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Asian man's BNP application 'will be blocked'

Tim Moynihan,Press Association
Thursday 04 March 2010 17:16 GMT
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A millionaire Asian businessman who applied to join the BNP has been told his application will be blocked, he said today.

Mo Chaudry, 49, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, had wanted to join the far-right party to "fight them from the inside".

He said he was seeking to take advantage of the enforced change to the party's constitution to expose them.

BNP members voted to admit black and Asian people last month when the party was threatened with an injunction by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

Pakistan-born Mr Chaudry, who is worth £60 million, runs a string of businesses around Stoke-on-Trent, which has eight BNP members on the city council. He is a star of the Channel 4 programme The Secret Millionaire, in which rich benefactors go undercover to find good ways of using their money.

He said today: "I debated with the BNP's deputy leader Simon Darby on BBC Radio 5 Live and he told me that my application would be blocked. How can you be more discriminatory than that?"

He added: "People are not racist in Stoke-on-Trent and I have never experienced racism in my time here but the city council has eight BNP members. The good people that don't vote need to get off their backside and change things."

The EHRC is considering the changes the BNP have made to their membership rules and will be back in court on March 9.

EHRC has threatened legal action if the rules are still considered discriminatory.

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