Open Letter from Hope Not Hate for Tories to Expel Former Fascist Local Councillor

I got this email from the anti-racist, anti-religious extremist organisation Hope Not Hate asking people to sign an open letter calling for the Tories to expel a local councillor, who used to be a member of the Mosleyite fascist group, the New British Union. It runs

‘Dear David,

Last night we broke the news that we’ve discovered a Conservative Party councillor with a worrying fascist past. 

Andy Weatherhead (formerly Andrew Beadle) represents the ward of Hythe West on Kent County Council. But as recently as 2014, he was a member of the fascist group the New British Union where he’d held the positions of Business Officer and Policy Officer.

The NBU is full of nazis and violent bigots. They are fascist revivalists who proudly display pictures online of members wearing pre-war fascist uniforms and openly try to emulate Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. One member of the group, Clive Ceronne, was even jailed for an arson attack on a mosque in Gloucester.

Tory councillor Andy Weatherhead wrote several blogs on the NBU website under a pseudonym. In them, he published deeply antisemitic passages, including criticising the government for “appeasing the British and International Jewish lobby, whilst allowing the British people to be feed [sic] lie after lie through the Jewish controlled Press and Media.”

Weatherhead’s NBU activity did not end there though. In 2013, he attended an NBU demonstration outside the Greek embassy in support of the Greek neo-nazi Golden Dawn party. Golden Dawn members were often accused of violently attacking immigrants, ethnic minorities and their political opponents. 

David, it’s simple. Andy Weatherhead is not fit to hold political office. 

And this is where you come in. Will you join other HOPE not hate members in calling for Andy Weatherhead to be permanently expelled from the Conservative Party?

EXPEL THIS TORY COUNCILLOR

This isn’t the first time that HOPE not hate has exposed elected officials with dangerous far-right beliefs. Last year, we discovered Tim Wills, a borough councillor in Worthing, West Sussex was an active supporter of the UK’s fastest-growing fascist threat, Patriotic Alternative. 

HOPE not hate supporters contacted Conservative Party Chairs asking for them to remove Wills and eventually, after immense pressure, he resigned.

Together, let’s drive out hate from our communities.

In solidarity,

Gregory – Researcher at HOPE not hate’

I’ve signed the open letter because the NBU really does seem to be exactly as they describe it – an attempt to revive Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. They even wear a uniform rather like Mosley’s Blackshirts, albeit the colour looks like very dark blue rather than black and have insignia very like Mosley’s black lightning bolt. Weatherhead also seems to be someone who really does believe all the real poisonous anti-Semitic conspiracies, which shouldn’t come as a surprise if he was a Mosleyite. Mosley denied he was ever anti-Semitic, but it was clear from his actions and general attitude that he was. He also changed the name of the BUF when he was trying to ingratiate himself with Hitler to the ‘British Union of Fascists and National Socialists’. Nazism is, by definition, anti-Semitic, and the Golden Dawn racist thugs. He’s definitely the kind of activist David Cameron made so much noise about expelling the party. And somehow, I’m not surprised that he also used to be UKIP, despite that party also stating that they would not accept former members of the far right into the party. It’s possible that Weatherhead might have changed his attitudes towards race and human rights since he left the NBU, but that’s highly debatable considering how many real islamophobes and anti-Semites were found on internet groups supporting Rees-Mogg.

Hope Not Hate: Neo-Nazi Group to Goose-Step in Bristol this Saturday

Hope Not Hate, the anti-racism, anti-religious extremism organisation has reported on their website that the New British Union will be holding a demo in my fair city this coming Saturday. The NBU are an outfit that parties like it’s 1939: they march around in an approved uniform of black slacks, tops and caps, waving banners with a lightning bolt symbol not too far removed from that of the British Union of Fascists. How they get away with this I don’t know, as I understood that political uniforms were made illegal when the government cracked down on Mosley and co.

Hope Not Hate says not to worry too much, as they only have 11 members, one of whom lives in Cyprus. They also speculate that another two may be members of Zionist organisations seeking to disrupt them. That’s also likely to be true. I did wonder, however, if it was a general excuse these organisations make when they fall out with each other. It’s not over ‘ideological’ differences, but because there are ‘Zionist’ spies in their ranks.

