contested some other wards in the borough including Beackon who stood in Redcoat ward where he attracted just 3.6% of the vote. 1992 general election and council by-election In the 1992 general election, BNP leader John Tyndall stood in the Bow and Poplar constituency (which covered Millwall as well as other areas), gaining only 3% of the vote. Party activists in the general election believed that much of his vote had come from the Millwall area and began to focus on the area in their canvassing. The BNP candidate in the election for Bethnal Green and Stepney, Richard Edmonds, was nicknamed "The Commander" for his use of local knowledge to target Millwall as an area sympathetic to the BNP Later in the same year, a by-election took place in Millwall on 1 October 1992, due to the resignation of Cllr Walker. A British National Party candidate stood for the council ward for the first time. They received their highest vote share of any election at the time, taking 20% of the vote. Campaign The next year Cllr Chapman resigned, leading to another by-election in the same ward. The British National Party's campaign emphasised 'Rights for Whites' through canvassing and leafleting, while the Labour Party campaign focussed on preventing the election of the first BNP councillor. After a recount, Beackon was declared the winner with a majority of just 7 votes. Election result Reaction Party leader John Tyndall said that the result was the BNP's "moment in history" and claimed that 800 new members were recruited immediately afterwards. He later denied "hyping up" the victory. There was widespread condemnation from politicians, religious leaders and the media of the result. Many explanations were offered to explain why the residents of Millwall would vote for a neo-Nazi party, including the manipulation of the racial issue by other local parties, the parochialism of the Isle of Dogs and the changes that the area was experiencing as many residents were in poverty but also in close proximity to the prosperity of the new Canary Wharf development. The Home Secretary at the time, Michael Howard, said that he "deplored" the outcome, with the Environment Secretary John Gummer describing the BNP as a "thoroughly nasty party". One journalist in Time Out referred to voters in the Millwall ward as "a peculiar breed: insular, proud of their docklands heritage and identity as a community, and notoriously suspicious of