■  Matthew Collins

LONDON, April 30, 2007  –  Former British Nationalist Party activist, turned anti-fascist campaigner, Matthew Collins, Director of Searchlight's Operation Wedge, has revealed the inside truth about the BNP’s plans for apartheid in Britain, and how to defeat the far right.

He was interviewed by human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, on his weekly TV programme, Talking With Tatchell at the weekend.

The neo-Nazi British National Party is fighting a record number of seats in the May 3 local, Scottish and Welsh elections – over 800 seats in total.  It is aiming to double its number of councillors.

Mr. Collins reveals that the BNP’s makeover as an ostensibly respectable British patriotic party is a con.

The BNP may have discarded its ‘bovver boot’ image in favour of slick city suits, and toned down its street thuggery, but behind the smiling face of its leader Nick Griffin lurks a hateful Islamophobia, racism and homophobia, Mr. Tatchell said.

The BNP is a menace to democracy and to minority communities; posing a particular threat to the security of Black, Asian, Jewish, Muslim and gay people, he suggested.

Mr. Collins explained the BNP’s strategy: it preys on deprived white working class communities; exploiting and manipulating their grievances – often fabricating claims of preferential treatment for immigrants and asylum seekers, in order to stir up a white racist backlash that it can then take advantage of.

The key to defeating the BNP is youth education in diversity and tolerance, the promotion of multicultural projects where people of all races work together to benefit all sections of the community, and government action to address the neglect and deprivation that prompts some alienated white working class people to turn to the far right, the programme suggested.

Mr. Collins also warns that in order to win broader electoral appeal the BNP has, at least publicly, dumped its more extreme policies, such as the repatriation of non-white people.

Now, he revealed, it has a more subtle, covert strategy to drive black people out of Britain – a secret plan for a regime of de facto apartheid, whereby non-white people will face gradually ever-increasing restrictions, exclusions and deprivations.

The BNP’s aim, Mr. Collins suggested, is to make life in Britain so unbearable for black people that they will want to return to the countries from which their forebears migrated.

To view the programme, click HERE

Talking with Tatchell is broadcast every Friday night at 8.30pm on internet TV, 18 Doughty Street