BNP full-scale campaign defeated in Waltham Abbey

| Friday, 26 October 2007 Source: Searchlight

A major by-election effort by the BNP failed to bring the party victory after an anti-fascist community group leafleted the whole ward. But a very close result left the BNP just 18 votes behind the winning Conservative candidate with the Liberal Democrats a further seven votes behind.

This was a seat on Waltham Abbey Town Council, despite the insistence of Martin Wingfield, editor of the BNP's magazine Identity, that if Peter Cooper (whom Wingfield called Peter Copper) won, he would join the BNP's six councillors on Epping Forest District Council. He would not have, but as it is he goes nowhere.

Although town councils have minimal powers and are only concerned with essentially non-political very local issues, the BNP pulled out all the stops and ran a campaign with several leaflets and a full canvass of the nearly 3,000 homes in the ward, which lies just to the north of London. The BNP's main campaign theme was, of course, immigration, as if a town councillor could have any influence on it.

The by-election on 25 October 2007 was the result of the resignation of a Conservative councillor just six months after he had been elected. This put the Conservatives at an immediate disadvantage.

Redbridge and Epping Forest Together, determined to stop the BNP gaining any foothold even on a town council, produced a leaflet explaining how the BNP is a party of hate and fails local people by blaming all problems on migrants instead of promoting real solutions. A dedicated band of activists distributed it throughout the ward in the final week of the campaign together with an updated version of Searchlight's popular national Hope not Hate leaflet.

It did the trick, alongside campaigning by the three main parties. The BNP had expected to win especially after a higher than usual turnout in the party's strongest polling district. At the count BNP activists stormed out in disgust before the official declaration of the result. A crowd of them were spotted in a pub looking depressed afterwards.

No doubt the BNP will crow about its near victory and 8% increase in its share of the vote. For us the result shows that the BNP can be defeated even where it pulls out all the stops in a campaign in what is mainly a "white flight" area with plenty of scope to stoke up fears about migrants and crime. But the BNP remains a clear danger and we need to keep working hard to show people what the BNP is really about.

The BNP also contested a by-election on the same day for Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council in Manor ward, which covers part of Crosby, north of Liverpool. The BNP had not stood there in May 2007 and should not have bothered this time. The party persuaded only 94 people to vote for it, giving it just 4.1% of the vote, though will probably try to take some comfort by going on ad nauseam about the UK Independence Party's even worse 3.1%.

Results

Waltham Abbey

The comparison is with the May 2007 district council election, in which Labour did not stand.

Con 299 (30.4%, -27.4%)

BNP 281 (28.5%, +8.1%)

LibDem 274 (27.8%, +6.0%)

Lab 131 (13.3%, +13.3%)

Sefton Manor

Comparison is with May 2007.

Con 922 (40.5, -7.6)

LibDem 769 (33.8, +13.4)

Lab 419 (18.4, -13.1)

BNP 94 (4.1, +4.1)

UKIP 71 (3.1, +3.1)