Four protesters were arrested, 19 people were held for ‘sporadic behaviour’, 500 police officers were involved in a £500,000 operation around the BNP’s annual festival of ‘family-friendly’ white supremacy and racial hatred, which also includes morris dancing and ‘traditional food’. Someone dressed as Barak Obama was put into the stocks and pelted with sponges by festival-goers, and a young girl burnt a ‘Gollywog’ toy after it ‘was found guilty of being black’, followed by comments of ‘let’s go into town and find a real one’ . Shorlty after this incident, the BNP leader Nick Griffin arrived around the fire, who oftens states ‘the BNP is not racist’. Songs supporting Hitler and attacking ‘ni**ers’ were played from stereos while BNP MEP Andrew Brons compared Muslims to smallpox, and ex-BNP cultural officer Jonathan Bowden called Jewish Israel a ‘cancer…we must renounce our support for’. Texan white supremacist, Preston Wiginton, who had come to the UK for the festival was sent back to the US by officials after landing at Heathrow Airport.
From The News of the World:
Angel-faced racist aged 12
Girl burns golly at BNP fun day
By Dan Evans, 23/08/2009
A LITTLE girl grins with glee as she holds a golly over a fire . . . while a jeering BNP politician finds the doll guilty of BEING BLACK during a vile mock trial and execution.
The baying crowd cheers when the toy - dubbed Winston - is condemned and dropped on to the flames to "die".
Goading on the assembled adults and kids the politician, a local council candidate, yells out these chilling words: "Let's get a real one . . . in the town we'll find one or two."
The sickening stunt was staged at the British National Party's annual FAMILY festival last weekend - yet the BNP insists it is NOT racist as part of its successful ploy to attract votes in elections.
Around 1,200 members converged on fields at Codnor, Derbys, for the Red White and Blue "fun" weekend. Our undercover reporter, posing as a supporter to gain entry to the members-only event, secretly filmed racism everywhere.
For £1 a go, people were throwing wet sponges at a man in a Barack Obama mask locked in stocks.
Elsewhere stalls were selling T-shirts with slogans like It's A White Thing and books such as Race, Evolution and Behavior - which insists whites give birth to larger-brained babies and blacks are prone to crime.
Supporters gave Nazi-style salutes and shouted Sieg Heil.
And in the "political tent", party chairman and MEP Nick Griffin, 50, was setting out how his party would deal with proposed anti-discrimination laws forcing the BNP to change its whites-only membership policy.
He said: "Since if we want to survive we will be forced to let them in, the key will be before we do so to change the party - to ensure that whoever's coming in doesn't have any control."
Saturday night was the climax of the festival - and when the vileness reached its peak. Firstly, around 50 skinheads took part in a PAGAN ceremony to summon occult powers for their cause.
They chanted incantations as they passed around and drank from an animal horn filled wth mead.
Two hours later, local council candidates John Coombes, of Maidenhead, Berks, and Dick Hamilton of Marlow, Bucks, were sitting with others around a brazier.
Hamilton's ghettoblaster blared out songs supporting Hitler and attacking "ni**ers".
Then began the "trial" led by Coombes, 45.
A 12-year-old girl there with her dad (we are protecting her identity) held a golly called Winston over the fire as Coombes "charged" him with "mugging, rape, drug dealing".
He sneered: "Right Winston, you're about to get cooked. Anything else to say?
"Says he ain't a drug dealer. He thinks he's not black. He's charged with being black. Now get on there."
Skinhead Hamilton chipped in: "If he jumps off he's innocent." Coombes went on: "He's guilty, guilty as charged.
"Let's get a real one - in the town we'll find one or two. They'll also be guilty of the heinous crimes I charged him with - may God forgive your horrible soul." Coombes repeated the charges then added: "He may have appeared innocent to you lot but I'm sure he done lots of things wrong."
During the weekend the party's other MEP Andrew Brons used his stint in the political tent to compare Muslims to SMALLPOX during his speech.
He declared: "I'm less concerned about the presence of mosques than the presence of the people that use them. Being worried about the presence of a particular mosque is almost like looking at a disease like smallpox and saying it's a problem with spots."
