The Muslim News - BNP is racist, says former member

Issue 228, Friday 25 April 2008 - 20 Rabi' al-Akhar 1429

BNP is racist, says former member

By Zainab Hemani

A Welsh British National Party (BNP) councillor said he was forced to resign from the Party after stating that he was disgusted at the racist remarks made by the BNP towards Muslims.
55-year old Pat Pattison resigned from the BNP after realising that despite assertions of the contrary the Party members regularly uses racist and offensive language.
The councillor caused controversy when he was employed by the BNP last September and was appointed onto the Llysfaen Community Council.
In a letter to Lancaster Unity the councillor wrote, “My mistake was joining the BNP. They assured me that they were a non-racist party. Well, I can assure you they are racist. They refer to anybody who is non-white as ‘Pakis’. This shows their ignorance. At first when racial remarks were made at meetings, I put this down to sheer ignorance and bigotry but in the short time I was a member the situation became intolerable and the last straw came when I tried to help a Pakistani family who are also Muslim.”
Councillor Pattison insists the party threatened him when he attempted to help an Asian family in his ward. He said, “I was asked if I could go and see an Asian family who had been victimised. Then one of the local BNP members called me and said ‘What’s going on, you have been helping Pakis, we’ve been watching you’. I said I’ll help who I want. My mate’s mum was Indian, I know lots of coloured people. I thought the BNP’s policies were good, they just don’t like coloured people and are trying to cause unrest.”
However the Party argues that the Councillor was sacked after causing disruption in the group. The BNP comprise of 74 members in the Colwyn Bay area and meet every month at a secret location in the town. In an interview with The Muslim News, Simon Darby, a member of the BNP, said that the racist comment made by Pattison was not original. He said, “Anybody who stands up for the indigenous people are by default a racist. Pattison is obviously upset and he’s just lashing out, that’s all it is. I’ll be honest, we are not advocates of multiculturalism and we wish mass immigration hadn’t happened but we don’t put the blame on individual Asian families. The fact that they needed help, they should have got help. We would never tell anyone not to help an Asian family merely because they are Asian because that isn’t fair and it’s not what we stand for. It’s also not good politics.”
Another representative from South Wales BNP told The Muslim News, “We are not racist, anyone who says otherwise is either misinformed or a liar.” Regarding the claims made by Pattison that racist remarks were made in BNP meetings, she said, “No, it is not true, and any such remarks would simply not be tolerated.”
A North West Wales organiser for the BNP, John Oddy said, “My first job as organiser was to sack Mr Pattison as he was running the party down. He has a long running battle with Colwyn County Council, and I advised him against that. Nobody has gone to him and said not to help a person and discriminated against someone’s rights because of their colour. Every single party in the UK has racist members. I’ve heard racist language at BNP meetings – many years ago the BNP was a racist organisation – but they’ve calmed down and moderated. We are nationalist, not racist.”
BNP Chairman, Nick Griffin caused row in March when he told the BBC that a large number of drug dealers in the UK were Muslim. He said, “You can’t possibly separate the hard drugs trade from the question of Islam and particularly Pakistani immigration. Any working class area of Britain, in a multiracial area, the hard drugs problem is related to Islam and Pakistan.”

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