A national scrutiny committee has been appointed to examine the British National Party’s treasury department, according to a report of the party’s Advisory Council meeting on 14 August posted on the BNP website.
The committee “has been tasked with examining the structure of the treasury department and making concrete moves to ensure that there is a clear division between those who manage the accounts and those who authorise outlays,” according to the party.
The establishment of this committee is clearly an attempt to dispel the widespread accusations of financial impropriety in the BNP. As well as the party’s incompetent treasurer, Dave Hannam, its members include the party’s East Midlands regional organiser Geoff Dickens, the Wales regional organiser Brian Mahoney and the East Midlands regional treasurer James Mole.
According to Nick Griffin, the party leader, Dickens and Mahoney have “decades of experience in managing business with bigger turnovers with the BNP and will bring their expertise to bear on the committee”. Mole has also been appointed as the BNP’s new “regional treasurer”, whose job will be to act as treasurer for those regions (most of them) that cannot run their own finances.
However the very limited role of the scrutiny committee means it is unlikely to restore party members’ shaken confidence in the BNP’s dire finances. In fact Griffin himself gave away its true purpose: to protect Hannam. “This committee has been given the mission to transparently study everything so that the national treasurer can be completely protected from malicious allegations,” Griffin said.
Although Griffin stated that the party’s finances were the main focus of the Advisory Council meeting, it does not appear that Hannam made the party’s detailed financial records available for inspection, as Ken Booth, the North East regional organiser had requested before being peremptorily sacked by Griffin.
Interestingly Griffin ascribed the party’s serious financial situation to the party growing faster than its systems could cope with, an excuse he has used before but which differs from what he puts in his begging letters, in which he blames the legal action against the party’s racist constitution brought by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The true cause, which Griffin never admits, is that he has brought the party to insolvency by pursuing reckless legal actions and making idiotic decisions with expensive consequences such as to use the image of a jar of Marmite on the party’s general election broadcast.
Rumours continue to circulate that the party is about to be put into liquidation by its numerous creditors, which include HM Revenue and Customs, various firms of solicitors and Michaela Mackenzie, a former employee to whom Griffin agreed to pay an undisclosed sum of compensation for unfair dismissal but failed to do so by the due date of 14 July.
The meeting also heard that its new member dropout rate – people who join the party but fail to renew their membership after the first year – was critically low. According to Griffin the party’s Belfast call centre had ascertained that the main reason was the lack of contact after joining the party.
Griffin blamed this on local units. However many of his critics have said that the call centre has failed to pass on details of many inquiries to the call centre and where information is passed on it is inaccurate and unusable.
The party had previously said that the establishment of the Belfast call centre, under the control of the convicted criminal Jim Dowson, who controls most of the BNP’s operations and assets, had successfully increased the membership renewal rate, but this now appears to have been a lie.
The revelation casts doubt on the party’s claimed membership figure of 14,000. The party’s 2009 accounts, which would include a statement of the number of members at 31 December 2009, remain unavailable.
The Advisory Council meeting also heard that the party intends to relaunch its campaign against the Afghanistan war in the autumn with “leaflets, petitions and online campaigning”, in a bid to “start recruiting again in earnest”.
Sonia Gable at HOPE not hate
Showing posts with label Graham Partner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Graham Partner. Show all posts
August 15, 2010
BNP leadership may have pocketed party bequests
Another British National Party councillor has resigned the party whip and will sit as an independent, as rumours surface of misappropriation by the party leadership of bequests to the party.
Graham Partner, one of two BNP members elected to North West Leicestershire District Council in May 2007, supported Eddy Butler’s failed challenge to Nick Griffin’s leadership because the party was not “being managed in an open and honest way”.
The final straw for him was Griffin’s dismissal of two members of the party’s Advisory Council and Richard Barnbrook’s decision to renounce the BNP whip on the London Assembly this week.
“On Monday I shall submit my official letter to County Hall informing them of my decision while remaining a member of the party in order to retain the right to speak and vote against its wrongful management,” wrote Partner on 13 August.
Two days earlier he had accused those BNP members who supported Griffin’s continued leadership of the party of being “morons who voted for Herr Griff” and described the leadership nomination process as: “cheating, fraudulent, despicable”.
Attacking Griffin’s dictatorship, Partner added: “His actions have brought about several court cases costing us hundreds of thousands of pounds, his arrogance towards other members and officials knows no bounds.
“He appoints lap dogs to key positions who will follow his instructions blindly and gets away with repeatedly lying over the accounts with a little help from puppet Dave [Hannam, the BNP’s incompetent treasurer].”
Meanwhile, 37 supporters of Butler’s failed leadership challenge met near Windsor on 12 August to discuss how they could “rescue” the BNP from its “inevitable failure and destruction” under Griffin’s leadership, reports Simon Bennett, the BNP’s former webmaster. They included many of the people whom Griffin has suspended for supporting Butler.
Those present blamed Griffin for the £500,000 of debts that have put the party in a dire financial state, likening him, wrote Bennett, to “the farmer who had opened the door of the chicken house to the fox, a shadowy and wily fox with a criminal past and a history of appealing for monies from donors who believe in their causes, the monies seemingly then enriching the pockets of that fox rather than being utilised for the cause. The resulting carnage, now that the fox had been allowed to virtually take over the Party by the farmer, was all too apparent.”
