Gambler Griffin bankrupts the BNP

Searchlight / HOPE not hate by Sonia Gable | Monday, 28 June 2010

Eddy Butler, who is challenging Nick Griffin for the leadership of the British National Party, has accused Griffin of wasting donations given by the party’s hardworking supporters. According to Butler, Griffin’s incompetence has landed the party with the following liabilities:

• £35,000 owed to Mark Collett, Emma Colgate and Eddy Butler, illegally dismissed in March 2010
• £15,000 Michaela Mackenzie employment tribunal costs
• ? Michaela Mackenzie settlement
• £50,000 Equality Commission case costs
• £25,000 new Equality Commission case costs
• £75,000 Kenny Smith, Ian Dawson, Steve Blake case (dismissed at the end of 2007)
• £40,000 Unilever case (over use of Marmite image)
• ? Reuters case
• ? Margaret Hodge case

And that’s only the ones he knows about, Butler adds.

Butler accuses Griffin of creating “innumerable opportunities” for the Equality Commission to take further legal action over the party’s racist constitution, because Griffin insisted on amending the old constitution “in a typically long winded, turgid and over complicated manner” to enable him drastically to increase his powers.

Griffin’s recent statement that he is prepared to go to jail rather than give in to the Equality Commission is a “disingenuous gesture of bravado”, according to Butler.

“Every single penny we are paying out in court costs and unfair dismissal settlements is as a direct result of his bad judgement,” he continues. “It is almost certain that by the end of July the Party will be insolvent. We will not be able to pay our debts as they arise.”

Referring to the BNP’s recent appeal to equip a “Communications Command Centre” in “that empty office in Stroud which we have been paying for all year”, Butler says “that Command Centre was a non starter from the word go. It was a typical fund raising ploy.”

In Butler’s view, all these liabilities are due to Griffin’s personality. “If he had the slightest degree of common sense he would settle out of court in every single case listed. Unfortunately he is a gambler. He’s also a bad gambler but then he is gambling with other people’s money and that makes for reckless gambling.”

The good news for anti-fascists is that a change of BNP leadership could only reduce some of these liabilities – “most are already set in stone now”, Butler admits.

The BNP’s accounts for 2009 are due to be published at the end of July, provided the party submits them to the Electoral Commission on time, something it failed to do last year. We will examine them with interest.