Booze Hound addresses Italian Fascists

Nick Griffin's European gravy train took him from his Nazi shindig in Stockholm yesterday afternoon on to Rome last night, where he addressed a meeting of the fascist Italian group Forza Nuova (New Force). Griffin would've been most relived to leave Stockholm as it appears that thousands of people turned out to protest against it.

"New Force" are actually anything but new. It's the party of Griffin's old friend Roberto Fiore, a convicted terrorist and long time inspiration to the extreme far-right fringe in this country.

Fiore helped destroy the old National Front here as his young disciples Nick Griffin and Patrick Harrington went and ended up on begging missions to Colonel Gaddafi in Tripoli and trying to play ideological footsie with Irish Republicans instead of paying enough attention to their much maligned and shrinking British membership.

One of the chief architects of Griffin's old "Poltical Soldiers" Drerek Holland, who wrote the seminal work that led to the NF's destruction 'The Political Soldier' was also on the invite list, so it would have been a real old get- together for the people who did so much fantastic damage to British fascism in the 1980's.

Fiore's party supports the ideas of Julius Evola, an Italian born in 1898 who was heavily into mysticism, deviancy and of course, Jew hating. Evola died in 1974, no doubt happy that he got to see a lot of his favourite things unleash themselves across Europe during his life.

He would probably have enjoyed how debauched his British followers became in his name too had he lived long enough to see it.

While Griffin was in Rome, he helped himself to plenty of that hospitality for which he has become notorious since taking over the BNP. As his party's membership fees increase, so it appears does Griffin's bourgeois lifestyle and tastes.

Griffin had a little too much to drink while in Rome and reports this morning that he is suffering "the worst hangover of my life". What didn't help was his luggage not joining him there. I'm pleased to report that Griffin's luggage went to Ethiopia instead.

While Old Nick was downing large amounts of "beer, grappa & absynthe" in Rome, he at least had the decency to ring his members at the party's awful beanfeast in Jarrow, where the few members who bothered to turn up to listen to his drunken rambling were bemused to find Adam Walker the BNP's "party manager", walking around in a karate outfit.

Griffin's new best friend forever Simon Darby did not get an invite to Rome. Last time he was there he was Nazi saluted by Italian admirers which was just another of the nails that went into the BNP's electoral coffin at the time.

While the BNP's very own "Rome" burns, isn't it great to see their leader has gone to the real Rome to get himself pissed and incoherent while mixing with the very sort of policies and people that helped him destroy the old NF.





Hope not Hate

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

Did you hear the one about a slow news day?

Busy day for me today. I've been working in Belfast on quite a good story that should annoy a few fascists when it comes out. One naughty type even suggested that I would be punished for it. (Word is that he seems to thrive on that kind of activity).

Being in Belfast, I took the opportunity to visit and talk to some of the businessmen and women who fell hook line and sinker for the BNP's promise to pay their bills on time. In most cases, they just did not pay at all. The BNP has left a real trail of destruction over there.

Traditionally we have no truck at all with people 'who lie down with dogs' but Northern Ireland has a low wage economy and a sense of desperation prevails in the case of small businesses trying to make just enough money to get by. And the BNP did not just rip off one community, they spread their tentacles right across the communities. On that point I was a little bemused...

That was until I picked up a story in today's Irish herald. I don't know the writer, Claire Murphy, but she got a story between her teeth and most certainly ran with it, no questions asked!

"BNP plans Irish wing to oppose immigration" wrote Claire. Initially I thought it would be in line with the BNP's traditional plans for the Irish. I assumed that Nick Griffin was sending his lardy security team to the Emerald Isle to build some kind of wall to stop the Irish visiting Britain. But no, the BNP is apparently "agitating" (whatever that means), for the "establishment of an 'Irish National Party' and believes there are already like-minded groups in existence." So, why would the British "agitate" for one then?

Claire also writes that the BNP "grew in popularity in the last UK election". Maybe it's an old story. I believe the correct word or term to describe their last election results is actually "decimated". A quick look on google would show that. Even just a little knowledge of the subject too, actually.

Not only that, Nick Griffin is described as the leader of the "anti-immigration lobby." Apparently not an Imperialist apologist, then?

Still, at the end of the day it was pretty run of the mill reporting, actually. One does not expect an Irish journalist to remind its readership, warn even, that the BNP is more than "traditionally" an anti-Irish party. Perhaps this explains why Patrick Harrington refuses to join them? He launched his own "party" on St Patrick's Day long ago and has stuck with that tiny grouping and the allegations that he is some kind of pro-IRA supporter ever since. (Perhaps that's the punishment he thinks I deserve?)

I shouldn't be the one to give any Irish journalist a history lesson. There are many excellent Irish journalists who will no doubt over the next few days pour scorn on Claire's story. Least of all, why would Ireland want an Irish model of a British party? Wasn't there some kind of dispute that went on and on for a few hundred years based on a similar premise?

