BNP in crisis: The BNP has split!

The long awaited split within the British National Party has finally happened. Despite the rebels insisting that their priority was to remain within the party and campaign for the removal of Nick Griffin as leader it now appears that they are making a real break by standing candidates against the BNP.

A few hours ago the rebels launched their Voice of Change website. Hardly the most inspiring site it nevertheless signals a change in tactics. Whilst it continues to claim that they will challenge Griffin in a leadership election in June it is clear that none of the nine sacked party officers believe that a) they will be reinstated and b) that they would stand a chance in any leadership election given that Griffin himself is allowed to decide on the election rules which in last year’s contest included the banning of any campaigning!

Instead, the website makes it clear that they are prepared to stand against Griffin’s BNP. “Voice of Change is an umbrella group to assist candidates who wish to stand as independent nationalists in the local elections in May 2008 and in any local by-elections throughout the year.”

This will badly affect the BNP in Yorkshire, the East Midlands, Scotland and Greater Manchester. In Yorkshire, which has been their most powerful region within the party for some time, there appears only one or two branches which remain loyal to the current leadership. Support for the rebellion is fairly solid across Scotland, though this is a far less important region for the party electorally. The strong East Midlands region will also be affected. While the region is split over support for the rebellion the loss of many of its key organisers, such as Sadie Graham and Wayne McDermott, the region’s competent election organiser, will be a severe blow to BNP in the short term.

The rebels were left with little option but to begin the move towards a separate party. Since announcing their decision to challenge Griffin’s leadership a week ago it is clear that many of their supporters recognised the futility in all this. Over the last 48 hours Searchlight received information from within Yorkshire BNP that many of its key organisers were preparing to make a break. The officers of Hull BNP has been the first to declare themselves as ‘Independent Nationalists’ but we expect others to follow shortly.

The move to support rival candidates will also be music to the ears of Nick Griffin. Whilst he must recognise that the party will suffer in May’s local elections in Yorkshire, and that he is likely to lose the vast majority of the region, he will also know that in the all-important London and European elections, both contested under PR, the internal problems within the BNP is unlikely to affect their vote.

He must also know that any move to support candidates against the BNP will immediately lead to expulsions.

The rebels, now operating under the banner Voice of Change, plan to hold a conference in the East Midlands on Sunday 27 January. Much will become clearer at this event but it is now already evident that the rebels have given up on wrestling control of the BNP away from Griffin and the split has occurred.

BNP in crisis

Target: Griffin

The following posts appeared on the rebel North-East Scotland Nationalists blog. We are republishing them without amendment to demonstrate that though the BNP rebel faction has (at least on the surface) lost the initiative in the racist party's internal civil war, there is a long way to go yet.

Both posts implicitly acknowledge what was stark-staringly obvious from day one - that whatever the accusations against Collett and Hannam, the real problem in the BNP is Nick Griffin himself. Belatedly, the rebels have shifted the focus to Griffin, but the weeks spent in half-heartedly professing loyalty to the BNP leader have cost them dear. Griffin is a ruthless operator, as the rebels knew full well before beginning their adventure, and nothing was more certain than that he would act aggressively, decisively and without scruple. Nothing less on the part of the rebels was ever going to bring them anywhere near success.

The posts reproduced below contain serious allegations against named individuals that we seek neither to confirm or dispute, and though these allegations have already appeared in the public domain, we disassociate ourselves from them completely.

This post appeared as a comment on the North-East Scotland Nationalists blog. Its apparent author is Chris Telford, previously BNP North East regional organiser, lately active in Glasgow. Telford is a member of the Blood and Honour group, Nemesis. His post contains references some readers may find offensive.

Dear Comrade,

I have 13 years active service as a BNP activist and independent pro-white musician. Many of those I am pleased and honoured to call "Comrade" and "Friend" have served their folk for many more years than that. Until the weekend of 8th/9th December 2007 I have counted Nick Griffin amongst them, but that ended when he ordered the burglary of Sadie Graham and Matt Single, and the foiled burglary of Kenny and Nicholla.

Let me confess a few things to you.

I was a regional organiser when N.G. launched his leadership bid in 1999. I wrote to the local members urging them to cast their votes for him. For many years after, the thought that I had played a small part in a painful but vital operation was a matter of quiet pride, tempered only by the fact I had to oppose people who I respected: Richard Edmonds, JT, Ian Dell, etc.

