When the British left is worried about getting its vote out, a standard tool in the box is the scare story about “the extreme right” (meaning not us but the racist parties), being about to break through. This is not generally convincing nationwide, but that does not stop it being tried. Before the general election the New Statesman published an absurd story/slur that 1 in 5 Britons could vote far right – which spintastic headline involved counting UKIP, Veritas, and the English Nationalist Party as the much the same thing as the BNP and the National Front.
Now they are at it again for the local elections. Margaret Hodge, an impeccably New Labour minister, is quoted more or less everywhere today. (Though, now the story is more or less everywhere, she seems to have resiled from it somewhat. Strange that, a highly experienced, high profile minister mis-speaking in a set-piece interview for a national.)
White working class voters are being “tempted” by the British National Party as they feel Labour is not listening to their concerns, a minister has said. Employment minister Margaret Hodge said the BNP could win seats in her Barking constituency in May’s council polls. She told the Sunday Telegraph many constituents were angry at the lack of housing and asylum seekers being housed in the area by inner London councils. The BNP said Labour were ignoring fears over “mass immigration” to the UK
You might think she is trying to have it both ways – and succeeding – by pretending to worry about xenophobia, while simultaneously acknowledging it, and suggesting it may be catered to. As anyone who had read the Labour general election manifesto might suppose it would be, what with half a page on e-borders, asylum and ID cards as immigration control.
But there is another possibility. The working-class voters of Barking and Dagenham might genuinely prefer the BNP. Not for its racist tendencies, but because they would rather vote for a less authoritarian variety of socialism than that offered by Mrs Hodge and her colleagues.
‘Less authoritarian’? How so? (That is a genuine question, not facetiousness!)
I heard the appalling Enver Hodge on the World This Weekend. She is another of those patronising women Cabinet ministers with voices which make you feel like you are a naughty primary school child being told off by teacher, but let that pass.
Her thesis seemed to be that since 1994 Barking had been transformed from a white working class area to a multi-ethnic one, and the white proles were upset because the asylum seekers were getting the council houses. It did not appear to occur to this Islingtonian Rosa Kleb that the white working class people of Barking don’t give a toss about council houses, rather they resent the way their white working class area has been transformed without a please or thank-you into another multi-kulti ethnic melting pot. They resent the idea that the area they live in has been transformed out of recognition in less than 15 years, without any of the Komissars of Diversity such as Tovarich Hodge ever stopping to think that the dear little proles might actually have an opinion on the matter.
Hodge seems slowly to be realising that the white working class of Barking have sussed that the Labour Party does not represent them or their kind any more, and they are looking for a party that does. Obviously the LibDems are out, unless you are a white working class rent boy, as are Dave’s Eco-dingbats: I don’t think too many people in Barking will be putting a sodding windmill on their roof anytime soon. If that only leaves them with the BNP, that tells us all we need to know about the contempt with which the political establishment holds the white working class people of Britain.
and moreover the contempt that the white working class have for the political establishment. Can you blame them?? Why just the working class by the way? I would have thought this might well be a common sentiment among more thatan one segment of the population. It is mine.
Simply because in this context Enver was talking about Barking and Dagenham, which is, or rather was, white working class.
The patronising bitch kept on talking about the “political class” as well, which she no doubt sees as a special caste of enlightened apparatchiks who will lead the proles away from their contemptible desires to live quiet lives amongst their own people, without the excitement and joy of multikulturalism.
Taxes keep going up, there are endless rules and regulations (both E.U. and local), the schools and hosptials are no good (in spite of vast increases in government spending).
People are angry, but their anger is dismissed as “racism”, and they are told that the only place for a vote, if they do not like what is going on, is the B.N.P.
Yes the “white working class” are patriotic and yes Labour the Lib Dems and Mr Cameron’s people urinate all over this nation’s traditions. But that does not mean that the “white working class” are people who hate other people on the grounds of the colour of their skin.
A Conservative party that could speak the language of ordinary people, and showed a real love of British traditions would do well.
It would not need to be led by someone with a working class background (although David Davis did get more support from the B.B.C. “Focus Groups” than Mr Cameron did – which is why the B.B.C. kept quiet about the findings), some people from middle class or even artistocratic backgrounds have shown how they love freedom and feel a part of the nation’s history (indeed this should be as easy for an aristocrat as a dustman).
