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However Superintendent Neil Smith moved to reassure residents and stressed: “It is not a bomb making factory” and added that it was not related to terrorism.

Officers have been at the address since last Thursday and have been conducting door to door inquiries. Forensic officers have seized his car for examination.

Supt Smith added: “We are making inquiries in relation to what we have found at his address and to establish what offences he may have committed.

“He’s not a terrorist and it’s not a bomb factory but we are interested in what we have seized from his house. It will take expert advice to establish exactly what he has got.

“He was arrested under the Explosives Act on suspicion of possessing chemical substances that aren’t in themselves an offence to possess but if combined may be capable of making an explosion.”

Cottage stood for the BNP in the May elections in the Vivary Bride ward of Colne.

However it is understood his membership had lapsed.

Nelson BNP councillor Brian Parkinson said: “I am very shocked and surprised to hear this. I am glad to hear that he is no longer a member of our party because the BNP wouldn’t want to be associated with this incident. It certainly wouldn’t condone the sort of thing he is allegedly being connected with.”

Neighbours said they were shocked by the police swoop. Corinne West, 22, of Talbot Street, said: “The police came to my door at 7pm on Friday night asking if I had seen anything suspicious. They wouldn’t tell me anything which was quite worrying.”

Aaron Haworth, 23, who lives next door but one with his partner Marie and two children, added: “The police have been here since Thursday and we are still none the wiser as to what’s happened.

“It’s ridiculous really. I have two young children and if there is bomb making equipment at the house I want to know about it because I have my children’s safety to think about. There’s been all sorts of rumours flying around, I don’t know why the police are being so cagey, that’s what’s making everyone so worried.”

Another neighbour, who lives across the road, but who asked not to be named, said: “I know Robert to talk to. He’s always very polite and stops to talk his mum who lives on the same road and she’s very nice too.

“He is good with the children on the street. He’s been married to Karina for about three years and they seem good together. He drives a yellow bus taking disabled children to school and stood in the local elections for the BNP party.

“I think it is an outrage that the police have been so secretive. The forensics have been here and taken his Peugeot car away for examination.

“On Thursday we were told to stay inside and stay away from the windows which left us all wondering what on earth was going on. They arrested him from the back door and it was strange because the officers had a key to get in the front but from the way they went in it looked as though they thought it might have been booby-trapped. It took them about 10 minutes just to get through the door.”

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The attack, which left the long-time union activist with serious injuries, was the latest and most violent incident in a campaign of intimidation that has been waged against opponents of the far right in the UK over the past five years. Like hundreds of people who have spoken out against the rise of the British National Party and other extremist groups, McFadden’s picture and home address have been collected by far right activists and posted on a website called Redwatch.

The site, which has links with the neo-Nazi organisation Combat 18 and a host of European fascist organisations, is hosted in the US but registered and run from the UK. It lists the personal details and shows the photographs of anti-racists - many taken during protests against the British National Party - alongside the slogan: “Remember places, traitors’ faces, they’ll all pay for their crimes.” This month a delegation of MPs and union activists will visit the Home Office to call for the site to be closed down. It is a familiar refrain and in the past officials have argued that because the site is hosted abroad, there is nothing they can do. However, Redwatch’s sister site in Poland, which was also hosted in the US, was recently closed down after collaboration between authorities in the the two countries, and Home Office minister Vernon Coaker has agreed to champion the campaign within government.

Redwatch was launched in 2001 and takes its name from a Combat 18 newsletter produced in London in the 1990s. For the first few years it was just another online talking shop for hardline racists and fascists, offensive and unpleasant but apparently not dangerous. However, in April 2003, those behind the site signalled that Redwatch meant business. Leeds school teachers Sally Kincaid and Steve Johnson had been involved in local campaigns against the BNP and other far-right groups for years. Then their personal details appeared on Redwatch following a demonstration they had attended in the Pudsey area of the city. A couple of weeks later they suffered a fire-bomb attack at their home, which left their car burned out.

