Membership of the British National Party has plunged to a real figure of 4,097 year-end 2012—down from 12,632 at year end 2009, a decline of 68 percent according to figures contained in the party’s statement of accounts for 2012 released today on the Electoral Commission’s website.
The party’s statement of accounts states that the total membership at year-end 2012 was 4,872, broken down as follows:
Old Age Pensioner/Unwaged/Student 1,991
Standard membership 1,182
Family membership 141
Family Plus membership 133
Overseas membership 34
Gold overseas membership 16
Platinum overseas membership 4
Life membership 689
Gold Life membership 86
Platinum membership 83
It is important to bear in mind that none of the “Life” memberships are actually current, but leftovers from the time that the party offered life-long membership in exchange for a one-off payment. They are not new or current—in that they generate funds—and many life members are known not even to be active supporters of the party any more, but are unable to get their details removed from the database.
In other words, the “real” membership actually stands at 4,097 (the 4,872 less the 775 “life” members). These 4,097 members are ones who actually pay membership fees.
The fees are as follows:
Old Age Pensioner/Unwaged/Student rates are £2.50 per month;
Standard membership runs at £4.60 per month;
Family membership runs at £5.85 per month;
Gold membership runs at £8.75;
Overseas membership runs at £8.75;
Platinum Gold membership runs at £10.41 per month; and
Platinum Overseas membership runs at £12.98 per month.
The declining membership represents the continuing collapse of the party, once the most successful British nationalist organization ever. Membership in the 2011 period stood at 7,651, and in 2010 at 10,256.
The 2012 financial statements state that membership fees have subsequently declined from £227,813 in 2011 to £147,307 in 2012.
The collapsing membership figures have been accompanied by an equally dramatic decline in electability, with the most recent set of election results being some of the poorest in British nationalist history.
In the 2013 local elections, the BNP stood just 104 candidates and averaged 5.5 percent of the vote. At its height, just a few years ago, it stood well over 1,000 candidates in a single election.
Election results of in excess of 25 percent were common, and a result of less than 15 percent was regarded as poor.
The party now has just two councillors left—only because their seats were not up for re-election. It has also lost its Greater London Assembly seat, while one of its two Members of the European Parliament, Andrew Brons, was forced out of the party in 2012.
The reasons for the BNP’s decline are multi-faceted but all ultimately have one origin: the behaviour of party leader Nick Griffin.
The public perception of Griffin’s political ability was indelibly destroyed by his buffoonish appearance on the BBC TV show, Question Time. More than any other single action, that staggeringly poor performance exposed Griffin as unable to maintain himself in big league politics.
That program of Question Time was the most watched in British TV history and could have propelled the BNP into the mainstream. Instead, it made the party out to be led by a rank, bumbling amateur and wiped out any latent sympathy which had been building up.
At the same time, Griffin inexplicably started purging anyone of ability from the party and either not replacing them, or if they were replaced, by individuals of extremely dubious background and ability.
The end result was that the party was quickly reduced to fringe level once again, despite the maturation of several bequests, which now appear to be the BNP’s main source of income and the only reason why it shows accounting figures to be in the black.
The reasons for the BNP’s decline has been discussed at length elsewhere: here the most important lesson to be learned is that it is vital for a successful nationalist movement to develop a leadership team, rather than relying on just one individual alone for everything. For when that one individual is good, all is well, but when that one individual is bad, things go very badly wrong.
frederickdixon
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“…it is vital for a successful nationalist movement to develop a leadership team rather than relying on just one individual alone for everything.” True, but it is not the whole story. No nationalist political party will be successful until the prevailing intellectual climate of the country has become more nationalist friendly. Some elements of popular culture are and have always been useful to nationalism (I’m thinking in particular of some newspapers) while being hostile to nationalist political parties.