As Nick's cult of personality geared up I privately applauded it; reasoning, "Human nature being what it is... some people need that and If it helps us advance then so be it".

Sadly in recent years it's become more and more apparent that Nick has been developing the nasty little habit of surrounding himself with sycophants and numpties. However by this time I had made some artificial space between myself and the party to protect it from any criticism stemming from my involvement with the more "hard line" Blood and Honour music scene and secondly to grant myself a little artistic freedom.

As I was no longer a Party official it really wasn't my business anymore.I was happier being a grassroots activist without position or a membership card. Spreading a positive and honest message of racial survival through music is simply incompatible with asking a cowed and conditioned electorate to vote for you. Consequently I limited my BNP activities to leafleting, giving occasional speeches and helping to produce fund raising CD's and playing at concerts. (As well as doing a stand-up comedy set at the BNP's Red, White and Blue festival - a set that I hasten to add that was at Nick Griffin's personal request and one I only agreed to do after I ran some of the naughtier, politically incorrect material by Griffin.)

As time passed, news of one badly handled internal discipline problem after another reached me. I have seen this too many times with my own eyes in my native North-East. For example Darlington fundholder and widely suspected Special Branch errand boy, Trevor Agnew, was caught red-handed stealing Party donations but was then re-instated by NG who seemingly finds this treasonable behaviour acceptable.

Factionalism and deliberate branch sabotage in Sunderland was allowed to fester for years, fed by black propaganda from troublemakers like Agnew and the foaming, religious zealot Dave Guynan.

Action was finally taken when Nick Griffin took the belated step to actually accept the resignation of Guynan after his last orchestrated public screaming fit. (Hysterics which cost the Sunderland-South group its regular meeting place, the Landlord's support and even more members).

This half-hearted decision by Griffin to dispense with Guynan's "services" came at least seven years too late for Sunderland and the BNP. Party Leader Griffin was fully aware of the countless examples of Guynan's sabotage, of his public outbursts, his rampant character assassinations, his theft of the PO Box key, his physical assaults and his ranting speeches at meetings. (Full of truly Hollywood-Nazi "Jews control the weather" wackyness and fundamental Mormon-ism).

Despite nearly a decade of this unnecessary disruption Sunderland was the first-ever BNP branch to stand a full slate of candidates in local elections. This is a feat which simply will not be repeated at the next election where there will only be a handful of compliant, Griffinite candidates standing. This serves all Racial Nationalists as a perfect example of where Griffin's cronyism and aversion to decisive Party discipline leads to. For years Griffin has allowed "shipwreckers" to ply their trade and "take their turn in the barrel" whilst honest, dedicated Racial activists have been forced to walk the plank.

Last year, as a further example of this malaise, we saw the Andrew Spence debacle. Spence, a man who raised the BNP's North East's profile to an all-time high last year in Sedgefield, has been discarded by Griffin in favour of the odious Movement parasite and Fire Exit Inspector, Mark Collett and the tragically inept Real Ale enthusiast John Walker. Farce has followed farce with almost always good people lost.

All of this has convinced me that the BNP will never again be a serious organ of resistance to our people's genocide under this man's stewardship. In fact the dark suspicion that Griffin has turned the party into a private money making machine, providing nothing but a play-ground for the worst elements of our movement, is bearing fruit(sour though it is). By this I do not mean the many good comrades who are still holding their tongues, as well as their faith, in our so-called Leadership but I instead refer to the two degenerate scumbags (Collett and Dave "Lock up your daughters" Hannam), who by their own admission tried to pressurise two underage girls into sex in their conference hotel rooms.

Nick has tried to sweep this fact into the memory-hole but he cannot pretend any longer that it did not happen, neither can I and neither should you.( As a matter of fact at Sunderland BNP's Christmas social in 2005 Mark Collett had to be warned off from a public clinch with an underage girl. At the time we put it down to a drunken lack of judgement, not knowing his penchant for trying to take advantage of impressionable 14 year olds).

Even an establishment Party, whose Leader had tried to keep such a sleazy scandal like this from it's membership, would be forced to act and that "Leaders" feet wouldn't touch the floor on the way out of the door.

By his inaction and ultimate complicity Nick Griffin has betrayed the BNP membership and has forced Party activists and supporters into an impossible position. When this scandal fully breaks, as it will, then how can any of us "go to the people" or go door to door espousing honest family values when those to whom we look to for leadership fail us so miserably.

