As someone who believes our armed forces should stay well out of politics I feel very uneasy when recently retired members of the army pipe up about political parties. However I've found myself having to support those former British officers who are taking part in the Stolen Valour campaign, attacking the BNP for associating itself with the British Army as a way of gaining support for its racist agenda.
The BNP under its leader Nick Griffin has been using iconic images of British fighting forces, especially from World War II, to sell its campaign of fanatical nationalism and ethnic purity. These extremists want to portray themselves as heroic, self-sacrificing warriors fighting for Britian's martial dignity. The Stolen Valour report, produced by civilians linked to the Conservative Party and ex-military personnel, condemns the BNP's cynical and misrepresentative use of such imagery. The report's authors said they were forced to speak out to ensure, "neo-fascists like the BNP can no longer claim to represent the memory of Britain’s proud military past".
This politically right-of-centre criticism of the BNP, supported by military figures, seems to have provoked its leader Nick Griffin to show some of his true colours. Griffin compared the former British Generals confronting him to Nazi war criminals who were hanged at the end of WWII. As morally and legally questionable as the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan may have been, threatening generals who participated in them with hanging makes Griffin look like the idiot he is.
An even more odious reference to WWII by the BNP is its claim that only whites contributed to Britain's war effort. In a video shown on Channel 4 news Griffin stated that the lack of non-white names in graveyards of British war dead showed why the BNP's white supremacist policies were justified. As the Stolen Valour report points out, the reality is people of all colours from Britain's then Empire went above and beyond while fighting against the Germans, Japanese and Italians. In spite of the racism they were subjected to by the British establishment, volunteer forces from the West Indies, Africa as well as East Asia, India and what is now Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka all fought bravely and sacrificed their lives for Britain.
They were taking part in a war effort that was supposed to be fought for democracy and universal human rights. However, many subjects of the British empire were often denied those very rights, but fought nonetheless to protect that empire and its home island.
White Britons, like my grandfather who fought bravely on the beaches at D-Day, knew that if they survived their battles they could return home to vote and excercise freedom of speech. Few amongst the hundreds of thousands of non-white volunteers could expect the same but risked their lives anyway.
When I worked in India as a journalist I was always deeply touched by those Indians who responded positively to me being British simply because their fathers or grandfathers had been in the British armed forces. I knew Indians who were proud their relatives had served, and sometimes died, fighting for the UK against its enemies in Asia, North Africa and Europe.
To have racists like the BNP spit on the level of selfless sacrifice these peoples made for Britain by denying it ever happened, and trying to stop them having an opportunity of life in this country should fill every decent Briton with rage and shame. But not only have the BNP tried to quite literally whitewash the history of multi-ethnic involvement in the Second World War - they wish to purge the existing British Army of non-whites.
The BNP would not allow Black British servicemen to be part of the armed forces. Soldiers such as Private Johnson Beharry, who won the Victoria Cross for saving the lives of 30 of his comrades. Griffin has even gone as far to oppose, on ethnic grounds, the massively popular decision to admit British Army Gurkhas to residency in the UK.
It's this sort of fanatical racism which, once denounced by popular and respected ex-military figures like Andy McNab, should undermine support for the BNP amongst pro-army families. This is why, in this exceptional case, I think it is justified for these retired officers to publicly attack the BNP, a party that has gone too far in distorting history for its own sick ends.
This article was corrected on 24 October 2009 to include mention of soldiers from modern-day Bangladesh and Sri Lanka who served in the British army during the Second World War.
