Save Catford

2 liberal democrat councillors have been forced to stand down meaning a by-election in the downham ward on the 19th February.

It’s interesting to note that Tess Culnane will be standing for the BNP in that election

Tess was a member of the BNP for many years, standing in that same ward in May 2002 and picking up 500 odd votes and 20% of the count. She contested the same ward again in November of that year again picking up 500 odd votes and 20% of the count, but lost out to Mark Morris, one of the Lib Dems whose departure has led to this current election.

In that campaign the lib dems released an anti-bnp leaflet which led Tess Culnane to sue them for libel, a case she eventually lost saddling herself and her party with legal costs of a 100 grand. During this time she had been associating with the British People’s Party (an avidly neo nazi party in favour of white separatism, criminalising homosexuality forced expulsion of non-whites and jews and holocaust deniers), a party that had been proscribed by the BNP for being too extreme. Her association with this group and the court case led to Tess Culnane leaving the BNP in November 2005, where she moved even closer to the British People’s Party

Here she is at a BPP meeting

She was in fine company at that meeting, speaking alongside her where

Eddy Morrison ‘leading’ british neo nazi

Dave Jones

Lady Michelle Renouf celebrity holocaust denier and firm supporter of the likes of David Irving

Soon after she joined the National Front where she stood as a candidate for them in the Whitefoot ward of Lewisham in November 2007 (coincidentally this election was also brought about by the departure of a lib dem ’sitting’ councilor, this time however it was even more forced due to the discovery that Sarah Kentman had been using multiple identities in relation to benefit fraud, and had also not attended a council meeting for over 6 months). Tess Culnane only picked up 95 votes at this election, but still managed to come in ahead of both the greens and the UKIP (technically she stood as an independent as the NF hadn’t filled their accounts in time with the electoral commission so they couldn’t be named on the ballot)

The following year she was busy again standing in elections for the NF, first the GLA elections in May for the Greenwich & Lewisham constituency where she picked up nearly 9,000 votes, and then again as part of the circus that was the David Davis show in Haltemprice & Howden where her paltry 544 votes still put her in 4th place in that contest

During her time as a NF member she continued to attend & speak at meetings and rallies of the British People’s Party, one such one was the BPP Nationalist Unity Rally held only a few months ago. Here’s a few snippets of the BPP’s policy manifesto that must have attracted Tess to that group

The creation of a White Workers’ State based on National Freedom, Social Justice, Duty and Responsibility

The ending of all non-European immigration and the introduction of a compulsory, phased, humane policy of repatriation

The protection of the unborn by stopping abortion on demand and allowing only it only in extreme and special circumstances

The replacement of all multi-cultural and alien art with natural, traditional British art forms

We will secure the existence of our people and a future for White children

While Tess was building up her base in the south of the borough with the NF, her former party the BNP were also hard at work there, during the GLA elections for example they’d regularly get 50 odd people out leafletting and door-stepping, despite the fact they weren’t even standing anyone in the constituency elections in that area.

With the election in February coming up the BNP and Tess appear to have kissed and made up and she will stand once again for them in that ward. It’s an odd choice on the surface for the respectability seeking euro nationalist BNP who have moved in an almost opposite way to Tess of recent years who seems far too much of an unreconstructed racist for whom the BNP were nowhere near as extreme as she would have liked them to be. No doubt the lure of her support base in the area was enough though for the true colours of the BNP, and Nick Griffin, to shine through though and accept her back into the fold - despite her firm support for the late John Tyndall in his internal battles with Griffin while Tess Culnane was still a member of that party.

No doubt in the lead up to the election we’ll see the usual round of liberal anti-fascism swoop into place, the usual impotent cries of ‘vote anyone but the BNP’ and the desperate pleas to bolster support for the various mainstream parties whose policies and actions over the last couple of decades have given rise to the conditions that lead to the ever increasing support for parties like the BNP in the first place. If this is even considered by liberal anti fascism it’s quickly forgotten and the push to return to power those who will continue to perpetuate those conditions is pursued with vigour - a defeat of the BNP at the polls is then lauded and backs are patted all round until the next time round when the whole circus starts again and no one stops to wonder why the support for the far right continues to grow.