Claire fails to mention or perhaps even remind her readers of a little bit of shameful English history. My father, who is Irish, never let me forget it. The BNP more than a little harks back to and longs for an era when one could quite happily refuse board and lodging to "Blacks, Irish and Dogs". if one so desired, one could even put it up in the front window of one's house or hotel.

But the story goes a lot deeper and is far more sinister than that. During the most dark and horrifying days of conflict in Northern Ireland, the BNP's security wing, Combat 18 (C18), peddled drugs and provided guns and bullets for the Loyalist murder squads in Northern Ireland (when they were not also grassing up their Loyalist friends, that is).

"Bog trotters" I seem to recall was one way that the BNP referred to the Irish. They even ran trips to Northern Ireland to help stoke up the fires of sectarianism.

Only a couple of years ago there was almost a revolt by the revolting members of Liverpool BNP when the Irish tricolour appeared on the banner of the local party. "The Irish tricolour is a terrorist flag" protested one senior member.

Historically, the last time a group in Ireland rose up against that country's progressive and anti-Imperialist traditions, they ended up on a half empty boat heading to fight for the Fascists under Franco. When they got there, most of them ended up getting shot by fellow fascists!

These days there will obviously be people in the BNP of Irish descent and heritage. The BNP's founder John Tyndall was even of Irish descent. This says more about the great things of this country than it does about the BNP's policies.

What Claire Murphy could really have done with mentioning is that under the BNP's policies, there would be no Ireland at all. It would be just another part of Britain under British control.

Still, I guess having almost bled the north of the Island dry, like the parasite that the BNP is, it has to try to bleed another part of the body dry just to survive.

Thanks to 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

John Walker sacked by email.

We are hearing news that former BNP treasurer John Walker has been sacked today.

Walker who was the press officer to the two BNP MEPs had already resigned from the party in disgust at the behaviour of Nick Griffin and others in the leadership apparently received his marching orders via an email sent from party manager Adam Walker.

John Walker claims his dismissal followed revelations made by himself relating to the the ever growing influence Pat Harrington held over the BNP.

Labelling the BNP leadership as cretins earlier this month,Walker claims he has referred the matter for legal advice with the intention of taking the matter further.

This appears to be just the start of yet another "Night of the Long Knives" within the BNP, following the recent leadership election,which Nick Griffin won by a narrow nine votes.

Walker was a critic of the Griffin leadership,and laid his support firmly behind the challenger Andrew Brons.

Another Griffin critic due before the BNP disciplinary team in none other than far right veteran Martin Wingfield.

Wingfield,European Communications & Campaigns Officer and former editor of the BNP newspaper Voice of Freedom is due for his disciplinary hearing at the end of this month.

Watch this space.

Thanks to Nick Lowles at HOPE not Hate

The final countdown...

Nick step down now!

A tired and rather bloated Nick Griffin has looked better; as a fresh-faced fascist in the 1980s he projected a suave, revolutionary image as he and other middle class and university educated young men took control and strangled the life out of the moribund and predominantly working class National Front.

The years of ideological neglect which saw the once mighty NF falter into little more than a spent Hitler-admiring political sect, were swept away with the ascent of the Cambridge graduate. He used long words and waved strange flags, he excited and enthused as much as he shocked and confused his followers. In his own words, you were viewed as old if you were in your thirties. He then lost control of the NF, dumped it and walked away, not long afterwards being declared a bankrupt. An incident with a shotgun robbed him of his eye.

Nearly twenty years on from the death of his “Political Soldier” NF, Griffin must be experiencing déjà vu. For the second time in his unillustrious career, Griffin is watching another party he led turn in on itself and more disturbingly for Griffin, against him again.

The British National Party and Griffin in particular are now in serious trouble. The party has gone from extreme and bullish to bellicose, lazy and confused in just over a year. The rot had set in well before last year’s electoral humiliations.

The problems had been evident since the moment Griffin took over the leadership in 1999. Each time there was discourse or a popular uprising, political conditions were such for Griffin and the BNP that he could simply paper over the cracks as the party’s members clung onto their wild political dreams.

The party under Griffin has had no fewer than four serious splits – splits that each time dented the party. Even Eddy Butler, Griffin’s most formidable and experienced opponent to date, admits that despite his fears and doubts about Griffin’s behaviour it “seemed stupid” for him to take a stand on principle “when the BNP seemed politically to be taking the correct course”. Even if, as Butler claims further, when the BNP made its first electoral gains in 2002 “Nick Griffin copied word for word my discourse”.

Of course, Griffin has never been alone when it has come to driving his political ambitions into the wilderness. His trip up the revolutionary and religious garden path in the 1980s was inspired and facilitated by Italian fascists wanted for questioning over terrorist acts, who turned his Conservative head towards dead Eastern European demigods, Colonel Gaddafi, stupidity and a temporary political suicide.

