I thought when you have seats in parliament you receive money for those staff so as the BNP does not have any seats it does not revive any money for there staff. I may be wrong but I would imagine that as the Green party and UKIP have seats they will be reviving public money so the party does not need to pay them as much.

How the party is run does not effect public democracy and preventing party members from seeking there own desires at the expense of the nations interests is a good thing. It is more of a safe guard and I am sure other parties have similar things or its very foundations would become meaningless.

With no safeguards BNP supporters could deliberately join parties such as UKIP change there policies to make it unelectable then simply vote for BNP of the other way round.

In the UKIP constitution it has similar safeguards:
“The NEC may institute a postal ballot of Party members on amendments to the Party constitution, provided that a motion to do so is approved by a two-thirds majority of NEC members present and voting.”

“The Party Chairman and NEC shall have the right to put separate and distinct elements or clauses amending the Constitution to a vote for the approval of a two-thirds majority of members voting in a postal ballot.”

UKIP - UKIP Constitution

In a political party it should work relatively top down with members conforming to the party policies and political stance not trying to change the party they joined unless it is simply trying to better serve the parties future and its goals.

In a national democracy it should work bottom up with the party trying to represent the people in the best way possible and not simply trying to serve its own goals.

The referenda will be offered to policies of great concern like the death penalty as Labour should have done with the EU. The government should know roughly what the people want and the best ways to support that nation making decisions that they believe best reflects those views.

I also like aspects of the liberal democrats that offer more representation and the idea of scrapping the House of Lords with elected representatives would be better.
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Originally Posted by The Nationalist:
I thought when you have seats in parliament you receive money for those staff so as the BNP does not have any seats it does not revive any money for there staff. I may be wrong but I would imagine that as the Green party and UKIP have seats they will be reviving public money so the party does not need to pay them as much.

You do make a good politician. You appear to be adept at sidestepping facts. Let me spell it out.

Lib Dems: 41 Staff (average wage of £35,280)
BNP 13 Staff: 13 Staff (average wage of £10, 387)
UKIP: 8 Staff (average wage of £10,126)
Green Party: 4.6 Staff (average wage of £22,715)

The BNP seem to be in the strange postition of requiring more staff than parties which have to support either more members or more elected councillors. UKIP is cheaper to join by £10 in terms of the standard membership, has more than 5000 more members and fewer members of staff who cost the members less on average than the BNP.

What does that say about the organisation of the BNP?

Even though the BNP has more members of staff than the Green Party, and pays them less on average, the Green Party seems to have the wherewithal to deliver 110 elected councillors whilst still passing audit on their accounts. More than can be said for the BNP.

Originally Posted by The Nationalist:
How the party is run does not effect public democracy

Of course it does. My point was that if the party is not run democratically (and you seem to be admitting that from what you say), why would we expect the party to run the country in a democratic fashion?

Originally Posted by The Nationalist:
and preventing party members from seeking there own desires at the expense of the nations interests is a good thing.

You'll be voting against the Chairman getting a payoff if he loses his job in an election, then?

Originally Posted by The Nationalist:
With no safeguards BNP supporters could deliberately join parties such as UKIP change there policies to make it unelectable then simply vote for BNP of the other way round.

Paranoia! Paranoia! Will you do the fandango?
Thunderbolts and lightening!
Very very frightening me!

Suffice it to say that to make any kind of difference to UKIP for instance (which has 15,878 members) a large number of 'sleepers' would be required to join. To achieve even a 40% voting block within UKIP, you would probably need more BNP supporters to join UKIP than there are actual members of the BNP. At £20 a time to join UKIP, that's a lot of money you will have given to UKIP which would probably be better spent doing something useful within the BNP.
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Originally Posted by The Nationalist:

With no safeguards BNP supporters could deliberately join parties such as UKIP change there policies to make it unelectable then simply vote for BNP of the other way round.
future and its goals.

In a national democracy it should work bottom up with the party trying to represent the people in the best way possible and not simply trying to serve its own goals.

I do not believe that there would be enough interest from enough people to join a party they have no allegiance to, purely to change policy from within.
It doesn't stack up and there would have to be a substantial number prepared to do that to even attempt to change direction of a party.

That, of course, is one way of letting the ordinary Joe Bloggs' membership know that 'The Leader Knows Best'!

That the membership don't know enough or are not smart enough to think for themselves.

What about if the Leadership and those put in positions of power by the Leadership, have an agenda at odds with the membership and all the party is supposed to stand for?

This change of constitution, will effectively allow an incumbent leader to stay just that...Incumbent...until he decides retirement is looking attractive.

