The far right British National Party has been named and shamed for using subversive tactics when booking a meeting room in Norfolk under the pseudonym Broadland Historical Society.
An email was sent to sent to members planning to attend the meeting at the White Horse in Trowse, near Norwich stating: “We are in the downstairs meeting room. Use the entrance in the car park… The meeting has been booked under the name Broadland Historical Society. Please be discreet when in the bar area.”
The meeting was due to be attended by the party’s eastern area regional organiser Eddy Butler to discuss upcoming 
European and county council elections. Perhaps organisers were remembering what happened last year when police were called to a BNP meeting at Stoke Holy Cross, near Norwich, attended by controversial leader Nick Griffin. Villagers had already objected to his presence and vandals struck, smashing windscreens and damaging cars with paint, while the meeting took place.
An indignant Andrew Coleman, landlord at the White Horse cancelled the latest booking the moment he was warned of the group’s true intentions.
“A lot of groups use our facilities and, when they made the booking, this seemed like a perfectly legitimate organisation. We can’t get involved in these kinds of politics, particularly as they weren’t open and honest about it from the start. It’s not the type of people you want your pub to be associated with."
Yet the home page on the BNP‘s website incongruously boasts that it "believes in telling the truth, even if it is sometimes uncomfortable to hear or offensive to those who would rather bury their heads in the sand than face real problems in our society."
In a democracy, every political party is entitled to its own views, but these subversive tactics demonstrate that the BNP is cowardly at the most basic level when it comes to promoting its vile, extremist right wing views.
I certainly think it needs to do a re-write on its homepage if it is too afraid to tell the "truth" when booking a meeting room. Would you rent them a room?
The BNP is obliged to use false names because of bullying and harassment by the media and by anti-BNP activists. This bullying contravenes: 1. The anti-bullying code of the NUJ, which says that in the workplace (the workplace includes meeting places and the media for all political animals) you must not ostracise, denigrate, twist or distort facts, etc. (it is on page 6 of the NUJ Stop The Bullying leaflet).
2. The Race Relations Act 1976 s.1, which says you may not treat one person less favourably than another on racial grounds in certain areas of life, one of which is services (s.20). Racial grounds is defined at s.3 as being any of the following – “colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins”, e.g. white, or British, or British National. This applies to discrimination against majority as well as minority racial groups.
3. Article 10 of the Human Rights Act, which at para 2 says that your freedom of speech and association must not remove the freedom of speech and association of others.
4. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the General Assembly on 13th September 2007 by majority vote. (Australia, Canada, USA, and a couple of others voted against, not surprisingly). “Indigenous” does NOT include ethnic minorities: it means the natives of any country, which in most countries are the majority. The rights are massive – you should read it.
You have broken a lot of laws all at once – statutes, some of them (the highest form of law). It may be of use to you to check these laws out before you make any further public statements without doing some research first, but instead using assumptions.
Just goes to show how I walk about with my head in the clouds, as I had no idea about this and yet my children are at the school in Trowse just opposite The White Horse. Well, well. . .
Edith, that’s a very weak argument. You seem to be relying on confusing being a white Briton with being a supporter of the British National Party, and they are not the same thing at all. If the owner of a hall decides to refuse room bookings by the BNP it is not racial discrimination; they are not objecting to the room being used by white people, but to it being used by a party which they consider unacceptable. Not being able to hire a room doesn’t prevent your freedom of association; you just might get cold and wet meeting outside instead.
Mr.Boothroyd implies that the landlord’s refusal to hire his room to the B.N.P is due to him finding them unacceptable. I would suggest that his attitude may very well have more to do with the treatment he might sensibly expect to have meted out to him by the B.N.P.’s enemies.
If the B.N.P.’s opponents weren’t hell bent on either intimidating, assaulting or damaging the property of B.N.P. supporters and if BNP supporters were not hounded out of jobs where there is absolutely no evidence or, indeed, suggestion that they have allowed their opinions to lower their professional standards, then we will be better able to judge whether people really do find them unacceptable or whether they just fear the consequences of being associated with them. Two profoundly different scenarios.
