BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY

The main BNP website was off-line due to a massive and sustained Denial of Service Attack. At one point the site was dealing with 28 million hits, but was able to block out the traffic which was emanating from Eastern Europe and Russia. The size of the assault is unparalleled and there is no doubt that whoever organised it had to pay out a serious amount of money to the criminal underworld.

The servers of Clear Channel, part of a huge conglomerate that provides billboard advertising, suffered a similar attack. Their IT professionals tracked the criminal activity back to a notorious "anti-fascist" organisation openly aligned to the Labour Party and supported by the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. This organisation was protesting at the decision by Clear Channel to allow the BNP to display advertising in support of our European Election Campaign.

As a consequence of the criminal actions against Clear Channel it was understand that their legal team began the process of issuing writs against the perpetrators which as well as civil actions will involve the possibility of potential criminal charges including racketeering. The Counter Terrorism Unit at Scotland Yard is investigating and MI5 have been alerted to the incident which has serious implications for UK security.

The Labour Party aligned "Searchlight" organisation is also being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for a similar attack on the servers of Clear Channel. The situation is compounded by the fact that "Searchlight" actually works for the Metropolitan Police. (Source: The Green Arrow, May/09)

Clear Channel, after checking with its US-based techical staff, said that it was not under any kind of cyber-attack. A spokeswoman said, "To confirm, we have had no attack and we have filed no lawsuits. The BNP booked a small poster campaign in the run up to the European Elections." Clear Channel has a policy of carrying advertising "from all the legal political parties, without bias or favour, and regardless of the company’s own views, as long as the advertising is legal and clearly branded for the relevant party".

Security companies said that a botnet hosted in Romania was firing off attack traffic at the BNP's website, but were unable to confirm the size of the assault. Jose Nazario, manager of security research at anti-DDoS technology firm Arbor Networks, confirmed there was a DDoS attack but wasn't able to gauge its size. He said, "I have no data on the attack's magnitude (BPS, requests per second, etc), but so far everything is consistent with a legitimate attack.

A technically knowledgeable person at the hosting company managing the site explained, "There was some attack traffic against the BNP website but it was hardly noticeable except that one server was taken offline. It's not one to write home about. The attack traffic was around 600Mbps, a volume that hardly hits our radar." It is understood that a letter advising the BNP that the hosting package it had signed on for when it moved its servers a few days ago is "not suitable" is in the post.

The insider said, "Given the content they host, and the volume of traffic, the party needs a package that includes DDoS protection. This will cost a lot more than £5,000." He added that no extra servers or any other hardware had been added to the BNP's website since the attacks began. Independent sources at web metrics firm Netcraft confirmed that the BNP's website has recently moved hosting provider and changed configuration, moving from Apache to nginx.

So the BNP's site did experience a minor attack, but the suggestion that it was under the biggest cyberassault ever are pure hype, possibly geared towards reinforcing a siege mentality that encourages supporters into throwing more money at the controversial party. Arbor's Nazario added that a large attack on the scale claimed would get noticed more widely. The insider concluded, "The BNP is claiming this is the largest attack the internet has ever seen. While I don't have exact numbers, the absence of alerts on too many other ISPs that serve as their upstream suggests it's not." (Source: The Register, May/09)

Leaders of Amber Valley's opposing political groups have united against the British National Party, which is fighting for seats in the borough. In a joint statement Amber Valley's Conservative group leader Councillor Alan Cox and Labour group leader Councillor Paul Jones say the BNP "preaches a message of racism, intolerance and brutality".

They say, "We deplore this use of the democratic system of this country by the BNP to force their policies on the decent people of Amber Valley. How can candidates of such a party make any impact on the services provided by Amber Valley Borough Council such as refuse collection, street cleaning, car parking and leisure facilities?"

"We would urge all voters in Amber Valley not to be taken in by the sweet talking of the BNP, but to vote for the party which can best deliver the services provided by the council at the lowest cost to the council tax payer."

The media's 'hate campaign' against the British National Party seems to have backfired somewhat by bestowing on the BNP a 'victim status' in the eyes of the public. Sympathy for the party has been stirred because of those never-ending queues of celebrities, unions and churches, all so eager to attack the BNP.

It has also been stimulated by the censoring of their broadcast, the non-delivery of their election address and the deluge of leaflets from organisations that have nothing to do with the election, but without exception all urge people not to vote for the British National Party.

These things taken all together have alerted the public that there might not be that much of a level playing field for these elections. Martin Wingfield, editor of the BNP newspaper Voice of Freedom, said he wasn't surprised at the British National Party's new victim status.

He said, "The media's campaign against the BNP has been over the top and I think the public are beginning to find it rather unpleasant. It's rather ironic that the media's campaign to deter voters from supporting the BNP is having the opposite effect, simply because they don't know when to stop."

A row erupted following a decision to allow the BNP to have a stall at the Vale of Glamorgan Show. Last year the BNP was allowed to have a stall for the first time in the event’s history. The party will again be setting up on the showground this year, alongside other political parties, including Labour, Conservative and Plaid Cymru. All three mainstream political parties have expressed concern the BNP has again been granted permission to set up a stall on the showground at Fonmon Castle Park, near Rhoose.

But show organisers say that the BNP is a legitimate, licensed political party and that if it was banned from the showground all other political parties would have to be banned too. Councillor Margaret Alexander, who is Labour leader of the Vale of Glamorgan Council, will be hosting a “Business Brunch” at the authority’s marquee on the showground. She said, “I am not particularly happy at having to share the showground with the BNP. The Labour Party made representations last year that the BNP should not have a tent at the showground this year.”

Plaid Cymru AM Chris Franks, who is also a Vale of Glamorgan councillor, will be attending the show. He said, "Whether it is appropriate to have their stand at the show is questionable. The way they play on people's fear is totally abhorrent.” Councillor Michael Kemp, leader of the Conservative group on the Vale council, said, “I recognise that the BNP is a political party and as such has a right to be at the show but their views, and the fact that they will be promoting them at the show, concern me.”

Nicola Gibson, general secretary of the Vale of Glamorgan Show, said, “The Vale of Glamorgan Agricultural Society is a non-political organisation. If we allow one political party onto the showground, we have to allow them all. Similarly, if we banned the BNP we would have to ban all the other political parties. We did have a few complaints about the BNP tent at last year’s show from people who just don’t like them.” (Source: IC Wales, Aug/07)

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