Desperate GB News Hosts Notorious Fascist Jack Buckby

Hat tip once again to Tim Fenton for his excellent article on yet another grotty point on GB News’ downward trajectory. As he points out, the channel must be really desperate if one of its presenters, Patrick Christys, has far-right activist Jack Buckby as a guest, and even boasts about it on Twitter. The wretched station even called Buckby a ‘counter-extremism researcher’ and proudly boasted of his praise for Christys, tweeting “‘People on the right are so scared of being smeared as being far-right extremists to the point where they say the far-right doesn’t exist’ … [Jack Buckby], counter-extremism researcher, praises Patrick Christys for talking about extremism”. Well, the real counter-extremism researchers over at Hope Not Hate have been following Buckby for years along with the Islamists Buckby is claimed to be an expert on. Because Buckby may himself be justly described as a far-right extremist. Citing pieces from the Liverpool Tab and Examiner Live, Zelo Street then proceeds to give a brief precis of Buckby’s career.

Buckby is a former member of the BNP, getting mixed up with them when he was at school and then going on to study briefly at Liverpool University before he was thrown out for his views. Buckby said, “I initially got involved with the BNP in high school. I wasn’t very political, but I had my opinions, as everyone does. I saw Nick Griffin and the real bias that he was facing on the television and I thought, ‘That can’t be right.’ I did my own research and thought, ‘Shit, I agree with him. He actually seems like a good bloke.’ I started supporting it and went through college being the notorious BNP guy. It was later that I met Nick and started talking about these culturist ideas”. He was expelled eight years ago in 2013, and went on from the BNP to Liberty GB, which describes itself as an anti-Islamisation party and a radical patriotic conservative organisation. Following the murder of MP Jo Cox, Buckby stood for Liberty GB against Labour in the Batley and Spen by-election, stating that Labour could not go unchallenged. He also claimed that Labour had duped working class people and were walking into the election with smug little grins on their faces. He also issued tweet stating that if Jo Cox’s murder was true, it was either a case of the ‘moronic’ Britain First damaging the cause of the far right, or a false flag attack by the Remain campaign. He was also strongly criticised for a rant on Channel 4 News in which he said to Barbara Ntumy, ‘Take in a Syrian refugee, I hope you don’t get raped’”. The good peeps of Batley and Spen weren’t impressed, and Buckby got 1.1 per cent of the vote and lost his deposit. Tim’s article also quotes tweets from Dr. Louise Raw and anti-racism campaigner Mike Stuchbery. Dr. Raw was horrified at the platforming of Buckby, because he had called for terror attacks in the Netherlands and was in the BNP, as was David Copeland, the man who radicalised Jo Cox’s assassin. Stuchbery has also been a victim of fanatics claiming to fight Islamisation. He was targeted for harassment by the noxious Tommy Robinson. Stuchbery also wondered why GB News was platforming him, ending his tweet with“Disgraceful from [GB News] … A known fascist with despicable views on the murder of Jo Cox & much more that should shame [GB News], who clearly did no background checks here”.

Tim, on the other hand, ends his piece with the conclusion that GB News knew exactly what they were doing, and should hang their heads in shame. But they won’t, because they don’t have any.

https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2021/10/gb-news-platforms-known-fascist.html

I’m afraid Tim’s precisely right. A quick search on Google reveals this article on For Britain, its leader Anne-Marie Waters, and Jack Buckby. https://hopenothate.org.uk/research-old/investigations/undercover-inside-britains-far-right/for-britain/. I realise that neither Buckby nor Hope Not Hate are exactly household names, but the researchers at GB News would have known of them and who Buckby was when gathering information for the show. Even if they didn’t come across Hope Not Hate, they would have been able to get the facts about Buckby. It looks very much like the broadcaster wanted someone controversial to talk about Islamisation in the aftermath of David Amess’ murder, and weren’t particular about who they were inviting.

