Richard Barnbrook: an interview
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4099
By Chris Brown
How things have changed, and the media are trying to play catch up!
The BBC web-site for instance carries this report:
Interview
By Emma Griffiths
Political reporter, BBC News
RICHARD BARNBROOK
Age: 47
Family: Engaged to Simone Clarke
Education: Inningham Comprehensive, Grimsby, Royal Academy of Arts, California Institute of Arts
Lives: Dagenham
Career: Sculptor, teacher, councillor
Profile: http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4148
The British National Party candidate for London mayor http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4040 says he wants to give the “real people of London” a voice.By “real” Londoners he means the indigenous population first, and the post-war immigrants who came over to rebuild Britain, such as Caribbeans who arrived on the Empire Windrush, second.
He believes immigrants who have arrived in the past 15 years are taking more than they are giving – and says politicians have been too reluctant to tackle the issue.
“It’s not immigrants that are at fault here, never has been, it’s the establishment, our own governing powers and their greed or their ignorance or their simple gutlessness to do anything about it,” he said.
“They feel if they try to look at immigration they will have the finger pointed at them – ‘racist’. This is an easy get out clause – this is bullying people.”
‘Anti-democratic’
Mr Barnbrook says claims the BNP is a racist organisation are “nonsense” and says he is still waiting for a clear definition of what racism is.
“We’re not racist at all. We do not perceive one person’s religion, identity, culture or way of life as being better or worse than our own, we are simply different.”
He is annoyed that members have been suspended from jobs. A former teacher himself, he found his work dried up the first time he stood as a BNP councillor.
He says such action is “anti-democratic”: “We are a legal party. We have made no statements that would see us in the courts. (BNP leader) Nick Griffin and (activist) Mark Collett went to the courts over a BBC hatchet job and on two occasions a jury of 12 people acquitted them – a waste of taxpayers’ money.”
Both men were cleared of inciting racial hatred in November 2006 after a retrial at Leeds Crown Court – the case followed a secretly filmed BBC documentary The Secret Agent.
Mr Barnbrook has been in the headlines for his engagement to English National Ballet star Simone Clarke, who became known as the “BNP ballerina” after admitting being a member of the party.
‘Too aggressive’
A painter and graduate of the Royal Academy of Arts, he also did a PGCE (post-graduate teacher training) and spent four years from 1986 lecturing across Europe and America. He was initially a “card carrying Labour activist” in Lewisham, south-east London.
But he became disillusioned with them during the Thatcher years, left the party and returned to his art. He joined the BNP in 1999 after four years of “looking into” the party. He admits he had some concerns it might be similar to the National Front which he said was “way too aggressive”.
He said there was no thuggery when he went to meet activists and he was quickly made the party’s organiser for Lewisham.
He says he has since been taken by surprise by the rapid rise of the BNP in Barking and Dagenham – where the party is now the official opposition on the council with 12 councillors.
TOP PLEDGES
Tough on crime
33% new housing to be council housing
Suspend congestion charge, free up trunk roads
Major tree planting scheme
Freeze on immigration
http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/04/10/richard-barnbrook-an-interview/