The stories at: http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/insider/bristol-and-bust-4719 Go there for more information and pics of the Mosleyite wannabes.

I’m not actually very sure what they hope to achieve. Bristol’s got a very ethnically mixed population, with sizable Black and Asian minorities. Like other cities of this type, it’s got its racial strains and there is a branch of SARI in St. Paul’s, I believe, for the victims of racial attacks. But mostly, touch wood, it’s a cool place. If you go down to the centre, you’re far more likely to be faced with charity canvassers, the homeless selling the Big Issue, and the normal run of buskers, than fiery-eyed maniacs preaching jihad or race war or whatever other bloody nonsense.

The EDL also turned up here a few years ago, and there was trouble then. It annoyed my mother to think that they could campaign successfully in Bristol, and cause trouble. My own feeling is that there could be trouble due to this bunch of morons, but most likely they’ll be treated the way they should – and ignored, leaving them to slink back to wherever they came from, shamed at not being able to get even a rise out of the people of this great city.

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.

Joshua Bonehill Takes British Far Right Back to Nazi Roots

Joshua ‘Moronic Troll’ Bonehill: Fuehrer without a leaderguard

Remember Joshua Bonehill? Tom Pride over at Pride’s Purge blogged about him a year or so ago. He’s the Hitler wannabe, who boasted at he had at least 20,000 + followers on Twitter. He was trying to set up his own Far Right party and was appealing for men to join his ‘Leader Guard’. This was to be the new Praetorian guard to march with and protect him as Fuehrer of the new British extreme Right. Mr Pride was alarmed as one of his Twitter followers was a British army colonel.

I thought that Bonehill and his dreams of Nazi Fuehrertum were so bonkers that it had to be a wind-up. Surely someone, who was so obviously trying to be early 21st Century’s Britain’s own Adolf couldn’t possibly be serious?

I was wrong.

He was.

Last week was Holocaust memorial week, and the country remembered the liberation of the Nazi Death Camps and the almost unbelievable horror that was perpetuated there. The surviving inmates, some well into their nineties, told their stories.

At the same time this was going, Bonehill was planning a Nazi march against the 20,000 strong Jewish community of Stamford Hill in London. He claimed this was a protest against the ‘Jewification’ of Britain, and particularly against the ultra-Orthodox Haredi community in the area. He claimed the shomrim, a neighbourhood-watch type organisation set up in the Stamford Hill to protect Jewish residents, was actually a religious police.

There’s an interesting article up on Bonehill and his antics at the anti-Far Right site, EDL News. The article’s entitled Moronic Troll Joshua Bonehill and why he probably won’t go to Stamford Hill. The epithet ‘moronic troll’ was given to Bonehill by the BBC. The article suggests that Bonehill won’t actually go on the protest he’s called for. It also gives a list of some of the other weird, disgusting and criminal actions he’s done. It also explains why the Beeb gave him the above nickname. Here they are:

◾ Bonehill attempted to organise a demonstration in Cardiff last year under his National British Resistance Political party. The party consisted of two other people, one with learning difficulties who he scammed for £500. He did not show up, neither did his friends.
◾ His Woolwich Strong t-shirt sales scam saw him allegedly net over £1000. According to our sources, none of the money has been given to the Lee Rigby fund. A grand total of £5 went to Help for Heroes and then rest he put down as administrative costs.
◾ Bonehill’s online popularity seems to stem from spending lots of money buying Facebook likes and Twitter followers from countries such as Pakistan, India and Turkey in order to make himself look more popular. Much of that money went down the pan recently when both Twitter and Facebook kicked him off their networks.
◾ According to locals, Bonehill is allegedly banned from a large supermarket chain nationwide for getting drunk and trying to defecate in the aisle of the cosmetics department, before being forcibly removed by security guards. We cannot corroborate this story ourselves but a number of witnesses have confirmed the story.
◾ Bonehill has a conviction for using his Conservative party membership card to break into a police station and steal uniforms. When caught he assaulted a police officer.
◾ He is allegedly banned from the Mermaid pub in Yeovil after one of the bar maids had him up against the wall by his throat and threw him out for reasons we are unable to disclose. Again, a number of local people have confirmed this.
◾ Drink seems to be a major factor in Bonehill’s life according to most people we spoke to which explains the online bravado exhibited.
◾ He is awaiting sentencing on five charges of harassment and two charges of malicious communications arising from undertaking lengthy and concerted campaigns branding as paedophiles, people who disagreed and outwitted him online (no hard task).
◾ After pleading guilty to a hoax which claimed the Globe Pub in Leicester has refused service to a soldier, the BBC described him as a ‘moronic troll’.

