August 02, 2008

The BNP Accounts (Part 1): First Impressions

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Iliacus. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.

Credit where credit is due, the BNP almost got its 2007 Accounts to the Electoral Commission by the legal deadline. Almost, but not quite ! In the event they seem to have been submitted within a month of the July deadline, which is pretty early by their standards.

Anyway, to turn to the substance of the document let's start with a general overview. My first impressions you might say. I once heard someone say of the bikini that "what it conceals is more significant than what it reveals", and that remark kept coming to mind as I leafed through the Accounts!

This year there seems to have been some proofreading before the papers were submitted, with fewer of the childish errors of grammar, spelling and syntax which have so amused us all in the past! However the Chairman's Report, eight scintillating pages of the wisdom of Nicholas Griffin, displays the startling mix of naivety and paranoia so typical of the far right. I will deal separately with some of his claims regarding their electoral "progress" and his inventive explanations of their failure to thrive, but how many other political parties could produce the following list of conspiratorial opponents :

Oxfordshire police; Labour Party thugs; illegality by Labour Cabinet Ministers; undemocratic thugs from the far-left; local newspapers; the police and the Electoral Commission; third party disparagers; the unions; the Daily Mirror; postal fraud by Labour and LibDem activists; unscrupulous council officials; a small clique of staff and middle ranking officials [within the BNP !]; the violent far-left of the Labour regime; the viciously anti-BNP neo-Nazi fringe. (All listed and identified in Griffin's 'Chairman's Report' as acting against the BNP, and many of them accused of illegal behaviour. Only surprised that he forgot the BBC. Thank goodness he isn't paranoid!)

Perhaps wisely (from the BNP's perspective that is) the listing of branches/ groups/ contacts no longer appears - thus denying us the opportunity to have a good laugh at the constant organisational instability which bedevils the BNP. In particular we can no longer identify the areas in which the BNP effectively admitted a total lack of any membership or organisational structure.

Still, if we cannot gauge the instability at branch level the accounts do underline the chaos at a more senior level with six of the 18-member Advisory Council removed during the year, mostly in the "purge" of December.

And so we say 'farewell' to the Chairman's Report, and turn to the financial accounts themselves. I will be reviewing these in further detail in a future article, but here are the News at Ten-style headlines:

BONG
Auditor says "the financial statements do not give a true and fair view of the state of the party's affairs"

BONG
Auditor says they "do not give a true and fair view of the results for the year"

BONG
Donation Income falls by 32%

BONG
Membership income up by 38% (?)

BONG
Income from commercial activities down by 68%!

BONG
Deficit for year is £50,000 (against £18,000 surplus in 2006)

BONG
Current cash accounts in chaos

BONG
Balance sheet shows net liabilities of £85,000+

BONG
Party owes £20,000 + in PAYE and VAT - (that's £20k less for schools and hospitals!)

Hope that's an appealing taster. More to follow, starting with Griffin's excuses for electoral failure!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

It IS an appealing taster. When do we get the next bit?

Anonymous said...

"Oxfordshire police; Labour Party thugs; illegality by Labour Cabinet Ministers; undemocratic thugs from the far-left; local newspapers; the police and the Electoral Commission; third party disparagers; the unions; the Daily Mirror; postal fraud by Labour and LibDem activists; unscrupulous council officials; a small clique of staff and middle ranking officials [within the BNP !]; the violent far-left of the Labour regime; the viciously anti-BNP neo-Nazi fringe."

It's no wonder he has to pay people to be friends with him (Mark Collett).

Anonymous said...

If the auditors are obviously do dissatisfied, why the hell do they sign the accounts off? Surely they should just say no, sorry, they're crap.

Anonymous said...

"Oxfordshire police; Labour Party thugs; illegality by Labour Cabinet Ministers; undemocratic thugs from the far-left; local newspapers; the police and the Electoral Commission; third party disparagers; the unions; the Daily Mirror; postal fraud by Labour and LibDem activists; unscrupulous council officials; a small clique of staff and middle ranking officials [within the BNP !]; the violent far-left of the Labour regime; the viciously anti-BNP neo-Nazi fringe."

Is there anyone left???

Anonymous said...

The bnp under Nick griffin should be seen as good news.Nick griffin is the best Ant-fascist around .Who else could smash nationalism in this country other than nick and his poodle mark collet.

Anonymous said...

Brillant article Iliacus! Look forward to Part II.

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps wisely (from the BNP's perspective that is) the listing of branches/ groups/ contacts no longer appears"

There listes here http://tinyurl.com/66cbvo

Anonymous said...

"However the Chairman's Report, eight scintillating pages of the wisdom of Nicholas Griffin"

LOL He couldn't manage eight scintilating words.

Anonymous said...

There's a report of Luke Smiths funeral here http://www.burnleyexpress.net/burnleynews/Funeral-of-exBNP-councillor-.4350294.jp but its odd how they never mentioned those lads chucking stuff off the bridge.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant piece as always, but i must agree with comment,

if they are not a true and fair record

why the bloody hell did the auditor sign them off?

i would have thought that was illegal?

tulip

Green Gordon said...

I'm not schooled in electoral law, but I suppose it was to do with projected income from Excalibur/British National Lottery (!?), rather than any fraud. It's interesting that Griffo is using his own party as an excuse for bad accounting. Also have you seen those British National Lottery prizes? Not worth the free/£1 ticket price...

Green Gordon said...

p.s. can someone also analyse the Accounting Unit Accounts liked to in the comments above?

Anonymous said...

The CFL lot have dealt with the regional accounts. It's devastating, all the more so when you realise it comes from people "in the know". Poor Dave Hannam, hard to know whether we should feel sorry for him as he is such a dimwit.

http://challengeforleadership.blogspot.com/2008/08/arses-and-elbows.html

Anonymous said...

Re - the role of the Auditor

My understanding (and I am neither lawyer nor auditor) is that the Auditor's responsibility is to audit that which is placed before them, and to explicitly state if they have identified failings. Which they have i.e. they are effectively saying "on the basis of what has been put before us we have carried out an audit, but for the reasons identified we do not believe the Accounts give an accurate account of the organisation's true financial position"

In a company this would have the shareholders lynching the board of directors.

In a society the members would be voting out the committee.

But this is the BNP, where the normal rules of human behaviour are set aside . . . .

And Part (2) (excuses for failure) is with LU for publication (tonight? tomorrow?)

Part (3) (the finances) not yet completed.