BNP situation handled badly

I am away for 6 weeks and when I come back I find all hell has broken loose inside the BNP. I am in my first year of studying Public Relations and even I can see that both sides have not handled this situation well and that as a PR student I can see how I would have handled it, though PR professionals would have probably handled it much better than me. This is how I would have handled it:

The plotters perspective

The ‘coup plotters’ should have never set up a blog damaging the BNP. Did they not realise that the media already damage us enough offline? If they wanted to get rid certain officials they should have went through the proper channels. If that didn’t work they wait for the AGM where they can vote on motions. They then launch a motion to either:

1. Sack the officials who they thought were incompetent

Or

2. They try and get a new position of Human Resource Manager within the party who would be given the job by the Advisory Council (or whoever but not the chairman). This new role would be responsible for hiring, firing and disciplining members.

Number 2 would have probably become a better option as it would have stopped anymore mistakes from being made by the chairman. There would be checks and balances on the chairman and the HRM manager.

Nick Griffin’s perspective

Nick Griffin’s actions have probably done the worst for BNP public relations. He has handled it badly but I suppose it could have been worse.

After taping their coup conversation Nick Griffin should have had a meeting (which would also be taped) with all the people who were going to lose their jobs and let them hear the conversation and give them two options.

1. They could resign and no one would know that they betrayed the party as long as they closed down the blog and stopped criticising the party in public.

The party would make up some bullshit about Sadie being pregnant (I think she is anyway) and wanting to have more time with her new family and concentrate on being a councillor and the party could say she would be given her job back in 5 years. After 5 years everything would be forgotten by the party membership so it wouldn’t matter if she actually got her job back but it would also give her a chance to prove that they are loyal to the cause. It would the same for the other plotters.

They would be told that it would be for the good of the party if they resigned. Telling them what the possible implications would be for the party and the movement if they were fired and made a big fuss over it (like they have done).

Or

2. They could be fired and everyone would know what they did.

If they chose number 1, right now we would be hearing that a few officials wanted to spend more time with their families. We would not be hearing about the plot that they have hatched. Officials would never have resigned because they wouldn’t know anything about it and nationalists would not be criticising the BNP saying there would be a split because there wouldn’t be any signs of one.

If they chose number 2 the BNP would then show the transcript and make available the taped meeting that they just had showing that they were told what could happen to the movement but were willing to disregard it to score cheap political points. They would look like bigger traitors than they actually were

If the transcript was shown and officials still resigned Nick Griffin should have refused to accept any resignations until he could privately talk with everyone telling them why the plotters went about it the wrong way and why he had no other choice but to sack the group. Having talked with them all some would have inevitably decided not to resign.

I am sure a PR professional could come up with something better than this.