Richard Barnbrook: A Political Obituary

It's often said that the “Characters” - the “One-Offs” - are disappearing from British politics to make way for the bland and the corporate. In fact, only last weekend, the Labour Party have bravely attempted to redress the balance by rejecting the leadership bid of presentable, clone-like “Mr Spock” Miliband in favour of the altogether more visually exciting “Aardman Animation” Miliband.

Over on a rather smaller stage, meanwhile, we have lost a true, erm... “Character”. Richard Barnbrook – the BNP's Man At The London Assembly, has (ironically for one so obsessed with knife crime) finally been stabbed in the back by Nick Griffin.

His political “career” (and I use the term advisedly: Not so much as a series of interlinked terms of employment but rather as something that's out of control and hurtling downhill), has done so much to brighten the humdrum days of Anti-Fascists that it'll be hard not to miss the fool, come May 2012.

The ex-teacher first aroused (if that's the right word) attention when his 1989 student film “HMS Discovery: A Love Story” came to light and was described by some who saw it as “gay porn”. While the mere fact that it contained scenes of male nudity and flagellation shouldn't be used to automatically condemn it as “porn” (after all, “The Passion Of The Christ” has that. AND Judas gets to plant a big kiss on Jesus...), the snippet I've seen is such a towering anti-masterpiece of shonky camerawork, staplegun editing and incoherent narrative that it would be fairer to take issue with its being called “a film”.

His directorial career in tatters, the famously Dyslexic Barnbrook entered the world of politics; first as a Labour Party activist before realising his mistake and joining the BNP. His Dyslexia must be REALLY bad.

Meanwhile, he was employed designing decorative planting schemes to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee. Only one such bed was completed, however, before his BNP activities were discovered and he was invited to move on. ( There Presumably being some kind of protocol issue in HRH being associated with more than one rancid old xenophobe at a time.)

So politics beckoned. Adopting his now-trademark beige suit – a particularly unwise choice - it just makes him look like he's come dressed as a sepia print – Barnbrook worked tirelessly as a BNP organiser, standing as the doomed Parliamentary Candidate for Barking in the 2005 elections and the doomed Mayoral Candidate in 2008, before finally making it to the GLA (thanks to the List System) in the same elections.

Next to his career in the Assembly, Barnbrook's early attempt at filmmaking looks like the lost works of Orson Welles. If Boris Johnson could, in terms of his eloquence and quiet dignity, make Ozzy Osbourne look urbane, then Richard Barnbrook could make Shane MacGowan resemble a veritable Cary Grant with the intellect of a Stephen Fry and the oratorical skills of Plato. It's even rumoured that, come 2012, should the Tories hold the office, Boris will keep him on the Mayor's payroll – paying him a handsome stipend just to stand next to him and make him look normal.

The tics. The eccentric turn of phrase. The funny voices. The occasional treat of his St Georges' Day parade – Dickie could never be accused of being a political giant. But, my God – if he speaks in the Assembly you sit up and watch him. Maybe not for the reason he'd want you to, but you certainly watch him...

And his personal life has become as entertaining as his political conduct: Rumoured to be something of a Player on the Party's social circuit (although one possibly doesn't have to try too hard among the available company: given the conduct of most BNP males, I suspect that if you can manage to eat with your mouth shut and close the toilet door you'd be regarded as something between Roger Moore and Nigel Havers), he has been linked to a number of like-minded partners; the highest profile being Simone Clarke, the “BNP Ballerina” (formerly of the Royal Ballet: Currently based in a Leeds village hall. Another fine example of the BNP's effect on career advancement).

On the subject of Dance: Whatever happens in his political career, Dickie will always retain a place in the public affection for his own, unique contribution to the Terpsichorean Arts (see the video below). Of course, the same display also points to his lack of political savvy – if only he'd thought it through and said it was a performance-based artwork exploring concepts of political alienation interpreted through the medium of free-form slamdancing, he probably could've picked up a tasty GLA grant for it.

Given the Candide-like shambles of his life, it's hardly surprising to note that Barnbrook has long been beset with rumours of a drink problem. Not that such a thing is unusual in politics: My own father was, long ago, on the regular campaign team for our one-time local MP, George Brown. Who was pissed from around 1945 to the mid-eighties. Didn't stop him making Foreign Secretary, though (although check out the infamous “Archbishop of Lima” story...). Indeed, Disraeli was reputed to enjoy the odd glass (or ten) and Churchill managed to win a War while completely hammered. These people didn't, however, seem to let it interfere with their work: Given Dickie's “eccentricities”, it's almost impossible to tell.

To paraphrase St John: “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his political life for his Leader.” For all his weird behaviour, the least accountable has been Barnbrook's willingness to sacrifice his credibility and career (such as they are) to come to the aid of his beloved Nick Griffin.

A shoe-in to fight Barking and Dagenham in May's General Election, he caved in to his Leader's demand that Griffin get a free run at the seat when it began to look a safer bet than Thurrock, the constituency he was already pledged to fight. The result, of course, was total annihilation: Nick's golden touch, easy charm and legendary popularity with his electorate ensured that, not only did he drop the vote by 2% but he wiped out every BNP Councillor there while he was at it.

Then came the “Leadership Election”. For whatever reason (but, of course, we suspect because his Master told him to), Barnbrook stood as a stalking horse candidate. If the B & D election was merely embarrassing, the Leadership Contest must have been the political equivalent of being forced to dance naked in a muddy puddle while tramps throw fruit at you. A staggering 23 people chose to back him. Out of more than 2000. He probably felt like a drink after that one.

And then, finally learning the lesson that doing favours for Nick Griffin is about as solid a guarantee of engendering goodwill as buying a box of chocolates for a puff-adder, Barnbrook resigned the Party Whip in the GLA.

Predictably, there was fury at Welshpool. Even more predictably, Clive Jefferson was dispatched to deliver the final blow and expel him from the Party.

It's unclear at the moment whether Barnbrook will vacate his Assembly seat in favour of the next person on the List. Personally, and just to annoy the hell out of his (former) Leader, I hope he stays put.

Or at least takes his dance show on national tour.

BNP ballerina Simone Clarke now teaching children aged three

On its website, the new dancing school prominently proclaims that its teacher is a former principal dancer with the English National Ballet.

Oddly, however, it doesn't mention her name - perhaps because she is Simone Clarke, the ballerina who found herself at the centre of controversy three years ago when her membership of the British National Party was exposed. At the time anti-fascist demonstrators disrupted a performance of Giselle at the London Coliseum in which Miss Clarke, who was dubbed the 'BNP ballerina', took the starring role. Last week she appeared, surrounded by little girls of three and four in tutus, in the community hall in the village of Shadwell, near Leeds, where she runs the Yorkshire Ballet Academy.

Miss Clarke, 39, has been a leading figure in the far-Right BNP. She has shared a stage with leader Nick Griffin and was once engaged to one of the party's councillors, Richard Barnbrook - a man who claimed mixed-race children were 'washing out the identity of the country's indigenous people'. Miss Clarke's move into teaching comes as the Government is scrutinising the BNP's role in public life. It is said to be considering a ban on BNP members working as teachers in schools.

The Yorkshire Ballet Academy is a private dance school and she does not require licensing by the local authority.

Two years ago Miss Clarke appeared with Mr Griffin during a BNP 'Free Speech Evening' in Leicester and pledged: 'I will never, ever leave the BNP because they are the only people who can turn this country around.'

Next Thursday Mr Griffin will appear on the BBC's Question Time in the BNP's biggest media opportunity to date.

Miss Clarke retired from the English National Ballet after the outcry over her membership. In 2007 she was elected to the executive of the BNP-backed Solidarity trade union for a five-year term. Last night she was unavailable for comment.

