Searchlight: Political Violence and Terrorism

Gerry Gable of Searchlight

The Searchlight organisation runs six main operations:

1. Searchlight Magazine
2. Searchlight Information Services (SIS)
3. Searchlight Educational Trust (SET)
4. Operation Wedge
5. Stop The BNP
6. Hope Not Hate

The Director of Searchlight, Gerry Gable, is the vice chair of the Independent Advisory Group to the Diversity Directorate of the Metropolitan Police Service at Scotland Yard. The Searchlight organisation also claims to be ‘sponsored’ by The Crown Prosecution Service and The Prison Service. The Searchlight organisation also provides formal training programmes for officers of the Criminal Justice System.

Searchlight: Political Violence and Terrorism

[1] Introduction – Searchlight’s Ideological Roots

In 1962 Mr. Gerry Gable, formally a member of the Young Communist League and failed Communist Party candidate in the Northfield ward of Stamford Hill in north London, founded the Searchlight organisation. He was, at that time, also linked to the extremist 62 Group (as a holder of a seat on their board, and as a provider of intelligence information1). The 62 Group
was essentially an ethno-nationalist movement: “To be a formal member you had to be Jewish but they worked with people from all communities including many Irish and Black activists”2. It is in this context that 62 Group orchestrated and executed ‘direct action’ (premeditated, extreme violence), and encouraged ethnic minority groups to “vent their anger”, against their
targeted political opponents – people belonging to (or supporting) indigenous ethno-nationalist groups within the British community.

The 62 Group (mostly supporters of the Beginite Herut organisation, a political successor to the Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorist group) specialised in direct action, infiltration, agent provocateur work, entrapment, ‘dirty tricks’ and 'black-bag' jobs (burglary). The UK-based 62 Group was a progeny of the earlier 43 Group – also an extremist ethno-nationalist group who, according to Gable, were “a group of volunteers who in ’43 volunteered to fight for a Jewish homeland”3. A former member of the 43 Group, Vidal Sassoon, described it as “a crudely armed paramilitary force”4 – a euphemism for political terrorism.

The philosophy of the 43 Group was very simple: “Armed with clubs, razors, bricks, knuckle-dusters, broken bottles, knives and everything except guns and bombs, the 43 Group tracked down ‘Fascist’ meetings to quash them … ‘We’re not here to kill’ a former 43 Group veteran recalls being told on one occasion: ‘we’re here to maim’.”5

It is reported that approximately 30 members of the 43 Group subsequently moved to Palestine in the late 1940s to fight against the Palestinians and the British6 (the British held the Mandate for Palestine at that time).

Therefore Gable’s interest in, and endorsement of, the “fight for a Jewish homeland” requires an historical context.

The tactics of the extremist nationalist terrorists (such as Irgun) did not have universal support. To the dismay of the international community (including the overwhelming majority of people within the Jewish Diaspora) this nationalist ‘fight’ to secure a homeland within Palestine was pursued by means of numerous terrorist atrocities, and subsequently by large-scale ethnic cleansing (of the Palestinians).

From the British perspective one of the most disturbing atrocities occurred in 1947. In the early hours of the 12th of July, two British field security NCOs, Sergeants Paice and Martin, were held up by five armed members of Irgun and driven off to a secret hiding place. Three weeks later their bodies were found hanging from a eucalyptus tree one and a half miles from where they had been kidnapped. They had been dead for approximately two days. They had had their hands tied behind their backs, and were hung by their necks with wire to die by slow strangulation. Mines were attached to the two soldiers in order to kill anyone attempting to
rescue them from their horrific ordeal.

As the bodies were being cut down a booby-trap device on one body exploded, severely wounding a British officer. A few days later Irgun posted notices in Hebrew on the walls around Haifa which charged the two soldiers with, amongst other crimes, of “illegal entry into our homeland”, and stated that their murder was: “ … an ordinary legal action of the court of the Underground which has sentenced and will sentence the criminals who belong to the criminal Nazi British army of occupation ”. This being one of the earliest, but sadly by no means the last time, that the sick insult of ‘Nazi’ was to be directed against a people who had stood alone against Nazism in 1940, and had suffered over a 1/3million war dead in the fight to help free Europe from tyranny and deliver the Jewish people from the real Nazis.

