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Sting docu bares UK's racist party

British officialdom has promised to bring the country's leading far-right, anti-Asian, anti-immigration and anti-Muslim party to book after an unusual BBC undercover television documentary exposed the British National Party (BNP) as violently "anti-Paki", the UK term for all brown-skinned people.

The BNP, which clocked up a substantial 750,000 British votes in last month's European parliamentary elections and has many elected local officials across the Asian-dominant north of England, was conclusively revealed for the first time on primetime UK television as sheltering a violent, anti-Asian, hate-filled group of activists

The activists were captured on a hidden camera by the BBC's young undercover reporter as confessing to a succession of offences against Asians: violently beating one three years ago during Britain's worst race riots; shoving dog shit through the door of an Indian restaurant; fantasising about shooting mosques full of worshippers and withdrawing citizenship from Gujarati and Punjabi-speakers who know little English.

On Friday, British Indians and Pakistanis expressed horror at the ugly display of racism by a party claiming the support of at least five per cent of the UK electorate.

The BNP, which has been exceedingly active in Southall or Little India, has increasingly tried to use British Sikhs and Hindus to denounce British Muslims as the community that broke up India by out-breeding Sikhs and Hindus.

Several Asian organisations, including the UK's first Sikh political party, the Sikh Federation have denounced the BNP's attempt to split the 3.5-million strong British Asian community. The BNP, however, denied to this paper that it was trying to split Asians.

Amrik Singh, chair of the Sikh Federation, called on the British government to ban the BNP under the UK's strict Terrorism Act 2003.

But till late on Friday, there was no official word on even the withdrawal of the BNP's recently-won privilege the right to a free party political television broadcast ahead of elections.

It is seen to have dangerously moved UK racist politics away from a recognisable neo-Nazi image. For five years, under its Cambridge educated leader Nick Griffin, the BNP has junked the distinctive uniform and language that made British racism easy to identify --jackboots, tattoos, skinhead haircut and public rants about white racial superiority.

Instead, Griffin's BNP claims it is not blatantly racist, "it merely wishes to preserve these differences which make up the rich tapestry of human kind". Just weeks ago, the party, which marked its coming-of-age 21st birthday last year, celebrated its newfound respectability as a serious political movement.

It controversially used a middle-aged British Sikh of Indian origin to re-live Partition on television and use India as an example of Islam's dangerousness.

Source: Sting docu bares UK's racist party - The Times of India

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