BNP’s York MP hopeful 'quits'

A British National Party member who tried to fight an election in York and in Scotland at the same time has now "quit" after his own party took an injunction out against him.

The BNP has taken legal action against six former officials including a man from York for alleged misuse of party data.

Chairman of the BNP, Nick Griffin, has secured an injunction from Manchester High Court, preventing the group from using party property including a list of all its members. Among the six who have contested the injunction is Ian Dawson, the party's former Group Support Officer. He stood in the City of York Council election for Acomb in April last year as one of nine BNP candidates while also hoping to win a seat in Scotland, through the regional party list system. He failed to win in either city.

The former Yorkshire Secretary and former York Organiser announced his "resignation" from the BNP on the internet in December, while challenging the internal management of the party. His decision to stand down, and the latest court action, follows months of internal wrangling within the party.

The other five former party officials involved in the court proceedings are Steve Blake, Sadie Graham, Matt Single, Kenny Smith and Nicholla Smith.

Simon Darby, a BNP spokesman, said: "We, as a party, sought an injunction against the use of party equipment by the six people. The injunction was granted."

He said the equipment concerned included the party membership list as well as mobile phones, digital duplicators and computers. Another hearing is expected to take place in April.

"We were bound under the terms of the Data Protection Act to take this action," he said. "There are thousands of names on the list. They have been using it since December. It upset a lot of people."

He said the group was contesting the injunction and another hearing is expected to take place in April.

"The technicalities of our injunction were that they can't use anything that we have asked them not to use. They can currently publish things, but they can't use our membership list. They can't use the duplicator."

He was unsure how long the process would take.

Mr Dawson, who is in his mid-20s, attended York College before working as a self-employed administration systems manager. When contacted by The Press, he said: "I don't want to make any comment on it, not for the time being. I don't want to get involved in saying things out of turn."

The Press (York)

Jackson's challenge to Griffin - Webster weighs in

Nick Griffin's long-time enemy, Martin Webster, has commented on Chris Jackson's pending BNP leadership challenge, saying that "[Griffin] has used [his] position to transform the BNP from being a vehicle designed to advance British nationalism into a vehicle designed to promote Nick Griffin's personal career and income."

Webster - who, as the National Front's National Activities Organiser in the 1970's promised that the NF would "kick" its way into the headlines - has nursed grievances against Griffin for more than two decades, since his expulsion from the National Front.

In an email to the dissident Northwest Nationalists blog, Webster, who worked closely with Griffin in the NF, warns: "...the BNP 'constitution' provides Griffin with the means to dismiss Mr. Jackson from any office he may hold in the party and/or to trump up disciplinary charges against him so that he could be expelled from membership, thereby removing his qualifications to stand nominated as a candidate for the leadership. Similar action could be taken against any persons signing his nomination paper or campaigning on his behalf."

Self-preservation expert Griffin has demonstrated his ruthless streak on several occasions, most recently in the internal convulsions that saw Sharon Ebanks and her supporters ousted from the BNP. The fiery Ebanks is now caricatured remorselessly as a "half-caste" (one of the more pleasant terms) by BNP members, with the tacit approval - and more likely at the instigation of - the BNP leadership clique. BNP members posting on the Nazi Stormfront website have warned Jackson to "watch your back", while a BNP leadership sock-puppet stated in blunt gangland style: "Chris Jackson's days are numbered."

Webster, like most BNP-watchers, does not believe a challenge mounted by Jackson has any real chance of success - even if Jackson is allowed to remain in the party long enough to launch it. He comments: "BNP members feel that the party is 'on a roll' not only in the run-up to this May's local election, but onwards to the next General Election. They link this with Griffin's leadership of the party -- thanks to the assiduous promotion of him by the media, which always links this 'success' to his role in 'modernising' and 'moderating' the party."

As Webster also notes, "Griffin has his hands on the levers of power and publicity within the party... No outsider is going to be able to change that situation in the forseeable future."

And those who try do so at their peril.

The looming Jackson challenge will be exercising the minds of the BNP's ruling clique every bit as much as their local election push. The clique can be expected to move quickly as soon as the ballots have been counted - the only question is, in which direction?

Griffin's long record of isolating and expelling BNP members he sees as a threat to his own leadership is well known, and after the Ebanks shenanigans an attempt to perform the same service on Jackson and his supporters may prove a step too far even for some Griffinites. It may be that Griffin elects to allow Jackson to stand against him certain in the knowledge that Jackson will lose (or be made to lose), thus cementing his own position as party chief for many years to come and freeing him to deal with the dissidents in his usual hole and corner manner.

Chris Jackson's days in the BNP really are numbered.