Beackon of Darkness

Labour blamed it on the Liberals, the Liberals suggested Labour look at themselves for the cause, and the far left blamed it on the Tories. It has been called a protest vote against the Canary Wharf development, against housing policy, and a reaction to leaflets distributed by the Liberal Democrats. The cause of all this furore? The British National Party gaining its first seat on a British council. But the real question is: how did an unemployed truck driver, a known fascist with links to some very unpleasant organisations, get into office in the Isle of Dogs?

Standard inter-party bickering aside, there are whisperings of more sinister allegations. According to the grapevine, large gangs of skinheads were seen in the vicinity of the pool booths on the day of the election. If this is true, it would surely have acted as a powerful deterrent against ethnic minorities taking up their right to vote: indeed the presence of skinheads on the streets would scare off all but the most determined opposition. Whether this is fact or fiction is yet to be established.

One thing is for certain. No-one could have guessed, before the count on the 17th, that BNP candidate Derek Beackon would take the seat. There was no media speculation, no warning from the Government. Somewhat disconcertingly, the presence of the BNP within the British political system appeared to have gone unnoticed by most of the nation. I remember only two months ago during a conversation with a lawyer friend of mine, when I happened to mention the BNP, he looked bewildered and said: "You mean they still exist?"

Of course, no-one had forgotten the nazi thugs, or that the fascist skinhead brigade still existed, but the National Front or the BNP as political entities had been relegated in the minds of the populus to little more than an irrelevant flag of convenience for the boneheads. The last couple of years, however, have seen a noticeable increase in racial hatred, especially in the east end of London. The Greenwich area has seen the level of racially motivated violence double in the last five years, while in the south east alone there have been four racist murders in the last two years, as well as two rather suspicious suicides. One victim was found hanged with his hands tied behind his back: a position more readily associated with execution. The other was found in a crouching position with both feet on the floor; this too was deemed a suicidal hanging.

What is certain is that anti-nazi activists have been diligently tracking the progress of the BNP for years now. Magazines such as Searchlight have been keeping tabs on the development of the far right for the last 31 years and organisations like the Anti-Nazi League, who were confronting the National Front directly during the seventies have more recently switched much of their attention towards the BNP.

Mainstream politicians may have been unaware of the threat, but those on the anti-racist frontline had every reason to be concerned about the stealthy rise of the BNP.

The victorious Derek Beackon has a somewhat intriguing

history. A former BNP steward, he was present at the provocative fascist rally at Waterloo which closed the station down in September of last year. According to Tim Hepple, former BNP member turned Searchlight mole, he was involved in a BNP hit on a black rights meeting in 1989, held by the controversial Reverend Al Sharpton in Euston.

Beackon and seven others marched up the stairs and tossed tear gas and smoke bombs into the assembled crowd before running off to a waiting van, driven by deputy BNP leader Richard Edmonds. Beackon has also been implicated as a key figure in forging links between the BNP and the paramilitary fascist activists, Combat 18.

Hepple also claims to have witnessed Beackon showing off weapons to a group of East End Nazi thugs in Brick Lane during several secret meetings last year. The aggression generated at these meetings, it has been suggested, was such that it culminated in an especially violent attack on fifteen members of the Anti-Nazi League - six women and nine men - by over 30 BNP thugs.

In interviews since his election, Beackon has dismissed figures revealing a boom in racial violence around the area of the BNP headquarters - which fronts as a bookshop - in Welling. He has also dismissed two of the country's major sporting successes - Chris Eubank and Linford Christie - as "not British" due to their colour. He has also denied on record that the Nazi holocaust of the Second World War ever took place. In his own words: "Well I don't think the Jews were exterminated, not six million of them, maybe a couple of hundred thousand."

Combat 18 is the latest, and most violent development within British nationalism. Originating in the notoriously vicious football thugs, the Chelsea Headhunters, Combat 18 has been steadily growing throughout the ranks of the BNP. The numbers one and eight apparently stand for their corresponding letters in the alphabet - A and H - the initials of Adolf Hitler, but then the new wave fascists are hardly noted for their originality. Combat 18 now includes amongst its membership other gangs of organised football hooligans, including the highly uncuddly Portsmouth 057 Crew, plus sundry skinheads and BNP thugs. The group also has links with Protestant paramilitary groups including the UDA.

The BNP has always had a use for its thug following. They protect the Party's meetings from being over-run by protesters. But they also pose a dilemma: in order to retain the BNP's much sought-after respectability as a legitimate political party, the guard dogs must be kept on a tight lead. Whatever credibility the Party possesses could be shattered by an overtly violent image. However, in an inversion of Hitler's 1930's Germany, the 'Rowdy Stormtroopers' of Combat 18 are rapidly overtaking the BNP and have outmanoeuvred the 'SS' of the mainstay BNP, according to Hepple. Their aim is to create virtually autonomous cells across the country and it would appear to be responsible for much of the increase in violence directed towards racial targets. Racial minorities and the immigrant population are not the only targets: in a chilling reminder of the not so distant past, Combat 18 also directs its hatred towards other minority groups including the disabled and socialists.

