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Edgar Vincent Griffin is an English politician, previously of the Conservative Party. His son, Nick, is Chairman of the British National Party.
Griffin was born in 1921 in Brighton, East Sussex, to Edith Lucy Strawson and Edward J. Griffin.
Griffin was a long-standing Conservative Party member, and a councillor for the St Johns Wood Terrace ward on the St Marylebone Borough Council, from 1959 to 1965. He also served as a councillor on Waveney District Council for three years in the 1980s. His wife, Jean (nee Thomas), whom Griffin married in 1950, has stood as both a councillor and parliamentary candidate for the British National Party, standing in Enfield North at the 1997 general election, in Chingford & Woodford Green for the 2001 general election and for London in the 1999 European elections.
Following the 2001 general election, and William Hague's resignation as Conservative party leader, Griffin became vice-president in Wales of Iain Duncan Smith's party leadership campaign, despite the fact that Griffin's wife had just stood against Duncan Smith in his Chingford and Woodford Green seat. Griffin was subsequently expelled from that position, from his post as vice Chairman of Montgomeryshire Conservative Association and from the Conservative Party itself, when it was discovered that "he assisting the British National Party" by taking BNP-related calls at home on behalf of his wife. A year later, in August 2002, he told the BBC that he was still loyal to the Conservatives and that he didn't resent Duncan Smith's decision to remove him.
Griffin was brought into the public eye again in 2009 when his son took part in an edition of the BBC television programme Question Time and compared Edgar's wartime service in the Royal Air Force with that of the imprisoned pacifist father of fellow guest Jack Straw. Griffin senior never saw combat. He was a member of the ground crew servicing radios.
Griffin has been a Freemason since 1947. Among many senior Masonic appointments, he has been Worshipful Master and Worshipful Commander. Only two other Masons have held Grand Rank for longer than Edgar Griffin, who received the Grand Rank of Assistant Grand Inner Guard in 1962.
References
- Under the skin of the BNP, BBC News, 2006-11-10, retrieved 2009-02-27
- "Disgraced Tory Reveals History as a Councillor" Local Government Chronicle, 30 August 2001, accessed 30 January 2010.
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1507390.stm
- "That was then: Edgar Griffin". BBC News Online. British Broadcasting Corporation. 29 August 2002. Retrieved 31 January 2010.
- "Nick Griffin, Jack Straw and the tale of two dads", Daily Mail, 24 October 2009, accessed 30 January, 2010.
- Master Masons of North Wales "A double presentation to our longest serving Brother"
External links
- Conservative Party statement on Edgar Griffin's expulsion
- telegraph.co.uk "Expelled Tory laments 'one silly mistake'"
- guardian.co.uk "Duncan Smith sacks backer with BNP link"
- BBC: Edgar Griffin Interview in full
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