THE British National Party has revealed it intends to field candidates in the elections to North Yorkshire County Council.

The announcement came as British National Party (BNP) activists said they had delivered “many thousands of leaflets” in Malton, Norton, Pickering and surrounding villages. They said the leaflets, which contain information about the BNP’s policies and its opposition to the European Union (EU), were delivered door to door, and handed out to shoppers in the centre of Malton, where they claimed a number of copies of the party’s monthly newspaper, Voice Of Freedom, were sold. The organisation said it would field candidates across the county in the county council elections on June 4. It is the first time the BNP has contested elections to the authority.

A BNP spokesman said: “Our activists were extremely well received and a number of good quality inquiries have been received already as a result of this activity.”

He said further such events were planned in other towns and villages in the county over the coming month, including in Selby, Harrogate, Thirsk, Scarborough, Northallerton, Whitby, Filey, Richmond and Skipton.

The party said the campaign would go hand-in-hand with its preparations for the European elections, also due to be held on June 4.

Howard Keal, Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Malton and Thirsk, accused the BNP of “peddling myths” over issues such as housing, Europe and jobs.

“The BNP leaflet picks up on jobs when the true picture is that economic migrants are going home in droves,” he said. But BNP councillor Chris Beverley, who represents Morley South on Leeds City Council, said that, even if it was accepted that some such workers were returning home, “economic migration” from the EU was only a tiny part of Britain’s “immense immigration crisis”.

“Our continued membership of the EU means we are completely powerless to stop immigration from within the EU,” he said.