We must remember that the BNP is far bigger than any one man, no matter how many degenerate parasites, wife-swapping doormen, (ex?)-commie journalists, paid trouble-makers, hit-list provocateurs like Lecomber, as well as the donation stealers, "Yes men" and South-African spooks he surrounds himself with.

I should point out that by "South-African spooks" I mean shady (ex?)-coppers and not Zulu or Xhosa Kaffirs, but that is only a matter of time.

I ask you again in all honesty and with a large degree of sadness; How can we look people in the eye any longer and ask them to vote for a party that is peddling it's much vaunted "Christian values" when some of it's disciples wallow in "last days of Rome" decadence? Although, to be fair, if you study the history of all Middle Eastern religions, then Collett and Hannam could honestly claim to be following many a Christian leader's example by trying to molest the underage.

It is to my eternal shame that I once sat in silence whilst Griffin's wife defamed Warren Bennett; slandering him as a thief of party funds (a lie shamelessly echoed by her husband but now fully exposed as spiteful fabrication). At the time I bit my tongue and told myself that it was best not to cause trouble for the sake of the Party.

I told myself that stability out-weighed truth. I now know that I was guilty of moral cowardice.

My silence now would only help store up trouble in the long run and I ask those activists who seem content to rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic to act solely in the interests our children's future and decide today which type of British National Party they want.

The recent bragging to the Daily Mail by Party officials of Richard Barnbrook's decision to make himself a race-mixer by default has also helped to identify the leadership's true yellow colours and shows the real dangers of the course Griffstein has set us on; namely, spew enough **** and eventually you'll start to like the taste.

Do not forget that Our Infallible Leader has caused this crisis. His response to those who have dared to demand internal self-discipline is there for all to see: burglary, spying, intimidation, lies, false accusations, fabricated evidence and disabled goon squads demanding access to good comrades' homes.

The painful truth for me and many others who counted this man as a friend and a true comrade is that he is now plainly neither.He has betrayed the hopes of us all by putting his own selfish motives before honour, loyalty and the BNP -
the best defensive weapon the native British folk have in these darkest of days.

I will never forgive him. More importantly neither will our Ancestors nor the Generations still unborn.

I offer some good advice to those with the wit to heed it:

If you are the type who has only recently raised their head from the goyim feed-trough and in your new-found zeal you find the comforting urge to join in with the herd's fury at those who have dared question Our Glorious Leader-think twice before you do. Your shepherd is revealing himself to be a butcher. He has promised new green pastures if you hold faith but instead there are some of us who already have the stench of the slaughter-house in their nostrils.

Save your anger for farmer Griffin - you'll need it later on.

Yours for Race and Nation

Chris Telford

From Charles Mather, BNP Wigan organiser:

A message to Nick from Wigan BNP

The following letter was sent to Nick Griffin from Wigan BNP:

Wigan BNP Activists: Extraordinary General Meeting

Dear Nick,

As you are aware we have been extremely distressed over the discord in the party during the past month and it has only been our faith in Nationalism and its importance for our future that has kept us from throwing in the towel. We have read both sides of the dispute and have been struck by the difference in tone between them.

The intemperate language employed by Simon Darby in his blog when he first accused the “rebels” of being “Nazis" and the following day “Searchlight moles” does not incline one to believe other statements he makes. A blog full of contradictory statements is to say the least unpersuasive.

By contrast the “enoughisenough” blog is a lesson in restraint with no extreme or unbelievable statements. There is certainly no evidence of an attempt to take over the party. Admittedly it was foolish and wrong to start the blog. It would have been much better to resign in protest over the failings of Mark Collett and Dave Hannam but it was even more foolish to publish details of the dispute on the BNP web site for all to see and to brand those who support Sadie et al as Nazis. To then offer these Nazis an amnesty if they returned to the fold seems to be the height of political naivety and would surely be used against us by our opponents.

The appearance of South African security people in the higher echelons of our party is a certain vote loser and will also be exploited by our opponents.

Why do we need all this security and spying on our neighbours? We are a legitimate party and if we behave as such we should have no fear of the machinations of our opponents and have no secrets worth spying on.

We do NOT believe Sadie, Kenny and matt are Nazis or Searchlight moles, indeed they have been hard working and a credit to the party as have Nick Cass, Jonathan Bowden, Bev Jones, Richard Purdy and many others who are not now with us. We can not afford to lose good people such as these.

