Author: Nick Lowles | Date: October 2000

BNP feud heads for court

London’s High Court is set to become the venue for the increasingly acrimonious split within the British National Party, with both warring factions threatening legal action against the other. Lining up against the party leadership are Sharron and Steve Edwards, the party’s deputy leader and West Midlands organiser, respectively, until they were both expelled, along with Michael Newland, the national treasurer, in late August. While the three were challenging Nick Griffin, the party leader, over the party’s finances, he was busy bringing his own charges of disloyalty against them.

At the centre of the dispute were questions surrounding payments amounting to £7,000 that Newland claimed were unaccounted for. Much of this expenditure had not previously been cleared by Newland, including the purchase of and repairs to a number of vehicles bought in spring, reimbursement for Griffin’s recent trip to the US, and a payment of £1,500 to Tony Lecomber, the party’s group development leader.

Newland was acutely aware that new legislation would soon force the BNP to open its books to public scrutiny and so demanded that the party keep clear and accurate accounts. He queried several payments made by the party leader but received no adequate explanation. His persistent questioning eventually led to his removal as treasurer, but not before he had been backed up by Sharron Edwards, who circulated a petition within BNP branches calling for greater financial accountability.

Griffin decided to face down his detractors at a hastily arranged Advisory Council meeting held on the August bank holiday weekend. While Newland and Sharron Edwards, joined by her husband Steve, prepared to make their case, Griffin and Lecomber hatched an ambush of their own. Diverting the discussion away from party accounts, they levelled charges of theft and disloyalty against Newland and the Edwards’s.

In what was obviously a pre-planned move, Newland was suspended for discussing leadership affairs with the rank and file, “spreading deliberately misleading and inaccurate accounting records, designed to spread alarm about the party’s financial status,” and “cutting off the party’s mobile phone” on the day of its Red, White and Blue festival.

Sharron Edwards was expelled from the party for “sending out a disruptive, unconstitutional and alarmist petition” and “stealing the party’s membership list”. Her husband was booted out on the additional charge of “encouraging a boycott of the Red White and Blue festival”.

Before their expulsions the three heard Griffin defend his expenditure, presenting the meeting with two audited accounts produced by Adrian Davies and Keith Boyall. According to Lecomber, writing in the latest BNP members’ bulletin, both “confirmed that every penny was properly accounted for and that there was no question of any theft at all”.

However, Newland has since claimed that neither man was entirely happy with the information they had received. Although Boyall maintained that the figures seemed reasonable for the expenditure required, he had not been given access to either bank statements or receipts, which appears to contradict Lecomber’s statement. In particular Boyall declared that he had been given no details of the “loan repayment” to Lecomber from Trafalgar Club funds.

Davies, who was not there in person but submitted a written report, concurred, claiming that invoices for a total of £5,850 were accounted for. He concluded that Newland was “fully justified in pressing for a proper explanation”, adding, “Nick might very justifiably be reproached for dangerous and illegal risk-taking which could easily cause serious political embarrassment to the Party”.

Since the acrimonious meeting, the BNP, led by Lecomber, has conducted a smear campaign against the Edwards’s. In an email circulated to racists across the country he launched a most vitriolic attack on his former colleagues, accusing them of “general shit-stirring and sabotage”. Its aim, he concluded, was “an attempt to destabilise then take over the party by responding to a popular clamour (which they would have created)”.

Writing in September’s Members’ Bulletin, he goes even further. “Our democratically elected National Chairman, Mr. Nick Griffin, has been the target for a campaign of disgusting and unfounded smears, including the suggestion that he had stolen £7,000 from the Trafalgar Club.

“At the same time as putting about this poison, a small clique of troublemakers did their best to stop the Red-White-and-Blue Festival, first by failing to organise it as arranged and then, after Mr. Griffin stepped in to salvage the event, by a concerted campaign of time-wasting and sabotage, including trying to organise a boycott and having the RWB transport telephone line cut off. The intention was to create a financial disaster which, by topping off a pile of lies, would force Mr. Griffin to step down as leader of the Party, to be replaced by a self-appointed committee headed by Sharron Edwards.”

He added, in a move likely only to infuriate the Edwards’s, that if they did not hand back the “stolen” party lists then the BNP would be forced to initiate legal action.