It’s either a lack of confidence in spite of his arrogance or perhaps extremely poor judgement in others that has ensured Griffin has never sunk alone. The younger and impressionable Patrick Harrington acted as Griffin’s “wingman” during their NF days, even obligingly photographing Griffin standing in front of a portrait of their political hero Colonel Gaddafi while on a begging mission to Tripoli. Harrington then took the picture to the London magazine Time Out, exposing the NF’s leadership to an uncomfortable scrutiny that has followed them everywhere since then. Since the pair ran the NF into the ground, Harrington has borne the brunt of the venom directed at the two by former members and observers, while Griffin has made a thousand public apologies and self-criticisms for his few years of revolutionary weakness, even backing a violent street approach when joining the BNP in the mid nineties, to stave off the party’s modernisers at the time.

Harrington appears to have developed no such weakness for popularity contests, and since joining Griffin on the BNP’s European payroll and as leader of the BNP’s trade union front Solidarity, has seemingly continued a destructive and controversial course that Griffin so warmed to. Others have fallen by the wayside; Dr Mark Deavin, formerly of the UK Independence Party and a close friend of David Irving, jumped ship when exposed as Griffin’s right-hand man by the Cook Report in an exposé screened in 1997 exposing Griffin’s plan to take over the party. The NF’s Wayne Ashcroft also deserted Griffin after he too was exposed. His job was supposed to be the delivery of the rump of what was left of the NF, a party that remained ferociously anti-Griffin.

While the old guard put up a formidable fight to stop Griffin sweeping to power in the BNP’s first ever leadership contest in 1999, they were crushed by a campaign orchestrated to humiliate them and destroy their own political careers and aspirations by ridicule, populism and modernisation.

Griffin’s eventual running mate for wresting control of the BNP was the convicted bomber Tony Lecomber, a man who had also reinvented himself after a period of terrorism, street thuggery and imprisonment. Lecomber had used the second chance given to him by the party to get himself close enough to John Tyndall, who was then the BNP leader, to be in a prime position when the time came to deliver the fatal and personal blows to Tyndall’s leadership.

A steady growth and the capture of several council seats around the country from 2002 onwards allowed Griffin the sort of leeway Butler speaks of. Scandals involving extensions to his family home and the sale of second hand cars in the party’s publications caused large rifts, large enough even to see off some deputy leaders, but Griffin’s real weakness has been to surround himself during his 12-year tenure with people of either dubious morals or personality defects.

Lecomber later fell by the wayside after Griffin’s former bodyguard exposed what is alleged to have been a plot orchestrated by Lecomber to hire him for politically motivated murders. The bodyguard, an alleged gangland hitman, fell by the wayside himself and suffered too from the party’s desire to purge not people of questionable values and lifestyle, but those expressing dissent in what they felt was the defence of the party over Griffin’s personal interests.

The closer people get to Griffin, the more obvious it seems that it is their own judgement call over whether they protect the interests of the party or adhere to the cult of Griffin’s personality. By keeping and promoting people with behavioural, political or lifestyle skeletons in their cupboards, Griffin is able to keep a lid on dissenters and the competition firmly at bay. But the past 12 months has seen this all collapse like a house of cards.

The Belfast operation, a call centre staffed by the family of both Griffin and its owner Jim Dowson, drew national and international attention to the way that Griffin’s BNP did business. Dowson, an evangelical anti-abortionist with an ego almost as big as Griffin’s, had a record for screwing money out of people by any means necessary and an arrogance that demanded he was obeyed and was always right. Initially Griffin promoted Dowson to run almost every operation in the party, from funding to staffing and even some aspects of campaigning. When Dowson spoke, party members and employees had to dance to his tune. The large sums of cash funnelled into the party were far more important than the constant noise of disquiet emanating from within the party over the business practices, which often bordered on plain harassment.

Griffin’s election to the European Parliament in 2009, his tenth year as leader, quelled an internal revolt. Dowson took a huge amount of the credit, the success of Griffin and Andrew Brons in getting elected to Europe was due to the large amount of money Dowson had raised and the professional looking operation he ran for the party. The dissent in the party immediately quietened down, but it was perhaps to be the last great political celebration of Griffin’s leadership. Dowson paid the piper and now the man described as Griffin’s consigliere, a term for a Mafia adviser, was calling the tune and being referred to as the party’s owner.

Searchlight threw a large amount of resources into investigating the call centre and Dowson in particular. Over painstaking hours investigating Dowson’s financial dealings, we uncovered a paper trail that began with the exposé of the truth behind who actually owned the BNP’s “Truth Truck”, a long wheelbase vehicle the party never actually owned, despite claiming they had bought it. We also exposed – at great pain to the BNP’s cautious membership – that call centre workers were in fact not dedicated ideological fanatics like themselves but were in fact hired help from a Belfast employment agency.

