In the slime pit that is the leadership of the rapidly dying and decaying British National Party (BNP) the few remaining fascists have been squabbling for the top position. 

Nick Griffin — BNP fuehrer for the last 15 years — lost his position as cock of the dung pile in a nasty coup at a meeting of the BNP national council last weekend. 

He has been forced out as leader following a disastrous set of election results earlier this year, a massive split in the party and several other events including his personal bankruptcy. 

His sacking is the culmination of his growing unpopularity alongside the collapse of the BNP and the haemorrhaging of members into various splinter tiny, ultra-right and nazi groups. 

Yet more members have deserted the BNP to shelter under the gossamer-thin layer of respectability within Ukip. 

At the same time Griffin has lost a desperate battle with the English Defence League (EDL) for the hearts and minds of even more extreme and violent British racists. 

The few remaining BNP members needed little reminding that the BNP lost all of their MEPs and all but two of their local councillors in this year’s round of elections.

Although all right-thinking people will give a cheer of relief to see Griffin go, the new man at the helm may just be worse than the previous leader. 

Griffin will be replaced as party chairman by disgraced former Spennymoor, County Durham, teacher and convicted criminal Adam Walker. 

Amazingly Walker is just as disgusting and despicable a character as Griffin. 

Walker received a suspended jail sentence and a 12-month driving ban last year after chasing three small boys aged between 10 and 12 across a village green in his Land Rover. He verbally abused the terrified youngsters and when he had chased them away he slashed their abandoned bike tyres with a Stanley knife. 

A criminal record is clearly an essential qualification to lead the BNP. In 1998 Griffin was convicted of distributing material likely to incite racial hatred for which he received a suspended prison sentence.

Walker can top that. He has convictions for criminal damage, possessing a knife, threatening behaviour and dangerous driving as well as a drink-driving conviction.

In addition to the punishments given by the courts for the incident chasing little boys, Walker was also banned from teaching initially for two years although that was made a lifetime ban by Michael Gove. 

It was one of the few really useful and intelligent things Gove did before his incredible unpopularity led to his sacking by Cameron.

Walker’s appointment as head of the BNP marks the end of any attempts by the party to deny its inherent racism. The new leader has previously described Britain as a “multicultural shithole” which is under the process of “ethnic cleansing” and warned that the country faces many more Lee Rigby-style executions perpetrated by “tribal African” people.

Walker, a former computer skills teacher, appeared before a conduct committee in 2010 after he used his school laptop to call immigrants “savage animals” on the internet.

The deceitful Walker has also used the name and rank Corporal Fox and wears military fatigues to suggest he has a military past. In reality Walker has no connection with the military, just a need to impress those members of the fascist right who like their leaders to have been in uniform. 

So what is the state of BNP as a new dictator takes over? 

Just five years ago Griffin was claiming the party was on its way to huge successes. He made those claims as a guest on BBC’s Question Time and his appearance on that programme itself led to widespread criticism of the BBC. 

Five years ago, the BNP also achieved its best electoral success with leader Griffin and fellow fascist Andrew Brons elected to the European Parliament and more than 50 racist BNP councillors in town halls up and down the country. 

It was a high point for the BNP but a low point in British politics.

But it was not to last. Bitter infighting and financial skulduggery saw scores of key activists leaving the BNP. Further election results were disastrous with none of the earlier successes being repeated. 

Griffin’s mismanagement — with carefully chosen allies and even family members being given key BNP positions — also saw the party’s finances worsen and party discipline crumble.

Personal rivalries and infighting led to a number of key activists being sacked or deserting to join or form their own smaller far-right groups.

In 2012 even the party’s second MEP, Yorkshire-based history lecturer Andrew Brons, left the BNP to form the British Democratic Party (BDP). Virtually nothing has been heard of the BDP or Brons since.

Today it is doubtful if the BNP has even 3,000 active members, although Griffin claimed at least two or three times that number.

The BNP, now starved of what was a massive income stream from two MEPs, seems to only survive financially by appealing to a few well-heeled old fascists to leave the BNP property and cash in their wills. The appeals for legacies is one of the main messages on the BNP website. 

As the new fuehrer Walker takes his place at the helm of the BNP, the party itself seems in its last death throws. 

Sadly as so often in history, it is likely that another right-wing fascist grouping will crawl out from under a rock to take its shameful place in British political life.