Loyalists target BNP boss’s girl over £40K debt

The BNP has fallen foul of a gang of loyalist heavies over a £40,000 debt, we can reveal.

Last week a handful of the gang – who come from east Belfast – travelled to England and Wales where they called at a number of addresses connected to BNP leader Nick Griffin. One of those visited was Nick Griffin’s daughter Jenny, who was running the BNP fundraising/membership office in Dundonald until it closed recently.

The Sunday World understands the debt is connected to a printer's firm based in the loyalist heartland. The BNP used the firm to print election leaflets and other promotional stuff in the run-up to the disastrous 2010 General Election. But soon after the BNP went into financial meltdown and today have debts estimated of at least £500,000.

We understand the BNP have been trying to come up with a financial plan which would see their creditors getting a fraction of what they are owed. They have offered a string of Ulster businesses as well as landlords and other people owed money just 5p in every pound.

Staff made redundant when the Belfast office closed are owed thousands in unpaid wages as well. On Tuesday lawyers acting for some ex-BNP staff served papers on the party demanding they be paid in full. And the printer's company is demanding the cash is paid in full as well and we understand they may have sold the debt on.

Last week the gang made an unannounced call at the home of Griffin’s daughter Jenny Matthys. But when she wasn’t in they called at the home of his father in Wales and delivered the message.

“These guys meant business,” said the source. “The printing company wants their money. They are run by a man who has plenty of friends in the loyalist paramilitaries. There were four men. They called at Jenny’s house but she wasn’t there so they went to Nick Griffin’s dad’s house in Welshpool, Powys,Wales. Griffin’s dad has money and bailed his son out before. The message from this gang was very simple - ‘Pay what’s owed or we’ll be back’. The BNP have left a lot of Ulster business’s in the sh*t. They owe hundreds of thousands of pounds but they have no way of paying up because they are practically bankrupt.”

The deal with the printers was secured by Scottish firebrand and convicted criminal Jim Dowson. At the time Dowson was in charge of the BNP nerve centre which was based in an enterprise park in Dundonald. Indeed Dowson had convinced the BNP hierarchy to base their major fundraising in Belfast promising they would be able to operate in peace. But the move was a complete disaster with rising costs not being met by donations and membership dues.

Dowson and the Belfast office were blamed by members in England for the election fiasco which saw the BNP fail to win a single Westminster seat and lose all their council seats in east London. The Belfast office went on a charm offensive in an attempt to persuade BNP members in the UK that things were OK.

This included an excruciating video tour of the Belfast operation, lead by Jenny and her BNP husband Angus, and showed us, amongst other things, how the membership card embossing machine works! But a few short months later and the Belfast operation (sadly including the embossing machine) was shut down.

Dowson sealed his own fate when he landed the BNP in a costly legal mess after they hijacked Marmite for an election campaign advert. Marmite producers Unilever threatened court action and eventually the BNP settled out of court at great expense.

During their short stay in Ulster the BNP was being run by Griffin’s daughter Jenny, who moved into a small flat in Comber, Co. Down. But she has returned to the mainland to work for the trouble-hit far right party.

Last year her father sent an embarrassing begging letter to all BNP members stating, in stark terms, that the party was doomed if they didn’t cough up some extra cash.

Hope not hate

A tough year for the BNP

Griffin has faced challenges to his leadership

The British National Party's annual conference begins on Friday. Leaflets promise a spectacular event but internal rows and financial pressures have raised questions about its future.

All is not well at the BNP. Rebels have tried to unseat the leader Nick Griffin. Legal challenges have come thick and fast. Money has become tight.

Only last year the party had high hopes. It boasted two newly elected MEPs and leading politicians were publicly anxious it might break through at the general election. But come election day the BNP won no seats, despite increasing its national share of the vote, and saw many of its councillors ousted in local polls.

Simon Bennett, who used to run the BNP website, said the party was in disarray. He is one of a number of expelled former members who want Nick Griffin to go.

"When I first got involved with the party I just automatically assumed I was dealing with professionals, people who knew what they were doing," said Mr Bennett. "It took a year for me to realise I was working with complete morons."

