Nationalrat 2011 from sf.tv New Campaign LeafletCompletely right about the central political issue of our age:
globalisation.
Telegraph
Marine Le Pen: Is the 'devil's daughter' right?
Sitting in her office at the headquarters of France's Front National, the obligatory French Tricolour flag nearby, Marine Le Pen is relishing her I-told-you-so moment.
"Left voters have been betrayed by a political discourse that has no sense. Right voters have been betrayed by a party that has not kept its promises. This has allowed me to position myself as one of the three main candidates."
Marine Le Pen defends US trip despite political snubs
Marine Le Pen, the French far-right candidate, said her trip to the United States remained a success despite scoring meetings with only a small handful of political figures.
After several changes to her program, Miss Le Pen was due to meet with a "representative of the black community," whose identity was not revealed, before visiting Congress, followed by IMF headquarters and the National Press Club.
Telegraph
Swiss fear avalanche from the Right
A populist party is on course to trample over the politics of politiness in Sunday's election, writes Colin Freeman in Zurich
For all that the Alpine nation may seem well-off compared to its neighbours – it has the highest living standards on the continent, and do not belong to the troubled eurozone that surrounds it - the SVP has cashed in deftly on rising fears about immigrant-linked crime and militant Islam.
Far-right rise in Switzerland capped
Switzerland's dominant far-right party suffered a dip in electoral support for the first time in 20 years on Sunday as smaller parties recorded gains.
In addition, the Green Liberals also hurt the SVP, taking seats from the far-right party in some cantons on the back of concerns over the future of nuclear energy that surfaced after Japan's Fukushima accident.
http://swisswatching.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/swiss-election-results-xenophobia-0-commonsense-1/Swiss election results: xenophobia 0 commonsense 1
SwitzeAnders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to the bomb and shooting attacks that killed 77 people in Norway in July, says there are up to 80 cells in Europe with militant anti-Islamic ideals like his own, Norwegian investigators said on Thursday.
"The number I now have is between 60 and 80," he said. "But I don't think they (investigators) trust what Breivik is saying on this matter."
Telegraph
Panorama: BNP – the Fraud Exposed, BBC One, preview
Panorama's latest investigation into the British National Party claims to uncover evidence of financial irregularities.
Halal meat – Shame on Britain
A German far-right party has been permitted to put up election posters in Berlin that said 'step on the gas' which some see as a provocative reminder of the Holocaust after a court dismissed a ban on their use.
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Marine Le Pen, France's far-right National Front political party vice-president and European deputy Photo: REUTERS
By Kim Willsher, Paris
8:00AM BST 25 Sep 2011
The striking blonde is not only enjoying her role as the wildcard that could upset next year's presidential election, but is profiting from a confluence of events that has made her look less the "devil's daughter" - as she has been called – and more a political diviner.
A decade ago, when the far-right FN warned abandoning the franc for the euro was madness and vowed to pull Franceout of the common currency, the idea was dismissed as nationalistic folly. Today, the economic crisis engulfing the eurozone, has made the once preposterous idea if not a possibility, then at least a possible solution to the continent's financial woes.
The remarkable turnaround is not lost on Miss Le Pen, who suffers neither false modesty nor self-doubt.
"Much of France now realises we were right to sound the alarm, because what we warned for a long time would happen, is now happening," she says.
"There is a normalisation of our movement that is incarnated by my personality. The effect has contributed to making our analyses more credible.
Opinion polls suggest she has a point: before the summer they showed her with the support of 22 to 23 per cent of voters, compared with just under 20 per cent for President Nicolas Sarkozy. Even without a candidate, the opposition Socialists were in the lead. Today, the positions of the two figures of the Right have been reversed - and the Socialists still lead - but the pollsters admit anything could happen over the next eight months.
Miss Le Pen's election strategy is to deflect from traditional Left-Right arguments. Today, she says, the only sensible division is between those who believe in national interests and those who believe in globalisation.
