Breaking News: Dave Hannam dead

Naziboy (left) and idiot

News reaches us that the former treasurer of the BNP, David Hannam, has died of a heart attack. Sad to hear of anyone dying but in his case I'll make an exception, particularly given this incident. Nick Griffin, naturally, can't resist a dig when reporting the death, despite the fact that Hannam kept all his nasty little financial secrets for him. This, from his Twitter feed:

'Shocking news that Dave Hannam has died of a heart attack. While frankly not a good treasurer, he was a good & sincere nationalist & a singer/song writer of considerable talent.'

Nice.

BNP’s delayed accounts reveal financial disaster zone

The British National Party’s treasury department appears to have “lost” nearly £90,000 of funds belonging to its local groups, according to the party’s 2009 accounts, released today.

The BNP’s national and regional accounts were submitted to the Electoral Commission on 6 January, two days before the fines for their late submission would have doubled to £2,500. They reveal the full horror of the disaster area that is the BNP’s treasury department.

Even Griffin could not deny it. “The patchiness of our professionalisation programme inevitably produced internal stresses and gaps, including in due course the late submission of accounts,” he wrote in his introduction.

Clive Jefferson, the BNP’s fifth national treasurer since the start of 2009 – four are listed in the accounts, Jenny Noble being omitted – spoke more plainly. “From what I have been able to determine, the root of the problem was the inability of central treasury and accounting unit staff to implement new system adequate to cope with the massive increase in income and expenditure in 2009, compounded with the failure of professional accountants brought in to address the weaknesses they were expected to rectify. Both I and the party Chairman are frankly at a loss to understand why this was the case”.

It was not of course the moronic Jefferson’s fault. “I was appointed the Party’s Treasurer on 28th October 2010, which was subsequent to the records for 2009 being made available to the auditor. I can provide no information of any value regarding the accounts.”

The “professional accountants” were those supplied by Jim Dowson in Belfast, until late last year the much hyped fundraising and management consultant, until he fell out with Griffin and Patrick Harrington, Griffin’s old comrade from his National Front political soldier days, who now helps Griffin run the BNP.

The regional accounts, which bring together the income and expenditure of all the party’s local groups, similarly include an “I know nothing” claim by the new regional treasurer James Mole, who took over from David Hannam in mid September 2010. No doubt he is hoping not to be blamed for the dire consequences of the party’ inability to maintain bank reconciliations and account properly for its income and outgoings. A reconciliation of branches’ and groups’ balances on the very last page of the regional accounts shows that only £4,496 is available to meet the £93,579 the party supposedly owes its branches, which means that local units are only “entitled to 4.8p in the pound”.

No explanation is given for how this happened. But on 16 January, Eddy Butler, who last summer failed in his challenge to Nick Griffin for the party leadership, wrote: “I recommend that all local units open their own bank accounts … If you want to be able to hold on to your locally raised money it is vital, no it is essential, that you do this. …

“If you pay into the BNP bank account your hard earned money will be drawn out and wasted by Nick Griffin to pay for the court cases he has negligently embroiled the BNP in.”

That wastage is not yet apparent in the 2009 accounts, which show only £52,122 spent on “legal costs”. Far more can be expected in 2010, which includes the damages paid over the stupid Marmite copyright breach, and 2011. However, in his introduction to the national accounts Griffin gave full vent to his hate for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which took legal action to force the party to end racial discrimination in its constitution. “Parallel to the officially sanctioned mob violence against us [a reference to the demonstrations against Griffin’s appearance on Question Time in October 2009], a campaign of ‘legal’ persecution was also launched,” wrote Griffin, an action “motivated not by genuine concerns about alleged ‘discrimination’ but by political malice”.

Griffin also reveals his continuing anger at having to admit ethnic minority members, who were “hitherto excluded primarily in order to provide at least one forum in which members of the indigenous community could discuss the problems inflicted upon them by the ruling elite’s policies of enforced multiculturalism”.

Griffin judges that 2009 was the party’s “best year ever” because of its European election success, but that victory held within it the seeds of the party’s subsequent decline. Admitting that the party’s activity had fallen off in the second half of 2009, Griffin ascribes it largely to the “energy that had to be expended at the top of the party getting to grips with the mechanics and responsibilities of representing British interests in the European Parliament”. In other words he accepts the criticism Butler has voiced recently that being an MEP means he cannot lead the party properly.

“Several new members of staff were brought in with the intention of avoiding this new focus leaving a management gap back at home, but by November it was becoming clear that this measure had failed and that clearing the problem up was likely to involve tough decisions and key personnel problems early in 2010,” Griffin continues. The results, in terms of legal expenses and settlements with former employees, will no doubt be revealed in the 2010 and 2011 accounts.

The audit report, by Silver & Co, who have audited the party’s accounts for many years, is surprisingly less devastating than the previous year, considering the admitted failures to keep adequate records, many of which are detailed in the accounts. Unlike in 2008, they consider that the financial statements “give a true and fair view of the state of the Party’s affairs as at 31st December 2009 … in so far as a full disclosure of the facts has been made in these accounts. But they cannot be classed as ‘true and fair’ under the usual definition of that term.”

Quite what that means is anyone’s guess, especially as the audit report goes on to state: “we have to accept that we cannot form an opinion as to the completeness of the financial statements, as we have had to base them on the information submitted, and controls were not in place to ensure the information on which these financial statements are based is complete”.

One suspects that the fudge of a report was the product of long and hard negotiations between Jefferson and the auditors to avoid a second wholly negative judgement and another investigation by the Electoral Commission of the party’s failure to comply with the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

As for the accounts themselves, they confirm that the party did indeed increase its income to nearly £2 million although only £1.3 million is shown donations, the result of the controversial appointment of Dowson’s Midas Consultancy. The figures may be way out, however, as “whilst details of donations made were entered into the membership data base that information was not reconcilied [sic] to the bankings”.

Membership income rose from £166,006 in 2008 to £626,180, although membership numbers only went up from 9,801 to 12,632. Noting the inconsistency, the accounts add: “The figure shown seems high and may include an element of donation income”.

Income from commercial activities is well down – from £130,000 to under £30,000. Partly that is due to the party apparently not being able to sell a single copy of its two publications, Voice of Freedom and Identity. Income from “merchandise” – books, mugs, t-shirts, etc under the Excalibur operation – is down because it was franchised out to Arthur Kemp, the party’s South African website editor, during the year.

Costs of commercial activities grew to £450,000, resulting in a huge loss. However a note admits that this is the result of the party not having systems in place to split the huge costs of printing, postage and delivery between commercial activities and election material. If that split could not be made, it must surely follow that the party’s return of expenditure for the European election, which showed £283,000, cannot be correct. The accounts themselves declare £271,000 spent on the European election.

The list of admitted accounting failures goes on. “A considerable amount of the ‘Trafalgar Club’ costs could be considered to be more to do with printing costs. The total cost covered is £23,900,” another note states, adding: “In the nominal ledger the ‘description shown’ is either ‘inv Held by D Hannam’ or simply ‘D Hannam’, indicating that the invoice is not available within the Party’s records.

Hannam was widely derided as incompetent at the time of the internal rebellion in winter 2007/08 when he was regional treasurer, but was promoted to national treasurer in February 2010 and in July boasted that everything was in place to ensure all financial statements were submitted on time. By October he was out of the job.

Simon Darby, the BNP’s former deputy chairman, also failed to account for expenditure, with “no documentation” available to cover a payment of £3,000 for “security costs” during the period while he was treasurer.

And in the first four months of 2009 a total of £37,450 was “entered in the Purchase Ledger as J A Walker payments” for which “No documentary evidence was put through the records to show what these payments covered”. John Walker has held various jobs in the party, including national treasurer, and is currently on the staff of the BNP’s MEPs, paid out of European Parliament funds. The unexplained payments to him occurred while Noble was treasurer, but the accounts for some reason avoid mentioning her name.

The accounts also show the party spent £168,000 on additions to its vehicles, equipment, fixtures and fittings, much of it the result of appeals during the year. Such an investment might be expected to stand the party in good stead for the future, except that “The Treasurer is in the process of reviewing the schedules which back-up the schedule above, which the auditor has provided, both in terms of what assets were in existence at 31 December 2009, and after the current re-organisation of the Party and the closing of certain offices”. In other words the BNP has no idea whether its assets still exist or ever existed, and many have been scrapped because the party has closed most of its offices, including the Belfast call centre, which was under the control of Dowson.