Combat 18's ideas are not entirely its own. The inspiration comes from outspoken American Nazi Harold Covington, whose New Carolina address is used for offshore mailing. But the American influence on British nationalism goes beyond that with Hepple claiming that the BNP has forged links with the white supremist Church of the Creator.

Founded in 1973 by millionaire Ben Klassen, the church's highly anti-semetic literature is used as background reading by the BNP. Its activities include entertaining visiting neo-fascists and training them in the most holy use of firearms. If Hepple is to be believed, Combat 18 is stockpiling weapons and a contingent of BNP members spent their summer holidays at Klassen's Wisconsin estate.

The Anti-Nazi League was originally formed in the mid-late '70s when the National Front were outpolling the Liberals in GLC elections. The ANL's mandate was to oppose the growth of what they saw as fascism and they clearly did a good job: the National Front fell into disarray and obscurity during the later part of the '70s. The ANL, its objective achieved, was dissolved but found it necessary to reform in '91. The ANL's Rahul Patel is currently involved in attempts to close down the BNP bookshop and meeting place in Welling and to prevent the BNP from paperselling in the Brick Lane area. His efforts have been redoubled since Beackon's victory.

Patel sees the media-propagated immigration scare as being central to the spread of racism. Quoting a one-time nationalist statement - "The day our supporters lose the ability to hate is the day we lose the ability to gain power' - he cites irresponsible headlines such as the Evening Standard's 'Immigration A Threat To Society' as being fundamental to fuelling the racial hatred that feeds the nationalist groups.

Recent ANL activities have included the successful boycotting of the leader of France's National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, preventing him from speaking at rallies in either Edinburgh or Dublin. His lecture plans dashed, the politician had to make do with a brief, early morning press conference at a highly picketed Heathrow Airport. The League also used its provocative presence to scupper a neo-Nazi 'Blood and Honour festival in Heanor, Nottinghamshire, forcing a police exclusion order on the area. Patel is aware that some of the League's activities could attract accusations of censoring free speech; his response is that should those parties come to power, free speech would itself become a thing of the past.

The date: Sunday September 19th. The venue: Brick Lane,

east London. The British National Party were paperselling as usual, only this time the Anti-Nazi League were out in numbers. Galvanised into action by the BNP's recent victory in the Isle of Dogs, the ANL's turnout was immense; at least 1,500 members of the League surrounded the tiny BNP contingent waving banners alongside the Socialist Workers Party and Militant Labour. The sides were separated by a veritable army of police while the riot squad waited in the wings, watched in turn by an equally massive body of journalists who crowded round the BNP, cameras poised.

Chants flew through the air. "Black and white unite/Together we are dynamite" and "We are the Nazi Nai-lers". The BNP counter chanted "Isle of Dogs, Isle of Wogs" and "Rights for Whites", waving their sole Union Jack, once described by a senior BNP member as "our swastika, it has the same effect on the niggers as the swastika did on the Jews."

Bottles and eggs soon began to follow the chanting, sailing over the police cordon in front of the BNP, most of the missiles shattering on the closed shopfront behind. The chants grew in intensity, fuelled by the anger at Quddus Ali's recent hospitalisation together with that of Sandy Nicholl, an ANL member wounded at the count in the Isle of Dogs the night before. Real hatred was thick in the air. Adding fuel to the fire, the papersale was led by Richard Edmonds, deputy leader of the BNP and one of the most hated Nazi faces in London, if not in England.

Suddenly it snapped. A sizeable group of ANL members had got past the police cordon and charged the BNP on one of their flanks. The BNP fled round the street corner and the fight continued into the waiting batons of the riot squad. The throng stood cheering the inglorious retreat of the fascists and then looked on while the BNP's Union Jack was ceremoniously burned. The League then marched down Brick Lane, gathering support along the way in celebration of a job well done.

Later in the day Richard Edmonds, having been released by the police after the incident, is alleged, along with Combat 18 activist Simon Biggs and others, to have assaulted a mixed race couple in Bethnal Green, in which it has been claimed that they cut the black man's face apart with a glass before finally being arrested. They were remanded in custody with no bail, and are awaiting trial at the time of writing. Overall during the day there were 27 arrests, the majority being from within the ranks of the ANL.

After the march I overheard a conversation between an elderly east Londoner and a Socialist Worker. When asked, "Do you want the Nazis in the country?", he replied: "Of course I don't want Nazis, I just want England to be fucking England." Another passing local of the same generation, turned towards him and said: "Of course it's still England; the soil's still the same."