At the Green Party conference in Blackpool today, top North West candidate Peter Cranie urged the Green Party to redouble its efforts to push the far-right BNP out of this June's Euro-election race.
Liverpool-based Peter Cranie is the candidate set to thwart the electoral dream of BNP leader Nick Griffin. In regional list elections, the big three parties usually take most of the seats, and the highest-polling candidate from a smaller party the last seat. In the North West - where the far right seeks to build on the fears and insecurities of the recession - the race for the last seat will almost certainly be between the Greens and the BNP.
In his opening speech to conference, Peter Cranie spoke passionately about the need to support migrants living in Britain against a political party "that doesn't even allow Black British or Asian British people to join it."
He described the complete failure of Britain's handful of BNP councillors who, having use "the politics of hate" to win votes from desperate, disaffected people, had never done anything in office to help anybody, but had simply abused Britain's electoral system "to peddle the politics of hate."
Later today, when party leader Caroline Lucas MEP gave her keynote speech, she said: "I know of no-one more passionately committed to social justice than Peter Cranie."