BNP's Nick Griffin ignores dissident activity in favour of making money

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As the British National Party rebellion rumbles on - albeit with a pause for Christmas and an occasional birth - we wonder if Nick Griffin is reading the signs and starting to appreciate that the foundations on which his authority within the BNP rests are beginning to crumble.

Rather than keeping on the fight against the dissidents in the ranks, Griffin has chosen to ignore them for the moment, instead concentrating on sending out yet another begging letter to the membership. Perhaps worried by the undisputable fact that the rebel camp just keeps on quietly growing and how that might affect his pension plans, he has bombarded members with an amateurish appeal to get his sticky mitts on their Christmas money, prompting one annoyed recipient to state, 'the tacky style reminds me of some Nigerian scam and is just as shady'.

The tattiness and unprofessionalism of these begging letters has provided much merriment for those who generally oppose Griffin (us included), so we've put images of them, pinched from the North West Nationalist site, below for you to have a laugh at. The film (above) shows how the membership should deal with this rubbish prior to recycling it. For the moment, we'll leave you with a relevant comment from the same site.

'Them who defend Griffin and his side-kicks Collette and co say that he's made the BNP proffesional and electable - but this begging letter is not proffesional at all...on the BNP site he (Griffin) says its the most professional mailing they have ever done...the others must have been shite then.'

Happy New Year everyone. :-)

Councillor could be forced out of BNP

A Dewsbury councillor may be expelled from the British National Party after offering his support to an internal rebellion. But Dewsbury East councillor Colin Auty, who was elected in the May 2006 elections, said ongoing party issues would not affect his work in the ward.

He said: "At the moment I'm just carrying on doing what I do, the vast majority of which is ward work. It won't interfere with anything else. I'll just carry on."

Mr Auty, whose term ends in 2010, was one of more than 60 party members to add his name to a blogging website set up by a group using the name The Real BNP. It called on party leader Nick Griffin to reinstate six expelled party members, create a formal management system and eject two BNP members that they felt were damaging the party.

At the weekend a post on the official BNP website said there would be an amnesty for members to withdraw their support for the rebels, with the promise that their 'misguided low level involvement in this whole regrettable affair will be discounted and their prior positions and good standing restored'.

Two weeks ago Mr Auty was also at a regional party meeting in Leeds which reportedly descended into chaos after fighting allegedly broke out between some members. On Sunday an anonymous post on the Real BNP blog said members who had heckled Mr Griffin at the meeting had been sent letters expelling them from the party. But Mr Auty, whose name remains on the website, said he has not received any letters or other communication telling him he has been expelled.

He said: "At this stage I don't know what's happening. I haven't received anything yet. There were certain people that have had a letter for what they termed disrupting a meeting. As regards to the so-called rebels I don't know anyone who has had a letter from that. I just voiced what I believed were my own concerns. I stand by what I feel is right for the voters more than anything else. I'm here for the public and if I believe they would have concerns then that makes me have concerns. One thing I've said with politics is I'll call it as I see it.

"I think it's really important that even if you have issues with your own party you have got to be honest. It's up to people like myself. If I believe there's something wrong within my own party, it's up to us to make things better and to be listened to."

On Monday the rebel website posted a message to say it would no longer be commenting on internal issues and called on the leadership to drop the threats of expulsion.

Dewsbury Reporter

Late Christmas present for us here at Lancaster UAF - Chris Hill resigns

Christmas Day has come and gone and we thought all the presents had been unwrapped then, surprise-surprise, we find another one buried in among the pine needles at the back of the tree. Yes, Chris Hill, Lancaster's one-man BNP band, has thrown in the towel, resigning his posts as Preston and Lancaster organiser (which he was crap at anyway) and, oddly, as Chorley contact too.

Readers may recall that Hill was one of the first to make a statement supporting Sadie Graham and co when the rebellion began a few weeks back but hurriedly withdrew his support after a stiff talking-to by the burly Clive Jefferson, one of the BNP's more obvious minders. Following this swift and embarrassing reversal, the creepy Griffin-sycophant Green Arrow lavished fulsome praise upon him, no doubt in the mistaken belief that this would cheer Hill up. Apparently it didn't work.

Hill's resignation letter, posted on his tedious and rarely updated blog, follows the formulaic resignation letters of the entire dissident camp, and is partly reprinted below:

'As you know there has, since mid December, been a bitter struggle going on within the party between two groups, one of which wants to continue the modernisation of the party, which has been responsible for the electoral success we have had over the last few years. While the other, at least in my opinion, wants to hold the party back for their own selfish ends.

I will not go into great detail about the dispute, but will just say the first group is led by Cllr Sadie Graham: a hard working district councillor, and much respected & well liked lady, with exactly the sort of image needed if our party is to become truly electable in the eyes of the voting public. While the other camp is backing Mark Collett of ‘Young Nazi and Proud’ fame, as the next leader of the party when our current chairman steps down. Unfortunately Mr Griffin has aligned himself squarely with this last group, and it is alleged that he has been prepared to break the law, by bugging phones and intercepting and altering personal emails, in order to discredit anyone who opposes that group.

Unfortunately it is not only Mark Collett’s image that is holding back the party, although that does hang like a millstone around the necks of all our members, he has also caused chaos within the senior management echelons of the party. And it is this situation, rather than his image, that has led directly to this current crisis...The essence of this dispute is whether the party can prosper without a capable management team, and with a millstone like Mark Collett around the neck of every one of our candidates at election times. How many of us can really say, with our hands on our heart, that the name Mark Collett does not come up whenever we mention the British National Party in a conversation...'

Surprisingly, and presumably to give himself what he thinks is an opt-out clause to allow him back into the hierarchy of the ailing British National Party when the problems are finally resolved one way or the other, Hill then goes on to say;

'I still hope one day to be, once again, the local Chairman of a truly electable British National Party branch, but unless we win this current struggle to modernise our party that will I’m afraid remain just a dream.'

It'll be even more of a dream if Green Arrow has anything to do with it. His hissy-fit response to the resignation was as unequivocal as it was entirely expected.

'Chris, I expected better from you. As far as I am concerned you have deserted your post. Please remove the Green Arrow Links for I shall certainly remove yours.'

Nice to see Green Arrow full of the seasonal spirit. :-)

Happy Christmas to all our supporters!

An extremely Happy Christmas to all of our supporters who celebrate it and our very best wishes to those who don't. Whichever you are, let's all look forward to a great (and peaceful) 2008 for everyone. Special thanks from us here at Lancaster UAF to all our friends who have contributed to our success and phenomenal growth during 2007. Your help and support has been very much appreciated.

Enjoy the holiday!

More chaos as the BNP's Dirty Tricks Dept goes out of control

As incredible as it may seem, the BNP seems to be encouraging more havoc to break out just as the furore of the past couple of weeks seems to be dying down. As everyone concentrates their attention on Christmas rather than the chaos in the party, Nick Griffin, never the most subtle person on the planet, tweaks the situation by ensuring that those who heckled him during the recent Leeds meeting are expelled from the party over this weekend, thus pretty much ensuring that things will liven up again and making damn sure that the BNP's Leeds contingent will be forever alienated from the party's current leadership.

Now it emerges that someone in the party has been feeding misleading information to the police in an attempt to discredit one of the original four who were kicked out, Sadie Graham's partner and former BNP security deputy Matt Single.

Over the past few days we've seen a number of extraordinary documents displayed on the BNP website - receipts, Word documents, emails and screen captures - all with the intention of convincing unbelievers that the four original rebels were thieves, liars and plotters. Mixed in with all this nonsense were accusations that the dissidents were all 'Reds', neo-nazis and/or Searchlight moles.

All these accusations seem to have stemmed from the higher reaches of the BNP hierarchy - perhaps directly from Griffin himself. Party members who have been around for a few years remember Griffin's lies about the party's founder and previous leader John Tyndall, then the energetic and ruthless purging of Tyndall-supporters left in the party after his takeover - all of them thrown out surrounded by accusations similar to those encountered by the current band of malcontents.

It's hard to remember that it's barely two weeks since the revelations about Sadie Graham, Matt Single, Kenny and Nicholla Smith broke but that two weeks has been fraught with accusation/counter-accusation, revelations of evidence-rigging, bugging and illegal entry, a constant stream of members resigning from party positions and threats of violence and mayhem against the person at the centre of all the recent acrimony in the party, nazi-sympathiser Mark Collett.

But now there is a new revelation and it could be one too far for those members who have been wondering if Nick Griffin's paranoia and desperate grip on power are getting out of hand.

Matt Single, posting on the dissident Enough is Enough blog, has revealed that the home he shares with his partner, the heavily-pregnant Sadie Graham, was raided by police a few days ago and thoroughly searched after someone had suggested that he had a firearm in his possession

'It transpired that the police had received, very recently, from two corroborating informants that I had an illegal firearm in my possession, and that they would be now carrying out a thorough search of the house, all outbuildings and vehicles...it is my belief that whoever had contacted the police had set us up and had a clear and obvious objective; they wanted Sadie and myself as much to experience as much torment and humiliation as possible. Whoever it was has a good knowledge of the law and knew exactly what to say to the police in order to manipulate them into raiding our home. They knew they needed two or more people to substantiate such a claim to lead to a raid and so they would have needed to have used someone else to help them. It would clearly be a person that would know I would have quantities of security training equipment kept at home and I could therefore possibly fall foul of an overlooked law if I were raided by the police that would obviously scrutinise all my equipment.'

Some people in the BNP, already speculating over at the Stormfront nazi forum over who is responsible for this, have suggested Griffin's relatively new and South African-run BNP Intelligence Dept, more commonly known as the Dirty Tricks Dept, but Matt Single seems sure that the responsibility rests with only one person, Nick Griffin. He continues;

'It has come to pass that for years you have bullied, lied to and intimidated people into getting what you want for yourself. You have used tactics including character assassinations, lies and slander to rid yourself of your internal political critics, and those that offer any future threat to your position. This is the reason why you have actively sought to surround yourself with weak-willed sycophants and people who you can easily control and offer no threat to you whatsoever; people like John Walker, Dave Hannam and Mark Collett, even psychologically disturbed characters such as Lee Barnes.'

