British National Party morale and finances plummet to all-time low

Over the last few weeks - in fact since the first announcement that there could be a leadership challenge in the BNP - we've received dozens of emails from BNP supporters complaining about the state of the party, both financially and with regard to morale.

Some of these we disregard on the grounds that they're probably from the minor fascist parties trying to be clever but the ones that we regard as genuinely from BNP supporters seem to have a couple of themes in common - that morale in the party is at rock-bottom and that income has more or less dried up. The two themes also appear to be inextricably linked directly to Nick Griffin himself.

One of the emails pointed out that the Trafalgar Club (the Trafalgar Club is the group for the wealthier BNP member - allegedly the 'elite') members pay £180 per year for the privilege of belonging to it which apparently entitles them to a TC tie and an annual blow-out with Griffin. Wow - that must be worth £180 of anyone's money! The email then went on to point out that there are about 200 Trafalgar Club members which, to my reckoning, comes to around £36,000 per year. Added to this are the emails we received which pointed out that the annual Trafalgar Club dinner saw a collection which came out at £10-15,000. Yet the only mention of the Trafalgar Club in the BNP's accounts for 2004/5 are of the £4000 it apparently cost to set it up in 2004, and income of £1155 in 2005. Clearly there is a major problem in the accounts there which we expect either the auditors or the Electoral Commission to watch for in a couple of weeks when the next accounts are due to appear.

Even donations to the party are dropping shockingly fast. Considering the party has been riding what it acknowledges to be a wave of popularity over the last few years, the 2004/5 accounts show a drop of £53,000 - and we gather this year should, if the BNP can bear to tell the truth, show an even more substantial drop.

In fact, from all we hear, income has largely dried up as the membership has started to realise that it is being used as a cash cow for Nick Griffin to milk for his regular little get-rich-quick schemes. Indeed, rumour has it that membership income has dropped too. 2004/5 saw a decrease of £14,000 in membership income and more is expected this year.

The financial condition of the party is so precarious, largely thanks to Griffin and his mad schemes, that the auditors, J. Silver and Co, stated unequivocally;

'Whilst the accounts have been prepared on the basis that the Party is a going concern, given the fact that for the last two years the Party has incurred a deficit, and that the Balance Sheet is now in deficit, there is an element of doubt as to its ability to continue as a going concern.'

But while the accounts are bad enough, they are as nothing compared with the loss of morale at branch level. With the disastrous May elections over, in which the BNP expected to gain over fifty seats but actually got none at all, masses of sustained negative publicity from all directions and no by-election wins for over three years, the membership is becoming indifferent when called upon to give more for the party, whether the call is financial or for more effort out on the streets. Continuous revelations about BNP-allied business fiascos also have their effect on the membership with the Albion Life and now Solidarity cock-ups being widely treated as embarrassing and unnecessary disasters for Griffin and his entourage at the head of the party.

Griffin himself certainly figures prominently in BNP member's emails to us, with the expression 'struts around soaking up money' a general indicator of the disquiet felt at his apparent arrogance and patronisation of the general membership and the continuous expensive disasters that eat up the membership fees far faster than elections ever could.

Great White Records with its alleged £50,000 set-up costs (equivalent to around 1700 annual membership fees)and its £12,000 per year expenditure (around 400 membership fees) and absolutely NO profit is just one example. Another is the BNP's fake and pointless union Solidarity, which must have cost £4,000 (130 membership fees) to register with the Certification Officer and God alone knows how much to run with NO profit. The list, believe me, is endless, and goes back as far as Griffin's first months in the position of British National Party leader.

We've also been accused in the emails we receive of unfairly regarding all BNP members as nazi thugs. Well that's not true - or at least not true any more. Yes, there are a lot of nazis still tucked away in the BNP (including Griffin) and there are certainly a fair amount of thugs but we tend to regard the broader BNP membership as misguided and misinformed by an utterly corrupt leadership.

Nick Griffin and his bunch of pals at the top of the party regard the membership as a bunch of suckers just waiting for him to come and lift the cash out of their bank accounts for the next little scheme. And what IS the next little scheme? Croatia. But more of that in a few days...