UK: BNP election candidate stockpiled explosives for "race" war
01 January 2007
In February a British National Party (BNP) election candidate pleaded guilty to possessing explosives at Manchester Crown Court. Robert Cottage (49), from Talbert Street, Colne, Lancashire, who last stood unsuccessfully for the BNP in Pendle at local elections in May 2006, admitted stockpiling chemicals which could be combined to creative a powerful explosive device. It is noteworthy that Cottage was not charged under the Terrorism Act, but the Explosive Substances Act 1883. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on a further charge of conspiracy to cause an explosion against Cottage and his co-defendant David Jackson and there will be a retrial on these charges.
Cottage, who failed to be elected for the BNP in three elections, was arrested after police searched his home in Colne on 28 September 2006 and discovered a stockpile of 21 chemicals including potassium nitrate, ammonia and hydrochloric acid as well as large quantities of ball-bearings. The police also uncovered a bomb-making manual, crossbows and airguns. Cottage did not deny amassing the chemicals but argued that they were for use in a forthcoming of "race war". The court was told that Cottage had talked about shooting the prime minister, Tony Blair. A police search of the home of Cottage's co-defendant, David Bolus Jackson (62) of Nelson, Lancashire, uncovered rocket launchers, chemicals, BNP propaganda as well as two nuclear protection suits. The cache amounted to the largest haul of chemical weapons ever recovered from a domestic residence but, despite the current high state of terrorist alert, it was not deemed necessary to charge the men under the Terrorism Act. Indeed, the arrests were barely considered newsworthy by the national media, meriting only a couple of short paragraphs.
This is all the more surprising given the past terrorist activities of the BNP. Putting to one side the numerous convictions of members for savage racist attacks, key players in the organisation have been convicted for terrorist acts. Tony Lecomber, who was known among anti-fascists as "the mad bomber", was convicted in the mid-1980s of five charges under the Explosives Act after attempting to blow up the offices of the Workers' Revolutionary Party in south London. Police also found detonators and improvised hand grenades at his home, but Lecomber received only a three-year prison sentence. More recently David Copeland, who carried out a murderous bombing campaign against ethnic groups and gays in London in 1999, had been photographed at BNP rallies in the company of the recently deceased party leader, John Tyndall.
The Burnley Citizen 2,10.06; Times 14.2.07; Independent 14.2.07; Guardian 23.2.07