Posted on 05/03/2002 4:59:38 AM PDT by RippleFire
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By Kate Kelland
LONDON (Reuters) - Far-right extremists sent a "chill factor" across Britain on Friday as they claimed a symbolic victory in English elections, winning their first council seats in almost a decade in a northern town dogged by racial tension.
The BNP won three seats -- the last after a string of recounts. Commentators stressed that the party's success was tiny -- almost insignificant compared with far-right showings in other countries across Europe.
"We really ought to be thankful it is very small beer, very small gains for them compared to the way the extreme right has gained in the Netherlands.., in Denmark and in France," said Simon Hughes, home affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, Britain's third party.
But in local elections which delivered a mixed verdict on mainstream parties and on the performance of Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) after five years in power, the BNP's success triggered some deep concerns.
Lord Ouseley, former chairman of the Campaign for Racial Equality, said the results had produced a "severe chill factor" for the town's community relations, while Charles Clarke, chairman of Blair's Labour Party, said the BNP was only intent on "tearing apart" communities.
The BNP won three council seats out of 15 in the run-down northern industrial town of Burnley but failed to score in any of the 67 seats it fought elsewhere. The three seats, of 6,000 up for grabs across the country, are the most it has ever held.
"This is not the first time the threat of the far right has emerged... It has been defeated before and it will be defeated again," said Clarke.
BLAIR FAILS TO IMPRESS
For Blair, the elections showed voters were not particularly impressed with his record, but neither were they convinced by his Conservative rivals.
With most results declared around England early on Friday, Labour was marginally behind the Conservatives on 33 percent versus 34 percent of the vote.
Labour, which had been braced for the bigger losses that are traditional for a ruling party in local council polls, declared the vote a blow for their opponents but the Conservative Party Chairman Michael Ancram defended what he called a "workmanlike" performance.
In the 2000 local elections, the Conservatives snatched 38 percent of the vote against Labor's 29 -- only to be demolished at national elections in 2001, their second successive defeat.
Fears about voter apathy across Europe and the United States were borne out in Britain. Only about a third of the 22 million people who had a vote used it, although at around 35 percent, turnout was higher than had been expected.
One candidate in the northeast English city of Hartlepool made a monkey of mainstream politicians.
Campaigning under the name H'Angus the Monkey, and wearing a full body monkey suit based on the local soccer club's mascot, independent candidate Stuart Drummond beat the Labour candidate into second place to become the town's first elected mayor.
Blair's official spokesman sought to give a sober analysis of the monkey's victory. "It is perhaps to be expected that some new faces would come to the fore..," he told reporters.
A man in a monkey costume swung into action Friday as the first elected mayor of the northern English town of Hartlepool.
Stuart Drummond, who ran as an independent candidate in local elections Thursday, campaigned in a monkey costumes and called himself ``H'Angus the Monkey'' after the mascot of the local soccer club. Among other things, he offered free bananas for schoolchildren.
But Drummond, who will earn $77,000 a year as mayor, is taking his new post seriously.
``Forget about the monkey. The monkey was there only for promotion purposes. The monkey was just for publicity,'' he told voters Friday, dressed in a sober business suit.
``I am Stuart Drummond, I am the Mayor of Hartlepool, not the monkey.''
Peter Mandelson, the Labor lawmaker who represents Hartlepool in Parliament, said Drummond's campaign ``was about real people, their aspirations, their hopes and their fears, particularly young people of this town.''
The H'Angus monkey, mascot of Hartlepool United Football Club, is a humorous corruption of a derogatory nickname for the townspeople, who according to legend were once known as the ``monkey hangers'' for reputedly hanging a monkey during the Napoleonic Wars. They believed it was a French spy - or so the story goes.
In the second round of voting for mayor Thursday, Drummond received 7,395 votes, or 52.1 percent. Leo Gillen, the candidate from Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party, got 6,792 votes, or 47.9 percent.
Directly elected mayors form part of plans by Blair's Labor Party to reform local government. London elected its first mayor, Ken Livingstone, in May 2000. [End]
But Labour councillor Rafique Malik, who was elected for the Danehouse area, told BBC News Online: "It is a sad day for Burnley and a sad day for Britain.
"This result will tarnish the name of Burnley," he said. "I am afraid the BNP has a track record of ripping communities apart. They must remember that the British people do not tolerate extremism."
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