When Tuesday comes

On Saturday morning the BNP website carried one of those venomously torrid articles in which it seems to specialise, which baldly stated that "disgraced" former webmaster Simon Bennett had stolen the BNP's email list and that legal action was being taken against him.

Some time during the afternoon the post (along with a lone "Hang him!" comment from a BNP nematode) disappeared into the cyber-ether, promoting an article on the failure of the CPS to prosecute BNP street thug and drink-driver Bob Bailey to lead story.

The BNP has a long history of threatening (or at least informing its gullible members that it is about to take) legal action against some person or entity, and almost always failing to do so. From memory, I believe we recorded three examples over the spring and summer of 2009, one of which included a promise to put the "lying" Daily Mirror in court for its coverage of "BNP mum" and female thug Helen Forster, who the BNP denied was a member after her conviction for the intimidation of neighbour Mrs Meherjan Miah was reported in the newspaper. The BNP despatched the long forgotten "Operation Fightback" in the form of lying Paul Golding to film an interview with lying Helen Forster, both of them brazenly continuing to deny Forster's BNP membership. Within hours of the film and the BNP's threats against the Mirror appearing on the party website, "Helen Forster" was recognised as "Helen Colclough" - BNP activist, and perfectly well known to Golding. The story quickly disappeared.

Why the BNP got cold feet after publishing its blunt accusation of theft against Simon Bennett we do not know. The normally voluble Bennett, prone to engage in long and tedious online spats with various representatives of the Green Arrow nursery class, does not appear to have noticed, but since he did not break off from arranging boxing matches and informing the world that his father was "lifed off for murder when I was two years old" until 4.20 am, perhaps he was still in bed when the accusation was removed.

Since Bennett, like the party from which he is estranged, is given to promising action which never materialises, it is unlikely that the highly libellous accusation was removed from the BNP website through any fear of him launching a legal action. It might have been taken down when somebody sobered up and realised what counter-productive hysterical nonsense it was, or because it was realised that the idea of the BNP having the financial wherewithal to launch a legal action against anybody would produce an avalanche of laughter from one end of the BNP to the other (Paul Morris and company excepted), as Nick Griffin had admitted that the BNP was skint and sinking just the day before.

Visitors to the BNP website cannot have failed to notice that despite repeated appeals from Griffin the BNP's EHRC Fighting Fund, with a target set at £30,000, has remained stubbornly stuck at the £10,000 mark - itself a highly dubious figure.

Griffin's latest appeal drips utter desperation in every word. "We need to raise £150,000 to keep the wolves at bay and to ensure our survival," he pleads.

He's clearly not going to get it unless some deranged benefactor with a penchant for lost causes comes to the rescue.

The parlous state of the BNP is frankly admitted by Griffin's close friend Tony Lecomber, who posts on the British Democracy Forum as BNPhappy:

Activism has already dried up. Last month the whole of the East Mids got 4 enquiries and the whole of the North East got two! Whole branches are likely going to fold. When the fence sitters see this, they are going to get disheartened and also drift away. The knock on effect of this is that, ironically, those who have been loyal to Nick will then also get disheartened and many of those will drop out.

The Shelley Rose episode appears to have been the final straw for many "fence sitters", particularly in the light of Jim Dowson's craven and very public failure either to refute Rose's allegations or to begin proceedings against her. Commenting on the Green Arrow website - one of the few places on the planet he can count on an uncritical hearing - Dowson lamely challenges Rose to go to the police, then claims that she is not worth "200 or 300k fees in clearing my name" - figures plucked out of thin air by a man clearly writhing in deep discomfort.

Dowson's curiously non-combative attitude has only lent weight to Rose's claims, and will boost Eddy Butler's leadership campaign as the nomination gathering process draws to a close.

In the midst of all this fascist angst has come the expulsion of Mark Collett, a matter that once would have occupied several posts on this website but which - though Collett is central to the current turmoil - seems scarcely worthy of a sentence. It is, of course, as we haven't heard the last of Collett (allegedly owed £20,000 by the BNP), who is involved in Eddy Butler's campaign but who, for the negative emotions he excites, is wisely being kept from view.

To cover for the fact that the police and CPS dropped the Griffin/Dowson inspired "death threat" charges against Collett for lack of evidence, Griffin's camp are suggesting that a private prosecution may be started against Collett. We don't expect to be reporting any such case any time soon.

The nominations deadline is Tuesday, when it should become clear whether or not Eddy Butler has gathered his required 20% voting member signatures. His last call for support has the urgent air of a Nick Griffin appeal for donations. It does not ooze confidence, but then Butler has been understandably tight-lipped on the matter of exactly how many nomination signatures he has gathered to date.

If he cannot gather 840 signatures then there is no challenge. Even if he does there is the tantalising question of whether scrutineer Andrew Brons will accept those submitted on Butler's own forms, as we understand that Brons is far from happy with the nomination procedure imposed by Nick Griffin.

Whatever happens, Tuesday will prove one of the most notable days in the history of the BNP, and the party's civil war is certain erupt into ever higher levels of viciousness. Stay with us for news of the endgame as it plays out.

Bob Bailey resigns as head of London BNP

Bob Bailey putting the boot in

Bob "it's all a conspiracy" Bailey has resigned as head of London BNP after losing his seat and getting arrested for assault. According to to a statement by London BNP, Bob stood down in order to:

"concentrate on clearing his name following unfounded allegations of assault during the recent London Elections"

Before claiming that:

"Bob leaves London BNP in good shape"

Under his leadership the BNP lost every single seat they held in the capital. These included his own and the council seat of the BNP's only London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook. Barnbrook has so far failed to mention this defeat, although he does admit that:

"We didn’t do nearly as well as we’d hoped."

However, all is not lost. As he puts it on his blog:

"the result, disappointing as it was, doesn’t actually change anything"

Oh dear. I think we're stuck in the first stage of grief here Richard.

Tory Troll

General election 2010: the defeat of the BNP

The BNP had promised a 'political earthquake' in east London. Instead, unexpectedly, it was wiped out. Matthew Taylor and Hugh Muir report on the forces that came together to defeat it, and ask: is this the end for Nick Griffin's party?

At two minutes past six last Friday morning, Nick Griffin walked to the front of the makeshift stage at the Goresbrook leisure centre in Barking, east London, and tried to make his voice heard above a braying crowd. The BNP leader had just suffered a humiliating defeat, beaten into third place by Labour MP Margaret Hodge in the constituency where he had promised to create a "political earthquake".

But as he began a flustered and angry speech, Griffin already knew that worse was to come. Rumours had been circulating round the east London count for more than an hour that the party had not only failed to get its first MP, it was on the verge of an electoral disaster in the area Griffin had once described as the party's "jewel in the crown".

"Within the next five years, the indigenous people of London will be a minority," barked Griffin, as jubilant Labour supporters taunted him with shouts of "Out, out, out!" "It is going to be too late for Barking, but it is not too late for Britain." By then, though, no one was listening.

In the next 12 hours, Griffin's worst fears were realised – and even exceeded. The party was thrashed in its two key parliamentary constituencies of Barking and Stoke Central. Its record number of council and parliamentary candidates failed to make a single breakthrough; and of the 28 BNP councillors standing for re-election, all but two were beaten.