There is nothing democratic about that and if the British National Party is standing for democracy, accountability and transparent finances, then it will fall at the first hurdle with this constitution, which is nothing but a 'Give The Leader Total Power' mandate.
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It only takes a handful of people to totally disrupt a Party. Tony Bliar and his cronies have managed to bring a once proud Party to its knees and all but bankrupt it. That should be enough proof that two or three people can, with a bit of effort, cause disruption at a high level, enough to distract the rest of the Party from the issues that really matter.

Just read the posts in the UKIP section for an idea of what I mean.
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Originally Posted by Hunter:
It only takes a handful of people to totally disrupt a Party. Tony Bliar and his cronies have managed to bring a once proud Party to its knees and all but bankrupt it. That should be enough proof that two or three people can, with a bit of effort, cause disruption at a high level, enough to distract the rest of the Party from the issues that really matter.

Just read the posts in the UKIP section for an idea of what I mean.

Yes but what if the disruption is from the top?

Where are the safeguards if that were to be the case?
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Originally Posted by Hunter:
It only takes a handful of people to totally disrupt a Party. Tony Bliar and his cronies have managed to bring a once proud Party to its knees and all but bankrupt it. That should be enough proof that two or three people can, with a bit of effort, cause disruption at a high level, enough to distract the rest of the Party from the issues that really matter.

The difference is, Tony Blair was loyal to his party having been a member since the 1970s. Do you think he appeared out of nowhere and simply jumped to the top of the leadership tree? He became leader of Labour only in 1994, and Prime Minister in 1997.

Tony Blair was elected leader by the party in a fair and open vote against more than one opponent.

Tony Blair proposed a change to Clause IV of the Labour Party Constitution that was very publicly discussed by the media and was voted in by the party.

Tony Blair took Labour to power and kept them there for 10 years, implementing the policies that Labour wanted to implement.

Tony Blair achieved what he wanted to, in double quick time. Griffin has not the wherewithal to do anything like it. If he did, he would have done by now. He's tinkered with the constitution, management, business activities and fiances of the BNP for 9 years. What has he delivered?

Labour may be morally bankrupt, I'm sure we can agree that, but I doubt that as a party it is in any danger of disappearing soon regardless of the state of its' finances.
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Originally Posted by whypatcondellisntfun:
Labour may be morally bankrupt, I'm sure we can agree that, but I doubt that as a party it is in any danger of disappearing soon regardless of the state of its' finances.

Only because your Muslim mates stubbornly and steadfastly vote Labour. The loyaly towards Labour by (ethnic) Muslims is yet another reason why they are so loathed and despised by an increasing number of native British people. Without ethnic Muslims the Labour party would be planning its funeral. Even the residents of Glasgow East have managed to convince themselves to turn their backs on Labour.
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The figures are misleading and I think The Nationalist has a point here.

UKIP's regional organisers, press officers and researchers are in the main (as I understand it) employed through the Ind/Dem group in the European Parliament or by individual MEPs. Their work for the party is in their 'own time'. :-) This means that they would not appear on any party accounts. Of course, the MEPs themselves are some of the party's main representatives, including Nigel Farage, so these are also paid by the European Parliament and would not appear as staff on the party accounts.

Similarly, the Liberal Democrats have 63 MPs and 12 MEPs who all employ office staff and researchers and thus do not appear in the party accounts.

The BNP has none of these and must employ core staff directly. There may be some 'hidden' staff in the BNP's setup through related organisations - I don't know - but £140,000 seems to me to be a small sum for staff costs, especially if it covers 13 members of staff.

I assume from the average wage figures calculated in the posts above that those for UKIP and the BNP relate to the total number of individuals employed whereas the figure for the Greens (i.e., 4.6) is for full-time equivalents - a much better way of presenting the information. It does not make much sense to compare average wages without reference to whether they are full-time or part-time.
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Those who can’t see the wrongs in the BNP deserve to be dominated by them.
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Originally Posted by The Bear:
Those who can’t see the wrongs in the BNP deserve to be dominated by them.

Who do you mean, Bear?

For my part, I was just pointing out a few facts about the accounts of the parties mentioned here. I have no allegiance to any of them.

As an aside, I don't see why it is necessary to post a ritualistic "As much as I detest the BNP..." before every post that mentions them. If I did, I would also feel compelled to mention my abhorrence of UKIP's immigration policy or the Greens' rejection of free trade. I get the feeling sometimes that people can come out with any old racist dogma as long as they declare in advance their hatred for the BNP. That makes everything they say acceptable, apparently. :-)
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