Writing off the doubtful assets in the 2009 accounts would of course have increased its loss of £57,202 for the year, a far cry from the profit the party has at various times claimed it achieved in the year. The loss increased the party’s net insolvency to £361,000, as a result of which it owed over £355,000 to suppliers and £37,000 to HM Revenue and Customs in PAYE tax and national insurance on staff wages and VAT.

Among those owed money was “Ad Lorries Ltd”, actually Adlorries.com Ltd. The accounts confirm what Searchlight revealed many months ago, namely that “a considerable amount of transactions were paid through and processed through” this company, which is owned by Dowson. The full amount the party was invoiced by Dowson’s company in 2009 was £741,290, which included £58,680 of management fees for running the Belfast call centre, part of the £162,000 a year Dowson was paid by the party. However even Dowson had to wait for his money. At 31 December 2009 the BNP owed his company £71,967, the accounts reveal.

The amount going through Adlorries represents a huge proportion of the party’s total expenditure of just over £2 million, justifying Searchlight’s accusation that Dowson virtually owned the BNP. Another accusation that the accounts prove correct is that the party massively inflated its payroll, providing jobs for those in Griffin’s favour. Expenditure on staff costs more than doubled to £660,000 in 2009, though this includes around £100,000 of consultancy fees paid to Dowson.

One person who always gets whatever he wants from the party is its chairman. During 2009 the party spent the huge sum of £33,519 on installing a security system for him. Andrew Brons, the party’s Yorkshire MEP, only merited £9,136, as did a person by the name of “Ms E Uttley”.

Jefferson states that a programme has been agreed with the auditor to ensure that the 2010 accounts are submitted on time and that “we are able to repair to a large extent any possible deficiencies in the operation of the Treasury department in 2010”. Deficiencies in the party’s finances will be harder to repair. The party ended 2010 unable to pay its printers, with staff waiting for their wages and mounting legal expenses from failed court actions and employment tribunal cases.

On 18 January 2011 Griffin was required to pay £45,000 into court as a result of having to withdraw a court case against four former employees. The total cost is expected to be £115,000. He failed to make the payment. And with donations drying up and demoralised members deserting the failing party, the BNP is unlikely to dig itself out of its deep financial hole.

Thanks to Searchlight / HOPE not hate by Sonia Gable

Edit The BNP's Statement of Accounts can be found here

Moron replaces ‘incompetent’ as BNP treasurer

The British National Party’s top moron has added the post of national treasurer to his growing list of party portfolios. Clive Jefferson, national organiser, national elections officer, nominating officer, north west regional organiser and “campaigns coordinator” at the constituency office of Nick Griffin MEP, the BNP leader, has replaced Dave Hannam as the BNP’s fifth treasurer in the space of 18 months.

His appointment shows that the BNP has been unable to find anyone else stupid enough to stand in the firing line. It is the treasurer who may be prosecuted for the criminal offence of failing to deliver a political party’s accounts to the Electoral Commission. It is the treasurer who is responsible for correcting defective accounts. It is the treasurer who is responsible for controlling expenditure on election campaigns and for ensuring donations are permissible and properly notified to the Electoral Commission.

We wonder whether Jefferson, 42, has ever looked at Schedule 20 to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which sets out 98 specific offences relating to the financial affairs of political parties and the penalties for committing them, consisting of unlimited fines or up to one year's imprisonment.

When Hannam was appointed treasurer in February this year, we recalled that he had been widely derided as incompetent at the time of the last major internal rebellion of 2007/08, when Hannam was the party’s deputy treasurer. “I don’t know what more I have to do or say to get through the point that Dave is completely incompetent,” wrote Ian Dawson in his letter of resignation from his position as the party’s head of group support. “I have proved beyond doubt that the job is clearly beyond Dave.

“Hannam has messed things up from day one, before he got ‘bogged down’ in an audit, during it, and after it. If he worked in a bank he would not last a week. Not only is he incompetent, he also lies. Again, this can be proved time and time again, yet it seems that no matter how much some people lie, and however big the lies are, they get away with it. I can’t think of one thing that Dave does well – if there is something I have not seen it. That is not an exaggeration or an unnecessary insult, it is a fact.”

On 28 July this year Hannam boasted that the BNP’s financial controls now ensured that “all legally required statement [sic] of accounts are submitted on time”. The next day it emerged that the party had failed to submit its 2009 accounts to the Electoral Commission by the deadline of 7 July, the third time the fascist party had been late. The accounts remain outstanding and hope is fading that they will ever appear.

The 2008 accounts, which were submitted nearly six months late, are still under investigation by the Electoral Commission because the auditors reported that they did not give a true and fair view and did not “comply with the requirements of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 as adequate records have not been made available”.

In August the BNP’s national advisory council appointed a scrutiny committee tasked with “examining the structure of the treasury department and making concrete moves to ensure that there is a clear division between those who manage the accounts and those who authorise outlays,” according to a report posted on the party’s website. Earlier this month it delivered its first interim report and, to no one’s surprise, identified no evidence of financial misconduct. Yet Hannam was already on his way out.

Jefferson, who has no qualifications for the treasurer’s post, takes over when the party is heavily in debt with creditors threatening legal proceedings, its fundraising consultant, Jim Dowson, and communications officer, Paul Golding, have left, and it has had to organise a sudden flit out of Belfast to Nuneaton, after Dowson closed down its call centre and main administration office.

His appointment gives the lie to all claims over the past two years that the BNP is trying to professionalise its treasury functions by using qualified accountants (who turned out to be close colleagues of the unpopular and criminally convicted Dowson), maintaining daily book keeping, providing quarterly financial reports to the advisory council and strictly regulating major expenditure. Jefferson wouldn’t know what a financial report was if it bit him in the backside.

According to Butler, Griffin has promoted Patrick Harrington, leader of the rival Third Way party, to the party’s “head of human resources”, a strange role for the general secretary of the BNP’s fake trade union Solidarity. Eddy Butler, who unsuccessfully challenged Griffin for the party leadership this summer, claims it was Harrington who provoked Dowson, who claimed to have raised nearly two million pounds for the party, to walk out.

“Harrington, who fancies himself as a Union boss started prattling about workers rights and unsettled the ship,” wrote Butler. “Dowson hates unions and he hates people with (let’s say) unconventional sexual proclivities. That put him at odds with Pat Harrington from the outset,” Butler continued.

Jefferson, perhaps realising which way the wind was blowing, took Harrington’s side against Dowson and, says Butler, “has been openly slagging Dowson off”. His reward: to be appointed as fall guy – and he is too dumb to realise it.

Hope not hate

Scrutiny committee appointed to protect BNP treasurer

A national scrutiny committee has been appointed to examine the British National Party’s treasury department, according to a report of the party’s Advisory Council meeting on 14 August posted on the BNP website.

The committee “has been tasked with examining the structure of the treasury department and making concrete moves to ensure that there is a clear division between those who manage the accounts and those who authorise outlays,” according to the party.

The establishment of this committee is clearly an attempt to dispel the widespread accusations of financial impropriety in the BNP. As well as the party’s incompetent treasurer, Dave Hannam, its members include the party’s East Midlands regional organiser Geoff Dickens, the Wales regional organiser Brian Mahoney and the East Midlands regional treasurer James Mole.

According to Nick Griffin, the party leader, Dickens and Mahoney have “decades of experience in managing business with bigger turnovers with the BNP and will bring their expertise to bear on the committee”. Mole has also been appointed as the BNP’s new “regional treasurer”, whose job will be to act as treasurer for those regions (most of them) that cannot run their own finances.

However the very limited role of the scrutiny committee means it is unlikely to restore party members’ shaken confidence in the BNP’s dire finances. In fact Griffin himself gave away its true purpose: to protect Hannam. “This committee has been given the mission to transparently study everything so that the national treasurer can be completely protected from malicious allegations,” Griffin said.

Although Griffin stated that the party’s finances were the main focus of the Advisory Council meeting, it does not appear that Hannam made the party’s detailed financial records available for inspection, as Ken Booth, the North East regional organiser had requested before being peremptorily sacked by Griffin.

