Lee Barnes jumps ship

BNP legal officer Lee Barnes has deserted Nick Griffin's rapidly sinking ship, posting his resignation letter online this morning. The letter is reproduced below, without amendment. Back later with something more substantial.

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My Resignation Letter From the BNP

Formal Resignation Letter.
10th August 2010.


Just over a month ago I won a court case for the BNP against Greenwich Council that not only changed the entire basis of electoral law in England, it also saved the party around ten to fifteen thousand pounds in legal costs and damages.

The legal arguments I drafted up and sent to the court ensured that the BNP won the court case.

For those idiots who will seek to attack me on the grounds of me being a red / traitor / unqualified crank (tick the usual pejorative as applicable) I mention this legal case I won for the party so as to ensure that decent people, and not the idiot sock puppets we see on the VNN Forum and Green Arrow site who are the vermin in the gutter of British Nationalism, understand that until yesterday when news of the mass suspension of party activists and organisers was announced I was still a loyal officer and supporter of the party.

I have pleaded with people to put the interests of the party first and before their own personal animosities and feuds.

As this has been ignored I have no choice but to take this action.

Over the last few years since the arrival of Jim Dowson into the party, Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson have repeatedly chosen to break the most obvious of laws including such debacles as ;

1) The Marmite Case

2) The unlawful use of stock images from a photoshop company during the European Elections

3) The EHRC court cases

4) The unlawful sacking of Michaele Mackenzie

5) The illegal suspension of Peter Mullins and many others

All of these were done under the orders of both Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson.

Regardless of how much income the party has had over the last few years, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been squandered on avoidable court cases.

Whilst party income has undoubtedly rose since Jim Dowson became involved with the BNP, so has the vast amount of money paid out by the BNP in legal costs incurred by the BNP.

Legal issues that were once dealt with internally within the party have been ’outsourced’ from the party to individuals paid by Jim Dowson and Nick Griffin, resulting in the parties internal legal affairs no longer being scrutinised or run by the BNP Legal Unit.

This ‘outsourcing’ of legal issues and cases, such as the drafting up of the new BNP constitution and dealing with the Marmite Case, have resulted in the party wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds on fighting legal cases that could have been avoided, had the party debated and addressed those legal issues internally.

What was particularly galling for me was the Michaela Mackenzie case.

I informed Nick Griffin on the day he sacked her that what he was doing was unlawful.

Not only did he ignore my advice, he later went to an Employment Tribunal and called me a ‘crank’ as a way to ‘explain’ why my advice to him was ignored.

The actions of Nick Griffin in this case alone has cost the party over twenty five thousand pounds, and as of Friday last week the money owed to Michaele Mackenzie has still not been paid.

This means the party will now be dragged back into court and probably bankrupted as a result.

As far as I am aware the party is now technically insolvent.

Outstanding court costs, wages bills, election expenses and also forthcoming legal cases against the party mean the BNP is now technically bankrupt.

As far as I am aware donations to the party have flowed to a trickle as well as party renewals and new inquiries.

This means the party should be avoiding creating new legal cases and liabilities, not rushing into them as though the party is awash with money to fight such legal cases.

Bankruptcy of the party will have very serious implications for the BNP membership.

If the party is made bankrupt then the BNP membership as a whole will be directly financially liable for its outstanding debts as an unincorporated association and not Nick Griffin or Jim Dowson.

This is because Nick Griffin has no assets and Jim Dowsons financial assets are probably hidden away in some Spanish or Swiss bank account outside the UK.

In relation to the illegal suspension of Peter Mullins and others, I spent months trying to get Nick to see sense on this issue.

It was only after months of arguments that Nick Griffin was forced to relent, drop their suspensions and re-admit them.

During this time I was threatened by Jim Dowson with violence for putting the parties legal interests first as he was the person pushing Nick Griffin to expel Peter Mullins and others.

I am not the only BNP member or BNP officer to have been threatened with violence by Jim Dowson.

It appears that when Jim Dowson doesn’t get what he wants he likes to threaten people with his connections to loyalist killers and terrorists in Northern Ireland in order to intimidate people into doing his bidding.

My complaints to Nick Griffin about Jim Dowsons threats of violence directed at me and other party members have been ignored.

All I can say is that Peter Mullins is a decent, honourable man whilst Jim Dowson is a convicted criminal, with links to Loyalist terrorism and terrorists with a string of failed companies to his name who bought his ’reverend’ title off of the internet.

These facts are easily ascertained off the internet, as the media have undertaken investigations into Jim Dowson and published this information widely.

