The BNP under my leadership has been transformed from political irrelevance to electable household name. We’re standing record numbers of candidates and getting record votes. Our administration has advanced from being an amateur shambles to an organisation which, although not perfect, punches well above its weight.

Our financial accountability systems have been praised by the Electoral Commission as a model for other parties. While the other big parties are millions of pounds in the red, the BNP is in the black. Personally, I have faced and bested Establishment heavyweights such as John Humphreys, Jeremy Vine, Jonathan Dimbleby, Gavin Esler and Jeremy Paxman.

While I welcome the opportunity this election gives to obtain a mandate to continue to steer the BNP on its current uniquely successful course, I believe his ‘challenge’ is not only a grubby affair involving lies and baseless smears but would, if successful, plunge our party back into the political Stone Age; it is not a serious proposal for a different way to run a successful party, but the last gasp effort of the pre-1999 ‘old guard’ to drag us back to their extremist past, bungling amateurism and guaranteed failure.

Mr. Jackson’s statement while seeking nominations was that I am “unacceptable to the National Front” and to other tiny extreme groups, and hence a block to ‘nationalist unity’. Well, I am very happy to be ‘unacceptable’ to anti-social extremists – are they the kind of people with whom you wish to be associated, let alone ‘united’?

Mr. Jackson wants to return to the old policy of compulsory repatriation. I am sure this would be political suicide - utterly ‘unsaleable’ to the vast majority of British voters. It would put our members at even greater risk of persecution as ‘racists’. It would strip us of all legal protection under Human Rights laws.

We are doing very well with our present position – a party with indigenous British membership only, calling for a halt to all further immigration, the expulsion of all illegal immigrants, foreign criminals, asylum seekers and Muslim religious extremists, combined with a system of voluntary resettlement grants and an end to welfare sponging and discrimination against British whites.

I am determined to maintain the present membership qualifications and policies, steering a sensible course between the twin follies of powerless racist extremism and civic nationalist liberalism.

Having inherited a frankly dictatorial constitution, I have worked steadily to reform and democratise it. First by creating the Advisory Council, with the power to call an EGM if it feels the leader is acting wrongly, then by handing control and oversight of party finances to a separate treasury office.

The latest improvement is the Voting Membership system, which won overwhelming support at Annual Conference as the best way possible to put power and responsibility in the hands of the local officials and activists whose tireless efforts push the party forwards.

It is my intention to continue the careful transfer to the Voting Members of key powers, including over policy-making and mechanisms to hold the leader and treasury department to account. But such powers should only go to those who have demonstrably earned them. Why should Johnny Come Lately loudmouths or bar-room patriots have as much say in the running of the BNP as you who do the work?

I fear Mr. Jackson’s proposals would condemn our Party to the sort of ‘one armchair, one vote’ liberalism that doomed previous nationalist parties to endless factional splits. The superficially reasonable proposal of electing key officials is in fact particularly foolish, for it would in my opinion lead to perpetual plotting and scheming to get different factions’ nominees into powerful posts; it would paralyse the party’s administration and allow a future wave of liberal refugees from the Tory Party or UKIP to put forward candidates who might look good but who would not in fact have the faintest grasp of nationalist ideology or a shred of loyalty to our Cause.

The BNP already has fully legitimate status in British law as a properly registered party and ‘unincorporated association’. To switch to being a corporate body would be a disastrous error, not least because it would make the entire leadership, and potentially the whole membership, jointly and individually liable for debts or legal problems facing individual party members. This proposal would make the BNP an easy target for scheming opponents and money-grubbing lawyers.

There will arrive a time when my term as leader of the British National Party should come to an end, and when someone better for the job is available. But this is not it; I ask you to vote for me, for the team that has brought us to where we are today, and for the steady hand on the tiller that will yet take us closer to our destination and our destiny.

Nick Griffin M.A.(Hons) Cantab.
Leader, British National Party

http://www.bnp.org.uk/leadershipelection/nick_griffin_statement.html