The BNP purge continues: Griffin to discipline/expel Mike Easter?

In a move that is so full of irony that the BNP had better check it for rust, news is emerging that Mike Easter, election agent to leadership-challenger Chris Jackson, is to be disciplined for late submission of the challenger's election expenses to the party treasurer.

One would expect a party that is a couple of months late with its own accounts submission to the Electoral Commission to have had more sense that to make itself a target for ridicule in this way but Nick Griffin is presumably so anxious to punish those who assisted the challenger that he is prepared to ignore the laughs to get his revenge.

Regular readers will no doubt recall his description of Chris Jackson's supporters as cranks, Hollywood Nazis, congenital losers, thieves and vermin - and all this in a single blog post - despite the fact that they included five founder-members, two advisory council members, three councillors, eight branch organisers and 20 election candidates. Not a great deal of respect there then.

The response from other 'nationalists' is predictably angry though as usual the nazi Stormfront forum (run by Griffin's friend, ex-Klansman Don Black and ably assisted by the forum's pro-Griffin UK moderators) is keeping a lid on any discussion by disabling the accounts of anyone who shows any sign of having a go at the BNP leader under any pretext. A couple of other sites are displaying their anger though, one of them with this classic comment posted to it;

'...this comes from a party of THEIVING BASTARDS and INEBRIATE LOSERS who can't even get their accounts IN ON TIME. WHERE ARE THE BNP ACCOUNTS AND WHY ARE BNP MEMBERS SUCH A BUNCH OF BRAIN-DEAD IDIOTS? WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY SCARED OF, EH? Surely they cannot be scared of the one eyed wonder of a sheep farmer and his pervert security chief?'

along with the omnipresent Sharon Ebanks, a former supporter of Griffin, sticking it to him thus;

'Do you think it ok to allow a jumped up twat with a 3rd rate degree and an insecurity complex larger than Snowdonia national park to just go around chopping people willy nilly? When you cease kissing Griffins arse you'll be next. The very idea that such a man even dreams of running this country makes me want to take up shooting practice.'

One angry contributor asks the same two questions that many others have asked;

'What I can't get my head around is why the BNP election process (that's to say the terms imposed by Griffin, etc) weren't challenged legally. It still can be. Likewise all the trumped up expulsions.'

These are reasonable questions though the first one is really only answerable by Mike Easter himself and the challenger Chris Jackson. When Nick Griffin dictated the terms of the election, it was suggested that a legal challenge to the terms was likely. Sadly this never materialised (though it certainly should have). To have completely ignored the ludicrous restrictions placed on campaigning was tantamount to agreeing to lose, and lose Jackson subsequently did.

The second part of the question is far more dangerous to Griffin - that those expelled from the party could legally question their expulsions. This is not only true but has happened a couple of times before, following Griffin's repeated expulsions of the late founder of the British National Party John Tyndall for being a 'disruptive influence'. Tyndall was reinstated by the courts, the embarrassment caused to Griffin was profound and it cost the party a small fortune, also having the distinct advantage of showing Nick Griffin up as the pompous buffoon that he is.

Of course, disciplinary action isn't necessarily the same thing as expulsion and it may be that Easter will just take what's coming and carry on doing whatever he does but judging by Griffin's words above, he's determined to force all of his opposition out of the party by using any means that are available to him. Simon Smith and Jonathan Bowden have already been forced out, Easter's turn has come and we confidentally expect Jackson-supporter Richard Edmonds (another one to have been expelled then reinstated) to be in the firing line before long. One only wonders how long it will take for Griffin to expel all 337 party members who supported Chris Jackson.

Purged! British National Party councillor Simon Smith forced out

One of the BNP’s better known West Midlands councillors has been forced out of the party as Nick Griffin and his acolytes continue their long predicted purge of the “vermin” who supported Chris Jackson against Griffin in the BNP’s rigged leadership contest.

Ostensibly resigning his membership, a statement issued by Griffin’s deputy Simon Darby leaves little doubt that Smith’s resignation was anything but voluntary.

In a communication that should affront the intelligence of even the dimmest BNP member, Darby says:

It was well known that former Black Country organiser Simon Smith was a supporter of Chris Jackson in the recent leadership challenge. This was of course his democratic right and further to this two senior representatives of the challenger’s campaign spoke openly at a Black Country meeting freely promoting their candidate.

