BNP eyes NI elections
By:Press Association
MONDAY 15/12/2003 10:33:25 UTV
The far-right British National Party is planning its first electoral assault on Northern Ireland, it emerged today.
At least five candidates will run in the province's next local government polls as part of a campaign to try to halt a mass influx of immigrants, BNP leader Nick Griffin claimed.
As he met strategists in east Belfast, Mr Griffin also claimed the extreme grouping has attracted significant support among serving police and soldiers in Ulster.
But it was the disclosure of plans by a party widely regarded as neo-Nazi racists to contest the 2005 council polls that provoked outrage.
One man has already been selected to represent the BNP in the north Antrim area, the party chief claimed.
Mr Griffin, 44, argued that Northern Ireland could soon be overrun by immigrants realising most of the violence has ended. "Once the physical and psychological barrier presented by the Troubles is lifted, this place is going to play catch up double quick," he said. "If we are around and organised it may well deter established politicians from carrying out some policy of enforced multi-culturalism. In the case of Northern Ireland there's a possibility of holding the line for a bit longer."
Although the party denies charges of racism, it wants to throw all blacks and Asians out of Britain under what it describes as a voluntary repatriation scheme aimed at slashing 15 million from its population.
Membership has swollen from 1,300 to 7,000 since Mr Griffin, a Cambridge law graduate and one-time National Front activist, took charge in 1999. His main sights are on next year's European and local government elections in England. He hopes to return 50-100 councillors in place of the 17 already sitting in mainly working class northern districts and believes two MEPs can be elected to strengthen the far right's rise across Europe.
But the BNP has also decided the time is right to put up public figures for its supporters in Northern Ireland. Mr Griffin refused to put a figure on party strength in the province, but members allegedly include the branch manager of a major supermarket chain, an Irish League soccer club director and an NHS fraud inspector.
"We have got a great deal of sympathy among sections of the security forces," he added.
Mainstream unionists and nationalists were appalled at the far right's expansion plans for Ulster. John Dallat, an SDLP Assembly member, said: "This lot are the last thing the peace process over here needs."
Ulster Unionist MLA and policing board member Fred Cobain accepted anyone was entitled to stand for election. But he added: "With the BNP's record I would be horrified if anybody voted for them. Everything that a modern society should be trying to get away from they are trying to drag us back to. The whole world could do without them, not just Northern Ireland."
Mr Griffin's first real exposure to extremism came when he joined the NF as a teenager in 1974. The organisation, with its links to loyalist paramilitaries, brought him into contact with former Ulster Defence Association commanders Andy Tyrie and John McMichael. But as BNP leader he insisted there has been no contact with any unionists or loyalists in Northern Ireland.
He agreed with hardline unionists that Sinn Fein should not be allowed into government until the IRA has fully disarmed. All terrorist organisations should disarm, he argued, with dire consequences for anyone later caught with illegal guns. "The solution is what they did in the Free State (during the civil war). They should be shot on the spot. There should be decommissioning with honour, but after that they are legitimate targets."
More information on the BNP in the North: Here and Here
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