The intellectual climate is that created by elite opinion formers in the BBC, the universities, the legal profession, the charitable sector and elsewhere. Their values have become institutionally politically correct for reasons which (to me) are both mysterious and complex, but they are profoundly influential in the upper reaches of all mainstream political parties which is why people complain about “Liblabcon, the one party with three faces”
Nationalist political parties have an important role to play in keeping the issues alive and in the public eye, but it will necessarily be a secondary role until the culture wars have been fought and won. Western Spring is a part of that and it is what it exists for.
Michael Woodbridge
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In assessing the need for a new direction and the key role played by the future cultural war, we must ensure that we’re scrupulously fair and don’t unjustly blame individuals, who’ve done their best.
For instance, was it the fault of Nick Griffin that the BBC issued advice to the audience shortly before his appearance on ‘Question Time’ that it was perfectly all right if he were shouted down? Would someone else have done better under the same sort of pressure? Possibly, but who else had earned his position?
Although I doubt whether he realised the full extent of the enormous task he’d taken on in trying to rescue our racial kinsfolk from oblivion, Griffin was attempting to achieve what Mosley, Mussolini and Adolf Hitler had failed to do…. despite and because of the most tragic war in history! Therefore was Griffin’s humiliation at ‘Question Time’ any wonder?
Part of the problem is that, with the exception of John Tyndall, our post-War nationalist leaders haven’t presented us with the full historical context of our struggle. They’ve tried to shun those historical figures who, had they been honest should have been welcomed as heroes, while hoping to make friends with the temporizers and traitors to our nation.. Therefore they, and we through their poor leadership, are constantly in danger of underestimating our enemy.
The first prerequisite in seeking a new direction has to be honesty. Scapegoating one another only succeeds in passing our own inadequacies onto the next person. Honesty brings clarity and clarity will provide us with the vision to reach the next stage in our journey.
S.ducain
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I have to disagree, dishonesty is the norm with at least 70 per cent of our politicians,
together with slease and out-and-out corruption. The point is that most of the British public are so bovine that honesty is unnecessary. The absolute truth of how Britain is
REALLY run would not be believed by most and would scare those that did believe.
Economy of truth is what we need to employ, a soft and acceptable manifesto. If we,
or any nationalist party was elected, it certainly won’t be because we told the truth. Being honest with other nationalists is a different matter, and IS important.
Mike
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Only a complete idiot would have gone on Question Time, it’s been glaring obvious for years that this show is nothing but staged left wing propaganda, the audience consists overwhelmingly of political activists mostly left wing extremists, it was never going to turn out well. Griffin was a fool to go on that show in the first place. I wonder why he did, ego maybe. You don’t have to engage with the enemy to defeat them, in fact it’s best to ignore them completely thus removing the power they hold over you.
frederickdixon
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A chance for Nick Griffin to go on Question Time was something which the whole party, me included, had been eagerly anticipating for years. We knew how good Nick was as a speaker, his facility with questions at party meetings. That was one of the reasons we were so keen for him to get into the Euro parliament because it would be impossible for the BBC to keep him off Question Time. He would make mincemeat of all those Lefties and his arguments would convince the nation. If he had refused to go on it would not have been understood.
His mistake was to go, apparently unprepared, into what he must have known would be a bear-pit. Refusing to answer the holocaust question because of the possibility of being prosecuted in (was it?) Germany was a fatal error. ANY other answer would have been better than that – even stating that he still stood by his earlier anti-Semitic views would have been better, and a great deal more honest.
Mike
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I have to say I completely disagree on several levels. First it’s part of the responsibility of senior party members to ensure that Griffin was fully prepared, this clearly never happened. Secondly Griffin is NOT a great speaker, in fact I always found him to be a bit of a damp squid, he always came across as uncomfortable and unconvincing, there was no passion, he certainly never inspired belief, desire, or motivation. Finally refusing to go on QT would have given him the chance to expose it as the left wing propaganda show it is, instead he actually made them look good. Anyway it’s all academic now.
