BNP ballerina Simone Clarke now teaching children aged three

On its website, the new dancing school prominently proclaims that its teacher is a former principal dancer with the English National Ballet.

Oddly, however, it doesn't mention her name - perhaps because she is Simone Clarke, the ballerina who found herself at the centre of controversy three years ago when her membership of the British National Party was exposed. At the time anti-fascist demonstrators disrupted a performance of Giselle at the London Coliseum in which Miss Clarke, who was dubbed the 'BNP ballerina', took the starring role. Last week she appeared, surrounded by little girls of three and four in tutus, in the community hall in the village of Shadwell, near Leeds, where she runs the Yorkshire Ballet Academy.

Miss Clarke, 39, has been a leading figure in the far-Right BNP. She has shared a stage with leader Nick Griffin and was once engaged to one of the party's councillors, Richard Barnbrook - a man who claimed mixed-race children were 'washing out the identity of the country's indigenous people'. Miss Clarke's move into teaching comes as the Government is scrutinising the BNP's role in public life. It is said to be considering a ban on BNP members working as teachers in schools.

The Yorkshire Ballet Academy is a private dance school and she does not require licensing by the local authority.

Two years ago Miss Clarke appeared with Mr Griffin during a BNP 'Free Speech Evening' in Leicester and pledged: 'I will never, ever leave the BNP because they are the only people who can turn this country around.'

Next Thursday Mr Griffin will appear on the BBC's Question Time in the BNP's biggest media opportunity to date.

Miss Clarke retired from the English National Ballet after the outcry over her membership. In 2007 she was elected to the executive of the BNP-backed Solidarity trade union for a five-year term. Last night she was unavailable for comment.

Shadwell Hall treasurer David Parker, who rents the venue to her for £10 an hour, said: 'She didn't declare her politics. We have had no complaints or negativity. Whether or not the parents know about her views is up to them. I think like most of us our politics are separate from our normal lives.'

Mail Online

BNP ballerina provokes new storm

English National Ballet's principal dancer angers theatre union with political role

When Simone Clarke, principal dancer of the English National Ballet, admitted she was a member of the British National Party, one of the voices opposing calls for her to be sacked was that of the trade union Equity. Now, however, Clarke has taken a leading role in an organisation with BNP links which has been set up to rival the established trade union movement, including Equity.

The acclaimed ballerina, currently appearing in an ENB production of The Snow Queen, has been elected to the executive of Solidarity, the British Workers' Union. Solidarity's website declares that it was formed as a reaction against 'betrayal' by unions affiliated to the TUC, which it accuses of selling out members by encouraging mass immigration.

Clarke's BNP membership was revealed by the Guardian last December, when she was performing as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker at the London Coliseum. She was quoted as saying that 'immigration has really got out of hand', even though her partner was a Cuban of Chinese extraction.

Clarke, 37, brings to Solidarity several years of industrial relations experience at the ENB, where she is on a committee that represents dancers' interests. Her new colleagues at Solidarity include Mark Walker, a former BNP election candidate and teacher who has received Solidarity's support after being suspended from his teaching post. Its general secretary is Pat Harrington, a former National Front organiser who was expelled from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers after applying for membership under a false name. Clarke says in a statement posted on Solidarity's website: 'Last year a newspaper "exposed" my BNP membership. Some politically motivated malcontents tried to have me sacked, hence my interest in a British Workers' Union.'

An Equity spokesman said: 'Equity's position has always been that membership is not based on an individual's political persuasion. But I would express my disappointment that a member of a union would take a part in an organisation that was being critical of a TUC-affiliated union, and by extension Equity.'

Gerry Morrissey, general secretary of the entertainment union Bectu, described Solidarity as 'a front' for the BNP, a charge the organisation denies. Sarah Veale, head of equality and employment rights at the TUC, said it was impossible for someone who was a BNP member to reconcile their beliefs with membership of a TUC-affiliated union. She welcomed legislation introduced last week allowing unions to expel individuals who are also members of far-right organisations.BNP leader Nick Griffin wrote recently in his blog that Clarke spoke at a party meeting in Birmingham. Her BNP link has been a headache for the ENB, but its managing director, Craig Hassall, has rebuffed calls to sack her. The Snow Queen will be performed at the London Coliseum from Tuesday to Sunday.

Harrington yesterday denied that Solidarity was a BNP front, adding that he would expect the union to represent everyone 'regardless of racial background, political background or sexuality'.

Observer