Missing: the BNP’s 2010 accounts

The British National Party has again failed to submit its accounts on time in contravention of electoral legislation. This is the fourth time the party faces fines for late accounts and news of it emerged just ten days after Clive Jefferson, the party treasurer, claimed in a document issued in support of Nick Griffin’s campaign to retain the party leadership that criticism of the BNP’s financial position was merely “black propaganda”.

This time, however, the BNP might face more than just the fines of £1,200 it usually pays for submitting accounts nearly six months after the deadline of 7 July. Announcing the absence of the 2010 accounts of the BNP and the Christian Party, the Electoral Commission said it was now “reviewing the circumstances of these cases” and that “late submission of accounts without reasonable excuse is a breach of party funding rules”.

It went on: “The Commission has a range of sanctions enabling it to deal with those who do not comply with the rules. These include issuing substantial fines and serving compliance notices requiring parties to take specific steps by a required date to ensure compliance with their obligations in future; where a party does not comply within the timescale set, they may face additional fines.

“When deciding what sanction is appropriate the Commission considers a range of factors including whether parties have failed to comply with their obligations in the past. Repeated non-compliance is an aggravating factor which can significantly increase the penalties issued.”

A fourth failure in five years, coupled with the fact that the 2009 and 2008 accounts when they did turn up contained material deficiencies, must surely attract the highest sanction.

Peter Wardle, Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission said: “The rules on party funding are intended to ensure that voters can see where political parties get their funding from, and how they spend it. The 2010 statements of accounts which we have published today help to provide transparency about the finances of the larger parties and their organisations, covering the period during which the campaigns for the 2010 UK general and local elections took place.

“The majority of parties and accounting units have complied with the law by submitting their accounts on time. However, despite the guidance and advice we offer to help parties comply with the law, two parties have yet again failed to provide accounts on time. This is not acceptable. We have commenced formal case reviews into the circumstances; if we are satisfied that the rules have been broken and the parties concerned do not have a reasonable excuse, we will use our new powers to impose sanctions in accordance with our published enforcement policy, to ensure future compliance with the law.”

Hypocritically, Jefferson had boasted about the party’s “financial transparency”. In an attempt to show that the BNP’s accounts were reliable, he explained that political parties with a turnover of more than £250,000 must have their accounts audited by an independent firm of chartered accountants before they are submitted to the Electoral Commission where they are “examined in minute detail … to ensure that the highest of standards and financial transparency are met”.

He added: “In previous years, the British National Party has had advice from the Electoral Commission and the Auditors, and, each time we have acted on advice, our system has become more robust and open.”

It is now very clear that the BNP’s accounting systems are far from “robust and open” and that he and the BNP are barefaced liars. Griffin had already secured election as party chairman for four years three days before the Electoral Commission’s announcement. The timing of the BNP’s leadership ballot is unlikely to have been accidental.

When Jefferson’s document and an accompanying Myth Busters leaflet, which claimed the BNP hardly had any debts, were published, we noted their silence on the 2010 accounts and concluded, correctly as it turned out, that it was business as usual for the BNP treasury department.

Jefferson ended his document by stating that the BNP intends “within the next few months” to publish its management accounts in a quarterly report to members and online. If its financial records are in such a dire state that it cannot even produce its annual accounts, Jefferson and the “retired chartered accountant” he says the BNP has employed are unlikely to be able to produce up-to-date management accounts, at least not accurate ones. That would Jefferson’s promise just another lie in support of Griffin’s campaign to stay in post despite all the disasters over which he has presided.

Thanks to Sonia Gable at HOPE not Hate/Searchlight

It's still the accounts, stupid

Getting on for three weeks ago all links from the BNP main website to Andrew Brons's blog were removed, an overt signal that in the eyes of Nick Griffin and Patrick Harrington the Yorkshire BNP MEP had become far too dangerous for comfort and was uttering heresies good BNP members and their wallets should not witness.

