BNP target Kennington

Far right group in push for assembly

Jun 13 2003

By News Reporter

South London Press

ANGER has erupted after the British National Party began targeting Lambeth and Southwark in a bid to set up a new branch.

The far right party wants to put forward candidates for next June's mayoral and London Assembly elections.

The controversial group is already active in Lambeth where it has leafleted hundreds of homes in West Norwood this week. It says Bermondsey and Kennington are next.

But politicians of all political parties yesterday fiercely condemned the push into multicultural south London, where about 33 per cent of the population come from ethnic minorities and more than 100 languages are spoken.

Lambeth Labour Party leader Steve Reed said: "It is disgusting.

"The last thing we need is the BNP in an area like this and I hope they pack their bags and go back to the little hole they came from as soon as possible."

Lambeth council leader Peter Truesdale said: "This diverse and tolerant community will stick together despite this bad news."

Camberwell and Peckham MP Harriet Harman said she would be keeping a close eye on the BNP's election tactics.

She said: "They will be watched very closely to see if they overstep the mark from genuine election campaigning to illegal behaviour that could incite racial hatred.

"I trust that people in Southwark and Lambeth will come out and vote in the elections and show that they have no truck with the BNP. A lot of hard work has been done in south London to build good race relations and that diversity and multiculturalism is a strength."

The leaflets delivered in West Norwood this week bore the slogan "Immigration? Open your Eyes!" and stated that native British people would be a minority in this country by 2060.

A West Norwood resident told the South London Press she encountered a group of men on her road and confronted one on her driveway.

She said: "He told me the BNP had recently formed a branch in Lambeth and that he was drumming up some local support.

"How could they be so insensitive to distribute such horrible literature in a multicultural area like West Norwood?"

London Assembly member for Lambeth and Southwark Val Shawcross said: "A vote for the BNP will divide our communities and set neighbour against neighbour. We do not want that in Lambeth and Southwark."

Lambeth council's deputy leader John Whelan said: "I am absolutely appalled. We have no time for racists and fringe extreme political organisations and do not believe they have any role to play in our community."

Wesley Walters-Stephenson, a group officer for the Community-Police Consultative Group for Lambeth, said: "If it causes disharmony in the community it should be outlawed. People can talk about freedom of expression but when it impacts upon the continuity of other people's lives, how can it exist in this day and age?

"If the BNP think they can target Lambeth as an experimental project, they will soon see the cohesion of Lambeth and how long they last here."

A BNP spokesman told the South London Press: "We are trying to replicate our election successes up north in London."

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