The British National Party constantly claims that the other political parties don't care about the people they represent. Whether it's referring to MPs or local councillors, the BNP will state categorically that the people concerned are in the job only because they're corrupt and doing it for personal gain, or that they're useless and really have no idea what they're doing, to the detriment of their constituents. Yet the very few BNP councillors that have managed to get themselves elected (just 55 out of around 22000) have an appalling record. Even the people who stood for the BNP and failed to win a seat seem to have been tarnished by their contact with the fascist party and, in some cases, crimes have been committed just to allow them to stand for available council seats. With the able help of Searchlight, Stop the BNP, national UAF and a bunch of other sources, here's our list of crap councillors, useless former councillors and appalling also-rans who represent (or hoped to) the BNP. We hope this list will be a useful resource to campaigners but that will only work if it's kept up to date. If you have any interesting news about any BNP councillor (or a councillor from any fascist party, come to that) let us know by emailing us at lancaster.unity@lancasteruaf.myzen.co.uk (and don't forget to include a link to your source). Last updated: 21/05/2008 List of crap BNP councillors (and also-rans) (most recent additions at the top of the list) May arrives with a bit of sunshine and the news that Colin Auty, Kirklees BNP councillor, is to challenge Nick Griffin for the leadership of the party. This should prove to be the end of Auty's career (such as it is). Normally we wouldn't bother writing much about the BNP's parish/town councillors because they generally do even less than its borough/city councillors but when the party loses three at once, it's worth a mention. John Oddy, Paul Harley and Sue Harley all resign the BNP whip at Colwyn Bay town council (before they've even attended their first meeting). A record - even by the extremely low standards of the BNP. April is here and the BNP is well on
form. London BNP's second in line for the Assembly, Nick Eriksen,
is discovered to have some peculiar views on women, including the
bizarre idea that
women are more troubled by bag theft than rape. Thankfully
he's booted out the day after his views become public - though
he remains in the party and in his role as organiser. March sees the BNP saying goodbye to Pat Pattison, a town councillor for Llysfaen. Pattison claimed he was being booted out because he had helped an Asian family, while the BNP stated that he did not meet the standard it expected from its councillors. And they said that without laughing. Mr Pattison wrote to us to make a few things clear... On March 17th at Leeds Magistrates Court, John Powell was found guilty of assault by beating/battery of it is believed his wife. Powell who stood as a BNP candidate in Beeston & Holbeck in 2004,Garforth and Swillington in 2006 and Killingbeck and Seacroft in 2007 received a 12 months community order. February, and we wave a fond goodbye to Alan Bailey, another BNP thug who somehow managed to become a councillor then stood down - this time for work reasons. December sees a whole host of councillors standing down - maybe. Sadie Graham, Chris Beverley and a few others announce that they are to become 'independent nationalists' rather than BNP councillors. To date, this hasn't happened. We'll change the page when it does. November begins with a final burst of sun for the year and several BNP councillors, organisers and general hangers-on making fools of themselves, like Ken Booth, Tyneside organiser for the BNP, who claimed that Auschwitz was like a theme park. There was much embarrassment for the BNP in Scotland when it was revealed that an internal bulletin suggested that the party should take advantage of the shortage of volunteers for the annual Poppy Appeal. They really are opportunistic filth - from Griffin at the top of the party all the way down to the scum at the bottom. On a lighter note, Richard Barnbrook acts the fool as usual over at Barking and Dagenham. This little exchange should tell you everything you need to know about him. ...Barnbrook claimed that knife
crime in his ward was up six-fold this year. 'I refer you to the