The incident was a turning point. Those featured on Redwatch were no longer being subjected to threats and harassment but to physical attacks. In the months that followed, journalists, politicians and local anti-racist activists were listed on the website. Among those targeted was Peter Lazenby, a journalist on the Yorkshire Evening Post, whose picture now adorns the front page of the site. He has been a long-time opponent of the far right, and has won awards for his reports on the BNP, which gained its first councillor in Leeds in May.

“In some ways being on Redwatch is recognition that as a journalist you must be doing something right,” says Lazenby. “But my overriding feeling is one of anger and resentment that these people feel free to try and intimidate me and my colleagues and threaten us with violence. There is a personal impact on your life. When it first happened, I didn’t take much notice - I’d been getting threats of one kind or another from far right groups since I started reporting on them in the 1970s. But then they got hold of an old address of mine and I thought that wasn’t fair on the people who had moved in, so I warned them and contacted the police.”

West Yorkshire officers took the threats seriously and advised Lazenby to improve his personal security, telling him to vary his route home from work. “I have been on that site since it started and, apart from verbal attacks in the street, nothing has happened to me yet. But every time you hear of an attack it really makes you think. A young man whose details went up after he was spotted delivering anti-fascist leaflets was badly beaten. Then there was the stabbing [of McFadden] over on Merseyside, and there are plenty of other cases that don’t make the papers. Each time an attack happens, it pulls you up. But you can’t let it influence your work, you have to keep going.”

The threat to reporters has grown steadily since Redwatch was launched. In most cases it follows a similar pattern. A newspaper reports on the activities of the BNP or other far right groups, then journalists’ details appear on the site, and threats and intimidation follow. According to the National Union of Journalists, reporters who have published “fair, accurate and professional stories” on the BNP and other far right organisations have been targeted in Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Sunderland, Birmingham and Cardiff. The website even has a new section dedicated to “red journalists”.

Campaigns of intimidation are also being waged against local anti-racist activists. “We sometimes find that, although a lot of people are worried about the far right in their area, they don’t want to get involved because they are concerned about intimidation,” says Nick Lowles of anti-fascist organisation Searchlight, “and that is due in part to Redwatch and the threats and violence that come with it.”

The racists and fascists behind Redwatch are not deterred by the campaign to close the site. A notice on the homepage reads: “Due to a hysterical campaign by Marxist moaners against Redwatch, we use several domain names and multiple servers for this site.” It adds: “While it is time to be legal we must stolidly endure whatever the puppets of the capitalist state see fit to inflict upon us, and when it is time to revolt we must be prepared to unleash all the furies of hell.”

Sympathisers claim Redwatch is little more than an act of self-defence, insisting that they are only doing what anti-fascist campaigners who monitor the activities of rightwingers have been doing for years. But Lowles says this is a dangerous myth: “This is absolute rubbish. There is no anti-racist equivalent to this site. There is nothing that lists home details of fascists and certainly nothing that encourages attacks on them. Redwatch is not an act of revenge but something altogether more sinister. It is designed to intimidate and harass anti-racists and anti-fascists to the point where the individuals targeted no longer campaign against fascist groups. It is political intimidation and classic fascism.”

The British National Party, under its leader Nick Griffin, has tried to distance itself from Redwatch - the blatant intimidation and violence sits uncomfortably with its attempt to portray itself as a mainstream, democratic party. But despite official denials, some anti-racist activists say their pictures have been taken by members of the BNP only to appear on Redwatch a few days later. “I was campaigning against the BNP before the local elections,” says Carl Morphett from Kirklees in West Yorkshire, which now has three BNP councillors. “We were photographed by two BNP members in Yorkshire and a day later we appeared on Redwatch. There is no doubt that the BNP uses this site to try and intimidate people - to suggest anything else is ludicrous.”

