This year the fascist party is standing in 4 wards in Crawley (Southgate, Ifield, Furnace Green, and Tilgate) and 2 wards in Horsham (Denne, Roffey North). The same person is standing in both Denne and Tilgate.
The BNP have not stood in Tilgate before, as far as I know.
There are also a couple of candidates for a party called The English Democrats – ‘Putting England First’ (really – thats what it says on the nomination papers). They say they are nothing to do with the BNP, and I can’t see any connection, but I can imagine that with such a name and similar rhetoric to the BNP/UKIP/Referendum parties quite a few voters will assume they are a similar organisation.
All of which leads up to a plug for a meeting this week of the Crawley (and Horsham) Unite Against Fascism. The last meeting attracted a few committed anti-fascists but now that the scale of the BNP ambitions is clear it needs more people to be involved. Unfortunately the meeting clashes with the last full council meeting of the year so we can’t expect any councillors to be there, but everyone else is welcome.
The meeting is on Wednesday 11th at 7:45pm at Three Bridges community centre.
The English Democrats are nothing like the BNP. They have the political goal of creating an English Parliament because Wales, NI and Scotland have their own assemblies and parliaments leaving England without one. They are more sane than UKIP, but very small. In no way could they be called racist.
I was very careful to not say they are racists – only that they can very easily be assumed to be connected to the BNP by anyone who just sees the name on a ballot paper.
Whether they are racist or not, their very name has those connotations, especially the slogan. Remember that there is a party called “England First” which was a breakaway party from the BNP, formed by people who thought the BNP were too liberal.
Using the name of a very far-right party as a slogan is not a good idea if you don’t want to be associated with them. At the very least it is irresponsible or careless.
I am amazed that it is possible for the same candidate to stand in two wards. At the very least I would have thought that it would be compulsory for them to state this on electoral material. (Assuming the target audience to be literate….)
I think there was one guy who stood in all of the Northern Irelend constituencies in a recent election.
Hi is there a BNP candidate in bewbush crawley west sussex?
I don’t know. There never has been before, but there is a first time for everything. We will know for sure in a week or so when nominations close.