In late March, ostensibly preserving his alleged neutrality in the BNP's civil war by taking swipes at both sides in an article lumpily entitled "The Unacknowledged Complementarity That Is Destroying The British National Party", Brons decried the litany of expulsions, suspensions, demotions and sackings of the last year and scathingly rounded on old enemy Harrington:

The person who was the architect of using the disciplinary machinery as a weapon of mass destruction in 1986 re-emerged in the middle of 2010 to become a favoured adviser of our Chairman. He is rightly admired as a no-nonsense man who does not waste valuable time learning from his own mistakes. [Our emphasis]

Shortly before the recent round of local and assembly elections Brons again underscored his antipathy to Griffin's continued leadership, claiming that the BNP was "quite deliberately" being dismantled. Brons, all too well acquainted with the machinations of Griffin and Harrington from his 1980s days as sometime chairman and directorate member of the National Front, alluded to a number of points of deep concern, but particularly to

** the constitution;

** the finances of the Party;

** the leadership and/or advisers to the leadership;

all of which were matters of pressing concern a quarter of a century ago, when Griffin and Harrington were trialling their destructive methods in the National Front.

Brons has never liked serial failure, fake trade union boss and renowned fantasist Harrington, never respected his pretensions, despises his vanity and has never trusted him. In that much he is a member of a very large club.

Coincidental with the removal of Brons's links on the BNP website was the appearance, in the "Resources" section, of the single option "Opposition". This contains several articles that are claimed to be a "dossier" (a favourite Griffin/Harrington word) on the external and - more importantly - the internal opposition faced by the BNP. Dubbed by some "Attempted Murder 2" in memory of that gloriously insane Griffin/Harrington original of yore, "Attempted Murder: the State/Reactionary Plot Against the National Front", AM2 bears more the stamp of Harrington than of Griffin.

A melange of fiction and derangement from the borderlands of nuttiness, the "dossier" is mostly an attack on the English Democrats and Eddy Butler, written largely in the groaning but comically quasi-Stalinist style of Harrington, who - despite the decades long evidence that he just isn't very good at it - has always rather fancied himself as a propagandist. Happily smearing the memory of the recently deceased former NF leader Ian Anderson, AM2 accuses Anderson of "incompetence, petty theft and habitual lying" while neglecting to mention the numerous occasions on which the same charges have been made against the living bodies of Griffin and Harrington.

Reaching into the dim and distant National Front past to attack Butler, AM2 is in part a justification and apologia for the terminal ructions Griffin and Harrington visited upon that party in the 1980s, and in that much it demonstrates that the mindsets of its authors have changed little in the twenty five years since the original "Attempted Murder" shrieked its way into far-right history. Indeed, in his March article Andrew Brons charged that "the movements and language of one side seem to come from a script that was written in 1986".

Brons has emphatically stated that he has no ambition to lead the BNP or even to fight for a second term as an MEP, the fact of which leaves him three clear years to continue as a thorn in the side of Griffin and Harrington, neutral on the surface but knowing that every time he kicks the ball Griffin and Harrington reach for their codpieces.

For the majority of what remains of the BNP membership, including many who continue to support Nick Griffin more out of antipathy towards Butler and his reformers than out of love for Griffin, Andrew Brons would be the dream leadership candidate, perhaps the only person of stature remaining in the BNP who retains sufficient goodwill and enough cross-party support to end Griffin's reign.

Ignoring Brons's stated lack of ambition (as we are quite sure Griffin and Harrington do not and can not), Brons, more than anybody else, knows what he would be up against if he ever were to launch a challenge. He knows that Griffin would destroy the BNP much as he did the old National Front rather than step aside; and he must know, in his heart, that Griffin will never allow the access to the BNP's historical accounts that a handover of power would entail.

That, as always, is the bottom line. The accounts.

And that is why BNP founder member Richard Edmond's leadership bid is doomed.

