Friday, August 08, 2008



GRIFFIN’S MELTING POT:
DECONSTRUCTING THE PROPOSED CHANGES IN THE BNP CONSTITUTION


By Nemesis


This years Red White and Blue Festival will be witnessing some profound changes within the Constitution of the BNP which will have significant effects on the leadership of the BNP and is relationship with the membership and, indeed, its future within British politics.

It is well-known that the BNP’s current incumbent Chairman, Nick Griffin, is concerned solely with personal power and the financial benefits accrued from the part.

Griffin’s strategy involves securing the long-term investment of his leadership whatever the cost. He has also made it clear that even if the party split he would be content with taking one-third of the membership with him, what he would consider a leaner BNP with a more compliant membership with the BNP image and name and machinery secured under his control. This shows how Griffin is disinterested in the agenda of British nationalism and is aiming for ‘planned failure’ rather than securing real and permanent changes to the British political system for the benefit of the indigenous British peoples. The BNP has become converted into a fascist-style party machinery based on a personality cult – the Cult of Nick Griffin.

Before we examine the proposed changes in the BNP Constitution let us remind ourselves of the Three Laws of Griffinism:

The First Law is that any change will ALWAYS be at the advantage of Nick Griffin and his power-base.

And secondly to provide any real test of real democracy within the party you have to invoke the Second Law, which is that those advantages currently accrued are preserved. That is, to see if there is any real democracy you have to examine those areas of the Constitution that provide total power for the Chairman but which are not being altered in the name of democratic reform.

The Third Law states that one must always avoid looking into the smoke and mirrors of the hype that is promoted by Griffin and his henchmen and see beyond the vaporous words. That is, the essence of any change in substance is always concealed behind false words and distortions.

The Third Law is easily invoked in his third paragraph where he launches into an attack on the ‘Usual Suspects’, trying to cover-up his tracks by sowing scare stories to mislead and intimidate the softer membership. He cites the nationalist opposition to himself by speaking of them in the same breath as the far-Left, deliberately forgetting that the far-Left are even bigger enemies to the Real Nationalists of the anti-Griffin camp. But Griffin does not allow inconvenient facts to get in the way of his lies and distortion, his real goal is to ensure that the soft underbelly of the BNP’s membership, particularly the more recent ‘March Violets’ are hardened up in support of him, seeing enemies and Reds everywhere. If the truth were to be told Griffin’s old game of ‘Reds under the Bed’ scenario may have worked when he operated the Front as a personal franchise and in the early years of the BNP, but the Decembrist Failed Plot has had the Law of Unintended Consequences. Because Griffin exposed it publicly many BNP members got to hear of the dissidents and the reason why they acted they did. The Jackson leadership challenge in the summer of 2007 and the abortive leadership challenges of 2008 have also made members acutely aware of the Griffin Problem and the reasons for it. Griffin may have escaped the immediate consequences of the Decembrist Plot through sheer verve, but the fall-out is now continuing to settle. Many officials and senior figures are questioning and are waiting, waiting for a challenge or an opportunity to remove Griffin. Unfortunately, whether intentionally or through unpredicted consequences, many good BNP members and activists have either resigned or lost all energy for the BNP and it is a disconcerting factor whether their voluntary removal from BNP activism – itself a result of the Griffin Factor (the total demoralisation of members) – may play a role in handing the crowning of Griffin’s dictatorship on a plate.

Griffin suggests that the move to create new changes to the Constitution was driven by the membership. Clearly, another one of Griffin’s lies to give the illusion that he is somehow concerned about how the membership may feel when faced by a barrage of cyber-activity raising criticisms of the leadership during any leadership challenge period.

“It is hoped that the proposed commitment to a clearly fair and democratic debate will not only be appreciated by our members but will also reinforce the party's democratic credentials to a wider audience.”

Clearly we must apply the Third Law and view this as yet another of Griffin’s cynical stunts, trying to soft-soap the membership and claiming that the further destruction of BNP internal democracy is in fact a democratic revolution! It is yet again further evidence of Double Speak yet again from the man who, within a microcosm, is turning a political party into an Orwellian nightmare.

Griffin talks about ‘no-hope’ candidates yet who is to determine whether any candidate is a ‘no-hoper’, least not the current incumbent of the BNP. If any candidate is denied the right to equal access to the BNP’s membership, or has obstacles placed in front of him/her, or they or their agents are threatened with disciplinary, how can any candidate present themselves as a strong and credible contender on an equal footing with the current incumbent? Such Double-Speak is reminiscent of Stalin and the Purges within the Soviet Communist Party. Nick Griffin is simply the British equivalent of Josef Stalin.

Furthermore, he states in a contradictory manner that at “the same time provide an important safeguard to prevent any leader, present or future, from trying to move beyond anything approved of by the majority of the Voting Members - the local officials and key activists who really make the party tick.”

