Wednesday, 8 May 2013
The
Tudhoe Division was the target division for County Durham British National
Party in this year’s county council elections. We also had a paper candidate,
Amanda Molloy, in the Spennymoor Division and the Spennymoor ward of the Parish
Town Council.
It
was a hard-fought campaign, which started at the end of January 2013, after a
couple of weeks off from the Tudhoe ward by-election for the Parish Town
Council.
Everyone who took part in the campaign from the North East Region worked
hard delivering our leaflets and canvassing, to bring a real choice to the
people of Tudhoe.
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| Team BNP at the Durham County Council election count |
This
election wasn’t going to be as straightforward as the previous one in
2008. This was due to UKIP putting up a
candidate for the first time and the newly established “Spennymoor Independents
People Before Politics”. The latter had been formed mainly from councillors who
had left the Liberal Democrats last year.
In
the County Council election for the Tudhoe Division, Pete Molloy came 4th
with 410 votes, beating UKIP, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. In
the Tudhoe ward for the Parish Town Council, he managed to receive 228 votes. Pete
saw his vote increase by 98 votes in the Tudhoe ward from the 130 he received
last January.
Both
of our candidates, Amanda and Pete, are very grateful to the people of
Spennymoor and Tudhoe who came out and voted for them, as well as those Party
activists who helped out.
Speaking
about the election, Pete said: “We fought the best possible campaign we could
with the few activists we had, and I am extremely proud and thankful for their
efforts.
“The
best part of the campaign for me was getting to talk to people on their
doorsteps, with many of them commenting that we were the only ones who came out
to listen to them.
“Many
of the electorate had their opinions changed about the BNP after meeting us
face to face and hearing what our policies really are, which were different to
the ones they had read in the papers. I didn’t change everyone’s mind, but most
of those people still thanked me and shook my hand for taking the time knock on
their doors.
“During
the campaign I received a letter from a local 84-year-old veteran who had voted
for me last January and again in this campaign. He has pledged his continuing
support to me as he knows that the BNP makes sense and is angry about what the
political elite have done to our country.
 |
| The letter Pete received from a local resident |
Elsewhere
in the North East, Lady Dorothy Brookes contested the South Shields
parliamentary by-election, beating the Lib Dems and finishing sixth with 2.9%
of the vote.
Sadly,
a group of left-wing activists had to sour the mood of the evening by posting a series of bigoted messages on Twitter regarding Lady Brookes’ physical
appearance.
Imagine
if dozens of BNP members took to the internet to send offensive tweets about a
black candidate’s appearance. There would be press outrage and a spate of
arrests for “hate speech”. But as usual, white patriots are fair game.
Thanks again to everyone who voted for us.
 |
| Lady Dorothy Brookes at the South Shields by-election count |
The full results of the elections
are below.
Durham County Council elections
Spennymoor
Kevin
Thompson (Spennymoor Independents) 1034 (Elected)
Ian
Geldard (Labour) 950 (Elected)
Patricia
Lawton (Labour) 911 (Elected)
Elizabeth
Maddison (Spennymoor Independents) 877
Ben
Ord (Lib Dem) 872
Colin
Nelson (Labour) 868
Amanda Molloy (BNP) (271)
George
Smedley (Conservative) 188
Turnout
27.63%
Tudhoe
Barbara
Graham (Labour) 1024 (Elected)
Neil
Foster (Labour) 942 (Elected)
Richard
Parker (Spennymoor Independents) 449
Peter Molloy (BNP) 410
Cherry
Hudson (UKIP) 302
Christine
Sproat (Spennymoor Independents) 261
Richard
Coad (Conservative) 121
Edward
Rhodes (Lib Dem) 115
Turnout:
32.03%
County Durham town and parish council elections
Spennymoor ward
Alan
Clark (Labour) 595 (Elected)
Geoffrey
Darkes (Independent) 473
Ian
Harrington (Labour) 534 (Elected)
Jason
Jayne (Labour) 494
Andrew
Lamb (Independent) 431
Patricia
Lawton (Labour) 532 (Elected)
Elizabeth
Maddison (Spennymoor Independents) 602 (Elected)
Jeffrey
McGough (Labour) 533 (Elected)
Amanda Molloy (BNP) 185
Megan
Taylor (Labour) 469
Kathleen
Thompson (Spennymoor Independents) 633 (Elected)
Melanie
Welsh (Spennymoor Independents) 514
Elizabeth
Wood (Spennymoor Independents) 506
Turnout:
27.60%
Tudhoe ward
Sarah
Armstrong (Labour) 399 (Elected)
John
Culine (Labour) 381 (Elected)
Jeffrey
Daley (Labour) 386 (Elected)
James
Graham (Labour) 422 (Elected)
Peter Molloy (BNP) 228
Richard
Parker (Spennymoor Independents) 302
Edward
Rhodes 104
Christine
Sproat (Spennymoor Independents) 229
Brian
Watson (Spennymoor Independents) 199
Turnout:
31.84%
South Shields parliamentary by-election
Emma
Lewell-Buck (Labour) 12,493 (50.4%)
Richard
Elvin (UKIP) 5,988 (24.2%)
Karen
Allen (Conservative) 2,857 (11.5%)
Ahmed
Khan (Independent) 1,331 (5.4%)
Phil
Brown (Independent Socialist Party) 750 (3.0%)
Lady Dorothy MacBeth
Brookes (BNP) 711 (2.9%)
Hugh
Annand (Liberal Democrat) 352 (1.4%)
Alan
"Howling Laud" Hope (Monster Raving Loony) 197 (0.8%)
Thomas
Darwood (Independent) 57 (0.2%)
Turnout:
39.3%
