The beating of the BNP in Belfast

Marion Thomas has won her employment tribunal against the BNP. Surprisingly, after three days of public embarrassment and allegations the tribunal did not take the initially quoted six weeks to reach its decision. The tribunal concluded that Mrs Thomas was "automatically unfairly dismissed for non-compliance with the statutory dismissal procedure".

This tribunal was held earlier this month. It had two missing ingredients: the real protagonists. This case was always about Nick Griffin, the increasingly desperate and unpopular leader of the far-right BNP, and his one time financial crutch, guru and indeed ‘consigliere’, Jim Dowson. Both Griffin and his daughter Jennifer Matthys were criticised by the panel for failing to attend.

Instead, the employment tribunal at Killymead House, conveniently sandwiched between Belfast’s Republican Short Strand and Loyalist Donegal Pass, had to make do with second best. It’s a shame really, as this was the perfect geographical location for a no holds barred, all encompassing exploration of how the BNP crushed ideologies, shattered political ambitions and in no small way, descended into acrimonious tribal conflict and civil war.

Both the meteoric rise and the final devastating fall of the BNP were orchestrated here in Belfast in that fateful tie up between Griffin’s BNP and Jim Dowson. The basis of the unfair dismissal claim was as much a case of who is to blame for the failures, and who was to blame for the mountain of debt that has crippled the party. Taking on the BNP was Marion Thomas, Jim Dowson’s softly spoken sister in law. The nervous Scot was as good as on her own at the tribunal, once her nephew in law was quietly paid off before the hearing began on the first day.

Of course, Belfast can be a challenging place. It has an often intimidating geography for outsiders, even to those who purport undying love for the extreme fringes of Irish society. The tribunal panel commented on as much in its ruling but it was also quick to point out “this was, in truth, a banal and ordinary employment tribunal claim alleging unfair dismissal and non-payment of holiday pay, overtime, expenses and notice pay."

For those of us who squeezed into room ten, it was anything other than “banal”.

When having a call centre in Belfast worked for the BNP, it worked exceptionally well. Taking advantage of a low wage economy on an industrial estate in Dundonald, few people felt the desire to trawl across suburban east Belfast to poke around there. Prime and paramount for the BNP was secrecy. We did poke around however, and from almost the very moment we made it our business, we had almost two years of excellent non-stop exclusives detailing almost every squalid and shameful shenanigan going on inside the BNP’s call centre. Some of what we found out was too sensitive to print, some of it was just breathtakingly degenerate.

From the village of Comber where the BNP set themselves up in flats and homes and joined “Kick The Pope” bands and even toyed with the idea of moving the whole party machinery there, we reported how a lonely and insecure Jennifer Matthys (nee Griffin) plotted and schemed against her rivals, namely the Dowson family. We forensically investigated Jim Dowson’s financial dealings, his shady past and dubious political friends. We predicted an acrimonious parting and worked as hard as we could to facilitate one.

And so it came to pass that the very geography that the BNP courted became their undoing. They burnt their bridges in an unforgiving environment either by sheer arrogance, or just stupidity. The cost is not just £2500 for Marion Thomas but also whatever it cost for Nick Griffin to send seven BNP officials to Belfast on his behalf now his business arrangements have turned so sour.

Marion Thomas’s primary complaint was that she was unfairly dismissed and owed eight days holiday pay plus out of pocket expenses. The BNP argued that Thomas was only actually employed by the BNP for six months, excluding her from entitlement to both redundancy payments and any compensation. For good measure, the BNP admitted they would have dismissed her anyway. But just to confuse matters further they claimed that they also offered Thomas the opportunity to discuss a transfer to the “mainland” after the relationship between Griffin and Dowson broke down, which led to the inevitable closure of the Dundonald office. But Thomas had refused to travel to Britain to discuss any prospective move. She claimed she had not believed that the BNP would honour their pledge to pay reasonable expenses as she was already owed money by the party.

Neither side denied there was an absence of formal employment contracts and so, on this issue, it becomes apparent that with the disappointing absence of both Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson from the hearing, Thomas could only claim that Griffin, his daughter Jennifer Matthys and Jim Dowson all gave verbal employment assurances. The BNP’s legal representative could only claim that either Nick Griffin did not make such offers, or that Jim Dowson was not in the position to make such offers. The ins and outs of what date it was that Thomas actually began getting paid by the BNP and not by Dowson’s front company are, of course, not as interesting as what the BBC describes as the “secretive world” of the BNP.

It’s fair to say that no matter what extremism still exists in Northern Ireland, that the BNP was viewed locally as a most unwelcome addition. The case received uncomplimentary cross community coverage, including a front page on the Belfast Telegraph for two consecutive days. The revelations were sensational. “I was sacked by BNP after dispute with Griffin’s daughter”, led the Belfast Telegraph. Thomas, nicknamed the “matron” for her role in overseeing up to thirty employees at the Dundonald office during the 2009 European elections, admitted with some chagrin that she regarded herself as a junior to Jennifer Matthys once the leader’s daughter had moved to Northern Ireland. Thomas, who was never a member of the party also alleged that she was promoted to the BNP’s treasury team with a focus on ringing around creditors to try and make arrangements for the clearing of some initial £275,000 of debt. It was in this capacity that she says she felt obliged to report to Jim Dowson that Jennifer Matthys had “borrowed” some £900 from a BNP account after a mistake by her husband Angus Mathys who worked in the post room. Thomas claims that this money was set aside to pay creditors.

Thomas also repeated the claim that she made to the BBC’s Panorama programme that party treasurer Clive Jefferson demanded that invoices that were unpaid be stamped as “paid”. Jefferson who was in the tribunal room hurriedly approached the BNP’s legal advisor with a written note soon after. The Belfast Telegraph described the atmosphere in the tribunal as “charged” with the “imposing presence of several heavyweights of the BNP lining the back row”. The BNP did not appreciate having somebody from Searchlight recording the proceedings either.

For most of the three days there was a heavy focus on the bizarre and almost comical circumstances surrounding the alleged holding of Thomas against her will. As the split between Dowson and Griffin grew more and more acrimonious last year, Thomas alleged that she was asked to “mediate” between the two sides. In November of last year she met three BNP officials in the car park of Tescos in Comber twice on the same day. On both occasions large amounts of cash exchanged hands, £2500 in the first instance and then, later in the day, a further £5000. It would appear that the BNP was buying back its own membership details and computer server and while waiting for the equipment to arrive Thomas got into a van driven by former Yorkshire Regional Organiser Ian Kitchen with Clive Jefferson and Adam Walker. Thomas alleged that she was told she was not allowed to leave the van and that Jefferson in particular was “agitated”. Upon the arrival of the equipment, Thomas further alleged that Jefferson, the BNP’s treasurer, removed £200 from the £5000 as compensation for his “inconvenience”.