Shadwell Hall treasurer David Parker, who rents the venue to her for £10 an hour, said: 'She didn't declare her politics. We have had no complaints or negativity. Whether or not the parents know about her views is up to them. I think like most of us our politics are separate from our normal lives.'

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One Flew Over The Pig Farm: the BNP and us in 2008 - April

Something that has often struck us as odd is the way in which people with good ideas for getting the BNP elected always seem to end up marginalised or finding themselves accused of being in the pay of Searchlight, while those with the worst ideas invariably enjoy the party's highest confidence.

One such was Nick Eriksen (above), the BNP's London organiser and second-choice candidate for the Greater London Assembly election, who for some time had been laying down mines in the path of his own BNP troops by making some injudicious - but all too telling - comments on his Sir John Bull blog, viz this example:

"I've never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime ... Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal.

"To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force-feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched. The demonisation of rape is all part of the feminazi desire to obtain power and mastery over men. Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors."

All rather odd from a man who belongs to a party which obsessively scours newspapers for reports of black on white rape and calls for the return of the rope for the guilty parties.

The London Evening Standard, linked Eriksen to the notorious Sir John Bull blog - which frequently advocated hatred and abuse against women ("Give her a slap" being title of one of Eriksen's articles) - after making an enquiry that was answered by Eriksen, who foolishly included Richard Barnbrook's contact number in his reply.

As BNP members whined to the effect, "Please tell me he didn't say that," unimaginative BNP deputy leader and spokesman Simon Darby fell back on the BNP's stock "it's a smear" excuse, while Eriksen, not enjoying having his own words thrown back at him, complained: "It's typical of the media to distort what the BNP say."

The BNP, on the horns of a dilemma as its local elections campaign got underway, moved quickly to sack Eriksen, but the bad publicity continued in the House of Commons, where Tory MP Charles Walker asked Labour deputy Harriet Harman: "Will you not agree with me that this man, this creature is not fit to run for public office?" Harman did agree, making the very sensible suggestion that "The best way to avoid a BNP member being elected to the London Assembly is to make sure that as many people as possible vote for all the other parties."

The BNP expected great things of Richard Barnbrook in the London Mayoral contest, and believed that one way to help him along was to get the Tory vote up and the Labour vote down. To that end the BNP urged its supporters to give their second preference votes to Conservative candidate Boris Johnson, who failed to appreciate the BNP's largesse:

"I utterly and unreservedly condemn the BNP and have no desire whatsoever to receive a single second-preference vote from a BNP supporter. I hope as many Londoners as possible turn out on May 1 to prevent the election of a BNP candidate."

The BNP's catalogue of pre-election cock-ups continued when the party stole an image of Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins (pictured) to use in a racist video aimed at stopping the opening of a Mosque in Cardiff. "These are nasty people and Katherine wants to have absolutely nothing to do with them," a spokesman for the singer said.

Hollow man Simon Darby floundered: "It's ironic, though, that somebody is getting flak for using a picture of a Welsh superstar and they are the bad guys, yet under our noses we are witnessing the Islamification of Wales."

BNP attempts to profit off the back of respectable publisher Usborne Books were scotched when Lancaster Unity reported that the BNP's merchandising arm, Excalibur, was selling the company's wares via its website - grabbing for itself the 25% commission available to bona fide "Usborne organisers".

Whoever the BNP's pretend Usborne organiser was clearly breached the company's stipulations that business should be conducted in an "ethical and honest manner" and that its products should not be sold "through or to any retail outlet, including on-line outlets".

The Lancaster Unity community of readers were quick to inform Usborne of the BNP's scam, and the horrified company moved immediately to end it. Marketing assistant Graeme Williams told our people:

Thank you for your email regarding this serious issue. As I'm sure you are aware Usborne is an extremely well trusted and ethical publisher and would never knowingly sell books via an organisation such as the BNP.

This situation was only yesterday brought to our attention and we are taking every available step including legal action, to remove our books from their site. I can reassure you that Usborne have not knowingly supplied the BNP
with books and that we will be taking serious steps to prevent anyone else from supplying them.

The sound of clinking champagne glasses could be heard from BNP Towers with the "election" of two unopposed BNP candidates to the Bay of Colwyn Town Council in North Wales. The bubbly soon turned flat when another BNP candidate, 19 year-old Neil Hughes, said that he had been tricked into standing for the racist party. He said: “I’m shocked. A BNP man came to our house three weeks ago and asked me to sign papers. I thought I was supporting someone else to stand. I don’t want to stand. I’m annoyed about this.”

There were more BNP dirty tricks at the University of York when party member Tony Bamber gained access to the post room and used the mail system to deliver anti-Muslim literature to university staff. Disgusted university authorities reported the matter to the police. The BNP's unapologetic Simon Darby, falling back on the fact that party member Bamber had not used the BNP's name on his leaflets, said: "It's not something we would put out directly but what does he say that's not true? It's the blunt truth. If he had told lies I would have disassociated ourselves and the party from it."

Darby's statement that the BNP would not "directly" put out the hate-mongering trash contained in Bamber's leaflets is worth noting. The leaflets were the work of the "Preston Pals", which is a group of energetic Lancashire BNP racists - ripping off the memory of the World War One Preston Pals army company, as it happens - and their only purpose was to raise support for the BNP. These were BNP leaflets, whether official or not, and their distribution is of continuing interest to the police.

Griffin's strange and costly case against the Decembrist rebels again came before the High Court in Manchester, and was instructive in how ill-versed the former law student and his BNP legal team are in what is supposed to be their area of expertise.

Griffin and the BNP team seriously believed that an English court could, should and would have jurisdiction over goods held in Scotland by a person residing in Scotland, and that it should have jurisdiction over bank accounts held and operated in Scotland with banks incorporated in Scotland. Even legal ignoramuses would suspect this not to be the case.

The point was being argued so that Griffin could nail Nicholla and Kenny Smith, resident in Scotland.

In an interview with resident yes-man Simon Darby, an overconfident and completely wrong Griffin said: "[What the rebels] may not realise, is that every hour he [Adrian Davies, the rebels' barrister] takes up arguing on that point, if it's knocked out the costs of that will go directly against them, basically no questions asked. So, it's a very reckless game I think."

In the event Judge Pelling QC ordered all parties in the action, claimants and defendants, to pay their own costs for the day. The costs to the BNP to date were put at £30,000. The rebel defendants, including the Smiths, agreed to return all BNP property held by them, and the BNP agreed to return property stolen from Sadie Graham in a BNP Security raid on her home.

The hearing achieved nothing that could not have been achieved out of court, and achieved it at enormous cost. The matter of alleged breach of confidence on the part of the rebels remained outstanding pending a further hearing, but events later in the year would put a new and interesting slant on this.

Plans to cut services to pensioners and children, and to throw public employees out of work without redundancy payments aren't usually things you'll see advertised on BNP election addresses, yet these were the ideas put forward when BNP group leader Richard Barnbrook made the party's opposition budget proposals public at Barking and Dagenham borough council.

This was a chance for Barnbrook and the BNP to shine, but - Barnbrook being Barnbrook and the BNP being the BNP - even the impartial help and advice of the council's Chief Financial Officer could not stop either from making fools of themselves, as the ever-dependable Searchlight reported:

Barnbrook managed to struggle though his speech, prompted by Councillor Robert Bailey whenever he stumbled over his lines, though even Bailey seemed not to notice that the figures in Barnbrook’s speech bore little resemblance to those in his document. Questions proved somewhat harder as Barnbrook does not excel at thinking on his feet.