But Mr Cameron shows no interest in restoring the traditional liberties of this nation. And for a person who boasts of his connection with ordinary people he comes across as if he was from the planet Mars.
I have know a lot of people who were as black as the Ace of Spades, but were a lot more British than Mr Cameron.
Sorry for the double.
It surely must be somewhat galling for Mistress Hodge that she represents the one social area that she always used to affect to despise, that of the prosperous white middle classes such as an area like Barking.
I would hope that all those articles from her latest rant would have been taken for exactly what they are – a babble of distortions from a true hypocrit. If this woman had been as vociferous in the matter of abused children in Islington as she is about the extreme right then perhaps there might be a lot less young adults requiring some serious therapy to get over the nightmare of their youth.
Julian Taylor – We shouldn’t fall into their trap of calling anything right of socialism “hard right”. Blair and this thugs have dragged the “center ground” onto the hard left.
So now the previous, normal centre ground is dubbed “the right”, and anything right of the old centre is dubbed “hard right”. Very sly and sleazy and accomplished with the eager help, of course, of the BBC.
As far as I can tell, people are generally sick and tired of being ignored. The basis of most political group-think seems to be “does this person represent a minority” if so, problem solved, your issue will be addressed; Racial and Religious Hatred Act anyone?
Since the politicians do not even try to conceal their contempt for the ‘oiks’, prefering to know far better than us on such matters as immigration, ID cards, Europe etc. As a non-minority, you cannot play the race card, ergo, you cannot embarass the government by screaming ‘bias’ every time you do not get your way, so it is safe to sideline you. Labour know that there is a certain class of people who will vote for them through thick and thin, as they know that all the turkey army created by Gordon ‘fat thief’ Brown will vote for them to keep their useless jobs.
I believe that the independent parties;UKIP, Veritas, English Parliament and yes the BNP, will make a good showing, if only because of the desperation of the ordinary people, sidelined in their own land.
They will certainly get my vote.
‘Less authoritarian’? How so?
I was being a little facetoius myself. It is a marginal question as a whole, I grant you, and the BNP language is harsher that that Labour politicians use to offer similar things. But on several issues they are considerably less authoritarian that New Labour, viz – Their foreign policy is non interventionist; they are opposed to state funding of political parties and other nationalisation of politics; they oppose the surveillance state, ID cards and politicised police; they are decentralisers; they would diminsh the state’s monopoly of force; they favour a constitutional mode of government.
None of which means anyone in their right mind should vote for them, of course. But apparently sane people do seem to believe it acceptable to vote New Labour, when by now it should be anathema to anyone who cares about liberty.
The district council where BNP hopes are highest is Kirklees, West Yorkshire:
Included in our line up to mention a few, we have, two former senior Conservatives, two former paratroopers, one former professional athlete, one former senior lecturer, one former lawyer, ten self-employed business men and women and two working mums.
All secret Hitler-worshippers, no doubt.
I always wonder why the BNP is considered extreme right, the left/right split being mainly about economics and on that they are more socialist than any of the main political parties. Authoritarian, definitely. Extreme, certainly. Right? Actually no.
chris – the BBC and other slithy toves think that Hitler was “hard right”. They seek to discredit the BNP or whatever by association, but they got the wrong association. They are so ignorant, they make one’s toes curl.
Shame they cannot just say ‘neo-nazi’ which is both more accurate, and more damning.
Perhaps because they might get sued, chris.
It is not all that accurate either: they are neither properly fascist nor neo-nazi. Sean Gabb in his article On Conversing with the British National Party argues quite convincingly for the term “white nationalist”.
Though most people posting here are likely to find themselves on the opposite end of almost any issue from the BNP (with the possible exception of a handful of questions already mentioned above), in general it is safe to say we’d like to see their views expressed and defeated in public. Calling someone a Nazi, who’s not, or leaving them undiscussable as ‘extreme right’, really doesn’t help that process.
Discussing the BNPs policies at elections, as opposed to useing them as a convenient bogey-man, might prove a sight more embarrassing to the thuggish likes of Blair and Blears.
Chris,
Problem with the ‘nazi’ jibe is that nazism involved two things at bottom; Unfaltering dedication to a charismatic leader, and state control/intervention in all aspects of private life.
