In a Borough Council by-election in Thurmaston, Leicestershire on 31st July 2014 British Democrat candidate Chris Canham gained 94 votes, half as many again as the 58 votes received by BNP candidate Steve Denham. This marks the first time that the fledgling British Democratic Party has beaten the long established British National Party in a head to head election contest.
Thurmaston Ward had been a firm Conservative stronghold with all three of its Borough Councillors being Tory. But with the help of a mood of disillusionment against the party in government, plus a large ethnic population to appeal to and a Hope Not Hate leaflet directed against the BNP and a second one against UKIP, Labour achieved a substantial majority to win the seat. UKIP are popular at present as a seemingly safe and respectable protest vote and they beat the conservatives into third place.
The full election results were:
Labour 783 votes (42.7%)
UKIP 496 votes (27.0%)
Conservatives 404votes (22.0%)
British Democrats 94 votes (5.1%)
British National Party 58 votes ((3.1%)
Kevan Stafford
Election Agent
3
Well done the British Democrats – squeezed but still came up with a respectable vote. If this vote doesn’t demonstrate that the BDP is on the up and that “Britain’s fourth” and “fastest growing” political party is a completely busted flush then I don’t know what does.
Time those few people still inexplicably clinging to a party which is now just a money making business faced reality. Actually the same goes for the three big parties.
The BDP might currently be small but at least we are genuine.
(Party Member) Yet another respectable vote from the ‘ new kids on the block ‘. The decent, genuine, classless Nationalism of our party is growing now. Join us !
Bearing in mind that many voters thoroughly disillusioned with the Lib-Lab-Con are still attracted to the false-hopes UKIP outfit, this was a good vote, and not just because we beat the long-established – but now decaying – BNP. It is a clear marker that the Brit Dems are very much on the right track, even if we have a long way to go.
As a senior member of the BDP’s ‘Old Codgers’ section I hope that younger nationalists looking for somewhere to be effective can now actively help us. We could certainly do with help on the administration side which can’t be left to the enthusiasm of a mere handful to deal with enquiries, new members’ applications, subs renewals etc.
Yes, many are still attracted to UKIP without fully realizing what sort of party they are actually are ie an ultra-Thatcherite Tory Party which is ideologically wedded to ruinous economic globalism in its most extreme forms. Also, their ‘opposition’ to immigration has no firm ideological underpinning and as a result their stance on the subject is liable to be wobbly and thrown to the winds to gain media approval.
Once we become better known and inform the electorate of one of UKIP’s most fundamental flaws (their economic globalism) we should be able to achieve better votes when we put-up a candidate against them. I think UKIP may have passed its peak. In recent local government by-elections, their vote has been on a gentle downward slope.
(Party Member) Ukip have just got 40% of the vote in Labour’s Doncaster. These people thought they were voting against immigration. I wish we had been able to stand. If that’s a downward slope then I am a Dutchman !
Yes, they have done well in Doncaster but how much of their vote came from people who voted for the English Democrats who have pretty much collapsed in support in that town as they have done all over the country? Doncaster was THE stronghold of the English Democrats. Nigel Farage is away with the fairies if he actually believes he can seriously challenge Ed Milliband who holds one of the Labour Party’s safest seats (Doncaster North)
I think it is pretty safe bet Mr Milliband will hold his seat next May and no doubt with an increased majority being as that is what normally happens in the seat of the leader of one of the main parties.
UKIP are NOT PRINCIPLED opponents of immigration and so people who are voting for them on that basis are being sadly misled.
UKIP HAVE gained some support from people who would normally vote Labour but it is small compared to the support they have had from Tory-inclined voters. Infact, a recent study suggested the numbers of people who voted Tory in 2010 who have now switched to UKIP was in the region of 45-55%, 2010 Lib Dems around 15% and 2010 Labour supporters JUST 7%.
