MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Right wing British National Party wins several county council seats

Labour humiliated in local elections across England could loose 300 seats.

Right wing British National Party has won its first county council seats in Lancashire and Leicestershire as Labour was humiliated in local elections across England. Elsewhere, Peter Davies of the English Democrats celebrated victory in Doncaster's mayoral election and Labour lost its four remaining county councils to the Tories.

Overall, Labour appeared to be heading for total losses of around 300 seats while the Conservatives picked up more than 200.

Nottinghamshire was the last to fall as the Conservatives took control gaining nine seats while Labour - which had held the council since 1981 - lost 22. Derbyshire fell after 28 years of rule, while Labour was also beaten by the Conservatives in Lancashire and Staffordshire.

Labour also failed to gain a single councillor in newly-formed Central Bedfordshire, where the Tories took 54 of the 66 seats up for grabs.

And the party lost eight seats in Bristol as the Liberal Democrats took overall control of the city.

Burnley in Lancashire, scarred by race riots in 2001, already has four BNP members who sit on the local borough council.

The BNP Sharon Wilkinson defeated Labour's Marcus Johnstone in the Padiham and Burnley West ward to strengthen the party's hopes of getting leader Nick Griffin elected as Euro MEP for the North West.

He needs around 8% of the Euro votes across the region to be elected to Strasbourg.

Mr Griffin admitted he might be squeezed by a big Ukip vote but, if that happened, he said: “At least we helped to put a Euro-realist party in Brussels who will do a far better job of looking after British interests than the Tories, Labour and the Liberal Democrats”.

According to its constitution, the BNP is ”committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948.“ The BNP also proposes ”firm but voluntary incentives for immigrants and their descendants to return home”.

The party is not represented in British Parliament. In the 2005 UK general election, the BNP received 0.7% of the popular vote, giving it the eighth largest share of the vote, although it was fifth overall among English constituencies.