The BNP's Advisory Council, which is in place ostensibly to oversee Griffin and the running of the party, is to be completely dismantled to make way for the new membership tier known as the 'Voting Membership'. As we reported here, Griffin regards the new VMs as an 'activist elite', by which he presumably means they do as they're told and they would support him whenever he embarks on yet another one of his lunatic schemes.

According to information we've received, the unelected VMs will include organisers and active councillors at branch level as a matter of course, regional organisers, those officers of the party that remain after the coming reshuffle (or bloodbath, as one of our correspondents put it) but curiously (or perhaps not) not fundholders/treasurers - or certainly not those at branch level.

Considering that Griffin made a point in his blog post of August 11th of specifically mentioning 'effective powers of scrutiny over all central party finances', we're surprised that he intends to keep local financial managers out of the loop - but maybe we shouldn't be all that surprised at all. BNP branches from all over the country have been griping for the last couple of years that money gushes eternally into the black hole that is BNP HQ, and is rarely returned in any way, even, it is frequently said, in the form of election leaflets that have been bought and paid for. The last thing Griffin would want is someone demanding financial accountability all the time, which is why he will effectively keep the financial side of things directly under the control of the party's treasurer (currently John Walker though not, we suspect, for very much longer).

One sign that clearly indicates the diminishing role of the Advisory Council is that though it is intended that it should meet 'no less than three times each year' according to the BNP's website, it has in fact not met since last September - very nearly a year. And this is the body currently charged with a number of crucial tasks...

Much more here:  http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2007/08/bnps-advisory-council-to-be-shut-down.html