28 July, 2007
The "BNP bombers of Colne"
A bit late I know. Now that the second trial of Robert Cottage and Dave Jackson has collapsed, there has been a certain amount of predictable whingeing from the conspiracy-theory Left (eg the UAF) and doubtless from the UK Committee of Permanently Offended Muslims as well, to the effect that it was all a cover-up, that it would have been handled differently had the suspects been Muslims, etc, etc.
Bollocks. As a bomb-making plot, the Cottage case was never going to fly. Cottage is not some organized BNP cell preparing a dastardly plan to blow up the Burnley mosque, or whatever. Cottage is a slightly deranged individual. His obsessive if not entirely irrational fear that ethnic tension in East Lancashire between an increasingly disgruntled indigenous population and an inexorably rising South Asian immigrant population would lead to major civil unrest ("civil war"), led him to take survivalist precautions. The stuff found at his house was preparations not to launch an attack but to withstand a siege: to protect himself against the howling mob outside. Even the "plausible precursor chemicals" to explosives should be seen in this light, and if the quantities were excessive, that is just the overreaction of a paranoid man, not a plan to blow up the world.
If the Left is disappointed that its much-desired BNP Bomber has "got away with it", well I'm sorry, guys, he never existed except in your dreams.
Let's hope the Judge has the common sense to issue a slap on the wrist rather than a jail term to Mr Cottage on the admitted charge of possession of explosives, so that this fatuous matter can be brought to a close without further waste of taxpayers' money.
Bollocks. As a bomb-making plot, the Cottage case was never going to fly. Cottage is not some organized BNP cell preparing a dastardly plan to blow up the Burnley mosque, or whatever. Cottage is a slightly deranged individual. His obsessive if not entirely irrational fear that ethnic tension in East Lancashire between an increasingly disgruntled indigenous population and an inexorably rising South Asian immigrant population would lead to major civil unrest ("civil war"), led him to take survivalist precautions. The stuff found at his house was preparations not to launch an attack but to withstand a siege: to protect himself against the howling mob outside. Even the "plausible precursor chemicals" to explosives should be seen in this light, and if the quantities were excessive, that is just the overreaction of a paranoid man, not a plan to blow up the world.
If the Left is disappointed that its much-desired BNP Bomber has "got away with it", well I'm sorry, guys, he never existed except in your dreams.
Let's hope the Judge has the common sense to issue a slap on the wrist rather than a jail term to Mr Cottage on the admitted charge of possession of explosives, so that this fatuous matter can be brought to a close without further waste of taxpayers' money.
# posted by Edwin Greenwood @ 13:23 
