BNP members returned to Buchanan Street at the weekend. Ostensibly there to sell papers, their choice of location suggests they're more interested in provoking confrontation with the non-fascist groups whose regular pitch it is. They left in the back of a police van.
Around 11:30 on Saturday afternoon, before the full array of groups had set up stalls outside Borders, 4 BNP members marched to the centre of the street, displaying newspapers and looking smug. Two minutes after they arrived, a police car parked 50 yards down the road, strongly suggesting that the BNP had called them in the expectation that they were going to provoke trouble.
On being outnumbered and surrounded by people objecting, strongly but without violence, to the hatred for sale, the racists showed their true colours. Charlie Baillie, Glasgow organiser first attempted to claim that they are not a Nazi party (but hey, just happy to promote Holocaust-deniers, eh?), then lost his temper and threatened to kill someone. (That seems to confirm rumours we've heard that under the cheap suit he's a thug.)
Other BNP members present were their organiser of the Highlands & Islands and Mid-Scotland organiser. Seems odd that a group claiming to be concerned about local issues would need to bus in people from outside Glasgow for a simple paper sale.
Police officers moved them on after they issued death threats. While they claimed to be going to the top of Buchanan St, they went less than 100 yards and carried on. This was obviously unacceptable and this time they were surrounded by an even larger group of people objecting to their presence, this time including shoppers, passers-by and an evangelical preacher. Two vans of police turned up this time, and officers formed a cordon to protect the strong and fearless fascists with hands strangely shaking. Finally they were put into the back of a police van and taken away.
While this was a pleasing sight, they hadn't been arrested for wasting police time. Throughout the afternoon they had been observed on friendly terms with the police (shades of Richard Barnbrook on the Police Federation march?) and their choice of location strongly suggests that this was what their plan was from the start. The party who if in power would run the country as a totalitarian police state like to claim that they have as much right to be on the street as the groups they'd send to death camps. The police evidently agree.
The challenge for groups maintaining the "no platform for fascists" policy (which the BNP is desperate to overturn) is this: how do they counter the BNP's attempts to make publicity out of the public humiliation? To stop them from selling their papers whilst denying their attempts at martyrdom requires some creative thinking.
Re: BNP attempt martyrdom operation in Glasgow
http://www.bnp-scotland [no fascist links] .co.uk/bnpblog/bnpscotlandblog.html
Haha. Their report of this is pretty funny.
I find it pretty funny that the quote Dads Army, who were prepairing to fight fascists. Obviously a little history lesson wouldn't go a miss.