Husband of BNP parliamentary candidate quits 'to protect party'

THE husband of a BNP Parliamentary candidate has quit the party following his recent arrest over an alleged drugs offence.

Clifford Baddeley was arrested last month on suspicion of possessing cannabis. The arrest led to police searching the house he shares with his wife Melanie, who is the far-right party's Parliamentary candidate in the Stoke-on-Trent North constituency.

Mr Baddeley, who has not been charged with any offences, remains on police bail while officers complete their investigation. The unemployed 49-year-old, of Holehouse Road, Abbey Hulton, has admitted to using cannabis in the past to relieve the pain of arthritis. However, he says he has since stopped using the drug.

BNP figures say Mr Baddeley left the party to avoid causing further embarrassment in the run-up to the May 6 polls. His departure comes after BNP chairman Nick Griffin was forced to defend Mr Baddeley's conduct at the party's election manifesto launch in Stoke on Friday.

Mr Griffin had unveiled a range of tough new crime policies, including the death penalty for drug dealers, in front of the media. But he was later forced to admit he would not be taking any disciplinary action against Mr Baddeley on the grounds that he had been using cannabis medicinally.

Mr Baddeley told The Sentinel last week that he was ashamed of the embarrassment his arrest had caused for his wife and the party. He was unavailable for comment last night on his decision to step down.

Mrs Baddeley said she accepted her husband's resignation from the party and wanted to focus on her campaign. She said: "Following the manifesto launch on Friday, when questions were raised about Clifford, he has decided to resign from the party. He stepped down, because he was aware of the embarrassment his situation was causing for the party."

Stoke-on-Trent City Council BNP group leader Councillor Michael Coleman, who is standing for election in the Stoke-on-Trent South constituency, said he felt Mr Baddeley had made the right decision. And he hinted that his departure may be temporary if the ongoing police inquiry finds no evidence of any wrongdoing.

He said: "It is true that Mr Baddeley has resigned in light of everything that has happened. He is doing this to protect the party and our reputation, but he wasn't pushed; it was his choice to leave. I'm sure that when this has all blown over, he will come back to us."

He added: "His medical condition is absolutely awful and we are taking a lenient approach because of that."

This is Staffordshire

Politician lodges complaint over BNP using wife's photograph

The former leader of the British National Party in Stoke-on-Trent has lodged a formal complaint against four party members

Councillor Alby Walker, who quit the BNP in February, made the complaint to Stoke-on-Trent City Council's top legal officer.

Mr Walker alleges that current BNP group leader councillor Michael Coleman and BNP councillors Philip Sandland, Steve Batkin and Anthony Simmonds breached the members' code of conduct. The allegation relates to recent campaigning ahead of elections. It states party activists distributed a newspaper, with a picture of Mr Walker's wife without permission.

Councillor Ellie Walker left the party last month to join her husband as a non-aligned councillor. She said at the time that the BNP leadership had mounted a smear campaign against her husband, who is running against the far-right party's national deputy leader, Simon Darby, for the Stoke-on-Trent Central Parliamentary seat in the General Election.

Mr Walker said: "This complaint arises from the BNP distributing 18,000 newspapers with Ellie's photograph prominently displayed on the front page, promoting BNP policy, even though at the time she was not part of the BNP group. The four BNP councillors were identified as delivering this newspaper by several residents and two serving city councillors."

Mr Coleman told The Sentinel the BNP distributed the newspapers at the end of March, and he was not aware at the time Mrs Walker had left the party.

The Sentinel

English Defence League in Stoke, 23 January

There is a strong Stoke division of the EDL, based around Stoke City supporters, and unofficial Stoke City internet message boards are full of talk about their mobilisation in the city on 23 January.

The link between certain Stoke City supporters (the “Naughty Forties”) and the fascists has existed for a number of years, and has been documented in past issues of Searchlight. The BNP deny that they are in any way linked to the EDL, but in practice the local EDL supporters are also BNP supporters. For example, Shaun Grimsley, who recently stood for the BNP at a by-election in Cannock Chase, is also a self-confessed Nazi and an EDL activist.

There have been some tensions in the local BNP recently. Alby Walker, the leader of the BNP group on the City Council, recently resigned unexpectedly. Walker was seen as a “moderate” (in BNP terms), and is likely to be succeeded as leader by hardline Nazi Michael Coleman.

