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BNP councillors have been elected on the promise to be different. Criticising the "old gang", the BNP has benefited from being considered a "new" party, and one that will look after the interests of "local people".
But the reality is quite different. In every area that elects BNP councillors voters are let down. The performance of BNP councillors reveals a shocking list of incompetence, absence and general indifference. Most BNP councillors rarely participate in council business, regularly skip meetings and ignore requests for help from local people. When they do attend meetings they vote against policies on which they campaigned for election, vote for cuts to services, or put forward illegal motions.
Many have criminal convictions, including for violence. Several clearly remain uncomfortable with the BNP's attempts to distance itself from Nazism and antisemitism.
The BNP currently has just 11 councillors out of a national total of over 22,000 on principal local authorities (districts, boroughs etc) in the UK, yet the majority of even this small number have failed.
The BNP regularly claims to have "over 100" councillors but this figure includes the BNP's parish, town and community councillors, the lowest tier of local government, most of whom were elected unopposed. To put the BNP's representation in context, there are nearly 100,000 parish, town and community councillors in England and Wales.
Richard Barnbrook represents the BNP on the London Assembly. Since his election in May 2008 he has distinguished himself only by his gross incompetence.

Graham Partner. A drainage and plumbing contractor, Graham Partner doubles up as a BNP councillor on North West Leicestershire District Council for Hugglescote ward, to which he was elected in May 2007. In December 2007 he threw in his lot with Sadie Graham and the BNP “rebels”. He was threatened with expulsion but then returned to the Griffin loyalist fold. He was one of only three BNP county councillors.
Following widespread disquiet in the BNP during and after Eddy Butler’s unsuccessful challenge to Nick Griffin’ leadership, Partner resigned the BNP whip in August 2010 to sit as an independent, but changed his mind soon afterwards.

Catherine Duffy. Elected in May 2007 by a margin of seven votes, Catherine Duffy is a lone voice for the BNP on Charnwood council.



Pat Richardson. Richardson makes a point of telling everyone that she is Jewish but is a close friend of Tony Lecomber, a leading BNP activist, who was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for leading an antisemitic attack on a Jewish teacher by a gang of BNP thugs. In Richardson’s fantasy world she refuses to believe that Lecomber and the BNP itself are antisemitic.

Sharon Wilkinson. BNP group leader on Burnley Council, Wilkinson opposes money to build new schools because they will force children to integrate. In June 2009 she was elected to Lancashire County Council, one of only three BNP councillors.

Brian Parker. After his election in May 2006 Parker failed to turn up at his first council meeting but went on holiday in Scarborough instead.


Sharon Wilkinson doubles up as a BNP councillor on Burnley Borough Council for Hapton with Park ward. She is one of only three BNP county councillors.


David Owens joined the independent group of councillors in May 2010, which enabled him to be appointed to council committees, and ceased being listed as a BNP councillor on the Boston council website. When his "independent" status attracted some publicity, at a time when other councillors were leaving the BNP, Owens reaffirmed his BNP affiliation.

Sadie Graham. Formerly a rising star within the BNP, Sadie Graham was ignominiously sacked from her position as the party’s group development officer and expelled from the party in December 2007 for her part in an internal rebellion that was eventually quashed. Simon Darby, the BNP’s deputy leader, branded her and her friends “hardcore neo-Nazis” on the BBC’s Newsnight.
Graham continued to sit as an independent councillor but lost her seat in May 2009 after failing to attend any council meetings for six months.
She and her husband Matt Single, a former leading party security officer, were arrested in connection with the unauthorised publication of a BNP membership list on the internet in November 2008.
He was fined £200 for the offence under the Data Protection Act, a fine that the judge explained was low because he was living on state benefits. Charges against Graham were dropped.


Graham Partner. Drainage and plumbing contractor Graham Partner was elected in May 2007. In December 2007 he threw in his lot with Sadie Graham and the BNP “rebels”. He was threatened with expulsion but then returned to the Griffin loyalist fold. He was elected to Leicestershire County Council in June 2009, one of only three successes in that election.
Following widespread disquiet in the BNP during and after Eddy Butler’s unsuccessful challenge to Nick Griffin’ leadership, Partner resigned the BNP whip in August 2010, but changed his mind soon afterwards.
He announced his resignation from the district council on 4 February 2011 in connection with a dispute over the running of Ellistown Parish Council, on which he also sits.

