So who are British Unity?

It's actually rather difficult to tell. We have the internet creation that is Andrew Skinner (which may, or may not be a real name) of the Britnat Troll tweeting as @ASkinner2011 who apparently set up the British Unity Facebook Page which later morphed into Vote no to Scottish Independence and preserve the union.

British Unity used to have a website, www.britishunity.org which was linked from the Facebook page back in its more obviously Neo-Nazi days. Following an apparent bust-up between the delightful thugs running the 'organisation' the website went by the by, and now only a few sorry remnants of their Blackshirt Neo-Nazi style remain on Wayback, with links back to the Facebook page and the @BritishUnity Twitter account.

Websites have to be registered. Strange that an alleged friendly, neighbourhood "grassroots campaign" which was obviously not overly-endowed in the finance department should feel the need to shell out on registering the site through an anonymising agency in Godalming, Surrey. Strangely enough, the very same anonymising agency used by www.englishdefenceleague.org. Isn't that a coincidence and a half?

As is often the way with hate-based organisations, bust-ups happen. Here we have Sectarian Loyalist Bill McMurdo moaning that the other Administrators (presumably Skinner) wouldn't let them formally link up with Orange Heidbangers, (and again here) lest the association taint the thin veneer of respectability Skinner was trying to build up. Though I see Mr McMurdo maintains a link to the old British Unity site on his blog. Another delightful creature involved with the page was (may still be, I neither know nor care) Billy Muir, though he seems to have been born again and his god hates jews and gays.

Following in the great tradition of united Unionist togetherness set by Better Together and United With Labour (Splitters!), on 16 May 2012 a faction split off and set up another British Unity Facebook page, this time called Do Not Break Our Unity.

Following the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby, both pages were festooned with EDL graphics.  Though, following their exposure as EDL graphics, Skinner was careful to remove them from the first British Unity site, perhaps picking up that the histrionics down South were not replicated up here. DNBOU has no such qualms and this ludicrous EDL graphic entitled RIP Woolwich Soldier, but depicting the silhouette of an American soldier giving an American salute remains there to this day.

So what was the reaction of Andrew Skinner? Well, until I blocked him I was bombarded with contradictory tweets and comments on the article and overblown threats of legal action.

Given that I had in the interim established that British Unity was originally run by a coterie of neds, I amended the article to read 'he or his colleagues'. Skinner appears to believe that because someone has added the word Party to the display name of the @BritishUnity twitter account, this makes it a totally different account. Well here's me with the KT I awarded myself for the 2 minutes it took to take this screenshot:

Despite saying on Twitter that they deleted the @BritishUnity Twitter account, in the comments on the article he says they never ever had that Twitter account.

Anyhoo, I shall leave Skinner and his EDL/SDL/Orange chums to enjoy their new-found friendship with Scotland's purveyor of hate, Graham Grant of the Scottish Daily Hate.  We have a positive message of hope to get out there, enough of the dark underbelly of the internet and its chum on the Daily Mail.

See also: Daily Mail's Witchfinder-General Graham Grant in Cahoots with Nazi Thug

Daily Mail's Witchfinder-General Graham Grant in Cahoots with Nazi Thug

It makes me feel all nostalgic for Art Deco, Hercule Poirot and  the 1930s. This time it isn't Rothermere cosying up to and supporting Moseley's Blackshirts, but Graham Grant, self-appointed Witchfinder-General for Scotland, (officially Home Affairs editor) cosying up to and working hand in glove with a Britnazi thug and internet troll by the name of Andrew Skinner with links to the fascist English Defence League and other right-wing nutjobs.

Graham Grant published on Saturday the results of a week-long "Probe" into "vile" Cybernats in The Scottish Daily Mail, which actually turned out to be an excuse to doorstep, photograph in the street and publish prurient details about ordinary Scots who happen to support independence and most of whom have never tweeted anything remotely offensive in their lives.

Who is Andrew Skinner?

Andrew Skinner runs a Facebook page entitled Vote No to Scottish Independence and Protect the Union. However, it wasn't always called that. He re-branded it last year, prior to that it was called British Unity.

You don't need to look far down the page before you find foul language and puerile insults against leading pro-independence politicians and any ordinary facebook user who posts a pro-independence comment.

Skinner has tried to clean up his act and distance his Vote No page from its EDL Neo-Nazi past. However, not being that bright traces remain, such as an old advert for his @BritishUnity Twitter account:

Let's have a wee look at that Twitter account. Oh, surprise, surprise! He or his colleagues are in contact with former EDL leader and convicted fraudster Tommy Robinson and posts some "vile abuse" to boot.

Here he or his colleagues are having a go at Muslims, a favourite EDL pastime

Here he or his colleagues tweet a friend KevC57 asking him to support a petition. Who is he? Only Kevin Carroll, Ex-leader and Co-founder of the EDL.

