Is President Ahmadinejad funding the BNP?

. . . and one million pounds to the BNP . . .
TWO local council by-elections today involving British National Party candidates in Kirk HALLAM (thanks Philpot) in Derbyshire and Arbury & Stockingford in Warwickshire.

No news directly from our people on the ground, but plenty of informed opinion from the election anoraks on the Vote-2007 website. The candidates for the Kirk Hallam by-election are:

Derbyshire County Council
Kirk Hallam Ward
Thursday 16th July 2009
Mark BAILEY (British National Party)
Michelle BOOTH (Labour)
Kevin MILLER (Conservative)
Richard PYLE (Liberal Democrat)

The BNP vote share predictions in ascending order are: 9%, 10%, 12%, 12%, 19% 23%.

The overall opinion is that we could finish third here and beat the Lib-Dems.

The candidates for the Arbury & Stockingford by-election are:

Warwickshire County Council
Arbury & Stockingford
Thursday 16th July 2009
Alice FIELD (Liberal Democrat)
Martyn FINDLEY (British National Party)
Steven GEE (Socialist Alternative)
Barry LONGDEN (Labour)
Thomas WILSON (Conservative)
Michael WRIGHT (Green)

The BNP vote share predictions in ascending order are: 16%, 19%, 20%, 23%, 23%, 30%.

The overall opinion is that we will finish third, just behind the Tories and Labour and well clear of the other parties.

Great maiden speech by Nick yesterday which is certainly getting plenty of airplays and there have been extensive quotes from it in most of the broadsheets.

I spoke with him briefly last night and he said that it had surprised many journalists, with the New Statesman even asking him if the BNP had ever received funding from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!

Nick said that there was another good speech from Dr Krisztina Morvai in the same debate and I shall endeavour to find it and pop some of it on Nick's European Parliament website.

We had an exciting job yesterday afternoon - measuring up the new office and placing an order for the furniture and equipment that we need.

We are still hopeful of moving in by the beginning of August but with the extensive communications system that is needed, apparently it will be a little longer before we are completely functional.

Tina was opening bank accounts for the office in the morning and we already have the first donation for our community fund . . . the full story will be found at nickgriffin.eu later today.

And finally the political elite in Hampstead are in uproar - they are as diverse as everyone else! Read the full story here.

Now is that bad advice or what?

THE EUPHORIA over last night's brilliant election result in Havering is tempered somewhat this morning by news that the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Chronicle is launching a campaign to lobby members of the Jewish community to vote for any political party other than the British National Party.

This is disappointing news considering that in recent years there has been a growing dialogue between senior members of the Jewish Community and the BNP and that today there are an increasing number of Jews joining and campaigning for the BNP and feeling very comfortable with their political choice.

The JC in its editorial seems rather fuzzy in its thinking behind backing the anti-BNP campaign.

"The British National Party likes to tell us, it is unfairly maligned by its many political opponents. Why, far from espousing antisemitism, it merely seeks to restore British values that true patriots — among them loyal Jews — would naturally share. We are not so sure. The party has been working hard to remake its image, contesting council-ward, parish-council and local byelections using blonde local school activists or well-spoken middle-class family men, and is simply waiting for its electoral breakthrough. That cannot be allowed to happen, and every JC reader needs to understand the significance of their casting their vote on May 1 — for any party other than the BNP."

The British National Party is the only one of the four main parties to be campaigning against the growing influence of Islam in this country. The Old Gang parties seem prepared to just lie down and be walked over by advocates of this aggressive religion which has as its central plank the demise of all other religions.

Now amongst the non-believers of Islam, according to the Muslim preachers that teach in this country's mosques, there are none more hated and vilified than followers of the Jewish religion. In fact, what some of these clerics say should be done to the Jewish people (according to a recent Channel 4 documentary), I wouldn't want to publicise on this website.

Yet dispite this, the JC and Board of Deputies are asking Jews to vote for the very political parties that will allow the further growth of Islam and not for the only political party that will stem its growth in Britain.

Now is that bad advice or what.

But for supporters of the British National Party there is still a bit of a morale boost hidden away in the reporting of this rather depressing turn of events.

One Ruth Smeeth, apparently the campaign co-ordinator, has made a pretty good analysis of the BNP's chances in London. She reports:

“The BNP has grown in strength in the last 10 years. They have candidates standing for the GLA for the first time and councillors for re-election. They could take as many as three seats in London.

“Last year, the BNP stood in a by-election in Stanmore and got five per cent of the vote. The London election is scary because, if the voting levels remain the same, they will need only an extra 5,000 votes to win a seat.”

