April 07, 2011

Kirklees BNP members defect to English Democrats after comparing Nick Griffin to Robert Mugabe

Activists in Huddersfield last night announced they have left the British National Party (BNP) – and compared leader Nick Griffin with Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.

A group of former Kirklees Council candidates yesterday told the Examiner they had joined the English Democrats because of their “cleaner” image. Former BNP Colne Valley Parliamentary candidate Barry Fowler and ex-Heckmondwike councillor Roger Roberts issued a statement announcing their breakaway.

They said: “The BNP has been in turmoil for the last 12-plus months with the majority of active members seeking a change of leader and a new cleaner less confrontational approach to getting our ideas across.

“This has been met with contempt by leader Nick Griffin who has gone out of his way to bring the party into disrepute. He has suspended some of the best local activists simply for asking legitimate questions over finance.

“The BNP is currently well over £500,000 in debt and its submitted accounts for the last two years have been classed as poor and incomplete by the Electoral Commission. We believe it is a member’s right to ask legitimate questions about party finance, yet Mr Griffin has met people’s concerns by suspending and expelling them.

“These are not the actions of a leader of a democratic party, but that of a dictator.

“In Kirklees we have worked very hard to improve our image as a party and dispel any negative stereotypes of the party. But the BNP has been held back by Nick Griffin for so long and the new constitution, which could have been written by Mr Mugabe, ensures Mr Griffin will be leader for as long as he chooses.”

The BNP is running just four candidates in this year’s Kirklees Council election – compared with 21 last year. Rachel Firth, the party’s new organiser in south Kirklees, will stand in Denby Dale.

“In every party you get people disagreeing with things,” she said yesterday. “Quite a few of our members in south Kirklees have left. People are going their separate ways, and that’s fair enough, but I’m concentrating on the future not the past.”

Mr Fowler and Mr Roberts said most of the party’s top activists in Kirklees will join the English Democrats.

They said: “The majority of ex-candidates and local BNP officials will be taking our ideas, talents and energy into a new party. We are working to help establish a new hope for England with a party with a good clean image, good policies and sensible decent people at the heart promoting them.

“The English Democrats are a democratic party, concerned with the way English identity and culture is being eroded. But unlike the BNP, which has a terrible image, it has a very clean image and is based on promoting our way of life as opposed to the BNP’s obsession on race.”

Paul McEnhill is the only English Democrat standing in the Kirklees elections on May 5. The Denby Dale candidate welcomed the ex-BNP members yesterday.

“I’ve met Barry Fowler and Roger Roberts and they seem like decent people,” he said. “We are a broad church, we have former members from Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberals.”

But Mr McEnhill added: “We won’t just let in any Tom, Dick or Harry in off the street, new members will be vetted extremely well.”

University of Huddersfield politics lecturer Dr Andrew Mycock predicted that former BNP members may have some problems in the English Democrats.

He said yesterday: “In one sense it’s a logical move because the two parties have a very similar position in many areas like Europe and political correctness. But the English Democrats have accepted that multi-cultural Britain has some value, a view which the BNP has never held.”

VOTERS in Huddersfield have moved away from the British National Party in the past five years.

The party took one in five votes in the Kirklees Council election of 2006, gaining two seats. But by last year’s poll the BNP won just 7.6% and lost its only councillor.

Five years ago the party secured 22,914 votes – 18.5% – across the 23 wards of Kirklees. The party won in Heckmondwike and Dewsbury East, to add to the seat it took at the 2003 Heckmondwike by-election. The BNP also polled strongly in Mirfield and Cleckheaton. Robert Walker won 1,100 votes in Golcar, just 300 behind the winning Lib Dem candidate.

The BNP also performed well in the 2007 election, taking 19,891 votes, which equals 16.2%. The party failed to win any seats that year, but finished a strong second in Dewsbury East and Heckmondwike.

However, the following year the party went into steep decline, taking 15,090 votes – some 12.6% of the total.

David Exley lost his seat in Heckmondwike, finishing nearly 200 votes behind Labour. A few months later Colin Auty resigned his Dewsbury East seat after a disagreement with party leader Nick Griffin. Labour won the by-election.

Last year the BNP’s support in Kirklees slumped to just 7.6%, with the party’s only remaining councillor Roger Roberts losing his seat in Heckmondwike.

