The BNP's five days of complete chaos

Harold Wilson famously said 'a week is a long time in politics'. He wasn't wrong but for Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, just the past five days must feel like a lifetime. The worst however, may be yet to come.

Yes, it's a mere five days since Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith were turfed out of the party for setting up a web site attacking Griffin's trio of court jesters, Mark Collett, Dave Hannam and John Walker. And if you thought it was longer than that, imagine how long it must seem to Griffin, who must be feeling like the roof just fell in when he least expected it.

In those five days, something around sixty prominent party members have either stood down from their organiser or fundholder (treasurer) positions or resigned the whip as councillors (meaning that they are still councillors but are non-aligned Independents rather that representing the BNP). Just this alone is a huge blow to the BNP, bringing its numer of councillors down to forty-five, a loss of five since the last local government elections in May. Shocking, particularly for a party that claims to be on the route to power.

Those sixty represent far more than their numbers imply. Among them are such luminaries as Graham and Smith themselves, essential cogs in the machinery of the BNP, and well-known names like Chris Beverley, Danny Lake, Ian Dawson, Lee Haggan, Matt Single, Nicholla Smith, Peter Hollings, former Deputy Chair of the party Scott McLean, former Press Officer Stuart Russell and former web site editor Steve Blake. Besides this lot, there are, if our correspondents are correct (and they usually are) dozens more who are saying they are going to resign and numerous members who are simply going to let their membership of the party lapse.

But why all the fuss just because a couple of high-ranking party officers decided to have a go at one of Griffin's blue-eyed boys and got the sack for what was surely a legitimately sackable offence? Mark Collett, the Hitler-worshipping buffoon at the centre of all the original fuss, can only be surprised that there hasn't been an internal revolution against him before now. He is, after all, notable for his startling arrogance and an unerring ability to put his foot firmly in his mouth whenever he is in front of a TV camera but despite taking idiocy to new heights, Collett has hung on in the party for years.

The truth is that there has been an underlying disatisfaction with the way the party operates for some time. This has been mentioned by our correspondents on numerous occasions and every single one of them has pointed to either financial mismanagement (and frequently misappropriation of funds) or sexual shenanigans as the reason for their disquiet. One of them emailed us back in October, stating that, 'once the criminal investigations start (if they ever do), the floodgates will open and everyone will run for cover as it all falls apart'.

This is, I hope, what we're seeing the beginning of now. Since Sunday, when all this began, we've seen a resurgence of the story of the two young girls lured into the Blackpool conference last year by, it is alleged, Collett and Hannam. Matt Single, Sadie Graham's partner and former BNP security team member, posted this on the Enough is Enough blog yesterday;

'At last years conference in Blackpool, I witnessed Collett and Hannam attempt to have sexual relations with two girls that were obviously under the age of sexual consent...'

Strange that a party that is so keen to attack paedophiles and takes up much of its campaigning time talking of the 'grooming' of underage girls should have largely ignored this event, and even stranger that Single should take the moral high ground about this issue now when he has had nothing to say about it for more than a year. Still, news has also emerged that this has been formally reported to the police by someone other than us and the local paper (who were both sent copies of a snippet of film of the event), so let's hope that something is finally to be done about it.

But this isn't all, by any means. The floodgates appear to be opening quite widely at the moment.

The incident where the BNP's security team illegally gained access to Graham and Single's home and stole her personal computer may take on rather more importance over the next few days. Graham states on her blog;

'They took every peice of office equipment in our house, just two items which belonged to the BNP, which I accept. However the computer and the majority of what they took is mine. They knew this but took it anyway.'

Clearly, the security team unlawfully gained entry to Graham's home and the BNP has just as unlawfully prowled through her emails and telephone recordings. But Graham isn't one to take this kind of stuff lying down, as witnessed by her further statement;

'yes the police are investigating and they are well aware of all the issues. They have said that it was definitley theft and entry by deception. I have also yesterday sought legal advice with a solicitor who states that I have various claims against the party if I would want to take it further.'

So the police are being nudged into investigating the allegations against Collett and Hannam and now also the allegations of theft against the party itself. But this woeful story doesn't end there.

As reported yesterday, the BNP is about to be investigated by the Electoral Commission for not reporting a donation of more than £5000 that it was legally required to report. There is plenty of evidence of the donation - the party made a big deal of it on its tedious BNPtv - so any denials will ring just a little hollow. This curious omission from the accounts and the subsequent investigation is also likely to once again bring up the interesting question of why the main BNP accounts are themselves four months late.

As if all this trouble isn't enough to be going on with, Stop the BNP reports that Labour MP Jon Cruddas has written to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to demand that they investigate what he believes 'are criminal activities involving senior members of the British National Party'. He also raised the matter in the House of Commons and demanded a full debate.

'Jon Cruddas has asked the police to investigate allegations that the BNP leadership have bugged telephones, houses or computers belonging to their senior members. He also wants them to look into the legality of the removal of property belonging to Councillor Sadie Graham.

It is believed that personal correspondence with her electorate is on the computer that was taken by deception from her house and emails were later inspected by senior members of the BNP. “An example can be found at the website http://www.simondarby.blogspot.com/,” write Cruddas. “Simon Darby is the BNP's Head of Publicity, and Griffin's most senior advisor. Nick Griffin has referred to this email on the BNP's main website.”

Cruddas ended his letter by stating: “As I believe that much of this behaviour is illegal, I write to formally request a police investigation in to the matter.”'

It looks like the floodgates are opening from where I'm sitting...