Interestingly Griffin ascribed the party’s serious financial situation to the party growing faster than its systems could cope with, an excuse he has used before but which differs from what he puts in his begging letters, in which he blames the legal action against the party’s racist constitution brought by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The true cause, which Griffin never admits, is that he has brought the party to insolvency by pursuing reckless legal actions and making idiotic decisions with expensive consequences such as to use the image of a jar of Marmite on the party’s general election broadcast.

Rumours continue to circulate that the party is about to be put into liquidation by its numerous creditors, which include HM Revenue and Customs, various firms of solicitors and Michaela Mackenzie, a former employee to whom Griffin agreed to pay an undisclosed sum of compensation for unfair dismissal but failed to do so by the due date of 14 July.

The meeting also heard that its new member dropout rate – people who join the party but fail to renew their membership after the first year – was critically low. According to Griffin the party’s Belfast call centre had ascertained that the main reason was the lack of contact after joining the party.

Griffin blamed this on local units. However many of his critics have said that the call centre has failed to pass on details of many inquiries to the call centre and where information is passed on it is inaccurate and unusable.

The party had previously said that the establishment of the Belfast call centre, under the control of the convicted criminal Jim Dowson, who controls most of the BNP’s operations and assets, had successfully increased the membership renewal rate, but this now appears to have been a lie.

The revelation casts doubt on the party’s claimed membership figure of 14,000. The party’s 2009 accounts, which would include a statement of the number of members at 31 December 2009, remain unavailable.

The Advisory Council meeting also heard that the party intends to relaunch its campaign against the Afghanistan war in the autumn with “leaflets, petitions and online campaigning”, in a bid to “start recruiting again in earnest”.

Sonia Gable at HOPE not hate

BNP leadership may have pocketed party bequests

Another British National Party councillor has resigned the party whip and will sit as an independent, as rumours surface of misappropriation by the party leadership of bequests to the party.

Graham Partner, one of two BNP members elected to North West Leicestershire District Council in May 2007, supported Eddy Butler’s failed challenge to Nick Griffin’s leadership because the party was not “being managed in an open and honest way”.

The final straw for him was Griffin’s dismissal of two members of the party’s Advisory Council and Richard Barnbrook’s decision to renounce the BNP whip on the London Assembly this week.

“On Monday I shall submit my official letter to County Hall informing them of my decision while remaining a member of the party in order to retain the right to speak and vote against its wrongful management,” wrote Partner on 13 August.

Two days earlier he had accused those BNP members who supported Griffin’s continued leadership of the party of being “morons who voted for Herr Griff” and described the leadership nomination process as: “cheating, fraudulent, despicable”.

Attacking Griffin’s dictatorship, Partner added: “His actions have brought about several court cases costing us hundreds of thousands of pounds, his arrogance towards other members and officials knows no bounds.

“He appoints lap dogs to key positions who will follow his instructions blindly and gets away with repeatedly lying over the accounts with a little help from puppet Dave [Hannam, the BNP’s incompetent treasurer].”

Meanwhile, 37 supporters of Butler’s failed leadership challenge met near Windsor on 12 August to discuss how they could “rescue” the BNP from its “inevitable failure and destruction” under Griffin’s leadership, reports Simon Bennett, the BNP’s former webmaster. They included many of the people whom Griffin has suspended for supporting Butler.

Those present blamed Griffin for the £500,000 of debts that have put the party in a dire financial state, likening him, wrote Bennett, to “the farmer who had opened the door of the chicken house to the fox, a shadowy and wily fox with a criminal past and a history of appealing for monies from donors who believe in their causes, the monies seemingly then enriching the pockets of that fox rather than being utilised for the cause. The resulting carnage, now that the fox had been allowed to virtually take over the Party by the farmer, was all too apparent.”

The fox in this tale is Jim Dowson, the man who owns the BNP – a fact first revealed by Searchlight – whose involvement with the party Butler and many other activists have vigorously condemned and want to bring to an end. Not only has he taken over the party’s assets and administration, he has been accused by many activists of bullying and threatening violence against anyone who dares to disagree with him, and a young BNP member has made allegations of sexual assault against him, which Griffin has refused to investigate.

The meeting heard that questions had been raised over bequests and other large donations that had allegedly been paid direct to the leadership. It was unclear whether the party had benefited from these bequests and probate information would be obtained to investigate these rumours.

The party has not notified any individual large donations to the Electoral Commission since the end of September 2009. Donations above £7,500 (£5,000 up to 31 December) to the central party and above £1,500 (formerly £1,000) to accounting units or to individual officers have to be declared.

Delegates also explored how they could force an independent examination of the party’s financial records to establish whether there was any truth in the widespread allegations of financial irregularities and to “disclose where all the party’s funds had disappeared, and if there were signs of fraud”.

The meeting decided to establish a new Reform Group website and attached forum which would focus on “the rescue of the party” and provide “information which members would not get from official party channels”.

The group is also considering legal action over the BNP’s leadership nomination rules that the party leadership imposed to make it impossible for a challenger to succeed, something that Butler recently rejected despite suggesting it during his campaign. The meeting also decided to organise a class action on behalf of all the members who had been “unconstitutionally and illegally suspended”, which will put the BNP’s new constitution under the spotlight and could result in yet more legal costs for the party.

Butler himself appears not to have been present. The group intends to hold a bigger meeting in September.

Sonia Gable at HOPE not hate

BNP faces fines for third accounts failure.

The British National Party has failed to submit its 2009 accounts to the Electoral Commission, the third time the fascist party has been late.

The Electoral Commission said today: “The British National Party and the party’s Regional Accounting Unit were both granted an extension to the deadline for submitting their statements of accounts. Both have failed to deliver their accounts within the extended deadline so the party will be fined a minimum of £500 and the accounting unit will be fined a minimum £100, this figure will increase if the accounts are more than three months late.”

The 2008 accounts, which were submitted nearly six months late, remain under investigation by the Electoral Commission because the auditors reported that they did not give a true and fair view and did not “comply with the requirements of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 as adequate records have not been made available”.

At the time, Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, described the accounts as “inadequate”. In his introduction to the 2008 accounts Griffin claimed that “the task of maintaining central office accounts had become too big for any one individual”. However, he continued, the problem had now been solved because the job had been “outsourced” to “an independent Chartered Accountant and Accounts Technician with the aim of presenting acceptable accounts for the accounting year 2009”.

The independent chartered accountant was John Thompson, a close business associate of Jim Dowson, the man whose web of financial links with the BNP is such that he in effect “owns” the BNP.

The failure to submit accounts will add to Dowson’s unpopularity with many BNP members and plays into the hands of Eddy Butler, who is currently trying to collect enough nominations to challenge Griffin for the party leadership. Butler’s response was: “Nick Griffin has brought disgrace upon the BNP yet again. There is only one way that you can change this. Sign the nomination form and vote for change.”

That the accounts have not appeared was no surprise to Searchlight. Given the BNP’s huge liabilities as a result of Griffin’s long list of reckless legal actions, the party’s independent auditors are likely to have had difficulty certifying that the BNP is a “going concern”.

In recent years, although the party has been insolvent, the auditors have assumed it can meet its liabilities by raiding the funds of its groups and branches, something with which many local officers are unhappy. Now, the liabilities are so big that branch funds are not enough, and many branch treasurers have adopted measures to keep head office’s hands off their money.

An organisation that is not a “going concern” cannot operate unless it pays for all goods and services in advance, something the BNP does not have the money to do.

Many party members are beginning to realise that although Dowson has raised unprecedented sums in donations, Griffin has been spending far more on madnesses such as using an image of Marmite on a BNP election broadcast, which attracted an injunction from Unilever, defending indefensible unfair dismissal claims from former employees and dragging out his response to the Equality Commission’s action over the party’s racist constitution to the extent that the legal costs are believed to be running at £300,000 so far.

Another problem the auditors might have had is that the party apparently no longer owns any of its assets. One of the sections of the new BNP constitution that Griffin slipped in without telling anyone states that all the party’s assets belong to the so-called Founders’ Association. That body is not defined in the constitution but it is understood to be all BNP members who joined before the new constitution came into effect in February and are still members. If the party does not own its assets, they cannot correctly be included in its accounts, which would greatly increase the party’s insolvency.

