After an astonishing five-month hiatus that illustrated pretty much everything that he thought of communication with the membership, Nick Griffin has finally updated his Chairman's Blog, earning himself the 2007 Pinnochio Award for most lies told in a single blog post. The first lie, although maybe it's a pig-farmer's idea of a joke which I just didn't get, is where he explains the reasons for not posting on his blog since Methusaleh was at kindergarten, where he states that 'I enjoy writing the blog too much...I am very wary of making it too regular'. You can stop worrying, Nick. One post after a five-month gap is not too regular, no matter how you try to spin it.

Griffin immediately goes on the attack against those around the recent leadership challenge. Obviously furious that anyone would dare to stand against him, you can almost hear the spluttering and see his face redden as the blood pressure rises.

'The challenge was not a genuinely legitimate one from a candidate with the genuine ability to run this party as it is, let alone take it further forward. It was a pathetic, pitiful, desperate attempt to cause trouble for the most modernised and most successful nationalist party in British history by a handful of cranks left over from the BNP’s most sterile past, aided and abetted by a gaggle of Hollywood Nazis, congenital losers and thieves.'

As the latest copy of Searchlight points out, five founder-members, two advisory council members, three councillors, eight branch organisers and 20 election candidates came out openly in support of the challenger Chris Jackson. Presumably, Griffin means them. But he isn't finished yet...

'...he should have known better than to allow himself to be wound up and manipulated by such vermin. I’m certainly not going to kick him out for standing against me (for one thing, by giving the membership the chance to give me a 91% mandate to continue with our current direction...)'

Interesting use of the word 'vermin' there. More important though is this frequently quoted '91% mandate' that Griffin received in the leadership vote. As has been pointed out elsewhere, Griffin and other BNP contributors crowed when Labour were voted in on a minority vote, claiming that the 'silent majority' had spoken by not voting at all. Curious how he seems unable to transfer this to his own situation where, because of the pitiful 43% turnout for the leadership election in the tiny BNP, it turns out that Nick Griffin's mandate is a mere 39%. Not a mandate at all, in fact.

Strangely, Griffin chooses discussion of the leadership challenge to discuss democracy within this least democratic of all political parties, dismissing as 'Tory nationalists' all those who call for a one-member one-vote (OMOV) system to replace the current 'Voting Membership' system within the BNP, which gives the vote on issues of importance only to those who can afford to pay more money for their membership; clearly votes for cash - exactly the phrase the BNP shouts at anyone who is accused of corruption at the ballot box. The attack on those calling for internal democracy within the party, and the inevitable result of such calls, is stated unequivocally:

'This group must now accept that their scheme to put the destiny of the BNP in the hands of anyone who deigns to pay their membership has been comprehensively and permanently rejected, in favour of a system that gives power only to those who have earned it, and who continue to earn it. The argument is over, and anyone trying to raise it again against the repeatedly expressed will of the vast majority of the party will mark themselves out as a would-be saboteur and a candidate for expulsion.'

So no OMOV and no discussion of OMOV allowed either. How very democratic.

Griffin's post then goes off into a curiously disturbing diversion about a young BNP member suspected of being a mole for Searchlight. In this section, he speaks of the young man corresponding with Gerry Gable 'from an email account set up for him by a BNP loyalist, so we were able to see precisely what he was doing...' Er, what? You read the guy's emails? Isn't that illegal? And does the BNP regularly read through the emails of members that have been set up for them by 'BNP loyalists'?

Article continues here:  http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2007/08/closer-look-at-nick-griffins-most.html