Ian Dawsons, Letter-UNCUT

Dear Nick

Please find below a few comments that I would like to make regarding factors that have led me to resign from employment with the Party. Obviously, I intend to work until the end of October so as to make sure that the Party does not suffer.
Overall I have had an enjoyable time of it, though I think it is fair to say that several unresolved issues have become so great that the time is right for me to relinquish my national role and instead focus on regional and local political matters.
There is no chance whatsoever that I would resign from the Party. I am a racial nationalist who believes that we do not have many years left for our Cause to prevail. The BNP is the best vehicle for furthering our Cause, and will hopefully one day come to power to save our great race and nation. If not, then I and many others will happily go down fighting. Overall you are the best leader that our movement could have at the present time, and for the foreseeable future, though I think it is fair to say that you are much more talented on the political side than on the managerial side of things.

You had the balls to say as such in front of a lot of people at the recent managerial meeting, and I can’t fault you for that. However, it is indeed issues of management that have largely led, in my opinion, to a vein of poison running through our collective bloodstream. However, before I go further into this I want to start with some positives.

We have a great chance to get someone elected in Yorkshire at the next European Elections – this would be a massive achievement and would put us firmly into the mainstream. I think it is important to continue to build up the profile of the party in the more remote parts of the North & East Ridings and to try and increase our efforts in the areas where we are already established. At present I have little time to devote to this, hopefully this will now change.

I enjoy local politics and as my commitments to the party nationally have increased I have unfortunately been able to devote less and less time to it. Hopefully I can start to get involved in local politics once more now that I have more time.

There are some great people in the BNP, in fact most of the people I have met have been first rate, and most of the full-time staff and leadership are top people who sacrifice a lot, work hard, and are honest, courteous and competent. I enjoyed working with Chris Beverley and Sadie while working part time for Excalibur, and latterly with Sadie, Kenny Smith and Steve Blake amongst others when working in Group Support – there are may more people to mention though those are the names of people I have worked closely with.

I have worked more closely with Sadie than anyone else, and I would like to think that while we have of course made the odd mistake, overall we have made a big and positive difference to the running of the party. Sadie is an immensely courageous, hard-working and loyal person who has taken the Party up more than one level with her professionalism. There are thankfully still a lot of decent people who can carry on their roles and steer the Party in the right direction.

However, I personally believe that it is crunch time on a number of big decisions. Getting the CMT in place will hopefully mean that the Party is run more professionally and ‘within the law’. I think that getting them in place to do the roles asked is a very good decision. However, this still leaves some serious issues that will not go away, and if left alone will only bring more people to come to their wit’s end.

I must say that the issues are probably more magnified for me for two reasons:
Having the title Group Support means that everybody comes to me with their problems. Sometimes these are minor and easily sorted; sometimes they are major and involve at least one side feeling hard done by. All in all, having problems and squabbles to sort out on a daily basis is very testing, and although this on its own would not be unmanageable, when added to the second reason it has become unbearable.
I have to work on a daily basis with Treasury, specifically Dave Hannam. Add this to the fact that Hannam, Walker and Collett have their own little clique which will stop at nothing to undermine, antagonise and mock decent nationalists, then something has to give.

I don’t know what more I have to do or say to get through the point that Dave is completely incompetent. I have emailed Dave countless times with problems and nothing has been done. I have spoken at length to both yourself and Nick Cass* and nothing was done. I have proved beyond doubt that the job is clearly beyond Dave – it has nothing whatsoever to do with work overload, which is just a convenient excuse for crass incompetence. Hannam has messed things up from day one, before he got ‘bogged down’ in an audit, during it, and after it. If he worked in a bank he would not last a week. Not only is he incompetent, he also lies. Again, this can be proved time and time again, yet it seems that no matter how much some people lie, and however big the lies are, they get away with it. I can’t think of one thing that Dave does well – if there is something I have not seen it. That is not an exaggeration or an unnecessary insult, it is a fact.

I travelled down to Wales to give a talk on ‘how Groups and Branches are affected by the current Treasury problems’. I always knew that I had to say something serious and even though some people present would think that it was me who was being in someway unreasonable, I could not go all that way and paper over the cracks. To be honest those people who were local and regional activists and officials knew what I said was right, even if it was a little harsh on Dave to say it in front of everyone. If anyone was not a local or regional official or activist then their opinion on me does not count anyway. Annoyingly, I only caught the end of Dave’s presentation (I had travelled down assuming I was to be listening to both John and Dave’s presentation first – though I had missed most of this as a result of it starting without me being there and being told to go to the wrong place initially). It was glaringly obvious that Treasury had identified the problems as work overload. I felt that they had done a good job of convincing the people there present that it was work overload. It is like going to the doctors, and being diagnosed with a cold when in reality you have AIDs and thus in future, innocent people are going to suffer.

