All things to all men

Nick Griffin is engaging in contortions and sleight of hand to keep his members happy and ensure they keep on giving him their money. Sonia Gable investigates

The British National Party “has almost righted itself financially after the massive outlay incurred in winning seats in the Euro elections,” according to Eddy Butler, the party’s national organiser.

The announcement on 9 September followed three months of desperate begging letters and emails from Nick Griffin, the British National Party leader, claiming his party was “cash strapped” after the European election campaign.

However it was not donations that had brought about the claimed change in the party’s fortunes but “a few short hard months of financial stringency”, said Butler. And “Chairman Nick Griffin has given up his party salary as he is now paid as an MEP”.

It is unclear why Butler is making announcements about the BNP’s finances as he is not the party’s treasurer. Perhaps that explains why he goes on to contradict himself. “It should be clear from what I have said that the party is urgently in need of extra funding in the aftermath of the European election,” his statement continued. Referring to the legal action by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) over the BNP’s “whites only” membership criterion, he added: “In these difficult times the party needs the understanding and loyal support of its army of members and donors”.

The EHRC court case means Griffin has to tread very carefully. He does not want to fight the case because he is not confident the party can win and losing in court is very expensive. “For us to take this case to the next hearing would mean raising and risking at least £80,000,” Griffin wrote in an appeal headed “Emergency update. Adapt or die!” And “to take it all the way to the House of Lords would swallow up well over a million pounds”.

But Griffin is clearly having trouble taking his members with him. That the BNP should not admit non-whites is at the core of their ideology. In their minds to let black people and Asians join would be a betrayal of everything their party stands for.

Cleverly Griffin throws the decision back to his members, while ensuring he will have the outcome he needs. By letting the case go to a first hearing in court, at which the party obtained an adjournment but was ordered to pay the EHRC’s costs, which Griffin puts at “thousands of pounds”, he can argue that the party does not have a choice but to change its membership policy.

Griffin also contends that the hearing shows that “traditional British justice … is dead [his emphasis], murdered as part of New Labour’s creeping coup d’état”. In other words the BNP doesn’t have a chance against the EHRC (which Griffin persistently calls the CEHR) with its “70 top lawyers and £70 million to burn”, because the system is unfair and everyone is ganged up against the BNP.

Having fed to bursting his members’ vision of themselves as martyrs, Griffin concedes that “we could still fight it all the way on a point of stubborn principle”. But it is up to the members to decide. “If the party collectively wants to fight, then we have to raise £80,000 extra in the next four weeks.”

But in a sleight of hand, that money would not even go towards fighting the court case but to “buy in more top lawyers’ time to triple check and hone to perfection the changes we would have to make to our constitution and organisation”.

So if the party doesn’t raise the money Griffin won’t fight the case and if it does raise the money, he won’t fight it either.

A cynic might even suggest that Griffin deliberately delayed instructing lawyers to represent the party until the day before the court hearing, not only as a means of buying time by making it impossible for the court to refuse an adjournment, but also to ensure an award of costs against the BNP so proving to his members how expensive fighting the case would be.

Griffin’s chosen means of raising the money – the life membership offer – will guarantee failure in any case. Members are being asked to stump up a full £395 to become a BNP member for life. This is supposedly a discount from the full £500 that life membership will cost in future.

Few BNP members have £395 to spare, especially after the BNP’s numerous calls on their generosity over the past two years. And with the high membership turnover in the party, even those who could afford it are unlikely be sufficiently committed. Of the BNP’s claimed 10,000 or so members, only around 250 are dedicated activists and many of those are unemployed or in low-paid jobs. The BNP’s membership is greatly slanted towards socio-economic groups C, D and E.

It would take 200 life memberships to raise the necessary funds, provided all the money goes towards hiring the top lawyers. That may not happen. Simon Darby, the BNP treasurer and press officer, told a journalist last month that one of the aims of the life membership drive was to raise funds for the 2010 election campaign. He also stated that the party was short of funds – one day after Butler’s more optimistic assessment.

Darby also revealed that the continued absence of the BNP’s 2008 accounts was the result of extenuating circumstances and blamed an unnamed third party. In last month’s Searchlight we recalled that when the 2006 accounts were greatly delayed, Griffin blamed Kenny Smith, one of the leaders of the internal rebellion that broke out in December 2007. We believed that this year he had no such excuse.

We underestimated Griffin’s ability to wriggle out of any difficulty by finding a scapegoat. We do not yet know who will have to carry the can for the 2008 accounts but two candidates spring to mind.

One is Michaela Mackenzie, who earlier this year was quietly dropped as the BNP’s administration officer and national nominating officer, in charge of ensuring all election paperwork is in order. In January the BNP Advisory Council tasked her with investigating the implications of data protection legislation for the BNP. Perhaps she did not like what she found.

