The Nasty Right

There was a rather disturbing fact on the BBC website about an organisation called "Britain First Party" who have over 480,000 likes for their Facebook page. To put that in context that is more than Prime Minster who has around 350,000 likes for his own page and The UK Independence Party which has 260,000 likes. That is an amazing amount of Facebook likes for an organisation that many of use won't have heard much about in the press.

The organisation is fronted by Paul Goulding who has been at the forefront of its leading confrontational street activities and has been accused of ‘invading’ mosques. Goulding was once in the far-right "British National Front" and was their publicity officer. The "Britain First Party" was started to fill the vacuum on the far right of British politics as the "British National Front" imploded and lost support over recent years. The party sets out to combining the immigrant-bashing rhetoric of the "British National Front" with the intolerant hostility to Islam.

Some believe that man behind the scenes running the organisation is Jim Dowson, another former "British National Front" member who was once in charge of fundraising. Dowson has been  has been a religious antagonist and Protestant extremist since the early 1980s, when he was active in anti-abortion extremism in Scotland and once led an anti-abortion group named UK Life League, that was investigated by the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit.

Matthew Collins, director of research for "HOPE Not Hate" and a former member of the National Front  and British National Front said that the Britain First’s “confrontational style is attracting huge publicity and could potentially lead to a violent backlash. If nothing else, its provocative actions, such as distributing Bibles inside mosques and doorstepping Muslim community leaders in their homes and is generating a climate of fear.”

"Britain First Party" rise and success is due to its use of social media such as Facebook to get it's message across. It strategically marketing itself to people with campaigns which have shown support for the Armed Forces or against animal cruelty that people ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ (knowingly and unwillingly), which makes the post reach out to more people and so spreading the message and doctrine of the organisation. They also make good use of Facebook to organise protests and far right political rallys. Paul Goulding sees social media as the future of Politics and uses it well.

The "Britain First Party" are an anti-imagination group that describe themselves as a patriotic group and street defence organisation.  In the video on the BBC News website they seen at a protest in Rotherham protesting after the report of that up to 1400 girls were abused by mainly by Asian men. Tensions in the video are clearly high and there is a high police presence.  As the Britain First Party" went on a counter demonstration started, shops closed and the police had to step in to separate the two groups. It is only matter of time before violence breaks out, something some of the organisations 60,000 official members would  more than approve of against the non-British community in the United Kingdom. 

This is an organisation that used the name of murdered Fusilier Lee Rigby, who was killed by extremists, in there campaigns, even after his family made a public plea for his name not to be taken in vain for political purposes. It was reported that Lee’s mum said she was ‘heartbroken’ that her son’s name was allowed to be used by the party, saying Britain Firsts views were ‘not what lee believed in and has no support from the family’. This shows what little respect they have for the dead and how they are willing to make capital of anything that will get them support.

It wasn't the first time they used this tactic, back  2012,  "Britain First Party" used the images of two murdered young men and claimed they were white victims of racial murders as part of a flyer whose headline was ‘RIP the white British victims of racism... will YOU help honour their memory?’. The flyer was signed by Paul Goulding and read: "These poor souls – all of them members of our own nation and our own flesh and blood – have been deprived of life by violent immigrant racists in horrific and brutal attacks." The truth was that evidence came forth proving the murders were racially motivated, the parents of the victims were horrified at the use of the pictures of the young men.

Although membership of this group is still relatively small at the moment but their reach is growing through the use of social media. The message is being spread more effectively than that of the main political parties that many feel disfranchised by. Many are looking for away of punishing these parties, some turning to the right wing "UK Independence Party" which has parallels with the views of the "Britain First Party" in terms of immigration, it is just that latter goes further and blame the problems in Britain on those of non-white origin.

One has to remember back to Germany at the time of the economic troubles the county faced back in the 1930's and how it led to the rise of the "National Socialist German Workers' Party", better known as the "Nazi Party". They used same sort of techniques that were available to them  at the time to create a populist movement that took them from a unknown organisation on the sidelines of German politics to one that had complete power over the German people and whose ambitions based on race purity led to the second world war. The "Nazi Party" focused on the Jews while the "Britain First Party" has focused on the Muslims, the way they work is the same and it is something we all need to be aware of.

The saddest thing is that a high proportion of  "Britain First Party" would love the analogy I have made to them and the "Nazi Party" because they share the same goals and they are just as misguided as those that originally joined the "Nazi Party". The rest of us know better, but for how long before their drip feeding of their message sinks in and takes us over.

This is a free society and many of use value our right freedom of speech, expression, association and religion, and for that reason you can't silence this group without damaging those rights, but you can say and show what they represent. That is what I'm trying to do here and I hope like me you feel repulsed by their doctrine and you challenge anyone that has those views. We have just one world and we all have to live in it. This organisation shares more with movements like the Islamic State than it does with the values of freedom we all hold so dear.