Profile: Eddy Butler and Chigwell and Loughton Broadway

Some lucky Epping Forest residents will have the chance to vote for BNP Election Organiser Eddy Butler not once but twice.

The man who local BNP councillor Rod Law refers to as "Eddy Bottler" is at the top of the BNP list for the European elections for the Eastern region as well as contesting the Chigwell and Loughton Broadway ward for Essex County Council. He is obviously not confident that he will win both and it is likely he won't win either.

Eddy Butler was the victim of a violent attack outside Loughton tube station a couple of years ago. However, it was not an attack by an anti-racist, but the BNP's then Group Development Officer Tony Lecomber, a violent psychopath and convicted terrorist. The BNP like to portray themselves as victims of anti-fascist violents, but more often it is internal disputes that lead to violence. Butler himself is not averse to a bit of argy-bargy.

Butler is very much part of the old guard of the BNP, having pushed the racist 'rights for whites' campaign in Millwall in the early 1990s that led to the election of the party's first ever councillor Dereck Beacon. At the time, the BNP was unrepentently fascist, pushing an explicitly antisemitic and white supremacist agenda. It was during the Millwall election that Richard Edmonds - the party's then second in command and national organiser - attacked a mixed race couple in an East End pub with a broken bottle, which led to a spell in jail. Edmonds proudly declared that the BNP was '100% racist'. He was guest speaker at a fund-raising event organised by Epping Forest BNP earlier this year.

Butler is the long-term partner of Councillor Sue Clapp, although some rumours from various quarters suggest they have broken up, a factor that could have helped freeze her out of being selected for the Chigwell andLoughton Broadway ward, despite being a sitting district councillor for Broadway.

While Butler may be more politically astute than most BNP activists, he is still unknown in Loughton and it is not guaranteed that he will build upon Tom Richardson's vote. If Butler was serious about Loughton, he may achieve a significant improvement in the BNP's share of the vote. However, he has his eyes on the larger prize, a seat in Brussels, and will neglect the BNP's Broadway stronghold for the sake of personal ambition.