From RationalWiki: BNP Using Islam as a Platform to Push their Racist Views

As you're probably already aware, I despise the BNP. I noted previously how I think they, like some others, are simply using Islam as a platform to push their racist (and anti-Jewish) views.

From RationalWiki (visit the original page for references):

The current BNP was formed in 1982 from the ashes of previous right-wing political parties in 1970s Britain. John Tyndall, founder of the BNP, was a member of the openly racist National Front, which he led a splinter group from in 1980, founding the New National Front, which would become the BNP two years later. 

Early BNP leaders did not deny their racist connections. Tyndall is known to have remarked that "Mein Kampf is my bible". After the current wonky-eyed Chairman and Fat Hitler impersonator, Nick Griffin (no relation to Peter Griffin of Family Guy), replaced Tyndall in 1999 and Tyndall was expelled from the party, the BNP has attempted to change its image by using spin and political euphemisms. For example, the BNP denies that it is a white supremacist organisation, claiming instead that it represents the interests of "the indigenous peoples of these islands in the North Atlantic which have been our homeland for millennia". [...]

The British National Party advocates British withdrawal from the European Union, and, according to its constitution, "is wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European peoples." Hence the party is "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948." 

If enacted, this policy would involve deporting "back to their own country" not only recent immigrants, but all members of the sizeable Asian and West Indian communities that have grown in Britain over the past sixty years, Chinese communities that have been in Britain for over 200 years and African communities that have been in Britain for over 500 years, notwithstanding that most of the current generation of these ethnic minorities have lived their entire lives in Britain.

In a statement of the party's policies and intentions, Griffin repeatedly emphasised that the party is "not racist", while describing Britain as a "fundamentally white nation", condemning miscegenation as unnatural, and reiterating that he considers non-caucasians, or white citizens who choose non-whites as sexual or marriage partners, are unsuitable for party membership. He stated that, once the BNP has removed the majority of immigrant groups from the country, "[t]hose non-Europeans who stay will have British passports and will be protected by our laws, but they will be regarded as permanent guests, and not as native English, Scots, Welsh or Irish, because such status springs from blood and not from printers’ ink." 

Antisemitism has also been a significant aspect of BNP ideology, and BNP leaders, including Nick Griffin, have made several statements of Holocaust denial. On Question Time, Nick Griffin was challenged on it but refused to comment on why he changed his views or why he originally denied it, muttering something about it being illegal and free speech or something, even after Justice Secretary Jack Straw pointed out that he could not, and would not be prosecuted for it (Holocaust denial is not actually a crime in the UK, as it is some European countries). However, in recent years the party has decided that its major enemy is Islam. A BNP statement during 2006 asserted that "[t]he real enemies of the British people are home grown Anglo-Saxon Celtic liberal-leftists who seek to destroy the family as the building blocks of society and impose multiculturalism on a reluctant indigenous population and the Crescent Horde - the endless wave of Islamics who are flocking to our shores to bring our island nations into the embrace of their barbaric desert religion".

The BNP's attempts to disguise its racialist roots and pose itself as a legitimate political force are not at all convincing, especially as many of its prominent members have past convictions for violent offences and hate crimes. Its attempts to sound the alarm about the supposed Islamic "threat to all of us" also comes off as hollow in the wake of this quote from Mr Griffin: "We bang on about Islam. Why? Because to the ordinary public out there it's the thing they can understand. It's the thing the newspaper editors sell newspapers with. If we were to attack some other ethnic group—some people say we should attack the Jews... But ... we've got to get to power. And if that was an issue we chose to bang on about when the press don't talk about it ... the public would just think we were barking mad. They'd just think oh, you're attacking Jews just because you want to attack Jews. You're attacking this group of powerful Zionists just because you want to take poor Manny Cohen the tailor and shove him in a gas chamber. That's what the public would think. It wouldn't get us anywhere other than stepping backwards. It would lock us in a little box; the public would think "extremist crank lunatics, nothing to do with me." And we wouldn't get power."

RationalWiki on the Irrationality of Islamophobia Watch

From RationalWiki (visit the original page for references):

Islamophobia Watch is a silly blog that claims to be "documenting anti Muslim bigotry". Critics of the site allege that it is simply badmouthing anybody who criticises any aspect of the Islamic world. It is apparently run by Bob Pitt, and has a contributor named Martin Sullivan (who some have suggested is a sock puppet operated by Pitt). According to Pitt the blog was set up by Eddie Truman.

One of the blog's frequently targeted Islamophobes is Richard Dawkins, who referred to Islam as an "unmitigated evil" as recently as May of 2011. In 2008, Dawkins complained that British teachers are tolerating creationist views in Muslim pupils. "[T]here are those of us who would argue that paranoid delusions about the impact on educational policy of a minority faith community who comprise less than 3% of the population of the UK are quite accurately categorisable as Islamophobia", said Martin Sullivan.