He left after a bizarre pre-election stunt that saw a jar of Marmite prominently displayed on a BNP video. The owners of the yeast spread took legal action in which Mr Bennett said he was named. He left. And the BNP had to pay an out-of-court settlement.

That was not the only legal drama to put pressure on the BNP's bank account. It has spent tens of thousands of pounds responding to a challenge by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission that wanted the party to change its constitution.

Nick Griffin said his party had debts of around £250,000 and "very little money" in the bank. But he believed the problem would be resolved in the coming months, and was dismissive of Mr Bennett's criticisms. He said: "It's the oldest problem in the book that any employer or organisation who gets rid of someone for a very, very good and unavoidable reason then has to put up with them coming back and biting their backs to try and get revenge."

Others - with less confidence - have been plotting a rebellion. The former party candidate and former National Front member - Eddy Butler - tried and failed to depose the BNP leader earlier this year. He did not manage to secure the 800 signatures from party members necessary under the BNP constitution to spark a vote. But he maintains a website featuring videos of estranged party members. According to him the BNP's internal culture was cynical, grasping and jealous. He is appealing, having been expelled from the party.

Nick Griffin's personal fortunes will be tested again when he stands as a candidate at the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election. He plans to step aside as party leader in 2013. His critics among those on the far right fear for the BNP's future. But those who study the far right say even if it falters, its activists may go on.

Dr Matthew Goodwin from Nottingham University suggested some of its supporters could simply migrate to organisations with similar sympathies. He said: "If the BNP does descend into infighting and doesn't make an election breakthrough we may begin to see BNP activists in far greater number move over to the English Defence League after coming to the conclusion that there will be no breakthrough."

BBC

A right Nazi mess at the BNP

The BNP is on the brink of insolvency. But instead of its usual tactic of threatening blacks, Jews and Asians, it is threatening its creditors instead in a letter from its money man, Jim Dowson, to its “highly valued suppliers and creditors” with a record of “commitment to the British National Party.”

His letter tells them that it does not value them enough to pay them what it owes. A grave financial crisis was forcing the party to close offices and lay off staff, he says. It was unlikely to “pay its outstanding bills in anything like a normal timescale - if indeed at all.”

‘Good money after bad’

Dowson then tells creditors that “lawyers who have reviewed the underlying contracts to most of the outstanding invoices have advised that most are not enforceable. Many creditors who have supplied good [sic] and services and which were used in connection with the activities of the British National Party may never be paid.”

And it is no use suppliers hiring lawyers, Dowson warns. Legal action against the party would be throwing “good money after bad in the shape of futile lawyers’ costs”. Creditors must accept 20p in the pound or risk getting nothing.

Sex and Marmite: the secrets of their downfall

Dowson blames the deficit – estimated at £500,000 – on the recession and “hugely expensive politically motivated High Court actions by the Commission for Equalities [sic] and Human Rights” to force the party to change its racist constitution. He is too modest.

The party is paralysed by internal disputes. Naïve critics have been shocked to discover that its fuehrer Nick Griffin behaves like, well, a dictator. Meanwhile busty “glamour model” Shelley Rose, who stood as a candidate in Luton, has posted a video on YouTube claiming Dowson made unwanted Ugandan advances to her at a hotel near Euston. “I thought it was safe to stay with him because he was a religious and family man,” the innocent 22-year old says. Alas, this turned out not to be the case, and she says Dowson accused her of being “frigid” when she rejected him.

Dowson does not mention one preposterous reason for the BNP’s indebtedness. In the general election campaign, Griffin ripped off Marmite’s “Love it or Hate it” campaign by putting out a picture of a Marmite jar with the slogan “Love Britain, Vote BNP”. He scoffed when Unilever, Marmite’s owner, protested; but the firm’s lawyers then hit him with a breach of copyright action, which cost the party between £100,000 and £170,000.

Yeast and desist

The BNP operates behind various front companies to place orders without arousing suspicion – the most prominent being Dowson’s adlorries.com. As a limited company adlorries could be sued, which may be why Dowson is offering 20p in the pound on contracts he claims are unenforceable. As a political party, the BNP is an unincorporated association, which cannot technically be declared bankrupt. However, creditors could hold Griffin as its leader and party members who entered into the contracts personally liable for debts.

