Steve Smith has Griffin's number

Steve Smith: a brilliant politician, driven out of the
British National Party by Griffin's insane jealousy

On Leadership and Success

Steven Smith speaks as one who should know

From Spearhead magazine # October 2004

WE ALL have our strengths and weaknesses, and it is up to all of us as individuals to recognise what those strengths and weaknesses are. This life-long learning process can sometimes be painful both physically and emotionally as we each strive to establish where our physical and psychological boundaries lie and the framework within which we will have to work to fulfil our true potential. In this respect the greater the degree of honesty and humility with oneself the easier should be the process of establishing the parameters within which one will have to work to help oneself to recognise what both one's strengths and weaknesses are, and which in my view is the key to self-fulfilment and self-realisation of one's full potential as a human being.

This recognition of honesty as a key to achieving one's full potential can also be applied to an organisation such as the BNP, the success of which I suggest is totally dependent on the preparedness of its members and activists, and especially its leader, to be honest enough to acknowledge, firstly their weaknesses so that they may be attended to and eliminated, and secondly their fears, so they might then be in a position to face them down and subsequently cross their personal Rubicons. This is made much easier, of course, when you have someone taking a lead and setting an example.

It would, of course, be very easy for people to dismiss what is being written here as psychological mumbo jumbo, and had it not been for the fact that Burnley BNP achieved what it did in just four short years in terms of becoming the most successful branch in the history of British Nationalism this dismissive theory might very well have been worth listening to. But the reality is that because we here in Burnley recognised these very simple truths, we succeeded, and on a scale never before seen. It really is that simple.

It is for this reason fundamentally that I do not believe Nicholas Griffin is suited to the job of leading the British National Party to political success. In my view Mr Griffin is fundamentally flawed and psychologically disfigured as a leader because he is predisposed to put himself first and the BNP second. He is consequently handicapped and disabled because of this, and unable to give all of himself because of this preoccupation.

Spoiling of a branch

Proof of this is seen quite clearly in his spoiling of Burnley BNP's progress, dissolving the role of organiser and taking Burnley's website off the net. All of this was on the basis of Burnley supposedly getting, as one of his colleagues put it: "too big for its boots"! Why then was the position of organiser reinstated and the website resurrected after the proverbial dust had settled? The reason was quite clear, Mr Griffin believed that Burnley's success might at some time be turned upon him and, being concerned for himself and his position as party leader, he saw fit to bring to a halt the very branch that was in the forefront of the BNP's drive for victory.

Mr Griffin, in my view, has very little or no humility, and is therefore unable to tap into that deep reservoir of strength and resourcefulness that each and every one of us has, but all too few of us are able to recognise. This, I am sorry to say, is a character flaw which exposes a lack of honesty, sincerity and integrity and therefore a lack of true and very deep-seated strength of character (humility is one of the many building blocks which help to define strength).

Mr Griffin is predisposed to back off from our enemies when it matters most. His very recent suggestion of admitting ethnic minorities to the BNP, for instance, in anticipation of nothing more than a pithy legal action sponsored by our sworn enemies is evidence of this. Mr Griffin's suggestion that a more liberal BNP would be more attractive to a greater mass of the general public is completely wrong and certainly at odds with our experiences here in Burnley. The only conclusion, therefore, that one is able to draw from this attempted watering down of nationalist principles is that Mr Griffin is attempting to make his own life easier and less onerous as the BNP grows in strength and the pressure on him increases to hold firm to the policies upon which the party was founded and the basis upon which BNP councillors have been elected.

Ingredients of success

Further to this, Burnley BNP achieved what it did in just four short years while we were technically still in possession of our 'nazi' baggage. In other words, it made absolutely no difference and might very well have helped us achieve what we did! The subsequent BNP council wins across the country have occurred in spite of, not because of, this liberalisation of policy, and has been due mainly to the hard work and dedication of the organisers and activists living in those areas. If Mr Griffin's watering down of BNP policies had any impact at all it was a negative one, and it certainly didn't begin to impact until well after we had our three, then eight, councillors elected. This for me is proof positive that it is strength, resolve, guts, drive and determination that we need, not fudge, indecision and weakness.

Spin and patter are the hallmarks of Mr Griffin's stewardship of the BNP, whether some like to hear this or not. Truth is all we have, truth is all that there is and we must acknowledge it. Before the recent European elections, the BNP web site stated that every household would receive a Freedom newspaper and that these were – quote – "already thundering off the presses." No such promise was kept. Further to this, the site predicted wins in these elections, sacrificing opportunities to win more council seats and wasting something like a quarter of a million pounds in the process. Again, Mr. Griffin was proved to be wrong.

His general election result in Oldham in 2001 was largely off the back of a riot. The evidence for that was seen quite clearly in his failure to assist the very hard-working organiser in that town in winning any council seats in the three years which followed. Burnley, I would like to mention, secured its general election result before its own particular riot and this was based upon a sincere and honest approach to the task of winning over the Burnley electorate. This is not vanity, it is the truth.

The point here is that I believe the leadership of the BNP is still living, as its personnel were in times past, in a world of virtual-reality nationalism where exaggeration and false promises took the place of sincerity and truth, and where allegiances were formed on the basis of financial benefit. These people's approach deceived in the process not only themselves but also the public, who are not quick to forget when they have been duped.

These were the reasons why Mr. Griffin had never been truly successful in all the years he had personally been involved in nationalism; and Burnley's success, I am afraid to say, taught him absolutely nothing. If Mr. Griffin is honest enough with himself and the rest of us, he will acknowledge the truth of these proclamations without reservation. These things I can say not because I have any personal axe to grind: I have none. I say them simply because I believe them to be true and have witnessed at first hand Mr. Griffin's predisposition to put himself rather than the party first. This is a failing that is very difficult, if not impossible, to correct, and it can only mean that our party can never truly fulfil its maximum potential as long as its destiny is tied to the personal ambitions, failings and weaknesses of its leader.

'A manager'

A brief exchange with a close confidant of Mr. Griffin's in 2002 confirmed to me my already growing suspicions of his preoccupation with money and self. "Nick wants to be a manager," he said. Being an accountant myself, I understood perfectly well the implications of this, and imagined Mr. Griffin doing nothing more than sitting back watching an unpaid and energetic national workforce generating lots of money while he and his hangers on 'managed' things. "Nick wouldn't mind if the BNP split, provided he could hang onto the rump of the membership." That was also doing the rounds at that time. Whether it was true or false, Mr. Griffin in my view is too much preoccupied with money and himself to be able to lead the BNP to victory. The BNP consequently will struggle to fulfil its true potential and will eventually become nothing more than a nationalist version of the Women's Institute.

I have said it many times before and I will say it again: money has its place but it is not essential to generating success. The winning of Burnley's total of 11 council seats in just a short four years, the tens of thousands of pounds of income this generated for the party in terms of donations and new members, the local political power and the self-generating free publicity were all achieved on a very tiny budget. Again without vanity, we can simply state the truth of these things. We achieved what we did off the back of work, dedication and courage, not money – which at present is in my view simply being raised and used to 'buy' the allegiance of those whom Mr Griffin regards as indispensable to maintaining his position as leader.