“The last elections clashed with European elections, but not this time. Then, the UK Independence Party got 11 per cent, but now it has collapsed and the BNP could capture that vote."

No football and no horseracing today, so it looks like another day in the office working on the all important April issue of Freedom. I will be having a glass of wine or two tonight, remembering our lost colleague Nigel and toasting Mark Logan's superb victory in Gooshays ward.

Ibstock today - Burnley tomorrow

There's an interesting council by-election in North West Leicestershire today where the British National Party will be hoping to come from nowhere and give an over-confident Conservative candidate a run for his money.

The BNP already has two councillors here and Ivan Hammonds has an outsider's chance of making it three.

The details are:

North West Leicestershire District Council
Ibstock and Heather Ward
Thursday 10th January 2008
Felix Fenning - Labour Party
Ivan Hammonds - British National Party
Paul Oakden - Conservative Party
David Wyatt - Liberal Democrat

The ward was last contested in May 2007 when the result was:
Craig Bowley (Con)737
Ted Blunt (Con)731
Dai Male (Lab)707
Penny Hopkins (Lab)620
Mary Powell (Con) 599
Ray Merry ( Lab) 559
Adam Tilbury (UKIP) 411
Leighanna Littlejohn (Lib-Dem)225
Ben Roberts (Lib-Dems) 222

This election has come about following the death of Labour councillor Dai Male, and it has already provided the BNP with a welcome boost with the local UKIP candidate, who polled very well last time, standing aside to give Ivan Hammonds a clear run as he has the better chance of making an impact.

Wayne McDermott is running the BNP's campaign and he reported on its progress yesterday.

"We had a team of 26 out canvassing on Saturday and 22 on Sunday. There were 3 from Newcastle staying overnight and 4 from Cumbria joining us on the Sunday - the rest were all from the East Midlands, mainly Leicester.
"We scored some vital political points on Christmas Eve by cleaning some graffiti off a road sign. Labour had put out a leaflet with the candidate and MP standing under the sign saying they were cleaning up Ibstock but then did nothing about the graffiti. So it was left to the BNP to clean it and then we put out our own leaflet with a photo of their leaflet and one of us actually cleaning up the sign - what an own goal for Labour!

"The Labour campaign has been lacklustre. Several leaflets have been put out but the quality and content has been poor - they look a spent force despite this election being in the MP David Taylor's home ward (He has been out on an almost daily basis and is probably Labour's best activist). The Tories are working hard to keep the advantage they gained locally in May while the Lib-Dem campaign is very negative - attacking everyone - and they have also delivered two anti-BNP leaflets, one from Searchlight and one from the UAF. The Returning Officer is aware of this and will be monitoring their expenses.

"I think we will poll very well. The energy we have put in and the numbers we are getting out is leaving the other parties far behind campaign-wise. In some polling areas our 'Yes' numbers are way ahead of the 'No’s' while others are even. Heather is our difficult district and it's where the MP lives. We are behind here although the strong showing from the Tories here could split the non-BNP vote and might just leave a crack in the door open for us.

"On the negative side I don’t feel we have canvassed enough - just 2 sweeps, although we have put out several leaflets and completed a mail merge. It was hard to knock on doors during Christmas as people don’t want to talk about politics during the festive period.

"I have just been writing down a few names of the people who have been out on the streets helping in this election and have already reached a total of 62 but may have missed a few off. This shows we have a credible electioneering machine here in the East Midlands, quite the contrary to what our opponents have been saying."

This is good news from Wayne especially in the light of a posting on the website called www.vote-2007.co.uk This is a cosy Lab/Con/Lib-Dem site which discusses local by-elections. I tried to join but they rejected my application!

One contributor claiming to be in the know made this recent posting:

"I would have expected the BNP to do well here, but it seems that most of their local group in NW Leicestershire have joined the rebels in their current internal disputes- so I do not expect they have done much more here than leaflet the ward. Regardless, would expect them to poll 15-20% here."

And after Ibstock there might be some news about the High Court contested election for Burnley Council's Rosegrove Ward.

Burnley organiser Chris Vanns reports:

"John Rowe is in London at the Royal Courts of Justice tomorrow for a hearing to determine a time and place for the announcement of the decision on his petition to overturn the result of the Rosegrove ward election last May.
"There is pressure to move this announcement to Burnley, but John wants to have it in London as it will go before judges there as opposed to a just a barrister in Burnley"

I expect BNPtv will be at the court so keep watching its website for news of the outcome.

