London Assembly

Fears that BNP will run Stoke

Dana Gloger — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Anti-fascists are concerned that the British National Party (BNP) could control Stoke-on-Trent City Council within the next three years, following its gains in last month’s elections.

The party’s most notorious success in May’s local and London elections was Richard Barnbrook’s seat on the London Assembly, but it also made substantial gains elsewhere.

An anti-BNP poster launched before the May local elections

In Stoke, the BNP increased its presence from six councillors to nine, making it the joint second-largest party on the council, along with the Conservative and Independent Alliance. In two of the city’s wards, the party holds all three council seats. The BNP is also the second-largest party on Barking and Dagenham Council.

Locals fear that within two or three years the party could control Stoke Council, and possibly win next year’s mayoral vote.

Many in the city have blamed the rise of the BNP on the last Labour council, which they claim did not address the concerns of the local population.

Sydney Morris, president of the Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire Synagogue, said: “The previous council didn’t do a lot to prove itself, and now it is feasible that the BNP might become the majority party. It could certainly happen.”

Although the Jewish community in the city is small, with only 22 synagogue members, Mr Morris said the rise of the BNP in Stoke was still of huge concern.

“It does worry me,” he said. “People must not be apathetic. It must be brought to people’s notice, so that we stand a chance of combatting them.”

Barbara Goldstone, president of the Manchester Jewish Representative Council, which looks after the Stoke community, also expressed her fear over the BNP’s increased popularity in the city.

“We are very concerned with it and will do all we can,” she said.

A spokesman for the Community Security Trust said: “The fact that the BNP has recently switched targets from Jews and blacks to Muslims and asylum-seekers merely shows that they threaten all of our society.”

Stoke has traditionally been a Labour stronghold. In the mid-1990s, Labour held all 60 seats on the council.

This time, however, Labour has only 16 councillors, who include the elected mayor.

One of the main reasons cited for Labour’s decline in the city and the increased popularity of the BNP is the decrease of the manufacturing and pottery industries, which previously employed around 50,000 people.

Now just 6,000 are left working in the mines and pottery industries, and Stoke-on-Trent has one of the lowest proportions of people in employment in the country.

In 2007, the city was ranked as the second most deprived borough in the West Midlands, and the 16th most deprived in the country. At the turn of the century, it had been the 34th most deprived.

Thirty-three per cent of areas in the city are in the top 10 per cent of most deprived areas nationally.

But Stoke-on-Trent is not the only area concerning anti-BNP activists.

The anti-fascist magazine Searchlight this week called on people to vote in upcoming council by-elections in East London, in order to prevent the BNP making gains.

On Thursday, July 3, by-elections will be held in Chadwell Heath (Barking and Dagenham) and South Hornchurch (Havering).

Nick Lowles, Searchlight editor, said: “It is vitally important that we stop the BNP from winning either.”

The BNP victory is a calamity

Daniel Finkelstein — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The election of the BNP to the London Assembly threatens clear thinking across the political board

‘Blimey.”

I sent this one-word text message to a member of the Tory high command as the results from the local elections came in and it became apparent that what had seemed almost impossible a few months ago had come to pass — Boris Johnson would be the next mayor of London.

“I think you mean cripes!” came the reply.

I have to admit it. It doesn’t reflect particularly well on me as a human being, but there it is. I took pleasure in Ken Livingstone’s defeat the other night. I was delighted to see him go down.

I read Jonathan Freedland in this paper a couple of weeks back making a case for Ken, and you can’t read Freedland without at least pausing. But I must say that, ahem, I didn’t pause as long as I have done on other occasions.

Ken Livingstone spent my money — my money — welcoming Yusuf al-Qaradawi to City Hall as an honoured guest. He knew what he was doing. He did it largely to annoy Jews. From playing footsie with the Workers Revolutionary Party, to his involvement with the fiercely anti-Zionist Labour Herald newspaper, annoying Jews has been a big theme of Livingstone’s career.

Well, congratulations, Ken. You
succeeded. Goodbye.

But even with Livingstone’s departure, I couldn’t fully enjoy the results from City Hall. For alongside Boris’s triumph there came disaster. A member of the British National Party was elected to the London Assembly.

The combination of their scoring 130,000 votes and gaining office is a genuine and unprecedented calamity. In the early 1970s, of course, the National Front began to make advances. Yet even at their peak — before collapsing due to an internal dispute over which of them should be Führer — they did not win office like this.

It is true that being a party-list member of the London Assembly is not like being a member of the Senate of the United States of America. The powers are extremely limited. In normal circumstances, it is hard for an assembly member to command attention of any kind. So why do I believe this BNP victory to be a calamity?

First, because the new member can act a rallying point for neo-Fascists.

On London’s Carlton House Terrace, there is a tiny grave marked “Giro”. It contains the remains of the dog that had belonged to the ambassador from Nazi Germany. It is the only British soil the Nazis managed to conquer. Now there will be a space in City Hall too. You can expect the BNP to make full use of this.

The second reason that it is a calamity is that the new post will provide a rallying point for extreme opponents of the BNP.

Since the 1930s, opposition to Fascism has been a recruiting technique for the far left. Along with the BNP, expect to see the Socialist Workers Party (who have time on their hands after their hilarious split with George Galloway) with their placards outside City Hall.

One might be tempted to welcome the presence of such doughty fighters except for this — their aim is not to fight Fascism so much as to advance their own cause. They want an atmosphere in which violent upheaval is possible. One tool will be to press for restrictions on free speech, ostensibly aimed at the BNP but in fact designed to restrict the freedom of expression of everyone who disagrees with them.