By 1948 some 200 British Soldiers and 90 British policemen had been murdered by nationalist terrorist gangs such as Irgun. The opportunity for mediation, and engagement via international law was contemptuously ignored.

Searchlight Director Gerry Gable
The nationalist ‘fight’ was also extended to acts of terrorism in Britain and against British people and property in Europe.
The terrorist groups Irgun and the Stern Gang (known as Lehi in Hebrew) were active in Britain throughout the late 1940s. It is a matter of record, for example, there were plans to crash an aircraft into the House of Commons, and to murder members of the British armed forces 7. The British Embassy in Rome was bombed. In November 1944 Lord Moyne was murdered by members of the Stern gang in Cairo and there are reliable reports of the existence of plans to assassinate Government Ministers, including the Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevan 8.

In 1946 a female agent of Irgun planted a bomb at the Colonial Office in London. According to Commander Leonard Burt of Special Branch this would have “blown the sort of hole that was blown in the King David Hotel”9. It was only by good fortune that a failure of the pocket-watch timer prevented detonation. Another Irgun terrorist operating in Britain at the time was Monty Harris. Harris was sentenced to seven years imprisonment after being convicted of making thermite incendiary bombs on his premises at Gravel Street near Petticoat Lane. The use to which these devices were to be put was never established.

In 2006 Irgun terrorist veterans, and leading political figures including Binyamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister, commemorated the 60th anniversary of the bombing (by an Irgun terrorist gang on the 22nd July 1946) of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem (picture opposite), with the erection of a plaque at the site, followed by two days of celebration. The bombing killed 91 people, including Britons, Arabs and Jews. Simon McDonald, the British Ambassador in Tel Aviv, and John Jenkins, the Consul-General in Jerusalem, issued a bluntly worded statement,
saying: “We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated.”10

Searchlight, and previously the 62 Group, make much of their links to ‘activist’ groups within the ethnic minority communities – and of their efforts to encourage members of the ethnic communities to“vent their anger” against members of the indigenous (British) community.

In terms of “Irish activists”, Gable, Searchlight and most neo-Marxist groups choose not to mention that the hostility felt by some British towards the Irish, in the years following World War II, had nothing to do with ‘race’.

It was, in fact, a response to the activities of both Irish nationalists and the Irish government during events leading up to, and during, the war with Nazi Germany. In January 1939 the IRA declared war on Britain, and launched their infamous S-plan – including the bombing of Coventry with the deaths of 5 innocent people (in August 1939). The IRA actively collaborated with the Nazis during the War – even to the extent of their Chief of Staff traveling to Germany to seek arms and assistance from the Third Reich.

Presumably Searchlight would rather we forget that (unlike Britain) De Valera's government rebuffed requests to allow Jews fleeing Nazi persecution to receive asylum in Ireland. De Valera also refused to allow Britain or the United States to use strategic Irish ports for protecting Atlantic convoys from attacks by German U-boat submarines – a policy that cost thousands
of Allied seamen's lives (international law would, in fact, have allowed the Irish Republic to let the Allies use Irish ports on ‘humanitarian’ grounds).

We see another example of Searchlight’s conveniently selective amnesia when we look at the links to “Black activist” groups. The “Black activists” at this time (the 1960s) included the Black Power leader Michael Abdul Malik who infamously declared: “Fear of this whitey monkey is nothing. We will deal with him if necessary. The white man has no soul. You are dealing with a heartless sort of person, if you are talking to a white man”.

In July 1967 Malik boasted of having killed ‘whites’, adding: “And I sleep very well”. In that same year another Black activist was convicted of racial incitement after saying: “If I call a white man a monkey, I am paying him a compliment. Killing whites does not count as murder.”11 This hatred of “whitey monkey” seems not to have unduly troubled Searchlight.

It is therefore proposed that Searchlight’s true ideological roots are a violent brew of the most extreme form of ethnonationalism, political ‘direct action’ (terrorism), various acts of coercion and dissimulation, and selectively targeted, ethnocide and de-nationalisation12.

In terms of political allegiance, for Searchlight it is, without doubt, totalitarian neo-Marxism. Searchlight’s totalitarian rallies, such as that recently organised by Searchlight-Cymru (April, 2008), are accompanied by the Hammer-and-Sickle emblem or the black flags of Anarchism, along with vigorous, clenched-fist saluting.