Whatever else emerges from this debacle, Griffin's position has been severely weakened since all this started. The illegal entry and possible bugging disturbed many prominent members so much that they resigned in sympathy, the release of personal emails on the BNP's own website seemed only to build on this sympathy for the rebels, but this direct attempt to get the police involved will be seen as well beyond any kind of legitimate political attack and will turn the average BNP member against those who are perceived to have organised it. From what we can see from our regular scourings of the far-right sites, the members are sick of all the accusations flying about - in fact one of Stormfront's more pithy contributors put it in a nutshell when responding to a comment that the whole thing smelled very fishy, by saying 'It's all those red herrings the BNP is trailing around'.

We couldn't have put it better ourselves.

Reader article: The BNP's Quiet Revolution...gets quieter

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Iliacus. We welcome any contributions (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste) from our supporters. Please send your articles to us at lancaster.uaf@zen.co.uk

Martin Wingfield and others have taken to proclaiming the advent of The Quiet Revolution, by which they mean the BNP's ability to field candidates in more seats, in more areas, and to gain a decent level of support in traditionally unpromising areas.

This has to be a worry. It would be very troubling if a party of the nature of the BNP could begin to poll 15-20% of the vote across significant areas of the country, and with this government's cack-handed introduction of a different form of semi-p.r. for various bodies (notably the European Parliament, but also the London Assembly) support at this level could translate to elected members. The consequences, in publicity and finances, could be disastrous.

However, the evidence in the past couple of weeks is that Wingfield's Quiet Revolution is "turning down the volume".

December 13th saw no fewer than nine local authority by-elections (plus at least one parish election). The BNP fielded only one candidate, who polled just 2.6% of the vote in an election won by a Conservative Moslem of Asian origin. Even UKIP managed to field candidates in three of the contests - picking up 2.2, 5.5 and 10.1%. Hardly brilliant, but denting the BNP's claim to be the "fourth party of English politics". Curiously not a single seat changed hands, the Conservatives retaining four, Lib Dems three, with one each for the Greens (perhaps they, rather than UKIP, are the real fourth party then?) and Independents. The Parish Council seat was retained by a Lib Dem.

On December 20th there were just two by-elections (plus one in a town - i.e. parish - council). The Conservatives retained a seat in Hackney in a six(!)-cornered fight, but no BNP candidate. Even the Communists fielded a candidate!

In Benfleet two seats were vacant in the same ward, both Conservative defences. They held one; the other was gained by Labour. The BNP fielded two candidates. They polled around 20% in coming 5th and 6th - or last, to put it another way. In supposedly "white flight" Essex this was hardly a sparkling display, particularly in the absence of any other choice apart from Labour and Conservative.

There was also a Town Council by-election in Shepshed, Leicestershire. Now the other parties really don't make a big issue of town council by-elections, but the BNP - clutching at electoral straws - like to pretend they are hugely significant. (Unlike the other parties, for example, they include parish and town representatives in their totals of elected councillors.) The BNP seem to have made a serious effort, including tellers at the polling stations all day. Their reward was to come 5th and 6th out of seven candidates as Labour took both seats from the Tories. Again, the vote share was around 20%, though with only one Conservative candidate there may have been some very odd vote-splitting. Oh, and the turnout was a truly miserable 14.5%, which means that one registered elector in around 33 took the trouble to vote BNP. A quiet revolution indeed!

'The fight is far from over'. Sadie Graham dismisses computer claims

Sadie Graham’s camp came out fighting this evening when they rubbished claims that the party bought her the computer and that their rebellion was running out of steam.

Writing on the Enough is Enough blog, they claim that the dates do not add up and so the computer receipt reproduced on the party website must be a forgery. To back up their argument they point to another item on the list, namely a camera bought for Warren Bennett, the one-time head of BNP security. The problem is that Bennett had left two months before the date on the receipt so it was highly unlikely for the party to buy equipment for an ex-employee.

Another plank of the BNP evidence against Sadie Graham’s account of the computer was that the user name on the machine was ‘Saddie’, the same misspelling that was used on the receipt. The Graham camp contend that it is easy to change the settings on a computer and so they claim that the evidence offered by the BNP website is meaningless.

Meanwhile, a few new supporters have come forward to back the rebels, chief amongst them is Councillor Colin Auty, from Dewsbury. With David Exley also privately supporting the opposition any future split in the party could see the BNP losing its foothold in Kirklees.

It seems that the long-awaited Griffin purge has begun. Despite giving people until Monday evening to withdraw from the rebel side a growing number of people have either been issued with expulsion notices or sacked from their positions.

This is a risky strategy by the Griffin camp. While he obviously thinks that the short term damage will easily be overcome with a streamlined party without his critics he is in danger of further alienating great swathes of the BNP. It is already clear that the majority of West Yorkshire activists will walk away from the BNP if the rebel leaders are not reinstated and the same goes for key people in the East Midlands and the less important Scotland region.

Griffin is also playing with fire if it is proved that he is lying over the computer claim. I will end with one posting on the Enough is Enough site this evening: “Griffin is digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole. The more ridiculous his lies, the more members will turn against him. Keep up the good work everyone.”

If however he is telling the truth then this, and the alleged intercepting emails claim, could finish off the rebellion.

Stop the BNP

BNP still insolvent

The BNP finally published its 2006 accounts days before the fine for their late submission to the Electoral Commission would have doubled to £2,000. They make interesting reading, not only for the figures, and the failure to solve the mystery of the printing equipment, but also for the names of party activists listed in their various roles.

For a start the BNP's nominating officer and campaigns officer throughout the year was none other than Tony "Mad Bomber" Lecomber, despite his claim to have left the BNP 18 months ago after he was found out trying to hire a hit man to murder a leading politician and was sacked as the party's group development officer.

A full list of the party's Advisory Council will prove useful to those BNP members trying to establish the identity of the Searchlight mole that the BNP claims is present in that select group. It is also interesting to compare the list with the names of those who have signed up to Sadie Graham's and Kenny Smith's dissident group.

History is rewritten too. According to the chairman's introduction to the accounts Simon Darby "gave a very good account of himself in difficult circumstances" in a Channel Five studio discussion. In fact Darby was verbally slaughtered by Lord Lester QC. The account of the trial on race hate charges of Nick Griffin, the party leader, and Mark Collett, the BNP's former director of publicity, recently demoted to graphic designer, is also heavily embellished.

Seven "key permanent members of staff" are shown: Nick Griffin, Sadie Graham, John Walker, Dave Hannam, Martin Wingfield, Tina Wingfield and Steve Blake. Some have proved a good deal less than permanent and Hannam's position as assistant treasurer has recently been abolished, although it is unclear whether he has been made redundant.

Membership is stated as 6,281, down from the 6,502 shown in the 2005 accounts and a far cry from the 10,000 figure currently being bandied around by the BNP leadership. At the time of the BNP leadership election the voting figures indicated that the party had 8,604 members but this was widely thought to be an exaggeration.

The treasurer's and audit reports reveal that the party had not yet completed the task of setting up proper internal controls, which it started early in 2005, and so the auditors, Silver & Co of Cannock, had "to rely upon assurances and explanations given us by officers of the party". This is not an unusual let out for small organisations and gives the lie to the claim that the auditors would not sign the accounts until Kenny Smith was sacked for failing to provide receipts for administration expenditure. When asked about this allegation Frank Hogarth, a partner in Silver & Co, refused to comment.

Announcing the accounts on its website the BNP highlighted the increase in income and the surplus for the year. Income from donations and membership fees has indeed gone up, although income from commercial activities is down, something that will no doubt be blamed on the dissidents.

Campaign expenditure is a mere £19,016, almost all on leaflets. Even this tiny figure for a national organisation is an improvement on 2005 when nothing was spent on campaigning leaflets. Presumably party branches have to pay for everything themselves.

Staff costs are down £20,000 to £227,732 of which £145,447 is for employees and £104,764 on "professional fees" – payments outside the compulsory PAYE system of accounting for tax and national insurance contributions on employees' wages. One of the allegations Searchlight made based on the 2005 accounts is that the wages figure was impossibly low for the number of employees declared, suggesting that some employees were paid outside PAYE. The position has hardly improved. The accounts state that the total number of staff has increased from nine in 2005 to 13, which means that the average wage per staff member is still only around £11,000. Remember Ian Dawson, the former group support officer, recently stated that he worked for the party earning £14,400 and this was "probably the lowest full-time wage in the party".

Collett is not listed as a key staff member, although he clearly spends a considerable amount of his time working for the party. Either he is one of those still paid as a self employed person or his remuneration comes in another way. Perhaps some of the BNP's £30,000 of expenditure on commercial printing and reproduction goes his way, or the similar sums spent on producing The Voice of Freedom and Identity. Quite what Collett did as director of publicity is unclear seeing as the party spends so little on leaflets and only £1,410 on "promotional expenditure".

Income from tickets to the BNP's Red White Blue summer festival fell from £15,808 in 2005 to £9,242 but the cost of putting the event on also fell by £4,000. Perhaps BNP members have started getting bored with it. Trafalgar Club income and expenditure is not separately itemised, an example of the lack of transparency about which the dissidents have complained. What does the party have to hide here?

Although the BNP made a surplus of nearly £19,000 compared to a deficit of nearly £95,000 in 2005, it was not enough to take the party out of insolvency. A £35,000 surplus of liabilities over assets was financed partly by running up a debt of nearly £22,000 to the regional accounting unit (party branches and groups), although this was paid off in January 2007 out of the £46,000 cash it had in the bank at 31 December 2006. The amount owed to HM Revenue and Customs for PAYE and value added tax was half the sum at the start of the year, suggesting that HMRC became less tolerant of the BNP's attempts to borrow from the taxpayer.

The largest liability is "subscriptions in advance". This would normally cover the proportion after 31 December 2006 of annual subscriptions to publications paid in the course of the year. In this case it is probably membership subscriptions because it is way too large for subscriptions to Freedom and Identity. That this sum has doubled to £67,548 may be because the BNP made a big effort to get people to pay their 2007 membership fees at the end of 2006 rather than at the beginning of 2007. This would be consistent with the large cash balance at the end of the year, much of which was spent in January 2007 on paying off the party's debt to the branches. In other words, much of 2007's membership income has been spent in 2006.