First up was Val Rush, the Executive Member for community safety and parks, who challenged Barnbrook’s claim that he could cut the parks’ police budget by £150,000 by running it in-house. “It already is run in-house”, she informed him and asked him what the precise cuts were that would save £150,000. He was unable to say, the first of many occasions on which he could not explain how he had arrived at his figures.

Barnbrook was also unaware that rubbish collection was already run in-house in the borough and that the law would not allow the council to use money saved by the BNP’s cuts to build council houses, as he had proposed.

As for the 10,000 new council houses that a BNP leaflet was demanding, Barnbrook said they would be built on brownfield sites, but was unable to name a single such site in the borough.

The BNP budget was, not unnaturally, rejected on a vote, but unheeding of the old but good advice that if you should find yourself in a hole then it's a smart idea to stop digging, Barnbrook offered to respond to Labour questions on the BNP budget by email.

One Labour councillor queried Barnbrook on the proposed restructuring of the council's Human Resources department, which according to Barnbrook would save £3 million of its current £6.5 million budget. “The detail of the new structure will come from the relevant Chief Officers once the Labour Administration has been removed,” Barnbrook replied, meaninglessly, adding, when asked about the costs of redundancies, that the BNP "is not going to burden taxpayers with redundancy payments".

Apparently it would rather burden them with an expensive rash of unwinnable employment cases.

One concern that Barnbrook seemed to believe to be of paramount importance to the citizens of Barking and Dagenham was TB and the importation of bushmeat. The BNP wanted to spend £400,000 to deal with these supposed problems but had no idea exactly how the money would be spent. Perhaps £400,000 was a pretty figure that Barnbrook liked the look of, since all he could offer up to his questioner was: “I suggest you ask the Chief Executive to help you if you want to compile figures so that you can copy the BNP’s good ideas and claim them as yours”. Searchlight added:

Barnbrook was equally unilluminating on how he would achieve his projected cuts in services for pensioners, refusing to provide any explanation or breakdown of any of his figures. Asked for more details of the research the BNP had carried out to demonstrate the need for its proposals, he said, “Obviously you cannot expect the BNP to prove the point by handing over it’s [sic] own confidential records to an extremist organisation like the labour party”.

As polling day drew closer, Simon Darby thought he'd give the BNP troops a boost. Writing that he had been in top-level negotiations with another party, the BNP deputy-leader announced "a breakthrough", as if the BNP was on the verge of something momentous. Apparently Darby had reached a deal with "representatives" of the Pensioners Party in which that party would endorse BNP candidates in certain areas of the country.

The names of the endorsed BNP candidates duly appeared on the Pensioners Party website, but without mentioning their BNP affiliations. The BNP's keyboard army was ecstatic, Darby and the Pensioners Party the heroes of the hour. But all was not as it seemed.

In his rush to overstate the importance of his "deal" not only did Darby neglect to mention that the Pensioners Party had only six members and no influence whatsoever beyond a moribund and rarely visited website, he was hardly up-front about those "representatives" he negotiated with, since when members of the public contacted the party over the BNP's claims they appeared to know nothing about it.

The Pensioners Party quickly took down the offending BNP names and announced an inquiry - presumably into which of its six members talked to Darby and put the names up in the first place. Darby quietly let the matter drop.

With the local election campaign hotting up with the mid-point of April BNP confidence in its prospects reached unrealistic heights, much as it had the year before. The BNP stood unopposed in a number of obscure town and parish council elections, each unopposed "election" being lauded by the party, which liked to defraud its own members by equating parish councillors with borough and district councillors and adding them to its tally of "real" councillors. And as the campaign went on, so more and more politicians, community leaders and churchmen came out to oppose the BNP. Even Everton and Liverpool football clubs hit out at the BNP for using images of their grounds on one of its websites. A spokesman for Everton FC said: "If they are attempting to draw a link between this football club and its supporters then they are a disgrace and should be condemned for even attempting it.” Meanwhile, Hope Not Hate's tour bus set off to take the anti-fascist message around the country, supported by the Daily Mirror, showbiz personalities, sporting heroes and a host of other celebrities.

Richard Barnbrook again made a fool of himself on St. George's Day. The BNP's London mayoral candidate, got up in armour and mounted on a pony, led a St. George's Day parade in Barking that, according to Searchlight, failed to reach double figures and was witnessed only by eight accompanying policemen mounted on bicycles.

The same Searchlight article exposed lies contained in London Assembly candidate Bob Bailey's profile on a BNP website, in which it was claimed that the BNP had secured 5,000 new council homes in Barking and Dagenham. Searchlight said:

We asked an Executive member of the council where these houses were and how the BNP had secured them. She told us: “They have been pushed and pushed at a number of Assembly meetings to identify this, finally at the meeting before last, Rustem and Bailey both admitted that they had lied”.

Searchlight Cymru was also on the case of Penygroes BNP candidate Kevin Edwards, who falsely claimed on his election leaflets that soldiers in Birmingham hospitals were told to remove their uniforms so as not to upset Muslim staff, and that homosexuality was being "taught" to children as young as four. Searchlight Cymru demanded an explanation from Edwards, which was not forthcoming. Previously Edwards had been in hot water when Penygroes councillor Sian Thomas told the South Wales Guardian that many of the residents who had signed Edwards's nomination papers had been unaware that he intended to stand for the BNP.

Also in hot water were BNP district councillors in Epping Forest, who condemned the setting up of a multi-faith forum in the district. Independent councillor Steve Murray, speaking at the council meeting where the BNP's remarks were made, said: "In 26 years (as a councillor) that was one of the most disgraceful contributions I've heard in this chamber. Because of a contribution like that there's even more reason why we need a multi-faith forum like this. We want to work together, we want community cohesion and we recognise that there is more that links faiths together than divides them", while deputy council leader Chris Whitbread told the BNP:

"It's about the wider good, and you as a party are not about the wider good. We've sat through meeting after meeting where you've sat silently and do nothing for your community. When we discuss the needs of your community you disappear and tonight you come here and you talk about dividing our community, and you don't even turn up when we discuss The Broadway or anything else. You are a disgrace to this council and you are a disgrace to our community. I am so cross that you could say that tonight, and for a start get your facts straight. This council is not paying for this body, this body is for the good of our community, you should retract your remarks."

With polling just days away, idiotic deputy BNP group leader on Barking and Dagenham council Bob Bailey thought it a great idea to ape leader Richard Barnbrook and make a public fool of himself. London Assembly candidate Bailey was involved in a spat with the Barking and Dagenham Recorder newspaper, not being pleased with their coverage of the BNP's election campaign. Bailey telephoned the paper's news editor Sally Lowe and released a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse at her. Later, with other BNP members, he arrived at the offices of the paper in a BNP campaign car and gave a highly public repeat performance over a megaphone before being moved on by the police.

Recorder editor Chris Carter said afterwards: "I am shocked that someone who claims to be a member of a legitimate political party behaves in this way. It is not acceptable that a member of my staff should be subjected to abuse like this and I will be considering making an official complaint to the Standards Board for England."

Strange behaviour on the part of BNP candidates continued when journalists from the Barnsley Chronicle went to question busted corrupt copper Simon Goodricke, standing as a BNP candidate in Barnsley's Hoyland Milton ward. News had reached the Chronicle that Goodricke had a "past", a past the BNP was keen to keep from Barnsley's voters.

The Yorkshire Star, reporting on Goodricke, said:

Goodricke is a former West Midlands detective who was kicked out of the force and jailed for 18 months for perverting the course of justice and conning a pensioner out of £1,000. Described in court as a 'gambling addict', he borrowed £200,000 from a crooked businessman to try to deal with his massive debts. He was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court after being found guilty of tipping off two corrupt businessmen, including the one who had loaned him money, that they were the centre of an international police inquiry into a money laundering plot and scam to swindle £100million from Colombian drugs barons.