[ENDS]

Steven Smith is the most successful branch organiser in the history of the British National Party, having overseen campaigns that resulted in the election of no less than eleven party candidates to Burnley Borough Council. His book, How It Was Done: The rise of Burnley BNP, can be obtained for £5.00 (inc. p&p) from: Cliviger Press, 7 Westview, Overtown, Cliviger, Burnley, Lancs. BB10 4TG.

Spearhead Online

The Rise and Fall of Burnley BNP

Steve Smith: a brilliant politician, driven out of the British National Party by Griffin's insane jealousy

With Burnley currently being in the minds of British National Party members, because of the recent council by-election there, I thought it would be an opportune moment to re-publish an extract from the illuminating tract by Steve Smith, entitled "How It Was Done - The rise
of Burnley BNP: the inside story" (2004, Burnley: Cliviger Press).

Steve's account of Griffin's prima donna jealousy of anyone who achieved what he was incapable of doing himself should be a wake-up call to anyone still under the spell of the Griffin personality cult. Griffin is still the same profoundly unpleasant and untrustworthy egoist he always was. A griffin does not change its spots.

Steve was eventually lost to the BNP as a direct consequence of Griffin's malevolence, and is now believed to be a member of the National Front.

Steve Smith, the originator of Burnley BNP as well as the election campaign that won the BNP its first council seats outside London, now takes up the story, on page forty. It should be mentioned in passing that the Simon Bennett to whom Steve refers is a different individual to Simon Bennett the party's former webmaster.

All, of course, was never going to be sweetness and light; we were,after all, going to have to begin living in a completely different nationalist world to the one I was happiest with: a world where rules now had to be observed, permission sought for various initiatives and caps doffed before money could be recovered for expenses, etc. The public spotlight was upon us as it had never been before, and, remembering what I had said to Chris Jackson four years previously about needing to have the freedom to do things the way I wanted to do them, I mused that perhaps my time had come to an end. Perhaps my particular contribution to the BNP had completed its natural life-cycle and that perhaps it was genuinely time for me to back off. I didn't know the answer. Four years on and eight councillors later, however, nobody had reason to be complaining!

Compounding this dilemma was the fact that in the twelve-month period leading up to the elections of 2003 I gained a fuller appreciation of just how little the leadership of our party cared about Burnley and what we had achieved - which we found to be more than surprising, especially considering that, as a report in an October 2003 edition of The Guardian had put it, we had effectively catapulted the British National Party from nowhere to somewhere in no time at all. This doesn't make any sense, I kept telling myself. Why isn't the leadership helping us? Even if they didn't like us on a personal level, surely they could see that we deserved to be given all the assistance we neededin order to carry our good works forward. Just as the best salesmen in a business would expect, and deserve, to be acknowledged and rewarded for their efforts, so should Burnley BNP be given all the proverbial ammunition it would need to complete its task of prizing open the iron grip which the Labour Party had on our town. Would the salesmen quit their jobs and join another company? Or would they stay loyal and have their morale destroyed and become pale shadows of their former selves?

At the time I write this manuscript in March 2004 there does seem a danger that the latter could occur. Venom had been spat at us from all quarters. Even the editor of the party's Freedom newspaper, Martin Wingfield, said at a leadership meeting not many weeks after we had our first three councillors elected that Burnley BNP was 'insular'. This apparently was a reaction from one of many whom Simon Bennett had attacked in a critical report which he had sent down to them for, as he saw it, using the success of Burnley as a vehicle to promote their own self-aggrandisement. Whilst on the surface this comment of Martin Wingfield's with regard to the insularity of Burnley BNP might have appeared to be a criticism, and he may very well have intended it to be taken as such, he was actually simply stating the truth of what is effectively a micro-representation of our wider nationalist mindset. In that case, I thought, we were all open to the accusation of being insular, a charge which we in Burnley were more than happy to admit.

To Simon Bennett and me, it was quite simply unbelievable. By now the leadership had neutered Burnley BNP's ability to control its own funds. Monies raised at our regular monthly meetings were now being ringfenced and had to be banked. This was, I am afraid to say, the last we saw of it. This meant that we could not now, among other things, service our database of supporters, which consequently had a devastating impact upon our capacity to function in the way that I knew was necessary if we were to continue making progress. As I mentioned in what was to be my final e-mail message to National Treasurer John Brayshaw, perhaps their treatment of us was rooted in envy, which incidentally is one of the cardinal sins; perhaps it was because we had become too successful, and that we were an embarrassment to them, especially as they had, to a man, played absolutely no part in our success; perhaps they hadn't helped us because, so often, the untalented hate talent; perhaps it was because they didn't want anyone from Burnley challenging them for their positions in the limelight. Whatever their reasons and motivation, they had left Burnley out to dry and denied us their help when we needed it the most.

John Brayshaw's pretentious justification for not giving Burnley BNP the help we had requested was that the leadership could not be seen giving preferential treatment to any branch, no matter how successful. I couldn't believe my ears. So I responded: "How can you possibly deny a branch such as ours the help that it needed to survive, when it had directly, as a consequence of its success, generated tens of thousands of pounds of revenue and caused the party to grow considerably in the space of just two years?" For reasons best known to themselves they couldn't or wouldn't give us the real reasons for what I considered to be this blatant dereliction of duty in refusing to help the party's star branch to continue to prosper, and that is why perhaps the reasons that they did offer up came across as so lame and incomprehensible.

In evaluating this question, I think it appropriate to see things in terms of military analogies. Field Marshal Lord Montgomery famously said that in wartime it is always a sound policy to enforce success and not to enforce failure. Where a particular unit, for whatever reason, has achieved a major breakthrough which could decisively influence the outcome of the entire campaign, it is prudent to pour resources into providing a back-up for that breakthrough so as to exploit it to the full, rather than wasting resources elsewhere where the same gains cannot be expected. The question of 'equal' treatment of units or battle-sectors simply does not come into it. What matters is the effective prosecution of the war.

The money-go-round

The following article, despite originating from an 'antifascist' source, provides an interesting interpretation of the career, such as it is, of Mr Patrick Harrington. While the article may contain certain errors of fact here and there, it seems likely that in its broad outline it presents a reasonably accurate picture. However, the article's re-publication on my blog implies no support for 'antifascism', nor would it be legitimate for anyone to infer such support.

It would seem that Messrs Griffin and Harrington, as well as having a shared history, and interests, have a number of personality traits in common.

March 10, 2011

"The world is divided into those who have never met Patrick Harrington and those who hate his guts"

Posted by Denise to the Lancaster Unity blog

As we noted many months ago, a large number of those characters responsible for the collapse and disappearance of the old National Front two decades ago are now on hand as the same fate befalls the British National Party, notable amongst them being Patrick Harrington - a man for whom the words "failure" and "divisive" might have been invented.

