The wonderful people of Barking and Dagenham

[BicycleBelle]

Thank you!!! You have restored my faith and made my year.

Is that because the BNP didn't get in?

What, for not voting for racists any more? Great.

Yes, for standing up and being counted just when the BNP thought they had it all in the bag.

I'm giving all the credit to Billy Bragg, just on general principles (also I think he did run a large campaign).

OK - big thank you to Billy Bragg also (but I've always liked him . . . )

It was a great result, just being flippant.

I've always hoped that people often voted BNP as a protest vote and didn't actually know what the BNP believed, what they wanted to do and the character of the people involved in the party.

We've now had a lot of light shone upon the BNP.

Following that they loose all of their Councillors.

Very reaffirming

Respect to Billy Bragg and all the campaigners from Hope Not Hate for their hard work in the run up to the election. I am as anti-BNP as it is possible to be and hadn't felt so rebellious since Maggie was in Downing Street (sorry to any Maggie lovers here ).

We should also thank those who fought the BNP from the right - in particular the "Nothing British about the BNP" campaign.

Have a look at some of their videos - very effective.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2AulwmQwU8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOc9lAG6tCw

yes they all did a fabulous job - sadly there are still 19 BNP councillors across the UK.........however they lost 26 council seats in total so lost over half of the ones they had.

I loved the Hope not Hates banner

Labour 51
BNP 0

I'm glad that there are no BNP people.

I'm instinctively uncomfortable about a council where there are opposition parties though. There should always be people with an interest in scrutinising and criticising the policies being implemented by the majority.

Hopefully next time the council screw up and the people realise Labour are useless, the people will elect Tories (or even Lib Dems) instead of the BNP.

Argh, that should obviously read no opposition parties.