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Tag: MEP Nick Griffin

  • BNP leader Nick Griffin could lose Euro seat as party faces bankruptcy

    BNP leader Nick Griffin could lose Euro seat as party faces bankruptcy

    By Tom Mctague
     
    Griffin could lose Euro seat as party faces bankruptcy
     
    nick griffin

    BNP leader Nick Griffin faces being axed as a Euro MP as he fights to avoid bankruptcy over his party’s soaring cash crisis.

    He is among top officials thought to be personally liable for the racist group’s £700,000 debts – which it admits it cannot pay.

    Anyone made bankrupt is legally barred from being an MP or Euro MP.

    The BNP’s money woes were laid bare by ex-chief fundraiser James Dowson in a letter seen by the Mirror.

    Mr Dowson told North-East printers who produced its newsletter that the finances were like “a shipwreck”

    He added: “Cash is in very short supply… [it is] impossible for the BNP and persons associated with it to pay outstanding bills in anything like a normal timescale, if indeed at all.” The “very grave” crisis meant it could only pay 20% of what it owed, he added.

    Its money problems have been made worse by having to settle a legal row after illegally using Marmite in an ad and the cost of fighting the Equality and Human Rights Commission over its whites-only admission rules.

    Meanwhile, electoral chiefs are still probing its 2008 accounts as they contain gaps that breach the law.

    The BNP’s debt meltdown comes amid a spate of defections and expulsions.

    Mr Dowson and media officer Paul Golding have left while campaigns chief Eddy Butler and London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook were recently expelled.

    Mr Griffin was not responding to our requests for a comment last night.

    , 3/11/2010

  • BNP debate ‘illegal’, Hain warns

    BNP debate ‘illegal’, Hain warns

    A4Cabinet minister Peter Hain has warned the BBC that it could face legal action unless it scraps the controversial appearance of far-right MEP Nick Griffin on Question Time.

    Peter Hain has written to BBC director general Mark Thompson demanding he suspend the “abhorrent” inclusion of the British National Party leader on the flagship political debate show.

    The Welsh Secretary argued that the BNP was at present “an unlawful body” after the party told a court last week it would amend its whites-only membership rules to meet discrimination legislation.

    The Equality and Human Rights Commission had issued county court proceedings over concerns the membership criteria were restrictive to those within certain ethnic groups.

    Mr Griffin is due to appear on Thursday’s edition of Question Time alongside Justice Secretary Jack Straw, representatives of the other main parties and black writer Bonnie Greer.

    But in his letter, Mr Hain said: “If you do not review the decision you may run the very serious risk of legal challenge in addition to the moral objections that I make. In my view, your approach is unreasonable, irrational and unlawful.”

    ITN