The other is Jennie Noble, appointed the BNP’s treasurer in summer 2008, only to be replaced a year later. When Griffin announced the formation of a “full Treasury Department” headed by a “chartered accountant” last April, he thanked Noble for using her “extensive financial experience in pension fund management” to get the BNP accounts into shape and said the party owed her “a big debt of gratitude”.

It would not be the first time Griffin has lavished praise on someone before putting the boot in.

Noble would “switch duties to take on running the Trafalgar Club”, said Griffin. The club, whose members have to pay at least £15 a month, would be “undergoing a major revamp and expansion later this year in order to raise its profile as the flagship of the Party”.

That was in April. In August Trafalgar Club members received their first newsletter for some time, apologising for the “poor service over the last year” and claiming that the ten-year-old club was “working hard to sort out the administrative weaknesses … since Jean stepped down as Secretary”.

“Jean” is Jean Griffin, the BNP leader’s mother. The newsletter was signed by his wife, Jackie, “Acting Trafalgar Club Secretary”. Noble appeared to have disappeared without trace.

The administrative weaknesses encompassed postal subscription records, outstanding gifts, standing orders and cheques – just about everything really. The club’s spring lunch had not taken place this year because Adam Champneys, one of the BNP’s few large donors, who hosted the event in 2008 on his Kent farm, had been ill. However Jackie Griffin did have “a lovely hotel booked in Herefordshire” for the club’s main annual event, the Trafalgar Day black tie dinner on 24 October. They were also still working on plans to “re-launch the Club later this year, including an advertising campaign to raise its profile and prestige”.

The club’s sole purpose is to raise money for the BNP. Whatever Butler says, the BNP desperately needs money after spending up to £600,000 on the European election campaign and with a general election at most nine months away. Butler’s claim that the BNP has nearly pulled itself out of the financial trough may be motivated more by a need to stem the disillusionment among party members. They dug deep into their pockets for the European campaign in the hope that the election of MEPs would secure millions of euros, only to be told that none of the European Parliament funding can be used for the party so they would have to carry on giving. And now the party wants £395 for life membership. Members could be forgiven for saying “you’ve got to be joking”.

Sonia Gable writing in Searchlight

BNP dismisses ‘Z-list’ celebrities’ challenge

Scots stars join campaign urging voters to steer clear of ‘extremists’

Scottish celebrities have teamed up to back a campaign against the BNP seizing seats at the European Elections today. Harry Potter star Robbie Coltrane, comedienne Rhona Cameron and actor Richard Wilson have joined the likes of Eddie Izzard, Jimmy Carr, Matt Lucas and Ross Kemp in supporting Hope Not Hate, a non-party campaign organised by anti-racism and anti-fascism group Searchlight.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Church of Scotland General Assembly moderator the Rev Bill Hewitt, Holocaust survivors, footballers, academics and trade unionists have also lent their support. They have signed a statement which warns that the BNP is working hard to conceal its extremism, and supporting the party is a vote against everything that makes the UK “great”.

A spokesman for the BNP dismissed the criticism, pointing out that Searchlight was supported by the Labour Party and funded by taxpayers’ money through lottery grants.

“What we have is a bunch of Z-list celebrities, has-beens and nobodies signing up,” he said. “And after what has been happening at Westminster, they do not have the moral authority to criticise us.”

Meanwhile, a major Tory donor has said he will “lend” his vote to another party. Lord Kalms, a former Conservative Party treasurer, said he would be backing one of the smaller parties – potentially Ukip. The Eurosceptic peer’s intervention risks disciplinary action, as the Tory leadership takes a dim view of members encouraging support for political rivals.

Businessman Stuart Wheeler was expelled from the party earlier this year after giving £100,000 to Ukip.

In a statement yesterday, Lord Kalms, former boss of retail chain Dixons, said: “European elections tomorrow are a unique opportunity for the British electorate to express their distaste for several current UK policies from all the leading parties. It is an opportunity to vote for personal priorities and, with the exception of the BNP, I would strongly recommend, as I will do, voting for smaller parties who represent my major concerns today. For myself, I am considering lending my vote to Ukip.”

The Press and Journal

Taking the fight to the far right

Blue State Digital's strategy and production teams are supporting Searchlight's "HOPE not hate" campaign in the UK to stop the fascist British National Party winning a seat in June's European election.

BSD will be working closely with Searchlight – developing messaging, email and fundraising campaigns to help supporters organise and mobilise - and then fight back against the BNPs message of racism, intolerance and hate.

Through BSD tools HOPE not hate supporters have already invited thousands of people to join the campaign – why not join them now – HOPE not hate

Blue State Digital

BNP's Excalibur evicted from Deeside home

Griffin wondering what new disasters might be hiding around the corner

As the British National Party was desperately shutting stable doors after the list of members had bolted, its leaders had to contend with an equally serious problem.

