Builder knocked by BNP

Sonia Gable | Wednesday, 13 December 2006 Source: Searchlight

When Richard Barnbrook and Robert Bailey stood for election to Barking and Dagenham council last May they hurriedly needed a local address to qualify as candidates. So they rented a near derelict flat at 5A London Road, Barking, though did not actually move in.

Then they got elected and needed to keep up the pretence of living in the borough. Questions raised before the poll about why the flat seemed to be empty were not going away. So Bailey moved in, though Barnbrook, the BNP's group leader on the council, continued to commute from his much nicer home in Lewisham.

It seems that Bailey had paid £3,000 towards the BNP's campaign in the borough. When Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, paid a flying visit to Barking, he decided to repay Bailey's generosity by ordering over £5,000 of work on the place including a new door and windows. Martyn Page, the party's Nottingham branch fund-holder (treasurer), carried out the work.

Five workers were dispatched from the Midlands and Page invoiced the BNP for their services and materials. Page was doing the party a favour as he was charging £3,000 less than the landlord had quoted for the same work. And because Bailey and Barnbrook had relieved the landlord of his responsibility for bringing the flat up to scratch, they benefited from a rent-free period worth the full £8,000.

Then Page, 45, waited for his bill to be paid … and waited … and waited. Despite months of lobbying the party's senior officers, it was not until October that he was able to extract a promise from John Walker, the BNP's national treasurer, that the party would pay him £1,000 a week until the debt was cleared.

Page, who describes himself as a builder/window fitter and trades under the name Homebright UK, was understandably peeved about nearly losing his business as a result of the late payment. He had been unable to pay his suppliers and workers, which was damaging his reputation. He was especially put out by the fact that Griffin was spending thousands of pounds on his convoy of 4x4s with tinted windows occupied by an army of men in dark suits and dark glasses looking like refugees from The Sopranos.

And it seems that Page is not the only one in the BNP unhappy at the image Griffin's bodyguards project to potential voters. Apparently after Griffin paid a flying visit to Nottingham for a St George's day event five of the better branch members resigned because they did not want to be associated with such people. Page claims that when he worked in customers' homes during Griffin's trial, more people commented on the goons surrounding the leader on the TV reports than about his acquittal.