Nick Griffin reports:

The BNP is just a couple of months away from being barred from
standing in British elections! This is the potential impact of the
decision of Barclays Bank to close down all the party's bank
accounts, announced this afternoon in a statement from Britain's
fourth largest bank to Reuters, and in a curt letter to the BNP's
Treasury Department.

The decision is the result of Barclay's cowardly surrender to
blackmail by a pro-Labour national newspaper, which
threatened to run a national campaign against the bank unless it
closed down the BNP's six main accounts. Such a campaign
could, it has to be admitted, end up with arson attacks against
local branches of Barclays in certain inner city areas, but the
bank's proper response should be to take legal action to prevent
the publication of reports which could lead to such problems,
rather than surrendering to fascist-style blackmail.

The problem we face is not the disruption caused by having to
switch the entire party to cash-only deals or the use of
foreign-based banks, but the fact that it is almost inconceivable
that it would be possible for any organisation operating on this
basis to satisfy the Electoral Commission's stringent demands
for transparent accounting procedures.

This would lead directly to the Commission (established by
statute in 2000) deregistering the British National Party, which
would then, not be banned outright, but would be banned from
contesting elections. This, of course, is the aim which the
anti-democratic conspirators of New Labour, Searchlight and
papers like the Sunday People and the Daily Express have in
mind - banning the BNP by the back door.

Blair's Britain is sinking to the status of a northern hemisphere
Zimbabwe - part-dictatorship, part-farce. The BNP would already
have taken legal advice over the freezing and closing of our
accounts, but we are unable to do so, as the announcement was
left until a Friday afternoon and, furthermore, the money we
would need to hire a barrister is, well, frozen in our accounts!

We will of course work flat out over the weekend to prepare our
defence against this outrageous attack, not just on our rights, but
on those of 808,000 voters. Meanwhile, you, the readers of the
most popular party political website in Britain, can help by telling
all your friends, family and work colleagues who bank with
Barclays and its subsidiary, the Woolwich Building Society to go
into their local branch first thing on Monday morning and
vociferously threaten to close any accounts held unless Barclays
reverse this outrageously undemocratic decision.

http://www.bnp.org.uk/