Of further inconvenience to the BNP would appear to be Dowson’s new political venture which Thomas described as a “Nationalist campaigning group”. Interestingly, the group was described by the BNP as a “commercial rival” and not a political rival. The intimation by the BNP appeared to be that Dowson still had access to the BNP’s membership files and was running his organisation with the BNP’s data. Thomas denied this and claimed that Dowson is in fact using the BNP membership list that was leaked on line in 2007. The BNP’s legal advisor said that the BNP has since made a series of “test calls” to the BNP’s old offices in Dundonald and alleged that Thomas was now answering the phones for their bitter “commercial rivals”. Thomas denied this. The Scottish accent she claims the BNP heard was in fact the voice of her sister Anne, Dowson’s wife.

The BNP were represented in Belfast by the mildly competent Patrick Harrington. The faux trade union leader is a former close comrade of Griffin from when they ran the NF together back in the 1980’s. Harrington struggled with some areas of the tribunal’s processes and had to be guided by the Vice president of the panel, Mr Noel Kelly. Harrington has something of a love-hate relationship with Belfast himself. He has been the constant focus for one newspaper there that has printed the allegations, rife in far-right circles, that Harrington holds Republican sympathies. While the rest of the BNP party had to be admonished for their constant whispering and disruptions on the first day, Harrington conducted his defence for the respondent (the BNP) with a modicum of professionalism even if it was slow, monotone and often judged irrelevant by Thomas’s solicitor. If anything, Harrington was revelling in some kind of role as the sadistic schoolmaster, trying to trip up the housewife who has taken to answering every question and counter accusation with “rubbish”. In the week leading up to the hearing the BNP had alleged that Thomas and Dowson were in fact lovers and not just brother and sister in law. When questioned abut her living arrangements, Thomas appeared ready to explode violently to a loaded question. Marion Thomas was being goaded.

On the second day, Harrington woke up to find his features prominent in the Belfast Telegraph. Arriving at the tribunal with his wife “Mish”, (Some of you may know her better by her stage name "Mish Bondage" or if it suits, “Frightening Fanny”!)

He became entangled in an exchange with two Irish trade unionists, one of whom was holding the flag of the International Brigades. Whether he has some kind of post traumatic disorder relating to his controversial days at the Polytechnic of North London or not, I do not know, but Harrington reacted very badly to being called a fascist and so began a lot of pushing and shoving before his wife Mish decided to physically launch herself at people wildly, apparently upset at her husband’s picture having been in the paper that morning.

Sackings and expulsions from the BNP are never straightforward and normally have a heavy hint of intimidation, humiliation or violence. Who can forget one former employee from the Belfast office who claimed that she was threatened with a shot gun, or how the leakers’ of the 2007 membership list had their house ransacked by the BNP’s security team?

In Belfast, the BNP had sent some of their “finest”. They sent men who were not immune to violence and who were in fact, quite adept at it. They also sent Angus Matthys, Nick Griffin’s son in law. How did Angus get to marry the prized daughter of the Fuhrer. Were other suitors too politically ambitious? Angus carried all of the boxes into the tribunal - and out again. When he worked at the offices of the BNP in Northern Ireland his main task appeared to be donning rubber gloves and poking through thousands of letters that contained, among other things, excrement and razor blades in the search for cash. He swept up, made tea and also went to the post office and the supermarket for teabags. He was not known as the “dynamo”. One source we had in the office at the time told us that Angus was called “Trigger”, but only when he was well out of ear shot, because anything he did hear went straight to Jenny and nobody wanted a forty minute ticking off from her!

Giving evidence on the second day, it was clear that Angus achieved a major victory in just getting dressed that day. He reminded me of Frank Spencer. Angus claimed that he and his wife had been “run off the road” in Cumbria (where they had fled to once they decided to leave Northern Ireland), and that, sadly, his wife felt too intimidated to come to Northern Ireland and that there was a court case pending. Of course, being the BNP and this being Northern Ireland, there would have to be an alleged paramilitary angle to it. Across town was also about to begin one of the largest trials of paramilitaries Northern Ireland had ever witnessed, the place is still awash with them. Angus could not remember much else about his time in Northern Ireland, not surprisingly, seems that he spent most of it cooped up in the BNP’s post room or a tiny flat above a service station in Comber.

Throughout the tribunal the BNP gave the impression that Nick Griffin was “out of the country” (I presume they meant England). While Angus was having some quite severe memory loss, Nick Griffin was on the way to Blackpool lamenting on twitter that he was stuck on the M6. Dowson was in Swansea himself, not fancying the glare of publicity in his adopted home town. It was more than apparent too that Griffin did not fancy hot-footing it to Belfast either. He’d tried all kinds of things to avoid coming back. The BNP’s legal advisor Harrington had warned, not two weeks before, that I would be “punished” should I dare mention that Nick Griffin was too scared. Oh well, poor Angus..

On the third and final day, sixty Trade Union activists picketed the tribunal. BNP treasurer Clive Jefferson claimed that the party operated in circumstances of “extreme stress and intimidation”. He denied allegations that he held Thomas against her will and that he also demanded she stamp invoices “paid” when they were not. Bizarrely, he claimed also that an “incendiary device” had been fired at the BNP as they entered Killymead House. Nick Griffin, on twitter, claimed it was a firework.

The media had come however, not to hear Clive “Rodney” Jefferson, not even Adam Walker. They wanted Mark Walker, Adam’s baby brother. The BNP’s European Researcher had sat through two days of the tribunal without a word. There had been some excitement in media land after the second day as news was reaching us that Walker had been banned from the classroom after a hearing in England that day. The Professional Conduct Committee heard that he had used school computers to send a vulnerable 16-year-old former pupil a sexually explicit message. He had used language understood to mean that he wanted to have sex with the girl.

Sadly, Mark did not turn up. He’d apparently had a “bereavement” overnight. The case fizzled out slightly. Ian Kitchen gave some light relief when asked about the alleged holding of Marion Thomas against her will. He became outraged. Kitchen had spent the previous two days chatting away at the back of the tribunal not just to the annoyance of the panel but it would seem also to his racial comrades there with him too. “I’m a family man” he protested and even the BNP members guffawed at that one. Four days later a local paper was to give some prominence to Kitchen’s links to “Granny Porn”.

For the BNP, its Northern Ireland experiment is over. I’d like to think we helped crush it. I know we did. We began by exposing the use of employment agencies by the party to recruit strangers to work on their sensitive documents, to the internal arguments between rivals, even to female escorts working out of their offices.