Never knowingly successful at anything to which he has turned his hand, this long time friend of Nick Griffin was until recently consigned to the fringe of the fringe, where he could pretend to be a "director" of a "think tank" while having time enough on his then unemployed hands to get up Wiki pages laudatory of himself and the paper organisations with which he is associated.

The Third Way "think tank", if it has any real existence at all, claimed (the last time we could be bothered to look) just 18 members, a figure open to considerable doubt, but while Harrington indulged his fantasies and passed his time planting his grandiloquent political biography on any webpage that would take it, nobody paid him a great deal of attention.

The Third Way is also known as the National Liberal Party, its election successes totalling zero. Despite promising to contest ten marginal Liberal Democrat seats at the 2010 General Election, it contested only one seat, Eastleigh, coming bottom of the poll with just 93 votes.

Harrington crept back on to the radar with his involvement in the Solidarity "trade union", a BNP front which quickly descended into factionalism and farce when its two founders accused Harrington of financial impropriety. Factionalism and farce have long been close associates of Patrick Harrington, and the first accusations of financial wrong-doing set against him date back to the mid-80s and his involvement in the White Noise Club.

A "Blood and Honour" biography of the infamous Nazi band Skrewdriver and lead singer Ian Stuart Donaldson makes these comments (my spacing, otherwise "as is"):

Ian's distrust of Patrick Harrington and Derek Holland would inevitably mean that he would have to leave the NF and White Noise. Simultaneously the NF leadership, in an attempt to gain more political respectability with the British public tried to water down Skrewdriver's National Socialist image by censoring lan's lyrics and telling him what to sing about.

The White Noise management of Patrick Harrington, Nick Griffin and Derek Holland dictated that there was to be no hail victory’s and no derogatory references to blacks.

Soon after this the NF split itself into two. After which it gradually emerged that the White Noise Club had not been paying royalties due to the bands, had been ripping off band supporters ordering records through their mail order service and that Rock-o-Rama in Germany was owed around £3,000 for merchandise obtained via the WNC. Quite rightly Herbert chairman of Rock-o-Rama records, refused to release any new material by the WNC bands or supply any further records to the NF until the debt was paid in full.

By the summer totally disgusted with the way Harrington, Griffin and Holland had gone about things with their gross dishonesty, Ian once again handed in his letter of resignation to White Noise magazine and the National Front, with most of the other White rock bands following him.

As one of those involved in the Solidarity imbroglio wrote to me at the time: "The world is divided into those who have never met Patrick Harrington and those who hate his guts."

That would appear to remain the case.

Griffin and Harrington recaptured Solidarity by the simple tactic of hijacking its website, its only real public outlet (which happened to be hosted by failed South African school-bomber and BNP member Lambertus Nieuwhof), then calling an EGM which carved up Solidarity as Griffin and Harrington wanted and cleverly installing then darling of the BNP Simone Clarke (the "BNP ballerina") on the executive.

We were not alone at the time in alleging that Solidarity had only two real purposes - to provide Patrick Harrington with an income and, via a political fund, to transfer money from Solidarity to the BNP and Third Way coffers. Aside from one or two questionable non-BNP characters initially used to plug the "union", the organisation was to be entirely parasitical upon the BNP membership, who would be persuaded to part with £5 per month to join what to them might seem a worthwhile venture.

Despite an intense and long running recruitment campaign, this never happened. BNP members were very wary of Solidarity. The early public in-fighting could not have helped, and anti-fascist revelations concerning the "union" and its leading personalities certainly played their part, but there was also a swathe of older BNP members well acquainted with Harrington's past record who would have nothing to do with the "union".

Solidarity claims to have had 124 members in 2007, 276 in 2008, and 400 in 2009 (the last year for which figures are available), far lower than anything Harrington could have expected, despite the internal exposure Solidarity was given by the BNP. Given the election fever, fuelled by unrealistic expectations that began to grip the BNP in the early part of 2010, and a stepping up of the Solidarity recruitment campaign on the back of it, it's very likely that the "union" had more than 400 members on its books in the first half of the year.

The mystery is, how many were still members by the end of the year, the somewhat vague cut-off point defined by the Trade Union Certification Officer?

Being parasitical to the BNP, Solidarity must have suffered as its host began to implode last May, and any hopes that there would ever be "one big" nationalist trade union dashed, along with any hopes that it would ever provide a living for anybody. Some unkind observers have suggested that one reason Harrington asked Nick Griffin for a job with the BNP last summer was because as the BNP truncated so, he knew, must his "union"; those same unkind observers have also suggested that the government's determination to re-assess those claiming various types of long-term sickness benefits might have had something to do with it.

Solidarity's 2009 accounts show a donation of £5000, an interesting affair in itself. LU readers will recall a newspaper sting whereby a £5000 "political donation" to the BNP wound up in Nick Griffin's personal bank account, where it had no business to be.

According to a deeply sceptical Times:

Mr Griffin admitted that he had paid the £5,000 donation that appeared to be from a political supporter into his own bank account and then transferred the money to a sympathetic political organisation without alerting the authorities.

He said that he did so because the donor, an elderly North London woman who is a member of the BNP, wished to remain anonymous. He said that he gave the money in February to the nationalist trade union Solidarity, which has strong BNP links, because he believed that it would have had to be declared if he had given the donation to the party. He said that there was “no need” to declare it as the donor had asked him to put the money to “best use”.

"Best use" is a fairly elastic term, but the BNP and Solidarity leaders have always tended to stretch and warp the English language into something more agreeable and self-serving to themselves. The money - reluctantly, we are sure - was handed over to Solidarity, which, for 2009 posts an annual return giving an income of £23,052 against an expenditure of £27,997, leaving a balance of £1,202.

The opening balance for that year had been £6,147.

What is curious is that Harrington and Solidarity president Adam Walker chose this year to pay themselves each £2,521, or £5,042, something they could not have done had Griffin not made over that £5,000 donation. A cynic might suggest that there exists a mental block in the minds of far-right leaders, in that money that could be put to good political or (in the case of Solidarity) quasi-trade union use must always find its way into a private bank account and never be seen again.

Despite claims - and that is all they are - by Harrington that he has travelled the country representing Solidarity members in grievance and other disputes, most of the "union's" work seems to have revolved around cases involving the Solidarity president and younger brother Mark Walker, who sits on the executive committee. And very expensive it has been, with "benefits to members" listed at £10,694 and "administrative expenses" at £17,303 - or £27,997 for not very much at all.

At a recent telephone-box gathering in Carlisle that passed for Solidarity's annual conference, Harrington glibly claimed that "many successes" could not be publicised "owing to confidentiality clauses" - an extraordinary claim. A quick email exchange with Unite's local (Norwich) industrial organiser elicits the response that no legitimate trade union representative would agree to a "confidentiality clause" unless under the most extraordinary of circumstances, and then only if it served the interests of the member involved or the union concerned - and even then the matter would be "referred up" for legal advice.

