Mr Sceptic

He used to be a regular poster under a variety of names, about 6 years ago. Well, he's finally got his name in the papers!

http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/news/article/2886/bn...

Redmonk will know who I mean.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/88851...

172 EDL supporters were arrested yesterday after police discovered that they intended to attack the St Paul's protesters, once they had abused non-English bar staff in a pub.

Are these people really such low-lifes that they can't attend a remembrance event without getting tanked up, abusing ethnic minorities and engaging in violence?

Were they so disappointed by the banning of Muslims Against Crusades that they needed to commit violence against another group?

And more important, if they are, as they claim, solely a group to protest against radical Islam, why were they planning an attack on a peaceful protest with no Islamic connection?

How come, the arch-capitalists in the banking industry scream about government interference if their ability to make money is regulated in any way by government; yet when things start to go badly and they start to make losses they scream for governments to do something about it?

Have I missed something here?

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson has resigned his post to preserve his integrity following speculation over his links to the Murdoch empire and phone hacking.

Given that David Cameron's personal link to disgraced NotW ex-editor Andy Coulson is proven, and he continued that friendship long after Coulson was implicated in this scandal, how should the Prime Minister preserve his integrity, in the light of the Met Commissioner's example?

Only I'm struggling to see the difference.

Robert Maxwell plundered his companies' pension funds, to further his own agenda.

David Cameron is determined to plunder the pension funds of public sector workers, to further his own agenda - to maintain the low taxes and huge bonuses of his friends in the City, whose banking practices generated the slump and deficit.

At least Robert Maxwell did the decent thing when the game was up ....

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/latest-...

Surely the EDL would want to distance themselves from racism and support an anti-racism event, if the EDL is what they claim to be?

One of the claims of the YES campaign in the AV referendum is that people want to vote for the party they favour without 'wasting their vote'. What is wasting your vote?

For example, at the General Election, I cast my vote for the candidate who finished second. Was my vote any less 'wasted' than those cast for the candidate who came last? The winner had a 10,000 majority. Were 9,999 of those votes 'wasted', since they didn't affect the outcome?

Do we all have the 'right' to have our individual vote 'count', or 'affect the outcome'? Or is, as I'm beginning to suspect, the idea of the 'wasted vote' a complete fiction

Those campaigning for a "Yes" vote in the AV referendum have published a poster, claiming that BNP racist leader Nick Griffin is supporting a "No" vote, and using the slogan "Say No to the BNP - Vote Yes on May 5th"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/av/b...

Do others find this campaign as cheap, desperate and obnoxious as I do?

For the record, I'm a dedicated opponent of the BNP and their allies, and I'm coming round to the conclusion that a "No" vote is the best option.

Actually, my real question is "Isn't it a tad hypocritical of a questioner to pose a question concerning the freedom of the individual to put their point of view, while at the same time blocking people who disagree with him?"

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=At...

EU Dictatorship asked the question, but twice blocked me. Is he being ironic, hypocritical, or quite sensible given the nature of my views?

The Barking and Dagenham Post suggests that Richard Barnbrook has been expelled from the BNP, but the BNP website seems quiet about the loss of its only member on the London Assembly.

http://www.bdpost.co.uk/news/dagenham_politician_r...

And his profile on the Assembly website lists him as an Independent.

http://www.london.gov.uk/profile/richard-barnbrook

On a similar vein, but from a far less reliable source, does anybody know if Mark Collett has been re-admitted to BNP membership as stated on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Collett

Yes, I know that Wikipedia isn't reliable, but I'd be interested if anyone, possibly inside the BNP knows. Since Griffin's allegations that he made threats to kill were dismissed by police, the position might have changed.

who correctly predicted that the BNP vote at the 2010 General Election would be less than 2%

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Av...

Six months on, some of these prediction look quite hilarious! Any comments?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/04/bnp...

... or is he still your candidate for Sheffield Brightside?

The leader in today's Times seems to think not. Especially after their reporter was assaulted and ejected from yesterday's BNP meeting, after being invited in.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_a...

