When Lee Barnes Wanted to Suspend All Leadership Challenger Nomination Signatories and Put Them on Trial for “Conspiracy and Treason”

It is funny how the wheel turns within the ranks of the BNP. Only two years ago, in May 2008 to be exact, Lee Barnes issued a formal statement as “Director of [sic] BNP Legal Department” announcing that anyone who even dared to sign the perfectly legitimate nomination forms of then would-be-leadership challenger Colin Auty would be suspended from the party for “conspiracy and treason.”

Now of course suspending anyone for signing a perfectly legal nomination form would have been highly irregular, and charges of “conspiracy and treason” would have been preposterous, to say the least.

But the strange thing is that nowadays, Mr Barnes has spent voluminous blog posts attacking Nick Griffin and spreading the most astonishing made-up stories about the “dictator Griffin”  yet, as his own email from May 2008 reveals, Mr Barnes was far more of a “fascist” than anyone else when it came to dissidents.

Mr Barnes’s full email is as follows:

Dear Fellow Nationalist Activist

Following a senior high level conference between senior high level BNP officials earlier today to discuss among other issues the security of our new MP Richard Barnbrook in the wake of serious threats to his person by far leftist cowards as he travels to and from the London Assembly I have been instructed to inform you of a bogus and illegal leadership challenge and the disciplinary measures we are now putting in place to squash this diversionary and divisive activity in the bud. This is a deceitful and cynical attempt to divert the party’s attention away from the historical victory last week in London and to derail the activist’s attention away from the all important European Elections next June.

This is a sham nothing and more than a forged challenge devised by the liars, thieves and splitters who tried to wreck the party in December 2007 before their unsuccessful coup was successfully thwarted by quick action from the Party’s own security, legal and intelligence departments. The challenger claims is to be Councilor [sic] Colin Autty [sic] from Kirkless in Yorkshire, a decent man who is known to many of you but he is being used as a puupet [sic] by the gang of malcontents who stole party emails, stole party property, stole thousand [sic] of pounds of party monies, spread malicious rumours about the Chairman, myself and other senior party officers on bogus Blogs and through a series of bogus bulletins which they prepared using stolen membership lists which they then passed on to our enemies in MI5, The Special Branch, The Labour Party and the Searchlight organisation. They then tried unsuccessfully to set up a rival political party. It is a cylical [sic] attempt by our enemies to try and derail the Party and to stop activities to get BNP members electd [sic] to the European Parliament.

The Party is on the edge of a historical victory in Europe next year. Nothing must stand in the way of getting the democractically [sic] elected Chairman and others elected to the European Parliament in Europe next year.

Aiding and abeting [sic] these people is an offence under the Party Constitution 10th edition.

Anyone who has already signed or is thinking of signing or intending to sign the nomination forms for Colin Autty [sic] will be suspended from Party membership pending an internal dispclinary [sic] tribunal where members will be tried for conspiracy and treason as per the Constitutition [sic] Section 6. (3) Section 7 – failure to use the correct channels to express concerns, 8 - spreading false and malicious rumours about Party officials and members, and behaviour likely to bring the Party into disrepute. Those found guilty of conspiracy and treason will be expelled from the Party and proscibred [sic] for life.

The laugable [sic] attempt to portray themselves as trying to 'save the party' is directly contradicted by the fact that they have spent since Christmas undermining the party, attacking the party, spreading lies about the Chairman, myself and other party activists, inciting dissent in the party and actively encouraging party activists not to stand in elections or assist party candidates in the elections.

This is not a game we are playing, this is a war and in times of war unquestionable obedience and loyalty to the commander in the field must come first, The 'First Law Of Nationalism' is - If you work with the enemy, then you are the enemy.

Yours for the greater good

Lee John Barnes (LLB Hons)

Director of BNP Legal Department

Now this raises some interesting questions.

Firstly, it has not gone unnoticed that a number of people involved in the Eddy Butler leadership challenge have been suspended from the BNP.  Has this action been taken in terms of Mr Barnes’s master plan for dealing with dissidents?

