Non-whites barred from BNP meeting

Video courtesy of Don't Panic

Two senior BNP figures have been secretly filmed barring non-whites from entering one of their meetings on the day the party was forced to admit black and Asian members

Richard Barnbrook, the BNP's representative on the London Assembly, and Bob Bailey, the party's London organiser, were filmed stopping 10 non-whites entering a branch meeting in the Eastbrook pub in Dagenham. The meeting was on 15 October, the day the party was forced to change its constitution to allow non-white people to join.

The emergence of the new footage, shot by film-maker Heydon Prowse, the editor of Don't Panic magazine, will come as a massive embarrassment to BNP leader Nick Griffin just hours ahead of his appearance on BBC Question Time tonight. In the film, Mr Barnbrook, a Barking and Dagenham councillor, is seen telling a group of mixed race African and Asian campaigners that the meeting is "private" before the group is told to leave. One of the campaigners, a white Swedish woman and the only non-Briton in the group, was told she could stay.

The film shows the campaigners, who had worn Nick Griffin T-shirts and were carrying their British passports, being abused outside the meeting's venue by a BNP member who says "we don't want people like you".

Mr Barnbrook claims to be "delighted" by the decision to allow non-whites despite denying the group entry to the meeting. In the footage he says: "It's a private meeting. I'm afraid the meeting inside here is closed. We're finishing."

The move is mirrored by another party official, Bob Bailey, who is later filmed admitting the party now allows non-white members to join but still refuses to let the group inside the meeting, saying "This is a members' meeting and that's it". Some time later he says: "Our party has always been open to other people if they want to join. We've got people who are black Africans, we've got people who are from the West Indies, we've got Sri Lankans - we've got people from everywhere."

Mr Prowse said: "While Bailey was throwing us out he seemed to be aware of the fact that he couldn't appear to be discriminating against non-whites but he couldn't come up with one valid reason why we shouldn't be let in." After the group is barred, a party member confronts the group, saying: "This is my party. I don't want you in my party and it is up to us whether we decide to let you people in - people that ain't like us. Our party is being forced into a position that we do not want. You can belong to anything you like, but we don't want you. You are not white British."

London Evening Standard