It may well be that the B.N.P. are just getting a taste of their own medicine but I would suggest that their subterfuge in this instance is pretty insignificant compared to some of that which they choose to expose and which is usually true – truth hurts, they say, and the response to the B.N.P. would seem to support that.
Fair enough, it’s hypocritical to bang on about the truth and then lie about who you are to book a hall but compared to the bare-faced attitude shown to us by people who have a permanent armed guard and bullet-proof cars to keep them safe, it’s pretty small beer.
“Villagers had already objected to his presence and vandals struck, smashing windscreens and damaging cars with paint, while the meeting took place”
Indeed. I assume the irony is lost on you, as you made no more than an aside of this.
Of course some of the BNP’s policies should not, under any circumstances, be enacted. Of course many truly unpleasant people join the BNP, and it is to be hoped that their influence and support remains trivial. However it seems that some of the BNP’s opponents are equally unpleasant, with equally nasty policies. The people who did that are thugs and bullies who certainly seem to disapprove of freedom of speech, freedom of association and political freedom. In fact overall I think that is worse than the BNP, who at least claim to accept people’s right to hold different opinions from their own, and to express those opinions.
The people who did that were saying “you have an opinion I don’t like and that is unacceptable, so I will try to harm you, persuade you not to express your opinion in future, and not to associate with others who agree with you”. That is truly unpleasant.
No, I wouldn’t rent them a shed.
Ellie, my little munchkin. As odious as the BNP may be, there is a serious lack of political talent across all parties. We are entering a period of chaos across the western world and until someone with real leadership appears we are in deep trouble. At present I see no-one in the political systems of the UK, US and Europe to fill the real void that our political system has created.
PS Check out the Bank House in Lynn. Finally we have a decent drinking hole/restaurant in Lynn.
David Boothroyd – it is not MY argument. It is the words, in plain English, of two massive Statues, one UN Declaration, and the NUJ’s own rules. One of the statutes defines “racial grounds” at s.3 – didn’t you notice that in my post? Why don’t you read the statute before commenting, anyway? “Racial grounds” and “racial group” can be a skin colour, a nationality, a race, or an ethnic/national origin. Which of these words do you not understand? By the way, British is a nationality and a national origin. Bet you’ve got a degree, too. Bottom of the class for English Lang. and everything else.
As we are a democratic nation, the BNP need to have a platform, just as the odious far left and militant muslim groups do. That way, it’s up to the populace to see them all for what they are.
If the government are just going to shut them up and not allow them to speak, people will turn to them.
I’m agree with Welshcakes. Then again I wouldn’t rent them the outside toilet either
“A lot of groups use our facilities and, when they made the booking, this seemed like a perfectly legitimate organisation.”
Well the BNP ARE a legitimate organisation. They couldn’t book anywhere without getting their cars smashed up or riots taking place. That’s undemocratic whichever way you look at it.
Now I await the expose’ on radical Islamic groups overtly inciting death in mosques and even on our streets in full view of police escorts(which the BNP does not do)
I’m not BNP (feel free to check the recently published list) but my right to object about mass immigration has been stopped by similar undemocratic tactics.
At least they didn’t use the pseudonym “Beautiful Norfolk Project”
As one of the victims of the terrorist attack at the Mill at Stoke Holy Cross last year I am pleased that the BNP now book their meetings under a different name. We were put to a considerable inconvenience repairing the damage done in this attack and suffered personal injury from the caustic chemicals used by the terrorists. I have always thought that an organisation which resorts to terrorism has no legitimate argument and certainly being attacked did nothing to dissuade me from my conclusion that the BNPs policies are right for Britain today.
If we must meet in secret because our right to freedom of association is negated by groups who have the backing of those in power, then so be it.
That we seem to be plagued by individuals who pretend to be our associates whilst passing our membership details and meeting locations to our violent detractors, which seems to me to be a far more odious thing than simply having a peaceful meeting under a nom de plume,
does not seem to bother the multifarious commentators on this and countless other blogs.
I suppose all those years of communist infiltration has softened our society to odious deception.
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