Screen grab taken from Collett's Facebook

The post-election BNP infighting has got even bloodier as yet more former officials and activists have decided to come out into the open following the party’s disastrous performance during the 2010 campaign.

Mark Collett, the former director of publicity, and Simon Bennett, the former BNP web-master, have both cross posted Eddy Butler’s controversial message, which criticised the Griffin leadership, on their Facebook pages. Collett blames Griffin for “appalling” election results and is calling on him to go. He writes:

“The measure of a man is that they can admit when they are wrong, sadly I doubt we will ever see that from Nick Griffin.”

Danny Lake, former head of the Young BNP, has also come out and is calling for a new leadership. Lake believes Griffin and the party should stop ”blaming the establishment, the electoral system” and start facing up to their responsibilities.

“The cold hard truth of the matter is that Griffin’s BNP … fails to come up with the right solutions and continuously fails in its attempt to understand the wider issues.

Until that party has new leadership, it won’t go any further.”

Daniel McDonald, a former BNP PPC for Horsham, has written on Nothing British’s wall he thinks Griffin and James Dowson are “scum” and believes the party’s membership needs “open their eyes”. McDonald also claims to have a dossier on both Dowson and Griffin and is threatening to publish it in the hope of persuading them of the need to change the leadership.

However, there still remains a number of die-hard Griffin loyalists within the party. Natasha Rowsell, who is married to John McLoughlin and whose family featured as the BNP’s poster family, is standing by Griffin. Rowsell has attacked Collett on his Facebook wall and called him “desperate”. She believes Griffin is the best hope for the party and has implied that potential challengers are lacking the intelligence to lead the BNP, adding:

“The party needs Nick and needs more leaders in all areas, I dont think that all candidates were up to scratch personally”.

Furthermore, the BNP’s internet troubles continue to grow, with Nick Griffin admitting on Facebook he has lost control of his party’s on-line operation.

Maurice Cousins

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Bill Murray, director of Soldiers off the Street, the BNP-linked veterans organisation, claims SOTS has “no affiliations with any political party and are strictly a none [sic] political organisation“.

In a March 2010 email to Garry Bushell, the TV journalist, Murray wrote:

“We have NO conection [sic] with the BNP. I was a member and resigned there is a hate campaign going on with Tim Montgomerie, James Bethell and Maurice Cousins with their site Nothing British. The Times and all the leading papers including the charity commision [sic] and trading standards have all spoken to me and rejected their claims but they will not stop”.

But a quick glance over at the website allstandtogether.co.uk (AST) shows his former party are perfectly happy to link him in with a whole host of other BNP front groups.

AST is another astro-turf organisation set up by the BNP’s Patrick Harrington, secretary of Solidarity, the BNP’s trade union. AST says it is a campaign set up to support Adam Walker, former BNP PPC and ex-teacher facing a disciplinary hearing. Harrington is also friends with Murray on Facebook.

Perhaps Mr Harrington, a close friend of Griffin, is unaware of  SOTS’s association with the Racial Volunteer Force and other extremist groups such as the English and Welsh Defence Leagues? Or Murray’s online friends which include open supporters of Blood and Honour and the British Freedom Fighters?

Maurice Cousins

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