"The Left/Right division makes no sense because they both think the same way – about the euro and the European Union for example – and they both have the same solutions that don't work," she said.
"Both Left and Right have come up with the same ideas for saving the euro at any cost, both agree to continue allowing immigration that is evidently excessive. My idea is to explain to the French people that the only real choice in the presidential election will be between a project that is national and a project that is global.
"I say the euro is dead. The euro is a stalemate and has brought nothing but pitiful results in both the economic field and the social field in the last ten years.
"The current sovereign debt crisis means we are called to show solidarity with countries that we cannot bail out because we don't have the means. It's not possible. I would prefer to anticipate our exit from the euro and prepare for it than to wait for it to happen and suffer it. If we wait for the euro to collapse it will be an economic and social catastrophe.
"I believe the people are with me on this. The French are against the bail-out plan, so are the Germans and Italians. There will come a moment when people will take power from their leaders."
Since she took over the head of the Front National from her truculent, pugilistic one-eyed father Jean-Marie Le Pen in January, Miss Le Pen has set about trying to take the "extreme" out of extreme-right. She would prefer the expression "de-demonise".
She has been credited with softening the party's image, distancing herself from the bully-boy skinheads who used to police FN rallies and marches, and bringing the party out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
Her manifesto is a mix of patriotism, protectionism, state regulation and the re-industrialisation of France coupled with the traditional far-right themes of halting immigration and – at the furthest extreme – limiting welfare and social benefits to French nationals while supporting capital punishment. She reserves her greatest disdain for the European Union and what she describes as "massive immigration".
Just as with the euro, Miss Le Pen claims she has been proven right on other issues.
In the past four and a half years, Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling UMP government has been accused of stealing the FN's ideas on numerous occasions, notably when it tightened its stance on immigration, sent gendarmes into Roma camps, expelled illegal immigrants by the tens of thousands, reintroduced border controls, and banned Muslim women from wearing veils.
A few months ago Miss Le Pen caused a storm by likening the sight of Muslim's praying in the streets, and blocking the traffic, to the Nazi occupation. It was a remark that reminded voters of her father, who once described the Holocaust as a "detail" of the Second World War (before revising his analysis and describing the war as a "detail" of the Holocaust.)
Aha!... said critics, she is the devil's daughter - Jean-Marie Mark II.
This month, the French government outlawed Muslims from praying in the streets, and it became clear that some of the far Right's most vilified ideas had gone mainstream.
When the FN, always the gatecrasher in French politics, accused the country's ruling elite of all colours of being rotten to the core, corrupt and morally bankrupt, it was rejected as the sour-grapes of the outsider.
Since then, there have been a series of high-profile scandals including the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair, alleged illegal party funding, accusations of suitcases stuffed with cash being handed to politicians at the highest levels of state.
Little wonder that the struggling former mining villages and gritty one-time factory towns of her constituency of north west France, where rates of unemployment are high, her railing against foreigners stealing French jobs and costing French taxpayers' hard-earned money finds a receptive audience.
Many years ago, the rabble-rousing Jean-Marine Le Pen once tried to commend Marine, the youngest of his three daughters, to the party faithful by describing her as "a big, healthy, blonde girl, an ideal physical specimen".
She was later nicknamed "the clone", and more recently "la peste blonde" - a play on "la peste noire", the French for the Black Death plague, and "la peste brune", a reference to the occupying brown-shirted Nazi troops.
The FN's headquarters is in the Rue des Suisses in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre. Here the local Communist mayor objected to the party setting up shop here and threatened to change the name of the road to Brahim Bouarrain street, the name of a young Moroccan who drowned in 1995 after being thrown into the Seine by FN supporters.
Inside the security gates, visitors are greeted with a statue of Joan of Arc in full fighting pose and on the terrace inside is a huge statue of a Gallic cockerel.
Miss Le Pen, 43, a twice divorced mother of three and lawyer by profession, is disarmingly amiable and unusual among French politicians in cutting straight to the chase.