A note to the accounts takes a swipe at Kenny Smith, though not by name, for failing to provide receipts for £14,000 of funds "transferred to the B N Publications account so as to allow the printing department to funding [sic]". The party first accused him of failing to account for "up to £17,000" and rapidly dropped the "up to". The fact that it is now £14,000 will undoubtedly get overlooked by the Griffin loyalists. And why the B N Publications account should be off balance sheet is unclear, as it would appear to be part of the party's administration.

Another note explains that the Excalibur stock held at the year end has not been included in the accounts. Its omission would depress the commercial (and therefore taxable) profit (though as in 2005 there is no sign that any corporation tax is paid). It is the reason for the omission that is interesting, namely that "the very nature of the stock raises questions as to it's [sic] realisable value". Well we certainly wouldn't buy it.

"Certain party officials are involved and hold positions with 'Great White Records'", the accounts state, revealing that the party buys CDs at commercial rates from the company, owned by Hannam, and resells them. Great White Records also supplied "sound assistance at venues" amounting to £9,618, another means of transferring money to Hannam. As we expected, the accounts do not show the rumoured investment by the party of £50,000 in Great White Records, which is therefore either a myth or another "off balance sheet" transaction.

And finally, there is no solution to the mystery of the BNP's printing equipment. In 2005 the party claimed to have spent variously £75,000 or £70,000 on printing equipment, but the 2005 accounts only showed acquisitions of equipment (of any sort) of £51,671. In June 2007 when Chris Jackson challenged Griffin for the party leadership, some people asked questions about why Collett was always late in producing leaflets for the BNP after the party had spent "£70,000" on printing equipment. The BNP's reply was that the party had bought four high quality digital duplicators, three folding machines and power guillotine for £70,000 but that after the 2005 general election they were "given to the regions" and no longer kept for head office jobs.

Yet neither the 2005 accounts nor the 2006 accounts show any disposal of equipment, which if by means of a gift would have turned the small 2006 surplus into a loss. Was the equipment ever in the accounts? Who owns it now? Was the BNP lying in 2005, in 2007 or both? We think party members have a right to know.

BNP in crisis

Reader article: Accounts for 2006 - the Style, the Style!

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Iliacus. We welcome any contributions (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste) from our supporters. Please send your articles to us at lancaster.uaf@zen.co.uk

At last the wait is over; the BNP's central accounts for 2006 are with the Electoral Commission, and we can study the wit and wisdom - or, more appropriately, the acumen and intelligence - of Griffin and Walker. Two people who, we might assume, could be Prime Minister and Chancellor in any BNP government.

This article deals with the Style of the Accounts; a further contribution will consider the Substance. But, hey - it's the festive season so let's have a laugh!

As we have come to expect the (poor) quality of their written English is matched only by the quality of the proofreading. So we enjoy such gems as:

"2006 saw the British National Party's biggest electoral and political" (no, that's it, the sentence vanishes into the next!), "out of 13 BNP candidates stood in Barking and Dagenham" and "it is far from whether her intervention made a great deal of difference".

We also have some classic Griffin abuse and mudslinging in his Chairman's report on the year. So he mentions "the multi-millionaire Labour MP ... Margaret Hodge", though the relevance of her wealth to the issue under discussion is far from clear. He's not too keen on Lord Lester (we presume he means Lord Lester of Herne Hill, Liberal Democrat peer and respected human rights lawyer). Now this may seem a little surprising as in the very week the BNP accounts were submitted Lord Lester tabled a parliamentary question relating to the prevalance of Wahhabist teaching in British mosques (a subject one might expect to be of some concern to the BNP), and earlier in the year he tabled a private member's bill to criminalise forced marriages. He is a former Human Rights Lawyer of the Year. And how is he described by Griffin? "Race Act Gauleiter Lord Lester". Charming chap, Mr Griffin. A Cambridge education really is the mark of a gent.

There are some wider targets too. The BNP's successes (2006 was their "semi-breakthrough year after all - Barking & Dagenham and all that) would have been greater still, but for the machinations of the establishment. "Postal fraud cost us at least two dozen seats". Strange that there have been no legal actions then? Oh, but there's a simple explanation for that - the "police campaign of intimidation" against the party!

"We see it here, we see it there; we see conspiracy everywhere!"

The "free speech trials" (their term not mine) get lengthy, and excessively tedious, coverage - so tedious I can find little of any interest to say. Except to pick up on Mr Griffin's triumphant assertion that coverage of the trials brought "significant surges in new membership applications" leading to "an excellent year for new memberships". Which all contributed to "an increasing membership".

Yes, OK Nick, we get the message. Membership increased. Well done - mind you, so it should. All that publicity. The trials. All those extra councillors, up from 21 to 63 according to your Annual Report.

There's just one difficulty. Your membership didn't increase. Not according to your own figures. Now in the past it's been difficult to quantify membership, with separate figures quoted in different parts of the same Annual Report! So membership in 2004 was variously quoted as 7,916 or 6,356; and 2005 as 6,008 or 6,502 (at least the gap's closing!). This year there appears to be just one figure, and on a like-for-like basis it gives the following picture:

2004 6,356
2005 6,502
2006 6,281

So, according to their own figures, BNP membership fell by 3.4% in 2006 - not catastrophic, but very disappointing (for them, not me) in the light of the year's political circumstances.

One final note on membership. The party boasts of introducing a new membership information system. And what does this new system offer?

"A new system of membership information-sharing ... to ensure absolute confidentiality".

Wonder what Sadie Graham now makes of that claim?

Iliacus

BNP at war amid allegations of illegal activity

· Around 50 key members quit to set up rival faction
· Leadership claims affair will quickly blow over

Taking stock in the library of the Oxford Union Nick Griffin had good reason to be cheerful. The chairman of the British National party, who scored a resounding victory in a summer leadership challenge, had just given a confident performance in front of some of the brightest students in the country and was looking forward to the next day's headlines.

Three weeks later, however, and the political landscape on the far right has changed. The BNP is engulfed in a bitter factional war which threatens to tear the organisation apart.

This week the leadership was accused of spying, theft and money laundering and dozens of key organisers have resigned the party whip and are now calling themselves the "Real BNP".

Labour MP Jon Cruddas has handed a dossier of evidence to the Electoral Commission and the Metropolitan police that he says contains evidence of "alleged illegal activity and financial irregularities".

Cruddas, who has several BNP councillors in his Barking constituency, told MPs in the House of Commons: "What's been uncovered in the internal workings of the BNP appears to be systematic illegality in terms of data protection, bugging, money laundering, theft and the operation of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000."

Detectives in Nottinghamshire have confirmed they are investigating claims that a BNP security team stole files and computer equipment from the home of a regional official. The Metropolitan Police said it had responded to the allegations but added it was not investigating the matter "at the current time."

The BNP insists it has not done anything illegal and says the affair will "blow over" by Christmas.

"This is not a split so much as a slither and it will all be sorted out very quickly indeed," said the BNP's national spokesman, Simon Derby.

The allegations come at the end of a tumultuous week. Tensions between modernisers and hardliners boiled over on Monday when it emerged that about 50 councillors and organisers had resigned and declared themselves to be the "Real BNP". That was followed by showdown meetings between Griffin and the rebels.

At one, in the Gun and Dog pub in Leeds on Tuesday, a witness described how the meeting descended into chaos when one of the rebels smashed a glass and threatened to attack Griffin supporter Mark Collett.

Despite the protestations of the leadership the BNP appears to have lost the support of the Yorkshire region - widely seen as one of the party's heartlands - as well as key organisers in other areas. Anti-fascist campaigners say this is the most serious crisis the BNP has faced since it was formed in the early 1990s.

"In the past disputes have been between the old guard and Griffin, who portrayed himself as a moderniser taking the party forward," said Nick Lowles, from anti-fascist organisation Searchlight. "Now, however, many of the younger more able organisers and activists who make the party tick on a day-to-day basis are breaking away and that is what makes this much more serious for the leadership."

The original row centred around two organisers, Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith, who were accused of plotting an "inept and ill-timed coup" against Griffin, Collett and another senior finance official, Dave Hannam, last week.

Graham, a BNP councillor in Broxtowe in the east Midlands and the BNP's group development officer, claims the party secretly bugged her home. She said a BNP security team "tricked" their way into her house when she was out, taking files and computer equipment.

The party's website ran a recording of a conversation between Graham and Smith, who were subsequently sacked for "gross misconduct". The BNP has insisted Graham's home was not bugged, but rather that she had accidentally dialled a number on her mobile phone that led to the conversation being recorded. And they insist that they have proof that the equipment taken belonged to the party.

The rebels cast themselves as modernisers, frustrated at the way the party's finances are run and its failure to confront unsuitable members. They have set up a "Real BNP" faction which appears to have the support of up to 60 senior members.

The split comes at a crucial time for the BNP, which is hoping to make a breakthrough in next year's London assembly elections. In the Commons this week Cruddas said the party was "engulfed in a political crisis" that threatened to tear it apart. "This is not the behaviour of a legitimate political party and I hope to see the police and the Electoral Commission investigate these charges," he added.

The Guardian

BNP fined by Electoral Commission

The far-right British National Party (BNP) has been fined by the elections watchdog for failing to declare its accounts on time.

The Electoral Commission issued the £1,000 penalty after the party filed its figures for 2006 - almost six months late.

Under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the BNP was required to submit the statement of accounts by July 7.

The blow comes amid internal rows in the controversial right-wing party and calls for a police investigation into claims of "illegal spying" on its members.

Labour MP Jon Cruddas used Parliamentary privilege this week to highlight the alleged bugging, which he had reported to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair.

The claims follow the resignation from the party of a series of members, including Broxtowe councillor Sadie Graham, over the BNP's leadership.

In the Commons, Mr Cruddas also raised allegations of "financial irregularities" by the BNP which had been researched by the anti-fascist Searchlight Information Services.

ITN

Ballerina used to deflect BNP criticism

In a cynical move to deflect criticism of the party following the explosive events of the past couple of weeks, the BNP deliberately let it slip that Simone Clarke, the so-called BNP ballerina, has become engaged to its London Mayoral candidate and director of the gay porn flick HMS Discovery Richard Barnbrook. According to party sources, the plan was to release that information just prior to the GLA elections in an attempt to gain a few additional votes but it was deemed more expedient to release it now, particularly after the attack on the BNP by Jon Cruddas in the House of Commons a few days ago.