NorSCARF is the North Staffordshire Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, which was originally founded in 1977 to oppose the National Front. We are an autonomous local anti-fascist campaign covering Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-under-Lyme and the Staffordshire Moorlands. We have links with both Searchlight and the UAF: there is no separate UAF group in the area.

NorSCARF has close links with the trade union movement through the North Staffordshire Trades Council. NorSCARF is quite unusual in encompassing all strands of anti-fascist opinion within a single organisation, and of course the kind of debates going on inside the anti-fascist movement generally have been taking place within NorSCARF.

How to relate to the disaffected working-class people attracted to the BNP and the EDL is, of course, the big question. NorSCARF are aware that to date we have been simply firefighting, and that we do need to carry on serious sustained work in the working-class estates where the BNP have made inroads.

One of the particular problems we face in Stoke-on-Trent is the fragmentation of the political scene. The City Council is made up of at least nine separate political groups, including several distinct groups of “Independents”, including some politically close to the BNP.

In this year’s May elections, the BNP are defending three seats. However, seven more are vulnerable to a BNP win (these are wards which have previously elected BNP councillors, or where the BNP has come second). In the worst scenario, the BNP could win all these seats.

Adding these ten to the six not standing for re-election this time, that would increase the size of the BNP group to 16 — the largest single group on the Council, with more councillors than the Labour Party. They would become the official opposition to the current ruling coalition of Tories and Independents.

From a personal (rather than a NorSCARF) perspective, I would add that the Labour Party are barely credible as an opposition. There is an internal war within the party locally, whereby the Blairites (mainly located in Stoke South constituency) are trying to purge the party of the old left (mainly located in Stoke Central and Stoke North), with the assistance of the party’s regional organiser.

A number of very experienced former councillors, including a former leader of the Labour Group, have been prevented from going on the party’s panel of candidates. Only eleven prospective candidates have been approved, despite the fact that there are twenty wards in the City. The Labour Party will therefore not even be able to stand a candidate in every ward.

• 23 January: assemble with NorSCARF 12.30pm, outside NORSACA, Lindsay Annexe, Cannon Place, Hanley ST1 4EP

Worker's Liberty

Is BNP leader quitting now while he's ahead?

The British National Party has been at the forefront of politics in Stoke-on-Trent for the past seven years, since outsider Steve Batkin stunned sceptical observers by coming third in the 2002 mayoral elections.

Since then, while more established political parties have crumbled and lost ground, the BNP has seized upon the slightest sign of weakness in its opponents.

Mr Batkin may have been a lone figure in the council chamber in 2003, but within five years he was joined by eight more members. In the same period, Labour's once total grip on power evaporated, leaving the party with little choice but to go into opposition for the first time in the city council's history. The Conservatives have had to form a tenuous alliance with centre-right independents to muster enough numbers to occupy key political posts.

The recent emergence of the Stoke-on-Trent Independent Group not only cut the Conservative and Independent Alliance to just seven members, but also made the BNP the outright third largest political group in the city, just five seats behind Labour.

When last year's mayoral referendum took place, the BNP backed the campaign to retain the elected mayoral system, leading many political commentators to speculate openly about the possibility of a BNP mayor running the city. In short, the BNP under Alby Walker's leadership had become a major political force. But that all changed on Wednesday evening when Mr Walker sent a tersely-worded email to council officers stating that he had quit as leader.

Of course, he would not be the first senior political figure to stand down for personal reasons. But the email made it clear that he was stepping down before his group had even begun to appoint a successor. In fact, that is not likely to happen until January. Then, when The Sentinel contacted deputy group leader, Councillor Michael Coleman, three hours later, he said he knew nothing of the resignation.

Leadership changes happen, but stable political parties try to plan ahead to smooth the transition and reassure their members and supporters. The BNP is not a localised council group operating in its own tiny bubble of influence. It is part of a large, organised political body with its own national and regional leadership structure. It is unthinkable that anyone in the BNP's hierarchy who knew of Mr Walker's intention would let him make his announcement without carefully managing the situation.

But party leader Nick Griffin certainly seemed to have no knowledge of the crisis developing in the city he likes to call the jewel in the BNP's crown. Speaking from the climate summit in Copenhagen, an obviously flustered Mr Griffin said: "I'm afraid I don't know anything about this. I've no idea what's happening in Stoke-on-Trent."