The party had just been given notice to quit the hate factory that Searchlight had exposed in September. Where would it move the “vast array of new equipment” the party had purchased back in January, when it announced proudly that it had moved into a “brand new ground-floor warehouse”, let alone its range of tatty cringe-making and overpriced goods, Replica Victoria Crosses, condemned by the Ministry of Defence as an insult to British troops’ heroism, Enoch Powell t-shirts, stocks of its new racist brochure Racism Cuts Both Ways and the party’s back catalogue of publications?

The facility had been the first fruit of the BNP’s huge “Building to Grow” fundraising effort last winter and the first time the party could centralise its key operations in a modern unit.

The BNP had tried to keep the location secret but Searchlight, in conjunction with Lancaster Unity and Wales Friends of Searchlight, had tracked it down to the Evans Business Centre, a recently built development of workshops and offices on Deeside Industrial Estate, in Flintshire, North Wales, where the BNP occupied unit B2.

The landlords, Evans Easyspace, appeared uninterested at first. When a Sunday Times journalist contacted Brian Mawhinney, a non-executive director of the company and former Cabinet Minister, he replied that he had not been aware of the BNP connection and said, “Thank you for drawing it to my attention”, before putting the phone down. Lord Mawhinney is currently the chairman of the Football League, which has pledged to stamp racism out of football.

But all bad things come to an end and Evans Easyspace did turn out to be unhappy that an organisation that had rented the unit under the name of Excalibur turned out to be the BNP. When Mirror journalists visited the place on 21 November, they found a “to let” sign outside and an irate Arthur Kemp, the South African in charge of the BNP’s ideological training, trying to close the door on them.

“Evans Easyspace was aware of renting a property to Excalibur, but were not aware of its links to the BNP,” said Tom Stokes, managing director. “We have now terminated their agreement and they are moving out at the end of November.”

Searchlight

A tale of two campaigns

Although the London Mayoral and Assembly elections are attracting the most political attention, contests are taking place across the country that will give a further indication of the potential strength of the British National Party for next year’s European elections.

The BNP’s own focus on London could adversely affect the party’s efforts in these council elections. Conversely, there is a danger that anti-fascists could devote so much of their resources and energy to London that the BNP is left to make substantial gains elsewhere.

There are 70 council wards which the BNP could win on a 10% swing or less. In addition, there are 10-15 wards where either the BNP did not field a candidate last year or no elections were held, where the BNP must fancy its chances.

But if pre-election activity (or inactivity as is more often the case) is anything to go by, many BNP branches are squandering yet another opportunity to make an electoral breakthrough in the party’s key areas.

Over the past few months Searchlight has reported on the BNP’s internal wranglings. Although the rebellion has petered out in most places its impact seems to have reduced the BNP’s readiness to contest its key target wards. This is certainly the situation in West Yorkshire, one of the BNP’s strongest areas nationally. Most branches sided with the rebels and while some, such as in Leeds, have returned to the fold, other groups, such as York, Hull and elements of Bradford, appear to be outside the BNP altogether and may well stand as independents against the party.

Most of the key personnel in Kirklees still sympathise with the expelled rebel leaders but have decided to stay within the party, at least until the May elections.

Although the rebellion has lost momentum across Yorkshire, the political infighting has left most local branches inactive in recent months and few have done anything like the amount of preparation that would be expected of an election winning operation.

The West Midlands has also enjoyed mixed fortunes. The BNP threat in Stoke-on-Trent remains very strong, and is growing in some areas, with the BNP putting out a localised version of the Londoner, but other areas are on the slide. This is certainly the case in Sandwell, once the party’s strongest area outside Barking and Dagenham. The resignation of Simon Smith, the local organiser, coupled with the humiliating exposé of councillor James Lloyd has led to morale collapsing and activity ceasing.

It is in the North West where the after effects of the rebellion have had greatest impact. Former BNP activists in Oldham, Tameside and Stockport appear to be about to stand as independents. Oldham is particularly interesting. The BNP appears to be struggling to find any local candidates after its former organiser, Martin Brierley, defected to the England First Party and his predecessor, Anita Corbett, decided to contest her Royton seat as an independent.

Other branches have also been severely affected by the party’s internal divisions. Blackburn and Manchester branches have all but collapsed and Wigan, though fielding candidates under the BNP banner, remains loyal to the rebellion.

Even in Burnley the BNP is not going into these elections in a positive manner. After recently losing a High Court case over a disputed election result last year, the BNP enters the campaign in a weaker position than for some years.

In Thurrock, Essex, where the BNP stood in every ward last year and averaged 24%, there has been little if any serious work done in recent months.

One of the few key areas, apart from Stoke-on-Trent, where the BNP has been active is Epping Forest. Here the BNP is vigorously defending three seats and hoping to get several people elected to Loughton Town Council.

Newly emerging risk authorities are Barnsley, Nuneaton & Bedworth and Wrexham, all of which have seen considerable BNP activity in recent months.
No complacency

The BNP appears not to have learnt the lessons of its electoral failure last year, when it did too little campaigning too late. While this is good news for anti-fascists it would be wrong to be complacent. Few of the conditions that have helped the BNP gain support have disappeared. Most of the BNP’s key target wards are held by Labour, which is losing support, if the opinion polls are to be believed.

