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We're not going anywhere: get used to it

3 July 2009

London and south east MYVC co-ordinator Tom Flynn gives a personal account of a death threat he received from political thugs.

In June I received a death threat in the street outside Millbank studios in Westminster from a leading member of a democratically elected political party.

As I was leaving the BBC studio with my colleague, who had just appeared on the PM programme on Radio 4, we found ourselves face to face with some angry political activists determined on confrontation.

The threat was delivered despite the presence of a camera crew from one of the major TV networks and the person made it clear he knew who I was and how to find me.

He told me that next time he saw me I was “going to die” – a threat I took seriously as he knew my name and the location of where I often spend time outside of work.

The deputy leader of his party was there, but made no comment other than to laugh and make threatening gestures at me.

No one present from his party seemed concerned by his conduct and several took photos of me and my colleague who was also the subject of abusive and sexist comments from the mob.

As you may have guessed, these were not the actions of a respectable political party.

Anyone who has been involved with the anti-fascist movement will recognise these as the tactics of the British National Party, who had days earlier seen two of their candidates elected to the European parliament.

No platform with BNP

This confrontation, which has been reported to the police, was a result of our earlier involvement in a demonstration which successfully stopped Nick Griffin from hosting a press conference in Parliament Square.

This was a peaceful demonstration organised with the intention of showing the BNP that the vast majority of voters did not vote for Nick Griffin or Andrew Brons, with protesters carrying signs saying ‘not in my name’.

However the actions of a couple of individuals who threw eggs led some media commentators to suggest we should not disrupt the activities of democratically elected politicians.

But my answer to that is this: I will engage the BNP in the normal spirit of political debate when they afford me the same courtesy.

I will never share a platform with the BNP when doing so risks giving them the sense of legitimacy that they crave, and could lead to more of the same death threats that I, and a number of others, have already received.

I will never stop disrupting their gatherings as long as my colleagues continue to be assaulted while distributing anti-BNP literature, as happened in Croydon twice recently and Morden in south London during the European election campaign, to name just a couple of occasions.

I will not let Nick Griffin appear in the mainstream media without protest until he ceases to peddle racist, homophobic and sexist lies which spread hate and division across communities and workplaces to the detriment of us all.

I won’t be intimidated by you or your thugs, Mr Griffin. I am one of the huge majority of people in Britain who reject you and your fascist party. And we’re not going anywhere so you had better get used to it.

Journalists take a stand

National Union of Journalists’ activists have met to draw up plans in response to the election of BNP MEPs and councillors.

The union organises those who report on the BNP as well as council press officers who find themselves working alongside racist and fascist elected members.

Eileen Short, a former Tower Hamlets council PR officer who helped organise a campaign to expose and isolate the BNP’s first elected councillor Derek Beackon, said: “We will not be used by the BNP to spread their propaganda.”

The union has pledged support for its members who uphold the NUJ’s guidelines on race reporting and its conscience clause, which says members should be able to refuse unethical assignments.

For more information visit the NUJ website.
 

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