Is BNP article controlled by far left wing activists?

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 4:30 am

The Wikipedia article for the British National Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party) is controlled/edited by far-left wing political activists such as communists and "anti-fascist" groups (e.g. Socialist Workers Party, ANTIFA, Unite Against Fascism and Hope not Hate.). These editors add their own biases and smears to the article and revert anyone who wants neutrality. This abuse traces back over a decade; I was blocked from Wikipedia in 2011 after pointing out the problems with NPOV on the BNP article (since I was trying to remove their smears.)

Later when I returned, I discovered its mostly the same biased far-left wing editors who edit the BNP article, but since the BNP's vote collapsed, some of these editors now focus on smearing either the English Democrats or the United Kingdom Independence Party.

Here's an example of an ANTIFA who controlled/edited the BNP page from 2006-2011:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:One_Night_In_Hackney

Even his background photo is an ANTIFA mob with Marxist/communist flags. One Night In Hackney lost interest in the BNP when their vote collapsed and moved on to obsess with smearing UKIP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Four_Deuces

The_Four_Deuces is apparently owned by Chip Berlet, a crank pseudo-academic ("academic expert in fascism") whose own political background is with communist organisations (funny how nearly all self-proclaimed "academic experts in fascism" are communists):

"Chip Berlet broke onto the scene as a defender of Communist repression in Albania. Berlet was a founding member of the "Chicago Area Friends of Albania," which formed in 1983 to aid the Stalinist leader of Albania, Enver Hoxha. To this end, Berlet sought to coordinate the activities of people who “are friendly and supportive of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania [...] Most recently, Berlet contributed to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s ironically titled “Intelligence Project.” SPLC shamefully prostituted its legacy of confronting the neo-Nazis and the KKK by promoting Berlet’s attempt to smear various non-leftist groups, including the Center for the Study of Popular Culture." ("Chip Berlet: Leftist Lie Factory". FrontPage Magazine. 2003)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Snowded

Snowded, supporter of Hope not Hate and the UAF, his user page also says he's a "democratic socialist" who hates monarchy etc.

The main far-left wing editor who dominates the BNP article and still does is called Emeraude.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Emeraude

Emeraude is responsible for most the biases and smears on the article.

Kingsindian · Unread post by **Kingsindian** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 8:42 am

Unfortunately, you have not given any links to any content, and I am unfamiliar with the article; so I am unable to evaluate what you're saying. What account of yours was blocked and where are the links to the discussions etc. which got you banned (it's a 5 year old matter, so I'm assuming that revealing it isn't a problem)? Editors are allowed to have a POV, it is the articles which should be neutral. You may or may not like far-leftists; that is neither here nor there.

Eclipsed · Unread post by **Eclipsed** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 9:47 am

Ogygia wrote:I was blocked from Wikipedia in 2011 ...

Were you blocked as user Anglo Pyramidologist (T-C-L)?

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:41 am

I think that it will come as no surprise to people here that controversial political articles are often biased and subject to nasty edit wars leading to unfair bans. Chip Berlet (T-H-L) is no stranger to many here; see for example this thread. (Note that Hersch has his own political biases.)

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 1:58 pm

Were you blocked as user Anglo Pyramidologist.

Yes. Also Saxonshield and several others.

Here's an example of the smears, vandalism and biased edits, while I was there:

1. In 2011 the BNP had 13 councillors, but the BNP article kept on being vandalised to say they had only 2(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =429073860).

2. Edits on the BNP article focus far too much on quoting stupid things members of the BNP have said on Facebook as somehow being reflective of the party. An example is a BNP member in 2009 who posted crude comments about disability and euthanasia on a social media website (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =429260685). No one however does this on the Conservative, Liberal Democrats or Labour party articles, so note the clear bias. Why for example is the anti-Semitism of some Labour party members not mentioned on the Labour party article? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK))

Here's anti-Semitic social media comments posted by a Labour Party member, Vicki Kirby:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/labour-reinsta ... ts-1549438

No mention of this on the Labour party article. As I argued in 2011: if editors are going to focus on stupid statements individual members have made on social media, why not do that for all political parties? Why are the BNP singled out? I got no answer of course.

The blog post was on the '''personal facebook'' account/page of a BNP member. It does not reflect the BNP, the party, their policy or position etc. Just before the royal wedding, several weeks back, it was revealed several prominent labour officials/members had left abusive comments on their personal facebook pages about the monarchy and wedding (as reported by Daily Mail). By your logic then, please go to the Labour party wiki page and post this & they are anti-monarchy. One again, this is nothing more than biased anti-BNP from far leftists or self-proclaimed "anti-fascists". You leave every other party alone, but when it comes down to the BNP apply a completely different mindset and set of rules. [[User:Anglo Pyramidologist|Anglo Pyramidologist]] ([[User talk:Anglo Pyramidologist|talk]]) 19:03, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =430390175

3. Edits on the ideological box saying the BNP are white nationalist and fascist when they are neither during and post Nick Griffin's modernization of the party (going back to the 1980s I don't deny the BNP was fascist, but the party completely changed in ideology and policy over the decades; the National Alliance (Italy) for example is another party that completely lost its fascist roots.)

Another editor realised what was going on and tried to work with me for a solution:

On his previous posts User:Anglo Pyramidologist has brought errors and possible to the table:

Errors in current article (for cleanup):
The BNP are ethno-nationalists not white nationalists.
The BNP do not support fascism.

Considering most other European parties of the Far right are not described in this way on the English wikipedia he has a point. There is a easy solution to this problem that I have derived from the Sweden Democrats page, where the authors have split ideology in two to help the reader understand in more detail. Proposition for the BNP is to do the same considering anti Fascists consider the BNP to be Fascist and the BNP claim not to be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... escription

Proposed amendment with this other editor I agreed with:

|ideology

British nationalism
Ethnic nationalism
Right-wing populism
Euroscepticism
Anti-Globalism
Protectionism

(Claimed by Some, Including Opponents, Denied by the BNP):

Fascism
Nazism
White nationalism

That is a very accurate proposal to updating the ideology tags on the box. I would also add that the BNP's Swedish equivalent are the National Democrats (Sweden). Note how their pages labels them as ethno-nationalism not white nationalists and secondly notes that the fascist label is just a label their opposition label them - they consider it a smear. Its exactly the same with the BNP. The fascist/nazi label is only what their opponents call them, it doesn't reflect their ideology. the white nationalism tag should be replaced with ethno-nationalist and the fascist label certainly should be removed. Anglo Pyramidologist (talk) 20:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Instead to this day the ideology box for the BNP still has the fascist smear. Previously, the more severe Holocaust denial was there, but this was removed after I pointed out this was added by a far-left wing vandal. I never got an apology.

4. Edits on the BNP article adding/citing dubious sources such as Searchlight (a communist magazine).

Searchlight is still communist, all its magazine founders or editors are open members or have a history with the communist party of Britain i.e. Gerry Gable. Anglo Pyramidologist (talk) 20:37, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Who is Gerry Gable?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Gable

"As a youth, Gable was a member of the Young Communist League and the Communist Party of Great Britain, and worked as a runner on the Communist Party's Daily Worker newspaper, leaving after a year to become a Communist Party trade union organizer. He stood unsuccessfully for the Communist Party on 10 May 1962 at Northfield Ward, Stamford Hill, North London."