The work by anti-fascists and the best placed political parties in the key wards has been mixed. Last year’s results followed a poorly targeted BNP campaign combined with increased effort by the main parties. This has continued in some areas but not in others.

The readiness of the main parties in key areas such as Dudley, Barnsley and Epping to take on the BNP is questionable. In some other areas complacency over last year’s results could endanger the gains made.

Over the next few weeks there will be a frenzy of activity across the country. Although the BNP will be directing activists to London, with two key weekends of action planned in the capital, it will also carry out considerably more work in its key target wards. Searchlight will be working with anti-fascists in all the key areas to hold activities, conduct telephone canvassing and election day turnout campaigns. It is vital that as many people as possible get involved.

The BNP’s fixation with London gives us an opportunity to reinforce the gains we made across the country last year. Conversely, if we focus too much on London then we risk squandering last year’s results and giving the BNP a perfect platform to launch its European election campaign.

Searchlight has produced a new range of anti-BNP material for use in the 2008 election campaign. See the magazine for details.

Stop the BNP

Searchlight and Militant Entertainment Proudly Present...

Searchlight and Militant Entertainment Proudly Present:

"A Night of HOPE"

Sunday 6th April 2008
The Grave Maurice, Whitechapel Road E1
(10 metres from Whitechapel Underground)
19.00hrs - 01.00hrs

Featuring Live Sets From:

The KRAK (former members of the Babyshambles)
The Mentalists (accoustic set)
The Screaming Blue Jays
Skinny White Boys (DJ'ing reggae/ska/whatever)

Showing Films:

Who Shot The Sheriff (Directed by Alan Miles)
Hope Not Hate 2007 Tour (Gregg McDonald & Searchlight)

£7 on the door or £5.50 in advance
(It is strongly recommended tickets are bought in advance to avoid disappointment)

>> CLICK HERE TO PAY ONLINE <<

Contact: director@opwedge.org.uk

Proudly Supported By
Trade Union Friends of Searchlight, Labour Friends of Searchlight, GMB Young members, Philosophy Football

The watchdog that did not bark

Sonia Gable reveals more about the BNP’s dodgy financial dealings and the Electoral Commission’s failure to respond

“No party financial records were shredded. They are held in electronic format, and cannot be shredded,” proclaimed the British National Party after Jon Cruddas MP exposed the party’s dodgy financial dealings in the House of Commons on 18 December.

By 13 February, following the broadcast of the BBC’s File on 4 investigation into the BNP’s finances, the BNP had changed its tune. Said John Walker, the BNP treasurer: “The bag of shredded items produced in the studio to me which the listeners were expected to believe the BBC’s claims, appeared to be in the main, working copies of the print outs of the book keeping software and draft accounts. To suggest I shredded cheques and invoices is ridiculous, why would I destroy invoices, as I would not have paperwork to cover the expenditure as required by the auditor.”

The BNP works on the principle that if one lie is exposed, try another, and hope no one notices the contradiction. Apart from the fact that Walker now admits that the BNP does have non-electronic records, Searchlight’s perusal of the shreds has revealed numerous pieces of original receipts and cheques, clearly identifiable by their various colours, typestyles and handwritten details.

They include numerous references to various family members of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, which may bolster the allegations from across the political spectrum that Griffin treats the party as his “cash cow”.

Another name that appears on several of the bits of paper is Vanguard Promotions. This is the private printing business in Leeds owned by Mark Collett, the party’s unpopular and incompetent graphic designer and star of the Channel 4 television documentary Young, Nazi and Proud. His imprint appears on many BNP leaflets and many people have questioned the relationship.

Walker was also rather coy about the BNP’s failure to include a donation of £5,315 from Steve Johnson on its return to the Electoral Commission for July to September 2007. “Only one donation for the 3rd quarter of 2007 … was missed,” glossing over the fact that this was 50% of the total number of donations. “It was not reported to my regional treasurer at the time,” he continued, protecting another seriously incompetent BNP officer David Hannam, “and as soon as the Electoral Commission brought this matter to my attention it was duly reported to the satisfaction of the commission”.

Walker does not explain how the Electoral Commission knew about the donation to bring it to his attention before he reported it. Perhaps he does not want to admit that he found out about the omission from Searchlight’s Stop the BNP website.

Reporting a donation late is not the unique preserve of the BNP. The Electoral Commission publishes a list of donations reported in the fourth quarter of 2007 that should have been reported previously. Donations to all three main parties and others are on it, but not Johnson’s, which has simply been added to the BNP’s quarterly list as if it had been reported on time. It is unclear why the BNP receives such apparently preferential treatment from the Electoral Commission.