stabbings at Becontree station'. 'Oh' said Barnbrook. Still in November and we receive the news that BNP community councillor Patrick Pattison is being dragged off to court by Conwy County Borough Council to prevent him behaving in a “threatening, abusive or insulting way” towards officers and members. His response was interesting; 'I’m being victimised by this council, it’s been going on for years'. Indeed. October brings us the happy news that James Lloyd, BNP councillor for Princes End ward on Sandwell council, has not attended a meeting in six months and thus will be booted off the council - and the deed is done in mid-October bringing the BNP down to 47 councillors out of around 22,000. Read on below for much more about the appalling Lloyd. September sees the David Enderby's appeal against a conviction of assaulting his wife, his mother-in-law and a 14-year-old girl upheld. Enderby, who claims to be ex-SAS, was convicted back in January and sadly walked away with just a fine for assault. This appeal adds another £200 to it. Pity he's not inside though the real shame is that he's still a councillor. Scum. September also brings news that unsuccessful BNP candidate Dominic Bugler has received an ASBO for subjecting his neighbours to 18 months of abuse, littering, drinking and fighting. Pelsall councillor Gary Perry said; "It was ironic that during the May elections he put out leaflets saying he was opposed to antisocial behaviour and in favour of law and order". Indeed it was. Bugler and his vile family have also been evicted from their home for non-payment of rent. One of our correspondents states, 'I was one of the residents...who helped obtain the ASBO against Dominic Bugler. He had terrorised Pelsall for years! We had to go to court, but thankfully, did not have to give evidence as he pleaded guilty! Mind you we had to wait 4 hours to hear this news as Bugler had been arrested the day before for breach of the peace and he had to be tried for that first! He had also been found guilty of assault 3 weeks earlier for attacking another resident in the street! Mind you, in the May local elections he did get more votes than all the other independent candidates and he was in prison at the time on a firearms charge!' What a great example Bugler is of the shiny new law and order-supporting BNP. Would-be councillor Ian Leadbitter, also the Sunderland BNP organiser, used the letters column of his local newspaper to resign from his post and also as a candidate for the BNP in local elections, citing 'differences of opinions' as his reason. Leadbitter was, you'll recall, the arrogant taxi driver who lost his contract to drive autistic kids to and from school after he ignored pleas that some of them found the extremely loud radio in his taxi distressing. August, and one of the victims of the purge following the BNP leadership election is Sandwell councillor, Simon Smith. Though resigning as a member of the party, it's pretty clear that his resignation was forced upon him rather than voluntary. This loss puts the BNP with less councillors than it had before the May elections! July, and summer arrives with the usual deluge of rain and floods all over the place. There is however, a bright spot. Terry Farr, BNP councillor on Epping Forest District Council resigns stating pressure of work. Nobody believes it, choosing instead to believe that he's been embarrassed into resigning because he's just useless (as are all the BNP contingent). July also sees the ghastly Bradford West BNP councillor Paul Cromie, a veteran of Standard Board investigations, found guilty by the SB of bringing his office into disrepute by dishing out £5 gifts to pensioners at an old people's home. A British National Party councillor has been suspended for publishing material which was "hateful and abusive" to ethnic minorities. Councillor Simon Smith of Sandwell Council in the Black Country put the material on his council web-page, was reported to the Standards Board, who did the decent thing and suspended him. So why not sack him? June 2007sees what appears to be an all-time record for the shortest tenure of any councillor - albeit for a parish council, when British National Party member Peter Pirnie quit his Kingswear council seat just three days after taking his seat. It's also the month when Jim Lloyd's lad earned himself three years inside for being a twat - just like his Sandwell BNP councillor father. May 2007got off to a good start. Dominic Bugler, BNP candidate for Pelsall (Walsall Council), appeared at the town's magistrates court charged with possessing an imitation firearm. He was remanded in custody until after the election. The May local government elections produced some nice results. Richard Mulhall, formerly councillor for Calderdale and convicted benefit thief, was unceremoniously booted out, while the BNP's very own fake vicar, Robert West, leader of the BNP front-group, the Christian Council of Britain, was kicked out of his Spalding seat too. Oh happy day. The elections were a disaster for the BNP. They fielded 750 candidates and spent copious amounts of money on leaflets et al, only to find themselves with just one extra councillor. This was