However according to The_Four_Deuces (Chip Berlet) and Snowded this is an "ad hominem" (despite the fact both smear virtually any right wing party or organisation as "fascist"; the only ad hominem is in their posts):

The political background of the founders of a magazine is irrelevant to the magazine's reliability. It is an argument ad hominem. TFD (talk) 20:42, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It is an ad hominem argument and you really need to put some time into learning how to edit around here. At this rate you are heading for a block or two --Snowded TALK 21:10, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

No it isn't an ad hominem argument. I pointed out Searchlight was founded by labour members and communists, therefore it is not a neutral source to use on the BNP page. I suggest you look up wikipedia basic guidelines on neutrality. Anglo Pyramidologist (talk) 21:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... ulturalist

And yes that last link is the name of one of the far-left wing vandals who was editing the page I clashed with. Someone with the ridiculous name "multiculturalist", really isn't going to be biased when editing the BNP?

All the claims I was posting ad-hominem and personal attacks are false, I was simply pointing out dubious sources such as searchlight were being cited etc. The vandalism got so bad on the BNP article that even far-left wing editors removed "British nationalism" from the ideology box (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =454543970).

Kingsindian · Unread post by **Kingsindian** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 4:00 pm

Thanks for the details. Some general comments, followed by specific points. I am basing my comments on this version of the article in 2011 and the current version.

General comments:
Zerothly, as in real life, friends are helpful in getting your way. If you have no wiki-friends, you need to strictly follow the rules, otherwise you'll get jumped on. If there is some institution on Earth which is exempt from this reality, I have yet to find it. Firstly, no matter what your political POV, if you call editors names, you're gonna get banned sooner or later. Why were you calling Multiculturalist (T-C-L) names? Multiculturalist seems to be a casual editor and/or throwaway sock of some editor; fighting with them is useless, not to mention stupid. Apparently, they were fighting with a sock of yours (Saxonshield). You also seem to have filed this rather ridiculous SPI accusing them of being a sock of a hundred other editors, several of them being extremely unlikely to be sockpuppets of anyone.

Specific comments:

The 13 councillor thing seems to be vandalism by some random IP, which you reverted and nobody complained. I am not sure why that is relevant.
The prominence given to anti-Semitism in the BNP article is a matter of consensus. WP is written by amateurs trying to interpret sources. There's no right and wrong here; you need to convince other people of your argument. Fighting with other people is probably not the way to go here. Looking at the article then and now, the section on anti-Semitism does mention the evolution of the party under Nick Griffin. There are several books cited which discuss anti-Semitism in the BNP; from a cursory inspection, I don't see any social media posts being discussed (if they are, it's rather marginal). From the 2011 article, the impression I get is that the precursor to the BNP was explicitly anti-Semitic. The BNP has reduced and/or toned down its overt anti-Semitism, though many people are naturally suspicious of their sincerity. The same impression remains in the current version.
The Labour Party article does not contain anti-Semitism allegations. However, there are specific articles devoted to anti-Semitism allegations, like the Chakrabarty Inquiry; also the Leadership of Jeremy Corbyn article does mention the allegations. The reasons why these are not mentioned in the main article probably are: (a) the Labour Party has a much longer history than the BNP (b) It is more mainstream and more powerful. (c) its roots are not thoroughly anti-Semitic like the BNP's are.
As for "fascism" in the infobox, again, there is no right and wrong here - you need to convince people of your argument. Some people say the BNP is fascist, the BNP denies it. The BNP's denial is noted in the article. The main reference for "fascist" seems to be Nigel Copsey, who heads this center and has published a fair bit on the BNP. There are other references cited as well, which I have not looked into.
You were probably correct in questioning the widespread use of Searchlight in the 2011 article. This has more or less been remedied in the current version: Searchlight is now only cited once in the article now. I also find no reference the animal welfare in the article now.

It is not clear to me that the above constitutes evidence of a far-left ownership of the BNP article. You are probably correct that there are several people who loathe the BLP who are editing the article. That is probably true of a large portion of the general public as well, outside of far-left politics.

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 5:14 pm

I requested a check-user tool and listed a dozen accounts "Multiculturalist" could be. Regardless, someone with that name shouldn't be allowed to edit the BNP article because of bias and abuse of NPOV. The BNP is strongly against multiculturalism, so someone with "Multiculturalist" as their name (whose page even says they're a proud multiculturalist) is obviously only on the BNP article to cause trouble; no surprise they were blocked, but I suspect this was a sock of one of the other users I mentioned in my first post.

About academic sources on the BNP article: they're cherry-picked. For every Copsey, there is a political academic with an opposing viewpoint. The bias on the BNP article however states there is a "consensus" the BNP is fascist. Total nonsense, e.g.

To the extent which the BNP truly changed can be debated. According to Nigel Copsey (2007: 61), ideological renewal under Griffin constituted 'a recalibration of fascism rather than a fundamental break in ideological continuity'. As the BNP's commitment to liberal democracy remand doubtful, its modernisation could, according to Copsey (2009: 164-165), better be perceived as nothing more than a opportune 'change of clothing'...

However, based on the way the party has presented itself to the outside world, the 'modern' BNP can be treated as a populist party. In recent years, the BNP explicitly aimed to present itself as a democratic party. The manifesto for the 2005 general election was actually titled 'Rebuilding British democracy' and warned against excessive central state control.

- - Kessel, S. V. (2015). Populist Parties in Europe: Agents of Discontent?. Palgrave Macmillan.

Many political academics categorize Griffin-era BNP with the Front National (France), Swedish Democrats (Sweden), Lega Nord (Italy), i.e. right-wing populism, not fascism. This issue has been raised countless times on the talk page, only to be ignored. Furthermore, although Copsey (2007) describes the BNP as a "fascism recalibrated – a form of neo-fascism " he actually notes:

The party's opposition to a central state, rejection of ID cards, it call for devolved and decentralized government, its demand for a bill of rights, and the introduction of citizens initiative referenda hardly conveys the impression of a fascist party that seeks totalitarian control over state, society and the individual.

So how is the BNP "a form of neo-fascism" in Copsey's (2007) view? All he lists in one or two instances of "susceptibility to illiberal thinking" in the BNP's 2005 GE Manifesto:

Outward appearances suggest that personal freedom and cultural pluralism would remain under a BNP government. But, if we probe its manifesto more closely, we soon find evidence of an instinctive susceptibility to illiberal thinking. The proposals include the introduction of a Clause-28 style proscription against the promotion of racial integration in schools and media and the media for instance, and a BNP government would on the assumption of power hold meetings wit media proprietors 'in an effort to thrash out ways in which they would agree ending any possibility of abuse of their power'.

Both these things disappeared by the 2010 GE Manifesto since the BNP was still modernizing (compare their 1997-2001-2005-2010 manifestos and you see the changes in ideology), but even if these two policies are "neo-fascist" (disputable), this means Copsey can only find two "neo-fascist" policies out of dozens of BNP policies he recognises that are not neo-fascist (e.g. the BNP's rejection of ID cards, devolved and decentralized government, demand for a bill of rights and support of freedom of speech.)

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 5:45 pm

As I mentioned in my first post, since the BNP's support and vote collapsed in 2012 - these same left-wing Wikipedia editors moved on to vandalise and smear the English Democrats and United Kingdom Independence Party.