Is the Times deliberately lying about the BNP, or is the BNP lying about its 'new image'?

When asked for a definition, recently, one regular here kindly defined the term "Native Briton" as

"...a person born in Britain and the British Isles of indigenous decent that decent pertaining to European tribes of the Celts, Romans, Saxons, Danes, Vikings Normans, Pict's, through an indigenous line gelling in 1066 & 1602 with some European input thereafter."

A definition which, I believe, is lifted straight from the BNP constitution.

I can only trace my British ancestry back to my 10-great grandparents, one of whom was born in 1645. I have no knowledge of my 1602 or 1066 ancestry, but I had 2048 10-great grandparents and I don't know about the other 2046! But I am white and born in the UK, as are all my living blood relatives.

So, how much 1602, or 1066 ancestry has to be British to qualify? All? half?

I thought a nice simple definition of "Native Briton" would make things easier, but it's just made things less clear.

Unless that definition is merely a BNP construct, designer to exclude non-white British citizens? Surely that can't be ethical?

Can anyone help?

Let's not debate the rights and wrongs of BNP policy here. We've done that to death elsewhere.

It's prediction time, and it might be interesting to return to this after the election. Partly to say well done to some people, but mostly to ridicule those who are way off the mark.

So two questions

* what percentage of the total votes cast, will go to the BNP?

* how many MPs will this vote get the BNP?

I shall start:

Mr Sceptic's prediction:

The BNP will receive 2.5% of the popular vote in the 2010 General Election.

This will win them 0 MPs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Islam

This link has been brought to my attention by coward "mike UK" in one of his race-hate questions, but he obviously didn't read his own link.

It suggests European Islam would "combine the duties and principles of Islam with the contemporary European cultures, including Europe's post-Enlightenment values and traditions such as human rights, rule of law, democracy and gender equality."

Of course Radical Islam is at odds with Western democracy, but wouldn't such "European Islam" as described represent welcome assimilation and reconciliation of Islam and Western democracy?

My impression of BNP members is as follows, gained from conversations on Y!A and some e-mail conversations.

Some are old-style NF material; they talk about 'The White Race', defend aspects of 1930s Germany; their ideology is driven along racial lines. They talk about ethnic cleansing and deny that black people can be British.

There is a second group who have grave concerns about the level of immigration in the UK, and perceived inequalities in the way Britons are treated concerned with recent immigrants. These people are pragmatic, but not racially driven.

Here's my dilemma - on the day when Nick Griffin is possibly going to be elected MEP in the North West.

Griffin is undoubtedly one of the first type of BNP supporters.

It's my impression though, that most BNP supporters fall within the second type, and are uncomfortable being led by a man who, in the past, has shown himself to support racism, violence and holocaust denial.

How sustainable is Griffin's leadership if the party wants to move away from the "type one" BNP supporter, and attract more "type two" supporters?

I hope that Mr Griffin's lawyers are looking at this attempt to smear BNP leader Nick Griffin, by alleging that a donation to the BNP was placed straight into Mr Griffin's private account, and that he illegally failed to declare it. Unless it's all true, of course?

Given the loud noises Mr Griffin has made recently about the shady financial dealings of politicians, does this strike anyone else as a little hypocritical?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/art...

Many on Y!A have been up in arms at the government's failure to extend the offer of citizenship to Gurkha soldiers who left service before 1997.

As we have a BNP presence here on Y!A, I wondered what the BNP policy was on this - I trawled the news pages of the BNP website, but found no reference to this story, which seemed to dominate all other news media last week.

Can anyone help, possibly with a link?

In today's Times, it is reported that no evidence has been found to link the 12 men arrested last week to terrorist activity, and that no criminal charges are likely to be brought.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article60...

Should we be asking questions of those behind these raids, and should the PM explain why he told us that the police were dealing with “a very big terrorist plot” and criticised Pakistan for not doing more to tackle Islamist terrorism.

Is the government guilty of pandering to its critics by rounding up some randomly chosen Muslim students so that they look to be dealing with the terrorist threat of which they keep warning us?