cancelled just a week later by Longton North's Mark Leat, who moved across the chamber to become an Independent. Mike Howson, the BNP's regional organiser for the mid-west and former candidate for the party, who is one of the people responsible for the BNP's ludicrous BNP-instigated vigilante group (sorry, 'community patrol') in Corsham and who is also an apparently highly-regarded air cadet youth leader, was found to have a web site littered with 'white pride' and 'white nationalist' videos, some of which have swastikas prominently placed on them. Two Sandwell BNP councillors, Simon Smith and Carl Butler, staged an impromptu walkout from Sandwell Council at the Mayor-making ceremony because the new Mayor was a Sikh, Gurcharan Sidhu, claiming that his appointment breaches Magna Carta, the morons. It looks like they'll be joining many of their BNP comrades in a visit to the Standards Board. April 2007 brings a whole cluster of dodgy nominations courtesy of the BNP - but it also provides some other entertainment. Barnsley BNP candidate Nick Parker has a conviction for fraud, having been fined £450 by Wakefield magistrates for forging a document from a financial firm which stated an insurance policy was worth less than its true value. He was a magistrate until his conviction! Karl Newman, candidate in Redditch, has an obsession with all things Nazi, going to 're-enactments' and rebuilding swastika-laden WWII-vintage Nazi vehicles. You might think he's just your average fruitcake until you hear that he said in an interview with a local paper; '...so the BNP is only for white people, but that does not mean I am a racist.' Okay Karl. Keep on taking the tablets. Allan Milton, would-be BNP candidate for Kirklees, had to withdraw from the May 2007 local council election because he works for the council on which he was attempting to sit. Although the rules are very clear and have been in place for the past thirty-five years, Milton just happened not to spot that he would have been in breach of the law if he had stood. How convenient. Once again, the ghastly Colin Auty, a Kirklees BNP councillor, has been reported (in March and April 2007) to the Standards Board, though this time for a racist song, sung by his crap band Red Claire, which includes Paul Cromie, another habitué of the Standards Board. Auty has now (April 2007) been re-referred to the Standards Board following a further complaint after he played the song outside the office of Labour MP Shahid Malik. Former British National Party European election candidate has been left nearly £30,000 out of pocket after a court struck out his libel claim against Searchlight. Sidney Chaney, a serial litigant from Basildon, Essex, brought his action against Searchlight Information Services, Gerry Gable and Sonia Gable over a leaflet that Searchlight published during the 2004 European election campaign. Tough luck Sid. An investigation has been launched into claims that BNP councillors in Sandwell allegedly voted illegally at an annual budget meeting in March 2007. Sandwell Council lawyers are to pass on information to police after allegations that one or more of the borough's four BNP councillors took part in the meeting despite being in arrears with their council tax. It is illegal for local authority members to vote on budgetary matters if they are more than two months behind with payments. A Sandwell Council spokesman confirmed an investigation was under way into the allegations against BNP councillors James Lloyd, Simon Smith, Carl Butler and Russell Green, though it seems likely that the main culprit is James Lloyd, who certainly is in arrears with his council tax. The three BNP councillors on Kirklees Council, Colin Auty, David Exley and Roger Roberts, also come in for heavy criticism in March 2007 for remaining silent through the entire six-hour budget meeting. Three Green councillors contributed in the proper way and succeeded in influencing the authority’s budget. Would be BNP councillor, Michael Dafter, who stood for the far-right party twice, received a two-year banning order in court in January 2007, banning him from football matches both home and abroad, after hooliganism in Newcaster City Centre. Dafter's football-related criminal record goes back years. BNP councillor for Redditch Borough Council, David Enderby, couldn't wait long to get into the swing of things. Just weeks after being elected, he had been charged with three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Enderby, who won by just 12 votes, claims to be ex-SAS and says, as all BNP councillors do when they're accused of absolutely anything illegal, 'I'm not guilty of any offence at all.' The court saw differently and found him guilty on all counts (23.1.2007). Sandwell BNP councillor, James