As for describing Buckby as an anti-Islamisation expert, this strikes me as nonsense. I think it’s a mistake to underestimate the Islamophobic far right, as from my own reading of their web pages there are people there who do have a deep knowledge of Islam. This is apart from the football hooligans and other thugs who simply want to beat up brown people. There are issues with Islam in Britain. I think some sections of it are very alienated from mainstream British society and there is a danger of the creation of parallel societies. But the vast majority of British Muslims aren’t terrorists and have very publicly condemned it. The problem is that Fascists and Islamophobes like Buckby don’t distinguish between Islam and Islamism.

From what I’ve read and watched, many of the Islamist activists and terrorists have a similar background. Apart from those radicalised abroad, they seem to be individuals, who’ve been radicalised over the Web or from particular hate preachers. A number had connections to Anjem Chaudhury, a grotty individual who’s spent time in the slammer for supporting terrorism. I don’t know if this the case with Amess’ alleged killer, but quite often they’ve spent their lives drinking, taking drugs and having sex before their conversion to radical Islam. Chaudhury, if I’m correct, is a case in point. Some of them, like those responsible for attacks in France, seem to have been violent criminals. Quite often they’ve precious little connection to their local mosque, the congregation of which haven’t seen them in years.

As for the political motivations behind the attacks, some of it simply seems to be rage at the west’s repeated invasions and attacks on Muslim nations, such as the invasion of Iraq. While there’s more to the ideology than simply this – it also seems to be coupled to stupid conspiracy theories about the Jews plotting against Islam and Mohammed from the foundation of the religion in the 7th century onward, cultural shock and dislocation caused by the massive changes in Middle Eastern and broader Islamic society, as well as an idealisation of pre-modern, traditional Islam – that seems to be the primary motive.

This is a tense time. Our Muslim brothers and sisters are naturally afraid of increased prejudice and abuse following Mr. Amess’ horrendous murder. I saw a piece on the internet news page yesterday stating that Muslim organisations were giving them advice on handling this increased suspicion and hate. We need informed, sane experts, who can properly explain the issues, drawing people together to dispel such prejudice and unite against violence and hatred.

This means real experts, not bigots and Nazis like Buckby.

GB News risk increasing tension simply by platforming him. It seems to be a publicity stunt, though I also wonder if the broadcaster couldn’t get anyone who really knew about Islamist terror and radicalisation on.

Either way, it shows how low it really is going on its way to being eventually wound up.

Sunday’s Anti-Sharia March in Bristol – A Liberal Façade Hiding Real Fascism

Last Sunday afternoon, 10th September 2017, there was a demonstration against sharia law in Bristol by the groups Gays Against Sharia and British and Immigrants Against Terrorism. RT posted up a video about it yesterday, and it was also covered by ITN News, but not the Beeb. They were met by a counterdemonstration, Bristol Against Fascism.

http://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/update/2017-09-10/gays-against-sharia-march-starts-in-bristol/

If you look at some of the videos that have been posted, this could seem to many like a liberal demonstration against radical Islam. There is a section of the Muslim community, which would like sharia law incorporated into British law. And the preachers of hate, who have stood in front of their congregations to whip up hatred against Jews and Christians have also violently denounced gays. One picture of the march shows a White man and Black gent in African dress, supposedly united in the opposition to Islamic law and bigotry.

There’s also a video on YouTube by one of the march’s supporters, Greek Anne UK Lover, who is at pains to argue that these are nice liberal people, and it wasn’t an EDL march.

Well, it may not have been, but many of the same people were involved. At one point she shows a poster of the various people, who were expected to speak. And they include the usual Islamaphobes and Nazis. One of them was Paul Weston, of Liberty GB. Liberty GB is, or was, an anti-Islam political party, and Weston is part of the ‘counterjihad’ movement. I think Liberty GB could be fairly described as the political wing of the EDL. It was certainly allied to it, and Weston is associated with the members and leaders of the far right counterjihad movement, including Pamela Geller of the Atlas Shrugs website, Robert Spencer and so on.