But the Barking and Dagenham council election result was the most dramatic. The BNP had plans to take control of the authority – instead, it lost every one of its councillors there. Twelve elected in 2006. Twelve thrown out in 2010. A ruthless purge, more shocking because they didn't see it coming. Neither, for that matter, did their opponents. It was the miracle of Barking.

"This really was a disastrous result for the BNP," said Nick Lowles, who led the anti-BNP campaign Hope Not Hate. "It will have long-term consequences – particularly for Nick Griffin."

This week, those predictions are beginning to be realised, as senior BNP figures break ranks to question Griffin's leadership and, again, raise concerns about the party's finances. Griffin has been all but untouchable since he took control of the party in 1999, but now he seems increasingly isolated: mocked on far-right internet forums, forced to defend himself from the criticism of one his chief lieutenants.

"The BNP looks set to implode," says Matthew Goodwin, a specialist in far-right politics at the University of Manchester. "Griffin may hang on but, if he does, it will only be because there is no easy way to oust him and no obvious successor. He had plans to expand his reach. Now he is fighting to survive."

Walking amid the shops and bustle of central Barking this week, Zain Achtar, a 19-year-old student, could hardly stop smiling as he basked in a borough free of the BNP. "It feels like something has been lifted from the place. We can get on and go forward again."

Karena Johnson, who works in Barking's Broadway Theatre, agreed: "Having them here was an embarrassment. What happened last week means the story of Barking has changed."

Or perhaps the story of the BNP has changed. Twelve months ago, the party was celebrating its big breakthrough after winning two seats in the Euro elections. So why did that momentum stall in Barking?

The answer is a tale of determined activism by Griffin's opponents, aided by the antics of his self-harming party. That activism began to develop a sharp focus two weeks after those Euro elections, when Lowles chaired a meeting of MPs, anti-BNP campaigners, church groups and trade unionists. He gave them a detailed breakdown of the BNP's support. The message was stark.

"A decision was made to draw a line in the sand," says one Labour party figure who was at the meeting. "The coming general election was going to be the defining moment. Everyone knew that if they won then, it would be almost impossible to remove them in the future."

There was never a single anti-BNP campaign in Barking. There were meetings, events, leafleting initiatives run by Hope Not Hate – which coordinated much of the activity – and also by Labour and Unite Against Fascism. Hope Not Hate set up a base in derelict premises, and volunteers travelled across the country to prepare it for the coming battle; putting up a new ceiling, plumbing in toilets and setting up a print room. Some slept on the floors.

"The response was truly overwhelming," says Lowles. "On one day of action, we had 541 people; on another, 385; and even on election day itself, 176 people came out to help get the vote out." Many of the volunteers had not been involved in political activity before. "We had teenagers travelling up from Kent, old ladies from the other side of London turning out. It felt like a liberating experience for people who felt like we were doing something politically important."

The Hope Not Hate campaign was supported by Joe Rospars, chief digital strategist for Barack Obama from 2007 until his inauguration, who said it was the "best example" of a British organisation applying the lessons of the US presidential elections. "We are seeing a genuine community-based organisation, with people coming together around a common purpose," he said.

Campaigners were able to identify the key groups least likely to vote for the BNP – women, pensioners and people from ethnic minorities. They built up an online volunteer force of 140,000 people, and Rospars advised on how to use them for maximum impact. In the month before election day, Lowles says more than 1,000 volunteers descended on Barking, delivering 350,000 specially tailored leaflets and newsletters.

At the same time, the Dagenham MP John Cruddas, and his neighbour who seemed most under threat, Barking MP Margaret Hodge, were fighting a parallel ground war against the BNP. Hodge escalated the effort she had begun some four years earlier to reconnect with voters Labour had lost to the BNP. Their rise in Barking had seen the then culture secretary heavily criticised by many inside her own party. For her, this election result represents a triumph for decency, and personal redemption.

"When Griffin announced in September that he would stand, that gave me a real scare," Hodge says. "My husband had not long died, and I was still in grief. It was a tough period. I was quietly confident that I would win, but I really wanted to smash him. And I was really concerned about the prospects for the council."

Hodge, with the help of volunteers from Unite Against Fascism, turned to the politics of shoe leather, knocking on doors and listening to people's concerns. "'What do you want to talk about?' I would ask. It was up to them."

Most talked about street cleaning, wheelie bins and antisocial behaviour, but inevitably many raised the BNP trump card of immigration. Even black residents raised the issue with Hodge. "I would say to them: 'I can't turn the clock back, but this is why the borough has changed, and we must make it work for all of us.' Some people hated that. Some would understand. But they came to feel I was listening."

The more so, perhaps, because the BNP was itself struggling to cope under a harsher spotlight. Griffin's Question Time appearance last October, with its gurning and yammering, shocked his supporters within the BNP and appeared to weaken his authority. The decision by the Equalities Commission to challenge the party's racist membership rules occupied too much of his attention, and drained the party's meagre resources. Indiscipline, heightened by personal rivalries, created a string of difficulties for the party and its leader.

At the beginning of the campaign, the BNP's publicity director Mark Collett – once a firm ally of Griffin – was arrested on suspicion of threatening to kill him. In Stoke, Alby Walker, a senior BNP councillor, said he would stand as an independent because of a "vein of Holocaust-denying" within the party. Then, a few days before the election, the party's website was closed. It was replaced with a posting from Simon Bennett, the website manager, who accused Griffin and James Dowson, the BNP election fundraiser, of being "pathetic, desperate and incompetent".

But the incident that might have had most impact on the voters of Barking concerned Bob Bailey, the BNP's London organiser and one of Griffin's closest confidants. On the eve of the election, Bailey was caught on camera throwing punches and kicks at a group of teenagers. Earlier this week, he was arrested and bailed on suspicion of assaulting two men (an 18-year-old man and a 19-year-old man have also been arrested and bailed, on suspicion of assault and affray).

"That caught the attention of voters," says Hodge. "One of the fears many people had was that a BNP win would result in violence on the street. That seemed to confirm it."

It is impossible to say how much of the Barking miracle can be explained by the efforts of the forces ranged against the BNP, and how much of the wound was self-inflicted, but after a shaky start at the Goresbrook leisure centre – before postal votes confirmed the landslide – the outcome was certainly decisive. Each confirmed result elicited whoops and backslapping, and by the end of the purge, only Richard Barnbrook, one of Griffin's senior lieutenants and himself a casualty of the wipeout, remained. He smiled a smile that at first seemed defiant, but eventually gave the impression that he was feeling queasy.

Around Barnbrook, officials – joyous at having the stain on the authority so ruthlessly removed – were quick to share the good news with friends and loved ones. One texted as each far-righter was shown the door. The last text read: "Bye bye, Nazis."

A widely shared thought is that the BNP was overwhelmed by the sort of grassroots activism that must now become a template if there is to be resurgence for the Labour party. In fact, Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics, says it was all about Labour.

"It would appear that the vote for the BNP in 2006 was some kind of political cry of anguish, based on the perception that the Labour party simply didn't understand the concerns of that part of the electorate. The fact that the BNP has been dropped in 2010 heavily suggests this section of the electorate now believes it has got the attention of the Labour party." Back in 2006, the morality of supporting an intrinsically racist party wasn't an issue, says Travers. "The voters simply used the most shocking mechanism they could to get Labour's attention."

