Marmite: scourge of the BNP

[muriel_volestrangler]

SavourySaviour of Britain! Remember the BNP website went down just before the election? Turns out it was an argument precipitated by the Marmite jar put in as a stunt for the BNP's election broadcast.

Bennett had been in dispute with Dowson, the convicted criminal who in effect owns the BNP, for a year, but matters came to a head when Griffin insisted, against Bennett’s advice, on adding an image of a jar of Marmite to a version of the BNP’s television election broadcast pre-released on the party website.

According to a longer statement by Bennett, this “very deliberate copyright infringement” was a stunt by Griffin and Dowson to provoke a reaction from Unilever, which owns the Marmite brand, and so “create publicity and a fund raising opportunity”. In the event, Bennett claimed, website traffic, donations and membership applications barely increased at all.

After Unilever responded by launching proceedings over copyright infringement, Griffin and Dowson realised they had underestimated the severity of the legal and financial consequences and came up with pathetic excuses, such as a claim that a “joker” had amended the film. When Unilever’s lawyers refused to believe them, Bennett says he was expected “to go to court and lie through my teeth in order to bail them out of a ridiculous hole they had dug themselves into”.

Griffin and Dowson had misjudged Bennett. Unlike they themselves and their more sycophantic supporters, Bennett “was not prepared to spend five years in prison for perjury just to protect the financial interests of fools” and told Unilever’s lawyers the truth.

Bennett had refused to do their bidding so Griffin and Dowson wanted him out. Bennett was prepared to go but wanted to be paid for his website design work. Claiming he had invested around £40,000 into the site, he said he was not prepared simply to hand it over to Griffin and Dowson so that they could use it to make more money. “It was my bloody hard work, commitment and money that developed that site into the success it became,” wrote Bennett, “and for Dowson to try and force control of it for his own advantage made me feel sick.”

http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/index.php?link=template&story=322

(via Liberal Conspiracy)

More details of how the various honchos at the BNP are doing it all for the money from the guillible morons who sign up as members, are on Searchlight. Not all Marmite-related, but this is just more proof that it is the Food of the Gods.

[EmilyKent]

1. Puts me in mind of

mulched grass. :hi:

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. BNP settles out of court; they may have to pay up to £170,000

The party was hit with a massive claim - estimated at up to £170,000 - over the TV stunt, in which leader Griffin was pictured beside a huge jar of the spread. The party then showed a jar of Marmite - slogan "Love it or hate it" - with its own motto "Love Britain Vote BNP".

Griffin claimed he intended the film as a humorous dig at Marmite, who he believed had mocked the BNP in their online and TV ads featuring a "Love Party" and their rivals the "Hate Party", whose leader appeared to be loosely based on Griffin.

But bosses at Marmite makers Unilever were furious at the BNP broadcast and began High Court proceedings for breach of copyright. BNP caved in and the amount claimed is put by insiders at between £70,000 and £170,000.

Former National Organiser Eddy Butler has said the BNP is "on the brink of bankruptcy". And last night a spokesman for anti-racism group Searchlight said: "The Marmite fiasco has been a disaster from start to finish for Griffin."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/07/18/love-marmite-bnp-hate-party-face-ruin-over-ad-115875-22421216/

[tjwmason]

3. Can't stand the stuff

But I'm tempted to buy a jar of it and post it to the B.N.P.