Former BNP leader Nick Griffin barred from Hungary

Nick Griffin, the former leader of the British National Party has been barred from Hungary, where he was planning to set up home.

Griffin, 58, from Llanerfyl, has been declared a “persona non grata” by the Hungarian Government and issued with entry and residency bans.

Earlier this year Mr Griffin, who headed the BNP from 1999 to 2014, said he planned to move to Hungary as a "refugee" from western Europe, praising the hardline policies of populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban against asylum-seekers.

He said: "I hope that Hungary, the Hungarian government, the Hungarian people, will welcome people who are genuine refugees from western Europe but keep out the liberals who have brought western Europe to this state in the first place."

Tweeting about the ban on Friday Mr Griffin said he was in the process of appealing and also said he was now banned from New Zealand, Australia, Ukraine, Canada and possibly Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Griffin made the comments during a Budapest visit for a "Stop Operation Soros!" conference, aimed at halting the pro-refugee activities of Hungarian-born US financier George Soros's Open Society Foundation.

The decision to bar the 58-year-old Griffin, was taken on the advice of Hungary’s counter-terror police unit TEK, the ministry said in a statement.

“The British national John Nicholas Griffin is a persona non grata in Hungary who has been issued with entry and residency bans,” it said.

Griffin, who lost his seat as a member of the European Parliament in 2014 and was then booted from his position as leader of the British National Party (BNP) only a few months later, had been leading the call for like-minded ‘nationalists’ to abandon their homes and their struggles in Western Europe ever since.

Griffin was declared bankrupt in 2014.