Whereas Richard Edmonds, a close friend of founding leader John Tyndall, could once be looked upon as a fairly typical Nazi-leaning, anti-Semitic Holocaust-denying BNP member, the large intake of unideological "Nu Nats" in recent years has rendered Edmonds and his kind an increasingly rare species. Even so, the fact that he is a founder member, can lay claim to near 40 years of far-right activity, is the keeper of the keys of hardline Tyndallism and is fairly well known makes him the next best prospect as a leadership candidate capable of toppling Griffin.

The problem is that Edmonds's past does not endear him to all Nu Nats and he is eminently smearable. The most unlikely thing about Edmonds's prospective challenge is the fulsome support given him by self-proclaimed "sleazebuster" Michael Barnbrook, who has mixed-race grandchildren and who holds views that a Richard Edmonds must consider well beyond the nationalist pale. I have read Barnbrook's writings and listened to his outpourings at length, and even I cannot think of him as anything other than the same kind of animal I used to meet on the dottier fringes of the Tory Party, the kind you would quietly stifle when sane people came too close.

Regardless of that, assuming this strange alliance of hardliners and Nu Nats does hold togther for the next two months, what are its prospects of success - and by "success" I mean the minimum position of forcing a leadership ballot?

Well, things have moved on a bit since last year's abortive leadership challenge. There has been almost unremitting bad news for Nick Griffin, a continuing exodus of members, the abject failure of the recent elections, former Griffinites defecting to the Butler and non-Butler reform camps or leaving altogether, Andrew Brons's increasingly belligerent disaffection and contempt... all these things are making Griffin and Harrington jittery, knowing that support has ebbed away substantially. They suspect that the jiggery-pokery that worked last summer won't work this, and that even if it did, this time threats of legal action may not be as hollow as those uttered by Butler. They are also nagged about Brons and the slight possibility that he may step in at the last moment while Edmonds pulls out - the very worst of the possibilities running through their minds.

It is no coincidence that this week Griffin is holding a series of "Way Forward" meetings, allegedly for activists but effectively for a chosen few. Dressed up as being to "discuss ways of moving the party forward", the real motive appears to be to guage support for Griffin and to win approval for an early EGM to discuss (if that is the word for something that will be pre-planned down to the last detail) new constitutional arrangements.

Under current arrangements, the period for leadership nominations opens on July 20th, but - crucially - Griffin plans to hold the all-important EGM six days earlier, on July 14th. Any variation in the BNP's constitution would apply from that date.

Exactly what changes Griffin plans are unclear. What we may be certain of is that they will be geared solely to saving his skin. To that end he may risk the continuance of the current nominations process but increase the percentage required to trigger a leadership contest to something he believes cannot be obtained. He may do this in conjunction with a proposal to extend a chairman's term of office to four years.

Another possibility is that he will press for his current term be extended to four or five years, perhaps in return for the "concession" that the existing Byzantine challenge process be ditched or modified.

Whatever, Griffin and Harrington and their inner circle will strive mightily to ensure that no challenge can be mounted on July 20th. Their control of the BNP and their ability to (shall we say?) "influence" vital meetings is the last weapon they have, all that stands between them and defeat.

And all that stands between Griffin and an open analysis of those mysterious BNP accounts - the core and locus of it all.

Fascist group’s secret Irish bank account

The BNP is funnelling all its cash through a secret Northern Ireland bank account, we can reveal.

And we can further reveal the party – which has debts of around £500,000 – is busy setting up phoney groups to channel money and assets through in case the party folds under the financial strain. The party’s ‘Doomsday Scenario’ is also hiding money from an ever-growing list of disgruntled creditors.

A Sunday World investigation has found the race hate party – run by convicted racist Nick Griffin – is putting all its money through an account with the Bank of Ireland. However the Sunday World understands the bank doesn’t know because the account is in the name of an accountant based on the outskirts of Belfast.

Bank chiefs at the bank are believed to be looking into the claims although publicly they told the Sunday World they couldn’t comment on an individual’s account.

Meanwhile there have been rumblings that the party is using the vast sums both their MEPs are getting from the Brussels gravy train to prop up the BNP. Leader Griffin and former NF pal Andrew Brons won seats at the European Parliament last year. The election success has brought hundreds of thousands of pounds into the BNP coffers.

An MEP is entitled to a monthly salary of €4299 plus a staggering €304 ‘subsistence’ allowance for every day they attend which they aren’t required to show any receipts for. And that doesn’t include the €19,709 which they receive every month which is designed for staffing costs. Yet last year Nick Griffin was forced to send out a grovelling begging letter to all BNP members saying the party needed donations or else it would fold.

“The BNP are totally insolvent with debts of around £500,000 yet they continue to trade incurring more debts and seriously damaging many small unsuspecting British and Irish businesses,” said a source.

“They are unable to pay the few remaining employees not shunted onto the European parliament payroll. Of the 23 employees they have 17 of them are being paid with European money. Griffin and Co have also left the staff recently paid off in Belfast and Nuneaton with not even the back wages they are entitled due – the only thing propping up the rotten edifice is the European Parliament payroll money.

“This huge pot of cash is strictly and legally only to be used to pay for European staff exclusively. Around 75% of all BNP staff are on the EU payroll, even though they work primarily for the BNP itself.”

And he says the BNP had great difficulty getting any bank to open an account on their behalf.

“No bank wanted to touch the BNP so they managed to set it up through a local accountant. He then doles the money out to the party people and nobody is any the wiser. This £40-50 grand per month is all that is keeping the BNP and Griffin afloat. The accountant was originally blamed by Griffin for the financial problems which beset the party even though it had nothing to do with him.

Sunday World by Steven Moore

Those Accounts Again: Someone Smells Something Fishy...

Among the Far-Right, some things are just painfully predictable: Paul “Green Arrow” Morris loses yet more of his coterie of writers until he's reduced to publishing the addled rantings of religious fundamentalists who seem to have taken time out from the 16th Century to knock up a quick post for him (in Latin, too-for all the sense they make). Over on the BDF we can enjoy the regular spectacle of Simon Bennett suffering a succession of vein-popping meltdowns as the mighty political juggernaut that is the British Freedom Party (33 members and counting...) disintegrates like a canoe made of Rizlas. We can also, as ever, thank the Heavens for the Gift of Laughter that is Nick Griffin's idea of a finely-honed political machine as he appoints a new Yorkshire and Humber Organiser in the crumpled shape of Ian Kitchen, a man best known for dressing (in what looked like a survival blanket and a colander) as “Saint George” (and who's less-than-pedestrian favoured pastime is said to be producing unusual “home movies” with the assistance of his elderly - but enthusiastic and supple, I'm assured - Missus).

Oh, and the Truth Truck still hasn't been spotted... (Apparently, it needs tax, MoT and a service. To suggest it also needs buying back from Adlorries.com Ltd is, frankly, potentially libellous and quite beneath me.)

And just as predictably, as soon as Mr Griffin thought the travails of the past year were over and he could begin to relax, enjoy a bacon roll, breathe freely, enjoy another bacon roll, put his feet up (and enjoy another bacon roll because the other two were so moreish...), he's in the mire again.

But this time it's serious.

The Electoral Commission, having waited longer for a look at the BNP Accounts than some us have had to wait for a new series of Nurse Jackie, have decided the document merits a “formal review”, in light of the fact that even the Nazi's own auditors weren't entirely convinced by them, and (in a separate issue to the Accounts) the revelation that one of Griffin's favoured (although not favoured enough to have escaped Jim Dowson's insulting “20p in the Pound” offer to call it quits) printers is still owed £15k for election printing.

