BNP to stand in North EU Elections

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday October 29, 2002 19:35 by AFA - Anti-Fascist Action afa at ireland dot com C/o PO Box 3355, Dublin 7

Report on BNP saying they will run in next Euro elections in the North. They said they would run in the last general election, but didn't. Could be just a press release for a quiet news day. Worth watching though.

BNP to stand in NI elections

The British National Party is to fight elections in Northern Ireland for the first time, it was revealed today. The far-right group is to field a candidate at the next European elections.

A spokesman in Belfast said the party will urge voters to back its vision of keeping out asylum seekers and saving manufacturing jobs. He told PA News: ``This will give people in Northern Ireland a genuine alternative to sectarian, tribal politics.``

But the SDLP`s Alban Maginness claimed the brand of racism, sectarianism and ultra-nationalism offered by the BNP was not welcome. The North Belfast MLA said: ``Northern Ireland already has enough political madmen and cranks so there really is no need for this political export from Britain.``

The move was ratified during a BNP meeting in the greater Belfast area last month attended by party leader Nick Griffin.

With fewer than 100 members in Northern Ireland, activists have set a £10,000 fundraising target to stage an effective campaign in the June 2004 poll. Limited funds forced the BNP to abandon plans to contest Stormont Assembly elections which were set for next May before devolution was suspended. ``(The European election) is better value because we only need to get a £1,000 deposit rather than the expenses of individual constituencies,`` the spokesman said.

Northern Ireland`s three seats in the European Parliament are held by Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley, former SDLP chief John Hume and Jim Nicholson of the Ulster Unionists.

The BNP`s candidate is not expected to be chosen until next year. Senior figures at head office have also warned the Northern Ireland plans could be pulled at the last minute if a bigger push is needed in England.

Still buoyed by the election of three councillors in Burnley, Lancashire, the party is hoping to profit from the demise of the UK Independence Party and snatch seats at Strasbourg.

Party officials preparing for the electoral debut in Northern Ireland do not expect to mount a serious challenge to any of the three sitting MEPs. Efforts to recruit more members over the last 12 months have so far failed, although it was claimed party strength has increased. ``Membership hasn`t taken off but the quality is better,`` the spokesman insisted ``We had to tell some people we didn`t want them because they believed the media image of us as an extremist party.``

However, Mr Maginness, who sits on the European Committee of the Regions at Brussels, insisted the party offered nothing but outdated policies more reminiscent of Europe in the 1930s than the 21st century. ``Racism, sectarianism and ultra-nationalism all come from the same political gene pool and the BNP`s distinctive brand of Alf Garnett politics is certainly not welcome in Northern Ireland,`` he said. ``One of the main reasons for the beginning of European integration in the 1950s was to ensure that there would never be a catastrophic return to the fascism and xenophobia peddled and eulogised by parties such as the BNP.``