Particularly Jews.

This may seem an odd thing to say, but parties like the Socialist Workers Party have made supporters of Israel a particular target. Over the last 30 years, the extreme left has been at least as big a threat to our community as parties like the BNP, especially after their alliance with extremist members of the Muslim community.

The third reason it might prove a calamity is that it might prevent clear thinking on multiculturalism.

In the 1970s, three things destroyed the National Front. The first was the way the Thatcher government tackled Britain’s economic problems, the second was the Nationality Act that closed down the immigration issue, the third was the way that peer pressure was exerted by campaigns like Rock Against Racism. Under this pressure, the NF collapsed.

If the rise of the BNP deters the mainstream parties from discussing immigration in a measured and sensible way, and makes them frightened to argue that people who come to this country must make an effort to integrate, then the extremists will gain.

For some time it has been possible to believe that the BNP was not a real danger to the Jewish community. Yes it was bad, but it wasn’t a serious force.

I don’t think we can take such a relaxed view any more.

Daniel Finkelstein is Associate Editor of The Times

Relief as extremists fail to make big gains

Dana Gloger — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The British National Party won one seat on the London Assembly in last week’s elections, but did not make the large-scale gains nationally or in the capital that some had feared.

Richard Barnbrook, 47, the party’s mayoral candidate, took 5.3 per cent of the vote, giving him a seat on the assembly. Candidates needed five per cent of the overall vote to win a seat.

There had been fears that the BNP could win two or even three seats on the London Assembly.

In the local elections, the party polled around 252,233 votes but only gained 10 extra councillors, although they fielded around 650 candidates across the country. They won an extra 13 wards, but lost three existing councillors.

Their gains included three extra councillors in Stoke-on-Trent, one in Amber Valley, another in Rotherham and gains in Thurrock, Three Rivers, Pendle, Calderdale, Nuneaton & Bedworth.

The party held on to seats in Burnley and Epping Forest, though it also lost two seats in the latter and did not make any gains in Wales.

Pat Richardson, the BNP’s only Jewish councillor, blamed the Board of Deputies and anti-fascist magazine Searchlight for her party’s poor performance in Epping Forest.

The Loughton Broadway councillor said: “Faith groups, including the organisation Churches Together, the Board of Deputies and Searchlight, leafleted the area claiming that we are racists.

“We got a lot of abuse from people, many of whom do not even live in this area.”

Mrs Richardson added that she saw no conflict between being Jewish and being a member of the BNP.

“We have Jewish supporters around and about and I am not the first BNP candidate who is Jewish. There was one several years ago,” she said.

The BNP now has 55 councillors across England and Wales. The party’s deputy leader Simon Darby said he felt “very positive” about the election results.

Ruth Smeeth, of the Community Security Trust, who helped co-ordinate the JC-supported Hope not Hate campaign urging people to go to the polls in order to stop the BNP making gains, said that she felt more Jewish people had cast their vote this year.

“Turnout was up in many of the areas where Jews live, and in Kirklees, where the BNP lost a seat, we had specifically asked Jewish people to cast their votes. I think the campaign really helped,” said Ms Smeeth.

Henry Grunwald, president of the Board, said that Jewish voters had heeded the message to vote. “I can’t remember a time when the community responded as well as it did on a domestic issue,” he said.

Far right targets Essex with 625 candidates

Dana Gloger — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The British National Party is fielding around 150 candidates in South East constituencies in next month’s local and mayoral elections. It also has 10 candidates seeking election to the London Assembly, as well as a mayoral candidate, Richard Barnbrook.

One of the BNP’s local election candidates is Jewish councillor Pat Richardson, who is seeking re-election to the Loughton Fairmead ward of Epping Forest District Council. Mrs Richardson, who claims to have had a Jewish upbringing in Stoke Newington, North London, has declared that “the present party is different to the old party”.

In Thurrock, Essex, BNP candidates are standing in all 18 wards. Local organiser Dave Strickson, who was quoted in an interview in 2000 saying he had gone “Paki bashing” and “queer bashing”, will be standing in Aveley and Uplands. Four other family members, Sandra Strickson, Jamie Strickson, Ricky-Lee Strickson and Donna Strickson are also standing in Thurrock.

BNP East of England regional spokesperson Emma Colgate, who is standing in the Tilbury Riverside and Thurrock Park ward, has stood unsuccessfully as a councillor. She has previously said: “We have no argument with second-and third-generation Asian families who have worked very hard in Britain.”

Also standing in Thurrock is Ken Daly and his wife, Angela, who claim they joined the party after their son was killed in a street fight, to take a stand against a “soft” judicial system.

Derek William Beackon, a former member of the openly fascist British Movement, is standing in Thurrock’s Orsett ward. Mr Beackon hit the headlines after becoming the first BNP councillor when he won a seat in Millwall in 1993. The unemployed bus driver was pictured giving a Nazi salute on the night he won. Before becoming a councillor, he was the BNP’s chief steward, leading the party’s bodyguards.

Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, will also have BNP candidates in every ward. One of these is taxi-driver Ramon Paul Johns, 78, standing in Rye Park. A former local treasurer for the National Front, he has been calling for a white Britain since the 1970s.

Colchester, Essex, will see its first BNP candidate. Patrick Sullivan, 69, who lives in sheltered accommodation, is hoping to win the Highwoods ward. He claimed that within 10 years the ward would be a “non-white area” and maintains that all immigration should be halted.

The National Front is also fielding two candidates in London. Ian Edward is standing in Ealing and Hillingdon, while Tess Culnane is hoping to win the Greenwich and Lewisham seat.