A Long Night in Bury
By Jean Purdy. My usual moan is that the older I get, the quicker time passes, but this did not seem to apply last weekend; the time between our by-election count for Radcliffe West and Euro-election verification in Bury on Thursday 4th, to the Euro-election count on Sunday evening, seemed like years.
We were a little deflated after the by-election count as, although I polled 16% as the BNP’s local candidate, our vote was slightly down from last year. Labour won by 9 votes, down over 13% and most of their loss seemed to have gone to the Lib Dems – although we still beat them to secure third place. The English Democrats, standing for the first time, finished last.
Radcliffe is one of the six towns which make up the Borough of Bury. The once-thriving paper mills have long gone; their sites now occupied by new housing and the town is increasingly a dormitory suburb for Manchester, as witnessed by the large Radcliffe Tram station car park which fills up by 9am and overflows into the surrounding streets.
The Manchester Evening News, which daily printed more and more outrageous slurs against the BNP as the election drew nearer, handed out free copies of their rag to commuters, so there was a strong likelihood that these lies had been seen by many voters throughout Bury.
We also had a visit to Radcliffe West by the same far left fascist thugs we saw in action outside Manchester Town Hall on Sunday, and wherever Nick or Andrew have gone since their election. They leafleted most of the Radcliffe West ward with their lies, but we suspected they were coming and our team was out on the streets as soon as they departed, armed with our third by-election leaflet.
We were allowed four counting agents per party for Sunday’s count, with names having to be submitted by May 28th, but at the last minute one was redirected to reinforce the team at Manchester, so only three of us arrived at the start of the count at 6:30 pm. We were immediately escorted by a member of the Election Office staff to check the seals we had fixed on Thursday. One box had the number on our seal missing, but the official tags placed by the election staff were still in place. We accepted that the metal boxes surrounding this had probably damaged the seal and the number of voting papers was correct.
Because Euro election ballot papers were so long, they counted the votes for the first four parties on the list. When these had been counted, they were as usual collected in bundles of 25 and placed in the named trays. We had gone armed with the total vote figures provided by Martin Wingfield and knew we needed 3,877 votes to reach the magic target of 8%.
When they had counted votes for the first four parties, we had 2,500 votes, well below what was needed to send Nick to Brussels. It was at that time we were telephoned by our member at the Manchester count, hence the note on Martin Wingfield’s blog that Bury were “struggling” to reach the 8%.
Fortunately, we noticed the table at the far end, emptying new boxes. They were the postal votes, not usually good for us, but this time it was different as we watched our votes pile up. In fact, we had done it! Those postal votes brought our total up to 3,990 – 113 over our target.
After a long wait while the Returning Officer talked to the Regional Returning Officer, a recount was ordered as the votes and spoiled papers were 25 fewer than the total of the verified votes from Thursday evening. This added four more precious BNP votes, 117 over what we needed, and a few to other parties, but still 7 short of the verified total.
During the long wait for a further consultation with Manchester Town Hall, the news of Andrew Brons’ success in Yorkshire filtered through. Three jubilant BNP activists can make a lot of joyful noise, so the news was quickly spread around the room that the BNP had gained its first ever MEP.
Our Organiser cheered us further with his laptop calculations that if the North West Region as a whole voted as Bury had done; 8.23% to us and beating the Greens, then Nick would also be elected.
At last, the Regional Returning Officer in Manchester accepted Bury’s figures and confirmed the result.
The plan had been to travel from Bury to Manchester for the seat allocation, but I had expected it to be soon after 9 pm. However, it was now 12:30 am and walking alone through Manchester, not knowing if I would have to pass the UAF thugs in Albert Square, seemed not a wise option, so I went home to watch the declaration and Nick’s triumphant speech on television.
I do not know exactly how many tens of thousands of leaflets Bury BNP distributed, just that my garage and hall had been full of boxes of leaflets, but slowly they were delivered by our hardworking activists, many of whom pounded the pavements from early morning to late at night. Our activists grew in numbers and confidence as the campaign went on and we have gained several new members, all a good sign for the future. Our result also underlined the importance of the postal vote, making the writer’s cramp from addressing personalised envelopes, so worthwhile.
On Monday morning I visited my local supermarket – I hadn’t had time for shopping for some weeks and the cupboard was bare. I was approached by three different people offering congratulations; none of them known to me, but who had recognised me from photos on by-election leaflets or in the local press.