Bonehill is a nasty piece of work, and his organisation is particularly revolting at a time the Jewish community here in Britain and Europe generally is particularly under attack. There is a wave of anti-Semitism rising in Europe, which many observers have described as the worst Jews have experienced since the 1930s. The most obvious example of this was the attack on the customers and staff at a French Jewish supermarket by an Islamist gunman following the attack on Charlie Hebdo the week before last. It should be mentioned here that 15 of the shopper and store clerks were hidden by a Muslim security guard, an act of courage and humanity, which should be given all due credit and respect. It clearly shows that, despite the claims of Islamist terrorists, very definitely not all Muslims share their violent and genocidal racism.

The article’s at http://edlnews.co.uk/2015/02/02/moronic-troll-joshua-bonehill-and-why-he-probably-wont-go-to-stamford-hill/

Jack Renshaw and the BNP

Bonehill, however, isn’t alone on the Far Right in turning to anti-Semitism to shore up their dwindling numbers. According to Hope Not Hate, Jack Renshaw, a young nipper in the BNP is another open Jew-hater. In one of his communiques, he ranted about the Jews encouraging racial mixing in order to destroy the White race as part of a plan to enslave gentiles. It’s the classic Nazi conspiracy fantasy. See the article Big trouble for Little Jack at http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/insider/big-trouble-for-little-jack-4170.

Gary Raikes and the New British Union

Not to be outdone, Gary Raikes of the New British Union is also dragging British Fascism firmly back to the 1930s. His organisation actually has a uniform of black shirt and sweatpants. He himself appears to hold his meeting in full quasi-Nazi regalia, complete with military style cap and surrounded by flags, all emblazoned with the same lightning bolt motif Oswald Mosley used for the British Union of Fascists.

Gary Raikes: New Fuehrer of the New British Union

Oswald Mosley: Old Fuehrer of the BUF on the infamous march in Cable Street.

These tactics are likely to backfire massively on Bonehill, Renshaw, Raikes and the other stormtroopers. While there still is anti-Semitism in British society, there isn’t mass support for a blatantly Nazi party. The horrors of the Third Reich and the Second World War effectively destroyed any mass support Mosley’s BUF may have had. And even before the outbreak of the Second World War, they were struggling to retain their membership, partly due to its notoriety for using violence. Richard Thurlow in his book, Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918-1985, makes the case that the Far Right in Britain only survived into the post-War period by making Black and Asian immigrants the targets of their hate, rather than the Jews. Matthew Collins in his account of his years in the BNP, Hate, records private conversations with some of his fellow stormtroopers, who confided they didn’t understand the hatred of the Jews. Even so, members of the National Front were infamous in the 1970s for dressing up in Nazi uniforms.

One book I read recently by an American historian of the Far Right argued that Fascists, by and large, were never successful as mass movements. In Germany, Spain and Italy they owed their accession to government through deals made with other, established right-wing groups and parties, who hoped they could use these movements to bolster their own position. As for the uniforms, I understood that the wearing of paramilitary, political uniforms had been outlawed in the 1930s. Over in France, one of the main Fascist organisations, the Croix de Feu, found their vote actually increased when they gave up wearing them and began instead to look like an ordinary, mainstream political party.

We shouldn’t be complacent. Although the BNP has effectively collapsed into warring splinter groups, the rise of UKIP shows that xenophobia and racism is still an effective political force. Nevertheless, the return of the various Fascist grouplets to anti-Semitism and paramilitary costumes is likely to repel far, far more people than it attracts. This isn’t the image of a brave, new political force threatening to sweep through Britain. It’s the return of an old, collapsing ideology back to its original, murderous and discredited position.

Joshua Bonehill comes from Yeovil, and a few of the good people of that great Somerset town are so ashamed of the disgrace he’s bringing them that they’ve formed their own anti-Bonehill group on Facebook, Yeovil Against Bonehill.