Unfortunately, as the Peter Mullins case revealed, Nick Griffin thinks the law as regards the unlawful expulsion of members does not apply to him, even though he was shown by the courts during the John Tyndall case that the law does apply to the BNP.

The decision yesterday to unlawfully suspend dozens of activists simply for them standing against Nick Griffin in the leadership contest is the action of utterly irresponsible incompetents.

Nick Griffin knew before the leadership challenge even began that he could not be removed as leader of the party.

The BNP constitution was re-written specifically to ensure that no-one can ever remove Nick Griffin from his role as chairman.

Therefore to suspend the people who supported the leadership challenge is both unlawful and tactically inept.

The people who supported Eddy Butler would have been facing the choice of either knuckling down or resigning from the party.

Instead they have been unlawfully suspended and therefore can now launch new legal actions against the party.

The law is clear.

BNP members have a constitutionally protected right to stand for party leadership.

To suspend them for doing so is unlawful.

The way they have been suspended is also unlawful.

I have no doubt that they will now unite to form a class action against the party thereby incurring more legal costs and damages against an already virtually bankrupt party whose debts far outweigh its income.

The tragedy is that Andrew Brons has been dragged into this idiotic affair, for he will have no choice but to do as Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson say and declare that the leadership challengers did not get enough nominations and so cannot stand against Nick Griffin for a leadership election.

But what has most sickened me over recent weeks is the way that the serious allegations of sexual assault from the BNP member Shelley Rose have been ignored by Nick Griffin.

I have never met Shelley Rose, nor have I ever spoken to her.

I do not know the truth or otherwise of the allegations she has made.

As soon as I saw the Youtube video of her allegations I sent an e mail to Nick Griffin, and spoke to him on the phone, asking that in order to ensure the party and its public image is protected that both Shelley Rose and Jim Dowson be suspended as members and as party officers and that a full and transparent investigation is initiated.

The BNP cannot ever be seen as a party that protects perverts or a party that refuses to address allegations of such a serious nature from a female member.

Any allegations of sexual assault by any female BNP member against any male BNP member must be treated with the utmost seriousness and an full investigation begun.

Failure to do that allows the media to attack and undermine the party and its public image.

Jim Dowson is not a member of the BNP, so therefore in order to demonstrate that the party was taking these allegations seriously then he should have been immediately suspended as a party officer and from all party offices until the investigation and disciplinary procedures into the allegations were finished.

If Shelley Rose was found to have lied then she should have been expelled.

If Jim Dowson was found guilty of bringing the party into disrepute, Gross Misconduct and sexual assault then he should have been dismissed and sacked from all party offices he holds.

Instead what has happened is that Shelley Rose has been suspended, no investigation has been initiated and no sanction applied against Jim Dowson.

Instead of having a transparent investigation into the allegations, the internet attack dogs on sites like the Green Arrow website and the VNN Forum have been set upon Shelley Rose and abused her name and reputation.

They have slandered, threatened and vilified her and by so doing have disgraced not just the BNP but British Nationalism as a political movement.

This is intolerable.

The BNP cannot be seen as a political party that punishes the victim of a sexual assault whilst protecting the perpetrator of the crime.

All such allegations have to be treated with the utmost seriousness.

All such allegations must be investigated.

The issue is simple enough to understand.

Any married BNP party officer in a senior position who spends the night in a hotel room with a BNP female member other than his wife must be sacked.

This must be done for one simple reason.

A party officer lured into a secret affair opens himself up to being blackmailed or manipulated.

Such a scenario creates a fundamental conflict of interest between their personal life, their professional duties and their political responsibilities that is simply unacceptable.

A party officer who is in charge of the BNP finances via its income, who controls the BNP membership lists and who has such influence over the chairman of the party must be entirely above reproach at all times.

If it had been someone working for MI5 who had lured Jim Dowson into a sexual assignation in a London hotel room and then filmed him with hidden cameras and used that film to blackmail him, then MI5 would now be in control of the BNP’s finances and income and have access to all our membership data bases and be able to virtually control the party.

And we would never know about it.

Any married man foolish enough to have been discovered having stayed the night in a hotel room with a young woman other than his wife, and especially a ’reverend’, is an individual who may also have done so in the past and therefore is not suitable to be in that position.

In the world of business, and in the education system and police, any senior manager who has an affair with a junior member of his staff that threatens the good name of the organisation is guilty of Gross Misconduct and dismissed.

Whilst it may be acceptable for the Tories, Lib Dems and New Labour to act in such a manner it is not acceptable for senior officers of the BNP to do so, especially senior officers in charge of BNP finances and income and the membership data base.