Now the party has been obliged to spice up the dancer's contribution to its flagging fortunes by announcing that she may well quit the English national Ballet to stand for the BNP in a local government election or by-election.

Clarke's star has waned somewhat since her membership of the party was exposed last year. From being the ENB's prima ballerina, she appears to have been moved to less significant roles and, for the last seven weeks since it was claimed her home was burgled, she has been on leave.

The burglary, if indeed it ever happened, appears to have been a most confusing event. One story was that Clarke heard the burglar from her bedroom, promptly locked herself in the wardrobe but was confronted when the intruder managed to open the locked door. The current version, as stated by Barnbrook yesterday, was that she discovered the burglar in the kitchen. Whichever way it happened, the story is that the villain walked off with the newly-bought engagement ring. One wonders where Barnbrook was at the time...

According to Richard Barnbrook, who appears to have taken over as her Press Officer, Clarke has been moved away from the limelight because of her membership of the BNP, itself currently embroiled in allegations of theft and illegal surveillance, and has spoken to the Northern Ballet about the possibility of joining them in an attempt to be close to her five-year-old daughter Olivia, who lives with her maternal grandparents in Leeds. Quite what this would mean to the couple's already peculiar relationship is debatable - Barnbrook is the leader (for the moment) of the BNP contingent on Barking and Dagenham Council. Observers are wondering how his dismal performance in the council chamber could be improved by his fiance moving a couple of hundred miles away.

Clarke is surprisingly downbeat about the whole engagement issue, preferring to maintain a stony silence when asked about it but Barnbrook is not nearly so reticent, stating in interviews with several newspapers; 'In the future we will probably get married and have a family...we are very much in love'.

Simone Clarke, of course, already has a family - a daughter by fellow ENB dancer Yat-Sen Chang, with whom she had a long-term relationship. This ended in April of this year and one can only assume that her budding relationship with Barnbrook had something to do with the breakdown because he is quoted as saying (on several occasions) that he and Clarke have 'been going out for over nine months'. You do the maths.

Just after the announcement that Clarke was a member of the BNP and that she was then in the relationship with Yat-Sen Chang, Barnbrook stated that he hoped the couple would not have children, apparently unaware that the media was full of the fact that she already had a child of with Chang, of mixed British, Cuban and Chinese descent. At the time, he was reported as saying; 'I'm not opposed to mixed marriages but their children are washing out the identity of this country's indigenous people'. He appears to have changed his mind somewhat now he is engaged to Clarke.

'Olivia's all right because she speaks good English, and culturally that's the way she's already leaning,' he said recently, claiming that, once married, he would care for the child 'as if she were my own'.

Clarke, who isn't quite as politically-naive as she tries to pretend, has spoken at a BNP event in the Midlands alongside the party's current leader, Nick Griffin, and was recently elected to the executive of the BNP's fake union Solidarity which, like the party itself, suffered acrimonious splits recently. Solidarity's general secretary is the long-time far-right activist Pat Harrington, a former organiser for the National Front.

We'll leave you with a quote from the Daily Mirror: 'And all we can say is that the rabidly right-wing pair deserve one another.'

See you in court

Yesterday the BNP posted an article on its website that contained several libellous and false statements about Gerry Gable, publisher of Searchlight. Searchlight sent a polite email to the BNP pointing this out and requesting that the article be removed.

Today the BNP responded with a further article headed: “Hardcore Communist Gable and Searchlight Panic at Public Exposé on BNP Website”, which contained several even more serious libels.

The BNP refused to remove the original article and compounded the offence by allowing Jason Douglas, a leading London BNP organiser, to add another very serious libel in a “comment”.

Well we certainly are not panicking. Our response to this ongoing abuse is: see you in court.

In Europe, where's the hate?

Over the past year or so the rural Italian idyll of Colle di Val d'Elsa has played host to a bitter battle for Enlightenment values. On one side, the hamlet's small Muslim community has raised a considerable amount of money to build a large mosque. Having gained the mayor's approval, the Muslims signed a declaration of cooperation with the town hall and even planted a Christmas tree at the site as a good-will gesture.

In response, other locals pelted them with sausages and dumped a severed pig's head at the site. On a wall near the site vandals daubed: "No Mosque," "Christian Hill" and "Thanks to the communists the Arabs are in our house!!!"

Such is the central dynamic in European race relations at present. It is probably not the dynamic you have heard most about. The most popular one making the rounds this side of the Atlantic involves hordes of Muslims, rabid with anti-Semitic and misogynistic views, running amok as they bomb, bully and outbreed their clueless liberal hosts in a bid to build a caliphate.

"Do you have a child back in England?" an elderly Los Angelena asked a British reporter on a recent National Review cruise.

"No," he said.

"You'd better start," she replied. "The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe."

Nor is it by any means the only dynamic. There are a handful of nihilistic young Muslims keen to bomb and destroy and a far larger number sufficiently disaffected that they are prepared to riot. There are also many Europeans keen to see equality and meaningful integration, defending civil liberties and opposing wars against predominantly Muslim lands.

But the primary threat to democracy in Europe is not "Islamofascism"--that clunking, thuggish phrase that keeps lashing out in the hope that it will one day strike a meaning--but plain old fascism. The kind whereby mostly white Europeans take to the streets to terrorize minorities in the name of racial, cultural or religious superiority.

For fascism--and the xenophobic, racist and nationalistic elements that are its most vile manifestations--has returned as a mainstream ideology in Europe. Its advocates not only run in elections but win them. They control local councils and sit in parliaments. In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France and Italy, hard-right nationalist and anti-immigrant parties regularly receive more than 10 percent of the vote. In Norway it is 22 percent; in Switzerland, 29 percent. In Italy and Austria they have been in government; in Switzerland, where the anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party is the largest party, they still are.

This is not new. From Austria to Antwerp, Italy to France, fascists have been performing well at the polls for more than a decade. Nor are they shy about their bigotry. France's Jean-Marie Le Pen has described the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail of history"; Austria's Jörg Haider once thanked a group of Austrian World War II veterans, including former SS officers, for "stick[ing] to their convictions despite the greatest opposition." But the attacks of 9/11, the bombings in Spain and Britain and the riots in France gave the hard right new traction. The polarizing effects of terrorism facilitated the journey of hard-right agendas from the margins to the mainstream. Islamophobia became de rigueur. Recently German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a Christian Democrat party congress that "we must take care that mosque cupolas are not built demonstratively higher than church steeples."

In September 2006, British novelist Martin Amis told the Times of London: "There's a definite urge--don't you have it?--to say, 'the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.' What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation--further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan.... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children."

Far from being the principal purveyors of racial animus in Europe, Muslims are its principal targets. Between 2000 and 2005 officially reported racist violence rose 71 percent in Denmark, 34 percent in France and 21 percent in Ireland. With few governments collecting data on racial crime victims, it has been left to NGOs to record the sharp rise in attacks on Muslims, those believed to be Muslims and Muslim targets.

None of this means anti-Semitism and jihadism don't exist among Muslim communities in Europe. But it does provide a context for both. Muslims are a relatively tiny percentage of European citizens--there is a higher proportion of Asians in Utah than Muslims in Italy--and are overwhelmingly concentrated among the poor. More than 40 percent of Bangladeshi men in Britain under the age of 25 are unemployed. All of this excuses nothing but explains a great deal. According to a Pew Research Center survey, the principal concerns of Muslims in France, Germany and Spain are unemployment and Islamic extremism. Integrating into a society that won't employ you, educate you or house you adequately is no easy feat. Participating in a political culture that scapegoats you is also tough. Attacked as Muslims at home and abroad, they defend themselves as Muslims. Every respected report in Britain has shown a direct link between the war in Iraq and recruitment to Islamist movements. And so the symbiosis of Islamophobes and Islamists is complete, with each thriving on polarization and prejudice: picking at scabs that might have healed, until the blood runs freely.

The most potent anti-Semites and bigots in Europe do not live in run-down housing projects but grace the corridors of power. They are not Muslim; they are Christian. The continent is not suffering from some new strain of bigotry imported from the Arab world or the Maghreb--it is simply suffering from one of its oldest viruses harbored among its most established ethnic populations.

The Nation

'Pub trade hit by BNP meetings'

A Scarborough councillor says a local pub may have closed down because it was being used for meetings by supporters of the British National Party.

Cllr Bll Chatt said the Barrowcliff pub had lost trade because of the meetings.

“A lot of people told me they would not go there because the pub was being used for those type of meetings,” said Cllr Chatt.

“The BNP were using the Barrowcliff before the local elections in May this year. The function room was supposedly packed out with BNP members and they had a big Union Jack hanging up in there. Now the pub has been boarded up and it is going to become more and more of an eyesore. It has already been broken into by vandals.”

Cllr Chatt, who represents the Woodlands Ward, said he heard rumours that the pub site could be used for housing.

“It’s a shame the pub has closed down,” said Cllr Chatt. “We need it to be
reopened. The pub is needed more than ever, particularly since we lost our community centre.”

The Barrowcliff pub is owned by Admiral Taverns. A spokesman said the company was not aware of BNP meetings taking place in the pub. He said that Admiral Taverns had bought the pub off Punch Taverns in May this year.

“The pub is currently closed while we consider the options for its future. However, this is not due to a downturn in sales.”

The couple who previously ran the pub are believed to have taken over a pub in the north-east. Before that the Barrowcliff was run by Mick and Dawn Avison for almost five years. The couple, who now live in a small village in Bulgaria, have contacted the Evening News to wish all their friends and former customers Happy Christmas. The couple’s sons, Michael and Dren, still live in Scarborough.

Scarborough Evening News

The BNP feud gets messier as it acknowledges a Searchlight mole in its leadership

BNP leader Nick Griffin is reeling under media expose of the feud which is ripping the party apart. After a week of total silence the press appears to be falling over itself to report on the crisis and Griffin is not coming out of it well. Channel Four More news even asked whether this was the end of the road for the BNP leader.

Meanwhile, inside the BNP, accusations and recriminations continue to fly. The rebel faction have sent out a newsletter to every party member while the leadership has reproduced, on the party website, the contents of emails which they claim prove that the rebels were hacking into emails of party officials before they were expelled.

If ordinary members didn’t know about the crisis engulfing the party before then they do now.