Here he or his colleagues ask for support from Mark Caine, another right wing, Muslim-hating nutjob with a blog and UKPrideMedia. Well, click the link.

Somewhat incongruously, he or his colleagues also have links to the Nationalist Review. Incongruous until you click the link and find it's a Neo-Nazi Britnat review.

Since Graham Grant took over as Homophobe-in-Chief at the Daily Hate from Wee Free John MacLeod after MacLeod was outed as a self-loathing closet queen in the late 1990s, and now that poof-hating is not considered polite, poor Graham has been thrashing around looking for another easily-identifiable group to bully.

His need to bully someone and landing on the Cybernats appears to have left him holding the baby for clearly identifying the Daily Mail with a Nazi thug for the first time since the 1930s.

A final piece of 1930s nostalgia for you:

See also: So who are British Unity?

Live from Chicogo: Widow Twanky's Saturday Night

 The self-styled Project Fear built up the anticipation. A "Mystery Sleb" would come out as a No supporter and deliver an Immortal Memory to the Bard, Robert, or rather Rabbie, Burns on Burns Night. I don't think I've heard the Bard referred to as Rabbie in Scotland for years, I can only thank God their mystery sleb didn't essay "Burns Nicht."

Come the night, apparently only a solitary, socially-challenged Puffin on Unst hadn't guessed that the "Mystery Sleb" was John Barrowman - quondam Dr Who, Captain Jack in something else Sci-Fi-ish that I've never watched and Panto Star. He'd actually come out as a No supporter ages ago, possibly on the advice of his Panto co-stars, The Krankies.

Appearing like some Jimmy Shand on acid in a tartan jacket (though he would probably have called it a Plaid Jacket), he proceeded to deliver his oration with all the sincerity of a Crossroads extra. The whole, cringeworthy experience was reminiscent of watching Acorn Antiques, though this wasn't meant to be a joke. Rather than an Immortal Memory, in the highest tradition of Camp Theatricals, he delivered an Immortal Mammary and made a right tit of himself.

You could see he was reading it off the idiot boards beside the camera. Presumably the toe-curlingly bad jokes were penned by Blair MacDougall, and Barrowman delivered them with the comic timing of a broken cuckoo clock.

Here's just the jokes, edited by Jack Foster:

Leaving aside that the precociously gay, 8 year old Barrowman apparently stalked the mid-West looking up men's kilts to ascertain what they were wearing underneath, the oration was laden with the Brigadoonery and nostalgia of the emigrant (Barrowman doesn't have a vote in the referendum).

All of which could have been forgiveable, had MacDougall not included a verse or two for Barrowman to recite. Perhaps because just about every artist in Scotland is signed up with National Collective, it seems MacDougall couldn't find a coach for Mr Barrowman, so he proceeded to shred the Bard. First up was half a verse from The Cotter's Saturday Night:

From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
"An honest man's the noblest work of God;"

I'm not sure if we're meant to be chuffed that Scotland is revvered [sic] abroad, whatever that means.

Thank the Lord that MacDougall only gave him 2 lines of Does Haughty Gaul Invasion Threat to recite:

O let us not, like snarling curs,

In wrangling be divided,

I dread to think how he might have shredded the next 2 lines:

Till, slap! come in an unco loun, 

And wi' a rung decide it!

Overall, the accent wisnae bad. However, I always prefer to hear people speaking as themselves. As his theme was the nostalgia of the emigrant, it might have come across as more sincere had he delivered it in his own accent. Where is Chicogo? Does it have City Boarders? In my day Boarders were boys at school and Borders were lines on a map between countries.

If you can stand it, here's the whole thing:

Cybernats commenting on the performance on Twitter encountered a new breed, the bizzare Celebrity Stalker. Some of them were less than enamoured that we weren't doling out paeons of praise comparing Barrowman's wit to that of Peter Ustinov, or his eloquence to that of Laurence Olivier. I also discovered that irony remains just a ferric adjective across the pond.

Apparently he took no fee (though he would say that, wouldn't he?). Probably very wise, I wouldn't want any of their dirty money in his position either. Wouldn't do for a Sleb to be likened to a Serbian war criminal, would it?

Anyhoo, the polls are up and, wearing my Yes badge in the pub last night, I was approached by a couple I'd never met before.  Their fears now allayed, the No camp has lost another 2 fearful souls. Wear your badge and convert folk out there in the real world. The website and Twitter was going mental yesterday and far from frightening off Cybernats, the Daily Hate jumping the shark and doorstepping and printing prurient details about ordinary decent Scots has recruited another battalion or two of Cybernats. So, in Cyberspace and beyond, be nice and convert folk!

See also:

Derek Bateman - Union Show Tickets This Way

WingsOver Scotland - Dropping the Lovebomb

Christopher Silver - Robert Burns: Another man who hated Britain.

For real Burns #indyref wit, see Wings Over Scotland - To a Grouse