Britain goes to the polls: Tyndall is first to save BNP deposit: Big vote for extreme right-winger

JOHN TYNDALL, a veteran of the British ultra-right, and now leader of the British National Party, won almost as many votes as the Liberal Democrat who came third in the Dagenham by-election won by Labour, writes Stephen Ward.

It was the first time the 12-year-old party has saved its deposit in an election, and was taken by anti-Nazis yesterday as a confirmation that the BNP's loss of its Tower Hamlets council seat last month did not mean its position was declining.

Mr Tyndall, 59, received 1,511 votes in Dagenham and the Liberal Democrat 1,804, in a constituency which has had no far-right candidate in the past three general elections. Its share of the vote was 7 per cent, approaching the 7.8 per cent, 9.5 per cent and 7.6 per cent won by the National Front in its best seats at the February and October 1974 and the 1979 elections.

Mr Tyndall, who has served three prison sentences, including six months in 1962 for organising and training a neo-Nazi group, said yesterday he had received virtually no publicity during the campaign - little more than a column inch in the local newspaper, and a clip on local television showing him delivering a newspaper.

He said that he had expected to receive a higher share of the vote, but the Labour share had been greater than expected.