BNP leader Griffin gets egg-shelled at press meet

Chucking stuff at politicians has been gaining popularity in recent months ever since Iraqi TV journalist targetted former US President George Bush Jr with both his shoes (See: Wen follows Bush; escapes shoe missile at Cambridge) 

Nick Griffin, leader of the UK's far-right BNP, was forced to abandon a press conference outside parliament on Tuesday after protesters pelted him with eggs.

Griffin and his colleague Andrew Brons - both recently elected as Members of the European Parliament (MEP)- had called the press conference Parliament to peddle their extreme views.

But within minutes they were sent packing by 60 placard-waving protesters chanting, "Nazi scum off our streets." Griffin, who was elected an MEP for north-west England on Sunday, was bundled into his car by his bodyguards and quickly driven off.

Having arrived for the press conference on College Green in front of Parliament just after 2.30 pm with Brons, Griffin began by attacking articles from the day's newspapers criticising him and his party. But he had been speaking for only a few minutes when the protesters appeared, chanting and waving banners reading "Stop the fascist BNP".

They threw eggs at Griffin, whose bodyguards quickly took him away through the crowd. The demonstrators kicked and hit his car with their placards before cheering as he drove off.

Griffin, clutching a copy of the Daily Mail, was hit by eggs on the shoulder and chest. But at least two protesters - one a woman - were thumped as BNP minders lashed out at the crowd. Two passers-by - one a man, the other a woman in her 20s - were also taken to hospital.

One demonstrator was flattened by an aide as she ran to confront them. The woman, who gave her name only as Anna, 23, for fear of reprisals, said, "I was hit in the neck and thrown to the floor. He was big. All I remember is being hit by a big arm on the neck."

Protester Harry Dare was punched in the back by a fleeing far-right supporter. Dare said, "I'm not seriously hurt but I was hit and it was unprovoked. I didn't use violence against them. I just told them they were fascists and we didn't want them anywhere near Parliament."

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Weyman Bennett, the protest organiser and national secretary of Unite Against Fascism, said he believed it was important to stand up to the BNP. "The majority of people did not vote for the BNP. They did not vote at all," he said.

"The BNP was able to dupe them into saying that they had an answer to people's problems. They presented themselves as a mainstream party. The reality was, because the turnout was so low, they actually got elected."

Sarah Kavanagh, the Public and Commercial Services Union's national co-ordinator for its "make your vote count" campaign, was another of the protesters. "Britain in two places has sent the far right to be with Europe. They clearly don't speak on behalf of the community and their views are abhorrent," she said.

Scotland Yard said two people were taken to hospital after the protest. A spokeswoman said officers had received an allegation of common assault and were investigating reports of a road collision, but would not give further details.

Griffin later accused the three main parties of organising the protest to stop his party getting its message across. Griffin claims the BNP is not racist, even though it restricts membership to "indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of indigenous Caucasian".

Asked yesterday how he could tell who qualified as British, Griffin said, "You just look and you just know."

Brons, the MEP for the Yorkshire and Humber region, told Sky that news indigenous Britons were "the people of this country who were descended from people who were in this country, say, from the period after World War II, when the country was relatively homogenous."

All mainstream parties united in condemning the BNP after it won two seats in the European Parliament. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said yesterday the result was "desperately depressing" and the main parties had to win back those who had voted for the far-right party.

Peter Hain, the newly appointed Welsh secretary, said, "It's a shameful stain on Britain that we now have racists and fascists representing our country. It is vital that everyone now isolates and confronts the BNP and works with Unite Against Fascism to defeat them."

The BNP is to hold a press conference in Manchester on Wednesday.

Bennett vowed the extremists would be met by vociferous protests across Britain. He said, "We want to send a message to Mr Griffin and Mr Brons. Wherever they go, up and down the country, we will be there to greet them with demonstrations like this."