If senior BNP figures are taken to the cleaners, they will earn a unique place in the history of European fascism: the first neo-Nazi party to have been destroyed by the makers of a yeast-extract sandwich spread.

‘Ratbiter’ at Private Eye

BNP hate party face ruin over joke Marmite ad

Nick Griffin’s racist BNP is facing financial ruin after featuring Marmite in an ­election broadcast.

The party was hit with a massive claim – estimated at up to £170,000 – over the TV stunt, in which leader Griffin was pictured beside a huge jar of the spread. The party then showed a jar of Marmite – slogan “Love it or hate it” – with its own motto “Love Britain Vote BNP”.

Griffin claimed he intended the film as a humorous dig at Marmite, who he ­believed had mocked the BNP in their online and TV ads featuring a “Love Party” and their rivals the “Hate Party”, whose leader appeared to be loosely based on Griffin.

But bosses at Marmite makers Unilever were furious at the BNP broadcast and began High Court proceedings for breach of copyright.

The BNP caved in and the amount claimed is put by insiders at between £70,000 and £170,000. Former National Organiser Eddy Butler has said the BNP is “on the brink of bankruptcy”.

And last night a spokesman for anti-racism group Searchlight said: “The Marmite fiasco has been a disaster from start to finish for Griffin.”

Unilever confirmed a settlement had been reached but said the terms were confidential.

Sunday Mirror

Ex-BNP webmaster confirms Jim Dowson owns the BNP

The British National Party learned the hard way that exploiting and cheating its own supporters has unpleasant consequences, when two days before polling day its webmaster removed the BNP website from the internet

Simon Bennett replaced the site, which received more visitors than any other political party website, with a brief statement accusing the party of “several attempts of theft today with regards to design work and content owned by myself”. He also claimed that Arthur Kemp and Jim Dowson, two close aides to Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, had threatened violence against him and his family.

Bennett’s action meant that supporters could no longer make online donations or membership applications. For the first time for many months, BNP e-news bulletins came without a donation button.

Bennett had been in dispute with Dowson, the convicted criminal who in effect owns the BNP, for a year, but matters came to a head when Griffin insisted, against Bennett’s advice, on adding an image of a jar of Marmite to a version of the BNP’s television election broadcast pre-released on the party website.

Simon Bennett (above) pulled the plug on the
BNP website alleging Jim Dowson tried to steal his work

According to a longer statement by Bennett, this “very deliberate copyright infringement” was a stunt by Griffin and Dowson to provoke a reaction from Unilever, which owns the Marmite brand, and so “create publicity and a fund raising opportunity”. In the event, Bennett claimed, website traffic, donations and membership applications barely increased at all.

After Unilever responded by launching proceedings over copyright infringement, Griffin and Dowson realised they had underestimated the severity of the legal and financial consequences and came up with pathetic excuses, such as a claim that a “joker” had amended the film. When Unilever’s lawyers refused to believe them, Bennett says he was expected “to go to court and lie through my teeth in order to bail them out of a ridiculous hole they had dug themselves into”.

Griffin and Dowson had misjudged Bennett. Unlike they themselves and their more sycophantic supporters, Bennett “was not prepared to spend five years in prison for perjury just to protect the financial interests of fools” and told Unilever’s lawyers the truth.

Bennett had refused to do their bidding so Griffin and Dowson wanted him out. Bennett was prepared to go but wanted to be paid for his website design work. Claiming he had invested around £40,000 into the site, he said he was not prepared simply to hand it over to Griffin and Dowson so that they could use it to make more money. “It was my bloody hard work, commitment and money that developed that site into the success it became,” wrote Bennett, “and for Dowson to try and force control of it for his own advantage made me feel sick.”

Money is what it is all about – not for Bennett but for Griffin and Dowson, who, Bennett claims, is paid £120,000 a year by the party. As Searchlight already knew from other sources, Bennett’s dispute with Dowson started over the fact that the telesales staff at Dowson’s call centre earned commission from subscriptions and party memberships and so were telling party members not to renew their membership on the website because it was “unsafe and had been hacked”.

Bennett complained to Griffin who said he would look into it. Shortly afterwards he was contacted by the call centre manager, Kate Hunt, and Dowson. A heated exchange ended with Dowson threatening: “I am a Glasgow/Belfast man as you are about to find out. I was patient simon [sic] but you crossed the line sir, its time some manners were put on you.”

