The three London by-elections yesterday showed some good results for the party. You can see the full results elsewhere on the site but here is a short summing up.
The Christchurch ward in Bexley was a four horse race in a Tory stronghold and the target was to beat one of the main parties with a second place being a bonus. This is the first time we have contested this ward and so it was somewhat unknown territory. Michael Barbrook put in a good campaign which even won the respect of the Conservative candidate. With just 48 votes between second and fourth place it could have gone any way and we were happy to have pushed Labour into fourth.
In Havering’s South Hornchurch Ward a hard fought campaign by Anthony Steff saw him up against no less than eight other candidates including the phoney nationalists of UKIP and the Eng Dems. A great second place behind an independent was achieved and as this too was our first time standing in the ward it certainly bodes well for the future, especially given the total dearth of UKIP (66 – 2.6%) and Eng Dem (28 – 1.2%) votes.
In Chadwell Heath ward in Barking and Dagenham, also a first time outing for the party, James Webb took a respectable third place with 25% of the vote. Again the UKIP vote was negligible but if cast for the real nationalists of the BNP would have given us second place, forcing Labour into third. A message there to those clinging on to the UKIP banner.
The most important thing about these elections is that they show how well we can do in areas of London where we have never before stood a candidate. Also the experience gained and lessons learned will be very valuable in future London campaigns.
On behalf of London BNP, congratulations to all of the candidates and the hard working party members and supporters who put in so much time and effort to assist them.
Well done, everyone. Indeed these results are excellent. I think it is fair to say that we are now genuinely coming into the mainstream and being regarded as such. When we stand all over the country, we will. as a minimum, see results similar to that achieved so far.