Work overload? Non-sense. We are all overworked yet we all manage to make a good job of our core activities. A lot of what Mark Payne did I now do. Treasury have a job do to for sure, though a competent person would do it easily, without fuss, and would make sure things were right 95%+ of the time. If the problem was diagnosed as work overload then this was a serious misdiagnosis for it would lead to no action being taken other than someone else being brought on to do competently what Dave was not doing. It would lead to months (at least) of more mistakes, more complete frustration and more disillusionment with the party, specifically though not exclusively Treasury, from various national, regional and local officials.

Dave could have been shifted off to GWR (something that will never reach its full potential with him at the helm, please feel free to mark my words) as even though it is not ideal long-term, it would have meant someone capable could have been brought on to do his very important Treasury job, and things in Treasury would have hopefully been turned around. I would have replaced him ages ago, in a diplomatic way of course, yet as his face fits he is still on board, despite constant lies and incompetence. Just how bad to people have to be at their job, and how many lies do they have to tell to cover it up, before they are sacked? It looks as though Ged (who will do a great job I am sure) has been brought on, with no real change to Dave’s role – so we can no doubt look forward to more cock ups in the future.

I have had well over a year of having to put up with these cock ups and in many cases people think that it is me who makes the mistakes as, for example, I send out the bank statements that are usually wrong. I simply can’t take any more of this – I want to work hard, do a good job and be respected – I don’t want to carry the can for someone else’s mistakes every single month. I spend a worryingly large part of my time trying to sort out Dave’s mistakes and I have better things to do with my time.

I have included the sheet that I read from at the Wales Management Meeting in Appendix 1 for a full breakdown of just exactly how incompetent Dave is. I say this with no malice towards Dave, though some things need to be said if we are to actually go on and achieve our honourable goal. After all, it is survival of the fittest and we don’t have enough time left to carry passengers.


*Nick Cass is a great bloke – hard working, 100% committed, and has practical skills that could be put to good use. He is in it for the long haul and I think that he has been let down of late. He was given a job that he was clearly not suited to (this is not meant in a disparaging way, as not many people, myself included, could do the job effectively). Admin and management are not Nick’s strong points; he has no experience whatsoever of the latter, and by making him a scapegoat for Dave Hannam’s incompetence is unfair. It seems that Nick is not so weak that Collett can worm his way into his head and use him as a puppet. No doubt this is one of the reasons that Hannam still has his job and Nick Cass does not.


I firmly believe that you will be hamstrung as long as you surround yourself with the most hated man in British Nationalism. I don’t know how you can’t see the damage that this said person does. He is the most hated man for a reason. If there are ten pubs in a town, and you get barred from one of them in your lifetime, it is likely that you have been the victim of misfortune. If you get barred from three, it is probably the case that you have an antagonistic personality. If only one pub will serve you and the other nine ban you for life and can’t even stand the sight of you, then you are a prick.

Mark Collett is without doubt the most deceitful, devious, arrogant, spiteful, greedy moron that I have ever come across. He is not a nationalist, plain and simple. Playing gangster rap music while hurling personal insults at hard working nationalists is about as low as it gets. What on earth is he doing in the Party? Yet not just that, what on earth is he doing as a national officer?
He may well do a good job for you, and be at your beck and call 24/7, and he obviously makes sure he gets on the right side of those who actually pay his wages, yet to him everyone else is an irrelevance. If he can’t make money out of it, or get brownie points from you then he just isn’t interested. He is a great graphic designer, for you. He is always available to help out, for you. He always works hard, for you.
Sod everyone else, as long as he can keep you happy he is safe.

I’ll give you an example of how hard he works for other people. RWB 2006. I am doing the lit-run from a stall in a marquee with Martin & Tina who are running a VoF stall, and Mark & Bill Bunting. Bill is helping Mark out with the leaflets. Mark explains what he wants Bill to do, stays for about one hour then clears off. He returns about twice during the course of the day for about 10 minutes at a time, and then clears off again to walk around arrogantly for the remainder of the day, strutting about like he owned the place and ran the Party. Incidentally, he must think that he either runs it now or will run it soon as he always promotes himself in ID even at your expense. You are usually either lower or behind his picture.
Back to the RWB, Collett comes in at the end of the day and Bill has not recorded things correctly because of a misunderstanding of how to record things that was explained in the morning. After working his balls off all day and not even getting to see RWB, Bill Bunting gets called by Mark for not writing things down correctly, he storms off and Mark goes on to call him a “cunt” in earshot of many people. Is that gratitude or what?

On the Sunday, in my naivety, I basically carry on doing what Bill was doing, while Mark again swans off doing other things. At the end of the event, Mark clears off early and leaves other people to get the leaflets back to the unit.

