British National Party supporters are hailing the local elections after doubling their number of councillors in England.

Their biggest gains were in Barking and Dagenham, where they won 11 of the 13 seats they contested, becoming the second party. The BNP also won seats in Epping Forest, Stoke-on-Trent, Sandwell and Leeds.

The party fielded more than 350 candidates and now has 46 seats of 22,000 seats in England.

Morley South changed from Morley Borough Independents to BNP - the seat was won by Chris Beverley, BNP organiser for Ridings, national Director of Internet Publicity and coordinator of the BNP's Excalibur merchandising operation. A former German language student at Leeds University, he has very close links with the German nazi party, the NPD.

The warning signals were there in a 2005 by-election when Beverley, known as Scarface, took second place with 32.7% of the vote. However, general elections are a different story.
Beverley stood in Morley and Rothwell in 2005, coming bottom of the poll with just 5.3%.

Morley is near the BNP's strongholds in Bradford and Dewsbury, and is approximately five miles from Leeds; it has a wide range of housing that includes 3 large council estates. In recent years a large number of new private houses have been constructed, while council housing is in a bad state of repair.

In recent years a group of ex-Labour and ex-Tories calling itself Morley Borough Independents has run Morley Town Council. They retained Morley North.