Lloyd, lost the licence (22.1.2007) to the pub he ran at Tipton after incidents involving attacks with semi-automatic weapons and machetes. Lloyd refused to pass over CCTV footage of the incidents and also refused to make written statements to the police. Could this be a coincidence, given that the pub - the Lagoon - was the local BNP headquarters? Another Sandwell councillor Simon Smith, had his council-hosted website closed down after the council realised that it contravened its duty to 'promote equality and good race relations'. Retired businessman Paul Cromie, BNP councillor for the Queensbury ward in Bradford, is going for the triple. He's currently (October 2006) under investigation for vote-buying and the Standards Board are investigating a complaint against him that he brought the council into disrepute by sending out a bunch of pornographic pictures via email. Cromie, of course, denies this, claiming to be computer-illiterate - a strange claim for a councillor and businessman in this day and age. Not content with being in more trouble than the average BNP councillor, Christmas 2006 saw him send out over 200 £5 'presents' to pensioners at sheltered housing in his ward, a 'gift' that many see as a bribe and that has Bradford Council legal officers scurrying around to see if he's acted outside the law. Cromie is either staggeringly naive or shockingly stupid - or he thinks we all are. November 2006 and Mirfield BNP councillor Roger Roberts is thrown off the council for not attending a meeting for six months, which seems to be a common habit amongst BNP councillors. Sadly, he's still a councillor for Heckmondwike. Since he defected to the BNP from the Tories, he regularly attended a meeting every six months. What a fine example of a hard-working councillor. He won't be missed. In 2000, BNP member John Haycock was elected unopposed to a parish
council in Bromyard. He was sacked from the council nine months
later for non-attendance. More contempt for democracy. The BNP use dirty tricks. In November 2002 they secured their fourth councillor when Robin Evans won Mill Hill ward in Blackburn. Their campaign was based on deception and lies. In one leaflet a picture of Finsbury Park mosque was printed, with a caption stating that Muslims there celebrated the September 11th attacks. It neglected to tell voters that this mosque was in London. Another ludicrous claim – that Asians were likely to become the majority in Blackburn within 10 years – was aimed at stoking up fear based on misinformation. In fact the non-white population stands at one-fifth in the town. Forgery was even attempted when the BNP produced a leaflet purporting to come from the Liberal Democrats. Under the title 'Caring for Ethnic Minorities' the leaflet urged people to vote Lib Dem if they wanted more money spent on Asians and asylum seekers. The leaflet is now under police investigation. A similar dirty tricks campaign was used in the Mixenden by-election in Halifax. Luke Smith (Burnley). Was forced to resign after he smashed a bottle
into the face of a Leeds BNP organiser. Despite claiming to be the
party of law and order, the BNP failed to call in the police and
press charges. Smith had only recently been convicted of football
violence when he was elected as a BNP candidate. He has had several
more recent convictions and was recently sentenced to 11 months imprisonment
after being caught fighting in Manchester. Recently found guilty of a racially
aggravated public order offence in which he shouted a racist comment
at a group of Asian men outside the Orange House pub in Hammerton
Street, Burnley, before telling them to get back 'to their own
country' for which he was ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid
work in the community – the maximum magistrates can impose – observe
a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew for four months and pay £300 costs.
Attended just three council meetings out of eleven. Claire Doncaster, one of the new BNP councillors for Alibon ward, was taken to court last year. Rent arrears of £2,280 have still not been paid. Finally evicted in late-August 2006, Doncaster was part of the group of new BNP councillors who became the official opposition in Barking and Dagenham on May 2006. Good to see they're keeping up to their usual standards. She is now residing with her mother Sandra who is also a BNP councillor for Valence Ward. Sandra Doncaster is also being threatened with eviction from her council home for non payment of council tax. A fine example. Never mind - if they're both evicted, perhaps they could go and stay with fellow BNP councillor Jeffrey Steed. Oh no, sorry, they can't - he owes the council £1300. What a bunch. Sandra Doncaster is pretty well known in Valence.
