Thursday 25 March 2010

The BNP and Irish racists – more in common than they’d like to admit.

A reader of the blog sent me a recent report from the Sunday World claiming that the fascist BNP (British National Party) was looking for budding Irish racists who shared its own twisted values - taking localisation into account, of course.

The report asserts that the BNP attempted to make contact with “the recently formed” INP (Irish National Party), with one British fascist spending three “frantic” days searching for it in Dublin.   However, as it appears that the INP currently exists only in the confused mind of its would-be leader, David Barrett, it was a mission that proved impossible.

The article states that an undercover reporter spoke to “BNP activist Paul Ryan” who revealed that the party was interested in getting a group it could work with in Ireland.

Possibly thinking of the days when BNP members were as likely to beat up Irish people living in the UK as any other minority – and probably still are  - Ryan admitted that his organisation “had a problem with Irish people in the past” but was now “open to the idea of a similar party in Ireland…  regardless of whether we are of Celtic or Anglo Saxon stock, we face the same basic threats to our heritage, culture, identity and ultimately our future.”

Funny. During my nine years working in the London of the 80s and 90s, I was struck – not literally, mind  – by the number of BNP members with distinctly Irish names.  And that’s just in the BNP...  never mind the waves of human settlement over the generations that resulted in your present-day Londoner.  So the idea of an “Anglo Saxon” or a “Celtic” race is every bit as fallacious as an “Aryan” race.  

So, as well as peddling their exclusive, insular definitions of "culture" and "nationality", the fact is that British and Irish fascists have a lot more in common than they would really like to admit.

Social Darwinists, eh.  When will they ever evolve?

See also:

An anti-fascist day out in London, Part One

An anti-fascist day out in London, Part Two

The Metro, the Poles, and Irish racism


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12 comments:

Ella said...

Hi GM, I just love that artwork! I have to laugh, I lived in London for around 8 years and I remember distinctly that the BNP did not like Irish people, in fact they didn't like anybody unless you were white and British.

Paddy's day never went by but that many paddies got beaten up by bnp members.

The BNP are not the only retarded fascists. In 1981 a load of them were tottling off to some fascist do in the Netherlands/Belgium with their mainland European compatriots. They were met off the ferries with Dutch fascists handing them leaflets about Irish Nationalist hunger strikers dying, woops! Suffice to say, fash bashed fash that day and there were many arrests. Oh dear!

The idea that the BNP are now embracing the Irish as members/compatriots. They do have a lot in common, they are stupid and racist.

INP or potential INP members please note there are more Irish people, or people claiming Irish descent living outside Ireland than in Ireland. Think about that.

Good post.

Anonymous said...

combat 18 were closely affiliated with the bnp in the early days as their enforcers.

There were also some videos of irish neo nazis celtic wolves on youtube but this is the closest I can find now

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76443

Tim Johnston said...

We have our own fascists - they're called Sinn Fein !

But I'd doubt they and the BNP would have much to talk about.
It's probably just best to accept that Nationalism and Fascism are by no means the same thing.....

Anonymous said...

It would seem the elusive INP do not care who their bedfellows are.
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/Orange-Order-in-BNP-link.6183084.jp

Anna said...

'People who have been themsleves oppressed like nothing better than the chance to put on a uniform and hammer some other repressed group' my school geography teacher

'When St Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland they swam to America, so they could become politicans and policemen'- Brendan Behan- playwright, drinker, & occasional speaker of the truth

'We often had the most trouble from the Irish.'- Maxi-my one time co-worker speaking of his life in a Pakistani origin family in 1970's 1980's England.

'Part of the reason England was reluctant to give Ireland Home Rule in late C19- early C20 was that Irishmen policed* the Empire for them as soldiers and policemen'- Irish school history book (*and how! -often noted for their hardnes)

'When I grew up in rural South Armagh in the 1920's, we would have thought of Crossmaglen as a garrison town, as so many men there had been in the British army' Cardinal Tomas O Fiach, 1979, at a small home coming reception after being made Cardinal.

'We are shocked so many of the very racist things shouted at us are from the Older people'- African immigrants quoted in a Dublin paper a few years ago.

Doesn't it all come down to poor education, Especially among the Older Irish people? And low self esteem, and not knowing who we really are as a nation? I recently read that Ireland is a country with a deep inferiority complex- I would believe it- and that is why Irish people find it so hard to admit when things are wrong?
Actually I lived in Guernsey, a beautiful place, late 1980's- 1990's, and would sometimes have had a little trouble with the English born residents- not usually the locals- but nothing very much. Nothing like the ingrained Hatred and contempt of the English that I met in many Univerity educated southern Irish who were working over there.

The Gombeen Man said...

As far as I understand, Anon, Danny Foley can still appeal the severity of the sentence. I don't know him personally, so can't comment on his personality or political views.

Anonymous said...

BNP is proposing the INP... huh. Does anyone understand what's going on? BNP is an extremely anti-irish party, why do they care so much about the Irish? Maybe because England failed to take over and rule Ireland. Nevertheless they can do it via the BNP who will control INP and it will gather a lot of supporters. Just wake up and see who is hiding behind this uprising xenophobic delirium of the last years. You don't have to be that smart.

Anonymous said...

Apparently the BNP is doing the same in Sweden. It looks like the British imperialism has found another way to impose its power.

That's why I call all the fascist pawns. In a few years you will remember my words.

AThousandYoung said...

Celtic and Germanic are definitely real things. They are ethnic divisions of the larger European culture, which is part of Indo-European, which came from Ethiopia, which came from Tanzania originally.

AThousandYoung said...

However...let us not forget...

http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/unit_2.html

The Gombeen Man said...

Sure, I accept that. I'm just saying the idea of defining the Irish as "Celtic" and the English as "Anglo Saxon" is nonsense. Especially in places like London were there were waves of Irish immigration over the centuries. Hence the decidedly Irish-sounding "Anglo Saxons" I refer to.

In fact, a lot of the race rhetoric used by these people, and their attempt to define people on purely "race" lines, has much to do with the idea of "Scientific Racism" espoused by Harpers in your very interesting link.

Anonymous said...

anyone else noticed the neo signs, i.e.celtic cross/circle flags at rovers matches lately?lot of fairly heavy abuse towards any player not of the aryan variety.bohs get stick even if theyre white tho.lol.