There’s been a bit of a fuss in the media of late about the BNP’s use of military imagery. A letter’s been published signed by various prominent military figures warning of “extremists” trying to “hijack the good name of Britain’s military for their own advantage”. If you’re wondering who these “extremists” are, that’s understandable, since “extremist” is basically a meaningless political swearword that can be (and often is) thrown at anyone who feels strongly about anything, from Mussolini to Martin Luther King and from to the Pankhursts to Pol Pot. But then the letter goes on to explain that these people “are essentially racist”, which clears things up a bit, since no-one likes racism (although beware if you’re an anti-racist who feels extremely strongly about it, because that might make you one of those nasty extremists). So that’s alright then, isn’t it?

But if you take a moment to stop and think about it, it’s not hard to see the colossal irony here: this is the Armed Forces we’re talking about. Their entire purpose is to kill large numbers of foreigners. This isn’t overblown rhetoric or anything, it’s a simple fact that if, at various times over the last century, soldiers refused to kill Germans, Italians, Koreans, Egyptians, Kenyans, Yemenis, Argentinians, Iraqis and Afghans (among others), they were court-marshalled. For military leaders to complain about people who don’t like foreigners trying to steal their image is like Arsenal complaining about their proud traditions being hijacked by extremists who really like kicking footballs around in a field. They’re basically saying “we didn’t slaughter thousands and thousands of poorly-armed brown conscripts so you lot could go around being horrible to people from other races.”