BNP fans flames with ‘sick’ by-election leaflet

Tom Baldwin | Thursday, 14 July 2005 Source: The Times

Far-Right seen as real threat as voters go to polls in London

SEVEN days ago Jeff Porter led a thousand passengers to safety after the Tube train he was driving into Edgware Road station was rocked by an explosion, engulfing his cab in smoke and dust.

On Saturday he left home for the first time since the attack to do some canvassing in the council by-election at Becontree, Barking, where he is the local Labour Party chairman.

"I wanted to clear my head but came across a group of bone-headed thugs from the British National Party," he said. "One of them put his fist into my face and asked me if I wanted a slap. I was shaking and terrified. We had to get the police involved."

Although the BNP has since denied being directly involved in this incident, Mr Porter points out that they all had stacks of leaflets which they were delivering on behalf of the party at the time.

The leaflet in question has since become notorious. It features a large picture of the Number 30 bus which was blown apart by a bomb in Tavistock Square, along with the headline: "Maybe it's time to start listening to the BNP."

Voters in Becontree will make their choice. The tensions have been fuelled by the bomb attacks and the result is expected to be very tight between Labour and the BNP.

Last year the BNP won a Barking and Dagenham council seat in the neighbouring Goresbrook ward, its first in London for more than ten years. The seat was regained by Labour three weeks ago after the BNP's Dan Kelley quit.

In Becontree, the party may have problems with its candidate, John Luisis. When The Times came across some BNP activists yesterday, they were unable to contact him. "He won't answer his phone," said Bob Gertner, one of the party's organisers.

Will he turn up for the by-election?

"I hope so," he replied rather doubtfully.

Even so, Labour is taking the BNP very seriously in Becontree, a ward largely composed of a huge council estate built for Ford workers. Margaret Hodge, the Employment Minister and local MP, said:

"I've been campaigning for 40 years and I've never heard such racism on the doorstep. There is a terrific fear of change and the BNP is very good at exploiting that with lies and distortions."

The party's leaflets claim that Labour has allowed Becontree to become "swamped by asylum-seekers and immigrants", all going to the front of council-house waiting lists.

The truth is more complicated. Labour officials estimate that, of the 7,000 people living in the ward, about 2,000 are from ethnic minorities; a ten-fold increase in recent years. But these new arrivals are not jumping queues, so much as buying or renting the relatively cheap former council homes being sold by the white community.

Ms Hodge said: "The pace of change has been dramatic and the community is worried that their kids will not be able to get homes here. I think it shows that we, as a Government, need to do more about housing."

Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for the neighbouring seat of Dagenham East, was prepared to go further. "We've become preoccupied by Middle England. The economy needs immigration for growth but we've been unwilling to pay what it takes to take the additional strain that has created for public services and housing. A lot of people feel that new Labour has deserted them."

Alok Agrawal, Labour's candidate in Becontree, is an Indian-born newsagent whose two sons are classic immigrant success stories. One is studying for a PhD, the other runs an IT company.

He says: "Everybody knows me around here; the problem is when they don't know you. That is when they fear the different cultures and faces."

Later, when Mr Agrawal was out canvassing, he met Jo Colli, a 32-year-old postman, who told him he was tempted to vote BNP because the "Albanians and Africans are getting all the advantages". He had clearly read BNP literature, but there was one leaflet he did not like. "The one with the bus — that was sick. The bombings had nothing to do with immigration. They were an attack on all of us in this country."