Griffinwatch II
Article published: Wednesday, May 5th 2010
Recently MULE looked at Nick Griffin’s career in the European Parliament since he was elected last summer, and concluded that it was less than illustrious. Things haven’t really got much better for the North West’s beloved MEP since, and it seems that his ill-fated attempt to dump the European Parliament and get elected MP for Barking and Dagenham is dragging the Party down with him.
Nick Griffin, who's definitely not making it up as he goes along.
When he was in the constituency in the days running up to St. George’s Day he got into a spat with local BNP leader and representative on the London Assembly, Richard Barnbrook. Barnbrook wanted to ride a white horse through Barking dressed as St. George – the well known Palestinian Roman soldier venerated in ethnically British countries like England, Georgia, Lithuania and Ethiopia – but Griffin planned to launch the BNP’s manifesto in the town on the same day, and sulkingly thought that Barnbrook would prevent him being the centre of attention. He demanded that Barnbrook (who was originally planned to be the BNP candidate for the seat before Griffin parachuted himself in) call off the plans, and was promptly ignored.
Vanquished by St. George, Griffin headed to Stoke with his tail between his legs (whilst Barnbrook got berated by Billy Bragg). Stoke has six BNP councillors and must have seemed like safe territory for the manifesto launch, but it turns out those councillors had other plans. As with Barking and Dagenham, Griffin’s inner circle dumped a candidate on a constituency where a local activist had done all the work in whipping up race hate – in this case griffin’s lieutenant, Simon Darby, was put up as the candidate for Stoke Central, pissing off local fascist Alby Walker. Cunningly, Walker left the party and the BNP faction in the council and announced that he was going to stand against Darby as an independent just hours before the manifesto launch. As MULE has already reported, local Labour activists in Stoke were angry that Peter Mandelson had dumped a non-local candidate on them, and it looked like the BNP would gain from this. Fortunately, by being as bad as Mandelson they now have dissent in their own ranks which will surely stop them getting anywhere near a seat.
On the same day, Unilever, the owners of Marmite, began legal action after the BNP made an election broadcast showing a jar of the archetypal half-Dutch British spread hovering over Griffin’s shoulder, whilst over his other shoulder stared the archetypal half-American British hero Winston Churchill. Initially when the media contacted them for comment, Griffin said that it was a prank, but when Unilever threatened legal action they claimed that someone had “tampered” with the video before it went up. Then, by the end of the day, they changed their story again – claiming that it was in retaliation for Marmite’s recent adverts on the “Love it or Hate it” theme, in which a Cambridge-educated loony invites people to vote for the “Hate Party”. Now what is it about that particular fictional entity that they self-identify with..?
Fast-forward to Wednesday the 4th of May, and Simon Bennett, the BNP’s webmaster, resigned and closed the website down, redirecting visitors to his own personal site in which he launched an attack on Griffin and his henchmen. He referred to Griffin and James Dowson, the BNP’s election fundraiser, of being “pathetic, desperate and incompetent”, claimed that he had been physically threatened over matters relating to the website, that the leadership wasted fees and donations and that they were refusing to reimburse him for his work. He then claimed that far from being tampered with the Marmite video was Griffin and Dowson’s idea, saying: “I had warned them not to proceed, but both were insistent that this is a brilliant publicity stunt.” However since his name is the only one affiliated with the website, and since the BNP is unincorporated, he is liable to the £17,000 Unilever seeks – a situation he believes Griffin intentionally placed him in.
All of this is nothing compared to the beginning of April, when Mark Collett, head of publicity and former chairman of the Young BNP, gave the party some great publicity by being arrested for threatening to kill Griffin as part of a “palace coup”. Collett was the BNP’s candidate for Sheffield Brightside before being deselected by the party, and was apparently motivated by a suspicion within the party that Griffin and fellow MEP Andrew Brons are not being as open with the details of their expenses in Europe as they should be. Or, since he was fingered by the BNP’s “internal security team” and the complaint to the police came from Griffin himself, it’s entirely possible no threat existed in the first place. All of this makes for an unhappy fascist family.
All in all it looks likely that the BNP vote, buoyed by last year’s “historic” victory in the elections for the European Parliament is starting to break apart because of the friction between community-based racists and power-mad racists who have their one eye firmly on a seat in parliament. Given that he makes Gordon Brown’s campaign look like Barack Obama’s, it’s no wonder some on the far-right have been wondering whether or not Griffin is doing it on purpose. They have a point: judging by his detrimental impact so far, maybe Griffin’s leadership isn’t such a bad thing…
Ragnor Ironpants
More: Election, Manchester, News
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