Barking residents’ thumbs down to BNP St George’s day stunt

A very big disappointment for Richard Barnbrook (left), BNP mayoral candidate, this morning. After going to all the expense of hiring armour, horse and a green fluffy dragon suit, at 11.00am the man who hopes to get elected to the London Assembly on 1 May got on his horse (well pony) and led a parade – or rather a group that struggled to get into double figures – from the Broadway Theatre in Barking, down East Street and terminating at Barking Park.

It was all over in 30 minutes, no masses of adoring flag waving crowds, in fact nobody at all other than the eight police officers on bikes with their Inspector.

Dicky was not a happy bunny and was last seen heading for the Capt Cook to drown his sorrows.

We wonder whether he has to declare the costs of this farce on his election expenses.

Meanwhile, Searchlight decided to investigate the claim by Bob Bailey, number two on the BNP’s London Assembly list, that the BNP had secured 5,000 new council homes in Barking and Dagenham. The statement appears on the Barking and Dagenham councillor’s biography on the BNP’s London website.

We asked an Executive member of the council where these houses were and how the BNP had secured them. She told us: “They have been pushed and pushed at a number of Assembly meetings to identify this, finally at the meeting before last, Rustem and Bailey both admitted that they had lied”.

Lawrence Rustem, Bailey, Barnbrook and the other nine BNP councillors in Barking and Dagenham were elected on the lie of “Africans for Essex” – the fiction that huge numbers of “African” families were being given grants of £50,000, free televisions etc to move to Barking and Dagenham. It seems that they cannot stop lying.

Searchlight

DG adds:

Barnbrook and the BNP weren't the only far-right extremists to suffer disappointment this weekend.

On Saturday a long-trailed National Front march in Eltham attracted only 17 supporters, who were outnumbered by anti-fascist demonstrators. Police stopped the march after only ten minutes.

The tiny British Peoples' Party invited the demoralised NF marchers to a meeting it was holding elsewhere in London on the same day, but the BPP experienced troubles of its own in an altercation with anti-fascists.

According to anti-fascist blogger No Platform, the BPP came off worst, with self-proclaimed hard man Peter "Sid" Williamson fleeing the scene.

No surprises there, then.