Pax per quid pro quo

I should like to propose a measure which, were it to be adopted, would be likely to be beneficial in terms of helping to reunite the British National Party.

At present, to the delight of the enemies of the BNP and of nationalism, the party is divided roughly equally into two mutually antagonistic camps. 

I have made no secret of my belief that the major share of the blame for this state of affairs lies fairly and squarely with Mr Griffin, as the national chairman and party leader.  The buck stops with him.  If Mr Griffin actually put the interests of the party before his own personal interests he would have resigned, at the very latest, immediately following the disastrous election results in May of this year.

However, if one proceeds on the working hypothesis that Mr Griffin will not resign, just yet at any rate, how else might the party be reunited?

I should like to propose a measure which, if Mr Griffin and Mr Brons were each agree to implement, might help considerably to heal the wounds suffered by the party over the last fifteen months.

This is my proposal: that both Mr Griffin and Mr Brons agree to dispense with the services of their most divisive and unpopular assistant.  In the case of Mr Griffin this would be Mr Patrick Harrington, a person whose very name is a byword for factiousness and double-dealing within nationalist circles; an individual  who has never been a member of the BNP and who remains a senior member of a rival, and civic 'nationalist', political party.  In the case of Mr Brons the person to be dismissed would be Mr Eddy Butler.  Mr Butler's continual public promotion of a different rival, and civic 'nationalist', political party, the English Democrats, in addition to almost certainly costing his principal the ten additional votes he needed to win the leadership election, has bid fair to make Mr Butler a serious rival to Mr Harrington in the unpopularity stakes.

Both Mr Harrington and Mr Butler have proved useful to their respective superiors in the past.  But both have now outlived that usefulness, and each now constitutes more of a liability and an embarrassment than an asset to the MEP for whom they work.  Mr Harrington has a reputation, whether deserved or not, for laziness.  His 'finest hour' was when he saw off the mercenary non-member Mr Dowson and his minions.  Mr Harrington and Mr Griffin may be old friends, but surely the best interests of the BNP should take precedence with its Chairman over personal friendships.

Mr Butler's long, albeit somewhat erratic, history within nationalism and the network of personal contacts which he acquired during that time, some of which he spent as one of Mr Griffin's closest coadjutors, has similarly proved useful to Mr Brons, as his chief.  However, with several of the most fruitful of those contacts now employed (or shortly to be employed) on Mr Brons' staff, rather than on Mr Griffin's staff, that usefulness is significantly diminished.

Many of those BNP members who voted for Mr Griffin in the recent leadership election will have regarded, and still regard, Mr Butler as a traitor to the party and to nationalism; not because of his denunciation of Mr Griffin's transgressions, but because of his self-confessed 'intelligence with the enemy', to use a military metaphor, namely a rival, and civic 'nationalist', political party, and his continual public promotion of them.

By continuing to employ Mr Butler on his staff Mr Brons unfortunately appears to many to condone Mr Butler's promotion of a rival party and its multiracialist ideology, even while he publicly deprecates them as "misguided".  Rightly or wrongly, this is interpreted by many as a mixed message and as weakness, or worse.

While Mr Griffin has set a deplorable example of nepotism, cronyism and factiousness as leader of the BNP, surely no-one need feel obliged to emulate him in this regard.  Being detested by Mr Griffin ought not to be regarded as a sufficient recommendation for being employed by Mr Brons.  As Mr Brons has rightly said of himself and his supporters: our differences with Mr Griffin are neither personal nor ideological, but rather organizational in nature.  We wish to see our party placed on a sustainable footing again, as a going concern, both financially and politically.

I should like to suggest that, contrary to the regrettably all too common practice within the BNP, in recent years at any rate, these terminations of employment be carried out, if possible, with the agreement of the individuals concerned, namely Mr Harrington and Mr Butler.  It might perhaps be possible to offer each of them a golden handshake in order to secure their agreement to the termination of their respective contracts of employment.  No doubt the long-suffering British taxpayers would foot the bill as usual.

Since we have heard no news via Mr Butler's blog to the effect that he has yet been accepted as a member by the English Democrats, I should also like to repeat my recent proposal that Mr Butler's unjust expulsion (disgracefully he was denied a tribunal to which he was entitled) be rescinded and his membership of the BNP be restored to him, as an 'unbroken' membership of more than five years.  It would then be for him to decide from which party he wished to dissociate himself: the civic 'nationalist' English Democrats, or the British National Party.