BNP deputy suspended for blog attack

British National Party deputy leader Simon Darby has been suspended by City Hall for attacking the Archbishop of York as "anti-British". Mr Darby now faces a disciplinary hearing and could be issued with a warning or even be dismissed by the Greater London Authority for bringing it into disrepute.

Mr Darby, whose part-time job at City Hall is funded by Londoners, came under fire last month when he hit back at criticism of his party by Archbishop Sentamu. He said in a blog that the cleric "deserved to be attacked" and then went on to suggest that Ugandans "threw spears" at enemies. A disciplinary investigation has found that there are grounds for action and Mr Darby has been suspended on full pay pending the hearing.

The BNP were today trying to stage a press conference but had to keep details secret over fears of a repeat of yesterday's ambush by anti-fascist groups, when party leader Nick Griffin had eggs thrown at him in Parliament Square.

London Evening Standard

City Hall worker Simon Darby admits: I use the office to do BNP business

The second-in-command of the British National Party is employed at public expense by the Greater London Authority, The Times has learnt.

Simon Darby admitted to The Times yesterday that he regularly used his City Hall office to work in his capacity as the BNP’s media spokesman, a job that is unrelated to his publicly funded position.

The disclosure will raise concerns over whether Mr Darby is receiving taxpayers’ money to support his prominent position in the far-right party.

Mr Darby became a salaried employee at City Hall after the breakthrough victory by Richard Barnbrook, the first BNP representative on the London Assembly, in May. He is employed as a personal assistant to Mr Barnbrook, who was also the party’s mayoral candidate.

Details of his position came to light 24 hours after the party’s membership list was leaked via the internet. With almost 14,000 names on the list, it revealed hotspots of BNP activity throughout the country and left many members fearing for their jobs. Police forces were ordered to root out any officers on the list and membership had already cost a radio DJ his job.

The Association of Chief Police Officers said that all 43 forces in England and Wales were checking the list against names of officers and staff.

The General Teaching Council said that teachers were allowed to belong to the BNP. Government sources said that civil servants could join the party although they faced the standard restrictions on political activism.

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, pledged to take court action against those behind the leak but welcomed the publicity, while other political parties used the party’s discomfort to their advantage. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said: “It probably says something about the BNP that people don’t want to have it known that they are a member.”

The BNP has complained to Dyfed-Powys Police about the disclosure of its list. The party has spent the past 24 hours contacting service providers for websites that ran the names and urging them to remove them. The list includes 11 former Conservative councillors and four former Labour.

The party said it encrypted its membership list and that whoever leaked it must have taken considerable pains to change the material into a new format.

After the leak on Monday, Mr Darby said that those responsible should not be “sleeping very well tonight” as “it will turn out to be one of the most foolish things they have done in their life”. Mr Griffin said in a radio interview yesterday that the remarks were not intended as a threat of violence.

Critics were asking whether it was possible for Mr Darby to be the spin-doctor for the BNP and write a daily blog for the party without it interfering with his public service position. A source at the Greater London Authority told The Times: “There’s all sorts of equipment in there he could be using for political BNP work – mailouts, all sorts of stuff.”

The Times attempted to contact Mr Darby twice at his office in the City Hall yesterday afternoon, but the phone was not answered. Answering his mobile phone, he admitted that he did often carry out BNP business at his London Assembly office but said that he would then “make up the time later”.

He said: “I don’t use GLA resources. Whatever time I use there [at City Hall] for the BNP, I have to make up. I don’t use up paper. I use my own laptop.”

He said that he was paid less than £16,000 a year for his role, for which he was contracted to work 22 hours a week. He denied that there was anything inappropriate about his position and said that his City Hall job hardly earned him “big bucks”.

Mr Darby, who is also listed as West Midlands organiser for the party, refused to say how much time he spent in London. He denied that the City Hall office was a useful resource for his work as the BNP’s media officer and said that he had a separate internet connection for the two roles.

