Weather: Hi 4°C / Lo 2°C
Loyalist helps BNP spread race hate message
Sunday, 24 August 2008
enlarge
Print
Email
A Belfast-based loyalist night defended his decision to link up with the extremist BNP.
Former Orangeman James Dowson, who runs Midas Consultancy, told Sunday Life that he had “no problem” providing senior members of the right-wing party with management training and marketing skills.
Scots-born Dowson, who is also a hardline anti-abortion campaigner, has been responsible for helping the BNP send letters to businesses throughout the UK in a bid to raise cash.
The loyalist, who makes regular trips to Northern Ireland, helped mastermind the party’s ‘Truth Truck’ campaign, which included lorries visiting towns in England to spread the BNP’s ‘nationalist message’.
And Dowson, who admitted coming from a “loyalist background”, claimed the BNP’s message would soon be coming to Northern Ireland.
He said: “I specialise in a business pool which includes Belfast and Scotland and I’m proud to describe myself as a loyalist and a unionist.
“A wide range of organisations come to us because we provide management training and marketing skills.
“When the BNP contacted us, I had no option but to work with them — it was an exciting business proposal.
“I understand the truth truck could soon be on its way to Northern Ireland, but that’s nothing to do with me.”
Added Dowson: “The BNP are not an illegal organisation so why shouldn’t I work with them? I don’t think their members are involved in criminal activity.
“I have worked in Northern Ireland for a long time, but not for any proscribed organisations. The BNP is not a proscribed organisation.
“It would be wrong for me to pontificate about the views of the BNP and I honestly can’t think of anyone I wouldn’t work with.”
The link between the BNP and Dowson caused concern among anti-racism campaigners in the province.
Said one campaigner: “Dowson’s marketing plan is nothing more than a begging letter.
“The BNP is in very serious financial trouble and this is how they think they can get money.
“The BNP may not be illegal, but they articulate views which clearly motivate people to commit very serious attacks on minorities.”
Sunday Life revealed last year how Northern Ireland’s only Chinese politician slammed the BNP’s latest attempt at a recruitment drive in the province.
The right-wing party published a leaflet — entitled ‘What Now for Northern Ireland?’ — claiming the province was on its way to a “multi-cultural hellhole” and that towns her had become “dumping-grounds” for migrants.
But Alliance MLA Anna Lo said she was “disgusted” by the BNP's intolerant language — and said the party was wasting its time in Northern Ireland “because people are not racist here”.
She added: “There is an element of inciting hatred. There is no attraction in Northern Ireland for this type of politics and I would discourage this party from coming over here. We have always had good race relations in Northern Ireland. There may be the odd incident, but that does not represent the majority of people here.”
In 2006, the BNP’s leader Nick Griffin was cleared by a court of stirring up racial hatred — a move that prompted then-chancellor Gordon Brown to consider changing Britain's race laws.
sbreen@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
Post a comment
Limit: 500 characters
View all comments that have been posted about this article
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP address logged and may be used to prevent further submissions. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by BelfastTelegraph.co.uk's Terms of Use.
Posts submitted in UPPERCASE letters will be rejected.
David it is well known world wide that immigrants, both legal and illegal on the whole work just as hard as people from the country they occupy, harder in some cases. The legal immigrant workers in general do the jobs that no one from the country wants to do. Illegal workers do the same, they work any job they can get because, get this, if they are illegal they dont get state hand outs or state benifits. And what has the abduction of a child in Portugal got to do with a debate about the BNP?
Clutching at straws I think...
Posted by Barry | 11.09.08, 09:31 GMT
Try living in a foreign country,Britain does everything for foreigner's,i live in Spain and you get nothing,no handout's,you don't work you don't eat,knife crime,mugging's,all you have to do is look at the Madeline McCann incident and you will see what people are like from countries like these,why is it if you are a British patriot you are a bigot,but if you come from anywhere else in the world you are respected for your patriotisium,not rediculed.
Posted by David | 11.09.08, 07:25 GMT
these thugs are not welcome in the north of ireland we do not want them what purpose are good will there serve there is enough narrow minded bigots out there (british) and do not need any support from parties such as this
Posted by Tony Fearon | 09.09.08, 20:12 GMT
i have one question for anna lo, where were you last night when the local community groups of the village and mid donegall road had a meeting, with the psni, belfast city council and housing exective to dicuss awide range of growing questions on anti- social behaviour that is happening in our comunity day and daily causing a lot of trouble in our areas... mrs lo was supposed to be there and once again was a no show.... maybe because the press was not there, and she would have to face the community
Posted by gibson | 09.09.08, 17:47 GMT
The BNP offers nothing to the people of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland already has too many sectarian bigots and racists on both sides of the religious divide. The BNP offers nothing but hate and a perverted sense of nationalism.
