While all eyes have been on the General Election, in much of the UK (but not here in Chelmsford) there have been local elections. I thank a Facebook friend for letting me know through his status, and the BBC website for confirming, that the British National Party has lost all twelve of its seats on the London borough council of Barking and Dagenham. This is in addition to the BNP leader Nick Griffin coming in a poor third place, with his share of the vote reduced to 14.6%, in the Barking parliamentary constituency which he had hoped to win.
In fact this time Labour has taken all 51 seats on the Barking and Dagenham council, as two Conservatives and five “others” have also lost their seats – or is there some story here I am not aware of?
I am glad that the people of Barking and Dagenham have shown their true colours, which are not those of the BNP. The reason for their success at the previous local elections in 2006 was probably that most people who don’t like them stayed at home. This year, they came out to vote because of the general election on the same day.
The moral of this is that if you care who represents and governs you, whether locally or nationally, you must make the effort to turn out and vote.
That’s fantastic news! Like yourself, my wife isn’t British and we were a bit concerned the BNP might gain a bit of ground. Instead, the exact opposite has happened 🙂
Thanks for letting us know!
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Jon, thanks for your comment and your post. I had missed your post about your wedding, just a month before ours. While I don’t think even the BNP would want to throw out Italians, I completely agree with your remark that