The BNP reported three donations received in the final three months of 2007, from Sheila Butler, Charles Wentworth and Adam Champneys. Each gave precisely £5,000. Champneys, who has made large donations to the party before, appeared on the BNP’s list of candidates for the South East in the 2004 European election. Butler is new to the donors’ list. It is not known whether she is the same Sheila Butler who made donations to the UK Independence Party in the South West in 2003 and 2004.

The shredded financial records had originated from John Brayshaw, Walker’s predecessor as BNP treasurer. Before resigning he refused to sign off the party accounts because he had not been given access to all the records he wanted to see. He told the Electoral Commission that he had resigned as BNP treasurer “as a number of irregularities had come to light”. Explaining that he had seen Walker and Hannam shredding the documents and been told to burn them, he declared: “I have not seen what the party sent to the commission but do not believe it is a full and accurate set of accounts for the BNP”.

But the Electoral Commission was unconcerned. It took just two weeks to dismiss the matter, without even asking to see his evidence. Its response to him was blunt: “with regard to a breach of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, we currently have no reason to believe that such a breach has taken place”.

Jon Cruddas MP was similarly unable to persuade the Electoral Commission to take complaints against the BNP seriously. In a letter dated 28 January 2008 the Commission pointed out that the BNP had paid the “appropriate fine of £1,000” for the late submission of its 2006 accounts, in other words end of story. As for the BNP’s attempt to solicit donations from overseas via its front group Civil Liberty, the Commission dismissed the concerns stating that there was not “sufficient evidence to establish that ‘Civil Liberty’ was an organisation of any significant scale, that it raised any substantial funds from any source, or that it passed funds to the British National Party”.

Civil Liberty is not a limited company and has no obligation to make its accounts public. How exactly did the Electoral Commission investigate what funds it had raised? Did the Commission do any more than ask the BNP and/or the BNP officers who ran Civil Liberty, Kenny Smith and Kevin Scott? On this the letter is silent.

“The Commission does however monitor the activities of political parties and associationed [sic] organisations and individuals, and keeps matters under review,” the letter concludes. We are not reassured.

Searchlight

Sandwell disaster - BNP routed

Working on the principle that in the expectation of bad political news it sometimes pays to get one’s excuses in first, the editor of the BNP’s monthly “newspaper” Voice of Freedom, Martin Wingfield, admitted that yesterday’s self-inflicted by-election in Sandwell’s Prince’s End ward “will be a very difficult one for the British National Party to gain any satisfaction from”.

Wingfield added: “Our excellent candidate Karen Parkes, faces the almost impossible task of trying to defend the Prince’s End seat on Sandwell Borough Council.”

As pre-emptive damage limitation goes this was rather excessive, since even the lowliest political activist is not going to tell the world that an election his party is contesting has been lost even before a vote has been cast.

We would have thought that the editor of the BNP’s most important interface with the general public should have known better, but Wingfield’s lack of propagandist skills and gaffe-prone nature were in evidence again when he told visitors to his blog: “When they [new BNP recruits] come from the Tories, I tend to think ‘I wonder what they are after?’ I’m afraid I can find little in common with people who belonged to a Party that sold off this country’s ‘family silver’ and essential services to private and in many cases foreign concerns.”

Still, in a party where the leadership can and has referred to dues-paying members as “vermin” we suppose Wingfield’s insulting of a large swathe of the BNP’s membership counts as small beer.

Not that Wingfield hasn’t been on the end of an insult or two himself. From Searchlight we pinch this delicious quote: “Wingfield also spent a brief spell ‘inside’ for non-payment of a Race Act fine. While this was the correct thing to do, his main motivation was to make himself a martyr and boost his popularity in preparation for the factional struggle which he was already planning.”

Author: Nicholas Griffin, recalling one of the many destructive spats on the far-Right in which he always contrived to play a pivotal role.

All highly entertaining, but not entirely relevant to Sandwell’s Prince’s End ward by-election, brought to us courtesy of a more humble but no less colourful cast of BNP characters.

Sandwell exists only in a political sense. Cobbled together from bits of Staffordshire and Worcestershire, it came into being with the local government reforms of 1974 and formed part of the unpopular and now defunct West Midlands County.

A unitary authority, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council encompasses Tipton, Smethwick, Oldbury, Rowley Regis, Wednesbury and West Bromwich. Sandwell sits squarely in what is still known as the Black Country, a name gained due to the disfiguring effects of smoke and pollution in the district’s industrial heyday. The intense concentration of heavy industry which once characterised the area is long gone, and Sandwell in particular suffers from higher than average unemployment levels.

The most recent available figures give the population of Sandwell as almost 80% white, 14% Asian, with the remainder made up of Afro-Caribbeans, people of mixed-race race, and “others”.

Large-scale immigration began in the early 1960s, which, together with steady industrial decline and increased competition for jobs and decent housing, led to some notoriously racist west Midlands election campaigns, most notably that of Conservative Peter Griffiths, contesting nearby Smethwick in the 1964 general election campaign with the infamous slogan “If you want a ni**er for a neighbour, vote Labour”.