The BNP, however, is hoping its members will keep their heads firmly in the sand. The day before it emerged that the party’s accounts were missing, Dave Hannam, the party treasurer, sent out an email listing all the party’s financial achievements but admitting that he had been forced to implement new stringent financial controls and submit to monthly inspection of his “treasury office” by “an outside accountant”.

According to Hannam the party lacked “financial stability”. One reason was: “the large number of court cases launched at this party in a deliberate attempt to derail us,” skating over the fact that almost all the legal costs were entirely the fault of the BNP. Another reason was “a general lack of accountability with regards to the National Treasurer and his office”. And it had been “discovered that some officials has incurred expenditure that was both unauthorised and previously unknown to the Treasury department”.

In other words, Hannam had been as incompetent as most people, other than Griffin, Dowson and their sycophants, always knew he was from the time he first became the party’s deputy treasurer.

The email said nothing about the 2009 accounts being late, appealed for new regional treasurers – in other words new people Hannam can blame the next time it all goes wrong – and ended with a “donate” button, in the hope that the party’s stupid supporters will throw more money into Griffin’s bottomless pit.

Searchlight / HOPE not Hate by Sonia Gable

Coverts spied on Butler "since 2006"

"This election, if it goes ahead, should be carried out in the most rapid manner possible with zero publicity allowed for the joke candidate (who may in other circumstances be described as a decent and 'nice' bloke etc) and the least disruption to our continued efforts. That is the best way to minimise the harmful effects."

So wrote Eddy Butler on the occasion of Colin Auty's abortive leadership challenge just over two years ago. In the same missive Butler pointedly spoke of the "temerity" of those mounting leadership challenges.

Hardly the language of a convinced democrat.

Post-Auty, Butler was instrumental in pushing through the series of constitutional changes intended to protect Nick Griffin from the BNP membership, each change significantly tightening leader Griffin's grip, as Butler was well aware. Sometimes he openly helped do the dirty work, sometimes he kept quiet, Butler only lately detailing his convoluted and not particularly honourable reasons for doing so on his blog.

There is, then, a kind of poetic justice that as he comes to mount his own leadership challenge Butler is faced with the almost insuperable obstacles placed in his way by a Byzantine nomination system that he - whatever he now may say - helped impose upon the BNP.

What is curious is that Butler consistently gave solid support to Nick Griffin even when it was obvious to outsiders that as far as Griffin was concerned, Eddy Butler's number was up years ago.

Back in 2007 we reported that Griffin's close friend and hatchet-man Tony Lecomber attacked Butler outside Loughton underground station. Butler insisted Lecomber be sacked and proscribed, or he would involve the police. Griffin had little choice other than to comply, which he did with reluctance and bad grace, penning a proscription notice that was little more than a hymn of praise to the talents and loyalty of the thuggish Lecomber.

It was all too clear, as I wrote at the time, that given the choice Griffin would have broken Butler's neck, not Lecomber's, and that the clock was ticking for Butler.

As it happens, by then the clock had already been ticking for some time. Tommy Williams and Dave Howard, Griffin's chavish Covert Undercover Nuisance Tactics attack rats, recently admitted that they had been "on his [Butler's] case since around 2006".

Posting on the Nazi VNN Williams also admitted to eavesdropping on Butler at the 2009 RWB: "We deliberately set up behind BUTTlers tent, infact anyone who was there will remember people having to move tents so we could move in. We were also privvy to BUTTlers conversations (lots of them) that have been recorded all quite legally."

Eavesdropping on leading party members is, of course, something in which the Griffin leadership is deeply experienced, as the Decembrists Sadie Graham, Matt Single and Kenny Smith discovered when a transcript of a private conversation between the three was published on the BNP website at the same time that BNP goon squads were converging on their homes.

Other recent allegations of bugging, key-logging and e-mail interception on the part of the leadership remain strangely and ominously undenied.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to throw upon the chosen few who constitute the party's upper echelon a nagging awareness that their conversations may be recorded and logged - the possibility instils just the right amount of fear and paranoia and takes the edge of those who might otherwise be inclined to ask awkward questions. It's classic Stalinist-style psychology.

If Butler was ever aware that the leadership monitored his conversations and associations he gives no indication of it. Even with Clive Jefferson's cameraphone in his face during the drunken Belgian episode, and even with Jefferson giving a carefully staged running commentary, the 100% certainty that he was being set up never seems to have crossed Butler's mind.

Mr Butler does not appear to be the most perceptive person in the world.

Down the years of his association with Griffin, Butler cannot have failed to be aware of the many serious allegations of financial impropriety made against the BNP leader - indeed, the Freedom Party split of which he was part was largely founded upon them, - yet only now does Butler admit that there is evidence of wrong-doing at the very top of the BNP.

Replying to allegations made on one of the Griffinite smear-blogs set up to destroy his credibility, Butler says that he was "told about some very serious financial allegations made against the current Chairman of this Party", and that he resolved to raise the matter at the first post-general election Advisory Council meeting.

Butler claims that treasurer David Hannam told Nick Griffin of the allegations after Hannam had been told by Mark Collett. This resulted in Butler being removed from his position together with - and Butler is explicit - "the two other people who knew". The two others, of course, being Mark Collett and Emma Colgate.

Now, if, until Collett spoke to the duplicitous Hannam, only Collett, Colgate and Butler knew of the allegations, and if Butler (as he says) was told of them, then the source must have been Collett or Colgate.

If, as in light of subsequent events (including the infamous in absentia show trial) seems likely, it was Collett, then we have something approaching an explanation for the hysterical "murder plot" allegations made by Griffin and Jim Dowson to the police as the BNP's general election campaign got underway - as neat a little story as anything we could have dreamed up, and which did so much more than the loss of the party's cumbersome website to undermine its already flawed campaign.

Only a Nick Griffin could have thought up anything so damaging at such a crucial time, and in the process help throw so many of his candidates' hard-won deposits down the electoral drain.

Despite his dismissal (though he says he has not been officially sacked), Eddy Butler remained quiet about the allegations concerning Griffin until after the general election, whereupon "I openly declared my intention to pursue the matter".

And indeed he did, but by then the sleazy Clive Jefferson was doing Butler's old job, and in his first skin-saving post-election pronouncements Nick Griffin was clearly setting up Butler as the fall guy for the BNP's appalling election performance. Butler could see which way the wind was blowing and had nothing to lose, expulsion being a certainty, so of course he was going to pursue the matter.

But if, as Butler seems to be inferring, these allegations of financial impropriety are of a criminal nature, then why has he failed in his duty as a citizen to present himself and his evidence to the police, which is the only proper body to which such matter should be submitted?

Butler has warned Griffin that he must follow proper procedures (as enshrined in employment law) if he intends to end Butler's employment with the BNP. The near certainty of a damaging, revealing employment tribunal is probably all that presently prevents Griffin from kicking Butler (and his leadership challenge) into touch.

Griffin must make a concrete move soon, as the deadline for a leadership challenge nears, since he can not afford for Butler to be seen to gain anything near the 20% member nominations a challenger requires - though the Griffin-penned constitutional procedures are so vague in the matter of verification that it is entirely within the realms of possibility that Butler could sail past the 20% qualification and never know it.

The BNP's civil war will continue then for at least another four weeks (until the nominations deadline), and after that perhaps only for as long as until Griffin can devise a watertight exit strategy for Eddy Butler. Should Butler reach his 20% nominations, and should Griffin surprise us all and admit it, then we have four months in which to enjoy the BNP shedding its own blood.

In fixing that ridiculous self-serving 20% qualification Nick Griffin may have thought himself very clever, but in setting such a high aiming point for a prospective challenger Griffin has also ensured that a challenger must be better connected and network far harder and more professionally than ever a Jackson or an Auty could. In other words, the challenge will be far more serious and single-minded in its purpose because the challenger has no other option but to engage in a protracted, damaging campaign to secure enough nominations - and should the challenger gain his or her 20% nominations to enable a contest then that is tantamount to an admission before a vote is cast that 20% of the party is out of love with its leader.

