Britain First are not my political cup of tea. Whilst I have a personal respect for some of those who are involved in BF, this group do not suit my style or my particular politics. The alleged background of this group in militant Ulster Loyalism and in the openly neo-Nazi BNP, makes me somewhat wary of them. I also dislike the more ‘militaristic’ and bombastic style of their campaigning as I think that it probably puts off patriots who want to do something about the problems in Britain but not look like a Walt whilst doing it.

But whatever Britain First are, I don’t believe that they are violent terrorists. Apart from the links between BF and militant loyalists, I have not been given any reason to believe that they are involved in any terrorism. I very much doubt that BF are the sort of organisation that would sanction a bombing campaign or engage in ‘truck of peace’ activities or go mad with a knife, which are the sorts of terror problems that have been brought to us by the ideology of Islam recently.

I’ve been watching Britain First as a somewhat critical observer for a few years now and although I’ve seen stuff that I have not liked and BF being involved in things that I would not want to take part in, I’ve never seen any credible accusation of terrorism. About the worst I’ve seen that can be directly connected to BF is a few walk in protests at mosques and a bit of door banging in connection with an Islamic Rape Gang case in Kent. Not something that I’d do, but not terrorism by any stretch of the imagination.

Because of this knowledge I find that it concerns me greatly to find that Paul Golding of Britain first is being charged with ‘terror offences’ because he refused to hand over passwords for his phone when he returned to the UK from a visit to Russia. On his return from Russia he was interviewed by anti-terror officers at Heathrow Airport in October 2019. Mr Golding had been in Russia talking to Russian political parties of a similar tone to them and to appear on Russian state controlled media. Mr Golding refused to hand over the passwords for any of the digital devices including his phone and was arrested for failing to comply with a duty under the Terrorism Act.

I must say that this arrest and the interrogation was a massive bit of overkill by the Met Police. Was there really any need to involve the counter terror branch SO15 when the movements of Mr Golding and his associates must have been quite well known to them from BF’s various broadcasts? It’s not as if the Met didn’t have any idea what BF were up to in Russia was it? Therefore shouldn’t SO15 have been better employed chasing after the huge number of Islamic terror suspects that they are responsible for policing rather than going after Mr Golding?

Although Mr Golding is not a person who I would readily agree with on a number of matters, I find myself agreeing with him when he says ‘I’m not a terrorist’ and that the arrest and charging was an ‘abuse’. It does look as if Mr Golding and BF have been targeted by the state for harassment and that should worry us all,whether we support groups like BF or we do not. The state is going all out to try to silence Paul Golding and it is likely that the CPS will press for Mr Golding’s refusal to hand over his passwords to end in a significant gaol sentence. BF must be worrying the government a lot for it to go to these lengths to try to silence them. It would be interesting to know exactly what those worries are?

I find that I have to aim some criticism at Mr Golding himself. We all make information security screw ups occasionally, but to take devices that may have held critical organisational data on them out of the country, when Mr Golding must have suspected that he would be stopped on his return to the UK, is a bit of an infosec faux pas. I can think of no other reason apart from not wanting to compromise others that could have caused Mr Golding to refuse to hand over the password. People in the position of Mr Golding should only take out of the country ‘burner’ equipment which contains no critical data and which can be happily surrendered to the goon squad upon return to any country that is oppressive. I believe that it was Tim Pool who once told a horror story about a reporter working in Syria who took his own phone with him, containing journalistic contacts, some highly confidential and endangered contacts, which raised the possibility that these contacts could have been compromised had the phone been stolen, lost or hacked. People like Mr Golding, especially when they travel widely as he does, are always going to be at risk of police carrying out fishing expeditions with their devices and they should guard against that accordingly.

Today the state has gone after a man who in appearance looks like the classic ‘far right bogeyman’, but tomorrow the State may use the same counter terror police to silence, for example, a survivor of an Islamic Rape Gang whose language or campaign for justice ‘offends’ those who are infinitely and capricously offendable. It could quite easily be anyone who speaks up or speaks out about any aspect of society or government that some who are in positions of influence would prefer is not spoken about.

As I have said here, and in other articles on here, I’m not a great fan of the Britain First organisation for the reasons that I gave above. But, I’m also not in favour of how this group and its members are being treated by the State. I find the conduct of the anti-terror police with regards to this arrest at Heathrow far more worrying than the activities of BF itself and that is something that should worry other Britons as well. If society as a whole wants to tackle BF and what drives them then the best way to do that would be in open debate where their ideas and their ideology can be tested. The sort of tactics that have been used against Mr Golding and BF are liable to only make things worse, they are likely to cause more people to gravitate towards this group on the grounds that if State is trying to silence them then they must be onto something.