The English Democrats are not even right wing, but centre-right. Yet they're smeared on their Wikipedia page as "far right". lol?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Democrats

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Engl ... l_spectrum

Since they're a micro party, few academics have ever tried to categorize them. Here's one source (French translation):

"On this point, unlike the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties which have adopted since the 70s a leftist ideology (center left today for SNP), it is very difficult to give a political category to the English Democrats Party; Eurosceptism, strict immigration and protectionism could be called "right". However, other measures such as free public services , education and training throughout life, the nationalization of many sectors such as transport or the stance in favor of a mixed economy are measures "left". The party has even been a time in favor of the legalization of cannabis." - Barbanti, Claude. (2011). "The English Democrats Party ou l’émergence d’une nouvelle mouvance: le nationalisme autonomiste anglais." E-rea. Revue électronique d’études sur le monde anglophone 8.2

The above source even mentions:

"Note that, from the outset, excluded were the "racist" members who had tried to approach the movement of time of the English National Party . Besides, the name change for English Democrats Party was chosen to remove any suspicion of belonging to the extreme right movement , the party names always emphasize the word "national."

Some comments I left on the Wikipedia talk page for English Democrats:

lol @ attracts far-right. You mean like Winston McKenzie? He is the ED's mayoral candidate in May.EnglishAxeman (talk) 20:14, 28 March 2016 (UTC) Collect, these pages unfortunately attract politically motivated far-leftists. This issue is well known. These sort of editors are only here to slander anyone who isn't far left, as "far right". Its rather sad, but has been going on for years on this site. EnglishAxeman (talk) 20:17, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

"BBC isn't a reliable source for WP purposes? Link to discussion please." Yes, just google BBC left wing bias. This is the same vile BBC who has tried to cover up Savile's child sexual abuse. see: Greer, C. & McLaughlin, E. (2012). A paedophile scandal foretold: Sir Jimmy Savile, child sexual abuse and the BBC. British Society of Criminology Newsletter, 71(Winter),[2] And people consider the BBC reliable? EnglishAxeman (talk) 20:28, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

English democrats are centrist, or center right. There is no evidence whatsoever they are right wing, let alone "far right". Anyway If English Democrats really are "far-right" (which they aren't) then why aren't UKIP categorized as this? The English Democrats immigration policy is more mild than UKIP's. EnglishAxeman (talk) 20:46, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I was one of the people who also exposed the following abuse at Wikipedia by informing the English Democrats-

http://englishdemocrats.party/english_d ... tist-lies/

We wrote recently to the “Gay” newspaper the Pink News to complain about them calling us “Far Right”. This was their typically barbed reply:-

“The English Democrats have been classified as a far-right party in many places, and by a number of independent academic studies – including two cited on your own Wikipedia page. I would suggest you direct complaints on this front to Katherine Tonkiss, author of Migration and Identity in a Post-National World, and Daniele Caramani, author of The Europeanization of Politics, both of whom classified your party as such from an independent academic standpoint. We, of course, assume you are not trying to stifle free expression of academics.”

I therefore wrote to both academics and here is my email to Dr Tonkiss:-

Dear Dr Tonkiss,

It has recently been claimed to us by the “Pink News” that you have claimed that the English Democrats are “Far Right” in your book “Migration and Identity in a Post-National World”. Is this correct?

If so why did you make such a claim?

Yours sincerely

Robin Tilbrook
Chairman

Dr Tonkiss kindly replied:-

Dear Robin,

I can confirm that I do not refer to the English Democrats as ‘far right’ in my book.

I have noticed this morning that on the Wikipedia entry for the English Democrats, my book is listed as a source to support the classification of the party as ‘far right’. I cannot, as you know, control how my work is reported on Wikipedia, but I will be contacting the website today to request that the reference is removed given that this is not something that I state in my book.

With best wishes,

Dr. Katherine Tonkiss
Lecturer in Sociology and Policy
School of Languages and Social Sciences
Aston University

So there we have it! The smear against us is based on a lie.

It turned out that none of these academic source posted on Wikipedia actually describe the English Democrats as "far right".

Kingsindian · Unread post by **Kingsindian** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 12:19 am

Thanks. I have several comments:

(a) To what extent Copsey is right, I have no idea; and more importantly, is beside the point. Random usernames on Wikipedia are not in the business of criticizing sources; they should look at a review of sources and summarize them. Perhaps Copsey is overstating his case, perhaps he does not appreciate the changes in the BNP and perhaps there is not an academic consensus that the BNP is fascist. It is unfortunately all too common that sources are cherry-picked: it's not a left-right matter. In that case, what needs to be done is to bring more recent sources which reflect the updated scholarship. I note that the book you cite was published in 2015, so it could not have been used in 2011. Have you tried using the source in the article?

(b) Regarding the English Democrats page:

Did you see that there was an RfC about "far-right", which found a consensus for "far-right"? Consensus can always change, but if you try to edit-war in the face of the RfC don't be surprised if you get jumped on. I also note that The Four Deuces actually supported your position on the removal of "far-right"; so I am at a loss to understand your claim. The main proponent of "far-right" seems to be LjL (T-C-L), who you did not mention in your original post.

I agree with removing the field. Notice that the argument we are having is not what type of party it is, but where that type of party belongs in the political spectrum. There is no reason to have the field in the info-box. TFD (talk) 09:17, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

From what I can see, you may be somewhat correct: the "far-right" claim is a bit weak. The BBC article cited does not mention "far-right" and the others are somewhat tepid. The current phrasing is "right-wing to far-right", which seems to split the difference between the sources; perhaps it is making too much of "far-right". You could open a new RfC, pointing out the deficiencies in the original RfC and adding more sources disputing the claim, like the French source you mentioned. Again, the best way to go about doing this is not to call people or sources who you disagree with left-wing or commies. It is also pointless: why were you attacking the BBC as left-wing and unreliable when the source was actually supporting your position (it does not say "far-right")?

For better or worse, there are people with all kinds of political views editing on Wikipedia - either you work with them nicely, or you get out. The more experienced one is and the more wiki-friends one has, the more latitude one has in being dickish. IP editors and new editors have the least latitude.

Eclipsed · Unread post by **Eclipsed** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:14 am

Ogygia wrote:
Were you blocked as user Anglo Pyramidologist.
Yes. Also Saxonshield and several others.

I really like the part where you tried to say your brother was the cause of the socking, not you. You really missed out on a lot of opportunities to bring your particular point-of-view into wikipedia by falling into the most common of traps.

Your homework reading for tonight: Wikipedia:Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you (T-H-L)

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:45 am

Eclipsed wrote:
Ogygia wrote:
Were you blocked as user Anglo Pyramidologist.
Yes. Also Saxonshield and several others.
I really like the part where you tried to say your brother was the cause of the socking, not you. You really missed out on a lot of opportunities to bring your particular point-of-view into wikipedia by falling into the most common of traps.

Your homework reading for tonight: Wikipedia:Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you (T-H-L)

Those edits were one of my brothers. He successfully got an unblock in June 2011. I share my IP with more than one person and there are virtually zero edit overlaps with our accounts. This is why based on behavioural evidence we had more than one unblock.

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 8:24 am

Kingsindian wrote:Thanks. I have several comments:

(a) To what extent Copsey is right, I have no idea; and more importantly, is beside the point. Random usernames on Wikipedia are not in the business of criticizing sources; they should look at a review of sources and summarize them. Perhaps Copsey is overstating his case, perhaps he does not appreciate the changes in the BNP and perhaps there is not an academic consensus that the BNP is fascist. It is unfortunately all too common that sources are cherry-picked: it's not a left-right matter. In that case, what needs to be done is to bring more recent sources which reflect the updated scholarship. I note that the book you cite was published in 2015, so it could not have been used in 2011. Have you tried using the source in the article?

(b) Regarding the English Democrats page:

Did you see that there was an RfC about "far-right", which found a consensus for "far-right"? Consensus can always change, but if you try to edit-war in the face of the RfC don't be surprised if you get jumped on. I also note that The Four Deuces actually supported your position on the removal of "far-right"; so I am at a loss to understand your claim. The main proponent of "far-right" seems to be LjL (T-C-L), who you did not mention in your original post.