“I don’t need an office. I can do [BNP] work on the train, I can work in my car. What do you expect? When a BNP member is elected, they’re not going to have a Communist or Liberal Democrat working for them.”

Mr Darby was interviewed by a panel of members of the authority before he was given the job as personal assistant. One of the criteria was that he should be able to “promote equality of opportunity” at the assembly. His office is in the same building alongside the Thames as that of Boris Johnson, the Mayor.

Mr Darby is such a confidant of Mr Griffin that he was lined up as care-taker leader when the party chief went on trial for inciting racial hatred. He was cleared in 2006 after a retrial.

The Greater London Authority said that all staff were subject to a code of practice that forbade them from using City Hall resources for political campaigning. He said that the authority had a duty to provide “proportionate resources” to each elected member of the Assembly. Staff earning less than about £35,000 were not politically restricted, but work unrelated to their job should be carried out in their “personal time”.

Times Online

Of Barnbrook, his cream carpets and the mystery of the twenty year-old DNA...

The article in yesterday's Independent was something of an eye-opener for a number of reasons, despite the fact that it was about Richard Barnbrook, usually a certain cure for insomnia. For a start, the title of the piece was a bit of a giveaway: 'Richard Barnbrook: The art-school liberal who now won't allow blacks in his party'. Note that 'his party', an interestingly Freudian slip. One wonders if it was down to Barnbrook or the interviewer. Either way, if I were Nick Griffin, the present leader of the BNP, I'd be watching my back. There's something distinctly reminiscent of Marcus Junius Brutus about Barnbrook particularly now that, like Caesar, Griffin appears to be making firm moves to consolidate his position as the BNP's dictator for life.

Barnbrook has received far more interest from the media than he deserves since he took his seat on the London Assembly a month ago. Hailed as the best speaker in the party since its founder John Tyndall, Barnbrook actually comes across while speaking publicly or to camera as inept, slurred and at times completely incomprehensible. Take this fine example lifted from the interview and referring to Barnbrook's homo-erotic film, HMS Discovery: A Love Story.

'Sexuality and Aids and the concept of a relationship, how does a man and a woman relate, going through history, between Captains Scott and Oates, between Christ and John the Baptist and the Mother Earth walking through carrying the flag...it's almost like a still-born child, how does people relate to each other...it was dealing with the bigotry of attitudes towards people.'

Decipher that if you can.

Barnbrook has some credibility in the art world. As a graduate of the Royal Academy, he has taught art in schools, is a painter and sculptor and has allegedly worked with the late film-maker Derek Jarman (who we're told gave Barnbrook his first film camera, the fool). His art cred goes further for he claims to have once been the lover of radical actress Tilda Swinton (though she denies this vehemently) and still claims to be engaged to the former English National Ballet star Simone Clarke. During the interview with the Independent, Barnbrook came out with one of the creepiest statements I've heard for some time, with regard to his relationship with Tilda Swinton.

'I've got DNA proof that I went out with her.'

The relationship - if indeed there ever was a relationship, was said to have been about twenty years ago. Who the hell keeps DNA proof of a relationship from two decades ago? And what form might such proof take? A cup smeared with her lipstick, a sample of her hair saved lovingly in a locket, a urine sample? The mind boggles.

There are certain snippets in the interview that reveal rather more about Barnbrook than the general membership of the BNP might care to know. He presents himself for the interview in a sand-coloured linen suit (with matching socks) and a gold tie. His ex-council house home, we are told, has cream carpets and visitors have to remove their shoes before entering. His television is covered by a cream throw and his mobile ringtone features a chorister singing Jerusalem.

I tend to worry about the fundamental intelligence of people who choose to cover their floors with cream carpets and though I don't have a TV myself, I wonder why anyone would cover one with anything at all, let alone a cream throw, whatever one of those might be. As for choristers, Barnbrook appears to have a bit of a thing about them and other youngsters involved in some way with the church. Take this sample from the appalling HMS Discovery.

