Looks like the original BBC story - which they hastily pulled to replace with something more anodyne - was kosher.
Yorkshire Post and icHuddersfield also report that BNP members were the potential target of the two young men arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000.
We're in new territory here. I can't remember any previous cases in UK history of trying to kill people for their party membership, although one Billy Bragg did call in a Guardian interview for BNP members to be "duffed up in the street", while a Jeremy Hardy said on the BBC that they "should be shot in the back of the head".
UPDATE - when one considers the relatively peaceful past of UK party politics, one does tend to forget Erin's green isle, where killing politicians is an old and dishonourable tradition both North and South of the border - although even then, did people try to target ordinary members of, say, the DUP ? The situation is complicated when you consider that some parties were terrorist front organisations.
Which countries have traditions of political violence aimed at ordinary party members or supporters ? Well, pretty much all of them outside the Anglosphere and some parts of Europe, really. Pakistan and Bangladesh for starters. India's not immune. The Land of Wood and Water.
Looks like we're not just getting the voting practices of the subcontinent along with the kuthlama and the dosa.
Well, Of Course We Will, Emma…
18 hours ago
7 comments:
New territory?
Didn't the IRA target Tories?
The BNP Press Officer wrote ... the Press Officer from West Yorks Police phoned me to insist that the reports were actually wrong and the the two youths of Pakistani origin had only been charged with possession of explosives rather than intent. ... If BNP members are going to be used as bait to trap alleged terrorists it would be more considerate if we were actually told about it in the first place. It is however simply beyond belief that one of these individuals is currently sitting at home having been released on bail. ...
Laban has shown that the story was massaged on October 5th, before the election was called off. Are we going to become eyeballed in sewage as they are in Belgium?
The political situation in Jamaica has since worsened. During the last election a couple of months ago gangs of West Kingston-based Jamaica Labour Party toughs travelled to other areas of the island to intimidate supporters of the opposing People's National Party. Ballot boxes also mysteriously disappeared.
Ahhh the halcyon days of civilised governance of the white man.
Actually it’s not the killing of people for their party affiliations that you have to fear, although that's bad enough.
Of course as it’s only BNP so far there will be no mainstream comment, but the wholesale buying and manipulation of votes that took place in some Asian dominated wards at the last elections.
Now that really is bringing a new dimension into our politics. another 30 yrs and we will be back down to their levels.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/05/nvote105.xml
Dave - even the IRA didn't go for ordinary party members, as far as I know. But my original post forgot to mention that Ireland was the exception to the UK rule.
...but the IRA did murder Protestants just because they were Protestants...
...the passengers were forced to line up outside their vehicle, after which they were systematically gunned down ... Johnston Chapman had to identify the bodies of his two nephews, who died in the attack. He said: "They were just lying there like dogs, blood everywhere."...
1976: Ten dead in Northern Ireland ambush
"Dave - even the IRA didn't go for ordinary party members, as far as I know."
however they gunned down people like Ross McWhirter - an outspoken critic , who offering £50,000 for information on IRA bombers.
Read more here
However, political assasinations are nothing new - one example is
Tomas MacCurtain - Lord Mayor of Cork, Sinn Feiner. Gunned down in his home by the Royal Irish Constabulary.
However he was chief of staff of the local IRA, so one could look at that as a military killing during a guerilla war.
However, i think you're right about the IRA not targetting ordinary, non-government, Conservative party members.(they could have easily opened up a machine gun on the high street of Henley-on-Thames say, but never did)
This targetting of BNP members is certainly a new development in England.
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