Showcase: The Neo-Cons, the BNP and the Islamophobia Network

Adrian Morgan

The Neocons, the BNP and the Islamophobia Network

Tom Griffin, 17 September 2009

Events in London in recent weeks have highlighted the growing collusion between American neoconservatives and the European far right in stirring up hatred of Muslims.

Richard Bartholomew has details of a meeting at the George Restaurant in east London in August attended by Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer and Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion at the invitation of the Christian Action Network. Also invited were the English Defence League, the group responsible for a number of recent violent anti-Muslim protests.

Robert Spencer says on his blog that he and Murray refused to meet with the EDL, and cites Adrian Morgan as a witness to this version of events. But the presence of Morgan, who did meet the EDL, is itself evidence of the emerging relationship between the neocons and the far-right.

Morgan is a contributing editor to Family Security Matters, which has been described as a front for the Center for Security Policy, a Washington think-tank run by the ultra-neoconservative Frank Gaffney.

He is also the author of Western Resistance, a defunct blog on which he laid out his view of the BNP:

I am slightly ambivalent about the British National Party, on account of its racist past. Nowadays, under the leadership of Nick Griffin, a skilled politician, the racist agenda has become replaced by an agenda which is highly focused against Islam. With this aspect of its policies, I am in agreement. Islam poses a more serious threat to every aspect of British democracy than anything previously encountered. (via the Internet Archive)

Ambivalent or not, Morgan’s interest in the BNP is reciprocated, according to Searchlight Magazine, which reported in 2007 on the efforts of BNP idealogue Alan Goodacre to tap support from right wing bloggers:

Goodacre also stated his intention to try and gain the help of Adrian Morgan who writes regularly for the Western Resistance website and has previously contributed to The Guardian and New Scientist and was once a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society. Morgan also contributes to the “Islam Watch” website – “Islam under scrutiny by ex-Muslims” – which would explain Goodacre’s interest in him.

It might also be explained by Morgan’s membership of the 910 Group, an offshoot of the Center for Vigilant Freedom (CVF), which ran the CounterJihad Europa conference in October 2007.  Among those speaking alongside Robert Spencer at this Brussels event were representatives of European far-right parties such as Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang and Ted Ekeroth of the Sweden Democrats.

The CVF’s Christine Brim suggested in November 2007 that the strategy of embracing such parties could be extended to Jean-Marie Le Pen and the BNP:

We suggest looking for the possible movement of Le Pen’s political party Front National towards the center-right, as they may change their platform to pro-active support to improve the situations of European Jews and Israel. The same trend is happening in Austria, and with the BNP in the UK (also not invited and did not attend the conference). If such parties specifically state pro-Israel positions, and take real actions opposing anti-semitism and disavowing previous positions – and reach out to Jewish constituents and encourage Jewish participation in party positions – these are real actions to observe, and to approve.

The Blog Wars: Charles Johnson Takes on Robert Spencer for Associating with Extremists

English Defense League Protester

The blog wars have heated up again. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, former ally and friend of Robert Spencer, exposes another instance of Spencer teaming up and hobnobbing with extremists; this time it’s the English Defense League and the Christian Action Network.

The English Defense League is an organization that claims to speak out against Islamic Extremists but many have linked them to far right organizations, football hooligans, and neo-fascists such as the BNP. The organization was founded by Jeff Marsh, a Welsh hooligan. Barth notes, “Separate from the MFE and UBA are the English and Welsh Defence League (EWDL) and Casuals United, run by the Welsh hooligan Jeff Marsh.” Read more on Jeff Marsh’s sordid past here.

In a post titled ‘English Defense League’ Riot in Birmingham, Charles Johnson writes,

And look who’s hanging out with the English Defense League now, on a tour of Britain with wacko fundamentalist nutbag Martin Mawyer and his “Christian Action Network” — none other than Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch: English Defence League Interviewed by Veteran US Anti-Gay Bigot.

It seems that Spencer was in Britain as part of a tour with the Christian Action Network. The Christian Action Network is the same organization which suggested that Hillary Clinton was a Lesbian,

The Christian Action Network (CAN), a Religious Right group based in Forest, Va., held a press conference in New York City Sept. 7 to announce plans to place ads in the New York media suggesting that Clinton is gay. The organization freely admitted that it had no hard evidence for the allegation but cited ongoing “rumors.”

Bartholomew notes,

The Christian Action Network was apparently in the UK as part of a tour with none other than Robert Spencer. In an August posting on Jihad Watch, Spencer tells us that:

I had a most illuminating dinner with a group including Douglas Murray that offered a bracing introduction to British dhimmitude: we had to move our dinner at the last minute since the proprietors of the George Restaurant didn’t like us discussing jihad and Islamization on the premises…When not getting bounced out of pubs, the intrepid Jason Campbell of the Christian Action Network and I took strolls into a few mosques…

This is the same dinner which the English Defense League were invited to, as Adrian Morgan of Family Security Matters (another extreme right wing group) admits in an attempted defense of Robert Spencer, “The EDL had been invited to the George pub.” Robert Spencer wants us to believe that all this is a coincidence and is crying that he is a victim of guilt by association, which is quite rich considering how, as we have demonstrated, Spencer traffics in nothing but guilt by association. I guess this time it’s a case of Spencer not being able to take his own medicine?

Spencer responds to the accusation by Charles Johnson with a searing salvo of cheap shots and name calling. Is that any way to act for an “objective scholar?” He calls him “libelblogger,” “lying scoundrel” and calls those who are member’s of LGF “cult members.”

Robert Spencer seems to still be fuming at being outed by Charles Johnson, who many in the anti-Muslim blogsphere think of as a “traitor” for exposing Spencer’s proclivity to be an apologist for fascists as well as his joining a genocidal Faceebook club.