Three-quarters of non-Muslims believe that Islam is bad for Britain, 63 per cent ‘did not disagree’ with the statement ‘Muslims are terrorists’ and 94 per cent said Islam oppresses women. These are the results of a poll reported by both the Guardian and Sky.

Unfortunately, neither outlet looked into the people who commissioned the poll – the impressively named ‘Islamic Education and Research Academy’ (iEra) – and whether they might have their own agenda. Just a brief look at their website would have revealed that iEra are not exactly a moderate, impartial voice.

Neither Sky nor the Guardian noticed, for example, that the home secretary has banned two of the eight advisors listed on iEra’s website (Zakir Naik and Bilal Philips) from the UK; Naik has been quoted as calling Americans “pigs” and saying that “every Muslim should be a terrorist” whilst Philips has advocated stoning people to death and public lashings, but “only [...] on Fridays”.

This is not to say we should be unconcerned by an increasingly anti-Muslim atmosphere in this country or that we should entirely dismiss the poll’s findings. Rising hostility to Muslims is a serious problem for all of us, Muslim and non-Muslim.

A British Social Attitudes survey published in January found that just one in four British people feels positively about Islam and that a majority would be concerned if a mosque was built in their area. Similarly, in June this year, a poll commissioned by the ‘Exploring Islam Foundation’ found that 58 per cent of British people said they associated Islam with terrorism and 69 per cent said they believed Islam oppresses women.

The emergence over the past year of the ‘English Defence League’, whose recent Dudley march ended in rioting and 20 arrests, is just one facet of this worrying trend. Their attempts to pass themselves off as being ‘anti-extremist’ rather than anti-Muslim are undermined by the chant ‘Allah! Allah! Who the f**k is Allah?’ which rang out during their recent march in Barking, East London.

Such anti-Muslim sentiment, fuelled by careless tabloid journalism which fails to distinguish between mainstream Muslims and extremists like iEra’s Bilal Philips, is on a worryingly incessant rise. Headlines like ‘Now Muslims Demand Full Sharia’, accompanied by journalists lazily reporting as fact fantastical claims that extremists would gather thousands of supporters, are understandably worrying for the majority of British citizens who are not familiar with this area.

This does not mean, however, that groups like iERA should not be examined – particularly if they seek to use the results of such polls for their own ends. Their senior researcher, Hamza Tzortzis, is quoted by the Guardian as saying:

“We wanted to do something positive with the survey results rather than just say ‘It’s so sad’. So, the organisation’s strategy is to give a new realm of possibility for people to comprehend Islam, have a proper respect for Islam and see the human relevance of the faith.”

In effect, iEra are openly using these results to argue that people, Muslim and non-Muslim, should listen to their interpretation of Islam. This is troubling given Tzortzis’s links with the radical group Hizb ut-Tahrir and because he is on record as saying:

“We as Muslims reject the idea of freedom of speech, and even of freedom.”

iEra’s tactic is therefore to raise the spectre of anti-Muslim bigotry to help spread their own ideology. This is the mirror image of the EDL who use the statements of extremists like iEra’s Tzortzis, Philips and Naik to justify their anti-Muslim ideology.

The result is a feedback loop, whereby extremists on both sides shout louder and louder that their existence is under threat from the ‘other’ as a way to justify their own tribalist mindset. This vicious cycle is difficult to break and its real victims are the moderate mainstream who – stuck in the middle – are deafened by both sides.

So, whilst we should all be troubled by the rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in this country, we should also beware of the extremists of all shades who hope to exploit this phenomenon as a way to spread their own ideology.

‘Watts up with that?’ is ranked as the number one most read “science” blog in the world according to Wikio – and it has become the hub for the climate denial community online. Its lead blogger, Anthony Watts, is often quoted in mainstream media outlets such as The Times and his blog was winner of “best science blog” at the Weblog awards.

So you might be surprised (or not – if you already doubted the credibility of his sources) to learn that Anthony Watts’ latest source of information is none other than the British National Party – yes, those known to the rest of us as the British Nazi Party.

Anthony Watts blogged today at 15.30 GMT about how “climate scepticism could become a criminal offence in UK” – and his source? BNP leader, Nick Griffin. Unsurprisingly, by 16.11, the page had disappeared. No doubt, after one of his friends in the UK pointed out it doesn’t look great when you post Nazi propaganda on your blog and twitter feed.

But Left Foot Forward caught screen grabs here, here – and here.

For those outside the UK, you may be interested to know Nick Griffin was convicted of criminal charges after inciting racial hatred with statements like this:

“I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the world is flat.”

This comes hot on the heels of Richard North’s questionable blogs. As George Monbiot posted for The Guardian, about the Conservative climate denial blogger, Richard North, who was the one who manufactured the ‘Amazongate’ story.

Under the heading “Liar, liar!”, North ponders whether lying “is an in-built part of human nature”. He then goes on to say the following:

“What would be really interesting in this respect would be an examination of cultural attitudes to lying – why, for instance, Indians such as Rajendra Pachauri are practiced liars and why others find it difficult to accept that they are being lied to, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence.”

In the comment thread, someone calling himself bennyboy writes:

“Anything east of dover, not to be trusted!”

North then responds:

“There are a lot of Kermits to the west of Dover … to say nothing of the Dagos and sundry others. These are to be trusted?”

More than two thirds of convicted UK-based Islamist terrorists are British nationals, almost half are from London, nearly one third have attended university and a similar proportion were in full-time employment at the time of their involvement in terrorism. Furthermore, three quarters of terror plots in the UK have involved individual members who had trained in Pakistan and almost one third had links to a proscribed organisation, mostly al-Muhajiroun and al-Qaeda.

