May 14, 2009

Voters must hear the truth about the BNP before it's too late

There is nothing British about suggesting to a black child who was born in Britain and loves this country that he's not welcome here, writes Tim Montgomerie.

I have long believed that the best way to defeat the British National Party and other extremist groups was to deny them the oxygen of publicity. That belief was shaken when I talked to two people in Salisbury cathedral after Sunday morning worship. We were having a pleasant conversation about the state of the nation and they suddenly mentioned that they'd be voting BNP. My jaw dropped.

It quickly became clear that they had no idea what the BNP really stood for. They said that they liked its patriotism and opposition to political sleaze. They wanted to register a protest vote. I asked if they knew about the Nazi ideology that many BNP activists followed. I asked if they knew about the party's preference for an all-white Britain. They didn't. They were horrified and promised to find a different vehicle for their protest vote.

The no-oxygen strategy was successful only when the route to publicity was more or less monopolised by a few TV channels and national newspapers. Without any attention from the mainstream media, and because Conservative governments pursued firm immigration policies in the 1980s and 1990s, support for racist parties declined.

It's different today. The most popular political party website in Britain is owned by the BNP. Its most watched YouTube videos receive many times more views than any videos put out by David Cameron. The ether is buzzing with pictures of Gap-style line-ups of young BNP supporters attempting to normalise their party's brand. Without a hint of embarrassment their leader, Nick Griffin, even talks about learning the lessons from Barack Obama's online campaigning.

This use of the internet has contributed to a comeback by the party. It has been winning council contests and, helped by the introduction of proportional representation, it won a seat on the Greater London Authority. Now, most experts expect the PR electoral system to help them win seats in the European Parliament on June 4. If victories are achieved, it will be the biggest story of the election and Britain will no longer be able to proudly say it has kept fascists out of high office. The BNP will have a new platform – funded generously by European taxpayers. Support for the extremists has grown because of failures by the Labour Government on jobs, welfare, housing and immigration. Its support has also grown because of cosmetic change. The skinheads and boots are gone. Suits are in.

But by not contesting the ground we are giving them a walk-over on the critical playing fields of the internet. That's why I'm supporting a new online campaign to expose the party's true beliefs. The Left already have websites that target the BNP. NothingBritish.com is the first attempt by the centre-Right to offer a critique. It's a very focused campaign at present, but we hope it will grow into a very substantial resource that will ensure all moderate opinion shuns the BNP.

There will be those who argue that this campaign gives the racists the attention they crave. However, they already have got the attention. The BNP wants to define itself. It's vital that decent, mainstream Britons define it instead – before it's too late.

The main difference between the BNP and other parties is their determination to deport, one way or another, the non-white population of the UK. Most Britons want to reassert control of our borders. They want fairer allocation of housing. They want more jobs. The BNP wants you to think it shares those aspirations. But they are not the party's core motivation, which is still a belief in a largely all-white Britain.

There is nothing British about suggesting to a black child who was born in Britain and loves this country that he's not welcome here. There's nothing British about the BNP's core beliefs.

Tim Montgomerie is part of the NothingBritish.com campaign against the BNP.

Telegraph

7 comments:

Peter B said...

A surprisingly good article from the Telegraph and the site it leads to is good, though small at the moment. There's a petition on there that needs a bit of support though (I see you've signed it Antifascist).

Anonymous said...

The BNP claim that Churchill would've been a great BNP man but Churchill believed in a "United States of Europe".

Here's Churchill's words in this link.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-53461484.html

A Tory said...

Excellent.

Not A Tory said...

Superb article which gets straight to the heart of why 'No Platform' is no longer an effective strategy. In Youtube they have a free multimedia campaigning tool that can reach millions. I fear it's too late to stop them gaining MEPs, but it's clear that they can no longer be safely ignored - a lesson we all must learn in time for next year's elections.

dindo dugg said...

The Nazi sympathies, the Holocaust demial, the links to the KKK and SS veterans groups, the criminal records and activity, the alleged kiddy fiddling, the cult Odinism and religious brainwashing of young BNP members at outward-bound training camps, the lies on election leaflets, the connections to Combat 18 football thugs, and the blatant hypocrisy of the BNP should be made public knowledge to anybody even thinking of making a protest vote by voting for such a hardline neo-fascist party.

DisgustedOfTunbridgeWells said...

"The Nazi sympathies, the Holocaust demial, the links to the KKK and SS veterans groups, the criminal records and activity, the alleged kiddy fiddling, the cult Odinism and religious brainwashing of young BNP members at outward-bound training camps, the lies on election leaflets, the connections to Combat 18 football thugs, and the blatant hypocrisy of the BNP should be made public knowledge to anybody even thinking of making a protest vote by voting for such a hardline neo-fascist party."

Good luck getting anyone outside the Granuaid to point any of that out.

Barbara Suzuki said...

A good article that sums up why BNP policies should be more discussed in the mainstream media. This introduces not so much the oxygen of publicity but rather the cold light of day, clarifying the brutish nonsense at the core of BNP ideology.