A summary by Andrew Brons
Saturday 9th February 2013 was described by us as the launch of the BDP but it was preceded by:
the registration of the Party with the Electoral Commission two years earlier; and
no fewer than four regional meetings, some described as ‘regional launches’ in the North East, Yorkshire and Lancashire.
Furthermore, there will be additional regional meetings in the remaining regions in the next few months. The 9th February was not so much the historic day for the Party as it was one of many.
The purposes of the meeting were:
to introduce the members of the Steering Committee to the potential membership;
to introduce potential members to each other;
to discuss why a new party is necessary;
to inform the meeting of the progress made so far (the constitution, the policy statement, the recruitment leaflets and the imminent appearance of the Party’s own website); and
to explain our plans for the future.
All but one of the Steering Committee were in attendance. They were: Kevin Scott, Chairman of the Steering Committee and Chairman of the meeting; Ken Booth, National Nominating Officer; Adrian Davies, acting Treasurer; Andrew Brons; Andrew Moffat; Sam Swerling; Brian Mahoney; Jim Lewthwaite; John Walker and last but not least Kevan Stafford, who organised the hiring of the hall, food and redirection points. The honourable absentee was John Bean, the grandfather of British Nationalism, who was National Organiser of the original British National Party in the 1960s and, much more recently, the Editor of the late BNP’s magazine, Identity. At the age of eighty-six, he could be excused for not being able to attend. However, he plays an active part in discussion by e-mail with other members.
Each member of the S.C. explained his reason for being convinced of the need for a new party. These contributions were followed by opportunities for members of the audience to make their views known. They were not restricted to asking questions and many gave what could be seen as speeches from the floor and some from the microphone at the front.
The second half of the meeting in the afternoon was devoted to four members of the S.C. giving a talk on specialised subjects. They were as follows:
Adrian Davies on Constitutional and Financial matters;
Andrew Brons on Policy and Ideology;
Ken Booth on Administration and building a party that will always belong to the members; and
Brian Mahoney on Elections and Activism.
Each of these talks was followed by opportunities for questions and comments. Each person wishing to speak was given a full opportunity to express his or her opinion or to ask his or her questions. The meeting lived up to the Party’s claim to be democratic and open.
Among the matters discussed were:
1. Whether or not the Constitution should (eventually) be amended to provide for the Chairman to be elected directly by the membership rather than by fellow members of the directly-elected National Council; and
2. Whether elections for the National Council should take place in the Summer of 2013 or the Summer of 2014. Andrew Brons suggested a compromise: that the formal elections should be scheduled for 2014 but that there should be a general members’ meeting in the Summer of 2013 at which the members would be invited to endorse the Steering Committee en bloc until 2014 or refuse to endorse it, which would trigger formal elections of the National Council in 2013.
3. That use of volunteer labour would be used as much as possible and for as long as possible, so that overheads could be kept to a minimum and the maximum proportion of our income spent on campaigning
The meeting was concluded by a speech by our Chairman, Kevin Scott that summed up the themes, purposes and achievements of the meeting.
We asked for a small contribution from the attendees to cover the cost of the hall and the refreshments only. This was to encourage and enable the people who are going to form groups and branches to help financially support them.
The collection raised £318.34 which more than covered the £152 for the hall and the £70.17 for the refreshments. No other expenses were claimed or paid out.
A cheque for a £1000 was also gratefully accepted with the kind donor specifying that it is to go into the literature fund to help subsidise leaflets for the new groups and branches.
Who are these ?
https://sites.google.com/site/britishdemocraticpartygbbo00/about-us
Surely there’s something wrong here?
Nothing to do with us. I do not know who Alex Reece is. He set up a web site for an unregistered party called the BDP a while ago, but never registered the name with the Electoral Commission. He later failed to renew the registration of the URL http://www.britishdemocraticparty.co.uk, so when it became available, I bought it for “our” BDP.
AD
Thanks for clearing that up.
Great to see John Walker on board, I hope he will be able to get his radio show back online at some stage. For me the John Walker Show was a must listen!
Will the BDP be planning to contest any upcoming by-elections like at council level?
Though not yet widely known I think they should contest seats but in targeted areas.
That means getting Literature Printed and Leafleting Town/City Centers now and the Targeted wards leafleted at most 3 times nearer to an Election.
You don’t want to overdo the Leafleting of Wards you Contest as the 4/5th leaflet would probably end up in the bin without even being read.
You can batter the Town/City centers as much as you can but you must have different Leaflets each time you go out.