These are among the findings of a new report launched today by the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC), a small think tank whose director is the controversial Douglas Murray. Their researchers have been working for two years to produce a list of 127 individuals who were convicted of Islamism-related terrorist offences between 1999 and 2009 in the UK. The result is Islamist Terrorism: The British Connections.

This report includes little that is ground-breaking or new, but it is very helpful for how it confirms the uncomfortable facts we already knew about terrorism in the UK.

Firstly, the fact that so many of those convicted for terrorist offences in the UK are British nationals shows that airport security, overseas military action and other outward-facing, security measures are not enough to keep us safe if we do not also fight the ideology, Islamism, which inspired these terrorists.

At the same time, the fact that six out of eight terror plots have some connection to Pakistan is a timely reminder that our security here is contingent, whether we like it or not, on improving the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Secondly, the fact that nearly one third have attended university and a similar proportion were in full-time employment at the time of their involvement in terrorism puts the lie to the lazy assumption that terrorism is simply a result of economic deprivation and lack of opportunities.

These young British men (and they were young men – their average age was 27 and only five of the individuals listed were women) had the same opportunities as other British men, but they still adopted Islamism and became embroiled in terrorism.

Thirdly, it is worth noting that 15 per cent of those convicted were linked to al-Muhajiroun, the recently banned group that threatened to march in Wootton Bassett and, under a new front name (‘Muslims Against Crusades’), recently abused returning soldiers in Barking.

Al-Muhajiroun is a tiny group who have often been dismissed as unrepresentative loud mouths. At most, their membership is just 40-50 individuals, so they absolutely are not ‘representative’ of the UK’s 1.5 million Muslims, but this does not mean they pose no danger. The CSC’s researchers are right to remind us of that fact.

However, whilst it is very useful of the CSC to have collected these worrying statistics, we must now beware of far right groups’ inevitable attempts to misuse this research to further their own agendas. The BNP and others just want to divide society by increasing and manipulating fears about Muslims and Islam in general, they are not concerned with identifying the Islamist ideology.

Politicians, journalists and bloggers alike have a duty to explain to the British public the way in which Islamism separates these 127 individuals off from the majority of the UK’s 1.5 million Muslims, most of whom follow mainstream, South Asian and Sufi influenced approaches to Islam, not Islamism.

That is to say, unlike most Muslims, Islamists believe that Islam is a divine political ideology and that all Muslims around the world (the ummah) are a political bloc akin to the idea of the international proletariat. This bloc, Islamists believe, requires unification within an expansionist state that would have a single interpretation of shari’ah enforced as its law.

All Islamists broadly agree on these tenets of their ideology, but they disagree widely on the tactics used to achieve their goals. The 127 individuals listed in the CSC’s report are militant Islamists, who are prepared to use violence – they are at the most violent end of a spectrum that also includes some groups that would use military coups and others that would work within the existing political system as a way to create their Islamist state.

The challenge for the government is to make sure that its strategy for preventing terrorism is tightly focused on challenging Islamism, and not distracted by lazy assumptions that all Muslims are a threat, that terrorism is only a foreign policy issue or that, where British citizens become radicalised, it is simply because of their deprived economic situation or other grievances.

These are all things that were known before, but they are facts that we sometimes need reminding of.

The English Defence League’s claims to be a non-racist grouping suffered a further blow at the weekend with the revelation that the leader of the EDL, Tommy Robinson, is a former British National Party member jailed for a year for assaulting an off-duty police officer. The EDL website states that the group takes “an actively anti-racist and anti-fascist stance”, with “people of all races and faiths” invited.

The revelations about Robinson’s racist, violent past come on the anniversary of the EDL’s formation, and follows an investigation by the anti-Fascist magazine Searchlight. Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, joined the BNP in 2004.

Searchlight reveals that:

In the same year he assaulted an off-duty police officer who intervened to stop a domestic incident between Yaxley-Lennon and his partner Jenna Vowles. During the scuffle Yaxley-Lennon kicked the officer in the head.

He was convicted on 18 April 2005 for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, for which he was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, and assault with intent to resist arrest, for which he received a concurrent term of three months.

It adds:

The revelation that Robinson had been a member of the BNP explains why so many of the initial EDL activists also attended BNP meetings in the Luton/Bedford area. More importantly, it dispels the myth that the roots of the EDL are not in hard-core racism.

It destroys the protestations by the EDL leadership that, “They aren’t the BNP and they aren’t Nazis,” made at their phoney press conference held last September in a disused Luton warehouse, where they unfurled a swastika flag and proceeded to try to set it alight for the cameras.

In September, Left Foot Forward reported on the confrontations between the EDL and anti-racism campaigners at EDL demos in Harrow and central London:

Among the slogans being chanted by the EDL were “terrorist bombers off our street”, “we hate Muslims, we hate Muslims, we hate Muslims” and “no surrender, no surrender, no surrender to Is-lam”.

They were also filmed assaulting photographers and giving ‘Sieg Heil’ salutes.

Elsewhere, the Mirror reports that BNP leader Nick Griffin is lining up his daughter as his successor, just as Jean Marie Le Pen has done in France. It says:

Party insiders say Griffin has quietly boosted 24-year-old Jennifer’s role, giving her huge influence over membership and finance. But they believe Griffin has no intention of ­relinquishing his vice-like grip on the ­party he has led since 1999 – ­despite his pledge to step down by 2013.

