North East Patriots Meeting
Date: Sunday, 27th May, 2012
Time: Doors open 12.30 for a 1.00 pm start and should conclude around 4.30 pm.
Venue: Phone for re-direction point.
Speakers: Andrew Brons, Richard Edmonds and others.
There will be a discussion on the Nationalist election results and the future prospects for Nationalism.
There will also be an open mic/floor session for anyone to raise points, ideas, suggestions or ask any questions.
Bar - Buffet – Raffle
Note: North East Patriots is a Patriotic Forum intended to keep like-minded people together, informed and talking, regardless of membership status with any particular party.
For more information call: 07954 434173
Friday, 25 May 2012
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Expelled again! And they really mean it this time!
Dr. Emerson,
It has become evident the last few months that you are continuing along the same lines for which you got expelled and proscribed in January 2011. You have also let down your County Organiser Cllr John Robinson in not attending meetings at which you agreed to speak.
Due to your continued false and unsubstantiated accusations against the Party Chairman ( Mr Nick Griffin) and his staff, you have left this Party with no option other than to expel you from the Party membership with immediate effect. Your reinstatement of May 2011 is rescinded and your Party membership is terminated immediately.
Our Chairman, Nick Griffin was approached by you this month last year, at a time when the then SE Regional Organiser had left as had the SE Regional Secretary. The timing of your ‘application’ was perfect for you as all the paperwork concerning your last expulsion had been retained by the outgoing SE Organiser, Andrew McBride. As Mr Griffin had no file on your previous history, he allowed your application for reinstatement.
Our SE Regional Secretary, Lynne Mozar returned to the Party after 5 weeks and brought with her all the relevant paperwork on your expulsion, proscription and subsequent absence from the Appeal. It is with these papers in hand (of which you had received copies in 2010 and 2011) and bearing in mind your behaviour and attitude towards the British National Party, that this expulsion goes ahead without Appeal.
You are now reminded that you shall be in breach of the Data Protection Act should you contact Party members in an attempt to further damage this Party by the continued spreading of malicious and unfounded lies.
This party will seek legal actions against any persons using party data without authorisation or make false accusations against party officials. It is clear to all in the British National Party that it was your main intention to bring the Party Chairman and his management team into disrepute with the membership. This is why you made the effort to re-join last year. The British National Party have a responsibility to protect their members from malicious assaults and disruptive influences such as those you have applied within your blogs and emails.
You are hereby notified that you are now noted as a "proscribed" person and any further efforts you make to approach this Party or appeal will be ignored. The Membership Department will be duly notified of this. Your official history is that you were Suspended July 2010 and Proscribed and Expelled 12th January 2011. You were accepted back last year and renewed your Membership 9th January 2012. Standard Membership. You have been Expelled and Proscribed ........May 2012. This decision is final.
Nick Prince. SE Regional Organiser
Lynne Mozar. Deputy SE Regional Organiser
BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY-SOUTH EAST REGION
It has become evident the last few months that you are continuing along the same lines for which you got expelled and proscribed in January 2011. You have also let down your County Organiser Cllr John Robinson in not attending meetings at which you agreed to speak.
Due to your continued false and unsubstantiated accusations against the Party Chairman ( Mr Nick Griffin) and his staff, you have left this Party with no option other than to expel you from the Party membership with immediate effect. Your reinstatement of May 2011 is rescinded and your Party membership is terminated immediately.
Our Chairman, Nick Griffin was approached by you this month last year, at a time when the then SE Regional Organiser had left as had the SE Regional Secretary. The timing of your ‘application’ was perfect for you as all the paperwork concerning your last expulsion had been retained by the outgoing SE Organiser, Andrew McBride. As Mr Griffin had no file on your previous history, he allowed your application for reinstatement.
Our SE Regional Secretary, Lynne Mozar returned to the Party after 5 weeks and brought with her all the relevant paperwork on your expulsion, proscription and subsequent absence from the Appeal. It is with these papers in hand (of which you had received copies in 2010 and 2011) and bearing in mind your behaviour and attitude towards the British National Party, that this expulsion goes ahead without Appeal.
