Know the enemy in order to beat the enemy

Before anyone posts a comment saying "Have you gone mad, Dr Emerson?", I should like to make it clear that I post the video below, not because I subscribe to the views and sentiments expressed therein, but as an aid to understanding just what it is that we, as members and activists of the British National Party, are up against.

What we are up against is a very well-funded, Establishment-backed, experienced and professional 'third party' spoiling operation, on behalf of whichever of the Establishment parties is believed to have the best chance of preventing the BNP from winning a seat. In Barking, at the general election earlier this year this was Labour. It usually is Labour as it happens, because traditional, neglected, 'safe' Labour constituencies are precisely the kind of area in which the BNP's message of hope finds its most receptive audience.

If this were 'all' we were up against we might well have won the Barking seat, or at least won control of the Barking and Dagenham council. Tragically, this was not all we were up against. While Labour's Margaret Hodge was, as we saw in the recently screened TV documentary, "The Battle for Barking", cleverly projecting herself as the underdog against the challenger, Nick Griffin, and Hope not Hate [sic] was executing a well planned strategy of leafleting, canvassing, and internet activism, what was the BNP doing?

It was at sixes and sevens, its morale having been all but destroyed by the party leader, and Barking candidate, Griffin, having, five weeks before polling day: sacked the party's national organizer, national elections officer, and Barking and Dagenham council candidate, Eddy Butler; the party's publicity director and Voice of Freedom editor, Mark Collett; and its national administration officer, Cllr Emma Colgate. Not content with this, Griffin also announced to the national media that Collett had been conspiring to murder both him and the party's chief fundraiser, and Eminence Grise, Jim Dowson. You really could not make it up.

Is anyone surprised that the BNP did so badly in Barking and Dagenham with the toxic Griffin in charge of operations for the last, crucially important, five weeks of the campaign? Organization is not the man's forte, nor for that matter is team-work. What he is good at is self-promotion. Unfortunately there is such a thing as over-exposure, pace BBC Question Time last year, and his image is now a "spoiled identity" in the public perception. There can be little doubt but that Richard Barnbrook, for all his faults, would have been a much more popular choice as BNP candidate for Barking, with both the electorate, and the party activists.

Griffin's judgement is appalling, and he seems to be incapable of learning from experience. He should not have said, as he did at the Barking count, that London was a lost cause, however disappointed he may have been feeling at the time. It is not true, and his statement did nothing but harm the prospects of the party in London, as Richard Barnbrook found just a few weeks later. As Griffin left the Barking count he shied away from the TV cameras, whereas a leader who knew what he was about would have boldly marched up to them and put a brave face on the night's results. As I said at my count in Watford, quoting John Tyndall, "...we...fight on, and...dare all, so that a great land and a great race may live again in splendour." Of course, it helps if one actually believes in what one is saying, as I did, and do.

Mr Griffin, if you read this, as I believe you do: please do the decent and honourable thing; no, I don't mean shoot yourself; just resign as leader, and concentrate on the European 'parliament' instead. A man of your undoubted expertise in demolition might just bring the entire rotten edifice crashing to the ground.

The real battle for Barking & Dagenham from HOPE not hate on Vimeo.