She is less punchy – metaphorically and literally – than her father and uses a sophisticated, gentler vocabulary but has the same combative character. Like him, she gives the impression she says what she thinks and thinks what she says.
"I believe I have succeeded in de-demonising the party, perhaps not among the elite, because the elite are very attached to the system that feeds them but among the ordinary people. When you see how I am approached by people in the street and treated with kindness and affection even among those who don't vote for me, you can see that in the space of ten years things have changed enormously," she says.
"Of course people say I am the soft face of the devil and suggest that nothing has changed, but that's their only way of maintaining the wall to keep us out. If that falls, then we will be elected and they know that."
Asked what she believes is the greatest menace to France, she is quick to respond and unequivocal: the European Union and immigration.
"The greatest threat is the loss of our freedom as people because we can see that in reality the European Union has become another Soviet Union constructed without the people and sometimes against the people. It makes decisions and our democracy has disappeared; we French people cannot decide on our own future, it's a bureaucrat or technocrat who decides in our place.
"The other great danger is massive immigration that will result in the loss of our identity. I am madly in love with the idea of there being a diversity of nations, but for nations to be diverse their people have to stay together. It is not a lack of respect or hatred for foreigners, but I want Malians to remain Malians and defend the language and identity of Mali, Americans to stay Americans, the Chinese, Chinese and the French, French."
In 2002, Miss Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, stunned France by winning his way into the second round of the presidential vote, knocking out the main opposition Socialist candidate, before being trounced by the incumbent Jacques Chirac.
Jerome Fourquet of the opinion pollsters IFOP, says the FN's popularity in the run up to next year's presidential is considerably higher than it was in 2002, a phenomenon he attributes to the global economic turmoil.
"The current financial crisis is bringing water to Marine Le Pen's mill," he says.
"When she says Europe will bring us to ruin and we see the news and the turbulence in Europe, it gives what she says credibility. The evolution of this economic crisis will be very important to the Front National.
"If it gets worse and there is more euro-scepticism, this could reinforce the party. She can only profit from a degradation of the situation. Then she'll be able to say, 'I told you so'."
Telegraph
Marine Le Pen discussed the gold standard with Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul Photo: AFP/GETTY
9:31PM GMT 02 Nov 2011
"Even before I left for the United States, the French media said it was already a failure. That's not at all the case," she told a throng of French journalists.
Miss Le Pen, of the anti-immigrant National Front party, had an agenda filled more with visits to centres of power like the US Capitol than with meetings with political leaders.
But the office of Republican representative and presidential hopeful Ron Paul said he had a "quick private meeting" with Le Pen earlier Wednesday.
"They primarily discussed monetary policy and the gold standard," spokeswoman Rachel Mills told AFP.
Miss Le Pen declined to identify other US lawmakers with whom she was due to meet, out of fear that they would cancel due to "pressure."
Asked whether her far-right views upset Americans, Le Pen said that instead "the French government is very upset with my presence here and is seeking to minimise the impact of my visit by any means possible."
Miss Le Pen, who is due to visit UN headquarters on Thursday, accused France's ambassador there Gerard Araud of having sent "a rather strong message" that she was not "welcome."
SVP vice-president Christoph Blocher Photo: Siggi Bucher
7:00AM BST 23 Oct 2011
As his two-legged party comrades like to point out, Zottel the goat represents everything that is good about the hard Right in Switzerland. The official mascot of the populist Swiss People's Party, he is white in hue, bred of sturdy Alpine stock, and not afraid to dig his hooves in stubbornly on awkward matters.
Take the vexed issue of immigration, for example - a computer game on the party's website features him butting busloads of black sheep out of the country, along with the odd bunch of Socialists.
Last Sunday, though, in the run-up to today's parliamentary elections, Zottel fell victim to a propaganda stunt himself, when an anti-fascist group kidnapped him from his farm in a timber-framed village near Zurich, then shaved him and covered him in black paint, before leaving him tethered to a tree.
