GLA seat win for BNP's Barnbrook

Richard Barnbrook has won a seat on the Greater London Assembly after the British national party earned more than five per cent of the public vote.

Mr Barnbrook, the party's defeated mayoral candidate, will become the BNP's first-ever assembly member.

The far-right party, which seeks an end to immigration and mixed race marriages, said it had been "propelled into the very centre of the government of our capital city".

Following local elections also taking place across the country on Thursday, the BNP increased its number of councillors by ten to 37.

This and the 130,714 Londoners who voted for the party in London was akin to 'being promoted to the Premier League', deputy leader Simon Darby said.

A BNP spokesperson accused the authorities of tampering with ballot boxes and said the GLA win had come despite a hidden extremist Communist agenda from third-party organisations.

He said the local election results had shown the BNP to be a "credible, electable party".

"The way has now been cleared for further breakthroughs, and the bell has now sounded for the floodgates of popular British opinion to be opened, and sweep away the debris of the old parties," the representative said.

Mr Barnbrook, the 47-year-old opposition leader on Barking and Dagenham council, says he now plans to target Labour minister Margaret Hodge in her Barking constituency.

At the last general election Mr Barnbrook took 16.9 per cent of the vote off Ms Hodge.