This new website says it all in its name really.  Thanks to Tim Montgomerie and James Bethell of Conservative home for taking to time to create it!

The Redwatch site in all its various guises (.org  .org.uk  .net  .info) seems to have been closed down.  No information about why or when it went, but this is good news.  The site was one big incitement to violence and photographs of Wealden UAF members had appeared on there.

Both discs of the two-CD set are still available for free download from the NME and will be available until January.

The music can be downloaded and burnt to CD-R and the CDs can be kept in a bright sleeve which is also available for free.

If anyone wants a CD sleeve just let us know.  If anyone wants a pile of CD sleeves for their school, college, club, or other organisation also let us know - we can even throw in a poster or two to help publicise them.

This sounds like a good idea.

Those nice people at Love Music Hate Racism have got together with the NME, the NUT, the NUS, and loads of musicians to produce a double-CD.

The first disc is attached to this week's NME and the second disc can be downloaded for free.

Anyone who downloads the second disc can also download artwork for the CD itself (same link as above) and they can also get a sleeve for it free. Sort of.

The sleeves can be ordered in bulk by Student Unions to give away to members, or anyone else (schools, trade unions, etc.) can order some for a donation to cover the admin and postage costs. All the details are here, along with posters and leaflets which can be downloaded and printed.

If any unions, schools or other organisations in the Wealden area intend to get some of these CD sleeves to distribute in schools, colleges, youth clubs or elsewhere let us know - we can give it a mention here, and if we are able to get any ourselves it will help us if we know of places which are already covered.

Why is this happening? This is what LMHR say about it:

The CD idea came about following the fascist British National Party (BNP) attempts to recruit school students with their racist poison and amid reports from Channel 4 among others of a significant rise in racist attacks and abuse inside schools. The CD has huge potential in taking the LMHR message to a huge audience, getting many new people involved in the campaign to stop the fascist BNP from dividing our communities and schools ahead of next year's local council and London Assembly elections - but only with YOUR help.

How about making a donation to LMHR on our behalf to cover the cost of some CD sleeves for us to give away?  Or how about just making a donation to us to cover the costs of this sort of activity?  Or how about joining us at the same time?

At the very least, think about getting the NME this week.  Artists on the CDs include The Enemy, Lethal Bizzle, The View, Hard-Fi, MIA, Bloc Party, Carbon/Silicon, Babyshambles, The Charlatans, Dirty Pretty Things, Manu Chao, Biffy Clyro, New Young Pony Club, Billy Bragg, Maximo Park, and Nine Black Alps. I am listening to the downloaded second CD now and its pretty darn good.

#1 of an occasional series.

From Stop The BNP (with thanks to Bob Piper for bringing this to a wider audience - welcome back Bob!)

BNP councillor to be removed for non-attendance

The British National Party is about to lose yet another councillor, Searchlight can exclusively reveal.

James Lloyd, BNP councillor for Princes End ward on Sandwell council, has not attended a meeting in six months, which means that he will be removed from office. We hope the council will not delay in writing to Lloyd to inform him of the situation. The usual procedure would be to give him seven days to prove that he has in fact attended a meeting. If he cannot, and Searchlight, which monitors BNP attendance and performance, believes that is the case, then he will lose his seat.

Not a single meeting in six months…  so much for representing the people.  It is almost a dictionary definition of "wasted vote". 

Lloyd has been a major embarrassment to the BNP in the Black Country. He stood on a platform of insisting that parents be held responsible for the bad behaviour of their children. However, his two sons have regularly been in trouble with the law. One was named and shamed by the police as one of the worst young offenders in the area.

Is the BNP motto "Do as I say, not as I do"?  A typical trait of totalitarian regimes throughout history.

Earlier this year Searchlight revealed that police had objected to the renewal of Lloyd's pub licence after a series of violent incidents at his premises. They including a shooting incident in which Lloyd himself was the target. The BNP councillor had repeatedly refused to cooperate with the police.

A relevant quote from the BNP literature in the recent Holbrook West by-election "Anti-social behaviour - zero tolerance. BNP councillors will ensure the Police increase their patrols to stop anti-social behaviour and drug-related crime. Let's make the criminals live in fear - not law-abiding citizens"

They did not take the time to explain how running the sort of pub most citizens, law-abiding or otherwise, would live in fear of helps in the fight against either crime or fear of crime.  Was the repeated refusal to co-operate with the Police their roundabout way of ensuring the Police increase their patrols?

"Say anything to get elected. Do nothing after getting elected"  That would be a better headline in the leaflets.

And then there were two …

Last week Simon Smith, a councillor in neighbouring Great Bridge ward, formally acknowledged that he is no longer part of the BNP group on the council. Smith, who was the BNP group leader until he resigned from the party two months ago, had been elected in 2006 with the highest BNP vote in the country.

This leaves the BNP with only two councillors in the borough and 47 in the country, down from 50 immediately after the May elections.

Three down, forty-seven to go! 

There is a link in the sidebar to a poem called The Hangman by Maurice Ogden.

It is quite a long poem, but well worth a read.  it is a greatly extended version of the famous quote by Pastor Martin Niemöller:

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . .
And by that time there was no one left to speak up

In today's G2 section of the Guardian there is a very effective article by Billy Bragg, in which he recalls how the original Rock Against Racism movement inspired him and how the current Love Music Hate Racism concept can do the same for potential future Billy Braggs.

A few selective quotes:

"Back in the late 70s, I was working in an office, a place of casual racism and homophobia. I never spoke out against it because I felt I was in a minority and didn't want the grief. On the streets, the National Front were marching through immigrant neighbourhoods, stirring up trouble and trying to divide communities."

This is the thing to remember for everyone out there: you are not alone.  As Billy Bragg found out.

"When I arrived at the rally, in east London, I was amazed to see 100,000 young people just like me - one for every vote the National Front had won in the council elections the year before. I came away with a strong sense that this was where my generation was going to make its stand. Just as youth in the 50s had marched against the bomb and the longhairs of the 60s had opposed the Vietnam war, we were going to define ourselves in opposition to discrimination in all its forms."

And the happy ending:

Well, it was the music of the Clash that got me to the Rock Against Racism carnival. However, it wasn't the songs they played that day, or the speeches that were made from the stage that changed my world. It was being in that audience. I went to work the next day determined to speak up against the racists, confident in the knowledge that I was not alone.

Just by existing we are giving reassurance to those who are not racist or homophobic and giving them the confidence of knowing that they are not alone, and are not even in a minority. When Wealden UAF organise an LMHR concert at some time in the future everyone who attends will be making a difference.  You do not have to be performing, organising or making speeches. Just be being in the audience you can make an impact and may be unwittingly inspiring somebody.

(Photo by neil365 distributed under a Creative Commons license)

We now have a new domain name, a new website with a new look, a PO Box for snail-mail, e-mail addresses for contacts and a bank account.;

membership forms and affiliation forms will be available here soon.