The rise of the BNP in Scotland: internet contact led to first meeting

By Allan Caldwell | Monday, 5 July 2004 | Click here for original article

I FIRST contacted the BNP through their website in mid March.

Their Inverness-based Scottish secretary Kenny Smith e-mailed me after I asked about membership.

He stated: 'To attend a meeting you must first have met one of our officials to confirm who you are, as we have to be tight on security due to media-inspired harassment meted out to venue holders when they are public.

'If you could supply me with your full name and contact details I will happily pass them on to the Glasgow BNP so they can contact you and I can also then send you out a Scottish information pack.' I took a short-term rent on a flat in Glasgow's Merchant City to use as a false address and set up an e-mail address as Allan Thomson.

Walter 'Hammy' Hamilton, the Glasgow organiser who serves with Scott McLean, then contacted me.

He arranged a meeting with him, McLean and me at the Locomotive pub in the Merchant City .

The two turned up together and scrutinised me for any obvious signs of recording equipment.

After looking around for anyone who might have been with me, they began talking about the BNP and the party's goals.

At first they spoke purely in political terms but, as time passed, they began to relax and open up. The subject quickly turned to blacks and Asians. Their hatred soon became apparent.

McLean told me: 'We have to watch for cops infiltrating us, reds (communists) and journalists.

'The cops are easy to spot. The reds we can weed out quickly and the journalists can recognise within one or two minutes.'

After an hour and 40 minutes, the meeting ended. I had been accepted. They led me out to Hammy's top-of-the-range BMW, opened the boot and gave me a bag of BNP literature.

Hammy then set up an instant message e-mail link with me and we used it frequently until my first outing distributing leaflets.

I last met Hammy a week before the June Euro elections.

He asked me if I could find a source to produce BNP leaflets carrying the saltire as the literature they had was all produced in England.

Apart from a couple of e-mails, that was the last contact had as my inquiries began to raise suspicions.