BNP's ‘Africans for Essex’ lie nailed

The British National Party’s “Africans for Essex” claim has been conclusively proved a lie. Research conducted during the summer shows that only 30 people moved into Barking and Dagenham via a cash incentive scheme over the past four years, of whom only nine were of African origin.

Just as significantly, not one Barking and Dagenham household took advantage of the scheme.

The BNP has prospered in the east London borough as a result of claims that Africans are being offered £50,000 to buy properties in the area as part of a scheme by the Labour authority to ensure electoral success in the future. With a shortage of low cost social housing, rising house prices in the private sector and the fastest changing community in the country, many local people have believed the BNP lie.

Now, evidence has emerged that conclusively proves this claim is utter nonsense. Research by Margaret Hodge, the MP for Barking, shows that only 19 of London’s 33 local authorities run a cash incentive scheme designed to help council tenants buy a property outside the borough instead of buying their existing council homes. Because council properties are in such short supply this scheme costs the local authority far less than the subsidy given to tenants under Right to Buy.

The MP’s investigation revealed that only 1,332 people across London had taken advantage of this scheme over the past four years, of whom only 30 moved into Barking and Dagenham. Of these, seven were white, nine were Asian, nine were black (of whom six were black African) and five did not have their ethnicity recorded.

Twenty-one of the 30 came from Tower Hamlets alone. Of these, six were white British, nine Asian, one black Caribbean and only three black African. The backgrounds of the remaining three were unknown.

It was also found that the average payment made to those people who moved into the borough was only £16,000 – far less than the £50,000 figure the BNP had peddled.

While the facts will not stop the BNP regurgitating this lie, the research can be used to persuade local opinion formers of the untrustworthiness of the BNP.

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