Post-industrial Revolution: html

As part of my research for a video I'm making about a nationalist trade union in the UK called Solidarity, I'm spending a lot of time in the far flung corners of the internet, looking at far right websites.

They are almost universally badly designed. I suppose the 'best' is probably the British National Party's site.



They have definitely had a brand make over and the website pushes this new, friendly BNP. The stories on the front page are fairly mainstream (for a right wing organisation) and the imagery is homely and comforting. Their logo appears to be a combination of a heart, a British flag, and a scratch-card.

At the bottom right of the page you can see an advert for their online shop, Excalibur.



Here you see the populist sheen slips a bit. Along with the England flags and BNP t-shirts, you have an 'ASYLUM: Don't Unpack, You're Going Back' flag, and a book called,'The Lie of Apartheid and other true stories from Southern Africa'.

The Excalibur logo is pretty classic far right stuff. The implication being that real British people are all descended from King Arthur and wield swords.


This is Solidarity's site. Even though most of their funding comes directly from the BNP, and in their official accounts they put over £1000 a year on 'maintaining' the website, it looks like shit.


The National Front's website looks like it was designed in 1996. All it's missing are a few animated gifs. You can't see in this picture, but all the images are pixelated and there is scrolling text across the top of the page. Someone has definitely got a cracked copy of Photoshop by the look of that gradient on the main logo.


At this point I think the design actually adds to the desired effect for a group like Combat 18/Blood and Honour. I'm scared shitless already, just because of the layout of the page. Also, they have a quote by Ian Stuart Donaldson (former Skrewdriver frontman who died in a car crash in 1993), but they've spelt his name wrong.


This is Blood and Honour Serbia. If that strangely off-centred web page doesn't scare you then I don't know what will.


Maybe this photo of some Blood and Honour Serbia members.


This says 'Kosovo is Serbia' 'Serbia for the Serbs'.


And this is the British People's Party. It has a similar design to the National Front page. Not quite as 'fancy', but it gets straight to the point,  

We represent the interests of the ultra Nationalists of Great Britain

 Right then.

There is another interesting quote from this page,

With the advent of "Populism" into the edges of the mainstream of British politics, there are many of us who refuse to compromise our principles and strategy.

This is a direct reference to the attempt by Nick Griffin and others in the BNP to break into the mainstream of British politics. I presume that the British People's Party is annoyed that Griffin has had to keep quiet on relevant, contemporary issues like Holocaust denial and the Zionist conspiracy.

Almost all the websites I've visited manage to insult another right wing organisation, there is an incredible amount of in-fighting and denouncing. It is a bit like being a communist - on all the message boards people are constantly accusing each other of being 'wreckers', which is a term for a saboteur that was used a lot in the Soviet Great Terror.



Political Soldier is the NF splinter group that Nick Griffin and Patrick Harrington started in the 80s. Harrington left the group after falling out with the other members and now runs the nationalist trade union Solidarity. Nick Griffin joined the BNP and eventually became its leader. He is seen as a moderniser, attempting to make the party popular through moderating its more extreme tendencies.

You can see three questions on the front page of the site. 'Come here to be informed?' above a link which takes you to the main site. 'Come here to shop?', above the link to their online store, and 'Just come here to complain?'. When you click that you get taken to www.israel.com.