The fox in this tale is Jim Dowson, the man who owns the BNP – a fact first revealed by Searchlight – whose involvement with the party Butler and many other activists have vigorously condemned and want to bring to an end. Not only has he taken over the party’s assets and administration, he has been accused by many activists of bullying and threatening violence against anyone who dares to disagree with him, and a young BNP member has made allegations of sexual assault against him, which Griffin has refused to investigate.
The meeting heard that questions had been raised over bequests and other large donations that had allegedly been paid direct to the leadership. It was unclear whether the party had benefited from these bequests and probate information would be obtained to investigate these rumours.
The party has not notified any individual large donations to the Electoral Commission since the end of September 2009. Donations above £7,500 (£5,000 up to 31 December) to the central party and above £1,500 (formerly £1,000) to accounting units or to individual officers have to be declared.
Delegates also explored how they could force an independent examination of the party’s financial records to establish whether there was any truth in the widespread allegations of financial irregularities and to “disclose where all the party’s funds had disappeared, and if there were signs of fraud”.
The meeting decided to establish a new Reform Group website and attached forum which would focus on “the rescue of the party” and provide “information which members would not get from official party channels”.
The group is also considering legal action over the BNP’s leadership nomination rules that the party leadership imposed to make it impossible for a challenger to succeed, something that Butler recently rejected despite suggesting it during his campaign. The meeting also decided to organise a class action on behalf of all the members who had been “unconstitutionally and illegally suspended”, which will put the BNP’s new constitution under the spotlight and could result in yet more legal costs for the party.
Butler himself appears not to have been present. The group intends to hold a bigger meeting in September.
Sonia Gable at HOPE not hate
Graham Partner, one of two BNP members elected to North West Leicestershire District Council in May 2007, supported Eddy Butler’s failed challenge to Nick Griffin’s leadership because the party was not “being managed in an open and honest way”.
The final straw for him was Griffin’s dismissal of two members of the party’s Advisory Council and Richard Barnbrook’s decision to renounce the BNP whip on the London Assembly this week.
“On Monday I shall submit my official letter to County Hall informing them of my decision while remaining a member of the party in order to retain the right to speak and vote against its wrongful management,” wrote Partner on 13 August.
Two days earlier he had accused those BNP members who supported Griffin’s continued leadership of the party of being “morons who voted for Herr Griff” and described the leadership nomination process as: “cheating, fraudulent, despicable”.
Attacking Griffin’s dictatorship, Partner added: “His actions have brought about several court cases costing us hundreds of thousands of pounds, his arrogance towards other members and officials knows no bounds.
“He appoints lap dogs to key positions who will follow his instructions blindly and gets away with repeatedly lying over the accounts with a little help from puppet Dave [Hannam, the BNP’s incompetent treasurer].”
Meanwhile, 37 supporters of Butler’s failed leadership challenge met near Windsor on 12 August to discuss how they could “rescue” the BNP from its “inevitable failure and destruction” under Griffin’s leadership, reports Simon Bennett, the BNP’s former webmaster. They included many of the people whom Griffin has suspended for supporting Butler.
Those present blamed Griffin for the £500,000 of debts that have put the party in a dire financial state, likening him, wrote Bennett, to “the farmer who had opened the door of the chicken house to the fox, a shadowy and wily fox with a criminal past and a history of appealing for monies from donors who believe in their causes, the monies seemingly then enriching the pockets of that fox rather than being utilised for the cause. The resulting carnage, now that the fox had been allowed to virtually take over the Party by the farmer, was all too apparent.”
The fox in this tale is Jim Dowson, the man who owns the BNP – a fact first revealed by Searchlight – whose involvement with the party Butler and many other activists have vigorously condemned and want to bring to an end. Not only has he taken over the party’s assets and administration, he has been accused by many activists of bullying and threatening violence against anyone who dares to disagree with him, and a young BNP member has made allegations of sexual assault against him, which Griffin has refused to investigate.
The meeting heard that questions had been raised over bequests and other large donations that had allegedly been paid direct to the leadership. It was unclear whether the party had benefited from these bequests and probate information would be obtained to investigate these rumours.
The party has not notified any individual large donations to the Electoral Commission since the end of September 2009. Donations above £7,500 (£5,000 up to 31 December) to the central party and above £1,500 (formerly £1,000) to accounting units or to individual officers have to be declared.
Delegates also explored how they could force an independent examination of the party’s financial records to establish whether there was any truth in the widespread allegations of financial irregularities and to “disclose where all the party’s funds had disappeared, and if there were signs of fraud”.
The meeting decided to establish a new Reform Group website and attached forum which would focus on “the rescue of the party” and provide “information which members would not get from official party channels”.
The group is also considering legal action over the BNP’s leadership nomination rules that the party leadership imposed to make it impossible for a challenger to succeed, something that Butler recently rejected despite suggesting it during his campaign. The meeting also decided to organise a class action on behalf of all the members who had been “unconstitutionally and illegally suspended”, which will put the BNP’s new constitution under the spotlight and could result in yet more legal costs for the party.
Butler himself appears not to have been present. The group intends to hold a bigger meeting in September.
Sonia Gable at HOPE not hate
Labels:
BNP,
Dave Hannam,
Eddy Butler,
Graham Partner,
Jim Dowson,
Nick Griffin
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