In what is becoming a tediously regular occurrence, Britain First managed once again to prise their so-called “battle bus” out of the mechanic’s clutches and into a bad-tempered stand-off with the police.
The emerald-green minibus – surely the least intimidating “battle bus” in political history – trundled through Altrincham, in Greater Manchester, on Saturday blaring music and sporting a banner declaring, with all the wit of a 9-year-old in the playground, “Keir Starmer Is a Wanker.”
At the helm was party leader Paul Golding, a man whose speeches usually consist of half-truths generously sprinkled with quarter-truths. For reasons best known to himself, he continues to believe that Saturday shoppers long for their retail therapy to be interrupted by a mobile circus of racist sloganeering.
Legendary hypocrisy
Britain First’s hypocrisy is, by now, the stuff of legend. Here is a movement that rails against foreigners, migrants and Muslims, yet whose members are rarely shy of a late-night curry, a bargain import on Amazon, or a lift home in a Muslim-driven Uber.
Altrincham was chosen as the day’s stage for this latest display. Organisers Golding and co-leader Ashlea Simon seemed to imagine a hero’s welcome: cheering crowds, fluttering flags, possibly even bunting. What they got instead was the local constabulary.
The afternoon unravels
The party’s social-media feeds documented the débâcle in real time.
At 2.26pm, footage appeared of the green bus trundling through the area. Golding announced triumphantly that the “battle bus” had “made it to Manchester.”
Around 70 loyal followers clicked the ‘like’ button – a somewhat meagre show of support for a movement that boasts “tens of thousands” of members.
By 3.01pm, the mood had soured. A photo appeared of a police car blocking the vehicle. Golding raged that Greater Manchester Police had dispatched “ten officers just because we’re driving around with banners saying Keir Starmer’s a wanker.”
Imagine our shock.
By 5.22pm, co-leader Ashlea Simon had shifted into full faux-outrage mode. On the BF channels she complained that, despite a three-hour inspection of the bus, police had found nothing, but had nonetheless issued a 12-month Section 59 warning. And they had upset her dog.
She vowed to consult her solicitors. One imagines they were thrilled.
“They should be solving real crimes,” she fumed – seemingly oblivious to the racist assault on a Stockport mosque only last week and a spate of bigoted graffiti in nearby neighbourhoods.
Pot, kettle, bus
Golding soon doubled down, describing the police as “visibly out of their depth and complete amateurs.”
A curious remark, given that this is the same man who thought it a masterstroke to festoon a clapped-out minibus with a playground insult and drive it round Altrincham like a Poundland Mosley.
Golding later promised an “incredibly embarrassing” video exposé of the police operation – though critics suggest he has already achieved that aim single-handedly.
The Manchester Evening News confirmed the police intervention, reporting that two occupants of the vehicle had indeed been given Section 59 warnings – presumably the party’s top brass.
Faltering far-right roadshow
For Golding and Simon, the episode marked another in a long line of PR own-goals. Since their much-touted (and largely forgotten) march through central Manchester in early August, the pair have achieved little of note.
Their thunder was well and truly stolen earlier this month when Tommy Robinson, clad in his trademark grievance, drew a claimed 100,000-strong crowd in London.
Golding – in his trusty, well-worn suit – was seen hovering backstage at the event, but wasn’t invited to speak.
He had to watch a parade of other far-right grifters, from Katie Hopkins to Laurence Fox, take the stage instead.
All that remained for Britain First was to rev up the knackered bus and head north in search of attention.
End of the road?
So, after a blustery three-hour jaunt on a crisp autumn afternoon, Golding and Simon succeeded chiefly in antagonising the police, earning themselves a formal warning, and providing social-media watchers with a dose of unintentional comedy.
As political strategies go, it’s not so much a battle plan as a scenic detour to nowhere.
If it weren’t so serious, it would be funny.