[2] Mainland Britain

There are reports that Searchlight has had working links with the terrorist organisation Red Action/AFA up until (at least) the mid 1990s. Searchlight magazine would regularly feature the AFA (in an ‘AFA in Action’ column), and would also carry features and adverts in support of Red Action/AFA activities. Searchlight’s appreciation of Red Action/AFA activities was reciprocated by this terrorist group with complimentary features and comment on Searchlight appearing in the Red Action/AFA publications ‘Red Action’ and ‘Fighting Talk’ respectively.

In July 1992 Searchlight Director Gerry Gable (with prior convictions for burglary artifice and theft) appeared in the dock alongside Red Action’s leader Gary O’Shea following a violent affray at a League of St. George meeting at Kensington Library – during which members of the mainly elderly audience were held hostage, viciously assaulted (beaten up and tortured) by Red Action ‘activists’. During the trial the prosecution told the jury that Gable entered the building by showing a press pass, claiming the people with him were members of a television crew. He was followed in by about 60 self-styled anti-racist and anti-fascist supporters – some of whom carried iron bars and lengths of piping.

However the case against Gerry Gable collapsed when the prosecution said it would offer no further evidence. Gable was acquitted on the direction of the judge. O’Shea was found guilty only of a minor assault on a police officer13. After the court case Gable claimed that he was being victimised for investigating the “security services”.

Clearly the police were less impressed by Gable’s acquittal than by his apparent willingness to associate with such violent thugs – he was, as a result, banned from lecturing (on the evils of ‘racism’) at the Hendon Police College in January 1993.14

Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that convicted criminal Gable was permitted to teach police cadets in the first place – of police officers, many of whom would rise to senior positions both within the Metropolitan Police Force and within other regional Police Forces throughout the UK. The head of the College at that time was Commander John Grieve – coincidently a
name that was to be associated with that of Gable’s some 6 years later (see later section on Copeland, the London nail-bomber). Commander Grieve claimed that links with Searchlight had been suspended pending the outcome of the trial – however Gable subsequently revealed that he had visited the College some three times between the time of his arrest and the trial. Gable blamed “certain faceless people” for his banning from the Police College.

Given Searchlight’s ideological roots, the history of far-left political terrorism within Britain, the many decades of British mainland bombings by neo-Marxist Irish ‘republican’ terrorists (and the more recent bombings by neo-Nazi Islamists) the relevance of this association between Searchlight and extremist terror groups such as Red Action/AFA needs to be set out.
Therefore a brief overview of these organisations, with which Searchlight organisation has cultivated such close links, is given below.

Paradoxically the AFA are not shy in admitting to their use of fascist tactics to combat what they see as ‘fascism’: “AFA is committed to physical and ideological opposition to fascism. We say no platform for fascists -no meetings, no marches, no paper sales, no leafleting -and we mean it, as the fascists know only too well.”15

Therefore the AFA openly admits to employing political terrorism – it is an organisation committed to the use of extreme political violence: “I was right at the front of our lot as we steamed in, hitting anyone who got in my way with a lead-filled chair leg. The element of surprise was on our side, and the [National] Fronters were caught cold and flat-footed as we tore into them. Five or six of them were battered into the ground and stayed there. They were hit with all kinds of weapons, and a couple of them were begging for mercy as they attempted to shield themselves from the blows raining down on their heads. Not one of them fought back, or rather they were not given the chance to.”16

The picture opposite shows AFA members explaining their political philosophy to a young English nationalist (Hyde Park, London 1989).

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, we find this predilection for extreme violence being linked to the neo-Marxist cause: “Doesn’t this attract the wrong sort of member, headcases who are only there for the fighting? Joe’s answer is pure pragmatism: ‘You don’t need to be a Marxist intellectual to hit someone over the head with a beer bottle.’ But it also follows, says Bill, that ‘the politicals have got to be the most committed of the street fighters. We’ve learnt from Ireland, it must be the political dog wagging the violent tail.’ ”17 This reference to Ireland is, as we will see later, highly significant.

The indigenous (British) ethno-nationalist movements from the 1960s to the 1990s were effectively excluded from any engagement with the democratic process by the far left’s widespread use of extreme violence – or provoked into responding in similar fashion. Which, of course, was the intended purpose.