Goodricke, aged 46, who now lives in Pennine View, Darton, used his position as a CID officer in Solihull to get information from the National Criminal Intelligence Service which he then passed on to a fraudster Graham Alexander.

Barnsley Chronicle journalists believed they saw an uncooperative Goodricke with a handgun and called the police, unaware that Goodricke had also called the police with the claim that the Chronicle journalists were taking pictures of young children. Goodricke's house was searched by the police but nothing was found at the time. Local BNP organiser Ian Sutton said: "We are happy with him as our candidate and have given him all our support."

Dickie Barnbrook's unlikely ménage

With just four days left to polling day the ever obliging Barking and Dagenham BNP group leader and London mayoral and Assembly candidate Richard Barnbrook suffered himself to be made a fool of on the pages of the News of the World, which announced that Barnbrook had been cheating on supposed ballerina fiance Simone Clarke with a Finnish nurse. As only the News of the World could put it:

The racist ranter —bidding to be London mayor—was secretly bedding Finn Annika Tavilampi when he proposed to English National Ballet star Simone Clarke. Barnbrook—who studies Hitler—ADVANCED on Annika, 28, after spotting her on an online dating site, BLITZED her with filthy texts and pictures— and asked her to MARRY him too.

"Richard sent me photos of his private parts before I'd even met him," says the redhead. "I thought this was very odd for a politician."

She only discovered the full depths of the London councillor's extremism when she found a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf under his bed.

"If I'd known before that he was a sleazebag I probably wouldn't have gone anywhere near him," says Annika. "He was average in bed. And then there was his drinking — I've only ever seen him properly sober a couple of times. But I still fell for him."

A day later the Daily Mail revealed that Barnbrook still had a wife, an American lady serving in the Metropolitan police who split with Barnbrook due to his "rotten politics". Un-named due to her police position, she told the Mail: "In the end [Barnbrook] said: 'If you don't like my politics you can get out.'"

The BNP had a torrid time that week, as a growing number of organisations and celebrities called on the public to oppose them, and the party leadership became ever more cautious about its prospects. We at Lancaster Unity were optimistic that the BNP would not add much to its tally of existing councillors on polling day, largely due to its own internal divisions, its incompetence, its propensity for gathering negative headlines - and one of the best anti-fascist campaigns ever mounted.

To be continued...

How exciting. Somebody else joins the BNP.

In a coup to rival the last disastrous publicity coup it announced only to have it backfire on the party immediately to laughs all round, the BNP has announced the support of 'one of Britain’s top fashion models' as a supporter.

Yes, Essex girl Lauren McAvoy has publicly declared her support for the racist BNP - so hopefully she has suddenly reached the end of her short career.

Naturally the BNP is making much of this, claiming that Ms McAvoy has 'graced the cover of numerous magazines', though I defy anyone to name five, not including the Company magazine spread which was part of her prize for winning Britain’s Next Top Model in 2007.

We wondered why anyone with a promising career in front of them would want to associate themselves with the BNP, but then we spotted that her favourite activities included pole-dancing, leading us to wonder if she was talent-spotted by those well-known pole-dance aficionados Mark Collett and Dave Hannam - though it should be said that at 21, she's a fair bit too old for them.

Another favourite activity is, apparently, water sports. I assume she's referring to swimming, though with the likes of perverts such as Martin Reynolds about, who the hell knows?

Strangely, despite a diploma in civil engineering, McAvoy still appears to be up to the usual educational standards that we expect from the BNP. Her more or less moribund MySpace page breathlessly announces that she is 'excited about having a chinease with her wonderful girlies tonite'. One could make a nasty crack about the similarities between her and that other 'celebrity' BNP member Simone Clarke (now doomed to sit on the exec of the failed Solidarity union alongside the dreary Patrick Harrington) but had better not.

Actually, mention of Clarke reminds me that we'd better warn McAvoy about the ever more bizarre Dickie Barnbrook. Still desperate to do away with the continuing label of gay porn film director and star, he appears to be unable to resist sending women pictures of his todger, as Annika Tavilampi found out. At the time that Barnbrook was trying to bed Ms Tavilampi, he was supposedly engaged to Clarke and still married to his wife, a Metropolitan Police officer. Tavilampi described Barnbrook as a 'sleazebag' after he proposed to her at more or less the same time as he proposed to the BNP's dancing queen. He seems to fit right in with all the other sleazebags in the party as far as we can see.

Simone Clarke was at the height of her career when she joined the BNP. Ten minutes later, her career was dead and buried. We shall follow Ms McAvoy's career with considerable interest to see whether it goes the same way at the same speed.

Propaganda blunder by BNP's Simon Darby

The late Mike Reid with daughter Angela

The BNP's deputy leader Simon Darby today faces accusations of mismanaging what could have been a propaganda coup for the party after announcing a couple of days ago that Angela Reid, daughter of the late East Enders star Mike Reid, was to stand next month for the British National Party in the Witham West for Braintree District Council, only for her to pull out at the last minute, leaving the party with no candidate at all.

It has already become clear from communications received by Lancaster Unity that Ms Reid has been carefully groomed by the BNP with the clear intention of maximising publicity - in much the same way that the party almost capitalised on dancing dope Simone Clarke, former ballerina and now something obscure in the near-dead BNP union Solidarity.

In much the same way that Clarke's disastrous fake engagement to Dickie Barnbrook, the BNP's incompetent and incoherent London Assembly member, was completely stage-managed, the party obviously hoped to use the connection to Mike Reid to give it some spurious respectability, to the extent of Ms Reid using her maiden name for the by-election. Or perhaps it was simply nostalgia - Mike Reid played car dealer Frank Butcher in East Enders, which might have sparked some interesting reminiscences for former second-hand car dealer and now BNP leader Nick Griffin.

Happily, it seems that Darby jumped the gun when he announced Ms Reid's candidacy on Tuesday, for it only took her twenty-four hours to change her mind, claiming, according to her husband Kenneth Gamble (or Gamblin, depending on which newspaper you read): 'She’s worried people would call her a Nazi — and slag her off'. Which just shows how little thought she must have given to the matter.

Simon Darby, who of course knows better than Ms Reid or her husband, insisted that she had NOT pulled out because she feared reprisals. He said: 'It has got nothing to do with politics. She is still a member and still agrees with everything we stand for...it’s personal circumstances that have come up.'

But it might have been another problem that caused Ms Reid to remove herself from the list. According to the Daily Star, a 'man who claimed to be Mrs Reid’s husband said she was "not living” at the home in Braintree where she was registered as a candidate'. This is not exactly unusual for BNP candidates despite being illegal - Barnbrook was said to be living in a different ward when he stood for Barking and Dagenham.

Rumour has it that Ms Reid is furious that Darby released her name when he did and that he immediately attempted to capitalise on the connection with her late father rather than focusing on her and her potential as a councillor, though this doesn't quite ring true to me. If she didn't want her father's name exploited, why not use her married name, whatever it is?

Whichever way you look at it and wherever the truth lies, Simon Darby has clearly cocked-up, not only angering a useful member and her branch but completely destroying a nifty propaganda coup for the BNP in the process. Well done, Darby. Keep up the good work. :-)

Sunday snippets from the 'quiet revolution'

Our regular readers will recall the incident of Robert Cottage, the BNP member who was not a member. Once the BNP realised that the mad would-be bomber was one of its own, the party stupidly announced that he was not a member in the vain hope that this assertion would cause us to forget the fact. It didn't work of course, because it was untrue.

