The peculiar case of the three lost councillors

Just ten days ago, we reported on the fact that the BNP had lost three of its new and much-overhyped intake of town councillors following the joint resignations of all three who had been co-opted (not elected) on to Colwyn Bay Town Council.

Paul Harley, Sue Harley and John Oddy formally resigned as BNP councillors on May 7th, less than a week after they took office, at their very first council meeting, where all three were represented by Oddy who stated in a post on the icWales forum;

'I attended the meeting to inform the Council that yesterday afternoon all three Councillors had resigned from the BNP and that we were prepared to remain on the Council as Independents, if the Council required it all three of us were prepared to also resign from the Council and allow our seats to be put forward to a by-election that we would not contest.'

When asked why they'd left the BNP, he responded thus;

'My reason for leaving the BNP was my own personal choice, the other two Councillors choose to leave with me. I have always been regarded as a moderate within the party and, as I’ve always maintained, I have never been a racist...'

The reason for Oddy, who was (or possibly still is) the BNP's North Wales organiser, breaking his link with the BNP was made clear on the day after our report when it emerged that he had been fined for using his mobile phone while driving. This didn't, however, explain why the Harveys resigned along with him.

A week later, Oddy and the Harveys were interviewed by the Daily Post, and revealed the apparent truth about the resignations, which seemed to be based on the belated discovery that the BNP is a racist organisation.

Haulage worker Mr Harley, 62, from Penrhyn Bay, who was elected to the Dinerth ward, said:

'When I joined the party I did believe that the party had changed from its former image. I felt the same after attending meetings where racist views were not expressed but in the past few weeks I have found out more about the party and I am not happy with what I have found out. I have always maintained that I was not racist, but individuals that hold racist views remain. My mind was made up before the attack on the house, myself and my wife did not want to be portrayed as racist, which we are not. We only wanted to represent the community.'

The alleged 'attack' referred to is that the words 'BNP Racist Scum' were scrawled across the Harvey's garage and paint stripper was poured on their car.

Harley clearly stated in last week's North Wales Weekly News that the attack wasn't the reason for their exit from the BNP, and claimed to be leaving because of personal reasons. 'We'd already decided on the morning before the attack to leave. I don't feel it's our party,' he said.

John Oddy claimed the three of them had opted out of the BNP because of a disagreement with the party's management. 'I still support the BNP and their policies but when the shit hits the fan they're nowhere to be seen. I've got no faith in their middle management...I feel as I have become more high profile I have clashed with the hierarchy in the party and this has now come to a head and led to my resignation. I am at odds with the opinions of the Welsh branch of the BNP, although I have no quarrel with the party nationally.'

Simon Darby, the BNP's deputy-leader, ignored the accusations of racism (as he always does) and lack of support from the party managers, claiming that the resignations were solely due to the attack on the Harvey's home.

As we all know, the BNP is never in the wrong whether it is supporting violent racists who attack asylum-seekers, shredding dodgy financial records or covering up attempts to have sex with underage girls at its conference, but there certainly appears to be some hasty backing and filling going on in North Wales. According to both of the Harleys and Oddy, the party is racist (like we didn't know it), and according to Oddy, there are disagreements with the party management and a lack of support.

There are peculiarities about these resignations though, that appear to make no real sense. Though it's now nearly three weeks since the elections and Oddy announced at the first town council meeting of the new session that the three were standing down as BNP councillors and would switch to being Independents, they have yet to inform the council officially and are still listed as BNP. Colwyn Bay Town Council clerk John Roberts said until he has been informed formally of the councillors' resignations, they will remain BNP members of the council.

All three remain members of the local golf club, a place where the Colwyn Bay glitterati meet, confer and make deals which, in the words of one of our correspondents, is full of BNP sympathisers, covert supporters and party members, and none of the three protagonists have showed any sign of feeling the need to disassociate from the club - which leads one to believe that this evolution from BNP to Independent is nothing but a cosmetic change, designed simply to allay the fears of the locals that the Colwyn Bay trio may be too close to the BNP and thus they might get grubby by association.

I'll confess that all this sounded a little conspiracy-theory-related to me until someone pointed out that Oddy was as racist a BNP member as they come. Readers might recall that he recently verbally attacked former Llysfaen councillor Pat Pattison for having the temerity to help an Asian family as part of his own duties as a town councillor, stating that the party wasn't happy with him because he'd been 'helping fucking Pakis' and that 'they're Muslim scum anyway'. Pattison left the party properly immediately after discovering its racism.

What a pity the Harveys seem unable to properly follow his example.