But there is good and bad in that conclusion. Good because it suggests people in Barking voted BNP for reasons other than racism and antisemitism. Bad because if it was all a means to an end, did no one consider the impact on community relations of voting for the far right?

In any event, Dan Hodges, a strategist and spokesman for Hope Not Hate, says the safest conclusion to draw is that wider society should never again be so complacent. "We were lucky this time. People realised the threat just in time, we mobilised just in time. But we may not be so lucky next."

What is the future for the BNP now? Griffin doesn't know. He can point to the fact that the BNP won more than half a million votes, but his mood is changeable. Yesterday he sent another email, brimming with anger. "The old east London is dead," he wrote.

His party is at a crossroads. A Tory-led administration may worsen social divisions, providing the far right with new opportunities. But it might also clamp down on immigration, rendering the BNP irrelevant. Even if opportunities come his way, Griffin's party has so many problems that he may not be able to take advantage. The BNP is not dead, but it took a mortal blow in Barking. It will be hard-pushed to find its feet again.

Guardian

Former Dagenham councillor arrested

Former Cllr Bob Bailey [pictured, left] has been arrested on suspicion of assaulting two teenagers in the street on the eve of the General Election

The BNP chief, who stood as an MP candidate in Romford while still contesting his council seat in Alibon ward, attended an east London police station by appointment yesterday (Tuesday). Mr Bailey, 44, was arrested and quizzed over allegations he assaulted an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old in Harrow Road, Barking, on May 5. The former councillor, who lost his seat in the local elections on May 7, was bailed to return on July 12.

Both teenagers involved in the alleged street brawl [film of the incident here] were also arrested following police enquiries. They attended an east London police station on May 6 and were questioned under suspicion of assault and affray. Pending further enquiries both teenagers were bailed to return on a date in mid July.

An investigation into the incident was launched by officers from the Barking Community Safety Unit after an allegation of assault was made against Mr Bailey.

Initially when police were called to reports of a fight in Harrow Road at around 3pm on Wednesday May 5, the matter was not pursued. Officers noted that no allegations were made, no-one was injured, no arrests were made and no further police action was taken.

Barking and Dagenham Post

Asian men and BNP candidate Bob Bailey clash in Barking

A fight broke out between a British National Party parliamentary candidate and some Asian men as party members were out campaigning in east London.

Some men earlier swore at leader Nick Griffin and threw fruit at him and he was taken away from the scene.

The candidate for Romford, Bob Bailey, was filmed shouting out to men in Ripple Road when one of them swore and spat at him and Mr Bailey punched him. Police were called after 1500 BST to the fight between the two groups.

At the time Metropolitan Police said they were called to the incident but no-one had been arrested at the scene. Later however, police said an 18-year-old man attended Barking police station and alleged common assault against another man. The Barking Community Safety Unit is to look into the matter.

When asked about the fight Mr Griffin told BBC London the fight was the result of a "campaign of hatred and dehumanisation against any group of people, in this case us".

He said: "I think people have to realise that the people have spoken, this is a democratic vote and everyone has to go along with that, whether its us, our opponents or people on the streets, and if there are a few crazies or thugs on the streets I'm sure the police will deal with them quite quickly. The more people in the media talk this up as an issue, the more silly kids on the streets will be inclined to take the law into their hands."

Candidates for Romford are: Independent: Philip Hyde; Conservative: Andrew Rosindell; Independent: David Sturman; English Democrats: Peter Thorogood; Labour: Rachel Voller; British National Party: Robert Bailey; UK Independence Party: Gerard Batten; Liberal Democrat: Helen Duffett; Green: Gary Haines.

BBC

BNP man's home paid for by German embassy

Bob Bailey - defrauding the taxpayer from here to Germany

The London organiser of the BNP is the husband of a German Embassy diplomat and benefits from accommodation and allowances provided by the German taxpayer. Bob Bailey also enjoys some diplomatic immunity as the family member of an envoy - though this is limited as he remains a British citizen.

He married Martina Borgfeldt in Australia in 1999 after meeting her while serving in the Royal Marines in Africa. The latest issue of the Diplomatic List shows she is an "assistant attaché" at the German embassy.

Mr Bailey is leader of the opposition on Barking and Dagenham Council, which he hopes to take control of at next month's elections. He gives his main home as an address in Barking and Dagenham, east London, but lives in embassy-provided accommodation in west London. This appears to breach rules which say that council candidates must live or work in the same borough.

One source close to the embassy said that Mr Bailey had never told his wife that he was a BNP leader and she found out when confronted recently by her superiors. Mr Bailey yesterday refused to deny this, or his marriage to Mrs Borgfeldt, or that he lived with her in a home paid for by the German embassy, though he insisted he did live in Barking.

Telegraph

BNP members 'hold Nazi principles'

As the BNP launches its London election campaign, a former party activist tells Channel 4 News some of the party's members have Nazi-esque tendencies.

The BNP faced protest this week as it launched its electoral campaign at the Home Office's main immigration centre in Croydon, in south London. The BNP activists stood their ground despite the anti-fascist demonstration, and delivered their message.

Councillor Bob Bailey, the London campaign manager for the BNP, said: "Immigration is the second biggest issues facing the politicians and government of this country. We are here to day to break the silence."

This is a crucial time for a party trying to capitalise on winning two seats in last year's European elections. But allegations of inner-party feuding have threatened to hit the party in areas such as Stoke on Trent and Barking which is seen as central to the BNP's campaign. The working class majority in Stoke on Trent are disillusioned by the old political order - in the mid 90s all 60 councillors here were Labour, now they number just 14.

Which is why it mattered when Alby Walker - former group leaded for BNP councillors in Stoke on Trent - resigned four months ago. He is now standing as an independent in this election.

"There's a vein of Holocaust denying within the BNP," Mr Walker told Channel 4 News. "There are people with Nazi-esque tendencies that do support Nazi principles."

Mr Walker said that he was aware of the controversy sounding the party when he joined but said he was "assured from the highest level by Nick Griffin and Simon Darby, the deputy leader… that the BNP was taking a new direction and people like that wouldn't be tolerated."

"But after being there for seven years I noticed that the same people were still there or hanging round in the background.

A BNP official has described Alby Walker as a disillusioned individual who's struck out for himself. But in London in recent weeks another BNP councillor has split from the party after a dispute with a fellow activist.

"It is the same old racist, right-wing party," former BNP councillor for Havering, Mark Logan, told Channel 4 News. "I'm not going to be used as a political vehicle to make Nick Griffin rich and famous."

Nick Griffin is hoping to gain a seat in Barking in east London, where the party polled 17 per cent at the last election. If they do not win a seat at Westminster, it is not inconceivable they could take control of the council in Barking, as its proclamations on immigration strike a chord with many in the area. The party is quick to reject any claims of Holocaust denial and racism, and has little time for talk of inner-party turmoil.

"Out house is very much in order," Cllr Bob Bailey told Channel 4 News. "The party's funding is increasing year by year. The membership is increasing year by year. The amount of people we put forward at every level at elections is increasing year by year. The mainstream parties are adopting out policies now. We are shaping the political conversation of Britain now."

The BNP is due to publish its manifesto next week.

