About Saturday

I’ve got to confess, I was a bit put out, on Saturday.

I was handy out flyers for tonight’s quiz, up and down the High Street and and the Bay Tree Centre.

And, if you’ve been reading the Gazette, you’ll probably realise that the BNP were out and about, that day.

I’m offended.

I even got asked if I was handy out stuff for them; - not that I blame the chap doing the asking.

But I thought I’d write another letter in to the Gazette, just to make the point that I wasn’t happy to see a group I’ve always found odious in town …

Here’s the text …

“I’m writing in regard to the news that the BNP were in Brentwood, on Saturday just gone.   I was in Brentwood High Street, handing out flyers for the pub quiz I run, and accused by one of the Bay Tree Centre’s understandably concerned Afro-Carribean staff of being a member.   

I don’t blame him, in a way.

But living near Brentwood Station, one sees their activists come into town by train – usually accompanied by the police – and sees the worried looks on the faces of local businessmen and residents of different ethnic minority origin.

I don’t blame them, either 

The BNP are notoriously racist, however much of a ‘nice’ face they try to put on their party’s website.   They’ve also been noted for being fairly friendly to the David Irvine style Holocaust deniers of this world.   As someone who’s grandfather was one of the troops to liberate Dachau, who saw what the Nazi’s did, and came back to tell his child and grandchildren about it, I find them, and what they stand for, seriously objectionable.

I’m British, and proud to say so.

But feel that good old fashioned British tolerance is not served by these people.   And hope for two things.

That none of the three people who joined this group were serving policemen or civil servants, and thus in a position to put their bigotry into some sort of government action.

And that politicians from all mainstream parties can rapidly find answers to the issue groups like this raise.

I’d rather not see the BNP listed on a local or national ballot paper.”

Personally, I’m hoping the more mainstream parties manage to address the issue of immigration, in a fair, coherent, and publicly acceptable way; – it’s the one issue this group is exploiting for their own ends.

Which I feel will not be good, given their links, over the years, with groups like Combat18, and the National Front