Ex-BNP cultural officer Jonathan Bowden, 47, also attacked Islam, and dubbed Jewish Israel as "cancer".
He bleated: "The only way this (Muslim) problem will be solved is if they go back - go back to their civilisation.
"(But) we must renounce support for Israel. Israel is the cancer that lies at the heart of much of this."
And Greater London Authority member Richard Barnbrook joked about BLACKING himself up.
The deputy opposition leader of Barking and Dagenham council boasted: "I've got balls made of steel. In my own ward, if I go around naked, and put boot polish on my face, they'd still love me."
In the evenings, supporters sat round campfires venting hate.
During one chat, Stockport area organiser Duncan Warner explained to our reporter in sick twisted logic why using the word "P*ki" was OK.
"P*ki means pure. So why do you get offended when all that they're doing is calling you pure?" he whined. "You get called a P*ki, how can you get offended by that?"
Elsewhere party supporter Danny Marshall, of Cotmanhay, Derbys, and his girlfriend Bev boasted of using intimidation tactics to rid the village of foreigners who'd moved there.
Bev said: "Where I live is National Front. It's BNP. There's this black family that's just moved in from Nigeria. An hour later they were out . . .
"They were coming to nick our jobs. They had an hour to get out of their premises - from us people, ourselves."
Marshall said: "The Lithuanians and Czechs are sneaking in because they're white. You find the f***ers on the doorstep."
Bev added: "These guys from Poland came into Cotmanhay and did a car wash. Somebody wrote BNP on their sign - once that was there they were gone . . . guess who that was? Me and Danny. I wrote BNP."
Elsewhere another man moaned: "If things don't become any better, and I become older, so I'm 70 or 75, I'll take a GPMG (machine gun) - seriously, I'm not joking here - and I'm going to f***ing destroy lots of people."
On one occasion shouts of "Reds, reds" broke out.
BNP members grabbed hammers and axes then charged to the perimeter fence. A lone anti-facism protester trying to get into the festival was stopped by police before the thugs got to him.
During the weekend police arrested 19 of the protesters outside - and one BNP member.
Meanwhile, half an hour after the sick golly burning the BNP's London organiser Bob Bailey arrived.
With him was Griffin - who stated last October "the BNP is not racist".
Together they warmed themselves on the embers.
From the Daily Mail:
Police spy in the sky buzzes BNP summer party, as four protesters are charged following clashes with officers
By Jaya Narain and Colin Fernandez
Last updated at 1:23 AM on 17th August 2009
Police trying to ensure a BNP festival passed off peacefully used a remote-controlled 'spy drone' to monitor potential clashes.
As anti-fascists marched in protest against the gathering by the far-Right party, the CCTV-equipped drone, which resembles a small flying saucer, allowed officers to film discreetly from the air.
Costing between £10,000 and £15,000, the 2ft-wide, 5lb microdrones were originally used by the military for surveillance.
But they are now used at civilian flashpoints, such as in firearms incidents where it might be risky to send in a police officer, or for crowd control at football grounds.
Police said the BNP's three-day Red, White and Blue festival on fields near Denby, Derbyshire, which attracted hundreds of supporters from across the UK and ended yesterday, passed with less trouble than last year's event.
As well as the drone, a police helicopter and more than 500 police officers, including mounted officers and dog-handlers were used to police the event, at a cost to the taxpayer of more than £500,000.
The protest march, organised by campaign group Unite Against Fascism, through nearby Codnor on Saturday attracted more than 1,500 anti-fascists.
Controversy: BNP leader Nick Griffin speaking today at the party festival in Derbyshire as hundreds of protestors clash with police in protest at the event
Chanting 'Nazi scum, off our streets', some tried to break through a police cordon just 200 yards from the festival site.
Some threw bags of flour, eggs and fruit at officers, and there were 19 arrests. Four were charged with public order offences, one also with unlawfully obstructing the highway.
Simon Darby, BNP deputy leader, accused the protesters of causing trouble deliberately so the far-right party would be blamed, adding: 'We are just ordinary people having a bit of a laugh in the sun.'
But T-shirts were on sale with slogans: 'It's a white thing' and visitors were also encouraged to throw wet sponges at a man put in stocks wearing a mask of Barack Obama.
