The BNP moves into horse-trading

More money-making lunacy from the BNP

Nick Griffin's mania for new opportunities to make money continues unabated with the sudden creation of a completely new venture - Horse Matters - which purports to be 'the UK's premier source of equestrian news and events', despite the fact that the site has only existed for about half an hour and doesn't even work properly.

Griffin - who really should be concentrating on submitting the BNP's long-overdue accounts to the Electoral Commission - is obviously intending to saturate the entire internet with fraudulent companies claiming to be the premier this or the UK's best that, but the only thing they really have in common is that they show the BNP leadership's desperation to fleece as many people as possible in the shortest possible time.

We all know about the companies that appear like mushrooms wherever the BNP sees an opportunity for a scam - Albion Life, the insurance brokers that died after little more than a month (hope it was insured), Brightahomes, the double-glazing nonsense that still appears to be going (just - do a search for it via Google and a single link appears), the Skip-Hire Registry, another internet-based company that disappeared almost as soon as it was formed, Avocado Mortgages, that claimed to be the 'right site for your every mortgage requirement' though nobody in their right minds would trust the BNP or Nick Griffin with more than a box of paper-clips let alone their mortgage - and they are widely regarded as a joke of the first order though the deeper we look, the more we feel there is yet to be discovered.

Horse Matters is, it claims on the site, sponsored by Avocado Mortgages. This presumably is entirely meaningless as Avocado has only been in existence since late-June and is unlikely to have made more than a tenner for the BNP in that time. So what's the point in the reference to Avocado? Simply that the BNP, which nobody trusts, seeks to legitimise its many and various enterprises by referencing them to other BNP enterprises. Brightahomes, Avocado and now Horse Matters avoid any mention of the BNP - unlike the defunct Albion Life - and thus avoid being tainted by it, at least until they're caught out.

Griffin and the BNP's indiscriminate and growing frenzy to raise money points us to one of two conclusions - that the party is almost bankrupt, is on its last legs and Nick Griffin is panicking, or that there is a big plan afoot which urgently needs funding. Speculation is rife among anti-fascists as to which it could be but we're beginning to see distinct hints in our correspondence that the Croatia angle should not be ignored under any circumstances.

That's speculation that we can leave for another article when we have a little more information but in the meantime, if you have any more info on the BNP's curious world of dodgy companies, please let us know. At the very least, we can have a good laugh at them.

British National Party morale and finances plummet to all-time low

Over the last few weeks - in fact since the first announcement that there could be a leadership challenge in the BNP - we've received dozens of emails from BNP supporters complaining about the state of the party, both financially and with regard to morale.

Some of these we disregard on the grounds that they're probably from the minor fascist parties trying to be clever but the ones that we regard as genuinely from BNP supporters seem to have a couple of themes in common - that morale in the party is at rock-bottom and that income has more or less dried up. The two themes also appear to be inextricably linked directly to Nick Griffin himself.

One of the emails pointed out that the Trafalgar Club (the Trafalgar Club is the group for the wealthier BNP member - allegedly the 'elite') members pay £180 per year for the privilege of belonging to it which apparently entitles them to a TC tie and an annual blow-out with Griffin. Wow - that must be worth £180 of anyone's money! The email then went on to point out that there are about 200 Trafalgar Club members which, to my reckoning, comes to around £36,000 per year. Added to this are the emails we received which pointed out that the annual Trafalgar Club dinner saw a collection which came out at £10-15,000. Yet the only mention of the Trafalgar Club in the BNP's accounts for 2004/5 are of the £4000 it apparently cost to set it up in 2004, and income of £1155 in 2005. Clearly there is a major problem in the accounts there which we expect either the auditors or the Electoral Commission to watch for in a couple of weeks when the next accounts are due to appear.

Even donations to the party are dropping shockingly fast. Considering the party has been riding what it acknowledges to be a wave of popularity over the last few years, the 2004/5 accounts show a drop of £53,000 - and we gather this year should, if the BNP can bear to tell the truth, show an even more substantial drop.