Channel 4

Scuffle breaks out at BNP candidates meeting

A scuffle erupted on the streets of Croydon as the British National Party presented some of its candidates for the forthcoming local and Westminster elections. One anti-fascist protester broke through a police cordon and tried to punch a BNP member before being tackled to the ground and taken away by police officers.

The BNP was presenting its candidates outside the headquarters of the UK Border Agency, in south London. Anti-fascist protesters were waiting for the BNP outside Lunar House where the event was taking place. They shouted "Nazi scum. Off our streets" and "Smash the BNP".

BNP London organiser Robert Bailey, who is standing as a parliamentary candidate in Romford, Essex, had earlier told a group of around 40 BNP candidates that they were there to put immigration on the election agenda. He said: "The leaders of the main political parties will be holding a meeting tonight at the TV studios to discuss the future of Britain. Up until this moment, nobody has mentioned immigration. The reason why the British National Party is here today is to draw the public's attention and the world's attention to the immigration crisis that is facing ordinary British citizens."

Mr Bailey, who is also a local councillor in Barking and Dagenham, said immigration was the second-biggest issue after the war in Afghanistan for politicians and the Government to face up to.

The BNP plans to field around 350 parliamentary candidates for the forthcoming General Election on May 6. Party leader Nick Griffin was not present at the gathering. Asked where Mr Griffin was, Mr Bailey replied: "You will have to ask him."

Press Association

BNP casework figures for Barking and Dagenham released

The BNP in Barking and Dagenham make great play about their concern about the provision of decent housing for local people. Now you'd think that interest in all things housing would be reflected in the amount of casework BNP councillors have done in the last year about housing issues. You would, wouldn't you? Well in answer to a Freedom of Information request - the following information has been obtained.

In terms of housing casework submissions - let's look at how much BNP councillors have submitted:

Top BNP councillor is -

Councillor Richard Barnbrook with 11 housing submissions.
Next up councillor Rustem with errm.... 9.
Then councillor Buckley with 6.
Councillor Knight with 3.
And in this role call of housing casework - last and certainly least - step forward BNP group leader, councillor Bob Bailey with er .... 1 housing submission......

To be fair that's better than councillors Doncaster - all three of them -
councillor Tuffs, Steed, Lansdown, and Jarvis - all of whom submitted not a single housing related issue.

And how did Labour council cabinet members compare?

Well, council leader Liam Smith made 106 housing submissions.
Housing cabinet exec member Phil Waker 82.
Councillor Val Rush 41.
Councillor Rob Little 37.
Councillor Mick McCarthy 27.
Councillor Rocky Gill 23.
Councillor Bert Collins 21.
Councillor Jeanette Alexander 19.

You get the picture....

So proof, if proof were needed, that the BNP yet again, have been shown up for the lazy, all mouth and no trousers individuals they are. So next time you see the BNP talking about housing remember how that talk translates into real action on housing matters...

News from Barking and Dagenham

‘Racist’ London BNP chief threatened with suspension

“Offensive”: the BNP’s Bob Bailey, here in Barking, faces suspension as councillor

The BNP's London campaign chief was today facing suspension as a councillor after launching a racist “tirade” against Nigerian church-goers

Bob Bailey, 44, took an “antagonistic and offensive” tone when a black pastor applied for planning permission to convert Barking offices into a church. A meeting in Barking town hall was in uproar when Mr Bailey said: “We don't want any more Nigerian churches in the borough.” The public gallery was packed with members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

He said he had visited the premises and told the planning committee meeting last July: “These people eat off the ground.” He added: “We don't want the amount of black children.” A rival councillor called him a “racist pig”.

Barking and Dagenham council's standards committee was meeting today to decide whether to suspend the leader of the 12-strong BNP opposition for up to six months. A preliminary report by the council's monitoring officer found that Mr Bailey, a former Royal Marine, had brought the authority into disrepute, failed to treat others with respect and may have breached equality laws. Mr Bailey, who was said by a doctor last year to have a “possible personality disorder” when he claimed that he was banned from driving because of “conspiracy against the indigenous people”, is responsible for the BNP's London campaign in the general election and borough elections.

Barking is the BNP's number one target seat as its national leader Nick Griffin is standing against the sitting Labour MP, Margaret Hodge.

The church, whose 400-strong congregation is predominantly Nigerian, was granted permission to convert offices into a place of worship, despite Mr Bailey voting against. He was said to have breached planning laws by “closing his mind” and being “biased” against the application. He claimed there were already more than 20 Nigerian churches in the borough — the most in London and more than any other denomination.

The council report said: “Mr Bailey made a series of comments expressed in a derogatory tone. The comments were intended to, and did in fact, cause offence on racial grounds.”

Pastor Thomas Aderounmu, 55, of the Redeemed Church, said today the remarks would encourage ethnic minorities to vote against the BNP in May. He said: “It was just derogatory statements. He was very specific on Nigeria. I don't know what Nigerians have done to him. It was very personal. Their actions will work against them.”

London Evening Standard

The ugly truth behind a BNP council

On Friday, May 7, Britain could wake up to its first British National Party-run council. The previous day many parts of the country will hold local elections - and the far-right party is in striking distance of winning control of Barking and Dagenham Council.

The BNP is already the official opposition there, with 12 councillors. Its leader, Nick Griffin, is standing in Barking in the general election.

"Our drive to take the council, well, that's the real prize. It really is," Griffin said earlier this year.

Last month, BNP councillor Bob Bailey said: "We are on the verge of making history by taking this council and Margaret Hodge's and Jon Cruddas' parliamentary seats."

What would a BNP council's policies be? What would it do on schools, on caring for the elderly and most vulnerable? How would it allocate a £200million annual budget? The shadow budget drawn up in Barking and Dagenham last year and the party's manifesto allow us to see how BNP policies would work.

Should it win in East London, its strategy is to set its sights on Stoke-on-Trent, which has similar elections next year. Barking and Dagenham would be the science lab to test these dogmatic ideas...

HOUSING
The BNP plans to take a new homes site identified by the council and use it instead to park 1,000 caravans as local authority housing. At just £1,000 each, these old caravans led local campaigners to dub this a "Steptoe & Son solution" to social housing. The site would be a potential eyesore with no facilities, nowhere for kids to play and no substitute for real homes for some of the most vulnerable.

Under BNP policy, social housing - and caravans - would go to "UK citizens only", leaving vulnerable people to sleep on the streets.

CARE
Social work professionals say the best place for children in care is with foster families, but the BNP differs. It wants to take the several hundred children in care in Barking and put them into boarding school. While some children do still live in care homes in Britain, there are rarely more than eight per home.

The BNP's proposals would mean a return to Victorian-style "workfare", their alternative to welfare.

TEEN MUMS
The BNP plans to build an institution in Barking & Dagenham for all mothers under 21 to live in, with single mothers and babies taken into care. Failure to comply with the homes rules could result in the mother being sent to prison and the baby being taken into to care.

COMMUNITIES
The Corporate Grants Programme, which would affect 27 organisations including Victim Support, Relate and the Volunteer Bureau, all of which provide vital community services, would be halved by the BNP.

Bob Bailey, leader of the council's BNP group, calls the arrival of people from ethnic minorities into Barking and Dagenham "genocidal". He says the BNP would cut the "PC madness" of translation services, where one of the key groups of people to be affected would be blind people who require translation to and from Braille.

