More Left-wing Violence, Combat 18 and Possible State Involvement in Both
The other distinguishing feature of this period of our progress was a series of violent incidents in which our members were the victims. In the run-up towards the 1994 local government elections, one candidate, Michael Davidson, was attacked by a red mob in the street when canvassing and so severely beaten that he lost the sight in one eye. It was an inspiring, and also humbling, experience to be told by him when visiting him in hospital the next day: "This is not going to stop me!" It didn't, and he came close to getting elected. In the same period, another member was injured by a letter-bomb when opening a postal packet delivered to the party's headquarters PO Box, and our press officer at the time, Michael Newland, was savagely attacked and beaten up by three men who gained entry to his home on the pretence that they were pest inspectors from the local council. Though news of these three incidents was passed to the media, with one or two exceptions strangely little was reported about them. A comical aspect of this affair (though not so to the victims) was that on election day a 'civil rights' group calling itself Liberty stationed monitors outside the polling station in Millwall Ward so as to ensure that we did not intimidate people going in to vote!
The mob which made the attack on Michael Davidson had been patrolling the area in a motor vehicle just looking for BNP activists to beat up. Whether this particular patrol was initiated by some far-left group or in quarters elsewhere we will probably never know. The other two attacks - in particular the one on Michael Newland - had something about them suggestive of origins higher up. In the Newland attack the men had with them a motor van with a painted sign indicating their 'pest control' function. They were wearing overalls of a style which tended to back up this pretence. The incident had the flavour of professionalism. Yet the men's voices just did not seem to the victim like those of either normal left-wing militants or hired thugs. Also of interest was the complete ineffectiveness of the ensuing investigation. Did people in high places order this attack, and did they then ensure that the attackers would not be brought to justice? Again, we will probably never know, but other experiences of ours, which I shall duly relate, give grounds for thinking that these are not mere paranoid fantasies.
One violent incident that I will suggest was engineered 'higher up' was an attack made some while later, in September 1997, on my wife and me. This was on an occasion when we were walking from our car to a party meeting in Stratford, East London. Our security was slack this time - something for which I hold myself entirely to blame. A left-wing mob of some thirty or forty people were in the vicinity, having know about the meeting and arrived with the intention of disrupting it. We walked right into them. Not being satisfied with venting their hatred and fury on me, they hurled my wife to the ground, whereupon several of them kicked her about the head and body as I stood over her, desperately but mostly unsuccessfully trying to protect her from their blows. We were fortunate that the incident took place in a busy public place on a Saturday afternoon. Seeing onlookers gather, and fearing that they might later be identified by witnesses, the mobsters withdrew after having inflicted a few superficial injuries on me about the face and head. The head wounds that my wife suffered still troubled her some months afterwards. In our experience we were lucky compared with some of our colleagues, but my memory of the despicable assault by these animals on my wife remains with me. Were I ever to confront any of them agains, I could not ensure to act with 'moderation' or 'restraint'. Yet of course the media continue to persist in their subtle linkage between the BNP and violence without giving the slightest hint of these conditions under which we have had to operate. No mention of the kicking my wife received was ever made in the mainstream press - an omission which we can be quite sure would never have occurred had the BNP members been the guilty ones and their opponents the victims.
In a number of books and newspaper articles, and in one or two TV documentaries, evidence has been produced indicating that governments in Britain have authorised the creation of special units for the purpose of 'direct action' against known terrorists in Northern Ireland - a policy which in that context I do not consider unjustified. Could the same kinds of units be used in similar 'direct action' against political dissenters on the mainland, in our case operating absolutely lawfully and in persuit of patriotic objectives? Mr. & Mrs. Ordinary Citizen, sleeping comfortably in their beds in the certainty that such things only happen under dictators in remote foreign parts, would not countenance such an idea. We have reasons to be less smug.
There was another revealing feature of this period in our progress - perhaps not unrelated. The victory at Millwall in September 1993 might have been expected to usher in a time when morale and a spirit of optimism and togetherness in our party reached their highest peak. This result vindicated the policy of contesting elections and affirmed that the party leadership and the political strategies it had adopted had been proven right. Yet strangely the occasion gave rise to a most unwelcome outbreak of grumbling - and nowhere more so than East London, where the triumph had occurred. For a time this baffled us.
It was then that my attention began to be drawn to the activities of a group of people known as 'Combat 18'. I had heard of it previously but nothing had happened to induce me to take any special notice of it. Groups on the fringe of the BNP, sometimes causing it embarrassment by their ill-conceived propaganda and activities, had existed for years and probably always would exist. But evidence began to accumulate that this particular group was severely damaging our party, not only by its public behaviour but by its actions in inciting demoralisation and disloyalty among our members.
I convened a meeting of leading party officers to discuss this new phenomenon. The unanimous conclusion of this meeting was that Combat 18 was a device that was being put to use in a deliberate attempt to harm the BNP just at a time when our party looked to be on the crest of a wave of success and growth. And if this diagnosis was correct, the question that had to be asked was: who then was behind Combat 18? Was it more than just a lunatic-fringe organisation consisting of political illiterates and adolescents? Did it have a covert agenda of more sinister origins?
By this time, evidence had begun to pile up pointing to a number of illegal activities involving Combat 18, including the storage of weapons and a series of violent attacks on people, including not only political opponents but even fellow nationalists, among whom were some of my own colleagues. Yet up to that time no prosecutions had been made against members of this group. Why not?
By now I had become convinced that Combat 18 was an organisation of agents provocateurs controlled by the authorities in Britain for nefarious purposes of their own - all of which pointed towards an attempt to infiltrate, disrupt, divide and damage the BNP, and that failure to prosecute those responsible for its illegal activities derived from a policy determined in high places to leave alone those who were rendering valuable services to the powers that be by causing harm and havoc within our own party. In September 1995 I wrote an article expounding this view in Spearhead magazine. At the time it was not universally well received in nationalist circles, and some accused me of making unwarranted attacks on 'fellow nationalists'.
Of course, the vast majority of those who had become involved with this group were no more than gullible tools, although the group did undoubtedly include a criminal element. Its effectiveness as a means of damaging the BNP has now run its course, and these days it causes us little trouble. There is no doubt, however, that at a crucial time beginning around 1993 and continuing till about 1996 its activities and its insidious campaign of poison and disruption did weaken us considerably. The timing of this 'scam' is important. It hit us just at the moment when we were poised to capitalise on our first election victory. I regard this as no accident...
Source: The Eleventh Hour; John Tyndall; Albion Press; 1998; pp. 499-502
Does this not bring to your mind a certain organization? The EDL?
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