"He is still traumatised by the experience, as he wasn't well treated by whoever took him away," said his owner, People's Party MP Ernst Schibli, as he stroked a still-trembling Zottel during an interview with The Sunday Telegraph last week. "But his kidnappers have made an error of judgement - Swiss people are very fond of goats, and this kind of cruelty will backfire."
With or without the benefit of Zottel as Europe's first short-horned political martyr, however, the Swiss People's Party, or SVP, looked set to have the last laugh in today's polls. To the chagrin not just of Zottel's anti-fascist foes but the entire Swiss political establishment, the party is on course to win 30 per cent of the vote, a result which could upset the polite power-sharing deals that have dominated politics here for decades.
Already notorious for a 2007 election campaign in which it used posters depicting foreign criminals as "black sheep", the party was also behind the hugely controversial referendum to ban the building of mosque minarets, which was passed by a 57 per cent majority vote in late 2009.
And now, despite accusations from the United Nations that its previous campaign were "blatantly racist", it is using similarly blunt tactics in its bid for new curbs on immigration, with a manifesto poster showing black feet swarming over the red Swiss flag.
"For me, the SVP goes against everything I stand for," said Stephan Von Matt, 25, one of many Swiss who feel the party is giving the country a racist image abroad, as he sipped a coffee in a smart Zurich cafe.
"Migration has done great things for Switzerland- our economy is dependent on foreigners, not just to do the dirty jobs that Swiss people won't do any more, but also things like doctors for our health service. The SVP reminds me of Germany during its darkest years."
Such accusations are strongly denied by SVP vice-president Christoph Blocher, a bombastic 71-year-old billionaire who, apart from Zottel, is the movement's best-known face. Having made his riches by turning around an ailing Swiss plastics firm, in recent years he has been behind a transformation of the SVP's fortunes, turning it from a small, rurally-based farmer's party into a formidable, well-financed conservative movement.
Respected and reviled for his brash, uncompromising style, the former plastics tycoon has sought not just to break the mould of Swiss politics - which has traditionally favoured gentlemanly consensus over confrontation - but to reshape it altogether, harking on nostalgia for what many Swiss believe was a happier, if more isolated, past.
Backed by his own personal television channel, from where the silver-haired father-of-four holds forth in an armchair, he has campaigned over the years in a series of referenda on Switzerland's future, to which his answer has almost always been "No".
It was "No" to UN membership in 1986, "No" to EU membership in 2001, and "No" to Switzerland giving up its neutrality, which he claimed was the consequence of the decision to finally join the UN in 2002.
Such firebrand populism means that it is not just the radical Left and self-appointed anti-fascist groups who see Mr Blocher as a toxic brand.
Politicians in Switzerland's French-speaking areas distrust him, and like Zottel, he has been the victim of his fair share of publicity stunts: in 2004 an artist pretending to be a dog urinated on an image of him on stage.
In the recent election campaign, meanwhile, a publicity shot of the SVP leaders appearing in traditional Swiss wrestling lederhosen brought a complaint from a wrestling group.
In his party's defence, Mr Blocher claims that the fuss over the anti-immigrant posters is simply a "knee jerk" reaction, and that the only foreigners he discriminates against are freeloaders and criminals. He does, though, want tougher laws for immigration in Switzerland - which, as a signatory to the "borderless" Schengen agreement since 2008, now has similar laws on freedom of movement of labour to its EU neighbours.
"Uncontrolled immigration has taken the power out of Swiss hands and must be limited," railed Mr Blocher during the recent campaign. "There are also increasing numbers of asylum seekers, and more foreign criminals coming into the country. Freedom of movement of people has also brought in an extra 330,000 people over the last four years, putting a strain on housing, public transport and social security, just at a time when the economic situation is getting harder."
