Sunday Times behind bogus £5,000 donation to BNP

Details of a sting operation have been released by the BNP after allegations by the Sunday Times of financial impropriety by Nick Griffin concerning a £5,000 donation to the British National Party.

Sunday Times allegation

The allegations were made after it was alleged that Nick Griffin had cashed the cheque through his own personal bank account and had not declared the donation which is a legal requirement on political parties for donations of £5,000 and over. The allegation quickly spread through the media and was seized upon by the other main political parties and an investigation was carried out by the Electoral Commission.

The story is still circulating in the biased-media in an attempt to smear the BNP with false allegations.

Here I report the facts of what actually happened.

BNP carries out investigation

The cheque was made payable to Nick Griffin personally and was sent to a Post Office with a letter proporting to be from an elderly BNP member who was being harassed for being a BNP member. The letter stated she wanted to help the party by making the donation, but wished to remain anonymous. The cheque was collected by the BNP who immediately became suspicious and carried out their own internal investigation into whether it was genuine. If it were genuine, there was the issue of how to protect the lady's anonymity. In the letter, it instructed Nick to use the money were it could be put to best use.

Although the elderly lady in question was in fact a member of the BNP and indeed had been harassed for her membership, she had not made the donation. The whole thing had been orchestrated by the Sunday Times newspaper with the intention of catching the BNP out taking undeclared large personal donations.

BNP faced a dilemma

After the BNP had discovered from it's own investigation that the donation was not genuine, Nick Griffin had the choice of either declaring it as a donation using the name given, and risk exposing the lady to further harassment, or to give the money away to an outside cause, or simply to tear up the cheque and not cash it.

Nick decided to cash the cheque and pass the donation onto Solitary, a nationalist trade union, who represent and defend BNP members who find themselves victimised or fired for their political beliefs. By doing this he had not broken any laws or rules concerning political party donations, as Solitary is not a political party.

All of the evidence is available to show this is what happened.

Sunday Times scores a home goal

So it seems the Sunday Times little plan not only back-fired, but £5,000 of their funds went to support the nationalist cause! Nice one.

If the Sunday Times were carrying out a legitimate piece of investigative journalism, why did they single out the BNP to receive a bogus donation? Why not send cheques to all the main political parties to see if they also complied with the rules?