UK: BNP election hopes fade as leaders charged with race hate charges
01 March 2005
On 19 May the British National Party's current leader and their founder appeared at Leeds Magistrates Court charged with offences of inciting racial hatred following statements they made during a BBC television undercover investigation of party activists,
The Secret Policeman, which was broadcast last July. Party leader, Nick Griffin, has been charged with four counts of inciting racial hatred under Section 18 of the Public Order Act while the party's founder, John Tyndall, has been charged with using words or behaviour likely to stir up racial hatred. The organisation's Youth Organiser, Mark Collett, faces similar charges. All of the men were granted unconditional bail and will reappear on 16 June for committal to crown court. Anti-fascist demonstrators jeered the fascists, and a small group of supporters, as they arrived.
The charges against Griffin and Tyndall were announced in the run-up to May's general election and were seen as an embarrassment for the party, which has been attempting to "air-brush" its nazi philosophy and racist violence and substituting it with a more benign, community based nationalism, in the fashion of European far-right organisations. Putting up a record 118 candidates the party leadership was optimistic that it would achieve a good election result and had even mooted the possibility that they could win one seat to gain their first MP.
However, the statistics showed that only three BNP candidates had managed to attain more than 10 per cent of the vote. These included Len Starr (Burnley 10%); David Exley (Dewsbury, 13%) and a "rising star" in the BNP, Richard Barnbrook who achieved 16.9 % in Barking to take third position. The party leader, Nick Griffin, came last in the Keighley contest, where a strong anti-fascist campaign opposed his presence in the area. The organisation also failed to make any inroads in mayoral contests and several local elections that they contested, but they will want to use the experience gained to improve on their performance at local elections in May 2006. The BNP currently has 22 local councillors. The National Front contested 14 seats without making any noticeable electoral impact.<