You are now reminded that you shall be in breach of the Data Protection Act should you contact Party members in an attempt to further damage this Party by the continued spreading of malicious and unfounded lies.
This party will seek legal actions against any persons using party data without authorisation or make false accusations against party officials. It is clear to all in the British National Party that it was your main intention to bring the Party Chairman and his management team into disrepute with the membership. This is why you made the effort to re-join last year. The British National Party have a responsibility to protect their members from malicious assaults and disruptive influences such as those you have applied within your blogs and emails.
You are hereby notified that you are now noted as a "proscribed" person and any further efforts you make to approach this Party or appeal will be ignored. The Membership Department will be duly notified of this. Your official history is that you were Suspended July 2010 and Proscribed and Expelled 12th January 2011. You were accepted back last year and renewed your Membership 9th January 2012. Standard Membership. You have been Expelled and Proscribed ........May 2012. This decision is final.
Nick Prince. SE Regional Organiser
Lynne Mozar. Deputy SE Regional Organiser
BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY-SOUTH EAST REGION
Monday, 21 May 2012
The Elder Statesman and the Seven Dwarfs
"The little men who talk about uniting Britain, the white race, Europe or whatever you prefer cannot even unite themselves. Any talk of a common fight against a common enemy is treated by them as a sinister plot to undermine their own precious private identities."
"[British nationalism] is an incohesive mass of jealously squabbling tin-pot Caesars, more concerned with the pursuance of private vendettas than with the aim of ultimate national salvation."
Thus John Tyndall in the article 'Where is the Right?' in the July 1966 issue of Spearhead.
In some ways it would appear that little has changed within nationalism in the intervening forty-six years. The bane of the movement is still the vanity, sectarianism, dogmatism, jealousy, pettiness and selfishness, of individual nationalist leaders; their purblind inabilty to see the bigger picture; their fear of the political big time and real electoral success; and their parochial determination to remain a big fish in a little pond at all costs, to the detriment of the interests of our people as a whole.
In 1966-7 negotiations between the various petty nationalist parties, conducted by John Bean, AK Chesterton and Gerald Kemp et al, finally bore fruit in the formation of the National Front, a party which presented a far more credible electoral challenge to the Establishment's status quo than any of its constituent elements could have mounted on their own.
Because of its espousal of a democratic constitution and collective leadership and its rejection of the cult of the leader and fuehrerprinzip, the National Front became, in the course of the 1970s, the most successful political party that British nationalism had ever seen up to that time.
Its demise as an effective political entity came about, in the 1980s, as a result of forgetting the lessons which had created the impulse for its formation in the first place, namely, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and that unity is strength.
Some may say that this is precisely what we nationalists need today: a new coalition of nationalist parties presenting a united front to our enemies, a shield wall if you will, enabling us to cease our destructive internecine conflict and turn our fire where it really belongs - onto the traitorous political Establishment.
Sadly, I believe this to be a counsel of perfection. It would be wonderful if it could be achieved but politics is about the real world, the art of the possible, as Bismarck said.
We should bear in mind that the impetus that led to the formation of the National Front followed two decades of disunion and failure within the nationalist movement. There was a real appetite for a change of strategy and for co-operation.
Those conditions do not exist today. On the contrary, the prospects for inter-party co-operation on the face of it could hardly be worse. The leaders of the various nationalist and quasi-nationalist micro-parties, that I have referred to as 'the seven dwarfs', can hardly believe their good fortune. With the good ship BNP sinking slowly beneath the waves, these parties are like little lifeboats picking up survivors. Some, like the National Front, for example, may have doubled their membership in less than a year. Of course, in absolute terms, the numbers involved are tiny, though I suspect that the majority of recruits are activists, who are worth their weight in gold to any party that really means business.
The leaders of these micro-parties take their increased membership as confirmation of the correctness of their strategy of 'going it alone', even though they have really had nothing to do with the recruitment windfall, which is entirely due to Mr Griffin's alienation of the BNP's grass roots and particularly its activists.
