A quaint village is in turmoil after a BNP bid to join the local parish council. Next month three candidates will battle it out at the polls for the vacant seat on Upper Beeding Parish Council after a British National Party member forced an election.
Councillors fear that Donna Bailey, an unsuccessful BNP candidate in last year's Horsham District Council elections and a contender for the Upper Beeding poll, could win the seat. Senior members tonight said they were concerned that is she was elected it would associate the village of 1200 homes, near Steyning, with an "abhorrent" party.
Parish councillor Bob Harber said: "I think someone who has the public face of the BNP is not someone that we want to represent our village community. People will lose trust in the council if she gets in. It's fair to say it will certainly split the council."
Mother of three Donna Bailey has lived in the village for four years. When a seat became available on the parish council last year she made a requests to be co-opted on but these were turned down. She reported three councillors to the standards board for the way she was treated but they were later exonerated. Mrs Bailey then turned up to a parish council meeting in December with 23 supporters requesting she be co-opted.
Coun Harber said: "I've never seen anything like that in village meetings.
"The atmosphere really soured and it was quite threatening." [Our emphasis.]
After councillors rejected her argument for being co-opted onto the council a second time, Mrs Bailey petitioned for the poll, which is likely to cost the parish's 3,700-strong electorate about £3,500.
Simon Birnstingl, the vice chairman of the council, said: "I can't speak for the council because we're not party political, which is a tradition north of the Downs. What's agreed by councillors is that party politics doesn't enter the council unless elections are coming along. But I find the BNP an abhorrent political organisation and I dislike what they stand for. If you look at their manifesto they'll jump on any band wagon to get a stronger power base and then implement their horrible racist, hate-fuelled politics. And to me this is the worry. They're about hating your neighbour, rather than loving them.
"Upper Beeding is a lovely place to live in. People smile and say hello to each other when they walk past. It's already split the village. I thought long and hard about blowing the whistle on the fact she was a member of the BNP because I recognised her from a previous election."
Mrs Bailey defended her corner and said she was not trying to infiltrate the parish council for the BNP.
She said: "I have chosen to stand because I want to make this village a better place to live in. At the end of the day people have a choice. They will look at my leaflet and put their vote in the ballot box. That's how it should be in this country."
Mrs Bailey, who runs her own beauty and holistic therapy business from home, said she felt she was being intimidated by a minority on the council because she was prepared to question their decisions.
She said: "There's a very small number of people who have grouped together and orchestrated a campaign against me going back to May last year. It has less to do with party politics and more about the fact I might try and change things. I can make a contribution and I love the work I do. I'm not racist or homophobic. I'm just a normal person with normal concerns about the environment we live in."
Mrs Bailey is a member of the village's youth council and does fundraising work at the primary school.
A poll will be held in Upper Beeding on February 7.
Brighton Argus
January 30, 2008
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2 comments:
Listen, BNP troll posters:
This isn't Stormfront, and we weren't born yesterday. When Green Arrow and Brighton Rock become admin here you'll know that we've lost the plot and can no longer tell our rear ends from our elbows.
So bugger off.
Well, this Donna Bailey is a nasty little racist/fascist BNP troll. I just read her manifesto from when she stood as the nazi BNP candidate for the District Council Holbrook West by-election. It is full of racism, lies and half-truths!
http://votewise.co.uk/index.php?pg=show&c=116&eid=45UFGN&this=116
1)Here is an example of Donna Bailey’s BNP lies:
“Free medical treatment is the birthright of British people only, not foreigners who have never paid into the system”.
- What rubbish!! My wife is a Pakistani citizen working in the financial sector in London. She’s a top-rate taxpayer (i.e. pays 40% income tax) and pays hundreds of pounds in National Insurance (NI) contributions per month towards funding the NHS/free medical treatment. But, because my wife is on a spouse visa she is banned by law from using NHS services and taking benefits (if needed)!! She pays for it, but can’t use what she pays for!!! It looks like my wife funds nazi BNP trolls like Donna Bailey to have free medical treatment!
2) Here’s an example of pure BNP hate racism in Donna Bailey’s by-election manifesto:
“The BNP demands zero tolerance for travellers and their illicit anti-social activities”
- So, ‘zero tolerance’ for travellers purely because they are travellers? Unbelievable. Further, Donna Bailey and her BNP hate policies make the direct linkage (without any evidence) between ‘travellers’ and ‘illicit anti-social activities’! (one other point: isn’t the use of ‘illicit’ in the BNP statement, ‘illicit anti-social activities’, just a tad oxymoronic? Donna Bailey and the BNP seem to be implying that there somehow exist ‘legitimate anti-social activities’ as opposed to ‘illicit anti-social activities’. I guess it’s the BNP which carry out the former!).
3) Another Donna Bailey/BNP statement:
“once a British worker is found then the foreign worker will be returned to place of origin”.
- Well, here the BNP and Donna Bailey are advocating forced repatriation. This is despite the nazi BNP claiming that they only believe in ‘voluntary repatriation’ (or, is ‘voluntary’ a quaint BNP euphemism for ‘forced’. You never know with your fascist BNP types, they’re quite unpredictable).
I'm sick of the BNP, they just lie and spin. I feel sorry for that village in which Donna Bailey is standing in.
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