One of the other speakers, or at least among those listed on her wall, was Jack Buckby. Buckby’s the founder of the ‘National Culturalists’, another far right organization, who were thrown off campus by the students’ guild at Liverpool uni as Fascists. He’s also one of the two extreme rightists photographed sitting bang right next to Jacob Rees-Mogg at the annual dinner of the Traditional Britain Group. This is another far right, anti-immigrant group, various of whose members are also fascinated with Nazis and quite like the idea of the return of feudalism. Mogg, of course, tried to distance himself from them as soon as the Independent published the story. He claimed that he didn’t know who they were when he accepted their dinner invitation. Which sounds highly unlikely to me.

As for Buckby himself, there’s absolutely no doubt that he is a Fascist. He used to be a member of the BNP, and Hope Not Hate has piccies of him proudly shaking the hand of Nick Griffin.

The march’s liberalism is therefore something of a façade. Behind it are the usual bigots and Nazis, who are deeply opposed to Islam as a whole, and not simply sharia law and Muslim terrorism.

But this again follows the standard policy of EDL. In many of their demonstrations, they tried to present themselves as multicultural liberals, among whose banners were Jews and Sikhs. But a Channel 4 documentary screened a few years ago also showed that, despite their liberal protestations, their members were by and large the same racists and White supremacists as those in the BNP and NF.

I am also at a loss why they should be marching in Bristol. I’ve no doubt that a few members of the Muslim community down here might be supporters of Islamist terrorism. But I’ve heard of no major scandals. To my knowledge, there haven’t been Muslim hate preachers standing on street corner spouting their bigoted bilge.

But there have been various Islamophobic attacks in the city, including one on a local mosque, and the EDL did hold a demonstration here a year or so ago. One of the other news reports stated that none of the marchers came from Bristol. It doesn’t look like a response to a local issue. Just the usual islamophobes trying to stir up more hatred.

Don’t be deceived by the appearance of liberalism and multiculturalism. Behind it were genuine racists and Nazis. Sharia law and Islamist terrorism should be opposed, but these aren’t the real issues here. This is all about drumming up hatred against Muslims. And once they’ve done that, the Nazis would come out of the woodwork and start preaching hate against the other groups Blacks, Asians, Jews, and the gays they claim to want to protect.

The march’s supporters have made videos denouncing Antifa and the other counterprotesters as intolerant fascists, but actually, Antifa and the other anti-racists were quite right.

Guy Debord’s Cat on the Deceptive Charm of Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Fascist Entryism in the Tory Party

The current popularity amongst the Tories and their lackeys for Jacob Rees-Mogg is a particular concern of mine. Mogg is the highly privileged son of William Rees-Mogg, a titled member of the aristocracy, who wrote at various times for the Times and Independent. Rees-Mogg senior lived in one of the villages around Bath, if I recall correctly. His son is the Tory MP for north Somerset, just south of where I live in Bristol.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has somehow endeared himself to the Tories and part of the British public through his polite, aristocratic and anachronistic demeanour. He’s been called ‘the minister for the 18th century’. He now has a fan club, Moggmentum, in imitation of Corbyn’s support group of Momentum. He also has 25,000 followers on Twitter. One fan of his in Somerset is such a mad fan of his, that he had Mogg’s face tattooed on him, which became one of the evening’s news stories for the local news programme, Points West here in Bristol a few weeks ago. He’s so popular indeed, that he’s being touted as a possible successor to Theresa May.

This should terrify anyone, with any real idea of politics and the true state of this country. For his smooth, cultured and quiet-spoken politesse, Mogg’s own views are highly reactionary, and frankly horrific. He began his career as a politician campaign in Fife, where the major platform of his campaign was trying to convince impoverished fisherfolk that retaining an hereditary House of Lords was supremely important and beneficial. And as a blue-blooded aristo, he is convinced that the poor should be kept firmly in their place, serving and transferring whatever wealth they have to the rich and powerful. A little while ago Mike did a feature on him on his blog. He discussed the numerous instances in which Mogg had consistently voted down bills, which would improve conditions for the poor and disabled, and voted instead for cutting benefits and privatizing what’s left of the welfare state.

