Board bid to fight BNP

Bernard Josephs | Saturday, 22 December 2007 Source: The Jewish Chronicle

A major campaign to put the Jewish community in the front line in the fight against racism has been launched by the Board of Deputies under the slogan: "Racism. It's Not Kosher."

The aim is to prevent the far-right British National Party from winning a seat in the Greater London Assembly elections next year by encouraging people to go to the polls.

The Board said it was "essential to highlight the fact that parties such as the BNP still harbour an anti-Jewish agenda, despite their protestations to the contrary". An early success for the initiative was claimed last Thursday in a council by-election in Harrow, North-West London, which has a large number of Jewish voters.

Board officials contacted synagogues in the area and rabbis highlighted the by-election in their sermons.

The result was a resounding defeat for the BNP candidate, Howard Studley, with just 56 votes.

The poll was won by the Tories, whose candidate Husain Akhtar, scored 1,208 votes, followed by Labour's Richard Harrod (389), Liberal Democrat Anne Diamond (296) and Marcello Borgese, Independent (182).