It is noted that the current document ‘Organising Against Racism and Fascism Handbook’, jointly produced by the TUC and Searchlight in 2004, states that: “Anti Fascist Action (AFA) still has active groups around the country”.18

This has to be of particular concern, given this terrorist group’s predilection for violence, and of Searchlight’s record of providing tacit support to such groups. And, given this history, it must be of even greater concern that Searchlight receives such unconditional support from such institutions as The Crown Prosecution Service, the Metropolitan Police Service, the Association of London Government, the TUC and Members of Parliament. What should we conclude?

The following ‘case study’ is especially illuminating. Two prominent members of Red Action, Patrick Hayes and Jan Taylor, were convicted in 1994 for carrying out a bombing campaign on behalf of INLA neo-Marxist Irish republicans. The INLA were a breakaway group from the IRA who believed members of official IRA were not violent enough. Both Hayes and Taylor were also members of a North London branch of the AFA. Besides running the INLA bombing campaign in London Patrick Hayes was also “he was heavily involved” in the Red Action/AFA anti-Fascist activities, legal and illegal, “playing a crucial role, right up until he was lifted [for terrorist offences]”.

In 1981 Hayes fought in what was the nascent Red Action’s first violent attack against the National Front, while as recently as 1991, according to Red Action colleagues, he was the chief steward for a 4,000-strong march through Brick Lane and Bethnal Green by Anti-Fascist Action (for which Red Action provided much of the leadership but not all the membership) – a position which, it is reported, involved negotiating with the local police chief superintendent ‘over tea and biscuits’.

At the end of his trial in May 1994, Hayes was sentenced to 30 years for the Harrods and Ramsgate train bombings. In the Harrods bombing four people were injured. It was entirely fortuitous that many innocent people were not killed.

A picture of one of the casualties of the Red Action/INLA bombing of the Harrods Department Store is shown opposite.

Hayes was also linked forensically to several huge lorry bombs of the type that destroyed the Baltic Exchange and devastated Bishopsgate – including one that failed to explode under Canary Wharf. In a photograph of Hayes’ flat released by the police after his arrest, an AK47 assault rifle lies on the floor, whilst a copy of Socialist Worker lies on a chair.19 Again, we find with Red Action/AFA the link between extreme politicalviolence (terrorism), hatred of particular ethno-nationalist groups (especially ethnic English people), and extremist neo-Marxist ideology.

[3] The Strange Case of David Copeland

In the spring of 1999 a series of bombings by David Copeland, in the Brixton, Brick Lane and Soho districts of London, left 3 dead and many people horribly maimed and injured. Searchlight has always associated Copeland’s previous membership of the BNP to these acts, and thus created a cause célèbre for the far left and de-nationalists. At the time of these bombings
Gerry Gable, the Director of Searchlight, was working as a special adviser to the Metropolitan Police Service Racial and Violent Crime Task Force (under John Grieve) – an organisation set up a few months before Copeland’s bombing campaign.

It is therefore interesting to note Searchlight’s own links to Copeland. A Searchlight infiltrator of the BNP (code named ‘Arthur’) had befriended Copeland after Copeland had moved to London: “One of Searchlights infiltrators in the BNP codenamed 'Arthur' got to know Copeland. He's given Panorama a statement and we've agreed to conceal his identity.
(Actor's voice) ‘When I first met Dave in the summer of 1997 he'd just joined the party’… Arthur, Searchlight's informant, filed regular reports with Gerry Gable”.13 Searchlight were therefore well acquainted with ‘Dave’ [Copeland] and had his original London address, place of work, and photograph all on file.

In Searchlight’s web site we find the following statement: “David Copeland brought havoc to London when he set off three nail bombs in 1999. He was a BNP member and activist in East London.”20 This, of course, is both untrue and intentionally misleading. However such is the determination of Searchlight to incite hatred against the BNP that the use of such ‘disinformation’ and crude black propaganda techniques is seen as perfectly justifiable.

Copeland was a deeply disturbed young man (immediately obvious to everyone who met him, including, presumably, the Searchlight agent ‘Arthur’). Copeland joined the BNP (in May1997) simply because he believed the lies told by the media and the political State about that organisation (Searchlight, again?).

