BNP's three long months (and counting) of by-election misery

There's something of a schizoid feel about the BNP membership's mindset at the moment. Half of them appear to believe that the party's electoral story since the June elections has been one of unremitting glory, while the other half have taken a long cold look at their candidates' dismal post-June local by-election performances and realise that the BNP is in serious trouble.

The leadership has clearly read the runes, and despite repeated claims of on-going progress, has ensured that election reports have largely disappeared from the BNP website. Even Martin Wingfield has been reduced to near silence, while the normally enthusiastic remnants of the party's recently purged blogging army can barely bring themselves to mention the latest embarrassments.

The election of Griffin and Brons, and three county councillors, masked the stark fact that in the middle of what Griffin himself called "the perfect storm" the BNP barely raised its voting percentage. All through the late winter and spring immigration related stories came thick and fast, and to cap it all the expenses scandal broke as the nation geared up to go to the Euro polls.

Conditions in which a fascist and racist party should expect to take mighty electoral strides forward had never been better. What more could the BNP ask for - public concerns about immigration almost continually to the fore and a near universal disillusionment with elected politicians, both intersecting in a notoriously low-turnout election never taken entirely seriously by British voters, and in which electors are prone to give the more esoteric parties the benefit of the doubt.

Yet the BNP did not take mighty electoral strides. Even in the midst of "the perfect storm" it put on less than 2% over its previous performance. By any yardstick that was a dreadful showing, but the unusual circumstances in which the elections were fought masked something even more fundamental, and that is that in anything approaching normal conditions the BNP vote percentage would have gone negative.

Unhappily we are saddled with Griffin and Brons, but that in no way alters the fact that, at the very best, the BNP stalled on June 4th.

Of course, those BNP members thrilled with the election of Griffin and Brons saw nothing but spectacular success, and were in no mood to engage in any sober analysis of events. Certainly, the wiser heads in the leadership were never going to encourage them to look at the disturbing picture behind the apparent triumph, and so the gloating refrains of "Nothing can stop us now" and the perennial "Onwards and upwards" tripped merrily from BNP mouths. So high soared their expectations that many seriously believed the election of the BNP's first MP in Norwich North was a real possibility.

In our report on that by-election we told of how the BNP, clearly having made no impact in the constituency and on course for a thumping defeat, abandoned its cod clerical candidate and his helpers to their fate and ceased to offer any support at all. It was too embarrassing even to mention.

Knocked out in Nuneaton

The week before Norwich North went to the polls the first real indication of the BNP's true electoral position came in a local by-election held in the Arbury and Stockingford (Nuneaton) division of Warwickshire County Council on July 16th.

The candidate was Martyn Findlay, already a sitting councillor on Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council. Findlay claims to be an effective local councillor, and certainly doesn't suffer from a shortage of publicity. He had the advantage of having been the BNP's candidate in the Arbury and Stockingford division just six weeks previously, on June 4th, when he scored a respectable 25% share of the vote.

With a 25% launchpad Findlay, buoyed up by the Euro triumph, had every reason to expect an increase in his vote, and the thought must have crossed BNP minds that they were about to celebrate the election of a fourth county councillor.

By now, however, the worst of the expenses storm had abated, and conditions were returning to normal.

Findlay's share crashed from 25% to 14%, two thirds of his vote evaporating.

This was a stunning reverse - surprising if you were a believer in the myth of June's success, not quite so surprising if you weren't.

It was, though, just one by-election out of many to come, and there was still the test of Norwich North on July 23rd.

Scuppered in Stockport

Norwich North sent the wretched reverend packing with a derisory 2.7% vote and a place among the joke candidates, but on the same day that Norwich North went to the polls, so too did the voters of Reddish North in Stockport, and Dormanstown in Redcar and Cleveland,

As in Arbury and Stockingford, in both wards the BNP had a record of standing candidates, and their votes could be directly measured against previous performances, which had been of the middling variety.

Reddish North had been fought in 2008, the BNP coming in third in a field of four, beating the Liberal Democrats into fourth place with 402 votes, or 14.5%.

