BNP makes an entrance in town

Mr Griffin endorsed his party's initial four candidates in the town in May's polling for local councils by declaring they would be followed by many more.

The BNP will be fielding two potential councillors in each of the Orchard and Pevensey wards for both Bognor town and Arun district councils at the May 3 polls.

Controversial Mr Griffin, speaking exclusively to the Observer, said his party wanted to give '˜ordinary people' the chance to have their say about issues such as migrant workers and the health service.

The BNP's policy on workers from eastern Europe, who are the subject of a fierce debate on the Observer's letters page, is voluntary repatriation aided by resettlement grants. Its stated policy on those who remain is that they will be allowed to stay as '˜guests', provided they obey British laws.

Mr Griffin claimed his party was the only one which enabled people to state their views on this matter in elections.

'We know there's this concern among the public about this. It's right and proper and democratic to express that concern at the ballot box instead of going out and doing something daft,' he said.

'We are standing in Bognor because we have some good people in Bognor who want to promote the party.

'I will be very pleased if we beat one or two of the main parties in the elections. That will give our candidates some experience and confidence to stand at the next elections and do better. I realise it will be a long haul for us and we are here to stay.'

He claimed the BNP's extreme right-wing image was the result of bias in the national press. He also expected his party to be criticised by his candidates' rivals in the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties when electioneering gets underway.

'We will get smear leaflets from them. They specialise in negative campaigns. We will keep our campaign positive,' he stated.

Mr Griffin, who was cleared in a court case last November of inciting racial hatred, denied the BNP was simply using the issue of eastern European workers for extreme right wing political purposes.

'We are not exploiting the migrant workers. It is big business and the political elite who are exploiting them,' he stated.

'All we are doing is expressing the huge concerns that many people in places like Bognor have at the scale of economic migration.

'It is doing immense damage to the social fabric of this country. Young couples can't afford to rent property because they can't pay as much as seven or eight Poles who want to share a place. There is also a shocking shortage of housing in the south east of England which makes it too dear for people to get on the property ladder.

'Immigration is not the only cause of these problems but it has to be acknowledged that it is a major factor. That is purely the fault of this government.'

Husband and wife Mike and Patricia Witchell will be the BNP's candidates in the Pevensey ward. They have lived in a neighbouring ward since they moved to Bognor 18 months ago.

Former IT worker Mr Witchell (64) said: 'We both have a strong feeling that there's a gradual erosion in British culture and way and a decline in essential public services.

'We believe the BNP is the only party with the policies to arrest this decline and, more importantly, has the backbone and will to do something about the situation.

'The main issues that are coming through to us from people we meet are immigration and the impact on housing and jobs, crime and the police's response to it, and St Richard's Hospital.'

Mrs Witchell (58) denied she, or anyone else in the BNP, was a racist. 'The amazing thing to me is that everyone I have met in the BNP are just genuine, ordinary and nice people. There is not a racist among them. That's the truth,' she stated.

An estimated 6,000 eastern Europeans live around Bognor. They are the subject of a national conference about integrating communities being held at Butlins today.

One of them, Latvian shop worker Gunta Alston, said: 'I don't like a political party which wants to send people back home because, at the end of day, the European Union has open borders and Britain is part of that.

'People shouldn't be sent home if they are already here, though I think rules should be brought in to minimise the flow of new people into this country.'

Mrs Alston (30) was probably one of the first eastern Europeans in Bognor when she came to the town nine years ago on a social studies degree course. She went back to her homeland to finish her education and returned to Bognor to marry and settle down.

'Most people I meet here are really nice most of the time. I don't get many negative comments,' she explained. 'As long as you try to make an effort and speak the language, and respect English traditions, everybody will get along just fine.'