Griffin has effectively undermined himself with his own self-preservation strategy. Even if Butler does not make the 20% and is quickly expelled there is a strong possibility of some sort of split; and should that fail to materialise Butler's widespread dissident network will remain in place as an unfailing source of misery to Griffin.

It's going to be a long, hot summer.

Watchdog begins BNP accounts probe

The Electoral Commission has launched an investigation into the accounting records of the British National Party, it was announced today

The commission, which is the independent party finance watchdog, said it had began the probe into the party's 2008 statement of accounts. This follows concerns raised about its "adequacy" by the independent auditor's report that accompanied it. But the fact that an investigation had been launched did not mean there should be assumptions made over any alleged breaches, the commission stressed.

In January this year the commission began a review following the concerns raised, and this has now developed into the investigation announced today. It follows comments by the registered auditors, Silver & Co, that the financial statements submitted did not "give a true and fair view of the state of the party's affairs at December 31, 2008".

The auditors went on: "In our opinion it cannot be said that the accounts comply with the requirements of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, as adequate records have not been made available."

A statement released by the commission said: "In January 2010 the Electoral Commission, the independent party finance watchdog, began a case review following concerns raised in the independent auditor's opinion about the adequacy of the 2008 statement of accounts of the British National Party. The case has now become an investigation.

"However, it is important to note - particularly during an election period - that no conclusion has been reached and therefore no assumption should be made as to whether a breach of the rules has occurred."

The Independent

The shower behind the BNP throne

The henchmen behind vile BNP leader Nick Griffin have their thin veneer of acceptability stripped away today.

His minders and hangers-on wore smart suits and ties as they leaped to shield their party leader from a barrage of eggs and anti-fascist taunts this week. But the News of the World can reveal their respectable image conceals a Nazi-saluting RACIST, a depraved SWINGER and a FAILED wannabe councillor who lives with his mum.

The rotten shower were among sidekicks who jumped in to protect Griffin, 49, from furious protesters in London. Griffin and Andrew Brons, who together had just become MEPs in the Euro elections, had been trying to portray their party as a reasonable voice. But we can reveal that their minders' views are every bit as warped as the BNP's policies.

Take JAY SLAVEN, who was seen on camera roughly pushing a bystander aside as he escorted Griffin and Brons away. A truer picture of Slaven, 25, emerges from another photo of him giving a Nazi salute and posing with a St George's flag draped over his shoulders.

The snap features on a Facebook photo album entitled "Forever Brave, Forever True, Forever England! St George's Day!"

Slaven, from Doddinghurst, Essex, tried to make a name for himself by defending Jade Goody's racist remarks to Shilpa Shetty during Celebrity Big Brother in 2007. At the time he claimed the huge row which erupted over comments made towards Indian actress Shilpa was "laughable".

In another rant Slaven, an assistant distribution manager, declared: "I see no possible wrong in wanting to preserve this island race of ours. Racial mixing is not leading to the BNP success, the vast damage done to our nation by successive governments is."

Pictured near Slaven at the egg demo was burly BNP minder MARTIN REYNOLDS, who is Griffin's head of security and a regular feature at his elbow. But Reynolds - married with three kids - is also a regular on the swingers scene and lusts after "big girls". The 41-year- old from Leeds was pictured at the London bust-up in dark glasses. But he wore far less as he watched women indulge in sex acts at a squalid orgy.

Months earlier he had gone on dating website faceparty.com with fellow BNP organisers Mark Collett and Dan Hannam. Reynolds told how he hated stuck-up people and women on diets - and listed his ideal female as "size 16 and above with a good sense of humour and a sex drive to match mine".

Also among Griffin's gang was TONY GLADWIN, who lives with his mum in a 1960s house with a St George's Cross flying from a 6ft flagpole outside. The 25-year-old landscape gardener recently stood as a district councillor but failed miserably to get elected. Gladwin, from Billericay, Essex, has said: "Everyone that knows me knows I am in the BNP. I'm very proud of it. People have made out it's like a secret society, like we should be hiding it."

Another Griffin minder is former London mayoral candidate JULIAN LEPPERT, a postman who is happiest when he is delivering racist scare stories. He said: "We don't want to be a minority in our city, let alone our country. That is what we are going to have by 2055 if current trends continue."

Meanwhile new MEP Andrew Brons, 61, seeks to be the respectable face of the party but 25 years ago he was convicted of behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace. He and another National Front member were shouting slogans including "Death to Jews" and "White Power".

NoTW

A-Z of the BNP: Great White Records

Great White Records (GWR) is the BNP's in-house record label, which Griffin once saw as both a lucrative cash cow and a stepping-stone to creating the sort of fascist "counter power" movement he had been harping on about since the 1980s.

Its founding statement was explicit that "the chief benefactors/recipients of money raised by GWR will be the British National Party". The party boasted it would release upwards of 13 albums, which would raise around £100,000 for the party.

It is highly doubtful that GWR has even paid back the initial outlay lavished upon it, however. GWR, which was incorporated in December 2005, has hardly released any records of its own and those it has have been underwhelming to say the least. To put it politely they are unlikely to chart any time soon. The company has only produced one set of accounts, which showed its total net assets at £8, and is currently on notice that it will be struck off. In 2008 its business was merged with the BNP's Excalibur merchandising operation.

It is not only about the money though. As one senior BNP figure observed in an interview about GWR: "People will listen to a song over and over again and take all the words in, in a way that you would be very lucky to get one in 100 of them to listen to a speech. Music is a very effective way of getting our views across." Ian Stuart Donaldson, lead singer of the infamous "white power" band Skrewdriver, said exactly the same thing. The music might have changed but the tune has not.

Despite the initial hopes placed upon it, not least by Griffin himself, GWR has stalled. Its lacklustre performance is largely down to the man placed in charge, Dave Hannam (pictured), the BNP deputy treasurer who was jailed for three months in 2000 for handing out antisemitic leaflets in Hull. Hannam was temporarily demoted in early 2008 to appease irate BNP organisers and activists after a former colleague accused him of being "crassly incompetent". GWR's other director, Nick Cass, who in 2007 was sacked as party manager, appears to be a silent partner.

Ironically Griffin's decision to back Hannam (and Mark Collett) during a damaging split in the BNP precipitated a minor disaster for GWR. Those who sided with the "rebels" included its two leading artists, one of whom was Colin Auty. Despite ridiculing Auty the BNP continues to sell his album Truth Hurts, presumably because GWR has so little else to justify its existence. GWR's next release was by Joey Barber, a BNP activist who records under the name Joey Smith. His "pop" album Not Just About the Music was truly execrable. Griffin loved it. BNP members did not.

GWR once tried to take the rise out of anti-fascists by altering the lyrics of a socialist anthem by the late great Woody Guthrie to reflect the BNP's racist prejudices. It would appear that the joke was on them. Guthrie once penned a song entitled "All You Fascists (Bound To Lose)".

If the performance of GWR is anything to go by they already have.

Hope not hate

Kemp is given Excalibur as Collett resigns. Just a day in the life of the BNP...

No, he's not gone yet...

The BNP's Advisory Council meeting minutes are far more interesting for what they don't say than for what they do, and January's AC minutes are a good example.

The Advisory Council meets at least three times a year and is the guiding body (it says here) of the party. And who sits on the AC? Everyone who is anyone, of course - or at least, anyone who is anyone in the fantasy world of the BNP. Thus we see the steroid-enhanced Martin Reynolds rubbing chubby shoulders with the idiotic Dave Hannam, while the emphatically lunatic Bob Bailey sits alongside the detestable Mark Collett. And who do we not see at January's meeting? Who is missing from this gathering of the BNP's glitterati, who we would usually expect to spot? Deputy Chairman and National Press Officer Simon Darby, for one. The reptilian Arthur Kemp, for another. And Richard Edmonds.

Edmonds' position of the AC was one of the consolation prizes offered as a sop to the rebellion of last year - clearly intended to pacify those on the harder right of the party who felt that Griffin was leading the party directly into the no-go area of, as it has been labelled, 'Tory nationalism'. For Edmonds is no soft nationalist - he is a fully-fledged neo-nazi, as Denise pointed out in an excellent article pondering Edmonds' placement on the AC back in October.

