Griffin in panic as membership demands answers over list debacle

Nick Griffin trying to look coy

It's rare to see Nick Griffin responding to the concerns of the members of the British National Party. As long as they pay their membership subscriptions to enable him to live in the style to which he is determined to remain accustomed, he can generally ignore them except for the odd visit to a meeting or the occasional impassioned plea for yet more money.

In fact, the only thing that has ever motivated Griffin is money - as those who have watched him closely over the past decade or two will verify. Hence the sudden panic.

Yesterday's news of the leak and widespread publication of the party's entire membership list - complete with names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, job details, hobbies and a few other little notes that seemed to be of interest to the BNP management - brought the sweat to Griffin's ample brow as he contemplated the membership rightly dumping a party that could lose such essential and sensitive information.

Blogs and forums all over the internet were buzzing with the news - our side with glee at such an appalling disaster for the far-right, their side with fury at the fear of being outed as members of the foremost racist party in the UK, particularly where they have a lot to lose, like a job. Far from supporting Nick Griffin on this worrisome day, the party membership was on the attack all day demanding to know how this crisis had come about.

As the day progressed, more news agencies picked it up - from those based solely on the internet like the Register, Bloggerheads, TechRadar, Harry's Place et al, to a swathe of newspapers and TV stations including the Guardian, Mirror and Telegraph, BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

Griffin's reaction to all this was, according to one of our sources inside the party, to sit in stunned silence for ages, seething. Eventually though, he decided that action was after all of more use than sulking and decided to do what he always does - to attack on multiple fronts.

His first claim - which doesn't really seem to have convinced anyone - is that the membership list is genuine but long out of date. It is, he claims, a membership and skills list from November 2007. Our response is to ask why in that case are there several entries dated 2008? The second claim is that it is the same list that was used by the December 2007 rebels to send out 'bogus' British Nationalist bulletins last December and January and that 'detailed analysis by our membership department proves conclusively that the core list dates from between 30th November and 2nd December 2007'. And we ask the same question again. Not that we expect an answer.

Griffin is desperate to reinforce the fiction that the list is out of date and thus mentions it on any available occasion. You can almost hear him chewing the pencil as he struggles to get the message across.

'We have already sent formal demands to the web hosts to remove the list, pointing out to them that the fact that the publication of this year-old list constitutes Contempt of Court because a court order preventing its release or use was made and consented to by the group of disgraced former employees who first misappropriated it.'

He then goes off at a tangent, reminding us that there is still another stage of his Manchester court case against the rebels to go through - carefully avoiding mentioning that it will never happen because both he and his party are close to skid row. Even so, he attempts to justify this year's expulsion of the December rebels by saying; 'There, see what they did. Wasn't I right to kick them out then take them to court?'

Naturally, he doesn't address the question of why the rebels would make use of a membership list that the court had expressly forbidden them to use, in the full and certain knowledge that, at the very least, it would lead to a charge of contempt? Because he knows full well what the answer is - this was nothing to do with the rebels; they just happen to be a useful scapegoat. Nevertheless, we look forward with some interest to seeing him back in court in the very near future, attempting to prove that the rebels had anything at all to do with the current release of the list. It would be a good laugh, except that it won't happen.

Griffin really gave the game away yesterday when he announced indignantly that the party had made a complaint to Dyfed-Powys Police and 'will be giving formal statements shortly to support our demand for a serious and thorough police investigation into a series of very serious potential crimes, including breaches of the Data Protection Act, theft and receipt of stolen goods, and breaches of the Human Rights Act [which, incidentally, the BNP intends to repeal on its triumphant march into Downing Street]. Unless those involved have been extremely careful to cover their tracks, they are liable to find themselves in very serious trouble - and in prison'.

All very pompous and British and stern and so on - except that when asked by the BBC about the complaint, the Dyfed-Powys police had no record of it. The complaint seems to been made since the Beeb asked and reported on it but this is yet another example of Griffin's empty pompous bluster.

Yesterday was a double-disaster for Griffin for it was meant to be the official launch of his campaign to become a member of the European Parliament and thus one of the Euro fat-cats that he professes to despise. Our article, and the astonishing publicity that it generated, killed the launch stone-dead.

Attempting to claw back some gain from the day, he threw in an advert for the BNP's very own trade union - still, I gather, under investigation for financial irregularities by the Certification Officer - suggesting that those who are concerned about any possible repercussions that might result from the publication of the list should join Solidarity, run by his old mate, the similarly pompous Patrick Harrington.

Poor old Griffin, who has always believed his own insane stories about there being a million conspiracies against him , had one ready for yesterday's disaster.

'The timing and actual aim of this leak story is blatant: It was set running on Sunday evening, when the clique who co-ordinate virtually all anti-BNP campaigns would have been confident that the following day’s kangaroo court at the General Teaching Council would take away from Adam Walker his right to teach.'

Well, no actually. We were still debating whether to pick up the story at all after taking advice about the potential legal difficulties involved and didn't decide to go ahead until late-morning. Adam Walker, I'm afraid, never formed any part of that decision.

Back in fantasy-land or possibly just believing his own bullshit, Griffin has this to say;

'Thanks to the treachery of the now long-dissipated Searchlight-linked rebel faction, the entire list has not only already been bombarded with lie-filled anti-BNP propaganda, but it has also without doubt been available to the far-left for the best part of a year already.'

Searchlight-linked? Really? Available to the far-left for the best part of a year? Really? Assuming Lancaster Unity is part of Griffin's mythical far-left conspiracy, we certainly haven't had access to this list for a year. If we had, we would have made use of it before now, as he knows full well. And if the rebels are 'long-dissipated', how come this can all be laid at their feet?

He finishes with a final flourish;

'It was absolutely obvious that the sensational BNP by-election victory in Boston at the end of last week...this latest attack is not really directed against our own people, who are already tough-minded and know that nothing ever comes of this sort of bluster, so much as against the thousands of UKIPers who are thinking of joining us.'

The by-election victory in Boston was a surprise yes, but more because it was the first by-election victory the BNP had managed in years. It was so 'sensational' that we mentioned it a whole, er twice. Some sensation - but when you have to motivate a flagging membership I guess you have to hang on to any victory, no matter how small or rare. As for 'thousands of UKIPers who are thinking of joining' the BNP, this appears to be another complete fantasy that the BNP has been droning on about for years in the hope that if they say it enough times, it will become the truth. It won't. The truth is that as many people leave the BNP to join Ukip as vice versa and nothing Nick Griffin says will change that.

All in all, this letter smacks of a desperate, panicky attempt at damage limitation after an unexpected and overwhelming publicity onslaught. In the absence of any other target, Nick Griffin has attacked the rebels (who have in fact gone and got on with other things as far as we can see), tried to bolster up some lies and added a smidgeon of bullshit to try to turn things back his way. It hasn't worked.

In truth, Griffin is in a mad panic because he sees a lot of members - angry at the apparently casual way the BNP seems to view their confidential information - walking out and taking all their endless donations with them. With the European elections coming up in 2009, he's going to need a lot of money if he is to properly attempt to con the electorate into letting him join what he perceives as the Euro gravy train - his objective for a number of years now.

Yesterday's fiasco was disastrous for Griffin and the BNP - let's keep the pressure up.