True, a British visitor to Switzerland may struggle to detect the woes of which Mr Blocher speaks so passionately. Statistics from 2010 suggest that of Switzerland's 7.8 million population, there are roughly 180,000 from the Balkans, 180,000 Asians and Turks, and 70,000 Africans. But migrant workers are confined largely to bigger cities like Zurich, and even there, what are described locally as "ghettos" show little of the poverty and crime that scar London's Peckham or Manchester's Moss Side. From the perspective of many immigrants, though, the SVP's rhetoric is turning a perceived problem into a genuine one.
Sadaqat Ahmed, 45, is imam of Zurich's Mahmud Mosque, one of just four among the 200 mosques nationwide that has a minaret. Locals questioned even the need for the mosque itself when it was first built back in 1962, saying there weren't enough Muslims to justify it; but today Mr Ahmed prides himself on how it has become part of the community. Immediately after the 9-11 terror attacks, neighbours visited to reassure him that they bore no ill-will, and next week the mosque will host one of its regular open days so that the public can see life in there for themselves. Such mutual goodwill, he says, is being jeopardised by the SVP.
"Neither the mosque nor the minaret is considered a problem in this neighbourhood, although we wouldn't consider having a call to prayer - firstly because most of the neighbours are Christian anyway, and secondly because we don't want to test people's sense of tolerance," he said. "But there have been cases recently of Muslim women in headscarves being abused in the street, or called 'terroristen'. I put that down to the SVP - they are creating fear in the nation."
Nonetheless, Mr Blocher is confident that the SVP, which won 28.9 per cent of the vote in 2007, may break the 30 per cent barrier this time. That could allow it to claim not one, but two, of the seats on Switzerland's seven-strong ministerial cabinet, which parliament has traditionally allocated between the centre-right Radicals, Christian Democrats and Socialists. While Switzerland's government remains among the most decentralised in the world - decision-making power generally rests primarily with the 26 cantons - it would give the SVP agenda a prominent voice at national level/.
And, of course, yet more opportunity for Zottel to resume his act as the Eldest Billy Goat Gruff of Alpine politics, keeping the twin trolls of immigration and Islam at bay. "He's a determined character who stands his ground," smiled Mr Schibli, who has made a formal complaint of burglary and animal cruelty against Zottel's abductors, who have yet to be identified. "Politically, he's probably the most important person in our party."
SwitzerlandTelegraph
Commuters walk past posters of the far-right Swiss People's Party at a railway station in Bern Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images
11:35PM BST 23 Oct 2011
The Swiss People's Party (SVP) had aimed to better its 2007 score of 28.8 per cent, but its split with the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) since the previous elections is now expected to have left it with seven fewer seats.
This time, it is projected to have polled just 26.8 per cent, marking the first time in 20 years that it has recorded a drop in support.
In 2003, the party obtained 26.6 per cent of votes cast. At the last elections that improved to 28.9 per cent, the highest for any Swiss party since the introduction of the proportional representation system in 1919.
Opinion polls ahead of the vote had seen the SVP improving its score. In addition, the party's main campaign platform – immigration – was also forecasted to be the biggest concern of the country.
But the BDP has split its vote.
The Green Liberals' rise also came at the expense of the more established Green Party, which is estimated to have lost seven seats compared to the previous elections.
"There are two losers – the Greens, which did not benefit from Fukushima ... and the second loser is the SVP," noted political analyst Gilbert Casasus.
Amid fears of an economic slowdown due to the European debt crisis, the SVP had sought to win votes through aggressive campaign claiming that the "mass immigration" of foreigners was taking away Swiss jobs, or that they were here to claim social benefits.
Its posters were ubiquitous in Swiss cities, depicting a crowd marching across the Swiss flag, with the slogan: "That's enough. Stop mass immigration."
However, signs that the SVP may have lost ground came shortly after polls closed, when its best-known figure Christoph Blocher, a billionaire industrialist and former justice minister, coming in behind two incumbent senators.
With none of the three achieving an absolute majority, a run-off will be held in November.