That is a bit rich coming from a Chairman who has bullied, cajoled, intimidated and unilaterally forced through powers and changes to suit his dictatorial style and self-interest consistently since he attained power in 1999. It is no exaggeration to state that Nick Griffin has abused his position of authority and brought the party into disrepute many times in his career as Chairman. Why the Advisory Council ever lacked the courage and integrity to bring a charge against Griffin can only ever be explained by some of the supine members of the AC. The Decembrist Dissidents should have confronted Griffin directly as a united group rather than play games and plots against Griffin who could only win on such ground. Now they and the rest of the Real BNP have to contend with their misplaced strategies.

The Voting Members remain a contradictory entity in the scheme of the BNP Constitution. They could be a force for democracy within the BNP yet clearly Griffin sees them as a tool for his dictatorship as, applying the First Law, we can see that creating the Voting Members would be a step towards strengthening Griffin’s power.

Personally, I was always doubtful of the democratic nature of the Voting Members scheme as any scheme that is based on financial contributions is not really democratic and can be open to abuse. Surely Voting Members requirements should be based solely on the number of years of membership? The creation of an elite membership with more rights within the party seems to be reminiscent of the political cadres of the Bolsheviks and Chinese Communist Red Guards. The intention of the setting-up of an elite cadre membership has the capability of its members being indoctrinated by the leadership and being used by the leadership to support its aims as a loyalist wing of the party.

“The other particularly important change (several of them are minor, tidying up points) would be to allow future Constitutional amendments to be voted on by postal ballot.”

This point is all and well and good but its democratic credentials is dependent upon the people doing the counting. If the BNP was truly democratic its elections would be hired out to Electoral Societies whose remit is to count and deliver the votes of an organisation in an independent manner. Since we share concerns that the increased membership may not actually represent actual new members, but a creative accountancy exercise to cover-up financial discrepancies within the BNP accounts by falsely inflating the membership figures, who is to say that the ‘new members’ would not suddenly materialise from the BNP leadership at an election and whose voting slips would be cast in favour of the incumbent and his interests?

“This is why it was decided by the Advisory Council that the end of the RWB was the only time and place practical for the holding of such a debate and series of votes…”

Fair enough one might say but clearly this piece of undemocratic engineering would make a far-Left Union official blush in its audacity. By holding the EGM at the end of the day on the last day of the event means that many members and their families would be unable to remain for that debate and important vote. As a national party members obviously travel in from far and wide of the country and few would be able to stay for the debate and vote. That leaves a significant number of Griffinites and officials and other key players who would pack the meeting and organise sufficiently to drown out any oppositional arguments and votes. The presence of security personnel and Griffin minders employed in the service of the incumbent in such a small crowd would also serve to intimidate any anti-Griffin voices, particularly if the critics had any position or role in the party. Most appointments are owed to Griffin or his officials and the threat of a termination of a BNP ‘career’ may be sufficient to persuade any critic from voicing their opinions or casting their vote in the ‘wrong’ way.

“S.4.1. Elections for the post of National Chairman shall be held every four years, starting in 2009”

The question that must be asked what will be that actual circumstances for the leadership challenge in 2009? Will they be based on the current constitutional system or the new proposed one? Will any challenger will able to fight on an equal footing as the incumbent?

“S.4.2. Any member of the party may become a candidate for the post of National Chairman of the party provided that person has on or before the close of nominations is and has been a fully paid up member of the party for a minimum of five consecutive years, and has secured the signatures on his or her nomination paper of ten current Voting Members and one hundred members each with a minimum of 24 months continuous membership.”

How can we trust the Chairman who has displayed such ruthless and constitutionally abusive behaviour in the recent past to ensure that any challenger is not expelled or suspended, or threatened with such action by the Chairman? How can we be certain that any Voting Member would not be intimidated or pressurised not to nominate a candidate or to withdraw their nominations under such pressure? We have seen similar situations occur with the challenge by Cllr Colin Auty earlier this year. That candidate had to withdraw. How can we be certain a similar situation would not occur in then future?

S.4.4 gives the impression of providing a very real basis for internal democracy with the provision of equal access to the membership of any challenger. Using the Third Law we can see the devious and cunning mind of Griffin gambling on using his dictatorial powers to ensure that any resistance to his leadership is crushed at best or diminished at best. This is illustrated in the final sentence:

“In the event that unavoidable external circumstances render any of these methods of communication impractical they may be omitted or replaced as decided by a simple majority vote of a special meeting of the Advisory Council”

Quite clearly this sentence gives emergency powers to Griffin to create any set of circumstances, whereby a fair challenge is suspended and the election is then prejudiced by recourse to a simply majority within the AC. Griffin is more than capable of creating a compliant Advisory Council, selected by him and purged of any real critics.

“S.4.5. The ballot papers shall be kept unopened until the post has arrived on the third Thursday of October, where all received ballots shall be opened and counted under the supervision of two senior officials appointed by the AC who are not candidates, together with the candidates and up to two scrutineers each.”

Again, who controls the issuing of the votes? Bearing in mind the possibility of false paper members being added to the electoral roll we must all be acutely aware of how the ballot papers are issued. Where are the ballot papers to be stored and who is going to take responsibility for them? Surely by now we need to see some sort of electoral transparency? It is a bit rich for the BNP leadership to criticise alleged and real vote rigging by the other parties yet fail to provide the kind of genuine and independent electoral services that the BNP members deserve. Are they not worthy of real democracy?

