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American Morning

Questions Raised Over British National Party's U.S. Connections

Aired August 31, 2001 - 11:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The British National Party has long been accused of being a racist party. It admits only whites. British authorities have accused the party of involvement in racial unrest in the North of England.

Now the group is being accused of illegal fund-raising here in the U.S.: failing to file election reports on both sides of the Atlantic -- also, of money laundering.

Our Sheila MacVicar has been looking into the far right-wing party's operations, both in this country and in Britain.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nick Griffin no longer talks about deporting all nonwhite people from the U.K. The British National Party leader now tries to sound just a little more conservative than some conservatives.

NICK GRIFFIN, BNP LEADER: Multiracial society isn't working.

MACVICAR: The party's faithful may have given up fascist salutes, but their leader has called the Holocaust a hoax. Mr. Griffin has a criminal conviction for inciting racial hatred.

GRIFFIN: This party is one and one.

MACVICAR: Under his leadership, the British National Party has grown.

GRIFFIN: We're not a racist party.

MACVICAR (on camera): You are an all-white party.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

MACVICAR: And that is a condition of membership, you must be white.

GRIFFIN: You must be of British or European descent, yes.

MACVICAR (voice-over): This summer, Britain's northern cities of Oldham and Burnley boiled with hatred and fear. Animosities between Asians and whites spilled onto the streets in a terrible outburst of violence.

GLYN FORD, ANTI-NAZI LEAGUE: There was racial tension about, and the BNP went in and aggravated that rather deliberately. And the, if you want, reap the results.

MACVICAR: The best ever results in a British general election for the BNP.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Griffin, Nicholas John, British National Party, 652.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

MACVICAR: In Oldham, while Nick Griffin lost, he did win 16 percent of the vote. Griffin mocked election officials as fearing more trouble. They would not let him or other candidates speak from the platform that night.

In a country where election campaigns are relatively cheap, just a few thousand pounds can make a big difference.

FORD: They've got a rather slick operation for an organization with not more than a thousand members, so they've got some fairly rich benefactors somewhere who are pumping resources into the BNP.

MACVICAR: Some of those benefactors are here in the United States. Operating from the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., an organization called the American Friends of the British National Party.

In Montgomery, Alabama the Southern Poverty Law Center has spent more than a year investigating British National Party activities in the United States. It's conclusion...

MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: This party is in the thick of some very ugly things in England, and that is what Americans are paying for.

MACVICAR: Meet British citizen Mark Cotterill. Since January 1999, he's organized meetings of the American Friends of the BNP.

POTOK: Mark Cotterill is a tried and true Neo-Fascist.

MACVICAR: Mark Cotterill calls himself a nationalist, but his associates are a who's who of American extremism. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, neo-Nazi William Pierce, author of "The Turner Diaries," the book that inspired Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. And Don Black, owner of the first racial hate site on the Web.

MARK COTTERILL, AF/BNP: So can anybody put $100 in?

MACVICAR: Most importantly, Mark Cotterill raises money.

COTTERILL: Can anybody else put 75 in?

MACVICAR: Some of it, but not all, at meetings like this one videotaped by Cotterill's organization.

POTOK: Based on meetings, based on checks or donations they had actually talked about on their publications, and based on a case or two where we had actually seen a check, he had gotten a minimum of $85,000.

MACVICAR: Back in the U.K., no disagreement from party leader Nick Griffin.

(on camera): One organization estimates the American Friends of the British National Party has raised in excess of $85,000.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

MACVICAR: Donations, $10,000 at a time. Six-thousand, $16,000. Have you seen that kind of money here in the U.K.?

GRIFFIN: We've seen some very useful donations, yes.

MACVICAR (voice-over): But the sum raised may be a lot more than that useful $85,000. This man is a donor and knows a lot about Mark Cotterill and his operations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The big money is raised behind the scenes and dispersed from behind the scenes.

MACVICAR (on camera): Do you think that the total raised for the British National Party here in the United States, over $100,000?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, not quite touching on 200 for the time period you mentioned.

MACVICAR: Since he came to Washington, Mark Cotterill has done everything that Nick Griffin and the BNP could have asked of him. He's brought together some of the most extreme elements of the American right wing. He's made friends with wealthy donors. He's won support for his party.

But one thing Mark Cotterill never did was register his activities with the American government.

(voice-over): The foreign agents registration act, FARA, demands that people raising money for foreign political parties register with the U.S. Justice Department. It's a felony not to. But look through their extensive files, and you won't find the names of the American Friends of the British National Party or Mark Cotterill.

