As the dust begins to settle on the right-wing riots that plagued the country at the start of the month, so the begging bowls are being brought out for another round of shameless fascist grifting.
First out of the blocks was Britain First leader Paul Golding (above left). In an absurd video posted yesterday and greeted with widespread derision on the right, he claimed that BF has been ‘taking a step back’ and ‘keeping our heads down’ but that “now is the time for relentless action”. So please give generously…etc
Relentless action? Well, that would indeed be a First. Roughly translated it means: Ashlea and I, along with a few mates, have done all the money on extra-strong lager, so please top up the beer fund – even if it’s only an off-license gift voucher.
This has left some sceptics who have tired of putting their hands in their pockets to now refer to this particular shit-show as ’Britain Thirst’.
Not far behind Golding was Patriotic Alternative Deputy Leader Laura Towler (above right) or Laura Melia as she also styles herself. Appalled by the fact that racist online agitators have at last been called to account for their actions, and in some cases received serious jail time, she has launched a welfare fund for the families of ’political prisoners’. It was quickly reposted by the Traditional Britain Group which, not long ago, would have had nothing to do with the uncouth proles of PA.
But, is has to be said, this is something she knows a bit about, already operating one such fund for her banged up hubbie Sam Melia. That one has been particularly lucrative, drawing in around £100k according to some estimates, so the prospect of another has her licking her lips.
This prompted an immediate and withering retort from Katie ‘Sanity’ Fanning (below), partner of National Rebirth Party Fuhrer Alek Yerbury, who for some reason nurses a passionate loathing of PA and its leadership.
She wrote: “If it wasn’t bad enough that certain peoples like to pretend they’re the most persecuted peoples in the world as a means of grift.
“They now want to exploit the fact that other peoples are being persecuted to increase their own grift fund…
“How despicable is that?
“An absolutely disgusting display by fatty Towler once again
“It’s not going to go to what you think it’s going to go towards or the people you think it’s going to help”
Fatty Towler! Ouch!
Fanning and Towler have an especially virulent relationship, which only seems to have worsened during their simultaneous pregnancies. Their giving birth only a few days apart did spark speculation that they had somehow contrived to conceive in tandem – a rumour that prompted most of the people who heard it to rush to Amazon and place a same-day order for scrubbing brushes and boxes of brain-soap.
Across the board, though, varying degrees of panic are setting in now that online inciters are being banged up. Online hate has been the stock-in-trade of these groups – and well-known right-wing influencers – for years, and for the most part they have got away with it completely. The climate has now changed and the message going out from all the established groups is to stay within the law.
The British Democrats are taking the most hardline position, denouncing the rioters as louts who are doing the cause no good. PA say they are against violence but are quite happy adopting rioters as political prisoners. The Homeland Party under Kenny Smith are hovering between the two positions.
Alek Yerbury of NRP is now saying that recent events confirm his earlier view that:
“We must prioritise real world activity, like public meetings, even with people we don’t know, over online discourse…
“When online, especially with anonymity, it permits people to say things that they never would in any public sphere, because of the way it would negatively reflect on them in the environment they are in. This leads to people routinely saying things in online spaces which are so unmoderated and so unpleasant to an outside observer, that it negatively impacts wider society’s perception of the groups and people in those spaces as a whole”.
Despite his absurd Hitler-like persona, Yerbury is gaining a reputation in fascist circles for being the one who regularly talks sense and gets things right before events force the issue. This is seriously upsetting the likes of PA’s Mark Collett, who believes Yerbury is making a play for a section of the PA membership. Getting things right is an activity practised by Collett only after he has exhausted all other possibilities.
So, it’s a pity about the massive security breach that saw Yerbury being caught unaccompanied and photographed by Stand Up To Racism in Leeds at the weekend when he arrived in town for the inaugural meeting of the local NRP branch. Someone will doubtless be cashiered for that little slip up.
On the more disorganised far right, online accounts are being closed down or hidden for fear of legal repercussions. One such case is “Queen Natalie, the Norfolk lion” whose vile posts to over fifty thousand followers have contaminated X for too long. She is now hiding her contributions from general view.
Another very popular fascist account, that of WayneGb88 (’88’ is stock nutcase code for ’Heil Hitler’) has disappeared after the jailing of its author, Wayne O’Rourke (above, right) from Lincoln who was given three years for spreading false information about the Southport killings, and other posts which repeatedly incited violence and disorder. With some 107,000 followers, he was reported to have been earning £1400 a month from his online vituperations. It was his case which particularly freaked out Queen Natalie. ‘There but for the grace of Odin…’
Then the Independent Nationalist Network, run by Midlands-based Richard Lumby, announced yesterday that it is shutting up shop. INN was till recently threatening to become the latest political home for Nick Griffin, with whom it was organising election training seminars. How quickly it went from Griffin Inn to ’Last orders, please’ and Griffin Out.
Lumby is now claiming the shutdown has been planned for months and was held up only by the preparation of a new edition of Griffin’s legal handbook. But no-one is buying it. You don’t have to be in publishing to know you don’t need an organisation to re-edit a book. Like others, Lumby’s running scared.
Goodbye, and good riddance.