Father
Troy said this widening could be more easier in
Catholic areas since most Roman Catholics had
a sense of missionary outreach and that the Church
was able to widen such issues beyond the local
parishes.
WHO'S
WHO IN NORTHERN RACISM IN 2006:
British
People's Party's:
formerly known as the White Nationalist Party.
Has around 50 members, but had support of 200
when known as WNP. Openly neo-Nazi and wants to
recruit both Catholics and Protestants. Most active
racist group with links to Nazi terror gang, Combat
18. Target areas – Larne, Lisburn, Coleraine,
Belfast, Portadown.
British
National Party: largest of Britain fascist
movements winning over 50 council seats in England
this year. Pursuing “a low-key leafleting
campaign in a number of parts”, according
to spokeman.
National
Front:
has only a handful of activists, mostly based
in Coleraine; indulged in limited leafleting,
but is a shadow of the late 1980s organisation.
British
Movement:
although largely defunct on mainland, still has
a few supporters in the North; was responsible
for low-level leafleting around north Antrim.
Ku
Klux Klan:
focuses on recruiting middle class, university
educated Protestants by invitation only; branch
known as Knights of the Invisible Empire –
one of the leading Klan units in the US in 1930s.
Supposedly believes in “quality, not quantity”,
according to Northern spokesman. Wants to infiltrate
DUP and UUP and “influence from within”.
Ulster
Monday Club:
while not racist or fascist, UMC has been defunct
since 1980s. Extreme Right-wing Unionists want
to re-vamp the Club because of its once high standing
in UUP. Before disbanding, was one of the most
influential pressure groups in UUP, boasting a
number of MPs and several councillors. Disbanded
because of racist allegation scandal which engulfed
the English-based National Monday Club.
THE
HISTORIC LINKS BETWEEN RACISTS AND THE NORTH:
The
rise of racism in the North did not come with
the start of the new millennium. Links between
Loyalism and the Far Right can be traced back
to the 1970s.
In
the early '70s, the NF, then Britain's largest
racist organisation, tried to establish itself
in the aftermath of the paramilitary-backed Ulster
Workers' Council strike which brought down the
power-sharing Sunningdale Executive in 1974.
However,
in spite of the NF's very public support of the
Union, working class loyalists opted instead to
develop their own political parties attached to
the UDA and UVF.
But
in the late Seventies, when the NF collapsed in
Britain with the rise of hardline Tory boss Maggie
Thatcher, the UVF formed terror links with the
European Nazi movement.
It
established an unholy alliance with the Belgian
neo-Nazi terror group, the Vlaamse Militante Orde
(VMO or Flemish Militant Order).
The
north Antrim hills were used for a limited amount
of joint UVF/VMO training, but the relationship
turned sour when the UVF refused to attack the
North's small Jewish community.
It
was to be 1986 and unionist opposition to the
previous year's Anglo-Irish Agreement which sparked
the next major foray by the Far Right into the
North.
The
NF tried to re-establish its presence by sending
John Field, then a 26-year-old Londoner and member
of the party's ruling National Directorate, to
the North. The NF opened a bookshop and headquarters
in east Belfast.
However,
this time the NF was espousing the cause of independence
for the North, and urged its members to joining
the growing grassroots Protestant movement, the
Ulster Clubs.
In
an interview with me in the late 1980s, Field
said when asked if the NF enjoyed close relations
with the UDA:
