Monday 19 October 2009

Who is the BNP peer?

UPDATE: (Tuesday): Several reports suggest there is in fact no peer on the BNP list. The Guardian reports a case of 'mistaken identity'

The Guardian reports the story that a further internet leak of the BNP membership list is expected online on Tuesday.

It does not name the website which is said to be about to publish the list.

[UPDATE: The wikileaks website twitter feed stated early this morning that "We expect to release, within 24h, a new membership list for the UK "whites only" nationalist party, the BNP"].


The list, which purports to be a snapshot of the party's support in April this year, includes the names, addresses, postcodes and telephone numbers of people who have signed up to the far-right group, including the grade of membership assigned by the party – Standard, Family, Family Plus, Gold, OAP, and Unwaged.

This list was leaked to a website, which insisted today that it was genuine, and that it intended to publish the information tomorrow.

The Guardian has seen the list but could not verify its authenticity. It appears to show that:

• The BNP had 11,560 members as of April this year, including one peer;

• The party appears to have benefited from a surge in female recruits – one in eight of the party's members are now women;

• The highest concentrations of membership lie in Leicestershire, Lancashire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.


In November 2008, an earlier version of the BNP membership list was published online, by disgruntled former members after an internal party row, causing considerable embarassment for the far right party.

For anti-BNP resources, see the Hope Not Hate campaign.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

christ almighty which peer?

Anonymous said...

"It does not name the website which is said to be about to publish the list."

http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/4984912095

Tom said...

Looks like it's not a peer after all - just someone who styles himself as such, due to some obsession with ancestry. Quelle surprise.

Letters From A Tory said...

This would be yet another shocking breach of the law and should not be welcomed by anyone on any side of the political spectrum.

If the rest of society has to resort to undermining the BNP through illegal means, the BNP are not the losers - we are.

Sunder Katwala said...

Thanks. The fact of the further leak is certainly reportable.

As on the previous occasion, I don't intend to link to the list on our blog, and would ask commenters not to do so.