Christmas is already a busy time for the police but it more appears that they are going to be diverted from tackling criminals on the street to dealing with illegality within the BNP. A quick summary of the allegations being thrown around include:

·

The BNP illegally recording a telephone conversation between Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith

The BNP gained access to Sadie Graham’s house by deception

BNP security took personal property belonging to Sadie Graham without her consent

The BNP leadership have been trawling through Sadie Graham’s computer, even opening new emails, in contravention of the Data Protection Act

Steve Blake as been illegally accessing email accounts of BNP party officials, including those of Nick Griffin

Scott McLean has forged a BNP disciplinary letter

Kenny Smith has removed £4,000 from the BNP Lottery account after he was removed from his party position

Kenny Smith and Sadie Graham have broken the Data Protection Act by sending out an unauthorised mailing to all BNP members

While Searchlight cannot comment of the validity of all of these claims but merely factually report what has been written, it is clear that the BNP is in trouble.

If that wasn’t enough the BNP has now posted this new claim on its party website: “For well over a year, the BNP has been aware that there has been a mole from the Communist Searchlight Magazine in the Advisory Council.”

Now, on that, I cannot possibly comment.

Nick Lowles, Stop The BNP

Fight night in Leeds

Searchlight reports from inside the highly charged Yorkshire meeting

The long trailed Fight night in Leeds City Centre yesterday turned into a pantomime as rival factions within the BNP slugged it out over a mince pie and a Christmas sherry. Leading the proceedings was local football hooligan Tony MacDonald, better known to Searchlight supporters as Tony Mac. Smashing a glass on a table he charged at Mark Collett promising to “cut your throat”, forcing the much maligned and recently demoted graphic designer to flee out the fire escape.

The rest of the evening was no less exciting as speaker after speaker spewed poison into the festive air. The highlight of the evening for me personally was the confirmation of the existence of a photo of Nick Griffin doing a Nazi salute. More of this later.

The contest was held at the Dog and Gun in Leeds City Centre, a regular meeting place for the BNP. We were greeted on our arrival by Ian Dawson handing out questions for the audience to ask party leader Nick Griffin and Collett. Though the meeting had been organised by the Griffin faction it was clear that his opponents had taken up his challenge to attend. The majority of the 120 present had already decided that Collett had to go even before the meeting had begun.

There was some commotion over the arrival of the heavy mob, led by Tony Mac and ably supported by his old thuggish sidekicks Army Dave and friends. Many were not even BNP members but Griffin decided to not push the issue. Rules, it appears, could always be broken.

Griffin strode in confidently with Mark Collett, Dave Hannam, John Walker, Arthur Kemp, Simon Darby and a whole gaggle of BNP security guards. Ian Dawson was slightly less self-assured as rumours spread that he was for the chop that evening. We slipped in at the back, sitting just in front of Tony Mac and friends who stood berating Collett for most of the meeting. Well, at least the part for which they were there anyway.

The format of the meeting was agreed, with Griffin speaking first, followed then by Ian Dawson, Mark Collett and Chris Beverley. The impartial [sic] Simon Darby was chairing the meeting.

If Griffin had hoped to win over some doubters he certainly did his best to fail from the outset. His deliberately rude outbursts at Dawson and Beverley, coupled with his desire to have Dawson removed altogether, only infuriated the crowd. Tony Mac, meanwhile, appeared oblivious to the proceedings, fixated as was with making threats towards Collett. Little Nazi Boy (as comedian Russell Brand likes to call him) was obviously scared to death and appeared to spend most of the meeting eyeing out exits if he needed to make a quick getaway.

And so the contest began. Griffin opened by listing the various charges against the rebels, who he referred to as “vermin”. To howls of protest he continued, claiming that the party had been correct in taking Sadie Graham’s computer and more evidence of wrongdoing was going to be released shortly. He accused Kenny Smith of “stealing” £4,000 from the party and questioned Chris Beverley’s honesty by saying that when Beverley ran Excalibur he claimed a stock worth £60,000 but when this was handed over this proved to be only £6,000.

He even had a word or two to say about Dawson. Claiming that he knew that there was at least one Searchlight mole in the room (the room suddenly got very hot at this point!), he told the audience that he also suspected that either Steve Blake or Ian Dawson of working for Searchlight because of certain emails that had come into our possession. Dawson jumped to protest his innocence, “I’m not a Searchlight mole” he shouted to Griffin’s obvious amusement. While this set off another set of anti-Collett shouts, some around me did question the speed he denied this claim. Hmmm, interesting...

Anyway, with the crowd howling, and Tony Mac still threatening all sorts to the increasingly white-faced Collett, it was Ian Dawson’s turn to respond. And so he did, attacking the party leadership and defending the actions of the rebels. I have to admit that it was hard to hear actually what Dawson was saying above the screams from behind me.

According to the script it was then meant to be the turn of Mark Collett to speak but in what was obviously a clearly planned intervention, Griffin rose to reply. Pushing aside the protests from the audience, Simon Darby explained that serious allegations had been made against the party leader so it was only right that he should be allowed to respond. This sent the crowd into a frenzy, not least from the barbarian behind me.

With Collett due to speak Tony Mac had decided that he had had enough. Shouting “I’m going to kill you”, “I’m going to cut your throat”, he charged forward, smashing a glass on the side of the table as he headed straight for Collett.

All hell broke loose, as the security team moved forward to block the charge. Of course, their priority was protecting Griffin so Collett was left to fend for himself. He did, at some haste, by fleeing like a whimpering dog out of the fire escape!

Complete chaos broke out, though given the audience and the background to the meeting it was hardly surprising. In the ensuing pandemonium at least a quarter of the audience walked out, some in disgust, others in fear of their lives. All this could have been caught on BNP TV, which had been filming the meeting, had it not been for Tony Mac of making a point of pushing over the camera.

Some people have said that Griffin was punched but hand on heart I cannot say I saw that.

However, the evening was not over yet. In fact, this fight was not even the highlight of the proceedings. That came when an angry Tony Mac publicly confronted Griffin over his claims that the rebels were Nazis. “I have a picture of you in Scotland with Blood and Honour giving a Nazi salute. Do you deny that?

“If you do then it’ll be in the Sunday papers.”

Griffin looked on in silence, his face creasing up in horror.

“Ok,” said Tony Mac, “it’ll be in the Sunday papers”.

As peace started to descend on the place there was confusion about what to do. With so many people having fled many thought that the meeting should close. Arguing against this view was Kirklees councillor Colin Auty. “I want the meeting to be reconvened,” he demanded. “The people of Yorkshire have the right to be heard.” However, he then stormed out!

The meeting did continue, minus a few of the heavies. Collett meanwhile had decided that the fire escape in mid-December was not a place to hang out for too long and slipped back into the room. All credit to the young man, he had found some confidence from somewhere, though of course others would have described it as stupidity. He called a reluctant Dave Hannam up to the front of the room and to Dave’s horror he announced: “Me and Dave are not paedophiles.” I wanted to burst out laughing, though fortunately there were plenty of others to do that for me. “We had gone out with a big group of lads and these two beautiful women cracked on to us,” he continued. “We didn’t know that they were only 15.” If he was thinking that this chummy explanation for events in Blackpool last year would turn the crowd in his favour he was mistaken.

The meeting then descended into mayhem, with accusation being met with counter-accusation. Collett even turned on Dawson and graphically accused him of infidelity at the recent RWB.

There was an attempted vote of no confidence in Mark Collett, as had been pre-arranged by Dawson, but Griffin moved in to block this from happening. Griffin recognised that Collett had done lots of stupid things, particularly the Young, Nazi and Proud video, but then claimed that these youthful indiscretions would be ironed out with time. He even equated Collett’s behaviour with his own time in the National Front. Griffin went on to say that there was nothing wrong with Collett being ambitious, and yes, maybe, in 10 or 15 years time he would become leader of the BNP.

One of the final questions was asked by Leeds member Peter Hollins. He had sat their quietly throughout the whole meeting and then explained how he had thought about joining the party long before he did. When he eventually made the plunge he had met Collett and found him very helpful and friendly. However, events had made him change his mind and he proceeded to destroy Collett’s character, even accusing him of having a personality disorder. With that he announced that this was going to be his last party meeting as he had had enough.

Collett just sat there in shock. I, meanwhile, wanted to cheer old Peter for finally seeing sense but I thought that might be inappropriate, especially with Kemp scanning the room for the Searchlight mole.

One final moment of hilarity, amongst the many I do not have the time to go into at this stage, was Chris Beverley’s apology for his outspoken remarks against Keighley’s Angela Clarke, who had been hounded out of the party amidst a quite sexist smear campaign. Beverley, it appears, is remorseful for his minor part in this. Griffin smiled on and then, when Beverley had finished, began quoting from some emails Beverley had sent him where he was far more outspoken and insulting about Clarke then he had cared to acknowledge.

Yorkshire BNP is not split, it is totally opposed to the Griffin faction and this meeting only seems to have reinforced this position. There appears no chance of reconciliation in Yorkshire with even the sacking of Collett now probably no longer being enough. As for the young ‘Nazi Boy’, I simply can’t see how he can continue to live in Leeds, not least for fear of bumping into Tony Mac. The Leeds United hooligan was still issuing threats as he left the room.

Griffin appears to be ready to jettison the region. Having boasted that the matter had been resolved in every other region of the country he is clearly taking a hard line approach in this county regardless of the consequences. However, starting again might be difficult as there is clearly no-one to work with.

For me, meanwhile, the night was over. I walked out into the cold Yorkshire evening air with a smile on my face. The meeting had been as dreadful as we predicted. It had been wonderful. I got out my mobile and began ringing the Sunday newspapers. There was, after all, a photo of Griffin in Scotland to sell.

(Searchlight makes no comment on the allegations of theft made by Nick Griffin. We are simply reporting what was said at the meeting.)

Stop The BNP

Searchlight responds to the BNP

The BNP was quick to deny the allegations presented by Jon Cruddas MP in the House of Commons today. Searchlight now responds to the BNP and in the process stands by its allegations. (It must be stressed that our 22-page document contains many more allegations of financial mismanagement and irregularities. Much of these will be revealed in the January issue of Searchlight)

Allegation: “The BNP’s 2006 accounts have still not been submitted to the Electoral Commission, more than five months (so far) after the due date.”