John, We will see if they are really disillusioned come the next election. We know UKIP was heavily promoted, but the fact that the people whose votes you are chasing can be so easily steered to vote for such superficiality is a worrying.
It is worrying, I agree, but perhaps part of the reason is because UKIP haven’t been properly challenged up to now by either the globalists of Lib/Lab and CON or by genuine and moderate nationalists like us? All parties have been content to let UKIP ride a media-driven wave. They have few ideological underpinnings and those that are present (once they are known about) will prove to have limited social appeal. Also, such a party without much of a coherent philosophy will find it hard to stay together without more serious electoral success.
I think UKIP were promoted by the globalists and if the globalists turn their attention elsewhere they will return to obscurity. I don’t know what the globalists will do. UKIPs message is incoherent as you suggest but the people still voted for them in large numbers. These are not thinking people. My worry is that the UKIP vote was engineered. How can the BDP combat this?
Well done Chris. Now let’s build from here.
Well done Chris.
(Party Member) Well said Valhalla. ” Now let’s build from here “. The way to do this is to issue a leaflet to the whole area, thanking people for voting for us and the immense goodwill we have received during the election ! Nobody else will bother and some just appear at election time. This way we show confidence and gain credibility. Let’s go the extra mile, it will pay off.
(Party Member) In May 2013 our Party stood for Election in Loughborough south in Leicestershire and got 7.4 %, beating the Lib Dems and an Independent Socialist. We also stood in Coalville in Leicestershire and got 7.4%, beating the Liberal Democrat. We also stood in Pendle and although we lost to the old Party we still got 4%. which for a new Party is fantastic. In October we stood in Loughborough Hastings and got 9.4%, beating the Liberals yet again and were only 26 votes behind the media hyped Ukip. I urge all Nationalists to look at our votes in May of this year and you will see votes of between 4.3% and 18.5 %. We have just stood in Thurmaston in Leicestershire and with a respectable 5.1% beat the B.N.P. by nearly double. Our new Nationalist Party is growing now and I urge all to JOIN THE WINNING TEAM.
It shouldn’t be too hard to beat the Lib Dems nowdays pretty much anywhere apart from the areas where the MP is from that party. Outside of these strongholds, the Lib Dem vote is in free fall seeing as they have now lost the large ‘protest vote/’none of the above’ element to their support which they had before they became a party of government. The Lib Dems are now at their bedrock of support and the people who are voting for them are those who do actually believe in most of what that party stands for ie they are attracting little in the way of a ‘protest vote’ which is now going to UKIP in the main.
(Party Member) You are pouring cold water on our party again, albeit subtly. Our new Nationalist party is doing very well in beating the third biggest party, who are part of the Government, yet again.
You’re right on this point John. I know from past experience, that the only way a small party can build on success, is to build up local support, on local issues. Become the party who care about local people.
We can’t beat the big three on a national scale, until we smash the myth that they care and can help, on local issues.
Nationalism is about the local peoples, we just need to get the voters to understand this.
The vote for the BDP is significant for a number of reasons. Firstly it demonstrates that the party is the best placed, in terms of electoral supportability, to exploit the coming downturn in the UKIP vote. Recent top changes in the BNP has rendered it even less electable than it was under Griffin. Secondly growing factionalism and friction within the BNP and Britain First means that the BDP offers the only sound and stable political platform remaining. Slowly but surely the BDP is setting the stage and coming to the fore in what was until recently a crowded field.
It’s actually much more difficult to get people to join sound and stable political platforms than one might think. Sound and stable politics is far more boring than the activities of peripheral groups which do seem to have a considerable entertainment value to their participants.
This is not particular to the right. Where are the serious left-wing groups? Most of the left is mere street agitation.
It’s up to people to come forward. There are plenty who could. We can’t thrive just on being known as sound politically and with an aura of praise from outsiders.
