The Green Party was forced to admit today that two of its former leading lights were on a list of British National Party members leaked on the internet this week.

The party conceded this morning that Keith Bessant, a two-time parliamentary candidate, and Rev John Stanton, a former local party chairman, had defected to the far-right nationalist organisation.

Doctors, prison officers, teachers and a Buckingham Palace servant were among the 12,000 names published in a blog post on Sunday. The leak has caused recriminations within the party and a nationwide search for members working secretly in the public services.

A spokesman for the Green Party claimed today that Mr Bessant was in the BNP not because he was a racist but because he felt they had better environmental policies.

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“He formed the opinion that the BNP climate change policy was more radical than ours,” he said.

“He didn’t hold any racist or bigoted views and I believe he left after a couple of weeks. It’s amazing how little people know about the BNP.”

Mr Bessant, who ran for MP as a Green Party candidate in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in 2001 and 2005, claims to have left the BNP soon after joining.

The party also confirmed that a church minister, the Rev John Stanton, from Rochford, Essex, whose name also appeared on the membership list, was once a local Green Party chairman.

Rev Stanton, 76, said he joined the BNP because of immigration concerns. “I am not a racist,” he said. “It’s Islam I don’t like, not Muslims. If a Muslim family moved next door, I would treat them like any other family.”

Mr Stanton, who heads the Rock Dene Christian Fellowship, a house church, at his home with a congregation of 22, also spent four years as a Liberal Democrat councillor in Rochford in the 1990s and five years as a Conservative in the 1970s.

The father-of-four also spent some time as a UKIP member before joining the BNP in 2007.

“I’m dismayed that the list got into the public domain, but these things happen when people get disgruntled,” he said.

Mr Stanton said he had received an abusive phone call since the list emerged and Essex Police have visited him to explain how to deal with aggressive behaviour from members of the public.

A policeman in Liverpool was facing the sack today after the police watchdog ruled that the Merseyside force could take robust action against Steve Bettley if he was found to be a genuine member of the BNP.

Since 2004, the police bans membership of the BNP because of its perceived racist views. A spokesman said: “Whether Merseyside PC Steve Bettley was, or is, a member of BNP is subject to an ongoing inquiry.

“Chief Constable Bernard Hogan-Howe has reiterated our position that membership of the BNP is totally incompatible with the duties and values of Merseyside Police. We will not accept a police officer or police staff being a member of the BNP.”

While police monitored the home of Mr Bettley, Rod Lucas, a radio DJ, was hearing that he would be offered no more work by TalkSport radio.

Lucas claimed last night that he had only joined the party as part of his investigative journalism.

Repercussions for the right-wing party continued this morning when The Times revealed that the BNP’s second-in-command and party spokesman was employed at public expense by the Greater London Authority.

Simon Darby admitted that he regularly used his City Hall office to work in his capacity as the BNP’s media spokesman, a position he used to issue a thinly veiled threat to the perpetrators as news emerged of the leaked membership list.

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