'A harsh scowl masks your smile, but weakens when your nakedness inspires...It bares you like a foreskin's folds...you will make of yourself a beauty, hard as rusting trucks and slag...Fists in a toilet that smells of piss...open-mouthed, I shall dream of altar-boys.'

I don't doubt it for a minute.

Putting altar-boys to one side, so to speak, Barnbrook revealed that he tithes a tenth of his Assembly allowance to the British National Party - a healthy £5000 per annum - plus all three of his researchers are entitled to claim around £29,000 each and one would expect him to employ party colleagues who will also tithe 10% to the party.

This money, it is assumed, will be used to campaign at the next General Election, for Barnbrook is aiming to become the next MP for Dagenham. The current MP Jon Cruddas is immensely popular in the constituency, is no intellectual lightweight (which Barnbrook certainly is) with a PhD in Philosophy, is an excellent speaker (which Barnbrook certainly isn't) and is a committed anti-fascist. In any case, when the time comes for campaigning, Barnbrook is likely to find that the money has disappeared down the black hole that is the BNP's treasury department.

Barnbrook has become the BNP's most high profile member - of far more interest to the membership and the media than its leader Nick Griffin. Which really should make Barnbrook nervous. The last time someone became unaccountably more popular than Griffin - the BNP's then 'Cultural Officer' Jonathan Bowden - the attack dogs were set on him and he was forced into resignation. Griffin has never liked competition and will destroy anyone who looks set to usurp his position.

Barnbrook is clearly setting out his stall for both the assault on Parliament and leadership of the BNP. My guess is that if the former doesn't work out in two years time, he'll go full pelt for the latter.

He continually appeals to the more moderate BNP member, if there is such a thing, attempting to remove himself and the party from its nazi origins into what he perceives to be a more acceptable electioneering party with racist policies. He seeks to create distance between the older and harder far-right and the new cuddly far-right by carrying on the Griffin-inspired perceived separation from the hardcore.

'Every party has nutters. Some of ours are knuckle-dragging junk from the past. But there are fewer left now.'

Nevertheless, Barnbrook is solid BNP, as can be observed by his frequent use of phrases referring to 'the return of Britain to the British', 'regaining our identity' and 'the indigenous British population' - all of them phrases beloved of modern racists and apologists for racism.

Still, we can console ourselves with the thought that while Barnbrook sees a great future for himself on the far-right, he may still have a long way to go. I said earlier that Barnbrook is far from being a great speaker and it seems I'm not the only one with such a low opinion of him: Cole Moreton, the interviewer from the Independent didn't seem to think much of him either, describing his performance at the Assembly thus;

'The truth is that he looked like a nervous, stroppy toddler when I saw him debate at City Hall earlier in the day. Barnbrook shouted, interrupted, talked across people and appeared deranged at times.'

He looks like a certain winner for the leadership of the BNP to me.

Barnbrook stokes fears after teen murder

BNP assembly member Richard Barnbrook travelled to the scene of a teenager's murder on Sunday, to exploit racial tensions within the community.

Speaking to camera next to friends of the murdered teenager Robert Knox in Sidcup, South London, Barnbrook said that:

"This is a sickening situation and it is primarily down to people coming to this country... the majority 75% (of murders) are done by ethnic minorities and when only 33% come from ethnic minorities, the figures speak for themselves."

After his visit Barnbrook wrote on his Telegraph hosted blog:

"Well let me tell you that times are changing. This is our city and we are going to take it back. We are going to take all the weapons of (sic) the streets even if that means sending in the Army to do it... if immigrants don't like it then they know where the airport is."

At the end of a half-crazed ramble that takes in everything from therapists to the SAS, Barnbrook writes that he will be holding a meeting at City Hall of '100 young people' today at 9.30am and that 'if I have to bring (them) into Boris's office then that is what I will do."

He then gives out what is presumably his own mobile phone number and asks readers to contact him if they want to attend.

So do you want to meet Richard Barnbrook? Do you want to Watch the Wally at work? If so, you can call him any time of day or night on 07869 243129 and he will try and get back to you.

Thanks to The Tory Troll for the heads-up