However he quickly became disillusioned with the BNP’s commitment, as a political party, to democracy and non-violence, and would later comment: “It was funny to hear that people are arguing about me being a member of the BNP. I must admit that I was a member for a few months and didn’t take it seriously. I went to a few meetings …”21

In a formal report by the psychiatrist at Broadmoor, prepared prior to Copeland’s trial, it is observed that: “He went to some of its [the BNP’s] meetings but did not like their adherence to democracy.”22

Copeland left the BNP some 8 months later. Over 14 months were then to elapse before Copeland joined the extremist National Socialist Movement (NSM), and a further 4 months before beginning his bombing campaign in London.

In a book published in 2003, by Graeme McLagan (BBC Investigative reporter) and Nick Lowes (co-editor of Searchlight magazine), Copeland and his bombings are described in some detail.

In terms of providing a comprehensive account of events, and of Copeland’s state of mind, this BBC/Searchlight book is a reasonable effort. However, as in many of the journalistic ‘investigations’ by Searchlight, the attempt by these two writers to provide an insightful analysis of these appalling events fails abysmally. Their central thesis – that (white) violent psychopaths find a natural home only within (white) nationalist parties, and that this therefore characterises the ideology of all such parties

– is not only derisably simplistic, but demonstrably wrong. It is also a racist argument. History shows us that psychopaths can exploit almost all forms of ideological thinking (political and religious) and promote aberrant forms of social groupings within which they can realise their fantasies – sometimes with murderous results.

In Britain we have had particular experience of this in the last few years. This is neither a monopoly of white people, nor of nationalist aspirations – despite the strenuous efforts by Searchlight to make it appear so. Given their own ideological roots, Searchlight should know this.

In their eagerness to promote their central thesis, the authors’ tend to trip over their own arguments. For example, in the chapter heading of the Conclusion section they quote: “I am certain that if he hadn’t joined the BNP and NSM, he would be an ordinary bloke working on the Jubilee Line.” They triumphantly reveal that this to be the opinion of “A BNP member”.

Apart from the absurd proposition that Copeland was, before being involved in political activism, an “ordinary bloke” (prior to his bombings he had acquired convictions for criminal damage, theft and assault, and indulged in the use of cannabis, Ecstasy, LSD, amphetamines, cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin) we also find, a few pages later, the admission that this “BNP member” is none other than ‘Arthur’, the Searchlight agent. An opinion, therefore, that is worthless.

It is what is not included in the McLagan/Lowes ‘investigation’ that is particularly noteworthy. There is a brief mention of one of Combat 18’s leading figures, Charlie Sargent, being “a paid informer” – but this is never explored. In fact the Searchlight investigators are being rather disingenuous, Sargent was in fact the Combat 18 Organiser – and a long-time paid informant of Special Branch, with a particular role as agent provocateur in respect of his working contacts with Ulster nationalist groups23.

Therefore, given that the NSM was a progeny of the Combat 18 organisation that (according to Searchlight, and by admission in court during the trial of the Combat 18 leadership24) was a State inspired pseudo-gang, a “honey-trap” organisation25, why have Searchlight not explored the logical conclusion (by extension) that David Copeland’s nail bombing campaign was without doubt assisted (albeit indirectly) by these same State sponsored agent provocateur activities? We might wonder why the investigative staff of Searchlight are so coy in exploring the identity and motives of those who actually had most influence on David Copeland?

[4] Ireland

It seems that wherever there is inter-ethnic discord or conflict within the British Isles, that involves groups asserting their identity and indigenous right, we find Searchlight sticking its grubby fingers in, and stirring vigorously by means of immoderate comment, distortions and disinformation – with (it would appear) the intention of provoking further conflict within and between those groups. In Ireland we see this disinformation being used to exploit the history of inter-ethnic conflict between the Catholic Irish and the Ulster (Protestant) Irish communities.

It is a well known tactic of State sponsored ‘dirty tricks’ organisations (such as Searchlight) to spread disinformation – for the purpose of creating suspicion and infighting between nationalist groups. For example, we have this following bit of mischievous nonsense published by Searchlight in 1994:

“Seasoned political observers in Northern Ireland say that the UDA and parts of the IRA are jointly controlling some of their criminal activities and use the same drug traffickers. Now they are exporting their money-spinning activities here [in Great Britain] through people like Charlie Sargent and his closest associates in C18. Those in the know say that the row between the BNP and C18 has little to do with ideology and is more about organised drug dealing… According to inside sources, the war between the BNP and C18 will move into a new dimension shortly, turning into a war between those who support the UDA and those who follow the UVF and are taking a strong line against the politics of drugs being brought to the mainland by Charlie and his crew.”26

However we now know (see previous section) that Charlie Sargent was a Special Branch agent provocateur. Given the long history of close cooperation between Searchlight and Special Branch (and other police and intelligence services) the words ‘smell’ and ‘rat’ spring to mind. It is very difficult to conclude otherwise than that the above Searchlight article is part of a project to cause mischief between the various Ulster nationalist groups and between those groups and the BNP.