I think the idea that the UKIP’s vote is just going to collapse and come over is wishful thinking, there is no evidence that will happen, and just relying on it to happen is folly. If the target electorate were serious thinkers, they would have come over along time ago. Getting people to sign up is hard as BDPMod suggests. I don’t have the answer but this is a key problem that needs to be addressed.
The left can drive its agenda through education and media. Todays norms are way to the left of those a few decades ago and so the left is driving things slowly in their direction. Formal left wing groups that what more rapid change really are not needed to accomplish left wing ends, they may in fact be undesirable since rapid change will be more likely noticed and resisted than slow change. And remember Sam Francis’s law that leaders in all political movements are to the left of their supporters. This naturally means left leaning groups have more radical leadership than right leaning groups.
Well done folks:
I should like to echo the suggestion from John Shaw:”The way to do this is to issue a leaflet to the whole area, thanking people for voting for us and the immense goodwill we have received during the election ! Nobody else will bother and some just appear at election time. This way we show confidence and gain credibility. Let’s go the extra mile, it will pay off.”
This is something I often advocated while member of the ‘dead parrot party’.
After all, this is not only good long-term PR strategy, but might result in one or two new enquiries from members of the public who especially value honesty, fairness and good manners, and, of course, find these virtues lacking from the current political cabal?
Perhaps the above is prohibitively expensive? I do not know.
Perhaps, instead, we might place an advert in the local paper, or on local radio, to the same effect?
‘Any road up’- as some say in my part of the country (in between drinking excellent tea and eating delicious cream cakes, whilst rejoicing in our surveillance by the local US spy station)
This is an idea that merits serious discussion.
Well done BDP, great result despite not being an election win for the party in the true sense it has been in terms of establishing it as being the Nationalist party in the ascendancy. A thank you leaflet/advert etc is essential as such grass roots activity does pay off and it is ward by ward, that Nationalism/BDP is likely to grow as it is unlikely to get the media favouritism UKIP does.
Some sensible suggestions here from members and supporters, which need careful consideration. Well done to our Leics. members and supporters who are an example to the rest of us!
For so long as UKIP is the favoured repository of the anti-establishment vote we cannot expect huge votes, but this was a respectable vote in all the circumstances, and shows that we are on the right track.
Might I add that, not so long ago, various carping “non-joiners” claimed that the BDP wasn’t “doing anything” by which they meant we weren’t entertaining them with confrontational street activities.
We have now given the lie to the critics of our strategy. In our party’s short history, we have now contested by my reckoning twelve council elections. We have polled some very respectable votes, and never suffered a humiliation. Fighting elections is what we do. It is what serious political parties, left, right or centre do. We are not in the business of banging drums and waving flags, let alone invading places of worship. So we are making progress gradually, and attracting serious men and women. Once upon a time it was fashionable to advocate Gramscism of the Right. We practice Fabianism of the right.
A very fair assessment of our position by Adrian.
Meanwhile the Tory party is doing well…..
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/08/04/Metropolitan-Control-Freaks-Are-Putting-the-Future-of-the-Conservative-Party-at-Risk
I recommend top party members being guests on Nationalist Online Radio Shows which have a growing audience. Dr James Lewthwaite two shows on the American Nationalist Network with David Jones were very good. If they like prominent individuals they will like the party.
Evening gentlemen.
Just a note. While I lived in italy, early 70s, I remember up to 14 shall we say right-wing parties all taking votes. It seemed to me that their voice was lost as they were taking votes off each other – yet the common cause as a broad church was the same. I think this will happen here – more so when UKIP backers are exposed ie same old power backed mood swings.
Regards
And just who is going to expose these backers of UKIP?
Indeed. The globalist media won’t do it because the politically astute (unfortunately, this is not the majority of the voters) know that UKIP is being given publicity to ensure they are a roadblock to a REAL nationalist party taking Britain out of the EU and controlling immigration properly. Basically, UKIP are in business to prevent others from doing this and their decline can’t come a moment too soon.