BNP response: This is not illegal and is allowed for in terms of legislation. The delay was caused by the failure of former head of administration, Kenny Smith, to provide receipts for expenditure under his direct control. The accounts have been with the auditors for the last two months and are due to be signed off on 21 December.

Searchlight response: We never said it was illegal for the BNP not to have submitted its 2006 accounts, only that the BNP had not done so and that failure incurred a fine. The failure is now conveniently now blamed on Kenny Smith’s failure to provide receipts. The BNP has had months to obtain the receipts for 2006. And the accounts have not been with the auditors for only the last two months. The BNP has been saying since July that the accounts are with the auditors.

Allegation: “The BNP failed to report a donation of £5,315 in the period 1 July 2007 to 30 September 2007 in contravention of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act 2000.”

BNP response: Mr. Cruddas’ information is, as usual, out of date and factually incorrect. This is a minor issue and an amended Donation Returns has been sent and received by the Electoral Commission, who have expressed their satisfaction in this regard. There was clearly no intention to conceal the donation as it was announced, along with the name of the donor, on one of the BNP’s web sites at the time.

Searchlight response: The donation of £5,315 is now on the Electoral Commission website; it was not there at the weekend. Obviously the BNP had to make the late return after we pointed out the failure on our website and in the magazine. Correcting the failure doesn't mean the failure did not happen. Some oversight, the party's largest donation in the quarter and one of only two reportable donations.

Allegation: “BNP financial records were shredded at the home of the party’s former national treasurer in 2004.”

BNP response: No party financial records were shredded. They are held in electronic format, and cannot be shredded. This is pure fantasy on Mr Cruddas’s part.

Searchlight response: Shredded records? We have the physical evidence. And it is not possible for all accounting records to be held in electronic form. Auditors always want to see the paper supporting records, bank statements, invoices etc.

Allegation: “The BNP has solicited donations from overseas to an organisation by the name of Civil Liberty, which Searchlight considers is merely a front organisation set up to circumvent the prohibition on donations to political parties from individuals who are not registered to vote in the UK.”

BNP response: John Walker, BNP Treasurer, can categorically state that not one penny has been received by the BNP from Civil Liberty or any other ineligible body.

Searchlight response: On 21 May 2005 Mr Griffin spoke at an international conference in New Orleans organised by David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader. Mr Griffin’s theme was how to build a successful nationalist political movement that can win electoral support. He told the audience that the USA was not yet ready to build a nationalist party but was only at the stage of laying the foundation stones. However, Americans could play a role by throwing money at the BNP. Actually they could not, he continued, because it is against the law, but they can throw money at Civil Liberty, an organisation that helps members of the BNP. That is within the law, Mr Griffin said, adding that “the law is an ass”.

Civil Liberty is run by Kevin Scott, the BNP’s North East organiser, and operates from the same post box address as the BNP in the North East. The June 2005 issue of British Nationalist, the BNP’s members’ bulletin, also requested overseas donations to Civil Liberty, saying it “exists to financially support legal actions on behalf of British nationalists like Nick Griffin and Mark Collett”, who at that time were awaiting trial on race hate charges. However, in another indication of its true purpose, the bulletin also presented Civil Liberty as the successor to American Friends of the BNP.

Allegation: “The BNP attempted to earn insurance commission by means of an insurance entity that was not authorised by the Financial Services Authority and there were serious doubts whether the activity was exempt from the requirement for authorisation”

BNP response: This was a private initiative by a now former BNP official which was shut down within a week. The BNP was never the beneficiary of any such privately held scheme.

Searchlight response: The BNP wanted members to take out life insurance and benefit the BNP both from the lump sum on death and through the introduction commission. The only reason that the BNP never actually received anything is because we exposed it very quickly. The BNP also imply that they closed it down within a week when it was only closed down because of our exposure, after which the financial intermediary David Boulton, withdrew his services, Note also how the BNP conveniently blames Steve Blake, as if he was not acting on behalf of the BNP at the time.

Allegation: “There is evidence that the BNP financed its insolvent position in 2006 by a failure to pay sums owed to HM Revenue and Customs in respect of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and value added tax (VAT).”

BNP response: All tax bills for that year have been paid and are up to date. This is another pure fantasy, based probably on Mr Cruddas’ wishes rather than any fact.

Searchlight response: The evidence that the BNP financed its insolvent position in 2005 and 2006 by a failure to pay sums owed to HM Revenue and Customs in respect of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and value added tax (VAT) is that the balance owed to HMRC at 31 December 2005 was extremely high compared to salaries and turnover subject to VAT. We accept that the liability might have been paid since then.

Allegation: “There are allegations that the BNP has paid workers in cash to avoid tax and national insurance contributions and to enable them to claim state benefits.”

BNP response: The BNP denies that it pays its staff in cash. Minor day expenses may be covered in this way, but no full time salaries are paid in cash.

Searchlight response: There have been persistent allegations. We refer people to the investigation carried out by Barrister Adrian Davies and accountant Keith Boyall into the BNP finances in 2000. There was particular concern over £1,500 paid to Tony Lecomber out of party funds. It was initially claimed that this was reimbursement for a printing bill that Lecomber had paid on the party's behalf. However, it now appears that it was no such thing, but rather a means of supplementing Lecomber's income without declaring it to the tax and benefit departments. Davies and Boyall concluded: "Nick [Griffin] might very justifiably be reproached for dangerous and illegal risk-taking which could easily cause serious political embarrassment to the Party".

Allegation: “The BNP claims to have spent at least £70,000 on printing equipment in 2005, but no such expenditure is shown in the accounts.”

BNP response: This is a lie. The costs of the printing machines are clearly recorded in the party records.

Searchlight response: The BNP really are lying about this. On 1 April 2005 John Walker, the BNP treasurer, appealed on the BNP website for further donations towards the party’s general election. He stated: ““Last month we raised the £75,000 needed to run our own print shop operation to produce all our general election material in house. The work is now fully underway and on schedule with shifts of party activists working round the clock to produce the millions of election addresses needed.” Yet the 2005 accounts show only £51,671 spent on buying equipment of any sort in the whole year.

Stop the BNP

BNP reported to police and EC over illegal activities and financial irregularities

BNP reported to Police and Electoral Commission over illegal activities and financial irregularities

The British National Party was today reported to the Electoral Commission and Police over possible financial irregularities. Labour MP Jon Cruddas used an adjournment debate in the House of Commons to make a number of charges regarding alleged illegal activity and financial irregularities in the internal operations of the BNP.

“Last week I wrote to the police to request an investigation into claims of illegal spying within the BNP,” he told the Commons. “Today I have been given a 20 page dossier entitled ‘Financial Irregularities in the British National Party: An Investigation by Searchlight Information Services’ which I am in turn sending to both the police and the Electoral Commission.”

He went on to outline a serious of allegations against the BNP. He said:

• The BNP’s 2006 accounts have still not been submitted to the Electoral Commission, more than five months (so far) after the due date.
• The BNP failed to report a donation of £5,315 in the period 1 July 2007 to 30 September 2007 in contravention of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act 2000.
• BNP financial records were shredded at the home of the party’s former national treasurer in 2004.
• The BNP has solicited donations from overseas to an organisation by the name of Civil Liberty, which Searchlight considers is merely a front organisation set up to circumvent the prohibition on donations to political parties from individuals who are not registered to vote in the UK.
• The BNP attempted to earn insurance commission by means of an insurance entity that was not authorised by the Financial Services Authority and there were serious doubts whether the activity was exempt from the requirement for authorisation.
• There is evidence that the BNP financed its insolvent position in 2006 by a failure to pay sums owed to HM Revenue and Customs in respect of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and value added tax (VAT).
• There are allegations that the BNP has paid workers in cash to avoid tax and national insurance contributions and to enable them to claim state benefits.
• The BNP claims to have spent at least £70,000 on printing equipment in 2005, but no such expenditure is shown in the accounts.

Cruddas also used his speech to reiterate his belief that the BNP leadership has acted illegally in the split. He said: “That the BNP have posted on their website a recording and transcript of a private conversation between the two people who were later sacked,” he said. “It is the belief of the people concerned that their house, phone or computer has been bugged.

“On Saturday 8 December members of BNP security, under instructions of [the] BNP leader Nick Griffin, entered the house of Sadie Graham in the East Midlands by deception. Property belonging to Sadie Graham, including her personal computer bought for her by her father, was removed without consent. This is nothing less than burglary.”

He went on to say that this computer was later examined by the BNP, emails opened and read and the contents then posted on the Internet, which he insisted was a clear breach of the Data Protection Act.

As the content of one email was referred to by Nick Griffin on the party website Cruddas concluded: “This clearly proves that the BNP leader has been privy to a criminal act.”

Cruddas ended by saying: “In conclusion what is being uncovered in the internal workings of the British National Party appears to be illegal in terms of data protection, bugging, theft and the operation of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. This is not the behaviour of a mature political party and I would like to see the police and the Electoral Commission investigate these charges. The fact that this is being orchestrated by the leader of a political party is most shocking. The BNP leadership and Nick Griffin in particular, are showing us its true colours.”

Stop the BNP

Spying claims rock BNP

The British National Party has been engulfed by a bitter internal row with around 50 senior figures resigning the party whip amid claims the leadership has been spying on private emails and telephone calls.

Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right group, is facing widespread criticism over his handling of the situation, while police confirmed yesterday they were investigating claims that a BNP security team stole files and computer equipment from the home of a regional official.

The Labour MP Jon Cruddas has written to the head of the Metropolitan police, Sir Ian Blair, calling for an inquiry into what he claims are "criminal activities involving senior members" of the party.

"The BNP leadership is showing us its true colours," said Cruddas, who is expected to raise the matter in the House of Commons today. "They appear to be monitoring phone calls and emails of their members and removing computers from private households. This is not the behaviour of a normal political party and I would like to see the police investigate this."

Simon Derby, the BNP's national spokesman, denied the party had done anything illegal and said the equipment that was taken belonged to the party. He said the situation had been "a bit messy" but the people involved had been plotting a coup against Griffin and needed to be challenged. A line would be drawn under the issue over the coming weeks, he said.

"As far as nationalist politics is concerned there is still only one show in town," he said.

A spokeswoman for Nottinghamshire police said: "Nottinghamshire police is investigating the alleged theft of a computer taken from the home of a former BNP councillor. The investigation is ongoing and there is no further information at this time."