They expect him to copy his 82-year-old French ­Fascist ally Jean Marie Le Pen, who has ensured his daughter Marine is in pole position to replace him as head of France’s National Front. Last year Jennifer was appointed a director of Adlorries, a company that controls a substantial ­proportion of the BNP ­finances, under her married name Jennifer Matthys…

Jennifer, who was leader of the BNP’s youth wing as a teenager, has been at her father’s side at impor­tant party events. ­Earlier this month she was used as the public face of the party in a promotional film.

Griffin’s manoeuvring risks sparking further revolt among the party faithful, who have openly questioned his leadership since the BNP was humiliated in May’s ­national and local ­elections.

• HOPE not hate are holding a Day of Action this Saturday (July 3rd), campaigning against the BNP ahead of the Goresbrook ward by-election in Barking & Dagenham on Thursday (July 8th) - for more details of how to help please click here.

David Cameron is today meeting Polish presidential candidate Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Downing Street. Kaczynski – whose twin brother Lech was killed in an air crash in April – faces Bronislaw Komorowski in the run-off on Sunday, with exit polls showing him trailing by up to 12.5 points. As well as meeting the prime minister, Kaczynski met with Polish immigrants in central London, many of whom are expected to vote in the presidential election.

Kaczynski, along with many of Cameron’s far-Right European allies – described as “nutters, anti-Semites and homophobes” by Nick Clegg – has long been accused of extremism. When prime minister of Poland, Kaczyński supported a bill banning discussion or promotion of homosexuality in schools, including in sex education.

As worrying as Kaczyński’s anti-gay attitudes are those of his closest allies. Three years ago, The Times reported:

The twins’ own political bedfellows are hardly models of propriety. [Andrej] Lepper, the recently sacked deputy prime minister, was accused a year ago of swapping jobs for sexual favours (a charge he denies), while the other deputy, Roman Giertych, a member of Opus Dei, is bent on purging the school curriculum of books by authors suspected of homosexuality.

The twins’ nongovernmental media supporter (until the shenanigans of July 10) is the intemperate Father Rydzyk, whose Radio Maryja specialises in homophobic rants and stirring invocations to the Virgin Mary. At the same time a key government media role, the deputy chairmanship of Poland’s public TV network, has been awarded to one Piotr Farfal, former editor of the Polish skinhead magazine Front, which openly supports extremist violence.

Giertych is particularly concerned by what he terms “homo-agitation”, the encouragement of kids to become gay. As part of his campaign to eradicate homosexuality, a children’s watchdog has been appointed. Ewa Sowinska has been investigating the portrayal of the Teletubbies’ Tinky Winky, the one with the handbag, as a potential “homo-agitator”. The jury is still out on Tinky Winky, but teachers suspected of homosexuality can expect to be dismissed.

Former Europe minister Denis MacShane describes Kaczynski’s premiership as “notorious for its hard-line anti-gay politics” which “collapsed over scandals about corruption and attempts to control the media”.

MacShane adds:

“[Donald] Tusk’s Civic Platform ought to be the normal partner for Britain’s LibCon government but David Cameron is sticking by the last remnant of his pre-election pandering to Tory Euroscepticism, namely the alliance with what Nick Clegg calls ‘nutters, anti-semites and homophobes’ in parties like PiS (the Polish Law and Justice Party) and other nationalist parties in east Europe…

“After Prime Minister Cameron’s good start on the world at European stage at the world leaders’ meeting in Toronto as well as at the European Council two weeks ago it is back to shaking hands with the representative of the ‘nutters, anti-semites and homophobes’ to use the deputy PM’s language.

“Cameron’s natural Polish partners are the Civic Platform. The sooner Cameron wriggles out of his alliance with the populist, gay-bashing right in East Europe, the better.”

UKIP yesterday hosted a conference at the European Parliament with Russian conspiracy theorist Daniel Estulin and Italian extremist Mario Borghezio speaking alongside Nigel Farage and Godfrey Bloom, to discuss the Bilderberg conspiracy, about which Estulin has written a book.

The Bilderberg conspiracy has been propagated by hardline right-wingers and libertarians, who accuse it of being a “liberal Zionist plot”. The BBC reports that:

“In Yugoslavia, leading Serbs have blamed Bilderberg for triggering the war which led to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic.

“The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the London nail-bomber David Copeland and Osama Bin Laden are all said to have bought into the theory that Bilderberg pulls the strings with which national governments dance.”

Borghezio is a Lega Nord MEP for North-West Italy, and sits alongside UKIP in the ‘Europe of freedom and democracy’ group. In July 2005, Borghezio was convicted of setting fire to the pallets of some immigrants while they were sleeping under a bridge in Turin.

Liberal Conspiracy adds that:

“According to Searchlight magazine, in 2008 he was invited to speak at an ‘Anti-Islamisation Congress’ staged by the German fascist pro Köln (pK) organisation to discuss ‘the foreign infiltration of our cities’.

“Nick Griffin had been on the guest list but after German anti-fascists, with help from Searchlight, published his comments denying the Holocaust, his name was withdrawn. Jean-Marie Le Pen was also billed but he denied he was attending.”

Recently, the conspiracy theorists have turned their minds to the new British government and opposition; they actually believe that:

“While David Cameron’s new coalition government in the United Kingdom has opposed the expansion of Bilderberg’s European project in rhetoric, they have been busy appointing pro-Euro politicians to influential posts.

“The possible attendance of Cameron and his new sidekick Nick Clegg will be interesting to watch, as will the question of whether any members of the ousted UK Labour Party are invited.

“With leadership elections imminent after the resignation of dutiful Bilderberg servant Gordon Brown, Bilderberg will be keen to vet potential future Prime Ministers such as David Milliband.”

