Founder member resigns from BNP

Ronald Rickcord, a founding member of the British National Party, resigned from the BNP at the end of 2010. He issued the following open letter:

Despite having been a member of the BNP since the beginning of 1982, it is with great sorrow and reluctance that I shall not be renewing my Party membership.

My reasons for taking this action are manifold, the main one being the antics of the present leader and his cronies who, during recent months, have caused us incalculable damage, brought embarrassment to all decent members and made the Party a laughingstock.

I did not vote for Mr Griffin when he ousted the late John Tyndall from the leadership, nor have I voted for him since. The fact is that I knew enough of Griffin’s history to fear that his becoming leader would be a disaster. So it has proved. The way he stabbed John in the back was shameful. Without John, there would never have been a BNP; with Griffin as leader, I fear it is doomed.

During the past year, the membership has had to endure the following avoidable calamities: Griffin’s lamentable performance on “Question Time”; his disrespectful behaviour towards the Queen regarding her Buckingham Palace invitation; the juvenile Marmite fiasco; the total lack of transparency of the state of Party funds; the frequent internecine squabbles, plots and expulsions among senior Party members; and the failure to pay our creditors or to submit Party accounts to the Electoral Commission on time.

In view of these and other matters, is it any wonder that good Party members are leaving in droves?

Of course, I shall remain a British Nationalist, albeit not a member of the Party.

I wish all my many Nationalist friends a Happy and Prosperous New Year,

Ron.

30 December 2010

Ronald Rickcord (a former RAF officer) was a prominent campaigner against British entry to the European Union as early as the 1960s. He later joined the National Front and was a founder member of both the NNF and the BNP. During the early 1980s he was founding editor of the first NNF/BNP newspaper New Frontier (which became British Nationalist). In 1983 he was the BNP’s general election candidate in his local constituency Milton Keynes.

A former contributor to Spearhead, he has been a regular contributor to Heritage and Destiny, and indeed has an article in the January 2011 issue of H&D which is published next week.

Ron’s departure from the BNP is the latest sign of the party’s terminal decline. Many nationalist observers expect the party to collapse completely before the local elections on May 5th this year.