New Labour anyone?
Discussing the BNPs policies at elections, as opposed to useing them as a convenient bogey-man, might prove a sight more embarrassing to the thuggish likes of Blair and Blears. That is why ZaNuLab has pre-empted discussion with a “scare” story.
The last thing they want is a discussion.
Nordia – Your first sentence baffles me, given the paragraphs that follow.
This could have been offensive to Muslims – if there had been any Muslims at the dinner – (Link)
In addition, given what the West has foolishly tolerated for the last five years, the joke was apt. A bit dated, but the old ones are the best, eh? As long as the Scottish Labour Party doesn’t get wind of it.
Just to make it clear… fascists like O’Halloran, Zeka or their alter ego Nordia will just get deleted, so don’t bother replying to them for the brief time their comments are up. This is private property and we reserve the right to axe anyone we think are tedious jackasses.
Sorry, Perry. I didn’t know Nordia was one. It springs off the page that Nordia is an anagram of Noraid.
Aarrrgghh! Caught in the spam trap again! Must be because I typed that name. In all innocence! It wasn’t me, gov!
It’s not *just* about economics. It’s perhaps not even mainly about economics.
In the generally accepted sense, “right” in political terms means a philosophy tending to favour nationalism, private industry, tradition ansd social conservatism. Nationalism may be extreme (e.g. in fascism) or petty (e.g. in UKIP). Economic policy generally favours private *ownership* of industry, but in more extreme forms (again, principally fascism) subordinates the privately owned industry to the demands of the state. Tradition is often fetishised and exaggerated, which is seen most classically in fascist Spain with the gross emphasis on Catholic tradition, which also reinforced a heavy social conservatism.
“Left,” on the other hand, tends to favour internationalism, common ownership of industry, novelty in place of tradition and the destruction of extant social structures.
In these terms, which seem to be accepted by pretty much everyone except libertarians, the Conservatives are soft right, UKIP more doctrinaire right and the BNP hard right. Labour is soft left, organisations like Respect, Socialist Workers Party, etc., hard left. The Liberal Democrats are soft left by virtue of social and international policy, but soft right on some of their economic ideas.
Descriptions of fascist and Nazi states as “left” are pretty much unique to libertarians. Certainly, I have never heard anyone else so describe them, and the libertarians I have spoken to have unanimously described Nazism as a “left” philosophy, despite its extreme nationalism and reliance on private industry.
EG
Ah, yes, the “novelty” of the hard left. In, oh, 1830, maybe. The only spectrum that makes any sense, as has been pointed out innumerable times, is that measuring the amount of control the collective exerts over individuals, “for their own good” of course. So the Nazis, Jesuits, Communists, Fascists, Islamists and the like are all together out on the far undesirable edge, where they belong. And Tony Blair is edging out there closer every day. The other side holds only the self-consciously lonely anarchists and nihilists. “Common ownership” and state ownership amount to the same thing – ownership by the elite with the guns.
No, the propensity of the left to favour novelty in place of tradition. Right regimes, even extreme right, generally favour things like family, church and traditional morality, whereas left generally distrust such things.
To libertarians, which rather makes the point that libertarians simply don’t speak the same language as pretty much everyone else. This may help explain why libertarianism isn’t taken seriously.
A distinctly left point of view, interestingly enough. Substitute money for guns and you have the Marxist complaint against capitalist organisation.
EG
Right regimes, even extreme right, generally favour things like family, church and traditional morality, whereas left generally distrust such things.
Indeed, which makes the God-fearing Blairites ‘right-wing’ in a sense that isn’t quite fathomed by the comedians who condemn them as such for the indirectness of their economic interventionism and insufficient torrents of taxpayers’ funds.
[Left and right are already confused and confusing terms, and you are quite correct in suggesting that libertarians make things worse for themselves by insisting on using them in an in-crowd sense that most other people can’t comprehend. For myself, I think we should be trying to point out the confusion ‘left’ and ‘right’ cause for other people, rather than adding to it. Complaining that the BBC should be changing the ordinary sense in which they use the word “right”, because they should get it, er, right by one’s own eccentric lights, is green-ink-brigade stuff. Much better complain that they shouldn’t use it because the meaning is incoherent and intrinsically biased, and thus contrary to their explicit duty of impartiality.]
