Pressure was growing on London officials on Thursday night to withdraw an invitation that could see the leader of the far right British National Party (BNP), Nick Griffin, attend a Buckingham Palace garden party hosted by the Queen after online remarks by BNP members were called racist.
Darren Johnson, chairman of the London assembly, called on the Greater London Authority’s chief executive to rescind an invitation to BNP assembly member Richard Barnbrook to attend the event in July, unless he agreed not to take Griffin. The BNP said Barnbrook had no intention of taking a different guest.
The mayor, Boris Johnson, had earlier written to the chairman demanding he take action.
“Can’t quite believe that the BNP are trying to turn the Queen’s annual garden party into a political stunt,” Johnson wrote on Twitter yesterday. “Am going to stop them.”
Meanwhile, the far-right party admitted it was investigating claims that one of its European election candidates had made overtly racist comments on Facebook.
The anti-racist organization Searchlight claimed it had uncovered a string of racist remarks on social networking pages linked to BNP members standing for election to the European parliament. In a leaked email, the BNP’s national organizer, Eddy Butler, urged members to be careful what they wrote on chat forums and sites such as Facebook.
“Do not make the mistake of thinking that comments posted on these sites are secret or hidden,” Butler wrote. “Making inappropriate comments on these sites will be regarded as a very serious disciplinary offence. Please ensure that this message is passed quickly to all members in your area and that it is acted upon.”
Eddy O’Sullivan, one of the BNP’s northwest candidates for the European elections, said he had written comments such as “Wogs go home Gurkhas very welcome” on his Facebook page, which had been on public view. But he denied they were racist. The page has now disappeared.
He told the Manchester Evening News: “It was supposed to be a private conversation between individuals. I also may have had a drink at the time. I don’t believe those comments are racist. I’m not a racist and that is that.”
The BNP’s organizer in the region, Clive Jefferson, told the paper that if the allegations were proved, O’Sullivan would be suspended from the party in Salford and from the European candidacy.
“There’s freedom of speech and there is unacceptable language and I think this is unacceptable,” he said.
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