big outing for BNP

nick griffith leader BNP

The BNP or British National Party have just had an outing - a big one.

"A detailed membership list of the British National party containing names, addresses and telephone numbers was published on the internet this morning.

The list, which contains thousands of names, was published on Wikileaks, a website that purports to be a clearing house for information to be published anonymously.


The source of the data remains unclear but it appears to show details of the BNP's members and supporters at 15 April this year, as well as data about members whose subscriptions to the party had lapsed."

And what do these members believe in?

"The BNP's constitution states it is "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948". The party also proposes "firm but voluntary incentives for immigrants and their descendants to return home"."

And who are they?

"The most common names among the BNP's 2,034 female members are Patricia, Joanne and Karen, and the largest concentration of BNP members is in Charnwood, a Conservative-controlled East Midlands constituency.

The latest list also reveals that the membership include dozens of doctors, majors, captains and corporals.

But it is the geographical spread of the BNP's members which is most revealing about where the far right's power base comes from. The greatest concentrations of BNP membership are in the East Midlands, in the urban areas around the Pennines and in Essex.

The BNP has one councillor on Charnwood borough council, Cathy Duffy, who represents the village of East Goscote."

Analysis after the last year's leak, he continued, showed that the BNP's membership consisted of mainly middle-aged white men who worked in semi-skilled jobs. Membership lists can, however, give a skewed impression of the BNP's supporters and voters. "The fact is a that a lot of BNP supporters wouldn't join a political party," he said."

So the membership is, well, pretty ordinary and that is the key to this story.

It is ordinary people who join racist groups. It is ordinary people who bow down to nazi flags and dress up as concentration camp inmates - they are ordinary just like you and me.

We need to keep an eye on these types of organisations. they are filled with ordinary people who can end up becoming monsters - especially in their attitudes to others, not like them.