The only people who have brought the party in to disrepute are Mark Collett and Dave Hannam but they remain in the party.

On the website it says that no person is above the party and we heartily agree. We can’t see therefore why these two remain an exception to the rule. If they cared about the Party they would take a back seat or are they agents of the state? They have certainly caused more strife than any one from MI5 could have done.

In spite of the above, we remain committed to the Party and you as leader but our enthusiasm is much diminished.

Just think what we could achieve without this dissent.

The feeling of our group and prospective members is that while good workers are being sacked and trouble causers retained we will make no progress. We are losing members because of this and several people who indicated the intention of joining no longer wish to do so.

We resolve therefore to keep our group going on a minimum maintenance basis but feel we are wasting our time in actively campaigning until matters are resolved.

We hope and pray for a speedy, sensible and amicable conclusion to this sorry dispute or our Party and country are doomed.

This will not go away.

Yours sincerely,
Charles Mather,
Wigan BNP Organiser

More entertainment courtesy of our friends at Kirklees Unity:

Griffin and his Nazi salute - the facts

Giddy up, John (John Walker downloads animal pornography)

BNP in crisis – one month on

A month has passed since the opening salvo of the internal feud within the BNP. On 8 December a BNP security team entered the home of the party’s Group Development Officer Sadie Graham and removed her computer. Several hundred miles away another BNP security team was trying to enter the home of the party’s Head of Admin Kenny Smith. The following day the BNP website reported that both had been sacked from their party jobs and were on their way to being expelled from the party itself.

Over the course of the next two weeks over 60 BNP organisers and local officials have gone on strike in support of Graham and Smith. Among them were five regional organisers and several councillors. Both factions have used the Internet and the national media to attack one another, with both sides accusing the other of harbouring ‘Nazis’ and Holocaust Deniers.

With a calendar month now having passed, Searchlight looks at where the dispute lies now and ponders the long term damage to the BNP.

The split inside the BNP has been deeply damaging. Despite the official BNP position that it is a ‘storm in a teacup’ it is clear that the rift within the party will be difficult to heal. Most of the rebels come from Yorkshire and the East Midlands, the two strongest BNP regions in recent years. With Scotland and much of Greater Manchester also joining the rebellion it is clear that many of the party’s most able organisers and activists have left the BNP for good. In Sadie Graham and Ian Dawson, the BNP is set to lose the two people who have done so much in recent years to build the party structure on the ground.

It is going to be hard for BNP leader Nick Griffin to quickly rebuild the party in these regions. The appointment of failed BNP councillor and convicted C18 thug Adrian Marsden as the party’s new Yorkshire Regional Organiser shows how depleted the ranks are for Griffin. Likewise the fact that Griffin has taken over the North West is also interesting given that it shows a complete lack of alternative talent on the ground and a signal that he is unwilling to provide a potential power base for the one man, Chris Jackson, who appears willing to do the job. Jackson, it must be remembered, unsuccessfully challenged Griffin for the party leadership last year.

However, the rebellion appears to have run its course in terms of personnel leaving as well as the regions effected. Virtually no-one from the North East, Wales, West Midlands, London, Eastern, South East or South West has joined the rebels and with Eddie Butler deciding to stick with the party leadership the all-important East London and Essex branches have been rebellion free. The rebels boast continued support but it does rather feel that the momentum is ebbing away from them. Perhaps by not actually making a physical split from the party (except for the handful of officials who were actually expelled) the rebel leaders have backed themselves into a corner. They won’t be able to change things internally and will gradually be isolated and edged out, or at least away from the levers of power within the party.

Griffin, meanwhile, has seen his authority severely undermined, though not terminally. The manner in which he obtained the evidence against the rebels, the vitriolic and almost immature public attacks that followed on the party website, and the clear distortion of facts, if not downright lying, has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many activists who have not publicly committed themselves to either camp. Three days before Christmas he issued an ultimatum to the 60 party officers to publicly withdraw their support for the rebellion or be disciplined. In a sign of his weakening authority he then obviously failed to sway any of the rebels and his ultimatum suddenly vanished.

On top of this there is also a police investigation into the entry of Sadie Graham’s home by deception and the theft of her personal computer.

Griffin obviously decided at an early stage that he was not going to compromise with the rebels, even if that meant losing key activists. He appears to be willing to write off Yorkshire as a functioning BNP region and this will have severe repercussions for BNP candidates, active and well-run branches and levels of activism at least in the short term.

