INQUEST ON TWO BI ELECTIONS

First of all congratulations to Enis Dalton on her election result in Barnsley and saving her deposit.
The result however was a big disappointment in that we were trounced by UKIP and which was not unexpected.
Although Enis saved her deposit her percentage of the vote was down by 2.9%
The question we have to answer is why?

Well at our conference in Leigh Nick Griffin gave the result of a survey where people were given certain names and asked what was the first word that came into their head. He told us that when the words BNP was said they answered without thinking "Nick Griffin"

In other words our party's image is "Nick Griffin".
It follows therefore that our decreasing support must in at least part be due to the negative image rightly or wrongly associated with him, just as Labour won 3 elections not on policies but on the positive image of Tony Blair however unjustified this image was.

Therefore while Nick was prepared to use what he hoped was a positive image in his favour he must now accept that his continuing presence as a leader is putting the brakes on our progress.

We have policies with which most people agree but they still don't vote for us in sufficient numbers.
We like UKIP are for withdrawal from the EU but unlike them we have many other policies to solve our national problems.
They (UKIP) are as much in the pockets of the banking and hedge fund thieves as the other parties and other than their anti EU stance are little different. In a working class area like Barnsley if our ideas had been put well and if voters had trusted us we would have done much better.


We forget that people are more interested and motivated to vote by things that matter to them personally in their locality and we should have concentrated on these matters more. This is the result of decisions made "on high" and not locally and it is localism which will win us power.
Halal meat, troops home and even immigration though important to us are less so in some areas than pensions,student fees and jobs.


After election defeats other parties accept the need for a change in strategy and possibly a new leader.
Unfortunately our party and its leadership has not learned this old lesson but it must do if we are to survive as a force in British politics.
Or perhaps the leadership does not want to learn and keep its senior positions in a rapidly decreasing group of followers.

The bi election in Walkden was not much better. I know the lads there worked hard but were beaten by the English Democrats.
What does this party stand for. A vague form of nationalism maybe but what are its other policies. Who is their leader. God knows And still they beat us.

It must or should tell us something when hard working activists and a good candidate is beaten by a party whose policies are unknown.

Again it is the image of our party and I am afraid that with the present leadership and officials we will get nowhere.

If they REALLY believe in the interests of OUR party (it belongs to all its members) they should do the decent thing , step down and let others more acceptible to the electorate take their place.

We also need to reunite with all the good nationalists who have been driven from our ranks into one party which stresses what unites us rather than where we differ as has happened so often in the past.
If we could manage this we would be a powerful force for good in the country.

I shall not be holding my breath that the leadership will allow this to happen, but by their actions I and many other members will judge them.