Announcement seen as effort to stave off leadership challenge after BNP's disastrous performance in elections

Nick Griffin, leader of the British National party, has agreed to stand down in 2013 in an attempt to stave off an immediate leadership challenge.

Griffin has been facing growing internal criticism after the party's performance in the general and local elections. He told a meeting of the BNP's special advisory council at the weekend that he would make way for "someone who will be able to drive support up to where it can be a serious contender for power".

Griffin was beaten into third place in Barking, trailing Labour's Margaret Hodge by 18,000 votes. The party nationally failed to build on its council breakthrough in 2006: of the 28 sitting councillors that stood for re-election, all but two lost .

According to the party's website, Griffin told the advisory council he was prepared to stand down in three years' time.

"By then I would have been leader of the BNP for 15 years and that is long enough," Griffin said. "It will be time to make way for a younger person who does not have any baggage which can be used against the party."

However, anti-racist campaigners described Griffin's announcement as part of a wider power struggle inside the BNP.

"Far from being a resignation this is a naked attempt by Griffin to play for time in an attempt to cling to power," said Daniel Hodges, from Searchlight.

The BNP's election campaign was dogged by problems and descended into violence on the eve of the poll when Bob Bailey, the BNP councillor and London organiser, was caught on camera fighting in the street with a group of teenagers.

Last week Bailey was arrested and bailed, on suspicion of assaulting two men. He has also stepped down as the BNP's London organiser. An 18-year-old man and a 19-year-old man were also arrested and bailed, on suspicion of assault and affray.

Earlier in the campaign the BNP website was closed down and replaced with a posting from Simon Bennett, the party's website manager, who accused Griffin and James Dowson, the BNP election fundraiser, of being "pathetic, desperate and incompetent".

In Stoke-on-Trent, the BNP's second target seat, its senior councillor Alby Walker decided to stand as an independent because of a "vein of Holocaust denying" within the party. "They've still got senior members of the BNP who will be candidates in the general election that have Nazi-esque sympathies," he said.

And at the beginning of the campaign, the party's publicity director, Mark Collett, who was considered a Griffin loyalist, was arrested on suspicion of threatening to kill the party leader.

The BNP is under investigation by the Electoral Commission for financial irregularities and has been embroiled in a lengthy legal battle with the Equality and Human Rights Commission over its constitution.

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