As Liberal Conspiracy says:

“Farage is trying to shed light on this shadowy conspiracy and free us all. Oh, what I’d do to be able to attend this press conference and ask a few questions…”

The protesters whose online campaign forced equalities minister Theresa May to say she had “changed my mind” about gay adoption on Question Time last night have stepped up the pressure by calling for a full explanation of her past record and an apology “in the form of an affadavit”. The campaigners have also called for more awareness to be raised of her voting record, which included opposing the repeal of Section 28 and lowering the homosexual age of consent to 16.

The “Sack Theresa” website says:

“Tonight we witnessed quite an extraordinary event on national television: a Facebook campaign caused a senior government minister to annouce she had “changed her mind” concerning gay couples adopting. I am of course refering to Theresa May’s comments when confronted by a teenager on Question Time regarding her gay rights record…

“This doesn’t stop us questioning her record however and we will continue to do so… Furthermore her argument that is was ”some years ago” seems intriguing. Whilst we accept that she may have recently changed her mind, we question why she still voted against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in 2008, containing clauses which would stop discrimination against lesbian couples receiving fertility treatment.

“This was a free vote; she did not have to follow her party. Therefore, the fact that she voted against it shows that to a certain extent she genuinely holds these beliefs independently of any pressure from the party. More importantly; this was 17 months ago. This was not the Theresa May under party obligations of 1997, this was the Theresa May, free agent, of 2008…

“We are calling for a full explanation of her views and an apology for her previous voting record in the form of an affidavit. We still regret her appointment, since she is not a very symbolically positive candidate whom we could trust to continue the progress made over the last few years. We will continue to raise awareness and to call for her resignation. We will give her a call tommorrow to present our proposal.”

Still very much calling for the equalities minister to be removed from her post, one of the main campaigners Jane Cahill told Left Foot Forward:

“I don’t think its ok for her to be Equalities Minister. I think our campaign is showing that many people have been angered by her appointment and dismayed by her voting record- a few words on a Question Time where the one person you’d expect to grill her (Shami Chakrabarti) didn’t seem to know a thing about it? I don’t think this answers our more compelling concerns.

“I don’t question her sincerity on gay adoption, but nor do I view it as the ultimate test of someone’s views on LGBT equality. That she voted against Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill as late as 2008, which was aiming to stop discrimination against lesbian couples receiving fertility treatment, indicates to me that she isn’t committed to LGBT rights. I should also point out that the vote on that bill was a free one.

“I wholeheartedly welcome her comments, but we are now looking for something more substantial to reassure us that this isn’t just some words said on Question Time to avoid a difficult issue. We will be phoning her today to request a sworn apology for her previous voting record, in the form of an affidavit. Until that point we shall be pushing for her resignation.”

The “Sack New Homophobic Equality Minister” Facebook group now has nearly 70,000 members while an online petition “Requesting Theresa May’s Resignation from the Post of Equalities Minister” has received nearly 30,000 signatures.

A British National Party supporter faced Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court today charged with attacking an openly-gay Conservative Party local election candidate. Desmond O’Flynn, 45, is alleged to have attacked the candidate on polling day.

The Pink Paper quotes a police source as saying:

“We can confirm that a 45-year-old man from Mitcham Park, Mitcham has been charged with a section 4A public order offence [the distinct offence of intentional harassment, alarm or distress]…

“This follows an incident at Canons Leisure Centre in Mitcham on 6 May.”

It is the second known incident of a BNP candidate or supporter appearing in court charged with committing election week assaults, and folllows the indictment of Bob Bailey, BNP parliamentary candidate for Romford, who was filmed kicking and punching a young man on the day before the election.

Meanwhile, at the weekend it was reported that Leicester City defender Wayne Brown had boasted about voting BNP to his teammates.

The Mail reports that:

“Having returned to the dressing room after training, where a discussion was taking place between a group of players about the election results, Brown first told a stunned, racially mixed group of players that he had voted for the BNP.

“He was met with a volley of protest. But rather than defusing the situation, the player, born in Barking where BNP leader Nick Griffin was wiped out in the election by Labour’s Margaret Hodge, and the party lost all its council seats, launched into an abuse [sic] attack on against ethnic minorities whom he claimed were ‘killing this country’.

“The reaction was furious and several players pointed out that, not only were Brown’s phrases and views unacceptable, but that he had Asian, black and mixed-race colleagues.”

Brown, who was axed by boss Nigel Pearson for the Foxes’ play-off clash with Cardiff, is said to have “been forced to ask for forgiveness” from his teammates. He faces an uncertain future at the club, with Pearson making it clear privately that he “no longer wishes Brown to be a part of his squad”.

Nearly 30,000 people have joined a Facebook group criticising the appointment of Theresa May as Equalities Minister in just 48 hours. A petition has also been circulated calling for Ms May “to resign, or be removed” from the position.

Campaigners object to the new Home Secretary’s voting record and calling for the sacking of the “new homophobic equality minister”. They point out her voting record on gay rights which includes:

- Voting against the repeal of Section 28

- Voting against lowering the age of consent in homosexual relationships to 16

- Voting against gay adoption rights

The Facebook group stresses that:

“Please remember: this is not an anti-Tory campaign. This is not an anti-Theresa May in office campaign. We do not oppose her appointment as Home Secretary. We simply do not believe she is appropriate for the position as Equality Minister.”

But states that:

“As a result of her clear stance on these issues we do not think she is at all qualified to be minister for equality, and would like to call for her immediate resignation from this post.”

The petition says:

“Her appointment is symbolically counter-productive as it suggests that there is not a more appropriate person for the job who has been positively campaigning for gay rights. We would also question her commitment to implementing effective change in this country considering her own views. Her appointment is therefore both intrinsically and instrumentally unacceptable.

