BNP routed in Norfolk

A long night and day of County Council election results has seen the BNP fail dismally in its quest to ride the wave of public discontent.

As we publish, the BNP has gained only three county council seats nationwide after more than 600 declarations. For the BNP, Nick Griffin's "perfect storm" never happened, and currently the BNP leader is feverishly reining in his members' expectations. Griffin and deputy Simon Darby talked up those expectations, but now fear the consequences should disillusion set in as the scale of the party's failure dawns on the membership.

Expectations for the Euro elections, to be counted on Sunday, have been quickly revised. Whereas previously BNP leaders were happy to encourage the idea that the party could gain seven MEPs the new leadership line is that the election of just one BNP MEP will count as success.

Whichever way the BNP want to look at it, to gain that one MEP will have cost the racist organisation proportionately more in money, time and effort than that expended by any other party. If they fail, then they will be forced to content themselves with the three most expensive county councillors in recorded history (as Nick Griffin might put it).

However, we're not going to count our chickens before they're hatched and Sunday's results might yet yield a nasty surprise or two.

In Norfolk, where anti-fascists have been very active, the BNP failed on all fronts, its best result being in King's Lynn North and Central, where it had serious expectations of winning after Norfolk BNP mounted its most professional campaign to date. In other West Norfolk seats the BNP performance was mediocre, while the party barely registered in Yarmouth and Norwich.

Full Norfolk results:

Yarmouth North and Central

Conservative 1001 (34.14%)
Labour 856 (29.2%)
UKIP 549 (18.72%)
Liberal Democrat 278 (9.48%)
BNP 248 (8.46%)


Sprowston (Norwich)

Conservative 1123 (32.37%)
UKIP 663 (19.11%)
Labour 593 (17.09%)
Liberal Democrat 564 (16.26%)
Green 298 (8.59%)
BNP 228 (6.57%)


King's Lynn North and Central

Conservative 677 (32.66%)
Labour 616 (29.72%)
BNP 431 (20.79%)
Green 349 (16.84%)


Gaywood North and Central (King's Lynn)

Conservative 1090 (42.38%)
Labour 445 (17.3%)
Liberal Democrat 369 (14.35%)
BNP 346 (13.45%)
Green 322 (12.52%)


Clenchwarton and King's Lynn South

Conservative 1015 (39.25%)
Liberal Democrat 743 (28.73%)
BNP 313 (12.1%)
Labour 301 (11.64%)
Green 214 (8.28%)


Gaywood South (King's Lynn)

Conservative 865 (32.08%)
Labour 551 (20.44%)
Liberal Democrat 435 (16.14%)
UKIP 376 (13.95%)
BNP 273 (10.13%)
Green 196 (7.27%)


Freebridge Lynn

Conservative 1690 (54.5%)
Liberal Democrat 431 (13.9%)
Green 385 (12.42%)
Labour 347 (11.19%)
BNP 248 (8%)