Faced with a UKIP candidate on July 23rd the BNP was unable to sustain even that modest showing, losing half its vote to come bottom of the poll with 7.9%.

The excuse of a UKIP candidate wasn't available at Dormanstown. This ward had last been contested only three months previously, in April, when in a field of four the BNP came third with 305 votes and a 16% share. On July 23rd they again lost half their vote, their share tumbling to 9.4%.

On the same night a first time BNP candidate in Wellingborough Swanspool struggled to reach 10%.

Bust in Broxtowe

If Martyn Findlay's dreadful performance the week before had given cause for concern, the four results on the 23rd (Norwich North counted on the 24th) confirmed that all was not well with the BNP and the electorate. The bubble seemed to have burst - but never say die, not with Sadie Graham's vacated seat at Broxtowe Brinsley coming up for by-election the following week, on July 30th.

Graham first fought the seat in 2003, where, in a straight battle with Labour she took 43% of the vote. In 2007, in a four horse race (herself, Labour and two independents) she convincingly won the seat with a 43.99% share. What happened next we need not go into, but from early 2008 she sat as an independent, and eventually ceased to sit at all, necessitating her removal.

In fairness, it was always going to be difficult for the BNP to retain Brinsley, which they liked to pretend "isn't really a BNP seat anyway", and the party's electoral sages predicted a close-run contest.

The candidate was the appalling and treacherous Nina Brown, a Brinsley parish councillor who likes to attend German Nazi folk festivals. Whatever her expectations the result showed that the contest had been anything but close-run.

In a field of five Brown came second, but her vote share was 28.3%, a staggering fall of 15.6%, well behind the winning Conservative.

In a mere three weeks then, in four seats previously contested the BNP had suffered four calamities.

August provided no opportunities to compare the BNP's votes, but of note was an unimpressive performance in King's Lynn Gaywood, where the 12.8% BNP share mirrored that gained in the recent county council elections, and the party managed only a lacklustre 9.9% in Blackpool Stanley.

Something else was becoming evident, and that was the BNP's failure to contest some wards previously fought, offering no explanations. On August 13th they failed to contest Scarborough Hertford, and on the 27th failed to appear at Harrogate Starbeck. It was also noticeable that the BNP was failing to stand first time candidates in areas where it claims to be well organised.

Hobbled in Hewarth

As September opened the gloom continued. On the 3rd first time candidates appeared in Medway Luton & Wayfield and Plymouth Ham, respectively obtaining a miserable 6.58% and a joke 2.9%.

September 10th saw the BNP field four candidates, two first timers and two in wards previously fought. The first timers stood in South Tyneside Westoe and Harborough Welland, neither of them impressing with just over 11% of the vote (the absence of a Labour candidate in Welland helped the BNP considerably), but in the two previously contested wards the sorry tale of decline continued.

In York Hewarth the BNP share plunged from 13.2% to just 6.68% as two thirds of their 2007 vote disappeared. In Daventry Drayton matters were even worse, the BNP again losing two thirds of its 2008 vote as its share plunged from 33.11% to 14.35%.

Thus far then, the BNP met with disaster in all six seats it had previously contested.

September 17th should have seen the BNP contest at least three by-elections where it had a record of standing, and arguably two others where it claims to have an organisation - but no BNP candidate stood anywhere on the 17th. The party's beyond-a-joke 2008 showing of 1.5% in Birmingham Sparkbrook was, understandably, something it did not care to repeat, but the failure to stand in Redcar and Cleveland South Bank (15.8% in October 2008) and Amber Valley Ripley (20% in 2008, plus two sitting councillors) is inexplicable.

By now the scales were beginning to fall from even the most optimistic of BNP eyes, and rumours of internal dissatisfaction with a remote and authoritarian leadership, appointments of incompetent cronies to positions of power, lack of organisational support for branches and groups, appeal fatigue, Griffin's craven cowardice in the face of an EHRC inspired court action and the cavalier treatment of individual activists, some of whom appear to have jumped ship, was leading to open dissension, which may have something to do with the BNP's vaporous performance on September 17th.

