Gary McFarlane

TalkBack

Dangerous animals

From Socialist Review, No. 177, July/August 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

The British ruling class and its agencies are nothing if not consistent. The deputy führer and national organiser of the British Nazi Party, Richard Edmonds, appeared before their courts in June along with two other thugs, following a vicious attack on a black man, Steven Browne. The assault, it was admitted by the judge, was orchestrated and led by Edmonds, but he was allowed to walk free from the court.

Christopher Hardy, passing judgement, made this revealing comment:

‘When people associate themselves with extreme political organisations, whether on the right or the left, as officials they are to a certain extent riding a tiger. I suspect you like that ride because it gives you a sense of importance and power. There is no doubt from what I have heard in this case that people in the BNP respect you and look up to you. It is, however, a dangerous animal and when it is let loose in the streets you must restrain it and not goad it.’

The judge depicts Edmonds as someone ‘riding a tiger’, who needs to be responsible with his power. Instead of concluding that chopping the head off this ‘dangerous animal’ may well save the life of a black or Jewish person at some point in the future, he instead lets him go free to unleash his tigers on Asian school children and any other ‘non-whites’ and ‘reds’ they can get their hands on.

Attending the ANL picket of the court case, my stomach turned when we heard the Nazi would be coming out a free man – the other two, Biggs and O’Shea, were sent down for four and a half years and 12 months respectively.

To the rich fool sitting in his court the BNP is merely one aspect of the growth of extremist politics on both the right and left.

It appears the judge perversely reasoned (if that’s the right word), let Edmonds go and he will control the stormtroopers. But a more realistic interpretation is necessary. The reality is that the British ruling class is more worried by the response to the Nazi threat than the threat itself. But could we expect any better of the British injustice system? The simple answer is no.

In the days following Edmonds’ release Leon Greenman, an 83 year old Holocaust survivor, had a brick through his window courtesy of the BNP. As far as I am aware the attack has not been reported by a single national newspaper or TV channel (maybe because it didn’t happen in Germany but in ‘liberal’ Britain).

Indeed, following their setback in the local elections the Nazis are trying to step up the terror – and in Tower Hamlets the attacks have continued before, during and after Edmonds’ court appearance. As Gerry Gable made clear in his evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, the BNP is a terrorist conspiracy.

But compare the inaction and duplicity of judges and cops towards Nazis with their attitude to those who fight back. The faces of Welling demonstrators are still plastered over the police stations of Britain.

In Sheffield it is Asian youths who go on trial this month for daring to defend their community from race attack. In Tower Hamlets nine Asian kids are also to be dragged before the courts for the same ‘offence’. Meanwhile a leading architect of the racist terror campaign is allowed to continue with his vile works, even after being caught in the act.

Many will have been outraged, but the truth – no matter how unpalatable it might be to the white liberals and the Council for Racial Equality – is that the Tories in court (judges) and the Tories in government are much more concerned about an explosion of working class anger directed at them and their wealth, than they are about ‘responsible’ middle class Nazis with first class degrees in electronic engineering, organising for concentration camps at the end of the 20th century.

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