BNP will not fight Cumbrian seats

| Wednesday, 23 March 2005 Source: News & Star

THE right-wing British National Party has scrapped plans to field a candidate in Carlisle at the general election, expected on May 5.

It had selected Tina Wingfield, of Silloth, to contest the seat held by Labour's Eric Martlew.

But Mrs Wingfield's husband Martin, who edits the BNP's newspaper Voice of Freedom, confirmed the party would not be standing in Carlisle or any other Cumbrian constituency.

He said: "We are skint after the European elections last year. We are concentrating on our top 105 seats, possibly the top 120. None of those is in Cumbria."

The BNP is expected to stand only where it took more than eight per cent of the vote in the European elections.

It polled 4.2 per across Cumbria and five per cent in Carlisle, while its chairman, Nick Griffin, failed in his bid to become a North West MEP.

Mrs Wingfield works with her husband on Voice of Freedom although she was previously a housing officer in Wigton and Aspatria, a school secretary in Thursby and has trained as a probation officer. Her selection prompted the Cumbrian branch of the National Association of Probation Officers to issue a statement saying there was no place in the service for "members of racist organisations".

The BNP wants to halt immigration and offer financial help for non-whites already living here to leave.