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BNP campaign descends into chaos on eve of election

This is a cross post by Maurice Cousins of Nothing British about the BNP

The BNP’s 2010 campaign has descended into a fratricidal bloodbath after Simon Bennett, the BNP’s web-master, attacked the BNP leader Nick Griffin MEP on the party’s website and nationalist internet forums.

The extraordinary episode started yesterday, when Bennett removed the BNP’s website replacing it with an angry message aimed at Griffin and Jim Dowson. He wrote:

It is with regret that I have been forced to pull this website due to several attempts of theft today with regards to design work and content owned by myself.
It is no secret that I have been in dispute with some elements of the management of the party for sometime now, but had hoped to resolve these issues amicably and AFTER the elections.
However, due to several attempts to steal my work today and combined with the recent deliberate copyright infringement I feel I have been left with no alternative to this action and feel wholly justified in doing so.
It would appear the straw that finally broke the camel’s back was what has become known as “Marmite-gate” – when the BNP used Marmite’s logo in its on-line political broadcast without authorisation from Unilever.
According to Bennett, Griffin and Dowson expected him to carry the can for their own stupidity, putting his family home at risk. Bennett said:
“What’s worse, is that I believe I was deliberately put in the frame and left to carry the responsibility whilst those that were responsible went to ground for four days leaving me to stew in my own fear and uncertainty.”
Giving some insight into the chaotic leadership, Bennett added:
“Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson deliberately set out to pick this fight with Unilever – not me. I advised strongly against it. Nick proceeded to goad Unilever into action when Unilever wanted a quick settlement and seemed happy with an undertaking not to do it again. That wasn’t enough for Nick, he wanted a public fight and a media circus.”
The BNP is in total meltdown. A few weeks ago, Nothing British secretly obtained a leaked email from Alistair Barbour, a former BNP PPC and advisor to Nick Griffin, who quit following his disillusionment with the party’s leadership. Barbour’s email reveals a party that thinks Griffin’s leadership is incompetent and points to the infighting and jealousy at the heart of the party. Barbour wrote:
“There is no one on the top table in the party who have any idea of what they are doing, that goes for all of them Jefferson, Wingfields, Collett, Butler, Dowson. The only thing they have, is they’re in Nicks clique. All they do in the Euro office is figure out how they can claim more expenses. I  could not be part of this. Standing in meetings and telling supporters that everythings good ,give us your money. Their main objective, I truly believe, is to get Griffin re-elected in 5 years for one reason only; to keep there noses in the trough.”
He concluded:
“In short the party needs to get rid of the idiots who run it,stop lieing to the membership and supporters and get serious about saving our country.”

This could not have happened at worse moment for the BNP, particularly on the eve of a General Election, which they expected to make a series of breakthroughs both locally and nationally. What started as “Marmite-gate” and has now turned into “Bennett-gate” shows how the relative success of the BNP during the Euro elections was more to do with luck than a revival of neo-fascist politics in Britain.

Maurice Cousins