Five by-elections took place on September 24th, each of them in districts known to have a BNP organisation, but the party fought only two, both of them previously contested.

Broxtowe Toton and Chilwell was never a happy hunting ground for the BNP, the party scraping just over 7% in 2007. It would be difficult to do much worse, but Dave Brown, husband of Nina (see above) somehow contrived to do it, helped on his way to humiliation by the circulation of leaflets depicting his attendance at the same German Nazi folk-fest as his wife.

The idiotic Brown took the BNP down to a 3% share, receiving 58 votes, just a quarter of the 2007 figure.

Three Rivers Hayling held out some prospect for the BNP, inasmuch as the party believed it could hold its 2008 30.3% share and second place (UKIP took 4% in the same election). In the event Labour fought a hard campaign that saw its vote more than double and its percentage rise from 32.3% to 53.4%. With the Conservative and Liberal Democrat votes hardly moving the squeeze was put firmly and painfully on the BNP.

Of all four parties standing it alone lost votes, and derived no benefit from the lack of a UKIP candidate. The BNP dropped to third place, its share crashing to 18.8%. Disbelieving BNP supporters have ever since been demanding to know how Labour "fixed" the election.

Eight attempts to defend its vote to date, eight thumping reverses.

Abandoned in Allestree

Coming right up to date, on October 1st the BNP failed to nominate in Sandwell Wednesbury South, despite claiming to have chosen Terry Lewin as its candidate and allegedly having begun campaigning. In 2008 the BNP took a 15% share in this ward, a very respectable starting point for a party that never tires of telling us that it cannot be stopped.

So why the failure to nominate? Well the BNP isn't saying, but the shambolic condition of the party in the recently "reformed" West Midlands may have something to do with it.

On the same night disappointment fell in the way of a first timer in Kettering Northfield, a grim 8.2% failing to meet with expectations of a minimum 10% in a ward the BNP claims to have worked.

And the misery continued in Derby Allestree, a ward previously contested in 2008 when the party achieved a modest 10.89% and last of four contenders with 563 votes. On October 1st their achievement was even more modest, the BNP share falling to 6.37% and 242 votes.

Allestree was unwinnable for the BNP, to be sure, but in the scheme of things the by-election was significant since it is the ninth consecutive electoral contest in which we can measure current BNP performances against previous outings - and in all nine we have seen the BNP fail not only to make headway, but fail even to maintain their vote share.

The full story:
(* first time fought ** failed to nominate)

July 16th
Derbyshire CC Kirk Hallam 12.0% *
Warks CC Arbury and S'ford 14% (25% -11%)

July 23rd
Wellingborough BC Swanspool 10% *
Stockport MBC Reddish North 7.9% (14.5% -6.6%)
Redcar & Cleveland UA Dorm'stown 9.4 (16% -6.6%)

July 30th
Tameside MBC Denton North 13.6% *
Broxtowe BC Brinsley 28.3% (43.99% -15.6%)

August 13th
K Lynn/W Norfolk DC Gaywood Chase 12.8% *
Scarborough BC Hertford **

August 20th
Blackpool UA Stanley 9.9% *

August 27th
Harrogate BC Starbeck **

September 3rd
Medway UA Luton & Wayfield 6.58% *
Plymouth UA Ham 2.9% *

September 10th
S Tyndeside MBC Westoe 11.74% *
Harborough DC Welland 11.1% *
City of York UA Hewarth 6.68% (13.2% -6.52%)
Daventry BC Drayton 14.35% (33.11% -18.76%)

September 17th
Redcar & Cleveland BC South Bank **
Birmingham MBC Sparkbrook **
Amber Valley DC Ripley & Marhay **

September 24th
Broxtowe BC Toton and Chilwell 3% (7.3% -4.3%)
Three Rivers DC Hayling 18.83 (30.34% -11.5%)

October 1st
Sandwell MBC Wednesbury S **
Kettering BC Northfield 8.2% *
Derby UA Allestree 6.37% (10.89% -4.52%)

Midlands BNP officers speak at German neo-Nazi rally

A British National Party regional officer spoke at a nazi festival in east Germany last month alongside violent fascists and extremists from several European countries.

