BNP Secures Fourth Place Across Newcastle

The BNP came fourth in all three Newcastle constituencies, beating parties such as UKIP, Green and the Communist Party.

In this election nationally, the BNP trebled its vote since last general election as well as retaining their deposits in many seats which were contested for the first time.

In Newcastle Central, Ken Booth polled 2,302 votes (6.7%), which was nearly double the number of votes gathered by UKIP and the Greens together.

Terry Gibson polled 1,890 (4.3%) In Newcastle North, polling more than UKIP and the Greens together and Alan Spence attained 1342 (3.5%) In Newcastle East, beating the Greens and the Communist Party candidate, far-left political extremist and Northumbria University lecturer Martin Levy with an abysmal 177 votes.

"For the first time ever contesting these seats, the results were very encouraging." Ken Booth said after the count.

Locally the BNP achieved a few third places, most notably in Fenham and Elswick, where they were squeezed out of second due to the increased turnout and media hype regarding the Lib Dems, something which will not be repeated next year.

As well as the Elswick count being delayed for a few hours to allow the Labour candidate to visit the mosque, the count was marred by many sightings of BNP votes being put into the wrong pile, aswell as votes from other parties being put on top of a pile of BNP votes to pass off 100 BNP votes as Labour votes - luckily, the watching eyes of BNP members had these mistakes rectified.

The elected labour councillor for Elswick (Habib Rahman), used to sit on a board of governors for a primary school alongside Ken Booth, however he resigned as he did not have the time to be a school governor - hopefully he can find the time for the more demanding job of being a local councillor and not let the people of Elswick down.

Other notable results across the North East include Andy Swaddle's 7.0% in Jarrow, Donna Watson's 6.5% in South Shields & Cheryl Dunn's 6.6% in Easington - more than doubling last election's result.