Ethnic candidate causes BNP outrage

[The Guardian reports](http://politics.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,,1749555,00.html) on today’s front page that the decision to choose an “ethnic” – a supposed descendent of an Armenian refugee with the unlikely name of Sharif Abdul-Gawad – has caused outrage among the BNP’s racist membership, who insist that the party remain all-white:

>Sharif Abdel Gawad, whom the BNP describes as a “totally assimilated Greek-Armenian”, was chosen to stand in a Bradford ward as part of the party’s biggest ever electoral push. …
>
>The BNP says Mr Gawad was named after the actor Omar Sharif because his mother was a fan, and that his grandfather was an Armenian Christian who fled to Britain as a refugee.

Judging by the picture of him on the front of today’s *Guardian*, I’d say he looked North African (and the spelling of Gawad suggests Egypt), but it speaks volumes that the leadership had to explain to their gnat-brained members that he was not Pakistani. (Tags: sharif abdel gawad, bnp, racism.)