Nick Griffin Pulls out of Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace
The British National Party’s member of the Greater London Assembly, Richard Barnbrook, will be taking the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan to a garden function at Buckingham Palace instead of BNP leader Nick Griffin.
Making the announcement at a press conference addressed by Mr Barnbrook and Mr Griffin outside Parliament this afternoon, Mr Griffin said the reason for his decision to withdraw from the event was to prevent the left-liberal elite from using his presence as an excuse to attack the Queen and the institution of the monarchy.
“Instead, the mother of a squaddie killed in Afghanistan will be Mr Barnbrook’s guest at the function,” Mr Griffin said.
“It is outrageous that by making a fuss over my presence at the function, the far left has been able to turn this into a political issue,” he said.
“Had they not been so hysterical, I would have been but one of 8,000 other guests, and no one would have noticed. Mr Barnbrook, as a democratically elected public representative was entitled to invite whoever he wanted.
“However, the liberal elite are already using their own corruption in Parliament as an excuse to destroy core parts of our parliamentary tradition under the guise of ‘reform’. They would love to do away with many of the aspects of our constitution which they regard as too nationalistic, and that includes the institution of the monarchy.
“In a constitutional monarchy such as ours, the crown is an important part of the pomp and circumstance of the parliamentary institution, and we do not want to give them ammunition with which to attack those traditions, including the crown.
“In other words, the BNP does not want to grant the enemies of Britain a chance to attack the Queen because of a garden function which I attend. While we have in the past criticised certain things members of the royal family may have said, that is quite different from attacking the institution itself, which is where this is going.”
The person who will now accompany Mr Barnbrook has not been named. “We don’t want the media camping outside her door and harassing her,” Mr Griffin said.
Earlier, during an interview on Sky TV News, Mr Griffin defended the central tenet of the BNP’s manifesto, saying that “We are a party for British people, because if we are not that we do not have anybody standing up for them.”
He also told Sky News that the BNP’s policies on the European Union were common sense. “Right from the start of the expansion from the European Union, we said that there would be huge numbers of white Eastern Europeans, especially people from Poland. We said that they would be coming here and it would not be fair to local people. We said it would be hundreds of thousands, and we are correct.”
During the Sky interview, Mr Griffin also said he would be happy to swop the Gurkhas “who have fought for this country” with 100,000 bogus asylum seekers and terrorist sympathisers, and said that Winston Churchill was opposed to Third World immigration into Britain.
Referring to the fact that first indicators back from the East Midlands postal vote returns indicated that in certain areas the BNP had polled up to 20 percent, Mr Griffin added that “In the European elections we thought if we were lucky we might get a couple of seats, if we did very well, but we are looking at a fair bit more than that.
“If we could get three or four members of the European Parliament, the next few years will be crucial as to whether Turkey would join the European Union. Eighty million Muslims having the right to come here, it would be a disaster. We would like to be able to oppose that as well.”
