It was, in fact, the queue to cast my vote for the President of the European Parliament. Having seen Griffin at the end of the queue in which I was due to cast my vote, I truly felt I couldn’t voluntarily go anywhere near the man. I therefore did that very un-British thing and jumped the queue, insinuating myself further up the line. My small discomfort at pushing in was far less than the anger and rage I would have felt had I had to share the same space as the leader of the racist, fascist BNP, now elected to the European Parliament to our great shame.
Just to explain how I came to be in this position. The ballot for the President of the European Parliament is done by hand with MEPs filling in their forms then placing them in the ballot boxes. A number of these boxes are distributed around the Chamber alphabetically and each box typically takes ballot papers from MEP surmanes beginning with three lettes per ballot box, eg “A -C”. I therefore cast my vote in the F – H box, the same box as Griffin. Queues form to put the ballot papers in the boxes as each vote, which is completely secret having been put into an envelope, has to be ticked off by Parliament staff. Hence the queue and Griffin.
The BNP presence is not going unremarked. Far from it. The “Not in Our Name” campaign organised by the anti-fascist “Searchlight” magazine is very acive and presented a petition yesterday to Michael Cashman, the outgoing Vice-Chair of the Petitions Committee.
Pictured in the photo are Nick Lowles from Hope not Hate and my fellow London Labour MEP Claude Moraes.