“Therefore, we ask for her immediate resignation from this post and for her replacement with a more suitable candidate.”

The BNP candidate filmed kicking and punching a young man on the eve of the election has been arrested on suspicion of assault. Bob Bailey, candidate for Romford, was arrested and questioned over allegations he assaulted an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old. He was bailed to return on July 12. Bailey (pictured) only just held on to his deposit in the general election, and lost his council seat in Barking.

Like every other BNP councillor in the borough, Bailey was comprehensively beaten; in 2006 he won with 1,329 votes on turnout of 41%, last week he received 1,209 votes on a 59% turnout – effectively a loss of 700 votes or 37%.

Elsewhere, today’s Guardian asks whether the dismal performance of the Fascists at the polls spells the end for Nick Griffin’s regime:

“At two minutes past six last Friday morning, Nick Griffin walked to the front of the makeshift stage at the Goresbrook leisure centre in Barking, east London, and tried to make his voice heard above a braying crowd.

“The BNP leader had just suffered a humiliating defeat, beaten into third place by Labour MP Margaret Hodge in the constituency where he had promised to create a ‘political earthquake’…

“‘Within the next five years, the indigenous people of London will be a minority,’ barked Griffin, as jubilant Labour supporters taunted him with shouts of ‘Out, out, out!’ ‘It is going to be too late for Barking, but it is not too late for Britain.’ By then, though, no one was listening.

“In the next 12 hours, Griffin’s worst fears were realised – and even exceeded. The party was thrashed in its two key parliamentary constituencies of Barking and Stoke Central. Its record number of council and parliamentary candidates failed to make a single breakthrough; and of the 28 BNP councillors standing for re-election, all but two were beaten…

“But the Barking and Dagenham council election result was the most dramatic. The BNP had plans to take control of the authority – instead, it lost every one of its councillors there. Twelve elected in 2006. Twelve thrown out in 2010. A ruthless purge, more shocking because they didn’t see it coming. Neither, for that matter, did their opponents. It was the miracle of Barking…

“What is the future for the BNP now? Griffin doesn’t know. He can point to the fact that the BNP won more than half a million votes, but his mood is changeable. Yesterday he sent another email, brimming with anger. ‘The old east London is dead,’ he wrote.

“His party is at a crossroads. A Tory-led administration may worsen social divisions, providing the far right with new opportunities. But it might also clamp down on immigration, rendering the BNP irrelevant. Even if opportunities come his way, Griffin’s party has so many problems that he may not be able to take advantage.

“The BNP is not dead, but it took a mortal blow in Barking. It will be hard-pushed to find its feet again.”

The British National Party lost all 12 of its seats on Barking and Dagemham council this afternoon, completing a day of abject failure for the fascists. Earlier, Nick Griffin had been told to “get out and stay out” by Margaret Hodge after being trounced by 24,628 votes to 6,620 in the general election. Griffin’s share of the vote fell 1.7 per cent, with turnout up 11.3 per cent.

The BNP also failed in Stoke, Griffin’s deputy Simon Darby finishing fourth to Tristram Hunt in Stoke-on-Trent Central. The racist party’s failure to gain ground follows their successes in last year’s European elections and 2008 London Assembly elections.

The BNP’s annihilation followed months of campaigning by Hope Not Hate, Unite Against Fascism, trade unioinists and community groups, Nick Lowles, head of Hope Not Hate, calling the grassroots mobilisation of thousands of campaigners key to the BNP’s resounding defeats.

He said:

“The BNP has been humiliated in Barking & Dagenham and Stoke-on-Trent and a huge thank you must go out to everyone who has got involved in the HOPE not hate campaign. We estimate that almost 1,000 people participated in the campaign in Barking & Dagenham over the last few months and 2-300 involved in our campaign in Stoke-on-Trent.

“In the last ten days of the campaign alone we have distributed over 130,000 pieces of literature in Barking & Dagenham. There was material for pensioners, black and Asian voters, young voters, women voters and male voters who had been identified as opposing the BNP. We did attack leaflets, positive leaflets and polling day cards to turnout our anti-BNP voters.

“On Monday 385 people delivered 55,000 leaflets and even yesterday, on polling day, we had 175 people out knocking up the vote. We played a major part in a highly successful campaign. The BNP is divided and defeated and the results in Barking & Dagenham and Stoke-on-Trent will have an impact on both the fascists and our own campaign in the months to come.

Sam Tarry, newly-elected Labour councillor for Chadwell Heath, tweeted:

“Barking & Dagenham was the BNP’s Stalingrad. They have been taken to pieces all over the country”

And:

“BNP smashed! Hope not hate being talked about as biggest anti-fascist movement since D-day! 170 people were out for HnH today!”

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague defended yet another homophobic Tory candidate today, Philippa Stroud – who founded a church that tried to “cure” homosexuals by driving out their “demons” through prayer. Stroud, the Conservative Party PPC for Sutton and Cheam, is head of the right-wing think tank The Centre for Social Justice, a group David Cameron addressed in a keynote speech on “Broken Britain” last Tuesday.

Hague, speaking on BBC Radio 5 this morning, also defended the Tories’ anti-gay far-Right allies in Europe, and said Stroud’s case was different from that of Philip Lardner, suspended from standing for the Conservatives in North Ayrshire and Arran, who had said homosexuality was “not normal”. To describe Stroud as homophobic, insisted Hague, would be “false” and “misleading”.

Listen to his interview:

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, criticised Stroud, telling today’s Guardian:

“It would be highly regrettable if someone who continued to hold these views held any significant office in government.”

