BNP takes on Labour in its heartland

You don’t get much more of a Labour stronghold than Jarrow in South Tyneside – a town made famous by heavy industries like coal mining and shipbuilding, as well as its history fighting for jobs.

The main shipyard Palmers, employed 80% of the town’s working population until its closure in 1934. Around 1,000 ships were built at the yard.

The closure of the shipyard was responsible for the event which made Jarrow a household name across the country. The town was the starting point for the Jarrow Crusade to London to protest against unemployment in Britain in 1936.

Since then, the town has returned huge majorities for each and every Labour Party politician standing for office.

That is until last night, when nearly one-in-three of the residents in the town’s Primrose Ward voted for the British National Party.

This was the full result:
Ken Stephenson (Lab) – 854
Pete Hodgkinson (BNP) – 566
Aaron Luke (Ind) – 213
David Rice (Ind) – 174
Anthony Lanaghan (Con) – 124
Susan Troupe (Lib Dem) – 100
BNP Percentage: 27.9%

The 33% turn-out for a local council election was high for the town showing that the BNP campaign motivated voters from all the parties to make an effort to cast their vote.

“We fought a good campaign and are pleased with the result,” said Ken Booth, the British National Party’s North-East Regional Organiser.

“Pete Hodgkinson was an excellent candidate and his hard-working team pulled out all the stops to achieve this ground-breaking result.

“We have showed that we can take on Labour in its very heartland and make serious in-roads into the vote that it has taken for granted for generations.

“We shall be back in May for the full round of local elections and are hoping to build on our 566 tally from last night.”

The election was a disaster for both the Tories and Liberal Democrats whose candidates were pushed into 5th and 6th place by two Independent candidates. The Conservative vote crashed by nearly 13% – showing just what Jarrow thinks of David Cameron and his empty soundbites.

It is worth noting that 57% of all votes cast in this election were postal votes. Yet again allegations of massive postal vote fraud are being directed at the utterly corrupt Labour Party.