BNP's Bob Bailey claims candidate's criminal past and death threats will win votes

Bailey and Lewis - as mad as each other

The hypocrisy of the British National Party is legendary, as is the blatant insanity of many of its more prominent members, though we're finding it difficult to decide if Bob Bailey, the party's London organiser, is hypocritical, insane or just plain stupid. Or possibly a combination of the three.

Bailey was in the news a couple of days ago, referring to the BNP's candidate in the Waddon by-election next week and trying to boost her chances by taking the 'insanity' approach to politics. That is, to talk bollocks loudly enough to drown out the stupidity of what you're actually saying.

Bob Bailey is a curious and unstable character. It was he who berated a vicar who dared to have 2,000 anti-BNP leaflets printed and delivered ahead of a local by-election, claiming that the clergyman was a fascist for getting involved with politics. He also had a go at a Labour councillor who dared to take issue with him at a Barking and Dagenham council meeting, calling him a Nazi, presumably for being so disagreeable.

Bailey also had a well-publicised go at the principal of Barking College Ted Parker, just hours before the college held a Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) event at its Dagenham Road, Dagenham campus, ordering him to stop hosting such events or there would be 'problems' from BNP members.

Even more publicised was his foul-mouthed telephone tirade against the Barking and Dagenham Recorder news editor Sally Lowe, who he again branded a Nazi after seeing the Recorder's coverage of the London Assembly elections. After slamming the phone down, Bailey turned up outside the Recorder's offices with a group of BNP members, shouting garbled messages through a megaphone until they were moved on by the police.

Bailey has also lied on his profile on the BNP London website, claiming that the party had secured 5,000 new homes in his borough. Of course, it had done no such thing and never will.

Unstable, abusive,foul-mouthed, a liar and stupid. No surprise then, that Bailey should do more than simply endorse the candidacy of Charlotte Lewis, who is contesting Waddon ward, Croydon for the BNP, a former animal rights activist who was jailed for six months in 2001 for a campaign of harassment against employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a Cambridgeshire laboratory that carries out product testing on animals.

Regular readers will recall the fuss the BNP made about the membership list being leaked and how it would place the lives of every one of the party's members in jeopardy, how it raved about claims that members had received abusive phone calls and letters (unverified by the police) and how anti-fascists were unprincipled bastards for daring to have a go at the racists and fascists living in their midst (though the party had studiously ignored Redwatch for years, which has details of thousands of those who oppose such organisations as the BNP, many supplied by known BNP members and even BNP councillors).

When it was revealed that Charlotte Lewis, in her animal rights days, had sent death threats to employees of HLS, Bailey's response was peculiar, bearing in mind the response from the party over the leaked list.

'She only sent some letters...we didn't think that it should hold her back from standing as a candidate.'

One of the letters she sent had this little gem in it.

'This is a warning. Your life is in grave danger if you don't stop working at HLS. You will find yourself having a gun aimed at your stupid ugly head.'

Lewis even managed to send letters to people who had left HLS two years before, leaving one woman 'hysterical and very scared'.

The ethics of animal rights activism are hotly debated, particularly when it comes to confronting individuals either at home or work but this is not the place for such a discussion. The fact is that Lewis sent a number of frightening and threatening letters, was convicted of a number of counts of harassment and was jailed for six months. And what is Bob Bailey's considered response to an action that is likely to earn little sympathy from a public that has heard many horror stories about animal rights activists over the past couple of years?

'It's free advertising. There's no such thing as bad publicity. It's extra publicity for us and it will increase our share of the vote. It was ages ago. I honestly don't feel it's worth commenting on. I'm not going to make a big deal out of it.'

The BNP as an entity doesn't feel anything is a big deal if it comes from their side (though one can easily imagine the cries of outrage if a Charlotte Lewis were to stand for the Labour Party). One of its more important members is Lambertus Nieuwhof, a South African IT specialist who oversees the party's internet operations. Nieuwhof is an interesting character - in January 1992, he was one of three men who planted a home-made bomb at the Calvary Church School in protest against the school's decision to become racially mixed. The bomb, thankfully, failed to go off and he received a derisory 12-month prison sentence for his role in this act of terrorism. He's still in the party though and remains one of its increasingly important South African members.

