June 08, 2009

EU elections: BNP's Nick Griffin wins seat in European parliament

Furious scenes at Manchester town hall when Tory MEP describes BNP as 'aberration' and condemns Griffin's success as sad day for British politics

Protesters prevent BNP leader Nick Griffin from entering Manchester
town hall for the European parliament election results for the
North West tonight. Photograph: Manchester Evening News

Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, was today elected to the European parliament.

The far-right leader won a seat in the North West region. Earlier Andrew Brons, another British National party politician won in the Yorkshire and Humber area. It is the first time the party has had an MEP elected.

Griffin's victory was only confirmed shortly before 2am after a two-hour cliffhanger over the last of the North West's eight seats saw the Greens fall narrowly behind the BNP and Ukip just failed to pull ahead enough to win a third seat.

There were furious scenes at the declaration when the highest polling candidate, Sir Robert Atkins, described the BNP as "an aberration" and condemned Griffin's success as sad day for British politics. He was followed by Labour's Arlene McCarthy, who came second in votes cast and told the crowd at Manchester town hall that the BNP was "a party whose members include convicted rapists".

Both won loud applause – but also jeers from BNP supporters in the Banqueting Hall who shouted "Get back to the trough!" and "It's democracy – you're already insulting the voters again."

When Griffin's turn came to speak, all the other candidates took the unprecedented step of walking off the platform in protest. The BNP leader laid into a "liberal elite which has built a dam, a wall of lies which has grown ever taller and ever thicker over the years to stop ordinary people protesting about the removal of their freedom."

He added: "Well tonight that wall has been broken down in the North West and Yorkshire by hundreds of thousands of voters."

Brons's victory in Yorkshire saw the highest BNP poll, 9.8%, with Griffin getting 8%. The party polled 8.9% in the North East and 8.6% in both the West and East Midlands, but the share was not enough to win a place in those regions.

They polled 6.1% in the Eastern region, 5.5% in London, 5.4% in Wales, 4.4% in the South East and 3.9% in the South West.

Brons took a seat that was previously Labour's second in Yorkshire, as the expenses debacle and internecine warfare in Labour turned traditional supporters away in droves. The Labour vote crashed from 45% to 25% in Barnsley, where the BNP share climbed from 8% to 17%.

Griffin welcomed the victory as a vindication of the party's claim that "we're here to look after our people because no one else is". He said that feelings were particularly strong in Yorkshire, where former pit communities felt "at the bottom of the heap".

Pointing to other big rises in the BNP vote to 15% in Rotherham and nearly 12% in Doncaster, Griffin said: "This is ordinary decent people in Yorkshire kicking back against racism, because racism in this country is now directed overwhelmingly against people who look like me."

Griffin, who had to reach Manchester town hall for his own count in a police van after anti-fascist demonstrators blocked his convoy and hurled eggs, said immigration had become harmful to Britain, particularly with the spread of radical Islam. "Take Bradford – it isn't immigration that's happening there, it's colonialism," he said.

His own evening was one long lurch between advances and retreats for the BNP as declarations came in from the North West's 39 counting areas. In a reverse effect to Yorkshire's, support fell in areas where the party had done well in the past. In Burnley, where they won one of their first English county council seats on Thursday, it dropped from 17% to 15%.

But the slump in Labour's vote was common to the North West and Yorkshire, leaving the battle for the last of the region's eight seats open until the very end. After the Conservatives had won two, and Labour, Ukip and the Liberal Democrats one each, the BNP and the Greens were at level pegging for the final two hours of counting.

Brons said after the Yorkshire count in Leeds: "The onslaught against us has been more than against any other party in recent times, but somehow we've overcome it. Despite the lies, despite the money, despite the misrepresentation, we've been able to win through."

A dapper, besuited figure who adopts the low-key approach encouraged by Griffin, Brons retired last year as a politics and government teacher at Harrogate College. He then re-entered active politics for the first time since standing five times for the National Front in the 1970s after a brief spell as its leader, which ended in internal quarrels. He joined the British National Socialist party as a teenager.

Guardian

36 comments:

hgd said...

