TIMESONLINE: The British National Party’s leaked membership list was supposedly full of middle-class professionals. So where were they during its annual festival, asks Anna van Praagh.
It had all the hallmarks of a genteel country fete. Yet amid the fairground rides, Morris dancing and stands selling organic Welsh cakes, the BNP's annual summer festival had one rather less bucolic stall, at which revellers were invited to get their heads shaved.
The attraction was billed as being all in a good cause, a fundraiser for British troops. Yet, given the party's long association with skinheads and boot boys, one could be forgiven for construing it as some kind of party initiation ritual.
The BNP chairman, Nick Griffin, wreathed in pinstripes and smiles, and flanked by a coterie of intimidating, crop-haired security guards, laughed it off. "Men of a certain age tend to suffer from follicle problems," he told me as we stood outside a marquee festooned with Union Jack flags.
"You can't discriminate against them for that. Lots of the British rugby team are bald. That doesn't make them Nazis."
Since Griffin took control of the party in 1999, the BNP's high command has eschewed its trademark number-one crop haircuts, Doc Martens and Nazi salutes, replacing them with press releases, soundbites and appearances on Newsnight.
Last week, Griffin seized upon the publication of a list purporting to comprise the entire membership of the British National Party as proof that it had left behind its street-fighting days, and that it is now attracting a broad range of professionals: doctors, teachers, IT workers, clergy, more than a dozen soldiers, and a former Conservative constituency chairman.
He said: "Instead of the public being terrified, they can see we are not a bunch of knuckle-dragging morons but a party of people just like them. Long term, it's going to do us a great deal of good in the public's eyes."
However, The Sunday Telegraph has discovered that at least 30 people named on the list have criminal convictions. And there are thought to be many more. >>> By Anna van Praagh and Patrick Sawer | November 22, 2008
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SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Far-Right NPD Is a 'Serpent at Democracy's Breast'
A leading German politician is suggesting a way to deal with the far-right NPD -- cut off state funding. His proposal has met with some skepticism and on Friday many German papers argue that it could set a worrying precedent.
German democracy is having a tough time dealing with the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) which is steadily gaining political ground. Now there are calls to hit the party where it hurts -- in its pocket.
The NPD has been deemed "racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist" by the country's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. There have been calls to ban the party, but an attempt to have the country's Constitutional Court outlaw it failed in 2003 and the NPD continues to get state funding, consistent with Germany's campaign finance laws.
The far-right party is no longer confined to the margins of German politics. It has increased its membership to 7,000 and has a presence in the regional parliaments in two eastern states, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. >>> | November 21, 2008
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