1st October 2004

An eye-catching headline especially as the BNP did not contest the Hartlepool by-election, but in every way it was a victory for Britain’s fastest growing patriotic party and the disastrous fourth-place showing of the Tories in Hartlepool represents another small but valuable success for the leadership of the British National Party.

In the run-up to the by-election, caused by the appointment of Blair crony and best friend Peter Mandelson to his stunningly overpaid job in Brussels, a number of well-meaning individuals expressed the belief that the BNP should contest it.

The matter was debated between key members of the leadership, both nationally and locally, before party chairman Nick Griffin and National Elections Officer Eddy Butler decided that the BNP would not fight Hartlepool.

UKIP factor

The key reasoning was that the good showing of UKIP in the area back in June meant that, in a by-election especially, their money and favoured media status would make them the favoured party of patriotic voters, thereby squeezing the BNP vote however much work our local activists put in on the ground. More important still, the BNP would still secure a solid vote, which it was felt would come far more at the expense of UKIP than from the Tories. The likely result of our standing, therefore, would be to save Michael Howard from the shocking blow of having the Tory come fourth, behind UKIP.

As a major article on our electoral strategy by Mr Griffin, starting in October’s Identity magazine, makes clear, the BNP regards the Conservative Party as the biggest single obstacle by far, in the way of building a power-winning nationalist alternative in Britain. Anything which damages the Tories - including the short-term advance of UKIP - is therefore a good thing for the country and for the BNP. It was also believed that UKIP’s internal wranglings would stop them putting up the high-profile candidate who could quite conceivably win the seat - Kilroy-Silk - so it would be better to leave them to fail to win the seat on their own account rather than try to get in their way.

Lib-Dem advance

The end result showed how the BNP tactic worked like a dream. A dismal night for Labour, a good one for the LibDems - who we want to see overtake the Tories at the General Election, a disappointing night for UKIP (who only narrowly missed beating Labour in the same seat back in June and whose vote slumped, leading to further internal unrest about the Farage/Titford block on Kilroy-Silk) and a truly shocking night for Michael Howard’s Dead Men Walking. Oh, and less than 1% of the vote for the English Democrats and National Front combined - time for them to leave elections to the ones with the ability to know when and where to fight.

Resources deployed elsewhere

We, meanwhile, saved ourselves a couple of thousand pounds, and were able to concentrate our most experienced election fighters where their efforts really made a difference - in Keighley and Dagenham.

Result? Two more BNP councillors.

At last the British National Party - after all these years, a patriotic party with brains!