Bennett had crossed Dowson and could not win. As Bennett says in his statement, confirming the conclusions of Searchlight’s investigations: “Jim Dowson now controls just about every aspect of the party structure (including the recently acquired print services) and also the party’s finances with one exception. You’ve guessed it – the website!”

By the Sunday after election day the BNP had a new website up and running, set up by Chris Barnett who, Bennett says, used to run a web server for an online pornographic studio in Birmingham. But the story was not over. Bennett also had control of the party’s Facebook site, with its nearly 26,000 members, and its Twitter feed. He now linked them to a new website of his own on which he exposed Dowson’s financial dealings with the BNP and called for reform of the party.

As well as setting up his own site Bennett posted on various far-right internet forums, disclosing the nefarious ways the BNP operates. On one he revealed that Kemp, the BNP’s website editor who had moved through a variety of party posts, had also threatened Bennett and had once opposed Griffin.

“He threatened to drive to Cornwall, rip my head off off and shove it up my @rse,” wrote Bennett. “I expected better of him too, but I noticed the change in his anti-griffin attitude once he started ‘fund-raising’ for our best friend Jim. From that day on he became very pro-Jim and pro-griffin, even though he knew they planned his downfall at the EU election planning meeting in 2008. They humiliated him, stripped him of his position, income and dignity. He suffered it for over a year until he was offered a scrap of food which he grabbed with both hands and stabbed me in the back to get to it.”

Bennett also removed Griffin’s personal MEP’s website though not the similar websites he runs for Andrew Brons, the BNP’s other MEP, and Richard Barnbrook, the party’s London Assembly member, with whom he has no dispute.

The BNP has taken legal proceedings against Bennett, presumably paid for out of members’ donations, but that has not silenced him. Bennett is gradually adding to his new website, which is likely to become a centre for any moves to oust Griffin from the BNP leadership in the coming months.

Searchlight

BNP's copyright-breaching habits spread to the lower ranks

Green Arrow: copyright thief, idiot and bigotThe BNP's breach of copyright over the recent use of a Marmite jar in a broadcast without permission is likely to cost the party a hefty five-figure sum - corporate lawyers tending to dislike people who steal their company's intellectual property without either paying the going rate or at least asking their permission before use.

But it's not just the BNP itself that is happy to breach copyright law - the habit seems to have been passed on to at least one of the party's supporters.

Exactly six months ago, we reported that the cretinous bigot Paul Morris (yes, Green Arrow), one of Nick Griffin's most vocal arselickers, had stolen the work of artist Mark Simpson, who had supplied the artwork for a Green Arrow series for DC Comics back in 2006. When he had realised this, Simpson emailed Morris to object, only to be told by the petulant Morris that '…the origins of the Green Arrow name had nothing to do with some pathetic socialist comic hero', though what that had to do with the theft of someone else's well-crafted artwork wasn't made clear.

In any case, Simpson was informed that the image would be removed and that was an end to the matter as far as he was concerned. He had, it seems, only strayed on to the Green Arrow site by accident and, like most humans with a brain, was unlikely ever to visit the site again through choice.

However, Paul 'I love Porky Griffin' Morris, is not only a devoted creep, he is also a serial liar, as Denise reports in her excellent article here. And it is this article that led to one of our readers popping over for a quick peek at the Green Arrow site (screenshot, above), where he discovered that the image Morris had agreed to remove is not only still in place but appears to have doubled in size.

Perhaps this is Morris's way of thumbing his nose at the artist who dared to question his right to do whatever he pleases - Morris is nothing if not pompous and arrogant - but he may find that the owner of DC Comics, Warner Brothers, is even less forgiving than the owner of the Marmite brand, Unilever. Let's hope so, because we'd like our readers to complain about his theft of copyright images to DC Comics directly.

Naturally there are circumstances under which organisations would seek the permissions that Paul Morris should have sought. In his case though, he shouldn't bother, because DC Comics is pretty unequivocal on the matter.

'What follows are detailed guidelines for submitting a request for the right to use our materials...here’s a list of requests for which we will NOT grant permission'

'Military, government, or other political organizations, or requests of a military, governmental or political nature.'

