July 04, 2008

Worrying rise of the BNP

Last week’s by-election in Henley was a depressing one. It’s not just that Labour polled an abysmal three per cent, but that they were beaten into fifth place by the BNP. Let me just re-iterate that fact: more people voted for the British National Party than the governing party of this country. It takes a while to sink in.

Labour’s woes and the Prime Minister’s growing unpopularity aside, it was still a worrying result, as shocking as it was unexpected, the reverberations of which are still being felt today.

If such a result can happen in the rural idyll of Henley-on-Thames, a picture perfect village as far removed from the desolation and deprivation of the scummiest inner city cess pits as one can imagine, it can happen anywhere.

Though the Henley result was their biggest, most high-profile impact on a Parliamentary election so far, the BNP have made gains in local council elections, increasing their vote every year since 2005. The BNP currently have more than 50 councillors nationally, 13 of which are in London - 12 in Barking and Dagenham and one in Redbridge - with a further four in neighbouring Epping Forest in Essex.

Other towns where they have enjoyed electoral success include Burnley (four councillors), Bradford (two) and Kirklees (two) in the North, and Sandwell (two) and Stoke-on-Trent (nine) in the Midlands. And in May, they scored their biggest win to date, claiming a seat on the London Assembly via the top-up lists by just 10,000 votes. As ever, turnout was key, and if just a handful more Londoners had voted, for whatever party, they wouldn’t have got in.

So how can they be beaten? Getting more people to vote is definitely one way, as is allaying people’s fears on immigration, but the key is to confront these vile racists head on and demolish the lies and propaganda they spread.

Ceding ground to them and trying to sound ever more right-wing, as some in the Government have been doing, is not the answer. Margaret Hodge, a third-rate backbencher and Member of Parliament for Barking, proposes just this strategy, and it’s resulted in a dozen BNP councillors in her own back yard.

Another Labour MP, Immigration Minister Liam Byrne, has gone even further; last month unveiling plans to fine and possibly jail British Asians if their relatives from India and Pakistan overstay their visas, having made them pay a cash bond in advance of their arrival.

“What we want to do is have a new system but punish people if things go wrong,” he said, referring to people coming over for family weddings and then disappearing. “We want to make sure that we can just hit people and hit people hard if their family member breaks the rules.”

When French resistance fighters killed German soldiers the Gestapo would round up innocent villagers and shoot ten of them for every dead German soldier. It was called “collective punishment”; this policy works on the same principle.

No, the way to see off the threat of the BNP is to allay voters’ fears over everything from crime to youth provision to the health service to education, and take on and destroy the racists’ propaganda that immigrants are responsible for all this nation’s ills. Immigration into this country has resulted in a net benefit to the British economy. Fact. The National Health Service would collapse without immigrants. Fact. Millions of British jobs depend on foreign trade and investment. Fact. The list goes on and on…

They may no longer be as overtly racist as they once were, and they may have swapped their black-shits and skinheads for tailored suits and slick haircuts, but scratch the surface and they’re the same nasty, repugnant filth they always were.

They may try to divide us, but united we shall remain.

When the time comes, get out and vote, for a wasted vote is as bad as a BNP one.

Inside Desi

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

John Howell secured 19,796 votes, 56.95%, and a 3.46% increase on the Conservatives' general election share in 2005. Stephen Kearney, the Liberal Democrat candidate, won 9,680, a 27.85%, share and a 1.84% increase on the Liberal Democrats' 1997 result. The Greens came third with 1,321 votes, (3.80%) and the BNP fourth with 1,243 (3.58%).

Can we please put this into perspective The BNP managed 3.58% of the vote.

Lets not big up this pathetic performance or give it any mileage.

The issue here is the disaster for labour not an insignificant 3.5% BY A FRINGE PARTY ON THE VERGE OF BANKRUPTCY

Anonymous said...

Well here's a reason to be cheerful.

Anonymous said...

I always wander why the media wants to "big up" a failing BNP???

In this case, presumably, it's just for the sake of making news (i hope!)

Anonymous said...

in response to a very public.....thanks for the link, yes you are right and so is irishtony, we do need to put things into perspective.....but also bear in mind that there is a great need for major political parties to get out into the community which is what the bnp are doing or at least 3 of them are in b & d.

m. hodge mp for barking is paying lip service to this approach by her tea and biscuits events on the few hours a week usually on a friday that she is in the borough, this is not enough.....but the tide is turning, community groups are now finding their local councillor is very accessible, turning up at meetings, fun days, door knocking is going on conversations in pubs and shops, doctors surgeries......the work has started...but more needs to be done....and in b & d external support is needed.

the labour group agreed 2 years ago to work in partnership with Searchlight, probably the best decision it ever made, but that it appears does not sit well with Weyman Bennett.

In the link provided by a very public......it refers to Weyman turning up last weekend on the Sunday in fact, he was well late, and spoiling for a fight......he claimed that his team had already done masses of leafletting in the ward, something we know to be untrue.....he only had about half a box of bog standard leaflets with him, and i dont think that the few members from uaf who did turn up were very happy with him.

the work that we all know needs to be done cannot achieve its desired result unless we all work together, we need to recognise each others differences but set them aside to win.

tulip

Anonymous said...

Spot on again Irish Tony - 3.58% of the vote for the BNP in Henley.

NOT 13.58%, NOT 23.58%, NOT 33.58%.

3.58%.

It seems that some people are intent on "talking up" the BNP threat, and I bet Griffin loves it ....

"Look, another article saying how politically significant this ragbag party of mine has become, and so how important I am" [preen, preen]

Anonymous said...

Griffin's like a woodlice, crawling around feeding off fetid scraps.

Please, bored, self-important newspaper editors, don't concoct BNP growing in importance stories when they remain an insignificance!!!

Anonymous said...

Have members of the press been smoking Lee Barnes wacky backy, allowing them to lose all sense of normality.

Anonymous said...

One of the worst, most absurd pro-BNP stories illustrating that Nick Griffin is now a part of the political establishment, comes from Thames Today: -

http://www.thametoday.co.uk/news/BNP-are-building-support.4257925.jp

They stupidly make a big issue o the FACT that someone called the BNP Nazis.

THE BNP ARE NAZIS.

Have journalists been told by Simon Darby's MI5 to hype up the BNP or else???

Anonymous said...

The stupid idiot who wrote the most sickening pro-Griffinite Thames article is a half-witted journalist called Harriet Snookes. I suggest concerned Londoners send her an e-mail, asking her why she is playing up the BNP, when they only received 3.5% of the poll?

You can ring Tring reporter Harriet Snookes on 01296 619773 or email harriet.snookes@bucksherald.co.uk

REMEMBER: BE FRIENDLY AND POLITE. BEING NASTY AND ABUSIVE HELPS NO-ONE, AND SUCH JOURNALISTS ARE SURELY IGNORANT RATHER THAN RACIST!

Anonymous said...

MS Snookes cocks a snook at logic and common sense.

What a dork!!!

Unless MI5 are pulling the strings. lol

Anonymous said...

That crazy london journalist is announcing that the BNP will be organising public meetings in the bear future.

Fascist loser mouthpiece???

Shamik Das said...

Thanks for all your comments!

It may only be 3.58%, but it's still 3.58% too many.

The real threat will come not in the general election in two years but in local council elections and by-elections up and down the country.

Turnout in local elections is notoriously low. We need to get people out to vote.

Lets not get complacent. Remember, Hitler was elected once.