The English Democratic British National Party Defence League

Having looked into the political credentials and 'achievements' of Mayor of Doncaster Peter Davies it's high time we looked into his current political party, the English Democrats.

Party leader Robin Tilbrook relaunched the English National Party as the English Democrats in 2002 after merging with several smaller parties, united in the aim of establishing a devolved English Parliament á la the Scottish Parliamentary arrangement. Under the motto "Not left, not right, just English" the English Democrats have contested elections the breadth of England and, despite having to constantly deny accusations of racism, they have in the past achieved some success.

As one of the more moderate nationalist parties out there momentum has been difficult to maintain on the back of any relative achievement, due in the main to a fractious decision making process and the general consensus within the party seems to be that in order to truly flourish they may be reliant on the collapse of other nationalist parties, namely UKIP and the BNP.

The national membership secretary of the English Democrats, Steve Uncles, seems to understand this. Quotes attributed to the man indicate that a tactic to boost membership was indeed to glean disaffected members of both UKIP and the BNP. What's more, Mr. Uncles appears to actively court members of each for English Democrat subscription. This recruitment drive has found support in some areas of the party though has caused much concern in others.

Since the internal struggles within the BNP erupted (huge debts have built up and there is disquiet over the leadership of the party) a fair few members have defected to the English Democrats, including the odd 'big hitter' or two. Members of the BNP from all over the country suddenly seem very interested in the comparatively moderate English Democrats and you have to wonder why...

Richard Barnbrook sits on the London Assembly as an independent currently, having resigned from the BNP in respects to the above issues. He will need a party to back him in order to stand a chance of retaining his seat. After much courting by Mr. Uncles (despite allegations of bringing his office into disrepute, sick leave with stress and being quoted as saying that the offspring of mixed race couples "are washing out the identity of this country's indigenous people") Mr. Barnbrook has applied to join the English Democrats. Reports that his membership was sanctioned in January 2011 are as yet unconfirmed. Nigel Farage knocked back the possibility of electoral cooperation with the English Democrats because of this, quite counter productive you might say.

Robin Tilbrook has also been fraternising with members and ex members of the BNP of late. Mr. Eddy Butler, former national organiser for the BNP (he was expelled for challenging the leadership of the party) has previously indicated that the English Democrats might not be the right party for him due to its moderate stance, though more recently seems to have come around to Robin's way of thinking.

Eddy Butler - a lifelong British nationalist, having come through the ranks in the National Front and then the BNP - appears to have been a constant thorn in the side of Nick Griffin and was apparently expelled from both movements because of this. The theory is that he's merely looking for a vehicle in which to finish off Griffin. His blog dated 04/08/11 (http://eddybutler.blogspot.com/) fawns to the English Democrats like you would not believe and it would appear his membership has been cemented.

Richard Barnbrook and Eddy Butler are but two of the 'big hitters' to appear to have defected, though there are many more insidious connections to be made here. For example, the Yorkshire and Humber MEP Andrew Brons of the BNP seems to be becoming increasingly independent of his party lately and has been working closely with Eddy Butler recently. Moreover, his constituency office manager and P.A Chris Beverley stood for election in May 2011 as an English Democrat candidate for the Morley South seat in Leeds. Mark Collett - former chairman of the young BNP and the star of shows such as Young, Nazi and Proud (c4) and BBC1 documentary The Secret Agent - is reportedly in cahoots with Eddy Butler on this one also. Nick Cass, Ramon Johns, Sharon Ebank, Ian Gibson, Seamus Dunne... The list goes on. The list, that is, of BNP hardliners fleeing a sinking ship in favour of a slightly more liberal one which seems to welcome them with open arms (that only reads funny if you're aware of how the BNP feels about liberals). Interestingly, some of these people have been described variously as "troublemakers" and "careless extremists" on the BNP's very own website...

There's all of that and then there's the curious case of Jim Dowson, a convicted criminal who was once widely assumed to be the effective owner of the BNP. Alongside Nick Griffin, Dowson controlled much of the public face of the BNP - finance, publicity, its manifesto et al. - and seems to be at least partly responsible for the situation the BNP is in today.

Jim Dowson has been hired by the English Democrats to run the fundraising arm of the party and they've since released a slew of appeal letters remarkably similar to those put out by the BNP when Dowson was working for them. This was a step too far for some. Cliff Dixon (vice chair in London for the English Democrats) spoke out about this, he'd had enough. Ed Abrams followed suit having already resigned as a member of the English Democrat national council after the courting of BNP members. Even Alistair Barbour - himself a BNP defectee - resigned in disgust.