'A former mathematics teacher, Edmonds has a record that - anywhere beyond the shores of the fawning racist Right - is eminently unenviable. In 1987 Edmonds sustained a conviction for causing damage to a statue erected in honour of Nelson Mandela, and more seriously in 1994 he was convicted for his part in a 1993 racial attack in which a black victim was hit in the face with a glass. Sentenced to six months in gaol, Edmonds was released immediately, having already spent three months on remand.

The BNP's former National Organiser was also a long-time purveyor of Nazi and Holocaust-denial literature, notably Holocaust News, which found a wide circulation among the racist Right in the late 1980s. Edmonds told the BBC Panorama programme that Holocaust News was a "wonderful statement of the truth".

Not long after that, Edmonds told the journalist Duncan Campbell that the BNP was "100% racist". Note that he did not pettifog with the word "racialist" and the often-made inference that a "racialist" merely recognises and respects racial differences, upon which supposed differences the credo of "separate development" (apartheid) is allegedly built. He went directly for the word "racist", with its naked (and only) meaning of one who harbours an unreasoning emotional hatred against those of other races.

Nothing Edmonds has said or done in the intervening years could lead any unbiased observer to believe that the man is not now what he always was - an unrepentant anti-Semite, a racist, a Holocaust denier, and very much a standard-bearer for John Tyndall's brand of National Socialism.'

Missing from the meeting - and with no apologies for absence. Does that mean his job is done and he is no longer on the AC? If you know, let us know.

An anonymous correspondent has been in touch and has mentioned a number of points from the meeting which are worthy of note (and a big thank you to whoever you are). I've highlighted some of these below:

• Student membership accounts for only 0.01% of total membership. So much for the BNP's drive to engage young people.
• A 'properly constructed budget has been drawn up for 2009'. This is something of a surprise as the party has been going for twenty-seven years, ten of those under the authoritarian leadership of Nick Griffin. One would have expected a budget to have been an essential component of running a political party - even one like the BNP - but apparently it hasn't been until now.
• The party is investigating data protection principles – a bit late I would say. Mark Collett is now responsible for Data Collection (including date of birth and telephone number, which might be useful for him).
• All local BNP blogs must change their names and operate instead as a local community website. Use of the BNP logo must be discontinued. They report that it is impossible to control and oversee local websites centrally for legality of content and this measure protects the Party from any potentially costly legal challenges though it seems a tacit admission that the party is unable to control the lunatics in its midst.
• Members and officers whose personal e-mail addresses include ‘bnp’ should remove this reference for security reasons. Any officers who have an @aol address must switch to another service provider since AOL have blocked customers from receiving e-mails from @bnp.org. uk senders. For the first time ever, AOL gets my vote as an ISP with some moral courage.

But the two big items that are just casually mentioned in the AC report are the admission that 700,000 Euro warm up leaflets have been printed without an official imprint, prompting the moronic Collett to offer his resignation (sadly rejected), and the handing over of the tatty Excalibur 'merchandising' arm of the BNP to the ubiquitous Arthur Kemp.

Collett's cock-up will cost the party a fair amount of cash and goodwill as the party is offering branches (or units as it so kindly refers to them) free stickers to be adhered to the offending leaflets and a third of the money they paid back by way of compensation. Had an independent printer made the same mistake, he would have been expected to cover the cost of his error out of his own pocket. It'll be interesting to see whether Collett has to cough up or whether the party (and thus its members) take the financial hit. Personally, I'd've sacked the useless bastard for this, his umpteenth mistake. In any case, the party now has a 'National Proofreader and Marketing Consultant' who, along with the Chairman and National Elections Officer, will peruse all publications to ensure that Collett actually does what he's meant to do.

With regard to Kemp and Excalibur, the AC report has this to say;

'The Excalibur merchandising operation will now be run privately by Arthur Kemp under an annually renewable license from the Party. This is a saving to the Party in terms of storage costs and postage. Arthur will continue to work on the website, write the Party’s Education and Training manuals and will be overseeing Radio RWB.'

As our correspondent puts it, 'So much for all the lies in November about moving to bigger premises etc – is this the start of the end for Excalibur and Mr. Kemp?' Not too sure about the latter point but it certainly seems like the Excalibur operation is considerably smaller than party members and the outside world have been led to believe.

A number of questions immediately arise (though I'm sure our readers can think of a few more).

• Were the members ever consulted about this disposal of their assets? After all, they paid for Excalibur and have subsidised its existence up to now.
• Has Kemp paid anything for this 'licence' to run Excalibur as his private company? If so, how much?
• Why has Kemp been effectively given Excalibur anyway? Why not put it out to closed tender - restricted to party members?
• If it is now run by him as a private concern, one assumes Kemp will keep any profits that might be made - if so, how much will that cost the party/members per annum in lost revenue?
• If it is (as we suspect) loss-making, who will pick up the tab?

There's a whole host of questions that need to be answered regarding this highly dubious transaction - though the membership of the BNP will not be encouraged to ask them. They already paid for one company - Great White Records - which ended up being privately owned by the arch-twat Dave Hannam, and they pay Mark Collett for running a design company with a single client (the BNP) as a highly profitable and guaranteed business, and now it looks like they are to subsidise Kemp's own business (albeit on a annually renewable licence). None of this might actually be corrupt but it certainly stinks.

It really is time that the BNP membership woke up and realised that it's been taken for a very long and very expensive ride.

The 'new' BNP is still the Nazi BNP

The BNP's merchandising wing - Excalibur - has hit tough times recently since Searchlight exposed its whereabouts and it got kicked out.

But, fear not, for the BNP still has its nascent digital downloads service. There are currently only four songs available, but, rest assured:

This may not be MTV, in fact it is of better cultural quality that the disposable factory-produced music that glorifies violence, drug use and sexual depravity, but this is our first steps towards developing our own music broadcast channel.

What is on offer at present are three tracks by the ever-unpopular BNP minstrel Dave Hannam, and a song called 'We are one', of which we read: 'Battlecry, an American based rock band have produced this powerful track with patriotic lyrics'.

Taking a look at Battlecry's website we discover that this track was indeed specially produced for the BNP. We also find that the band likes neo-Nazi symbolism:

Their albums also have some rather dubious content, it seems. Here's a sample of the lyrics to their self-titled track:

For I am revenge
The furrowed seed
grown to avenge
In Dresden's fire
First breath was born

Devastation
Annihilate
Extermination
Come and seal your fate

They feed on their Prey
The carrion of social decay
The scavengers shall now disgorge
For I am the sword
The tempered blade of Aryan lore
In tower fire I was forged

Then there's the song 'Triumph of the Will'. Does the title ring a bell? It should.

And a sample of the song's lyrics:

Like a phoenix we will climb
From the ashes of mankind
For together we are strong
And now it won't be long

In victory we raise our hands
From all across our sacred lands
Shouting out the triumph of the will
Our enemies shall fall disgraced
As we march out to save our race
Now they'll see the
triumph of the will

The band's website features an embedded YouTube video for the 'Triumph of the Will' song, which includes images of Nick Griffin, former Klansman and anti-Semite David Duke, and Don Black, founder of the neo-Nazi Stormfront forum, as well as a logo supporting Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel. And which YouTube account might be hosting this video? None other than that of the Thurrock BNP branch!

Finally, there's the song 'My Awakening'. Again, the name rings a bell. Of course, it's the title of David Duke's 'political' autobiography:

According to Duke's website, 'My Awakening is the most powerful book in print on the race and Jewish Question'.

It turns out that Battlecry's song 'Keepers of the Light' features a guest appearance by 'Prussian Blue', a two girl act that promotes neo-Nazism:

Lamb and Lynx Gaede, adolescent twin girls who make up the band Prussian Blue, have gained recognition in white supremacist circles while preteens by singing about preserving the white race and Nazi heroes. Prussian Blue is the name of the blue residue left over by the use of Zyklon B, the poison the Nazis employed to kill millions of Jews and others in concentration camps during World War II.

Their perfomances are unambiguous:

"Strike force! White survival. Strike force! Yeah," they sing, punctuating each "Strike force!" with miniature sieg heils. Some of the men in the audience return the salute, and when the girls finish, thunderous applause fills the room.