A bill that should have been settled – by law – within a month of the 2010 General Election.

Unsurprisingly, the E.C's Investigators have also noticed (and are less than impressed by) a few “gaps” in the “Accounts”. They'd quite like to know where the money went.

So give yourselves a slap on the back: If it weren't for people like yourselves contacting the E.C with tip-offs, information and suggestions, the “Accounts” might have been quietly filed away and forgotten about.

Just as Griffin and Co were hoping...

Is No-One Being Held To "Account"? (See what I did there?)

The 2009 Accounts are finally out and in the public domain.

And now we see Nick Griffin's finely-honed BNP operation at it's finest and most dynamic. No; not in their sucking it up, presenting a brave face and putting a positive spin on a set of thrown-together figures so dodgy you'd imagine they were dreamed up in an alternate universe where Polly Peck's Bookkeeper was Robert Maxwell, but in a far higher and more noble cause...

Stopping the Membership – at any cost - getting the slightest inkling of what's going on.

We begin our survey with the Leader's own Facebook and Twitter pages.

“Passing Cambrai, first place that tanks were used in battle...”

Ah! There you go, then: The proof is out there that the BNP are no longer a going concern (as suspected by even their own Auditors), and Griffin gives us a fascinating history lesson.

Later, he reaches his Welshpool home (with its £33,519 “security systems”) and his poetic soul really goes into overdrive: “A gloriously sunny, frosty day. Red kite over the hills. Pigs happy. Dog bouncing. Great to be home.”

This, of course, elicits the kind of response he likes from his cringing Faithful. Whereas many might be tempted to respond with “**** the livestock and the weather report, Griffin – where's the ****ing MONEY?!”, I feel that “Noel Thfc Rushton” speaks for many simple folk with unenquiring minds with the touching sentiment “Every day is a good day to be British :)”.

Having established that the pets are happy to see him, Mr Griffin helpfully fills us in on the state of play with his Estate, helpfully illustrated with a photograph: “One of 100 hazels I planted two years ago. Hope the pic shows the new buds (It does, Mr Griffin – it does!). As the Bard said, If winter comes, can...”

And, by the way, it wasn't the Bard, it was Shelley.

But of the Accounts; nothing. (Not that this bothers “Pierce Daly”, whose comment is a touching “Go nick!!!”. Unless that's meant as an instruction rather than an endorsement.

On to the official BNP Facebook page, where surely the membership will have been discussing little else...

Oh dear. Not a sausage. At time of writing (about 1.10pm), there's a bit about the latest Peer to be caught with his fingers in the till (well, not so much “the till” - I prefer to think of it as my bloody pocket...), the burning question of the day about the BNP's non-appearance on Question Time (over which, to be fair, they should think themselves lucky), the usual parade of non-stories regurgitated from the Mail and the Express (“Not Racist – But Number One With Racists!”), and a bizarre rant from Paul (“Green Arrow”) Morris headlined “Will The Boy Scouts Be Getting A New Uniform?”.

From what I hear of that man's surfing habits, I guess he's hoping for one in soft leather, cut high on the thighs.

Discussion of the Accounts that show Griffin to be a serial liar, an inveterate chancer and possibly a thief?

Zero.

Discussion of the discrepancy between the claimed Membership figures and the dismal reality?

Zilch.

Discussion of the mysterious disappearance of the “Truth Truck” (claimed to be “needing a service, tax and MoT...)

Zip.

Over the next few days and weeks, I expect that something for Member's consumption will appear concerning the accounts. And I'm perfectly sure it'll be the standard concoction of spin, blame and outright lies.

I'm also perfectly sure the wilfully naïve Faithful with fall for it...

Again.

(Looking forward to the 2010 accounts? Expect them sometime in 2012. If the BNP survive that long.)

BNP’s delayed accounts reveal financial disaster zone

The British National Party’s treasury department appears to have “lost” nearly £90,000 of funds belonging to its local groups, according to the party’s 2009 accounts, released today.