It is strange that such clauses appear to be routine affairs when Solidarity is the "union" involved. Is this, as others have noted, because the BNP is one of the few organisations which routinely demands dismissed employees sign confidentiality agreements? Are Harrington's "many successes" not quite what he would like us to believe they are, if indeed there have been any at all?

As a means of making money Solidarity has already seen its most lucrative days. The National Liberal Party/Third Way never did.

Seized with a mad idea that it could put £100,000 in its kitty, in June 2008 Harrington and his friends launched a "money bomb" appeal, hoping to con 10,000 people to donate £10 each "for liberty" - or, as we asserted, to provide the perennial losers of the NLP/TW with an effort-free living. The appeal had its own badly laid out website replete with a graph on which donations were to be tracked. Unfortunately the graph stubbornly registered zero, as it had for the best part of a fortnight, until the day we published our article, when a small squiggle appeared.

Our article said:

As he has throughout his indistinguished career on the far-Right, Mr Harrington has undoubtedly concocted for himself yet another stratagem by which he will be seen to fail, and fail badly, largely because the man seems to be incapable of connecting with the real world - the one in which most people would not expect 10,000 people to visit a crude website rushed up by an unknown and bogus think-tank-cum-political party, all of them to do it on a single day and to pledge £10 in return for some vague and meaningless statement about "liberty".

We're fairly sure the only reason the tiny squiggle failed to expand to point at a respectable figure was because Harrington and company knew very well they would have to square their claims with the accounts they must later submit to the Electoral Commission. The "money bomb" was a matter of ridicule, and of course utterly failed - but free money is free money, no matter how little, and the NLP/TW repeated the exercise in 2009 and 2010, with even less success. Its 2009 accounts list donations from all sources as a paltry £413.07 (we are naturally assuming that NLP/TW is being completely truthful about its financial affairs, just as Solidarity and the BNP always are).

From the start of what we might laughingly call his political career Harrington has regularly displayed his only known talent, being that of effortlessly making enemies. He does not seem to be able to help himself. He is variously accounted untrustworthy, conceited, a fraud and a fantasist (that last was us), while those of his closer acquaintance have, in various internet posting places, noted his "limp, damp handshake", and in one case a number of meetings with Harrington "at the termination of each of which it was necessary to find a bath or a shower and to apply a strong carbolic soap to my crawling skin".

Not exactly Mr Popular, is he?

Griffin's inclusion of Harrington and his strange new wife on the paid BNP Euro staff would ordinarily be inexplicable, given the widespread dislike of him, a fact that was always bound to exacerbate existing divisions. Prior to that, rebel leader Eddy Butler asserts that Harrington (a man with not a shred of electoral talent) interfered to negative effect in the BNP's flagship Barking and Dagenham general election campaign, and had regularly intruded into BNP affairs.

As Butler's leadership challenge gathered momentum, Harrington began sending messages over the internet to BNP supporters urging them to oppose the challenge and, despicably and unethically (but what's new?), abused his allegedly independent position as Solidarity's general secretary to issue a "personal statement" to the same effect. According to Butler he manipulated London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook into mounting a "spoiler" challenge designed to scotch Butler's chances of gathering the required number of nominations, and (according to us) having achieved this threw the luckless and by now unwanted Barnbrook into the custody of the Walker brothers, who smiled tolerantly and took him to the pub.

Harrington apparently advised Nick Griffin at Michaela Mackenzie's employment tribunal. We noted:

Mr Harrington appears to have been on hand at the employment tribunal hearing the unfair dismissal case brought against Nick Griffin by Michaela Mackenzie, providing us with that rarest of spectacles, an employment tribunal at which a "trade union" general secretary is not on the team of a badly wronged employee, but that of the boss who wronged her. According to Mackenzie, Nick Griffin took the stand and began "venomously spouting the most ridiculous lies about me". We do not know if he did so consequent upon any advice Mr Harrington might have proffered.

Mackenzie won her case, of course.

In the same article we added:

A further spectacle is provided by the employment of Mr Harrington and Solidarity president Adam Walker to oversee Human Resources and Staff Management in regard to BNP employees, who are all members of Solidarity - putting BNP employees in the unique position of having as bosses their own "trade union" leaders.

Of this situation Nick Griffin wrote: "We, however, have learned from this [the Mackenzie] case, which is one reason we have now created a dedicated Human Resources/Staff Management team to ensure that from now on everything is done by the book by people who know all the ropes."

By which he means disgruntled BNP employees will find themselves up Harrington Creek without a paddle.

In his thoroughly dishonest campaign against Eddy Butler, Harrington made much of Butler's intention to close the BNP's Belfast office and transfer operations to the mainland, saying: "I think Solidarity members should be aware of his anti-union stance and threats to sack people." Sacking people is exactly what happened, but it wasn't Butler who did the sacking...

At about the same time he was taken on by the BNP, the "trade union" leader incorporated a company, grandly (what else?) titled Europa Social Political and Economic Research Establishment Limited (presumably ESPEREL), which, as ever with Harrington, skulks behind his regular maildrop address, Room 407, 12 South Bridge, Edinburgh.

Harrington's new venture appears to be some sort of consultancy, but we admit to having little knowledge of it. Of course, if you happen to know more...

Harrington's influence has clearly been detrimental to whatever remains of the BNP and in turn to whatever remains of Solidarity. The characters - so strangely familiar from those long ago days of the National Front's implosion - who are involved in the BNP's rapid downward spiral can see as well as anybody else what is happening and why, and since they are, as we and they know, on the make, it is very difficult to believe that they have not developed some game plan designed to protect their new-found comforts.

As I write, Nick Griffin has ordered yet another round of suspensions, this time in London and the South. He seems utterly indifferent to the effects this must have - just as he appeared indifferent to the effects of previous purges, his continual lying to the membership, his appointment of Ian Kitchen as Yorkshire regional organiser, and so much else. It's almost as if he wants the BNP to fail, and as quickly as possible, while himself remaining leader of whatever is left.

At the same time, Harrington seems less and less interested in Solidarity, which he knows has little future, while, out of the blue, the Civil Liberty front group has sprung into renewed life, carrying contentious articles on its website that seem almost calculated to offend as many BNP members as possible.

Does that give us a clue as to what might be going on?

Is it possible that Griffin, who can never cede the leadership of the BNP when it also means ceding access to the party's financial affairs during the term of his office, is deliberately running the BNP down as a political party? Could it be that in a few months, assuming anything at all remains solvent, that there will be some merger between these three organisations, and a new nationalist civil rights organisation arise - one into which Griffin can safely take the precious BNP accounts and all their secrets?

I don't know, but nor do I believe that the National Front's two main undertakers intend to repeat their old exercise without on this occasion making some provision to shield themselves financially - something they forgot to do last time around.

Griffin scuppers BNP election prospects

The following article, by Paul Morris, alias the Green Arrow, was recently published on the British Resistance web site.