Hard Work and a bit of Election Planning Strategy and the BDP could put themselves in the Public and Political spotlight very early on, especially if they do better than expected.
Agree, but an exception be made for special events like the forthcoming parliamentary by-election; as this would be a great start for publicity and could rally BD members from accross the country to a united and unifying task. I can only see positives from such an action irrelevant of the results in votes.
I think discussing elections at this early stage would be a big mistake,the steering committee has stated “we will build from the bottom up”and recent history has shown us the consequences of getting inexperienced Councillors elected,many of them have been an embarrassment.We do not want to be the BNP mark 2 lets not make the same mistakes twice.
So we should be an non active Political party ?
Makes no sense.
And how do you get “EXPERIENCED” Councillors ?
Why does all activity have to revolve around standing unsuitable candidates in elections?how about spending twelve months establishing Branches around the Country and ensuring with the proper checks in place they are functioning correctly or do we follow the Griffins “one man and his dog” branch mentality.As for “experienced “surely we have enough good ex councillors to partake their knowledge to try to ensure that our candidates are not left floundering as was the case.We can only hope that the BDP leadership builds a solid foundation and this does take time are you seriously suggesting this will be done by next May.
I suspect that as some regions are in a better state of startup than others that some council seats will be contested soon, but I don’t see any major national campaigning underway until next year at the earliest. Thats my take for whats its worth.
Hopefully the new party can attract people away from the ultra Tories of ukip. As the bnp has imploded they have moved into the political space which genuine nationalists should be filling.
I would be more than happy to offer advice on serving as a local government Councillor. I served a full term and was able to get achieve improvements for the ward that I served (Valence-Barking and Dagenham)!!!
Maybe a training day or weekend could be set up Lawrence. At least that way, a lot of people can, if elected would have an idea of what is expected of them in their role.
Lawrence, why not put together an information pack with helpful tips,the old party’s assign a mentor for newly elected councillors, we however are thrown to the lions,another reason why many were not up to the job.
Part of the equation is being politically minded in the first place. A return of the Summer School would be a good step in the right direction!!!
The skill set required to be a councillor is pretty much the same skill set needed to run a professional party which wins support instead of alienating the public.
So ‘how to be a councillor’ would be instruction with very wide positive ramifications.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-far-right-in-france-is-now-mainstream-and-the-french-only-have-themselves-and-sarkozy-to-blame-8490570.html
It seemed impossible some years ago but now even the left has to admit it.
One of the clues is the concessions made by the mainstream to avoid losing votes which then serve to sanitise opponents. Every time Cameron or others make a concession (eg it’s not racist to discuss immigration) it clears the ground for our nationalism a little more.
Concessions from a ‘mainstream’ party can work both ways. The ‘mainstream’ parties do it so as to undercut support from a more nationalist rival ie taking the ground from underneath their feet which is what Mrs Thatcher done in 1979 but, as you say, it can also give credibility to the issue the smaller party campaigns upon. If the smaller party is a credible one with the public and is electable which the NF wasn’t then the smaller party will gain and not the larger one.
There’s a big gap in British politics where the Tories used to stand. They no longer follow the Conservative path but instead chase the left wing policies that Labour has succeeded with. Instead of opposing radical changes they adopt them in a pathetic attempt to conjure support. That gap could be filled by the new party under the banner of protectionism, promising investment in industry, research and innovation and excluding foreign competition for jobs, homes and welfare. Surely that’s what all sane people want but the Tories have sold out and the Unions betrayed their members.
It could be argued that the Tory Party is now in effect a Cultural Marxist party!
The laughable thing is that a carefully targetted economic protectionism which is small in scale and combined with other measures isn’t a wholly alien tradition to the Tory Party. I am sure, if I have read my history correctly, that the Tories weren’t averse to using protectionsm in the 1930’s and before. Mrs Thatcher was an economic liberal so before her time protectionism wasn’t something you would never associate with Tories.
The saddest thing to my mind is the ignorance of the fact that the Frankfurt school works throughout all media and for decades to destroy European family homogeneity via alien immigration/ perverted ‘sex equality’ which undermines the security and confidence of resistance to its destruction.
Is the BNP running short of cash or something I’ve had two donate requests from them in a week??? I’ve also heard that they are collecting scrap metal – that has to be a joke surely!!!!!!!
When are you coming to London, our Capital or is it a lost cause?
We desperatly need a strong representation in our Capitol, if we abandon London our cause is indeed lost.
Do they have a branch in the South-West?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281941/600-000-decade-white-flight-London-White-Britons-minority-capital.html
This is what we’ve come to. At least the press is no longer pretending or concealing.