Marion Thomas, now a 49 year old housewife, described the “utter shame” at having the BNP on her CV. She was never a member. She worked for an advertising company that also did anti-abortion work that then took the BNP on for a client. Her claims for overtime, holiday pay and mobile phone expenses were dismissed.

In its decision the panel referred to some of the colourful testimony during the hearing.

"The tribunal heard allegations of blackmail, threats, cars being forced off the road, information being sought about political rivals, electoral malpractice, paramilitary involvement and that staple of Irish political life, the passing of money-filled envelopes in strange locations and in even stranger circumstances”.

The settlement Thomas will receive is made up of four week's pay, one week's notice pay, postage expenses incurred taking the case and £760 for the failure of Mr Griffin to provide a witness statement to the panel.

For the last two days, the BNP’s Simon Darby has been fighting off another Irish embarrassment which he is desperately trying to pass off as a joke to the journalists going to press with it. Steve Parkes, a BNP candidate at the recent elections wrote on his facebook page last week about going out to harass gypsies and as well as posting a “White Power” symbol on his profile and making disgusting references to black women.

I’m proud to say, we found and passed that on to the media here too.

Matthew Collins at Hope not Hate

Sacked BNP worker awarded damages for wrongful dismissal

A former British National Party worker has been awarded over £2,500 for wrongful dismissal by the right-wing party last year. Marion Thomas worked in the party's east Belfast office for over a year.

BNP leader Nick Griffin was named as the respondent in the case as the employment panel unanimously decided to award the damages. The ruling said that both the BNP and Mrs Thomas provided evidence that was "not credible" to the tribunal.

The 49-year-old Comber woman was dismissed by the party when the call centre she worked in closed in December 2010.

Mr Griffin and his daughter, Jennifer Matthys, who jointly managed the call centre, were criticised for not giving evidence to the tribunal.

The settlement Mrs Thomas received was made up of four week's pay, one week's notice pay, postage expenses incurred taking the case and £760 for the failure of Mr Griffin to provide a witness statement to the panel.

Mrs Thomas' claims for overtime, holiday pay and mobile phone expenses were dismissed.

The tribunal did hear evidence from five other members of the BNP during the three-day hearing. The three-strong panel heard how the call centre, which was leased to the BNP by Belfast businessman Jim Dowson, closed at the end of 2010 when the party found itself in serious debt.

In its decision the panel referred to some of the colourful testimony during the hearing.

"The tribunal heard allegations of blackmail, threats, cars being forced off the road, information being sought about political rivals, electoral malpractice, paramilitary involvement and that staple of Irish political life, the passing of money-filled envelopes in strange locations and in even stranger circumstances.

"However, this was, in truth, a banal and ordinary employment tribunal claim alleging unfair dismissal and non-payment of holiday pay, overtime, expenses and notice pay."

The tribunal concluded that Mrs Thomas was "automatically unfairly dismissed for non-compliance with the statutory dismissal procedure".

BBC

BNP member denies he helped hold woman in Comber car park

A senior member of the BNP has denied that he helped hold a former employee of the party against her will in a car park in Comber. Clive Jefferson also told an industrial tribunal he had not ordered the woman to falsify election expenses.

Marion Thomas is claiming unfair dismissal from her job at the party's fundraising centre in Dundonald. She said Mr Jefferson had ordered her to stamp unpaid bills as "paid".

Mrs Thomas told the tribunal on Monday that she was sacked after questioning the party leader's daughter Jennifer Mathys, for covering up a mistake made by her husband, Angus, which had cost hundreds of pounds.

Mr Jefferson, who is the BNP's treasurer, told the hearing on Wednesday that Mrs Thomas was trying to damage the party. He said he had travelled to Northern Ireland to compile the organisation's financial returns following the 2010 general election. He said he was "horrified" by the level of debt the party had accumulated. Cheque books and statements were missing and the returns he eventually made to the electoral commission were fully qualified, meaning he could not stand over them.

Mr Jefferson also denied claims by Mrs Thomas that he had helped members of the party hold her against her will in a lorry in Comber.

Her barrister Barry Mulqueen accused Mr Jefferson of being "dishonest".

Judgement in the case was reserved.

BBC

I was sacked by BNP after dispute with Nick Griffin's daughter

A FORMER employee of the British National Party (BNP) claimed she was unfairly dismissed by the party in Northern Ireland after a row involving party leader, Nick Griffin’s daughter.

The tribunal opened in Belfast yesterday in which former administrator, Marion Thomas, who worked at the BNP’s call centre in Dundonald, in east Belfast, is claiming unfair dismissal, breach of contract and unauthorised deduction of wages.

At yesterday’s hearing Mrs Thomas, from Comber, Co Down made a number of criminal allegations against her former employers including that:

- she was “held against her will” in a van in Comber on 26 November 2010;
- on the same date she was given a total of £7,500 in cash from the BNP in a Tesco car park;
- she was made to stamp invoices to suppliers as paid when they weren’t.

Her niece’s husband, Neil Kernaghan, also from Comber, had also taken a case against the BNP but settled yesterday for an undisclosed sum.

A barrister for Mrs Thomas, Barry Mulqueen, described how she had been employed with the right-wing party from 20 November 2009 until 21 December 2010.

“She was employed in the position of an administrator in December 2010 when the respondent (the BNP) closed the operations in east Belfast,” Mr Mulqueen said. “We simply allege that the claimant’s dismissal was unfair. Her dismissal was procedurally unfair - she was not given adequate notice. There was no consultation process. There was no effort to offer alternative employment.”

The BNP was represented by Patrick Harrington who argued that Mrs Thomas wasn’t dismissed but was made redundant and that the party tried to offer her a job at one of their offices in Britain.

“We say the procedure that followed was a reasonable one,” Mr Harrington said. “Alternative employment was offered. Employees were asked for alternative suggestions for how redundancies could be avoided.”

Mrs Thomas told the tribunal that she had never been a member of the BNP. She said she worked for a marketing company called Ad Lorries Ltd, owned by Jim Dowson, which had been based on the Upper Newtownards Road. The company took on the BNP as clients in 2009 and moved to new premises in Dundonald. Mrs Thomas described how the Dundonald offices became “the main fundraising centre of the BNP”.

“There were about 30 employees in east Belfast at one time,” she said. “It was the main fundraising centre of the BNP. It sent out appeals. The call centre drummed up more membership. It was very successful.”

Mrs Thomas claimed that none of the BNP employees had a contract.

The panel heard Mrs Thomas was told she had been sacked on 26 October 2010 in a phone call from her original employer, Jim Dowson.

“Mr Griffin had been on to him (Dowson) in relation to his daughter and the outcome of the advisory council meeting in which I asked for an item to be raised,” Mrs Thomas said. Mrs Thomas explained that she had questioned Mr Griffin’s daughter, Jennifer Matthys for covering up a mistake made by her husband, Angus Matthys.

