This Is Cheshire

BNP to fight for Crewe South ward

From the Guardian Series, first published Thursday 4th Mar 2004.

THE BRITISH National Party has unveiled its candidate to fight next month's county council by-election in Crewe.

The far-right party has pledged to use the Crewe South by-election to gain a political base in the town ready for the up-coming European and borough elections.

The Crewe South ward is up for grabs following the death of long-serving Labour councillor Jeff Minshall, aged 69, in October.

The BNP has selected retired civil servant Mike Beardshaw of Knutsford as its candidate for the April 1 election.

Having already canvassed hundreds of homes in Crewe, Mr Beardshaw, aged 69, said he was confident of success.

He added: "Public opinion has been very encouraging. A few people have said that they are not interested but the majority have been generally in favour of what we are saying."

BNP organiser Ralph Ellis said: "We have so far knocked on 420 houses in Crewe and out of those 29 per cent said they agreed with us, 37 per cent said maybe and the rest said no.

"If we can persuade half of those 'maybes' to vote for us we will see a landslide."

The Crewe South ward is traditionally a Labour stronghold and has a population of 11,000.

Mr Beardshaw said he had switched membership from the Conservative Party to the BNP as the Tory party was becoming more left wing and politically correct.

He added: "We have seen quite a few residents in Crewe express concern about the immigration problem and they feel it is only going to get worse.

"Older people are rightly concerned about yob culture. Although the police are getting more resources, political correctness is simply not allowing them to do their jobs."

Labour's borough council leader Peter Kent said: "The fact is the BNP candidate is from Knutsford and no doubt they will bring in people from outside to help with their campaign.

"It just proves that they don't have a toe-hold in Crewe and Nantwich and people here are not interested."

Labour's candidate for the seat is still to be decided, while the Conservatives will be fielding Peter Hallet and the Liberal Democrats will put up David Cannon as their candidate.

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