"Why should we join with others when we're doing better on our own than we've done for the last twenty years?" is a question that the leaders of the National Front might well be asking themselves.
This is fine if one is prepared to settle for half a loaf.
On the other hand, if, like me, you want the whole bakery, then you will support the new nationalist party that I believe Andrew Brons and his key allies will announce before the end of the year. I believe that it will have a democratic constitution and a collective leadership, of which the nationalist elder statesman and MEP, Andrew, will be the chairman and figure-head. The new party's policies should be broadly similar to those of the BNP of about five years ago, around the time of its greatest electoral popularity.
The new party should prove to be highly attractive to the very many former members of the BNP who are currently unaffiliated, as well as drawing off considerable numbers from the seven dwarfs and most of the few remaining activists of the BNP itself.
Before long the new party is likely to have superseded the floundering and discredited BNP, presenting a clean new image of competence and respectability to the electorate but with no dilution of policy. Ceteris paribus, electoral success should follow.
"[British nationalism] is an incohesive mass of jealously squabbling tin-pot Caesars, more concerned with the pursuance of private vendettas than with the aim of ultimate national salvation."
Thus John Tyndall in the article 'Where is the Right?' in the July 1966 issue of Spearhead.
In some ways it would appear that little has changed within nationalism in the intervening forty-six years. The bane of the movement is still the vanity, sectarianism, dogmatism, jealousy, pettiness and selfishness, of individual nationalist leaders; their purblind inabilty to see the bigger picture; their fear of the political big time and real electoral success; and their parochial determination to remain a big fish in a little pond at all costs, to the detriment of the interests of our people as a whole.
In 1966-7 negotiations between the various petty nationalist parties, conducted by John Bean, AK Chesterton and Gerald Kemp et al, finally bore fruit in the formation of the National Front, a party which presented a far more credible electoral challenge to the Establishment's status quo than any of its constituent elements could have mounted on their own.
Because of its espousal of a democratic constitution and collective leadership and its rejection of the cult of the leader and fuehrerprinzip, the National Front became, in the course of the 1970s, the most successful political party that British nationalism had ever seen up to that time.
Its demise as an effective political entity came about, in the 1980s, as a result of forgetting the lessons which had created the impulse for its formation in the first place, namely, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and that unity is strength.
Some may say that this is precisely what we nationalists need today: a new coalition of nationalist parties presenting a united front to our enemies, a shield wall if you will, enabling us to cease our destructive internecine conflict and turn our fire where it really belongs - onto the traitorous political Establishment.
Sadly, I believe this to be a counsel of perfection. It would be wonderful if it could be achieved but politics is about the real world, the art of the possible, as Bismarck said.
We should bear in mind that the impetus that led to the formation of the National Front followed two decades of disunion and failure within the nationalist movement. There was a real appetite for a change of strategy and for co-operation.
Those conditions do not exist today. On the contrary, the prospects for inter-party co-operation on the face of it could hardly be worse. The leaders of the various nationalist and quasi-nationalist micro-parties, that I have referred to as 'the seven dwarfs', can hardly believe their good fortune. With the good ship BNP sinking slowly beneath the waves, these parties are like little lifeboats picking up survivors. Some, like the National Front, for example, may have doubled their membership in less than a year. Of course, in absolute terms, the numbers involved are tiny, though I suspect that the majority of recruits are activists, who are worth their weight in gold to any party that really means business.
The leaders of these micro-parties take their increased membership as confirmation of the correctness of their strategy of 'going it alone', even though they have really had nothing to do with the recruitment windfall, which is entirely due to Mr Griffin's alienation of the BNP's grass roots and particularly its activists.
"Why should we join with others when we're doing better on our own than we've done for the last twenty years?" is a question that the leaders of the National Front might well be asking themselves.
This is fine if one is prepared to settle for half a loaf.