Griffiths won.

Despite that legacy, and the attempts of far-Right groups such as the original version of the British National Party and Colin Jordan’s National Socialist Movement to cash in, racist politics did not take off in the west Midlands. In the 1970s the National Front had an organisation in the area, but it was never electorally successful, splitting badly in the 1975/6 National Front/National Party division, and suffering further losses as individual members drifted towards Mrs Thatcher’s revitalised Tories.

It would be many years before the racist politics of the extreme-Right would enjoy success in that part of the world.

The BNP won its first seat on Sandwell MBC in May 2004, the candidate being the interesting James Lloyd, of whom more anon, and the ward he fought being Prince’s End.

In May 2006 Lloyd was joined by three more newly-elected BNP councillors, two of which might be described as “interesting” - Simon Smith and Russell Green.

Smith became known for Holocaust denial, UFO belief, and telling the Nazi Stormfront website that “The reason why Blacks disproportionately don’t vote is that the frontal part of the brain associated with postponing immediate gratification is not so well developed as in other races”, as we reported here.

Smith also achieved notoriety when he was suspended for publishing “hateful and abusive” material on his council-owned webpage, and for staging a walkout during a council vote to elect a Sikh as mayor of Sandwell .

Unfortunately for Smith, he backed the losing candidate in the BNP’s rigged leadership contest and was one of the first casualties in Nick Griffin’s purge of the vermin.

So far, so unlovely.

Of Russell Green, this month’s Searchlight has this to say:

One of the BNP’s two remaining Sandwell councillors has done little to distinguish himself since his election in May 2006 but does have some interesting links on his official council website. Under the heading “My Politics”, alongside the websites of the BNP and its front groups, Civil Liberty and Solidarity, Russell Green lists the aptly named “Conspiracy Planet”. This site espouses pretty much every lunatic nazi and antisemitic conspiracy going, including that the 9/11 terror attacks were an “inside job”. Also there is “The Truth Seeker”, which carries articles that suggest HIV is a harmless virus and does not cause Aids, claims to reveal the secret powers behind the Vatican and argues that Jewish bankers brought Hitler to power.

Which brings us back to James Lloyd.

Lloyd ran one of the most disorderly public houses in the West Midlands, Sandwell Council stripping the then Councillor Lloyd of his licence after a series of violent incidents. Lloyd’s woes didn’t end there. He found himself embroiled in a council voting scandal, and his son Ricky, a local ne’er-do-well, was returned to prison after committing offences while out on licence.

But all’s well that ends well. In October Lloyd was ejected from his Prince’s End seat for non-attendance at council meetings, necessitating a by-election.

The BNP last fought Prince’s End ward in May, their candidate being Karen Parkes, who stood again for the BNP last night. The result then was (percentages in brackets):

Lab 898 (35.71)
Con 498 (19.80)
Ind 241 (9.58)
BNP 878 (34.91)

Total 2515

Parkes came within twenty votes of taking the seat, but fortunately signs of electoral reverse had set in for the BNP, notably in the West Midlands, where it fell back by thousands of votes. This had just enough effect to deny Parkes a seat.

Voters are certain to punish the BNP for the actions (and lack of them) of the errant James Lloyd, the question being - how badly? For us this complicates the task of separating out the anti-Lloyd backlash from the general downturn in the BNP’s electoral fortunes.

Sandwell Prince’s End ward by-election result:

Lab 796 (48.07)
Con 517 (31.22)
LibDem 29 (1.75)
BNP 314 (18.96)

Total 1656

A comprehensive and well-earned defeat for the BNP, with Labour and the Conservatives gaining in roughly equal measure from the BNP’s dramatic loss of votes. It is also crystal clear that Liberal Democrat voters, knowing their candidate had little hope of success, swung behind Labour and the Tories to keep the BNP out.

Our feeling is that 10-12% of the BNP’s lost votes can be attributed to the bad publicity generated by Lloyd (not helped by Smith and Green), but that the remainder can be ascribed to the general downswing in their electoral fortunes over the past months.

Under normal conditions, and without the antics of Lloyd, it is difficult to believe that the BNP could have come anywhere near winning this seat.

There is a lesson to be gleaned from all this. Looking at the sharp increase in the Conservative vote, don’t all those ex-Tory BNP members insulted by Martin Wingfield have a sneaking sense that they’d have been better off staying where they were?

Discredited Irving plans comeback tour

· Historian blames Himmler, but not Hitler
· Writer freed from jail says views have 'crystallised'

Ten months ago he was languishing in an Austrian jail, less than halfway through a three-year sentence with his career - and professional reputation - in tatters.

