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Author: Nick Lowles | Date: January 2008
The British National Party has over the past few weeks experienced its biggest crisis since the party was formed in 1982. At least 14 people have been expelled, including several full-time party officials, and another 50 organisers and regional officers have gone on strike in support. Having refused to back down in response to an ultimatum, they too now face expulsion.
Although Nick Griffin remains in charge of the party, his leadership and authority have been severely weakened, as has the party generally. Allegations of illegal activities have resulted in at least one police investigation, and with the prospect of whole swathes of the party leaving in Yorkshire, the East Midlands and Scotland, it was a disastrous end to an already poor year.
The crisis erupted on Sunday 9 December when the BNP website announced the sacking of Sadie Graham, the party’s group development officer, and Kenny Smith, its administration officer, “on the grounds of gross misconduct … [they] now face disciplinary charges over alleged offences against the BNP Constitution and Code of Conduct”.
The posting claimed that this move had been forced on the party after it emerged that the two were involved in an attempted coup against the leadership, including the deliberate leaking of party information to Searchlight. “Some months ago, a BNP Intelligence Department was set up, with one of its key initial targets being to track down the source of these problems and provide the evidence needed to expose those responsible and put an end to their subversion.”
The sackings followed the removal of Graham’s computer from her house. Four members of the BNP security team, led by Martin Reynolds, took the computer while allegedly dropping off some party literature. Graham was not at home at the time and claims that they gained entry by deception and that the computer was hers, not one provided by the BNP, and so it was an act of theft.
On the same day another security team, this time from Cumbria, attempted to gain access to the flat Smith shared with his wife Nicholla, who ran the BNP merchandising operation Excalibur. Presumably the intention was the same but they failed because Kenny Smith and several other BNP organisers were there at the time.
A number of factors appear to have come together to trigger this action. Firstly, it was clear that there had been a long-running split in the party between the young apparatchiks, led by Graham and Smith, and the brat pack, consisting of Mark Collett, the director of publicity, the party treasurer John Walker and his deputy Dave Hannam.
Griffin’s refusal to accept criticism of this trio prompted Ian Dawson, Graham’s deputy, to resign his position in October. His resignation letter was given to Searchlight and our mail shot, based on it, to over 1,000 BNP members appears to have triggered the belief among the party leadership that there could be no rapprochement.
Dawson apologised for the leak and reaffirmed his loyalty to the BNP in the party’s November members’ bulletin, but an order to apologise publicly at the party’s annual conference in Blackpool was too much. He refused and was forbidden entry to the hall.
One of the criticisms of Collett and Hannam concerned their behaviour at the 2006 annual conference, where it is alleged that they brought two underage girls back to their hotel. The pair were issued with a final warning by the party’s disciplinary committee and when they broke party rules again at the 2007 conference the Graham camp hoped this would lead to their expulsion. They were wrong. Griffin again covered for them, first claiming that there had been no final warning and then, when that was easily disproved, he accepted their claim that they had not received the letter.
Furious at this latest cover-up, Graham and Smith decided to take matters into their own hands by establishing a blog that aimed to undermine Collett and Hannam.
Unfortunately for them a conversation they had to discuss this plan, which included talk about obtaining articles from back issues of Searchlight, was somehow recorded by the BNP leadership. An audio file of the conversation was placed on the BNP website at the same time as the announcement of their expulsions.
While Griffin trumpeted the smashing of the “coup attempt”, the sacked party officers fought back. Their “Enough
is Enough” blog suddenly became the vehicle for their rebellion, with local organisers and regional officials encouraged to resign their party positions in support.
Within days dozens did exactly that. It was immediately clear that the BNP was divided, with organisers in Scotland, Yorkshire and the East Midlands siding heavily with the rebels, while the rest of the country remained loyal to Griffin or at least neutral.
Griffin responded on the BNP website to the growing revolt by feigning his unhappiness at what was unfolding. Accepting that Graham and Dawson had worked hard for the party he went on to diminish their efforts by saying that they were simply doing what was expected of two paid staff.
“Frankly I’m gutted that this trust has been betrayed,” he bleated.
While Griffin was keen to present a moderate face, his close supporters were let off the leash. Simon Darby, the BNP’s deputy leader, published
an email found on Graham’s computer which he claimed was evidence that she was trying to undermine Hannam’s position by distributing inaccurate bank statements to local party branches.
Amusingly, when it was pointed
out that Darby had implicated himself in contravening the Data Protection Act and possibly in the theft of a computer, he quickly dropped the article from his blog.
Undeterred by such issues was Lee Barnes, the BNP’s alleged legal adviser. His blog site has spewed out all sorts of unpleasantness during the dispute.
The rebellion meanwhile had amassed the names of over 40 organisers and regional officials and several BNP councillors renounced the party whip
to become independent nationalists. They were at pains to stress that their dispute was over the presence of Collett and Hannam rather than with Griffin’s leadership, but as each day passed it became clear that the relationship was fast approaching the point of no return.
Griffin and Collett set off on a road show around the country, holding local and regional meetings to advertise the good work they were doing and of course to put across their side of the split to local organisers. One such meeting was held in the North West but rather than it pacifying key members, the refusal even to countenance criticism resulted in Bev Jones, a former regional organiser, joining the rebels. She was followed by a host of Oldham and Greater Manchester organisers, including Jock Shearer, who had been the region’s security officer and moderator on the internal BNP internet forum.