Working out of Belfast we began to turn the screw on the BNP as far away as in Brussels. We uncovered a series of plush properties that the BNP were leasing, as well as funding and property scams and, most surprising of all, that at the peak of the BNP’s activity there, no fewer than four staff members were passing or had passed information about the BNP’s internal affairs to various newspapers.

As Dowson grew increasingly unpopular with the BNP’s members, Griffin more and more relied upon him. Dowson had heated clashes with staff members who eventually sued, costing the party large sums of money. The party ran up huge debts and legal bills, as Dowson also gave disastrously damaging legal advice over the Marmite election broadcast.

As the BNP prepared for the 2010 elections, the lack of money began to kick in. Membership renewals began to tail off and there was a recruitment freeze to contend with, resulting from the legal action by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Internally, the BNP was saying that it could take not only the Barking parliamentary seat but bizarrely another two seats, as well as full control of Barking and Dagenham council. To ensure this, Griffin believed that he had to spearhead the campaign personally, choosing for himself the plum Barking seat and putting out of joint the nose of the party’s London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook.

In the absence of either dissent or reason, senior party sycophants believed that all this was actually possible. Large debts were run up in preparation for an enormous campaign and, as creditors closed on the party, new credit accounts were opened. Belfast, on Dowson’s own doorstep, appeared to have a number of businesses grateful for the BNP’s trade.

The first high profile person to break ranks was Mark Collett, the party’s director of publicity and former Griffin protégé. For a while he had been lined up as Griffin’s possible successor and had even dated Griffin’s daughter, Jennifer. Collett, another one with shadows hanging over him, became the victim of a bizarre invented story that he had attempted to have Griffin and Dowson murdered.

On 8 May 2010, Griffin was telling the media that “London is finished” and that he was only there (at the election count in Barking and Dagenham) to “pick up the bodies”. While Griffin faced the hostile and jubilant media Butler and Barnbrook found a small room in the same building as the count and began to plot. The splits began almost immediately.

2010 ended for Griffin with his daughter fleeing Belfast and the BNP shut out of their office by Dowson. Their former staff there are currently part of a class action, together with other former employees and creditors, to obtain monies owed to them. The current coterie surrounding Griffin is a collection of people with dubious personal characteristics and political baggage as is always the way. It consists of disgraced former school teachers, alleged drug dealers, pornographers and swingers. At their head is the returned Patrick Harrington, as unpopular as ever and not even a party member. Harrington is alleged by BNP rebels to be an IRA supporting sadomasochism fan.

Griffin and Harrington have responded to the resignations and turmoil with legal letters, expulsions and a further purging of members who refuse to toe the Griffin line. Dowson credits Harrington with driving him out of the party. Harrington responds to most criticisms by issuing legal letters.

Griffin is facing a further election meltdown this May. Defending 11 council seats, he finds himself with more BNP stalwarts without membership than with. The dissenters are advising people not to stand for the party and are now calling on those who left the party as far back as in the 1990s to join them in reconciliation.

The mood in the party is black. Stalinesque summonses to appear before disciplinary committees arrive randomly and unrelentingly in party organisers’ post. Members are banned even from reading anti-Griffin websites or being in the same room as rebels. Two large meetings in the past month in Yorkshire and the North East have ended with paid-up members publicly calling for Griffin to stand down. In response, those individuals receive summonses to attend further disciplinary meetings. Former high flyers such as Nick Cass and Chris Beverley are the latest to have been suspended; others follow daily.

Last week, the first manifestation of the long list of Griffin and BNP debts turned up on the Griffin family’s door. Four large men from Belfast arrived demanding monies from Griffin’s parents. Some people will not be so easily brushed away.

Hope not Hate

Michelle whips Harrington into shape...

This is a picture of Michelle Harrington, wife of well-known fruitloop and non-BNP member Patrick Harrington.

Michelle allegedly works for the BNP in a number of ways, most notably via the BNP's fake union Solidarity, where she apparently earns £36,000 per annum.

And what does she do there? You'll see if you click on the pic and read the text.

Yep, she's an office manager at a place that finds work for people with mental illness. How apt. Did I mention that Pat Harrington works for Solidarity, too?

BNP's Wacky Provo Support

Far right nutters are going to war with each other after we revealed the BNP were supporting convicted Provo Gerry McGeough.

Civil Liberty - which is a BNP front group - sympathised with IRA gunman McGeough who was convicted recently of the attempted murder of former UDR soldier Sammy Brush. The group is fronted by a BNP activist called Kevin Scott from the north east of England.But it's also supported by former NF mouthpiece and BNP employee Patrick Harrington

Civil Liberty were attracted to Gerry McGeough's ultra Catholic views of anti-immigration and anti-gay - which obviously sit well with the far right. However the group scored a huge own goal by offering support for McGeough just weeks before the the party puts candidates up for election for the first time. They will be hoping to win votes from disgruntled hard line loyalist areas but giving support to a dedicated IRA member and former Sinn Fein committee man has not gone down well in those areas.

