More embarrassment for the Barking barnstormer

Richard Barnbrook, the British National Party’s leader on Barking and Dagenham Council, seems to think that incurable and often fatal industrial diseases are a bit of a joke.

Councillors at last month’s full council meeting were asked to approve a site for a permanent memorial to the many local victims of asbestos. Barking and Dagenham has one of the country’s highest incidences of asbestos-related diseases because of the former Cape Asbestos factory in the borough. Many of the people who contracted asbestosis or mesothelioma were wives of workers who washed their husbands’ overalls.

The proposal for a memorial arose from a petition from local people, led by the Barking and Dagenham Asbestosis Victims’ Support Group and the trade union Unison. Councillors had been given a report in advance of the meeting and at the meeting the council’s Corporate Director of Customer Services outlined the background explaining that it had cost £1.2 million to make the area safe and that a memorial would cost £3,500 to £5,000.

Up jumped Barnbrook, who has ambitions to become the BNP’s first London Assembly member. Admitting he had not read the report he asked, 'How much exactly has it cost to make safe the area and how much would the memorial cost?'

Being reminded that he had just been told this angered him and he continued: 'This factory was demolished in 1968. I was born in 1961 so it closed when I was nine years of age'. He went on to make some insensitive and uninformed remarks about how long the project had taken, finally adding, 'If you’re going to make it one of those dancing lady memorials, may I suggest it is in the image of Simone Clarke [his girl friend who became known as the BNP ballerina last December] as she is a dancing lady too...erm, um, er, that was a joke by the way...'.

This prompted Labour Councillor Jean Alexander, who has relatives who contracted asbestosis, to explode with rage. Her taunts that the BNP councillors were 'Johnny come latelys' in turn angered BNP Councillor Robert Bailey, which led to Labour’s Liam Smith telling him to 'sit down and shut up'. Bailey then erupted with personal insults.

Bailey and Smith, standing in as Leader of the Council, clashed again during question time after Bailey asked whether the Labour Party thought it was a good thing that 'the white indigenous British people of Barking and Dagenham' would be a minority in ten years’ time.

Pressed on the meaning of 'indigenous' Bailey eventually responded, 'White and British', at which Smith reeled off a list of famous Irish people – Lord Kitchener, Montgomery and Nelson – who 'came to defend England in her hour of need'.

Moving on to another of the BNP’s obsessions, crime, Barnbrook claimed that knife crime in his ward was up six-fold this year. 'I refer you to the stabbings at Becontree station'.

'Becontree station is not in your ward', retorted Smith. 'Oh' said Barnbrook.

With this sort of performance perhaps it is just as well that the BNP’s Barking and Dagenham councillors do not turn up very often. The best are Barnbrook and Lawrence Rustem, who attended 69% of their allocated meetings between 16 May and 27 September according to council records. Among the others, Councillor Jamie Jarvis turned up at just three of the 12 meetings he should have attended and Councillors Ronald Doncaster and Darren Tuffs went to three out of nine expected meetings.

Although Barnbrook attends more meetings than his colleague Councillor Robert Buckley, it is Buckley who puts in the most time on ward casework. There is growing acrimony between the two and many BNP members in London were surprised and annoyed when Barnbrook was selected as the BNP’s candidate in next year’s London mayoral election. They were prepared to put up with it on the basis that a BNP mayoral candidate could achieve little more than show the party’s face in the election, that is until it emerged that Barnbrook would also head the BNP’s list for the London Assembly. All he needs is 5% of the vote across London to become the BNP’s first Assembly member, a percentage that the party nearly achieved last time round in 2004.