Clearly party chiefs, like the council group, did not know of Mr Walker's plans until after he had executed them.

When he confirmed his resignation that evening, he not only admitted that he was unlikely to stand for election to retain his seat in May, but also refused to say whether he would remain with the party at all. One source close to Mr Walker has suggested the announcement was timed to prevent someone else leaking the news of his planned resignation to "stab him in the back". But the fact that his own group did not know what he had done, even hours afterwards, implies that the attack he feared was expected to come from within, rather than from rival parties.

Since Wednesday, the group has been displaying a united front once again, and members are bullish about its chances of making yet more gains at the polls. Mr Coleman confidently expects to take 10 more seats in May and a further 15 in 2011. But he may have given an insight into the real mood within the group when he said: "It is going to be a difficult 18 months ahead of us. It's getting harder now, not easier."

He also said that he felt Mr Walker had "done the sensible thing" in resigning now, to let others take on the burden of fighting three Parliamentary and 20 council seats next year, as well as all 45 council seats in 2011.

Up until now, the BNP's successes have been victories against the mainstream parties on the back of mounting public discontent with New Labour, and the Blair and Brown Governments. It would seem that Mr Walker certainly has done the sensible thing – he is quitting while he's ahead, before the progress he has made begins to falter.

The current balance of power within the council means that, in order to continue their meteoric rise, the BNP is soon going to have to vie for votes with the independents – solid community candidates who are not shackled by party dogma and whips or hampered by the conduct of their representatives in Westminster.

Mr Walker was facing re-election in May, and would have been a prime target for his political foes. Defeat would have been a massive blow for his party and a major propaganda coup for his rivals. But his departure ahead of polling day means that, should another party take the seat, they will not be able to claim the trophy of toppling the BNP leader, and their victory cannot be recorded as a defeat for the far-right party.

Mr Coleman may make an even stronger leader for the group; only time will tell. But if he fails to deliver on his morale-boosting promises of sweeping electoral gains over the next two years, then he could find himself at the head of a declining party with no political weapons he can use to fight back at the formidable independents.

The Sentinel

Shock for Stoke BNP as leader quits

Alby Walker (left) with BNP leader Nick Griffin

The BNP in Stoke-on-Trent have been thrown into turmoil by the shock resignation of their leader

Councillor Alby Walker told his nine-strong group last night that he was standing down with immediate effect. And he is also unlikely to stand for re-election to the council in May.

Mr Walker, aged 52, told The Sentinel that he wanted to devote more of his time to family and work commitments. The ward member for Abbey Green had led the group since being elected to the city council in May 2006. However, there have been rumours of growing friction within the group over its future leadership and political direction.

Mr Walker announced his resignation in a brief email to council officials, saying: "As from your receipt of this email I am standing down as group leader of the BNP group. When this issue has been resolved within the BNP group the new leader will inform you of the new group structure in due course."

Mr Walker admitted he had been contemplating the move for some time. He said: "I am finding it difficult to juggle the political workload with my work commitments outside the council, running a joinery business. I have also had numerous things on my plate in my personal life, including my wife Ellie's treatment for breast cancer. I increasingly felt that I was not giving the role and my responsibility to the group my full attention, so in the interests of the group I have taken the decision to stand down."

Mr Walker also hinted that he is considering giving up his council seat ahead of the May elections. He said: "I won't deny the rumours at this stage, but I will have to discuss it with the group before I can make a proper decision."

But he declined to say whether he would remain a BNP party member. He added that he felt he had helped to change public perceptions of the BNP in the city and boost support for the far-right party. He said: "When I took over, BNP councillors were regarded as lazy ward members who didn't make a positive contribution to debates. I have totally transformed the group and our approach to politics, and I just hope that whoever takes over will take that forward."

The group will be run by deputy leader councillor Michael Coleman until a new leadership structure can be decided.

Mrs Walker, aged 54, said she fully supported her husband's decision, but she had no plans to leave the group. She said: "I support what he is doing, but I think it's a shame as he is really the backbone of the group."

Mr Coleman was last night unavailable for comment.

Labour group leader councillor Mohammed Pervez said: "I think this is a matter for the BNP to sort out. I don't want to get involved in their affairs; I've got far more important things to do."

