Kick in the teeth for Liverpool BNP activist

Tony Ward

Two vocal supporters of Eddy Butler’s challenge to Nick Griffin’s leadership of the British National Party have been suspended with immediate effect.

The Liverpool activists Peter Stafford and Tony Ward have received letters from Clive Jefferson, the party’s national organiser who acts as Griffin’s Rottweiler, suspending them “pending an investigation into alleged serious breaches of the BNP Code of Conduct”.

While suspended they are not allowed to take part in any party event. Failure to comply “could result in your expulsion from membership of the Party, and Civil or Criminal proceedings being taken against you”, as if Griffin has not got the BNP embroiled in enough expensive and hopeless legal actions already.

Tony Ward is a long-time activist whom party members held in esteem after he got hit in the head with a hammer when protesters objected to the presence of a BNP campaign trailer in Leigh, Greater Manchester, in March last year. Now, the hammer blow to his head has been followed by a kick in the teeth.

Stafford, who is openly gay and has attracted opprobrium in the BNP because of it, posted on Facebook that Jefferson had been kicked out of a Liverpool BNP meeting last night “when the membership demanded answers he wouldn’t give”.

Stafford continued: “He thought he could throw his weight about and destroy a strong branch and the members would roll over. He was mistaken!”

Hope not Hate