BNP's leadership challenge; a message from Martin Webster;

If my memory serves, Mr. Jackson was once a live wire for the BNP in the Preston area, but that he fell out with Griffin and either resigned -- or was expelled -- from that party.

If this is right, then by "BNP leadership challege" I surmise that what is being proposed is the formation of a new party which would go into competition with the BNP until such time as Griffin was no longer its leader and a merger between the two parties, with Mr. Jackson as leader, could be accomplished. [This is "Scenario A".]

If, on the other hand, Mr. Jackson is still a BNP member and he proposes challenge to Griffin's leadership would be by way of triggering an election for the post of party chairman in accordance with the terms of the party's current 'constitution' ["Scenario B"], then he would have to be an officer of the party at the time he lodged his nomination paper and/or have been a member of the party for a continuous period of 10 years, and have the signatures of a specified number of qualified officers and/or members of the party on his nomination paper (I don't know the fine details).

If "Scenario B" is the plan, then the BNP 'constitution' provides Griffin with the means to dismiss Mr. Jackson from any office he may hold in the party and/or to trump up disciplinary charges against him so that he could be expelled from membership, thereby removing his qualifications to stand nominated as a candidate for the leadership.

Similar action could be taken against any persons signing his nomination paper or campaigning on his behalf.

Any such actions by Griffin would be tyrannical in the extreme -- but Griffin would only be taking advantage of the "führerprinzip" 'constitution' devised for the BNP by its founder, the late John Tyndall.

It is necessary to record that Tyndall tried to foist just such a constitution on the National Front in 1980, but the overwhelming majority of NF membership (including Griffin) rejected his proposals aas tyrannous, which is the reason why three months later Tyndall split from the NF and proceeded to form the BNP with a 'constitution' which differs only slightly from that being operated by Mugabe in Zambia!

As I have mentioned, under the Tyndall 'constitution', a challenge for the post of Chairman of the BNP can only be mounted if the person currently holding that office allows the challenge to go ahead, i.e. does not employ his powers under the 'constitution' to disqualify any challenger.

Tyndall refrained from using those power in 1999 when Griffin set about challenging him for the chairmanship because Tyndall deluded himself that he was too popular with the membership for any challenge to his position to be successful.

Griffin will not, I think, suffer from a similar fit of hubris.

Whether the "challenge" Mr. Jackson proposes to make is via either "Scenario A" or "Scenario B", it is unlikely to successful within the forseeable future for the following reasons:

1) Insiders always united against outsiders. Even if Mr. Jackson were a party member and a party officer, if he started serious agitation against Griffin he would soon find himself out of office and, under some pretext, expelled from the membership. An insignificant number of members would follow him out of the party and "into the wilderness".

2) The vast majority of BNP members are newcomers to nationalism. They are either politically ignorant populists or politically sophisticated infiltrators who are intent on super-charging Griffin's "modernisation" process (especially its pro-Jewish aspects). The more correct nationalist policies which Mr. Jackson would advocate would thus either be beyond the ken or rejected by these people.

3) The argument that the "success" the BNP is having is being bought by selling off fundamental principles British nationalism is received with total incomprehension not only by the recent intake of members (especially by the species known as 'populist ignorami' ) who are now the majority, but also by many long-standing nationalists of my acquaintance, who should know better but who are either bedazzled by "success" or are deluding themselves that Griffin is perpetrating a successful 'con job' against the Establishsment and the Jews. (Ho! Ho!)

4) BNP members feel that the party is "on a roll" not only in the run-up to this May's local election, but onwards to the next General Election. They link this with Griffin's leadership of the party -- thanks to the assiduous promotion of him by the media, which always links this "success" to his role in "modernising" and "moderating" the party.

5) Griffin has his hands on the levers of power and publicity within the party. He has used this position to transform the BNP from being a vehicle designed to advance of British nationalism into a vehicle designed to promote Nick Griffin's personal career and income. No outsider is going to be able to change that situation in the forseeable future.

6) Mr. Jackson is unknown outside the N.E. England region.Enoch Powell always used to say: "Every political career ends in failure". Eventually Griffin will take a tumble, but as a result of one or other -- or perhaps even a combination of both -- of the following circumstances:

(a) He becomes involved and exposed in some ginormous scandal which makes his particpation in public life impossible. It could happen. He is a crook and, like his current bodyguard, "a swinger" but who also has bi-sexual tendencies which, because they are hidden away in the closet, make him vulnerable. He could get himself into some kind of a financial and/or sexual scrape in the future; or something in his past could loom up and bite him on the bum.

(b) He fails in the high expectations which his membership have attached to his leadership.

Such crises usually transpire immediately after a general election in which membership expectations have not been met.

Now to my position: I would not join or associate myself with any new party ["Scenario A"], nor would I associate myself with any faction within the BNP ['Scenario B"].

I have never been a BNP member, have no desire to become one, let alone any desire to hold any office in that party. I disagree with important aspects of its political policy (be it the Griffin version or the Tyndall version) and I strongly disagree with the party's 'constitution'. (To be taken seriously by those who are or who wish to involve themselves with the BNP, if, as and when Griffin is no longer its Chairman, Mr. Jackson is going to have to deal with both of those aspects in detail.)

I have no PARTY political interests, and, at this stage in my life, I am not going to exert myself to promote the party-political ambitions of any individual or group of people who support political policies and/or constitutional principles to which I am opposed, simply in order to "get back" at Griffin.

But I remain a supporter of what I understand as the British nationalist cause (much as it was voiced and constituted in the National Front 1970 - 1983).

The best way I can serve that cause during the time that remains to me is to observe what is going on, analyse matters in the light of my knowledge and experience, and communicate my conclusions to any who care to read what I think.

If, in doing that, I can expose Griffin for the dishonest, cynical and malignant wretch that he is politically and personally, then that is an additional reason to be content with my role.

My standing as a commentator, such as it may be, is based on an appreciation by my readership that I stand alone, without any involvement with or obligation to anybody else; that I grind no axe other than my own opinion.

Were I to involve myself with any party or faction I would compromise whatever value I might have as an independent commentator.

I will make this clear in the next issue of ELC/EWoZ.

Sincerely,

Martin Webster.