BNP leader sets sights on Barking

UKPA | Thursday, 19 November 2009 | Click here for original article

BNP leader Nick Griffin has kicked off his campaign to become an MP with a walkabout in east London.

Mr Griffin, who is challenging government minister, Margaret Hodge in Barking at the next general election, handed out flyers and chatted to locals out shopping.

He was greeted with honks of support from passing drivers, but also several shouts of "racist scum".

He said he had chosen the area because it was the BNP's "best chance" of winning a parliamentary seat and Labour had "flooded" it with immigrants.

"I think I've got a really good chance, but it's certainly not in the bag," Mr Griffin said.

The BNP leader recently complained that much of London was no longer British, but he insisted that this constituency did not have that problem.

"There's enormous differences between places like Haringey and Hackney and Barking.

"Barking is still overwhelmingly British."

He denied that he "despised" the quarter of the local population who were non-white, saying many of them had been in the country for generations and were suffering just as much due to new arrivals.

The BNP has said it will be standing in some 200 seats at the general election, although critics have questioned whether it has the finances to sustain such an effort.