Author: Sonia Gable | Date: September 2009

‘Cash strapped’ BNP fails to deliver accounts

Although the British National Party never stated it outright, its members were by and large persuaded to pour money into its European election campaign in the hope that the party would be repaid several times over in the form of lavish salaries and expenses for its successful candidates.

To their disappointment, the two BNP MEPs soon found out that the European Parliament had tightened up the rules. It was not going to be possible for MEPs’ staff paid by the Parliament to work on party business, nor for their constituency offices to double as party bases. And most claims for travel expenses would require evidence of actual costs incurred.

“Any breach of [the rules] and we could be de-registered – in effect, the BNP would be banned,” proclaimed a BNP fundraising appeal in August, exaggerating in a desperate hope to scare supporters into parting with yet more money.

The anxiety of Nick Griffin, the party leader, was palpable. “Unfortunately many in the party don’t understand the stringent rules on European finances and wrongly think that the party is now financially well off,” wrote Griffin.

“This is not only incorrect but it has led to the central Party now being under incredible pressure. In short we are cash strapped,” he continued. Reinvigorated campaigns against the BNP required “the services of expensive legal experts” and there was a general election to fight.

Perhaps another exaggeration was Griffin’s statement that the party had “spent nearly £600,000 during the [European and county council] elections”, seeing as it had only appealed for £395,000. But Jim Dowson, the party’s fundraising consultant since late 2007, claimed on 20 June that the party had indeed raised “nearly £600,000” during the election campaign.

One cost supporters will not be happy to bear is the £600 in fines from the Electoral Commission as a result of the party’s failure to submit its 2008 accounts by 7 July. In 2007 the BNP was fined £1,200 for the prolonged lateness of its central and regional accounting unit accounts for 2006.

At that time Griffin blamed Kenny Smith, one of the leaders of the internal rebellion that broke out in December 2007. This year he has no such excuse. Quite the contrary. On 8 April Griffin announced the formation of a “full Treasury Department” consisting of “four full-time staff”. They included a “chartered accountant (ACCA qualified) with 25 years experience as a Senior Partner” and a “fully qualified accounts technician”.

Even though the incompetent David Hannam remained treasurer for some party units, these two should have been able to get the accounts signed off on time. So what has gone wrong?

The BNP has been silent about the delay. The party had obtained a short extension of the deadline from the Electoral Commission but still failed to deliver.

One possibility is that the new staff came on board too late to knock the accounts into shape after Jennie Noble, the former treasurer, had been in charge for nearly a year. Noble had been secretary of the BNP’s Trafalgar Club and has returned to a similar role with the club, which solicits monthly donations in return for putting on an annual dinner.

Alternatively, perhaps the accounts did arrive on time at Silver & Co, the independent firm of accountants who audit them, but they found problems. Silver & Co gave the BNP’s 2007 accounts an adverse audit report when they were unable to verify a large amount of expenditure. This year their concern may centre on ownership of the assets and the precise relationship between Dowson and the BNP.

When a photographer obtained a court order against the BNP earlier this year to recover sums the party owed him for infringing his copyright, bailiffs tried to seize the party’s “truth truck” advertising lorry. They found the BNP did not own it, despite Griffin’s claim in his New Year address that: “your cash allowed the party to buy our very own state of the art advertising lorry”. Instead it belonged to Dowson.

It is also Dowson who runs the BNP’s “administrative hub”, as he described it, at a business centre in east Belfast and one of his companies that employs the staff there. The party might be having difficulty explaining to its auditors how money that Dowson raised for the BNP, and assets that the BNP supposedly bought, ended up owned by Dowson and his companies.

During the European election campaign the BNP tried to win support on the back of the MPs’ expenses scandal, claiming its own financial affairs were transparent and above board. The absence of the party’s latest accounts proves once again what a lie that was.

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