The BNP strenuously denies the claim. Yesterday a spokesman for the party said: “We are not involved, we have absolutely nothing to do with Redwatch at all.” He added that, as far as he knew, no individual members had taken pictures that had subsequently appeared on the site. “If they are doing so, they should not be doing so.”

Six months after the attack on the Leeds schoolteachers, an investigation by the Guardian and Searchlight shed light on the true nature of Redwatch, uncovering a secret hitlist of targets, including social workers, journalists and politicians. Only a handful of known neo-Nazis had access to the secure email network that listed the names and addresses of targets as well as plans for attacks on anti-racists in their homes or during public meetings. One subscriber, who called himself Mole Intelligence Bureau, wrote: “Redwatch has accumulated many names and addresses, along with pictures of the targets, many of whom have had nothing done to them. Now’s the time to start a proper campaign of violence and intimidation towards those who seek to see us silenced or imprisoned for our beliefs.”

One of the targets was Lazenby and numerous addresses were posted on the site for members to “check out”. One message read: “We need to find this reporter fast. If we can scare this cunt off, then we might get an easier time instead of being slagged off and made to look a bunch of muppets.” In another message, posted by a BNP supporter from Batley, the people behind Redwatch are asked if they will be attending an anti-racist meeting in Dewsbury in June. The event, which was addressed by Leon Greenman, a Holocaust survivor, was described as a “Holohoax meeting”. One respondent advised: “The best place to attack the reds [is] just after the meeting finishes as they are walking to catch their buses or going for their cars.”

The network listed dozens of people “for further research”, including the divisional police commanders for Dewsbury and Huddersfield, the chief executive of Kirklees Council, the director of a West Yorkshire health authority and housing officers. For many anti-fascists this was final proof that Redwatch represented a serious threat. Known neo-Nazis with violent criminal pasts were planning to step up their campaign of intimidation and were planning attacks against specific targets. The evidence was passed to the then Home Secretary David Blunkett and officials declared that action was imminent. But after examining the details, the Home Office again said that because the site was hosted in the US there was little they could do - listing public information online is not a crime and the website is full of disclaimers.

Following an initial meeting in August with a delegation of MPs, trade unionists and anti-racists, Coaker agreed to champion the cause. According to Home Office officials, he is in discussion with senior police officers, and contact has also been made with the US authorities to see if it is possible to take joint action. That appeared to come a step closer recently when it emerged that a new legal opinion published in the US argues that the site is not protected under the first amendment. In a separate development, anti-racist campaigners say they have identified the main Redwatch organiser and have passed his details to the police.

But while the authorities on both sides of the Atlantic “look again”, the intimidation goes on. Since the knife attack, McFadden has received a letter and a phone call warning him that if Redwatch is closed down his children will be shot. Liverpool Liberal Democrat councillor and anti-racist campaigner Robbie Quinn received death threats against him and his family after his details were posted on the site, as did singer Alun Parry, who has been targeted for performing at a refugee benefit concert.

Angela Eagle, who is the MP for Wallasey, McFadden’s home constituency, and whose photograph also appears on the front page of Redwatch, argues that the website represents an unacceptable threat to people’s democratic right to free speech. “The powers are available to take action against this site. What we desperately need now is the political will.” Lazenby says there is growing frustration that Redwatch is still up and running. “I feel a degree of anger against the authorities that they have done nothing about this site. They have said repeatedly that there is nothing that can be done, but I simply don’t believe them. We have quite rightly managed to close down paedophile sites and others that are deemed unacceptable, and I am sure that if Redwatch was targeting the richest 100 people in the country, it would be swiftly dealt with”.

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A few poms who were there have been called upon to recount their tales of the Battle in the lead up to the anniversary, so hey! Let’s let ‘em take it away!