After our story broke a "far-right" war of words broke out on the internet with many BNP members and supporters horrified by the revelations. They even turned on BNP leader Nick Griffin and former National Front buddy Patrick Harrington.

Afraid

One contributor to the British Democracy Forum wrote: "this is absolutely scandalous !!!!!!!!!!!!" while another added: "This is absolutely sickening, Griffin is a ****bag!" And on Facebook on former BNP supporter wrote " I'm afraid Harrington and Griffin are taking the party back in time. I bet they have purchased a derelict lighthouse on Craggy Island".

Last night the white power group the National Front slammed the BNP for sympathising with the republican's plight. In a statement to the Sunday World they said " So a convicted terrorist (in his own words) is being backed by the British National Party! Well fellow British Nationalists now is the time to say enough is enough and cut that membership card in two! Over 3000 British citizens where bombed and shot at got over 30 years by these Marxist Terrorists, there were over 500 British soldiers killed during the "troubles" and it is in my opinion a slur and an insult to those killed and their families and friends too. How could any "British" political party show any support for him?"

Two weeks ago Gerry McGeough was convicted of the attempted murder of off-duty UDR soldier Sammy Brush in 1981. Brush was shot and wounded but still managed to shoot McGeough and last week the DUP councillor described it as both his "best and worst" shot in his life.

Sunday World and Searchlight

The NF's Roundabout Route to Tripoli Revealed

This is how Searchlight reported the Griffin and Harrington trip to Libya in March 1989

In the last few weeks Searchlight investigators have been able to uncover the exclusive story of how three of the NF political soidier chiefs found themselves in Libya last September as guests of the Government.

In 1983 Derek Holland and Joe Pearce were negotiating with the London Libyan People's Bureau for assistance. But these negotiations came to an abrupt end when a killer firing from inside the building shot down policewoman Yvonne Fletcher in cold blood and wounded a number of Libyan exiles, who were demonstrating outside.

The ineptitude of Special Branch led to their failure to discover correspondence between Pearce and the Libyans when they raided Ian Anderson's old flat in Newham East London. Anderson and Pearce were later charged with publishing Bulldog in contravention of the Race Relations Act. Pearce went to prison but Anderson was acquitted.

The Italian terrorist exiles promised to put the NF in touch with friendly Arabs in France but this also seems to have foundered. Then a visit by NF chief Nick Griffin to Spain brought him into contact with Colonel Carlos Meer de Ribera's organisation, the Co-ordinating Group of Nationalist Forces. This looked a more likely route to the Libyan leader, as Ribera was in fact an agent of the Libyan regime enjoying the personal support of Gaddafi.

But again fate intervened. The.Spanish nazi was arrested and convicted of spying for; Libya and of using Libyan funds to finance various fascist groups attempting to destabilise the fragile democracy that had come to Spain after Franco's death.

Then on 19th January 1987 the political soldiers wrote to Robert Pash, leader of the National Vanguard and the Australian People's Congress, in Capalab, Queensland. It was clear from the letter that they were having no luck in reestablishing contact with the Libyans. But Pash was in a strong position to help them out.

In 1985 Pash had been exposed as a front man for the Libyans. A convert to Islam, he has tried to forge a link between the ultra right and the ultra left in Australia, to oppose the Jews and form an international union of white states. He was also involved with the distribution of Ku Klux Klan material in Australia. Stung by Pash's exposure, the Libyan representative in Australia tried to deny any connection with this third positionist crank.

But in reality Pash has gone on to be the man who fixes things for Colonel Gaddafi in Australia. When free trips are arranged for MPs, the press and other special guests, it is Pash who organises things. Among those who have enjoyed his arrangements are John Bennett, the Australian historical revisionist and associate of British historian David Irving and Willis Carlo in the United States.

Two months ago Pash was seen in Tripoli on the arm of the Libyan Foreign Minister who was not denying that Pash had arranged the NF chiefs' trip to his country.

From the political soldiers' letter in 1987, it was clear that they did not have access to Gaddafi's Green Book in the UK. But within a few months they had become sole distributors of the Green Book in Britain.

According to sources close to the Libyan Foreign Office the Libyans are looking for someone to write a book for the western market on the life and thoughts of Colonel Gaddafi and to re-write the Green Book in a style more understandable to western readers. We bet Harrington and Holland are sharpening up their quills.

Thanks to Gerry Gable at Searchlight

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

BNP’s delayed accounts reveal financial disaster zone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks to Searchlight / HOPE not hate by Sonia Gable

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

Incompetents reign as BNP staggers into the new year

An influential far-right activist has called for union between the UK Independence Party and British National Party in an attempt to whitewash the BNP’s racism and nazi past by hiding behind its larger, anti-EU rival.