The BNP’s national and regional accounts were submitted to the Electoral Commission on 6 January, two days before the fines for their late submission would have doubled to £2,500. They reveal the full horror of the disaster area that is the BNP’s treasury department.

Even Griffin could not deny it. “The patchiness of our professionalisation programme inevitably produced internal stresses and gaps, including in due course the late submission of accounts,” he wrote in his introduction.

Clive Jefferson, the BNP’s fifth national treasurer since the start of 2009 – four are listed in the accounts, Jenny Noble being omitted – spoke more plainly. “From what I have been able to determine, the root of the problem was the inability of central treasury and accounting unit staff to implement new system adequate to cope with the massive increase in income and expenditure in 2009, compounded with the failure of professional accountants brought in to address the weaknesses they were expected to rectify. Both I and the party Chairman are frankly at a loss to understand why this was the case”.

It was not of course the moronic Jefferson’s fault. “I was appointed the Party’s Treasurer on 28th October 2010, which was subsequent to the records for 2009 being made available to the auditor. I can provide no information of any value regarding the accounts.”

The “professional accountants” were those supplied by Jim Dowson in Belfast, until late last year the much hyped fundraising and management consultant, until he fell out with Griffin and Patrick Harrington, Griffin’s old comrade from his National Front political soldier days, who now helps Griffin run the BNP.

The regional accounts, which bring together the income and expenditure of all the party’s local groups, similarly include an “I know nothing” claim by the new regional treasurer James Mole, who took over from David Hannam in mid September 2010. No doubt he is hoping not to be blamed for the dire consequences of the party’ inability to maintain bank reconciliations and account properly for its income and outgoings. A reconciliation of branches’ and groups’ balances on the very last page of the regional accounts shows that only £4,496 is available to meet the £93,579 the party supposedly owes its branches, which means that local units are only “entitled to 4.8p in the pound”.

No explanation is given for how this happened. But on 16 January, Eddy Butler, who last summer failed in his challenge to Nick Griffin for the party leadership, wrote: “I recommend that all local units open their own bank accounts … If you want to be able to hold on to your locally raised money it is vital, no it is essential, that you do this. …

“If you pay into the BNP bank account your hard earned money will be drawn out and wasted by Nick Griffin to pay for the court cases he has negligently embroiled the BNP in.”

That wastage is not yet apparent in the 2009 accounts, which show only £52,122 spent on “legal costs”. Far more can be expected in 2010, which includes the damages paid over the stupid Marmite copyright breach, and 2011. However, in his introduction to the national accounts Griffin gave full vent to his hate for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which took legal action to force the party to end racial discrimination in its constitution. “Parallel to the officially sanctioned mob violence against us [a reference to the demonstrations against Griffin’s appearance on Question Time in October 2009], a campaign of ‘legal’ persecution was also launched,” wrote Griffin, an action “motivated not by genuine concerns about alleged ‘discrimination’ but by political malice”.

Griffin also reveals his continuing anger at having to admit ethnic minority members, who were “hitherto excluded primarily in order to provide at least one forum in which members of the indigenous community could discuss the problems inflicted upon them by the ruling elite’s policies of enforced multiculturalism”.

Griffin judges that 2009 was the party’s “best year ever” because of its European election success, but that victory held within it the seeds of the party’s subsequent decline. Admitting that the party’s activity had fallen off in the second half of 2009, Griffin ascribes it largely to the “energy that had to be expended at the top of the party getting to grips with the mechanics and responsibilities of representing British interests in the European Parliament”. In other words he accepts the criticism Butler has voiced recently that being an MEP means he cannot lead the party properly.

“Several new members of staff were brought in with the intention of avoiding this new focus leaving a management gap back at home, but by November it was becoming clear that this measure had failed and that clearing the problem up was likely to involve tough decisions and key personnel problems early in 2010,” Griffin continues. The results, in terms of legal expenses and settlements with former employees, will no doubt be revealed in the 2010 and 2011 accounts.