Unfortunately as we all know (and Searchlight most certainly will know) causing mischief of this kind in Northern Ireland frequently leads to extreme violence both between, and within such groups, of punishment beatings or shootings -and sometimes murder.

In 2007, in a report on an official inquiry, the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland identified that intelligence held within the policing system, the majority of which has been graded by police as a ‘reliable and probably true’ and which has been corroborated from other sources, links Special Branch informants to: the murders of ten people; 72 instances of other crime, including: ten attempted murders; ten ‘punishment’ shootings; 13 punishment attacks; a bomb attack in Monaghan; 17 instances of drug dealing; and additional criminality, including criminal damage, extortion and intimidation27.

In the conclusion to the report we find observations such as: “Whilst acting as an informant, and with the knowledge of some Special Branch and some CID officers, informants moved through the ranks of the UVF to senior positions. The evidence clearly shows that informant 1's behaviour, including alleged murder, was not challenged by Special Branch, and the activities of those who sought justice were blocked repeatedly … It is also the case that whilst he was engaged in drug dealing and other activities, Informant 1 was not only protected by Special Branch but he was also given large sums of public money in return for such services as he provided.” [paragraphs 33.14, 33.15]

The use of the term ‘informant’ by the Law enforcement agencies (and Searchlight) is especially interesting. Since we see from reports such as those by Nuala O’Loan (Operation Ballast) that these ‘informants’ are engaged with planning and carrying very serious crime (including murder), that incite others to engage with these crimes and then enjoy immunity from the Law, then the correct term is not ‘informant’ but agent provocateur.
[5] Searchlight, and State Sponsored Violence

The question that requires to be asked is … why was Searchlight linked so closely with such Marxist terrorist groups as Red Action/AFA, whilst at the same time boasting of its close working links with MI5 and Special Branch (especially) – and receiving funds (directly and indirectly) from Government agencies?

However it seems to be very unwise to criticise or to investigate the activities of Searchlight. In 1993 the researcher and writer Alexander Baron began publishing an exposé of the activities of Searchlight. Shortly afterwards he was attacked by three men on his own doorstep – two of them armed with hammers. In another case, after a picture of the BNP press officer Mike Newland appeared in the April 1994 issue of Searchlight Magazine, Newland was brutally attacked in his own home (this attack being reported in the national media).

Some 30 years ago it seems that Searchlight was already keen to carry on the 62 Group’s tradition of inciting extreme political violence. In a court case involving Maurice Ludmer (the then Searchlight Managing Editor) the magistrate Mr. John Milward observed: “ What purpose can there be in [Searchlight] advertising opponent’s meetings except for the purpose of identifying them and creating disorder and public violence?28 And, of course, we note how Searchlight continues to express a wish for ethnic minority communities to “vent their anger” against lawful indigenous (British) nationalist political parties29. Once again, what should we conclude?

Given the hugely disproportionate numbers of violent racist attacks (including that of racist murder) now being directed against the white, indigenous community, we might feel entitled to ask the reason for this extraordinary situation.

In November 2004, in testimony before a Parliamentary committee30, Gable (appearing as Director of Searchlight) blurted out that he would: “far rather see the young Asian Muslim kids in Burnley, Bradford and Oldham venting their anger against the BNP than going along and beating up congregants coming out of the synagogue on Friday night or Saturday morning”.

Sorry Mr. Gable, but most people would rather not see any sections of the community “venting their anger” against any other sections of society. This outburst seemed to provoke a strange hate-speech duet between Gable and David Winnick MP, with Winnick referring to “ [the] BNP or any other of these Hitler lovers” in an uncontrolled copycat outburst of hate-flecked vitriol. The fact that many veteran members of the BNP fought against Nazi Germany sixty years ago seems to have been entirely lost on these two particular gentlemen.