I agree with removing the field. Notice that the argument we are having is not what type of party it is, but where that type of party belongs in the political spectrum. There is no reason to have the field in the info-box. TFD (talk) 09:17, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
From what I can see, you may be somewhat correct: the "far-right" claim is a bit weak. The BBC article cited does not mention "far-right" and the others are somewhat tepid. The current phrasing is "right-wing to far-right", which seems to split the difference between the sources; perhaps it is making too much of "far-right". You could open a new RfC, pointing out the deficiencies in the original RfC and adding more sources disputing the claim, like the French source you mentioned. Again, the best way to go about doing this is not to call people or sources who you disagree with left-wing or commies. It is also pointless: why were you attacking the BBC as left-wing and unreliable when the source was actually supporting your position (it does not say "far-right")?

For better or worse, there are people with all kinds of political views editing on Wikipedia - either you work with them nicely, or you get out. The more experienced one is and the more wiki-friends one has, the more latitude one has in being dickish. IP editors and new editors have the least latitude.

Well it's mostly the same left-wing biased editors from the BNP article vandalising the English Democrats. Here's some examples:

1. Snowded included a dubious source in the opening paragraph trying to smear the English Democrats as far-right, by saying: "[m]any of the party's leading members are defectors from the far-right". (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =686669245). This of course is false; I only know of a single "leading member" who came from the BNP: Eddy Butler (and he was from the modernizer faction with moderate, not extreme nationalist views.)

cur | prev) 09:31, 10 December 2015‎ Snowded (talk | contribs)‎ . . (44,742 bytes) (+505)‎ . . (Undid revision 694607747 by EnglishPassport (talk)) (undo)
(cur | prev) 09:18, 10 December 2015‎ EnglishPassport (talk | contribs)‎ . . (44,237 bytes) (-505)‎ . . (Please name "leading members" of the English Democrats who are ex-BNP members, active in the English Democrats in 2015 to support this statement.) (undo
(cur | prev) 00:24, 10 December 2015‎ EnglishPassport (talk | contribs)‎ . . (44,202 bytes) (-506)‎ . . (The English Democrats do not have "many" BNP members in the National Leadership team, indeed, over 50% are ex-conservatives.) (undo)

Needless to say, Snowded couldn't name a single former BNP member (not even Butler) in the English Democrat National Leadership team.

2. Both Snowded and Emeraude were adding the smear "far right" to the ideology box (more than once)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =686523038
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =686521584

3. Concerning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Engl ... _Far_right, I forced that discussion. It goes back to an earlier dispute in December 2015 started by EnglishPassport. I don't own this user (it is apparently Steve Uncles of the English Democrats), but I first informed the English Democrats about the abuse on the Wikipedia page. Later I was falsely accused of being EnglishPassport, but a check-user tool revealed we have separate IP's and we are not the same. The problem with that archived talk "consensus" though is it was using dubious sources. As I noted above, it turned out academic sources were being added to the English Democrats article when they are quoted as saying things they do not. None of the academic source cited actually state the ED's are "far right" (they are misquoted, or lied about); another problem is Snowded and Emeraude rely on left wing tabloids like the Guardian. These left wing newspapers smear any political party that merely talks about issues like immigration as "far right".

The solution to label the ED's as "right wing" to "far right" and not "far right" was the result of my complaints, but it isn't good enough. "far right" should be removed completely. The sources for "far right" on the current page include these same left wing newspapers. I also noticed a problem with another:

"Goodwin, Matthew; Milazzo, Caitlin (2015-11-26). UKIP: Inside the Campaign to Redraw the Map of British Politics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191054792. "It is likely that UKIP benefited from the collapse of the far-right BNP and English Democrats."

This source is misquoted. It's not saying the ED's are far right, only BNP. This is the sort of vandalism I'm talking about, things are constantly misquoted.

Update on the BNP: no surprise, all my edits were ignored on the talk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Brit ... onal_Party

The same obsessed editor with smearing the ED's/BNP showed up - Emeraude. He stopped responding to me after I refuted him.

Kingsindian · Unread post by **Kingsindian** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 9:39 am

On the BNP stuff, what you're trying to do is original research. Fascism, like all political terms but even more so, is not exactly defined; one can't really make arguments on the talkpage that the BNP is not fascist because of this or that reason. One has to look at sources and see how they describe the BNP. Apart from Copsey, I see four people are quoted for the "fascist" claim: Graham Macklin, Roger Griffin, John Richardson and M J Goodwin (all of them are after 2010).

One quote from Richardson (2011) is illustrative of the general feeling:

On the surface, the BNP appear to be racial populists, a categorization that places them
within the acceptable limits of (right-wing, nationalist, authoritarian) democratic British politics.
However, as Nick Griffin has himself noted, the BNP has its ideological roots in the subMosleyite
whackiness of Arnold Leese‘s Imperial Fascist League‘ (Griffin, 2003, cited in Copsey
2007: 70). As I will show below, the ideological core of the BNP, as revealed in the political
beliefs and commitments of party leaders and activists, still draws strength from Leese's anti-Semitic
racial fascism, and remains committed to the racial purification of the national space.

Goodwin's 2011 book on the BNP is titled: "New British Fascism". I browsed through some of it on Google Books.

All of them agree that that the BNP has modified its program, dropped some of the worst policies and broadened its focus considerably. However, many are still suspicious as to whether this represents a real break with its fascist past.

You may believe that the BNP is not fascist and Emeraude may believe it is. On political matters, people rarely change their mind based on internet debates with strangers. Luckily, neither of you need to convince each other; if you think "fascist" should be removed, then open an RfC for it and make arguments. It would be better to start by summarizing some scholars whose views you think should be included in the ideology section.

Hex · Unread post by **Hex** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 10:48 am

I have altered the title of this thread. Pray I do not alter it further.

lilburne · Unread post by **lilburne** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 10:57 am

Why are we pandering to neo-nazi whining? The BNP are wastes of skin wrapped are a core of shit.

Stan Dixon · Unread post by **Stan Dixon** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:29 am

lilburne wrote:Why are we pandering to neo-nazi whining? The BNP are wastes of skin wrapped are a core of shit.

This encapsulates many of the problems of this site.

POV twisting of articles, is wrong regardless of the target.

But many of the members here don't object if the subjects of this bias and chicanery are on their personal dislike list.

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:49 am

Kingsindian wrote:On the BNP stuff, what you're trying to do is original research. Fascism, like all political terms but even more so, is not exactly defined; one can't really make arguments on the talkpage that the BNP is not fascist because of this or that reason. One has to look at sources and see how they describe the BNP. Apart from Copsey, I see four people are quoted for the "fascist" claim: Graham Macklin, Roger Griffin, John Richardson and M J Goodwin (all of them are after 2010).

One quote from Richardson (2011) is illustrative of the general feeling:
On the surface, the BNP appear to be racial populists, a categorization that places them
within the acceptable limits of (right-wing, nationalist, authoritarian) democratic British politics.
However, as Nick Griffin has himself noted, the BNP has its ideological roots in the subMosleyite
whackiness of Arnold Leese‘s Imperial Fascist League‘ (Griffin, 2003, cited in Copsey
2007: 70). As I will show below, the ideological core of the BNP, as revealed in the political
beliefs and commitments of party leaders and activists, still draws strength from Leese's anti-Semitic
racial fascism, and remains committed to the racial purification of the national space.
Goodwin's 2011 book on the BNP is titled: "New British Fascism". I browsed through some of it on Google Books.

