Author: Nottingham Indymedia
Pic: See attached
Tags: bnp anti-racism ukip
According to East Midlands Anti-fascists, the fascist British National Party has suffered heavy losses at the polls in Thursday’s County Council elections. The party saw its share of the vote drop significantly in all 5 East Midlands counties since the last elections in 2009. Former BNP councillor, Graham Partner, who defended his Coalville seat as a candidate for the newly formed BNP splinter, the British Democrats, was beaten into fourth place. It is thought that the losses were due partly to the rise of UKIP who made a net gain of 20 seats across the region, including 16 in Lincolnshire.
Newswire: Election nightmare for the BNP | Derbyshire fascist candidates | More East Midlands far right candidates | Fascist candidates for Leicestershire elections
Previous features: East Mids Campaigners Up The Anti as BNP Make Electoral Gains | BNP wins seat in Broxtowe
The figures provided by EMAF suggest that the BNP suffered its largest losses in support in Nottinghamshire (down 78% from 2009) and Derbyshire (down 71%), counties which returned from Conservative to Labour control, although the losses were substantial in each county. The anti-fascist monitors also noted that the BNP fielded a considerably lower number of candidates across the region in 2013 (27) compared with 2009, when the fascist party fielded 115.
The elections mark the end of controversial Coalville councillor, Graham Partner’s reign. Partner was elected as a BNP councillor in 2009 but then resigned the party whip as a result of factional conflicts in 2011, standing in district elections as an “independent nationalist”. The former North West Leicestershire branch of the BNP, one of its strongest in the East Midlands, then defected to the English Democrats. But this year Partner stood as a candidate for the British Democratic Party, formed by former BNP MEP Andrew Brons at a meeting in Leicestershire earlier this year. Partner’s time as a councillor was marked by his censure by Leicestershire County Council who was found to have “undermined race relations and breached the council code of conduct by bringing the Council into disrepute” by sending an anti-Muslim and racist leaflet to his constituents.
