BNP: contradictions 'R' us

Nick Griffin is leader of the British National Party (BNP) which supports British withdrawal from the European Union (EU).

Griffin has derided critics for 'smearing' him by calling him a fascist, but he himself has used that very same word to describe the EU. He said claims that he was a fascist were "smears" but on the Andrew Marr Show in July last year said the European Union was "very close to fascism".

At the same time Griffin actually is a Member of the European Parliament. How can he bear being a part of an organisation he despises?

He has justified this apparent contradiction on a number of occasions, claiming he joined the EU to expose the EU, and that he is fighting the EU from within.

Oddly enough, that is the same argument made by an Asian businessman, Mo Chaudry, who has applied to join the BNP.

Nick Griffin made it to the EU despite his reservations about the EU. So how is Mo Chaudry's application to the BNP prospering?

From the Huddersfield Examiner:

BNP 'blocked' Asian man's application to join party

THE BNP have told an Asian businessman that his application to join the party will be blocked, he said today. Mo Chaudry, 49, had wanted to join the far-right party to "fight them from the inside".

The businessman, from Newcastle-Under-Lyme in Staffordshire, said he was seeking to take advantage of the enforced change to the party’s constitution to expose them.BNP members voted to admit black and Asian people last month when the party was threatened with an injunction by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

Pakistan-born Mr Chaudry, who is worth £60 million, runs a string of businesses around Stoke-on-Trent, which has eight BNP members on the city council. He is a star of the Channel 4 programme The Secret Millionaire, in which rich benefactors go undercover to find good ways of using their money. He said:

I debated with the BNP’s deputy leader Simon Darby on BBC Radio 5 Live and he told me that my application would be blocked. How can you be more discriminatory than that? People are not racist in Stoke-on-Trent and I have never experienced racism in my time here but the city council has eight BNP members. The good people that don’t vote need to get off their backsides and change things.

The EHRC is considering the changes the BNP have made to their membership rules and will be back in court on March 9. The EHRC has threatened legal action if the rules are still considered discriminatory.