Racist MEP is an al Qaida denier … or is he?

BNP MEP Andrew Brons has contradicted himself over the existence of al Qaida. In the space of one blog post, he calls them “terrorists who have already committed terrorist acts” before saying “there is considerable doubt” they even exist.

The far-Right fantasist wrote:

“Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida are terrorists who have already committed terrorist acts and intend to commit more in the future …

“Returning to Al Qaida, for a moment, there is considerable doubt about its existence as an organisational entity as distinct from an ideological one.”

Brons, described by the Guardian as “the genteel face of neo-fascism”, has a long history of Hitler-worship, homophobia and violent anti-Semitism and racism.

He edited the National Front’s 1983 manifesto, writing:

“We believe the gradual dismantlement of the Apartheid system over the last 17 years to be retrograde … The alternative to Apartheid, multiracialism, envisages an extinction of the White man.”

• More damning evidence of Brons’s Fascist past can be found on Hope Not Hate, Socialist Unity and Pickled Politics.

1. Shamik Das says:

   December 16, 2009 at 5:27 pm

   RT @leftfootfwd: Racist MEP Andrew Brons, al Qaida denier: http://is.gd/5qbZE <— BNP scum
2. Miller 2.0 says:

   December 16, 2009 at 5:30 pm

   Hmm… what evidence is there to suggest that Al Qaida is an organisational entity (a thing in itself) rather than a loose network, or something even more informal? Without publicly available intel I think it’s worth keeping an open mind on this maybe?
3. Shamik Das says:

   December 16, 2009 at 5:33 pm

   How can you say they “intend to commit more [terrorist acts] in the future” and then doubt their “existence as an organisational entity”. If they’re able to commit acts of terror “in the future”, surely there can be no doubt as to their existence in the present?
4. gsdog7 says:

   December 16, 2009 at 5:45 pm

   RT @leftfootfwd: Racist MEP Andrew Brons, al Qaida denier: http://is.gd/5qbZE
5. Swagata says:

   December 16, 2009 at 7:27 pm

   Shamik, put aside the BNP loon and I think it’s possible for people to commit crime in the name of Al Qaeda but for it not to exist as an organisation. It doesn’t have a hierarchy, a website or any other particular structure. Several groups in different places in the world, from Indonesia to North Africa, claim some affiliation but are they fully incorporated and taking orders from some AQ high command? I’m not sure.
6. Noxi says:

   December 17, 2009 at 9:45 am

   Racist MEP is an al Qaida denier … or is he? | Left Foot Forward http://ow.ly/MXal bnp british national party
7. Roger says:

   December 17, 2009 at 12:21 pm

   Certainly the intelligence analysts who claim to be in the know seem to sway more in the direction of it being a loose network.

   If Osama and his core group are in fact holed up in a remote mountain cave somewhere in Pakistan with all the modern means of surveillance available to a great power dedicated to locating them they can hardly be much direct communication with external cells.

   And AQ’s MO does not require an evil mastermind issuing detailed directives – all it needs are groups of like-minded fanatics willing to blow themselves up in its name wherever they happen to live.

   Brons may be a racist and fascist but he’s clearly not incapable of reading the newspapers and surfing the internet and in this case is just twisting the received wisdom to support his anti-American agenda (which in this case is pretty indistinguishable from the left’s anti-Americanism).

   How this relates to the BNP’s anti-Muslim agenda is another thing – however his and Griffin’s past dealings with the likes of Colonel Gadhafi and Louis Farrakhan suggest that this is no more than skin-deep and that if it wasn’t for our having a large coloured Muslim population to demonise they’d be much happier chanting ‘We Are All Hizbollah Now’ outside the Israeli embassy.
8. Shamik Das says:

   December 17, 2009 at 12:38 pm

   Some interesting posts! Thanks for joining in. The point I was making was the blatant contradiction in Brons’ original article, which I suppose, given he’s a racist with a pro-Nazi past is hardly surprising.

   Roger is right, however, in that a lot of what Brons said is not too dissimilar to what one might hear from the British far-Left, some of whom are as anti-America and anti-Israel as the far-Right.

   In terms of the existence or not of Al Qaida, I do believe it’s more than just a loose collection of extremists across the globe. I think there is some direction from Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, both of whom are probably holed up in the mountains of western Pakistan.
9. Noxi says:

   December 17, 2009 at 7:13 pm

   Racist MEP is an al Qaida denier … or is he? | Left Foot Forward http://ow.ly/N6iF bnp british national party