But it appears that Jim Dowson is an ’untouchable’ in the party and that whilst Nick Griffin is prepared to sacrifice dozens of loyal members with decades of party loyalty, he will not deal with Jim Dowson.

It therefore appears that Nick Griffin no longer wishes to receive any counsel from anyone who wishes to put the legal interests of the BNP, its members, our public image and our future electoral expansion before the interests of Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson.

I cannot remain as the Legal Officer of a party that acts unlawfully towards its own members, that rewards years of party loyalty with unlawful suspensions and expulsions, that covers up serious allegations of sexual abuse by senior officers, that expels long standing members who ask for financial transparency within the party and that refuses to act to protect its own officers when they are threatened with violence by other senior officers.

Such a political party cannot be trusted with political power in our society.

If I stay on within such a party then it will appear as though I am supporting and condoning such actions.

Unless the BNP begins ;

1) An immediate fully transparent investigation into the ongoing allegations of financial mismanagement within the party which allows BNP members and officers to ascertain exactly what the party finances are, where party assets have gone and what the background behind the legal costs of recent legal cases have been. This is required in order to ensure that internal party mechanisms are in place to protect the party from such legal liabilities and allegations of financial impropriety in the future.

2) An immediate and fully transparent investigation into the threats of violence made against any party members and officers by Jim Dowson.

3) An immediate and fully transparent investigation into the allegations made by the BNP member Shelly Rose against Jim Dowson.

4) An immediate and fully transparent investigation into who authorised the unlawful suspensions of BNP party members Peter Mullins and others and also whether the present suspensions of members and organisers suspended for being involved in the leadership challenge are also legal. As part of the inquiry it must establish whether an independent body within the party should be established that vets and checks any orders for the suspension of members and officers of the party issued by the chairman or other officers are legal before the suspensions or expulsions are authorised and issued. This is required to protect the party from legal potential legal liabilities.

5) The establishment of an internal ‘BNP Reconciliation Committee’ which allows all BNP members and officers to air their grievances and discuss issues about issues of concern to officers and the membership without fear of suspension and expulsion so as to allow us to move forward as a united party.

6) An immediate party inquiry into how the party can establish an internal mechanism for protecting the employment rights of party officers from arbitrary dismissal so as to ensure no more legal cases and legal costs are imposed against the party.

7) An immediate party inquiry into establishing an internal party mechanism that requires the chairman of the party to discuss and debate with senior officials of the party any financial or business actions that may impinge or impact upon the party directly or accrue legal or financial liabilities for the party before those decisions are taken.

8) Jim Dowson now controls the BNP membership database, the BNP donor database, the BNP treasury department, the BNP subscriptions operation, the BNP media & communications operation and the BNP website. This is completely unacceptable and legally questionable. There is no power in the constitution for the chairman to devolve such internal party offices or party operations to an individual who is not a party member. The BNP constitution does not give the chairman the power to allow a non-member of the party to hold, have access too or have power directly over BNP party finances or confidential information relating to party members. Nor does the chairman have any power to move party assets owned by the party outside the party and especially into the hands of an individual who is not a member of the party. Therefore all financial assets owned by the party and under the control of Jim Dowson must be declared and returned to the party. No officer of the party, either member of non-member, should be ever again be allowed to have such internal control and influence over such a vast amount of essential internal BNP operations now or in the future. Such over centralisation of power around Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson means the party is now vulnerable.

If party assets have been moved out of the party and into companies owned by Jim Dowson by Nick Griffin then this is potentially defined as "Fraud by abuse of position" and is defined by Section 4 of the Fraud Act 2006. This is such a case where a person occupies a position where they are expected to safeguard the financial interests of another person such as BNP members, and abuses that position; this includes cases where the abuse consisted of an omission rather than an overt act.

In such cases of potential fraud, it requires that for an offence to have occurred, the person must have acted dishonestly, and that they had to have acted with the intent of making a gain for themselves or anyone else, or inflicting a loss (or a risk of loss) on another. The fact that such issues may have potentially arisen means the party is at serious risk of investigation and prosecution.

I do not believe the list of assurances that I believe the party requires in order to allow it to move forward as a united organisation will be given by Nick Griffin.

In all good conscience I can therefore no longer remain as an officer of the party.

If I stay on as an officer of the party then I will be seen as condoning the above issues and problems.

I am not prepared to do that.

I hereby quit my role as BNP Legal Adviser with immediate effect.

L. J. Barnes LLB (Hons)