“S.4.9. If an outgoing National Chairman is a paid employee of the party and either does not wish to remain as such or is not required as such by the new incumbent, he shall receive severance pay in line with the statutory requirement, plus one month for each year served up to a total of eight years, and one week extra for each year thereafter”

This is an interesting section. Clearly Griffin is looking both ways here as, although he is assuming that he would win any leadership contest, he wants to ensure that in the event that he lost his financial situation would not be drastically altered. Griffin would have served just over eight years as pad Chairman. Conveniently is the fact that he wants to ensure that severance pay is in line of one month for each year served up to eight years. Now if that isn’t self-interest I don’t know what is! That again is the First Law being put into practice by Griffin. Or maybe Griffin is hoping that he will be elected to the European Parliament in 2009 and his severance pay will be in keeping with his overall financial empire building that he is well-known for.

“S.5.6. The only other power of the Advisory Council shall be that it may call a General Members' Meeting by a two-thirds majority of Advisory Council members voting in a properly convened meeting with a quorum of two-thirds, even if this is opposed by the National Chairman”

This is where the Second Law operates in so far as though it looks democratic on the surface and seems to offer some sort of a safe guard against tyranny, we must realise that it is Griffin who decides the composition of the Advisory Council and he can also call upon his total power and influence and power of patronage to keep the Council in line. This is therefore an illusory proposal that fails because nothing is being done to actually to restrain or reduce the power of the Chairman. Who and when is the Advisory Council to be called? We have seen how impotent the Council has been in the past and it has rarely been called for a considerable period of time. Increasingly Griffin is ruling through absolutism and assisted by a clique of unelected officials and even non-members like Patrick Harrington of the Third Way National Liberal Party – an organisation which had recently promoted a black candidate against the official BNP candidate in an Essex by-election this year.

Surely, if real democracy was being created within the BNP to make up for the democratic deficit already apparent, then the members of the Advisory Council would be elected by the members, not appointed by the incumbent Chairman. Again, this is the Second Law at work yet again within the proposed changes of the Constitution.

“S.5.7. The National Chairman may also be held to account by a motion proposed and supported in writing by twenty Voting Members and submitted to the party's registered headquarters address not later than 14 days before the date of the Annual Conference.”

Again what seems like a democratic accountability proposal may not quite how we are intended to see it by the Leadership. Again, what kind of Annual Conference composition are we expected to envisage if they are to be held at the end of the last day of the RWB? Would it be easy to pack and to manipulate?

“Add S.14.3. No proposals to change any part of Section 1 of this Constitution, or to change or adopt any major policy, are to be proposed to either a General Members' Meeting or in a postal ballot until previously passed by the Annual Conference of Voting Members”