The Sentinel

Populist Politics, the BNP Way

Parties that do not hold office have, it is said, the luxury of opposition. The far left is all too often a case study in this piece of political wisdom. There's been plenty of times I've wondered if much of the far left actually want to recruit millions to its politics - I suspect for many a petty sect and guru, they don't. But for parties that have a little more muscle, electorally speaking, this luxury manifests itself in populism. On the one hand there are the politics of easy solutions to complex problems, and on the other there's being seen to be doing popular things.

This pretty much sums up the political approach of the BNP. Their politics are entirely negative - blame the "Marxists" who run the government and media. Blame the Muslims/blacks/asylum seekers, etc. We know the tiresome drill, and it's unfortunate crap like this can fall on fertile ground in some places. Take Stoke for example. This kind of "politics" is the BNP's stock in trade. Presumably the Potteries would flow with milk and honey if the foreigners depart and take their funny languages, religions and clothes with them.

But there's another aspect to Stoke BNP, and this is the second dimension of populism - of being seen to do popular things. So successful has the BNP been pursuing this that Stoke Central Labour MP, Mark Fisher has publicly stated that he believes them to be good community councillors. What is it that they do?

Take Cllr Steve Batkin, for example. To call him a complete tool in the council chamber would do my screwdriver set a great disservice. But during his first term on the council in Longton North, Batkin built a reputation as a community councillor. Got a lawn needing a mow? Need help with that flatpack cabin bed? Just give your friendly neighbourhood fascist a bell and around he'd come. You could tag-team the MDF as he informed you on the finer points of ornithology and Holocaust revisionism. And if no one required his special services he could be found of an afternoon litter-picking his way around the ward. For this he's earned the almost-affectionate epithet of Bin Bag Batkin.

Credit where credit's due. Old Bin Bag has finally learned to utter a few words in the council chamber, which is more than can be said for his fellow BNP'er, Cllr David Marfleet. Almost two years he's sat there and not uttered a single word. Will he serve a full term without opening his gob?

There is a more damaging aspect to this kind of populism. Ellie and Alby Walker (pictured), who along with Michael Coleman form the "brains" of the local BNP group, are past masters at this sort of activity. One thing the Walkers do without fail is provide a kind of meals on wheels service for some of the old folk around Abbey Hulton and often leave full council to do the rounds. Yes, it's great PR for the BNP. I'm sure their families might appreciate the Walkers' efforts and think about putting a cross in the BNP's box come the next elections.

But hold on a second, shouldn't this be a service provided by the council? If it is failing on meals on wheels, instead of taking on the responsibility themselves wouldn't the Walkers be better serving the voters of the Abbey by making sure this service is available? They obviously do not think so. Not only have they failed to raise the issue in the council chamber, despite plenty of opportunities for doing so, Ellie Walker left one council meeting specifically on elderly provision ... to deliver the meals! And the Walkers have the bare-faced cheek to pretend they're the only ones who care about "our people"!

If the BNP gave a shit they would have addressed the lack of service provision to the Abbey's elderly. But it suits them politically to be seen to be doing something about it themselves. This is not community activism. This is not what being an effective councillor is about. It's pure gesture politics.

A Very Public Sociologist

How the BNP shamefully tried to create a 'white martyr' for their own grubby ends

A film about the death of Keith Brown was posted on YouTube this week. It begins with a hearse arriving at St Batholomew's church in Stoke.

On one side of the coffin is a wreath which spells KEITH, on the other DADDY. Mr Brown was a father of seven. He was 52 when he was fatally stabbed outside his home last year. It would be difficult to imagine more emotional footage.

Among the mourners at his funeral is a middle-aged man in black suit and tie. When he begins to speak to the camera his eyes well-up: 'It's a very sad day, almost unbearable being there with the little kids,' he says, his eyes full of tears.

The tears - crocodile tears, some might think - belong to Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, who barely knew Keith Brown, if indeed they met at all.

Mr Griffin and his cronies have been accused of hijacking Mr Brown's funeral - and his death. BNP members were pallbearers. They laid a floral tribute depicting the flag of St George (something else they have hijacked).

They were also responsible for the internet broadcast courtesy of 'BNPtv'; the party now has its own specialist camera crews precisely for such occasions.