This is just the latest in a series of anti-gay stories about Tory MPs, candidates and allies in recent months; these include the homophobic remarks of Chris Grayling and Julian Lewis. Both men remain members of David Cameron’s front bench team.

BNP leader Nick Griffin is targeting black Christian voters in Barking – while at the same time sending literature to white voters with the strapline “Vote New Labour, Get New Neighbours”; identical in sentiment to the racist Tory slogan of 1964 which said “if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour”.

Griffin’s letter claims that he is “not standing in this election to persecute or hurt anybody, of any race or religion”. Yet Griffin then indulges in precisely that kind of behaviour, with a heavy dose of homophobia and Islamophobia:

“To support Labour is to support the Party that has done more than any other to undemine Christian values, promote ungodly lifestyles and encourage the spread of Islam.“

More evidence of the hidden, visceral racism at the heart of Griffin’s party is revealed in today’s Sunday Mirror, which reports that “a rising star” of the Fascist party has resigned “so he can expose Nick Griffin and his cronies for what they really are… incompetent racist thugs”. Simon Nicholson, a former soldier, went undercover with the BNP during the long campaign, keeping a diary of what he witnessed.

Here are some extracts:

Sat Feb 13: Arrive at hotel and see a couple of Orthodox Jewish men in the street. Regional Organiser Clive Jefferson mutters: “Look at those f***ing Yids.” Three of us crammed into tiny room, Clive rants about Muslims gang-raping “our women” and mixed marriages making him sick.

A party veteran tells us he used to live in Edmonton but moved out after it became “C**n City”. Hates Enfield – “they’re breeding like rabbits” – and didn’t think much of the BNP’s target area of East London today: “They’ll f***ing blow the place up. I couldn’t wait to leave there after what I saw today.”

Thur Feb 18: When Sikh member Rajinder Singh’s name comes up, one member shouts “black b*****d”. Another asks: “What are we supposed to call them when they come to meetings? N*****s? They like being called n*****s, don’t they?”

Clive suggests putting local Muslims “under surveillance” at Friday prayers and claims Burnley has metal detectors because kids have been stabbing each other in race rows. Has a go at plan for all-girl Muslim school there, falsely claiming it will house 5,000 Muslims. Calls it “a breeding programme”.

Wed & Thur Mar 16-17: At Brussels hotel a few of our lot spot two dark-skinned men and start banging the window and making monkey noises. On way to parliament, bus stops at traffic lights near a mosque – hard-core members smash their fists against window shouting abuse.

Sun Mar 28: Griffin’s answer to the scourge of knife crime: “Most of the disaffected youths carrying out knife crime and gun crime in London aren’t ours at all – they’re criminals from other countries. They can go back there.” He claims Muslims “14 times more productive than us” and soon UK, Ireland, France and the Netherlands “will be Islamic”.

• Hope Not Hate will be holding a Day of Action on Monday in Barking and Dagenham to combat the BNP threat, with Eddie Izzard joining the campaign in key wards from 10:30am-1pm; more details can be found here.

Conservative Home called this week for consistency from the Lib Dems – demanding action against a parliamentary candidate for making the same kind of comments “which got a Lib Dem frontbencher sacked”. Will they demand the same standards from their own party leader?

David Cameron has come under pressure for sacking Philip Lardner but refusing to remove Chris Grayling or Julian Lewis for their offensive remarks on gay rights. But if Cameron was applying the consistency that Conservative Home calls for, a number of Tory council candidates would also be for the chop.

Several prominent grassroots Conservatives have come out in support of Lardner, the sacked parliamentary candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran who said homosexuality was “not normal”. Tim Montgomerie, editor of Conservative Home, has claimed that Lardner’s views are “shared by many conservative Christians”, adding his suspension seemed “a disproportionate response”.

Some of his commenters, among them a Tory MEP, council candidates and councillors, go even further. Roger Helmer MEP said:

“Philip Lardner is a sound Conservative and a good friend. Of course the Party in Scotland is free to disagree with his remarks, but in suspending him it shows a disturbing intolerance for dissent.”

Cllr Colin Gore, leader of the Tory group on Oadby and Wigston Borough Council in Leicestershire said:

“Are Christian Conservatives now not allowed to have views on gays that people in Islington do not agree with?”

Cllr John Chilver of Aylesbury Vale District Council said:

“This candidate should be reinstated immediately… Have we become so cravenly submissive to the dictates of political correctness that we are unable to defend a Christian moral conscience?”

Cllr Sam Chapman of Chorley South said:

“I don’t understand what Mr Lardner has done wrong.”

And Shaun Bennett, assumed to be the Tory candidate for Hartshill and Penkull ward in Stoke-on-Trent who comments regularly on Conservative Home, said:

“I’m disgusted by Cameron’s blatant populism on this issue… I thought the candidates comments were well measured and reasonable actually… Cameron is in the last chance saloon, and he’s doing himself no favours with us rank and file party members.”

It has also emerged that Lardner has close links to another Scottish Tory candidate with disturbing views on gay rights and race. Richard Cook, even higher up in the Scottish Tories – can be seen sharing a joke with Lardner and the deputy leader of the Scottish Tories Murdo Fraser. Cook’s biography on the Conservative Party website lists him as “Director in Scotland of the Campaign Against Political Correctness”.

Yet he told the Record on Sunday that “he is no longer involved” in the group. The CAPC’s idea of humour can be seen here. Cook is also a big fan of “blacking up” - calling people who object to the practise “oversensitive” – and is an opponent of gay adoption, writing:

“It offends me greatly to see a system that benefited me so greatly abused by a local authority in the name of political correctness.”

He has been on official visits abroad with William Hague. He remains a Tory Party candidate.

