A few days before the general elections, the entire BNP website was taken offline and replaced with a message by its former webmaster Simon Bennett.

Bennett posted a message attacking BNP leader Nick Griffin and accused the party of “several attempts of theft today with regards to design work and content owned by myself”.

He also claimed that two close aides to Nick Griffin – Arthur Kemp and Jim Dowson – had threatened violence against him and his family.

So what happened? It seems Marmite brought them down.

A few weeks earlier the BNP used the spread in some of their political messages.

According to Bennett it would create a controversy and they would use that to recruit new members and fund-raise. After all, the BNP relies on presenting an image of itself as a party under siege by the establishment.

But the move back-fired massively. Not only did they have to remove images of Marmite, the resulting legal action by Unilever caused serious infighting.

Searchlight magazine has posted an inside expose of what happened. They write:

After Unilever responded by launching proceedings over copyright infringement, Griffin and Dowson realised they had underestimated the severity of the legal and financial consequences and came up with pathetic excuses, such as a claim that a “joker” had amended the film. When Unilever’s lawyers refused to believe them, Bennett says he was expected “to go to court and lie through my teeth in order to bail them out of a ridiculous hole they had dug themselves into”.

Griffin and Dowson had misjudged Bennett. Unlike they themselves and their more sycophantic supporters, Bennett “was not prepared to spend five years in prison for perjury just to protect the financial interests of fools” and told Unilever’s lawyers the truth.

Bennett had refused to do their bidding so Griffin and Dowson wanted him out. Bennett was prepared to go but wanted to be paid for his website design work. Claiming he had invested around £40,000 into the site, he said he was not prepared simply to hand it over to Griffin and Dowson so that they could use it to make more money.

Bennett’s attack on the BNP upper hierarchy also involved taking down the websites for Griffin’s MEP website, as well as sites for Andrew Brons, the other MEP, and their London AM Richard Barnbrook.

He is now running an online campaign to oust Nick Griffin as party leader.

Read the whole Searchlight expose.

Reader comments

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