The British National Party (BNP) has confirmed a statement in the North's Assembly yesterday that it intends using the Twelfth of July Orange marching season to attract new members. The party also intends standing candidates in the 2011 Assembly elections, a spokesman said.
Ulster Unionist deputy leader Danny Kennedy, during an Assembly debate on racial equality, said the BNP planned a recruitment drive over the Twelfth of July period. He branded the BNP a hate-mongering racist party which must be rejected in Northern Ireland.
"I have said to them that this isn't the kind of imported hate-mongering that we want or need in Northern Ireland," he said.
The Orange Order said yesterday that "fascist organisations were not welcome at Twelfth parades".
Mr Kennedy added: "I welcome the indications from the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland which resolutely condemn and oppose this move."
BNP spokesman Dr Phil Edwards said his party would be taking advantage of the Twelfth of July period to enrol new members. "The BNP doesn't recruit, armies recruit. We are inviting people to join," he said.
He rejected Mr Kennedy's assertion, echoed by several other speakers in the Assembly yesterday, that the BNP was a "hate-mongering" party.
"The BNP exists to preserve the traditional culture and identity of Britain. How can that be peddling hate," Dr Edwards told The Irish Times.
Dr Edwards, who has a PhD in science, said the BNP was already established in Northern Ireland and that it would be standing a number of candidates in the next Assembly elections.
Sinn Féin MLA Martina Anderson said there were 936 racist incidents in the past year, double the total for the previous two years. She said some loyalists were behind a significant number of racist attacks and that unionist politicians should be doing more to address that problem.
Alliance MLA Anna Lo, originally from Hong Kong, said that racism was not a new phenomenon in Northern Ireland. "A couple of years after I arrived in the 70s I was kicked in Belfast City Centre in broad daylight walking to catch a bus to go home," she said. She said racism was on the increase in Northern Ireland and that a policy of "zero tolerance" must be pursued.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said "no part of society has a monopoly on racism and we must act to eradicate it as quickly as possible".
The Assembly endorsed an Alliance motion, amended by Sinn Féin, calling for a continuing and speedy implementation of a racial equality strategy for Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, First Minister Ian Paisley told the Assembly during a debate on victims that he and Mr McGuinness would draw up a programme to address the concerns of victims and survivors of violence that would be published in the autumn.
Dr Paisley said that his office hoped to appoint a new victims commissioner shortly to replace the former interim victims commissioner Bertha McDougall. "We will ensure that the voices of victims and survivors are heard," he said.
Dr Paisley said he had a message for the victims. "You are not forgotten, nor will you ever be forgotten. I have discovered that tears have no political colours; they have no religious colours; they are all tears; tears of the anguished and broken hearts and everlasting parting," he said.
DUP MLA Gregory Campbell, referring to how IRA Shankill bomber Sean Kelly died with the other victims of the 1993 Shankill bombing, said there must be no comparison between perpetrator and victim in addressing the issue.
"There were those who were guilty, those who pulled the trigger were guilty, they were not innocent and if they perished by their own hand then they were not innocent victims," he said.