He must have been heartened by fact that no organiser or councillor in London has broken ranks and with the London Assembly elections being contested under PR he surely thinks that a strong showing here will silence his doubters. The 2009 European Elections, again contested under PR, will be another centrally run election and so the affects of depleted branch structures, such as in Yorkshire, will be negligible.

However, this strategy will stand or fall on whether Griffin can get people elected to the London Assembly and the European Parliament. With the exception of the Barking and Dagenham breakthrough, Griffin hasn't really delivered a great deal since 2001-2003 and that was more down to external factors than his own fantastic leadership.

With few local elections being contested in the East Midlands this May, Griffin must hope that he has time to rebuild a party structure before 2009.

So, a month on from the split, it is the rebels who must be scratching their heads and pondering their next move. The current state of limbo, where both factions trade insults over the Internet, only benefits the leadership in the long term. Some party members who might currently sympathise with the rebels will grow tired of the feuding and return to party business as elections approach.

If the rebellion is to succeed then a change of tact is required. The rebels need to find a way to increase the pressure on Nick Griffin, to revitalise their ebbing momentum and give their supporters a real alternative and proper leadership. Sadie Graham has admitted to journalists that there exists a photograph of Nick Griffin giving a nazi salute. If this is true, then she needs to publish it. Only that way can she pin the nazi tag back on the BNP leader.

If they continue to oppose the party leadership whilst falling over themselves to appear loyal to the party then they will wither away in the not too distant future. Griffin appears to have weathered the worst of this crisis but other difficulties lies ahead. Mark Collett, who appears deeply unpopular even amongst party loyalists, is still in place and likely to upset other people in the future. The South Africans, who Searchlight has revealed include former Intelligence operatives, are clearly disliked and distrusted by much of the party. And, more significantly, Griffin’s own management style, which has repeatedly led him to fall out with everyone around him, is likely to cause conflict and splits in the future.

In the meantime, Searchlight and all anti-fascists will continue to enjoy the unfolding spectacle. The allegations being thrown around the Internet has given us a lot of additional information, much of it previously unknown, which we can use against both factions in the future. It is also clear that the two sides can never be reconciled and among the rebel leaders who are about to be formally expelled from the BNP are a number of competent organisers. This, and the loss of several other branch organisers who are set to drop out in sympathy, will leave the BNP in a much weaker position that they were one month ago.

Stop The BNP

Councillor could be forced out of BNP

A Dewsbury councillor may be expelled from the British National Party after offering his support to an internal rebellion. But Dewsbury East councillor Colin Auty, who was elected in the May 2006 elections, said ongoing party issues would not affect his work in the ward.

He said: "At the moment I'm just carrying on doing what I do, the vast majority of which is ward work. It won't interfere with anything else. I'll just carry on."

Mr Auty, whose term ends in 2010, was one of more than 60 party members to add his name to a blogging website set up by a group using the name The Real BNP. It called on party leader Nick Griffin to reinstate six expelled party members, create a formal management system and eject two BNP members that they felt were damaging the party.

At the weekend a post on the official BNP website said there would be an amnesty for members to withdraw their support for the rebels, with the promise that their 'misguided low level involvement in this whole regrettable affair will be discounted and their prior positions and good standing restored'.

Two weeks ago Mr Auty was also at a regional party meeting in Leeds which reportedly descended into chaos after fighting allegedly broke out between some members. On Sunday an anonymous post on the Real BNP blog said members who had heckled Mr Griffin at the meeting had been sent letters expelling them from the party. But Mr Auty, whose name remains on the website, said he has not received any letters or other communication telling him he has been expelled.

He said: "At this stage I don't know what's happening. I haven't received anything yet. There were certain people that have had a letter for what they termed disrupting a meeting. As regards to the so-called rebels I don't know anyone who has had a letter from that. I just voiced what I believed were my own concerns. I stand by what I feel is right for the voters more than anything else. I'm here for the public and if I believe they would have concerns then that makes me have concerns. One thing I've said with politics is I'll call it as I see it.

"I think it's really important that even if you have issues with your own party you have got to be honest. It's up to people like myself. If I believe there's something wrong within my own party, it's up to us to make things better and to be listened to."

On Monday the rebel website posted a message to say it would no longer be commenting on internal issues and called on the leadership to drop the threats of expulsion.