As is their image:

And they come from a 'lovely' family background:

April home-schools the girls, teaching them her own unique perspective on everything from current to historical events. In addition, April's father surrounds the family with symbols of his beliefs -- specifically the Nazi swastika. It appears on his belt buckle, on the side of his pick-up truck and he's even registered it as his cattle brand with the Bureau of Livestock Identification.

No wonder Battlecry like the girls! And how kind of them to sell the girls' music via their site.

But then Battlecry are a very philanthropic pair. Not only have they written a song to support the BNP but they also donate $1 from every CD sale to the neo-Nazi Stormfront forum.

Such kindness is not without its rewards, of course, and they have been interviewed by none other than Blood & Honour Magazine. And Blood & Honour is the name of the neo-Nazi race hate music organisation founded in the '80s in the UK, and allied with:

...Which in turn brings us back to the BNP's leader Nick Griffin and his connections to Blood & Honour and Combat 18:

Particularly illuminating was the testimony of the Scottish Blood and Honour boss Steve Cartwright who went on record with his memories of Griffin in Wales in the mid-1990s. “Our meeting with Griffin went well,” recalled Cartwright, “he pushed all the right buttons, emphasising militancy as well as paying due respect to the Nationalists and National Socialists of the past. He also spoke of the need to re-package and modernise our beliefs in the hope of reaching the British public.”

[...]

[A]s Griffin hastily prepared for his trial on charges of inciting racial hatred in 1997, he decided that one of the planks of his defence would be that C18 had produced far worse and had never been prosecuted for it. Needing some documents he asked Steve Cartwright, head of Blood and Honour, to contact Will Browning, leader of C18, telling Cartwright to reassure Browning that he and C18 were on “the same side”.

Browning later sent Griffin a “bumper pack” of C18 material. Griffin phoned Cartwright asking him to pass on his thanks to Browning. As Cartwright recalled, “Griffin was particularly tickled by the name of the parcel sender – Mr Beast, London”.

The 'modernised' Nick Griffin is trying hard to disassociate the BNP from its Nazi roots. Trying, but constantly failing. As we have seen, the BNP currently offers a track for sale on its website that was specially made for the Party by a band that is clearly pro-Nazi and is connected to the international neo-Nazi and skinhead movement (and a BNP branch has uploaded one of its music videos). This speaks volumes about how hard Griffin and his 'new BNP' are finding it to cut the chord tying them to the Third Reich. And they are finding this hard for the very good reason that, beneath the modern sheen, the BNP remains, as it always has been, a neo-Nazi organisation.

I kid you not

Caption Competition: What the hell?

We can always trust Mad King Nick's unofficial court jester Mark Collett to embarrass the British National Party in some way while the party's 'conference' is going on, usually along with his mate, the buffoon Dave Hannam. Last year, Collett and Hannam appeared at the windows of the ghastly New Kimberley Hotel in Blackpool, waving and grinning like a pair of sub-normal clowns on the demo below - despite orders from his lordship that no-one was to show their face at all. The year before, Collett and Hannam got themselves in trouble over the small matter of inviting a couple of underage girls back to the hotel, for which they were disciplined - not for anything to do with the girls being illegally young but for bringing non-BNP people into the hotel while the conference was taking place.

This year, it looks like Collett is attempting to take on a new assistant idiot and it's possible that the picture above is of the job interview or audition for Hannam's replacement. But we wouldn't know about that. All we know is that the picture is ideal for a caption competition, so go for it. Be warned: comments/captions will be deleted if we feel the cold hand of the libel lawyer on the corporate shoulder...

Is a recession good news for the BNP?

As Britain slips into recession there is one political party that is gleeful. Nick Lowles assesses how the BNP will benefit from the unfolding economic crisis.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the British National Party will benefit politically from a recession. Government ministers certainly seem to think so. Journalists think so. And the BNP themselves certainly think so.

With unemployment likely to hit two million by the end of the year and house prices dropping 15% in the past 12 months, most people are feeling the pinch. The government’s response to the credit crunch might have boosted its poll ratings in the short term but it could be the far-right BNP that benefits when the recession really bites.

“Economic meltdowns are one of the drivers of political revolutions, and the BNP must be ready to take advantage of the mess all of the other parties have made of the economy,” David Hannam, the BNP deputy treasurer, told a party meeting recently.

He went on to explain the party’s line of attack. “Each immigrant who entered Britain decreased job prospects for native British workers. Our freedom is linked to the financial state of the country, and in a recession it is the workers who are first and hardest hit. The truth is that in an economically declining society, the worker is hit, but even in a so-called economically growing society, it is the worker who also gets hit. Successful monopolies are a by-product of globalism, and it is monopolies that decrease the demand for workers.”

His view is backed by party leader Nick Griffin who is confidently boasting that the BNP will benefit enormously from an economic downturn.

The belief of a far-right gain is supported by the Labour MP Jon Cruddas. “I’ve got a sense of foreboding about what lies ahead,” he told the BBC. “It will make a qualitative difference in terms of the context within which they’re allowed to perpetuate their scapegoating and myth-making.”

The government, meanwhile, is worried that an economic downturn would result in increased racial tension and violence between communities and even terrorism. In a 12-page internal memo, leaked to the Conservatives two months ago, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith relayed her concern over the consequences of an economic crisis. “There is a risk of a downturn increasing the appeal of far-right extremism and racism, which presents a threat as there is evidence that grievances based on experiencing racism are one of the factors that can lead to people becoming terrorists.”

The memo added that a downturn would affect the need for migrant workers, particularly in jobs such as construction where they make up a large proportion of the workforce. “Increased public hostility to migrants” was predicted to result from heightened competition for employment.

The government is so concerned that it has recently established a new police taskforce to monitor racist violence.

Controversy

Last month the new Immigration Minister controversially weighed into the debate. Phil Woolas told The Times that immigration became an “extremely thorny” subject if people were losing their jobs.

“It’s been too easy to get into this country in the past and it’s going to get harder,” he said.

Employers should, he believes, put British people first, or they will risk fuelling racism. “In times of economic difficulties, racial stereotyping becomes stronger but also if you’ve got skills shortages you should, as a government, attempt to fill those skills shortages with your indigenous population.”

Woolas was careful to include all British people in his British first policy, highlighting the high levels of unemployment affecting the British Bangladeshi community. He claimed that it was all too easy for an employer to hire a migrant to fill a job rather than to retrain British people of all races.

While Woolas was actually addressing some tough issues, including many which have wrongly been ignored for too long, he left himself open to attack with a series of incendiary quotes which he should have known would cause offence. He promised not to allow Britain’s population to rise above 70 million and attacked “health tourism”.

“It’s a national health service – it’s not an international health service,” he said.

Woolas has not been alone in raising difficult and controversial issues. Trevor Phillips, head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, also weighed into the debate last month. Speaking ahead of an address to a CBI conference, Phillips said: “After forty years in which it was impolite to speak frankly about immigration policy, we now must be able to address this fundamental aspect of economic policy without embarrassment or without fear of being labelled closet racists or open-border fantasists.

“In what is to come, the best defence against prejudice against immigrants will be to make those who resent them competitive, to give them a place in society.

“We may need to do so with the sort of special measures we’ve previously targeted at ethnic minorities. But the name of the game today is to tackle inequality, not racial special pleading.”

This was not his first foray into this terrain. He had previously stressed the importance of positive action to help white working class communities through the economic crisis. “What we are seeing is that there is a whole group of people, a large proportion of whom are white, who are going to suffer from this crisis who are going to be the people we should want to help, particularly because they come from the wrong side of town,” he said.

“We are going to have to do something special for them. We are going to have to put extra resources where young people can’t compete with migrants’ skills.

“And in some parts of the country, it is clear that what defines disadvantage won’t be black or brown, it will be white. And we will have to take positive action to help some white groups, what we might call the white underclass.”

Nothing is certain

However, there are dissenting voices to the view that the far right will necessarily gain from an economic downturn. “Although there tends to be a bit of moral panic about it, it’s never really happened in a way that, in any sense, threatens the domination of the political scene by the main parties,” Professor Colin Rallings, from Plymouth University, says.

He went on to stress that previous economic downturns had been accompanied by only short-term boosts for the right and were often geographically patchy.

