Mayor of London and Greater London Assembly

The Mayor of London is elected by a system known as Single Transferable Vote. Everyone has two votes, a first and a second preference. If no candidate gets over 50% of the first preference the leading two candidates go through to a second round where all the other candidates’ second preference votes are redistributed where appropriate between the two lead candidates.

The winner is the candidate who gets the most first and redistributed second preference votes.

The BNP candidate for Mayor is Richard Barnbrook

The deposit is £10,000 which is returnable to candidates who obtain over 5% of the first preference vote. 330 nomination signatures are required – ten for each London Borough and the City of London. A further non-returnable sum of £10,000 is required to have the Party’s mini-manifesto published in the Mayoral Address Booklet, which is sent to all registered voters in London before election day.

The 25 strong London Assembly is elected at the same time. Electors get two votes – one can be cast for a constituency candidate and one for the Top Up List.

14 Assemblymen are elected on a first past the post basis in constituencies that comprise two or three London boroughs. Constituency candidates require a deposit of £1,000, which is returned if they get more than 5% of the total number of votes cast in that constituency. The BNP is contesting one constituency seat, City and East London, which comprises the City of London, and the Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham and Barking and Dagenham. The candidate is Bob Bailey.

11 Assemblymen are elected from what is known as the Top Up List. This ensures that seats on the Assembly are awarded on a proportional basis. With 25 seats available this should mean that 4% is required to win a seat on the top up list, but the threshold is set at 5%. So 5% should guarantee one seat, 8% should guarantee 2 seats, 12% 3 seats and so forth.

However as those Parties who obtain less than 5% are discounted and because the seats won in the constituencies are also taken into account, in practice the percentage needed to win 2 seats will be less than 8%.

The deposit for contesting the Top Up List is £5,000 which is returned if the Party receives more than 2.5% of the vote across London.

The BNP will be fielding the full slate of 11 candidates for the Top Up List. A rigorous selection process resulted in the first four members on the list being:

• Richard Barnbrook (Leader of the Opposition on Barking and Dagenham Borough Council)
• Nick Erikson (the London Regional Organiser)
• Bob Bailey (Barking and Dagenham Borough Councillor)
• Julian Leppert (Redbridge Borough Councillor)

If a candidate elected via the Top Up List resigns from the GLA (or dies) then the next person down on the Party list will replace them. If a GLA member defects to another Party or decides to sit as an independent then that Assembly member is not replaced. (e.g. two UKIP Assembly members defected to form their own tiny Party called One London).

© 2008, British National Party Elections , PO Box 287, Waltham Cross, Herts, EN8 8ZU. Telephone: 0871 050 0232