Author: David Williams | Date: June 2010

No Future for us

The British National Party was not the only far right party to contest this year’s elections. The National Front, once Britain’s leading fascist party, fielded 17 candidates in the general election. Most polled abysmally.

Two exceptions were Chris Jackson in Rochdale, who took 2,236 votes (4.9%) and almost saved his deposit, and Kevin Bryan in Rossendale and Darwen, who won 1,062 votes (2.3%). Both men were until recently North West BNP organisers.

Not so public: NF supporters hide their faces at the Cenotaph

Michael Davidson’s 1,089 votes (2.3%) in West Ham and Joe Uttley’s 880 votes (2.8%) in Hull East were the only other results worth mentioning. No other NF candidate polled above 2%. Steven Smith, the former Burnley BNP organiser, failed to make any impact on the electorate taking a mere 135 votes (0.3%) in Keighley.

In the local elections the NF fielded 18 candidates: East Midlands 1, London 3, North East 3, North West 1, South East 1, West Midlands 7 and Yorkshire and The Humber 2. Five NF candidates contested Birmingham, clashing with the BNP in Kingstanding, Oscott, Sheldon, Shard End and South Yardley. Only in Sheldon, where Paul Morris polled 831 votes (8.8%), its highest vote in the city, did the NF beat the BNP whose candidate took only 101 votes (1.1%). Everywhere else the NF was comprehensively outpolled.

In Hull, where the BNP branch recently decamped to the NF, the cross fertilisation between the two parties continues. Jason Carr, the BNP council election candidate for Longhill ward, signed the nomination papers for Joe Uttley, the NF candidate for the East Hull parliamentary constituency.

Nick Walsh, the NF organiser who stood in Myton ward, Hull, had his nomination papers signed by Nigel Piggins, a former member of the Racial Volunteer Force, who was jailed for two years and three months in 2005 after he admitted conspiracy to publish the group’s magazine, Stormer, with the intention of stirring up race hate. He received a further three months for distributing a racist DVD, Skrewdriver Live in Germany.

In the West London borough of Hillingdon Ian Edward, the NF chairman, polled 504 votes (13.2%) in Harefields ward, a higher percentage of the vote than the four BNP candidates achieved in their respective wards and the highest percentage of the vote achieved by any NF candidate in the elections. Kevin Bryan, the NF candidate in Irwell, Rossendale, which he had previously contested for the BNP, polled its second highest percentage of the vote (11.6%). How either vote would fare against competition from the BNP is yet to be tested.

It should be noted, however, that direct comparisons of percentages do not always give the full picture as much depends on how many and which other candidates contest the ward. London percentages have been adjusted for the fact that voters were electing two or three candidates in this election compared to one in most of the rest of the country.

> Home < | > Print friendly < | > back < | > top < |