Two years ago she pleaded guilty at Barking Magistrates Court of
leaving her dogs barking in the house for long periods, despite
receiving a council warning. She was fined £200 and ordered to pay
£250 costs plus her name was placed on the council's list of
nuisance neighbours. Back in 2000, Snaresbrook Crown Court rejected
an appeal from Doncaster and her husband against an order for the
destruction of one of their German Shepherds because it was a danger
to the public. A couple were listed among the
assentors on the nomination form for Peter Wade, who
unsuccessfully stood for the BNP in the Eccleshill ward in the
elections in May 2006. Wade claimed he had met the couple in a pub -
which the couple categorically deny. An investigation is now under
way by the police. Richard Barnbrook, the leader of the BNP group on Barking and Dagenham Council, is under investigation for allegedly supplying electoral officers with the wrong home address - that enabled him to stand for the council. The whole BNP group of eleven councillors was humiliated at its first meeting when just a single BNP councillor voted for an amendment to a paper. The amendment had been proposed by the BNP itself. Barnbrook is not Mr Popular, even in his own group. A couple of months ago a group of BNP activists distributed anti-Barnbrook leaflets outside a Dagenham pub and betting office, calling on him to resign as group leader. Barking and Dagenham BNP tried to take credit for the announcement that thousands of new homes were to be built in the borough, that was made just weeks after the elections. This despite the fact that the decisions were all made months before the BNP arrived on the scene. Robert Buckley, the new BNP
councillor for Mayesbrook ward, appeared at Ilford County Court
yesterday (May 25th) after failing to pay his rent for five months.
After the hearing, Mr Buckley said his attendance allowance as a
councillor would help him repay his debt. Clarke has now been booted off her
second council seat (on Keighley Town Council) for non-attendance,
after missing six month's worth of meetings, a habit she shares with
many other BNP councillors. Pendle's first BNP councillor, Brian Parker (elected May 2006), went on holiday to Scarborough instead of attending his first council meeting at which five items on the agenda related directly to his ward. He's not the only one. George
Morgan, newly-elected to Chelmsley Wood ward on Solihull
Council, couldn't be bothered to attend the council's inaugural
meeting at the council's Civic Suite, where the new borough
councillors normally take their seats for the first time. In Halifax and Burnley, BNP councillors failed to attend the crucial budget meeting that sets council tax and spending for the coming year. This was in spite of promising voters that they would fight for tax cuts. In Burnley, all three councillors were absent from the most important meeting of the year. Confirmed racist and former member of the BNP, Sharon Ebanks, who lost her short-lived BNP seat on Birmingham City Council in July 2006 after the party forced the issue of a miscount to the High Court, which could end up costing the council as much as £100,000, attended her first council meeting but said nothing, preferring to sit and fiddle with her numerous mobile phones. Ebanks has since been sacked from the BNP following claims that £7000 that was collected from supporters to go towards her costs in the High Court had disappeared into the bottomless pockets of the BNP treasury, subsequent angry exchanges and an awful lot of insults and accusations. This one will run and run. The annual budget meeting is the most important council meeting of the year. It is here that the level of services is determined and the council tax. So what did the BNP councillors in Calderdale do? Largely ignore it. Adrian Marsden did not even bother to attend. Richard Mulhall turned up to enjoy the free buffet but seemed to disappear after only a few minutes of the meeting, so missing all the votes. Geoffrey Wallace did turn up but then vanished missing two key votes, including one that will lead to a cut in funding for the voluntary sector. The voluntary sector, including charities and groups that help the elderly, disabled and disadvantaged children, will not be thanking the BNP. The crucial vote was tied but fell with the casting vote of the Mayor. If only one BNP councillor had been bothered to be present during the vote then the voluntary sector, and the people who rely on their hard work, could have been