No BNP candidates in Kirklees election for the first time in 12 years

Note: Huddersfield is in the Kirklees Council area.

Huddersfield was the first National Front branch to get off the ground shortly after the party was formed in 1967.

A year later the branch was doing so well that the leftist / multiracialist Race Today magazine sent a journalist / academic up there to report on the branch and its leading activists.

The engineer and inventor Norman Mear, the second-hand goods dealer Eric Lover, the publican’s son Dave Bull, the solicitor John Briggs, the housewife / shop assistant Rita Buckley are some of the names of the smashing Huddersfield people that spring to my mind. They and their companions were an inspiration. They did so well because they were well-organised, hard-working, honest and brave.

I spent April/May 1970 in Huddersfield working with the branch during the local council election campaign to learn its methods. In those days the NF was paying me £10 a week plus free ‘accommodation’.

So the Nationalist movement has a background not just of the “eleven years” participation in local elections in the Kirklees Council area mentioned in the below report, but a heritage going back 44 years.

Damn the idiots, chancers, cowards, creeps and ignoramus ninnies and who kept Nick Griffin in his place for so long despite all the mounting evidence that he was (as is) a charlatan and a criminal.

In the face of this Kirklees BNP débâcle, we see that the Griffin’s latest contribution to “nationalist” electoral politics is to nominate one Carlos Cortiglia, a Uruguayan immigrant who reportedly refers to the Falkland Isles as “Las Malvinas” and who sustains a blog in — guess where??! — the Jewish Chronicle!

The afore-metioned “idiots, chancers, cowards, creeps and ignoramus ninnies” now have the nerve to get huffy with me and assert that I am “rocking the boat” whenever I confront them with and rub their noses in the stinking evidence of their dereliction and betrayal.

I will continue to rub their noses in it until another generation of nationalists learns the necessary lessons.

Martin Webster.

===============================================================

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2012/04/05/no-bnp-candidates-in-kirklees-election-for-the-first-time-in-12-years-86081-30697332/#ixzz1rAqPt2mU


Huddersfield Examiner – Thursday 5th April 2012

No BNP candidates in Kirklees election for the first time in 12 years

THE British National Party is not running candidates in Kirklees Council elections for the first time in 12 years.

Nominations for this year’s poll closed yesterday.

Twenty-three of the 69 council seats will be up for grabs on May 3.

But for the first time since 2000, the BNP will not contest any wards in Kirklees.

The far-right group once held three seats on the council and leader Nick Griffin described the party’s branch in Dewsbury as “the jewel in the crown”.

But the BNP’s support slipped in the last few years, with the group losing its last Kirklees councillor in 2010.

The party ran just four candidates in last year’s council election after senior figures defected to the English Democrats.

And now the BNP has disappeared from Kirklees ballot papers altogether.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives will defend eight of their 21 seats in this year’s poll.

Clr Adrian Murphy, who is due to become Deputy Mayor of Kirklees in May, is up for re-election in Kirkburton – a seat which has been targeted by the Greens.

Clr Beryl Smith is standing down in Holme Valley North, with Honley sub-postmaster Brenda Bodenham aiming to hold the seat for the Conservatives.

Independent Charles Greaves hopes to complete a clean sweep of Holme Valley North by joining colleagues Clr Terry Lyons and Clr Edgar Holroyd-Doveton on the council.

Conservative Clr Khizar Iqbal is standing in Dewsbury South, where his opponents will include Shaun Maddox – the only English Democrat candidate in Kirklees.

The Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts (TUSAC) are also contesting the seat – one of three they will fight on May 3.

The left-wing group’s candidate in Dewsbury South is spina bifida sufferer Paul Wheelhouse, who works for the Remploy factory in Waterloo which is threatened with closure.

Former councillor Jackie Grunsell is also running for TUSAC, hoping to unseat Labour’s Clr Molly Walton in Crosland Moor and Netherton.

The GP and hospital campaigner held the seat from 2006 to 2010.

Clr Walton is one of seven of the 27-strong ruling Labour group who are up for re-election this year.

Kirklees leader Clr Mehboob Khan will face 19-year-old Huddersfield New College student Katie Frank for the Conservatives in Greenhead.

The Lib Dems will defend half of their 14 seats next month. The party lost six seats last year in its first electoral test since going into coalition government with the Conservatives.

Clr Ann Denham is standing down in Almondbury, with Phil Scott hoping to hold the seat for the Lib Dems.

Mus Khan, sister of Clr Mehboob Khan, is standing for Labour in Almondbury.

Clr Rochelle Parchment is up for re-election in Dalton, where her opponents will include Robert Pepper.

The secretary of Huddersfield Town Supporters’ Association is standing as an independent in the ward, which includes the Galpharm Stadium.

Colne Valley Lib Dem Clr David Ridgway’s opponents include former Labour Greenhead councillor Barbara Jones and former Golcar independent candidate David Hill, who is standing for the Conservatives.

Slaithwaite book shop owner Melanie Roberts is running for the United Kingdom Independence Party.

Clr Christine Stanfield is standing again for the Lib Dems in Lindley, where her opponents include former Kirkburton Conservative councillor Mark Hemingway.

The Lib Dems also hope to hold Dewsbury West, where former Mayor of Kirklees Clr Karam Hussain is standing down.

Karen Rowling, who led the successful campaign to keep Castle Hall School in Mirfield open, will stand for Labour.

Former Lib Dem councillor Naz Hussain – who left the party after losing his seat last year – is running as an independent in Dewsbury West.

The Greens are defending one of their four seats this year.

Party leader Clr Andrew Cooper is up for re-election in Newsome, where his opponents include Ian Slattery of TUSAC.