On the other hand, if, like me, you want the whole bakery, then you will support the new nationalist party that I believe Andrew Brons and his key allies will announce before the end of the year. I believe that it will have a democratic constitution and a collective leadership, of which the nationalist elder statesman and MEP, Andrew, will be the chairman and figure-head. The new party's policies should be broadly similar to those of the BNP of about five years ago, around the time of its greatest electoral popularity.
The new party should prove to be highly attractive to the very many former members of the BNP who are currently unaffiliated, as well as drawing off considerable numbers from the seven dwarfs and most of the few remaining activists of the BNP itself.
Before long the new party is likely to have superseded the floundering and discredited BNP, presenting a clean new image of competence and respectability to the electorate but with no dilution of policy. Ceteris paribus, electoral success should follow.
Saturday, 5 May 2012
A prophet and loss
I posted the following today on the BNP section of the British Democracy Forum.
A couple of weeks ago, on a thread about the Goresbrook ward by-election result, I posted the following:
"The BNP share of the vote is down 3.2% on a by-election in the same ward held almost two years ago.
"If this decrease were to be extrapolated to the BNP's share of the vote in the London Assembly election of 2008, the party's share of the vote in the 2012 London Assembly election would be 2.1% (5.3% - 3.2%). In other words, the BNP would fail to get a candidate elected to the Assembly. It would also lose its deposit.
"Of course, this is very speculative and unscientific. Goresbrook must be one of the party's best wards in London. But for the party's share of the vote to have declined there, by more than three per cent, surely cannot bode well for its vote in the rest of the capital.
"Mr Squire may well succeed in being elected to the Assembly. But, bearing in mind his background, what kind of a fist would he would make of representing our people there?
"The fact that the BNP has a core vote should not surprise us. But let's not pat ourselves on the back when our core vote turns out. If we are to save our country and turn back the tide of ethnically alien immigration, we need to do much better than elect a single candidate, of doubtful ability, to an assembly elected largely via proportional representation.
"We need a new leader. Failing that, we need a new party."
I should say, however, in all modesty, that I make no claim to be a prophet.
A couple of weeks ago, on a thread about the Goresbrook ward by-election result, I posted the following:
"The BNP share of the vote is down 3.2% on a by-election in the same ward held almost two years ago.
"If this decrease were to be extrapolated to the BNP's share of the vote in the London Assembly election of 2008, the party's share of the vote in the 2012 London Assembly election would be 2.1% (5.3% - 3.2%). In other words, the BNP would fail to get a candidate elected to the Assembly. It would also lose its deposit.
"Of course, this is very speculative and unscientific. Goresbrook must be one of the party's best wards in London. But for the party's share of the vote to have declined there, by more than three per cent, surely cannot bode well for its vote in the rest of the capital.
"Mr Squire may well succeed in being elected to the Assembly. But, bearing in mind his background, what kind of a fist would he would make of representing our people there?
"The fact that the BNP has a core vote should not surprise us. But let's not pat ourselves on the back when our core vote turns out. If we are to save our country and turn back the tide of ethnically alien immigration, we need to do much better than elect a single candidate, of doubtful ability, to an assembly elected largely via proportional representation.
"We need a new leader. Failing that, we need a new party."
I should say, however, in all modesty, that I make no claim to be a prophet.
Friday, 4 May 2012
Britain's fastest-shrinking fan club
The BNP is finished as an electoral force
Nick Griffin comes out of the local elections facing the fact that his attempted strategy of BNP 'modernisation' lies in ruins
Matthew Goodwin
4 May 2012
"Hammered by Labour – same as everyone. No surprise, no disgrace", tweeted BNP chairman Nick Griffin as the scale of his party's total obliteration in the local elections became clear. Griffin and the BNP went into these elections hoping to stem its electoral demise, which was triggered by a combination of in-fighting and the party's failure to break through at the 2010 general election. Today, the party leaves the contest facing the daunting realisation that it is no longer a significant player in British electoral politics. Put simply, the BNP's electoral challenge is over.
Here are some facts that will be facing Griffin this afternoon, as he sits down to consider how he might possibly sustain the morale of a dwindling and disgruntled base of foot soldiers. At the time of writing, the BNP has lost 10 of the 12 seats that it was defending.