The key to this Constitutional strategy would seem to lie in the Voting Members whose votes and loyalty Griffin presumably believes he can rely on. Surely a ‘One Man, One Vote’ (OMOV) system is by far and away the most democratic (see Law Two again).
Griffin has rejected OMOV democracy within this least democratic of all political parties, dismissing as ‘Tory nationalists’ all those who call for a one-member one-vote (OMOV) system to replace the current ‘Voting Membership’ system within the BNP, which gives the vote on issues of importance only to those who can afford to pay more money for their membership. This is essentially votes for cash - exactly the phrase the BNP shouts at anyone who is accused of corruption at the ballot box. The attack on those calling for internal democracy within the party, and the inevitable result of such calls, is stated unequivocally:
‘This group must now accept that their scheme to put the destiny of the BNP in the hands of anyone who deigns to pay their membership has been comprehensively and permanently rejected, in favour of a system that gives power only to those who have earned it, and who continue to earn it. The argument is over, and anyone trying to raise it again against the repeatedly expressed will of the vast majority of the party will mark themselves out as a would-be saboteur and a candidate for expulsion.’
Griffin’s insistence in pushing forward the Voting Members can now be seen in its context. A former colleague of Griffin has stated that ‘the only thing consistent between now and then has been (Griffin’s) desire for a multi-tiered membership… something that has always seemed like an attempt to solve a problem that does not actually exist.’
So there we have it. Griffin’s Big Drive to Democracy has been a con all the time. By gradually introducing various systems of control and patronage and by manipulating the membership he has now got to the point where he can assume total dictatorial power within the BNP, based on the Voting Members and a castrated Advisory Council – all under the pretence of making the BNP look more democratic.
OMOV is common practice throughout all mainstream political parties and trade unions, yet it seems too democratic for the fascist Personality Cult of Griffin.
There is simply no justifiable and sensible reason to justify banning leadership elections from their current status to one every four, or even two, years. It is simply a recipe for further authoritarianism within the BNP. Far enough if the BNP was a party of government. An annual leadership challenge would undoubtedly present a problem and an unnecessary obstacle to an effective and functional BNP government. An annual election whilst in government would be a luxury it could ill-afford. But the mainstream parties all possess a democratic system of elections that are not restricted by the leadership.
Griffin is getting concerned. He is concerned at the first attempt at a leadership challenge against him carried out last year by Chris Jackson. The fact that over half of the BNP membership never voted has worried Griffin. This has made him even more determined to ensure that power resides not within the unreliable and largely apathetic membership, but within a trusted hard core of loyal activists – a cadre similar in goal to the Political Soldiers concept that he helped to create with Derek Holland in the International Third Positionist movement..
The Decembrist Plot by a group of senior officials along with its fall-out that nearly split the party has strengthened Griffin’s resolve to get control back before another challenge, direct or indirect, is mounted against him. Through manipulation and intimidation he was able to see off two attempts this year for a leadership challenge. This can now be considered now his last chance to centralise control further and to ensure that the Griffin Empire is consolidated and protected from any new threats.
Griffin is at heart a centralist and demands tight control over all aspects of the party’s policy and management. Witness the perceived threat to Griffin when the independent nationalist trade union Solidarity refused to cede to the demands of the centralising paranoia of Griffin. He pulled his support from his very own BNP members within the Union and actively supported a former National Front colleague, Patrick Harrington, who represents a political organisation opposed to the BNP.
It is clear that Griffin is not only seeking to totally control the BNP but is seeking to remould it in his image. To remould it he has to persuade the membership through manipulation, rigged EGMs and intimidation to give up what little remains of any internal democracy within the BNP and to centralise that power, legitimising it within an amended Constitution.
Once he has neutralised any opposition in the form of potential challenges he can pursue his manipulation and purging until he has full and unopposed authority in reshaping the BNP into a liberalised version based on the Third Way’s National Liberal Party. Through such means he thinks that he can make a legitimate broad-based appeal to some ethnic groups and Tory nationalists, removing any ‘racist’ image and presenting itself as a Tory Populist party. Like Tony Blair and the Labour Party, this will be Griffin’s ‘Clause Four moment’ when he can successfully rebrand the BNP and ditch the nationalist agenda. The liberal establishment’s agenda will have then been completed. Then will Nu-BNP be born and repackaged to serve its Puppet Masters on the electoral market.
All BNP members must attend the EGM on the Sunday afternoon following the RWB and make their voice heard. This is the ‘last chance saloon’. If Griffin gets his way he will have created a new Enabling Act that will give him sweeping new powers to remain as Chairman. Then it won’t just be democracy that will be dumped. It will be large parts of the BNP’s nationalist agenda and policies that will be quietly disbanded by a powerfully entrenched leader who can never be called to account.



DON’T LET GRIFFIN TAKE AWAY YOUR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS


USE YOUR VOTE AT THE EGM


REMEMBER - MAKE IT COUNT


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think all BNP members should read this. Deavin writes many articles for Griffin, and they are in constant contact, but if you note the date of this one, Deavin used it to help topple, Tyndall by singing Griffins praises. In this, you will understand how Griffin has plotted to con you all.
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"As British nationalism looks to the future, Dr. Mark Deavin urges us to adopt the
Politics of Persuasion
Spearhead - May 1998


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NOT SO LONG AGO, as I was walking down the aisles of a large Waterstone�s bookshop, my attention was captured by a book with the eye-catching title of Unlimited Power: the New Science of Personal Achievement. Scanning the sleeve notes, I was informed that I was holding in my hands the ��definitive text in the human potential movement,�� written by ��one of the leading thinkers in the psychology of motivation and achievement.�� Delving into the introduction, I found my curiosity further aroused by the claim that the book would teach me the ��laws of �Optimum Performance Technologies�,�� which were the keys to leadership, persuasion and success. Interested in any which might serve the advance the British Nationalist cause, I bought the book.

The central thesis of Unlimited Power is that the attainment of power and success in life is no accident but lies in the ability effectively to communicate both with yourself and with others. While this idea is obviously not new in itself, the book's originality and potential lies in its detailed exposition of the increasingly recognised scientific basis for successful communication. This incorporates, in particular, the system known as �Neuro-Linguistic Programming� (NLP), which studies and applies how language, both verbal and non-verbal, affects the human nervous system.

The pioneers of NLP were two Americans: John Grinder, a prominent linguist, and Richard Bandler, a mathematician and computer expert. Grinder and Bandler set out to understand how and why successful people were such effective communicators, and then to develop a system whereby such results could be replicated. Their research, confirmed by numerous studies since, supported the theory that presentation was the most crucial element in any successful communication. In fact it was discovered that only a small amount of what is communicated between people (around 7 per cent) is transmitted through the actual words themselves. The rest derives from how those words are presented, particularly in the tone of the language used and the psychology of the communicator.

DEVELOPING RAPPORT
According to this theory of communication, even the most fundamental truth will have little effect unless it is presented in a manner which, by developing a substantial amount of natural rapport with the targeted audience, is capable of achieving effective persuasion. Such persuasion, moreover, is ultimately dependent upon the extent to which a sophisticated tactical flexibility is employed by the communicator to enable him to establish the necessary �agreement frame� with the particular audience he wants to persuade.

