Monday 3 November 2008

Farage rebuffs BNP pact offer

The BNP have offered UKIP an electoral pact for the next EU elections - an offer which has been refused in no uncertain terms.

UKIP member, Buster Mottram, took himself along to tonights National Executive Council (NEC) meeting and told Nigel Farage and the other NEC members that he had been talking to Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP. He said that UKIP should take up an offer of an electoral pact from the BNP which would see the BNP agree not to field candidates in the south of England where UKIP has most support in return for UKIP not fielding candidates in the midlands and north of England where the BNP has support.

The offer was refused and Mottram was asked to leave the NEC meeting. He refused and became abusive. In the end, the police were called to remove him from the building.

Eric Edmunds, David Abbot and deputy treasurer and ex-officio NEC member, Martin Haslam, have been removed from the NEC for publically opposing the stated aims of the party.

Nigel Farage said:
There are no circumstances, no possible situations, in which we would even consider doing any type of deal with the BNP whatsoever.

I'm simply amazed that the BNP thought we would even consider such a thing, given that we are a non-racist, non-sectarian party.
The BNP regularly targets UKIP members with propaganda, often claiming to be from UKIP supporters. A BNP plot has been suspected for some time and this is unlikely to be the end of it. A group of around 40 UKIP members are well known troublemakers who have been actively working against the party leadership for some time. They are likely to try and get members to support the BNP pact to undermine Nigel Farage's leadership.

Needless to say, a BNP pact would be suicidal for UKIP but these troublemakers are so single-minded in their vendetta against Farage that they would happily destroy the party they claim to support.

4 comments:

Charlie Marks said...

I have to say that I'm not surprised the UKIP leadership told the fascists where to stick it.

Having always struggled against accusations of racism (coming from rival parties such as the Tories) a link up with out and out fascists would have been suicidal for UKIP, as you say Wonko.

If anything, this whole affair shows that the BNP is in a weak position electorally. Certainly, Cameron's revamp of the Tories will alienate many Eurosceptic Conservatives - and one imagines they'd be more inclined to switch to UKIP.

Bernard said...

Charlie is quite correct in his view on eurosceptic Conservatives.
I have read many comments on blogs and in the press from Conservatives stating their intention to vote UKIP at the eu election in June, but to switch back at the next GE.

Arden Forester said...

Buster Mottram is about a good a political operator as he was a tennis player! Suicidal has been said about this if UKIP ever thought about let alone did it.

The BNP have to fight on their own and if some in the electorate vote for them, that's democracy.

But UKIP is not the BNP and any inkling of a "civil partnership" would destroy UKIP completely.

The BNP Chronicle said...

This was a very cleverly played out scenario, there was never any chance of a pact, Griffin knew this.