Purged! British National Party councillor Simon Smith forced out

One of the BNP’s better known West Midlands councillors has been forced out of the party as Nick Griffin and his acolytes continue their long predicted purge of the “vermin” who supported Chris Jackson against Griffin in the BNP’s rigged leadership contest.

Ostensibly resigning his membership, a statement issued by Griffin’s deputy Simon Darby leaves little doubt that Smith’s resignation was anything but voluntary.

In a communication that should affront the intelligence of even the dimmest BNP member, Darby says:

It was well known that former Black Country organiser Simon Smith was a supporter of Chris Jackson in the recent leadership challenge. This was of course his democratic right and further to this two senior representatives of the challenger’s campaign spoke openly at a Black Country meeting freely promoting their candidate.

Unfortunately, at this meeting despite being asked to refrain from expressing his personal beliefs, during his own speech Simon Smith once again referred to 9/11 as being “an inside job”. In fact, despite having being told how politically damaging this form of pro-Muslim crankery could be, he emphasised his belief twice stating that “he would stake his life on it”.

Shortly after the Leadership election Simon Smith was made aware that an investigation was to take place concerning how a membership list had made its way to a former Birmingham organiser. This list, although sent to several people, was in fact never actually used. Further to this Simon Smith was told that the list dated back to the time when he was heavily involved in processing Party memberships and at one point during that time scale Simon Smith had actually left his computer at the home of that former Birmingham organiser. At no point however, was it inferred at that time that Simon Smith was actually to blame for the severe breach of security.

On the 27th July, after the leadership election results had been announced, Simon Smith sent an email to several BNP members as well as other people. Unforgiveably, one of the two attachments also contained in this email was an article complete with reader comments copied directly from a UAF site.

Simon Smith was shown a copy of the original email he had sent out early yesterday (August 14) afternoon and asked to explain the very serious implications as to what he had done. Three hours later Simon Smith admitted to having sent the email and announced that he was resigning from the BNP.

There we have the truth of the matter.

The “truth of the matter”?

Today Simon Darby told the Birmingham Post something slightly different:

“We had a leadership election which Nick Griffin won with 91 per cent of the vote. Simon could not accept that.”

Darby’s first statement is, of course, for internal BNP consumption. He brings in Smith’s frequently stated contention that the attack on the Twin Towers was “an inside job” (not exactly an uncommon opinion on the far-Right), and says that Smith was asked to refrain from making such statements having been told “how politically damaging this form of pro-Muslim crankery could be”. How this could be damaging in a meeting open only to BNP members isn’t clear - but that Jackson supporters like Smith were being told by Griffinites what they could and could not say in an internal election meeting speaks volumes for the paranoia at the top of the party.

The deputy chairman’s next trick is to effectively blame Smith for a BNP membership list falling into the hands of Sharon Ebanks, while claiming not to blame him at all. If “At no point… was it inferred at that time that Simon Smith was actually to blame for the severe breach of security” then why does Darby mention it at all? Why does Darby include the strange qualification “at that time”? Is it being inferred now?

Finally there is Simon Smith’s email. Darby does not disclose the contents, which presumably contain the real meat of the subject, but again pandering to his largely gullible BNP audience he lays stress on an attachment that apparently included an article complete with reader comments copied directly from a UAF site. How that could be seen as a crime, even by the standards of the BNP, is anybody’s guess - though we’d hazard a guess as to which site the post and comments came from ;-).

That Smith included such matter with his email gives us a very good idea of how that email must have read - unpleasantly, for Nick Griffin, we must suppose. And whatever it said was clearly used as a pretext to force Smith into jumping before the threat of being pushed was carried out. Reading Darby’s disingenuous words, you can almost see the gun being held to Smith’s head.

The simple fact is that Smith’s resignation has nothing to do with “pro-Muslim crankery”, missing membership lists and email attachments lifted from UAF websites.

It’s about retribution against those who have finally worked out that something is very wrong at the top of the BNP and dared to say so, and it’s about exterminating the last vestiges of internal opposition to Nick Griffin.

With the departure of Simon Smith the BNP has lost yet another councillor. The character of that councillor may leave much to be desired but in BNP terms he was just the ticket - he ungraciously walked out of a council meeting that elected a Sikh as mayor of Sandwell, and has compared Hitler with Christ, among other matters.

That Griffin - and it can only have been Griffin - was prepared to force one of his tiny band of councillors out of the party, risking attendant negative publicity for the BNP and yet another blow to the morale of its members heavily underlines the lesson for so long taught here and at our allied websites: whatever the average BNP member may think the BNP is, Griffin has different ideas. First and foremost it is, as the veteran fascist Martin Webster puts it, the Griffin Family Business.

It’s Griffin’s cash-cow and he’s not going to surrender it lightly, as his insane blog rantings against the “cranks” “Hollywood Nazis” “congenital losers” “thieves” and “vermin” who had the temerity to ask awkward questions and mount a challenge against him have discovered.

It’s only a matter of time before the next victim of Griffin’s paranoia is selected for the chop. Keep watching this space.