POVERTY
Bob Bailey claims that "only by voting for the BNP and electing a BNP council will the elderly and poor have a real champion in this chamber". Yet nationally the party supports the Tories in raising the inheritance tax threshold to £1million and it wants to cut "personal taxes".

SCHOOLS
One of the areas the BNP has earmarked for cuts is the Building Schools for the Future programme. This would delay much-needed work on all the borough's secondary schools. National policy is to scrap GCSEs for O levels and to cut the Talented and Gifted Young People programme.

EDUCATION
In its 2009 county council election manifesto the BNP says mixing white and non-white children is "destroying perfectly good local secondary schools". It adds that schools are "riddled with tension between pupils from an Islamic background and everyone else". This is despite the fact that schools in Barking and Dagenham recently received their best ever performance rating as most improved in Outer London.

BNP deputy chairman Simon Darby has called integrated schools "political paedophilia". The BNP would prefer to segregate children in an apartheid system, so that children from other ethnic backgrounds are taught separately - leading to a divided community, destroying children's friendships, and setting up ethnic tension in the future.

The party also wants all children with special needs to be taken out of the mainstream and put into special schools.

COUNCIL TAX
The BNP plans to cut council tax to "among the lowest of any London borough" in five years, yet its proposals cost almost £1million above existing spending. Its savings would be £18.6million, while its proposals cost £19.5million. Leader of the BNP group, Bob Bailey, says Labour relies on council tax for "loony left PC projects". But in the wake of a global recession tax cuts could severely impact on the poorest in society.

LOCAL EVENTS
The BNP would get rid of the popular Dagenham Town Show, slashing the events budget and ending opportunities for local families to have a free weekend out every July.

SPORT
In Barking and Dagenham, the BNP voted against congratulating British athletes on their success at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It does not consider athletes such as Amir Khan and Kelly Holmes to be British, and previously held a policy of supporting Denmark - and not England - in a World Cup as the only all-white team.

The party also opposed grants to local sports clubs including Barking Rugby Club and Dagenham and Redbridge Football Club, who between them coach hundreds of local children every weekend. Instead they suggested spending £50,000 on fixing up the town hall so they could webcast meetings.

KNIFE CRIME
The party likes to talk up knife crime in Barking and Dagenham. In September 2008, Richard Barnbrook, a BNP member of the London Assembly, broadcast a video blog about two murders in Barking that never actually happened. He was censured for his deliberate scare tactic. Yet when the council launched a campaign to ask the Government for stronger powers to deal with shops that sell knives to children, the BNP opposed it.

ENVIRONMENT
The BNP claims to be the "only truly environmental party unlike the fake 'Greens' who are merely a front for the far left of the Labour regime". Yet the party would end the building of wind turbines in Barking and Dagenham - London's first wind farm - and opposes "climate change dogma".

Mirror

BNP say right to use force

Two Havering BNP candidates have backed the forced ejection of a national newspaper's reporter from a meeting in Elm Park.

General Election candidate, Michael Barnbrook, who is standing for Dagenham and Rainham, and Robert Bailey, a Romford candidate in the local elections, have both condoned the treatment of The Times' reporter Dominic Kennedy at the hands of their security guards at a pub on February 14.

Mr Barnbrook said: "The whole thing was stage managed by the reporter because he was asked to leave the premises and refused. The law states that you can remove a trespasser from the premises using as much force as necessary."

Mr Kennedy was invited to the meeting, but was forced out when the party's London Assembly member, Richard Barnbrook, became angry over an article in The Times. Security guards shoved Mr Kennedy out of the pub, with one even grabbing his nose.

Michael Barnbrook, a retired police inspector, said: "He was struggling violently and that is why he had a number of security officers around him. He was not assaulted, he was legally removed from the premises. He had the option to walk out unaided but chose not to."

Mr Bailey said: "A lot of people that work for The Times are very ugly and nasty. They have a distinct agenda and he was told to leave and we should have the right to evict anyone if it is a private meeting."

The extraordinary general meeting was held following the BNP's vote to allow black and Asian people into the party. The party was forced to change its rules after it was threatened with an injunction by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

But Gooshays ward BNP Cllr Mark Logan, who was not allowed into the meeting because his membership had expired, condemned the violence. He said: "The reporter should not have been man handled but should have been ushered out in a dignified manner and I was upset about what had happened because I do not believe in violence."

Barking, Dagenham and Havering Together has been set up in the wake of the meeting to fight the BNP. It is concerned about the party's rise in Barking and Dagenham and its encroachment into Havering. For further information, call 07973 421463.

Romford and Havering Post

The snowball that rolled into Hell, and other notes on mental health

The announcement of Mark Collett's candidature in the Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough seat was greeted with a mixture of incredulity and amusement on the part of fascists and anti-fascists everywhere this week, nobody being quite able to believe that Nick Griffin had sent in a Nazi Boy to do an Aryan hero's job.

Allowing Collett to stand anywhere, given the amount of self-generated dirt he has accumulated over the years, seems at best foolhardy and at worst somebody's idea of sick joke. If ever there was a sitting duck candidate with a very large bull's eye painted on his backside, Collett is assuredly that candidate

Prone to giving barely comprehensible speeches that cause BNP meetings to turn into mass sleepathons, Collett is so widely disliked on the far right we've been hearing persistent rumours that his own shadow is seeking a legal separation.

The Nazi Boy, with Sheffield connections so tenuous even the most powerful electron microscope would have difficulty picking them out, declaims that "the BNP is the only viable option in Brightside and Hillsborough", where Collett will attempt to unseat cow dodging roué David Blunkett - an event so unlikely that as yet undiscovered tribes in the Amazon jungle have inadvertently wiped themselves out as they died splitting their sides on hearing the news.

Collett thinks it's most unsporting that people will keep raking up memories of his solo tour de force in the Young, Nazi and Proud documentary, saying "The issues have moved on and people aren't interested in what I may have said or not said seven or eight years ago."

If only that were true, but the bad news for the Nazi Boy is that Sheffield people are deeply interested in what he did say back in 2002, being a number of absorbing Collettian theories and observations along the lines of Churchill bad, Hitler good, and the Sheffield Telegraph has dug out a whole slew of former BNP voters who would rather not have a mumbling Hitler fan barely out of short trousers going off to tell the Commons what a c*nt Churchill was:

One reader from Rotherham said: "I am a BNP supporter – I have been for the last couple of years and I am not ashamed to admit it either – but I am glad I have not stayed in Sheffield if this is the sort of man we will have standing for the next election."

A Crystal Peaks resident said: "I have voted BNP before but I won't do again if this individual is standing in the Sheffield area. His views of Hitler are wrong, and he is not a local person so how can he know what the voters round here want?"

A Sheffield man said: "I would vote for anyone against Blunkett – but the BNP have shot themselves in the foot here. They should have had someone local with knowledge of local problems. Not this man.

Putting Mark Collett up for election must have seemed like a good idea to somebody, somewhere, sometime, but setting his GPS for Sheffield and sending him down the M1 to certain humiliation at the hands of, well, just about everybody, really, is of the same order as rolling a snowball into Hell with expectations of growing it into a polar ice-cap. That somebody either has a very nice sense of humour or the finely honed political instincts of a mildew spore.