Why give any credit to Hope not Soap for their pointless ”campaigning”, do you really believe the pathetic misfits of the Trot Left have had any outcome on the result of UKIP or the BNP ?
There is method in their madness Murphy. The point is not to convince people that nationalists are ‘evil’. The point is to play on the human appetite not be seen as an outsider.
The idea is to send a message that even if you think UKIP etc are right in what they say it’s too dangerous to risk being identified with them. That’s why these loonies put on intimidation shows outside even UKIP’s meetings.
However none of it works as well as it used to – and the evidence is in the votes. Plenty of people can see that these groups are essentially state funded tools to protect the interests of those in power – even if the dopes who support them can’t.
UKIP will give Labour the victory next year and ensure we don’t get the referendum that Cameron promised.
(Party Member) Although I do NOT BELIEVE IT WOULD EVER HAPPEN I wonder if Cameron promised a EU Referendum within ONE MONTH OF BEING RE-ELECTED, would it cause a Tory LANDSLIDE VICTORY?
Cameron is a pro-EU liberal. Basically, he is just a posher version of Edward Heath and with Heath’s record of losing elections. He has been their leader for nine years now is yet to win an election! Normally, the Tory Party is ruthless with failed leaders and really it is about time they woke-up and realised they are never going to win a general election with him in charge. Sadly, it is now too late to depose him so thanks to the Tory Party’s stupidity and inertia and UKIP taking mainly Tory-inclined voters away from the Tories we are going to get a majority Labour government in May next year.
The time is short, the need is great, the hour is urgent; and we should all be co-operating in the patriotic cause.
I agree but we can only co-operate with people who are credible and unfortunately that excludes many. If these type of people become credible then there should be no bar to co-operation with them.
(Party Member) Yes Reverend, I too hope we co-operate as much as possible by not standing against one another in most wards and even constituencies. However, with our current votes coming in at between 4% and 18.5% with no disasters we are starting to look good. We are a happy band of Christians and athiests, with no religious bigotry. We know Nationalism is classless and not some old fashioned ‘working class hero’ movement from a time gone by. With a determination to avoid the mistakes of the past, and with ego free decent management, we are moving forward now. I urge patriots not to ‘throw in the towel’ but to join us in saving Britain with the decent British Democratic Party.
Well done. UKIP will probably do well at the general election. If it helps wipe out the Labour and Conservative parties that will be great. I don’t trust Nigel Farage. Where was he when we were being attacked and abused by the the left? Rememember our old Nationalist slogan “If you are not being heavily attacked by the establishment, you are not doing your job properly.”
Around ten years ago there was an anti EU meeting taking place in Leighton Buzzard. When I arrived I found it was a UKIP meeting. The Chairman admitted that they had received far more enquiries on the subject of immigration than on the EU. But said it was too contentious an issue for them to tackle.
UKIP now denounce people who were campaigning against immigration long before them as ‘racists’. Nice business politics.
Though I have no love for the Conservative Party, one of the problems posed by UKIP is that it is still far more likely to harm the Tory Party rather than Labour in terms of attracting votes away from them. I saw one poll that put support for UKIP coming from (since 2010) 50-60% of Tories, 15-20% of Liberal Democrats, and JUST 7% of Labour supporters. If UKIP took votes equally away from both Tories and Labour then they may do some good. Otherwise, all they will achieve is to hand the keys of 10 Downing Street to Ed Milliband.
One view of this is that UKIP wants Labour to win since that may cause a enormous bust up on the right and backing for some genuinely conservative policies.
After all, if Cameron wins he’s no incentive to do otherwise than carry on as before.
(Party Member) Our Party is for maintaining the United Kingdom. Until yesterday’s shock poll I never thought there was the remotest chance that Scotland would vote for INDEPENDENCE. Now I am scared that they will! IF they did Labour would lose a massive amount of MPs OVERNIGHT AND BRITAIN would be plunged into a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS AND WITH A 1000,000 QUESTIONS to answer. It will be MAYHEM!