1 min read
The BNP have suffered a thrashing at the hands of the electorate, despite fears that the extreme rightwing party would gain a seat in Parliament after their success in the European elections.
Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, last night said it was "not too late” for his party in Britain, which only recently publicly acknowledged that the Shoah happened.
However the results flooding in from seats and local councils across the UK did not support his statement, with the party returning no MPs and almost half of their candidates said to be facing losing their deposit.
Mr Griffin came in third in Barking, after a bitter campaign which saw volunteers and anti-racist activists come out to campaign for his Labour opponent, Margaret Hodge.
Gerry Gable, one of the founders of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight and an activist for Hope Not Hate, an anti-racist group, said the response from volunteers had been fantastic:
“When the party appealed for 300 people to come and help in Barking and Dagenham, 542 people turned up – and that day we delivered 92,000 leaflets.”
Altogether, the BNP won 560,140 votes in the UK – an upwards swing of 1.2 per cent from 2005.
Despite receiving 1.9 per cent of the vote overall, 0.2 of a percentage more than other small parties, such as the Scottish National Party, Mr Gable said the increase in vote percentage were down to more candidates being fielded, rather than a surge in support for Mr Griffin, who last year was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humberside.
“It’s very easy to up your share if the vote if you almost double the number of candidates.”