The BNP is standing 27 candidates in the forthcoming Welsh Assembly elections. However, the majority of these candidates are standing on regional lists. The BNP is standing seven constituency candidates and fielding lists in all five Welsh regions.
In the North, the only constituency being contested is the Alyn & Deeeside constituency. Labour’s Carl Sergeant currently holds Alyn & Deeside, which is a safe Labour seat.
Alyn and Deeside is being contested by Mike Whitby, a community councillor in Coedpoeth North and the organiser for Liverpool BNP following the collapse of the BNP in Wrexham. Mike Whitby is well known to antifascists in both North Wales and Merseyside. He still lives in the Coedpoeth area.
This seat is usually contested by the Griffin loyalist John Walker, a former BNP treasurer and the current Deputy Press Officer. Walker is a community councillor in Hawarden and lives in the area. Walker previously headed up the ‘Excalibur’ merchandising operation when it was based on Deeside Industrial Estate.
However, Walker instead heads up the regional list for North Wales, presumably because the BNP see the regional list as a more realistic proposition under the PR system.
The BNP picked up 42,197 votes (4.3%) in the North Wales regional vote last time around, coming within a few thousand votes of securing one of four regional AM seats available.
Joining Walker on the regional list for North Wales is none other than Clive Jefferson, another veteran and current BNP National Elections Officer. Jefferson does not live in North Wales, and, at fourth on the list, is no more than a paper candidate.
Standing at number two on the list is Richard Barnes, of South Wales, who was embroiled in controversy last year after another BNP supporter was arrested and cautioned for forging signatures on Barnes’ nomination papers for the Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney seat in the General Election.
Third on the list is Ian Si’Ree, who lives in the Rhyl area but is believed to originally be from the Bradford area. Ian Si’Ree stood as the BNP candidate for the Vale of Clwyd in last year’s General Election.
Whilst we should not be complacent about the threat of the BNP as an electoral force, particularly in the regional lists, the fact that the BNP is only able to contest one constituency in North Wales, from a total of nine constituencies across the region, is indicative of the collapse of the BNP locally. The BNP in Wrexham has lost key figures and the BNP no longer has an active branch here.
The constituency candidates:
- Michael Joseph Whitby – Alyn & Deeside
- Brian Urch – Blaenau Gwent
- Anthony King – Caerphilly
- Peter Whalley – Islwyn
- Mike Green – Neath
- Joanne Shannon – Swansea East
- Sue Harwood – Torfaen
The regional lists:
North
- John Walker
- Richard Barnes
- Ian Si’ree
- Clive Jefferson
Mid & West
- Kay Thomas
- Watcyn Richards
- Roger Phillips
- Gary Tumulty
South Wales Central
- Gareth Connors
- Mary John
- Keith Fairhurst
- Edward O’Sullivan
South Wales East
- Laurence Reid
- Jennie Noble
- John Voisey
- Jennifer Matthys
South Wales West
- Clive Bennett
- Adam Walker
- Sion Owens
- Adam Lloyd
How they are allowed in Cymru is beyond me, never mind having so called Cymro supporting them. The tories in rags & closet EDL thugs are nothing more than foot soldiers & Cameron’s little private army. Enough said.
They are allowed cos we live in a democracy (although i doubt it with people like you) they are also called ‘BRITISH’ so fuck off you stupid plaid prick
Hark at the BNP ‘radical’ defending what we have. Democracy my arse. In a democracy, would the few have all of the wealth and the power and the political representation while the rest of us have no political representation and have to fight each other for the scraps from the table? Bryn’s right, you shower on the far right are just footsoldiers for the Tories and the super-rich who are screwing us into the ground.
Ah you complete twat you clearly know fuck all about BNP none of us are tory thats for a start most of us are working class so maybe you should look us up about before you tell such bollox. We are everyday people pissed off with the way this country had gone. No other parties say what we think and you know it cos if you didnt think we had a point you wouldnt bother spewing your bile and bullshit leaflets round. I had one of you complete dripple yesterday and it stated ‘BNP would scrap womens rights’ LOL LOl wtf? if that was the case then why the fuck do we have women councllors??
(proper tidy posting) Won’t let me press reply to this so I’ve had to add in the edit. Bollocks, we haven’t put out any leaflet about women’s rights, although let’s be honest the BNP’s record on women’s rights is fucking shocking. You don’t seem to understand that ‘the left’, whatever that is, isn’t a monolith. We’re not Searchlight and we’re not UAF.
You might be working class but you don’t represent working class interests. You are anti-working class. You tell us that the cause of our problems are immigration or multiracialism, not that it is a greedy few ruling it over the rest of us. You tell us that the most important thing is that we are British, that all British people’s interests are the same, as if my interests are even remotely close to some toff lord or the boss who rips me off every day or the twat who has just laid off two of my mates. My interests are the same as any working class persons interest, whether they are British, Irish, Bengali or Israeli. You lot divert people away by offering up scapegoats and no solutions. You do the job of the Tories (and the Lib Dems and Labour) for them. That is why you are anti-working class. It’s not that long since the BNP was siding with Thatcher against the miners and attacking anti-poll tax meetings, until you got kicked off the streets by militant antifascists and had to turn towards ‘respectability’ and the ballot-box instead.
You might be pissed off with ‘the way this country had gone’, and we definitely are. Difference is we offer a genuine alternative. All you offer is what we have now minus the illusion of democracy.