Ian Meller. Unlike many “do nothing” BNP councillors, Ian Meller at least attends most council meetings. In August 2007 Meller opened the local Whitwick Woodstock music festival after other local councillors failed to step up to the plate, handing the BNP an ideal opportunity to pose as champions of the local community. He also sites on Ravenstone parish council.
Meller is a former member of the National Front who in August 2000 was fined £400 with £55 costs for possessing an offensive weapon, believed to have been a chair leg. When he was arrested, Meller was with a 15 strong contingent of NF members led by Mick Shore, who was involved in the Ku Klux Klan and is now also in the BNP. The gang of NF thugs of which Meller was a part was intent on attacking a Gay Pride march in Leicester.

Following widespread disquiet in the BNP during and after Eddy Butler’s unsuccessful challenge to Nick Griffin’ leadership, Dunne resigned the BNP whip in August 2010 and now sits as an independent, though remains a BNP member.


Rodney Law. His trade union, the RMT, threw him out for threatening the General Secretary during the 2006 local election campaign. As a councillor he spends his time scaremongering about crime committed by “inner city youths”. In fact residents of the three BNP wards are responsible for most of the crime in the area. He also attended the London antisemitic conference in January 2007.

Tony Frankland. The election of Councillor Frankland broke a three year drought for the BNP when he successfully, though only marginally, held onto the BNP seat vacated by fellow BNP councilor Terry Farr. Frankland’s was the first BNP by-election victory since Dan Kelly won in Goresbrook in 2004.

Susan Clapp. Clapp is the long-term partner of Eddy Butler, the head of the BNP’s elections department and a former east London thug. In January 2007 she attended a conference in London where she sat through anti-Jewish tirades from a close confidante of the Holocaust denier David Irving and from one of the leaders of the Islamic Party of Britain.


Peter Turpin. A former Metropolitan Police officer, he was asked to leave many years ago because of his activities with the National Front, a forerunner to the BNP. His former senior office later condemned him in the local press when Turpin tried to start a vigilante group in Redbridge. Turpin is always going on about law and order but according to Essex Police seems to have a problem distinguishing truth from fiction. In January 2007 Turpin attended a conference in London where he sat through anti-Jewish tirades from a close confidante of the Holocaust denier David Irving and from one of the leaders of the Islamic Party of Britain.


Deidre Gates was one of only three BNP county councillors (now reduced to one) and the only one who was not also a district/borough councillor.
Following widespread disquiet in the BNP during and after Eddy Butler’s unsuccessful challenge to Nick Griffin’ leadership, Gates left the BNP in August 2010 and now sits as an independent councillor.

Emma Colgate was the BNP’s staff manager until she was “persuaded” to resign on Good Friday 2010 after she had alleged that David Hannam, then the party treasurer, had told her that £300,000 had effectively been stolen from the party. It precipitated a major crisis in the party. Before her appointment as staff manager, she worked as Richard Barnbrook’s researcher at the Greater London Authority.
In Thurrock she with a handful of independents have held the balance of power and kept the Conservatives in power.
She was second on the BNP European election candidates’ list in the East of England in 2009 and stood in Thurrock in the general election, where she came fourth with 7.9%. At one stage Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, had described Thurrock as the most winnable seat in the country.
On 24 November 2010 before a council meeting she circulated a statement to the press announcing that she had resigned the BNP whip and would sit as an independent. “I have been unhappy with the leadership of the BNP for some time and I feel the direction the current leadership are taking is not in the interest of the public,” she explained.
“I still stand true to the core values of the BNP and believe it has many good members and supporters but I feel I am no longer able to represent an organisation that is falling apart due to mismanagement.
“If the current leadership changed hands I would be more than happy to return.”
The council meeting on 24 November was the first one she had attended since 30 June. Her ability to claim her allowance for council duties was in jeopardy had she not turned up. It has been reported that several months of mail from constituents are unopened at the council offices, her voicemail is full and emails bounce back. She also failed to turn up to the recent Tilbury remembrance service. Her term of office ends in May 2011.

Robert Bailey. A former Royal Marine, Bailey supposedly shared a flat in the borough with Richard Barnbrook to qualify to stand for election in May 2006, though neither lived there. Since Barnbrook's election to the London Assembly he has been the BNP's council group leader. He is also the BNP's London regional organiser, a role in which he distinguished himself by telling the press that a BNP by-election candidate's animal rights terrorism conviction would increase her vote.

Claire Doncaster. Three months after being elected she was evicted from her council house for failing to pay £2,000 of rent arrears. She has failed to turn up to a single meeting of the tenants and residents group in her ward since being elected in May 2006. “That young lady is doing a disservice to our community,” said chair Darren Rodwell. “She was elected by residents of this ward to work within this ward. After six months she should have at least had the grace to come and meet the people she represents.”

