The BNP has fallen foul of a gang of loyalist heavies over a £40,000 debt, we can reveal.
Last week a handful of the gang – who come from east Belfast – travelled to England and Wales where they called at a number of addresses connected to BNP leader Nick Griffin. One of those visited was Nick Griffin’s daughter Jenny, who was running the BNP fundraising/membership office in Dundonald until it closed recently.
The Sunday World understands the debt is connected to a printer's firm based in the loyalist heartland. The BNP used the firm to print election leaflets and other promotional stuff in the run-up to the disastrous 2010 General Election. But soon after the BNP went into financial meltdown and today have debts estimated of at least £500,000.
We understand the BNP have been trying to come up with a financial plan which would see their creditors getting a fraction of what they are owed. They have offered a string of Ulster businesses as well as landlords and other people owed money just 5p in every pound.
Staff made redundant when the Belfast office closed are owed thousands in unpaid wages as well. On Tuesday lawyers acting for some ex-BNP staff served papers on the party demanding they be paid in full. And the printer's company is demanding the cash is paid in full as well and we understand they may have sold the debt on.
Last week the gang made an unannounced call at the home of Griffin’s daughter Jenny Matthys. But when she wasn’t in they called at the home of his father in Wales and delivered the message.
“These guys meant business,” said the source. “The printing company wants their money. They are run by a man who has plenty of friends in the loyalist paramilitaries. There were four men. They called at Jenny’s house but she wasn’t there so they went to Nick Griffin’s dad’s house in Welshpool, Powys,Wales. Griffin’s dad has money and bailed his son out before. The message from this gang was very simple - ‘Pay what’s owed or we’ll be back’. The BNP have left a lot of Ulster business’s in the sh*t. They owe hundreds of thousands of pounds but they have no way of paying up because they are practically bankrupt.”
The deal with the printers was secured by Scottish firebrand and convicted criminal Jim Dowson. At the time Dowson was in charge of the BNP nerve centre which was based in an enterprise park in Dundonald. Indeed Dowson had convinced the BNP hierarchy to base their major fundraising in Belfast promising they would be able to operate in peace. But the move was a complete disaster with rising costs not being met by donations and membership dues.
Dowson and the Belfast office were blamed by members in England for the election fiasco which saw the BNP fail to win a single Westminster seat and lose all their council seats in east London. The Belfast office went on a charm offensive in an attempt to persuade BNP members in the UK that things were OK.
This included an excruciating video tour of the Belfast operation, lead by Jenny and her BNP husband Angus, and showed us, amongst other things, how the membership card embossing machine works! But a few short months later and the Belfast operation (sadly including the embossing machine) was shut down.
Dowson sealed his own fate when he landed the BNP in a costly legal mess after they hijacked Marmite for an election campaign advert. Marmite producers Unilever threatened court action and eventually the BNP settled out of court at great expense.
During their short stay in Ulster the BNP was being run by Griffin’s daughter Jenny, who moved into a small flat in Comber, Co. Down. But she has returned to the mainland to work for the trouble-hit far right party.
Last year her father sent an embarrassing begging letter to all BNP members stating, in stark terms, that the party was doomed if they didn’t cough up some extra cash.
Hope not hate 
Gareth Mooney