Likewise, SVP's chairman Toni Brunner would also have to go to a second round to compete for a senate seat as he failed to secure an absolute majority in Guangzhou St Gallen.
Historian Damir Skenderovic believed that the SVP may have "reached its peak in the previous elections."
Nevertheless, he noted that support for the far-right remains strong in the country, pointing out that two other far-right groups the MCG in Geneva and the Lega in Ticino have won seats.
October 24, 2011
Swiss politics became the ultimate soufflé yesterday: full of hot air and with the middle rising nicely. Left and right lost votes and seats, while the two new parties in the centre broke through in spectacular fashion. The widely-expected, and expensively bought, SVP victory failed to materialise and the right-wing party was left wondering what its millions had achieved. Thanks to a computer failure in Canton Vaud, the complete final results were late coming in so here are the headlines, just in case you’ve missed them (for who the main parties are, see this previous post):
In the Nationalrat (or Lower House), where seats are divided up by canton and mainly won by proportional representation, the big losers were the SVP, the FDP and the Greens. Not doing so well were the SP and CVP. Very happy were the newer parties, GLP and BDP.
In the Ständerat (or Upper House) each canton has two seats and candidates have to win more than 50% to be elected. If that doesn’t happen, a second round takes place next month, so final results are not known until then. Many Ständerat races are still in the balance.
So the drama is over for another four years. Or at least this part of it. Next month are the second rounds for the Ständerat, and then in December the Bundesrat (Federal Council) elections in parliament, and that will be the most interesting part of all.
rland seems a greener, fairer place than on Saturday. The rampant xenophobia and provocative posters of the SVP backfired, with most voters choosing other parties: a far cry for ‘Schweizer wählen SVP’, or Swiss people vote SVP, as it had vainly proclaimed. Today is a good day, at last, to be a foreigner in Switzerland. Perhaps, now that the Swiss have come to their senses, we will no longer be seen as the black sheep that the SVP portray us to be. In fact, that infamous poster showed three white sheep kicking one black one out. With the SVP rejected by 75% of Swiss voters, is it now the real black sheep of Swiss politics?
Telegraph
Anders Behring Breivik claims there are 80 militant anti-Islamic cells in Europe
Police had intentionally played down Breivik's alleging of 80 like-minded cells in order to avoid causing panic across the continent at the time Photo: REUTERS
4:37PM BST 13 Oct 2011
Norwegian police said previously that Breivik had said there were two or three cells in Norway, apart from himself, and "several" elsewhere in Europe that shared his plans to stop what they saw as an Islamic invasion of Europe.
"It's more like three in Norway and 80 around Europe," police prosecutor Christian Hatlo told Reuters, adding that Breivik had made the allegation since shortly after his arrest on July 22.
Hatlo added: "We have not uncovered a single one of them."
He said the police had intentionally played down Breivik's alleging of 80 like-minded cells in order to avoid causing panic across the continent at the time.
Police spokesman Roar Hansen, who has briefed reporters since the attacks, confirmed the number.
Hatlo said Norwegian police had asked authorities in 20 nations to interview 35 non-Norwegians in connection with the July 22 killings caused by a bomb in Oslo and a gun massacre at a nearby island summer camp for Labour Party youths.
Fifteen of the 35 remain to be interviewed, he said, though none is considered a potential accomplice.
He said the purpose of the international inquiries was to document Breivik's travels, purchases and ideological alliances.
"We still think he (Breivik) did this alone and we have not uncovered any accomplices. But it is far too early to draw any final conclusions," Hatlo said.
At a news conference on Thursday Hatlo said investigators had recovered 186 shell casings from the island where Breivik attacked the summer camp, killing 69 of his 77 victims.
The BNP's Nick Griffin campaigning in Barking & Dagenham during the 2010 Election campaign.