The audit report, by Silver & Co, who have audited the party’s accounts for many years, is surprisingly less devastating than the previous year, considering the admitted failures to keep adequate records, many of which are detailed in the accounts. Unlike in 2008, they consider that the financial statements “give a true and fair view of the state of the Party’s affairs as at 31st December 2009 … in so far as a full disclosure of the facts has been made in these accounts. But they cannot be classed as ‘true and fair’ under the usual definition of that term.”

Quite what that means is anyone’s guess, especially as the audit report goes on to state: “we have to accept that we cannot form an opinion as to the completeness of the financial statements, as we have had to base them on the information submitted, and controls were not in place to ensure the information on which these financial statements are based is complete”.

One suspects that the fudge of a report was the product of long and hard negotiations between Jefferson and the auditors to avoid a second wholly negative judgement and another investigation by the Electoral Commission of the party’s failure to comply with the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

As for the accounts themselves, they confirm that the party did indeed increase its income to nearly £2 million although only £1.3 million is shown donations, the result of the controversial appointment of Dowson’s Midas Consultancy. The figures may be way out, however, as “whilst details of donations made were entered into the membership data base that information was not reconcilied [sic] to the bankings”.

Membership income rose from £166,006 in 2008 to £626,180, although membership numbers only went up from 9,801 to 12,632. Noting the inconsistency, the accounts add: “The figure shown seems high and may include an element of donation income”.

Income from commercial activities is well down – from £130,000 to under £30,000. Partly that is due to the party apparently not being able to sell a single copy of its two publications, Voice of Freedom and Identity. Income from “merchandise” – books, mugs, t-shirts, etc under the Excalibur operation – is down because it was franchised out to Arthur Kemp, the party’s South African website editor, during the year.

Costs of commercial activities grew to £450,000, resulting in a huge loss. However a note admits that this is the result of the party not having systems in place to split the huge costs of printing, postage and delivery between commercial activities and election material. If that split could not be made, it must surely follow that the party’s return of expenditure for the European election, which showed £283,000, cannot be correct. The accounts themselves declare £271,000 spent on the European election.

The list of admitted accounting failures goes on. “A considerable amount of the ‘Trafalgar Club’ costs could be considered to be more to do with printing costs. The total cost covered is £23,900,” another note states, adding: “In the nominal ledger the ‘description shown’ is either ‘inv Held by D Hannam’ or simply ‘D Hannam’, indicating that the invoice is not available within the Party’s records.

Hannam was widely derided as incompetent at the time of the internal rebellion in winter 2007/08 when he was regional treasurer, but was promoted to national treasurer in February 2010 and in July boasted that everything was in place to ensure all financial statements were submitted on time. By October he was out of the job.

Simon Darby, the BNP’s former deputy chairman, also failed to account for expenditure, with “no documentation” available to cover a payment of £3,000 for “security costs” during the period while he was treasurer.

And in the first four months of 2009 a total of £37,450 was “entered in the Purchase Ledger as J A Walker payments” for which “No documentary evidence was put through the records to show what these payments covered”. John Walker has held various jobs in the party, including national treasurer, and is currently on the staff of the BNP’s MEPs, paid out of European Parliament funds. The unexplained payments to him occurred while Noble was treasurer, but the accounts for some reason avoid mentioning her name.

The accounts also show the party spent £168,000 on additions to its vehicles, equipment, fixtures and fittings, much of it the result of appeals during the year. Such an investment might be expected to stand the party in good stead for the future, except that “The Treasurer is in the process of reviewing the schedules which back-up the schedule above, which the auditor has provided, both in terms of what assets were in existence at 31 December 2009, and after the current re-organisation of the Party and the closing of certain offices”. In other words the BNP has no idea whether its assets still exist or ever existed, and many have been scrapped because the party has closed most of its offices, including the Belfast call centre, which was under the control of Dowson.