All of them agree that that the BNP has modified its program, dropped some of the worst policies and broadened its focus considerably. However, many are still suspicious as to whether this represents a real break with its fascist past.

You may believe that the BNP is not fascist and Emeraude may believe it is. On political matters, people rarely change their mind based on internet debates with strangers. Luckily, neither of you need to convince each other; if you think "fascist" should be removed, then open an RfC for it and make arguments. It would be better to start by summarizing some scholars whose views you think should be included in the ideology section.

This issue has been raised for a decade or more on the BNP talk; "open an RfC for it and make arguments" has been done countless times, but since these same far-left editors dominate the article they supress any opinion different to their own. It's not really a legitimate opinion though, since they're activists for other political parties who are only on the BNP article to smear them (they now do this to the English Democrats and United Kingdom Independence Party.)

In response to the Richardson (2011) quote, its baloney. Griffin-era BNP had elected Jewish councillors, so if it was "anti-Semitic
racial fascism" this wouldn't make any sense.

Patricia Richardson (politician) (T-H-L)

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:52 am

lilburne wrote:Why are we pandering to neo-nazi whining? The BNP are wastes of skin wrapped are a core of shit.

You're just posting the same smears and slander. Is Trump in your opinion also a "neo-Nazi"?

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 12:48 pm

Stan Dixon wrote:POV twisting of articles, is wrong regardless of the target.

But many of the members here don't object if the subjects of this bias and chicanery are on their personal dislike list.

True, but most people here are human and have human foibles. Some are Wikipedia editors, which is worse.

Seriously, it is inevitable that a site like this will have many of the same defects as Wikipedia. We just have to accept the fact.

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 1:24 pm

"Many scholars have categorized neofascist parties on the basis of their origins. In this sense, a party is neofascist if it is a descendant of an earlier neofascist party or if it is formed by a recognizable fascist party from the interwar period. This method of categorization seems problematic on several counts. First, the fact that many individuals who were fascists in the interwar period set up political parties in the post war period does not necessarily mean that these new parties should be considered neofascist. The Popular Alliance (now the Popular Party) in Spain falls into this category. Second, the idea that a party can be defined as neofascist on the basis of its origins seems to ignore the possibility that parties evolve and constantly change their characteristics. For example, the Italian Social Movement (MSI) was clearly neofascist for most of the post war period. However, since 1994 and its change of name to the National Alliance it should no longer be considered neofascist. This is not because it changed its name but because its ideology and programmatic statements no longer have anything to do with neofascism. As a result, I prefer to label parties as neofascist based on their ideology and programmatic statements." (Golder, 2003) http://cps.sagepub.com/content/36/4/432.abstract

Strangely the BNP article mentions the National Alliance (Italy) transformed from a fascist to national conservative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Alliance_(Italy), yet the BNP did much the same (but the article denies this.) The NA's and BNP's policy are very similar:

"National Alliance's political program emphasized:

* traditional values, being often close to the position of the Roman Catholic Church, despite some social liberal and secular attitudes;
* law and order, especially laws aimed at controlling immigration and implementing punishment;
* support for Israel, the United States and European integration;
* prohibition of all drugs, including marijuana."

The only difference is the BNP opposes "European integration" and is hard-line Eurosceptic.

In regards to "support for Israel"
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... right.race

"Ruth Smeed, of the Board of Deputies, said: "The BNP website is now one of the most Zionist on the web - it goes further than any of the mainstream parties in its support of Israel"

Still Neo-nazis though right?

lilburne · Unread post by **lilburne** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 2:04 pm

Ogygia wrote:
lilburne wrote:Why are we pandering to neo-nazi whining? The BNP are wastes of skin wrapped are a core of shit.
You're just posting the same smears and slander. Is Trump in your opinion also a "neo-Nazi"?

I've witnessed the BNP over several decades along with their predecessors the NF. They are irredeemable, and what I suspect you are doing is attempting to hide the jackboots under some galoshes painted with cuddly animal motifs.

Stan Dixon wrote:
lilburne wrote:Why are we pandering to neo-nazi whining? The BNP are wastes of skin wrapped are a core of shit.
This encapsulates many of the problems of this site.

POV twisting of articles, is wrong regardless of the target.

But many of the members here don't object if the subjects of this bias and chicanery are on their personal dislike list.

This is not dislike of the same order as say Tory vs Labour. These are gross racist anti-Semitic individuals that one would rather weren't in the same vicinity as oneself.

Kingsindian · Unread post by **Kingsindian** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 2:37 pm

Ogygia wrote:

Kingsindian wrote:On the BNP stuff, what you're trying to do is original research. Fascism, like all political terms but even more so, is not exactly defined; one can't really make arguments on the talkpage that the BNP is not fascist because of this or that reason. One has to look at sources and see how they describe the BNP. Apart from Copsey, I see four people are quoted for the "fascist" claim: Graham Macklin, Roger Griffin, John Richardson and M J Goodwin (all of them are after 2010).

One quote from Richardson (2011) is illustrative of the general feeling:
On the surface, the BNP appear to be racial populists, a categorization that places them
within the acceptable limits of (right-wing, nationalist, authoritarian) democratic British politics.
However, as Nick Griffin has himself noted, the BNP has its ideological roots in the subMosleyite
whackiness of Arnold Leese‘s Imperial Fascist League‘ (Griffin, 2003, cited in Copsey
2007: 70). As I will show below, the ideological core of the BNP, as revealed in the political
beliefs and commitments of party leaders and activists, still draws strength from Leese's anti-Semitic
racial fascism, and remains committed to the racial purification of the national space.
Goodwin's 2011 book on the BNP is titled: "New British Fascism". I browsed through some of it on Google Books.

All of them agree that that the BNP has modified its program, dropped some of the worst policies and broadened its focus considerably. However, many are still suspicious as to whether this represents a real break with its fascist past.

You may believe that the BNP is not fascist and Emeraude may believe it is. On political matters, people rarely change their mind based on internet debates with strangers. Luckily, neither of you need to convince each other; if you think "fascist" should be removed, then open an RfC for it and make arguments. It would be better to start by summarizing some scholars whose views you think should be included in the ideology section.

This issue has been raised for a decade or more on the BNP talk; "open an RfC for it and make arguments" has been done countless times, but since these same far-left editors dominate the article they supress any opinion different to their own. It's not really a legitimate opinion though, since they're activists for other political parties who are only on the BNP article to smear them (they now do this to the English Democrats and United Kingdom Independence Party.)

In response to the Richardson (2011) quote, its baloney. Griffin-era BNP had elected Jewish councillors, so if it was "anti-Semitic
racial fascism" this wouldn't make any sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_ ... tician)

The purpose of an RfC is precisely to bring in editors who are not directly working on the article can comment. Of course, it has lots of flaws, like anything else. I am not sure how anyone can suppress any opinion expressed in an RfC. If what you're saying is that you have been unable to convince people to remove "fascist" from the article, that is a different matter. Them's the breaks. You might want to consider the possibility that your case is not persuasive to other people.

The rest of your comment is not relevant to the issue. If you have a problem with Richardson's characterization, you can go argue with them; I have no competence and no interest in the matter. The point which is important is that there are many sources which describe the BNP as fascist even post-2010. You may think that the characterization is wrong/unfair/whatever. Scholarship is not immune from politicization and bias.

lilburne wrote:Why are we pandering to neo-nazi whining? The BNP are wastes of skin wrapped are a core of shit.