Dewsbury Reporter

BNP at war amid allegations of illegal activity

· Around 50 key members quit to set up rival faction
· Leadership claims affair will quickly blow over

Taking stock in the library of the Oxford Union Nick Griffin had good reason to be cheerful. The chairman of the British National party, who scored a resounding victory in a summer leadership challenge, had just given a confident performance in front of some of the brightest students in the country and was looking forward to the next day's headlines.

Three weeks later, however, and the political landscape on the far right has changed. The BNP is engulfed in a bitter factional war which threatens to tear the organisation apart.

This week the leadership was accused of spying, theft and money laundering and dozens of key organisers have resigned the party whip and are now calling themselves the "Real BNP".

Labour MP Jon Cruddas has handed a dossier of evidence to the Electoral Commission and the Metropolitan police that he says contains evidence of "alleged illegal activity and financial irregularities".

Cruddas, who has several BNP councillors in his Barking constituency, told MPs in the House of Commons: "What's been uncovered in the internal workings of the BNP appears to be systematic illegality in terms of data protection, bugging, money laundering, theft and the operation of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000."

Detectives in Nottinghamshire have confirmed they are investigating claims that a BNP security team stole files and computer equipment from the home of a regional official. The Metropolitan Police said it had responded to the allegations but added it was not investigating the matter "at the current time."

The BNP insists it has not done anything illegal and says the affair will "blow over" by Christmas.

"This is not a split so much as a slither and it will all be sorted out very quickly indeed," said the BNP's national spokesman, Simon Derby.

The allegations come at the end of a tumultuous week. Tensions between modernisers and hardliners boiled over on Monday when it emerged that about 50 councillors and organisers had resigned and declared themselves to be the "Real BNP". That was followed by showdown meetings between Griffin and the rebels.

At one, in the Gun and Dog pub in Leeds on Tuesday, a witness described how the meeting descended into chaos when one of the rebels smashed a glass and threatened to attack Griffin supporter Mark Collett.

Despite the protestations of the leadership the BNP appears to have lost the support of the Yorkshire region - widely seen as one of the party's heartlands - as well as key organisers in other areas. Anti-fascist campaigners say this is the most serious crisis the BNP has faced since it was formed in the early 1990s.

"In the past disputes have been between the old guard and Griffin, who portrayed himself as a moderniser taking the party forward," said Nick Lowles, from anti-fascist organisation Searchlight. "Now, however, many of the younger more able organisers and activists who make the party tick on a day-to-day basis are breaking away and that is what makes this much more serious for the leadership."

The original row centred around two organisers, Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith, who were accused of plotting an "inept and ill-timed coup" against Griffin, Collett and another senior finance official, Dave Hannam, last week.

Graham, a BNP councillor in Broxtowe in the east Midlands and the BNP's group development officer, claims the party secretly bugged her home. She said a BNP security team "tricked" their way into her house when she was out, taking files and computer equipment.

The party's website ran a recording of a conversation between Graham and Smith, who were subsequently sacked for "gross misconduct". The BNP has insisted Graham's home was not bugged, but rather that she had accidentally dialled a number on her mobile phone that led to the conversation being recorded. And they insist that they have proof that the equipment taken belonged to the party.

The rebels cast themselves as modernisers, frustrated at the way the party's finances are run and its failure to confront unsuitable members. They have set up a "Real BNP" faction which appears to have the support of up to 60 senior members.

The split comes at a crucial time for the BNP, which is hoping to make a breakthrough in next year's London assembly elections. In the Commons this week Cruddas said the party was "engulfed in a political crisis" that threatened to tear it apart. "This is not the behaviour of a legitimate political party and I hope to see the police and the Electoral Commission investigate these charges," he added.

The Guardian

The BNP feud gets messier as it acknowledges a Searchlight mole in its leadership

BNP leader Nick Griffin is reeling under media expose of the feud which is ripping the party apart. After a week of total silence the press appears to be falling over itself to report on the crisis and Griffin is not coming out of it well. Channel Four More news even asked whether this was the end of the road for the BNP leader.

Meanwhile, inside the BNP, accusations and recriminations continue to fly. The rebel faction have sent out a newsletter to every party member while the leadership has reproduced, on the party website, the contents of emails which they claim prove that the rebels were hacking into emails of party officials before they were expelled.

If ordinary members didn’t know about the crisis engulfing the party before then they do now.