I suppose only the fullness of time will tell, but I strongly suspect that everyone who has been suspended has suffered that fate not for supporting a leadership challenge, but for actually doing something which was quite genuinely contrary to the BNP’s code of conduct (rather than Mr Barnes’s astonishing “treason and conspiracy” fantasies.)

What would these actions have been?  Maybe the abuse of party data to send out partisan material?  Possibly the deliberate dissemination of false information?  We shall see in due course, and I, and many others, will wait with anticipation to see.

On another related issue, I think I have also solved the ongoing question of whether Mr Barnes was ever a member of the BNP.  It seems not, at least according to Mr Barnes himself.

In a particularly typical foul-mouthed rant against someone on his blog, Mr Barnes made it quite clear he was not a member:

Why The Eddy Butler Campaign Flopped

Despite ideal conditions (less-than-expected election results, financial woes and widespread distrust of Jim Dowson’s role in the party), the Eddy Butler leadership campaign flopped because he made two critical errors: (a) exaggerating his case to include outright lies; and (b) aligning his campaign to some of the worst incompetents and traitors the BNP has ever seen.

Under normal circumstances, a leadership challenger should have had an easy ride to displace Nick Griffin in 2010. Although the party’s vote went up by a few percentage points nationally, overall the election results were not as good as many had hoped.

It is a British political tradition for a party leader to step down after an election defeat, and the BNP should have been no different. Griffin’s refusal to step down should therefore have been grist to the challenger’s mill, and should have galvanised party members to agitate to change.

Another factor working in a challenger’s favour should have been the financial problems encountered by the party during the election.

There was clearly no financial control of note and the BNP’s campaign overspent dramatically, with as much as £80,000 being spent in Barking alone.

In addition, the court case with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has probably cost the party a fair few pennies (estimated to be between £30 and £50K) and many have rightly asked if this was necessary in the first place.

Although the “Marmite saga” actually did not cost the party very much at all (contrary to what many believe, there was actually no court case, merely an injunction and an agreement to pay around £6K to a charity), the unnecessary fuss raised by that incident should also have helped a leadership challenge.

Finally, confusion, distrust and general gossip over Jim Dowson’s role in party affairs added to what should have been an ideal brew. If ever there was an ideal time for a leadership change, it should have been in 2010.

So why did it all flop?

Butler’s campaign flopped for two very simple reasons: he grossly exaggerated his case, which allowed him to be shown up to be a liar, and then he associated himself with some of the worst incompetents and traitors the BNP has ever seen – with predictable results.

Exaggerations and Lies

The first critical error was to overstate the issue of finances. If Butler had stuck to what were real concerns about party finances (overspending in the election, the EHRC court case) then his credibility would no doubt have remained intact.

Unfortunately, for some reason, he could not leave it at that.  The anti-Griffin camp simply over egged their case, heaping wilder and more extreme allegations of financial abuse till the sheer preposterousness of the claims destroyed Butler’s credibility.

For example, at a (now famously) recorded meeting in London, Butler claimed that the financial irregularities amounted to Nick Griffin taking “hundreds of thousands of pounds” illegally.

Ironically, Butler added at the same meeting that if Griffin had taken “only a few thousand” he would not have said anything, which was an interesting comment.

However, what utterly destroyed Butler’s claims was a further admission that he actually had “no proof” at all for any of these allegations and that the whole thing was a “red herring.”

These admissions were nothing short of catastrophic for Butler’s campaign, and certainly in my eyes (and many others I spoke to) completely undermined the whole financial abuse case which Butler proffered.

The second batch of lies centred on Jim Dowson’s role in the BNP. While he most certainly does have a major backroom role, Butler and his supporters could not restrain themselves with allegations in this regard either.

The accounts show that Dowson earned around £70,000 per year for his fundraising efforts, for which he generated some £2.4 million in total.

Butler and supporters could not leave it at that and make a point of this: rather, fantastic allegations of Dowson being paid to be party manager were invented, and then, incredibly, Dowson was morphed into being in charge of party expenditure as well.

This was done in an attempt to blame Dowson for the debt into which the BNP has found itself. This allegation is patently untrue, as the fact remains that Dowson was not, and has never been, in charge of how the money was spent.