Eddy Butler, who was expelled from the BNP after trying to challenge Nick Griffin to a leadership election last summer but remains an important figure on the extreme right, said in a message for the new year that a party that united the UKIP, BNP and the various smaller groups “on the patriotic, nationalistic, ‘right-wing’, populist, non-politically correct, identity-related side of the spectrum” would “have over 30,000 members” and “instantly be a major force in British politics”.

He recognises, however, that “it would take compromise” and “putting aside preconceived ideas about each other” – a reference to the BNP’s violence and extremism and the image of the UKIP as “Tory types” – and that “jealous personalities”, the biggest of whom is Griffin, will not let it happen.

Butler believes such a union would benefit the UKIP as it “would give them relevance” between European elections. For the BNP “it would provide respectability and distance form a more violent and hard-line past”.

According to Butler only a “tiny minority” in the UKIP “hate everything to do with the BNP”. However a spokesman for the UKIP told Searchlight “[Unity] is not going to happen. We reject the whole concept completely out of hand”.

The BNP meanwhile continues to demonstrate its incompetence and dictatorial nature. When Butler appealed against his expulsion, which he considers was “irregular” under the terms of the party constitution, he was told an appeal tribunal would be arranged for January.

This has now been denied. Knowing that Butler probably had a strong case, Andy McBride, the BNP’s South East regional organiser, decided that Butler was not entitled to a tribunal because he was only a “probationary member” with less than two years’ membership, despite the party’s earlier acceptance that he had the required five years’ continuous membership to stand for the leadership!

The basis for the decision by McBride, whom Butler describes as “ineffective and semi-literate” – so no different from most other party officers – is that Butler was 18 days late in renewing his membership in 2009. However he retained the same membership number and renewal date.

Griffin law

“I can recall a time in history, in another country, during the last days of a (ahem) controversial regime, when all sorts of decrees were sent forth from ‘ze bunker’ pronouncing severe punishments on those who were deemed to have transgressed”, wrote Butler. “The last twitches of a dying organism.”

Commenting on the way Griffin and the BNP keep changing the rules to suit themselves, Butler continued: I think Mr McBride believes in Griffin Law – that parallel legal system, a bit like Sharia Law. It would seem that I am to be further punished by ‘political admin’ (as opposed to a Sharia court).”

Mark Walker, described as the BNP’s political administration officer, clearly comes from the same stable. Responding to a letter of resignation from the party from Chris Francis, Walker wrote: “Clearly you have very negative feelings towards the Party and our membership and this would, in any case, likely have resulted in actions leading to disciplinary proceedings. Best to jump before you were pushed.”

Francis had done no more than express the widespread view that the party is “a cult dedicated to Nick Griffin … The BNP has lost very many decent people over the last couple of years and there are very few decent people left in the party now. The party is now festering with **** & yes men and I for one am glad to be gone,” he added.

Another demoralised former activist is Roy Jones, who was the party’s North East Scotland organiser until he resigned last month over “King Nick and his rotten corrupt regime”. Among his complaints are Griffin’s waste of hundreds of thousands of pounds in dragging the party through the courts and the party’s inability to conduct a leadership action “without resorting to hatefull [sic] smear campaings [sic] against the challenger (Eddy Butler) and suspending /expelling anyone who supported a challenge (myself included)”.

Jones claims that the BNP in Scotland “has been wrecked by the Sycophantic Mentally unstable liar” Gary Raikes, the party’s Scotland regional organiser. Like Butler, Jones points out that the party has still not produced its 2009 accounts, which were due six months ago. On 31 December Griffin wrote on Twitter: “Just finished my report to go with 2009 accounts which auditor says are now virtually ready”.

As Butler commented: “This person is congratulating himself on almost having the 2009 accounts ready when they should have been handed in before 7th July”. If the national and regional accounts are submitted after 7 January 2011, the party will be liable to £2,500 in fines. The record delay follows several declarations by Griffin and the party’s succession of treasurers that all the party’s financial functions were being run in a professional way with the sort of controls one would find in a multinational company.

Griffin’s statement contrasts with Butler’s revelation that the party’s independent auditors, Silver and Co, were still trying to verify with branch treasurers that the bank and cash balances in their local records were the same as the figures provided by the regional treasurer. Butler claims “they are massively out” and local treasurers are refusing to confirm the figures.

Staff not paid

The accounts are unlikely to reveal the full extent of the BNP’s current dire financial straits as much of Griffin’s reckless spending on legal actions and employment tribunals has occurred since 31 December 2009. The BNP is reported to have closed most of its offices and not paid party staff for two months, apart from Patrick Harrington, Griffin’s comrade from his National Front political soldier days, who now works for the party while still heading a rival group.

Life members are calling for a refund as they did not receive their four free copies of the party’s Identity magazine, which it cannot afford to print. A bequest of £65,000 received in September in the will of a supporter who appeared to have no family and friends probably went straight to lawyers to cover the BNP’s huge legal bills. Unfortunately a further £109,000 was due to follow from the same source.

