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28th May 2009

Campaigners and faith leaders call on BNP Euro candidate to be disbarred

Following press revelations about a British National Party European election candidates shocking views of the Nazi death camps and Holocaust denial, faith leaders and campaigners in Yorkshire have condemned the BNP’s decision to include Marlene Guest on its Yorkshire and Humber Euro election list.

Marlene Guest claimed on television that “dentistry and plastic surgery” were positives to come out of the Nazi death camps. Campaigners are calling for her to be disbarred from the election.

Marlene Guest’s comments were made in a Sky One documentary broadcast in January 2008. Naming the BNP leader and a notorious neo-Nazi book, she said: “Now Nick Griffin queried numbers... I’ll read anything and I’ve read a thing called Did 6 Million Jews Really Die?... If they’d have kept the crematorium going in this little camp for 24/7 for 50 years they still couldn’t have burnt that amount of bodies.”

Instead of expelling her, the BNP revealed its support for her comments the following day on its website. Martin Wingfield wrote: “My favourite clip was Marlene dealing with that weasel-like interviewer at the end of the programme when he wanted to talk about Nick Griffin and his Race Act prosecutions and her views on the Second World War.”

John Campbell, Chair, Yorkshire & the Humber Unite Against Fascism said:“It is sickening that the BNP have endorsed these views by now selecting both Marlene Guest and Martin Wingfield as European Election candidates, Marlene Guest in the Yorkshire and Humber region and Martin Wingfield as number two candidate to party leader Nick Griffin in the North West”

Holocaust survivor Agnes Grunwald-Spier said: “I am horrified that the BNP has selected Marlene Guest as a candidate for the European elections when she believes that ‘plastic surgery and dentistry’ were positives to come out of the Holocaust. By including such a candidate on their list, the BNP has demonstrated itself to be the fascist party we have always known it to be.”

Sue Dorsey, President, Leeds Jewish Representative Council said: “In a normal democratic party a candidate who quoted such material would surely be expelled. We think the electorate should understand that this party remains a fascist organisation, in the tradition of Oswald Mosley.”

John Campbell, Chair, Yorkshire & the Humber Unite Against Fascism said: “It is vital that all those who reject fascism and racism use their vote on June 4th. A party which selects candidates who minimise the Holocaust is not fit to claim to represent the people of Yorkshire and Humber.”

Marlene Guest’s appearance on the Sky One documentary BNP Wives was broadcast on 17 January 2008. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joc2IwXiog0

Leeds Evening Post May 28 2009 http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Fury-at-BNP-candidates-claims.5310676.jp

Sheffield Star May 27 2009 http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/BNP-39wife39-hits-out-at.5304924.jp

Did Six Million Really Die? is a notorious Holocaust denial pamphlet published in 1974 by Richard Verrall, a member of the openly Nazi National Front.

The BNP’s website carried the article by Martin Wingfield praising Marlene Guest on 18 January 2008. See http://bnp.org.uk/2008/01/suzy-marlene-and-lynne-fine-ambassadors-for-the-bnp/