The magazine run by a 'neighbourhood Nazi'

Conservative leader at pains to distance his party from far-right magazine

Paul Waugh Deputy Political Editor
Thursday 09 May 2002 00:00 BST
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Within weeks of becoming leader of the Conservative Party last autumn, Iain Duncan Smith confounded critics with a warning he would not "tolerate intolerance".

Having been "badly burnt" by disclosure of links between his leadership campaign and the British National Party, he seized the chance to prove his anti-racist credentials.

To underline the point, he ordered three Tory MPs to cancel their membership of the far-right Monday Club, while the party chairman, David Davis, suspended its association with the Conservatives in protest at the "racist" nature of its web site.

The three MPs who were forced to quit the club were Andrew Hunter, Andrew Rossindell, MP for Romford, and Angela Watkinson, MP for Upminister.

Senior Tories also made clear that Mr Duncan Smith would extend his purge of the far right to force all MPs to cut their links with Right Now!, then a little-known magazine. However, Mr Hunter has continued to appear as a "patron" of the magazine and is listed in its letterhead.

The President of the Monday Club, Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, is also a patron of the magazine and it has carried an open letter attacking Mr Davis' decision.

Right Now! certainly makes difficult reading for a new Tory leadership committed to multiculturalism.

Founded in 1993, the magazine claims to "say the unsayable" and is proud to describe itself as "Britain's most outspoken and controversial magazine".

In its latest promotional material, it declares: "We are not afraid to discuss openly the issues that other 'right wing' publications find too hot to handle, for example the consequences of mass non-European immigration for Britain's national identity."

The magazine also published a special pamphlet attacking the Macpherson Report into the death of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

It accused the report of "anti-racist hysteria" and "the Sovietisation of the UK".

Right Now! has published a string of provocative articles on everything from the economic case against immigration to the need for eugenics. In one piece, the author talked of "a rising tide of illegal immigants gradually swamping the precarious civilisation of the West". The article went on to say: "The British people should think more realistically about our prospects for survival as a nation."

Perhaps the most shocking article to be published came in one edition last year, entitled "The Conservative Case for a new eugenics".

The piece argued that "the Right should endorse measures to improve human traits through genetic selection". It suggested that welfare recipients should be put on the Pill and repeat offenders should "forfeit reproductive rights".

The current April-June edition includes a column titled "John Bull" that urges military action to save the whites in Zimbabwe and states that "blacks are generally simply incapable of effective Western-style government".

Another article refers to the poor performance of black children in schools and the number of black boys excluded from school on grounds of violent or anti-social behaviour. A further item attacks the "London-based Tory gay mafia". A further article on "crime and ethnic realities" claimed that people from ethnic minorities are, per capita, "producing 25 times more racial assaults than the white population".

Derek Turner, the magazine's editor, has in the past described himself as a "neighbourhood Nazi", although he claimed he was being ironic. Mr Turner declares in the latest issue that "the days of multiculturalism are drawing to a close".

He also boasts that the magazine has attracted the hostile attention of government ministers and "the Conservative hierarchy". Mr Turner claims that "all of the political parties are either hostile to British interests and to Western civilisation more generally or just ineffective". He urges his readers to "help in the defence of our threatened civilisation".

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