Little Bob Bailey Blues

Of course, the master strategist behind the Nazi Boy's candidature might have been in a condition of deep inebriation when inspiration struck, inebriation being so much favoured among BNP celebrities there are suspicions that some of their number were once perfectly normal people who one night popped into the local for a quick half, got in with the wrong company, and lurched out many hours later clutching titles like BNP Member of the Greater London Assembly and Leader of the BNP Opposition on Barking and Dagenham Council, while nurturing serious alcohol problems.

Bob Bailey, or "Little Bob" as he is known to his affectionate anti-fascist fans, is no stranger to the odd pint or two, followed by another odd pint or two, the diminutive but very human-like semi-professional drinker currently serving out an 18 month driving ban after refusing a breath test when the police caught him driving without lights.

It was at night, too, which only made things worse in the eyes of the boys in blue, but Little Bob wasn't fooled for a moment, claiming his arrest and prosecution were part of "a conspiracy against me, my party and the indigenous people of this country", thus introducing us to the novel concept of the politically motivated driving offence, pootling about Romford without lights and refusing to blow into the bag presumably counting as acts of patriotic defiance against the ever-watchful eyes of whoever it is who ever watches Little Bob.

A court appointed doctor was tasked with the fearful mission of appraising Little Bob's state of mind, and the news wasn't good. The heroic medic said that Barking and Dagenham Council's Leader of the Opposition suffered a "possible personality disorder" which made him suspicious of police officers, a condition more commonly associated with burglars, deserting BNP servicemen who maintain dodgy Facebook pages, the inhabitants of the VNN England forum, and other B-list members of the Crimewatch supporting cast.

The man was "paranoid", said the doctor.

With their friend's health at such a fragile pass it might be thought that those around Little Bob, those who love him, care for him, and steady him when he wobbles, would tread carefully lest they pushed the newly-coined pedestrian over the edge, but poor Bob discovered that the BNP's leadership has no more care for him than it has for a Haitian earthquake victim - for, as he loudly moaned, nobody told him that Dicky Barnbrook's displacement as the BNP's Barking candidate by a carpet-bagging Nick Griffin meant his own demotion from Leader to Deputy Leader of the BNP group on Barking and Dagenham Council, in favour of fellow Bacchanalian Barnbrook.

"They are not telling me anything anymore," gloomed Little Bob when asked who was going to stand against Jon Cruddas in Dagenham, a candidacy he thought was his.

There are probably too many Barnbrooks in London to go around, if you ask Bob Bailey, the cruel irony being that one of the things they weren't telling the little chap was that yet another Barnbrook had been slotted into the Dagenham sinecure.

This is Michael Barnbrook, apparently no relation to his brown-suited namesake, the "sleeze-buster" (sic) who has allegedly (according to the BNP) "exposed more corrupt politicians in Westminster than any other person". How the BNP's latest superhero accomplished these feats of detection we cannot fathom, since, like everybody else, we were forced to rely on the almost hourly revelations coming from the Daily Telegraph. Where Barnbrook got his information from has us stumped, and no mistake. It's a real puzzle, as Martin Reynolds might say when working out which shoe goes on which foot.

The announcement of Michael Barnbrook's candidature naturally brought forth the praises of the BNP's online army of well-wishers and bad spellers, a curiously naive bunch positively swooning at the "sensational" news in a treacly gush of sickly-sweet messages predicated on the apparent certainty that the "sleeze" busting nemesis of 150 corrupt MPs will consign Jon Cruddas to deserved oblivion.

Amid all the masturbatory glee and mountains of discarded tissue paper however stands the forlorn figure of poor Little Bob Bailey, ill-used, smarting over the final words of the BNP announcement - a flat statement that Richard Barnbrook is "the prospective BNP leader of Barking and Dagenham Council".

How that must cut to the very marrow of one who has served the cause of the BNP and alcohol consumption so unswervingly as Little Bob.

And if the man is down in his cups, who can blame him if he reaches for the bottle a little more often than is usual? Who can blame him if he turns up to greet Sir Trevor Brooking and the Royal Anglian Regiment "a little worse for wear", "under the influence" and "in no fit state" at a showcase Barking and Dagenham event?

Certainly not erstwhile friend Richard Barnbrook, so recently told to "shut up" by Bailey at a council meeting.

Gallantly, Barnbrook told reporters that "in my presence he seemed perfectly fine" - but then, since Barnbrook spends so much of his own life under the influence, he would, wouldn't he?

BNP man barred from council ceremony – Labour says he was drunk, he denies it

Bob Bailey, the BNP’s London organiser and leader of the opposition on Barking council, was turned away last night from a ceremony conferring the freedom of the borough on the footballer Sir Trevor Brooking and the Royal Anglian Regiment. He had been due to speak at the event.

That much is common ground – but the reasons are heavily contested. The council’s ruling Labour group has issued a press release claiming that at the reception preceding the ceremony, Cllr Bailey was “worse for wear” and “under the influence.”

The deputy leader of the council, Robert Little, who was at the event, claimed Cllr Bailey was “clearly under the influence of alcohol and was in no fit state to deliver any speech. In all my time as a councillor I have never seen anyone behave in such a way,” he said. “It was embarrassing.”

Cllr Bailey himself, contacted today, flatly denied that he had been drinking and said the claims about his behaviour were “total rubbish.” He told me: “You know the BNP are against the war in Afghanistan and I was barred from attending the event because they were worried I would say something against the war.”

Richard Barnbrook, the BNP’s London leader and another Barking councillor, also present for part of the event, said: “Somebody mentioned it to me when [Bob] was leaving, saying he seemed to be a little bit drunk, but in my presence he seemed perfectly fine.”

Whatever the truth of the matter, it’s the first skirmish in what is likely to be a very tough struggle between the BNP and Labour at the forthcoming council elections in May. Though media attention in Barking will focus on the parliamentary battle between BNP leader Nick Griffin and Labour’s Margaret Hodge, the real contest may be for the council. Last time, had the BNP put up candidates in every ward, it would probably have taken control of the council. Labour is fighting back, but it knows that still remains a possibility.

Telegraph

Rise in hate crime follows BNP council election victories

Reports of racial and religiously motivated crime rose following the election of British National party councillors in several far-right strongholds, police statistics have revealed

Complaints of hate crime increased in wards in the West Midlands, London and Essex after the election of a BNP member, in spite of declines in reported hate crime in the wider police areas. In other wards race crime reportedly rose in the runup to BNP election victories, according to the figures, obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

The findings came as the party stepped up its campaign to win its first seats in the House of Commons with a "weekend of action" in Barking and Dagenham, where the culture and tourism minister, Margaret Hodge, faces a challenge for her Labour seat from BNP leader, Nick Griffin. Hodge said the new figures cast doubt on police assurances that there is no link between racially motivated crime and a BNP presence.

Yesterday, BNP member Terence Gavan was jailed for 11 years after police found nail bombs and 12 firearms at his home in the borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, where the BNP has councillors. The Old Bailey heard that Gavan harboured "a strong hostility" towards immigrants.

One of the biggest increases in hate crime came in Barking's Eastbury ward, where racially motivated violence, theft and criminal damage more than doubled in the year after Jeffrey Steed won a council seat for the BNP in May 2006. A year later, hate crime rose again and 45 racial incidents were reported in 12 months.

