Labour celebrates massive Millwall victory crat, or even BNP (in confusion with Bengali National Party).
SWP issue leaflet in the name of "Island Against the Nazis' 'revealing' that BNP is a racist party and implying that the electorate voted in ignorance of this.
Defeated
At the same time, defeated Labour candidate James Hunt (the man who had seen an increased BNP vote as a good thing a year before resigns from the Labour Party on regional TV rather than give evidence to the party on who leaked the alleged canvass; he joins the ex-ward chair and exward secretary to form the East London People's Alliance' based on basic Labour manifesto overlaid with racist policies on housing allocation.
ELPA announces it will field candidates in May elections for all three Mill wall seats, including ex-ward candidates James Hunt and Ted Johns (allegedly won over from Labour). Within two months, the Alliance has split over irreconcilable personal ambitions. Ted Johns eventually decides to retire and back Labour rather than stand for any party.
Mavericks
The Labour right-wing mayericks begin campaigning for a crosS-party alliance to beat the BNP in May - variously a pact with the Liberal Democrats, and a Lab/Lib/Con slate (!).
The demand is soundly rejected by Labour and the electorate, but picked up a little by the bourgeois press, church figures and some big business Icaders.
The BP deliver a leaflet door-to-door each month. Island Against the Nazis to call council meeting. UNISON call Spring 1994: Labour selects two candidates to fill vacancies against BNP and in defence of Members flock back to ward officers have gone. Left is posiin organising the coming elecELPA claim mass exodus from ward Labour Party to their Alliance: straw poll in the Labour Party reckons they mean ries of regional TV appearances chair with increasingly bizarre carries articles talking up BNP vote. Media starts sniffing around Millwall, apparently keen to get lots of footage in the can ready for use after BNP historic victory gives them control over policy-making in decentralised Isle of Dogs neighbourhood and control of its £23 million budget.
BNP and Labour each delivering a leaflet a month to the 7,500 doors in Millwall ward.
Police figures for racist attacks in the ward show 300 per cent rise since the by-election.
SWP refuse to build Island Against the Nazis lobby of Beackon's first neighbourhood committee meeting, but attend, enter council chamber and throw cup of coffee at him (missing) to persuade Beackon they don't like him. Press reports ANL incident and ignores larger lobby outside.
April 1994: Labour election campaign begins, assisted by Labour activists from across London and even beyond, including organised left groups. Centred on the slogan "Only Labour can beat the BP', the campaign attracts support from home-owners in private developments, concerned about falling house values, from black and Asian voters, and from large sections of the white working class. Counter-productive Walworth Road decide Millwall is a priority, and send in Nick Rainsford MP, who makes a series of counter-productive interventions.
BNP deliver 'British Nationalist 8-page paper door to door on selected estates, disseminating explicit fascist programme. Liberal Democrats deliver a couple of hysterical leaflets on selected estates.
SWP fly-posting says the BNP are against the NHS and
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 63, 1 June 1994, Page 6