In fact, from all we hear, income has largely dried up as the membership has started to realise that it is being used as a cash cow for Nick Griffin to milk for his regular little get-rich-quick schemes. Indeed, rumour has it that membership income has dropped too. 2004/5 saw a decrease of £14,000 in membership income and more is expected this year.

The financial condition of the party is so precarious, largely thanks to Griffin and his mad schemes, that the auditors, J. Silver and Co, stated unequivocally;

'Whilst the accounts have been prepared on the basis that the Party is a going concern, given the fact that for the last two years the Party has incurred a deficit, and that the Balance Sheet is now in deficit, there is an element of doubt as to its ability to continue as a going concern.'

But while the accounts are bad enough, they are as nothing compared with the loss of morale at branch level. With the disastrous May elections over, in which the BNP expected to gain over fifty seats but actually got none at all, masses of sustained negative publicity from all directions and no by-election wins for over three years, the membership is becoming indifferent when called upon to give more for the party, whether the call is financial or for more effort out on the streets. Continuous revelations about BNP-allied business fiascos also have their effect on the membership with the Albion Life and now Solidarity cock-ups being widely treated as embarrassing and unnecessary disasters for Griffin and his entourage at the head of the party.

Griffin himself certainly figures prominently in BNP member's emails to us, with the expression 'struts around soaking up money' a general indicator of the disquiet felt at his apparent arrogance and patronisation of the general membership and the continuous expensive disasters that eat up the membership fees far faster than elections ever could.

Great White Records with its alleged £50,000 set-up costs (equivalent to around 1700 annual membership fees)and its £12,000 per year expenditure (around 400 membership fees) and absolutely NO profit is just one example. Another is the BNP's fake and pointless union Solidarity, which must have cost £4,000 (130 membership fees) to register with the Certification Officer and God alone knows how much to run with NO profit. The list, believe me, is endless, and goes back as far as Griffin's first months in the position of British National Party leader.

We've also been accused in the emails we receive of unfairly regarding all BNP members as nazi thugs. Well that's not true - or at least not true any more. Yes, there are a lot of nazis still tucked away in the BNP (including Griffin) and there are certainly a fair amount of thugs but we tend to regard the broader BNP membership as misguided and misinformed by an utterly corrupt leadership.

Nick Griffin and his bunch of pals at the top of the party regard the membership as a bunch of suckers just waiting for him to come and lift the cash out of their bank accounts for the next little scheme. And what IS the next little scheme? Croatia. But more of that in a few days...

Nick Griffin the mortgage broker? Just what precisely IS the BNP now?

What precisely is the BNP? Your guess is as good as ours but now it's rapidly becoming a money-grubbing national joke! First it was secondhand cars, then the fake church and union, then it was life insurance, swiftly followed by double-glazing and skip hire - though that's ignoring all the little bits and pieces on the way like the BNP's invisible though expensive bus and the radio station that never was - and now it has entered the (it hopes) lucrative mortgage market.

The British National Party, rapidly becoming the most financially-inept and patently desperate organisation in the known universe, has branched out into trying to flog you a mortgage for that dream home of yours - or rather to act as it planned to act with Albion Life - to sell you a mortgage via some other company and take a broker's fee for doing nothing except setting up a web site and finding the sucke - customers.

The BNP's new attempted rip-off, the quaintly-named Avocado (thick-skinned, slimy inside and with a heart of stone) Mortgages appears to be working through a company named David Boulton Mortgage Solutions who apparently have an office at 28 West Road, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales, CF31 4HD.