“He had put the wrong postage on mailing which meant it was £900 short,” Mrs Thomas said. “She (Jennifer) has access to the BNP bank account and she did a transfer online.”

Two weeks later Mrs Thomas was reinstated and her “sacking” was put down to a “misunderstanding”.

The panel was told yesterday that Mrs Matthys had declined to attend the hearing, saying she felt intimidated. However, the tribunal later heard there was a major fallout between Jim Dowson and Nick Griffin which led to the BNP being put out of the Dundonald offices last November. As a result of this Mrs Thomas acted as a “mediator” between Mr Dowson and BNP members which culminated in two meetings on November 26 in Comber when computer equipment, including the BNP database, and £7,500 in cash were transferred in a Tesco car park.

Mrs Thomas met Clive Jefferson, BNP national elections officer, in the car park in the morning where she was given £2,500 in cash to give to Mr Dowson.

“I was asked to check certain items of property were delivered to Mr Jefferson,” she said. “The money was agreed between Mr Dowson and Mr Griffin.”

She was then told to return in the afternoon to collect the rest of the money. Mrs Thomas then repeated allegations she made on a recent BBC Panorama programme that she was “held against her will” for an hour in the cab of a van by BNP members until the computers arrived.

She described how Mr Jefferson, Adam Walker, party manager and Ian Kitchen, a security man sat with her in the van and told her she couldn’t leave until the computers arrived.

“I felt uneasy because Mr Jefferson was getting agitated,” she said and described how there were several phone calls between him and Mr Griffin while they waited. When the equipment arrived, she described how Mr Jefferson took £200 from the £5,000 cash and said he was “keeping it for the inconvenience”.

BNP representative, Patrick Harrington told the tribunal these are “very serious criminal allegations” and revealed that Mrs Thomas had never reported the incident to the police.

The tribunal also heard that the BNP was in serious financial difficulty and that the party owed £275,000 to suppliers, including many Northern Ireland firms.

“They were very, very deeply in debt,” Mrs Thomas said. “I was to contact the suppliers to come to a manageable agreement with them.”

Mrs Thomas was asked specifically about an east Belfast printing company called Romac Press.
Mrs Thomas told the tribunal that dates were changed on invoices to show the company had been paid within the specified time for the Electoral Commission.

“Some were stamped ‘paid’ and they were not,” she said, claiming Mr Jefferson authorised this. “I said to Mr Jefferson you can’t do that, you can see they have not been paid. He said just keep on doing it.”

The tribunal heard that a meeting was held in a Newtownards hotel last December in which Mr Harrington argued Mrs Thomas was offered redundancy or a relocation package. However, Mrs Thomas described these suggestions as “rubbish”.

The tribunal heard that a letter from Nick Griffin stated that Mrs Thomas’ employment was only from April to December 2010 and as she had worked for less than a year, was not entitled to bring a claim of unfair dismissal. The BNP representative argued that Mrs Thomas would
have been dismissed anyway for a number of reasons. One of these was for using the BNP’s database for a rival organisation, the nationalist campaigning group, Britain First which Mrs Thomas admitted she works for voluntarily.

The hearing continues today (Tues)

Party's Ulster links and how early success turned sour

The British National Party (BNP) opened a call centre in 2009 in Northern Ireland to raise funds and membership around the UK and was very successful. At its peak it had up to 13,000 members but since then this has fallen dramatically to around 2,000 members.

The employment tribunal taken by the former call centre administrator charts the difficulties the BNP found itself in at the end of last year. The party ran up massive debts during the 2010 general election campaign.

The tribunal in Belfast yesterday heard the party owes £275,000 to many of its suppliers. One of those companies is the small family firm, Romac Press, which went bust recently after being owed £44,000 by the BNP.

BNP chairman Nick Griffin, the party’s most high profile member, recently claimed that the party now owes just £52,000.

A BBC Panorama programme last month explored the shady financial dealings of the party. It obtained evidence that Mr Griffin, elected as an MEP in 2009, ordered then party treasurer David Hannam to inflate fictional costs so that the party could keep as much of the European grant money as possible. Mrs Thomas also appeared on this programme alleging the incident she repeated at the tribunal yesterday that she was “held against her will” in Comber, Co Down.

The BNP is under investigation by both the European Union and the Metropolitan Police following allegations of fraud and breaches of electoral law. The BNP has strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

Mr Griffin had a close relationship with Belfast-based business man, Jim Dowson, who became a party fundraiser in 2007 and has helped set up BNP offices all over the UK. Mr Dowson helped set up the BNP call centre in Dundonald and appointed his sister-in-law, Marion Thomas as office administrator. Dowson claims to have severed links with the party when he became aware that they were not paying their bills.

Air charged but most famous face is missing

The air was charged as the industrial tribunal got under way in Room 10 of the Gasworks site in Belfast yesterday. The tiny room seemed even smaller with the imposing presence of several heavyweights from the British National Party (BNP) lining the back row.

In the foreground sat the lone figure of Marion Thomas, the BNP’s former administrator at the Dundonald call centre, where she claims she was unfairly dismissed. In a strong Scottish accent, Mrs Thomas, who now lives in Comber, Co Down, gave a gripping account of her dealings with the party in the run-up to her dismissal last year.

Throughout the hearing yesterday she referred to party chairman, Nick Griffin, but the BNP’s most familiar face was not in attendance. Instead Mr Griffin was represented by his best pal and former National Front leader, Patrick Harrington.

Mrs Thomas alleged that she was originally sacked by the party after a row with Mr Griffin’s daughter, Jennifer Matthys. However, the panel was told Mrs Matthys had declined to attend the hearing, saying she felt intimidated.

As Mrs Thomas gave graphic details of BNP fallouts, false invoices and fishy meetings in a Comber car park, the back row began whispering loudly.

Tribunal chair, Noel Kelly, ticked them off as if they were insolent pupils in a classroom. They were in fact five of the BNP’s nine leading organisers. Among them were brothers, Adam and Mark Walker, the party manager and political research officer respectively. National elections officer and treasurer, Clive Jefferson, who hobbled in on a stick.

Ian Kitchen, Yorkshire regional organiser who was present when Mrs Thomas alleges she was “held against her will” in a van in Comber. And Angus Matthys, Griffin’s son-in-law, who worked in the Dundonald call centre before it folded.

An anti-fascist protest had been expected outside the tribunal offices yesterday but demonstrators are expected to appear as the hearing continues over the next two days.

Belfast Telegraph

Here is a BBC News report from last night

BNP chief's daughter fails to attend Belfast tribunal amid blackmail claims

Jennifer Matthys, daughter of BNP chairman Nick Griffin, was to give evidence in former party worker's unfair dismissal case

Nick Griffin's daughter has failed to attend a Northern Ireland industrial tribunal the British National Party is embroiled in because, she claims, she is being blackmailed.