I was unaware that there was any pandering. I was trying to determine if there was some merit to Mr. Smith's allegations. I have no idea if Mr. Smith is a neo-Nazi and it is irrelevant in any case. Neo-nazis can be persecuted on Wikipedia just like anyone else. Indeed, it is the rule rather than the exception for people with fringe views.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 2:50 pm

Kingsindian wrote:I was unaware that there was any pandering. I was trying to determine if there was some merit to Mr. Smith's allegations. I have no idea if Mr. Smith is a neo-Nazi and it is irrelevant in any case.

Can we all agree that it's a tedious discussion? I mean, I zoned out after about 3 posts.

Jim · Unread post by **Jim** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 2:58 pm

thekohser wrote:Can we all agree that it's a tedious discussion? I mean, I zoned out after about 3 posts.

I think it's tedious, yes, I got to 4 myself. I wouldn't presume to speak for us "all", though - some folks thrive on this sort of stuff.

Kingsindian · Unread post by **Kingsindian** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:04 pm

thekohser wrote:
Kingsindian wrote:I was unaware that there was any pandering. I was trying to determine if there was some merit to Mr. Smith's allegations. I have no idea if Mr. Smith is a neo-Nazi and it is irrelevant in any case.
Can we all agree that it's a tedious discussion? I mean, I zoned out after about 3 posts.

I agree, but trying to get to the bottom of things often involves looking at tedious details. There are people who read Thomas Friedman and others who watch Fox News so I don't have to; I am very grateful to them.

But Thomas Friedman has come out with a new book where, like always, he deploys meaningless graphs to make nonsensical points. I once found a book by him in a bookstore and flipped to a random page, where he had a meaningless graph with random nodes arbitrarily labeled to make a totally ad hoc point. I put it down immediately. Glad to know that he's still at it, and I haven't missed anything.

Jim · Unread post by **Jim** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:06 pm

Jim wrote:some folks thrive on this sort of stuff.

See?

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:22 pm

lilburne wrote:
Ogygia wrote:
lilburne wrote:Why are we pandering to neo-nazi whining? The BNP are wastes of skin wrapped are a core of shit.
You're just posting the same smears and slander. Is Trump in your opinion also a "neo-Nazi"?
I've witnessed the BNP over several decades along with their predecessors the NF. They are irredeemable, and what I suspect you are doing is attempting to hide the jackboots under some galoshes painted with cuddly animal motifs.

Stan Dixon wrote:
lilburne wrote:Why are we pandering to neo-nazi whining? The BNP are wastes of skin wrapped are a core of shit.
This encapsulates many of the problems of this site.

POV twisting of articles, is wrong regardless of the target.

But many of the members here don't object if the subjects of this bias and chicanery are on their personal dislike list.
This is not dislike of the same order as say Tory vs Labour. These are gross racist anti-Semitic individuals that one would rather weren't in the same vicinity as oneself.

My point is the BNP modernized like the National Alliance (Italy). The National Alliance had fascist roots, but repudiated their fascist and anti-Semitic past for national conservatism. Similarly, the Swedish Democrats had its roots in fascism, but was modernised by Jimmie Akesson. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats). The Swedish Democrats are no longer considered to be a fascist or extremist party, but right-wing populist and national conservative. This is the same for the BNP since Nick Griffin modernized it like Jimmie Akesson did for the Swedish Democrats.

What makes no sense is why the BNP is treated so differently than the Swedish Democrats and similar right wing parties at Wikipedia. For example the Wikipedia article for the SD's accepts they modernised and changed ideology (distancing themselves from their fascist roots); they are categorized today as right wing populists and not fascists. The fascist smear for modern BNP however is not removed.

The photo you posted was from 1993 (Millwall) before Nick Griffin modernized the party, here's the BNP in 2010:

Eclipsed · Unread post by **Eclipsed** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 5:20 pm

Yawn. OP seems more interested in political ranting, rather than discussing Wikipedia. Move this thread to off-topic, or just lock it.

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:01 pm

Eclipsed wrote:Yawn. OP seems more interested in political ranting, rather than discussing Wikipedia. Move this thread to off-topic, or just lock it.

I've mentioned Wikipedia in every post. There are extreme biases and smears against the BNP at Wikipedia. In fact there is bias and smear against any right wing political party from UK, even moderate centre-right parties like the English Democrats who are smeared as "far right".

I busted left wing Wikipedia vandals on the English Democrats after pointing out the academic sources cited do not actually call the English Democrats "far right". In other words someone added bogus sources to smear the English Democrats.

The story was covered on the English Democrat website:

We wrote recently to the “Gay” newspaper the Pink News to complain about them calling us “Far Right”. This was their typically barbed reply:-

“The English Democrats have been classified as a far-right party in many places, and by a number of independent academic studies – including two cited on your own Wikipedia page. I would suggest you direct complaints on this front to Katherine Tonkiss, author of Migration and Identity in a Post-National World, and Daniele Caramani, author of The Europeanization of Politics, both of whom classified your party as such from an independent academic standpoint. We, of course, assume you are not trying to stifle free expression of academics.”

I therefore wrote to both academics and here is my email to Dr Tonkiss:-

Dear Dr Tonkiss,

It has recently been claimed to us by the “Pink News” that you have claimed that the English Democrats are “Far Right” in your book “Migration and Identity in a Post-National World”. Is this correct?

If so why did you make such a claim?

Yours sincerely

Robin Tilbrook
Chairman

Dr Tonkiss kindly replied:-

Dear Robin,

I can confirm that I do not refer to the English Democrats as ‘far right’ in my book.

I have noticed this morning that on the Wikipedia entry for the English Democrats, my book is listed as a source to support the classification of the party as ‘far right’. I cannot, as you know, control how my work is reported on Wikipedia, but I will be contacting the website today to request that the reference is removed given that this is not something that I state in my book.

With best wishes,

Dr. Katherine Tonkiss
Lecturer in Sociology and Policy
School of Languages and Social Sciences
Aston University

So there we have it! The smear against us is based on a lie.

ENGLISH DEMOCRATS CHALLENGE LEFTIST LIES
http://englishdemocrats.party/english_d ... tist-lies/

AndyTheGrump · Unread post by **AndyTheGrump** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:11 pm

Ogygia wrote: The photo you posted was from 1993 (Millwall) before Nick Griffin modernized the party, here's the BNP in 2010:

Factually incorrect. The photo is of Griffin with the "Reverend George Hargreaves, leader of the Christian Party" (http://minorityperspective.co.uk.gridho ... s-reasons/). A pair of opportunist chancers looking for a bit of free publicity for their obnoxious fringe nuttery. Unless of course you are claiming that Hargreaves has actually joined the BNP.

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:20 pm

AndyTheGrump wrote:
Ogygia wrote: The photo you posted was from 1993 (Millwall) before Nick Griffin modernized the party, here's the BNP in 2010:

Factually incorrect. The photo is of Griffin with the "Reverend George Hargreaves, leader of the Christian Party" (http://minorityperspective.co.uk.gridho ... s-reasons/). A pair of opportunist chancers looking for a bit of free publicity for their obnoxious fringe nuttery. Unless of course you are claiming that Hargreaves has actually joined the BNP.

I'm well aware, I've met both in person. My point is that photo shows how the BNP has modernised. In the 1980s it was racist skinheads who attacked immigrants; in 2010 Griffin opened up the membership to ethnic minorities and met with a black reverend.

Hargreaves didn't join the BNP, but another black reverend did in 2010:

AndyTheGrump · Unread post by **AndyTheGrump** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:31 pm

So 'modernising' consists of recruiting a token publicity-seeker. Yawn...

Thugs in suits are still thugs.