How to produce this �agreement frame� most effectively forms the underlying basis of the NLP philosophy. The proposed method has been aptly described by Anthony Robbins, author of Unlimited Power, as �Aikido politics�, whereby the communicator seeks to produce the least possible resistance in his targeted audience. The idea behind this theory is that, rather than pushing aggressively or trying to bludgeon an acceptance of an argument, a successful communication is best achieved through gently �aligning� an opposing viewpoint with that of your own by finding points of agreement, and then gradually �leading� the other viewpoint around to your position. By this method, it is argued, an �avenue of redirection� can be created which can often adroitly sidestep any possible or expected hostile response.

Based upon neurological and psycho-logical arguments, the theory of �Aikido Politics� proposes that people are more easily persuaded of something if the persuader communicates with a sense of humility and modest diffidence, using moderate, uncontroversial language which avoids, where and when possible, the triggering of negative responses in the targeted audience. In the considered view of Anthony Robbins, who has helped shape the communication strategies of some of the world�s most successful businesses, this approach is essential to successful persuasion: ��Everything I know about communication tells me to build from agreement, not from conflict,�� he insists.

FRENCH EXAMPLE
Well, before I had finished reading Unlimited Power, I found myself assessing the potential for harnessing some of the major principles of �Aikido Politics� to the cause of nationalist politics. And then it dawned on me that I had actually read, only a short time before, an account of how a modern nationalist political party had indeed applied such principles with tremendously successful results. The party in question was France�s Front National, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen.

As far back as the 1960s in fact, the early pioneers of the French Front National had recognised the NLP principle that only effective communication could lead to political power, and that such communication was possible only by the development of sophisticated tactical flexibility. In 1962, for example, the French Nationalist thinker Dominique Venner, writing in D�fense de l�Occident, called for an end to the ideological rigidity which prevented both the unity of French Nationalism and its popular appeal. In future, she insisted, ��(the) political struggle must be waged more through the use of ideas and artfulness.��

From its creation in 1972, therefore, the strategy of the Front National has been based around a flexible communication policy, both in its internal organisation and outward politicking. The adoption of a rigid ideological stance has been carefully avoided in order to provide a common umbrella within which the previous disparate elements within French Nationalism could join together and break out of the political ghetto. Only such flexibility has allowed a professional and unified party to develop from superficially diverse groups, ranging from Catholic traditionalists to pagans, and from former resistance fighters to wartime supporters of the Vichy regime.

MODERN METHODS
Likewise, the party made an early decision to divest itself of outdated and limiting political language and imagery in order to enable it to develop into a more modern force able to attract a much wider audience. The idea was not to retreat - in any case impossible for a movement at the very bottom of the political pile - but to advance in a different direction through the employment of flexible communication strategies. This approach was summed up in 1979 by a leading French nationalist Maurice Bardeche as a ��realpolitik of the Right,�� which was ��the only route which remains open to us to leave the ghetto in which (we are) trapped.��

It was certainly only through the adoption of such tactics that the Front National was able to reap the dividends of the inroads made by the Nouvelle Droite (New Right) intellectual movement, which emerged during the 1970s. Based upon a cultural approach to politics which sought to transcend traditional party partisanship, this tactic was correctly perceived as helping to enable French Nationalism to move beyond traditional areas of influence and into the political mainstream. In fact, the New Right arena provided a bridge between the mainstream conservative and liberal parties and nationalist ideas over which several individuals, currently senior FN figures, passed.

In the early 1980s the FN�s flexible communication strategy reaped further dividends when the party captured the Club de l�Horloge, a Gaullist think-tank led by Yvan Blot, then an influential member of the Gaullist party, and JeanYves le Gallou, then prominent in the Republican Party, both of whom passed over into the ranks of the FN. Perhaps the most important catch resulting from such tactics, however, was Bruno Megret, effectively the FN�s current second-in-command. Megret was a member of the RPR�s central committee and even served in the ministerial private office of Robert Galleg prior to the Socialist victory of 1981. In 1985, in the wake of the development of strong informal links, his Republican Action Committee merged with the Front National.

SOPHISTICATION
Megret has developed further the sophistication of the FN�s communication tactics. Indeed, in accord with the findings of the Neuro Linguistic Programming pioneers relating to the importance of presentation to any human success and, in particular, to the theory that effective persuasion is best achieved by the use of moderate, uncontroversial verbal and physiological language, he has striven to give the FN a more moderate and less abrasive image. In an interview in 1993, for example, he used such an approach in describing his party:-

��We are not on the extreme Right, because overall our ideas are moderate. I say that they are traditional ideas, and what has actually happened is that the whole of the political class has shifted towards the Left. Those who have remained faithful to themselves on the centre-Right today find themselves on the extreme Right of the board. But this is an optical illusion, not a real political position.��

Even Jonathan Marcus, the anti-FN author of the highly informative The Front National and French Politics: the Resistible Rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen (Macmillan, 1995), has recognised the uniqueness of the FN�s communicative success and political maturity. He admits in fact that by acting in such a manner the party represents something much more than simply a resurgence of a long-standing current in French politics running back through the collaboration of Vichy

Vichy to the fascist leagues of the 1930s, and has actually revolutionised the potential of French Nationalism. ��What distinguishes Le Pen,�� Marcus points out, ��quite apart from his ability to build and maintain a cohesive and well-rooted political party on the Far Right is his self-proclaimed acceptance of not just the electoral path to power but of the parliamentary system itself.��

Marcus has also admitted that, by employing a sophisticated form of political language semantics, the FN has been highly successful in throwing derogatory labels back in the faces of its opponents. Actually, in line with the NLP theory, the FN has shaped its communication strategy in a manner which, where and when possible, produces the least amount of resistance in ordinary French people.