Unfortunately, at this meeting despite being asked to refrain from expressing his personal beliefs, during his own speech Simon Smith once again referred to 9/11 as being “an inside job”. In fact, despite having being told how politically damaging this form of pro-Muslim crankery could be, he emphasised his belief twice stating that “he would stake his life on it”.

Shortly after the Leadership election Simon Smith was made aware that an investigation was to take place concerning how a membership list had made its way to a former Birmingham organiser. This list, although sent to several people, was in fact never actually used. Further to this Simon Smith was told that the list dated back to the time when he was heavily involved in processing Party memberships and at one point during that time scale Simon Smith had actually left his computer at the home of that former Birmingham organiser. At no point however, was it inferred at that time that Simon Smith was actually to blame for the severe breach of security.

On the 27th July, after the leadership election results had been announced, Simon Smith sent an email to several BNP members as well as other people. Unforgiveably, one of the two attachments also contained in this email was an article complete with reader comments copied directly from a UAF site.

Simon Smith was shown a copy of the original email he had sent out early yesterday (August 14) afternoon and asked to explain the very serious implications as to what he had done. Three hours later Simon Smith admitted to having sent the email and announced that he was resigning from the BNP.

There we have the truth of the matter.

The “truth of the matter”?

Today Simon Darby told the Birmingham Post something slightly different:

“We had a leadership election which Nick Griffin won with 91 per cent of the vote. Simon could not accept that.”

Darby’s first statement is, of course, for internal BNP consumption. He brings in Smith’s frequently stated contention that the attack on the Twin Towers was “an inside job” (not exactly an uncommon opinion on the far-Right), and says that Smith was asked to refrain from making such statements having been told “how politically damaging this form of pro-Muslim crankery could be”. How this could be damaging in a meeting open only to BNP members isn’t clear - but that Jackson supporters like Smith were being told by Griffinites what they could and could not say in an internal election meeting speaks volumes for the paranoia at the top of the party.

The deputy chairman’s next trick is to effectively blame Smith for a BNP membership list falling into the hands of Sharon Ebanks, while claiming not to blame him at all. If “At no point… was it inferred at that time that Simon Smith was actually to blame for the severe breach of security” then why does Darby mention it at all? Why does Darby include the strange qualification “at that time”? Is it being inferred now?

Finally there is Simon Smith’s email. Darby does not disclose the contents, which presumably contain the real meat of the subject, but again pandering to his largely gullible BNP audience he lays stress on an attachment that apparently included an article complete with reader comments copied directly from a UAF site. How that could be seen as a crime, even by the standards of the BNP, is anybody’s guess - though we’d hazard a guess as to which site the post and comments came from ;-).

That Smith included such matter with his email gives us a very good idea of how that email must have read - unpleasantly, for Nick Griffin, we must suppose. And whatever it said was clearly used as a pretext to force Smith into jumping before the threat of being pushed was carried out. Reading Darby’s disingenuous words, you can almost see the gun being held to Smith’s head.

The simple fact is that Smith’s resignation has nothing to do with “pro-Muslim crankery”, missing membership lists and email attachments lifted from UAF websites.

It’s about retribution against those who have finally worked out that something is very wrong at the top of the BNP and dared to say so, and it’s about exterminating the last vestiges of internal opposition to Nick Griffin.

With the departure of Simon Smith the BNP has lost yet another councillor. The character of that councillor may leave much to be desired but in BNP terms he was just the ticket - he ungraciously walked out of a council meeting that elected a Sikh as mayor of Sandwell, and has compared Hitler with Christ, among other matters.

That Griffin - and it can only have been Griffin - was prepared to force one of his tiny band of councillors out of the party, risking attendant negative publicity for the BNP and yet another blow to the morale of its members heavily underlines the lesson for so long taught here and at our allied websites: whatever the average BNP member may think the BNP is, Griffin has different ideas. First and foremost it is, as the veteran fascist Martin Webster puts it, the Griffin Family Business.

It’s Griffin’s cash-cow and he’s not going to surrender it lightly, as his insane blog rantings against the “cranks” “Hollywood Nazis” “congenital losers” “thieves” and “vermin” who had the temerity to ask awkward questions and mount a challenge against him have discovered.

It’s only a matter of time before the next victim of Griffin’s paranoia is selected for the chop. Keep watching this space.