Fat Greedy Racist Bastard Nick Gri££in said "racism in this country is now directed overwhelmingly against people who look like me".

I've never seen anybody who looks quite quite like the ugly old bigot, thank goodness, so Cyclops has obviously got a persecution complex. lol

why? said...

Why the hell did Harrogate College employ a man to lecture young people about politics who led the National Front five times without anti-racist protestors in the town batting an eyelid?

exposethemasnazis said...

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Controversy-over-abuse-conviction-of.5329019.jp

Interesting article about Brons, who was once convicted for racial abuse of a non-white policeman.

goldenlay said...

A bullshiting pro-bnp troll on the Daily Express website wrote: -

"The only reasonthe major parties are so against the BNP is because they know that they are going to be a force to be reckoned with. So many Britons have seen their country and culture destroyed by power greedy and thieving politicians they are obviously going to turn to a party that will give their country back to them".

Give WHAT back to them?

He never returned the money given to him by members for his lie lorry, so who in their right mind would honestly believe Cyclops would give anything back to anybody, lol

lenny said...

Thanks to the stupidity of BNP members in helping "the party cause", they are now lumbered with him for a lifetime, like it or not.

Mark Collette may well be the peado figurehead of the BNP, but Greedy Gri££in will always control the purse strings!

racismsucks said...

The BNP need to be exposed as the white supremacists they are.

When's this documentary about Kemp going to be shown on the telly, and is it only going to be shown in wales? If so, why the hell won't everybody get a chance to see it?

tm said...

Thanks BBC for helping the BNP win two seats at the Euro elections.

Fuck the BNP said...

BNP leader Paul Griffin wins EP seats
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25603745-23109,00.html

It's almost like he's some complete fucking nonentity. LOL

John P said...

I'm ashamed to be from Yorkshire tonight but this result does mean I'm going to be pulling out all the stops for the general election that is going to be coming in the next few weeks or months.
Hopefully this is a wake up call for all those people who think voting isn't important and the media need to bow their collective heads in shame. It's no use searching wiki on the night of the election and reeling with a sense of disgust when these people have got elected when many people have tried and tried again to tell you who these people were, where they came from and where they stand.

The mainstream media love the BNP, they won't admit it but they do. They create controversy, they are dangerous and boring political facts gets in the way of a good story.


Appols to Irish Tony as he does this sort of thing so well.

3 county councillors elected out of how many
2 EMP's out of how many
70 ish councillors out of how many
ect

Their share of the vote isn't massive, there party membership isn't massive and this was supposed to be a massive breakthrough (again) with 7 or 8 MEPs and about 100 councillors. That has not happened yet again. We can all feel disappointed with the fact they have got much more than we hoped and much less than they hoped but it's not a disaster and hopefully now the various media organisations will realise that when we say people like Brons are old arm waving Nazis we are telling them the truth.
Thank you to everybody who turned up at the Manchester count and stopped griffin getting into the building for a while. It sounded a good laugh.

I should go to bed.

Anonymous said...

As I said earlier - this will now give the BNP a platform to air their views. They will also quickly show their true colours as they are not going to be able to keep up the veneer of respectability. This is the height of their success and it will be downhill from here.

It is also true that the media enjoy them - not because they necessarily support their view but because they creat controvery and sell newspapers etc. For this reason the media will give them exposure and the more outrageous their position the more coverage they will get - again not a bad thing to showcase exactly who and what they are.

It is now for the left to assist the media in exposing them - the BBC program on Kemp will now definitely go ahead and the despicable human being that he is (politically, socially, personally and in every other way) will become evident. Put pressure on the media to show this to all of the UK and not just Wales.

Use their limited success to expose them for what they really are to ensure that this is the pinnacle of their power and they only go downhill from here.

Ben Trunch said...

Shame.

Still, accidents can happen on the road to Brussels... Not the first time...

jones said...

I wander why Brons was able to lecture at Harrogate College on politics for all those years, when normally fascists get dismissed from civil service jobs?

Makes you wander as Harrogate isn't normally a BNP stronghold.

What's strange is how people in the mining areas voted for a party which hated miners, and had Lady Birdwood in its early roster. Were not the voters of Barnsley and south-wakefield told of Birdwood et al?