Standing outside the church, moments after the service has ended, Mr Griffin tells his online audience: 'I loathe not so much his killers as the police and authorities in this city who let down his family. They knew something like this was going to happen.

'His family, and Keith himself, was subjected to a reign of terror by the racist neighbours and their gang friends and the authorities did nothing about it. These people I loathe . . . when it's English, white victims, they simply don't care.'

Spin, even political spin, is one thing, outright lies quite another. Anyone - aside from the BNP - who was at Stafford Crown Court for the trial of Keith Brown's killer this week would be in little doubt into which category Mr Griffin's comments fell.

Keith Brown, the court heard, was not a 'white martyr,' but had a history of violence. The man in the dock, on the other hand, was a community leader who had never been in trouble before. He also happened to be Mr Brown's next-door neighbour and a Muslim.

The long-running dispute which finally ended in Mr Brown's death, however, was about property boundaries and building work, not race and politics. And Habib Khan, 50, was convicted of manslaughter, not racially motivated murder.

The truth is shocking only if you view the BNP in the same way as you might other political parties, that is, constrained by basic decency, and forget that it was founded in the early Eighties following splits in the far-Right National Front.

Many remain convinced that the BNP has the same relationship with the shaven-headed thugs who made up the NF, as Sinn Fein did with the bombers of the IRA.

It's easy to forget about the skinheads (lurking in the shadows or in the background at funerals) in Cambridge-educated Nick Griffin's besuited BNP.

And in a Britain plagued with knife and gun crime, and legitimate concerns over immigration, there has been an increasingly receptive audience for the BNP's message, not just in predominantly poor, white, working-class areas of the North, but also in the more affluent South-East.

Today the BNP has 56 local councillors, a net gain of ten in the recent local elections (with parish and community councils, it claims 100 elected representatives across the country) including Richard Barnbrook, the first BNP member to win a seat on the London Assembly.

In Stoke-on-Trent where the tragedy - and travesty - of Keith Brown was played out, the BNP now has nine councillors, perhaps the strongest single party in the city. On May 1, Labour polled 14,000 votes in 20 seats, the BNP polled almost 8,000, standing in just ten seats.

A minority Labour administration struggles on with the support of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats (both smaller than the BNP) and independents. But senior local politicians believe the BNP could be running the Town Hall within three years.

To put that deeply disturbing prospect into perspective, just 12 years ago, Labour won all 60 seats on this new unitary authority.

Around 8 per cent of Stoke's 240,000 population is from the Asian and black community, but some believe the city's white working class has become an underclass.

The statistics are alarming. Officially, of course, unemployment has fallen, but more residents claim incapacity and disability benefits which has resulted in Stoke having one of the lowest proportions of people in work in England and Wales.

This is the economic background to the rise of the BNP in the city.

Michael Tappin, the former Labour group leader and ex-Stoke MEP, was one of those who lost his council seat a few weeks ago.

'The men and women of the BNP look like your neighbours,' he says. 'They are not 25st men with bodypiercings and tattoos as portrayed by anti-fascist demonstrators. They are respectable. It's hard to demonise them. The wear suits. They look tidy. They pick up old ladies when they fall over in the street, shop for the elderly and cut people's lawns.

'It's like that old saying about Mussolini - "At least he made the trains run on time." Here, it's "At least they get your grass cut.'' '

Alby Walker, the BNP group leader on the council, turns up for regular bingo sessions at a local community centre, where he helps put the tables out and take the money.

And, yes, he says he gets 'birthday cards off 80-year-old ladies'.

Mr Walker is a businessman who runs a small joinery firm and whose wife, Ellie, a school governor, has also been elected as a BNP councillor. Mr Walker wears pinstripe suits and fat ties.

One of the BNP leaflets he is most proud of features Hanley - one of the Five Towns which originally made up Stoke-on-Trent. 'Hanley 70 years ago,' it reads above nostalgic photographs of the church tower and smiling housewives.

Below, next to silhouettes of mosques and women with their faces shrouded in niqabs, is the question: 'Is this what you want for our city centre?'

He insists the BNP is not guilty of 'exploiting the situation,' neither in Hanley nor in the Longton South ward where Keith Brown lived and died. How, then, did a row between two neighbours become a cause celebre for the glib-tongued bigots of the BNP?

