The leader of the British National Party predicted that Islamic terrorists would set off bombs in major British cities causing blood on the streets more than a year before the July 7 attacks, a court heard today.
Nick Griffin, 45, and fellow party activist Mark Collett, 24, are on trial on a series of race-hate charges arising out of speeches featured in an undercover BBC documentary.
The jury in the trial at Leeds Crown Court saw a 25-minute video in which Griffin said: “When it happens in this country, it’s going to be done by asylum seekers or it’s going to be done by second generation Pakistanis living in somewhere like Bradford... There is going to be blood all over our streets.”
In the video, which was filmed by undercover reporter Jason Gwynne at a meeting at Morley Town Hall in Leeds on May 5 2004, Griffin could be seen standing on a stage in front of a desk draped with the Union Flag.
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Referring to a lack of differences between political parties in the UK, Griffin said: “We give people a choice, and that’s what really scares them, and that’s what they can’t hack.
“Given a choice, people, huge numbers of people, growing numbers of people, are going to back us, and they look at that and they look at this hugely unstable situation they have created in this country of ours, where we all know that sooner or later there’s going to be Islamic terrorists letting off bombs in major cities, and it might not be London, it could just as easily be the White Rose Centre (a Leeds shopping centre).
“In fact, it could be easier that, because it’s a softer target, everyone’s expecting it in London and these people do unexpected things, don’t they? Bradford presumably won’t be a target, but the White Rose Shopping Centre could be.
“When it happens in this country, it’s going to be done by asylum seekers or it’s going to be done by second generation Pakistanis living in somewhere like Bradford.
“It’s going to be done by them, and all the hatred that already exists between our community and their community, all that hatred’s going to spill out, and so the other parties are just trying to keep the lid on the pressure cooker.
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It’s so deeply stupid.”
Griffin told the audience that there was going to be a “backlash” and urged them to vote for the BNP so the backlash could be political.
He said: “It hasn’t worked, this multiracial experiment, and now we want a debate about how we’re going to reverse it, how we’re going to undo at least some of the damage, how we’re going to stop it getting any worse.
“If they manage to stop us, through all their jerrymandering, and then when the British people finally say right, that’s it, enough is enough, there is going to be blood all over our streets.
“That’s the only choice the old parties (Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives) have got, whether to allow us to express the anger and the concern and the fear of the British people, or whether they’re going to try and bottle it all up so it all bloody well goes bang, that’s the only choice that they’ve got.”
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The film was one of six featuring speeches by Griffin and Collett, shot as part of the BBC documentary The Secret Agent, which form the basis of the prosecution case.
Griffin, of Llanerfyl, Powys, denies two counts of using words or behaviour intending to stir up racial hatred and two of using words or behaviour likely to stir up racial hatred. Collett, of Swithland Lane, Rothley, Leicestershire, denies four counts of the first offence and four of the alternative.