It probably isn’t too much to say that many of those, who vote for him either believe themselves to be of the same class as him, and so will also benefit by his efforts to restore aristocratic privilege. Or else they’re members of the lower classes, who have been convinced through repetition of the same claims down the generations that the aristocracy are the country’s natural rulers, and working people should know their place. Like the various servants Mum met while working in that part of Somerset, who voted Tory because that’s the way Master voted.

Guy Debord’s Cat has written a very good piece over on his site, describing just how vile Mogg and what he represents actually are. He writes

It’s a sure sign of the Conservative Party’s dearth of talent that Jacob Rees Mogg should be talked up as a possible successor to the hapless and utterly useless Theresa May. Many people find Moggy endearing. They love his plummy RP accent. They love his double-breasted suit jackets. They love his fustiness. They love his toffee-nosed demeanour and they love his apparently Waugh-esque wit. At Nowhere Towers we take a different view: we find him tiresome and representative of an ages old problem with Britain. Namely, he reeks of privilege and his accent and ‘eccentric’ charm masks a ruthlessness and cruelty that is common to many members of his class.

When it comes to loving one’s oppressor, the Brits have both rationalized and elevated their oppression a fine art. We love our posh bastards. Don’t we? Remember how people fawned over Bozza? I haven’t forgotten. Both of them went to Eton and Oxford. Both of them are seen as rather buffoonish, though for very different reasons. And both are seen as thoroughly British eccentrics. But that’s the problem: many people refuse to see through their media-constructed façades and choose to see oh-so-disarming posh twits instead. Please, wake up!

That Moggy should be touted by some Tories as a counterweight to Jeremy Corbyn’s soaring popularity speaks volumes about the parlous condition of his party and the dire health of our media.

He goes on to mention three articles taking apart Mogg, his highly deceptive appeal, exposing what he really represents, from Skwawkbox, the New Statesman and Victor Lewis-Smith. But he goes on to discuss an event the other articles don’t. This is the time in 2013 when Mogg went off to a formal, black tie dinner with the Traditional Britain Group. His article includes a photo from the evening, showing Mogg seated next to two truly horrific fixtures of the British Far Right, Jack Buckby of the Cultural Nationalists and the BNP, and Gregory Lauder-Frost.

The Traditional Britain Group itself, from what I’ve seen of it, is another xenophobic, anti-immigrant, racist group, which particularly despises Islam. They also want to restore the old class system and privatize the NHS. Gerry Gable of the anti-Nazi organization, Searchlight, warned Mogg not to attend. But he did. When he was exposed by the press, he made a gushing Mea Culpa condemning racism, distancing himself from them, and claimed he had been misinformed and acted in ignorance.

To me, this is less than convincing. As the French philosophical feline points out, most people if invited to attend a function by a group they know nothing about would try to know what it stood for first.

The article then goes on to discuss just how unpleasant Buckby and Lauder-Frost are. As well as founding the National Culturalists, which was banned on campus as a racist, Fascist organization by the Students’ Guild at Liverpool University, Buckby was also a member of the BNP. He was their candidate for the Batley and Spen bye-election, caused by the assassination of Jo Cox. Which shows this character’s complete lack of class. He was also press officer for Liberty GB. The Cat’s article states that it is anti-immigration. That’s true, but it’s also specifically against one ethnic group of immigrants: Muslims. It was founded as part of the Islamophobic ‘counter-jihad’ movement by many of the same people involved in the EDL.

Demonstrating Buckby’s personal nastiness, the Cat’s article has a clip of him being interviewed by Krishnan Guru-Murthy on Channel 4 News, along with an Irish expert on White supremacist and Fascist movements and a young Black woman from Black students’ group. Guru-Murthy makes it very clearly that he despises Buckby’s views, but has to interview him as part of the programme’s mission to investigate minority opinions. Buckby spends much of the interview vehemently denying that he is at all racist, while loudly declaring that we shouldn’t allow more Muslim immigrants into the country because of their inherently violent, criminal nature. When one of the two women argues against him, he replies by saying ‘I hope you don’t get raped.’ Because all Muslims are rapists, right?

