BNP leader garden party invite revoked

BNP leader Nick Griffin has had his invitation to a Buckingham Palace garden party withdrawn.

The Palace has said the reason is that he was using it for "party political purposes".

A statement went on: " Mr Griffin's personal invitation was issued to him as an elected Member of the European Parliament. The decision to deny him entry is not intended to show any disrespect to the democratic process by which the invitation was issued.

"However, we would apply the same rules to anyone who tried to blatantly politicise their attendance in this way."

The far-right politician had intended to take three members of his family to the event in his capacity as an MEP for the North West.

Mr Griffin described the decision as "an outrage" and "thoroughly anti-British".

The BNP leader said: "This is quite amazing news. At no time was I informed that I wasn't allowed to talk to the media about this. Other people have talked about attending. Why a double standard here?

"To say that one person in the country cannot speak to the media is an outrage."

Asked if he still intended to go to the palace, Mr Griffin initially said: "I don't know."

But he then added: "I'm not about to try and gatecrash the party, that is for sure."

Earlier on Thursday Mr Griffin had said: " I guess it will make people pay attention to us, more people will come and visit our website and see what we've got to say, so we gain something from it."

Last year Mr Griffin withdrew from attending a similar event out of fear of embarrassing the Queen.

He commented on that on Thursday saying his BNP colleague Sir Richard Barnbrook was put under pressure to take a member of public who had done charity work, rather than himself.