Thanks but no thanks

Sonia Gable | Friday, 7 December 2007 Source: Searchlight

Most BNP councillors never get mentioned in this column because they don't do anything. But there are some exceptions.

A leaflet headed "Help in hand" offers free help to "elderly, disabled and needy" people in the East Ardsley and Tingley area of Leeds. Services such as changing light bulbs and lifting heavy boxes are available by phoning Joanna Beverley, the only one of 12 BNP candidates for Morley Town Council to get elected last May. Her husband Chris, the sole BNP member of Leeds City Council, was spotted distributing the leaflets.

Recognising that vulnerable people might be worried about letting the typical thuggish BNP member into their home, the party reassures residents that the helper "will carry a British National Party identity card". It does not state whether the Beverleys will ensure that the helper is not one of the many BNP members with convictions for violence, fraud, hooliganism or race hate.

The BNP's "help in hand" scheme first appeared in Corsham in May, run by Mike Howson, the BNP's Mid-West regional organiser, who also headed the party's vigilante patrols in Wiltshire earlier this year. Corsham BNP boasted recently how, by erecting flat-pack furniture for an ex-soldier, its help in hand team had been "helping its own people". No prizes for guessing what that means, and it's a sure bet that not many of the leaflets have been put through the letterboxes of non-white residents in Corsham or Leeds.

The Corsham help in hand team, which also includes Mick Simpkins, the BNP's Corsham town councillor, received a trophy for "best community initiative" at the BNP's Red White Blue festival in summer and promised to tell other BNP branches how to set up such a scheme at the party's autumn training weekend. So far it seems that only the Leeds branch has been willing to make the effort.