A week after the dispute erupted there appeared to be an attempt to reconcile the warring factions at a meeting hosted by the party’s Leicester branch. Griffin and Graham were both given time to put their case and there were numerous calls from the floor to patch up their differences.
Griffin gauged the mood of the meeting and was able to outmanoeuvre his rival. His offer of the hand of friendship in front of the biggest BNP branch in the country left Graham with little choice but to accept. A motion calling for Graham to be allowed back into the party was seconded by Collett and passed unanimously. In return came a vague promise that the Enough is Enough site would be removed within a week.
In reality Graham committed herself to no more than to think about a potential offer (which was clearly unacceptable because while she would be allowed to return to the party she would not get her job back and would have to agree to a gagging clause). But it was Griffin who came across as willing to compromise.
Of course this was a tactical manoeuvre to stop the haemorrhaging of local organisers. While party members were enthusiastically talking about a deal, Griffin was cranking up the pressure on the Yorkshire region, throwing down the gauntlet to his critics to face him at a meeting a few days later. Writing on the BNP website, Griffin claimed his opponents were holding secret meetings attended by “that wretched” Angela Clarke, a former BNP councillor from Keighley, while good local activists (for which read councillor Paul Cromie) were turned away.
If Griffin was conciliatory in Leicester he was combative in Leeds, trading insults with his critics. The meeting ended in chaos and little chance that the two sides could ever be reconciled (see article on page 9). Griffin appeared prepared to jettison the entire region to keep control of the rest of the party.
With Christmas only a week away momentum seemed to be slipping from the rebels. The flow of new names on their website had reduced to a trickle and no significant advance was being made into the North East, the West Midlands and the entire South of England.
A bombshell then hit the rebels when the BNP leadership claimed that Steve Blake, who had been in charge of the party’s internet operation, had been reading the emails of BNP officers, including Griffin himself, and passing them on to Graham and Smith.
It was clear that the three knew what they were doing was wrong, if emails between them reproduced on the BNP website are genuine. “Steve, don’t feel bad about what you are doing,” wrote Smith to Blake on 4 December. “When the history of our people is retold they may recount how the BNP was saved by you doing this necessary evil. I’ll give thanks to the Gods tonight for sending us such a brother to watch over us – and their e-mails!”
In another email Blake notes: “A few months ago I would have had great difficulty doing this but I think this is now morally justified but I am for the chop if anything gets out about this”.
This greatly undermined their case and appeared to strengthen the resolve of some wavering organisers to stay with the leadership. Although the rebel leaders have been quick to deny a number of other allegations by the BNP leadership, on this matter they have remained silent.
While Griffin was winning the internal battle he was beginning to lose the propaganda war. Searchlight believed national media coverage was vital to ensure the dispute caused lasting damage to the BNP, but at first it was difficult to attract interest. Up to that point even most BNP members were unaware of the split, let alone the general public, as it was largely being fought out on the internet.
An Adjournment Debate in the House of Commons on 18 December gave Jon Cruddas MP an opportunity to raise the infighting and potentially illegal activities of the BNP leadership. Searchlight provided him with a 22-page dossier on the BNP’s financial irregularities which he then passed on to the police and the Electoral Commission.
Suddenly the internal BNP war was a national news story. Newsnight broadcast a report that same night, and this was followed by articles in several national newspapers and items on BBC radio news and Channel 4 television.
The BNP’s reaction to this media barrage only inflamed the situation. Having initially attempted to portray the rebels as closet “reds”, now first Darby and then Barnes accused them of being “neo-nazis”. In a retaliation which might eventually harm Griffin far more than the feud itself, it emerged that there exists a photograph of the BNP leader giving a Nazi salute in Scotland alongside activists from the Blood and Honour nazi skinhead network.
When one of the rebels challenged Griffin about this at the meeting in Leeds, he refused to comment.
Accusation and counter-accusation have been hurled through cyberspace though the battle appears to have ground to a standstill. Very few people are now adding their names to the rebellion but those who already have, bar a handful, appear solid.
There appears little chance of any reconciliation as the rebels have begun to focus more heavily on Griffin’s leadership. Words have been said and deeds done, and it would require a monumental climb-down for either side now to ignore them.
Griffin, it seems, is prepared to lose most of the rebels and is showing no sign of wanting any deal. The eight ringleaders have been “expelled from the party, pending disciplinary tribunals” and two days before Christmas he gave everyone else an ultimatum to withdraw their names from the Enough is Enough site or face the consequences.
Perhaps Griffin thinks he can run the party centrally without branches in many key areas. A failure to make any significant gains on local councils, with the exception of Barking and Dagenham, coupled with the two big elections this year and next (London Assembly and Europe) being contested under proportional representation might support such a view.
Or perhaps he was so confident
that the momentum was in his direction he could scare people into returning to the fold.
Either way, his ultimatum appears to have been ignored. The divisions seem irreparable and a full-scale split is on the cards. Whatever the long-term prospects for the BNP a split that involves the loss of BNP groups in much of Yorkshire and the East Midlands will be a significant blow to the party in the short term.
© Searchlight Magazine 2008