The English Democrats candidate and leader of the party in Lincolnshire, Elliott Fountain, has failed dismally in the Lincoln East by election. Fountain, who is already a councillor for the Fenside ward of Boston Borough Council, only got a paltry 24 votes (2.1%) despite the extremely low turnout, something that normally favours small parties.
Fountain has said that at least half of the jobs available in Lincolnshire should be guaranteed to go to “English workers”, a call which was criticised by local farmers who said it would lead to a labour shortage. A speech of his is quoted on the now defunct Boston Casuals website in which he blames the “east euros” for everything from both school closures and local children not being able to go to their selected school, Boston Borough Council’s benefits bill and drink driving. “1000 east euros get deported on euro warrants each year from UK for being criminals,” he rants, “people dont know if there living next door to rapists, murderers and paedophiles”. Unsurprisingly, he failed to mention that the vast majority of rapists, murderers and paedophiles in this country are British. He is trying to promote the same politics of fear and loathing of anything foreign that is shared by the rest of the far right. Thankfully only 24 people in Lincoln East have fallen for it.
Fountain has said that he will stand for the Lincolnshire Police Commissioner post in the Autumn. His credentials appear to be that “I am Lincolnshire born and raised – my family have been here for hundreds of years” and that he is “more in touch with the youth of today”. He campaigned to be elected as mayor of Boston last year, but had to pay people to support his bid.
If Fountain’s anti-immigrant politics of fear sounds rather familiar it might be because his stablemate, fellow English Democrats councillor for Fenside, David Owens, was a BNP member up until the 2011 local elections when he defected to the English Democrats. The English Democrats appear to be seen as a more “credible” nationalist party to join when jumping the “toxic” BNP ship but anti-fascists are not falling for it. It’s the same old xenophobic nonsense with a new label.