Lauder-Frost, it seems, is a former member of the Monday Club, who used to chair their Foreign Affairs Committee, and is the Traditional Britain Group’s vice-president and treasurer. Before joining them, he was one of the steering committee of the Conservative Democratic Alliance, formed by disaffected members of the Monday Club. There’s also a clip of him being interviewed on Vanessa Feltz’s radio show. Lauder-Frost spends much of the interview sneering at Doreen Lawrence, whom he feels should not have been elevated to the House of Lords. Because she’s ‘a nothing’, who he claims hasn’t done anything for this country and despises it. It’s not hard to see behind his attitude a mixture of racism and sheer class snobbery. Doreen Lawrence is a Black woman, and not a member of the British aristocracy. Hence Lauder-Frost is utterly horrified at her taking a seat in the upper house.

Now it’s true that Doreen Lawrence has made statements where she has said she doesn’t have any love for this country. Or that’s how it’s been reported. It grates, but she has every right. Her son, Stephen, was murdered by a gang of racist thugs, who got off scot-free. The Met investigating his murder was corrupt and riddled with racism, and the thugs were the sons of notorious gang bosses. See the press coverage at the time, and also Private Eye passim ad nauseam. She then dedicated her life to trying to obtain justice for her murdered child. This is a far better reasons for being given an honour than simply being Dave Cameron’s hairdresser.

Lauder-Frost also waffles on about how immigrant groups don’t support this country at sports matches, which recalls Norman Tebbitt’s infamous comment about coloured immigrants not supporting Britain at cricket. He also recommends that we should go back to the Tory party’s 1970s promise for ‘assisted repatriation’ for coloured immigrants to go back to their countries of origin. Feltz is definitely not impressed, and pointedly asks him where she should go, as she’s Jewish, and one set of her grandparents came from Poland, while another of her antecedents was also not British. Lauder-Frost simply says that if he was a Zionist, he would say she should go to Israel. To cap it all, Lauder-Frost is also a massive fan of the Nazis. No wonder Feltz was unimpressed. As were no doubt every other decent person listening to the programme, regardless of ethnicity or religious beliefs.

The TBG was also invited to a dinner by the Bow Group, another outfit like the Monday Club on the extreme right of the Tories. The Cat cites Louise Haigh, the Labour politico, who managed to get the Nazi youth group, Britain First, banned, who states very clearly that Lauder-Frost’s comments about Doreen Laurence and assisted repatriation are racist, and that the Bow Group should not invited them to their functions.

The TBG’s other vice-president is Professor John Kersey, a traditionalist Roman Catholic clergyman, a professor at a right-wing university with branches in the Caribbean and West Africa, who is nostalgic for the old days of feudalism. If you follow the link on the Cat’s blog, you come to a site for the British followers of the Austrian Libertarian, Von Mises. Kersey is also the Director of Cultural Affairs of the Libertarian Alliance.

Other members of the Traditional Britain Group are Stuart Millson and Jonathan Bowden. Together these two charmers founded the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus. Millson was also a former member of the BNP and an officer in Western Goals, which the Cat describes as ‘semi-Fascist’. He’s not alone in this assessment. Western Goals also got into the pages of Lobster as a Far Right organization. Also in the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus was Mark Cotterill a former member of the NF. The Cat then describes how Millson joined the Tories despite being a member of the BNP and having had dinner with Jean-Marie Le Pen. The Tories refused to throw him out, and Millson only resigned after this was exposed by the Mirror.

The Cat’s article concludes

The Tories may deny it, but many of their members are sympathetic to groups like the TBG. Indeed, in the 1970s NF members joined local Conservative Clubs and were members of the Monday Club. Others are members of The Freedom Association, the faux libertarian pressure group that talks warmly about their idea of ‘freedom’, while working hard to deny it to others. Tories may complain about ‘entryism’ in the Labour Party, but for decades extreme-right entryists joined the party and they’re still joining.