Now the BNP is trying it on again. Roger Robertson, the former campaign manager for Colin Auty during the recent leadership almost-challenge, has been kicked out for bringing the party into disrepute (like that's possible) but a post on Stormfront claims that he ceased to be a member of the party in January. When asked why the party would hold a tribunal for a member to be sacked when he isn't even a member, the poster (who is, we believe, owl-spotter Simon Darby) declined to answer. Keep on rewriting history, guys...

Oh, they are. The December rebels who Griffin was taking through the High Court have received letters this week from the pig farmer himself, asking that the case be dropped because 'it's your homes at risk' and 'it's in the best interests of' party unity and so on, apparently forgetting that it was he himself who brought the case.

Only speculation, but could it be that His Porkiness has run out of readies? That his real legal advisors (as opposed to the cretinous Lee Barnes) have yet to be paid and are getting a bit shirty? Oh dear, I can feel another appeal coming on...

Talking of appeals, do you remember those bloody awful begging letters that the BNP send out on a regular basis - the ones that look like they should say 'you're a winner' and look like they might have come from Reader's Digest around 1968? We're told these bits of amateurish tat were designed by some Irish advertising 'gurus' who are among the best in their field. Blimey. I'd hate to see the worst. One of our correspondents speculated on the cost of these 'gurus'. We reckon about £4.50 but we'd be interested in hearing your guesses.

Anyway, these letters - probably because the BNP send them out every other week - are not working any more and emails to us suggest very strongly that the membership of the BNP is heartily sick of being scrounged off all the time. In fact, four out of five of the emails we receive now print the name Griffin as Gri££in - the other one prints it as Gri$$in (there's always one) - just showing that feelings are running deep and that the membership is rapidly losing interest in being treated as a cash cow for the Griffin family business. As one former BNP supporter put it;

'These bloody letters are an embarrassment, I’ll not pay another penny so he can go and waste it or lose another blimp'

Is it St Valentine's Day already? If all the rumours are true, we must congratulate Martin Reynolds, the steroid-saturated head of security and smutty pix at the BNP for his apparent new relationship with, we're told, a Ms Diane Smith, an activist and organiser from Norfolk. Also, we're led to believe that nazi-boy Mark Collett is going after older women these days. We're told a romance is blossoming between him and former clog dancer Simone Clarke, Dicky Barnbrook's ex-fake-fiance. Lovely to see that even the BNP can let a little romance into its tarnished soul from time to time. We look forward to reading of a further fake-engagement in the near future. Or maybe even two.

As the world moves beyond credit cards and online transactions, the BNP is reverting to being a mainly cash organisation. Rather than taking money online or via cheque, which would require some records to be kept, this year's Red, White and Blue piss-up isn't, like previous years, a ticket-only affair. Instead, those attending will be required to pay on entry, cash on the door. One wonders why. In the words of the Challenge for Change blog (formerly the Challenge for Leadership blog);

'...is the fact that cash disappears without a trace very easily that makes this such an attractive change to the RWB set-up? Or is it the blithering incompetence of the Treasury Department that has time and time again fouled up so many branch accounts after the RWB and taken months to clear up the mess?'

We believe we know the reasons for the move to cash only. Membership of the BNP is dropping rapidly and the numbers attending the RWB will reflect this, so the party wants to avoid having a record of attendees. There's also the point about cash being easier to move around - a very valid point that, given the party's dire financial position, is probably the main reason for the change. There is though, the anti-RWB demo that is planned for August 16th. The BNP will want to claim that the RWB was even more 'successful' than last year and every other year since it started, despite the demonstration outside. The only way the party will be able to do this is if there is no proper attendance record. Of course, the party will be found out in its lies (it always is) when people start asking where the money has gone (they always do) and the party management has no answer for them (they never have).

And finally, on a similar subject, a word about the BNP's ludicrous and pointless Summer School for activists, organisers and fundholders. As usual, the creepy Simon Darby hailed it as an enormous success, and between them, the party leadership managed to suggest that there was well over two hundred people in attendance. Not so. Just ninety people attended and most of these thought the whole event so poorly managed that they left early.

The BNP - failure wherever you look.

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

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

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

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

Decipher that if you can.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don't doubt it for a minute.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BNP's Richard Barnbrook calls for flying of Union Jack and a ban on burkas

The mainstream party candidates walked off the stage when Richard Barnbrook stepped up to speak after becoming, early on Saturday morning, the first member of the British National Party to win a seat on the London Assembly. Mr Barnbrook was unpeturbed.

He expects to be treated as a pariah for the next four years, but insists that he will not be cowed. “If I have to be a lone wolf I will be one,” he told The Times.

Mr Barnbrook, 47, said that he intends to become the voice of “true Londoners”, fighting against political correctness and preferential treatment for racial minorities. He will press for the Union Jack to be flown permanently over City Hall, for burkas to be banned from public buildings and for official celebrations to mark St George's Day. He will resist the planned construction of a huge new mosque, the biggest place of worship in Britain, in Newham, East London.

“I haven't been elected to simply sit back and be like the other parties, sticking with the status quo and the gravy train movement,” he said.

Mr Barnbrook won 5.6 per cent of the vote, just above the 5 per cent threshold. His election represented the BNP's biggest electoral success to date and came as the party claimed to have boosted its tally of local councillors around the country from 84 to more than 100. “The quiet revolution is getting louder,” the party crowed on its website.

But Mr Barnbrook's success appalled the BNP's many opponents, who fear that it will tarnish London's image as a model of racial diversity and the world's most cosmopolitan city: one third of Londoners are foreign-born.

Gerry Gable, of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, called it a victory for hatred, violence and stupidity. Dave Prentice, the general secretary of Unison, the public sector union, said: “We are particularly worried about the effect that the election of a BNP assembly member will have on race relations and community harmony in the city.”

A spokesman for the Greater London Authority said: “However much Boris Johnson regrets the election of a BNP member and is appalled by both the policies and principles of the BNP, Richard Barnbrook was duly elected under our democratic system.”

He added, pointedly: “As an elected representative, Richard Barnbrook must recognise his responsibility to represent all of his constituents.”

Mr Barnbrook is a former artist who trained at the Royal Academy and is engaged to Simone Clarke, until recently a leading ballerina at English National Ballet. She supports the BNP but played no part in the campaign beyond declaring, in a campaign leaflet, that “immigration is out of control”.

Mr Barnbrook's election came only a few days after Gianni Alemanno, a former neo-fascist, was elected as Mayor of Rome. “Maybe people not just in the UK but across Europe and the world are saying their [national] identities are being abused,” Mr Barnbrook said.

The Times

The bizarre truth about the BNP boss, his ballerina fiancé and bitter wife

With a distinct sartorial style which worries even his most extremist supporters, and a background as a "visionary" artist whose most notable work was a homo-erotic film, Richard Barnbrook is an unusual far-right leader, to say the least. But on Thursday, this is the man who hopes to become the first neo-fascist mayor of London.

Even when Barnbrook fails in that endeavour, as he most certainly will, he is likely to be elected as the first British National Party member of the Greater London Assembly.

Eleven of the 25 available seats are decided by proportional representation, and the extreme Right-wing party needs only a 0.2 per cent increase on its share of the 2004 election vote to gain one. In what it describes as its "biggest push ever", the BNP even hopes to win two or perhaps three seats. And Mr Barnbrook is top of their candidates list. Even his opponents concede it is possible.

Mainstream concerns about immigration levels have long played into the BNP's grubby hands. But in the run-up to the election, there has been an additional factor that has given the party a fillip.

Much has been made by would-be-Mayor Barnbrook of his recent engagement to Simone Clarke, the celebrated principal dancer of the English National Ballet. Though she has since left the ENB, her relationship with Barnbrook has given him a veneer of glamour and respectability that he hopes will serve him well at the polls. Speaking recently of their engagement, the Dagenham councillor said: "I gave her a diamond ring. I'm traditional like that."

