Blackburn by-election

| Friday, 8 September 2006 Source: Searchlight

The British National Party and England First Party will vie for the far-right vote in a council by-election on 28 September. Both parties are fielding candidates in Blackburn with Darwen's East Rural ward against candidates from the three main parties and an independent.

The EFP already has two councillors in Blackburn including Mark Cotterill, the party leader. Both were elected in May this year. Their arrival on the council caused a storm and their policies were labelled racist. Of the BNP's seven candidates in May, five came second and the other two were bottom of the poll.

Stephen Hart, 45, will stand for the EFP, which is already campaigning vigorously. The party describes the ward as 99% white and "very winnable". It has put out a national call for volunteers to help its campaign.

Surprisingly the BNP candidate is Nick Holt, former organiser of Blackburn branch until he resigned last month after a semi-public falling-out with the BNP hierarchy. The party had told the local press it would find a different candidate. Holt stood in Ewood ward in May and has previously stood in three other wards as well as in the 2005 general election in the Blackburn constituency when he took 5.4% of the vote. This is not the first time he has encountered the EFP: in 2004 he came bottom of the poll in Blackburn's Meadowhead ward, 100 votes behind the EFP.

The only councillor the BNP ever had in Blackburn left the party less than a year after he was elected in a by-election in November 2002. Robin Evans then wrote a letter to his former BNP colleagues denouncing the drug dealers and football hooligans in the local party branch. He had previously admitted that he could not follow council business. "This is all mumbo jumbo," he told fellow councillors. "I don't understand a word of it." He was referring to the council budget.

After leaving the BNP Evans remained on the council describing himself as a national socialist but lost his seat in June 2004.