Did Hope Not Hate not target their leaflets to show that the BNP supported scabs in the miners strike?

It was the anniersary of the miners strike, and many people will still not speak miners who broke strikes, so surely anti-fascist campaigners should have made a big play on this to capitalise upon such lingering resentment.

Likewise, anti-fascists should have targetted Manchester's Gay Village with specifically the BNP's homophobic issues ensuring that there were personal as moral reasons not just for people not to vote for the bnp, which gay people wouldn't, but to make sure that all apathetic members of the community would sign up for postal voting, and would vote for any other party no matter what else happened.

It's a shame that the expenses scandal didn't break until after the elections, but if there is a lesson that must be learnt is that we must be prepared for all eventualities, and Tories and LibDems as well as Labour can switch off voters allowing neo-nazis like the bnp in through decent-minded voters believing all politicians are the same and refusing to vote.

It's something that everybody must beware, who cares less about anti-racism and having proper politicians not white supremacists in their parliaments.

There hopefully will never be PRP in the UK.

Anonymous said...

This (European elections) was always the main aim for the BNP. It's the biggest prize they could hope for. The European parliament, which makes our own look sqeaky clean, opens up a huge treasure chest of unreceipted expenses and other perks.

In all likelihood, the 'new MEP's' will syphon it off into their own offshore accounts. Even so, bogus 'office allowances' (which can be based anywhere and employ anybody) offer the chance to boost finances significantly. They can get still more by combining with other far rigth groups to establish their own grouping within the European Parliament. That brings in yet more money.

Sad day indeed.

Rah said...

It's not as bad as it looks, the two idiots are going to be ineffectual in Brussels and will be sidelined by everyone else.
Griffin will NEVER make good his pledge to plough his earnings back into the BNP and pure jealousy from within the ranks will tear the BNP apart.
The only thing that is really riling me is his constant references to Sikhs, as if they would give him the time of day...

Anonymous said...

PR is one thing, first past the post is another.

The only faint possibility of them ever picking up one or two seats in a general election would be in formerly rock-solid Labour constituencies where the Labour vote has gone into meltdown and there is no effective Tory, LibDem, SNP, Plaid or UKIP opposition.

There are probably only a handful of such vulnerable constituencies in the country, I would guess exclusively in run-down former coal-mining areas of England.

Nay_Fash said...

After my initial disappointment and horror I'm now feeling fucking furious that a shower of Nazi filth has been allowed to make inroads into British politics.

From now on every racist comment I hear from anybody will be strongly challenged and every moment of my life will be dedicated to eradicating Nazis from the planet.

iliacus said...

Iliacus has now emerged from his bed - and wishes he hadn't bothered. And Mrs Iliacus isn't going to enjoy the news!!

Oh well, onwards and upwards!

The good news is:

a) despite the extraordinary conditions they only managed to scrape in by their fingernails in 2 areas;
b) the turnouts were low - and it's hard to see the BNP making ANY impact in the forthcoming GE

Anyway, best wishes to all (well, all on here - not fascists and racists of course).

Anonymous said...

just remember if you now attack Nick Griffin ,your not just attacking a racist ,but an MEP and the fullweight of the law well be brought up on you.So be careful.

Arcar said...

No, no, no! That´s really dissgusting. 1/10 voted BNP fashist another and 2/10 voted UKIP nacionalists.

Anonymous said...

Anon said

Use their limited success to expose them for what they really are to ensure that this is the pinnacle of their power and they only go downhill from here.

This was said back in 2006 when they got 12 councillors elected in Barking, and some councillors in Barking have and will continue to expose them for what they are, but this still happened.

disgusted tulip

kev berry said...

With Griffin in the North west, no doubt Chris jackson will stay firmly over the Yorkshire border now !!!!!

Anonymous said...

Looks like we'll have to fight the bastards on the beaches again.

white coats said...

LOONEY LEE BARNES WROTE (as an anonymous troll on this forum): -

"Just remember if you now attack Nick Griffin ,your not just attacking a racist ,but an MEP and the fullweight of the law well be brought up on you.So be careful".

WHO ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING, BARNES?

