A battle for the leadership of the British National Party (BNP) has just begun. The contest promises to become very nasty over the next two months, with the current leadership resorting to gutter-level tactics to destroy Eddy Butler’s reputation.

In the one corner, we have Nicholas John Griffin, himself elected on a platform of party reform in 1999. In the other, we have Edward Butler, the party’s former National Elections officer and equally experienced nationalist.

Eddy Butler was rumoured to be considering a leadership challenge since before the General Election – he was suspended along with Mark Collett and Emma Colgate for plotting what the party described for the media as a ‘palace coup’. The party hasn’t clarified what exactly happened, as with most incidents, the party tends put a premium on the truth. We do know that all three were sacked from their paid-positions.

Then came the collapse of the relationship between the leadership and the party webmaster. A panicked Simon Bennett brought the website down because he believed party officials were attempting to steal his work. A communication breakdown lead to the site going down for several days, as amateur party employees battled to reinstate what was the most visited British party political website.

The BNP made the second greatest gain in the election, behind the Tories. The party increased its vote share from 0.7% to 1.9% (+1.2%), polling 564,331 votes. A section of the party supporters tried to allay disappointment with the result by claiming that our vote increased threefold. Whilst this is true, it’s probably related to the fact that we stood three times as many candidates!

Perhaps the more shocking results were recorded in the local elections. On that disastrous night,  the party lost 27 councillors. Just over half of our total number of elected local councillors.

More telling was the total wipeout sustained in Barking and Dagenham, where the party lost all 12 councillors. It is true to say that Labour deliberately focused election resources on this council and had the aid of several third party groups, the likes of Hope Not Hate – who happen to have an enviable record of successfully mobilising voters.

However, these resources would never have been directed towards Barking if Nicholas Griffin hadn’t brought the circus to town. Fighting hodge for the seat made sense, her majority had been chipped away election after election. It made sense to challenge Hodge, but with Richard Barnbrook.  It became obvious to the organisers that Labour and the anti-BNP groups, combined, had the party outgunned on the doorsteps. At the election count, Nick Griffin stated that he knew we couldn’t win the constituency. One correction here, I feel assured enough to say that I believe Richard Barnbrook would have run Margaret Hodge very close. It’s not that the party couldn’t win that seat, it’s that Nick Griffin couldn’t win the seat. The result of Nick Griffin focussing the anti-BNP forces on Barking was the loss of our ‘Jewel in the Crown’, Barking and Dagenham was supposed to be our chance to demonstrate that British Nationalists can administrate a local authority.

Did Nicholas Griffin take responsibility for his poor decision? Did Nicholas Griffin do what every other party leader does and at least offer to stand down following an electoral disaster?

No acceptance of responsibility was forthcoming. Even Gordon Brown, who also resisted leadership challenges, could no longer hold onto his position in the wake of Labour’s defeat, and this was with Labour’s gain of 412 councillors and the capturing of 17 local authorities.

Due to the nature of the party’s constitution, Nicholas Griffin holds ultimate power, therefore, he is ultimately responsible. This is one beauty of the undemocratic style of organisational structure within the party; responsibility cannot be parcelled out, or shared – it lies with the one man at the very apex of the power structure.

Party officials have attempted to apportion blame. Firstly to Simon Bennett, as part of a plethora of smears designed to discredit him with the membership. Latterly to Eddy Butler, as the leadership received word that Mr Butler was planning a leadership challenge. Again, due to the nature of the constitution – whereby all senior positions are by appointment of the chairman – some members, acting without integrity, will fight to keep Nicholas Griffin as chairman because they hold their positions courtesy of the incumbent. This is a clever mechanism that is designed to guarantee the loyalty of the Advisory Council because the fate of the AC members is entwined with the fate of the leader.

Leadership Battle

Newer members have been astonished to find that the hierarchy will set up and promote a blog whose sole aim is to destroy Eddy Butler’s reputation and therefore his credibility as a leadership candidate. One official casually broke data protection laws when he hired the services of a mass mailer to propagate links to attack-blogs which are supported and written by members of the hierarchy. This isn’t the action of a ‘normal’ political party.  The membership that is on a higher socio-economic status demand greater professionalism from their party’s leadership. They want a fair leadership election challenge.

Eddy Butler has an uphill struggle. The new constitution almost makes a leadership challenge impossible. Some will say that the constitution was beefed up to prevent against entryism in the wake of the constitutional amendments, supposedly so, but the voting members should have blocked the amendment requiring so many nomination signatures required to launch a leadership challenge, in the same way they blocked the 4-year election challenges that the chairman wanted.

The irony is that former reformer Nicholas Griffin has entrenched himself, after 10 years of leadership, against a candidate that demands and promises further reforms, and against large sections of his own membership.

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