BNP councillor to be removed for non-attendance

| Saturday, 20 October 2007 Source: Searchlight

The British National Party is about to lose yet another councillor, Searchlight can exclusively reveal.

James Lloyd, BNP councillor for Princes End ward on Sandwell council, has not attended a meeting in six months, which means that he will be removed from office. We hope the council will not delay in writing to Lloyd to inform him of the situation. The usual procedure would be to give him seven days to prove that he has in fact attended a meeting. If he cannot, and Searchlight, which monitors BNP attendance and performance, believes that is the case, then he will lose his seat.

Lloyd has been a major embarrassment to the BNP in the Black Country. He stood on a platform of insisting that parents be held responsible for the bad behaviour of their children. However, his two sons have regularly been in trouble with the law. One was named and shamed by the police as one of the worst young offenders in the area.

Earlier this year Searchlight revealed that police had objected to the renewal of Lloyd's pub licence after a series of violent incidents at his premises. They including a shooting incident in which Lloyd himself was the target. The BNP councillor had repeatedly refused to cooperate with the police.

And then there were two ...

Last week Simon Smith, a councillor in neighbouring Great Bridge ward, formally acknowledged that he is no longer part of the BNP group on the council. Smith, who was the BNP group leader until he resigned from the party two months ago, had been elected in 2006 with the highest BNP vote in the country.

This leaves the BNP with only two councillors in the borough and 47 in the country, down from 50 immediately after the May elections.