Mike Bell, secretary of the party’s West Midlands region, attended the Fest der Völker (Festival of Nations) in Pössneck, Thüringen, with three other BNP activists. They included Dave and Nina Brown from Nottinghamshire, who were taking time out from campaigning for a Broxtowe District Council by-election on 24 September, where Mr Brown was the BNP candidate.

Their presence at the event on 12 September proves once again that the BNP’s rejection of nazism is only skin deep. Leading racist extremists from across Europe spoke alongside Bell and Mrs Brown at the far-right rock festival. They included Dan Eriksson and Varenus Luckmann from Sweden, Andreas Mayerhofer from Austria, Matthias Fischer from Germany, Bojan Rasate from Bulgaria, Pascal Trost from Switzerland, Milán Széth from Hungary and Patrik Vondral from the Czech Republic.

Fest Der Volker T Shirt

Behind them on the platform was a banner depicting two steel-helmeted soldiers of the German army and bearing the clapped-out fascist slogan “Europe Awake!”. In front of them was a mob of around 500 nazi boneheads, misfits and sociopaths.

Four BNP activists are known to have attended, two of whom were featured speakers.

Nina Brown

Nina Brown

Nina Brown is the organiser of Broxtowe BNP and a Brinsley parish councillor. Though now loyal to Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, she was one of the original “Voice of Change” rebels in December 2007, led by Sadie Graham, at that time her best friend.

It was Brown who let Griffin’s security team into Graham’s house to remove the disputed computer equipment. She immediately resigned as Broxtowe organiser and East Midlands regional secretary when it became apparent that she had been duped by Martin Reynolds and his security team.

Brown wrote a statement of resignation on the rebels’ Enough is Enough website. However, following the collapse of the attempted coup d’état she quickly fell back into the fold and is now very much “on message”.

Dave Brown

Dave Brown

Husband of Nina and also a Brinsley parish councillor, Dave Brown was the BNP candidate for the Broxtowe District Council by-election in Toton and Chilwell Meadows ward on 24 September, caused by the resignation due to ill health of the Conservative councillor Wilfred Childs.

Brown, a plumber, was also one of the “Voice of Change” rebels, but like his wife quickly got back in line when the whole charade fell apart. Both he and his wife are thought to be close to the neo-nazi musician Steve “Stigger” Callendine, formerly a member of the notorious white supremacist band Skrewdriver.

Mike Bell

Mike Bell

Originally from the Merseyside area Mike Bell now lives in the Northfield area of Birmingham and is the BNP’s West Midlands regional secretary. Until recently he was the organiser of the BNP’s South Birmingham branch, which he claims can hold meetings of over 200 people.

Bell has the status of a minor celebrity in the party as he recently managed to ask a question from the audience on the BBC’s Question Time.

His presence on the platform of a nazi rally in Germany might come as a shock to those who have encountered him selling poppies on behalf of the British Legion and laying wreaths to commemorate those who fell fighting the Nazis on Remembrance Day. Bell attended the Fest der Völker with another unidentified BNP activist from the Birmingham area.

A conspiracy revealed and more sackings and purges to come after the BNP's EGM

Here we are again, on the run-up to another Red, White and Blue disaster, with the BNP in disarray and Nick Griffin's leadership looking at its rockiest since the heady days of December 2007, when Sadie Graham and co were booted unceremoniously out of the party amid allegations of email-tampering and back-stabbing that led (eventually) to Manchester Civil Court, though not to any kind of resolution.

Following the December rebellion, when dozens of party activists stood down in support of the Graham clique, there were plans to get rid of Griffin flying about all over the place - talks of a new party, leadership challenges, legal challenges etc - all of which came to naught as the rebels failed to provide the leadership that the rebels and their supporters so desperately needed. Instead, Colin Auty, little known inside the party except for his 'music', pushed incessantly by the failing Great White Records, was persuaded to stand in a pointless leadership campaign, doomed to failure even if it had managed to get off the ground - which it didn't.