If Griffin and Lecomber hope that they have nipped this “incipient faction fight in the bud before real lasting damage could occur”, they are likely to be sadly mistaken. Searchlight has learnt that the Edwards’s are considering legal action of their own to challenge their expulsions. Not only will this prove politically embarrassing to the party leadership and demoralising to the membership, but it will undoubtedly reveal financial mismanagement within the party stretching back several years.

In their defence, the Edwards’s will claim that the verbal nature of their expulsion, coupled with the fact that they were not given an opportunity to prepare a defence or call witnesses, are all contrary to natural justice. The fact that no one in the BNP has a copy of its new constitution, changed drastically more than six months ago, will be used to strengthen their case. When pressed for a copy of the constitution at the Advisory Council meeting, Griffin replied meekly that everyone knew what the changes were.

This will not be the first time a nazi party has been hauled before the High Court. In 1968 Andrew Fountaine overturned his expulsion from the National Front, which had been orchestrated by its chairman A K Chesterton. Although the NF had operated within its own constitution, the court found in Fountaine’s favour after the judge deemed his expulsion to have contravened the principles of natural justice. As is the case with the Edwards’s, Fontaine had not been given the opportunity to defend himself and call witnesses. He was eventually restored to party membership and the position of vice chairman and costs were awarded against Chesterton.

Financial mismanagement
Quite apart from any legal challenges to the Edwards’ expulsion, further trouble looms for the BNP leadership as more details emerge of financial mismanagement. Last month Searchlight reported the £1,500 cheque paid to Lecomber out of party funds. It was initially claimed that this was reimbursement for a printing bill that Lecomber had paid on the party’s behalf. However, it now appears that it was no such thing, but rather a means of supplementing Lecomber’s income without declaring it to the tax and benefit departments. This true explanation was admitted by Griffin, with a degree of embarrassment, at the Advisory Council meeting in August.

Lecomber is believed to receive £120 a week from the BNP, which, when topped up with Family Credit, gives him a weekly income of almost £250. But Lecomber was unhappy to learn that Griffin received double his salary (£1,000 a month) and arguing his worth, protested a need for parity. The £1,500 payment, paid in two cheques, was disguised so as to avoid a comparable reduction in State benefits.

Further details have also emerged about the loan Griffin received from the party to build an extension to his house. It appears that Griffin took several thousand pounds from party funds to renovate a barn attached to the side of his house. He agreed to have a proportion taken out of his salary but decided to write off the remainder, claiming that the room was now available for party meetings and functions at no charge.

Many respected BNP members are beginning to voice disquiet over the leadership “gravy train”. One BNP organiser told Searchlight: “No one begrudges people getting a wage, but it seems to be spiralling out of control. No sooner have we raised money for the party then some in the leadership give themselves a pay rise, trips to the US and build extensions to their houses.”

This unease was initially being articulated only by supporters of John Tyndall, the party’s former leader, but now others in the party, including some who supported Griffin during the leadership campaign, have joined the chorus of disapproval. In August Griffin and Lecomber were forced publicly to attack the party’s former national organiser, Richard Edmonds, in an Organisers’ Bulletin for voicing criticisms about increasing wages.

The leadership’s defence will be made all the harder when news of payments to Jean Griffin, the leader’s mother, for secretarial work becomes public. “As organisers we work tirelessly for the party and it’s not as if it’s a great career move,” said the BNP organiser. “But you get more than a bit annoyed when you hear that relative newcomers to the party are getting paid for doing something we all do for nothing.”

Political fallout
Quite what damage this split will do to the BNP remains to be seen. In the short term it certainly seems to have had a demoralising effect on the membership, many of whom had been voicing their own disquiet over Lecomber’s increasingly arrogant and rude style.

It is also likely to damage the party’s prospects in the West Bromwich West parliamentary by-election, to be held some time in the autumn. In an area where the Edwards’s have worked successfully for several years, obtaining 23% of the vote in Tipton in the May local elections, the BNP had hoped not only to save its deposit but to secure a vote of well over 10%. With the party’s Birmingham South organiser, Lee Windridge, replacing Sharron Edwards as the candidate, the BNP vote will almost certainly be lower. Much will depend on the Edwards’ reaction. Searchlight has heard rumours that she may stand as an independent “to teach the party a lesson”. If she does not stand, the National Front almost certainly will.

The longer term repercussions from this feud are unclear. A High Court action could ruin the party financially and politically, while the Edwards’s might try and form their own party with Newland and a number of other BNP organisers who have become disillusioned with the BNP of late. Devoid of nazi trappings, this could be a dangerous development.

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