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The
BPP stood its first candidate in the
Bramley/Stanningley ward of Leeds in the May 4th Council elections. The
candidate was Eddy Morrison. The issues the BPP put before the
elctorate were a mixture of national - "No more Asylum seekers" and
local "What is happening to Bramley Shopping Centre?" Over 4000
leaflets were put out and local support was good. At the time the BPP
did not know the BNP would also be fielding a candidate - a local
Bramley lady. Had we known this it is very unlikely we would have,
knowing that in previous years the BNP had stood the ward. It was
indicated to the the Leeds BPP that the BNP were not standing the ward
and therefore we went ahead and fielded a candidate. We knew as soon as
we saw a BNP candidate was standing that this would drastically affect
the BPP vote. It did. The BNP candidate came a good second whilst the
BPP polled 2.7% (135) of the votes cast. Even with our votes added to
the BNP ones the BNP candidate would still have been second. The total
lefty Neil Taggart won the seat for Marxist New Labour. Many lessons
were learned from this our first electoral test and many enquiries and
new members from the Bramley area joined. The main lesson is of course
that the electors cannot differentiate between the BPP and BNP and with
the mass of BNP coverage and the fact that the BNP candidate appeared
on the ballot first, then of course the BPP vote was badly affected.
Many thanks though to all those who helped out in the
campaign and got the BPP some good publicity and interest in West Leeds.
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© 2006 British People's Party, BM Box 5581, London WC1N 3XX