From the Guardian:

Day the East End said ‘No pasaran’ to Blackshirts
Audrey Gillan
Saturday September 30, 2006

They built barricades from paving stones, timber and overturned lorries. Women threw the contents of chamber pots on to the heads of policemen and children hurled marbles under their horses and burst bags of pepper in front of their noses.
Next Wednesday marks the 70th anniversary of the day that Jews, communists, trade unionists, Labour party members, Irish Catholic dockers and the people of the East End of London united in defiance of Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and refused to let them march through their streets.

Shouting the Spanish civil war slogan “No pasaran” - “They shall not pass” - more than 300,000 people turned back an army of Blackshirts. Their victory over racism and anti-Semitism on Sunday October 4 1936 became known as the Battle of Cable Street and encapsulated the British fight against a fascism that was stomping across Europe.
Mosley planned to send columns of thousands of goose-stepping men throughout the impoverished East End dressed in uniforms that mimicked those of Hitler’s Nazis. His target was the large Jewish community.

The Jewish Board of Deputies advised Jews to stay away. The Jewish Chronicle warned: “Jews are urgently warned to keep away from the route of the Blackshirt march and from their meetings.

“Jews who, however innocently, become involved in any possible disorders will be actively helping anti-Semitism and Jew-baiting. Unless you want to help the Jew baiters, keep away.”

The Jews did not keep away. Professor Bill Fishman, now 89, who was 15 on the day, was at Gardner’s Corner in Aldgate, the entrance to the East End. “There was masses of marching people. Young people, old people, all shouting ‘No Pasaran’ and ‘One two three four five - we want Mosley, dead or alive’,” he said. “It was like a massive army gathering, coming from all the side streets. Mosley was supposed to arrive at lunchtime but the hours were passing and he hadn’t come. Between 3pm and 3.30 we could see a big army of Blackshirts marching towards the confluence of Commercial Road and Whitechapel Road.

Marbles

“I pushed myself forward and because I was 6ft I could see Mosley. They were surrounded by an even greater army of police. There was to be this great advance of the police force to get the fascists through. Suddenly, the horses’ hooves were flying and the horses were falling down because the young kids were throwing marbles.”

Thousands of policemen were sandwiched between the Blackshirts and the anti-fascists. The latter were well organised and through a mole learned that the chief of police had told Mosley that his passage into the East End could be made through Cable Street.

“I heard this loudspeaker say ‘They are going to Cable Street’,” said Prof Fishman. “Suddenly a barricade was erected there and they put an old lorry in the middle of the road and old mattresses. The people up the top of the flats, mainly Irish Catholic women, were throwing rubbish on to the police. We were all side by side. I was moved to tears to see bearded Jews and Irish Catholic dockers standing up to stop Mosley. I shall never forget that as long as I live, how working-class people could get together to oppose the evil of racism.”

Max Levitas, now 91, was a message runner and had already been fined £10 in court for his anti-Mosley activities. Two years before Cable Street, the BUF had called a meeting in Hyde Park and in protest Mr Levitas whitewashed Nelson’s column, calling people to the park to drown out the fascists. Mr Levitas went on to become a Communist councillor in Stepney.

“I feel proud that I played a major part in stopping Mosley. When we heard that the march was disbanded, there was a hue and cry and the flags were going wild. They did not pass. The chief of police decided that if the march had taken place there would be death on the road - and there would have been,” he said.

“It was a victory for ordinary people against racism and anti-Semitism and it should be instilled in the minds of people today. The Battle of Cable Street is a history lesson for us all. People as people must get together and stop racism and anti-Semitism so people can lead an ordinary life and develop their own ideas and religions.”

Beatty Orwell, 89, was scared and excited. “People were fighting and a friend of mine was thrown through a plate glass window.”

