Nick Griffin
Nicholas John Griffin, MA (Hons.) (born 1959) is
the National Chairman
of the British National Party (BNP).Griffin's mother, Jean, was the BNP candidate against Iain Duncan Smith in the 2001 Election. His father, Edgar, was a member of the Conservative Party and a former Councillor.
In August 2001, Edgar Griffin was expelled from the Conservative Party for being "linked" to the BNP (he answered the BNP hotline on behalf of his wife, the BNP membership secretary, when she was unavailable).
19th November 2008 Update BNP Membership list leaked
Scotland's BNP members list (1090 KB PDF)
Early Years and Education
Career in Politics
The NF and the ITP
The BNP
Criticisms of Griffin
Recent Election Campaigns
Recent arrest and charges
Trivia
Nick Griffin was born in North London and grew up in Halesworth in rural Suffolk, England. Initially educated at a public school, St Felix School, Southwold, Suffolk, Griffin studied history, and then law at Downing College, Cambridge. Griffin dabbled in collegiate boxing while at Cambridge and became a boxing blue. He graduated with a 3rd Class degree in Jurisprudence (Law). Since leaving university, Griffin has worked in agricultural engineering, property renovation and forestry. In recent years he has been a full-time political writer and organiser of the British National Party, of which he is chairman. He also keeps pigs, sheep and chickens on a small scale as a hobby.
The NF and the ITP
Griffin got involved in political activities at the age of 15, when his father, Edgar, took him to meetings of the National Front (NF). By 1978, Griffin was a national organizer for the NF, but left in 1989, in a split with Patrick Harrington. Harrington went on to form the "centrist nationalist" Third Way. Meanwhile, Griffin joined with Derek Holland to form the International Third Position (ITP) which was a continuation of the Political Soldier movement that had formed within the NF. The Political Soldiers believed in the formation of a new man along quasi-religious lines, one who would oppose the "materialism" of both capitalism and communism. This involvement was short lived and by 1991, Griffin had parted with Holland, who remained with the ITP.
The BNP
In 1995, he joined the BNP: a British political party of the far-right, whose views were widely regarded as racist. Until he became National Chairman, Griffin edited the Spearhead, a publication owned by John Tyndall, the then party leader.
Since being elected National Chairman of the BNP at the end of September 1999, Nick has been responsible for the party's continuing move to 'reposition' itself as an electable, modern nationalist party on the model used elsewhere in Europe by politicians such as Jorg Haider. These changes include an emphasis on the need to dismantle multiculturalism, which the BNP claim has a destructive influence on both immigrant and British culture. The BNP now favours deportation with the consent of the ethnic minorities, having dropped the former policy of complusory repatriation (a policy which would send all recent immigrants, 1 and 2nd generation, back to their land of ethnic origin without their consent). Griffin has announced that the BNP will protect democracy if elected, and has promised referenda on subjects such as fox hunting and capital punishment.
Under the BNP's constitution, Nick Griffin is solely responsible for the party's legal and financial liabilities, and has the final say in all decisions affecting the party. While he routinely consults with various colleagues on matters which affect them directly, he is not bound to do so. Some areas of policy have been delegated to other BNP leaders, but Griffin has retained the right to make the most important decisions.
Griffin has had many detractors. He is widely viewed as a Nazi and a fascist, which he strongly disputes. Griffin has met with David Duke former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and has praised black separatist Louis Farrakhan. In 1988, Griffin went to Libya (at Muammar al-Qaddafi's expense) to raise money, although it transpired that Qaddafi was really only looking for an outlet to distribute his Green Book. In the past, Griffin has called the Holocaust 'wartime propaganda' and attacked a Holocaust denier, David Irving for admitting that some Jews died at the hands of the Nazi state in the Second World War. Many have also accused him of Anti-Semitism, citing his claims in the leaflet "Who are the Mind Benders?" that Jews dominate British media. In 1998, Griffin was convicted of encouraging racial hatred by giving out BNP literature. This conviction has been claimed by opponents to be contradictory to Griffin's outspoken demands for "law & order", although Griffin claims that the law under which he was convicted is an unjust law and he therefore has no obligation to follow it.
In June 2001, Griffin ran as a BNP candidate in the constituency of Oldham West & Royton and got 6,552 votes (16%), beating the Liberal Democrats into fourth place and running a close race for second place with the Conservatives. After the result, Griffin was accused of exploiting racial tensions in Oldham that resulted in riots that happened before the June 2001 vote. In May 2003, Griffin stood for election again in Oldham for a seat on the local council representing the Chadderton North ward, winning 993 votes (28%). He was not elected. In June 2004, Griffin topped the BNP list for the European Parliament for the North West England Constituency. The party received 134,958 votes (6%). No one from the BNP was elected.
Nick Griffin stood in the 2005 General Election in the Keighley constituency, West Yorkshire, where he polled 4,240 votes, 9.16% of those cast.
On 14 December 2004, Nick Griffin was arrested on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred, relating to a BBC documentary aired in July 2004. He was released on police bail the same day.
Griffin was the 12th person to be arrested following the documentary and the second high profile arrestee in this case after BNP founder John Tyndall, who was arrested on 12 December.
On 6 April 2005, he was charged by police with four offences of using words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.
On 6 th February 2006, he was acquitted of two of the charges at Leeds Crown Court. The jury were unable to reach a verdict on the other two and the Crown Prosecution Service announced that they would seek a re-trial.
Nick Griffin has a glass left eye. It has been claimed that this is due to a gunshot wound accidentally self-inflicted during survivalist manoeuvres, or alternatively that a shotgun cartridge buried among burning rubbish exploded .
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