Is the BNP ship sinking?

Leading BNP member Mark Collett has been stripped of his positions within the party and arrested for threatening to kill his lord and master Griffin (pictured together in happier times). As is the way of these things the party is now throwing the kitchen sink at Collett including "financial irregularities", being a mole and being the wrong kind of thug.

A BNP statement reads "Since political, as opposed to allegedly criminal, conspiracies are not illegal, we are able to say that Mark Collett was conspiring with a small clique of other party officials to launch a 'palace coup' against our twice democratically elected party leader, Nick Griffin, and that in order to create the artificial climate of disillusionment necessary for this to stand any chance of success, lies and unfounded rumours have been spread, and were planned to be spread much further."

Intriguing what the "lies and unfounded rumours" might be, and exactly how unfounded they are. The BNP is finding it hard to work as a team in key battle grounds like Stoke and Barking but it doesn't mean they don't still pose a formidable force in these selected areas as they never win votes down to tactical genius and slick campaigning.

There is a growing divide within the far right between those who favour an openly racist, street fighting approach to politics and the facade of a respectable, electoralist approach where the fascists pretend to be normal human beings and just allow their supporters to draw their own conclusions.

Collett has always been seen as more of the street fighting variety and I suspect this hoo ha has more to do with disagreements over strategy than fingers in the till.