Neither of the families involved in the bitter feud were at home when the Mail called on them last night.

In fact, neighbours believe both the Browns and the Khans have now moved out of the street and are not sure if, or when, they will return. Contrary to what the BNP might want you to believe, Keith Brown and Habib Khan were not always mortal enemies.

The two, we have learned, once worked alongside each other - without any problems - for the same tiling company.

The former colleagues were reacquainted with each other in 2001 when Mr Khan expressed an interest in buying two semi-detached houses next door to Mr Brown. Mr Brown told Mr Khan to give him his details and he would pass them on to the owner.

He did so, and the transaction went through. Race never seemed to be an issue between the two men - at least not until the BNP got involved. By now, Mr Khan was a successful businessman in his own right (he ran a kebab shop) and was a Muslim elder.

Mr Brown was unemployed with a record of violence stretching back to his 20s. In 2000, the year before Mr Khan entered his life again, he was convicted of punching a man in the face.

The dispute which would eventually prove fatal started, as such rows often do, when Mr Khan applied for planning permission to carry out home improvements - in this case to convert his newly acquired properties into a single grand villa.

Mr Brown tried everything he could to stop him. During construction work, after the plans were approved, Mr Brown and his 20-year-old son Ashley took sledgehammers to the newly-built property next door.

Mr Brown was convicted of criminal damage, but appealed. When the prosecution failed to tell witnesses about the appeal hearing, a judge overturned the conviction. If he hadn't, Mr Brown might still be alive today. Instead, he went back on the offensive.

On one occasion, Mr Brown blocked the access road between their houses with vehicles and tyres. Eventually, he turned to the local authority for assistance and was introduced to Steve Batkin, then the sole BNP member on Stoke Council.

Did 'race' begin to rear its head in the dispute after this meeting?

The Khans, in statements made to the police, claimed they were called 'Pakis' by the Browns and that their windows were smashed every other day. They were also, it is alleged, subjected to death threats.

'The past four years I've been living in hell,' Mr Khan told the court.

Relations reached breaking point on July 6 last year. Mr Khan was in the kitchen when his daughter shouted to him that Mr Brown was trying to kill her brother, Azir. Mr Khan grabbed a knife and went outside to find Mr Brown holding his son in a headlock. He tapped him on the shoulder. Mr Brown, the jury was told, turned and mouthed: 'I'll kill him.'

Mr Khan said that he pressed the knife against Mr Brown's back so he could feel the blade, intending to scare him. But Mr Brown fell, pushing the blade in further.

As his neighbour struggled to his knees, Mr Khan removed the knife from his back. 'I have never seen blood like that in my life,' he said. But he insisted: 'I swear on my life had no intention of killing him.'

The jury believed him. Mr Khan was unanimously cleared of murder, but convicted of manslaughter. Sentencing has been adjourned.

Clearly Mr Khan's actions were entirely wrong and cannot be condoned for a moment. Mr Brown's killing was a shocking and criminal waste of life. Nevertheless, the BNP is now using the incident in its campaign literature with a cynicism that beggars belief.

An article posted on the official BNP website is called: Racist Murder in Britain - The Shocking Truth. 'An epidemic of anti-white racist violence and murder is being covered up by the government, the police and the media,' it claims.

The fate of Mr Brown, it alleges, was a prime example of this.

'So convinced were Mr Brown's family that the murder was racially motivated that they invited six of Stoke's BNP councillors to be pallbearers at Keith's funeral.'

No mention here of how a nonracial dispute seemed to have escalated only after Mr Brown's contact with the BNP.

But the party's Alby Walker is unrepentant. 'The system has let Keith down and justice has not been served. Justice in this country depends solely on the colour of your skin - if you are white you don't get justice.

'If Keith had killed Khan in the same circumstances I believe he would be facing years behind bars for murder and would not have got away with manslaughter. There seems a reluctance among the police to upset the Muslim community.

'They are terrified of a race riot in Stoke, but I don't think we are on the verge of that.' Despite, many feel, the best efforts of the BNP.

What was it Nick Griffin said at Keith Brown's funeral? Ah yes: 'It's a very sad day, almost unbearable' . . . but not, it might be argued, for the BNP, which so cynically turned the event into a party political broadcast.

Daily Mail