A few summers of protest and direct action have paid off - the BNP's flagship Red, White & Blue festival has folded. The decision was announced at an East Midlands organisers meeting earlier this month.
The laughable official line is that the BNP leadership were concerned that they were diverting police money away from fighting terrorism (http:// ambervalleymatters.org /?p=1023) but the fact is that large protests at the site in Codnor drove away all but the party's Nazi hardcore. Pictures from inside last year's festival revealed the pitiful numbers of people who bothered to turn up and BNP members admit it would be "a complete flop due to a predicted embarassing [sic] plummet in ticket sales". Alan Warner, the farmer who has hosted the festival for the past three years, has been targeted repeatedly for direct action and told the Derby Telegraph that he had had enough and would be moving on (
http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/Man-hosts-annual-BNP-festival-says/article-1057383-detail/article.html). Meanwhile, dissidents within the BNP are muttering that Griffin is worried about the possibility of a challenge to his leadership if the party were to get together in one place.
The BNP leadership say they will be replacing the festival with a number of local events but even the rank and file realise this is just another way of conning members out of more money (http:// yourbnp.com /2010/05/26/red-white-and-blue-2010-cancelled/). The fact is that their summer festival has been defeated and they are being forced back into hiding.