In several other BNP wards, race crime fell in line with declines in the wider areas, but anti-fascist campaigners believe rises may be linked to BNP election wins. "Voters have been emboldened in their racist views by seeing the BNP in power and that could have led to the increases in racist attacks in some areas," said Sam Tarry, campaign organiser for the Hope Not Hate campaign, set up by the anti-fascist group Searchlight.

"The figures suggest that if the BNP wins more seats, people from ethnic minority and gay communities could face greater persecution because racist and bigoted views will have been further legitimised."

The BNP denies that increases in hate crime are related to its activities and blames the rises on increased immigration. Bob Bailey, the party's London organiser said: "This is due to an increase in the ethnic [sic] population. There are more people who are prepared to go to the police complaining they are victims."

The Guardian has analysed data from 11 police forces covering 29 wards across England where voters have elected BNP councillors in the past six years. In eight wards reports of hate crime rose following BNP election wins despite a wider decline across the police force area. It declined in 14 wards, in line with force-wide reductions, and there was no change in four and an insignificant amount of data in three.

In Essex, complaints of race crime rose after the election of BNP councillors in parts of Epping Forest, while in Chelmsley Wood, a suburb of Birmingham, the average annual incidence of race crime almost doubled after George Morgan won a seat for the BNP in May 2006.

In the four years before his election, there were an average 11 incidents a year rising to an average of 21 a year in the following four years. West Midlands police said some cases involved assault, while most were incidents of verbal abuse in shopping centres, taxis and in the police station with white and Asian victims.

Detective Chief Inspector Sharon Goosen said: "None of the offences reported in the area since 2006 can be directly attributed to an elected member or political organisation."

The BNP is understood to be planning to field more than 1,000 candidates in local elections and 300 candidates in the general election. Griffin and the BNP deputy chairman, Simon Darby, who is standing for Stoke Central, are considered to have the best chance of winning seats at Westminster.

Guardian

Little Bob - hot, cross and well and truly done

The latest full meeting of Barking and Dagenham Council took a most unwelcome turn last night (Wednesday) - BNP Fuhrer Nick Griffin turned up at the assembly and sat in the public gallery flanked by 40 mean-looking knuckle draggers.

And that was just the women.

It seems Little Bob Bailey, London BNP organiser and leader of the BNP group on Barking and Dagenham council had booked a committee room for a meeting to be held straight after the assembly. Griffin's security stood at the doors of the room not letting anyone in. However, Corporate Director of Resources Bill Murphy discovered the BNP were planning to hold a furtive meeting and promptly went in and threw them all out.

During the council meeting Griffin had the pleasure of watching Little Bob turn on Richard "Dicky" Barnbrook. Barnbrook was asking council leader Liam Smith questions regarding the building of council houses. Barnbrook then began regurgitating the hoary old "The Africans for Essex" lie.

This was where the BNP in Barking and Dagenham tapped into concern over a lack of cheap affordable local housing by claiming there was a secret ‘Africans for Essex’ scheme in which non-whites were given £50,000 grants to buy property in the area.

Barnbrook began implying that it would be the Africans who would get the houses.

Dicky was cut short however when Little Bob hotly told him that he was out of order and to shut up. There then followed a typical domestic row between Little Bob and Dicky with Barnbrook insisting that he would say what he liked.

Bailey bluntly retorted: "Not while I am leader."

All this took place in full view of the whole council and public gallery.

Friends on Barking and Dagenham Council tell us that Little Bob has been unhappy for some time. Now we all know that upon Dicky's election to the Greater London Authority he stood down as the leader of Barking and Dagenham Council BNP group and plucky Little Bob stepped up to fill the man in the strange suit's shoes.

It seems he was not consulted when Nick Griffin decided to stand in Barking, and even worse he was kept in the dark when it was simultaneously announced that Barnbrook would be made leader of the BNP group on the council at his expense.

Understandably Little Bob is more than a little cross. Asked who was going to stand against Jon Cruddas in Dagenham he replied: "Dont bloody ask me, they are not telling me anything any more".

It seems the BNP in Barking and Dagenham are in full melt down mode. We shall watch this one very closely.

Reworked from Kirklees Unity

Fear and loathing in Dagenham

On a walkabout in east London, Nick Griffin is a magnet for feelings of grief as well as anger

On Thursday Nick Griffin paid his first official visit to Barking and Dagenham as the newly declared British National party candidate in next year's election. This took the form of "walkabouts" and the one I attached myself to went up and down the slopes on either side of Dagenham Heathway station on the District line, where there are shops and cafes and pubs and more white people than you can easily come across in Barking town centre, at the constituency's western edge.

Walkabouts are of course contrivances: the point is not so much to meet people as to be photographed meeting them. A small media mob followed Griffin and his minders. He shook hands with a couple of men in a white van and sat down at a table of drinkers in the Lord Denman pub. One passerby shouted: "Love ya!" and another: "Good luck!" How much of this had been pre-arranged is hard to say. The two women sitting outside a cafe who told him to piss off were obviously not in the script, but the drinkers and the white van – which passed us more than once, honking cheerily – may well have been. What can be said is that his appearance on Question Time has done him no harm.

A woman wanted to be photographed with him: "I saw you on that chat show." Then three white schoolboys posed with Griffin at their centre. A few other schoolboys – black this time – loitered at the crowd's edge. It wouldn't have been a surprise if they too had asked to be in a shot. Griffin appeared before them as a minor celebrity in a suburban high street. He might have been opening a new Boots. His face is soft-featured and he seemed anxious to please.

A reporter from the Barking and Dagenham Post asked whether, if elected, he'd serve all his constituents, no matter their origins or colour. Griffin said of course – he would work for anyone who had a right to be here and paid their taxes. So who would be excluded? The answer was many of those people who had "poured in" over the last few years, encouraged by a government that wanted to gerrymander its parliamentary constituencies. This is the BNP line: the Labour party has deliberately promoted immigration so that it can build up vote banks, with results that are particularly visible in Barking

His supporters followed him. Several were in their best suits. Richard Barnbrook, who is probably the second most famous member of his party, wore a sand-coloured number that might have been supplied as off-duty wear to the Afrika Korps. Another follower, buttoned up in lilac, turned out to be Lawrence Rustem, a Barking councillor and Elvis fanatic and "the only half-Turkish member of the BNP". He said he was "a refugee from Hackney", where he'd been mugged 18 years before. Consequently, he joined the party and became an activist. "For me, it's been a long form of revenge for what happened to me that night," he said.

Some things about the crowd were no surprise: that it was white, male and mainly about 50 years old. What I hadn't prepared for was the sense of loss and grief. Bob Bailey, who leads the BNP opposition on Barking council, outlined his career: son of a steelworker in Scunthorpe, 12 years in the marines, and now employed by "the security industry". The steelworks had sacked his dad, who never worked again, and now faced an uncertain future under Indian ownership. "We don't make anything any more, we don't own anything any more. It's an absolute disgrace. The country's just knackered. People have given up hope. They don't believe in anything, not in themselves, not in their neighbourhoods, not in their history. "

Bailey's solutions included the nationalisation of key industries, political withdrawal from the EU and military retreat from Afghanistan. He described it as "the politics of old Labour" combined with a "forward-looking nationalism". So far, so sweetly reasonable. Then I mentioned Barking's Labour MP, Margaret Hodge. "Poisonous bitch. Lives in Islington. A multimillionairess and a foreigner to boot."

