A quarter of an hour before the Metropolitan Police announced they were “preventing” the British National Party’s (BNP) proposed march through Woolwich, south east London, tomorrow, Nick Griffin bullishly told his Twitter followers that he was “taking over negotiations with them [the police] directly.”
Griffin’s proposed six mile march across south east London from Woolwich to Lewisham is now, instead, a proposed 170 yard shuffle in Westminster, fourteen miles away from the scene of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.
This is not what Griffin wanted. BNP insiders say he was forced into a corner during the week. He’s developed a habit for rash statements, no more rash than the initial statement of intent to march in Woolwich. It’s been a long time since the BNP marched anywhere in London. Marching was one of the very things that Griffin implored the membership, when he campaigned for the leadership, to eschew. It was always unsightly and marches always ended in violence.
Griffin however, has little choice. The English Defence League (EDL) are proving more effective in filling the streets with far-right revenge and rage over Drummer Rigby’s awful murder. Griffin had originally hoped that the numerically superior weight of the EDL would support and bulk up the march. When it became apparent that the EDL would not support Griffin’s march, the party’s rumour mill began talking of a secret climb-down. London BNP members, what few there are left of them, secretly called it a “Death march”, while in the north of the country the party kept telling their activists that the march was definitely on and that white Londoners would flock to Woolwich to support the BNP’s call to deport “hate preachers”.
It’s most unlikely, given the tensions in the area, that the BNP was ever going to be allowed to march in Woolwich. Certainly not all of the way to Lewisham. Still, Griffin was made to sweat on the Met’s decision until late on Thursday afternoon. Being moved to Whitehall is a slap in the face for the BNP. The EDL were there themselves only a week before, and even the National Front has managed to march in Woolwich twice in the last ten years.
Some BNP members in London had been suggesting that they actually be able to negotiate a move of the march to the “white corridors” of south east London, places like Eltham in south east London, or either Bromley or Bexley on the Kent borders. Whether Griffin ever put those suggestions to the police, we will probably never know. Once the EDL decided to not join him on his march, he’s had no choice but to sweat it out and present himself as some kind of free speech martyr instead.
Feeling more than a bit rejuvenated, the EDL leadership has been keen to make Griffin suffer for a year of his continual attacks on them. Instead of backing the BNP’s march, EDL wreath-layings will take place around the country. Over 50 are planned at the last count.
Griffin was insisting last night that the march will still go ahead in Woolwich, not in Whitehall. Demanding that people ignore the police, Griffin’s facing another of his world famous self-inflicted great tests of his leadership. Claiming that the police were threatening to arrest him if he pursued his “determination to draw attention to mosque knife terror training”, he was still demanding, begging, for people to now break the law and join him in Woolwich.
Nick Lowles, chief executive of anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate described Griffin as both “desperate and foolish”. “He’s talked himself into this position out of hatred and egotism. He’s losing a race to the bottom.”
Last night, in sheer desperation, Griffin called upon the EDL’s leader Stephen Lennon to join him in getting arrested on Saturday. It’s unlikely that Lennon will bother.
Matthew Collins is a researcher for Hope Not Hate and author of Hate: My Life in the British Far Right (Biteback Books)
Content from our partners
Related
