BNP Granny’s fury at Channel 4’s white woman

Channel 4’s My Week as a Muslim which airs tomorrow (Monday 23 October) has already sparked considerable comment and controversy.

The programme sees white NHS worker Katie Freeman assume the identity of a British Pakistani woman. This she does with the help of prosthetics.

Understandably many, including the Muslim Council of Great Britain (MCB), have questioned why a “brownface” approach was followed. Why couldn’t the experiences of an Asian heritage Muslim have been recorded they ask?

The programme’s producer Fozia Khan has argued that this tactic allowed Freeman to “meaningfully walk in the shoes of someone from a different background and to experience what it is like to be part of the British Pakistani Muslim community, rather than observe it as an outsider.”

It’s important to note too that prior to taking part in the programme, Freeman had never engaged with British Muslims and held anti-Muslim views.

The week she spends with a Muslim family, and the abuse she suffers in public simply because of how she looks and dresses, reportedly transforms her opinions.

Among those she gets to meet is Angela Holbrooks. A former member of the British National Party (BNP), Holbrooks remains active on the far right.

Last year, along with Bolton North West Infidels (NWI) and ex BNP activists Bryn Morgan and Craig Barnes, she hijacked a campaign against the building of a community centre by a Muslim association.

At another far right gathering In Bolton, she also stood alongside the NWI, fascist stalwart Mike Whitby and members of National Action, the gang now proscribed as a terrorist group.

No-one is more furious than Holbrooks about Freeman’s disguise.

“I had no idea she was white” whines a woman who in keeping with the official far right line would otherwise be arguing she’s not racist because “Islam is not a race.”

Her daughter Louise, sympathises:

Yeah, like a kipper eh Louise? But to play that whole false pretences argument would surely be a bit hypocritical? After all your mam pretended to be a green belt defender when hijacking that community centre protest.

Others in the Holbrooks’ TEAM TIMPERLEY  Facebook group are equally indignant.

Ray Oswick, who appears to reside not in Timperley but Lincoln, wants another programme altogether to be made and broadcast.

At the last census Muslims accounted for 1% of Lincoln’s religious make-up. In Timperley it was a massive 1.3%.

The fact that Freeman turns out to be white has definitely changed Holbrooks’ view of the programme. Immediately after she recorded her contribution, she seemed rather happy with the way things were going.

Now the brown woman is white, she sees things differently. Strange that.

She is now seeking to undermine the programme by saying the family Freeman stays with live not in Manchester, but Bowdon.

It’s a rather pathetic riposte. Whilst Timperley sits on one side of the Manchester suburb of Altrincham (where Holbrooks lives), Bowdon sits on the other. All are within Trafford, one of Greater Manchester’s ten local authorities.

Using Manchester as a descriptive is just shorthand. Many people from one of Manchester’s satellite towns will use the city’s name when asked where they live.

Such is Holbrooks’ wrath that she’s sought vengeance on the few local Muslims in her area. This she has done using the most inane and childish tactic in the far right play book.

She’s nipped to Tesco and shifted some pork goods around, placing gammon among the Kingsmill bread. It’s Halal you see. For good measure she stuck some in with the chicken too, claiming it is also Halal despite it not being labelled as such.

At this point it’s probably worth reminding you that Holbrooks is unaffectionately known as the ‘BNP Granny’ for good reason. She’s not some immature teen, she’s in her 60s,  the mother of a grown woman.

And she’s sticking gammon on the bread shelf.

She might also ponder Tesco’s own heritage. It was founded by Sir Jack Cohen. Were he alive today it’s he’d no doubt be joining us in deploring her cretinously actions which are as much anti-Semitic as they are Islamophobic.

Mind you, given the company Holbrooks keeps, it’s unlikely she’d be worry about being called out as an anti-Semite.

She also hangs with Stockport thug, Andrew Edge. Earlier this year I reported how this convicted violent criminal had declared that “we are at war.”

He did so when posting a pic of a huge knife.

There are, I’m afraid, no prizes for guessing who liked that post….

• My Week as a Muslim airs on Channel 4 at 9pm tomorrow.

CLARIFICATION

A screenshot used when this article was originally published story showed Caroline Garner in dialogue with her Facebook friend, Angela Holbrooks. Caroline Garner has asked us to make clear that she has no connection with any far right groups. We are happy to clarify this point.