As much as the BNP, NF and BPP are despicable extreme organisations - by far the biggest threat at the moment to the working class of all colours is those who actually have their hands on the levers of power, be they new labour or new tories - it’s their policies and behaviour that have given rise to the kind of conditions that have allowed parties like the BNP to flourish - the political abandonment by a supposedly pro working class party of their natural constituents in favour of narrow middle class middle england and the continuation and deepening of thatcherite neo-liberal policies by new labour led to a massive political vacuum as all three mainstream parties fell over themselves to ape each others policies and chase after the slither of marginal middle class middle england issues/constituencies where general elections were won & lost and delivered to the successful party the right to administer neo-liberal policies on behalf of capital

Vacuum’s, in politics, are always eventually filled - the Left in the UK proved their complete and utter incapability to do so with a parallel disengagement from what should be their natural constituency almost aping that of the mainstream parties - the issues of the working class in the UK were just not sexy or international enough for the largely academic/intellectual left who became blind to the very real issues confronting the working class in this country. The working class of this country had failed ‘The Left’ who were constantly jumping from pillar to post looking for a new agent of change whether that be students, muslims or a retreat into academic left intellectualism/ineffectualism.

The BNP however, skillfully made the most of the opportunity that had presented itself and set about reorienting itself into a trojan horse type party using an addressal of the very real issues that people are facing around housing, crime, job insecurity, education, schools, political abandonment, etc.. to improve both its standing, image and support base in communities up and down the country. The bigger that vacuum got as a result of the activities of the mainstream parties the bigger the opportunity the BNP had to get its foothold into our communities - the more this happened the more liberal anti-fascism responded by encouraging the perpetuation of those very same circumstances by their trumpeting of ‘anyone but the BNP’

The increased support for the BNP is a response to conditions - those conditions are real and cannot be rentaghosted away by a bit of extra effort on polling day for whatever party happens to be standing against the BNP. Any effective fight against the anti-working nature of both the BNP and the mainstream parties can be successful only by addressing the root cause of those conditions, not perpetuating them. Doing so, is of course far far easier to say than do, but recognition of this fact is surely the first stage.

The credit crunch has led many to believe that a corner has been turned and the excesses of the last thirty years of neo-liberalism will now be vanquished and many point to keynesian fiscal policies and ‘progessive’ or ‘redistributive’ budgets as proof of this - these measures are nothing but pragmatism designed to save the very system that got us all into this mess in the first place - keyne’s was no fan of the working class and had only one thing in mind which was to save capitalism from itself, things are no different now. We are told that the banking sector needs to be saved because it is in effect like a public utility, far too important to be allowed to be left to the ‘natural’ forces of the market - If this is the case why during a period where the losses of many large financial institutions (sorry public utilities) are being socialised through nationalisation and public support is the government pushing ahead with the privitisation, in some shape or form, of many more public utilities - the post office, defence training, schools, hospitals, the royal mint, british waterways, the met office, the land registry, ordinance survey to name just a few - surely at at time like this it should be blindingly clear that to put public services and utilities into private hands and let them be subject to the impersonal forces of the market and have profit as their primary motive is completely hatstand - yet this privatisation of profits and the eventual socialisation of risk and losses is set to continue and with it the conditions that lead to more and more support for opportunist trojan horse parties like the BNP.

It’s not hard to see why people would be attracted to a party that at least appears to be willing to listen and act on the very real concerns of the electorate - to brandish every BNP voter as racist and as some knuckle dragging goon seems to be both the mainstream and left’s response, something that’s tantamount to kicking someone while their already down - this is liberal anti-fascism at work however.

Only a credible pro working class response to the real issues brought about by the activities of the mainstream parties in relation to housing, job security, schools, education, crime, safety, political abandonment and community will have any hope of ensuring the far right do not continue to garner support in our communities - however that response should be done in and for itself as an inclusive community led working class solution to problems in our communities, not just because it offers a chance to beat the racists

I mentioned the trojan horse politics of the BNP earlier - by this I meant their supposed concern and addressing of the very real problems of communities as a way to anchor in their far right, racist and corporatist leanings - in relation to this it’s interesting to note that the Liberal Democrats are standing Duwayne Brooks as one of their candidates in the election. Duwayne was a friend of Stephen Lawrence and was with him the night he was murdered. There is a chance that this will lead to this election being made into a race thing, which will help once again to disguise the continued anti working class tendencies of all those contesting it. I can’t see the BNP winning the seat, however i’m sure they’ll get a pretty substantial chunk of the vote, but whoever wins the needle will return to the start of the song and they’ll all carry on as before - a plague on all their houses