RECOGNISING DIVERSITY
A presentation of the FN�s beliefs that could be misunderstood or easily categorized by political opponents as an unrealistic and confrontational �racism�, gave way to a practical, subtle and mature exposition of the right of the peoples of mankind to their own ethnic and cultural identity. Consider Jean-Marie Le Pen's refined affirmation of the FN�s opposition to mass immigration into France:-

��In this world where different races, different ethnic groups and different cultures exist, I take note of this diversity and this variety.��

Rather than run chest-bared, Kamikaze-style, full steam into hostile accusations of �racism�, the FN has regularly cleverly side-stepped such attacks and turned them on their head. This approach was summed up by Yvan Blot, who in 1993 pointed out, quite logically, that it was actually the philosophy of �anti-racism� which was motivated by hatred, as it was ��based upon a hatred of races which are seen as being obstacles to a perfect unity of mankind.�� Such thinking has even extended to the creation of an FN group for patriotic French Jews - the Cercle National des Juifs Fran�ais - headed by an Algerian-born Jewish ex-serviceman and FN municipal councillor. This, Jonathan Marcus argues, ��displays another tactic of the Front and its associated organisations: the inversion of charges of racism,�� which, as he further points out, has served to confuse and weaken the FN�s opponents, undermine anti-FN resistance, and widen the party�s appeal and influence.

The Front National has certainly been quick to realise the value of the tenet, taught as a central plank of Neuro Linguistic Programming, that a failed communication is usually the result of deficiencies in the communication itself, and that the solution is not to reject aggressively all possibility of persuading the subject - thus becoming even less likely to achieve success - but to reshape the communication in order to make it more appealing to the targeted audience. Le Pen's party has in fact put into practice the NLP theory of �pacing and leading�, based upon the idea that a gradual and subtle degree of bridge-building ingratiation in a potentially hostile environment cannot only result in a breaking down of barriers but can eventually lead to an idea that was once attacked as being beyond the pale being accepted and taken up by the former attackers. Through this method, moreover, the process of successful persuasion and legitimacy becomes self-perpetuating.

SETTING THE AGENDA
This has been witnessed in the way in which the FN has been increasingly able in recent years to set the political agenda on the immigration question. Between 1986 and 1988, in the wake of the FN�s first major electoral breakthrough, and again after 1993, French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua actually advocated a policy of winning back FN voters by talking tough on immigration and other issues. By this time, however, the FN�s ascent into the political mainstream had already been achieved and Pasqua�s efforts merely served to consolidate its position. In the view of one disgruntled, anti-FN commentator, the result of such such a process has been that over the last twelve years France has witnessed a ��normalisation of racist rhetoric.��

Such �pacing and leading� also seems to have proved successful for the FN in its attempt to persuade the people of France that it represents a fresh and original force in French politics with the ability to unite the nation across traditional party political boundaries. Bruno Megret has long argued that the old distinctions between Left and Right in France are no longer relevant and that while previously the French political process was a debate between Marxists and liberals over the social and economic organisation of a country it was now solely ��between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, between identity and internationalism.��

And perception does indeed seem to have become reality in that, unlike other parties, the FN appeals to voters across the traditional political spectrum. Jonathan Marcus has commented that the FN�s electorate, at least sociologically, seems to stand somewhere between Left and Right - the result not of the �extreme Right� expanding but of the FN broadening its appeal beyond the traditional boundaries of French Nationalism.

LESSONS FOR US
So what does all of this mean for the future of British Nationalism, and for the BNP in particular? Well, one of the most important ideas behind Neuro Linguistic Programming is the theory of �modelling�. This is based upon the belief that success in any area of life can be achieved by taking the time to model those who have already succeeded in that particular area. Learning from the advances of others, after all, is one of the most fundamental aspects of all human progress. In the world of technology, for example, every advance in engineering or computer design follows naturally from earlier discoveries. In the business world also, companies which fail to take account of the experience of others very rarely prosper.

Politics is no exception, and the BNP must fully appreciate this reality if it is to progress to the required heights of political power in this country. Such a process must entail, not a blind copying of the Front National, but a flexible acceptance of certain fundamental truths of successful human communication and persuasion.

In fact, the BNP does not necessarily have to look to the FN experience for proof of the effectiveness of such principles. At the local level, the party has already proved their validity by using them to bring about its most important political success to date: the election in 1993 of a local councillor to MilIwall ward in Tower Hamlets.