STATING THE TRUTH ABOUT CYCLOPS IS NOT LIBEL.

STICK TO YOURF LITTLE GREEN MEN AND YOUR SKUNKWEED JOINTS, YOU LOSER!

Why do you allow Barnes to post absurd threats on your blog, Ketlan?

Antifascist said...

'Why do you allow Barnes to post absurd threats on your blog, Ketlan?'

Because I see nothing to suggest that the post was made by anyone remotely insane. Perfectly good advice, I thought - which is not something anyone would expect from the BNP's legal fruitloop.

Anonymous said...

Has the BNP already been accepted by the mainstream and media? Googling articles on the BNP EU wins, I find direct links to the BNP website posted along with the stories on the BBC, google, aol and yahoo! sites - and no links to any anti-BNP sites.
Seems the media have already decided that the BNP are to be treated as a 100% normal party, and accorded all normal privallages.

Anonymous said...

I live in the American South and this is something that I would expect to see here rather than in England.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it's worth contemplating the words of Saul Alinsky from his seminal work "Rules For Radicals" in which he states that in political combat ridicule is the most potent weapon - the custard pie being infinitely superior to the bullet. And these losers are sure easy to ridicule.

Let the war of attrition begin...

irishtony said...

"Griffin welcomed the victory as a vindication of the party's claim that "we're here to look after our people because no one else is". He said that feelings were particularly strong in Yorkshire, where former pit communities felt "at the bottom of the heap".

Well I believe him Thats for sure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as a catholic paddy immigrant I feel safer now

Anonymous said...

lee barnes posting here? you really have got it wrong.
sorry to dissapoint but he doesnt.
hes not even in this country at the moment.

Anonymous said...

Griffin only got in because of the low turn-out.

Once Labour manage to recover from its present crisis the BNP vote will suffer.

I am sure that once Griffin gets his nose in the EU Parliamentary trough he'll make the present UK MP's expenses scandal look like a walk in the park.

Anonymous said...

just remember if you now attack Nick Griffin ,your not just attacking a racist ,but an MEP and the fullweight of the law well be brought up on you.So be careful.

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

I hope (but doubt that) the BNP will use some of their Eurosnouttroughdosh to educate their supporters about the "laws of the land" (a subject that they seem to be obsessed with but which they have little understanding of) and even more importantly about the correct use of the beautiful English language!

Kev Scott loves The Jam said...

Anonymous said: "lee barnes posting here? you really have got it wrong.
sorry to dissapoint but he doesnt.
hes not even in this country at the moment."


Y'know the internet right? Well its like done through telephone lines, OK! Soooo, its like if Gonzo Barnsey was like clever enough, he could like get his computer to do like an international call and like post words on here like... you know?

He's out of the country... pfffft, and?

Anonymous said...

lee barnes posting here? you really have got it wrong.
sorry to dissapoint but he doesnt.
hes not even in this country at the moment.


I think the only person who could post that with 100% conviction would be Lee Barnes, which would nullify the statement.

Tw@

Lee, do you realise that people can post to the internet from most places in the world? The fact that someone posts doesn't mean that they are "here", wherever that is.

Do try to learn English grammar and how to use capital letters and apostrophes.

English is a beautiful language - let's not sully it with sloppiness.

Anonymous said...

@hgd,

'Fat Greedy Racist Bastard Nick Gri££in said "racism in this country is now directed overwhelmingly against people who look like me.'

Ironically I've never seen anyone who looks as Eastern European as Nick Griffin. If he will go hanging round with nutzis desp[ite his exotic appearance he's got to expect a bit of flack?

Anonymous said...

'Maybe it's worth contemplating the words of Saul Alinsky from his seminal work "Rules For Radicals" in which he states that in political combat ridicule is the most potent weapon - the custard pie being infinitely superior to the bullet. And these losers are sure easy to ridicule.'

Ah something like this you mean?

http://longayelander.blogspot.com/2009/03/far-right-and-all-white.html

llb is crazy said...

That carefully coded threat of legal action if anybody dare criticise Cyclops could have only been written by a mad make-believe lawyer who makes stupid threats to all on sundry when he fancies throwing his toys out the cot!