Less traditional, though, is the fact that Mr Barnbrook already has a wife - albeit one that he is rather less keen to publicise. For we can reveal that Barnbrook, 47, has been married for the past ten years to a well-educated young American who is a decorated, serving officer in the Metropolitan Police force. Not only that, she has several prominent black friends, including the TV presenter Moira Stuart, and loathes her husband's far-right ideology.

Their marriage broke down because of his "rotten politics". She joined the police force, she says, to do some good in the world and, in part, to make amends for him. Little wonder, then, that Barnbrook has been so reluctant to volunteer her existence. Now, though, we can shed some light on the strange private life of Richard Barnbrook.

Certainly, if there is a more peculiar politician in the country, he has yet to emerge. In public, Barnbrook has long favoured what one acquaintance calls a "Stormtrooper" brown suit and matching tie, which even his supporters feel is rather too suggestive of a Nuremberg rally for his electoral good.

"He looks just like Hitler," one person posted on the extreme Right-wing Stormfront website. "Whoever styles him needs a good kicking."

Perhaps the uniform look is merely a facet of his military background. For Barnbrook is one of five children of a former NCO musician in the Life Guards, who during his service was based at the Household Cavalry barracks in Knightsbridge and Windsor and served a tour in Germany. After John Barnbrook left the Army, he moved his family to a smallholding near the River Humber. Stephen, Richard's younger brother, followed John into the armed forces, and later became a prison officer.

Richard was the artistic child. He moved to London, where he studied at the Royal College of Art before falling into the company of Derek Jarman, the award-winning gay film-maker who was later to succumb to Aids. Jarman gave Barnbrook his first film camera. He also introduced him to the future Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton, whom Barnbrook has since described as an ex-girlfriend.

But Barnbrook's time in this liberal artistic milieu will always be remembered for his writing and directorship of the 58-minute film HMS Discovery: A Love Story which archives describe as "Marxist Gay cinema". Naked young men run about, flagellating each other and simulating gay sex acts while homo-erotic poetry is intoned. Barnbrook, for whom the 1989 piece is an embarrassment among the homophobic Far Right, huffily insists it was an "art film".

We shall torment him no further on the matter. Suffice it to say that several years after its release he met a young American woman and surely dispelled any of those silly rumours. She was a wealthy doctor's daughter 13 years his junior who had moved to Britain because, she says: "I didn't agree with U.S. foreign policy."

I met her yesterday, bleary with fatigue having finished her inner-city police shift at 4am. She has reverted to using her maiden name, and cannot be identified because of her job. She is appalled at the possibility of being recognised as the London BNP leader's wife.

"I was 22 and I fell for him because I thought he was a great artist," she says. "He was different then."

They married a year later, in early 1998, at Lewisham register office. The couple set up home in South-East London and she joined the BBC, as an editorial assistant on Breakfast Time. Alas, there were few happy times ahead for her.

"Richard changed around 1999," she recalls. "That was when his views became very extreme. It was a total shock. Marriage means an awful lot to me, so I didn't want to walk away though I hated (their) rotten politics. I stuck with him because I thought I could persuade him otherwise. I thought that if he could change once, he could change a second time."

As their marriage creaked under the strain of conflicting ideologies, Barnbrook and his wife joined the board of the Jubilee Woods Trust, a reputable environmental project with royal connections. It collapsed when Barnbrook's senior position within the BNP became apparent.

Another board member recalls: "His wife was absolutely saint-like, worked tirelessly and I felt terribly sorry for her. I don't know how they ended up together. It was obviously a terrible marriage. I think she felt enormously betrayed and embarrassed about the BNP thing. She told me that she had decided to become a policewoman and that was the last I saw of her."

The Barnbrooks separated four years ago. His wife says: "In the end he said: 'If you don't like my politics you can get out.' So that is what I did. In a way, I wanted to join the police to redress the karmic imbalance in the world caused by my husband's views."

Police officers are not allowed to be members of the BNP. "You have no idea how much harder the vetting process to become a police officer was for me, because of who my husband is," she says. "Or what problems it could cause if people knew."

She adds: "He used me and he has admitted it and apologised. He owes me a lot of money and is just starting to pay me back."

She says because of the delicacy of both their positions they had agreed not to talk about the other. She adds: "I don't want to be tarred with the same brush as him. I want to move on. I love my job and want to be in it for another 25 years. I already have two commendations. Also I am a friend of Moira Stuart (the black newsreader) from my time at the BBC, and I have met Doreen Lawrence (mother of murdered black teenager Stephen) a number of times. I do not want them to stop talking to me or think ill of me because of a mistake I made at 23."

In the next few weeks, perhaps even days, the Barnbrook marriage will finally come to an end when their divorce is made absolute.

"I don't really have any problem with Richard saying he is engaged," she says. "Our divorce is so close now I can almost smell it. I can hardly wait. Let's just say that if Simone Clarke buys her wedding cake now, it won't be stale if she marries Richard at the first possible opportunity."

Ah yes, Miss Clarke - the principal ballerina who is said to be Barnbrook's fiancé. If his first marriage was dysfunctional, then the omens for Barnbook's second one are hardly more encouraging. Not least as he will become stepfather to Miss Clarke's four-year-old mixed-race daughter - the product of her previous relationship with a Cuban-Chinese dancer - despite the fact that he has previously spoken out against inter-racial families.

But will the marriage to Miss Clarke take place? There has been talk in far-right circles of a recent cooling between the couple. She does not wear an engagement ring - an absence Barnbrook explained by saying it had been stolen in a burglary. Nor has she stood, as once suggested, as a BNP candidate. Some have even speculated that the relationship is just a publicity stunt. But Barnbrook's wife does not think so.

"I have met Simone. She was there when I went to see Richard to discuss our divorce. I have to say they did seem to be genuinely in love."

If that's true, then Miss Clarke will hardly have been delighted by the kiss-and-tell story which appeared in a downmarket newspaper on Sunday. Finnish-born NHS nurse Annika Tavilampi claimed the mayoral candidate had also proposed to her after they met through an internet dating site. She claimed to have found a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf under the bed in which they had "romped".

But if Barnbrook's relationship with women is odd, then it is by no means the only contradiction in his personal life. For while he has been busy gaining status within a party obsessed with racial purity, his prison officer brother Stephen has no such hang-ups. Doubtless to his brother's dismay, he has had at least two long-term relationships with black women. The first was with Stephanie Waldron, a cardiac rehabilitation nurse at the world-renowned Papworth heart hospital.

Yesterday, her daughter, Natasha, described the awkward scene that took place five years ago when the family spent Christmas at the Barnbrooks' parents' home in north Lincolnshire. One evening Stephen, his girlfriend and Natasha played board games with Richard and his wife.

"Richard was very reserved, even a little frosty," recalls Natasha. "We didn't know about his politics then - they weren't discussed by the family. We found out only later when we read that he had become the British National Party leader in London. The reason for his odd mood that Christmas then became clear - it was antipathy towards us because of our colour."

Stephen has since amicably split from Ms Waldron, and is now with a Jamaican woman whom he is understood to have married. One imagines he does not vote BNP.

For Barnbrook, such revelations are certain to cause huge embarrassment within his party. A brother who has embraced multiculturalism in its most literal sense; a liberal police constable wife who detests her husband's warped ideologies; a homo-erotic past...it is all richly ironic. But unless the British voting public turns out in force on Thursday, the BNP could win that extra 0.2 per cent needed and celebrate another morale-boosting step up to the mainstream, rather than a nosedive.

And that would not be funny at all.

