Richard Barnbrook

Richard Barnbrook (born 24 February 1961) is a British politician and a former member of the London Assembly.

He had his first public art exhibition, of landscape watercolours, in 1971.

In 1981 he attended an art foundation course for a year at Grimsby College of Technology.

From 1982 to 1985, he studied at the Royal Academy of Arts, where he obtained a first class diploma.

During that time he attended Limoges College of Art and Craft on a minor scholarship and while there gained his first lecturing position (1984).

He was awarded an interim Master of Arts degree from the California Institute of Arts and a PGCE from Greenwich University.

In 1985, Barnbrook won a research and lecturing UNESCO scholarship to Silpakorn University in Thailand.

He went on to lecture in Thailand, Europe and across the USA.

In 1989, he was awarded an EC Film Award (fellowship) from Braunschweig University of Art in Germany.

He completed his studies in 1995.

He then worked as an artist and art teacher/lecturer.

His art projects included writing and directing the theatre piece Human Soup and the film HMS Discovery: A Love Story, the latter of which received substantial media coverage as a result of its scenes of male nudity and homoerotic themes, and which was described as "gay pornography", but which Barnbrook insists was nothing more than an art film and certainly not homoerotic.

Previously an activist for the Labour Party, Barnbrook joined the BNP in 1999.

In 2000, Barnbrook set up and was appointed managing director and artistic designer to the Jubilee Woods Trust, which he established to create new woodland plantations with the theme of environment, education and art, one for every county in the UK, to mark the Queen's Golden Jubilee, to which Sting was one of the principal benefactors and Sir David Attenborough showed support.

Barnbrook received acclaim for his designs for heraldic planting formations, but only one of these came to fruition in Sefton, north Liverpool.

When Barnbrook's connections with the BNP came to public notice, Barnbrook was dismissed before the project could be completed, and none of his other designs were commissioned.

He was a BNP candidate in the 2005 general election.

He received 4,916 votes (16.9%) in Barking coming third and only 27 votes behind the Conservative candidate, Keith Prince.

The constituency was won by Margaret Hodge.

Barnbrook was a councillor, and leader (2006–08), then deputy leader (2008–10), of the BNP group on Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council.

He represented Goresbrook ward.

He was elected as a British National Party (BNP) list candidate in the 2008 election, though he resigned the BNP whip in August 2010 and subsequently sat as an independent.

Barnbrook was the BNP's candidate for the 2008 London mayoral election, receiving 69,710 first preference votes (2.84% of the total valid first preference votes cast) and 128,609-second preference votes (5.23% of the total valid second preference votes cast).

In the separate London-wide Assembly vote he was the top candidate on the BNP's London-wide Assembly Member list.

The BNP list received 130,714 votes or 5.33% of the total valid votes cast; this won them one seat in the London Assembly which was filled by Barnbrook.

In September 2008, Barnbrook appeared in an interview in which he was asked about knife crime.

The interview appeared on his website, YouTube and his blog on the Daily Telegraph website.

Barnbrook states during the recording that "In Barking and Dagenham alone three weeks ago, there was a murder of a young girl. We don't know who's done it, her girlfriend was attacked inside an educational institute. Again, two weeks ago there was another attack by knives on the streets of Barking and Dagenham where two people were murdered."

Councillor Valerie Rush subsequently complained to the Greater London Authority that she knew the statements to be false as the alleged murders never happened, and accused Barnbrook of bringing his office into disrepute.

In May 2009, a joint investigation by the Greater London Authority and Barking and Dagenham council concluded that Barnbrook had brought "his office and the respective authorities into disrepute" as a result of the interview.

A hearing held by the standards committees of both the assembly and council was adjourned on 21 July 2009 when Barnbrook failed to appear, after being given sick leave on grounds of stress.

He had also failed to provide written evidence.

On 24 September 2009, Barnbrook was suspended for one month from Barking and Dagenham Council for bringing it into disrepute.

Barnbrook challenged for the leadership of the BNP in July 2010 but, like the other challengers, Butler and Adams, failed to obtain the very large number of nominations required of a challenger to trigger an election.

Barnbrook resigned the BNP whip in August 2010, following his demand for an inquiry into allegations of corruption and fiscal mismanagement against the party leadership.

He was then expelled from the party and, from August 2010 to 2012 sat in the London Assembly as an independent member.

While a member of the BNP he voted in favour of allowing minorities to join the party membership.

Barnbrook retired from politics in May 2012.

Barnbrook was born in Catford.

When Barnbrook's term as a member of the Greater London Assembly expired in May 2012 he did not seek re-election.