Long gone are the days when the party could claim dozens of local councillors. Furthermore, gone are the days when the party could point to local bastions of support. Perhaps most significant of all, for the first time in 10 years there is not a single BNP councillor on Burnley borough council. The home of the party's initial breakthroughs over 2002-03 is now officially BNP free.
In other former strongholds, its vote has similarly collapsed. Two seats have been lost in Amber Valley, where the BNP vote slumped by almost 50% in Heanor East and Heanor West. Two seats have been lost in Rotherham, where, although support for the BNP remains, the reality is that it has fallen dramatically from four years ago. Support has crumbled in South Tyneside to between 4% and 13%, where not long ago Griffin could count on figures around 30%.
And in London – where the party focused most of its efforts in an attempt to win a seat on the London assembly, the data suggests it has been thoroughly trounced. To add to the humiliation, in areas such as Basildon and Dudley support for BNP candidates was lower than support for their more extreme rivals, the old National Front (NF). As the 'anti-fascist' network Hnh points out, we have not seen results like these since the 1990s, when the BNP never seriously invested in the ballot box strategy.
So what now? Griffin needed something – anything – to put in front of his weary followers as evidence that the party is not a spent electoral force. Evidence of an electoral revival was also needed to fend off the challenge from groups like the NF, and forthcoming plans by the English Defence League to enter elections with the British Freedom party (BFP). But the reality is far from what Griffin desired. Consider this: despite economic recession; despite deep cuts to local services; despite continuing public concern over immigration; despite high levels of dissatisfaction with the main parties; despite ongoing political distrust; despite an unpopular coalition government that includes the Liberal Democrats – home for many protest voters; despite continuing public anger over the expenses scandal and more recent media and cash-for-access scandals; and despite a Labour party that has not yet reconnected fully with its core base – the BNP has completely failed to make even an electoral squeak. At one time, voters in some parts of the country appeared willing to back the party. Today, they appear completely uninterested. In my view, the British National party's quest for electoral success is finished and Griffin's attempted strategy of "modernisation" lies in ruins. The question that remains is what will emerge to fill the vacuum?
Guardian
Nick Griffin comes out of the local elections facing the fact that his attempted strategy of BNP 'modernisation' lies in ruins
Matthew Goodwin
4 May 2012
"Hammered by Labour – same as everyone. No surprise, no disgrace", tweeted BNP chairman Nick Griffin as the scale of his party's total obliteration in the local elections became clear. Griffin and the BNP went into these elections hoping to stem its electoral demise, which was triggered by a combination of in-fighting and the party's failure to break through at the 2010 general election. Today, the party leaves the contest facing the daunting realisation that it is no longer a significant player in British electoral politics. Put simply, the BNP's electoral challenge is over.
Here are some facts that will be facing Griffin this afternoon, as he sits down to consider how he might possibly sustain the morale of a dwindling and disgruntled base of foot soldiers. At the time of writing, the BNP has lost 10 of the 12 seats that it was defending.
Long gone are the days when the party could claim dozens of local councillors. Furthermore, gone are the days when the party could point to local bastions of support. Perhaps most significant of all, for the first time in 10 years there is not a single BNP councillor on Burnley borough council. The home of the party's initial breakthroughs over 2002-03 is now officially BNP free.
In other former strongholds, its vote has similarly collapsed. Two seats have been lost in Amber Valley, where the BNP vote slumped by almost 50% in Heanor East and Heanor West. Two seats have been lost in Rotherham, where, although support for the BNP remains, the reality is that it has fallen dramatically from four years ago. Support has crumbled in South Tyneside to between 4% and 13%, where not long ago Griffin could count on figures around 30%.
And in London – where the party focused most of its efforts in an attempt to win a seat on the London assembly, the data suggests it has been thoroughly trounced. To add to the humiliation, in areas such as Basildon and Dudley support for BNP candidates was lower than support for their more extreme rivals, the old National Front (NF). As the 'anti-fascist' network Hnh points out, we have not seen results like these since the 1990s, when the BNP never seriously invested in the ballot box strategy.