Daily Mail

BNP boss Richard Barnbrook cheats on Brit with IMMIGRANT

Dickie Barnbrook's unlikely ménage

BNP frontman Richard Barnbrook has been cheating on his ballerina fiancée... with a FOREIGN NURSE.

The racist ranter —bidding to be London mayor—was secretly bedding Finn Annika Tavilampi when he proposed to English National Ballet star Simone Clarke. Barnbrook—who studies Hitler—ADVANCED on Annika, 28, after spotting her on an online dating site, BLITZED her with filthy texts and pictures— and asked her to MARRY him too.

"Richard sent me photos of his private parts before I'd even met him," says the redhead. "I thought this was very odd for a politician."

She only discovered the full depths of the London councillor's extremism when she found a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf under his bed.

"If I'd known before that he was a sleazebag I probably wouldn't have gone anywhere near him," says Annika. "He was average in bed. And then there was his drinking—I've only ever seen him properly sober a couple of times. But I still fell for him."

Barnbrook, 47, caused a storm when he began dating principal dancer Simone after it was revealed she'd joined the BNP last year. She was then investigated by the English National Ballet over her anti-immigrant views and is set to leave. He proposed to Simone over a romantic candlelit dinner. But all the time Barnbrook—whose mayoral campaign pledge is to "remove" London's one million immigrants—was planning to remove a particular immigrant's knickers.

"We'd started chatting on Dating Direct, then he started sending me sex texts straight away," says Annika. "He wanted me to send him explicit pictures. I told him it sounded like he just wanted sex and I wanted a relationship. He said he wanted the same as me."

The Barking and Dagenham councillor kept his relationship with Simone a firm secret from Annika when she began romping with him at his flat in Blackheath, south-east London.

"I had no idea he was using me. He'd talk a lot about sex but also about marriage and children," says Annika. He even sent her a text saying: "If you still like me! And we get on! I would like to get married! x. He's not the most skilful or active lover I've had, but I loved him so much it made up for it— even though the only time he took me out was to a Wetherspoon's."

Brazen Barnbrook even tried to get the nurse from London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to appear on an election campaign leaflet for the BNP. "He wanted an example of an NHS nurse who supported him. I refused." The turning point in their relationship came in November when Simone found out.

"I got a text from his phone saying, ‘Hello Annika I am Richard's girlfriend. Why are you texting him?' I texted back that I was under the impression I was his girlfriend," says Annika.

The next day Barnbrook sent her a text dumping her. But the sneaky cheat bedded her again when she collected her things from his place—and the last time in December when he asked her to help him move to a flat in Dagenham.

"I stayed with him again and we had sex. While sorting stuff out, I even found a copy of Mein Kampf under his bed. As I'm not British, the BNP didn't mean that much to me. But I'm certainly not a supporter."

Then Annika read in the papers about Barnbrook and Simone and confronted him.

"The article said he'd proposed to Simone at the same time he proposed to me," she says. "I can't believe how devious he's been."

Now her love for Barnbrook is like any faint chance he had in the race for London Mayor. Finnished.

News of the World

Ballerina used to deflect BNP criticism

In a cynical move to deflect criticism of the party following the explosive events of the past couple of weeks, the BNP deliberately let it slip that Simone Clarke, the so-called BNP ballerina, has become engaged to its London Mayoral candidate and director of the gay porn flick HMS Discovery Richard Barnbrook. According to party sources, the plan was to release that information just prior to the GLA elections in an attempt to gain a few additional votes but it was deemed more expedient to release it now, particularly after the attack on the BNP by Jon Cruddas in the House of Commons a few days ago.

Now the party has been obliged to spice up the dancer's contribution to its flagging fortunes by announcing that she may well quit the English national Ballet to stand for the BNP in a local government election or by-election.

Clarke's star has waned somewhat since her membership of the party was exposed last year. From being the ENB's prima ballerina, she appears to have been moved to less significant roles and, for the last seven weeks since it was claimed her home was burgled, she has been on leave.

The burglary, if indeed it ever happened, appears to have been a most confusing event. One story was that Clarke heard the burglar from her bedroom, promptly locked herself in the wardrobe but was confronted when the intruder managed to open the locked door. The current version, as stated by Barnbrook yesterday, was that she discovered the burglar in the kitchen. Whichever way it happened, the story is that the villain walked off with the newly-bought engagement ring. One wonders where Barnbrook was at the time...

According to Richard Barnbrook, who appears to have taken over as her Press Officer, Clarke has been moved away from the limelight because of her membership of the BNP, itself currently embroiled in allegations of theft and illegal surveillance, and has spoken to the Northern Ballet about the possibility of joining them in an attempt to be close to her five-year-old daughter Olivia, who lives with her maternal grandparents in Leeds. Quite what this would mean to the couple's already peculiar relationship is debatable - Barnbrook is the leader (for the moment) of the BNP contingent on Barking and Dagenham Council. Observers are wondering how his dismal performance in the council chamber could be improved by his fiance moving a couple of hundred miles away.

Clarke is surprisingly downbeat about the whole engagement issue, preferring to maintain a stony silence when asked about it but Barnbrook is not nearly so reticent, stating in interviews with several newspapers; 'In the future we will probably get married and have a family...we are very much in love'.

Simone Clarke, of course, already has a family - a daughter by fellow ENB dancer Yat-Sen Chang, with whom she had a long-term relationship. This ended in April of this year and one can only assume that her budding relationship with Barnbrook had something to do with the breakdown because he is quoted as saying (on several occasions) that he and Clarke have 'been going out for over nine months'. You do the maths.

Just after the announcement that Clarke was a member of the BNP and that she was then in the relationship with Yat-Sen Chang, Barnbrook stated that he hoped the couple would not have children, apparently unaware that the media was full of the fact that she already had a child of with Chang, of mixed British, Cuban and Chinese descent. At the time, he was reported as saying; 'I'm not opposed to mixed marriages but their children are washing out the identity of this country's indigenous people'. He appears to have changed his mind somewhat now he is engaged to Clarke.

'Olivia's all right because she speaks good English, and culturally that's the way she's already leaning,' he said recently, claiming that, once married, he would care for the child 'as if she were my own'.

Clarke, who isn't quite as politically-naive as she tries to pretend, has spoken at a BNP event in the Midlands alongside the party's current leader, Nick Griffin, and was recently elected to the executive of the BNP's fake union Solidarity which, like the party itself, suffered acrimonious splits recently. Solidarity's general secretary is the long-time far-right activist Pat Harrington, a former organiser for the National Front.

We'll leave you with a quote from the Daily Mirror: 'And all we can say is that the rabidly right-wing pair deserve one another.'

BNP ballerina provokes new storm

English National Ballet's principal dancer angers theatre union with political role

When Simone Clarke, principal dancer of the English National Ballet, admitted she was a member of the British National Party, one of the voices opposing calls for her to be sacked was that of the trade union Equity. Now, however, Clarke has taken a leading role in an organisation with BNP links which has been set up to rival the established trade union movement, including Equity.

The acclaimed ballerina, currently appearing in an ENB production of The Snow Queen, has been elected to the executive of Solidarity, the British Workers' Union. Solidarity's website declares that it was formed as a reaction against 'betrayal' by unions affiliated to the TUC, which it accuses of selling out members by encouraging mass immigration.

Clarke's BNP membership was revealed by the Guardian last December, when she was performing as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker at the London Coliseum. She was quoted as saying that 'immigration has really got out of hand', even though her partner was a Cuban of Chinese extraction.