The irony of this obnoxious political agenda, relentlessly pursued by the hate-mongering Searchlight, to ‘Nazify’ every aspect of British (especially English) expressions of ethnic identity and pride in nationhood will not be lost on those familiar with Searchlights ideological roots – of extremist (violent) ethno-nationalism; of totalitarian Marxism; an historical tradition of endorsing particular ‘activist’ groups and causes (often openly racist, invariably anti-British – see above). In one of their websites, in March 2008, Searchlight referred to members of the indigenous British community as “ rats out of sewers” (see below).

There is a profound irony here. The sickening use of the epithet ‘Nazi’ (or ‘Fascist’) against any that dare to contradict the de-nationalisation agenda of the far left (the Marxist internationalists) is, in the use of crude caricature to incite bigotry and hatred, reminiscent of Nazi propaganda directed against the Jews in 1930s Germany – the hate-inciting false stereotypes of those Britons who choose to assert their right to a sense of identity, community and nationhood.

In 2002 there was an inquiry by the Charity Commission (under section 8 of the Charities Act 1993) into the activities of Searchlight Educational Trust (SET). The Charity Commission ruled that SET had contravened the Commission’s guidelines on charities’ permitted political activities by disseminating material that encouraged members of the public to not only vote against a political party (and, significantly, the only major political party championing the rights and ‘native entitlements’ of the indigenous British people) but also encouraging others “to carry out direct action by, for example, disrupting political meetings.”

In part of its findings, the Commission reminded charities that: “A charity must not issue material that supports or opposes a particular political party or the government or seek to persuade members of the public to vote for or against a candidate or for or against a political party.”

During the campaigns for the London Assembly and Mayoral Elections (for May 1st 2008) Searchlight issued the following article on the 27th March 2008: “Rat Alert London: The rats will be out of sewers this weekend 29-30 March. The BNP is holding a national weekend of action as part of its campaign to get members elected to the London Assembly. This time the fascists are targeting two areas on both days. In the west they are meeting up at Hillingdon tube station at 11am. On the east side of London they are meeting at the Express Holiday Inn car park off junction 1A southbound on the M25 near Dartford between 11.00 and 11.30am”.31

In a subsequent article the Searchlight writers let slip their pretence of journalism entirely (and reveal their true intentions) with the following: “BNP launches election campaign. This Saturday as the clock strikes 1pm the BNP will launch their national and London election campaigns and the party's manifesto in the less than salubrious meeting room at the Eastbrook public house in Rainham Road, Dagenham … Party leaders and candidates from London and around the country will also be present. The knuckle-draggers have been told to meet up outside Dagenham East tube station wearing their best togs. We hear there is fear that violence will break out as the local football team, Dagenham and Redbridge, are playing at home within spitting distance of the Eastbrook pub. The locals might well frown on the sight of a hundred wife beaters, village idiots and overpaid steroid-driven BNP minders descending on Dagenham.”32

It has to be of considerable concern that this explicit hate mongering is from an organisation that not only claims to be sponsored by The Crown Prosecution Service (which it isn’t-that is a lie) and The Prison Service, but that the Director of Searchlight, Gerry Gable, is the vice chair of the Independent Advisory Group to the Diversity Directorate of the Metropolitan Police Service at Scotland Yard. The Searchlight organisation also provides formal training programmes for officers of the Criminal Justice System by the Metropolitan Police Service and the Crown Prosecution Service.

And the fact that this incitement to hatred is directed almost exclusively against members of the indigenous, native population of these islands, with the clear objective of destroying any sense of nationhood or of any right to self determination for the indigenous people, has an overtly racist content – and therefore must be of considerable concern.

Searchlight have had almost 50 years to perfect the political art of inciting hatred against the other – and they do it very well. Their ‘exposés’ often turn out to be far from the truth – and objectivity is abandoned in the pursuit of an extreme political agenda. Much of what they report is innuendo, conjecture or pure fabrication. Their ‘sources’ often turn out to be agent provocateurs whose evidence, therefore, can have little (if any) credibility.

So, what is Searchlight’s true purpose? Perhaps, in the final analysis, the answer to this questions can be found in a desire to satisfy the conflict fetishism of Searchlight’s own ideological origins – of an aggressively promoted ethno-nationalism, selective and targeted de-nationalisation and ethnocide, and the manipulative use of Marxist ‘internationalist’ ideology.

