BBC Politics Show to Have Feature on Surge in BNP Support

The BBC’s Politics show will feature a special section on the growth of the BNP vote in former Labour Party heartlands on February 1, focusing on the dramatic breakthrough by the party in the December 2008 Kells and Sandwith by-election in Cumbria.

In that election, held in what was previously one of the safest Labour wards in the entire country, Labour’s previously massive majority of 1010 was cut by the BNP to just 16, despite a massive Labour effort which saw parliamentary secretaries and dozens of Labour activists swoop on the ward to unsuccessfully try and halt the BNP’s rise.

The meaning of the massive swing has not been lost on the media, said Clive Jefferson, BNP Cumbria’s press officer and tireless activist. “Along with other results up and down the country, the Kells and Sandwith by-election showed that the BNP is growing at Labour’s expense, and the BBC’s Politics show has decided to investigate.”

Mr Jefferson was contacted by the producers of the Politics show and asked if he could help them prepare by arranging interviews with voters in Kells and Sandwith who had switched from Labour to the BNP.

“They wanted to hear from ordinary people what has motivated them from making the journey from staunch Labour to the BNP,” Mr Jefferson said.
It was an easy matter to identify a number of people who fitted the bill and who were quite happy for the BBC to interview them in their houses. “We spent a morning taking the BBC crew around to speak to people, including one man who is a worker at the Sellafield nuclear power station,” Mr Jefferson said.

The day’s filming was capped with some location shooting around Minehead and some closed down factories. Finally, a local publican opened his premises for interviews with Mr Jefferson, local BNP councillor Alistair Barnour and local BNP youth leader Tasha.

“The BBC’s questions showed their thinking behind the programme,” Mr Jefferson continued. “They wanted to know if race had been an issue in the Kells and Sandwith campaign. The answer was no, as it is a 98.75% white area, so there is no race issue in Whitehaven generally.

“They then wanted to know why the BNP was getting votes in this quantity. My answer was that the Labour Party had abandoned its voters.

“Finally they wanted to know what our reaction was to Labour’s assertion that they were ‘going to take us on’. I replied that this was precisely what they had already done and had still seen their majority slashed to just sixteen in their safest seat. We will take them on, never mind them taking us on!”

BNP NEWS TEAM