So what now? Griffin needed something – anything – to put in front of his weary followers as evidence that the party is not a spent electoral force. Evidence of an electoral revival was also needed to fend off the challenge from groups like the NF, and forthcoming plans by the English Defence League to enter elections with the British Freedom party (BFP). But the reality is far from what Griffin desired. Consider this: despite economic recession; despite deep cuts to local services; despite continuing public concern over immigration; despite high levels of dissatisfaction with the main parties; despite ongoing political distrust; despite an unpopular coalition government that includes the Liberal Democrats – home for many protest voters; despite continuing public anger over the expenses scandal and more recent media and cash-for-access scandals; and despite a Labour party that has not yet reconnected fully with its core base – the BNP has completely failed to make even an electoral squeak. At one time, voters in some parts of the country appeared willing to back the party. Today, they appear completely uninterested. In my view, the British National party's quest for electoral success is finished and Griffin's attempted strategy of "modernisation" lies in ruins. The question that remains is what will emerge to fill the vacuum?
Guardian
Chopin's funeral march
In times of national emergency, or great tragedy, normal service on media such as TV and radio is often interrupted and replaced by funereal music and images of the natural environment.
I see that Griffin has already thrown in the towel by posting a verbose and self-seeking gloss on the dire results achieved by the British National Party in yesterday's elections.
What one needs constantly to bear in mind is that nothing is ever his fault and that under the circumstances no-one else could have done any better. These are the twin articles of faith which make up the liturgy of the Cult of Nick, which used to be a political party.
Lest anyone be taken in by Griffin's claim that every party has suffered a net loss of seats, due to a resurgent Labour Party, it should be pointed out that this is false. Both the Greens and Respect made net gains in the elections. Both are small parties, like the BNP. The difference being, not that their policies are more popular than those of the BNP (they're not), but that they are led more intelligently and their leaders and candidates more credibly convey an impression of reasonableness and general competence.
As for the other nationalist and quasi-nationalist parties, whose leaders fondly dream of overtaking the BNP, they have also been roundly rejected by the voters. Notwithstanding the unpromising quality of these would- be rivals, however, their mere existence is enough to give Griffin sleepless nights. Any opposition sends the man into a frenzy. One can almost imagine him screaming hysterically at his hapless flunkeys "Don't you understand? They're trying to take my job away from me!"
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
A cerulean wave is building
Marine Le Pen to withhold vote in French presidential run off
Front National leader tells supporters to follow their conscience, and expects 'Marine blue wave' if Sarkozy defeated
Kim Willsher in Paris
1 May 2012
The French far-right [sic] leader Marine Le Pen has told supporters she will not vote for either of the two candidates in Sunday's presidential runoff.
The head of the Front National said she had no confidence in Nicolas Sarkozy or the Socialist challenger, François Hollande, and would cast a blank vote.
She advised the 6.4 million voters who gave her party a record score of nearly 18% of the vote in the first round of the election 10 days ago to follow their conscience.
At a rally near the statue of the Front National's symbolic heroine Joan of Arc at Place de l'Opéra, in central Paris, the crowd chanted: "Sarko, Hollande, it's the same."
Le Pen told them: "I have made my choice. Each of you will make yours. You are free citizens and you should vote according to your conscience. I will not give my confidence or my mandate for one or the other. Sunday, I will vote blank."
She added: "There is no right or left … they are the same faces of the same system. We are the party who will reconcile the French, we are the great party of national unity. They are for the world and for Europe, we are for the nation and patriotic … we have touched the spirit and the intelligence of the French people."
Le Pen said the Front National's success meant a "great project of emancipation" had begun in France.
Opinion polls suggest Hollande has a lead of up to 10 percentage points in the runoff. Sarkozy held a rival May day rally, while Hollande chose not to attend a unions' rally at the Bastille.
The two men will go head-to-head in a live television debate on Wednesday. Sarkozy continues to court far-right [sic] voters, saying in an interview with RMC radio on Tuesday that he thought France had too many immigrants.