Tensions came to a head when two key organisers, Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith, were accused of plotting an inept and ill-timed coup. Graham, who is a BNP councillor in Broxtowe in the east Midlands as well as the BNP's group development officer, claims the party secretly bugged her home. She said the BNP's inner intelligence unit then "tricked" their way into her house when she was out, taking files and computer equipment.

The party's website ran a recording of a conversation between Graham and Smith, who were subsequently sacked for "gross misconduct".

The BNP has insisted Graham's home was not bugged, but rather that she had accidentally dialled a number on her mobile phone that led to the conversation being recorded.

"I think we can call it a catastrophic error on her part," said Derby.

Graham claims she has public support of around 50 officers and councillors, and the private backing of many more BNP members.

According to Nick Lowles, an anti-fascist campaigner from Searchlight, large sections of the party across the north of England and Scotland are now openly hostile to Griffin and the current BNP leadership. "This has become a very serious split and it is difficult to see how the two sides can be reconciled without one group leaving the party," he said.

Guardian

Griffin in propaganda-overdrive to stop BNP resignations and funding drought

In a desperate attempt to stop the speedy flow of members away from the BNP and into the Graham/Smith camp, taking their money with them, Nick Griffin has stepped up the anti-dissident propaganda to the point where most members - even those loyal to him - are scratching their heads and wondering if he's lost his marbles.

Just the title of the most recent lunatic new post on the BNP's site (Splinter Group Effort Grinds to a Halt) has led to a number of people writing to us here at LUAF wondering whether, in one correspondent's colourful phrase, 'he actually believes the shit he's spouting?' Not altogether surprising really, as it's clear from the supportive posts over at the dissident Enough is Enough (EiE) site that support is not only rising but is growing angrier by the day.

We're assured, by people in the party, that the post is by Griffin himself - not that we doubted that for a minute after reading his ramblings - his total lack of interest in the fact that he is publicly and willingly breaking the law and what's more, announcing it to everyone who visits the site, makes it pretty clear that Griffin himself is the author. He's never been noted for observing laws, which is probably why he only got a third-rate law degree and has brushed up against the legal system on a number of occasions.

Not only does he claim that the dissidents were conspiring against Mark Collett and Dave Hannam, the party's jesters, but he has now extended his attack to claim that they were;

• illegally hacking into the email accounts of BNP members
• illegally hacking into the email account of Nick Griffin himself (who clearly regards himself as above the members in some way), and
• illegally hacking into the email accounts of the party's outside auditors (presumably J. Silver and co)

all of which are illegal and the last of which is not only a new revelation but, if true, could net them a year or two in the slammer.

These allegations would be pretty exciting if Griffin hadn't tried to over-egg the pudding by trying to cover up his own illegal actions - or those of his South African Intelligence Dept or his bully-boy snatch squad - by claiming that the outlaws were found out by 'a Skype conversation, stupidly broadcast over the Internet (presumably either by a Skype setting error on their part, or even sitting on a mobile phone) made its way into the public domain'. I don't know that much about Skype, though I've set it up a few times, but I don't quite see how one could broadcast a conversation to the internet at large (or how it just happened to be picked up by the 'Intelligence' Dept) nor do I understand how one could broadcast a conversation one was having if one's fat arse was on top of the phone. The man's an idiot.

Griffin then meanders off into a curious little diversion about the state of the party, claiming that the rumours of a mass revolt within the party are untrue and produces a barrage of lies to prove it, claiming that there have been virtually no resignations anywhere in the country, all but the odd one or two and they are making their ways back to the fold.

As anyone who has followed this mini-saga will know, this statement is a lie. The resignations, as Griffin knows full well, are from positions in the party, not from the BNP itself - though those who resigned and have been drawn back by cajolery, threat of promise can expect very short shrift in the future (Chris Hill, take note). Griffin's past record shows that he doesn't reward those he considers returning 'traitors', he eventually kicks them out at a time that most suits him.

One look at the EiE blog is enough to show the casual reader that nearly sixty are announced as having resigned, including three borough/city councillors (a massive blow to the party), a whole bunch of organisers and some extremely prominent names who did important jobs and who have long-term friends in the party who will follow them. This is to say nothing of the many hundreds of people who have left comments on the blog - ordinary members, for want of a better phrase - who have had enough of Griffin, Collett and Hannam and are choosing not to renew their membership in the party or donate anything - even if they were in the habit of donating before.

Griffin's arrogant assumption that because he says so, the revolution is over, is typical of a man desperate to convince himself as well as his party but, unless Graham and Smith agree to come back on his terms and work alongside a couple of guys they hate and despise, and unless the party as a whole is prepared to ignore the activities of the Griffin/Collett/Hannam triumverate and their multiple failings even after all this, our guess would be that there is a lot more of this drama to be played out yet.

Demoralisation sets in at the BNP

The internal dispute is starting to take its toll on the BNP membership. Its first victim appears to be Rob Purcell, the party’s former Birmingham branch organiser and once a full-time party official. He has apparently decided not to renew his party membership regardless on the eventual outcome of the rebellion.

Joining him could be David Jones, the BNP’s National Data Protection Officer, North West Regional Secretary, Regional Press Officer and the Tameside Fundholder. Yesterday he posted a partial resignation letter stating that if the sacked rebels were not allowed to return he too would be leaving the party. Once a strong supporter of Griffin, Jones is now calling on him to go.

“It is with a heavy heart that I write these words but they must be written,” he says. “The currennt crisis in the party was inevitable. The leadership has expelled too many people in the last..........6, 12, 18 months. who knows where the rot started. Some may have deserved it. But I ask, is it likely that ALL are state, reds, malcontents etc? I think not.

“I am ill. My active participation in nationalist politics is limited. I cannot assume any mantle of power. Therefore I can speak with detatchment. The "strikers", of whom I am one, have been driven to this position by the attitude of the leadership, people or a person, who I still cannot hate or despise. But in the words of Cromwell ‘You have sat too long to be of use. In the name of God, go!’

“It is not that hard to be a leader. Respect others. Be honest. Treat others as you would have them treat you. If I have failed in this respect as a local "leader" it is because I have not followed my own guidelines. There are replacement leaders out there in the nationalist movement. They will step forward.

“If this current "strike" or whatever we find it called fails I will hopefully stay in the BNP. If not allowed to stay I WILL NOT fight against the decision, join or help form another party. I will involve myself in local community groups to help my fellow white people in the times which are coming.”

Meanwhile, as the strike grows and 2008 membership fees are withheld, the party leadership is preparing itself for a financial crisis.

Stop the BNP

The Griffin opposition speaks out...

There are two very interesting posts on fascist blogs at the moment, both of which are well worth taking a good look at. The first is on the North-West Nationalist site and was written by Adrian Davies, the second is on the dissident Enough is Enough blog.

Now is the winter of our discontent

As I write these words, it seems increasingly likely that Nick Griffin’s paranoia and unbridled lust for power (I said power, though it seems that he will also have his Gaveston!) are leading to the disintegration of his party.

If that does not happen in the next few weeks, and “the Leader” (as he likes to describe himself, capitalised as in the original German) somehow retains control of a few square miles of rubble strewn wilderness around the Welshpool bunker into 2008, it will happen in the next few months. The financial time bombs ticking away under the bunker are going to detonate soon, and that will be the end. That, however, is not my principal theme for to-day, though I must touch upon it. My good friend E. N. Ronn will be writing in depth about the saga of the BNP accounts shortly, so watch this space!

The immediate crisis has been precipitated by the latest purge of senior members who complained about the indecent influence of Mad King Nick’s (yes, I know that Gerry Gable thought of that title first, but why should the devil have all the best tunes?) current favourite, Mark “Young, Nazi and Proud” Collett, and asked awkward questions about the incompetence of the BNP treasurer John Walker and his deputy, ex-convict Dave Hannam, who are now well over five months late in filing the party’s 2006 accounts.

The real problem is not however the vain juvenile Collett, nor the criminal Hannam, nor the incompetent Walker, nor even the appalling Nick Griffin himself. In part it is the authoritarian constitution bequeathed to Griffin by John Tyndall, which allows Griffin to indulge his whims and caprices at will, and the culture of secrecy in which the members are treated like mushrooms by “the Leader” and his kitchen cabinet, who are not fit to run a whelk stall, let alone an organisation with an income of £672,246 in 2005, the last year for which it troubled to file accounts (not to mention an expenditure of £766,958!). In part however the problem is also the poverty of expectations in the movement, and the easy tolerance of sleaze and criminality by people who should know better, conniving at the arbitrary misuse of power and gross financial malpractice, while prating on about how they will save our country from a corrupt establishment. May heaven preserve England from such “saviours”!

At present, the stated position of the BNP dissidents is that they do not desire a new party, and seek reform from within. I can well understand their feelings. They have given years of their lives to build up the BNP, they have to deal with a membership that has a sentimental attachment to the name, while precedents from the National Party in 1976 to the Freedom Party in 2001 show how hard a task it is to build something new, as I know from personal experience.

The dissidents face two big problems if they persist in that course. The first is that under section 5 of the BNP’s constitution, “General Members’ Meetings may only be called by the National Chairman or by the Advisory Council in accordance with Section 5 of this Constitution”. Somehow I cannot imagine Nick Griffin or the leading light on his rump Advisory Council, his insinuating deputy, Simon Darby (an interesting if unattractive chimaera created by mingling the DNA of Grima Wormtongue, Martin Bormann and the Man who was Thursday in a government laboratory at Porton Down) agreeing to an EGM!

Secondly, the BNP is almost certainly bankrupt. I have said that the state of its accounts is not my principal theme, but I must outline the most glaring features to explain why I have come to that conclusion.

As the BNP’s auditors, Silvers, said in their report annexed to the 2005 accounts (more recent accounts are notoriously not available):

“ . . . for the last two years the party has incurred a deficit . . . the Balance Sheet is now in deficit, there is an element of doubt as to its ability to continue as a going concern. There are however funds available within the ‘Regional Accounting Unit’ . . . to rectify the situation.”

Indeed there were. Note 5 to the Regional Accounting Unit’s accounts for2006 (which, unlike the Central Accounting Unit’s, have been filed with the Electoral Commission), prepared by Dave Hannam (who is on the out for the time being) reads:

“At the end of the year, the party owed the regional accounting unit £21,854, and this was repaid by 26th January 2007.”

