When John Tyndall formed the British National Party in 1982 it inherited a large number of skinhead followers from both the National Front and the British Movement. Tyndall was quite happy with this as he saw the skinheads as the natural foot soldiers of his racist ideology.

After Nick Griffin took over the party leadership in 1999 the attitude towards skinheads cooled. Griffin realised that skinheads did not equate to votes (or membership fees) and publicly shunned them.

However the reality is somewhat different. Last month Searchlight revealed that Eliots Bistro, the Nuneaton pub run by the BNP’s new West Midlands organiser, Alwyn Deacon, hosted a nazi shindig.

Embarrassingly for the BNP, which holds meetings in the pub, and for Deacon, photographs were taken of the drunken event which show skinhead members of the nazi British Freedom Fighters (BFF) along with members of the violent Racial Volunteer Force giving Nazi salutes outside the premises. The incident caused some anger among BNP organisers in the West Midlands and at least one, Chris Turner of Coventry, resigned his position because of it.

But the links between the BFF and the BNP do not stop there. Also pictured with the BFF at Eliots Bistro is Shaun Grimsley, who claims to be the West Midlands commander of the BFF.

Grimsley is the BNP candidate for a Cannock Chase District Council by-election in Heath Hayes East and Wimblebury ward on 15 October 2009. He also admits to being a member of the NF and associated with Blood and Honour, the nazi skinhead organisation.

He says he attended the English Defence League protest in Birmingham on 8 August, which ended in violence, and intends to be present if the EDL marches in Manchester as planned in October.

Grimsley is an unabashed National Socialist. One statement on his Facebook site reads “Hail The British Freedom Fighters, I am a Nazi HAHAHAHAHAHA 88 red scum”. The number 88 is code for HH – Heil Hitler”. Commenting about Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, Grimsley wrote: “The man I most admire ever”.

When one of his friends made a lengthy posting about the London nail bomber David Copeland, who killed three innocent people including a pregnant woman and injured 129 others, Grimsley left the chilling note “Hero 88”.

Another BFF nazi from the photographs taken outside Eliots Bistro was part of a contingent of Liverpool BNP activists who handed out leaflets outside the TUC Congress in Liverpool last month.

He is believed to be close to Liam Pinkham from Wirral, yet another BFF activist who visited Deacon’s pub. Pinkham was arrested with three others at the BNP’s European election victory rally in Blackpool in June and was charged with racially aggravated intentional harassment.

Pinkham also pleaded guilty to intentionally causing harassment to bookshop staff in July after he took part in a BNP rally in Liverpool city centre. Staff said he burst into the News From Nowhere bookshop and threatened to burn it down.

Griffin claims he does not want nazis in the BNP. We await news of the expulsion of these BFF activists.