Jennifer Matthys had been scheduled to give evidence in Belfast on Tuesday in an unfair dismissal case taken by a former BNP staff member. Marion Thomas claims she was unfairly dismissed from her job at the party's fundraising centre in Dundonald on the eastern edge of Belfast.

The blackmail claim was made by Jennifer Matthys' husband and Nick Griffin's son-in-law, Angus Matthys, who is a BNP parish councillor in Woodside, Wigton, Cumbria. He told the tribunal there had been an attempt to run him and his wife off the road when they were driving in Cumbria last March. He claimed people from Northern Ireland had been involved.

The couple used to work at the fundraising centre, which is owned by a party supporter and millionaire businessman.

Thomas alleges she was dismissed after complaining about Councillor Matthys for making a mistake which cost the party hundreds of pounds. Thomas told the tribunal she had subsequently been held against her will by party officials in a van in Comber, County Down, a claim the party denies.

The Guardian

A Very Sordid Affair

Jennifer Matthys: Too intimidated to attend tribunal

The BNP v Marion Thomas employment tribunal held in Belfast finished just before 4pm today.

Everyone who observed the proceedings agreed that tension, bitterness and hatred lay thick in the air like a poisonous cloud. Patrick Harrington, the BNP's legal advisor, who earlier did not want to discuss Marion Thomas's allegations of being held against her will by officers of the BNP, chose to return to that very subject for the afternoon's session.

What transpired is that the BNP exchanged £7,500 in cash for what appears to be their membership database and server in a Tesco's car park in Northern Ireland. Local newspapers tomorrow will lead on this and also Adam Walker's alleged description of the town of Comber being like a "dump".

Harrington, the former NF leader had to be helped with procedure by the chair of the panel, but managed to confuse the complainant Marion Thomas nearly as much as he confused himself. The key question remains was Marion Thomas held against her will by three agitated BNP members who were exchanging cash for property ?

Another allegation made by Thomas is that the BNP treasurer Clive Jefferson helped himself to £200 because of his "inconvenience" at having to allegedly hold her against her will. Or did he give it to Ian Kitchen?

On a number of occasions Thomas's legal representative queried Harrington's line of questioning. Harrington contends that Thomas was only employed by the BNP for six months and therefore can claim neither unfair dismissal or claim for redundancy pay.

As we have reported before, there appeared to be no love lost between Marion Thomas and Jennifer Matthys, daughter of the BNP leader Nick Griffin. Jennifer has refused to attend the hearing saying that she feels intimidated.

Tomorrow should be fun if not a little uncomfortable for one BNP witness.

Hope not hate

Griffin's large glass house...

As we reported yesterday the clock is ticking for the BNP.

There is an old and familiar saying that Nick Griffin would be wise in taking heed in relation to this matter. The saying goes that “People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones”.

Nick Griffin on his Twitter account wrote today “Banks not only corrupt but stupid. Anyone who gives a young West African access to their bank account deserves to be cleaned out. UBS might just as well have given their details to an email scammer “

That’s more than a bit rich given the state of Britain’s supposedly superior all-white party. It appears the BNP has failed in their attempts to raise the required £45,000 needed to halt the winding up order against the party. No surprises there, then.

So with the bailiffs knocking on the door once again we have to wonder what Nick Griffin and the BNP’s next move may be, perhaps the answer lies in Scotland?

We can reveal that some senior BNP officers have set up two new limited companies at the same Edinburgh address used by the fake BNP trade union Solidarity.

One of the companies “Heritage Protection Concerns Ltd” has some very familiar names listed as it officers. Jennifer Matthys, daughter of Nick Griffin is listed as company secretary, along with her hapless husband Angus.

Also listed is party manager Adam Walker who appears to be named as a director of the company. Walker is already in debt on behalf of the party to the tune of £20,000 .

Another company listed at the address is the rather grandly titled “Europa Social Political & Economic Research Establishment Ltd”.

The Edinburgh address just happens to belong to Patrick Harrington, who runs a tiny political sect called “Third Way”. The former NF leader and General Secretary of the fake trade union Solidarity now acts as a consultant to Nick Griffin while on the party’s payroll in the European Parliament as well as putting candidates up against the BNP when it suits him.

Have these two new companies been set up as a means of protecting the BNP’s assets perhaps?

As for the party’s other assets, they have lost their last remaining councillor in West Yorkshire today too. He held out as long as he could, but it seems that Tom Baites could bear it no more and this morning resigned the BNP whip for Illingworth and Mixenden ward on Calderdale council.

What with Baites gone, there would also appear to be a hunt on for the allegedly missing webmaster Chris Barnett. Apparently he’s just vanished into thin air.

Not that the BNP are telling anyone about any of this. What with Griffin tweeting away about untrustworthy Africans and the party press officer continuing his well worn habit of berating everything and everyone other than his falling Fuhrer, you’d think it was all going like clockwork for the BNP. The problem is, that clock is ticking too fast for them...

One of our sources inside the BNP rung us a moment ago to say that they feel compelled to close all of the windows just to stop BNP officers throwing themselves from them. Still, at least they managed to get their nominations in for a by-election in Barnsley on time. That too is a bit of a gift, and we’ll be blogging about it later today when we have finished laughing.

The party is still trying to carry on regardless, no doubt tweeting that it needs more cash donations etc, etc. But they do have one secret weapon. They have Charlie Wythe from Manchester. He has apparently just stepped into carry out some design work for the party. The freelancer is obviously not expecting payment?

Oops, did I say "secret"?



Thanks to Nick Lowles at HOPE not Hate

BNP plays musical chairs

Nick Griffin has reshuffled several of the top positions in his dysfunctional British National Party in an attempt to maintain control, reward his supporters and sideline any criticism of his dictatorship.

Chris Beverley has been sacked as regional organiser of the big Yorkshire and The Humber region, one of the two that elected BNP representatives to the European Parliament in 2009. His replacement is Ian Kitchen, the party’s Wakefield organiser and Griffin loyalist. The BNP claims this will allow Beverley to spend more time on his European constituency job for Andrew Brons, the region’s BNP MEP.

Eddy Butler, who was expelled from the BNP after unsuccessfully challenging Griffin for the leadership last year, took a more jaundiced view. Claiming the party was desperate for Beverley not to show up Jefferson by achieving a better result in the coming Barnsley by-election than in Oldham, he added: “Chris Beverley was one of the last remaining competent Regional Organisers, one of the last capable election campaigners and one of the last independent voices left on the Advisory Council. As such his replacement was inevitable and long overdue.”