There is a further possible explanation for BNP popularity, if it really exists. It is completely opposite from that of Hodge, and what I was hinting at in my envoi: that Blair’s ceaseless propagandising about “respect” and “security” has directly encouraged authoritarian viewpoints, and made respectable admitting admiration for the coarser populism of the BNP.
On the electoral PR element of Hodge’s thrust, you don’t think New Labour might have had advance notice of the Rowntree Foundation study that is leaked today? See here… Then notice that this is the same story two years ago.
I am sure your all aware of this, and other methods of defining political stances, but I like this one.
Pournelles Political Axes
Later
Gengee
No, I don’t think this is the problem. One of the major issues which probably does drive people to the likes of the BNP is the collapse over the past 40 to 50 years of what one might call “normal” methods of social discipline and cohesion, with the result that there is increasing disorder, violence and general low-level unpleasantness in society. There are, I think, various reasons for this, including excessive welfare, but it is too simplistic to blame the state for it all. Factors such as the decline of organised religion, weakening for multiple reasons of the family, decline of respect for authority and institutions, an increasingly selfish and materialistic society and the demand for instant gratification of petty desires are major influences, I think.
Most people don’t think terribly deeply about these things, but what they see are the practical manifestations: weak police, lenient sentencing, moral permissiveness, cultural relativism, hedonism and selfishness. One answer – by no means the only answer – to such problems is a more authoritarian government. One of the difficulties for the liberal of such a solution is that it quite often actually works. Being social animals, humans expect a degree of heirarchy in society and will accept a harder government with strong rules *provided* it is not too harsh and provided it solves the major problems society faces.
Couple that with the failure of multiculturalism and the perception (correct or not) that ethnic minorities get favoured status, and you do tend to get the sort of situation we saw in Germany in the 1920s – an identifiable minority or minorities is or are blamed for all society’s problems. In 1920s Germany it was Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, etc. Today it’s Moslems and immigrants. Organisations like the BNP can profit from this, since they offer simplistic solutions with the whiff of firm government and a promise to fix the complex problems the democratic parties either cannot fix or will not even talk about.
I think there is another problem here for libertarianism, which is that some of the things many libertarians advocate are widely seen as being the cause of the problems in the first place. Looser rules on drugs, alcohol, morality, etc., sometimes the asinine remark that there is no such thing as society, emphasis on materialism, and so forth. It’s said that libertarianism is not libertinism, but I think it’s fair to say that in the minds of many people, perhaps most, they are the same things.
I think a lot of the credit or blame for that, depending on your point of view, is due to Griffin. Whatever else he may be, he is superficially plausible – well educated, well dressed, rarely if ever seen consorting with skinhead thugs, patriotic after a fashion, and so on.
EG
I meant to add in my earlier comment that one needs to look a little deeper at Blair and his cohorts to understand where they are on the spectrum. Blair is essentially a one nation Conservative, but leads a nominally left-ish party – this makes it hard for the real Conservatives to oppose him since he shares many of their views, and it seems to easily baffle people who assume party philosophy and leader’s philosophy are the same thing.
EG
I’m sure you are right, EG, in much of that, and there is a sense in which Blair is a follower as well as a leader of authoritarian populism. I don’t agree that he’s a Conservative of any kind, though. Much more a populist revolutionary.) It’s their gap in the market. Which is another reason why New Labour resents the BNP, though telling the left scare-stories about them is a matter of strategic occasion each spring.
I think a lot of the credit or blame for that, depending on your point of view, is due to Griffin [Blair]. Whatever else he may be, he is superficially plausible – well educated, well dressed, rarely if ever seen consorting with skinhead [Donkey-jacketed] thugs, patriotic after a fashion, and so on.
Well, quite.
guy herbert writes:
“On the electoral PR element of Hodge’s thrust, you don’t think New Labour might have had advance notice of the Rowntree Foundation study that is leaked today? See here… Then notice that this is the same story two years ago.”
Precisely what I thought when I heard about the Rowntree Trust’s report, via the usual Leftist conduit, the BBC, this morning.
All neatly choreographed, as usual, with the BBC playing its assigned role (as was, of course, the still lamentable Sunday Telegraph).
