Willow Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 A few of my facebook friends have been sharing/liking photos&slogans posted by Britain First. Whilst these posts align with popular patriotic sentiment some made me just a bit uneasy so I decided to do some digging. I was appalled to discover 'Britain First' was set up by and is run by ex-BNP members. In their own words 'Britain First is a patriotic political party and street defence organisation' (street defence organisation has echos of the National Front in the 70's). Their facebook page headlines with ‘The New Crusade begins’ and they are the people who have been exploiting Lee Rigby's name to stir up anti Muslim feeling to the distress of his family. They also often use images of our armed forces without their permission to create popular posts. I know none of my facebook friends who have shared the BF posts are racists or would support an organisation like the BF (NF or BNP) rather they have innocently 'liked' patriotic pictures&slogans without looking at who is behind the posts and who/what they are legitimising by 'liking' their posts. Are we the last to realise who/what the BF are ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lavenders_Blue Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 I've never heard of them. I've not come across anything on Facebook (yet?) but by the sounds of it it might not be long before I find a photo popping up on my newsfeed. Thanks for the heads up about who they are, as I don't think any of my friends would knowingly support anything like this either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lavenders_Blue Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 I've now started to see photos popping up on Facebook. I see what you mean - the photos that are being shared come across as patriotic but their Facebook page is rather more sinister. The photos have got 1000s of shares - I wonder what proportion of those people have shared in complete innocence? The majority I would imagine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willow Posted May 2, 2014 Author Share Posted May 2, 2014 Sadly I think the majority share in innocence but the problem with people doing that is they legitimise the group and they gradually get people used to their messaging so they share more extreme messages. I realised everytime I saw one of their messages it made me feel like someone was telling me to go back to where I came from even though I was born in this country and know that whilst I love to travel I chose and want to live in England. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...