This utterly pointless challenge by Auty has inevitably brought Griffin's paranoia to a head and has led directly to his much-publicised attempt to twist the rules of the party to stop leadership challenges being annual and make them quadrennial or at the very least, biennial, thus cutting down on his chances of losing his lucrative post with its almost endless potential for money-making scams at the expense of a gullible membership. The RWB will see an Extraordinary General Meeting take place which will change the face of the BNP and consolidate Griffin's position until he can (as he fully expects to) join the gravy-train of the European Parliament next year without having to worry about distractions like Colin Auty popping up out of nowhere.

This EGM is a direct result of the failure of the Challenge for Leadership rebel team to provide proper leadership when it was most needed, whether inside the party or out. Sadie Graham was extremely well-placed to form a new party immediately following her sacking, to stand against the corruption and financial mismanagement that is endemic in Griffin's BNP but she and her team chose, for some incomprehensible reason that eluded most of her supporters, to continue to give her direct support to the existing BNP - though a BNP without the likes of Griffin, the notoriously-arrogant Mark Collett and bumbling idiot Dave Hannam, both of the latter being much-loathed even within the party itself.

Graham's partner Matt Single, former member of the BNP's security team and an unwitting stooge in another of Griffin's scams (this time to teach people evasive and defensive driving just in case someone attempts to kidnap them - for a fee, naturally), who writes as 'Integrity' on the rebel's Challenge for Leadership blog, has taken centre-stage in the fight against Griffin, banging on incessantly and impotently about how bad he is at running the BNP and how corrupt he is - but this appears to be anger that's still simmering away at the treatment he and Graham received from his former comrades in the security team, who raided the Single/Graham home with the willing help, it has emerged, of Nina Brown - a former friend who had been angling to step into Graham's job, or something similar, for some time. With friends like that, who the hell needs enemies.

Yes, folks, there is NO loyalty to one's friends in the BNP. All this rubbish about the party being one big happy family or like a community is, as you suspected, bullshit pumped out by the ton via the speeches and publications with which the BNP relentlessly showers its membership.

You may recall that the story that did the rounds following the raid was that Griffin's henchmen (Martin Reynolds, who we hear is for the chop next, and his fellow Kray brothers, sorry, security team members) were outside the Graham home, having gone there to reclaim items that were actually owned by the BNP (or so they claimed). Much to their surprise, ho-ho, neither Graham nor Single were at home. While pondering what to do, who should appear but Nina Brown, a then friend of the couple and handy keyholder for when they were away and the cat needed to be fed, who let the security gorillas in to take the goodies.

The truth has now begun to emerge and it turns out to be quite different. In fact, the whole event was stage-managed by Nick Griffin with the collusion of Nina Brown and Reynolds' security team. It was known that Graham and Single were off to attend the South East Christmas social (along with Griffin himself) that weekend - they all knew that - so Reynolds and a team made up of heavies from Leeds and Birmingham met up on the motorway, travelled to Brinsley and arranged to meet with Nina Brown who opened the front door for them and watched as they took the PC (which didn't belong to the BNP), the laptop, a mass of paperwork, printers and so on, piled it into the vehicle and shoved off. And why the need to do all this surreptitiously? Because Single is a thug and if he'd been on the premises, particularly with a pregnant Sadie Graham getting all hot and bothered over what was happening, he'd have caused something of a ruckus which might have done the party even more damage in the long run.

Nick Griffin has no sense of loyalty, even to those who devote themselves to him and/or the party. For years, Graham and Single helped Griffin to hold his position at the top of the BNP and did nothing except remain loyal to him while others were purged, expelled or forced to resign. Then it was their turn and they went the same way. Martin Reynolds has followed Griffin around for years, waddling beside him like an overweight but faithful dog, ready to plod into action should one of his many enemies take a baseball bat to Griffin. And now we hear that Reynolds is on his way out. Nina Brown, who has already earned herself a reputation as an utterly useless parish councillor, is also rumoured to be out of favour and on her way out of the party. And thus is loyalty rewarded in Nick Griffin's BNP.

