BNP expels two national officers

Sonia Gable | Sunday, 9 December 2007 Source: Searchlight

The BNP has announced the expulsion from the party of two of its national officers. According to a notice posted on Sunday 9 December on the revamped BNP website, Sadie Graham, the party's hard-working group development officer, and Kenny Smith, in charge of administration, have been "removed from their posts with immediate effect on the grounds of gross misconduct and now face disciplinary charges over alleged offences against the BNP Constitution and Code of Conduct".

The announcement continues: "In order to afford the accused a fair hearing at their forthcoming disciplinary tribunals, it is not proper to rehearse the details of the cases against them here at present" However it goes on to outline the case pretty clearly, to the extent of printing a transcript of a telephone conference call in which Smith explains to Graham how she can contribute to a new blog he has set up. The blog, called "enough is enough", calls for the removal of Mark Collett, the party's head of publicity, and Dave Hannam, the deputy treasurer, because of the damage being inflicted on the BNP by what the blog calls "these sleazy, lying, incompetent scumbags.

The January issue of Searchlight will carry a full report of the background to the expulsions and an analysis of where it leaves the BNP. But some interesting points arise from the BNP's announcement that are worth making now.

Graham is a BNP councillor who is popular in her local area and, unlike most BNP councillors, she carries the job for which she was elected. The BNP was already down to 46 councillors after the expulsion from the party of Geoffrey Wallace in Calderdale and its failure to win back James Lloyd's seat in the Princes End by-election on 6 December. Now there are just 45, and that is without any of Graham's friends among the BNP councillors leaving the party in disgust at her treatment.

Smith is accused of "serious breaches of accountancy procedures leaving up to £17,000 unaccounted for in the 2006 Central Audit". In this way the BNP counters the attacks by Smith and Graham, and others before them, on the incompetence of the party's treasury department and at the same time has someone to blame for the continued delay in producing its audited accounts.

But most interesting of all in this is the involvement of another former South African police officer. Lance Stewart appears suddenly as the head of the BNP's new "intelligence team" in charge of the investigation into "string of leaks and misinformation briefings to political opponents, and … internal rumour-mongering. He joins Arthur Kemp, whose past and present activities in South Africa and the UK Searchlight has exposed in some detail throughout 2007.

Strangely, no action seems to have been taken against Matt Single, the third person in the telephone conference call.

Graham was the BNP's most senior woman but we would not want to accuse Griffin, Collett and Kemp of being male chauvinists now would we?

The BNP's announcement describes the two as junior level national officers, but they were not so "junior" when they were flavour of the month with Griffin.

Although the BNP's notice refers to Graham and Smith facing a disciplinary tribunal, a second notice states that they have been already expelled from the party. Surely it is only party members who can be disciplined?

You can read the transcript of the telephone call at http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2007/12/smith-and-graham-expelled-from-bnp.html.