Conghaileach
5th June 2004, 19:41
Jennifer's journey to the front of the BNP
She is 17, outspoken and loves pop music. Jennifer Griffin, daughter of the British National Party leader, is being presented as the new face of the right. She talks to Amelia Hill
Sunday May 16, 2004
The Observer (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/)
Were it not for her ambition to lead the British National Party, Jennifer Griffin would be a typical 17-year-old girl, preoccupied with fashion, cosmetics and a boyfriend who makes her blush every time she mentions his name.
But Jennifer is not typical. As the eldest daughter of Nick Griffin, chairman of the BNP, Jennifer has been raised in a household thick with politics.
When she was 11, her father received a two-year suspended sentence for inciting racial hatred by writing anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial material in his magazine, The Rune. Jennifer remembers the police ripping open her Christmas presents that year to ensure they contained nothing criminal. It is an experience that still makes her angry and one that galvanised her to begin asking her father about his work.
Regular, cosy evenings spent sitting up alone with Griffin followed. That same year, Jennifer began leafleting her neighbourhood with BNP propaganda and accompanying her father to party meetings and on campaigning trips around the country.
As she grew older, Jennifer became more active: she founded and runs the Young BNP Supporter's Group for children aged 14 to 16, is a key organiser of the Young BNP's Camp Excalibur and helps out at the party's Red, White And Blue annual family festival. Her younger sister, Rhiannon, is also involved in the party - the 14-year-old has just recorded a BNP CD - but it is Jennifer who has been chosen as as the new face of respectability by a party desperate to soften its image in the run-up to June's local and European elections.
Full Story (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1217897,00.html)
She is 17, outspoken and loves pop music. Jennifer Griffin, daughter of the British National Party leader, is being presented as the new face of the right. She talks to Amelia Hill
Sunday May 16, 2004
The Observer (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/)
Were it not for her ambition to lead the British National Party, Jennifer Griffin would be a typical 17-year-old girl, preoccupied with fashion, cosmetics and a boyfriend who makes her blush every time she mentions his name.
But Jennifer is not typical. As the eldest daughter of Nick Griffin, chairman of the BNP, Jennifer has been raised in a household thick with politics.
When she was 11, her father received a two-year suspended sentence for inciting racial hatred by writing anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial material in his magazine, The Rune. Jennifer remembers the police ripping open her Christmas presents that year to ensure they contained nothing criminal. It is an experience that still makes her angry and one that galvanised her to begin asking her father about his work.
Regular, cosy evenings spent sitting up alone with Griffin followed. That same year, Jennifer began leafleting her neighbourhood with BNP propaganda and accompanying her father to party meetings and on campaigning trips around the country.
As she grew older, Jennifer became more active: she founded and runs the Young BNP Supporter's Group for children aged 14 to 16, is a key organiser of the Young BNP's Camp Excalibur and helps out at the party's Red, White And Blue annual family festival. Her younger sister, Rhiannon, is also involved in the party - the 14-year-old has just recorded a BNP CD - but it is Jennifer who has been chosen as as the new face of respectability by a party desperate to soften its image in the run-up to June's local and European elections.
Full Story (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1217897,00.html)