Johnny Leech, the former Greenwich and Woolwich BNP organizer, made an excellent case, on a Paltalk debate, which GA chaired the other night, for reform within the party, starting with the election of a new, honest, credible, and legitimate new leader.

Green Arrow is beginning to understand the true nature of the rottenness at the heart of the upper echelon of the British National Party. Green Arrow is now considerably less green than he was. Well, better late than never, GA.

He rightly poses the question, "Incompetence, or...sabotage?"

Green Arrow's article now follows.

Back in September of last year before things really went pear shaped, I started to receive information that led me to believe that I and our former site Home of the Green Arrow and Friends was going to be set up as a scapegoat for any failure in the Welsh Assembly Elections this coming May. I thought at the time that I was becoming just a little bit too paranoid. Now, looking back at the evidence and recent affairs, I am not so sure.

So when a small gang of thugs started their vicious and I mean vicious campaign against myself and others involved with the running of the site, I repeatedly tried to make peace with them (I have the evidence) and called for meetings to resolve any issues. These requests were refused outright.

They demanded apologies where none were due but we bit our tongues for the nationalist cause and said sorry for crimes we were not guilty of. But still we could not resolve our issues or rather they chose not to resolve them. They wanted me gone and the site closed and that was it. No thoughts from them about the greater cause.

I repeatedly informed them that all I wanted to do was to post information and images of Welsh BNP activism in Wales and give favourable reports on meetings and was again warned to stay away from all BNP activities in Wales.

Incredible treatment to a site and people who had organised so many appeals on their behalf to buy equipment and funded their trips around the country to make films. I was told our site was irrelevant and no longer needed.

However, it is not in my nature to walk away from my duty and so going through the official channels I made the Welsh Regional Organiser Brian Mahoney aware of these problems and informed him that I simply wished to write favourable reports about Welsh BNP activity the same way our site reported other British National Party activites around the country. I believed then and still do now that these reports with images encouraged new people to join the party and helped sustain the morale of our activists, the majority of whom are the finest, bravest people alive.

But Brian Mahoney just advised me to stay away from the thugs, keep a low profile and let time heal things and boy did I try. I have no pride when it comes do doing what I think is right for our noble cause.

Now then, I would be obliged if you would read the following report I published on a meeting that took place in Bridgend just last month. It is important that you read the words carefully and between the lines, so you may understand what I write in the rest of this article.

At the start of the article, I apologise for being late in publishing the report. The truth is that those present at the meeting had been instructed by Brian Mahoney not to tell me anything or to provide any information that I could use in compiling the report. This information caused me much personal distress as did the people I spoke to who I had considered my friends but I also understood that they were just carrying out the instructions of their Regional Organiser.

Still I managed to cobble something together and get the story out and published it to show Wales BNP that I would not be prevented from reporting on positive news about the BNP in Wales and I let them know in the 2nd paragraph that I intended to continue to report on the British National Party whether they liked it or not.

By now, I had already informed the BNP hierarchy of the problems in Wales and informed them of what is going on and the threats to myself and others. I also expressed my concerns that I believed that Brian Mahoney (who has a personal grudge against the party or rather Nick Griffin) and others were working against its best interests and that the party should be very wary of them. Having learnt more about the leadership of the party than I care to, I do believe that Brian has a very good reason not to wish the leadership well, if what I learned about the shabby treatment of his partner is true.

Finally in the last paragraph of the article I refer to, I am sending a message to the British National Party to remove the men of violence, who in my honest opinion are destroying the British National Party in Wales. Although given recent events it is now apparent that it is more than a few bad apples in Wales that the party has to worry about.
Now then about the Welsh Assembly Elections? What the bloody hell is going on?

First they stop a site that is notorious for its almost fanatical support of the Party and its Chairman from reporting on Welsh Activism and proscribe the Green Arrow in Wales.

Brian Mahoney, for reasons known only to himself reports to the BNP that everything in Wales is fine and does nothing about the three violent thugs making threats to other party members and loyal supporters. He must have known that the press would use all the information in the public domain. Cowardice or something worse?

The Party chooses to let a respected Welsh BNP Councillor resign rather than remove the men of violence from the party in Wales.

Then BNP Wales deliberately do nothing to organise opposition in Wales to the increase in powers for the Welsh Assembly. Other than one pathetic statement on the main site saying that the BNP recommended people vote NO in the March 3rd referendum there was NOTHING. If BNP Wales had run a Vote No campaign then they would have gathered lots of support and brought the party massive publicity that would have been most valuable in preparing for the coming May elections. Incompetence or deliberate sabotage?

This Saturday, there was a day of action in South Wales by the BNP. I can't give you a report because I was not there and neither were a lot of other supporters who had planned to be there before the men of violence were left undisciplined by the party. I had arranged accommodation in two locations for activists to stay at for a week so they could help out Wales BNP but given that they had been threatened for simply supporting the British Resistance and myself, they no longer wished to take part and I can't say I blame them.

Now I find the next bit of news most disturbing. The chairman of the British National Party was photographed at the evening's event posing with a man who is part of the proscribed EDL/WDL. Fine, I for one have no problems with the majority of the EDL/WDL but this man is a known Nutzi and there are images of him all over the internet standing in front of a long gone foreign flag and giving it the old straight arm routine.

Now I strongly believe that at least six or more people at the event, including Brian Mahoney knew of this man's past and associates, so what the hell was he doing at the meeting and why on earth was he allowed anywhere near the chairman to have his photograph taken with him? Again either incompetence or something worse.

I honestly believed that even with the current problems in the British National Party, South Wales could still have done well in the Assembly Elections and won at least one seat but in light of the above, I am no longer so sure.

Chris Roberts in East London 18/11/2010

GLA researcher and former London region organizer, Chris Roberts, makes the case for economic nationalism, and putting our own people first.

The British National Party's "controlled web site" refused to upload the video, and gave no reason. Perhaps they didn't like Chris's reminder to the meeting that the BNP is not a one-man band but belongs to all of its members, and that we, as a party, cannot afford to lose a single member if we are to fulfil our historic mission of saving Britain for the British.

This is beyond the Pale

After the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, when the Protestant army of King William III beat the Catholic army of the deposed King James II, a Catholic soldier responded thus to the taunts of a Protestant soldier, "Change kings with us, and we'll fight you again".

I can't help feeling the same way about UKIP's recent victories over the British National Party. Not that I'd like to exchange Griffin for Farage, but that I'd like to exchange Griffin for any trustworthy and competent indigenous Briton who was also a genuine British ethno-nationalist, and had no holocaust-denying baggage.

The following is a recent article in the Sunday World, a popular Irish newspaper.

Far right nutters [sic] are going to war with each other after we revealed the BNP were supporting convicted Provo Gerry McGeough.

Civil Liberty - which is a BNP front group - sympathised with IRA gunman McGeough who was convicted recently of the attempted murder of former UDR soldier Sammy Brush.