Curiously, or perhaps not, this appears to be the same David Boulton of Financial Solutions Unlimited in Bridgend who was associated with the BNP's failed venture into life insurance, the laughably short-lived Albion Life. David Boulton appears to be a busy boy - he's also listed as David Boulton & J. Saunders (Mortgages), Victoria Chambers, 7 Dunraven Place, Bridgend, Vale Of Glamorgan, CF31 1JF, Tel: 01656 664006. Whether this is the same David Boulton is uncertain but it seems unlikely that a smallish place like Bridgend is awash with David Boultons, all involved in mortgages and/or financial advice.

Readers may recall that Albion Life made a very big thing of being involved with the British National Party, clearly hoping that supporters would sign up and leave their insurance to the party when they finally pegged it. Avocado though - obviously having learned a valuable lesson from its predecessor, doesn't mention the BNP at all, which might not actually be fraud as far as the law is concerned, but certainly seems like it.

Once again - following the process it used with Albion Life - the BNP tries to give the impression that it is Avocado who is doing all the work, when in fact it's the real broker, David Boulton (and possibly his business partners Craig Francis and Brian John Howcroft). In a section on the website headed 'Why Avocado?', the party/company gives us this incoherent nonsense;

'Avocado Mortgages can help power charge your finances, releasing equity tied up in your property or help get you on the first rung of the property ladder.

• To treat our customers fairly and with honesty and integrity in a courteous manner at all times.
• To offer our professional yet personal service to our customers in a speedy manner.
• To endeavour to recommend the most suitable lenders and products to satisfy customer needs, using the whole market place.
• To provide our customers with all the relevant information required during the process and to ensure that customers fully understand the information.
• To endeavour to make prompt contact with new clients to start our advice process as soon as possible, ensuring that the client is able to speak to an experienced advisor.'

Which rather gives the impression that it is Avocado doing the business and not someone else entirely.

David Boulton, or at least the David Boulton who was associated with Albion Life and is now associated with Avocado, doesn't seem to be too bothered about what the public thinks of his connections with the British National Party but one wonders about the building societies whose trademarks appear all over the Avocado site without, we suspect, a single permission being asked for, implied or granted. These include the following companies:

Cheltenham and Gloucester
Alliance and Leicester
Portman Building Society
Northern Rock
Abbey
Nationwide
Yorkshire Building Society
Scarborough Building Society
Norwich and Peterborough Building Society
Mutual Matters
Skipton Building Society

Well, we'll have to check that out with their head offices and see what they say. Feel free to find the Head Office address for each of them on the internet and complain with us...

But that's not all. Behind the Avocado Mortgages site, there is another one hiding away, also registered to Steve Blake, the registrant of the BNP site, Avocado, Albion Life, the Skip Hire Registry, the Christian Council of Britain and Brightahomes (double-glazing) - Avocado Finance. One wonders what plans are afoot for this fake company's future.

Quite what the BNP's next money-making venture will be who knows, but what's the betting it will be another one of Nick Griffin's rubbishy get rich quick schemes that'll not only fall at the first hurdle but end up costing the party a fortune, all paid for out of the membership money. Leadership challenges notwithstanding, you do have to wonder how long the membership will keep its patience with this simple-minded buffoon.

(Note: Thanks to Denise, who first spotted Avocado and passed the info along)

BNP's fake union Solidarity already up against the ropes

Potter, Lee and Walker

Coup d'etat or power-struggle at Solidarity?

Update: According to one of our contributors (check Comments); 'There does seem to be some disruption going on regarding the union. Two members of the Executive appear to have taken upon themselves the right to 'suspend' the general secretary at an inquorate 'meeting' on the ever of a massive recruiting drive. Against all the rules of natural justice, they brought in an investigator who was also to become 'acting general secretary'. In other words, he had a vested interest in taking the job from the incumbent general secretary, Mr Harrington. From the correspondence I have seen, it looks like this investigator had already prejudged the issue and Mr Harrington had to go! Not so much an investigation as a coup d'etat. They just weren't very good about it. The EGM will sort this matter out on behalf of the rank-and-file members.'