It is now generally accepted by informed opinion that the MilIwall victory was made possible by local leaders taking full advantage of local conditions to initiate a skilful strategy of bridge-building and ingratiation with local white residents which resulted not only in the legitimisation of the BNP as a major force in local politics but as the deserving representative of the white community as a whole. The key to this process of �pacing and leading�, moreover, was the employment of a communication strategy whichproduced a high degree of rapport and a low level of hostile resistance in local people.

FIGHT FOR RECOGNITION
This fact has been emphasised in a book which came out in 1997 on the history of British nationalism�s fight for political recognition. Edited by Mike Cronin, a lecturer at the University of Sheffield, and misleadingly titled The Failure of British Fascism, chapter seven of the book, written by Nigel Copsey, is devoted to the BNP and provides a very interesting interpretation of why the party�s �Rights for Whites� campaign in Tower Hamlets was so successful. Significantly, Copsey criticises previous media and academic interpretations for not recognising that to a large extent the BNP earned its victory in MilIwall by the use of skilful communication tactics and so ��brought itself�� into the local political mainstream.

As Copsey points out, ��... the quasi-liberal discourse of �Defend Rights for Whites�, with accompanying appeals for �Justice�, identified the BNP with a ��public-spirited campaign,�� while its rational, �liberal� discourse seemingly divorced the BNP from the irrational, injudicious extremism of fascism.�� And, he goes on, ��the BNP�s message was �reasonable� and �unextreme�: the rights of white residents had to be defended in the areas which affect everyday lives.��

Copsey also recognises the fact, pointed out out earlier in relation to the experience of France�s Front National, that the success produced by these tactics becomes self- perpetuating. In the case of Tower Hamlets, he points out, the attempts of the Liberal- Democrats to hang on to local white voters,increasingly attracted to the BNP, by talking tough on BNP issues actually helped to legitimise the mainstream discussion of immigration-related issues and open up further legitimate political space for the BNP. Then, in the run up to the MilIwall victory, the BNP gained further political ground by merely bringing the genuineness of the Liberal-Democrats� convictions on these issues into doubt.

MYTH
It is a widespread myth in British nationalist circles that the failure of the National Front to make an electoral breakthrough at the 1979 British general election resulted from Margaret Thatcher�s famous public statement that a Conservative Government under her leadership would not allow Britain to be �swamped� by peoples from different cultures. If anything, however, given the impetus which Charles Pasqua gave to the success of the Front National in France, and which Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats gave to the success of the BNP, Thatcher�s statement should have provided the NF with a springboard into the political mainstream.

The reason that this didn�t happen, and the reason that tens of thousands of potential voters flooded hack to the Tories, was because the NF had a substantial image problem which a flawed national communication strategy merely served to exacerbate. Nigel Copsey believes that the legitimate political space which opened up for the NF in the late 1970s could open up again for the BNP in the late 1990s, particularly if Immigration-related issues are mismanaged at the national level. He insists, however, that the only plausible way in which the BNP could consolidate this space would be if it adopted the �careful nationalism� of France�s Front National. Only by employing such tactics would the BNP be able to attract a wider-level support and dissipate �fascist� smear campaigns by elements of the media.

Of course, it might be easy to contradict such thinking by arguing that the media will always be hostile to any form of organised British patriotism and that the BNP will always be smeared with the �fascist� tag regardless of the reality of the situation. But this kind of absolutist pessimism is incorrect and self-defeating. While undoubtedly biased against us, the media are actually made up of thousands of individuals many of whom can be influenced if they are fed the right kind of communications.

Michael Newland proved this when as BNP Press Officer he succeeded in bringing about a marked improvement in the objectivity with which the party was treated by the media - largely by the intelligent, moderate and accommodating manner in which he presented the party�s case. Whether they realised it or not - and whether they consciously desired it or not - the image of the BNP which became established in the minds of these people through such presentation was positive rather than negative, and this was inevitably reflected in their subsequent reporting where the derogatory terms �fascist� or �nazi, commonly used previously to describe the BNP, were invariably dropped in favour of the much more friendlier �far-right� or �ultra-nationalist�.

GENERAL ELECTION
The BNP leadership�s decision to fight over 50 seats in last year�s general election, so ensuring the party�s right to national TV and radio broadcasts, also highlights the possibility of what can be achieved by the party adopting a flexible communication strategy. The media debate which the broadcast stimulated could only confirm the fact that the party had taken a large step towards the political mainstream, and the mature, reasonable and moderate impression made by John Tyndall in the broadcast itself has been vindicated in the new avenues of influence which are now opening up for the BNP.

This reality was highlighted further for me when I participated in the BNP�s hugely successful activity at the Countryside March in London on March 1st. The positive response of thousands of high- quality people to the party�s British Countryman broadsheet was a reflection not only of Nick Griffin�s tactical astuteness in what he wrote in it but of the level of support the BNP could attract among the discontented millions of �Middle Britain� if it gets its communication strategy right.

British Countryman encapsulated in its four major principles the aspirations of millions of patriotic Britons who are looking for a political home, and it stands to reason, therefore, that the same principles should encapsulate everything to which the BNP itself aspires in the coming years. In everything we say and do, through our total image, we must present ourselves nationally as the party of Democracy against Plutocracy, of Freedom against Euro-tyranny, of Security against Fear, and of Identity against Multi-culturalism.

