Griffin’s rump still unstable

Griffin: he farms pigs.

This Thursday’s advertised anti-halal activity in Sunderland by the BNP, reinforces the dire state of the party in the city and beyond. Nine years ago, Sunderland BNP was a well-organised branch threatening to win council seats. Indeed, the city was the first in the country to field a full-slate of BNP candidates. In this May’s local elections, the party was unable to contest a single ward. Moreover, the city – the largest between Leeds and Edinburgh – does not even have a nominated organiser.

Consequently, Thursday’s activity is arranged by Martin Vaughan from neighbouring South Shields. In 2010 Vaughan was instrumental in organising an anti-Griffin meeting in South Tyneside. He was even quoted in the Shields Gazette as saying that there would be no candidates in South Tyneside in that May’s elections – weeks later he himself was one of 7 candidates.

Worse still, the activist base for this activity is coming from Scotland! It would have been unthinkable just a short time ago that the North East BNP would have to ship in fascists from across the border to bolster numbers. This is a stark reminder of the disintegration of the party and the woeful state of the Griffinite rump in the region.

The BNP comprises a handful of Griffin cultists: potty-mouthed racist Anita Cooper from Newcastle; South Shields duo Vaughan and Thornton whose views on Griffin change with the wind; Muriel Malley, a devotee from Ashington; Adam Walker, whose mind is currently elsewhere as he awaits sentencing at Durham Crown Court following a most un-Ninja like defence of a bouncy castle. (Someone needs to check that Adam has a current bus timetable to guarantee he reaches the Matalan car park re-direction point on time following his driving ban imposed earlier this month).

Rumour has it that one time Sunderland BNP organiser John Martin might put in an appearance. Should he show, the above named might like to ask what he did with the Sunderland BNP membership list in 2003. If he comes clean on that, he might further explain how the BNP’s Town End Farm ward’s marked register was used to such good effect by the Labour Party after 2003. One can date the beginning of the end for the party in Sunderland from these events.

No matter who turns up, regardless of how far they have travelled, this poisonous exercise in Islamophbia will not revive the fortunes of the BNP in the city or regionally. The Griffinite rump remains inherently unstable, fragile even. Continuous sniping from the wings by Scott and Booth will only accelerate the party’s collapse in the North East.