Put into plain English, head office dipped into branch funds to the tune of £21,854 to pay 2005's bills, then repaid that amount out of 2006's income. A problem with this tactic is that in the next year, you run out of money even sooner. Such practices are redolent of trading while insolvent. I wonder how much has been borrowed from branch funds to meet this year’s deficit? Is that why the 2006 accounts have not been filed?

When, shortly before his resignation from the BNP’s Advisory Council earlier this year, Jonathan Bowden asked Nick Griffin what economies he proposed to make to reduce the carried forward deficit, the answer came back “none”. The deficit would be funded by growth.

The BNP grew rapidly in the early years of this decade. >From a total of some 1,200 when Nick Griffin was elected chairman in 1999, membership rose to 6,008 or 6,502

(it is not clear which: both figures appear at different pages of the 2005 accounts!) in 2005. In passing, while Nick Griffin likes to claim the credit for such growth, it is largely the result of external factors, namely the leftward drift of the Tory party, the failure of UKIP to rebrand itself as a broadly based party of the populist right, and the reaction to massive immigration.

Since audited accounts are not available for any date after 31st December 2005, it is impossible to say what the current membership might be, but after disappointing results in the May 2007 local elections, it seems unlikely that growth will plug the gap.

Put bluntly, the BNP has operated much like a Ponzi scheme for many years, but now the new money is not coming in to pay the accumulated debts. Soon the music will have to stop.

Interesting though I as a lawyer might find the question how far incoming members of the committee of management of an unincorporated association are liable for debts contracted by their predecessors, I somehow doubt that there will be a rush of volunteers to defend a test case brought by disgruntled creditors! Yet that would be the likely position of anyone taking over the leadership of the BNP from Nick Griffin.

It appears therefore to follow that at some point in the not too distant future (though possibly not for so long as Griffin and Walker can avoid filing accounts for 2006) the stark reality of insolvency will compel even the reluctant to consider a fresh start (and even leave them with no practical alternative).

Significant advantages can be obtained from such a scenario, which now seems much more likely than a week ago. Not only will Nick be left to pay the debts that he contracted, as is only fair and right, but also the problematic baggage that the BNP carries can be jettisoned. Never again will sensible patriots have to answer awkward questions about the role in their party of Lecomber or Collett.

Certain measures will have to be taken. The first will be to form a broadly based committee to run a new party till elections to its governing body take place. It would seem sensible to allow six to nine months before holding elections, to build up the membership, and allow a meaningful vote for a representative committee.

The second will be to agree a platform for the party that is neither so bland as to fail to put clear red, white and blue water between us and, say, UKIP or the Cornerstone group of Tory M.P.s, while not being so radical as to lead us into the political wilderness so beloved of purists, fantasists and fanatics of the left and right.

A draft constitution would have to be put to the members at the first general members’ meeting. Such a constitution should provide for the holding once a year of a general

meeting of the members, who alone should have the power to amend the constitution and the statement of aims, and to appoint the members of internal disciplinary tribunals, so that the chairman or governing body cannot pack them. The constitution should also require the officers to lay accounts, prepared by the treasurer, and passed by a registered external auditor before the members in general meeting for approval.

Rid of the albatross legacy of “Young, Nazi and Proud”, “the Secret Agent” etc. ad infinitum et ad nauseam, and committed to a sensible tactical doctrine of building up from the grassroots by engagement in local elections, not fantasies about getting onto the Brussels gravy train, such a party will quickly occupy the large electoral space created by the leftward drift of PC Dave’s Tories, and the abject failure of UKIP to capitalise on the long lost opportunities of 2004.

Now is the time for all true patriots to take a principled yet practical stand. Adherence to the embattled Welshpool clique is not only immoral, it is now also impolitic. Continued support for Griffin amidst accounting scandals and raids by illegal goon squads on the homes of democratically elected councillors equates to moral leprosy, and political suicide.

Over the coming weeks and months, we shall see who does the right thing, who does the wrong thing, and who sits on the fence to see which side will prevail. What will you do?

Wretched and rebellious

Nick Griffin’s latest posting on the website does nothing to enhance his reputation for telling the truth. While the GLA elections are indeed a massive opportunity for the BNP, his attempts to describe the circumstances surrounding the last seven days smack of utter desperation.

To suggest that ‘far-left’ embedded assets have emerged to cause this crisis, when all people have tried to do is awaken you to real and dangerous problems within, is playing a very dangerous political game. It seems that the bigger the crisis, the bigger the smear that has to be told to get yourself out of it. Nonetheless, there is no better response to this than to tell the truth.

In conjunction with the above, some serious questions need to be asked:

• Why has Mark Collett been able to cause trouble wherever he has gone, while you have taken his side on every instance which has led to the sacking or smearing of hard working and well respected Nationalists?
• Why has Dave Hannam been allowed to keep his job for such a long time despite clearly not being up to it, and despite serious reservations from many Party officials?
• Why was the expulsion and treatment of Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith broadcast on the website for 10,000 visitors a day to read that the BNP illegally records people’s conversations and enters their homes by deception while stealing personal property?
• Why are extracts from that personal property then added to that website, in full view of the public at large?
• Why are you now going round the country accusing others of being state assets, when you know full well that those you are accusing have literally given years of honest hard graft to the Cause?

Your revelation about a ‘palace coup’ is nothing more than an inept and incorrect justification for you to rid the Party of those people who have criticised Mark Collett. People before have criticised Mark, and those people are now gone, yet not without being smeared by you as either a ‘red’ or having stolen money. The larger the degree to which Mark dislikes the said people, the larger the smear used against them.

The suggestion that ‘the little clique’ wanted to remove power from the leader, the members who elect the leader and the voting members is nothing more than a lie designed to get those said people on board by deceptively suggesting that all of you as Chairman, the Voting Members, and the members in general are all being undermined together. Chris Beverley was voted to be the Councillors Representative at the latest annual Conference, by existing Councillors. This would have given him a place on the AC, which comes with that position. At the latest North West Regional Council meeting (not the stage managed hatchet job last week) Chris Jackson was given overwhelming backing by the North West Officials (no-one voted against him) to be the North West Regional Organiser. However you have not honoured this and you have instead installed yourself as the North West RO. Both Chris Beverley and Chris Jackson can’t exactly be described as Mark Collett fans, yet they are both excellent Organisers and dedicated Nationalists. To suggest that these two people, democratically elected by their peers meant filling the AC with people to undermine you is ludicrous. How then do you explain the fact that Ian Dawson turned down the role of Yorkshire Organiser (and thus a place on the AC) when according to your theory, Ian, as another Collett non-fan, would surely have jumped at the chance to be back on the AC?

Greed? Insecurity? Juvenile arrogance? A secret extremist agenda? Knowing that their own failings are about to catch up with them? A more perfect description of Mark Collett surely does not exist.

A ‘very productive meeting in the North West’? Where three well respected and hard working long term Nationalists, who were also Regional Officials, resigned? Where you had the room to yourself to show off your undoubted skills as a politician and political debater without your scandalous and desperate claims to be properly challenged?

Glasgow – there was no unanimous vote at all, the Organiser and the Fund-Holder have resigned in protest at your handling of a situation that would never have developed had you lanced the Mark Collett boil on the numerous occasions presented to you over the years. No doubt your ‘one side of the story only’ road show will enable you to win over more people who ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’, yet the truth always comes out and you reap what you sow.

Your tale of badgering phone calls is astounding! It is you and your various lieutenants that have been making calls, spreading lies and badgering officials not to resign in protest. To do the deed and then falsely accuse others of doing it is about as low as it gets. When you’re in a hole……

Which activists were turned away from the smart and friendly pub venue (the first pub you went to after being aquitted at Leeds Crown Court) used for the openly advertised social meeting in Bradford? The thirty plus people in the meeting did not include wretched women, in fact there were no wretched women in the pub at all. Those present were men and women who pay their membership fees so that you and your ‘advisers’ can lie about them to 10,000 visitors a day on the BNP website.

Angela Clarke was in the pub at the time, though not as it happens in the ‘rebel meeting room’. The suggestion that Angela is a wretched woman shows the utter hatred you have for anyone who dares to ask the wrong questions about Mark Collett. Angela was an exceptionally brave BNP councillor who literally fought on the front line in the town of Keighley. She endured more than anyone yet you gave such little support. When you sent Mark Collett in to protect her (the sheer irony of it all) all she received was a computer filled with perverse pornography to which when questioned about it, Collett’s reply was “so f***ing what, it is for my own personal viewing”. The fall out that followed was once again handled with the same trusted method – that of smearing Angela and defending Mark Collett.

Mark Collett, while now given the title of ‘Head of Graphic Design’, was never more than this anyway. Martin Wingfield design and produces Voice of Freedom (and does a fantastic job), John Bean is the editor for Identity (and does a fantastic job) – Mark Collett only ever did the layout and pictures. Steve Blake was in charge of the website (and did a fantastic job even though he was never taken on full time and had to fit it around a non-BNP job). You wrote the information for the national leaflets; Mark Collett only did the graphic design for those leaflets. The only Publicity that Mark Collett has ever been head of is ‘Bad Publicity’. Despite the change of title, Mark will be doing exactly as before and more, now that he has been given the role as editor of the British Nationalist bulletin.

We understand the ‘road show’ was in Leicestershire yesterday afternoon – the outcome of the meeting for Sadie to remain as a normal member was far from satisfactory. She has not only lost her job and her income in the run up to Christmas while pregnant, her personal possessions have not been returned (including her personal computer) despite you accepting at the meeting that the BNP computer you thought you had taken is still in Sadie’s possession. Therefore you have been trawling through Sadie’s private computer given to her by her father, when you knew full well that this was the case. You have thus broken the law of the land by the dissemination of (whether true or amended for your own agenda) Sadie’s personal information. You are in boiling hot water and you damn well know it.

Meetings in the New Year won’t be about listening to the BNP answers; they will be about listening to your answers. Yet Nick, this is the British National Party, not the Nick Griffin Party.

You make so many predictions and cover so many angles, that whatever is to happen you can link it in with past predictions to suit your immediate requirements. Great politician, great political speaker and debater, yet that alone will not take us to the finish line.