The 1993 Millwall by-election was a local government by-election in the Millwall ward of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets on 16 September 1993. The result became widely publicised due to the first ever electoral success for the far-right British National Party by Derek Beackon. Prelude Millwall is located on the Isle of Dogs in London, England. Historically, it had been an area of working class residents mainly employed in the many docks on the Isle of Dogs but the closure of the docks in the 1960s had led to high unemployment and deprivation in the area. The borough of Tower Hamlets had a long history of activity by the far-right, including previous organisations such as the British Brothers' League, the British Union of Fascists, the British League of Ex-Servicemen and the British Movement. Race tensions in the area became heightened when a boy named John Stoner was involved in an incident at Morpeth School in Bethnal Green with a group of Asian students. On 24 February 1990, 300 White residents participated in a protest led by John's grandfather, John Happe. Although Happe expressly condemned the BNP, around 50 BNP members attended and began to become better-known in the area. The BNP used the slogan "Rights for Whites", a slogan that had been in use since at least the protests against the Notting Hill Carnival in the 1970s. This slogan proved successful. In one occasion, a group of mothers protesting against the closure of a nursery in the Park ward began to chant "Rights for Whites" on the prompting of some BNP members at the protest. Eventually, the BNP registered on the 1993 ballot paper as "Rights for Whites - British National Party". In the years 1990-3, the BNP concentrated on door-to-door canvassing rather than on mass demonstrations, to avoid the potential for violent clashes with other protesters. The majority of housing in the borough of Tower Hamlets was owned by the council at the time, so housing was a major issue in local politics. At the time, the Liberal Democrats had a "bottom-up" strategy for local elections, where the local party determined its own strategy with little direction from headquarters. As most of the Asian residents in Tower Hamlets supported the Labour Party, the local Liberal Democrats increasingly became the party of local White residents. Roger Eatwell has used the phrase "syncretic legitimation" to the favouring of "local people"