On the issue of whether Hodge or Rowntree is correct, I fundamentally disagree with those trying to deny the plain truth, like the idiot from the deeply sinister ‘Operation Black Vote’ who told the BBC today: “…it’s nothing to do with black people”.
Sorry, chummy: the only sense in which you are correct is that it isn’t restricted to black people. It is a widespread, suppressed rage at the levels of immigration which have occurred in this country – notably since 1997, when, according to the Telegraph, over 1 million immigrants have arrived.
While the chattering classes drool over the increased variety of cuisine available in their neighbourhood restaurants and the newly cheap and plentiful home help, life in Barnsley or Dagenham, Luton or Blackburn, looks rather different and people are sick of it. It doesn’t matter whether the are right or not. They are just sick of it and there’s no point pretending otherwise.
Sooner or later, if you don’t listen to hoi polloi, and continually treat their wants with contempt, they have a nasty habit of rising up and chopping middle class heads off.
Ringside seats will be available.
Where do I apply for a ringside seat, G Cooper? Are they taking reservations? I will gladly pay over the odds for the front row. Can we bring our own Champagne into the stadium?
Verity wonders:
“Can we bring our own Champagne into the stadium?”
On balance, this might not be the best time to be caught drinking champagne…
I will admit to a sense of enjoyable anticipation, too. The smug, patronising attitude of the metropolitan elite has been stoking this fire for decades and I shan’t mind watching a few of them toasted by the flames they made.
But the meejah pundits have one thing wrong – and, as things go, it’s rather an important one.
On BBC R4’s World at One today, the talking heads were quite adamant that this is solely a ‘white working class’ phenomenon. It is not. Indeed, one of the things that has surprised me in recent months has been how widespread this anger is – and by no means is it confined to ‘working people’ (whatever that means).
Once you start listening to opinions from beyond the charmed circle of media Londoners, things change. In the course of my work I do a lot of this and I have been surprised by some of the views expressed by professionals and other ‘middle class’ types.
The reason the liberal elite believes the reaction to is confined to the ‘working class’ is because they cannot imagine doctors, solicitors and bankers holding such ‘reactionary’ views.
If they ever stepped outside of their circle, they would find that they are wrong.
I suppose I should add (though it is tiresome to have to do so) that I am not advocating the backlash: I am simply saying it is on the way and that I believe the political classes will richly deserve everything they get, for the contempt with which they have treated the electorate.
This is a genuine question as I don’t know enough about it. Doesn’t the BNP have any black members or officers? Surely it is in the interests of third and fourth generation black Brits to have the social cohesion, self-governance (as opposed to EU’s disastrous governance) and the rule of law? Surely massive, unlimited immigration has unravelled some of the neighbourhoods they live in, as well?
I’m sure we all predict a massive hemorrhage in votes for ZaNuLab and a huge rise in votes for the BNP and UKIP. And about time New Labour and Blue Labour got a kick in the backside. Hopefully, it will lead to their demise.
Stephen Pollard on his webside today (Link) predicts that Labour and Tony Blair are in major trouble and that now that “Mr Blair is helping the police with their enquiries”, the end may come fairly swiftly.
The question about black membership of BNP was genuine, if anyone knows.
The question about black membership of BNP was genuine, if anyone knows.
Try here
EG
Thank you, Euan Gray. Interesting. Well, at least Nick Griffin is trying to modernise it. They should welcome Indians and black people (and Chinese, but Chinese are really not political people; they prefer business). By widening the net, they could get some clever and charismatic people on their side and would erase the “racist” accusation – which I am sure puts off hundreds of thousands of voters who might consider joining them.
I think Nick Griffin has the right idea.
It is clear that the BNP has its fair share of blockheads. If they think that a Greek-Armenian won’t be aware of the perils of militant Islam they don’t know very much do they?
Mind you, Labour also has its blockhead community. I loved the idea of the MP in Dudley organising a festival of diversity as a way of heading off the BNP. It should add a couple of thousand to their vote I’d say.
Really though, given the absurd social authoritarianism of NuLabor, I can’t see why a white working class person would feel any problem voting for the BNP, which might be just as authoritarian, but at least claims to be on their side, unlike NuLab, which loves anyone who is not British and does not work for a living.
