Failed BNP führer and twice-bankrupted Nick Griffin chose Easter Sunday to launch his latest political party. That might seem strange timing. England is just ten days away from county council elections, when real political parties are competing at the ballot box.
However, Easter Sunday this year also happened fall on a date celebrated by nazis the world over, being the birthday of a certain Adolf Hitler, but we are sure that was mere coincidence.
In fact, Griffin has been insisting for a year or two among his much diminished audience, that political parties are no longer a viable strategy for his type of racist politics.
So why choose to start a political party on a holiday weekend? And if you don’t believe in elections, why call your organisation a political party?
The clue is in the name of Griffin’s new venture, the Christian Nationalist Party.
Even when he was in alliance with clerical fascists such as Derek Holland in the “political soldier” faction of the 1980s NF, Griffin never made any pretence of piety.
Potential donors
But his business partner Jim Dowson (now his main political ally) convinced Griffin a few years ago that religiosity is a guaranteed path to the wallets of potential donors.
And since pursuit of maximum money for minimum work has always been Griffin’s true vocation, he didn’t take much persuading.
Griffin and Dowson formed “Knights Templar International”, persuading grown men to part with their cash in return for the right to dress up in robes, march in solemn procession, and earn the right to be buried in a restored “Templar Chapel”.
The charade also helped give a propagandist veneer to Griffin’s friends in the Assad family’s now collapsed Damascus dictatorship, as well as Vladimir Putin’s cronies in various countries.
These overseas friends were sometimes introduced to Griffin and Dowson through one of Moscow’s closest friends in European fascism, Roberto Fiore, who was Griffin’s factional ally in the 1980s NF, then fell out with him over money, then got back together with him, again motivated by money.
Crazed Islamophobe
The new Christian Nationalist Party is a strange alliance. For a start, the main political leader of the project, Nick Griffin, isn’t mentioned at all on its website, where the “founder” is said to be Jayda Fransen, the crazed Islamophobe who was formerly deputy leader of Britain First until quitting following claims that she was assaulted by party leader Paul Golding.
In recent years the evidently disturbed Fransen has been shamelessly exploited by Griffin and Dowson. The new “party” website refers to Fransen having a “professional background in law”.
Well, that’s one way of putting it. Fransen is neither a solicitor nor a barrister, nor does she have a law degree. But she does have some experience of the courts.
In 2016 she was convicted of religiously aggravated harassment, and breaking the law against wearing political uniforms – the 1936 Public Order Act that was brought in to prohibit Mosley’s fascist blackshirts.
The new “party” website refers to Fransen having a “professional background in law”. Well, that’s one way of putting it. Fransen is neither a solicitor nor a barrister, nor does she have a law degree. But she does have some experience of the courts
After incidents at a rally in Belfast in 2017 Fransen was again arrested several times, including for breach of bail conditions, and eventually convicted of stirring up religious hatred.
In 2018 she was given a 36 week prison sentence for offences including religiously aggravated harassment at a takeaway in Folkestone.
Sick attitudes
Note that the website describes Fransen as the party’s “founder” not its “leader”. In fact, uncharacteristically for a fascist party, no “leader” has yet been mentioned. The reason for this is that the new party has to pander to the sick attitudes of religious fanatics and “incels” who make up a large part of its target audience.
Griffin and Dowson want to hide behind Fransen as the public face of their party. But they also need to reassure their donors (who have a medieval mindset to match their penchant for dressing up in medieval robes) that even the party’s founder recognises her gender makes her unsuitable for “leadership”.
Jim Dowson is hilariously described as the new party’s “ecclesiastical adviser”, though you can be sure that he will spend more time checking the party’s accounts than engaged in theological debate.
Dowson describes himself as a “Reformed Congregational Minister”. The sectarian picture gets more complicated with the party’s two US “coordinators”.
Wes Stover in the northern USA is “an ordained Independent Baptist minister”, while “Brother John” in the southern USA is Greek Orthodox.
“Brother John” does have some highly relevant experience to bring to the new party. For almost 20 years he was a professional wrestler, touring the US, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Staged spectacle
Professional wrestling is known as the fakest of sports, governed by a code known as “kayfabe” in which its participants solemnly pretend to be taking part in real competition, even though the entire spectacle is staged.
Nothing could better describe Griffin and Dowson’s style of politics.
The new party’s “leadership team” is completed by a “Western European coordinator”, who like the two Americans is part of Griffin and Dowson’s ludicrous Knights Templar charade. This is Iwan Egerstrom, a “Traditional Catholic” based in Scandinavia who likes to dress up in military uniforms as well as Templar robes.
Former paymaster
As Searchlight has recently reported, Griffin’s old friend and former paymaster Roberto Fiore is heavily involved with the “Traditional Catholic” scene. But the recent Charity Commission action against Fiore-linked networks will probably distract him from any close involvement in the new “party”.
We put this word in inverted commas, because so far the Christian Nationalist Party looks more like a scam than an actual political party.
Three of the four members of the “leadership team” supposedly appointed by its leader Fransen are outside the UK, and there is no sign of the party being registered with the Electoral Commission.
Financial transparency
It would need to do this to fight elections, but this would also mean a level of financial transparency that Griffin and Dowson are unlikely to accept.
While fascists in the UK (or even those around the world who have done anything to get themselves on a Dowson mailing list) can expect plenty of begging letters and catalogues from the Christian Nationalist Party advertising Templar tat, they aren’t going to be seeing its candidates on ballot papers any time soon, if ever.