Last month the Electoral Commission pronounced the BNP guilty of breaching electoral legislation by “failing to keep accounting records sufficient to explain, with reasonable accuracy, the financial position of the party at the time”. The verdict followed a long investigation into the party’s 2008 accounts. However the BNP will suffer no penalty as the legislation, which has since been amended, did not allow for anything less than criminal proceedings against the treasurer at the time, who no longer holds the post.

Butler is calling for members not to fund Griffin by renewing, a turnaround from his previous position. Griffin is clearly feeling the pinch. At the party’s annual conference in December he admitted that the party had made mistakes and lost members. He appealed for them to return, claiming the party had moved on. Where the party has moved was revealed in Griffin’s speech at a dinner on the eve of the conference, in which he called for “increased militancy” against Islam. In attempt to revitalise the beleaguered party he promised it would “start acting as well as talking about protecting Britain”. The party is currently targeting a mosque planned for Bletchley.

The just over 100 people at the conference were also the first to see the BNP’s new logo, a heart-shaped cut-out from the Union flag. “This logo will illustrate exactly what this party is about,” said Griffin, incongruously describing it later as a “combination of innocence and love”. Others pointed out the similarities with a Conservative party emblem and Searchlight dubbed it the “broken heart”.

Some party members felt it was too soft and conflicted with Griffin’s call for street militancy. Griffin’s replied that the party still wanted to win elections and needed an image that would not “frighten the horses”.

© Searchlight Magazine 2011

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

All stitched up and nowhere to go

Some time ago a correspondent of mine described the relationship of Patrick Harrington and the BNP as being something like that of a louse to a human head, in that the louse, as nature has programmed it to do, goes about its parasitic business of sucking blood with no appreciable benefits accruing to the unfortunate head, and rather the opposite, since the itching caused as the parasite crawls about while excreting waste products on to the scalp of its host is thought to be an unhealthy state of affairs.

Mr Harrington (or Mr Sharp, as he prefers on the proper occasion to be known) is a past customer of ours, of note not for what he has achieved in the course of his political career, but for what he has failed to achieve. There are no heights to which he has ever risen, nor any depths out of which he has ever climbed - not, of course, that these impediments have ever prevented Mr Harrington from conceiving in his mind a stratospheric opinion of his own intellectual capabilities and apparently sweeping accomplishments.

Like the louse described by my correspondent, Mr Harrington is very difficult to get rid of once contracted. Immune to all known remedies, he relentlessly engages himself in the business of never having to earn his living in the workaday world, this business of never having to earn his living in the workaday world usually involving earning it, in one way or another, from the membership of the BNP - or the "plebs", as BNP councillor Paul Golding so delightfully describes those who worked so hard to bring about his election and who pay his wages.

Mr Harrington, as we know, is very much concerned that the financial rug is about to be pulled from under his feet, his toytown "trade union" being dependent on BNP cash, and he himself now being employed by the BNP in a "human resources" role. Since Eddy Butler is certain to apply a very large boot to Mr Harrington's backside should he, by some miracle, ever come to lead the BNP, Mr Harrington understandably finds his sleep much disturbed of late as support for Butler fails to subside.

He is also desperately worried that whatever the outcome of the BNP's current tribulations, the remaining membership base will be too small to pay the party's bloated wage bill, and that he may be obliged to return to a life funded by state benefits claimed in whichever of his names he represents himself to officialdom. And he is right to be worried. The BNP's income stream has all but dried up, the regular appeals for donations are known to be failing badly, and the party is believed to be close to insolvency, if it is not already insolvent in fact.

The prospects look bleak indeed for Patrick Harrington, but his best and only chance of survival as Nick Griffin's gofer in a somehow revived BNP lies in the survival of Griffin himself, which in turn depends on scotching Eddy Butler's leadership challenge by foul means or fouler means. To that end Mr Harrington has set to work with a mendacious enthusiasm, openly abusing his dubious position as general secretary of the micro-"trade union" Solidarity by using it to issue anti-Butler statements (in a "personal" capacity, you understand) and tweeting in much the same vein to whoever on this planet it is that bothers to follow his self-important musings.

His best service to date is that of successfully (a word we do not normally associate with Mr Harrington) taking the flaky Richard Barnbrook into metaphorical custody, and to turn Barnbrook's dissatisfaction with the Griffin leadership against Griffin's deadly rival Eddy Butler, thus transforming Barnbrook into an active, if unwitting, agent of Nick Griffin. Butler, somewhat subversively, sums the matter up best:

Richard has been all over the place during the last few weeks and in a state of emotional turmoil. In this circumstance he has been preyed upon by Pat Harrington and a few others. Unbelievably, he is unable to see that Harrington is exploiting him as a stooge for Nick Griffin. Richard is distraught as his partner has left him, his house is empty of furniture and basics such as cutlery and crockery. He lost again in Goresbrook ward, he has been replaced as local organiser, his filmed performances in the Greater London Assembly have gone from bad to worse, and in addition to all this his main underlying problem has become more acute. It is actually a rather distasteful spectacle to see Nick Griffin cajole Richard, while in this very vulnerable state, into standing as a leadership contender. Richard has no serious backing apart from loaned false support from Griffinites eager to derail the process.