Protester James McCord, 19, of Glasgow, said of the BNP: 'As far as we are concerned they are neo-Nazis who are committed to stirring up hatred and division.'
Steve Cotterill, Acting Assistant Chief Constable of Derbyshire, said: 'We have made fewer arrests than we did last year.
'The people attending Red, White and Blue have a right to do so in peace and safety but we also realise that people have the right to protest in a lawful and peaceful way.'
Preston Wiginton, a white supremacist from Texas, was banned from entering the UK to attend a BNP festival
From The Times:
Police tackle protesters at BNP festival
Simon Alford
Police arrested several anti-fascist protesters as hundreds of people gathered to disrupt a BNP festival.
Demonstrators aimed to block roads to prevent speakers getting to the far-right party's Red, White and Blue event in the village of Codnor, Derbyshire, and "kettle" the rally.
Kettling, also known as containment or corralling, is sometimes used by police and involves a large cordon to contain a crowd in a limited area.
The protests have been led by the campaign group Unite Against Fascism, the Midlands TUC and the Amber Valley Campaign Against Racism and Facism, who arranged to bus anti-facist supporters to the village.
Derbyshire police confirmed they had made a small number of arrests but the protesteors claimed they successfully blocked two road routes to the festival site, which is on private farmland.
“Those arrests were of protesters who had been acting unlawfully,” a spokeswoman said. Last year around 30 protesters were arrested after clashes with police
The main body of demonstrators, which is being monitored by police CCTV cameras, gathered in Codnor’s Market Place and at other approved meeting points. The crowd is expected to march to Codnor Denby Lane later.
Protesters said this morning that they had “occupied and blocked” two key road junctions in the village, before being dispersed by officers. Up to 200 people have refused to move from a road junction close to the festival site. A further 150 blocked the lane between Codnor and Denby between 8.40am and 10am. Several protestors were arrested before the road was cleared.
“We’ve managed to completely seal off the BNP event for over an hour,” said a protester at the Denby blockade. “Lots of Nazis travelling to the BNP rally have been turned away. The police have now pushed us out of the way, but we’re still here demonstrating.”
Organisers say up to 800 people have already gathered in the market place and more are expected to arrive by coach before the protest march begins.
The annual BNP rally, which began on Friday and continues until tomorrow, is now in its 10th year.
An open letter posted on the Unite Against Facism website claimed the event aimed to “build up a hardened neo-Nazi core at the centre of the organisation”.
The letter, which is signed by former London mayor Ken Livingstone and trade union leaders, added: “We condemn the BNP and its festival of race hate, and we urge people to reject this party’s poisonous and anti-democratic agenda.”
The BNP’s deputy leader, Simon Darby, insisted the party was not interested in trouble.
He said: “It’s not in our interests to cause trouble. We’re up there with our wives, girlfriends and children. We just want to have a good time, but these protesters want to latch trouble on to us.”
Yesterday American white supremacist Preston Wiginton was stopped by UK Border Agency officials at Heathrow Airport and sent back to New York, as he attempted to make his way to the festival.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6797463.ece
From the BBC:
Four charged after BNP festival
Four anti-BNP demonstrators have been charged after a protest against the far-right political party's 10th annual Red, White and Blue festival.
Three have been charged with public order offences and a fourth with obstructing the highway after the demonstration in Codnor, Derbyshire.
Most of the 1,500 people estimated to have attended Saturday's protest were co-operative, said Derbyshire Police.
Nineteen people were held for "sporadic behaviour" - fewer than in 2008.
Court dates for those charged have yet to be fixed.
The police operation cost about £500,000 and involved more than 500 officers.
A spokeswoman said 18 of those arrested were men and their ages ranged from 21 to 49.
The protesters were watched by an aerial camera mounted on a remote-controlled drone.
Demonstrators from United Against Fascism joined forces with the TUC and Amber Valley Campaign against Racism.
Most demonstrators gathered in Codnor's Market Place, chanting, "Nazi scum, off our streets" and waving placards.
BNP deputy leader Simon Darby said: "Local people wouldn't even know we were here if they didn't protest.
"We are just ordinary people having a bit of a laugh in the sun."
At last year's BNP event more than 30 protesters were arrested, although no-one was charged with an offence.