Clarke, 37, brings to Solidarity several years of industrial relations experience at the ENB, where she is on a committee that represents dancers' interests. Her new colleagues at Solidarity include Mark Walker, a former BNP election candidate and teacher who has received Solidarity's support after being suspended from his teaching post. Its general secretary is Pat Harrington, a former National Front organiser who was expelled from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers after applying for membership under a false name. Clarke says in a statement posted on Solidarity's website: 'Last year a newspaper "exposed" my BNP membership. Some politically motivated malcontents tried to have me sacked, hence my interest in a British Workers' Union.'

An Equity spokesman said: 'Equity's position has always been that membership is not based on an individual's political persuasion. But I would express my disappointment that a member of a union would take a part in an organisation that was being critical of a TUC-affiliated union, and by extension Equity.'

Gerry Morrissey, general secretary of the entertainment union Bectu, described Solidarity as 'a front' for the BNP, a charge the organisation denies. Sarah Veale, head of equality and employment rights at the TUC, said it was impossible for someone who was a BNP member to reconcile their beliefs with membership of a TUC-affiliated union. She welcomed legislation introduced last week allowing unions to expel individuals who are also members of far-right organisations.BNP leader Nick Griffin wrote recently in his blog that Clarke spoke at a party meeting in Birmingham. Her BNP link has been a headache for the ENB, but its managing director, Craig Hassall, has rebuffed calls to sack her. The Snow Queen will be performed at the London Coliseum from Tuesday to Sunday.

Harrington yesterday denied that Solidarity was a BNP front, adding that he would expect the union to represent everyone 'regardless of racial background, political background or sexuality'.

Observer

A quick look at the BNP's week...

(Not counting large demonstrations against it and its friends)

BNP said nothing about allotments

There's an interesting letter in the Ilford Recorder this week from one William F. Marten, pointing out how the BNP will lie without a qualm to the voters to attempt to con them into believing that the party's councillors actually do something good from time to time (they don't). The letter refers to Julian Leppert, the BNP's last candidate for London Mayor.

'With reference to your article, "Shock as BNP take credit for allotment 'victory'" (Recorder, last week), I was at the town hall with plot-holding friends when the allotment sales matter was referred back to cabinet.

I know that BNP councillor Julian Leppert did not speak on the matter, and I don't think he asked to speak either. He did vote the right way, but that is as far as his support for allotments went.

It isn't unusual for the BNP to claim credit for things that they have done nothing to achieve. Not the behaviour of an honest political party.

Quite a few of my family live in Hainault. Two uncles have allotments there. They aren't left-wingers, but they are disgusted by Cllr Leppert's claims.

To the best of their knowledge he has never visited the allotments nor spoken to anyone on the sites. They are outraged that he is now claiming credit for the allotment "victory".

In any case there is no victory yet. Allotment sales go back to the cabinet in January. I think it highly likely that our out of touch cabinet members, egged on by certain officers with their minds on bigger, prestige projects, will still try to sell New North Road, Goodmayes and Vicarage Lane South allotments. It is a massive threat to the quality of life in Redbridge. But do they care? I fear not.'

Bravo William, for having the decency to point out the truth!

Richard Barnbrook fails to please (as usual)

Talking of Mayoral candidates, there was disappointment for fans of the dancing diva, Dicky Barnbrook, when he turned up at the recent Civic Reception a week or so ago without his usual arm candy (Simone Clarke, the other dancing diva in the BNP) and, not even bothering to hire an escort for the night, sat on his own and downed a hefty three bottles of wine along with his dinner before storming out in a huff at being ignored all night by his so-called comrades in the BNP.

And what was the disappointment? That he didn't give a repeat performance of his exhibition last year, when he took over the entire dance floor a la John Travolta, complete with terrible white suit.

And finally...

The BNP wins an award (at last)

Yes, the party of free speech and accountability (ho-ho) has received an award from the St Albans and Harpenden Review. The Kim Jong-il delusional politician award, to be exact.

'The winner is the British National Party. The BNP and its "army" of keyboard supporters appeared online to support an article about the right wing extremists. They are here to protect us all apparently. They will ensure that England keeps its identity. The same fanatics pop up whenever any article mentioning the party appears anywhere. They all pretend to be local supporters, yet when the by-election comes round, the BNP usually finishes behind the Monster Raving Loonies with four votes.'

How we love sarcasm. Well done to the BNP for the award. It couldn't have gone to a more deserving party.

More embarrassment for the Barking barnstormer

Richard Barnbrook, the British National Party’s leader on Barking and Dagenham Council, seems to think that incurable and often fatal industrial diseases are a bit of a joke.

Councillors at last month’s full council meeting were asked to approve a site for a permanent memorial to the many local victims of asbestos. Barking and Dagenham has one of the country’s highest incidences of asbestos-related diseases because of the former Cape Asbestos factory in the borough. Many of the people who contracted asbestosis or mesothelioma were wives of workers who washed their husbands’ overalls.

The proposal for a memorial arose from a petition from local people, led by the Barking and Dagenham Asbestosis Victims’ Support Group and the trade union Unison. Councillors had been given a report in advance of the meeting and at the meeting the council’s Corporate Director of Customer Services outlined the background explaining that it had cost £1.2 million to make the area safe and that a memorial would cost £3,500 to £5,000.

Up jumped Barnbrook, who has ambitions to become the BNP’s first London Assembly member. Admitting he had not read the report he asked, 'How much exactly has it cost to make safe the area and how much would the memorial cost?'

Being reminded that he had just been told this angered him and he continued: 'This factory was demolished in 1968. I was born in 1961 so it closed when I was nine years of age'. He went on to make some insensitive and uninformed remarks about how long the project had taken, finally adding, 'If you’re going to make it one of those dancing lady memorials, may I suggest it is in the image of Simone Clarke [his girl friend who became known as the BNP ballerina last December] as she is a dancing lady too...erm, um, er, that was a joke by the way...'.

This prompted Labour Councillor Jean Alexander, who has relatives who contracted asbestosis, to explode with rage. Her taunts that the BNP councillors were 'Johnny come latelys' in turn angered BNP Councillor Robert Bailey, which led to Labour’s Liam Smith telling him to 'sit down and shut up'. Bailey then erupted with personal insults.

Bailey and Smith, standing in as Leader of the Council, clashed again during question time after Bailey asked whether the Labour Party thought it was a good thing that 'the white indigenous British people of Barking and Dagenham' would be a minority in ten years’ time.

Pressed on the meaning of 'indigenous' Bailey eventually responded, 'White and British', at which Smith reeled off a list of famous Irish people – Lord Kitchener, Montgomery and Nelson – who 'came to defend England in her hour of need'.

Moving on to another of the BNP’s obsessions, crime, Barnbrook claimed that knife crime in his ward was up six-fold this year. 'I refer you to the stabbings at Becontree station'.

'Becontree station is not in your ward', retorted Smith. 'Oh' said Barnbrook.

With this sort of performance perhaps it is just as well that the BNP’s Barking and Dagenham councillors do not turn up very often. The best are Barnbrook and Lawrence Rustem, who attended 69% of their allocated meetings between 16 May and 27 September according to council records. Among the others, Councillor Jamie Jarvis turned up at just three of the 12 meetings he should have attended and Councillors Ronald Doncaster and Darren Tuffs went to three out of nine expected meetings.

Although Barnbrook attends more meetings than his colleague Councillor Robert Buckley, it is Buckley who puts in the most time on ward casework. There is growing acrimony between the two and many BNP members in London were surprised and annoyed when Barnbrook was selected as the BNP’s candidate in next year’s London mayoral election. They were prepared to put up with it on the basis that a BNP mayoral candidate could achieve little more than show the party’s face in the election, that is until it emerged that Barnbrook would also head the BNP’s list for the London Assembly. All he needs is 5% of the vote across London to become the BNP’s first Assembly member, a percentage that the party nearly achieved last time round in 2004.