Even worse is to come. We hear from reliable sources that the EGM is rigged to produce the result that Griffin wants (no great surprise there), postal voting is now allowed, despite (or perhaps because of) the BNP's repeated claim that postal vote fraud is both easy and common, and that those who vote against Griffin's proposals will soon find themselves out on their communal ear.

So no change there then.

And the list of BNP resignations just carries on growing...

A bit of a messy post here but I thought an update would be of interest to our readers along with the statement of what happened by Nina Brown (ex-East Mids Regional Secretary & Broxtowe Organiser).

Brian Riley (Glasgow Organiser)
Charlie Baillie (Glasgow Fundholder)
Cllr Chris Beverley (Yorkshire Elections Officer, Leeds Organiser & Advisory Council Member)
Cllr Dave Brown (Broxtowe)
Cllr Nina Brown (East Mids Regional Secretary & Broxtowe Organiser)
Cllr Roger Robertson (South East Regional Organiser & Advisory Council Member)
Cllr Sadie Graham (Head of Group Development & East Mids Regional Organiser & Advisory Council Member)
Danny Lake (YBNP Leader)
Dave Taylor (Bradford Contact)
Ian Dawson (Yorkshire Regional Secretary, Former Head of Group Support & Advisory Council Member)
Kenny Smith (Head of Administration & Scottish Regional Organiser & Advisory Council Member)
Kieran Dinsmore (Ulster Regional Organiser)
Malcolm Porter (West Lindsay Fundholder)
Mark Payne (Former Assistant National Treasurer)
Mark Wain (Melton & Rutland Press Officer)
Matt Single (Department of Security Secretary & Training Officer)
Michael Clarke (Ashfield Organiser)
Neil Craig (Bradford Organiser)
Nicholla Smith (Managing Director of Excalibur & Falkirk Organiser & Advisory Council Member)
Robert Walker (Huddersfield Organiser)
Sammy Shaw (Falkirk Fundholder)
Scott McLean (Former Deputy Chairman & Scottish Regional Organiser & Advisory Council Member)
Steve Blake (Web Editor & Head of Education & Training & Advisory Council Member)
Steve Thomson (Aberdeen Organiser)
Peter Piling (Burnley fundholder)
Gary Pudsey (Bridlington Organiser)
Stuart Russell (Former National Press Officer & Advisory Council Member)
Doncaster BNP

If you hear of any more, please let us know via the comments section.

Statement from Nina Brown

I wish to clarify the situation that led to the “raid” on Sadies home and the removal of her personal computer and various other items.

For a couple of years I have been a keyholder to Sadie’s house, originally to feed her cat whilst she was away on holiday, but more recently for local organisers to pick up their monthly orders of the Voice of Freedom, Identity, campaign leaflets etc during Sadies absence. On Saturday morning I spotted the Party van, which I recognised from the monthly literature run, parked outside Sadie’s home, with Martin Reynolds in the drivers seat, his wife Lindsey and several other security guys hanging around the front of Sadies home. I found that slightly odd as I knew that Sadie and Matt were away for the weekend. By the time I had turned the car around and pulled up to the house, four guys were walking down the passage that led from the back of the house to the front. I walked up to the van and spoke to Lindsey through the open window, I asked her if she knew that Sadie and Matt were away, inititally thinking that they had arrived for a security meeting and there had been a mix up with dates. I asked why they were there, but they wouldn’t tell me, which in itself is not so unusual as Security has always been just that, Secure and is never questioned, for obvious reasons. Just for the record, but goes without saying, if I knew what was going on, I would never in a million years have let them in.