This week David Irving, the discredited British historian who was described by a high court judge as a Holocaust denier and a racist, says he is launching a comeback with a speaking tour of British cities and a series of new books. "I have kept a low profile for several months because I have had to sort out where to live and to address my financial situation," said Mr Irving, who was declared bankrupt in 2002 after an unsuccessful libel action over claims he was a Holocaust denier. " But now I am ready to start again."

Mr Irving's career has been littered with controversy, culminating with his arrest in Austria in 2005. He was sentenced to three years in jail after a judge ruled that two speeches he made in 1989, dismissing the Auschwitz gas chambers as a "fairy tale" and questioning the existence of extermination camps, breached Austrian law. His appeal was upheld, with the judge saying the crimes were a long time ago and that Mr Irving had undergone an "impeccable conversion".

However, drinking tea on the sofa of a 10-bedroom house he has begun renting near Windsor, Mr Irving says that his views on the Holocaust have crystallised rather than changed. He says that he believes the Jews were responsible for what happened to them during the second world war and that the "Jewish problem" was responsible for nearly all the wars of the past 100 years: "The Jews are the architects of their own misfortune, but that is the short version A-Z. Between A-Z there are then 24 other characters in intervening steps." Mr Irving was due to address a meeting in Coventry last Friday - although that event was disrupted by protesters - and held another meeting at his home on Saturday. He plans to speak in Halifax and Birmingham as well as at several unnamed universities.

Last night, news of his attempts to kickstart his career were met with disbelief and anger from Jewish groups and political opponents. Lord Foulkes, of the Labour Friends of Israel, said: "It is a frightening thought that he is still pursuing his agenda." Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies, said Mr Irving no longer had any legitimate claim to be a serious historian. However, Mr Irving still insists he is a respected academic. He says that a document, which he is 80% sure is genuine, suggests that 2.4 million Jews were killed in Poland, but goes on to claim that the gas chamber at Auschwitz was fake. "It was not the centre of the killing operations - it has only become a focus because it is the site that is best preserved. Much of what is shown the tourists there is faked postwar - watchtowers, even the famous gas chamber."

He added: "In my opinion now the real killing operations took place at the Reinhardt camps west of the Bug river. In the three camps here [Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka] Heinrich Himmler's men (mostly Ukrainian mercenaries) killed possibly as many as 2.4 million in the two years up to October 1943. There is now nothing to be seen of the Reinhardt camps, neither stick nor stone, so few tourists go there. I have visited all four sites earlier this year."

Pressed as to whether this change undermined his previous stance, Mr Irving replied: "It is a crystallisation of my view." Asked if he now accepts there had been a Holocaust against the Jewish people he said he was "not going to use their trade name". He added: "I do accept that the Nazis quite definitely, that Heinrich Himmler, organised and directed a programme, a clandestine programme, for the liquidation of European Jews ... and that in 1942-43 alone over 2.5 million Jews were killed in those three camps." He added that Hitler was "completely in the dark" about the programme.

Last night Gerry Gable, of the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight, said: "This man is a hardened rightwing extremist and this latest development proves he is determined to pursue his agenda."

The Guardian.

Bishop urges voters to unseat BNP councillors

A senior Church of England bishop who has a number of British National Party (BNP) councillors in his diocese, has written in an anti-fascist magazine, urging Christians to vote against the party in the forthcoming local elections.

The comments from Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, Bishop of Blackburn, who was writing in 'Searchlight' magazine, make him the latest in a long line of church leaders and denominations to publicly urge votes against the BNP in the local elections next week.

In 2003 the BNP briefly became the official opposition in Burnley, which is in the Bishop's diocese. They now have just seven seats on the council. The bishop said that Lancashire voters should now completely reject the “poison of racial and religious hatred”.

“Sadly there are a small minority of candidates seeking election on the basis of politics that seek to divide,” the Bishop said. “They prefer the poison of racial and religious hatred to the challenge of co-operation. Christians and non-Christians, peoples of all faiths and none, should reject them.

"They should reject them by refusing to vote for them, by pointing out to others the true nature of their poisonous policies, and by turning out to vote for candidates who are committed to constructive co-operation.”

The Bishop also pointed out that the Church of England’s ‘parliament’, the General Synod, unanimously backed a motion from Lancashire that called on Christians to boycott racist parties. The motion was passed in 2005, in response to “the recent success of the British National Party in local elections in parts of Lancashire”.

“The national Church took notice of that warning, and said it must not happen again,” the Bishop said.

He added: “Of course, this is not just a Church matter. Just as I welcome opportunities to meet, discuss and work together with people from other faith communities, so the advantages of co-operation can be celebrated wherever people work together for good.

“I’m always encouraged when I find priests and politicians working co-operatively for the benefit of the communities they serve. I welcome the growing willingness among our local authorities to work in partnership with all the faith communities.”

Writing in a special pre-election newspaper produced by ‘Searchlight’, the anti-racist organisation, the Bishop said Christians regard racism as ‘sin’. “In the Christian community it’s the strongest word we can find. In terms of racism it means something not only off limits to people, but also to God.”