What Hodge is not saying that most of those who BNP are in fact ex-Labour not ex-Tory as Labour-ites are so keen to say. Just remember this little out-burst next time some Labourite starts blithering on about “racist Tories”.
I hope you’re being naive…
Although the BNP advocates policies which many around here might agree with – withdrawal from Europe, abolition of national income tax, abolition of the BBC licence fee, less bureaucratic policing, etc. – they are also a fundamentally white separatist party. They want separate schools for ethnic minorities, “Faith and Folk” schools, taxpayer funded voluntary repatriation, legal prohibitions on cultural integration in schools a la Section 28, and so very tediously on. Their economics are capitalism in the service of the state, which is the economic philosophy behind Fascism and, interestingly enough, the EU.
EG
Well, Euan Gray, with whom I do not normally engage, the piece you sent me said Nick Griffin had tried to push through a reform for other races to join. If the BNP does well at the local elections, that success will give him more authority in the party and he may still be able to get his reforms through.
I am sure black Brits are suffering equally and I am sure they want a solution. If they were made to feel welcome and equal partners, many would join (bringing their membership fees and their skills and talents. I am not certain that Indians would join because most don’t live in areas affected by immigration.
As an aside, I read, around seven or eight years ago, of a black American who applied to join the KKK. They accepted him. It is a strange world.
Well, Verity, with whom I do not often agree…
It’s quite possible that a good showing for the BNP in the local elections could cement Griffin’s grip on the party, and this *could* result in progress to a less overtly racist organisation. It’s worth noting in that regard that the relative electoral share and absolute vote of the BNP has increased steadily under Griffin’s leadership – 192,746 in 2005, compared to 553 in 1987 and 7,631 in 1992, numbers found on Wikipedia’s page for the BNP.
It’s still a fascist party, though. What people often forget about Fascism (with a capital F) is that it is in fact a more or less coherent philosophy and does not necessarily depend on racism, although the overt ultra-nationalism underpinning its social ideas does tend to result in at best racist overtones. The other annoying thing about it is that its economics actually work since they are essentially capitalist.
Marxism is clearly a busted flush, libertarianism and classical liberalism an irrelevant fringe, democracy increasingly in question and the main established parties bereft of solutions to the many problems facing the west in general and in this case Britain. In circumstances such as these, extremists tend to benefit, the more so when they can persuade people that really they’re sensible and not at all thugs.
Who knows? We might see Griffin transform the BNP into a more or less electorally acceptable Fascist party, which may well gain real influence if democratic solutions don’t work or aren’t promoted. I personally don’t think this will actually happen and nor do I think it is particularly desirable, but there is a definite possibility.
Interesting times, as they say.
EG
I think Griffin sees clearly that there is no reason to even contemplate excluding other Brits who are potential allies and share the concerns of his party. Black people and Indians value social cohesion too, and they too are watching helplessly as everything is being turned upside before their eyes, at their expense and without their permission.
Probably many of the members of the BNP aren’t really racist – they are destabilised, defensive and angry. If Nick Griffin gets the numbers up in the local elections, that will strengthen his hand to push his reforms through.
Thanks! It’s been a long time since I read something on this site that made me laugh so hard.
Why is that funny, Ken Hagler?
Euan,
We might see Griffin transform the BNP into a more or less electorally acceptable Fascist party…
I fear we already have one: New Labour.
In the past I’ve called Blairism “soft fascism” because for the strident nationalism, we get a strident pseudo-internationalsm, and for the intoxication with in violence from the point of view of attacker, we get intoxication with violence from the point of view of aggrieved victim. But the corporatist economics, the contempt for contrary opinion, the deliberate appeal to unreason and the crowd, the aggression, the reinforcement of common platitude… are closer to fascism than anything else.
Very well put, Guy Herbert.
guy hervert writes:
“But the corporatist economics, the contempt for contrary opinion, the deliberate appeal to unreason and the crowd, the aggression, the reinforcement of common platitude… are closer to fascism than anything else.”
To which list you might well have added ‘relentless use of lies, distortions and the usual tools of Goebbels-style propaganda.’
I’m not even sure that ZaNuLabour fascism is all that soft, either. There might be fewer teeth scattered down dark alleyways, but a lot of careers have been ruined by the ruthless use of lies and spin.
