By promoting UKIP to syphon off BNP votes a decade ago, a panicking political elite overdid it, and after UKIP started to threaten the Tories, Cameron took the worst decision of his political life and offered a referendum on continuing EU membership.
After years of ineffective campaigning before 1999, the new BNP leadership started to gain momentum, gathering votes to such an extent that the political elites, aided and abetted by a corrupt mass media, started to panic.
Between 2001 and 2003 eight councillors were elected in Burnley, in 2008 a seat was won by the BNP’s Richard Barnbrook on the London assembly, followed in 2009 by two BNP members elected to the European Parliament.
This wasn’t meant to happen, not supposed to be allowed, but by sticking to the democratic process the BNP was at last beginning to see the light, to glimpse the broad, sunlight uplands (to paraphrase Winston Churchill).
This terrified the Establishment.
As National Press Officer during this period I can tell you a real sense of panic set in, with hacks phoning our press line looking for anything to soil our new image, but at the same time not remotely interested in our many policies on education, the NHS, and other relevant matters.
Links with extreme groups were sought, lies were told, our meetings increasingly disrupted by undemocratic riff raff, with owners of iconic British symbols –like Welsh football stadia and the White Cliffs of Dover – being pressurised to demand we remove their images from our promotional literature.
The true extent of what was levelled against us was simply incredible and our activists, members, councillors and the party leadership showed the ruling elite that we were made of stronger stuff than they ever dreamed Possible, we stood firm.
The true extent of establishment panic was revealed on the BBC News web site of May 13th 2004: “Concern about the threat posed by the British National Party at next month’s elections has prompted meetings between the main political parties – The Guardian said it had learned that these have involved ex-senior ministers and members of the shadow cabinet”.
“New research suggested the BNP is being considered by some voters as a mainstream, democratic political group, said The Guardian.
“According to The Guardian, findings from the research sparked a meeting last summer and a further day-long gathering in West Yorkshire earlier this year.
“Among those discussing how to counter the threat of the BNP were politicians from Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties,” the paper said.
But Phil Edwards, the BNP’s national press officer, said the fact mainstream parties were meeting and agreeing on something showed “there is not much to choose between them”.
“It’s a compliment really and shows how worried they are,” he said.
“It proves that we have got a point and they are concerned that people are going to wake up and see they have been lied to about immigration and other matters that have been to the detriment of British society”.
It’s taken another 12 years for them to wake up sufficiently to bring down the whole rotten Establishment.
Read how all the parties colluded against the BNP
After the election of the two BNP MEPs there were reports that journalists and reporters were obliged to attend training seminars to discuss how to deal with the BNP
After the BNP membership list was leaked on line (something that can never happen again) rather than hurt us it gained us huge credibility and propelled us forward again as the quality and make up of our membership were not what “they” thought. They found to their horror that the BNP was made up of people from every walk of life.
Mass hysteria started to break out and then came a bright idea – what better way to spike our (BNP) guns than to allow the fledgling UKIP a little oxygen of publicity, encourage people to vote for the “respectable” UKIP instead of the BNP.
It worked, to such an extent that at the most recent UK parliamentary general election UKIP looked set to threaten Mr Cameron’s Conservative majority. As it turned out UKIP did not do as well as predicted and overspent leaving them demoralised and in debt.
Their vote was high enough to cause concern. Mr Cameron’s easy solution? Offer the voters a referendum to spike the threat of UKIP – well it back fired. Cameron’s political gerrymandering has cost him his career, good!
So to old campaigners who spent years going around around posting leaflets through letter boxes, writing letters to newspapers and all the other work, well done to you all: It worked and yes WE DID IT!