The reason I did not question further what they were doing there is, because I knew the guys pretty well from several occasions, including the recent Blackpool Conference and had become to regard them as good friends, as they were with Sadie and Matt. These were the Security Team which we had come to like and trust with our well being at high profile meetings, such as the recent local meeting in Kimberley, why would I have reason to question their actions? I did say to Lindsey, “Do you want me to call Sadie or will Martin phone them”, at this point Martin was already on his mobile phone, which I assumed was to either Sadie or Matt, Lindsey then got out of the van, obviously now to make sure I would be out of earshot of Martin’s conversation with, who I now believe to be Nick Griffin.

After 20 minutes or so on the phone, which Lindsey and I laughed about as she said “Martin will have to have that phone surgically removed from his ear these days”. Martin got out of the van and walked up to me, I asked him if everything was sorted with them (meaning with Sadie and Matt), and I said to him “So am I ok to let you in?”. He nodded, it was at this point I opened the door and went inside, I picked up our bundle of newspapers, Voice of Freedom which had been left for me just inside the door, they all followed me inside. I then went straight back outside to carry on the conversation with Lindsey, by this time all the guys were inside, I did not see what they were doing as I was standing outside and away from the door. I did see the large printer being put into the van, but I still thought nothing of it as printers, photocopiers etc were sometimes moved around the regions when new ones were acquired. Also I knew that several senior members of the Party had recently received new mobiles and laptops, as Sadie was a high profile member, I guessed she was simply receiving brand new equipment at some point.

Why on earth would I not trust our Security Team, the lefties had always been the enemy, never our own people!

On finding out the full truth later in the day, to me it had now become personal, this left me with no other option but to hand in my resignation from my positions as Parish Councillor and Local Organiser. For over two years I have put my heart and soul into the Party and like others am deeply saddened at recent events. Sadie and Matt have worked tirelessly for the Party, I consider them fantastic people, they have worked above and beyond the cause with the nation and members interests first and foremost. I could not have fulfilled my prior rold of EM Regional Secretary and Broxtowe Organiser and later becoming a Election Candidate in Kimberley without her full backing and support. I consider Sadie and Matt true friends, I like many others, cannot understand how the Party can function without them.

Cllr Nina Brown
Ex Broxtowe Organiser

BNP in meltdown as Graham and Smith expulsions infuriate membership

• Sadie Graham (Group Development) sacked
• Kenny Smith (Head of Admin) sacked
• Ian Dawson (Yorkshire) resigns
  
• Danny Lake (YBNP leader) sacked
• Nicholla Smith (Excalibur) sacked
• Councillors, fundholders and organisers quitting

Reports are pouring in from all over the place following the expulsions of Sadie Graham and Kenny Smith yesterday. We now have confirmation that Danny Lake, the idiotic leader of the YBNP has been kicked out for supporting Graham and Smith, and many organisers and fundholders are resigning in disgust at the way they've been treated. Others are speaking out in support of the sacked duo including, curiously, the Griffin-loyalist Chris Hill, Lancaster's very own lonely BNP member, who usually concentrates far more on what we have to say than having any opinions himself.

Rather more importantly, news is coming in that a handful of BNP councillors have resigned or are planning to resign the whip and more are expected to follow suit.

Between the Stormfront nazi forum and a number of blogs, including the Enough is Enough blog that got Graham and Smith into so much trouble, we've been able to cobble together something that looks like the correct sequence of events. We're open to correction though, so if anyone has any further information that they would like to share, please let us know either by using the comment facility or by emailing us on lancaster.uaf@zen.co.uk

Officers of the BNP were recently issued with laptops so that they could conduct their business wherever they happened to be (alright for some, isn't it). One of the facilities the officers have been encouraged to use is Skype, which enables those with an internet connection to converse with each other over broadband for free, either one to one or via a conference call - thus avoiding the usual telephone system and any possibility of individual phones being bugged. What the BNP didn't tell its officers was that Skype comes with a 'record all calls' option, and this seems to have been switched on.

The Enough is Enough blog started on December 2nd, a mere week before the instigators were caught and fired, though one would assume the planning for the anti-Collett/Hannam blog to have dated from the pathetic exhibitions of Mark Collett and Dave Hannam at the BNP conference at Blackpool on November 17th.