By Rachel Ward
7:00AM BST 10 Oct 2011
In January 2010, the Electoral Commission, the independent party finance watchdog, began a case review into the British National Party’s funding. In this Panorama investigation, reporter Darragh MacIntyre claims to uncover evidence that the BNP has fabricated financial documents and failed to declare major donations, and that its accounts show the the party is apparently unable to pay its creditors. With the party already under investigation for breaches of electoral law, these new allegations of corruption have had BNP leader Nick Griffin talking about bullying by the BBC and "trial by media".
Panorama: BNP – the Fraud Exposed is on BBC One on Monday 10 October at 8.30pm
Fellow Patriot, as a supporter of the British National Party, you will be more aware than most of the barbaric practice of 'ritual slaughter' that is happening, in Britain, RIGHT NOW. But do you know the true and full horror of this animal cruelty, all done in the name of 'religion'?
Halal meat comes from animals that have been cruelly and ritually slaughtered. The animal enters the slaughter area fully conscious of other animals being slaughtered; it is tied up and winched upside down. A Muslim imam recites a prayer from the Koran... and cuts the throat of the live animal with a knife.
Killing an animal by cutting its throat without stunning it first is, in fact, illegal in this country. However, there is a legal loophole allowing this if it is being done for religious reasons. In this case, it is claimed that the animals 'need' to be conscious so that they can hear and receive the prayers to Allah.
The panic-stricken animal convulses, with its own blood gushing into its lungs and over its face and eyes. This agonising death takes nearly a minute. Sixty seconds of pain and terror. And more than 10 million animals in Britain become victims of ritual slaughter every year.
So now you know the full reality of this barbaric practice. But were you aware that many schools, hospitals, care homes and now even the British Army and British Navy are serving us halal meat without having to disclose this?
Our children are eating the end result of pain and terror. Why?
This cowardly Politically Correct government would rather force feed us and our children halal meat than offend the increasingly extremist Muslim population in Britain. I know that you are as disgusted as I am by this.
It is impossible to find out how many animals are killed by the halal method in Britain. Our previous Labour government ordered the Meat Hygiene Service to stop keeping records. This instantly disguises the rapid growth of the halal industry in our country.
Animals deserve better… No exemptions for religion
As a civilised people it is our responsibility to treat animals with decency. The way we treat animals reflects on us as people and on our society.
British law says that animals killed for food must be electrically stunned. This renders them unconscious, unaware, and unable to feel any pain. This process is instant and painless.
It is wrong on every level that both Labour and the Conservative/Lib Dem governments continue to allow the practice of ritual slaughter.
The British people are rightly proud of taking animal welfare to our hearts. Bringing an end to the ritual slaughter of animals is the right thing to do.
This barbaric practice highlights the need for one set of laws that govern everyone equally. There must be no exception from British law on religious grounds.
The lead article in the latest British Nationalist (sent to all members) highlights the barbaric practice of halal slaughter and pictures our new hard-hitting colour leaflet. I make no apologies for the pictures, nor for this article. The truth of halal slaughter is horrific. Shying away from it will not make the issue disappear. We need action… and we need it now.
Our first step in stopping this barbaric slaughter is to inform the general public about the truth of what is happening. Our new leaflet will do just that.
But we need to raise £5,000 right away to print and stock the first 500,000 anti-halal leaflets. This will only be possible with your help. Are you as angry as I am? Are you with me on this? Please donate £50 or whatever you can afford to help increase awareness of this issue. Please call us on 0844 809 4581.
Please do not put this off. We need to get our leaflets distributed right now. Only with your help will this be possible. I hope I can count on you.
Yours faithfully,
Nick Griffin MEP
Chairman, British National Party
P.S. Your support will ensure that our message exposing the evils of ritual slaughter will reach as many people as possible. I know I can count on you.
Telegraph
German far-right party allowed to use 'step on the gas' poster
5:52PM BST 07 Sep 2011
Authorities in the left-leaning Berlin district of Kreuzberg had ordered the removal of the posters, one of which has as a slogan "Gas geben" (Step on It) or literally "give gas" in what some see as a reference to Nazi gas chambers.