Richard Barnbrook | Political Scrapbook

In the latest instance of financial difficulties rocking the now fragmented BNP, Richard Barnbrook, London Assembly member and former deputy leader of the party, has been accused of defrauding the Greater London Authority and the taxman to the tune of £1 million in order to finance his office costs and staff at City Hall.

Now expelled from the BNP in Nick Griffin’s purge of his rivals, the allegations against Barnbrook can be added to the catalogue of cases, which have accompanied the party’s shrinking support and parlous finances. These include embarrassingly running out of money mid campaign during last year’s Welsh Assembly elections and a raft of court cases resulting from unpaid invoices.

The party is reeling. It’s time to deliver the knockout blow.

It’s looking increasingly possible that either finances or fratricide will see the BNP destroy itself as a functioning political force. With a steady flow of bad news for Nick Griffin growing to a torrent this week, it seems there may be significant momentum behind events which could bring the party to its knees by next year’s local elections.

The period since the party’s May 6th decimation in its Barking and Dagenham heartland has not been a happy one for the ever-shrinking coterie around the Führer Griffin. To recap in reverse chronological order:

As the BNP’s sole representative on the London Assembly, Richard Barnbrook is arguably the party’s second most high-profile figure. One month after being sacked as an organiser in Barking he went independent yesterday along with their only councillor on Leicestershire County Council.
Figures cited by Nick Griffin at a meeting in Manchester on Wednesday would put the party’s debt at £500,000. Their true position could be much worse given the BNP’s track record on financial transparency: auditors refused to endorse their 2008 accounts, which are the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Electoral Commission.
On Tuesday the party’s legal officer resigned, saying that he could not remain in “a party that acts unlawfully towards its own members, that rewards years of party loyalty with unlawful suspensions and expulsions” of those supporting leadership challenger Eddy Butler. More than 30 people are known to have been ostracised in this way.
As he begged members for more donations, Nick Griffin confirmed the party has been unable to pay invoices.
In the latest of a string of disastrous legal cases, the use of a Marmite jar in a party advert costs the party up to £170,000 after they were sued by Unilever.
The BNP fails to pay its staff on time in June while a crony “consultant” brought in by Nick Griffin continues to rake in £3,000 per week.

While a chicken census is premature, 98.1% of the country can permit themselves a wry smile.

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