If Sarkozy is defeated on Sunday Le Pen is counting on the 'mainstream' right to implode in an internecine struggle for control of the ruling UMP party. She expects a "Marine blue wave" to sweep the country, bringing dozens of Front National MPs into parliament in legislative elections in June, and establishing her party as the opposition.
These MPs, she said, would be "your soldiers, your defenders, your lawyers. Thanks to you we are finally on our way back, here in our own home."
Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, now honorary president of the Front National, which he founded in the 1970s, also addressed the crowd of several thousand. Joan of Arc, he said, "represents the most extraordinary destiny in human history … the history of France."
Guardian
Front National leader tells supporters to follow their conscience, and expects 'Marine blue wave' if Sarkozy defeated
Kim Willsher in Paris
1 May 2012
The French far-right [sic] leader Marine Le Pen has told supporters she will not vote for either of the two candidates in Sunday's presidential runoff.
The head of the Front National said she had no confidence in Nicolas Sarkozy or the Socialist challenger, François Hollande, and would cast a blank vote.
She advised the 6.4 million voters who gave her party a record score of nearly 18% of the vote in the first round of the election 10 days ago to follow their conscience.
At a rally near the statue of the Front National's symbolic heroine Joan of Arc at Place de l'Opéra, in central Paris, the crowd chanted: "Sarko, Hollande, it's the same."
Le Pen told them: "I have made my choice. Each of you will make yours. You are free citizens and you should vote according to your conscience. I will not give my confidence or my mandate for one or the other. Sunday, I will vote blank."
She added: "There is no right or left … they are the same faces of the same system. We are the party who will reconcile the French, we are the great party of national unity. They are for the world and for Europe, we are for the nation and patriotic … we have touched the spirit and the intelligence of the French people."
Le Pen said the Front National's success meant a "great project of emancipation" had begun in France.
Opinion polls suggest Hollande has a lead of up to 10 percentage points in the runoff. Sarkozy held a rival May day rally, while Hollande chose not to attend a unions' rally at the Bastille.
The two men will go head-to-head in a live television debate on Wednesday. Sarkozy continues to court far-right [sic] voters, saying in an interview with RMC radio on Tuesday that he thought France had too many immigrants.
If Sarkozy is defeated on Sunday Le Pen is counting on the 'mainstream' right to implode in an internecine struggle for control of the ruling UMP party. She expects a "Marine blue wave" to sweep the country, bringing dozens of Front National MPs into parliament in legislative elections in June, and establishing her party as the opposition.
These MPs, she said, would be "your soldiers, your defenders, your lawyers. Thanks to you we are finally on our way back, here in our own home."
Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, now honorary president of the Front National, which he founded in the 1970s, also addressed the crowd of several thousand. Joan of Arc, he said, "represents the most extraordinary destiny in human history … the history of France."
Guardian
May day
ASK YOUR LOCAL ELECTION CANDIDATES WHERE THEY STAND ON MARRIAGE
Dear Marriage Supporter
The local council elections take place on Thursday of this week. Local councils have a lot of power over issues connected to marriage, as this paper shows [see CfM web site]. We are urging voters to ask election candidates whether they support or oppose redefining marriage.
After you have downloaded the paper, please email it to all your family and friends. Ask them to raise the issue with their local council candidates before Thursday (3 May).
Before you vote, ask whether your candidates support or oppose redefining marriage.
Yours Sincerely
Colin Hart
Campaign Director
Coalition for Marriage
Dear Marriage Supporter
The local council elections take place on Thursday of this week. Local councils have a lot of power over issues connected to marriage, as this paper shows [see CfM web site]. We are urging voters to ask election candidates whether they support or oppose redefining marriage.
After you have downloaded the paper, please email it to all your family and friends. Ask them to raise the issue with their local council candidates before Thursday (3 May).
Before you vote, ask whether your candidates support or oppose redefining marriage.
Yours Sincerely
Colin Hart
Campaign Director
Coalition for Marriage
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