BNP’s dirty tricks in the scramble for votes

Andrew Gilligan | Thursday, 13 April 2006 Source: Evening Standard

At least six British National Party candidates in next month's local elections are standing under false addresses to get round electoral law, the Evening Standard has discovered. The party has set up a network of "front houses" – in at least one case a derelict flat – and filed false nomination papers to beat a rule that all local election candidates must live or work in the borough where they are standing.

One London council today called the police after hearing the Standard's revelations. Under electoral law, using a false address is a crime with a penalty of an unlimited fine and up to a year in prison. But councils say they do not have the power to check candidates' addresses and must take their information at face value. Nor do they have the authority to disqualify the candidates – unless they are elected.

"This proves what we thought – people are coming from outside, using false addresses, and trying to break up the community," said Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham, one of the areas affected. "It is quite wrong that councils cannot investigate or take action. It is a major issue we will be taking to the Electoral Commission."

The BNP cheats are standing for seats in London and Essex councils in the 4 May polls. They include Richard Barnbrook who, standing in the Commons seat of Barking last year, scored the party's highest ever vote in a Westminster election. He hopes to repeat that success in next month's Barking and Dagenham borough poll. But he lives in Blackheath – on the other side of the Thames.

On 11 March Mr Barnbrook and another Barking and Dagenham BNP candidate, Robert William Bailey, signed the local electoral register, giving their address as 5a London Road, Barking. They used the same address on their nomination papers.

Visiting the address this week, the Standard found it derelict and located above a run-down parade of shops. An estate agent's board was on it, and by looking through gaps in the whitewashed windows, bare floorboards could be seen inside. Violet Cusworth, who lives nearby, said she had not seen anyone there for months. "The last people in there were students, in their twenties," she said. Mr Barnbrook is 45.

At Mr Barnbrook's Blackheath address, the lights were on and the curtains drawn yesterday, although nobody answered the door. Neighbour Margaret Paine said: "I saw him two days ago." Mr Barnbrook's home phone number has an 020 8318 prefix, the Blackheath code. Mr Bailey lives in Havering, next door to Barking and Dagenham. He was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Barking Labour councillor Liam Smith said someone from his party had put a strip of tape across the front door and door frame of Mr Barnbrook and Mr Bailey's supposed Barking flat. "The tape was still there two weeks later," he said.

Meanwhile, a BNP candidate in Sutton, Charlotte Lewis, has given the false address of Lind Road, Sutton, in her nomination papers. She actually lives in Thornton Heath, in the neighbouring borough of Croydon, where she answered the door in her bedroom slippers. She admitted she did not live in Sutton and said: "They [the BNP] needed a candidate in Sutton. I am supposed to be moving there but due to unforeseen personal circumstances there was a slight setback."

She claimed a man who answered the door in Lind Road was her boyfriend, but the name she gave did not match the name he gave to the Standard. She is not on the electoral register at Lind Road.

Two BNP candidates in Merton, John James Clarke and David Robin Clarke, claim to live in a two-bedroom flat in Connaught Gardens, Morden, with one other man. But the pair actually live on the New Addington estate, in Croydon borough. Nor are they on the Merton electoral register.

A Merton council spokesman said: "We believe this practice discredits the entire democratic process, and we have taken steps to refer this to the Metropolitan Police." Neither of the Clarkes was at the Morden address when the Standard called at 9.30pm yesterday. Neighbours at their New Addington address said they had seen both in the past few hours.

A BNP spokesman insisted both men did live in Morden, even though they were not on the register. Asked how three men and their families could fit into a two-bedroom maisonette, he replied: "People live in all manner of ways these days."

A BNP candidate in Basildon, Matt Single, is claiming to live at Southcote Crescent in the town. However, Mr Single, who was recently arrested for assault, gave police his real address in South Woodham Ferrers – 15 miles from Basildon and in the borough of Chelmsford.

Under his bail conditions he is obliged to live in South Woodham Ferrers and is on the electoral register at this address. The BNP will launch its election campaign tomorrow at an event in Essex addressed by party leader Nick Griffin. Mr Griffin says he is "leading the BNP to new heights of political success" after winning more than 800,000 votes in last year's general election.

But Gerry Gable, publisher of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, said: "This shows how desperate the BNP are. They promised to stand 600 candidates in the local elections but they have only got 370 over the whole country, and they've only managed some of those by committing electoral malpractice."

[Note: the BNP won more than 800,000 votes in the European elections in 2004. In the general election last year they won fewer than 193,000 votes – Searchlight]