Bailey's point about there being no such thing as bad publicity makes one wonder where he's been living for the last six months. Was the revelation last November that a couple of its members were child abusers good publicity? Will it still be good publicity when a couple of its senior officers are finally done for attempting to have sex with a couple of underage girls, should that ever actually happen?

Bailey is clearly the worst type of modern BNP organiser. Completely blinkered, unstable and prone to at least verbal violence, and utterly incapable of seeing reality even if it comes up and headbutts him on the bridge of the nose. Charlotte Lewis has been jailed for several acts of violence by proxy - there's no getting away from that. Any amount of bullshit from Bob Bailey will make no difference - her record will lose her votes and the stupidity of a party that stands a woman described as having 'a history of psychological problems' that appear to have manifested themselves in such a manner will do nothing for its credibility with the electorate.

BNP candidate is jailed animal rights extremist

A British National Party candidate in a Croydon, south London, by-election this month was an animal rights activist who served a prison sentence for a campaign of terror against an animal research laboratory.

Charlotte Lewis, who is contesting Waddon ward, Croydon, on 12 February, was jailed for six months in 2001 after being found guilty of four charges of harassment as part of a concerted campaign against the staff of Huntingdon Life Sciences, whom she called “animal abusing scum”.

Lewis, who was a member of Stop Animal Rights Cruelty, wrote a series of anonymous threatening letters to people working at the Cambridgeshire laboratory. One warned the recipient: “If you don’t quit HLS then your life will not be worth living. You will always have to be looking over your shoulder.” Another threatened: “This is a warning. Your life is in grave danger if you don’t stop working at HLS. You will find yourself having a gun aimed at your stupid ugly head.”

One family received over 50 such letters from animal rights activists before a brick was thrown through their window. Shortly afterwards Lewis wrote to them saying: “I was there when a brick was put through your window. If you don't quit HLS you can expect more of the same.”

Peterborough Crown Court heard that Lewis, who today is the London BNP regional treasurer, had “a history of psychological problems and suffers depression”. She was arrested after forensic scientists matched her saliva with DNA found on the back of the stamps used to post the letters.

Judge Richard Pollard imposed four concurrent six-month prison sentences on Lewis, saying that her letters had had such an impact upon their recipients that a custodial sentence was necessary. He also imposing a restraining order to prevent Lewis from harassing HLS staff further.

Whatever one’s views on animal testing there can be little doubt that the campaign against HLS was long, violent and, for those on the receiving end, terrifying. Lewis was sentenced in 2001 amid a terrorist campaign in which deadly nail bombs were sent to organisations and individuals, some only marginally connected with animal research.

On 21 January 2009 seven “fanatical” leaders of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) were jailed for between four and eleven years on charges of conspiracy to blackmail during the course of a campaign described by the judge as “urban terrorism”.

Having joined the BNP in 2003, Lewis was in trouble with the law again in 2006 while standing as a BNP candidate in the May council elections in St Helier, Sutton. Lewis put a false Sutton address on her nomination form to make her eligible to stand and was questioned by the police over possible election fraud. However despite her clear breach of electoral law she was not charged.

Asked about the incident by the local paper during her current campaign, Lewis lied again, blaming a party organiser “who has since left the organisation”. If she is referring to the former Croydon and Sutton BNP organiser, this might be news to him. Far from leaving the BNP Bob Gertner was recently promoted to south London organiser. His replacement in the Croydon and Sutton role: Lewis herself.

Lewis’s Croydon campaign was slow to take off, with London activists prioritising the East Wickham by-election on 22 January, but BNP efforts on her behalf are set to intensify in the final three weeks before polling day.

Not content to wait for the cavalry, the long-term unemployed candidate decided to shoot her own campaign video. It was not a great success. Filming without permission outside a local school quickly landed her in hot water as teachers came out to remonstrate, causing her to skulk off with her tail between her legs.

At one point her speech to camera is interrupted by what sounds like an aeroplane flying overhead. Rather than re-shoot the scene, Lewis left it in. Could her decision have anything to do with her penchant for telling all and sundry that she is going to become an airline pilot? Good luck to her, but her ambition might prove a little hard to realise without a pilot’s licence or, as her recent internet posts make clear, any intention of returning to college to get the necessary qualifications to gain one.

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