The BNP has been trying to position itself as a modern, mainstream, and moderate nationalist party. Those of us who have followed the party, and know its history and ideology, know that this is a lie.
Meet Robert Cottage, who was a BNP candidate in the May 2006 local elections, and is presently on trial in Manchester:
A former BNP candidate stockpiled a cache of weapons and explosives and spoke of his wish to one day shoot the Prime Minister, a court heard today.
Robert Cottage, 49, who stood for the far-Right party in the May 2006 local elections, had convinced himself that Britain was about to be engulfed in a civil war.
As a result he began to gather weapons and buy enough food to last him and his wife, Kerena, four or five years.
In addition to targeting Tony Blair, he spoke of wanting to shoot Lord Greaves, the Liberal Democrat peer.
A jury at Manchester Crown Court heard that the county council driver was arrested after Mrs Cottage, 29, expressed fears about his increasingly radical behaviour.
Police who searched the couple’s terraced home found quantities of 21 different chemicals that in various combinations could be turned into explosives.
They also found large amounts of rice and sugar, both of which can be used in the manufacture of explosives, as well as crossbows, air pistols ball-bearings and canisters filled with petrol.
The BNP might not presently be promoting violence and criminality. However, its leading members imagine themselves to be living in through a millennialist dystopia, reminiscent of the Turner Diaries, in which terminal inter-communal violence is always close to erupting.
All political parties have had their fair share of crooks and nutters, whose aberrant behaviour is typically unconnected to their politics.
Robert Cottage, however, by his own account, does appear to have been living the BNP dream.