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| Abbreviation | BDP BritDems[1] |
| Chairman | James Lewthwaite[2] |
| Founded | 9 February 2013; 12 years ago (9 February 2013) |
| Split from | British National Party |
| Headquarters | Loughborough,Leicestershire,England |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-right |
| Colours |
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| Website | |
| britishdems | |
TheBritish Democratic Party (BDP), commonly known as theBritish Democrats, is a Britishfar-right[5] political party. It was registered with theElectoral Commission in 2011,[1] and officially launched in 2013 at aLeicestershire village hall by a ten-member steering committee which included former members of several political parties including theBritish National Party (BNP), Democratic Nationalists,Freedom Party andUK Independence Party (UKIP).[5]
The party's inaugural president wasAndrew Brons, then aMember of the European Parliament (MEP).[5] Brons had been a member of the BNP and a leading member of the far-right and fascistNational Front (NF). Its current chairman is James Lewthwaite, a former member of the BNP.[6] The steering committee included a number of others with a history of membership infascist andneo-Nazi groups,[7] who believed that the BNP had been corrupted and watered-down.[5]
Andrew Brons resigned from theBritish National Party (BNP) in October 2012, after narrowly failing in his campaign to unseatNick Griffin as leader of the party in the2011 party leadership election.
Although the BDP was registered with theElectoral Commission by 2011,[1] the party was formally established on 9 February 2013 inLeicestershire largely by disillusioned members of theBritish National Party (BNP) as a “hardline alternative” to the party. The BNP had undergone turmoil in the eighteen months before the split, with 400 BNP members defecting to theEnglish Democrats just a year earlier.[8] TheNew Statesman reported that security for the party launch was provided by theEnglish Defence League (EDL).[5]
In 2013, Nick Lowles, ofHope Not Hate, believed the party would be a serious threat to the BNP, commenting, “The BDP brings together all of the hardcoreHolocaust deniers and racists that have walked away from the BNP over the last two to three years, plus those previously, who could not stomach the party's image changes... They and the BNP already have a mutual hatred of each other and neither party will stop until they've killed the other one off. The gloves will be off and it will be toxic.”[5]
The party is described as being on thefar-right of thepolitical spectrum,[5] and having been reported asfascist.[3][4] The party advocated traditional ideals held on the British right such asopposition to immigration,[9] arguing thatcitizenship should be acquired vianationality that is inherited from ones descent and not from any legal mechanisms;[9] describing theWest as being ensued byIslamisation;[10] and declared that the party is committed to ending all immigration to the United Kingdom,[9] supporting a British withdrawal from the1951 Refugee Convention, theEuropean Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and theGlobal Compact for Migration (GCM).[9] The party also described itself aseconomically nationalist (includingnationalisation of British railways),[9]Eurosceptic,[9] and stated that it supports themonarchy.[9]
In the2015 United Kingdom general election, the party nominated one candidate, the BDP chairman, Jim Lewthwaite inBradford East. He won 210 votes, 0.5% of the total cast.[11]
The party gained a parish councillor in March 2022, when John Robinson, who was elected to Barnham andEastergate Parish Council inWest Sussex as an independent, joined the BDP.[12] In July 2022, Julian Leppert, an elected councillor representing theFor Britain Movement onEpping Forest District Council inEssex, joined the BDP.[13] The party gained another parish councillor in August 2022, when Roger Robertson, an elected councillor inHartley Wintney,Hampshire, joined the British Democrats. He like Leppert was also a former member of the For Britain Movement.[14]
Later that month, BDP candidate Lawrence Rustem was elected unopposed toDetling Parish Council inKent, in what was the party's first ever election victory.[15] In October 2022, the BDP candidate, Christopher Bateman, was elected toNoak Bridge Parish Council inBasildon, Essex, with 74% of the vote against one other candidate who was an independent.[16]
The British Democrats, whose campaign received support from the far-right hate groupPatriotic Alternative, stood five candidates in the2023 local elections.[17] All candidates failed to win their contests, with Julian Leppert losing the party's only seat above parish council level.[18]
In March 2024, British Democrat candidate Ken Perrin won a by-election to a seat on theChatteris town council inCambridgeshire with 47% of the vote.[19] Perrin had previously worked as the North East Cambridgeshire organiser for theUK Independence Party.[20]
The party stood four parliamentary candidates in the2024 general election:[21] Christopher Bateman inBasildon and Billericay, Gary Butler inMaidstone and Malling, Frank Calladine inDoncaster North, and Lawrence Rustem inFaversham and Mid Kent.[22][23][24] They received 1,860 votes.[citation needed]
| Year | No. of candidates | No. of MPs | % vote | Total votes | Change (% points) | Average votes per candidate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 1 | 0 | 0.0 | 210[citation needed] | ||
| 2024 | 4 | 0 | 0.0 | 1,860[citation needed] | +0.0 | 465 |
In 2025, British Democrat candidate Peter Lawrence was elected to the Mylor council inCornwall.[25] Meanwhile, former parliamentary candidate Frank Calladine was elected onto two separate parish council seats inDoncaster, representing the Sprotbrough and Cusworth council and the Brodsworth council.[26][27] Calladine also stood as the British Democrats' candidate for the2025 Doncaster mayoral election,[28] having previously won 8.1% of the vote as an independent candidate in2021. Later that month, British Democrat candidate Lawrence Rustem won a parish council by-election inMaidstone, Kent with 54.5% of the vote.
A number of disillusioned British National Party members joinedAndrew Brons in the BDP split with the BNP, including Kevin Scott, founder and director ofCivil Liberty and former party organiser for the BNP in theNorth East. Other notable members of the party include:
The British Democrats – which claim that "the very existence of the indigenous population is under unprecedented threat" – are understood to be the only fascist party in Britain with elected representation, with three parish councillors. Its president is the former Yorkshire BNP Member of the European Parliament, Andrew Brons.
For years, an ugly war simmered between Griffin and Andrew Brons, the two men elected as BNP MEPs in 2009. Brons came within nine votes of ousting Griffin as leader in 2011, and then quit the party in 2012, railing against how Griffin had "destroyed the party". A year before Brons left to join the British Democratic Party, 400 BNP members moved to the English Democrats with Eddy Butler, a senior BNP figure, in 2011. Griffin was eventually expelled from the BNP in October 2014 for "trying to cause disunity".
