BNP candidate for Norfolk North West named

Dave Fleming - not a well man

David Fleming has been nominated to contest the North West Norfolk parliamentary constituency for the British National Party, it has been announced. He has been with the BNP for just three years.

Mr Fleming has already sought support in his campaign. He appealed:

I would like to appeal for all supporters in the area to rally to our cause in preparation for what is likely to be a hate-filled smear campaign from our opponents.

Isn't this pre-emptive accusation in itself an early and combative "hate-filled smear" against his opponents before the campaign has even begun?

Opponents may hate the dangerous and divisive policies of the BNP, but they do not necessarily hate individuals within the BNP. Opponents do not have to be hate-filled to understand how obnoxious and unworkable BNP policies really are.

No opponent, as far as I know, has called for BNP members to be deported or even to go to the back of the queue for social services. No opponent of the BNP has called for their boats to be sunk. Rather it is the BNP that regularly issues such hate-filled statements.

Opponents of the BNP may well feel surprise and concern that Dave Fleming has been nominated by local BNP members, rather than anything like "hate". Is this nomination really in his best interests as an individual?

On Monday 20 July 2009 Simon Darby wrote in his blog:

Before I sign off I'm sure you will all join me in sending our best regards to Norfolk-based Dave Fleming. Dave has been working so hard in the Norwich North by-election he was taken to hospital with a suspected heart attack over the weekend. I spoke to him today and whilst he seemed OK, he has been instructed to put his feet up.

This blog noted at the time that Dave Fleming has been following a punishing regime for the BNP. In May 2009 he was with a British National Party delegation which descended on a Sunday morning service in a Norfolk village church and then launched a scathing attack on the Church.

In June Dave Fleming continued his gruelling canvassing and publicity-seeking, but he was an unsuccessful BNP Euro candidate and also unsuccessful in the county council election candidate for the King’s Lynn North and Central ward. There he came third out of four, below Labour in the voting. This must have been very stressful.

For much of July Dave Fleming was directing the doomed BNP campaign for Norwich North, which was not a happy experience. First of all the BNP candidate, the disgraced Robert West, did not arrive in Norwich until well into the campaign. Then his sparse and seedy reception committee at the car park of a derelict pub was exposed by three determined and well-informed Hope not hate campaigners who, despite being menaced and attacked, were able to photograph those present.

Thanks to those photographs, West's reception committee was later found to include Steve Ames, a dodgy car-dealer with a record for assault, and Martin Roberts, who peddles offensive racist items on his website, a website connected to known terrorist and BNP activist Lambertus Nieuwhof.

When the BNP was excluded from the question and answer hustings at Norwich City Hall they threatened to hold a press conference outside the City Hall, but in the event, none of the apparently dispirited BNP turned up. Dave Fleming had already lost his grip on the campaign.

The challenge to Robert West from the clergymen of Norfolk was the final devastating blow to BNP ambitions in Norwich North and to the work of Dave Fleming as campaign manager. In July 2009 Dave Fleming was ordered by his doctors to rest and recuperate after his suspected heart attack.

Does the BNP really have the best interests of Dave Fleming at heart when he is once again nominated for a frenetic pace of work on a new campaign?

Work for the BNP that comes at so much personal cost that even opponents of the BNP might express some concern rather than any "hate-filled smears".

Especially after learning that the "Reverend" Robert West will be assisting in the campaign.