Did anyone go to Stephen Pollard’s blog that I linked to? He thinks Blair’s cash for peerages may turn into Watergate. Watergate began with a minor, hardly newsworthy, break-in to a Democratic Party office and ended with the resignation of the president of the United States. It got investigated and investigated and investigated …
Stephen Pollard appears to think, with an amount of relish which, while keen, hardly matches my own, that this process may happen in London.
Verity writes:
“Stephen Pollard appears to think, with an amount of relish which, while keen, hardly matches my own, that this process may happen in London.”
I fear it’s wishful thinking. Few things would give me greater pleasure than to see Bliar hauled away in handcuffs (and most of the things that would involve some other kind of fate for the sick little creep), but I can’t see it happening.
I am not certain that Indians would join because most don’t live in areas affected by immigration.
Thanks! It’s been a long time since I read something on this site that made me laugh so hard.
It does sound rather tongue in cheek Verity.
In case you’re actually serious try this for an explanation: Indians in England are immigrants. Where they live now, English ( white ) people would have lived before. Therefore they themselves have affected the area they live in by settling there.
One might as well say that the city of Leicester has been unaffected by immigration!
Andy
GCooper, I don’t know … Stephen Pollard does a pretty classy political two-step … certainly, intense wishful thinking was part of my post, but Pollard is seasoned and he seems to think this could go further.
Unpleasantness. It’s a start.
Andy – Thank you; I am aware that Indians are immigrants.
“Where they live now, English ( white ) people would have lived before.” I meant no offence. I’ve been out of England for five years. And many years before that before I came back briefly and loathed it.
I’m sorry, Andy. That is sincere if I caused offence through ignorance. I do not think that the indigenes of any country should be displaced by incomers.
Perhaps I’m misremembering, or it was incorrect, but didn’t someone say you’d moved to Mexico?
Blair is essentially a one nation Conservative,, writes Euan.
Very astute observation, perhaps more astute than Euan realises. Disraeli has a lot in common with Blair, not least the phoneyness, willingness to jump on any bandwagon going, tactical genius, etc., etc. It is not without reason that Maggie preferred to distance herself from the Disraeli legacy, which has been greatly over-rated, and preferred the accomplishing Robert Peel’s brand of liberal, pro-market Toryism instead.
The BNP already has a Jewish woman councillor in Essex, it stood a half-Turk in the last general election and there is now a row over a gent named Sharif Abdel Gawad being put up for a council in Yorkshire.
Griffin is obviously trying to wean the party’s old guard off ethnic definitions of Britishness on to cultural and religious Tebbit-type tests. His recent writings establish him as a franker, more articulate observer of current political currents than Blair, Cameron or Campbell.
The BNP opposes mob-handed immigration from the backward parts of the EU as much as it does influxes from Pakistan and Bangladesh. It may notice in future that today’s soppy liberal brand of Roman Catholicism is as potentially subversive of nation-state integrity as Islamism: the Church is a much stronger, more unified and durable supranational movement, after all, and there is a residual no-Popery feeling in some parts of Britain which the BNP could exploit if papal pronouncements about social justice were portrayed as endorsing floods of Polish plumbers in Cheshire.
The BNP could also cash in on the more isolationist mood which has overtaken Britain (and the USA) in the wake of the failure of the Iraqi invasion. The argument that British squaddies would be better employed defending our ports and airports from infiltrators goes down well on the depressed council estates which send their sons 3,000 miles to keep Muslim factions from each others’ throats.
Hostility to being buggered about by the State could be exploited too. The BNP is against ID cards and wants a lot more local devolution of decision-making with referenda. its programme sounds more like Switzerland than Mussolini’s Italy.
Of course, you can (and the old parties and their lackey media will) claim that all this is just a smokescreen, and that the brown shirts and jack boots would come out as soon as the BNP won office. But nostalgia and paranoia do not answer the case. All the signs are that Griffin’s BNP is filling a much bigger gap than Oswald Mosely: it is proposing to be what the Conservatives were before they went berserk in Mrs Thatcher’s poll tax-besotted decadence.
Above all the BNP are being tempered in the fire of adversity. Their 10,000 members face obloquy in the press, dismissal from their jobs on phoney pretexts, endless scorn, threats of imprisonment– for being, as they see it, patriotic Britons who have not been bowled over by the trendiness of the past 20-30 years.