Posted by Patrick Murphy | 08.09.08, 17:50 GMT
The BNP should not even be allowed to set foot in Northern Ireland. How are they going to achieve anything here! we already have a full island of hate mongerers that unfortunately govern our country. The BNP is a front for blatent racisim, surely the last 40 years have tought us that these people offer nothing constructive.
Posted by Danny | 08.09.08, 15:04 GMT
Good on you Wayne this is a 'Free Country' and the BNP is a Leagal Party what happened to free choice that Anna Low and the Alliance Party claim they are in faviour of.
I cant wait until the BNP Bus roles into Carrickfergus.
Posted by Micky | 08.09.08, 14:45 GMT
A Tosh, I am referring to the leadership of the BNP who are based in England taking their roadshow the 'Truth Truck' (quite laughable) to another country to tell the people here what they should be doing with people who come from another country. Quite simple really. Thanks.
Posted by Barry | 08.09.08, 14:37 GMT
Barry says:"Hmmmm anyone else see the irony of people coming over here from a different country telling us what we should be doing with people from, erm, a different country?"
Barry, are you referring to the decendants of the planters in Ulster, who were for so long the johnny-come-latelies, new kids on the Ireland block as it were, or are you referring to the newer arrivals to our shores?
Posted by A Tosh | 08.09.08, 13:16 GMT
Question for Anna Lo: Could a non-Chinese person move to China and expect to become a Government Representative? Has any non-Chinese (ethnically speaking) person achieved this? Answer: No. The reason is simple, the modern Chinese are far too Nationalistic to allow such an intrusion into their modern political arena by foreigners and rightly so in my opinion. Anna Lo, you should think about this and consider how offensive your argument and position might be to Anglo-Celtic folk when you seek to dictate what is and is not acceptable in British-Irish politics. The BNP is a party for the people of these Islands of the North Atlantic, who have a right to a democratic voice, if you don't like that, well too bad!
Posted by Grant | 08.09.08, 11:18 GMT
Hmmmm anyone else see the irony of people coming over here from a different country telling us what we should be doing with people from, erm, a different country?
Posted by Barry | 08.09.08, 11:01 GMT
"The BNP is in very serious financial trouble" - oh really? I doubt the BNP are like Labour and the Tories with millions of pounds of debt. A "Chinese politician" in Northern Ireland dictating to people who are concerned about immigration and other matters of identity loss? Something wrong here, surely?
Posted by Isaac Brown | 08.09.08, 10:42 GMT
What a load of wiggling racists snakes the BNP and their loyalists’ apologists are, trying to worm their way into society to stir up sectarian and racists hatred. That’s right, pick on defenceless immigrants. You know better than to try that with Catholics and nationalists any more…
Posted by Joe Murray | 08.09.08, 10:07 GMT
As the two posted comments show, we can never become complacent to the racism and bigotry in our midst.
I urge all people in this country, from all communities, classes, and religions, to stand together against this kind of intolerance and not let it get a political foothold. The BNP is not a benign presence; they are an insidious front to something far more sinister.
As every war memorial in Belfast shows, there have always been brave men and women willing to give their lives for the ideals of democracy, tolerance, and human rights. The BNP and co. share in that democracy but, crucially, would deny it to others that they don't see fit to include. Not right away, of course, but don't be fooled: it's in the big picture.
At the start of his political career, Hitler received less than 2% of the vote.
By 1938, no one was voting for anyone else.
Posted by Jon Hatch | 08.09.08, 08:14 GMT
Anna Lo is correct, certainly in the Republician coummunity anyway there is no real problem with immigrants.
Posted by Gareth | 08.09.08, 08:08 GMT
I welcome the arrival in Northern Ireland of a genuinely patriotic alternative to unionist parties which have promised much but delivered very little over the years.The people of this province were never asked whether or not they wanted mass immigration.
As in the rest of the UK,this disastrous social engineering project has been imposed upon us and none of the local politicians with the sole exception of the late Enoch Powell has uttered one word of criticism against the liblabcon establishment.
Today,only the BNP has policies which can help us weather the economic and political storms facing us,i.e ending further immigration,voluntary grant aided repatriation,revitalising British industry by imposing Tariffs and ending the domination our markets by with foreign manufactured goods,supporting and local industry by withdrawing the UK from the EU.
The BNP has no wish to stir up hatred. Northern Ireland has had enough of that.All we want is a land fit for our Children to live in.
Posted by Wayne | 01.09.08, 01:30 GMT
Would someone put Anna Lo on a slow boat to China. As people see their communities changed by immigrants they are getting fed up.Most people I talk to are opposed to this goverments open door policy.Have we not enough people here claiming bennifits.It is costing the tax payer millions.We should be forcing the local unemployed to take jobs instead of flooding this country with immigrants.Why do you think there is a big increase in births in Northern Ireland?I do not think they can believe the bennifits they get for having babies and people are earning a living by it.
Posted by John | 31.08.08, 15:03 GMT