Islamophobia Watch has been involved in a lengthy spat with another blog, Harry's Place. Harry's Place made a post in 2005 deconstructing Pitt's definition of "Islamophobia", resulting in a squabble between the two, with Pitt focusing largely on Harry's support for the Iraq war. Sullivan later described Harry's Place as "notoriously Islamophobic".

Other people apparently deemed "anti Muslim bigots" by the blog include Bill Maher, anti-burqa feminist Elizabeth Farrelley, Booker prize-winner Ian McEwan, British comedian Ben Elton, Martin Amis, gay website Pink News, Christopher Hitchens, Philip Pullman, Monica Ali, Philip Hensher, Salman Rushdie, and Polly Toynbee.

A favourite tactic used by the blog is pointing out that somebody's criticism of Islam has been supported by the BNP or some other far-right outfit. A stopped clock is right twice a day, Bob.

Brett Lock, a member of the gay rights group OutRage!, took objection to that group being lumped in with the BNP by Islamophobia Watch for its anti-sharia views. He e-mailed Pitt about Islamic laws on homosexuality and was allegedly told that "it's not homosexuality as such that's an offence but the sexual act itself. And you need four independent witnesses for a conviction." "That’s a great comfort, Bob", replied Lock. "Can you imagine if every heterosexual on the planet were forced under pain of death to be celibate? How would that work? It doesn’t even appear to work for those few (like Catholic clergy) who choose to give it a go. Why does Pitt appear to think that gays and lesbians can live under those conditions?"

The Leicester Secularist blog described Islamophobia Watch's contributors as "homophobic and antisemetic".

Peter Tatchell

One of the blog's favourite targets is gay activist Peter Tatchell. In September 2011 Tatchell attended an anti-EDL rally in Tower Hamlets, carrying a placard reading "Gays & Muslims UNITE! Stop the EDL". Tatchell reported that he received criticism from certain left-wing protestors, "some of whom said explicitly that our placards were 'insensitive…provocative…inappropriate…divisive” and that I am “racist…fascist…anti-Muslim.'" Tatchell added that "There was also hostility from a minority of Muslims who were part of the anti-EDL demonstration, including attempts to snatch and rip my placard... I was surrounded several times throughout the day by angry Muslim youths who ordered me: 'You must remove this placard…You can’t walk here with these words…We don’t allow gays in this area…Gays are not permitted here…We don’t have gays in Tower Hamlets.'"

Islamophobia Watch responded to this account by labelling Tatchell's actions as a "predictably divisive and disruptive... publicity stunt by an attention-seeking narcissist" and pointing out that someone from the EDL asked Tatchell to join them. The fact that Tatchell was attending an anti-EDL rally and carrying an anti-EDL sign and is therefore clearly not an EDL supporter was apparently lost in the confusion.

Johann Hari

British journalist Johann Hari criticised Islamophobia Watch for its reference to Peter Tatchell as "pro-Nazi" and its defence of Muslim homophobe Sir Iqbal Sacranie. "If I write a book calling Sacranie a homophobe and claim it was dictated to me by the Archangel Gabriel, will Pitt defend it as my religious view, and damn everyone who disagrees as 'Johann-phobic'?" he asks. "Islamophobia Watch – and the dense chunk of the hard left that adopts a similar approach – is trying to redefine consistent atheism as a form of racism."

Islamophobia Watch put up a rather feeble response to this, clarifying that its identification of Tatchell as "pro-Nazi" was because he called for the Muslim Council of Britain to be excluded from a Unite Against Fascism conference. Er, that's what qualifies as "pro-Nazi" now?

Later, the blog took Hari to task for describing Dutch Labour Party council member Ehsan Jami as "an intelligent, softly-spoken 22-year-old [who] believes there should be no compromise, ever, on the rights of women and gay people and novelists and cartoonists", Sullivan's objection to this statement being that Jami once co-wrote an anti-Islamic article with Geert Wilders. The same post criticises Hari for being friends with Maryam Namazie, whom it identifies as a "nutter" who accused the Muslim Council of Britain of wanting to execute gays.

"They shamefully call Maryam 'a nutter' for opposing Islamic fundamentalist homophobia, when she has witnessed it first hand in Iran", said Hari in an article about the blog's post. "They then smear Eshan as aligned with Geert Wilders, without pointing out he has in fact condemned Wilders' disgraceful calls for the Koran to be banned, saying instead that 'everyone should read it.' They should be deeply ashamed of their attack on these brave ex-Muslims."

The blog has also stated that "Johann Hari has always been one of our favourite Islamophobes", but acknowledged that "to be fair, he does take a stand against the more egregious examples of anti-Muslim bigotry."