Martin Webster joins in attack on BNP's far from democratic Nick Griffin

We received an email from Martin Webster yesterday, referring to the proposed leadership challenge in the BNP. Webster, not being a noted fan on the BNP leader (despite having something of a history with him), has launched a fierce verbal attack on the ludicrous and undemocratic tweaks to the internal election rules that Griffin has made to ensure his victory.

Griffin's further tweaks to the leadership election 'rules'

In recent weeks there has been much internet traffic about a possible challenge to Nick Griffin's Chairmanship of the British National Party. One name mentioned in this respect was that of Chris Jackson, the party's competent NW of England Regional Organiser.

I have issued to a small circle of friends and acquaintances within the BNP and elsewhere a number of commentaries about the situation, both in terms of the corrupt nature of the BNP's 'constitution' and the appropriate time for such a challenge. To any who receive this but who have not received my earlier commentaries, please feel free to contact me for copies of the same.

Meanwhile, somebody has just forwarded me a page from the BNP web site concerning the party's rather opaque 'rules' [reprinted below this item] for staging an election for the post of party leader/"chairman". The contents of this page rather confirms my earlier observations.

I have not had time to give this document a forensic examination, but already I can see that it contains a number of splendid jokes, not least when it talks of the BNP's system for organising leadership elections as:

'...an unusually democratic system for choosing - and replacing - the leader'

Griffin makes it clear in the last ten words of paragraph 6 how he will 'load' the dice against any opponent should a challenge be launched against him:

'All candidates receive equal space in the internal members’ bulletin, British Nationalist for a 'manifesto' statement. No party publications or web facilities may be used to recommend or promote any candidate, although they will continue to report normally on party activities.'

In other words, during the campaign period the party's publications and web site will contain a high degree of personal publicity for Griffin while his opponents will only be allowed to publish a brief 'manifesto' in the party's tatty, small format bulletin.

Paragraph 6 also makes it clear that challenger candidates will not be able to balance Griffin's monopoly domination of the party's print and electronic media by issuing their own print or electronic propaganda to the membership.

Any criticism of Griffin and his policies will be even more rigorously censored than they are at present in BNP web site 'discussion' forums, though contributors will have full freedom to express how very wonderful, wise, brave and competent 'The Dear Leader' is.

It should be noted that while paragraph 7 states...

'Candidates and party members supporting them are of course perfectly entitled to speak on the issue at party meetings.'

...it forgets to mention that Griffin will be able as usual to travel around the country with his retinue of bodyguards at the expense of the membership, while any candidate standing against him or spokespersons for the same will have to find their own travel expenses, over-night accommodation and other out-of-pocket expenses.

Perhaps the most outrageous announcement is made in paragraph 8:

'Precise final details of how a leadership contest is to be run are decided and publicised immediately after the 30th June in any year in which valid nominations are received from a challenger or challengers.'

But as the period for nomination of candidates in the election (see paragraph 4)...

'...opens on 1st June and closes on 30th June each year...'

...then it means that persons seeking to challenge Griffin for the leadership of the party in an election will only know the 'precise final details of how the leadership contest is to be run' after Griffin has seen what kind of challenge confronts him and what kind of arrangements and rules he has tweaked to give himself the best possible advantage!

What person with more than half a brain would enter any kind of contest - even a tiddlywinks game - without knowing in advance precisely what rules apply?

Who but a moron, a crank exhibitionist or an agent provocateur would enter an electoral contest where the rules are set by one's principal opponent - and after the closing date for involvement in the competition?

This is why I say that the assertion that the party's (correction: Nick Griffin's) arrangements are '...an unusually democratic system for choosing - and replacing - the leader...' is a tremendous joke.

From all this, it will be seen that BNP candidates standing in Parliamentary and local council elections get a far fairer deal from the Establishment's political system that Griffin grants to his fellow party members.

Those BNP members put up with Griffin's Robert Mugabe-style travesty of an election system are either as corrupt as Griffin himself (the minority, mainly in Griffin's coterie) or they are as politically ignorant, stupid and brain-dead as the vast majority of the rest of the native British population.

However, the decent and aware members of the BNP, however large or small a proportion or the membership they may be, must not give up in despair. They must 'hang on in there', argue the principles of the issues involved, keep their powder dry and await their moment of opportunity.

Unfortunately, that moment is not now or on the immediate horizon. But that moment WILL come. Griffin is a deeply corrupt man and he is soaping the stairs for himself. Let us hope that the cause of British nationalism does not take a catastrophic tumble along with him.

Martin Webster

The rules for the leadership election as set out on the BNP web site [paragraphs numbered by M.W. for ease of reference]

1. The constitution of the British National Party was designed so that the party leader has more power than in many other parties. This system was adopted when the BNP was founded as a result of more than a decade of prior experience, of the way in which rule by a directorate or committee was a recipe for disastrous factional in-fighting and division in a nationalist party.

2. It was, however, acknowledged right from the start that such a concentration of power needs to be balanced by a high degree of accountability by the leader to the membership, and by an unusually democratic system for choosing - and replacing - the leader.

3. The constitution therefore states that the current leader may be challenged in any year by any member with more than five years’ unbroken membership who is also either an office holder within the party or who secures the backing of 100 members in good standing paid up for the current year. The signing of such a paper is taken simply as an indication that the assenter recognises the right of the challenger to stand, and does not necessarily indicate support for any or all of the candidate's proposals.

4. While there does not have to be any such contest (there has only been one in the party's history -- in 1999, when Mr. Griffin was elected by a substantial majority), the period during which nominations must be submitted via registered post to the BNP's registered headquarters, PO Box 14, Welshpool, SY21 0WE, opens on 1st June and closes on 30th June each year.

Secret ballot

5. In the event of no valid nominations being submitted, the current party leader is deemed to have been elected unopposed for a further year. If a contest does take place a secret postal ballot of all members paid up since January of the current year is held before the end of September.

6. All candidates receive equal space in the internal members’ bulletin, British Nationalist for a 'manifesto' statement. No party publications or web facilities may be used to recommend or promote any candidate, although they will continue to report normally on party activities.

7. In order to avoid either benefiting the incumbent leader or encouraging the illegitimate collection and use of membership details, no candidate may issue or have issued on his or her behalf any separate promotional material by post or email. Candidates and party members supporting them are of course perfectly entitled to speak on the issue at party meetings.

8. Precise final details of how a leadership contest is to be run are decided and publicised immediately after the 30th June in any year in which valid nominations are received from a challenger or challengers.

9. The current party leader, Nick Griffin, has indicated that he intends at present to continue in that position for several years longer at least, but that he would welcome a properly conducted challenge as a way of confirming his popular mandate to continue running the party along present lines, and of displaying the BNP's unusually democratic leadership selection system to the British people as a whole.