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BNP in turmoil as members row about 'ethnic' candidate

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  • BNP in turmoil as members row about 'ethnic' candidate

    BNP in turmoil as members row about 'ethnic' candidate: Selection of
    Sharif Gawad provokes uproar among 'whites-only' hardcore

    The Guardian - United Kingdom; Apr 08, 2006
    MICHAEL WHITE MARTIN WAINWRIGHT


    The British National party was riven last night over its decision to
    select the grandson of an asylum seeker to fight a seat in next
    month's local elections.

    Sharif Abdel Gawad, whom the BNP describes as a "totally assimilated
    Greek-Armenian", was chosen to stand in a Bradford ward as part of the
    party's biggest ever electoral push.

    The decision has provoked a backlash among BNP hardliners who
    described Mr Gawad as an "ethnic" who should be barred from the party
    on race grounds. One regional organiser responsible for the
    candidate's selection is thought to be under pressure to
    resign. Another regional organiser is leading the dissent against the
    party leadership, saying it had betrayed the members and would confuse
    voters.

    On online noticeboards used by BNP supporters, scores of contributors
    denounced Mr Gawad's selection. They said the BNP should remain an
    all-white party and the decision to appoint him was taken over the
    heads of rank and file members.

    Yesterday the BNP admitted it had received a number of calls from
    angry members and that a hardcore had refused to accept Mr Gawad's
    candidacy on race grounds "even when it was explained that he was not
    a Pakistani Muslim".

    BNP spokesman Phil Edwards said those members who refused to accept
    the candidacy had no place in the party.

    The rift follows a dispute in 2004 when the party leader, Nick
    Griffin, tried to force through rule changes allowing non-white people
    to join the BNP. After widespread opposition from members, the
    leadership was forced to abandon the proposals.

    The BNP says Mr Gawad was named after the actor Omar Sharif because
    his mother was a fan, and that his grandfather was an Armenian
    Christian who fled to Britain as a refugee.

    But opposition to his selection has filled extremist websites. "It
    won't deter me from doing what's needed for the election, but we have
    been let down," read a posting on the Stormfront bulletin board.

    "The BNP is the last bastion of hope for our people, they too have
    been let down if just anyone is allowed to join. Ethnics have every
    single opportunity afforded them, and now they even get to join the
    BNP. Just like immigration into this country, we were not
    consulted. When an ethnic wants to join, it should go to a membership
    vote. We're the ones who do all the work, we should have a say."

    Another read: "No one is listening, and the worst calls I've had today
    are demanding a leadership challenge."

    Several postings said a senior Yorkshire figure had been forced to
    resign over the issue, a claim the BNP denied last night.

    Nick Lowles, from the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight, said the
    row, which came as the BNP announced it is to field a record 357
    candidates on May 4, went way beyond the usual opposition within the
    party. "The modernisers are trying to make the party seem more
    acceptable, more mainstream but for most BNP members race is the
    bottom line, it is a party for white people and that's that."

    In 2004 the BNP fielded 313 candidates and received around 800,000
    votes. Next month it aims to double its current tally of 20 elected
    councillors and four parish councillors.

    MPs and activists say it is posing a serious threat in up to 80 wards,
    many of them in five areas in Yorkshire, the Midlands and east London
    where immigration issues mingle with those of industrial decline.

    According to Dagenham's Labour MP, Jon Cruddas - a former adviser to
    Tony Blair - the BNP is trying to appeal to working-class Labour
    voters who who feel disenfranchised by New Labour's "middle Britain"
    strategy, as well as rightwingers.

    In industrial areas where coal, steel, textiles or pottery jobs have
    gone - or shrunk in the case of Dagenham's once-mighty Ford car plant
    in which 3,000 now work instead of 25,000 - the BNP issues leaflets
    with slogans such as "Shut Down by the Tories, Abandoned by Labour,
    Only the BNP Will Stand Up for British Workers". The leaflets depict
    the BNP as untainted by old, rotten political ways, willing to stand
    up for ordinary people and say what they think.

    Nick Cass, a former Yorkshire and England squash player who is now the
    BNP's full-time Yorkshire organiser, echoed the theme: "We need a few
    scallies on the council who'll say, 'I'm not having this.'"

    But opponents say the BNP's record as effective councillors is poor,
    although another form of record has tarnished some prominent
    members. In each of the last two years, a candidate in the Kirklees
    area has been convicted of drug offences.

    Labour says it is taking the BNP threat seriously. Dudley North MP Ian
    Austin, who faces BNP candidates in five of his seven constituency
    wards, has started organising trips to Auschwitz for students. An
    anti-racist festival is planned for April 30.

    Counter-measures including heavy leafleting and canvassing have also
    proved effective in Dagenham. Here the BNP won a ward from Labour in a
    byelection in 2004 with 52% of the vote, campaigning on the shortage
    of affordable housing and an "Africans for Essex" claim - part of what
    Searchlight calls the Big Lie technique - that foreigners were being
    subsidised to move in. Labour later regained the seat.

    Keighley, where Mr Griffin did badly at the general election, saw a
    further BNP setback last month when it lost the safest of its four
    seats on Bradford council to an outraged local mother, Angela
    Sinfield. She stood for Labour after her campaign against the grooming
    of young girls for prostitution, including her own daughter, was
    hijacked by the BNP, which portrayed the pimping, wrongly, as
    organised by Asian gangs.

    Sharif Abdel Gawad, a 'totally assimilated Greek-Armenian' and 'not a
    Pakistani Muslim', the BNP insists
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