BNP activist barred from BNP meeting

A former senior British National Party activist was thrown out of a meeting over his part in a bid to overthrow controversial leader Nick Griffin.

Hartley Wintney resident Roger Robertson (right in picture) tried to attend the BNP meeting in Sandhurst Community Hall on Monday night but was barred.

Mr Robertson, who has stood down as the BNP’s south-east England regional organiser to set up a rival faction, said: “One of the chaps acting as security on the door said ‘sorry Roger, you can’t come in’. I forced my way past him and there was a little shouting match in which I said I was entitled to attend the meeting because I am a fully paid-up member. I thought it would be best if I kept it low key so I said ‘OK I will leave but I’m not happy with this because I am perfectly entitled to be here’.”

Hart district and Hampshire county councillor Jonathan Glen said: “It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that Roger is trying to distance himself from mainstream BNP policy. Roger is now a parish councillor in Hartley Wintney and I am quite sure he wishes to fulfil his duties in an honourable way and not be associated with the extreme politics of the far right BNP.

“I welcome the news that Roger has seen the light on the road to Damascus. Maturity is a wonderful experience. I’m quite certain that Roger was feeling as uncomfortable in the circle of BNP members as the rest of us. There is no place in politics for racist agendas.”

Mr Robertson, who has stood as a BNP candidate at a number of recent Hart District Council elections, has now joined the newly-launched Voice of Change, an independent pressure group trying to bring about a leadership challenge to Mr Griffin. He will chair a meeting of the group in Nottingham on Sunday. Among the items up for discussion will be ways in which it can pressure the leadership into listening to its membership.

Mr Robertson, who has lived in Hartley Wintney all his life, admitted: “We have an internal split within the BNP. There is a group of us who are not happy with the way the party is being run, a lack of transparency in financial terms and the baggage of senior members. A lot of us who are not as out and out as some members have got tainted with the same brush,” he claimed.

“Nick Griffin is proving himself to be not capable of carrying on as party leader so we are looking to remove him.”

The official statement added: “Nick Griffin arrogantly told some of the expelled personnel to get on with their ‘non-political lives’ as if he has a monopoly of nationalist politics. Thankfully for the future of our people and our country Mr Griffin deludes himself. The movement is much bigger than one man’s ego and the Voice of Change will take the nationalist message to new levels of success without the sleaze, immorality and financial corruption of Griffin’s cabal, a message which millions of our beleaguered kinfolk are eager to heed.”

Mr Robertson believes that at least 100 senior party members are unhappy with Mr Griffin’s style of leadership.

He added: “I’ve resigned as the BNP regional organiser because I just cannot be party to various things that have been going on. As a result I am one of the ringleaders of the rebel faction and that is why they barred me from the meeting.”

Mr Robertson believed the Voice of Change could transform the party, which was widely viewed as racist. He said: “I think a lot of people will now sit up and say ‘hold on, this is what we want’. They may have thought the previous leader was a step too far and as a result they may not have been able to vote for the party previously, but they could now.”

The BNP said it expelled two senior members, Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith, who it accused of “gross misconduct” for masterminding a blog site critical of Mr Griffin and demanding the sacking of Mr Collett and Mr Hannam. It also accused the pair of illegally hacking into email accounts of BNP members, including Mr Griffin.

BNP deputy leader Simon Darby said the vast majority of the party’s 10,000 members were behind Mr Griffin’s leadership. He denied the BNP was irrevocably split, claiming it was simply going through a cyclical period of “tension”, the like of which had characterised the party’s history.

Sandhurst News and Mail