The English Democrats are experiencing a crisis of their own, perpetuated by Tilbrook and Uncles who seem to sense an opportunity to drag the party further to the right where they feel it belongs. Swelling their ranks with disreputable members of the BNP who can sway party opinion and are experienced in the world of far-right politics seems to be the way to go for them at least... Factor in the potentially explosive (and apparently strengthening) ties with the English Defence League and not only do you have a noxious and powerful blend of politics, activism and extremism, you must have serious concerns about where all of this is headed.

But what of Doncaster? Eddy Butler states that "the English Democrats also have the only elected official in the nationalist camp who has any power - the directly elected Mayor of Doncaster." This seems to be a major selling point for the nationalists at the moment. With BNP members from Cumbria, Merseyside, Yorkshire and various other areas defecting to the English Democrats, our Mayor Peter Davies needs to clarify his position on this for the sake of the psyché of the town he runs. Whether you believe Davies was lucky to be elected or whether he rode in on the back of a protest vote by a public disillusioned with politics, back in 2009 BNP the English Democrats were not. In fact, the BNP finished a lowly fifth in the Doncaster Mayoral election of that year. How does Mayor Davies feel about this swing further right within his party? Will he get behind his new team, back its (his too) fundraising, and the literature it produces? Has his position become untenable or will his political allegiance flip for a fifth time?

We need to know.

The Journeyman Mayor of Doncaster

Much ado about lots of things these last few weeks but we can't really run around the country (or indeed the world) solving all of its problems and, as they may say, clarity begins at home so we really need to consider the political situation in or home towns currently, and start to think about how decisions being made right now will affect us for the coming years.

It's best to start at the top, namely (around here anyway) with the Mayor of Doncaster, a Mr. Peter Davies and at the beginning so we can strive to understand the mindset of a man in power.

Our mayor only seems to make the news for his gaffes these days - it seems difficult for him to articulate the good he does or the difficult decisions he has to make - but it is unfair to judge a man based on detractions made by his detractors so let's have a look at his political career, see if that makes sense...

Peter Davies began his political career as a member of the Labour party until 1973 when he switched his allegiance to the Conservatives. His father was too a Conservative MP so I suppose this made sense. He seemed at home here, neither making waves or shuffling his feet until 20 years later when John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty. Peter's eurosceptic mindset prevented him working with the Tories further so he threw in his lot with the United Kingdom Independence Party with one eye on contesting the South Yorkshire seat in the European Parliament at the 1994 election.

This first foray into electoral battle brought modest returns, Peter Davies achieved 2.6% of the vote only, although it seemed to have whet his appetite for the election game. Contesting seats in Hemsworth ('96) and Doncaster Central ('97) he achieved similar results each time under the UKIP banner. By 1998 and after much flogging of the proverbial dead horse Mr. Davies contested his last election for UKIP - a by-election for the South Yorkshire seat in the European Parliament - without the backing of Micheal Holmes, the party leader. Finishing dead last and clearly disappointed he left UKIP behind to join the English Democratic Party, becoming chairman of the South Yorkshire branch.

Peter Davies wasn't to contest an election again until 2006 where he stood in a local election for the Finningley ward seat on Doncaster council, achieving relative success with just over 20% of the vote. Similar results followed in 2007 and 2008 but 2009 was to be his year. June was a bittersweet month, he took the usual kicking for the South Yorkshire seat in Europe but made astonishing headway in Doncaster, winning the Mayoral seat on second preference votes.

Mayor Davies was elected on the back of a campaign for withdrawal from the E.U, (not just Doncaster but the whole of England) for local schools to opt out of local authority control, a reduction in size for the local council and the removal of translation services within the council (community cohesion officers as these translators are apparently known, I wouldn't know, Doncaster never had any). Despite queries surrounding the legality of some manifesto pledges the English Democrats carried on regardless, opposing political correctness wherever possible, threatening the funding for the annual gay pride festival, proposing to end town twinning and dismissing climate change as "a scam".

In spite of a vote of no confidence levelled at Mayor Davies over a perceived lack of leadership less than a year into his tenure, heavy criticism regarding "irresponsible" budget planning, "dysfunctional politics" and breaches of the code of conduct resulting in disciplinary action against him Mayor Davies stays strong in the face of adversity. He has expressed admiration for the moral code of the Taliban, recognised "unacceptably poor" child care services in his town and pledged to close down libraries even though he never uses them or knows where they are. Our political journeyman and Mayor Peter Davies is getting his head down and hoping for the best. He's hoping that no-one notices what is happening behind the scenes at English Democrat HQ. He's hoping because he knows (he must know) that if all that leaks out, he's screwed.