smiling. As it was they weren't, and once again the BNP let down its voters. All this is a far cry from the BNP's own manual into being a good councillor - written by the Calderdale BNP councillors. Burnley BNP budget debacle: the budget meeting is the most important council event of the year. It is the meeting where the level of services are determined and the council tax is set. It is an opportunity for political parties to give their views on the priorities over the coming year. In 2003 none of the BNP councillors attended. In 2004 they were there but sat in silence. In 2005 only two of the six attended and then one left after 30 minutes. In 2006 only two of the six attended and they voted for the Labour budget. Moving on to BNP councillors who never made it, we come to Paul Snell, former candidate for Heanor and Loscoe on Amber Valley Borough Council (twice). Snell first stood for the seat in February, when the BNP was severely criticised for falsely claiming illegal immigrants raped a local woman. Police say the incident never happened. Former BNP Worcester Organizer, Kevin Hughes, who stood for his local council seat a couple of years ago (and lost), is currently serving thirty months for attacking an Iraqi in a pub after asking him where he came from. West Midlands organiser and deputy leader of the party Simon Darby said they would stand by Hughes. 'We are 100 per cent behind Kevin and the day he steps out of prison is the day he gets his job back,' said Darby. Since then, the BNP has droned on endlessly about their so-called 'political prisoner' and how terrible it is that he's been banged up. Their main problem appears to be articulated in this question, which they use whenever they refer to Hughes; 'What is an Iraqi doing in a British pub when British soldiers are in Iraq?' Update: Hughes had his sentence reduced by six months at his appeal on 6.10.06. Former BNP council candidate, Garry Marshall, 46, of Sutton in Ashfield, received a life sentence in November 2006 for the murder of his partner a year earlier. A post-mortem examination revealed she suffered 37 stab wounds to her neck and abdomen. Marshall, a former miner who ran for the British National Party in the 1995 Kirkby North by-election for Nottinghamshire County Council and lost, had previously claimed he was elsewhere at the time. Another would-be BNP councillor is keeping closer to the British National Party's football hooligan tradition. Jason Douglas, who stood in Redbridge, was caught up in a violent pitch invasion at a football match over the weekend after the election. Douglas has a record of hooliganism already and was at the ground despite a prior ban - for hooliganism. In May 2001, six BNP council candidates in Burnley were excluded after it was discovered that several of the people who were supposed to have signed the nomination papers denied doing so. Deception also played a role in a council by-election in Three Rivers, Hertfordshire in November 2000. Several people who signed the form nominating BNP member Ian Edwards later complained that they were unaware of what they were signing. This included an 80-year-old Labour Party member. Colin Smith, a key member of the BNP gave an address in Beckton, despite actually living in Bexleyheath. In May 1998, Smith stood in two local council elections simultaneously, using separate addresses to meet the residence requirement in each case. One candidate, Paul Henderson, stood under a false name. In Scotland, where the BNP fielded eight candidates, seven were not living at the addresses given on their nomination forms. Brian Wainwright has twice stood for election for the BNP. In 2004 he was a council BNP candidate for Ovenden, polling 894 votes to Linda Riordan's 1,263. He stood as BNP Parliamentary candidate for Hull North in 2005 but polled just 766. Wainwright is in court for sending hate mail to an Asian councillor, an anti-racist campaigner and a mosque. The mails included threats, a promise that blood would be spilled, a swastika and SS insignia. In the June 1999 elections, the BNP lied and cheated its way to a five-minute party political broadcast and the free delivery of 15 million leaflets by the Royal Mail. As many as 15 BNP candidates, out of a total of 79, gave false addresses on their nomination forms. During the passage through Parliament of the Representation of the
People act 2000, Home Secretary Jack Straw specifically noted the
BNP abuse in his speech introducing the Bill.
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