BILL SHINGLETON, CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS: And the people Mujahideen are an organization of Iran, which is actually a terrorist organization, has registered under FARA. And so it's very unusual for someone not to do it, and obviously, that leads to all sorts of questions about why they would not do it.

MACVICAR: One reason perhaps: the kind of information you'd have to tell the government, lists of meetings, of donors, even those who gave just $50. (on camera): If you were someone looking at this, you could get a picture of who's giving money?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

MACVICAR: Invited by Mark Cotterill to his apartment, we found he knew about the law, had the paperwork right there. And he told us two years ago he'd even been to the Justice Department.

COTTERILL: I went down to find out where I stood.

MACVICAR (on camera): You told them you were an American representative, an American-based representative of a foreign political party?

COTTERILL: That's correct.

MACVICAR: That you were raising money on behalf of that foreign political party and the Department of Justice, and you didn't need to register?

COTTERILL: That is correct.

POTOK: In the opinion of all of our lawyers here make perfectly crystal clear that in fact, Mark Cotterill is in violation of the foreign agents registration act. And we certainly expect that the Department of Justice will act on it.

MACVICAR: That may not be the end of legal problems for Mark Cotterill or the British National Party. Their legal problems may go all the way back to the United Kingdom. British electoral law now restricts foreign donations from individuals to under 200 pounds, that's about $280. And British electoral law demands that political parties register all larger donations they receive on a weekly basis during an election campaign.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Nick Griffin.

(APPLAUSE)

MACVICAR: Here's Nick Griffin speaking to an American audience in May in Port Lee, New Jersey, on one of Mark Cotterills' own videotapes.

GRIFFIN: Perhaps there's one or two people here who have lots and lots of money. If so, that's great, and please, can we have some of it?

MACVICAR: Just days after the British election was called, Mr. Griffin had embarked on a fund-raising tour of the United States.

(on camera): It's very clear that there was money raised on behalf of the party on that trip, correct?

COTTERILL: Yes, people gave Nick Griffin checks to take back, yes. MACVICAR: Did you use American-raised funds in this last election?

GRIFFIN: Yes, certainly, but only a few thousand pounds.

MACVICAR (voice-over): Check the registers of the British Electoral Commission, and there are no records of any donations during the election campaign when Mr. Griffin was in the United States. And as for compliance with the 200-pound foreign donation limit, this donor says he witnessed Mark Cotterill's strategy to get much larger cash donations to Britain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Cotterill will convene a meeting of maybe 10 or 12 attendees.

MACVICAR (on camera): These are people he knows?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People he knows, yes. And he will dole out money to them and they will then write a check in the equivalent amount.

MACVICAR: That sounds an awful lot like money laundering.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It could be called that.

MACVICAR (voice-over): Mark Cotterill showed us his ledgers. He denies ever receiving large donations, cash or check, or being involved in money laundering.

(on camera): Was there ever an instance when you gave people cash and asked them to write checks to the BNP in exchange for that cash?

COTTERILL: No, never.

MACVICAR (voice-over): He told us he'd held only three fund- raising meetings a year, but the group's own publication detailed 12 meetings, and the Southern Poverty Law Center says it has documented 20 meetings in just over two years.

All of this could mean an investigation by the UK electoral commission.

CHRISTOPHER WELFORD, UK ELECTORAL COMMISSION: If we were aware of the situation, we would, in accordance with the act, investigate. The act gives us powers of both civil and criminal enforcement.

MACVICAR: Just days after we visited Mark Cotterill, he sent out this e-mail, resigning as head of the American Friends of the BNP for what he said were "personal and political reasons." He did not elaborate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And we're lucky enough to have Sheila MacVicar with us here in person in Atlanta. We usually find you overseas in some dangerous place, but glad to have with you us here safely.

MACVICAR: Thank you.

KAGAN: Fascinating report -- the question is: Where does it go from here?

MACVICAR: Well, as you saw in the report, Mark Cotterill has resigned as the head of the American Friends of the British National Party. And the Southern Poverty Law Center has written to Attorney General Ashcroft. They have sent -- their lawyers have sent documents to the attorney general.

They say that they believe that there is clearly a case to answer for here. And they're waiting to hear back from the attorney general, as are we. We've been trying to talk to the Justice Department and have yet to hear anything from them.

KAGAN: And we will count on you to follow up.

MACVICAR: Sure.

KAGAN: Thanks, Sheila MacVicar.

Welcome to CNN in person, I can say. We've been able to do the overseas, but it's really good to have you here.

MACVICAR: Thank you.

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