BNP Leader Election Update

Well we've traveled some way from earlier posts on this forum.

This very forum was one of the first to break the news of Chris Jackson's intended candidacy for the BNP leadership.

At the time this was greeted with guffaws and disdain from Griffinites in various forums and outlets.

The spin machine has had to change now. The post [below] is from the official BNP website. On reading it you'd think they ran such postings annually. In reality it's another bit of spin, to the effect that this challenge is welcomed... when people in many areas have already been threatened in this regard.

In order to maintain balance in this matter we publish the Griffinite spin, and with it the picture of a document which the (Tyndallite) NorthWestNationalists blog claims is being produced in the near future.

If this challenge achieves the ends of reducing some of the Kosher-Tory policy, some of the Neo-Con hangers-on, some of the race-mixing apologists, some of the homosexual activists... which (rightly or wrongly) reflect on the wider nationalist movement both here and abroad, then it cannot but be a good thing.

Time will tell.

Interesting sections of this report are put in bold for readers to peruse in light of recent events.


It’s that time of year! Nominations open for BNP leadership election.

1st June 2007

News article filed by BNP news team

The constitution of the British National Party was designed so that the party leader has more power than in many other parties. This system was adopted when the BNP was founded as a result of more than a decade of prior experience, of the way in which rule by a directorate or committee was a recipe for disastrous factional in-fighting and division in a nationalist party.

It was, however, acknowledged right from the start that such a concentration of power needs to be balanced by a high degree of accountability by the leader to the membership, and by an unusually democratic system for choosing – and replacing - the leader.

The constitution therefore states that the current leader may be challenged in any year by any member with more than five years’ unbroken membership who is also either an office holder within the party or who secures the backing of 100 members in good standing paid up for the current year. The signing of such a paper is taken simply as an indication that the assenter recognises the right of the challenger to stand, and does not necessarily indicate support for any or all of the candidate’s proposals.

While there does not have to be any such contest (there has only been one in the party’s history – in 1999, when Mr. Griffin was elected by a substantial majority), the period during which nominations must be submitted via registered post to the BNP’s registered headquarters, PO Box 14, Welshpool, SY21 0WE, opens on 1st June and closes on 30th June each year.

Secret ballot

In the event of no valid nominations being submitted, the current party leader is deemed to have been elected unopposed for a further year. If a contest does take place a secret postal ballot of all members paid up since January of the current year is held before the end of September.

All candidates receive equal space in the internal members’ bulletin, British Nationalist for a ‘manifesto’ statement. No party publications or web facilities may be used to recommend or promote any candidate, although they will continue to report normally on party activities.

In order to avoid either benefiting the incumbent leader or encouraging the illegitimate collection and use of membership details, no candidate may issue or have issued on his or her behalf any separate promotional material by post or email. Candidates and party members supporting them are of course perfectly entitled to speak on the issue at party meetings.

Precise final details of how a leadership contest is to be run are decided and publicised immediately after the 30th June in any year in which valid nominations are received from a challenger or challengers.

The current party leader, Nick Griffin, has indicated that he intends at present to continue in that position for several years longer at least, but that he would welcome a properly conducted challenge as a way of confirming his popular mandate to continue running the party along present lines, and of displaying the BNP’s unusually democratic leadership selection system to the British people as a whole.