In their latest attempt to smear the British National Party, the hopeless Sun and Telegraph are now using Johnson Beharry, a volunteer soldier for the British Army from Grenada who joined the British Army in 1999 and won a VC in Iraq in 2005, to attack this party.

The BNP has never claimed that Mr Beharry “only got a VC because he was black” as the lying headline smears allege – and which can easily be refuted by simply reading the original article. We described the bravery of Johnson Beharry as “routine” in the context of the countless examples of the similar bravery of the men with whom he served and also fought alongside. Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Maer, Johnson Beharry’s commanding officer, won the Distinguished Service Order, two of his sergeants won the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross (one below the VC) and seven other members of the regiment won the Military Cross as well as Beharry winning the VC.

In that article, the BNP listed the bravery of actions of other recipients of the VC, including Rambahadur Limbu, VC, a Nepalese recipient of that medal – proof alone that no racial bias was said, or intended – and that the media’s aspersions to the contrary are just invented lies.

On the contrary, the BNP did not question the legitimacy of the issuance of Mr Beharry’s medal. We were not there at the time and therefore we could not judge his deeds, and nor would we. It is for his comrades, his commanding officer and the military authorities to decide who is entitled to a medal, not political parties.

In a cynical and sickening example of media lies, Mr Beharry is clearly being used by The Telegraph solely because of his ethnicity and in order to attack the BNP.

Also unlike the media, the BNP have never questioned the legitimacy of Johnson Beharry’s entitlement to a VC or the entitlement of any non-British or British soldiers to their battle honours.

The Telegraph, though, has made the issue of the legitimacy of battle honours won by British soldiers a public issue. This was highlighted when The Telegraph and other newspapers raised the case of Major Robert Armstrong and the men under his command who were awarded medals for bravery under fire in 2008.

The Telegraph has also reported that all 17 of the medals given to Royal Irish regiment members are being probed by military authorities.

The BNP is a political party with an above average number of ex-servicemen and women in our ranks, and many of our members have fought alongside many brave men and women who have died in many different wars for our country.

The issue for them as regards entitlement to battle honours is not simply a passing newspaper story but something that is deeply meaningful for them. They have seen brave comrades and brothers in arms die in front of them and their brave deeds in battle not marked out as outstanding with a medal. Therefore the last thing they want to see is the issuance of medals in wartime become just another political football for transient politicians to use for propaganda reasons.

The Sun and Telegraph are trying to bolster the Tory vote, or to ensure that public discontent with the politicians that have been gorging on the public purse in the House of Troughminster is directed into the UKIP safety valve, with their latest smear story.

Newspapers like The Telegraph are given fake stories to run, such as the Johnson Beharry smear, by the Searchlight operation, an organisation run by convicted criminal, ex-candidate for the Communist Party and political fantasist, Gerry Gable. The fact The Telegraph are willing to print such stories by Searchlight merely proves their lack of integrity and desperation by having to resort to lies and smears in order to try to stop the British National Party.