Canvey Island East-Town Council Election
on Thursday January 22nd


The BNP team at Leigh Beck school after the election count.

Result

Jane Pontius (Canvey Island Independent Party) 425 37.5%
Colin Alan MacLean (Conservative) 328 28.9%
John Morgan (BNP) 229 20.2%
John Payne (Labour) 151 13.3%

Turnout was 23.6%.

It was the first time the BNP had contested this ward. We came from nowhere to take 20.2% of the vote.

Comparing this with the May 2008 election results. The Labour vote was up 3.8%, the Conservative vote was down 2.4% and the Canvey Island Independent Party lost a huge 21.7% with the BNP being the main beneficiary.

The winning Independent candidate has a strong Canvey heritage, as her father was the Surveyor and Engineer for Canvey's old Urban District Council. The Tories blitzed the area for two weeks solid. They even had the Mayor out campaigning for them.

The local rag ran a smear article concerning a photograph of our candidate which was taken outside Canvey Island's football club.

They claimed the photo, which we used on his election address, was taken to make it look as if the club supported the BNP. The real reason was that there was a large St. Georges Cross painted on the entrance gate and we thought it would make a good backdrop with our candidate standing in front of it.

Vera Partridge, chair of the Castle Point Conservative Association, said the BNP vote had cost the Tories victory.

She said: “We’re very disappointed, if it wasn’t for the BNP I think we would have won. It’s surprising they got so many votes, as the issues they stand for, like immigration, have no relevance locally".

My thanks to everyone who contributed to this campaign in what turned out to be several weeks of freezing cold weather. Especially Bernadette, Alisdair and Una who did most of the canvassing and to all the others who spent long hours leafletting. A big thank you to John Morgan who stood as our candidate.

As a result of this campaign we have had a lot of requests for party information packs and so far two members of the public have come forward to stand as candidates the next time around.