BNP councillor suspended for bringing council into disrepute

HOPE not hate / Searchlight by Sonia Gable | Thursday, 24 September 2009

Richard Barnbrook

Richard Barnbrook, the BNP’s London Assembly member, has been suspended from Barking and Dagenham council for a month after being found guilty of bringing the council into disrepute by leaving incorrect information of a high profile nature on his blog for over four months.

An independent investigation, which reported to a standards committee hearing on 24 September, had found that Mr Barnbrook’s comments on YouTube about non-existent murders in Barking and Dagenham had showed “wilful disregard for the truth”. He said that he had got his words “jumbled up” because he was dyslexic.

The joint hearing of the Greater London Authority and Barking and Dagenham standards committees rejected Barnbrook’s representations after hearing evidence that he had failed to remove the video and separate written text on his website for at least four months after the lies about murders in Barking and Dagenham were pointed out to him.

Barking and Dagenham standards committee found Barnbrook guilty on similar grounds and pointed out that every member has a duty to ensure that their statements are accurate.

Barnbrook was not suspended from the London Assembly but was censured, ordered to make a public apology and required to undergo training in ethics and standards. The Barking and Dagenham standards committee also demanded an apology and that he undergo training.

The complaint had been brought by Val Rush, a Barking and Dagenham councillor, after Searchlight had drawn Barnbrook’s video to her attention. She told the standards committee that she had brought the complaint because in that 18-month period when so many young people were becoming victims of knife crime in London and other people were doing their best to calm the situation down, she felt that he was deliberately stirring up people’s fears.

The decision is clear and undeniable proof of the BNP's strategy of lying to whip up fear and division in our communities, and exposes the depths to which the BNP is prepared to stoop in its vile propaganda war.