Three key by-elections in successive weeks last month could have provided the BNP with an excellent platform from which to launch its local election campaign for May. However, through hard grassroots campaigning, which included tackling the BNP head-on, the fascists failed to win any of them. This was all the more remarkable given that in one ward the BNP already had two councillors and in another it had previously had a councillor and came within fewer than 30 votes of winning last May. Any political party considering how to deal with the BNP threat in its area could do no better than look at the lessons from these three by-elections. For several years council by-elections have been tailor-made for the British National Party. The racist party can concentrate its resources, tap into local resentment and a protest vote and catch the main parties napping. Many of its council successes originated from a by-election victory.
Success has dried up in recent times as the political parties have become better prepared to take on the BNP, and anti-fascist groups more sophisticated in their campaigning. In fact the last council by-election the BNP won was in September 2004. Between then and last month there have been scores of contests but the BNP has not even come close.
This looked like changing last month when three by-elections were called in successive weeks, including two in areas where the BNP had already had councillors elected. With the May 2007 local elections only weeks away the stage was set for a major BNP push.
The by-elections were in Bede (Nuneaton and Bedworth), Brunshaw (Burnley) and Illingworth and Mixenden (Calderdale). The BNP divided up its national operation with activists from the Midlands, the South West and even London and Essex concentrating on Bede. The North West focused on Brunshaw and Yorkshire on the Calderdale seat.
In all three wards the BNP set about running model campaigns. Not only would a victory act as a wonderful launching pad for its local election campaign but the elections also provided activists with an opportunity to practise their own campaigning skills.
The BNP had never contested Bede before, but a profile of the ward illustrated its potential clearly. Solidly white and working class, the area had once been the site of a mine, long since closed, and more recently home to many car workers who had also seen their jobs disappear. It bordered Nuneaton with its substantial Asian population and there was a general feeling that Bedworth was losing out. In the 2004 European elections the BNP picked up 9% of the vote across the borough with no local campaigning.
The BNP hit the ground running, delivering several leaflets in the first week of the campaign. Under the stewardship of Wayne McDermott, the party’s East Midlands election officer, and with the guidance of two national officers, Eddy Butler and Sadie Graham, the BNP set about canvassing the entire ward.
The Labour Party was slow to respond. Surprised by the BNP effort, they initially thought that the BNP was best ignored but of course this policy had to change as the fascist threat became apparent.
The unions were mobilised and two sent letters to their members in the ward while others sent activists in to help the Labour campaign.
The local TUC obtained some Searchlight postcards and circulated them around the ward. The following week 26 people, including both Searchlight and UAF activists, distributed two more leaflets and it is clear they had an impact. The week before polling day saw the arrests in Birmingham over an alleged kidnap plot. Given the media hysteria surrounding the raids Searchlight felt it had to deal with the politics of hate head on.
Polling day, 8 February, was hit by atrocious weather but there was still a 36% turnout. Labour won the seat by 112 votes, but the BNP came second with a respectable 31% and more votes than the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats combined.
Analysis of the results by polling district suggested that Labour’s vote held up while a chunk of the Conservative vote slipped away to the BNP. As usual, the BNP also picked up many people who had previously stopped voting.
Speaking after the election the Labour agent told Searchlight that the presence of the BNP had galvanised local members. “In a strange way they actually did us a favour,” he said. “It was certainly the hardest campaign that I’ve ever had to face. We are very grateful to the work of Searchlight.”
Amusingly, the BNP was vitriolic in its rage at Searchlight. Simon Darby, the regional organiser, even told a local journalist that they had lost because of our intervention. While this is overstating the case and ignores the hard fought campaign from the Labour Party, our leaflets certainly did have an impact.
Previously held A week later on 15 February came the Brunshaw by-election. A traditional Labour seat which the BNP won in 2003, only to lose it after a year when its councillor Maureen Stowe walked out of the party, it was now a three-way marginal. In last May’s elections, where two seats were vacant because of Stowe’s resignation from the council, Labour and the Liberal Democrats took one each, with the BNP only 29 votes behind.
The BNP distributed a total of 12 leaflets during the campaign, including a full-colour postcard and a mail-merge letter to identified supporters. In addition, they canvassed the whole ward, a first for Burnley BNP. Everyone agreed that it was by far the most professional campaign the BNP had ever fought in the North West.
The Liberal Democrats matched the BNP leaflet for leaflet. Their campaign focused on the unpopularity of local planning decisions while simultan-eously squeezing the Labour vote by presenting themselves as the only party that could beat the BNP.
With a week to go, Searchlight’s own telephone poll, coupled with insider information, showed it was neck and neck between the Liberal Democrats and the BNP, with Labour trailing some way behind.
Searchlight produced two leaflets for the campaign, the first focusing on the appalling track record of the BNP councillors in Burnley over the years.
The final few days of the campaign were overshadowed by the trial of Robert Cottage and David Jackson at Manchester Crown Court. Just in case the residents of Brunshaw had not read the papers or watched television, Searchlight produced a hard-hitting leaflet, which was probably equalled in its ferocity only by the Oldham gang rape leaflet in 2002. Headlined “BNP candidate pleads guilty to possession of explosives”, it also drew on a source from within Burnley BNP who told us that Cottage had been to a branch meeting only weeks before his arrest.
The BNP was so furious with our leaflet that its local organiser, David Shapcott, threatened to put a local activist “six feet under”.
On its website the BNP called it “the dirtiest campaign ever” and condemned the Searchlight campaign as “those underhand efforts, and the outrageous interference in the democratic process by Labour’s Stalinist Searchlight allies …”.
The BNP clearly believed that the controversy surrounding the trial was a key factor in its defeat. “This media onslaught clearly roused anti-BNP voters to a frenzy, and produced the wave of tactical voting which saw the Lib Dems take the seat comfortably.”
The Liberal Democrats are less convinced and point instead to localised campaigning on their part coupled with a consistent anti-BNP line coming out throughout the campaign.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. The BNP had identified 1,000 potential voters through its canvassing but despite a large “whipping in” operation only half turned out. Even given the duplicity of people when canvassed, it is clear that several hundred potential BNP voters had changed their mind.
Reflecting on the result, one leading Liberal Democrat in the North West told Searchlight that it was important to carry the anti-BNP message throughout the year and not just at elections. “We are still not getting across an adequate message about the BNP between elections. We have all said we need to mount a policy/ideological/issues attack on them, not just pointing out the failings of their leaders and candidates etc. We are not yet doing it.”
While the BNP was well behind in Brunshaw, there is little room for complacency. With the BNP defending four wards in Burnley in May, and another three at risk, it is clear that the BNP remains a serious threat to all the major parties across the town.
BNP heartland The Illingworth and Mixenden by-election was always going to be a lot harder. The ward already had two BNP councillors and was one of the party’s safest in the country. The BNP worked it hard, delivering at least nine leaflets, conducting a full canvass and issuing its increasingly standard mail-merge letter, with localised pledges for every street, individually addressed to voters.
The BNP thought it had won by a mile. Even before the polls closed the party’s supporters were taunting the Labour candidate that it was “already in the bag”.
But the BNP had not expected one of the best Labour campaigns to date. Localised campaigning and canvassing were complemented by a strong anti-BNP campaign co-ordinated by Hope not Hate Yorkshire. While the BNP vote held firm from last May, Labour found several hundred new voters.
“It was a model campaign,” said Hope not Hate’s Paul Meszaros. “This proves that there is nowhere in the country where we can’t beat the BNP.”
Searchlight
A female community worker has been selected as the BNP candidate in the by-election to replace Eric Illsley.
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