BNP unveils its election weapon women

By Ian Herbert and Marie Woolf | Friday, 14 May 2004 | Click here for original article

Political activists fighting the British National Party in next month'slocal and European elections were focusing yesterday on its new weapon -female candidates.

The party is estimated to be fielding up to 80 women, an unprecedentednumber, including 11 in Yorkshire, where a quarter of the party's 400candidates across both elections will stand on 10 June.

Six women are standing in Barnsley, south Yorkshire, and three inCalderdale, west Yorkshire - both key targets. Traditionally, the party'scandidate lists have been dominated by working-class men. But this timethere is a 58-year-old Jewish woman, Patricia Richardson, standing in EppingForest and the eastern region; and Julie Russell, 24, whose degree inGerman, Italian and international studies has not disabused her of thenotion that Britain "has lost its identity".

Some of the BNP's election boasts may be bluster - eight of the 22candidates it promised to field in Calderdale have stood down. One has closerelatives of Asian extraction and became uncomfortable about the party. Butthe BNP is using its women judiciously, fielding some on male-dominatedshortlists.

Ms Richardson dismisses her party chairman's description of the Holocaustas, "the hoax of the 20th century", claiming the BNP no longer espouses sucha view. "They would not ask me to stand if they felt that way," she said.Other members of the BNP's female contingent appear to be equally"off-message". One of the Barnsley candidates, Lorraine Lee, 37, a mother oftwo, said that the idea of repatriating people of overseas extraction - aBNP policy - was "dreadful". She said: "You can't do that to people. Many ofthem have come here because they have asked for our help and support. Youcan't just turn around and send them back."

The same distaste led one of the BNP's eight Burnley councillors, MaureenStowe, 65, to leave the party earlier this year. "I didn't like the meetingsor the messages," she said.

Phill Edwards, a BNP spokesman, said Ms Lee - who stands in Barnsley'sRockingham ward after being nominated by 10 other party members - had been"misunderstood".

The female candidates will be asked to propound the BNP's "family values"policy - that women should stay at home to look after the children. "We hopeit will prove that we are not all pot-bellied skinhead with tattoos," saidMr Edwards.

Among the other women the party is fielding are Terrie Rentoul, who isstanding in Southampton; Suzie Cass, who is standing in Ossett, westYorkshire and whose husband, Nick, is a Euro and Kirkless candidate andJenny Agnew, an ex-Green who is number three on the Euro list for the NorthEast.

In Calderdale, the candidates include Jane Shooter, 35, a mother of threewho works at a printing company. The local party, which has three seats, isfielding 14 candidates. It may benefit from the fact that the Tory-led hungcouncil lacks unity. In Burnley, 20 miles away in Lancashire, Labour has allbut silenced the far-right.

Nick Griffin, the BNP's chairman, is enjoying a high profile in Calderdale.Speaking at a recent meeting in Shelf, west Yorkshire, he raised theprospect of "a civil war which the whites lose."

Mainstream politicians yesterday warned against being fooled by seeminglyrespectable women candidates for the BNP.

Eric Pickles MP, the Tories' local government spokesman, said he thought BNPcandidates were "vile" and urged Conservative supporters not to be taken in.He said Tory candidates had been told not to appear with BNP candidates onradio or TV debates. "The smiling face of facism is still fascist. The BNPare undermining social cohesion and the British way of life.

"Despite their snappy suits and smart outfits they still remain a one issueparty,"

Sarah Teather, 29, the Liberal Democrat MP who last year won a by-electionin Brent East, where at least half of the population belong to ethnicminorities, said people should not to be "taken in" by seemingly respectableBNP candidates.

"It would be nice to say that all racists look the same, but there areracists in all corners of society, including racist women," she said.

In the North-west, where the BNP could see their leader Mr Griffin electedas the party first MEP, the Green party is urging people to vote for them asa way of blocking him. Under the PR system Mr Griffin needs about 9 per centto get in, but if the Green party get more votes they will prevent hiselection.

The British National Party, in a bizarre article on its website, this weekpaid tribute to members of the "fairer sex" who they say have come to itsaid. The article, entitled "Thank God for the Ladies" praises "ladychampions" who have "come to the defence of western civilisation."

'I like different cultures - but abroad, not here'

Julie Russell, 23, is a Euro-candidate for the British National Party in theSouth East of England who says she joined the BNP because she believes it"stands for common sense".

Ms Russell, left, with the French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, worksin a shop selling herbal remedies and says she is "worried about the stateof the country and white people becoming a minority in our own country".

She began delivering BNP leaflets while still at school and was introducedto far-right politics by her father, who is the party's full-time pressofficer.

But she rejects claims the party is racist and says she appreciatesdifferent cultures - so long as they are abroad.

"I like all different cultures. I like to travel. It's nice to have alldifferent cultures abroad - but we shouldn't have them in our country," shesays. Ms Russell, who studied German and Italian at Salford University, iskeen to point out that she is well-travelled.

In Britain she is standing on a platform of voluntary repatriation for allpeople from ethnic minority backgrounds. She says her friends, none of whomare black, are aware she is standing for the BNP. "Not everybody has blackfriends," she says. "When I was at university I knew Asian people. Myfriends know I am in the party. There's not many young people who areinterested in politics."

Ms Russell, who is unlikely to be elected next month, believes the party hasbeen misrepresented. "We are not sick people who are racists. People jump toconclusions about us," she says.

Her heroine is Boudicca, the Queen of the Iceni, who led a revolt againstthe Romans.