The group is fronted by a BNP activist called Kevin Scott from the north east of England. But it's also supported by former NF mouthpiece and BNP [sic, Griffin] employee Patrick Harrington.

Civil Liberty were attracted to Gerry McGeough's ultra Catholic views of anti-immigration and anti-gay - which obviously sit well with the far right.

However the group scored a huge own goal by offering support for McGeough just weeks before the the party puts candidates up for election for the first time.

They will be hoping to win votes from disgruntled hard line loyalist areas but giving support to a dedicated IRA member and former Sinn Fein committee man has not gone down well in those areas.

After our story broke a "far-right" war of words broke out on the internet with many BNP members and supporters horrified by the revelations. They even turned on BNP leader Nick Griffin and former National Front buddy Patrick Harrington.

Afraid

One contributor to the British Democracy Forum wrote: "this is absolutely scandalous !!!!!!!!!!!!" while another added: "This is absolutely sickening, Griffin is a ****bag!"

And on Facebook one former BNP supporter wrote " I'm afraid Harrington and Griffin are taking the party back in time. I bet they have purchased a derelict lighthouse on Craggy Island".

Last night the white power group the National Front slammed the BNP for sympathising with the republican's plight.

In a statement to the Sunday World they said " So a convicted terrorist (in his own words) is being backed by the British National Party! Well fellow British Nationalists now is the time to say enough is enough and cut that membership card in two!

"Over 3000 British citizens were bombed and shot at over 30 years by these Marxist Terrorists, there were over 500 British soldiers killed during the "troubles" and it is in my opinion a slur and an insult to those killed and their families and friends too.

"How could any "British" political party show any support for him?"

Two weeks ago Gerry McGeough was convicted of the attempted murder of off-duty UDR soldier Sammy Brush in 1981.

Brush was shot and wounded but still managed to shoot McGeough and last week the DUP councillor described it as both his "best and worst" shot in his life.

Sunday World

Mein Kemp

The following article was published on Lee Barnes' blog, 21st Century British Nationalism. It provides an insight into the cesspit of vice and petty intrigue that the upper echelon of the British National Party became, and remains, under the so-called leadership of the Moloch Griffin.

Lee's article doesn't explicitly state that Arthur Kemp is a former South African policeman, whom some suspect of having subsequently operated within ethno-nationalist circles as a nark.

Mr Kemp, in his letter of resignation from the post of BNP web editor, refers to his not being obliged to work out a period of notice, as he was not on any payroll in respect of his work. At least this seems to have been the situation since the arrival at "Party Central" of Griffin's mumbo-jumbo man, Pat Harrington. Eddy Butler has said, on his blog, that Kemp worked full-time on the web site, and had been promised, presumably by Griffin, that he would be put on a payroll but this had not happened. Kemp's reference to not needing to give any notice might be interpreted as a parting shot at Griffin.

Lee Barnes implies that Kemp did not receive a salary for his work. Perhaps Kemp was encouraged by Griffin to claim 'expenses' in relation to his work as web editor.

Well, the Wheel of Fortune turns, sometimes slowly, at other times quickly, but it is always turning, of that we may be sure.

Lee's article now follows.

Arthur Kemp - payback

I was present at the AC [Advisory Council] meeting when Arthur Kemp was invited to attend and present himself as a possible BNP officer.

The AC discussed Arthur joining the party, but many on the AC including Martin Wingfield, stated that due to Arthur's past he was too controversial to get involved with the party.

Arthur agreed with Martin and stated that he would not join the party or take up any roles with the party.

I then said that we should give Arthur a chance and allow him to join the party and see what happens.

This was then agreed by the AC.

It was my intervention that got Arthur his positions in the BNP.

But what was the first thing Arthur did when he took over the BNP website - he removed me as a writer from the site.

The news that he is leaving the BNP as he has not been paid by the party for months is all he deserves. That is not the real reason he is leaving though, as he did not get paid for the work he did for the party.

Arthur acted as a treacherous, self serving little lickspittle to Griffin - and he now gets his payback.

What with Green Arrow, Golding, Dowson and Kemp all gone - what a delicious turn of events.

All the time Kemp was in the BNP, Griffin used to call him a 'smug sociopath who hates everyone and everything and who thinks he is intellectually superior to everyone'.

That was Griffin's opinion of Kemp.

At the same time Kemp despised and mistrusted Griffin.

That's the senior ranks of the BNP for you - filled with dishonourable, back stabbing, egotistical sociopaths appointed by Griffin.

Never mind - the rats have fled the sinking ship and soon the captain will go down with it.

That was Griffin's plan all along though.

As he told me on frequent occasions - " I will destroy the BNP before I allow anyone else to lead it ".

That's Griffin's plan.

And the plan is about to come to fruition as the party is made bankrupt.

You want to know the real reason why Kemp is leaving the party - because Kemp knows that he and all the other senior officers will be liable for Griffin's debts when the party is bankrupted.

At the moment the BNP is funnelling as much money as it can through various bank accounts, such as the Ulster one which I and the ex-organiser for Ulster set up for the party. The ex-organiser in NI did a huge amount of work for the party to set up those bank accounts once Barclays closed the old BNP accounts down.

On a side note here's an example of Griffin's stupidity. After Barclays shut down the BNP accounts, I negotiated a deal with Barclays where they agreed to wipe off six grand of debt owed to them if the party just allowed them to shut the accounts down and I drop the complaints I made against Barclays to the FSA. I told Griffin about the deal I had agreed with Barclays, and he said " Tell them we want fifteen grand as well as the debts wiped off " and the result was Barclays saying 'no deal and we also want our money you owe us'. That was Griffin's brilliance in action.

This is being done so Griffin can have his 'seed money' to set up his replacement for the BNP, which is a civil rights group, which was a group whose role and functions I formulated and proposed to Griffin years ago.

Kemp is leaving the party as he knows that the senior officers are liable for debts accrued by Griffin's stupidity - and that Griffin will not pay a penny as he has given all his assets to his wife.

Kemp deserves zero sympathy.

He stabbed the people who helped him in the back in order to ingratiate himself with Griffin.

Brons is base metal

The following statement, purporting to be by Andrew Brons MEP, was recently published on the BNP sub-section of the British Democracy Forum, by Sharon Ebanks. Eddy Butler has stated on his blog that it is authentic. Both its style and content, moreover, would tend to suggest that it is indeed genuine.

The first thing that needs to be stated, unequivocally, is that Mr Brons has let the British National Party down very badly. He was the first British ethno-nationalist MEP ever to have been elected, in June 2009, and carried an historic burden of responsibility in that role.

Has he shown the kind of leadership one is entitled to expect from a man in his position, as one of only two BNP MEPs? Sadly, and it gives me no pleasure to have to say this, he has not.

Whatever the private thoughts and feelings of Mr Brons may have been regarding the problems which have beset the party over the last nine months, and whatever he may have said about them in private conversations with colleagues, publicly he has said nothing. This policy of abstentionism has been, in effect, an abdication of responsibility, and a gross dereliction of duty, however much Mr Brons may seek to gloss over it with sanctimonious phrases about being above the fray, or not taking sides.