The BNP is so short of support, unable to muster enough members of the public to appear on their hate-filled leaflets it has resorted to using candidates masquerading as regular voters to spread their message of hate. All four “voters” pictured on BNP PPC for Tunbridge Wells Andy McBride’s election leaflets are BNP parliamentary candidates – three of them councillors.

The four are (clockwise from top left): Cllr Ian Mellor, PPC for NW Leicestershire; Cllr Cathy Duffy, PPC for Charnwood; Christina Evans, PPC for Ludlow; and Cllr David Owens, PPC for Boston & Skegness.

David Owens alone is pictured in at least six more leaflets, playing the part of an ordinary local in Mid Sussex, Birmingham Yardley, Broxbourne, Beckenham, NW Leicestershire and Brentford & Isleworth, as well as the Tunbridge Wells leaflet.

As the “Vote No To The BNP” blog says:

“At the very least voters in the areas where these leaflets are being distributed should be made aware that the person claiming to be a British National Party voter is in fact a candidate standing for the party in another area of the country.

“The British National Party (BNP) seem to be intent on deceiving British voters in whatever way they can, and it doesn’t say much for them that they have to use their own candidates to pose as ‘voters’ in election materials, can they not find real people who actually want to vote for them?

“It seems the BNP never learn in their attempts to fool the public by using fake supporters, in recent months the BNP have used another candidate to pose as a soldier whilst out campaigning with Nick Griffin in Barking and they have also been using an American family to pose as British voters in their election materials.”

Though the BNP’s tactics are disengenuous, deceitful and misleading, “they are not in breach of Electoral Commission law,” a spokesman for the commission told Left Foot Forward.

Hat-tips: Vote No To The BNP, The Straight Choice and Hope Not Hate.

UPDATE 15:26hrs: Laura Kuenssberg, on News 24, has just revealed Lardner has been suspended from the Tory party and will now not contest the seat at the general election. It is too late for the Conservatives to field another candidate.

A Conservative Party candidate who said Enoch Powell “was right” and described Ian Smith as his “hero” has exhibited his exremist views once more by describing homosexuality as “not ‘normal’ behaviour” and defending section 28 -  remarks which have now been removed from his website, but not before Left Foot Forward got a screengrab (click to enlarge):

Philip Lardner, Tory PPC for North Ayrshire and Arran, wrote:

“As your MP I will support the rights of parents and teachers to refuse to have their children taught that homosexuality is ‘normal’ behaviour or an equal lifestyle choice to traditional marriage… I will not accept that their behaviour is ‘normal’ or encourage children to indulge in it.

“The promotion of homosexuality by public bodies (as per ‘clause 28′/section 2a in Scotland,) was correctly outlawed by Mrs Thatcher’s government.“

Lardner’s remarks are yet another indication of the forces of homophobia at play in David Cameron’s modern Conservative Party, following shadow home secretary Chris Grayling’s remarks that B&B owners should be allowed to refuse entry to gay couples and shadow defence minister Julian Lewis’s comments on the age of consent and HIV. Grayling and Lewis remain Conservative candidates and remain on Cameron’s front bench.

Cameron’s allies in Europe are even more homophobic than his own MPs. In 2000, Michal Kaminski, leader of Cameron’s MEPs, gave a TV interview in which he refers to homosexuals as “pedaly”, literally pedals which is the near equivalent of “faggots” but also implies paedophilia. Kaminski has never apologised for the remarks and has never been criticised by Cameron for them.

Only last November, Cameron’s Lithuanian partner, Valdemar Tomasevski, described homosexuality as an “evil” from which children should be protected and says “we cannot allow these people to claim … that homosexuality is normal”. Cameron has never condemned Tomasevski, who remains a key ally.

Left Foot Forward has been unable to get any comment from the Conservative Party or Mr Lardner. He remains a Tory candidate. UPDATE II 15:51hrs: The Conservative Party has just released a statement condemning Mr Lardner, saying his views have no place in the modern Conservative Party. As mentioned above, he has been suspended form the party and will no longer stand as a candidate.

UPDATE III 16:37hrs: Left Foot Forward has learnt that, in July last year, Lardner, in language more in tune with Nick Griffin than David Cameron, wrote:

“Thanks to our quisling politicians, we are now required to self-loathe our history and culture, indulge in degenerate pop and soap culture and celebrate the destruction of the family by prancing about at homosexual roadshows. These politicians have ensured we capitulate by destroying our industry and economy and immersing us in a Euro-superstate.

“With no job, no (man-woman-children) family and no hope, are we surprised that kids and adults in sink-estates have no aspiration? Our politicians have destroyed our country and left our indigenous ordinary people a hopeless and directionless mess.

“Quite literally I ask, God and Jesus help us!”

And last May, he appeared alongside Murdo Fraser MSP, deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives, at a meeting of right-wing Freedom Association.

Questions will be raised about how a bigot like Lardner rose so high in the Scottish Conservative Party, in the wake of his remarks about “homosexual roadshows” and his past comments about Ian Smith: “Ian Smith typified a British hero… I met him in 1998 and got to shake his hand. I am confident Ian Smith was a good man”; immigration: “It doesn’t make sense to flood a small island with people” and Enoch Powell: “Essentially, what Enoch Powell said has in a small way come true.”

An Essex newspaper has come in for severe criticism for an “article” on its website which reads almost word-for-word like a BNP press release. The report, which isn’t bylined, gushes about how “proud nationalists” dug into their pockets to fund Brentwood & Ongar BNP candidate Paul Morris’s deposit, “packed into a back room of a patriotic pub”.