Richard Barnes was in no way involved with any tampering of any ballot box of any election as per this article. This is just another example of propaganda spun to taint the BNP. Maybe whoever wrote this artlcle would like to write the full facts before writing misleading and sladerous material that may be construed as defamation of character. Unfortunately past and present governments have let down this country and have in turn probably endured irreparable damage for all of us. It is sadly only the silent majority that recognise this. I do not feel that it is helpful in any way to dampen or pour spourn on an individuals view through maliciousness journalism.
Sara – he accepted a caution for it.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/05/27/bnp-man-s-poll-form-had-forgeries-91466-26530498/
You, or any other party, are more than welcome to attempt litigation on the grounds of ‘misleading and sladerous material that may be construed as defamation of character’.
Also, we are not journalists. We are an antifascist organisation.
WHAT A BUNCH OF FASCISTS YOU ANTI-FASCISTS ARE!
Scintillating political analysis there James, well done. Word to the wise though pal, you are probably best not posting stuff like that from your work.
So, Jimmy, why are antifascists like fascists?
@Propertidy.
From the same article you quoted:
‘Police investigated the claims and as a result a 30-year-old man was arrested and later cautioned for tampering with ballot nomination papers after he was found to be responsible for forging signatures’
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/05/27/bnp-man-s-poll-form-had-forgeries-91466-26530498/
Richard Barnes is 38 years of age. This caution and arrest refers to the guy who, unbeknownst to Mr Barnes, forged 3 signatures on his nomination form. As confirmed by South Wales Police:
‘A South Wales Police spokesman said: “Mr Barnes was unaware of the actions and the man was cautioned on May 16.”’
So ‘propertidy’, Mr Barnes was innocent. But when do the left let a little thing called the truth get in the way of a good smear attempt?!
Aye, fair play. It isn’t our style to smear so I’ll amend the piece.
Sara, you can lump in ‘the left’ together all you like but it doesn’t fit. The liberal left is a different beast to the working class left. We’re the latter.
Too right ironic aint it the so called ‘anti fascists’ are in fact the REAL fascists who oppose anyone who dares speak out against them. You know fuck all about democracy just dictatorship…. Why dont ya stop smoking ya crack pipe and get back to uni you fucking stupid jumpped up smack head scum
Joshua. We know plenty about democracy. It is our democratic right to oppose those who are against working class people, which the far right fundamentally is. The EDL support the cuts and praise David Cameron as he flogs off our NHS and puts millions of working class people on the dole. The BNP puts the blame on immigrants when our enemies are the bosses, the politicians, the shareholders and the corporations which keep our wages low, keep millions on the dole to ensure the rest of the workforce doesn’t pressure for better wages, and take all the wealth created by our fucking labour. We build the roads and the schools and the hospitals and the factories, where’s our wealth? The BNP and the far right does the bosses’ job for them – they divert people away from the real reasons why jobs and homes are thin on the ground, why white working class communities have been neglected for generations, why we live in one of the ‘wealthiest’ states in the world yet one in four kids grow up in poverty.
We are not Searchlight or UAF. We don’t call for the state to restrict or ban the far right. We know that any laws passed by the liberals against the far right will also be used against the working class left. We don’t defend the current status-quo. The status-quo is shit. We don’t tell working class people their fears are ‘silly’ or ‘bigoted’. Working class people have been left behind, stuck in ghettoes of poverty, and then we’re told by mainstream politicians that we’ve never had it so good. The Labour Party stopped representing working class people decades ago, if it ever did, and in the absence of any pro-working class alternative, it is inevitable that ordinary people turn to the far right as some sort of alternative – but it’s all spit and sheen, the far right doesn’t offer any real alternative and doesn’t give a flying fuck about ordinary people. They are ultra-conservatives, not radicals. They are just the status-quo in its most vicious form. So we will oppose them, not by phoning plod or calling for laws to be passed but by organising working class people and working class communities against the far right, the footsoldiers of the bosses.
Btw, smack and crack are different drugs you bellend. Off you trot.
well i will take your word for the drugs thing as you clearly know. As for your information i dont blame any immigrants for the state of this country i blame the liberal left for thier lies and forced and failed multi culturalism
If you bothered to familiarise yourself with what we stand for Josh, you would know that we are not part of the liberal left and that we also reject the tops-down official multi-culturalism of the liberals.
Official multiculturalism divides us into ethnic and cultural groups, as if a 17 year old unemployed British Pakistani lad on an estate in Sunderland has anything in common with Baroness Warsi. It’s bollocks. Official multiculturalism pits ordinary people against ordinary people for funding, promotes so-called ‘community leaders’ who are unelected and unaccountable, who supposedly give voice to the interests of others with the same skin colour or who pray to the same god or whatever. And it has contributed massively to white working class communities feeling completely left behind and alienated.
Problem with you lot is that you can’t see the wood for the trees. It’s our class that matters, jobs, homes, services, what opportunities our kids will get. Putting the blame on people because they are black or muslim or whatever won’t do anything to fix that.
Oh for godness sake you say ya aint uaf but you defo sound the same to me
We don’t. You won’t catch us saying ‘vote anybody but the BNP’ or telling working class people alienated from the political mainstream to bite their tongues and vote Labour. You lot forgotten AFA already?