Incidentally, the gentleman in the video has since left the BNP, as "too racist". http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/news/8 ... ack_vicar/

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:47 pm

AndyTheGrump wrote:So 'modernising' consists of recruiting a token publicity-seeker. Yawn...

Thugs in suits are still thugs.

Under Griffin the BNP had councillors from ethnic minority backgrounds, including a Turkish-Cypriot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Rustem) and a Jew (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_ ... olitician)), neither were "token publicity seekers" but my point about the BNP's modernization is to highlight the inconsistency and bias at Wikipedia. The Swedish Democrats were modernised in the early 2000's identically to the BNP. So are the Swedish Democrats "thugs in suits" as well? The Wikipedia article for the Swedish Democrats however accepts they modernised and dropped fascism for right wing populism(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats), but when it comes to the BNP article, suddenly a different criteria (about how fascism can be dropped by a political party) is applied, funny that. Even though evidence is presented for modernisation, the fascist smear is never removed. Even if people disagree with this (and they think the BNP is still fascist), how do they explain the Swedish Democrats Wikipedia article? The answer is that as far as I am aware, Swedes don't misuse Wikipedia for political purposes. I've only ever encountered far-left wing vandals at Wikipedia from UK who only focus with smearing the BNP and now UKIP. There doesn't seem to be left wing political activists in Sweden who misuse Wikipedia for the same purposes.

lilburne · Unread post by **lilburne** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 8:28 pm

AndyTheGrump wrote: Thugs in suits are still thugs.

Indeed

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 8:32 pm

Some of the same left-wing editors I mentioned now show up editing the Wikipedia UKIP article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party); they have the same goal to smear the United Kingdom Independence party as "far right" like they did for the English Democrats (after I complained, I managed to get the latter to some extent removed; the English Democrats are no longer called "far right", but "right wing to far right"; in reality they are centre-right.)

Although "far right" got quickly removed from the UKIP article and "right wing" remains, these left-wing editors are now trying different things. Most recently an "ethnic nationalist" smear was added:

"UKIP espouses a form of British nationalism; it states that its is a "civic" rather than an "ethnic" nationalism, although this categorisation has been disputed."

No source provided and no one disputes UKIP is a civic nationalist rather than an ethnic nationalist party.

AndyTheGrump · Unread post by **AndyTheGrump** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 8:44 pm

As far as I can see, Wikipedia accurately represents the consensus of academic opinion regarding the BNP - that they are a party with deep roots in fascism, and an ugly history of violence towards their opponents, and towards anyone not conforming to their obnoxious racist agenda. If they have failed to convince academia that their 'modernisation' amounts to more than PR, they should take it up with the academics. Though frankly, given the terminal decline of the 'Movement', I can't see anyone much giving a toss. And as for UKIP, I can assure you that they have 'ethnic nationalists' in their membership, having had to tell one of their members where to stick his 'British identity' politics when he misguidedly tried to convince me to vote for their candidate in a recent election. A repulsive little lizard of an individual, who seemed to think that my expressing disdain for the political establishment somehow amounted to license to spew out hatred for anyone and everyone who didn't match whatever stereotype he thought I fitted. Frankly, I don't give a flying fuck which bunch of right-wing fruitcakes such people are affiliated with, or whether Wikipedia is 'biased' against them. Because anyone with the slightest human decency should be. Go whine somewhere else...

lilburne · Unread post by **lilburne** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 8:49 pm

Eh! WTF. UKIP is a racist far-right party. They have had a bunch of candidates for MPs or local councilors removed for espousing racist and anti-Semetic hate. Not good enough. One doesn't get nominated to represent a party at an election without the leading lights in that party knowing something of ones opinions. That one gets caught out making such comments isn't because one made a mistake, it is because one's mind if full of such shit. That one candidate gets caught is one thing, that candidate after candidate get caught indicates that such views are rife throughout the associates.

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 9:00 pm

lilburne wrote:
AndyTheGrump wrote: Thugs in suits are still thugs.
Indeed

The funny thing about that video is Nick Lowles who constantly smears the BNP as racist/islamophobic/anti-Semite etc. (he now does the same for UKIP), was banned himself from the NUS Black Students for Islamophobia:

Mr Lowles, who is the director of Hope Not Hate, went on a Facebook rant to criticise the Black Students, which is the National Union of Students’ group campaigning for equality in education, black representation, anti-racism and anti-fascism.

Under the heading “ultra-left lunacy” he wrote: “So, it seems that NUS Black Students are opposing a plan to invite me to speak on an anti-racism platform because I’m ‘Islamophobic’.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/645689 ... ick-Lowles

This really summarises why I hold the right wing political views I do; the left are loonies who smear anyone as racists. Words like "racist", "anti-Semite" and "islamophobic" have become totally meaningless because of politically correct culture; the only time I use them is when they are totally unambiguous.

AndyTheGrump · Unread post by **AndyTheGrump** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 9:06 pm

Ah, a Daily Express reader. Explains it all...

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 9:06 pm

lilburne wrote:Eh! WTF. UKIP is a racist far-right party. They have had a bunch of candidates for MPs or local councilors removed for espousing racist and anti-Semetic hate. Not good enough. One doesn't get nominated to represent a party at an election without the leading lights in that party knowing something of ones opinions. That one gets caught out making such comments isn't because one made a mistake, it is because one's mind if full of such shit. That one candidate gets caught is one thing, that candidate after candidate get caught indicates that such views are rife throughout the associates.

Well, no wonder you are called "Nastytroll" at Wikipedia according to your userbox.

"UKIP is a racist far-right party."

This is what I mean by "racist" now being totally meaningless; its a silly smear people call anything they don't personally like.

Kingsindian · Unread post by **Kingsindian** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 9:54 pm

You are derailing your own thread. If you start discussions or keep pursuing tangents on whether Trump is a neo-Nazi or the nature of UKIP, or squabble with people here, the thread will devolve immediately, and it will be (rightly) locked. Nobody cares about your political views or the story of your life or why you are a right-winger. Focus on Wikipedia. And you don't have to reply to every post here.

As far as I can see, you are repeating your points from earlier. I tried to address some of them; I hope it helped. Briefly, the main points are that:

Editors are allowed to be biased and are allowed a POV. Wikipedia tends to attract partisans of all stripes. POV-pushing goes on all the time at Wikipedia. Just like you have the POV that the BNP isn't fascist and have been trying to get it removed for many years now. As far as I can see, there are several sources which do consider the BNP fascist even post-2010 and are suspicious of the "modernization" efforts. Regarding the English Democrats page, there is a vague "right-wing to far-right" descriptor in the infobox. This is splitting the difference between the earlier consensus (in the RfC) and the discussion you started. Perhaps "far-right" should be removed altogether; I have no opinion on this. It is not clear to me that left-wing editors are controlling the BNP page (and related pages). One of the people you mentioned in the original post (The Four Deuces) even agreed with your point on the English Democrats page (namely, removing the "far-right" descriptor).

If there's anything here except the fact that you didn't get your way at WP, I am not seeing it, sorry.