Jeffrey Steed. Jeffrey Steed was elected in May 2006 but was not awarded his seat until July 2006 because of a mistake at the count on election night. As the returning officer had already declared the erroneous result, the BNP had to go to the High Court to overturn it. A shining example to his local community, Steed owed Barking and Dagenham council £1,300 in unpaid council tax at the time he took his seat.

Alan Bailey. Bailey pleaded guilty to carrying out a violent unprovoked assault on a man in February 2004.

Mark Logan, a former Conservative and one of the BNP’s few effective councillors, left the BNP in March 2010 describing the party as a “bunch of racists” and misfits. “When I first of all moved in with the party I didn’t see a racist element to start off with. But people change. I thought they were a group of patriots not racists,” Logan said.

Richard Barnbrook. The BNP’s group leader on the council, Barnbrook has never lived in the borough but rented a rundown flat for the sole purpose of getting himself on the Electoral Register to qualify to stand in the May 2006 council elections. After having thousands of pounds worth of work done on the flat, he left the BNP activist builder waiting for months for payment. Before Barnbrook got into the BNP he was a member of the Labour Party in south London. In 1989 he directed and appeared in a gay porn film which included long scenes of men undressing and fondling each other, full-frontal nudity, flagellation scenes and gay erotic poetry written by Barnbrook. The existence of this film was an embarrassment to the BNP, which believes homosexuality is “wrong”, “unhealthy” and a “perverted practice”. Barnbrook, who has a very high opinion of himself, will be the BNP’s candidate in the 2008 London mayoral election.

Tracy Lansdown. Attendance figures for the last quarter show Councillor Lansdown has only managed to find the time to turn up to 38% of council meetings.

Julian Leppert. In January 2007 Leppert attended a conference in London where he sat through anti-Jewish tirades from a close confidante of the Holocaust denier David Irving and from one of the leaders of the Islamic Party of Britain. A postman, Leppert was the BNP’s candidate for mayor of London in 2004. His BNP colleagues describe him as boring.

Robert Buckley. Buckley is one of three Barking and Dagenham BNP councillors who were hauled before the courts for rent arrears after their election.

Christine Knight. Although Christine Knight has one of the best attendance records of the 12 BNP councillors in Barking and Dagenham, it still only amounts to under 70% of meetings. Knight attacked the council for closing the Dagenham Central and Parsloes Park bowling greens and the Barking Indoors Bowls Club. The only problem was that the council did not intend to close either, something the BNP would have known if it had not refused to attend the Assembly’s budget meeting that year.

Ronald Doncaster. Another shining example of the BNP “do nothing” councillor, Ronald Doncaster turns up to a mere one third of council meetings. This puts him among the bottom three of the borough’s 51 councillors for attendance.

Darren Tuffs. Putting in as little effort as possible for his electorate, Darren Tuffs turns up to fewer than half the council meetings he is supposed to attend. However this is an improvement on the 33% attendance he registered in the months immediately after his election.

Sandra Doncaster. Mother of Claire Doncaster, she too was taken to court for non-payment of council tax. She had not paid for two years and stacked up a debt of £2,170.34. It was not as though she could not afford it. She and her husband own a hotel in Sandown, on the Isle of Wight. Before becoming a councillor she was twice hauled before the courts for nuisance caused by her dogs, including killing pet cats.
All these activities presumably leave her little time to look after the interests of her ward residents. Turning up to only one third of even the relatively small number of meetings she was required to attend, she costs local people £1,666 per meeting and has the second worst attendance record of the borough’s 51 councillors.

Lawrence Rustem. Of Turkish Cypriot origin, Rustem told London’s Turkish press that he supports the Grey Wolves, a Turkish fascist organisation responsible for an attempt to assassinate the late Pope John Paul II. His views are unlikely to endear him to Barking and Dagenham’s large Catholic community.

Jamie Jarvis. Barking and Dagenham’s worst councillor, Jamie Jarvis only turns up to just over one quarter of council meetings. Nevertheless he draws his full councillor allowance, which means he costs local people £1,428 per meeting. Jarvis has done little for his constituents since his election save distinguishing himself by being caught in a police drug raid on a Barking and Dagenham pub. Jarvis and friends were overheard abusing the police and observers.





Leonard Starr. Elected on a law and order ticket, Starr was later cautioned for selling alcohol to underage drinkers.