Christmas is already a busy time for the police but it more appears that they are going to be diverted from tackling criminals on the street to dealing with illegality within the BNP. A quick summary of the allegations being thrown around include:

·

The BNP illegally recording a telephone conversation between Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith

The BNP gained access to Sadie Graham’s house by deception

BNP security took personal property belonging to Sadie Graham without her consent

The BNP leadership have been trawling through Sadie Graham’s computer, even opening new emails, in contravention of the Data Protection Act

Steve Blake as been illegally accessing email accounts of BNP party officials, including those of Nick Griffin

Scott McLean has forged a BNP disciplinary letter

Kenny Smith has removed £4,000 from the BNP Lottery account after he was removed from his party position

Kenny Smith and Sadie Graham have broken the Data Protection Act by sending out an unauthorised mailing to all BNP members

While Searchlight cannot comment of the validity of all of these claims but merely factually report what has been written, it is clear that the BNP is in trouble.

If that wasn’t enough the BNP has now posted this new claim on its party website: “For well over a year, the BNP has been aware that there has been a mole from the Communist Searchlight Magazine in the Advisory Council.”

Now, on that, I cannot possibly comment.

Nick Lowles, Stop The BNP

False Dawn

It would appear that Griffin has finally looked over the cliff and not liked what he sees. On Friday, in a desperate bid to save his leadership, he announced some half-hearted measures to rejig the party, though Collett and Hannam still retain positions and he himself has refused to apologise for his own behaviour. Now it appears that he is looking for a compromise that will allow Sadie Graham to rejoin the party whilst keeping on ‘Nazi boy’ Collett as his personal sidekick. However, as typical of Griffin, he says one thing and does another.

A meeting held in Leicester, the party’s largest branch, yesterday ended with a unanimous vote in support of Graham returning to the party. The motion followed a heated exchange between Griffin and Graham and was also attended by Collett, Matt Single and Nina Brown.

In return for being allowed back into the party Sadie Graham agreed to take down the ‘Enough is Enough’ blog within a week. According to one BNP member present at the meeting “Sadie and Mark shook hands and there was applause for all. The meeting was taped. A lot has been brought out into the open; do not think that we were just gullible listeners, many asked questions and had their say, and I would say that the general feeling was that there was wrong on both sides but that there was a malicious element at the back of all this.” It seems hard to think that peace can last long, if there was any peace in the first place. Indeed, even at the meeting it was clear that this was more a temporary truce rather than a making up. Griffin and Graham both claimed a desire to compromise but then both listed a number of issues on which neither would budge. Griffin has gone away to think about Graham’s demands and given his political and leadership history it is doubtful whether he will relent. Meanwhile, reports have reached us of a growing number of threats of violence being traded by the rival factions, further cementing the animosity.

Over the last few days the rebel faction has become increasingly vocal in their criticism of Griffin, with many calling for his resignation. This alleged deal also does not solve the core problem, which is the corrosive behaviour of Collett, John Walker and Dave Hannam, to say nothing of the growing influence of the South African Intelligence Department.

Meanwhile, as increasingly demoralised BNP members were celebrating the supposed truce on Stormfront, party members in Yorkshire were digesting Griffin’s last blog. In a posting that was clearly designed to infuriate his opponents, he wrote: “Tonight several good activists were turned away from the back street pub venue for a secretively organised rebel meeting in Bradford. The thirty people there included the wretched woman who threw away the biggest ever BNP poll lead in the country in Keighley, plus some individuals who aren’t even in the BNP. Still, all the paid up members were handed invitation letters to a proper Yorkshire regional meeting, being held in Leeds next Tuesday. I’ll certainly be there to explain what’s been going on, and to answer any question that anyone wants to raise. I hope very much that Chris Beverley and Ian Dawson will be there too, because many good people have questions for them as well.”

Griffin’s post has simply deepened the rift with organisers and activists in what is the party’s most important region. The few remaining undecided activists appear to have come off the fence and sided with the rebels, with a clear ‘Griffin Out’ cry now being heard. BNP members might like to think that a peace deal has been done but that would appear wishful thinking. Too much has been said and done over the past eight days for a real conciliation and with a police investigation now launched by the Met these issues are not going to go away quickly. In the meantime, Tuesday seems set to be an important day, in more ways than Griffin can imagine.