Stephen Squire has taken over as the party’s London organiser after serving a six-month apprenticeship under Griffin himself, who stepped in as the acting London organiser after the party’s May election debacle and the departures of a series of previous organisers.

Clive Jefferson has given up his job as North West regional organiser, to spend more time on the elections department, according to the BNP. The party’s elections function is sorely in need of competent leadership after a string of by-election failures, but whether Jefferson will be able to devote any more time to it is unclear. He also heads the BNP’s failing treasury department, which for three years has failed to maintain anything near adequate financial records, resulting in the party failing to achieve clean audit reports for 2008 and 2009, with 2010 expected to be similar.

In addition Jefferson, who has difficulty writing coherently, has just been appointed editor of the party’s Voice of Freedom newspaper, replacing Martin Wingfield, who Butler says is very “much out of favour”, though he remains communications and campaigns officer for Griffin’s European constituency.

Jefferson’s replacement in the North West region is Mike Whitby, the party’s Liverpool organiser. Whitby became Liverpool organiser at a heated branch meeting last July when Jefferson kicked out all the existing officers in a purge of dissidents. They had committed the crime of supporting Butler’s challenge.

Whitby seems suitably qualified to move the party towards the “increased militancy” that Griffin promised last December. After clashes between BNP activists and anti-fascists in Liverpool, which resulted in an assault conviction for one BNP man, Whitby promised that anti-fascists’ identities would end up on “a website far worse than Red Watch”, the hate site that encourages supporters to attack anti-fascists and their homes and families.

Another post Jefferson has given up is National Organiser, which has gone to Adam Walker, who also regains his job as staff manager. Walker works closely with Patrick Harrington, Griffin’s old mate from their days in the National Front Political Soldiers. Harrington was appointed the BNP’s head of human resources last autumn, but appears to act more as a general manager for Griffin. Many party members resent Harrington’s presence at the helm because he remains leader of a rival political party, albeit a very small one.

Butler claims that Walker was promoted “just to boost his profile in case he is needed as an alternative Chairman, should something ghastly in the realms of the judiciary happen to Nick Griffin”.

Finally, Jennifer Matthys, Griffin’s eldest daughter, is gradually assuming a greater role and now runs all party operations from a small office in Wigton, Cumbria. But according to Butler, “not enough money is coming in each week to cover the basics, via the appeals that Pat Harrington is now tasked with producing”. Perhaps engineering the departure of Jim Dowson, Griffin’s fundraising consultant, and Paul Golding, the party’s former national communications officer, was not one of Harrington’s smartest moves.

After Griffin announced last summer that he would relinquish the leadership of the party in 2013, speculation mounted that he was grooming her as his replacement, following the example of Marine Le Pen, who has just succeeded her father as leader of the National Front in France. However unlike Ms Le Pen, a lawyer who has held senior roles in the party for over 12 years and has built a firm political base as a regional councillor, Matthys has few qualifications for leadership and is unlikely to be accepted by party members in that role for some considerable time.

Searchlight / HOPE not hate by Sonia Gable

Departures leave BNP future in doubt

The British National Party’s communications officer has left the party, following the abrupt departure of its fundraising and management guru Jim Dowson.

Paul Golding was the BNP’s sole district councillor in southeast England. His exit leaves the racist party with only 23 councillors compared with the 28 it had after the May elections.

The two walked out following a major fallout between them and senior party staff, in particular its moronic national organiser Clive Jefferson and Patrick Harrington, leader of the rival Third Way party, who has wormed himself into a position of growing influence in the party, upsetting several employees and members in the process.

Golding’s BNP membership had briefly been suspended in summer for writing a nasty blog attacking Eddy Butler, who unsuccessfully challenged Nick Griffin for the party leadership. The move was widely seen as an attempt by Griffin to appear “fair” between his own supporters and those of Butler. But later, when many of Butler’s suspended supporters were expelled, Golding was reinstated.

The departure of Dowson and Golding leaves the BNP with no one capable of writing the begging letters that have brought in large sums in donations during Dowson’s three years at Griffin’s side. The party will also be unable to exploit its “Bring Our Boys Home” recruitment campaign by turning the 25,000 names on petition forms into voters and members. People signed anti-war petitions at the BNP’s stalls in shopping centres around the country, not realising that they were sponsored by the BNP, but despite the party’s claims to use cutting-edge technology, Jefferson is incapable of transferring the information into a usable electronic format.

Butler reports that Dowson rang to tell him that his departure was complete and immediate. Dowson is known to have texted and phoned numerous other people.

Quite where this leaves the BNP’s Belfast call centre and administration centre is unclear. The office is run by Dowson and Griffin’s daughter Jennifer Matthys, who is also a director of Dowson’s main front company, Adlorries.com. Dowson is believed to have alternative Belfast premises for any new venture he undertakes.

Dowson was in charge of obtaining the secret four-star venue for the party’s annual conference to be held somewhere in Derbyshire over the weekend of 10-12 December. Stories are circulating that as he was about to dump the party Griffin offered him £10,000 to complete the arrangements, which he rejected. There must now be doubt over whether it will go ahead. If it is cancelled, members who have already paid the up to £299 cost of attending are likely to lose their money.

Dowson believes the party will not last beyond the end of the year, leaving those who have forked out £395 for life membership in its current special offer receiving very poor value for their money.

Searchlight / HOPE not Hate by Sonia Gable

Inside the BNP bunker

It has become the heart of the BNP operation and the focus of the growing backlash against the party leadership. Searchlight has exclusively pieced together life inside the Belfast bunker.
By Matthew Collins

The Carrowreagh business centre in Dundonald, on the outskirts of east Belfast, separates two quite different elements of Northern Ireland. To one side lie the scenic green hills of County Down, sprawling farmland and narrow country lanes edged by stone walls. It’s a stone’s throw away from the home of the former First Minister Peter Robinson. On the other side, is the Ballybeen Estate, Northern Ireland’s second largest housing estate, where the local paramilitaries mark their territory with colourful reminders of their deadly existence.

Separating these two worlds is a nondescript cul-de-sac ringed by steel-framed business units. At the far end is number five. Purporting to be a printing centre, it is in fact the heart of the British National Party’s administrative and fundraising operation.

From the mythical new Jerusalem of Dundonald in Northern Ireland, strangers have plundered the BNP’s membership files in search of cash. There are shutters and newly installed shredders to deter prying eyes. Only the most favoured have visited the call centre, unceremoniously ushered upstairs upon arrival and into the offices of Jim Dowson’s empire where he could hold court in privacy.

Downstairs, the staff bickered, fought and betrayed the professionalism that Dowson and the BNP leadership went out of their way to present to the membership. Dowson originally set up the Belfast operation to promote his anti-abortion and fundraising campaigns across Ireland. The BNP was an add-on, an afterthought, after Dowson persuaded the BNP that it needed his professional services.

