Mark Cotterill

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mark Adrian Cotterill is the founder and current chairman of the England First Party, a minor political party operating in Lancashire, England. A former supporter of the British National Party, Cotterill had formed and ran the far right American Friends of the British National Party aka "AF(O)BNP" when he lived just outside Washington DC.

As well as previously supporting the BNP, whilst living in America he campaigned for David Duke in his bid to be elected to the United States Congress in 1999 as well as having worked for Pat Buchanan's bid to be elected President of the United States in 2000.

On returning to England Cotterill joined the C18 splinter group the White Nationalist Party, before forming the EFP.^{[citation needed]} He remains a member of the C18 splinter group^{[citation needed]} now renamed the British Peoples Party. Cotterill has been the subject of media interest as far back as the early 1990s in his days as National Front organiser in Torquay:

We board at 1am at Dover, after several hours drinking. Mark Cotterill, NF leader in Torquay, is in expansive mood. 'Oi! Abdul!' he shouts to a Asian man as we take our seats. Other passengers stare...[In a queue for the return journey to Dover] a dozen Bengalis are in front of us. Mark shepherds [his NF compatriot] Simon forward. He says loudly: 'Do you think these foreign gentlemen from thousands of miles away will move?'. Simon's face reddens above his blue Rangers shirt. An hour before, piling out of the pub, Mark is less polite: 'NIGG-AHHH!' he yells at a black youth down the road. There is just time for the chip shop, but the chips run out. Mark has to go to Stavros' kebab take-away. The others mock him. 'Stavros is OK. He likes the NF. We've promised not to deport him,' says Mark.[1]

He was elected councillor for Meadowhead on Blackburn with Darwen Borough council in the 2006 local elections as a member of the England First Party, which he leads.

[edit] References