RWB 2007. Mark gets to the RWB after much fuss about a van not being available. I unload all the leaflets with a couple of other people as the van is needed for other uses. On the Saturday, Mark again does a short spell in the tent then clears off for the rest of the day, safe in the knowledge that instead of telling people that they can’t have leaflets, I would do his work for him, just like last year. The Marquee is needed for the TC meeting on the Sunday morning, so I agree with Mark that will meet at half ten in the morning to clear the tent of the leaflets and VoF etc. Sunday morning 10.30 – Mark is playing football, never even came to say so, just turned up in the evening saying that he was leaving. Hard-working? Lazy, idle, arrogant pratt more like. Unless of course he is given something to do by you, then he jumps to it.

At the same RWB, Mark makes a point of smirking at and deriding Andrew Spence at every opportunity. The same way he has done to Sadie in the past on the AC. This inflames an already tense situation which soon got out of control. Mark makes out that he was ‘protecting his mate’ yet in reality Mark’s attitude and arrogance made a tense situation explode. Andrew Spence was bang out of order to start throwing punches yet if had just been paid the money, and Collett had kept out of his way, then he would have gone home, end of story.

Mark has admitted that he has purposefully not run Excalibur adds in ID so that Chris Beverley would get screwed over. This in itself is a sack-able offence, surely? How are we supposed to work together when this is allowed to happen?

At the recent AC meeting, after disgracefully calling Kenny Smith a liar (with Kenny surely being one of the most honest people in the Party), Mark’s face was like a slapped backside when told other people could shop around for leaflet quotes for the general election leaflets. Should he not want the Party to save money? No, not when it means he is going to lose money. I have no doubt whatsoever that Mark makes a cut out of leaflets. That is why he only wants things to be able to go through him. He wanted to charge Nick Cass £800 for brochures that Nick got done for over £500 less elsewhere, after assuring Nick that as a mate he would do him a good deal. No doubt Collett was planning a big night in a strip club. Clive Jefferson managed to get twice as many leaflets done for half the price for the Copeland by-election. These are a couple of examples amongst many. Do the invoices get checked that Vanguard Promotions produces against those that the printer charges Vanguard Promotions? No doubt Mark will be clever enough to make sure a few tally so that he can show people, yet I would stake my life on it that Mark is making money out of hard-working units and people up and down the country.

Mark has made remarks and disgusting comments about a number of good people in the Party. He has insulted peoples’ wives, and has gone out of his way to be provocative. What would your reaction be if he had said about you what he has said about many other hard working nationalists? What if he had made poisonous and hate-filled remarks about Jackie? Would you be able to work with him? Of course, Mark is not stupid enough to insult you or Jackie – he just leaves that for the people who are not his boss or have seen through him for the worthless toe rag that he is.

Lastly, we have the most damaging issue. Mark has said, and trusted people will swear on their life that this is true, “If I don’t get my way I will go Queen’s evidence on Nick”. Does this not spell out where his loyalties lie? For heaven’s sake you deserve far better than that.

Now add all this up, and mix it with the fact that you seem to defend and indeed promote Collett at every opportunity, and you can surely see why people wonder what on earth is going on. Collett is doing more damage to this Party than UAF. He is not a nationalist. He is poison.


John Walker. When not getting drunk, John is usually treating people like in an abysmal fashion. Most good people have had an instance where this is the case. He is completely unprofessional and although he is not in the Dave Hannam league of incompetence, I don’t think that he is suited to the role of National Treasurer.
OK, everyone is entitled to a drink every now and then, and I have no problem with people occasionally getting drunk, yet at every event we have, John gets hammered.

The way that he treats good people (Wendy being a perfect example – and still this is the case, I am not just referring to past occasions previously mentioned) is a disgrace. Thankfully people like Wendy are good nationalists in it for the long-term and will not give in. However, John has a serious problem with wanting to be the boss and thinking that he has the right to hire and fire.


Coming back to the management issue, there are things which I believe you can improve on:
Employing the right people in the first instance
Sacking incompetent people when the wrong ones have been employed
Phoning all members of the AC every month to generally see how things are going and get their opinions – at the very least this makes them feel listened to and ensures that you are not just getting info from those that shout the loudest. This would only take 10-15 minutes out of every other day, or every day if you also phoned RO’s
Not telling people two minutes before a meeting that they have been replaced, e.g. the recent case involving Nick Cass
Not interfering in someone’s role when they are perfectly capable of doing things properly themselves. Sometimes these are only minor things yet they can make a big difference.


All in all, this may sound like over-the-top criticism yet I can assure you this is not the case. I have said before that I think you are the best man for the job; you are a great political thinker and leader.
I admire what you have achieved, and I know that without your efforts, ingenuity, and hard-work, British Nationalism would be nothing more than a trivial annoyance to the establishment.
You deserve to be where you are, and you deserve to have a trusted, loyal and hard working team around you. You could have that, yet at the moment you seem to be putting up with incompetence and letting vermin like Mark Collett tarnish the good work that is being done.