In English common law silence implies consent. If one sees wrongdoing and injustice being perpetrated, and one says, and does nothing, then one is tacitly approving the evil. This, in effect, has been the policy of Mr Brons: to look the other way, to bury his head in the sand, to turn a blind eye, while the party was raped and plundered by a gang of vicious pirates.

As for Mr Brons' argument that Eddy should have removed his blog, last September, because it stood, in Brons' considered opinion, no chance of achieving its objective of inducing the resignation of Mr Griffin from the leadership of the party: on what did, and does, he base that opinion? Is Mr Brons unaware of the moral force of people power? Is Brons ignorant of the very many instances in which the dissidence of the exploited and oppressed many, have wrested regime change from the corrupt and oppressing few, from ancient times to the present day?

Has this man supposedly both studied, and taught, history, politics, and law, and yet drawn so little from these disciplines?

Party morale has not been impaired by those, such as Eddy and myself, who have publicized the deadly serious problems facing the party, and explained the causes of those problems, unless Mr Brons subscribes to the notion that ignorance is bliss, and 'tis folly to be wise. Would Brons have BNP members live in a Fool's Paradise, or exist in a surreal, nightmarish, Kafkaesque world, in which the awful truth is dimly apprehended, as through a glass, darkly, by an inevitably growing number, but publicly denied by the leadership? Does he not see the striking similarity between Mr Griffin, of the BNP, with his adulatory meetings, in which all critical faculties are meant to be suspended, and 1984's Big Brother? The one has "party central", the other has "the Inner Party". The one has dishonest, and misleading reports on its web site and Voice of Freedom newspaper, the other has its "memory hole", in which history is re-written, with "non-persons" written, and airbrushed into oblivion.

Regarding Mr Brons' analysis of the causes of the "civil war" within the party, again he is hopelessly (and intentionally?) wide of the mark. The "civil war", as he puts it, did not start with anyone losing their job. Employers are entitled to dispense with the services of employees, for good cause, or by mutual agreement, provided they honour their contractual, and statutory, obligations. Mr Griffin's botched dismissal of Eddy from his MEP payroll was an aggravating factor but was not the casus belli, per se.

Fort Sumter was fired on when Mr Griffin chose to flout the party constitution by rigging the nominations' process for a leadership election, in his own favour. One cannot simply "devise", at the last minute, and without any consultation, rules which are grossly unfair to one's challengers. A court may well yet confirm this self-evident fact, for those with a less sure grip on reality.

The man cheated, in other words. Not only did he cheat, but he then proceeded unjustly to victimize his main challenger's supporters, such as myself, and his main challenger himself; abusing his position of trust, and perverting the constitution, in order corruptly to suspend, without tribunal, or reasons given, and in some cases, putatively to expel, again without due process of natural justice, those individuals from the BNP.

Mr Brons misleadingly posits an entirely spurious moral equivalence between on the one hand the vicious slanders of anonymous attack blogs that attempted to assassinate the character of Eddy Butler, and his supporters, and which Mr Griffin, scandalously, but very revealingly, failed to condemn, as he was morally obliged to condemn, and on the other hand, Eddy's entirely professional blog, which was critical of Griffin's faulty leadership, but which refrained from wicked lies, and scurrilous denigration of Griffin, members of his family, and his supporters.

"There is a very real danger that elements of the media will argue that the way in which we treat each other might provide an insight into how a BNP Government would treat its opponents and the population at large."

This is perhaps the most telling of Mr Brons' sentences. The media may well do just that, but here is the most damning aspect of all: who can say that the media, "the controlled media" as the party web site calls them, would be unjustified in making such an argument? Indeed, who could, in all good conscience, gainsay such an argument? Mr Griffin has demonstrated through his actions, over the last nine months, that not only he, but the party which he leads, is unfit for office. Naturally, this is a grave disincentive for anyone who might, under more favourable circumstances, consider joining the party, or voting for it, as the Oldham and Barnsley by-elections have demonstrated.

The proposals of "reform" by which Mr Brons appears to set great store, are a superficial sop to dissent. They would leave Mr Griffin's stranglehold on the party, and its finances, essentially unchanged, and are consequently worse than useless. Their sole purpose is to delude the gullible, the less intelligent, and the weaker brethren with no stomach for a fight, into believing that something is being done to address the concerns of the reformers, while in fact the corruption and maladministration continue unabated.

There can be only one solution to the problems bedevilling the BNP, and that is for the devil to depart, post-haste.

Sic semper tyrannis.

Mr Brons' disingenuous and tendentious statement now follows.

The Employment of Eddy Butler

The question is sometimes asked of me: “Why do I employ Eddy Butler?” The simple answer is that he was on a list of people I was asked to employ by Nick Griffin, our Chairman, when I was elected. He was as unknown to me as most of the others were.

The following question is sometimes then asked: “Why do you continue to employ him?” The immediate answer is that he has been employed for eighteen months and there must be a reason in law to dismiss him. He completes the Euro work that I ask him to do.

I am then asked what I think of his ‘blog’ and whether or not that is a good reason for dismissing him. I do not read it, any more than I read any of the anti-Butler messages on the internet. I find them all too dispiriting to waste my time on. However, I am told about the content and I disapprove of much of it. Why do I disapprove of it? I disapprove of it because it can only reduce morale without having any chance of achieving its objective. What is its objective? It is to bring about the resignation of Nick Griffin as Party Chairman. Is it likely to achieve this objective? No! When I tried to persuade Eddy Butler to remove his blog last September, I asked him a simple question: “Would Nick Griffin resign if asked to do so by the majority of the people who made up our fourteen thousand membership last May? His answer was “No”. I replied that it was therefore having all of its negative effects without having any chance of achieving its objective.

The case against Eddy Butler and his blog seems to be cast iron. His influence is entirely negative; he is the cause of all of our ills; and those whom he attacks are his innocent victims? As with all attempts to apportion blame in disputes, it depends on the position from which you start.

The Causes of the Civil War in Our Party

Who fired the first shots? Even this apparently simple question is not so easy to answer. The ‘first shots’ could be identified as the decision of Eddy Butler and Emma Colgate to seek a vote from the Advisory Council to call an EGM and perhaps seek a leadership election. Without that decision, the rest would not have followed. However, such a vote would have been perfectly constitutional and was prevented by their removal from the Advisory Council, which was also perfectly constitutional. Our Constitution provides for the Chairman being able to manipulate, at will, the membership of the body that advises him.

The first overtly hostile act was the removal of Emma Colgate and Eddy Butler from their employment. Emma Colgate apparently agreed to her removal – after some ‘persuasion’. Eddy Butler did not, although his employer believed that he had done so. Eddy was eventually dismissed from his employment with the Party (20% of his total) and with Nick Griffin (40% of his total) for an alleged wrongdoing while employed by me – accompanying one of my coach trips to the European Parliament, several months earlier. However, little discrepancies like that were not allowed to get in the way of the required decision!