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 10:21 pm

AndyTheGrump wrote:As far as I can see, Wikipedia accurately represents the consensus of academic opinion regarding the BNP - that they are a party with deep roots in fascism, and an ugly history of violence towards their opponents, and towards anyone not conforming to their obnoxious racist agenda. If they have failed to convince academia that their 'modernisation' amounts to more than PR, they should take it up with the academics. Though frankly, given the terminal decline of the 'Movement', I can't see anyone much giving a toss. And as for UKIP, I can assure you that they have 'ethnic nationalists' in their membership, having had to tell one of their members where to stick his 'British identity' politics when he misguidedly tried to convince me to vote for their candidate in a recent election. A repulsive little lizard of an individual, who seemed to think that my expressing disdain for the political establishment somehow amounted to license to spew out hatred for anyone and everyone who didn't match whatever stereotype he thought I fitted. Frankly, I don't give a flying fuck which bunch of right-wing fruitcakes such people are affiliated with, or whether Wikipedia is 'biased' against them. Because anyone with the slightest human decency should be. Go whine somewhere else...

1. There is no academic consensus the Griffin era BNP is fascist, only pre-Griffin era. As I explained in my posts above: there are fascist parties who have changed their ideology, party image and policies, repudiated fascism (and anti-Semitism) and modernized into national conservative parties. I argue this is what Griffin did for the BNP. Instead critics claim Griffin only modernised the BNP "to hide the BNP's core ideology behind more electorally palatable policies", yet little to no evidence is presented for his claim (e.g. Copsey, 2007 can only find one example of the BNP's old racialist ideology in the BNP's 2005 GE Manifesto and this fully disappeared in the 2010 GE Manifesto; the same year the BNP accepted ethnic minorities as party members.)
2. There are academics who argue the BNP's modernisation was not merely "PR" but real shift in ideology and abandonment of fascism and racialism; I have presented some of these academic sources both here and at Wikipedia. The bias at Wikipedia means these sources are rejected or ignored. Instead Copsey and a handful of others are cherry-picked.
3. I actually agree the BNP is finished as a party. That was clear by 2012 when they lost most their membership and nearly all their councillors; the BNP vote % collapsed. I don't have any interest in supporting them since they've been replaced by UKIP; the BNP could be where UKIP are today if they replaced Griffin as party leader after the GE 2010 and continued modernising the party (like how Marine le Pen took over the FN from her father.) Instead Griffin wouldn't step down and there was financial mismanagement.
4. Most former BNP voters have gone to UKIP; Matthew Goodwin has observed: "There is a clear relationship between the rise of UKIP in local elections and the disintegration of the BNP." (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/st ... killed-bnp), but this doesn't mean UKIP are ethnic nationalist. There a political spectrum, and former BNP voters just choose the party closest to the BNP on that spectrum with some overlap in policies (opposition to mass immigration, hard-line Euroscepticism etc.), but there are key policy differences. UKIP has no fascist roots, it never really needed a modernizer faction (although Farage introduced more policies and made UKIP no longer a single-issue party against EU membership.)
5. You just seem like a Victor Meldrew type-person (hence your name "grump?") who moans about everything, but does nothing to solve any of the problems. You "express disdain for the political establishment", but no doubt voted for an establishment party and smear UKIP with the same "racist" nonsense.

AndyTheGrump · Unread post by **AndyTheGrump** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 10:31 pm

In my time I've done quite a few things to solve problems. Including on one or two occasions physically confronting your fascist skinhead bootboy friends. Please add me to your list of 'far left activists'. There are probably a lot more of us out there if you look hard enough.

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 10:54 pm

Kingsindian wrote:You are derailing your own thread. If you start discussions or keep pursuing tangents on whether Trump is a neo-Nazi or the nature of UKIP, or squabble with people here, the thread will devolve immediately, and it will be (rightly) locked. Nobody cares about your political views or the story of your life or why you are a right-winger. Focus on Wikipedia. And you don't have to reply to every post here.

As far as I can see, you are repeating your points from earlier. I tried to address some of them; I hope it helped. Briefly, the main points are that:

Editors are allowed to be biased and are allowed a POV. Wikipedia tends to attract partisans of all stripes. POV-pushing goes on all the time at Wikipedia. Just like you have the POV that the BNP isn't fascist and have been trying to get it removed for many years now. As far as I can see, there are several sources which do consider the BNP fascist even post-2010 and are suspicious of the "modernization" efforts. Regarding the English Democrats page, there is a vague "right-wing to far-right" descriptor in the infobox. This is splitting the difference between the earlier consensus (in the RfC) and the discussion you started. Perhaps "far-right" should be removed altogether; I have no opinion on this. It is not clear to me that left-wing editors are controlling the BNP page (and related pages). One of the people you mentioned in the original post (The Four Deuces) even agreed with your point on the English Democrats page (namely, removing the "far-right" descriptor).

If there's anything here except the fact that you didn't get your way at WP, I am not seeing it, sorry.

No I'm not derailing: these people came to this thread posting smears ("neo-Nazi", "far-right", "racist") I simply corrected them. I've provided evidence for the left-wing vandalism at Wikipedia: please see the emails on the English Democrats website (link above.) I'm the person who got these bogus sources removed from Wikipedia, because they were purposely misquoted and then I informed the English Democrats and they covered the story. In 2012 I was also approached by the BNP to write a more neutral article on the British National Party on another online encylopedia/wiki; I worked on that article generating 250,000+ views. I'm neither a BNP or English Democrats member, but I'm against the smears and bias against these right wing parties (the ED's are not even right wing but centre-right); the same for UKIP who for the last year at Wikipedia - I've tried to prevent the same smears being posted. Its the same 5 or 6 six left-wing editors doing this.

The Four Deuces edited/added "right wing" (linking to searchlight as a source) to the English Democrats:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =661102888

Here's The Four Deuces linking to communist Gerry Gable in that same edit:

Gerry Cable, http://searchlightmagazine.com/archive/ ... ion-rights "Workers of England gains trade union rights", ''Searchlight'', 1 September 2013.

Again, for those who don't know who Mr. Gable is:

As a youth, Gable was a member of the Young Communist League and the Communist Party of Great Britain, and worked as a runner on the Communist Party's Daily Worker newspaper, leaving after a year to become a Communist Party trade union organizer. He stood unsuccessfully for the Communist Party on 10 May 1962 at Northfield Ward, Stamford Hill, North London.[2] He finally quit the communist party because of their Anti-Israel policy and because "first and foremost [he has] always been a Jewish trade unionist".[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Gable

Note Gable is also a crook (arrested for burglary).

I see The Four Deuces as a sign of constant vandalism on that page. As for "far right" his comment was saying not to have that in the ideology box because its already mentioned on the page? I don't think at all he was trying to remove it - this is against his agenda.

Ogygia · Unread post by **Ogygia** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:23 pm

AndyTheGrump wrote:In my time I've done quite a few things to solve problems. Including on one or two occasions physically confronting your fascist skinhead bootboy friends. Please add me to your list of 'far left activists'. There are probably a lot more of us out there if you look hard enough.

The "fascist", "neo-nutzi", "racist" and "skinhead boover boot" thing in the 21st century is just a caricature and smear invented by the left. The only people I've ever encountered who are these things or pretending to be them are far left wing infiltrators to nationalist movements, i.e. they say or do these things to intentionally demonise and mock the right. A good example of that at Wikipedia is Mikemikev (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... /Mikemikev) who spams anti-Semitism and crazy rants about race when he's been exposed on multiple websites as having a fake persona of a racist.

Admit it. You're controlled opposition from Correct the record designed to make conservatives look like gibbering paedophile racist imbeciles. Your gal Hillary lost the election 'Mike', you don't have to be this obvious strawman persona. Go back to Shoreditch, mate, no offense, this parody of a stupid racist is wearing a bit thin.

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/mikemikev ... 3/page-238

Hex · Unread post by **Hex** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 12:07 am

Ogygia wrote: The "fascist", "neo-nutzi", "racist" and "skinhead boover boot" thing in the 21st century is just a caricature and smear invented by the left.