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Too little, too late. Griffin’s position weakens further

Nick Griffin’s belated attempts to save his own skin appears to be too little too late. The BNP website today announced a reorganisation in staff and jobs. In an attempt to appease his critics Griffin has sacked and demoted Hannam and Collett respectively, but also abolished the Group Development job, held until last weekend by Sadie Graham.

Dave Hannam has lost his job by virtue of it being phased out, which Griffin claims is in accordance with a previously announced policy. Collett's job is also abolished, he is demoted to graphic design artist and people wanting leaflets will not have to deal with him directly but through Jeremy Wutherspoon.Interestingly there is no mention of Arthur Kemp or the other South Africans, whose presence is causing major disquiet within the party, though Simon Darby, Griffin’s chief sidekick, appears to have taken on a greater internal role.

This reorganisation is clearly a major climb down by Griffin though if he hoped that it would appease his detractors then he seems to have failed. Nothing less than Mark Collett’s immediate sacking will pacify his critics and even that may not now be enough. Griffin’s appalling handling of the crisis has turned the spotlight onto his own leadership. Bugging members phones or laptops, ordering the removal of private property from his staff’s houses and his blind support to Collett is leading an growing number of party activists to call for his own removal. If anything, Griffin’s desperate attempts to pacify his critics whilst not apologising or accepting he has made any mistakes will actually make the situation worse.

Time is running out for Griffin. Unless he removes Collett from the party within the next few days and opens a dialogue with his critics to democratise the party then his own future has to be in doubt. However, Collett clearly has a hold over the BNP leader and so to sack him could have quite different and possibly legal consequences.

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Can Griffin survive?

One thing I have learnt since being editor of Searchlight is that it is foolhardy to make rash predictions. Political fortunes can change by the minute and there is no accounting for the whims of human nature.

However, looking back on the past week it is increasingly clear that Nick Griffin is in serious trouble. Quite how much trouble is difficult to ascertain.

Over 50 BNP organisers, councillors and party officials have now resigned their positions and many more appear close to doing so. Virtually every organiser in Yorkshire and Scotland and a large chunk of the East Midlands have signed up to the rebellion. Searchlight is hearing that all is not well in the West Midlands and rumours are circulating that the BNP group on Barking & Dagenham council are split, with the majority opposing Richard Barnbrook’s support for Griffin.

If that wasn’t enough then there is the announcement by the Electoral Commission that they intend to investigate the BNP for the non-declaration of donations. Yesterday, Jon Cruddas MP wrote to the Commander of the Metropolitan Police demanding an investigation into alleged bugging of phones or laptops and the theft of private property.

Nick Griffin is in serious trouble. Despite the public statements from the leaders of the rebellion that they are not after Griffin’s removal there is clearly little room for reconciliation. Matt Single’s statement issued yesterday and Ian Dawson’s reply to Nick Griffin’s own article on the BNP website makes it clear that they now blame him for the events of recent days. The bitterness they show in their statements can never be healed. Then there are Griffin supporters, like Simon Darby, who have been actively smearing his opponents by phone, email and text and likewise will never be forgiven.

Whatever the outcome of this feud it is clear that leading members of one group or the other will not be in the BNP, or at least in the positions they held seven days ago.

The situation is only going to get worse for Griffin. A momentum is building up within the party against the leadership and we expect several organisers who so far have remained silent to side with the rebels. Next week Searchlight will produce a dossier on the financial irregularities and mismanagement within the BNP and this is likely to trigger a new investigation from the authorities.

Griffin is stuck in an impossible place. His sectarian and conspiratorial nature automatically leads him to manoeuvre against internal critics, as we have seen so often over the years, which of course creates resentment and a desire for revenge. He could move against Collett to save his own position but Searchlight is aware that the Head of Publicity has evidence that can sink Griffin instantly and he has indicated that he is prepared to use it if he himself falls. His leadership and authority would also be in tatters. Alternatively he could carry on and fight it out but the pendulum is swinging against him and fewer and fewer local organisers are now prepared to speak out in support of him.

However, Griffin will not go without a fight. If there is one lesson that we can learn from his 33 years of far right involvement is that when he cannot win, he destroys.

Griffin’s position is looking increasingly untenable and the chickens are coming home to roost. A police investigation could sink him and his cohorts and in the process destroy the credibility of the BNP. Griffin’s dictatorial style and authoritarian desire to crush his opponents has set off a train of events over which he has no control.

We wonder how many party members would be willing to pay into Griffin’s next defence fund.

Stop The BNP