Moggy’s antiquated views are only matched by his sartorial style. If you find him amusing or endearing, you might want to ask yourself this: what kind of friends are the TBG? Rees Mogg only apologised when he got caught by Liberal Conspiracy. If that had never happened, Moggy would have got away with it. Makes you wonder…

The Cat’s article also has a link to the original piece by the Liberal Conspiracy website.

For more information, see: https://buddyhell.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/friends-like-these/

The Cat certainly ain’t wrong about Fascist infiltration of the Tory party. Lobster a few decades ago devoted several pieces to exposing this. And it’s something else you won’t see being reported by the Beeb. Way back in the 1980s the BBC was due to screen a Panorama expose, ‘Maggie’s Militant Tendency’, on the Far Right’s infiltration of the Tory. Maggie and the Tories, however, threw a strop and the BBC was forced to spike the programme.

As for the Libertarians, their definition of liberty is definitely reserved only for the upper classes. They hate socialism, trade unions and organized labour. I can’t remember which one of the libertarian organisations actually did it, but one of them invited the head of a central American death squad to their annual dinner. As for Kersey being a fan of feudalism, this adds a new dimension to Von Hayek’s book, The Road to Serfdom. Von Hayek thought it was socialism, but as subsequent events show, it’s really the far right-wing economics he advocated.

Libertarians have always denied being Fascists, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that’s exactly what they are. I’ve put up several pieces from the American YouTuber, Reichwing Watch, on how Libertarian not only shares many of the same tenets and attitudes of Fascism and Nazism, but that its adherents are beginning to admit this quite openly. One Black YouTuber, ‘That Guy T’, discusses and advocates ‘anarcho-Fascism’ on his vlog.

As for Mogg, while he denies sharing the Traditional Britain Group’s racism, he certainly shares their attitude towards aristocratic privilege, and keeping the poor and marginalized so. It shows how corrupt and class-ridden this country is that this man is at all popular, let alone an MP and possible successor to May.

English Democrat Posing as ‘Anti-Corbyn’ in Batley and Spen Bye-Election

More tasteless inanity from the real Far Right. Hope Not Hate today has published an article reporting that the English Democrats are fielding their own candidate for the forthcoming Batley and Spen bye-election under what many people would consider to be a false name. This is the constituency of the murdered MP, Jo Cox. The other two major parties, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, have stated that they will not contest this seat out of respect for her. Unfortunately, the British Far and Fascist Right have shown their complete lack of anything like class, taste or decency in rejecting this strategy and putting forward their own candidates. Because they believe that in the absence of any competition from the Lib Dems or Tories, they might stand a chance. The English Democrats’ candidate is one Neil Humphrey, who is standing as ‘Anti-Corbyn’. He’s told the Electoral Commission that this is what other people habitually call him, but as the Hope Not Hate article makes clear, it’s far more likely he’s taken the name simply to present himself as some kind of alternative Labour candidate.

See: http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/insider/meet-the-man-behind-batley-spen-con-5027

The organisation also revealed yesterday that the NF, BNP and Liberty GB’s Jack Buckby are also standing. Liberty GB is an anti-Islamic party. It’s basically the political wing of the English Defence League. Buckby himself apparently is sleeping on a friend’s floor somewhere in New York, where he’s also one of the organisers behind a massive party in support of Donald Trump. Hope Not Hate also have the poster for that too, along with the news that Buckby is also worried that New York’s own anti-Fascists will turn up to spoil the fun. So we have bigots of two continents meeting in unity. As Benjamin J. Grimm, your ever-lovin’ Thing would probably say, ‘What a revoltin’ development!’ The Hope Not Hate article also reports on some of the antics at the NF’s latest, minuscule demo in Birmingham, and that one of their number has been sentenced to 13 years for assaulting a pensioner. This crim also had an accomplice, who was also a member of the Far Right.

See: http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/insider/these-nazis-have-no-shame-5026

I think I can confidently predict that none of these Far Right parties actually stand a chance of winning a seat in parliament. In fact, I’ll be surprised if they even get back their deposit. But the fact that they’re prepared to use the opportunity presented by Jo Cox’s murder, which has been linked to another Fascist party, and that one of these idiots is doing so under an assumed name, just shows how squalid and amoral they are. It’s just one more reason why decent people won’t vote for them. Quite apart from the many, many others.

