More than a dozen anti-racism campaigners protested outside Hertfordshire County Council this morning in protest at the election of a British National Party (BNP) member.

Campaigners from Unite Against Fascism were voicing their distress at the election of Councillor Deirdre Gates to the South Oxhey division in this month’s local elections.

Despite concerns the protest would turn ugly, police and security guards at Hertford’s County Hall – the latter group hired by the council – were untroubled.

Protester Ed Bailey said: “We’re here to protest against a racist and fascist party. They might claim that isn’t the case but it is. The party has a whites only membership policy. If that isn’t racist I don’t know what is.

“The BNP want to create disharmony in Hertfordshire. We are here to say they are not welcome in our community.”

Councillor Gates, who beat her Labour rival in the poll by just 27 votes, entered the debating chamber without hindrance and sat alone – supported from the public gallery by a small group of minders.

In the following good-natured addresses the leaders of the three main parties made no mention of the controversy surrounding Mrs Gates’ election – a story which made national news.

Members, including Council Leader Robert Gordon, merely expressed regret at the some of the “hard-working and highly respected” Labour members who had failed to win election.

Councillor Gates, who later spoke to the Watford Observer, described the protestors as “Communists” who needed to “grow up and start behaving like adults.”

The retired legal secretary from Rickmansworth added: “We are a perfectly legal group. We’ve done nothing wrong. We want to work with the other political parties for the people of Hertfordshire so it’s up to the others to start behaving like adults.

“These protesters are a minority if Communists who are reduced to calling us names. They are a pressure group and not a political party. They have no policies of their own no arguments against us.

They are known only for hanging off the coat tails off the BNP.”

Councillor Gates also denied she was a fascist or a racist and defended the party’s whites only membership policy.

She said: “Being a nationalist does not make you a racist. There is nothing wrong with standing up for your national interest. If we allowed other groups to join the party it they would swamp it and change it.”

Her minders, she added, were appointed by party officials as a matter of policy – a measure deemed necessary because of a recent attack on party leader Nick Griffin, who was pelted with eggs and (allegedly) bricks outside the Palace of Westminster.

She added: “It might not look good but it looks a lot better than me lying on the ground with my head broken by a brick. Nobody was sure of how many people would turn out to protest or how they would behave. He couldn’t take any chances.”