BNP Welsh on the deal

The full list of West Midlands’ candidates for next month’s European elections has been announced – and it includes more than a few notes of interest. Not least that the BNP’s top man for the region apparently lives in, er, Wales.

Simon Darby, who is the party’s deputy leader, already spends part of his week in the capital, where he’s the personal assistant of Richard Barnbrook, the far-right party’s sole elected representative on the London Assembly.

Given that he gives his address on the nomination papers as Powys, his commitment to the West Midlands is questionable to say the least.

Darby was, of course, voted onto Dudley Council in 2003, and lasted all of a year until an ungrateful electorate showed him the door.

His most recent intervention on the local scene was to turn up with his fuhrer Nick Griffin at the West Bromwich St George’s Day march Griffin – an avowedly non political event – thereby guaranteeing that it will never be funded by Sandwell Council again. Gee, thanks Simon.

In 2005, Darby shared a platform with former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard Don Black who is banned from entering Britain because of his extreme racist views; while at a meeting in Italy in April, he was greeted with a flurry of fascist salutes.

Other fringe candidates – albeit with a very different political complexion - come from the Christian Party, the English Democrats, and the Jury Team, funded by millionaire Sir Paul Judge, who is backing a wilfully diverse group of political virgins, selected via an online poll.

Former Labour MP Dave Nellist pops up with the No2EU: Yes To Democracy party, while Stirrer blogger John Tyrrell is standing for Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party.

The West Midlands has seven Euro MPs.

To see the full list of candidates click here (pdf file).

The Stirrer