Great Dictator Bonehill Launches New Fascist Party with Mighty Members of Just Himself

The EDL News site, which is actually dedicated to criticising and attacking the EDL and the Far Right, today reports the launch of yet another addition to Britain’s Fascist legions. On Saturday, ‘Founder’ Bonehill formally announced the inauguration of ‘Liberty’ to bring about the downfall of modern democratic, multicultural, multiracial Britain in one of the parks in Yeovil.

Derek Fender, the article’s author, states

Comedy pound shop fascist, Joshua Bonehill launched his new political group in a park yesterday in front of two cops, two journalists and three antifascists.

Disappointed that no one actually turned up, he claimed in the local newspaper that he had secretly launched the group a hour earlier in a cafe and 50 people turned up with ten from Yeovil and one from Northern Ireland.

He goes on to state that it was probably the least successful launch of a Fascist party ever. This hasn’t stopped Bonehill, who has said that he’s going to hold another meeting, this time with someone other than himself in attendance.

Despite their propaganda, British Fascism is generally marked by extremely low membership. Anti-Fascist researchers estimated that the actual core membership of the NF/BNP was actually only 200. The party had a very high membership turnover, with most leaving after only two years. While there are very many people in Britain opposed to immigration, most aren’t interested in full-blown Fascism.

With the implosion of the BNP, the membership of the various Fascist groups has got lower, especially as many of the Nazis seem to have gone off and joined UKIP as the ostensibly democratic equivalent.

Even so, the membership of the some the extreme Right parties was trivially small well before then. Way back in the 1990s Private Eye reported the launch of another Far Right, anti-immigration party in Cheltenham. Its founders considered it a resounding success, held as it was in one of the members’ front room.

So there was little chance of them holding mass torchlight rallies and marching on the Town Hall. Or even organising a grand booze-up in a beer hall. There would, however, have been just enough of them to open a few tins of beer or sherry while watching videos of Hitler’s speeches.

The minuscule size of Bonehill’s party is small, even by Fascist standards. But it isn’t unknown. Way back in the 1930s Mosley was approached by a retired colonel in Lancashire, who offered to merge his mighty party and its legions with Mosley’s BUF, provided the Colonel was recognised as effectively joint leader. Mosley looked into it, and found that the grand membership of the Colonel’s sqaudristi consisted of just one: the colonel himself. And so the deal was off.

This should have served as an object lesson in how not to run a Fascist movement, but it’s been lost on the sawdust Caesars running British Fascism, who become more and more like P.G. Wodehouse’s Spode every day. In addition to Bonehill trying to convince the world that his new movement consists of anyone other than himself, there’s Raikes and the New British Union. Raikes is desperately trying to revive the spirit of Mosley’s National Union of Fascists, complete with uniforms and draped flags. According to Hope Not Hate, he was also active writing letters to the leaders of the other Fascist grouplets trying to get them to merge their parties with his and place themselves under his inspired leadership.

The response, as they say, has been disappointing.

As for the name Bonehill has chosen for his new party, this seems to have been copied from Paul Weston’s Liberty GB. This was formed as the political wing of the EDL, and like them has been suffering from catastrophically dwindling membership. The name’s also similar to the Libertas, anti-EU Irish party, perhaps Bonehill’s hoping that there’s still a few of their supporters around, who’ll get confused and vote for him instead.

The article on Bonehill and his farcical attempt to restart his career as Fuehrer is at: http://edlnews.co.uk/2015/04/12/joshua-bonehill-launches-new-political-group-in-a-park-in-front-of-two-cops-two-journalists-and-three-antifascists/ Go and there and be entertained by the latest antics of one of Britain’s most determined enemies of liberal democracy. That is, as far as the court orders will allow him.

The park, on the other hand, looked really nice. It’s just a pity that it had Bonehill in it doing more Fascist posturing.