A POLITICAL party's Vale of York branch today claimed to have smashed an infiltration attempt by the far-right British National Party.

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) said it had intercepted emails which indicated a "far reaching plan" to disrupt its campaign for the European elections in June.

The plot was also aimed at distorting the result of UKIP's on-going elections to its ruling National Executive Committee, a spokesman said.

UKIP said that as a result, John Brayshaw, of Easingwold, had been expelled.

Mr Brayshaw joined the party's Vale of York branch in late October, but it had since emerged he was a senior BNP official, UKIP alleged. Mr Brayshaw confirmed today to the Evening Press that he is the BNP's national treasurer.

UKIP also confirmed the expulsion of Andrew Edwards, a former chairman of UKIP's Bath branch, who was discovered to be passing information to the BNP.

UKIP chairman David Lott said: "We are aware that the BNP is targeting UKIP, and as a consequence are always vigilant for attempts such as this.

"There are no circumstances under which we would ever deal with the BNP, or any other extremist party."

UKIP Euro elections candidate for Yorkshire & Humberside, Godfrey Bloom, added: "It is difficult for a party which is growing as fast as UKIP to keep track of who has joined, as we have doubled our membership to over 20,000 in just over a year.

"Extremists such as Brayshaw and Edwards should be aware, however, that we will find them and expel them in the end. Their views will simply not be tolerated within UKIP."

But Mr Brayshaw said he had joined the party by invitation and had become the Vale of York chairman. As far as he knew he was still legally a member.

He said: "I received notification of expulsion via the website and have not received any formal expulsion notification.

"I think I am still a member until they arrange a tribunal under their own legislation.

"I am disappointed with the way they have handled it.

"They have decided on gut responses to protect themselves and broken an agreement we had."

Updated: 10:49 Friday, February 06, 2004