It seems irony is lost on BNP Chairman Nick Griffin. This is from one of Griffin’s recent emails, entitled “Totalitarian Britain Just Around The Corner” (surprisingly, they’re not in fact referring to themselves):

“When the idea of an Equality Law was first mooted, many left-wing Christians in particular believed that it was only aimed at the British National Party and at overtly patriotic individuals and ideas.

Now they are beginning to realise how wrong they were, and how they should have remembered and updated the words of Pastor Niemuller: “First they came for the Nationalists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Nationalist. Then they came for the patriots, and I did not speak out, because I was not a patriot, And so on until then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me”.

Yes, you read that correctly. Nick “Adolf went a bit too far” Griffin, who first read, admired and scribbled notes in the margins of Mein Kampf at the age of thirteen, has actually inverted one of the most famous warnings of the dangers of fascism into a defence of him and his fellow fascists cranks.

Griffin is not the first to deliberately miss the point of the original poem. Laura Ingraham, a conservative protesting the Senate Healthcare Bill in the US, actually came up with this version at a rally:

“First they came for the rich. And I did not speak out because I was not rich. Then they came for the property owners, and I did not speak out because I did not own property. Then they came for the right to bear arms, and I did not speak out because I was not armed. Then they came for me and denied me my medical care, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Improved health care provision and fascism, yeah they’re the same.