A foreigner by this definition is a woman born Margaret Oppenheimer of wealthy German Jewish parents in Egypt in 1944, who has lived in the UK for at least 60 years and is minister of state for culture and tourism. That doesn't seem a very forward-looking definition. What chance then that the BNP accepts as full citizens all the Africans, Indians, Pakistanis and eastern Europeans who have so utterly transformed Barking since the 1990s? Their numbers are growing, and the BNP likes to cite their presence in Barking as an example of sneaky government strategy. In fact, they arrived through a much more chaotic agency, the free market.

Throughout most of the last century, the people of Barking and Dagenham depended on two institutions. For work and wages, there was the Ford car plant, which at its postwar peak employed 40,000. For housing, there was the local authority. In the 1920s at Becontree, the London county council built the largest municipal estate in Europe and smaller developments followed. In the words of Darren Rodwell, a Labour activist born and raised in the borough, Barking had "its own social system". You married and got a council flat. Children came along. You moved upscale to a three-bedroom house. When Margaret Thatcher's administration introduced the right-to-buy, this paternal system broke down. Tenants bought at discounts and sold on for a profit or let the houses to inner London authorities that needed to place homeless families. Most of the old housing stock is now owned privately. Relatively cheap property and fast trains into London make Barking an obvious destination for migrants. A borough that was once exceptional for its whiteness and familial connections changed with a bewildering speed that left its Labour rulers divided and broken. The party now accepts that voter alienation and disaffection were "endemic". In 2006, the BNP won a dozen council seats.

Some blame Hodge, who, like one of her Barking predecessors, Tom Driberg, has more of the West End about her than the East End. Others accuse a complacent local council that had never shed "workerist" attitudes born in the old Ford plant. The BNP fright has changed all that. Hodge has moved the centre of her operations to the town, knocked on doors and recruited 150 members, many non-white. In her office I met young men and women from, or with parents from, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Caribbean, as well an 83-year-old former mayor, George Shaw. All of them said much the same thing: the party had to reconnect to the electorate.

My guess is Griffin will lose, and possibly badly if Labour can get its targeted voters to the polls. But can they? Rodwell told me of his reconnecting spiel when he knocks on doors: "I can't do anything about the weather, West Ham or Gordon Brown … but you can try me on anything else."

Guardian

Non-whites barred from BNP meeting

Video courtesy of Don't Panic

Two senior BNP figures have been secretly filmed barring non-whites from entering one of their meetings on the day the party was forced to admit black and Asian members

Richard Barnbrook, the BNP's representative on the London Assembly, and Bob Bailey, the party's London organiser, were filmed stopping 10 non-whites entering a branch meeting in the Eastbrook pub in Dagenham. The meeting was on 15 October, the day the party was forced to change its constitution to allow non-white people to join.

The emergence of the new footage, shot by film-maker Heydon Prowse, the editor of Don't Panic magazine, will come as a massive embarrassment to BNP leader Nick Griffin just hours ahead of his appearance on BBC Question Time tonight. In the film, Mr Barnbrook, a Barking and Dagenham councillor, is seen telling a group of mixed race African and Asian campaigners that the meeting is "private" before the group is told to leave. One of the campaigners, a white Swedish woman and the only non-Briton in the group, was told she could stay.

The film shows the campaigners, who had worn Nick Griffin T-shirts and were carrying their British passports, being abused outside the meeting's venue by a BNP member who says "we don't want people like you".

Mr Barnbrook claims to be "delighted" by the decision to allow non-whites despite denying the group entry to the meeting. In the footage he says: "It's a private meeting. I'm afraid the meeting inside here is closed. We're finishing."

The move is mirrored by another party official, Bob Bailey, who is later filmed admitting the party now allows non-white members to join but still refuses to let the group inside the meeting, saying "This is a members' meeting and that's it". Some time later he says: "Our party has always been open to other people if they want to join. We've got people who are black Africans, we've got people who are from the West Indies, we've got Sri Lankans - we've got people from everywhere."

Mr Prowse said: "While Bailey was throwing us out he seemed to be aware of the fact that he couldn't appear to be discriminating against non-whites but he couldn't come up with one valid reason why we shouldn't be let in." After the group is barred, a party member confronts the group, saying: "This is my party. I don't want you in my party and it is up to us whether we decide to let you people in - people that ain't like us. Our party is being forced into a position that we do not want. You can belong to anything you like, but we don't want you. You are not white British."

London Evening Standard

BNP, undercover in Essex

Video courtesy of Don't Panic Magazine, thanks.

BNP fan: Give Iron Cross to refugee-hater

British National Party supporters cheered for one of their candidates to be awarded a Nazi military medal at a Euro election after-party.

A member of the crowd made the call after learning that Charlotte Lewis had travelled to Calais to lead a protest against the refugee camp there, taking placards reading "Britain's full up" and "Asylum seekers don't unpack, you're going back". The ex-jailbird was telling the meeting about her exploits when a supporter shouted she should be given an Iron Cross - strongly associated with the Nazis and an emblem of the German army during World War Two.

Undercover Sunday Mirror investigators infiltrated the event on Thursday night in the back room of a pub in Dagenham, East London.

London Assembly member and local councillor Richard Barnbrook appeared briefly at the event, billed as a celebration of the party's "success" in the Euro election where they won two seats. But the evening turned into nothing more than another opportunity for activists to express racist views. Bob Bailey, 43, a BNP councillor in Barking and Dagenham, gave two talks at the event, with Lewis - a candidate for Waddon, South London - giving a third.

Although the BNP, led by new Euro MP Nick Griffin, have tried to reinvent themselves as a serious political party, it soon became clear that many party members still harbour extremely offensive views. Lewis - who was jailed for six months in 2001 for making death threats against workers at a drugs company - made no effort to hide her contempt for immigrants.

Talking about her trip to Calais, she said: "The invaders are dangerous and they are not people we want in England or Europe or anywhere in the civilised world." She claimed they "swaggered" around Calais before recounting a story about her Afghan neighbour. She said: "The Afghan who lives in the flat above me... well, I say that, he hasn't been seen for two weeks, so I'm hoping him, Fatima and the brat have moved out." After a pause, and to raucous laughter, she added: "I don't think they could take any more of my penchant for playing heavy metal music at 1am. It's wishful thinking that they have gone back to Afghanistan, but it's more than likely they have been allocated one of numerous brand-new housing association flats in the area."

Lewis then described people who work in soup kitchens to provide food for refugees as "idiotic dim-witted liberals". It was after this that Bailey made his ridiculous pledge to give Lewis a medal if the BNP get into government.

Sipping a pint, he said: "Under the BNP people like Charlotte would get a medal... there is no doubt." Someone in the crowd then shouted out "the Iron Cross". The German medal is closely associated with the Nazis - Hitler reintroduced it and added a swastika.

Bailey then went into an antiMuslim rant. He said: "We do not need Islam in Europe and we do not need it in the UK. In London we know the stark realities of Islam more than anywhere else. They bomb buses, they bomb trains, they have created terror here."

Bnp spokesman Simon Darby said yesterday: "It was a joke. People in this country are famous for their sense of humour. We are quite open that we don't regard the mass importation of Afghans and replacement of the native population as a good thing."

Mirror