Only one woman on the Countryside March acted in an outwardly hostile manner towards my group as we gave out thousands of broadsheets, and she skulked away dumbfounded as I gently ticked her off in front of an audience of hundreds for behaving like a fascist and a totalitarian who wanted to undermine British democracy and freedom in the same way as the people responsible for the policies she was supposedly marching against!

The success of British Countryman is further confirmation of the reality that all political persuasion requires an altering of perception and is thus, inevitably, a battle of image. A battle of image, moreover, necessitates a level of tactical flexibility which allows the employment of as many different approaches as it takes to achieve success, and the rejection of absolutist and circumscribed attitudes which can only ever guarantee frustration and failure.

By fighting fifty five seats at the last General Election, and in the decision to contest enough seats at the 1999 Euro-elections so as to gain further national TV and radio broadcasts, the BNP has demonstrated its commitment to establishing itself as a legitimate presence in this country�s political structure. The time has never been more right for the party to embrace more fully the principles of �Aikido Politics� so as to propel it further and permanently into the political mainstream."

NorthWestNationalists said...

I met Dr. Deavin circa 1998 in Whitworth near Rochdale.

I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him

Anonymous said...

"This reality was highlighted further for me when I participated in the BNP�s hugely successful activity at the Countryside March in London on March 1st. The positive response of thousands of high- quality people to the party�s British Countryman broadsheet was a reflection not only of Nick Griffin�s tactical astuteness in what he wrote in it but of the level of support the BNP could attract among the discontented millions of �Middle Britain� if it gets its communication strategy right."

Ah yes, I see it now.

What are high quality people? Are they the lazy bastards who never put out leaflets, or stand as candidates? The ones who throw money at Griffin while he treats us like scum?

Griffins time is coming











To an end..................

NorthWestNationalists said...

The body and soul of the BNP are the heartlands of places like the
M62 corridor of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Places like the Black Country , the east End of London, and now the North east.

Anyone spot a similarity ?

It is the dispossessed white working classes !

NorthWestNationalists said...

Griffins paid security will of course be watching their p's & q's.

If they do not behave with true decorum, they will of course, get sacked, when Griffin loses !

Anonymous said...

An excellent post by 'Nemesis', NWN.

This EGM seems to be promising to be. either Griffins 'swansong', or his total control of white nationalism in the UK.

Having spoken to many BNP members it is becoming quite clear that Nick Griffin has become absolutely 'rotten'.

He promised so much, and delivered so little.

All the best to you NWN.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Anonymous for posting the most informative article from the May 1998 edition od Spearhead that many of us may not have read or remembered...

"I think all BNP members should read this. Deavin writes many articles for Griffin, and they are in constant contact, but if you note the date of this one, Deavin used it to help topple, Tyndall by singing Griffins praises. In this, you will understand how Griffin has plotted to con you all".

It doesn't make it clear though whether the architects of the FN were actually aware of the principles hehind NLP and activley applied its theories on remoulding the image and communication of the FN's message.

Perhaps Anonymous could clarify this point?

However, the important and crucial message of what Deavin has written from May 1998 is that image and communication are ESSENTIAL to winning.

If you fail to understand that then you consign yourselves to the political wilderness.

It's as simple as that.

What Deavin and Griffin did to the BNP in helping to remould that image (working up from the groundbreaking work from Tower Hamlets in 1993) can be appropriated by any position, ideology or opinion.

We must learn to adopt these methods that have been around for decades and to apply them to our role in removing Griffin and his cabal, and in instituting a real nationalist agenda but one which is sufficiently accessible to the puiblic and media whcih can give credibility and voting-power to its cause.

Anonymous said...

I see Purging The Truth has officially retired from Stormfront, but it's his parting speech which is really worth studying. Sounds to me like they're worried Griffin is going to be defeated on the 17th?

Anonymous said...

Those of you who will be at the EGM on the Sunday of the RWB must be aware that Griffin and his cohorts will be doing their best to pull the wool over the eyes of BNP members.

He wil be claiming that he is the most successful nationalist ever to lead a British nationalist party.

He will give a list of things that he claims to have achieved.

Some of those things will be true.

Others will be false - or half-truths.

PLEASE CAN ALL THOSE WHO ARE ATTENDING MAKE SURE THAST YOU HAVE SUFICIENT INFORMATION TO REBUT THESE FALSEHOODS AND HALF-TRUTHS?

For instance, the claim that he has over seen ONE HUNDRED COUNCILLORS.

This inflated figure includes parish councillors that don't count. Most of these contest a candidate literally walks into then post through lack of any competition.

Due to attrition by election failures, resignations and expulsions the total number of council seats held by the BNP has hardly moved.

Make sure that you are all ready to counter such bull-**** by Griffin and his bull-**** merchants.

Anonymous said...

Interesting top post by anonymous.

So the BNP's strategy is based on a self-help book written by a pseudo-scientist.

I am always amazed at how easily con-men are conned themselves.