If they can come through this and force the establishment, by sheer electoral success, to take them seriously, there is no telling how far they may go now that the Cameroonies have sputtered out like a damp squib. An awful lot of right-wing Tories are just waiting for the tipping point into semi-respectability to make the jump. It is winning seats that does that.
That is probably because that is exactly what would happen. They are just collectivist facists with all the irrationality that implies and no amount of PR can change that. You would have to be pretty gullable to fall for the notion of a kinder gentler fascist party.
EG,
I disagree with your view of “fascist spain”.
El Frente Nacional politics wasn’t fascism. It was a broad church coalition including Falange (fascists). The religious element was to satisfy the Carlists not Falange.
John K, near the top, says:
Spot on. I’m just surprised it took so long to happen.
Under Franco, Spain was subject to a system of government and governing philosophy that cannot reasonably be described as anything other than fascist. Exactly why this was and who it was intended to satisfy is not relevant – the result was a fascist government.
EG
Verity, GCooper
In connection with a point you made above – my mate Richard, the son of Jamaican immigrants has recently exploded in rage on a number of occasions. I fear for his mental health. He started to do it out of the blue. Although he’s not as politically minded as some, he stays aware of events and you can usually have a good chat with him about them. In the past he’s voted Labour, I think it has as much to do with him being the son of black immigrants and doing what’s expected, rather than for policy reasons. You know what I mean.
Anyway, in the last few months he’s exploded on a number of occasions about Labour, the Tories and immigration. I mean really lost it. If he were white, bystanders would have him down as a BNPer. If the BNP were nationalist as opposed to being white nationalist historicallly, he’d be voting for them. Remember, this is a black Londoner who has come to the realisation that he and everyone else like him, black and white, have been completely screwed over by Labour and the metropolitan elite. He wants an outlet for the anger but can’t find one. He would’ve voted Conservative but realises there’s no point. A Lib Dem vote is an absurdity.
This isn’t Alf Garnett bemoaning the fact he’s been made to feel like a foreigner in his own land, but a black son of Jamaicans. His frustration mirrors that of many others I’ve seen building over the years. I have no doubt now that the biggest constituency out there consists of people of many different backgrounds who have been spat on by the likes of Hodge for year after year and decade after decade. GCooper puts it well enough above. Save a ringside seat for me.
Pete_London – Black working class Brits are in exactly the same boat as white working class Brits – screwed over by the self-regarding, smug, deeply stupid, venal metropolitan elite one-worlers. Nick Griffin is obviously aware of this but he’s got to convince the Stone-Agers and bigots in his own party of who the real enemy is: utterly destructive and evil people of their own colour. I would not sit down at the table with David Cameron or Tony Blair, David Blunkett, Jack Straw or any of the Margarets and Tessas and Patricias in the cabinet. Electoral success, which he will have in May, will strengthen his hand.
I predict by this time next year, membership will have been opened to black Brits and in the next election, there will be black Brits selected as PPCs. Mark my words.
Ken Hagler – yes “someone” – me – said I live in Mexico. We are not exactly swarming all over the country and destroying Mexican customs and way of life. There’s probably not more than four or five million of us in a country of 100m. As I said, we have to prove once a year that we can support ourselves financially. We do have some tiny effect on the economy, I suppose, because we bring money in and spend it, but we are not allowed to take part in the political process. But the biggest expat effect on the economy is through NAFTA and all the American factories and businesses that have been set up here and run along American lines. They have created jobs for tens of thousands of workers.
Barking voters aren’t “Barking” mad but merely becoming savvy and discerning socialists. Note I didn’t say discriminating socialists. God forbid that they might be discriminating, so not PC!
The old Comintern bugbear of the “far right” never goes amiss in the lexicon of the left. Horse frightening is just the ticket when the truth is a little too close for comfort. Don’t talk about all that immigration and welfare queue jumping and how none of it is exactly loved by those inner city old Labour supporters. Water runs uphill and the Easter Bunny will always run faster than Alice and never miss his appointment.
Duplicitous drivel is just so needed to avoid discussing the real concerns of the electorate. Hope springs eternal that the world will be just fine so long as we don’t actually do anything or offend anyone.