A month of forgotten anniversaries

Matthew Collins - 24 09 13
Skrewdriver: Gone

Skrewdriver: Gone

September is a big month for the far-right in this country. Today is the 20th anniversary of the death of Ian Stuart (Donaldson), a failed musician and violent thug who set up the neo-Nazi Blood & Honour music network.

Over the last few days we have had a number of people in and amongst over a thousand neo-Nazis from across Britain and Europe camped out in Northants as the race-haters and neo-Nazis commemorated Donaldson’s death by getting drunk and signing Nazi songs.

Donaldson was a life long coward. A grammar school boy who wanted to be a rock star, he began his career in music in a mainstream band signed to a London record company, but as fame, fortune and talent avoided him, he split his band by becoming a hard-line neo-Nazi and joining the National Front. This was quite a surprise given that his band, Skrewdriver, had also played a lot of Rolling Stones cover versions. Despite the black roots of such music, Donaldson continued listening to the Rolling Stones until his death in 1993, when a car he was travelling in crashed in the Midlands.

At the time of Ian Stuart’s death, the white power music scene, which had been experiencing a minor revival, was split down the middle after the emergence of the terror group Combat 18 (C18).

The lead members of C18 were demanding large sums of money from the neo-Nazi bands that were trying to make a living by selling merchandise up and down the country at secret venues where their gigs were held. C18 enforcers took over security and the drug supplies for these gigs and at one stage, one jealous C18 member even issued a death threat against Stuart over a “personal” matter.

Of course, in death, all was forgotten and many, many people have tried to earn a living off the back of Stuart’s legacy. If there was one thing that could be said for Stuart, it is that he did not like “political parasites” who were more interested in the money than the “music” itself. He quit the NF in the mid 80’s after falling out with current BNP leader Nick Griffin, who at the time was only just beginning a lifelong habit of running Nazi parties into the ground. At the time, it was the National Front that Griffin was destroying.

If Nick Griffin is not mourning the 20th Anniversary of Stuart’s death, it certainly is not because he has been commemorating the 20th anniversary of the BNP’s first ever councillor being elected.

Derek Beackon was elected to Tower Hamlets council in September 1993. Over the weekend a number of far-right luminaries got together to remember Beackon’s victory. Interestingly, not one of those present is even in the BNP any more. Such is Nick Griffin’s legacy…

Beackon: Gone and forgotten by the BNP

Beackon: Gone and forgotten by the BNP

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