And Mosley’s son has a couple of things to say as well:

Mosley’s son to hail his father’s Cable Street humiliation
David Smith
Sunday October 1, 2006

Nicholas Mosley is still surprised by the reception he gets from Jews. ‘Jewish people have always been terribly nice to me,’ he says, a few hours after writing an article for the Jewish Chronicle. ‘I always wonder whether they will be because they quite understandably aren’t always nice about my father.’
Sir Oswald Mosley, the charismatic leader of the British Union of Fascists in the Thirties, dreamed of becoming Britain’s Hitler. In a poll for BBC History magazine, the virulently anti-semitic Mosley was voted the worst Briton of the 20th century.

His son, now 83, will be a guest of the Jewish East End Celebration Society on Wednesday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, when around 300,000 people rallied to force back a march by Mosley and his private army of ‘Blackshirts’. Nicholas will meet Bill Fishman, who as a Jewish teenager witnessed the stand-off.
‘Over the years I’ve had to think about my father’s anti-semitism because I had to come to some sort of terms with it,’ Nicholas told The Observer. ‘I understand it: he had some very grave faults in his make-up. He was a good father to me and I liked talking to him because he had this enormous love of ideas. I didn’t often talk to him about politics because he knew that an awful lot of his politics I quite passionately didn’t agree with. He never wore a blackshirt at home.’

On Sunday 4 October 1936 Mosley planned to march down Cable Street in east London with around 3,000 supporters in military-style uniforms that imitated the Nazis. Defiant residents, joined by communists, trade unionists and Labour activists from all over Britain, gathered to improvise barricades and stop the Blackshirts’ advance. Orthodox Jews and Irish Catholic dockers stood side by side. Some chanted or carried banners proclaiming ‘No Pasaran’, a tribute to Spanish Republicans meaning ‘They shall not pass’. The demonstrators became embroiled in running clashes with police, hurling bottles, rocks and planks of wood; dozens of people were injured or arrested. Mosley was eventually persuaded by police to abandon his intended route and march through the deserted streets of the City of London instead.

Nicholas was then 13 and at boarding school, where one teacher teasingly called him ‘Baby Blackshirt’. He says his father’s meek retreat made him ‘look ridiculous’. But only after Mosley’s death in 1980 did Nicholas discover another, very personal reason why he did not confront his foes in Cable Street. A day later, Mosley and Diana Guinness, one of the aristocratic Mitford sisters, secretly married in Joseph Goebbels’s drawing room in Berlin, with Adolf Hitler as a guest. ‘He did not want any publicity because when he started the fascist movement my mother was still alive and everyone gave them such a hard time, and he didn’t want his second wife Diana to have the same. The one place in the world he could ensure it be kept secret was if he was married in Goebbels’s house, because then Goebbels could say if anyone leaks a word of this… pow.’

Mosley was sent to prison during the Second World War. Afterwards he replaced his anti-semitism with diatribes against black immigrants. Nicholas served with distinction in Italy, an experience recalled in his new memoir, Time at War. He has also written a biography of his father and 15 novels.

Sitting in the elegant living room of his townhouse in Camden, north London, Nicholas said: ‘At least everyone recognises who you are if you’re called Mosley. Has my father cast a shadow over my life? Yes, but I haven’t regretted it because I feel hugely grateful to him: he challenged me and he made me think.’

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Today is a day in which we reflect on our scene. We remember all who have fought, who are fighting and will fight against racism, extremism and hatred that thanks to the sacrifices of Lin and Dan, we thankfully see little of in our scene. And when we do, we remember Lin and Dan’s fight, and muster-up the courage to stand up and speak out.

Today we also celerate the lives given for anti racism. The fight to make the world a better place for all.

Lin and Dan tought us to never give up, stand tall and always speak our mind. Despite what “trads” go on about, these are the real traits of a real skinhead. Not apathy or racism.

Today isn’t only about us. 2 families lost a piece that can never be replaced. Their sons, nephews, grandsons and yes sadly even a father. We send our deepest wishes of solice and support to the Shersty and Newborn families on this day. Your pain is our pain.

We will never forget

Dan Shersty & Lin “Spit” Newborn

Past
Present
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