Whoops. Feel free to contact the relevant people at DC Comics via email on dc_publicity@dccomics.com to express your surprise and dismay at seeing the artwork of one of their fine artists sullied by association with this rabidly racist buffoon. If enough people email them, we're pretty sure that DC will take a look at the Green Arrow site. Once they do that and see the kind of lunatic ramblings that take place there, a takedown notice should follow swiftly.

Thanks to Paul S for the heads-up.

Marmite launches legal action against BNP

Love Marmite, Hate the BNP (Image grabbed by P McC, thanks)

Marmite is beginning legal action against the British National Party after an image of a Marmite jar was used on a political broadcast without its permission, the company said today. The jar featured in the top left-hand corner of a video shown on the BNP's website.

The firm released a statement saying: "It has been brought to our attention that the British National Party has included a Marmite jar in a political broadcast shown currently online. We want to make it absolutely clear that Marmite did not give the BNP permission to use a pack shot of our product in their broadcast. Neither Marmite nor any other Unilever brand are aligned to any political party. We are currently initiating injunction proceedings against the BNP to remove the Marmite jar from the online broadcast and prevent them from using it in future."

The video was publicly available on the BNP's website this morning but now appears to have been removed. The Marmite jar appeared in the top left hand corner of the screen when party leader Nick Griffin was addressing viewers in the BNP's general election broadcast.

It provoked mixed opinion from contributors to a messageboard beneath the video, with several calling for the logo to be ditched but others praising it as a "brilliant" way to attract publicity.

Current advertising for Marmite is based around the slogan "love it or hate it" - an idea the BNP appears to have been trying to adopt. Marmite is owned by multinational company Unilever, whose other brands include PG Tips, Knorr and Vaseline.

Anti-BNP campaigners Hope not Hate said the reaction of BNP supporters calling for the jar's logo to be removed from the broadcast was virtually unprecedented, adding that contributions to the website are normally tightly controlled.

Spokesman Dan Hodges said: "In politics there is only one thing worse than being hated, and that's being mocked. Nick Griffin's Marmite broadcast has turned his party into a laughing stock, and it is quite clear his own members are not happy about it."

The Marmite jar is also featured at the end of the video, next to the party's logo and the slogan "Love Britain, Vote BNP".

The broadcast, which is almost five minutes long and is still available on video-sharing website YouTube, begins with an air-raid siren followed by Mr Griffin telling viewers he will not "flatter and deceive, to promise everything to everyone" but will "tell the truth about the terrible state of our country".

A voice-over warns that British people have become "second-class citizens", while footage of a woman in a burka walking towards a mosque is shown. It then makes a number of claims about asylum seekers, MPs' expenses and the EU, before calling for troops to be brought home from Afghanistan immediately.

Several BNP supporters give their reasons for choosing the party, before Mr Griffin again addresses the camera.

He says: "I will put British people first all the time, every time, and I don't care what the politicians and media liars say because of it. I tell the truth. So don't waste your vote - do the one thing that will really upset politicians: get your own back. Get up, get out and vote British National Party - then they will listen."

Comments submitted below the video on the BNP's website revealed split opinions among BNP supporters about the use of the logo.

Someone posting under the name 1redwhiteandblue wrote: "DITCH THE MARMITE. IT DISTRACTS FROM THE MESSAGE, THIS IS ABOUT THE BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY, NOT MARMITE, THE ENEMY WILL USE IT TO DISTRACT OUR MESSAGE."

Johnnyb wrote: "Good stuff, but like others have said, get rid of the Marmite logo. It distracts from the message and makes you look cheap. Ignore Marmite's silly campaign, concentrate on being a serious political party. The general public will not get irony. Please, please take it off, it will just distract from the serious issues. Apart from that, great video."

And Adam added: "The Marmite, please don't put that in."

But SBD said: "Didn't like the Marmite at first, but the more I think about it - BRILLIANT. It will get people talking and therefore watching - it will get publicity...If Marmite don't like it they may complain, then it'll be all over the papers. To victory."

And Disapointed (sic) posted: "Didn't get the Marmite thing at first, but now that I do, I think that it's great. Shows that we British still have a sense of humour."

Independent