Sparks first flew with the arrival last year of Jennifer Matthys, the newly married daughter of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader. Matthys and her husband moved to a flat above a petrol station in the staunchly Protestant village of Comber and were presented with a Volkswagen car as part of their moving package. Some thought Ms Matthys was there to provide an ideological input and perhaps become Griffin’s eyes and ears in Dowson’s base.

Instead of the ideology she was supposedly sent to deliver, she became embroiled in a clash of personalities with the eldest of Dowson’s children, James Jnr, who ran a plumbing company, Ultraplumb.com Ltd, from the upstairs offices, a company that does business with Catholic communities.

Dowson Jnr had developed a swagger not dissimilar to that of his father and Ms Matthys took exception, in particular to his insistence that he was about to be installed into her old job as head of the BNP’s youth wing. Dowson Jnr quickly found himself not only out of the call centre, but seemingly out of the BNP. To the rest of the staff it became obvious very quickly that there was only room for one golden child in the call centre, and there seemed little room for dissent. Ms Matthys is silent but deadly while working in the upstairs office, bereft of friends, life or humour.

Shattered

Any pretence that the call centre was a secure haven for BNP members’ details was shattered in October 2009 when Searchlight investigators revealed to the Irish press that the party had recruited casual staff to work on its European election campaign using the recruitment firms Office Angels and Grafton in Belfast.

This came at a time when staff at the call centre were actively encouraging supporters not to join the party via its website, claiming it was insecure and suggesting members and supporters should take out and renew membership over the phone. Their details were in fact manually taken down on pieces of paper and stuffed into envelopes. Call centre staff were being paid commission on recruitment, sales and subscriptions to publications, and so began an ongoing campaign against the party’s webmaster Simon Bennett, who also had an interest in membership sales and subscriptions. The falling-outs and excessive competitiveness in the call centre were always going to lead to difficulty. Among the staff was a woman who offered sexual services to high rolling clients from the office, another woman who lived in a hardline republican area and Peter Dempster, a foulmouthed evangelical racist whom Dowson had entrusted with the care of Ms Matthys and her husband Angus. It was an explosive mix.

Later that month, the BNP’s membership list was leaked for the second time within a year. What the call centre did not reveal was that not only had there been a report to the police that a laptop had been stolen from the call centre containing details of thousands of BNP members and the party accounts, but that there was a very real fear that this information was now in the hands of Irish republicans.

Inside the call centre, staff were offered more bonuses and overtime as hundreds of angry and abusive members and supporters rang the office to vent their fury over the leak. There then followed a ludicrous propaganda film from the call centre of a member of staff sitting typing away on a keyboard in the absence of any terminal or computer screen.

Party members were turning against the call centre.

A series of high profile exposes by Searchlight followed, including publication of a picture that Dowson distributed of himself holding what appeared to be a sawn-off shot gun, to allegedly intimidate a former employee. Driven by paranoia, Dowson began to feel he was under threat not only from republicans but also from loyalists who had read of his apparent louche lifestyle and fundraising ventures. Of particular interest to loyalist paramilitaries, who are quick to seize upon any suggestion of available cash, is Dowson’s Europe-funded post-conflict cross-community work. A stern message to staff was soon posted around the centre forbidding them from standing outside, and the door from the call centre to the upstairs offices was shut permanently as a further security measure.

By the new year, the call centre had come under increased scrutiny. The party had agreed not to recruit new members, as a result of ongoing legal action by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and was in the midst of a series of punishing court cases. But Dowson’s Jeep Cherokee was nowhere to be seen while office staff began to tire under the weight of the endless numbers of begging phone calls and letters going out to party members. Fewer of the party hierarchy were visiting the call centre and as new security shutters went up, a desperate sense of paranoia and suspicion set in.


At one party meeting in England, Dowson turned up with his own minder in tow, the self-confessed English football hooligan and club doorman Martin Ambridge, who went on to feature as an employee in the Northern Ireland office.

Dowson’s wife Ann began spending more time at a property he owns in Spain for his supposed charity work at Plaza Del Corazon De Jesus. Dowson, meanwhile, moved into a log cabin he laughably describes as the “guest house” at the back of his family home.

In Dowson’s absence, his sister-in-law Marion Thomas and his longstanding accountant John Thompson, who was appointed as the BNP accountant, took over the running of the office. Another Englishman and relative by marriage, Alan Turner, took over the running of call centre telephone inquiries, while Ambridge and Karen Lowrie, the wife of a serving Northern Ireland police officer, assisted him.

Threatened

Shortly before the general election Dowson claimed his life was threatened by Mark Collett, the BNP’s head of publicity. However this accusation appears to have stemmed from Dowson’s power grab for greater control of a party he once claimed he had never even joined. Desperate to keep his credit flowing with the printer Romac Press Ltd in east Belfast, Dowson offered the company the contract to print the BNP’s literature as well as his own anti-abortion material. Dowson used the alleged threat to move against Bennett to disastrous effect when Bennett pulled the plug on the website on the eve of the May elections and launched a barrage of attacks on Dowson.

Tom Gower, the party’s election candidate in Coventry North East, was sent to Northern Ireland from Nuneaton to give the office some backbone.

The persistent scrutiny not just from Searchlight but also by BNP members themselves prompted Thompson to quit the thankless role of BNP accountant, taking Zack McAdam, his evangelical computer guru, with him.

For the Matthyses, the move to Northern Ireland has become a nightmare. Ms Matthys was appointed a director of Dowson’s front company Adlorries.com Ltd in July 2009, but all it has these days appears to be a mountain of debt. She faces being further shunned in the small publicity-shunning community where she lives after Searchlight revealed that she carried the flags, along with Dowson’s daughters, for the Goldsprings True Defenders Flute Band. Often tearful, Jennifer frequently flies to her father’s side, leaving Angus to lock up the call centre alone.

For Angus, the highlight of his emotionally austere life in Northern Ireland is his responsibility for opening the volumes of mail that arrive daily. It’s hardly the life he studied for or even expected when he agreed to marry Jennifer. With two large rubber gloves he sifts through razor blades, excrement, needles and used prophylactics in search of cash donations that he can present to his wife for counting. It must be the highlight of Jenny’s life there as these unsolicited donations sometimes amount to £2,000 a week, though that is a far cry from the donations of up to £40,000 in one week during the election campaign..

The Dundonald base has become the heartbeat of the BNP and, given how Dowson has made himself irreplaceable in Griffin’s party, it is likely to remain so for as long as the leader remains in place.