The story goes that Martin Reynolds (the BNP's chief security goon) and four others gained access to Graham's home by deception (neither Graham nor her partner, Matt Single, being at home at the time), then ransacked the place searching for thumb drives and disks, finally leaving with her laptop and a number of other items. At the same time, it has been said, Clive Jefferson and two males attempted to gain entry to Smith's home but were refused entry.

There are a number of disturbing features about these raids, not the least of which is that they actually happened at all. What precisely does Nick Griffin believe he's running here - the Stasi or the NKVD? The whole thing smacks of fascism at its worst and most frightening. But just as worrying is the suspicion that Griffin had information that led directly to these two as the prime suspects. Okay, it's true that somebody may have talked and if so, that somebody may well have been Matt Single - at least as far as the far-right blogs are concerned, though rumours are starting to emerge that he's been booted too. But there is a simpler and more sinister explanation available - that the party is monitoring the communications of its officers.

It has long been suspected that those members who have foolishly taken on a bnp.org.uk email address (that is, one issued by the party) are having their emails monitored. This was borne out in Griffin's insane Identity article three months ago, in which he more or less admitted that an 'internal intelligence review' mostly amounted to illegally checking through a member's BNP email account for signs that he was an informer or 'agent'. Mad or what?

The report that appears on the BNP website mentions the 'BNP Intelligence Department' that was set up a few months back and that is headed up by Lance Stewart, a long-standing British nationalist and a former high-ranking officer in the South African Police - though he is suspected of being rather more than a simple plod in the past, as are Arthur Kemp and Lambertus Nieuwhof, also South African and also former spooks and colleagues in the Intelligence Department.

This trio of dodgy characters, with the able assistance of the BNP's security mob, appear to have carte blanche when it comes to intelligence-gathering and our suspicion is that each of the laptops provided by the party to its officers is infected with a trojan. For those who don't know, a trojan is a piece of software that feeds information back to its source after being planted on a computer - credit card details, identities and so on. Most trojans are simple key-loggers, meaning all they do is record everything that is typed on the keyboard of the infected computer and pass along the information to a third-party. If the trojan's activity had been allowed through the laptop's firewall before handing it over, chances are that the new owner of the computer would know nothing about it - particularly if, like most people, they have no idea of how vulnerable computers are.

If this is indeed the case, it would go a long way to explaining how the party was able to co-ordinate the raids and how they knew what to look for when they gained entry. No great surprise then, that the BNP was able to provide transcripts of the incriminating phone calls on the party's website.

We discount entirely, the claim that Smith may have been responsible for 'serious breaches of accountancy procedures leaving up to £17,000 unaccounted for in the 2006 Central Audit, and of a wilful neglect of the Excalibur merchandising operation constituting attempted financial sabotage in order to create an artificial ‘crisis’ to which their proposals would be presented as the solution'. This smacks to us of Griffin a) bumping up the evidence against Smith, and b) using this situation to attempt to hide the fact that the party is in financial meltdown. We're not the only ones who don't believe the claim:

'The financial accusation thrown at Smith is a usual Griffin ploy when something like this occurs. He used the same ploy against Warren Bennett (£5000) but later backtracked. He has used the same tactic in the past when involved in factionalism eg against the Solidarity guys and against Wingfield and Brons in the Flag NF days...If the £17000 accusation was true Smith should have been suspended for that, much more serious than having a dig at Collett I would have thought.'

Us too.

The repercussions of all this have been fierce and relentless. Danny Lake was sacked via text message by John Walker. When asked under whose authority Walker had sacked him, the response was apparently; 'Me. You stupid cunt. Fuck off into oblivion'. Lake's mobile is now, not surpisingly, dead.

Claims are being made that Nick Cass is considering resigning, several members have written in to various forums to state that they've had enough and are not renewing their membership, party organisers and fundholders are resigning en masse (Falkirk and Aberdeen are two examples), at least one councillor, Nina Brown, is resigning the whip and it has been suggested that Chris Beverley has either resigned or been expelled along with Steve Blake. We've just received word (15:20) that Ian Dawson has resigned too.

The chaos continues...