I know that there are a lot of people who feel exactly the same way I do. Same issues, same concerns.

The Party is in grave danger of fragmenting, yet this could be solved right away. It is going to involve taking big decisions and hopefully you will make them. I do not for-see a bright future if other good nationalists get disillusioned while the present situation rumbles on.

There are so many good people in the party that are being sidelined and have not been listened to. People are sick and tired of seeing the odious clique of Hannam, Walker, and specifically Collett get away with things time and time again.

I have had my fill of it all and need to have a break before getting stuck into regional and local stuff once more. If something is not done soon then I know other good people will go the same way. I simply need to remain sane.

You may not choose to take on board what I have said, yet I feel a lot better for saying it and hope that in doing so you at least know why I have decided to step down from my role of Group Support.

I will endeavour to work hard as always and try to promote the Party wherever possible.
Appendix One:

It is my role as Group Support Officer to provide as much information as possible to local officials on things which they are unsure about, or point them in the right direction to ask the right people if things are beyond my remit.

As well as maintaining the Form 3 database, planning the lit-run, sorting out peoples’ bnp email addresses, sending out bank statements as and when they come through, dealing with individual bulk leaflets and publication orders, a large proportion of my time is spent smoothing over problems where they exist, offering advice to people, and sorting out disputes. There are also one off things like organising the new Organisers’ website, which with the fantastic help of Steve Blake is now up and running.

I spend at lot of time liaising with local and regional officials, especially those that are new and inexperienced. I am also a local and regional official myself and have been for a number of years.

This allows me to get a very good perspective on how the party is functioning internally, what people ‘on the ground’ are thinking, and what peoples’ complaints are at various levels.

For a good while now, it has been the case that many local, regional and national officials have voiced their concerns over the treasury department, in particular the regional treasury office which is mainly responsible for the various group and branches that we have.

The complaints have been high in number and in severity, starting off gradually yet now becoming so frequent that things are at breaking point. These complaints are largely based on the following.

It is very hard to track Dave down at times, he is often un-contactable for long periods, he rarely responds to voicemails or emails and does not get back to people with answers to their questions. Even though one question from a Fund-Holder may seem trivial, the reality is that our local officials are primarily concerned with their local group, and if they are not getting help or feedback then they are going to become displeased regardless of how busy other people are or make out to be.

Petty cash books and paying in books take an infuriatingly long time to get sent to new units. This leads to a high number of complaints when all that is needed is once every ten days to send a treasury pack to new units. Also, people complain that they don’t get things returned within a reasonable timescale when they submit things for auditing etc. Examples of units to complain about the lateness of treasury packs includes Southend, Exeter, Nuneaton, Castle Point, West Lindsey, Yorkshire, Richmond, Solihull, New Forest etc. etc.

Length of time to process standing order forms for North Yorks and East Mids, for every month that is lost the cost can be £000’s.

Mistakes on bank balances, and bank balance not being sent out often enough or up to date. This is a major bugbear in that local groups often get bank balances that are wrong. This is of especially great concern to me, as it is myself that sends them out and often gets the complaints back in. Many groups complain that money has not been credited to their account that they have banked, that things have not been explained in full on the account, and regional officials often complain that agreed local to regional transfers have not been completed. This is one of the most important roles of the regional treasurer and it is one that at the moment is not being done competently in any shape or form. The statements sent through for me to send out in August were shockingly bad – they had to be sent back twice with a long list of corrections that needed to be done. Lincoln for example, have had a nightmare time with the management of their account.

The fact that statements are rarely up to date and seldom correct means that unit debt is difficult to control. It becomes impossible to know who is, and who is not struggling financially, and thus sending out publications each month becomes a lottery. For the first time in a long while this month I have accounts to work from to make sure that struggling units either get publications stopped or reduced. I have seen it said that Group Support ‘sees it fit to send things out when the unit has not the money’ yet as I have no up to date or correct statements to work from, there is little that I can do.

Dave often lies. This is an exceptionally infuriating trait that makes already annoying situations ten times worse. Instead of saying that something has not yet been done, people are often told ‘is in the post’ or ‘I’ve just sorted it now’, when in reality nothing has been done. This then means that people are under the illusion that they will be receiving documents in the next couple of days only to find that nothing arrives as nothing has been sent.

Cheques not being cashed – Chris Forster in London and Len Heather in Basildon are two examples of people who have sent in large cheques without them being cashed.

All in all, things have to be repeated several times before anything happens, and then if it ever finally gets done, it is usually incorrect. There is a great consensus locally, regionally and indeed nationally that the incompetence has become too much and needs addressing ASAP. This is not a personal vendetta it is incompetence on a level that can no longer be ignored.


Discuss.