Is Rawlings right? Will any boost for the far right be patchy and short-lived? Certainly recent history is on his side. The 1970s economic crisis failed to give any long-lasting boost to the National Front. Indeed, if anything, the political fortunes of the NF were already on the wane at the height of the crisis and certainly by the early 1980s, when unemployment topped three million and bank base rate was in double figures and reached over 15%, the NF hardly existed.

During the recession of the early 1990s, and despite widespread media-fuelled concern over refugees, the BNP remained a largely inconsequential political force.

A different world

There is reason to believe that events might be different this time around. Britain of today is very different from that of the late 1970s. The Cold War overshadowed British and indeed world politics. There was a vibrant left in Britain and a strong and very active trade union movement. The Second World War was still strong in public consciousness and nationalism was a dirty word.

Since then the Soviet Union has collapsed and Europe fragmented. Nationalism has become the driving ideology of the past 20 years and socialism and social democracy are experiencing an identity crisis of huge proportions. In the past year alone eight out of ten social democratic parties have been driven from power in Europe, partly to the benefit of the far right. Fascist and rightwing populist parties have been rising across western Europe and there is no reason to suggest that the same cannot happen in Britain.

Additionally, the BNP of today is quite different from the NF of the 1970s. The NF contested elections, but only in a half-hearted manner. For the NF leaders John Tyndall and Martin Webster elections were simply an organising tool but real power was going to be gained through control of the streets and by positioning themselves as ready to answer society’s call to restore social order.

By contrast, the BNP has understood some political realities. It has publicly dropped some of its hardline policies, such as compulsory repatriation, which it knew would not be accepted by the vast majority of the population, and it has turned to local politics. As a result the BNP is positioning itself as a real and lasting challenge to the main political parties, particularly Labour.

More importantly, the political terrain has changed. Disillusionment with the mainstream parties is at an all-time high, voting at an all-time low and active participation in political parties is, in too many communities, seemingly non-existent.

It is into this disillusionment that the BNP message is resonating. Race remains the cornerstone of BNP politics but its appeal is far wider and deeper. It is precisely because of this that the BNP could benefit enormously from an economic downturn.

In Stoke-on-Trent the BNP believes it can take control of the council within two years. If there had been a mayoral contest next spring there were many, including some government ministers, who believed the BNP could win. At 6% of the local population the non-white community is tiny compared to many other towns and cities across the country. Immigration and race are not the causes of the city’s problems but simply the prism through which the BNP allows local people to understand their problems and anger.

The same is true for many other areas where the BNP is doing well. The former mining communities of Rotherham, Heanor and Nuneaton, three other areas of BNP success, have relatively small BME populations but deep-rooted structural economic problems.

Compare that to the NF of the 1970s, which drew the bulk of its support from towns and cities, such as Leicester and Bradford, which experienced the greatest influx of non-white immigrants.

There are two other issues that differentiate the present from the 1970s. The Cold War has been replaced by a world defined by the “war on terror” and just as a recession could boost the far right, so fundamentalist religious groups will prosper.

As unemployment rises and disillusionment with mainstream parties deepens, friction between new and old communities will grow. Winding this up will be the BNP and other fascist groups on one side and fundamentalist religious groups, bent on demonising other communities and religions, on the other. There is a symbiotic relationship between these extremes, with both needing the other to justify their own existence.

This could play out on the streets, as we saw so vividly in Oldham and Burnley in 2001, or through a rise in domestic terrorism. It is this fear that is gripping the Home Office. We are already beginning to see a rise in violent racism and this is only likely to accelerate as the economy nosedives.

There has also been a rise in terrorism in recent times. While every Muslim plot attracts massive media attention, less known has been the increase in attempted far-right terrorism, both in Britain and across the continent. In 2007, ten people were arrested in alleged rightwing plots in Britain. While all were stopped before they were executed, it does raise the likelihood that rightwing terrorism, be it by individuals or small groups, will continue to grow. One can only imagine the consequences of a fascist bombing campaign against Muslim targets in Britain. Likewise, while the feel good factor following the decision to award London the Olympics probably helped to defuse a backlash against the London bombs of 2005, a similar bombing campaign amid an economic downturn might have a different outcome.

In the 1970s the trade unions played a crucial role in defeating the NF and today they have once again indicated their willingness to take a lead. But today’s world, particularly in the workplace, is very different from that of 30 years ago. The unions are weaker, more workplaces are un-unionised and also fragmented.

“The workplace is different from the 1970s,” says Paul Meszaros, secretary of Bradford Trades Council. “Back then workplaces were bigger and more unionised so it was more common for Asian and white people to work alongside each other. We were able to debate, argue and eventually find common ground.

“Today, workplaces are smaller and with communities living more separate lives and in different neighbourhoods within the city there are fewer opportunities for people to come together.”

Recession might be a gift to the BNP but whether it will exploit the opportunity remains to be seen. Despite its growing sophistication the BNP still struggles to win first-past-the-post elections. It has even performed poorly in recent by-elections, including some in traditional strongholds.

How opponents of the BNP react will also determine the potential electoral boost for the far right and this is where things need to change. The criticism of Woolas and Phillips has been strong and sometimes correct but it has also highlighted two fundamental issues. Firstly, a common unwillingness to debate difficult but very real issues and secondly an acknowledgement that progressives have partly contributed to the problem.

The error of identity politics

It is easy to criticise Woolas for his comments and of course some of his remarks echo the disastrous “British jobs for British workers” approach adopted by Gordon Brown last year. However, he was trying to grapple with some difficult issues, which all too many people prefer to ignore.

Likewise, Phillips’s call for preferential treatment for white working class communities has been met by a barrage of criticism, some of it justified, some not. Phillips is totally correct in saying that a growing number of white working class people feel ignored, abandoned and unrepresented. As I myself have argued previously, the BNP is providing an identity for sections of this group.

However, accepting the existence of these sub-groups and calling for preferential treatment is part of the problem in the first place. We no longer talk of a working class without sub-dividing it along racial lines. Playing identity politics is a very dangerous game and it is now coming back to haunt us. Too much government policy and spending, locally and nationally, is directed through the prism of race, which is unwittingly helping to create this “white” identity, which is in turn being exploited by the BNP. Too many progressive people have been complicit in this, knowingly or unknowingly.

To prevent the BNP from exploiting our economic worries, class needs to replace race in popular discourse. We shouldn’t have white unemployed or black unemployed but just unemployed. We shouldn’t talk about white workers or black workers but just workers. That isn’t to say that we should ignore groups or not recognise particular hardships or discrimination, but we have to find a way to bring people along together, to get them to understand a common interest and shared future. If we don’t then how can we complain when communal groups, including the white working class, compete for scarce resources.

Similarly, we need to develop a more secular approach. One of the successes of the anti-fascist and anti-racist struggle in the late 1970s was its secularism. This was particularly found within the Asian Youth Movement, which brought together young Asian people of different religious backgrounds. While accepting the right to faith, we again need to find ways to bring people from different religious backgrounds together and this is no easy task. It is not just a question of differences between Christian and Muslim communities. In today’s Britain there is widespread suspicion and distrust between many religions, another issue that has too long been ignored.

We must bring more politics (with a small p) into anti-fascism. Just as we have been arguing for the past couple of years that simply shouting “nazi” at the BNP is no longer sufficient, so we must recognise that just calling for “Hope” over hate is also inadequate. When people are struggling economically and perhaps see little hope around them, we need to be able to address some of the underlying issues that might make them susceptible to the BNP and answer directly racist myths. Hope is a positive concept but will only resonate when people feel good about the community in which they live and positive about their own economic future.

Fairness

However, we also need to show fairness in our approach. We need to demonstrate that we are fighting for everyone, regardless of colour of skin or religious background. We must also be prepared to criticise and condemn when it is necessary. Wrong is wrong, from whichever angle or community it derives.

Trade unions are in an excellent position to take on the BNP and its economic scapegoating, but it needs a different approach. Unions need to find a more direct way to engage with their members and their families than they do at present. A letter through the post or an article in a union journal is no substitute for a workplace meeting and human dialogue.

The road ahead will not be easy. A recession will increase insecurity and so suspicion and hostility between communities. As the job market shrinks and local resources become increasingly scarce so racism and bitterness will grow. The BNP could make huge advances in the next couple of years. Whether it does will partly depend on how we – government, unions and anti-fascists – respond.

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