Big week for the BNP

I shall be standing by the telephone this morning waiting for that call from Nick Griffin. If the BNP chairman takes a leaf out of David Cameron's book and appoints an ex-con as an adviser for the prison service, then I might just be in line for a new job!

Joking apart, it's a strange decision by the Conservative leader. Jonathan Aitken epitomised the sleaze that befell John Major's Government, appearing to the public before, during and after his trial as the clearest possible example of a Tory snout-in-the-trough liar. Some uncharitable people may think that this, rather than any input he can give the Party from his time spent in chokey, is why Cameron is so keen to get him back on board .

It's a big seven days for the British National Party, which started yesterday with the attendance of many BNP units at Remembrance Day services up and down the country. On Friday it's off to Blackpool for three days and our Annual Conference. Surprisingly the Labour Party opposition has chosen Saturday to picket the Conference hotel which in reality is just a training day for potential delegates to the AGM, rather than the Sunday which is the day of the Conference proper. I think demonstrations like this actually help us now because however the opposition tries to spin it to the media, it comes across as an attempt to deny people the right to meet and discuss ideas. With political freedom very much on the agenda at the moment because of events in Pakistan and Burma, a threatening mob in Blackpool trying to stop people attending a political meeting just because they don't agree with that political party will smack of intolerance and I don't think the British people will appreciate it.

I see this as Labour making another mistake as it tries to stem the heamorrhaging of its traditional vote to the BNP. And let's just take this opportunity to make it very clear that although the groups opposing us come under a wealth of different names, it is the Labour Party behind them - Labour Party activists and Labour Party money. There was a typical Labour Party mistake in the Times & Star newspaper here in West Cumbria on Friday which I hope to score some points off in its next issue. In the letters' page there was a contribution from a Labour councillor concerning the political developments in Maryport. (see Clive Jefferson's excellent blog for the full story on this: http://www.cumbrianpatriotbnp.blogspot.com/ ).

In his letter, Karl Holding claimed that "the BNP have come last in every election they have contested in Allerdale." This is incorrect and gives me a chance not only to set the record straight but also remind readers of the BNP's excellent results in Maryport - something the Labour councillor is trying to belittle with his 'come last' comment. My letter to the newspaper reads as follows:

Dear Sir,

Allerdale councillor Karl Holding, may be new and relatively inexperienced as a Labour Party councillor, but he's certainly proving an old hand at Labour Party spin.
By his assertion (Times & Star 9th Nov) that the BNP "have come last in every vote" contested in Allerdale he is trying to imply that the BNP has no support in the borough. This certainly isn't the case.

In the council elections in May the BNP became the first party for 12 years to take on Labour in the Maryport wards of Ellenborough and Ewanrigg. When the votes were counted, the average vote for the two Labour candidates in Ellenborough ward was 607 while the single BNP candidate attracted 342 votes and in Ewanrigg ward the average vote for the two Labour candidates was 591 while the single BNP candidate polled 276 votes. That's over 600 BNP votes across the two wards and one-in-three voters supporting the British National Party rather than Labour.

Mr Holding's attempted 'no support for the BNP' spin is also factually incorrect. In Wigton ward for Allerdale Council in May 2003, the BNP candidate Paul Stafford polled 261 votes while Bill Walton, one of the Labour candidates, polled 246 votes and came last.

Martin Wingfield
BNP candidate May 2007,
Ellenborough Ward.

Letters to the press are important for the BNP because they keep our name publicised.

Just one by-election this week for Lincolnshire County Council. Here are the candidates:

Heighington & Washingbororough Ward
Michael Clayton (BNP)
Roy Harris (Lib-Dem)
Darren Hopewell (Lab)
Clive Oxby (Con)
Stephen Pearson (UKIP)
Victor Sahunta (Ind)

As with another recent by-election, an Independent candidate has withdrawn from the contest although her name will still be on the ballot paper. The seat is a Conservative one but with Labour snapping at their heels. It is also a target seat for UKIP which polled a very creditable 11.3% of the vote. The votes last time around were Conservative 1750, Labour 1534, UK Independence Party 419.

Workington Reds covered themselves with FA Cup glory on Saturday (well for 80 minutes at least) and made a few bob in the process. The Wembley dream came to an end at Gigg Lane as we went down 4-1, but that scoreline was an injustice. On 75 minutes we got a well-deserved equaliser and for five wonderful minutes it looked as though a major shock could be on the cards, before Bury scored three goals in the last 10 minutes. Well, now we can concentrate on getting into the Conference North play-offs without any distractions.