It did not pass unnoticed by observers that Eddy Butler was in charge of the election campaign until two weeks before polling day, and therefore would have been involved in all the major expenditure decisions taken for the campaign.

It was therefore, really rich for Butler to blame Dowson for the debt, when it is likely that Butler himself, running as he did the Barking campaign, was at the very least co-responsible for the national debt, and most certainly for the £80K Barking bill.

Another example of the outrageously untrue – and obviously so – allegations around Dowson centred on the “Truth Truck” and the “laptop” stories, all of which were propagated by Butler’s supporters.

As it transpired, the laptops in particular were ordered and authorised by Emma Colgate, not Dowson. It is therefore strange that Butler counts Colgate as a supporter but still allows Dowson to be blamed for the cost of those laptops.

These, and other allegations, seriously undermined the credibility of allegations against Dowson to the point where they simply did not ring true.

If Butler and his supporters had once again just been slightly temperate in their allegations and had not resorted to outright lies, it is more than likely that they would have got substantially further.

Butler’s Choice of Friends

The second factor which destroyed Butler’s campaign was his choice of friends and allies.

Without any doubt the single worst error he made in this regard was to recruit Simon Bennett to run his websites. 


Bennett is without doubt the single most hated person amongst rank-and-file activists, for, despite whatever he says, he will always be known as the person who sabotaged the BNP website at the critical point in the election campaign.

The BNP will never know how many votes it lost as a result, because even though Bennett now lamely claims that he “only took it down for ten minutes” the reality is that he knew his actions would be used by the media to make the BNP look silly for years to come.

As if this was not enough, Bennett then went on to give an interview to the Mirror newspaper, the BNP’s arch-enemy.

Incredibly, Butler kept Bennett on as part of his team even after this gross act of treason and this incredibly stupid decision cost him many potential supporters’ votes.

Bennett then set up a forum on his website and invited the absolutely shocking Sean Hadley from “North West Nationalists” to be a moderator. 


This was the same Hadley who in 2008 had attacked Eddy Butler as a “joke BNP official” and who then posted up the most shocking and awful comments about Butler and Emma Colgate. 

Amazingly enough, Butler still seems to think there is nothing wrong with Bennett, and had him as a guest speaker at the recent conference held recently in South Yorkshire.

Next on Butler’s catastrophic list of friends was Mark Collett, who accompanied Butler to his disciplinary hearing. One can only wonder at what Emma Colgate thought of that move, not to mention a host of others in the Butler camp (Lee Barnes included) who all hate Collett with a passion.


As if this was not enough, next on the Butler list of friends appeared the truly dreadful Shelley Rose, who proceeded to humiliate the entire leadership challenge with what seemed to be an endless list of lurid sexual tales which became so bizarre that even the News of the World stopped believing them.

Hated people aside, Butler then saddled up some of the most incompetent people yet to darken the doorstep of the BNP. Probably the foremost recruit in this regard was Nick Cass, who, as everyone knows, is a real nice guy but utterly incapable of organising a piss-up in a brewery.

His short-lived tenure as “party manager” (during which time he failed to even get employment contracts out despite being given them by John Walker) was no less disastrous than his “management” of the Voice of Freedom and Identity subscriber lists.

It took Colin Goodgroves in excess of three months to sort out Cass’s disaster, and everyone in the party knew this to be the case, including Butler. So why did he chose Cass to be a running mate in his leadership bid?

Maybe Butler was desperate for allies. So desperate, in fact, that he even had the frightful idea that Richard Barnbrook could be his running mate.

Once again, however, Butler and his supporters could not contain themselves, and were recorded at a meeting calling Barnbrook a wretch alcoholic (Rowena Savage’s words) and a knob (Lawrence Rustem’s words).

When Barnbrook heard the tape, he turned on Butler and so ended another bumbling attempt to create a serious leadership challenge.

It is true that Butler does not have any charisma of note, but that (and even the famous brothel incident) should not have harmed his campaign to such an extent. In fact, the brothel probably had almost no effect on his standing in his supporters’ eyes at all.

So why then did Butler make all these catastrophic errors?  


Who knows, but whatever the reason, the whole leadership campaign was directed in such a way that observers cannot help but think that it was a kamikaze mission from the very beginning.