S.ducain
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The best answer Gri€€in could have given to a Holohoax question would be to
say, ‘ My position is the same as the top WW2 historian in the World, David Irving. He stated that it never happened. ‘.
Michael Woodbridge
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It’s true to say that facing the enemy head on is not always the wisest course. However,
whatever his faults Nick Griffin is not a complete idiot and nor will we win any victories by ducking under the table. Think Mike, the enemy would have had a field day if Griffin had refused to appear on ‘Question Time’. He would have been a laughing stock and justifiably denigrated as a coward. As I intimated in my earlier post it’s no good falling out with each other because we’ve been on a losing wicket since 1945, that’s exactly what our enemies want us to do. What we need is to strengthen that wicket by building up better resources and develop new strategies for White survival. One essential way of doing this is to build cultural enclaves of self identifying racial patriots.These things are being worked on through organisations around ‘Western Spring’. Another way to turn the tide of events is to win the moral high ground. However, this can only be done through moral example and that means moral courage.
Mike
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I can assure you Michael I’m not trying to fall out with anyone, I’m just expressing my views on Griffin, I always knew he was no leader and was disappointed that so many couldn’t see it until it was too late. As I said it’s all academic now. Regarding QT it’s probably best that we agree to disagree. Just one final thought – the only thing that ever gave the enemy power was reacting to them.
Robert
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It is astonishing that the BNP is attacked or sneered at so often by others in the British Nationalist Movement. Griffin isn’t the BNP, he won’t be around forever and it will have to be the BNP we all back when he is gone. There is no time for building a new party, we stare absolute defeat in the face.
In the meantime, even if you disagree with Griffin’s BNP, let us not wash our dirty laundry in public.
Max Musson
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I’m sorry Robert but I have to disagree. It is not Griffin’s chairmanship of the BNP that renders it useless as a vehicle for the advancement of British nationalism, it is the fact that the BNP is structured and operates as a nationalist political party in a political environment that is implacably hostile to British nationalism.
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Nick Griffin is not the cause of the failure of the BNP, he is a symptom of the failure of the political party structure as a vehicle for the salvation of the British people.
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Please read the following articles on this website; ‘The Great White Hope?’ and ‘The Great White Hope Revisited’ and all will become clear.
Robert
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I broadly agree Max, but we should really be concerned with the left and their lapdog establishment who are beating us hands down on all fronts.
S.ducain
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Robert, I’m sorry to have say this , but when Gri€€in has gone our country’s condition
will be totally irreversible.We are talking of about 30 years down the line, on present trends the ‘resistance’, whether physical or Internet, will be gone in 5 to 10 years max.
The next surprise for us all will be Internet censorship of sites like this one, which will
be a hard blow unless we take steps NOW.
Atlantid
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There’s several errors in the article: “In the 2013 local elections, the BNP stood just 104 candidates”. Actually they stood 155. “averaged 5.5 percent of the vote”, true (rounded 6%) but the British Democratic party only managed 7% in two wards, and even less in another, so they were no better. “it stood well over 1,000 candidates in a single election” – more sloppy research. It never stood more than 744 in 2007 and 739 in 2010. This is why I never took BDP serious — their articles are biased and factually inaccurate. I mean it only takes a google search to find the correct figures.
Max Musson
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You may well be right on all accounts Atlantid, and if so, I am sure that Venutios will endeavour to get his numbers spot-on next time. However I don’t believe the precise numbers alter the fundamental truth of Venutios’ arguments on this occasion.
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But thank you for your input.
S.ducain
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I was one of the suckers who paid for a lifetime membership of BNP. When I saw that
NG had been intoxicated by the EU gravy train and lost any vestige of interest in the
party, I sent my cut up card back with a resignation letter. As someone else said, that
made no difference to the amount of mail I still got and still get (after 3 or so years). I cannot believe that the BNP has mor than top whack 2000 members now. Most of them are third-agers, I’m sure.
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