The Bishop said he was honoured to meet leaders of other faiths in Lancashire and to encourage discussions for honest debate and acceptance between the faith communities.

“Racism seeks to poison such acceptance,” he said. “In the Church of England in Lancashire we have taken a strong stand against it.”

Ekklesia

Welsh politicians stand up for diversity

Political leaders from across the political divide are to join together to promote tolerance and diversity across Wales.

The leaders of Welsh Labour, Welsh Conservatives, Plaid and the Welsh Liberal Democrats, as well as other parties, will take part in Hope not Hate Sunday, an event organised by anti-facism group Wales Friends of Searchlight.

WFoS have set the date Sunday 22nd April for the event. It comes as a direct response the British National Party’s decision to stand in every regional list seat in the National Assembly elections on 3rd May.

Hope not Hate Sunday will be launched across Wales with political leaders, election candidates and supportive organisations outlining their views on tolerance and progression in Wales. WFoS organisers have called the event: "A unique opportunity for all mainstream political parties and candidates to lay down their arms for a short while and jointly call for a Wales built on tolerance, respect and equality."

Cardiff based Darron Dupre, Secretary of Wales Friends of Searchlight, said: "It says everything about the gut instincts of people in Wales, that all of our mainstream political parties and candidates have embraced this unique and special day to promote hope, not hate. That instinct flies in the face of everything far right parties such as the BNP stand for. Hope not Hate Sunday will be an opportunity for our political parties to say to the people of Wales where they stand on promoting diversity and tolerance."

The day will be completed with Cardiff’s Unite Against Racism Music Festival. This will include a family fun day from 5-8pm with face painting and open mike's, and later performances from bands from every culture across south Wales between 8-2am.

Hope Not Hate Sunday Launch:
South Wales: Outside the Senedd Building in Cardiff Bay, Cardiff at 10.30am
North Wales Launch: Outside Flint Town Hall, Flint at 10.30am
Cardiff Unite Against Racism Music Festival: Callaghan’s, Castle Street, Cardiff. Admission £3. For further information see: http://www.myspace.com/uarcardiff

PinkNews

Hope not Hate update: Day eight

This weekend was always going to be some of our important days of the campaign. Across the country activists were distributing anti-BNP literature. From Bradford to Luton, Burnley to Lincoln, hundreds of people were out.

Arguably the two biggest challenges we face in the forthcoming elections are in Sandwell and Stoke-on-Trent, where the BNP averaged 33% and 30% of the votes in the seats they contested in 2006. It was because of days of actions in these two areas that the Hope not Hate bus has taken a less than direct route from London to Scotland. Having travelled up to Sheffield and then across to Manchester and Liverpool we then headed back south to the West Midlands.

It almost got worse. The Dancing on Ice stars were supposed to join the bus in Birmingham but for reasons beyond our control this was not possible. An alternative date was given for the Saturday. So, as we left Birmingham on the Friday night we thought the plan was to go to Stoke-on-Trent and then head back south to Birmingham and then Sandwell before continuing the journey north. This plan was certainly testing the patience of our normally relaxed and accommodating driver. Fortunately another cancellation from the Dancing on Ice stars meant we reverted to our orginial plan which was to spend a day in Stoke-on-Trent.

A changeover of Mirror photographer and Ros having a day off meant that it was a slightly depleted team that headed off that morning. Our first stop was to Stoke City's Britannia Stadium where we met former Stoke player Terry Conway and Irish author Don Mullin. The pair had been drawn together by the legendary Gordon Banks. Terry was part of the 1972 FA Cup winning team alongside Banks, while Don is just written a biography of the man he describes as his hero.

Back onto the A50 we headed into Coalville, a former mining area which has fallen on hard times in recent years. We were later to learn that the area once had the nickname of the 'United Nations' due to the workers who moved into the area to work down the pits from across Britain and Eastern Europe. Anyway, today we were attending a Hope not Hate anti-racist fun day organised by the local Kids Zone project. Over 200 children and young people attended at some stage during the day. They were treated to a host of great activities, from a DJ school to a rodeo, face painting to a steel band.

A couple of miles away more serious activity was taking place. Almost 100 people came out for the Stoke-on-Trent day of action organised by local anti-BNP group NorSCARF and Searchlight. Over 10,000 copies of the Searchlight newspaper were distributed during the day, with most of the work concentrating on the BNP heartland in Stoke South. The day was rounded off by a performance a steel band and Billy Bragg, who had generously given his weekend to the campaign.

Stoke-on-Trent has been a major BNP target for several years and campaigning against them has taken its toll on many activitists during that period. However, the success of today has given new and seasoned campaigners a renewed lease of energy which they are determined to make the most of over the next few weeks.

The Watson household in West Bromwich East provided the evening's entertainment, which given the excesses of much of the tour was a welcome respite.

Hope not Hate

Stop the BNP in Wales

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