Huddersfield Daily Examiner

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is Dickie Bumbrook still an English Democrat?

baz said...

Ever since one or two defected, there has been more BNPers joining the EDs. I wander what Peter Davies, mayor of donny thinks abou this?

Ex-BNP-ers share Davies's bigotry.

Anonymous said...

These are not the actions of a leader of a democratic party, but that of a dictator

A lot of these people have been mugged by reality.

When they joined the BNP they brought into Griffin's sales pitch that they were a democractic party fighting for British values and had broken from fascism. Now, they are experiencing the dictatorial methods that fascist leaders have always run their parties by.

Anonymous said...

“The English Democrats are a democratic party, concerned with the way English identity and culture is being eroded. But unlike the BNP, which has a terrible image, it has a very clean image and is based on promoting our way of life as opposed to the BNP’s obsession on race.”

Yeah, a way of life which will, in effect, seek to exclude non-Whites and view them as a foreign "other" even if they are born here.

By letting in so many fascists the EDP can't help but be compromised. It may think it can change them but it could be them and their party that's changed.

"If you lie down with dogs...."

CAR said...

Our Cumbrian counterparts have revealed that one of the EDL members are standing for the BNP in Carlisle, Ben Whittingham is his name, he has a blog and also a facebook page.

felicity said...

Trevor KKKelway has shit his pants that the forums have been infiltrated by people taking the piss out of them over the rayguns vid by closing down the Zetaboards.

Anonymous said...

The EDL will merge with the EDP just before the elections. This is Caxley-Lemon's evil masterplan.

Anonymous said...

A chuffin hilarious anti-fash follow-on video featuring Adolf Hitler and the EDL taking the pee out of Tommy Robinson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB7Z-o_dWzI

Please can you post this video on the LU blogger, Ketlan.

Cheers as always,

Shazza

Anonymous said...

"Trevor KKKelway has shit his pants that the forums have been infiltrated by people taking the piss out of them over the rayguns vid by closing down the Zetaboards".

Is this why they are offline?

NewsHound said...

EDL TRY UNSUCCESSFULLY TO DISRUPT BRIGHTON ANTI-FASCIST MEETING: -

http://hoverepublic.blogspot.com/2011/04/edl-tries-to-disrupt-anti-fascist.html

(THEY DID NOT PASS!!!)

Flora Lite said...

NWI is to the EDL like Combat18 was to the EDL. Hard scumbags such as Snowy provide muscle and security at EDL marches yet both organisations, though interlinked, try to claim they are seperate.

Despite not claiming to be nazis, some EDL and BNP members on Facebook list Skrewdriver as their favourite band along with Alex And The Banits (misplelt "bandits").

Anonymous said...

Looks like the Rats are deserting the sinking ship

Anonymous said...

Shazza

thanks for the youtube Hitler/EDL video link. Was LOLing none stop.

Anonymous said...

another Hitler/EDL parody.... i enjoyed it

Anonymous said...

forgot the link for the other Hitler/EDL parody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVVNmVMeoPA

Anonymous said...

http://efp.org.uk/ex-bnp-organiser-now-a-labour-party-candidate/

Anonymous said...

Please post the Hitler EDL piss-taking video on the blog please, Anti-Fascist.

Pee Rex said...

You betcha the former revolutionary communists of Spiked Magazine are right now as we speak, planning many pro-fascist and pro-nationalist articles to big up the new BNP arrivals to the English Democrats.

Anonymous said...

The mere fact that the EDP is willing to take these defectors tells us all we need to know about them.

Can you imagine the SNP, Plaid Cymru or Sinn Fein accepting a BNP exodus? This is the way to tell the difference between a closet racist party and a party we can be sympathetic towards.

I actually think the idea of an English Parliament is not that bad an idea, but it needs to be represented by a party other than the EDP. What would be good is if another party adopts the English Parliament idea and starts drawing the non-racist EDP supporters over. This will expose the remainder of the EDP as just another racist gathering.

NewsHound said...

VIOLENCE AT BRIGHTON ANTI-FASCIST MEETING: -

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/8958532.Violence_at_Brighton_anti_fascist_meeting/

NewsHound said...

EDL PROTESTOR STARTS JAIL TERM FOR AFFRAY: -

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2011/04/07/edl-protester-starts-jail-term-for-affray/