The problem with bringing Patrick Harrington on board is that he is widely detested even among some of Griffin's closest allies, who are rather more au fait with Mr Harrington's character and history than the average BNP member, who will know him only as the much lauded leader (the Walker brothers notwithstanding) of the stunted Solidarity.

Mr Harrington appears to have been on hand at the employment tribunal hearing the unfair dismissal case brought against Nick Griffin by Michaela Mackenzie, providing us with that rarest of spectacles, an employment tribunal at which a "trade union" general secretary is not on the team of a badly wronged employee, but that of the boss who wronged her. According to Mackenzie, Nick Griffin took the stand and began "venomously spouting the most ridiculous lies about me". We do not know if he did so consequent upon any advice Mr Harrington might have proffered.

A further spectacle is provided by the employment of Mr Harrington and Solidarity president Adam Walker to oversee Human Resources and Staff Management in regard to BNP employees, who are all members of Solidarity - putting BNP employees in the unique position of having as bosses their own "trade union" leaders.

Of this situation Nick Griffin wrote: "We, however, have learned from this [the Mackenzie] case, which is one reason we have now created a dedicated Human Resources/Staff Management team to ensure that from now on everything is done by the book by people who know all the ropes."

By which he means disgruntled BNP employees will find themselves up Harrington Creek without a paddle.

Getting back to Barnbrook, while the romantically challenged GLA member dithered over his initial support for Eddy Butler, his website remained online, the domain being owned by sacked BNP webmaster Simon Bennett. When Harrington "turned" Barnbrook (possibly offering to loan him a knife and fork as a sweetener) Bennett retrieved the richardbarnbrook.com domain, pointing it at his own YourBNP website.

Outraged Griffinites, comically crying that Bennett had sabotaged Barnbrook's Griffin-inspired leadership non-challenge, immediately opened up the ever dripping tap of lies to claim that Bennett had pointed the Barnbrook domain at Eddy Butler's leadership challenge website. In fact, until the change propagated through DNS servers worldwide, those attempting to access richardbarnbrook.com got either the original site or were taken to YourBNP. At no time did the domain point to Butler's challenge website.

However that may be, Barnbrook needed a website and a blogspot was quickly provided to assure him that he was still important, still loved, and still taken seriously. The website has everything but the stricture that "this website was created on the orders of Patrick Harrington", who has rather a fondness for ordering websites into existence.

Barnbrook's self-penned articles are easy to spot - "For the first time a Minister is to scrutanised..... Bob Neil MP (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communitiess and Local Government" - but others ("Richard Barnbrook: Leadership Challenge"), like "his" 150-word statement on the BNP website, are clearly the work of an individual less well-acquainted with the joys of Oddbins.

Who that individual may be, we could not possibly say - but somebody sly, treacherous, and cynically willing to manipulate a man presently in his deepest cups, obviously.

Barnbrook has been played like a violin, as it is perhaps superfluous to state, and finds himself between a rock and a hard place since burning his bridges with Butler. He has nowhere to go, and no obvious future.

He has immediate usefulness to Nick Griffin only in as much as he has allowed himself to become a stooge in the stitched-up nominations process, but he has spoken against Nick Almighty, and for that there will never be forgiveness. If there is a BNP when the current turmoil has subsided, and if that BNP is led by Nick Griffin, then Barnbrook may be tolerated until he comes up for re-election to the GLA in 2010, but his days as an insider (if he ever really was an insider) are over, and - if, as is likely, Griffin refuses to allow him to re-contest for his GLA seat - his days as a BNP member are numbered.

As Barnbrook will sooner or later realise, his "friend" Mr Harrington has interests by far closer to his heart than those of a furniture-free GLA member, and that whatever is good for Nick Griffin and his gofer Mr Harrington will prove to be decidedly toxic to himself.

Of course, we are here factoring out the likelihood - the certitude, if we are to believe Eddy Butler - that the shady antics of Nick Griffin and the symbiotic Mr Harrington are pointing the BNP directly at the High Court - an eventuality (it is my personal opinion) that will throw the BNP back by at least a decade if it survives the experience at all, whatever the outcome.

The great shame of it all for Richard Barnbrook is that he finds himself simultaneously loathed by the Butler camp for his "betrayal", and in the humiliating position of being little more than a patsy breaking on the megalomania of the man who promised him political riches but who effectively killed his political career stone dead.

Just a few weeks ago Barnbrook had it on Griffin's authority that by now he would be leader of the BNP opposition on Barking and Dagenham Council, if not leader of the council itself, but here he finds himself, an object of contempt to both sides in the bitter civil war raging within the BNP, and without so much as a pot to... well, you know. Literally.