'There's only one race - the human race'

6:01am Wednesday 24th January 2007

WHEN the far-right British National Party started delivering leaflets in Trimdon, County Durham, Margaret Brown was disappointed, but not surprised. She has lived with racism all her life.

Margaret was born in Notting Hill, London, in 1957, to a white Irish mother and a black Jamaican father. A year later, West Indians were assaulted, and their homes attacked, during the Notting Hill race riots.

In 1959, the fascist Sir Oswald Mosley stood in nearby Kensington as a parliamentary candidate. His campaign message was "Keep Britain White".

Margaret, 49, now lives in Trimdon with her partner of seven years, Phil Wilson, 47. She is one of the few non-white faces in the village.

"It is painful to see these hypocrites moving into a place like Trimdon, where I have been accepted," she says. "Whatever they call themselves, however they dress themselves up, this is the same as they have always been."

The BNP preaches racial separation, claming all races, and cultures, are too precious to mix. But Margaret would not exist without racial integration.

"This has always been an issue that mixed heritage people such as myself have faced," she says. "They said we would be backward, and we would need to be put in a mental institute.

"They used to say we didn't wash properly, and that we ate cat food and dog food. It was a bit more blatant in those days - signs saying 'No blacks, no Irish, no dogs' - but it is still the same message.

"The articulate few are peddling their nonsense, causing disruption and disharmony."

Margaret's partner, Phil, is 'Trimdon born and bred'. His family descend from Irish immigrants, but have lived in Trimdon for five generations.

"The BNP say they are not racists, they are racial separatists," says Phil, who used to work for Tony Blair in his Sedgefield constituency. "But where does that leave me and Margaret?

"Does that mean, under the BNP, we couldn't cohabit, couldn't marry? Would we have to book appointments on Sunday afternoons to see each other?

"In this country, we have a long tradition of people coming in and adding value to the nation. When you scratch away the veneer the BNP is a deeply racist organisation."

In London, where Phil and Margaret work during the week, they have received racist abuse.

"I've been called a nigger-lover," Phil says. "Cars have slowed down and shouted 'nigger' at Margaret.

"In a supermarket, some guy came up to her and said 'Get back to your own country'. But she is from this country."

Phil and Margaret, both Labour Party members, believe the BNP specialises in scaremongering.

"The BNP will go into a community and create division where division doesn't exist," Phil says. "The leaflets in Trimdon emphasise crime. They're living on fear.

"But if you look at the crime figures for the Sedgefield Borough they are below the national average. Of course, there is crime here, but in the great scheme of things, there is not much."

Neither Phil or Margaret wants the BNP banned. "Our political system is strong enough to cope," Phil says. And they both want immigration policies to be debated properly.

But both want the BNP to remain what it is: a fringe party, largely ignored by the British people.

"What they give people in deprived areas is an excuse, someone else to blame," Margaret says.

"This is just people who haven't got what they want out of life. Nick Griffin is entitled to his beliefs, but what he is not entitled to is to force his views on other people.

"My kids have got friends from all over the place, they mix together, they understand each others' culture. It doesn't take repression, it takes education.

"What is an English person, a British person? There is only one race, and it is the human race."

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