'BNP' police officer to be questioned

by Dave Keating | November 21, 2008 at 05:20 am

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Now that the far-right British National Party's membership list has been published online, people in influentiual positions found on the list are running into trouble.

First someone who works for the London city government admitted that he uses his taxpayer-funded office to conduct party business, and now a police officer for Merseyside Police has been suspended after his name was found on the BNP list.

Pc Steve Bettley, of Merseyside Police, was suspended after his name featured on an internet list of thousands said to be members of the far right party.

The list, which was removed from the original blog where it was posted but remains available on other websites, names a number of current and former servicemen, along with ex-policemen.

It was reported that a former constituency chairman for the Conservatives and a former Labour prospective parliamentary candidate are also on the list.

According to The Guardian, Lionel Buck, a former chairman of Ashfield Conservative association in Nottinghamshire, joined the BNP two years ago.

He said: "The way the country is at the moment, there is no major party, whether it be Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat, looking after the indigenous population."

Andrew Emerson told the newspaper he had been due to fight Chichester in Sussex for the Labour party in 1997 before being taken ill. He said he joined the BNP in 2005 and ran as the party's candidate for Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, in the same year.