orange events to attract members
[The Irish Times, 4th July 2007, page 7]

Gerry Moriarty
Northern Editor

The British National Party (BNP) has confirmed a statement in the North’s Assembly yesterday that it intends using the Twelfth of July Orange marching season to attract new members. The party also intends standing candidates in the 2011 Assembly elections, a spokesman said.

Ulster Unionist deputy leader Danny Kennedy, during an Assembly debate on racial equality, said the BNP planned a recruitment drive over the Twelfth of July period. He branded the BNP a hate-mongering racist party which must be rejected in Northern Ireland.

“I have said to them that this isn’t the kind of imported hate-mongering that we want or need in Northern Ireland,” he said.

The Orange Order said yesterday that “fascist organisations were not welcome at Twelfth parades.”

Mr Kennedy added: “I welcome the indications from the Grand Lodge of Ireland which resolutely condemn and oppose this move.”

BNP spokesman Dr Phil Edwards said his party would be taking advantage of the Twelfth of July period to enrol new members. “The BNP doesn’t recruit, armies recruit. We are inviting people to join,” he said.

He rejected Mr Kennedy’s assertion, echoed by several other speakers in the Assembly yesterday, that the BNP was a “hate-mongering” party.

“The BNP exists to preserve the traditional culture and identity of Britain. How can that be peddling hate,” Dr Edwards told The Irish Times.

Dr Edwards, who has a PhD in science, said the BNP was already established in Northern Ireland and that it would be standing a number of candidates in the nest Assembly elections.

Sinn Féin MLA Martina Anderson said there were 936 racist incidents in the past year, double the total for the previous two years. She said some loyalists were behind a number of racist attacks and that the unionist politicians should be doing more to address that problem.

Alliance MLA Anna Lo, originally from Hong Kong, said that racism was not a new phenomenon in Northern Ireland. “A couple of years after I arrived in the 70s I was kicked in Belfast City Centre in broad daylight walking to catch a bus to go home,” she said. She said racism was on the increase in Northern Ireland and that a policy of “zero tolerance” must be pursued.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said “no part of society has a monopoly on racism and we must act to eradicate it as quickly as possible”.

The Assembly endorsed an Alliance motion, amended by Sinn Féin, calling for a continuing and speedy implementation of a racial equality strategy for Northern Ireland.
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The above extract, although of some length, deserves wider circulation.

Malcolm has already noted, back on 11th December 2006, the closeness, even warmth, between some DUP leaders and Kenny McClinton, convicted UFF murderer and now "Pastor of the Ulster/American Christian Fellowship Mission" in Craigavon.

McClinton's associates, especially in the LVF, have hosted Combat 18 who came over to join the doings of the Orange Order in Portadown and Drumcree.
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Critical update:

Malcolm offers sincere apologies...
... for misleading his loyal readers.

The above-named "Dr Phil Edwards" is in fact a figment of the imagination of one Stuart Russell, who does exist as the BNP's spinmeister. There are numerous references on the web to this charade (for example the NUJ's site and The Gaping Silence).

And Russell's Phud is a matter of some doubt: see the Ministry of Truth.

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