Writing off the doubtful assets in the 2009 accounts would of course have increased its loss of £57,202 for the year, a far cry from the profit the party has at various times claimed it achieved in the year. The loss increased the party’s net insolvency to £361,000, as a result of which it owed over £355,000 to suppliers and £37,000 to HM Revenue and Customs in PAYE tax and national insurance on staff wages and VAT.

Among those owed money was “Ad Lorries Ltd”, actually Adlorries.com Ltd. The accounts confirm what Searchlight revealed many months ago, namely that “a considerable amount of transactions were paid through and processed through” this company, which is owned by Dowson. The full amount the party was invoiced by Dowson’s company in 2009 was £741,290, which included £58,680 of management fees for running the Belfast call centre, part of the £162,000 a year Dowson was paid by the party. However even Dowson had to wait for his money. At 31 December 2009 the BNP owed his company £71,967, the accounts reveal.

The amount going through Adlorries represents a huge proportion of the party’s total expenditure of just over £2 million, justifying Searchlight’s accusation that Dowson virtually owned the BNP. Another accusation that the accounts prove correct is that the party massively inflated its payroll, providing jobs for those in Griffin’s favour. Expenditure on staff costs more than doubled to £660,000 in 2009, though this includes around £100,000 of consultancy fees paid to Dowson.

One person who always gets whatever he wants from the party is its chairman. During 2009 the party spent the huge sum of £33,519 on installing a security system for him. Andrew Brons, the party’s Yorkshire MEP, only merited £9,136, as did a person by the name of “Ms E Uttley”.

Jefferson states that a programme has been agreed with the auditor to ensure that the 2010 accounts are submitted on time and that “we are able to repair to a large extent any possible deficiencies in the operation of the Treasury department in 2010”. Deficiencies in the party’s finances will be harder to repair. The party ended 2010 unable to pay its printers, with staff waiting for their wages and mounting legal expenses from failed court actions and employment tribunal cases.

On 18 January 2011 Griffin was required to pay £45,000 into court as a result of having to withdraw a court case against four former employees. The total cost is expected to be £115,000. He failed to make the payment. And with donations drying up and demoralised members deserting the failing party, the BNP is unlikely to dig itself out of its deep financial hole.

Thanks to Searchlight / HOPE not hate by Sonia Gable

Edit The BNP's Statement of Accounts can be found here

BNP found guilty of 'failing to keep accurate financial records'

The British National Party was guilty of a "clear failure" to keep accurate financial records for 2008, the Electoral Commission said today. But the commission said that although this was a breach of the law, no sanctions were available to punish the BNP.

After an investigation into the party's affairs for 2008, the commission said: "The registered treasurers for the party in 2008 breached the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 by failing to keep accounting records sufficient to explain, with reasonable accuracy, the financial position of the party at the time."

However, there was no sanction or penalty available to punish the treasurers. Penalties were brought into force this month, but cannot be applied retrospectively.

The commission said because of the state of the records, it could not be certain that the party's submitted reports of donations were accurate. But the investigation "found no specific evidence to lead to the conclusion that they were not accurate".

Chief executive of the Electoral Commission Peter Wardle said: "Political parties are required by law to keep accurate financial records, and this clear failure to do so is a serious matter. It undermines the party's ability to demonstrate, and the commission's ability to verify, that the party is complying with the law. It is frustrating that, although we established that the party breached party funding law by not keeping adequate financial records, there are no sanctions available to us in relation to this breach.

"This has now changed for breaches of the law that occur after December 1 2010, when we have access to a new set of powers and sanctions. We have written to the party setting out our concerns. We will be meeting with senior party officials as soon as possible to ensure that their procedures for complying with the law are adequate, and monitoring the party to ensure they implement any necessary changes without delay."

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