Paul Golding The BNP's "London super-activist", Golding was elected as the BNP's only councillor in the South East region in a by-election on 19 February 2009. He became known as the BNP hijacker after he said: "We have hi-jacked the Union Flag, now we must hi-jack the word ‘British'." He also thinks British people are illiterate.
Aged 27 at the time of his election, Golding first made his name in the party by setting up the Young BNP and moved onward and upward from there, even overcoming a brief expulsion for assaulting Laurence Rustem, a half-Turkish party member who is now a councillor in Barking and Dagenham. Golding also drove the BNP's "truth truck", an advertising vehicle better known as the lie lorry.
He was promoted to the role of national communications officer, writing many of the infamous "begging letters".
In October 2010 after a big fallout between Jim Dowson, the BNP's fundraising and management consultant, and Patrick Harrington, the party's head of human resources, Dowson ended his contract with the party and Golding resigned as a party officer. It was initially believed he had quit the party altogether but that proved incorrect.
On 28 February 2011 he resigned his council seat. There is no by-election because the seat was up for election in May.

Ellie Walker. The wife of fellow former BNP councillor Albert “Alby” Walker, Ellie Walker is a local school governor, a state of affairs branded that local anti-fascists have described as a “disgrace”. She followed her husband out of the BNP in March 2010.

Alby Walker had been leader of the nine-strong BNP group on Stoke-on-Trent city council but stood down in December 2009. In January 2010 he left the BNP to sit as an independent.


David Marfleet. David Marfleet was one of three BNP councillors elected to Stoke-on-Trent council in May 2007, the party’s main area of success that year. He has not distinguished himself in any meaningful way.












Carl Butler. He claimed, in a BNP leaflet, that he cleaned graffiti off the walls of a local pub, but the landlord dismissed this as a lie.

Michael Coleman. Stoke-on-Trent BNP organizer and perennial election candidate Michael Coleman has emerged as a leading light within the towns BNP organization since his election in May 2007. Coleman is vice-chair of Stoke-on-Trent council’s Improving Communities Overview and Scrutiny committee.


David Enderby. In January 2007 he was found guilty of three counts of assaulting members of his estranged wife's family. He was fined £100 for each assault and ordered to pay £100 costs. His wife later told the local paper that Enderby had a history of domestic violence. He remains a councillor. Soon after Enderby was elected in May 2006 his agent, Kevin Hughes, was sent to prison for a vicious and unprovoked racist assault on an asylum seeker.


Colin Auty. A singer in the BNP band Red Claire, Auty recently blamed the problems of his area on the “blind ignorance” of local people rather than on poverty and deprivation. He said people should be taught how to sweep up, use a vacuum cleaner and dustbin, and stop wasting money on TV and toys. “We need to educate people in using hot water and detergents,” he said.

David Exley. The first time he opened his mouth in a council meeting it was to ask whether Muslim teachers get more holidays than Christian teachers. The answer was of course no.

Roger Roberts. A former Conservative, Roberts was a member of Mirfield Town Council but was kicked off in November 2006 for failing to attend meetings.




Chris Beverley. The BNP’s sole Leeds city councillor, Chris Beverley was appointed constituency office manager and PA to Andrew Brons, after his election in June 2009 as one of the BNP’s two MEPs. A fluent German speaker, Beverley is a key link between the BNP and the German nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), and acted as Griffin’s interpreter when the BNP leader visited his NPD friends.
In February 2007 Beverley attended a gathering of the European National Front (ENF) in Reisa, Germany. The ENF brings together some of the most vicious, hardline, antisemitic Nazi organisations on the Continent. They include La Falange (Spain), Noua Dreapta (Romania), Forza Nuova (Italy), Nationale Alliantie (Holland), Nordiska Förbundet (Sweden) and the now defunct Renouvea Française (France). Beverley gave his speech to the ENF conference from a podium emblazoned with a banner reading “the voice of Germany”.
The meeting was organised by Jens Pühse, a German skinhead leader who recently escaped conviction after appearing in court for producing and distributing racist CDs.
Beverley tried to kconceal his attendance at the ENF conference, but was accidentally named on a nazi website as one of the speakers. His name and photographs of him speaking were quickly removed from the site.
For a period in 2008 he managed the failed campaign by Colin Auty to gather enough signatures to challenge Griffin for the party leadership.

Paul Cromie. Cromie came under investigation by council legal officers for giving £5 notes to local pensioners in Christmas cards in December 2006. Most of the pensioners were appalled at his action. After Cromie’s election in May 2006 police investigated allegations, which he denied, that he bought votes by giving £100 to pay for a Christmas party at the Goodwin House sheltered housing complex.

Lynda Cromie. Wife of Paul Cromie, she joined her wealthy businessman husband as a BNP Queensbury councillor in May 2007, a year after his own election. The two are increasingly isolated, not only in the council chamber but in Bradford BNP which is in a state of near collapse.