Thanks to Matthew Collins at Hope not Hate

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Daddy's little drummer girl

This is Jennifer Matthys, daughter of the British National Party leader Nick Griffin, who is allegedly being groomed to take over from her father when he quits as chairman, dressed in the uniform of an Ulster loyalist "Kick The Pope Band".

Jennifer, who lives in the province so that she can work at the BNP's cash, sorry call centre, was doing more than "playing dress-up" for the cameras. The 24-year-old marched on 12 July along with thousands of others in parades celebrating Protestant ascendency that yearly lead to violent clashes across Northern Ireland between the Catholic and Protestant communities. Many Catholics object to the parades by the Protestant-only Orange Order on the grounds that they are sectarian.

Jennifer, on the far left of the picture, posed seemingly unaware that Searchlight has known for over a year that she is heavily involved in the Goldspring Young Defenders flute band, something that seems at odds with the BNP's supposedly non-sectarian all-embracing love of all things Christian.

Jennifer took the risk of being photographed as she thought she would be safe in the small loyalist village of Ballygowan, despite the fact that many members of the band object to the involvement of both her and family members of Jim Dowson, Nick Griffin's consigliere, who runs the BNP's Belfast call centre and has helped Griffin bring the BNP to its state of insolvency.

In recent years the BNP has attempted to make inroads into the Anglo-Irish community in Britain, partly by distancing itself from its past association with loyalist paramilitaries. In the north west in particular, the party has some high profile Irish members and has even taken to depicting the Irish tricolour on some of its banners.

The truth is, for the diehard BNP, old habits die very, very hard.

We are not identifying Dowson's daughters because of their ages.

Searchlight / HOPE not Hate by Matthew Collins

BNP boss earns £162,000 a year

The Rabid anti-abortion campaigner Jim Dowson

Rabid right-winger Jim Dowson is getting paid a staggering £162,000 by the BNP, we can reveal.

That’s £20,000 more than Prime Minister David Cameron gets paid to run the country!

The shock revelations have angered many BNP members and workers – not least because some party staff on mainland Britain have not been paid amid claims the party is in financial meltdown.

Scottish firebrand Dowson has been BNP leader Nick Griffin’s right-hand man, as well as party money-man, for the past few years now.

Dowson has been a rabid anti-abortion campaigner in the past and his list of criminal convictions include breach of the peace in 1986, possession of a weapon and breach of the peace in 1991 and criminal damage in 1992.

He hit the headlines last year when this paper revealed he was the man behind the BNP’s secret Belfast nerve centre which is situated in Dundonald.

Gangsters

From that base the far right party raise cash through membership recruitment and donations.

The office is almost exclusively run by members of Dowson’s and Griffin’s family including his daughter Jenny Matthys.

The BNP is in turmoil ever since their disastrous performance in the recent General and council elections which saw them wiped out.

But anti-fascist magazine Searchlight have uncovered a bitter feud which is threatening the future of the party itself.

Searchlight correspondent Matthew Collins says: “He gets paid more than the PM for advising a bunch of gangsters. It’s like something out of the Godfather.”

The revelations about Dowson’s inflated wages have come from a senior member of the party’s national advisory council.

Richard Edmonds, who helped found the BNP alongside John Tyndall long before Griffin joined the party, has come out in support of Eddy Butler, who is currently challenging Griffin for the leadership.

Writing on Butler’s blog on 8 July, Edmonds says a leadership challenge is a chance for members to raise matters of major importance for the party and the issue he wants to raise is the employment of “an outside businessman, Mr Jim Dowson, who acts as a ‘consultant’ to our Party at a salary of just under £2,000 per week”.

He goes on to explain that as well as receiving £7,500 a month as a “consultancy fee”, Dowson is also paid £72,000 a year for “managing a part of the internal administration” of the BNP. That comes to £162,000 a year, or £3,115 a week, an amount Edmonds describes as a “scandal”.

Edmonds, who is very influential in the BNP especially among the more hardline members, states that Dowson gave him these figures himself.

The fees paid to Dowson will stick in the craw of party staff on mainland Britain who were not paid in June according to Butler, who says the party is “insolvent” as a result of Griffin “deliberately, avoidably and recklessly” involving it in a series of legal cases.

The financial difficulties do not extend to the Belfast BNP call centre, which is run by Dowson.

The staff there received their June pay as usual, which is perhaps not surprising as they are mostly members of Dowson’s and Griffin’s families, including Griffin’s eldest daughter Jennifer.

Dowson is furious with stories which have appeared in this paper about him.

Last year he claimed in a TV interview that he hated the BNP’s politics. And he has complained to the Press Complaints Commission because we said he was a life member.

BNP Jim told the PCC in a letter on indignation: “They also allege that I am a BNP life member when I have never been a member of the party ever in my life!”

Failed

But a video passed to us shows Jim praising the racist party and urging people to join up.

And we’ve since discovered that Jim may not have paid his membership to the BNP – because according to sources he owns it!

During the seven minute video, which was taken during a fundraising event in Blackburn, Lancashire two months ago, Dowson repeatedly uses the phrases ‘we’ and ‘us’ when talking about the BNP.

The party hoped to get four MP’s elected to Westminster but failed to get a single one.

They had boasted about taking control of Barking and Dagenham council but were wiped out 51-0 by Labour.

Dowson and his Belfast operation was blamed by BNP members on the internet who said a series of cock-ups by Dowson were the cause of their election humiliation.

Click here for original article

Hope not Hate

BNP leader Nick Griffin grooms his daughter to replace him

BNP leader Nick Griffin is grooming his eldest daughter to take over when he quits.

Party insiders say Griffin has quietly boosted 24-year-old Jennifer’s role, giving her huge influence over membership and finance. But they believe Griffin has no intention of relinquishing his vice-like grip on the party he has led since 1999 – despite his pledge to step down by 2013.

They expect him to copy his 82-year-old French Fascist ally Jean Marie Le Pen, who has ensured his daughter Marine is in pole position to replace him as head of France’s National Front.

Last year Jennifer was appointed a director of Adlorries, a company that controls a substantial proportion of the BNP finances, under her married name Jennifer Matthys. She was also given a crucial role as party membership secretary, working in the BNP’s main call centre in Belfast, where she lives.

Jennifer, who was leader of the BNP’s youth wing as a teenager, has been at her father’s side at important party events. Earlier this month she was used as the public face of the party in a promotional film.

Griffin’s manoeuvring risks sparking further revolt among the party faithful, who have openly questioned his leadership since the BNP was humiliated in May’s national and local elections.

Simon Bennett, the former BNP webmaster who quit his job on the eve of the election in a row over alleged corruption and incompetence, said: “He knows his days are numbered and installing his daughter is the perfect Plan B. She would be the nominal leader but he would be the real power behind the throne.”

Mirror