What was the result of Eddy Butler being deprived of 60% of his income? He set up his ‘blog’ on which he criticised the Chairman and the running of the Party and those associated with him. In response, our Chairman’s associates set up a blog on which personal attacks were made against Eddy Butler. Eddy Butler responded by making equally personal attacks against our Chairman and his associates.

The decision to remove Eddy Butler from his paid employment did not only serve to provoke a hostile response from Eddy Butler; it facilitated one. For as long as Eddy was employed by our Chairman, he would have had to consider the real cost of launching any damaging attacks on him. Once he was removed from that employment, he was freed from any such inhibition. It is this fatal mistake that some would like me to replicate.

In the meanwhile, the Chairman devised some rules that required nominations for the leadership election to be submitted by (twenty-four month) members individually and would-be candidates were forbidden from using membership lists to persuade members to nominate. In two regions (the North West and the South East) members seeking nominations for Eddy Butler were suspended from membership without the reason for their suspensions being given. Their suspensions had not been lifted and no disciplinary action had followed several months later. I do not know whether or not they have been lifted since.

In September, an edict was issued against factional ‘blogs’. I tried to persuade Eddy Butler to take his down. He refused. He was then told that he had been expelled. When he demanded a tribunal, he was told that he was only a probationary member and could be expelled without a tribunal. The suggestion that a member of more than a decade might be a probationary member is self-evidently absurd.

There is a very real danger that elements of the media will argue that the way in which we treat each other might provide an insight into how a BNP Government would treat its opponents and the population at large.

We are now in a situation in which significant numbers of our May 2010 activists are alienated from the present leadership and in some cases from the Party. There seems to be a campaign to remove any people suspected of such alienation from positions of authority within the Party. They are being replaced by people whose personal devotion to our Chairman is unquestioned (and unquestioning). This one quality is put before everything else including: ability; suitability; and even geographical location.

Where Do We Go From Here?

It would be tempting to reply (like the apocryphal Irishman in the joke) that, “I would not have started from here!” However, we must start from here. It would be equally tempting to reach out for something that we would like in an ideal world, regardless of its attainability.

I said, at the time of the leadership nominations, that we had fourteen thousand members and between a thousand and two thousand activists in May 2010. This enabled us to contest a credible general election campaign, as a serious minor party. It would have been impossible to do so with many fewer members and activists. It is imperative that we win back the bulk of the alienated and the disaffected, if we are to survive as a serious minor party.

Many of the disaffected are unwilling to return to activity (or even renewed membership) with our present Chairman in his position. However, our present Chairman has shown no sign of resigning voluntarily and, if he did so, there would be no obvious successor. The one possible solution would be a compromise of power-sharing. This is not complete ‘pie-in-the-sky’. The 2010 Annual Conference committed the Party to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting to consider a proposal submitted by Arthur Kemp and supported by our Chairman for a constitutional change that would involve the Chairman sharing power with an indirectly elected body comprising, (mainly) regional organisers elected by branch organisers. This is not an option that the leadership might consider; it is a firm obligation created by the Annual Conference. It is also the only possibility that we might regain some degree of party unity.

In the meanwhile, I am resolved not to allow myself to be used, by either side, in a civil war of which I disapprove. I employ staff with a variety of opinions on the current party civil war. If I start dismissing factionalists on one side of the dispute, I shall end by dismissing factionalists on both sides. Where would we be then?

The road to Libya

The following article, originally published by Searchlight, has been re-published on the Lancaster Unity blogspot, and is posted here as part of a service of enlightenment of members of the British National Party as to the true nature of the profoundly immoral and unsavoury individuals who currently constitute our party's leadership, and their history of betrayal of British nationalism.

It makes depressing reading, but it is essential to understand how we got to where we are, if British nationalism is to regenerate itself, purge its bad blood, and become the spearhead of the British people that our people both need and deserve.

The article now follows.

The NF's Roundabout Route to Tripoli Revealed

This is how Searchlight reported the Griffin and Harrington trip to Libya in March 1989

In the last few weeks Searchlight investigators have been able to uncover the exclusive story of how three of the NF political soidier chiefs found themselves in Libya last September as guests of the Government.

In 1983 Derek Holland and Joe Pearce were negotiating with the London Libyan People's Bureau for assistance. But these negotiations came to an abrupt end when a killer firing from inside the building shot down policewoman Yvonne Fletcher in cold blood and wounded a number of Libyan exiles, who were demonstrating outside.

The ineptitude of Special Branch led to their failure to discover correspondence between Pearce and the Libyans when they raided Ian Anderson's old flat in Newham East London. Anderson and Pearce were later charged with publishing Bulldog in contravention of the Race Relations Act. Pearce went to prison but Anderson was acquitted.

The Italian terrorist exiles promised to put the NF in touch with friendly Arabs in France but this also seems to have foundered. Then a visit by NF chief Nick Griffin to Spain brought him into contact with Colonel Carlos Meer de Ribera's organisation, the Co-ordinating Group of Nationalist Forces. This looked a more likely route to the Libyan leader, as Ribera was in fact an agent of the Libyan regime enjoying the personal support of Gaddafi.

But again fate intervened. The Spanish nazi was arrested and convicted of spying for Libya and of using Libyan funds to finance various fascist groups attempting to destabilise the fragile democracy that had come to Spain after Franco's death.

Then on 19th January 1987 the political soldiers wrote to Robert Pash, leader of the National Vanguard and the Australian People's Congress, in Capalab, Queensland. It was clear from the letter that they were having no luck in re-establishing contact with the Libyans. But Pash was in a strong position to help them out.

In 1985 Pash had been exposed as a front man for the Libyans. A convert to Islam, he has tried to forge a link between the ultra right and the ultra left in Australia, to oppose the Jews and form an international union of white states. He was also involved with the distribution of Ku Klux Klan material in Australia. Stung by Pash's exposure, the Libyan representative in Australia tried to deny any connection with this third positionist crank.

But in reality Pash has gone on to be the man who fixes things for Colonel Gaddafi in Australia. When free trips are arranged for MPs, the press and other special guests, it is Pash who organises things. Among those who have enjoyed his arrangements are John Bennett, the Australian historical revisionist and associate of British historian David Irving and Willis Carlo in the United States.

Two months ago Pash was seen in Tripoli on the arm of the Libyan Foreign Minister who was not denying that Pash had arranged the NF chiefs' trip to his country.

From the political soldiers' letter in 1987, it was clear that they did not have access to Gaddafi's Green Book in the UK. But within a few months they had become sole distributors of the Green Book in Britain.

According to sources close to the Libyan Foreign Office the Libyans are looking for someone to write a book for the western market on the life and thoughts of Colonel Gaddafi and to re-write the Green Book in a style more understandable to western readers. We bet Harrington and Holland are sharpening up their quills.

Thanks to Gerry Gable at Searchlight