The post, on the Essex Chronicle website “This is Total Essex” – which also tweeted the piece – adds:

“The party operates under a veil of secrecy to protect members from those who oppose their beliefs and did not reveal the location of the meeting until just minutes before it was due to start. With the pub set to become a regular meeting place for the new group, they have asked us not to reveal where it is.

“Christine Mitchell, a 68-year-old grandmother from Chelmsford, will be running the branch from here on in. Mrs Mitchell, who is contesting the newly created Saffron Walden seat in the general election on May 6, said: ‘We are fighting for British jobs for British workers, that is the start but we are standing for other reasons – crime rates, the state of the education system and the fact MPs have stolen from the public.’

“The former Conservative leader of Westminster Council, Peter Strudwick, spoke for more than an hour during the meeting, rallying support for what he called “ideologies” for the future…

“Searching faces scoured the room until a man who had until then sat quietly in the corner, put his hand up to pledge £100. Others then thrust crisp £50 notes in the pot before the less well-off handed over their screwed up £10 and £20 notes. There was much applause and hand shaking as the money came flooding in, uniting the room in the campaign to bring about radical change.”

Readers vented their fury at the Chronicle’s appeasement of the BNP in the comments [These comments have now been deleted - see our update below]. Here is a selection:

• “I’m a journalist and this story is being passed rapidly between people in our industry. At first I thought it was a spoof by the BNP or a production error had uploaded a press release on to the site. Nope, apparently this is what passes for journalism at this paper.”

• “If Hitler had won the war, all journalism would be like this. But he didn’t. So stop glorifying racists and bigots.”

• “This is not serious journalism, this is pathetic pandering to extremists. Who on erath wrote this article? It’s interesting to see the name isn’t given – which means thisistotalessex.co.uk and the Gazette/Chronicle should shoulder the blame in clear conscious partiality towards an extremist party. It’s either unrepresentative and unproffesionally ridiculous, or sadly very representative – take your pick, people of Essex.

• “I am surprised that the reported who attended this meeting didn’t make a contribution to the BNP themselves, from the tone of the article it sounds like they’re already a fully paid up member! So much for impartiality and journalistic integrity. And what is the Gazette doing pandering to these racist thugs by agreeing not to print the name of the pub? If the members are not ashamed of their beliefs why do they need protecting.

“Mr Strudwick spoke of ideologies for the future. What were these then, fascism, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia?

“Finally the article finishes by suggesting that this bitter party of hate peddlers want to bring about radical change. If by radical change you mean returning Britain to the predominantly white population that existed before 1948, this would throw Britain back into the dark ages.”

• “This article is shocking; where is the balance, the critical discussion (at the very least) of the BNP’s policies. I point readers to page 2 of the Essex Chronicle this week for a much better article on this ‘news’ story. I would also point the journalist towards the EXPOSE campaign, supported by the NUJ, which seeks to reveal the BNP for the Nazis and fascists that they really are.

“Finally, I would like to reveal the pub as the New Barn pub in Melbourne, Chelmsford, for any anti-fascists who want to rally against the far-right in our town. This was unveiled in the Essex Chronicle, which also points out that a number of regulars at the pub walked out when the BNP arrived, showing how these fascists are hijacking our local town.”

• “There are two issues that concern me about this item. Firstly “Proud”. Are you sure ? This shower bottled out of debating the issues in Chelmsford then run off to Brentwood to hold secret meetings. Proud ? Grubby more like.

“Secondly, where have journalism and editing gone on this site? No questions raised or cross examining ? None at all. This looks as though a BNP press release has been regurgitated in its entirety. Hardly the actions of an independent media during the run up to a General Election. Get a grip.”

The British National Party’s number one target in the forthcoming elections is to take control of Barking and Dagenham Council in Essex, where it has 12 incumbents – more councillors than in any borough in the country. BNP leader Nick Griffin is also standing in Barking, in the general election; Hope Not Hate is holding a day of action to combat the Fascist threat in Barking and Dagenham next Monday, May Day bank holiday.

In January, Left Foot Forward revealed how 14 local papers in Essex had accepted advertising from the BNP during the 2009 European elections. This is the roll of shame: Basildon Recorder, Braintree Weekly, Chelmsford Weekly News, Clacton & Frinton Gazette, Colchester Weekly News, Echo, Essex County Standard, Evening Gazette, Halstead Gazette, Harwich & Manningtree Standard, Maldon & Burnham Standard, Southend Standard, Thurrock Gazette and Weekly News Brent & Bill.

The Essex Chronicle, which is published by Northcliffe Media, a division of Daily Mail & General Trust, was unavailable for comment.

UPDATE 27/4:

All comments have been deleted from the Essex Chronicle. As of 17.54 on April 27th, the only comment is from Rianna and says:

“Why have the reader comments been deleted, I feel that it is important for people to have their say -particularly on this subject?”

The UK Independence Party have issued a leaflet in Lancaster which compares immigration in the UK to the plight of Native Americans, an indigenous people removed from their land in the early nineteenth century – and in many cases subjected to acts of genocide.

The leaflet, uploaded on The Straight Choice – the election leaflet project, depicts a Native American in full head dress with the caption: “He used to ignore immigration … now he lives on a reservation”.

David Cesarani, an English historian who specialises in Jewish history, states in Holocaust: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies: “in terms of the sheer numbers killed, the Native American Genocide exceeds that of the Holocaust”.

Tonight, the Freesteel blog writes that:

“Some quick checking on-line searching traces this particular idea to the right wing Northern League in Italy in their 2008 elections. (link) Even though they don’t have a StraightChoice.org, their posters are available on their website. The funny thing is I always thought that italians were better dressed than that baggy green sweater guy.”