A report that has appeared on the BNP website reveals that the fake union set up by the party is already in trouble and seems likely to go the same way as all the other ventures the BNP has ever been involved in, like Nick Griffin's washout of a money-spinner Affordable Cars and the Albion Life insurance scam.

The source of the problem is that, according to the BNP, 'an unconstitutional attempt has been made to remove General Secretary Pat Harrington from his position'. Harrington has something of a fine union pedigree - he was expelled from the RMT. He was also one of the National Front's 'political soldiers' in the late 1980s alongside Nick Griffin. Other BNP activists involved in the project include Jay Lee, who was recently booted out of Aslef, and John Walker, the BNP's national treasurer, who has had his own troubles with the T&G. Clive Potter, the possible President of Solidarity is a long-time BNP activist from Leicester, who was expelled from Unison for improper conduct. Potter is still listed as President on Solidarity's homepage though it was our understanding that he had been ousted months ago. More info on this point would be appreciated.

The BNP produces its usual kneejerk response to problems in the ranks, blaming any difficulties on somebody else, usually 'reds'. In this case, the party goes into overdrive, claiming that 'Solidarity has been the subject of a far-left sabotage bid, involving several individuals working as a team' and that the bid to boot the useless Harrington out of office 'and to replace him with an unknown individual from Merseyside whose involvement in the BNP has extended to just a few weeks...the local organiser and activists concluded from his behaviour that he could well be a Marxist agent provocateur'.

However, the real problem is made apparent in the next section of the article - and regular readers of this blog will recognise it straight away as a problem that seems to exist wherever the BNP sticks its corporate nose in.

'...Tim Hawke [Solidarity Vice-President] continues to refuse to sign first year accounts so that these can be submitted to the Certification Officer in time. This is despite the fact that the accounts were prepared by an accountant and have been independently and professionally audited by a Barrister and Kenny Smith (head of BNP admin).'

Yes indeed. The BNP - or rather one of its many subsidiaries, is in financial trouble (again). There is really only one reason for not signing accounts off and that is that you do not believe that they are a true statement of the financial affairs of the stated organisation. Clearly, Tim Hawke has doubts about either their accuracy or possibly their legality, and it wouldn't be the first time that a treasurer or someone connected with the financial side of a BNP venture has balked at leaving themselves open to litigation by signing off on a load of rubbish - at least a couple of treasurers have been booted out after doing the same thing.

One of the 'purposes' listed for the formation of Solidarity was to avoid what the BNP interpreted as union corruption. Its statement on formation clearly says; 'We want independent unions that are fully accountable to its members whose finances are transparent...' by which one assumes it to mean the organisation's finances are transparent and not the member's finances, although that's certainly open to doubt.

To get around the problem of awkward people inconveniently refusing to sign dodgy accounts, the BNP proposes to call an Emergency General Meeting to completely subvert the democracy it claims to uphold and increase the size of the Executive from the current three, presumably Harrington, Potter and Hawke, to seven, the additional four being one from Third Way (Harrington's current political affiliation) and a vote-winning three from the BNP. This would ensure that, no matter what dubious transactions take place and no matter what goes on that the members are kept unaware of, all decisions will be made by the patently corrupt BNP and the very co-operative Pat Harrington, Nick Griffin's buddy from the old days.

Under Item 14(a) of the present constitution of the fake union, 'The Executive Committee may suspend or dismiss any Solidarity officer in cases of misconduct. It has the power to remove any incompetent or insubordinate Branch or Regional Officer.'

It looks like Tim Hawke has had it then.

It also looks like the BNP is attempting to retain complete control over the union - which is certainly not the impression the party was trying to make when it first set the whole thing up - presumably because if it ever takes off (which it never will) it'll make pots of money, most of which will be siphoned off to the nearest handy pockets. These accounts, along with membership numbers, should make interesting reading - if they're ever allowed to appear and, of course, if they're accurate.

The BNP and the BNP's union - democracy and accountability in action. Well, not quite.