April 23, 2010

Five points on the BNP’s 2010 manifesto

Despite the BNP’s proud boast to have produced “one of the most comprehensive and detailed manifestos in its history” there’s very little new in the document they’ve just released.

Some central trends that jump out at first glance:
  • They remain the same race based party they always have been. The BNP is keen to emphasise that they would expel illegal immigrants, but reading between the lines there is obviously a much more sinister end goal. There is an ominous mention of a “long-term resettlement programme” for third world nationals (pg 20), the clause-28 proscription against “the promotion of racial integration in schools and the media” (pg 22) remains party policy, and there is an even a suggestion that the BNP regards all immigration since 1997 as invalid, needing to be ‘reviewed’ (pg 16).
  • No compromise with the electorate*. We expected the BNP to significantly row back their more extreme, absurd and authoritarian policies in this manifesto in order to try and appear more moderate to the general public. Instead, the vast majority of their policies remain the same. The BNP still want to legalise guns (pg 41). They still want to censor popular television shows (pg 45). The media is still to be put under greater “democratic … control” (pg 43) and the death penalty still brought back (pg 48). There’s even a new one – the BNP wants to create a new penal colony for the worst criminals on the island of South Gerorgia (pg 48).
  • The BNP is trying to excite mass anti Muslim bigotry. During this election campaign one of the BNP’s central strategies has been an attempt to cynically take advantage of the fear of extremist Islamic terrorism. In this manifesto, the BNP seem to cross the line into a grotesque, racist and sectarian full out war on Islam, completely at odds with any sense of traditional British tolerance and liberalism. Not only will the burka and further mosques be banned but as “Islam is by its very nature incompatible with… western democracy… Islamic immigration [must] be halted and reversed” (pg 30).
  • The manifesto contradicts itself extensively. Is the money for foreign aid to be used for paying for the BNP’s resettlement programme (pg 21) or paying off the national debt? (pg 68) Or is it for ending poverty in Britain? (pg 64) Or perhaps paying for the NHS? (pg 52) If science is so important to the nation (pg 56), then how come the BNP wants to cut off the industries of the future such as biotech or green energy? GM crops are banned on pg 59 and wind farms stopped on pg 62
  • None of the numbers add up. The BNP seem to believe that regularly sprinkling in the magic words “revenue neutral” is enough to make their sums work. But with expensive new plans for schools, hospitals and the military, and commitments to cut income tax, council tax, VAT, student loans, car and fuel tax (oh, and the deficit), its not quite clear how this is supposed to work. Despite what the BNP might have you believe, cutting foreign aid will not plug all budget holes – we’ll be looking in more details at their specific numbers later.
In short, the BNP’s platform remains roughly where it was yesterday, with no change from the authoritarian and racialist ideology that puts ordinary families last.

* Or the mainstream. Or sanity.

Nothing British

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

"the BNP wants to create a new penal colony for the worst criminals on the island of South Georgia"

This is their lunatic version of the "Guns in every home" policy of 2005. Somehow I think it won't just be reserved for what we understand as criminals. 'Criminals' will be expanded to 'anyone who opposes the BNP'. A new 'Gulag Archipelago' in the South Atlantic?

Anonymous said...

"None of the numbers add up"

Nobody in the BNP even pretends to have a clue about economics. They are just a single issue, anti-immigrant pressure group.

Paul McCoch said...

I don't know who is the BNP's 'Economics Minister' but surely he/she could hand the BNP accounts on time. Before trying to sort out the 'Nation's' of the UK budget and expenditure.

Anonymous said...

Have they still got the bonkers policy of 'unless you perform armed national service you can't vote'?
I was really looking forward to that one - spanners.
They can't help themselves can they? Simon Derby on BBC News last night claiming to have a problem with the 'Islamic Community' - what, all of them Simon? The truth will out.

And as for the new penal gulag, fucking hell. Are they that desperate?

Admin said...

Has anyone else noticed that they have hidden the National Service agenda in the document? (do a search for National Service) And they actually mentioned factories making arms for the armed forces.
(Defence policy)
Didn’t Hitler have a re-armament policy. Also the BNP seem to think that Islamic terrorism is the only kind in the world.

Anonymous said...

When I heard on the news that they were emphasising the no immigration from Muslim countries policy 2 things struck me -

1) Most African and Asian countries are not Muslim so would the BNP welcome people from all those countries, including India and China, the two most populous nations on the planet? At least St George would be allowed into the country, I suppose.

2) Griffin recently said British people are more concerned about East and Central Europeans than Muslims, so why the volte-face? Have they accepted European immigration can't be stopped?

Another ill-thought out knee-jerk response from a bunch of twats.

Anonymous said...

Actually reading the BNP blue print for the UK it would seem large amounts of its thinking have been lifted whole sale from pre war Mosleyite thinking. As for the penal colony in the South Atlantic - I would be very careful as we might all wind up their courtesy of the electorate who are too think to figure it out. Think Germany circa 1930 and add the word Dagenham and the ensuing witches brew looks pretty nasty. I wonder who would be the Roland Friezler type judge they would install!

Anonymous said...

"I wonder who would be the Roland Friezler type judge they would install!

Bl**dy Silly Question. Step forward the BNP's Village Idiot, the legally quallified Looney Lee Barnes !!!!

Old Sailor

Anonymous said...

"Bl**dy Silly Question. Step forward the BNP's Village Idiot, the legally quallified Looney Lee Barnes !!!!"

Speaking of 'Bonkers' Barnes, hasn't he been quiet lately? Do you reckon he's been told to shut up until after the election? Griffin probably figures, correctly, that having that loose-cannon ranting on about 'Zionist Cabals' will do the party no good at all.

Anonymous said...

then how come the BNP wants to cut off the industries of the future such as biotech or green energy?

I just knew it was from a Tory when they put that one in.....

Anonymous said...

The title of this manifesto - 'Democracy, Freedom, Culture and Identity' - brings to mind the speech Griffin made to a group of American White Nationalists in April 2000 -

“There’s a difference between selling out your ideas and selling your ideas. The British National Party is not about selling out its ideas – which are your ideas too – but we are determined now to sell them. And that means, basically, to use the saleable words: freedom, security, identity, democracy. Nobody can criticise them. Nobody can come at you and attack you on those ideas. They are saleable. Perhaps one day, once, by being rather more subtle, we’ve got ourselves in a position where we control the British broadcast media; then perhaps one day the British people might change their mind and say ‘yes, every last one must go’. Perhaps they will one day, but if you hold that out as your sole aim to start with you’re going to get absolutely nowhere, so instead of talking about racial purity, you talk about identity… ”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04QolIvfQEw

Anonymous said...

Raving Roland Friezer = Bonkers Barnes. Lol. Maybe he will be whisked off by a flying saucer to planet Mong.