Searchlight, with its ideological roots in Marxist republicanism and the destruction of sovereign nations (of ‘internationalism’ – or, more accurately, of ‘de-nationalisation’) is essentially a seditious organisation. So why are agencies of The Crown so keen to associate themselves with this particular organisation? Therefore the fact that this particular, conflict obsessed,
organisation enjoys such extensive endorsement from the State, and has such influence in State activities, has to be of extreme concern.

1 Interview with Gerry Gable, in ‘Smashing Against Rocks’, by Matthew Collins, in The Australia/Israel Review 29 January – 28 February
1999, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/62_Group
3 Interview with Gerry Gable, in ‘Smashing Against Rocks’, by Matthew Collins, in The Australia/Israel Review 29 January – 28 February
1999, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council
4 Searchlight Tabloid, 2004
5 From an article by Andrew Roberts, The Daily Mail, 15th April 2008
6 See D K Renton, ‘A Provisional History of Anti-Fascism in Britain in the Forties’, www.dkrenton.co.uk/old/old2.html
7 BBC Radio 4, Mike Thomson, ‘Document – A Date With Bevan’, 2007
8 Security Service MI5, ‘1st March 2006 Releases: Files of Jewish Interest’, Stern Group, Files Ref. KV 5/29-32,
www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page250.html
9 Leonard Burt, ‘Commander Burt of Scotland Yard’, Heinemann, London, 1959, pages 126 to 129
10 Ned Parker and Stephen Farrell, The Times, 20th July 2006
11 in ‘Freedom’s Frontier – Censorship in Modern Britain’, by Donald Thomas, by John Murray (Publishers) 2007, page 326
12 denationalize: deprive (a nation) of its status or characteristics as a nation [The Concise Oxford Dictionary, OUP, 1990]. A nation is
generally understood to mean an ethnic community (an ethnie) occupying their homeland (such as, of: England, Scotland, Wales, France,
Denmark, Sweden, etc.) - and as such having commonly recognised obligations, duties and ancestral entitlements.
13 At Southwark Crown Court, South London. Also: The Guardian 21st July 1992 page 3 – with correction 22nd July 1992 page 3; and ‘Antifascist
editor cleared of violence’ by Sarah Boseley, The Guardian 24th July 1992 page 2.
14 ‘Cadet School Bans Anti-racism Editor’, by Lawrence Donegan, The Guardian, January 20, 1993
15 AFA Web Link http://hsg.cupboard.org/agitator/data/a/afa00120.html
16 Account by Steve Tilzey of the Red Action/Anti Fascist Action, of an attack on NF paper sellers in Manchester city centre in 1978; from
‘No Retreat’ by Steve Tilzey and Dave Hann
17 From an article by Matt Seaton, The Independent on Sunday, January 1995
18 Organising Against Racism and Fascism Handbook, Steve Silver, Searchlight and TUC publication, 2004
19 From an article by Matt Seaton, The Independent on Sunday, January 1995
20 Searchlight ‘Hope Not Hate’ web page: www.hopenothate.org.uk/index.php?getPage=link5f
21 Letter written by David Copeland, from Broadmoor Hospital for The Criminal Insane, 10th February 2000, quoted in ‘Hateland’ by
Bernard O’Mahoney, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh 2006, page 265
22 Psychiatric report on David Copeland, by Dr. V Basson, Broadmoor, January 2000
23 ‘Hateland’, by Bernard O’Mahoney, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh 2006, page 230
24 ibid. page 234
25 Searchlight Magazine, April 1995
26 Searchlight Magazine, June 1994
27 Operation Ballast – Statement by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland on her investigation into the circumstances surrounding the
death of Raymond McCord Junior and related matters. Nuala O’Loan, Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, 22nd January 2007
28 In The Birmingham Post, 31st December 1976, under the title: “Magazine Incited Racial Violence”.
29 Oral Evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, ‘Terrorism and Community Relations’, response to question 42, 9th November 2004
30 HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, ‘TERRORISM AND COMMUNITY RELATIONS’ Tuesday 9 November 2004
31 Date: 27th March 2008 Source: Searchlight, www.stopthebnp.org.uk/index.php?location=news&art=906
32 Date: 10th April 2008, Source: Searchlight, www.stopthebnp.org.uk/index.php?location=news&art=925

Note By Green Arrow

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