Level of far-right support could outstrip that in France or Holland, says poll for Searchlight
Huge numbers of Britons would support an anti-immigration English nationalist party if it was not associated with violence and fascist imagery, according to the largest survey into identity and extremism conducted in the UK.
A Populus poll found that 48% of the population would consider supporting a new anti-immigration party committed to challenging Islamist extremism, and would support policies to make it statutory for all public buildings to fly the flag of St George or the union flag. Anti-racism campaigners said the findings suggested Britain's mainstream parties were losing touch with public opinion on issues of identity and race.
The poll suggests that the level of backing for a far-right party could equal or even outstrip that in countries such as France, the Netherlands and Austria. France's National Front party hopes to secure 20% in the first round of the presidential vote next year. The Dutch anti-Islam party led by Geert Wilders attracted 15.5% of the vote in last year's parliamentary elections.
Anti-fascist groups said the poll's findings challenged the belief that Britons were more tolerant than other Europeans. "This is not because British people are more moderate, but simply because their views have not found a political articulation," said a report by the Searchlight Educational Trust, the anti-fascist charity that commissioned the poll.
According to the survey, 39% of Asian Britons, 34% of white Britons and 21% of black Britons wanted all immigration into the UK to be stopped permanently, or at least until the economy improved. And 43% of Asian Britons, 63% of white Britons and 17% of black Britons agreed with the statement that "immigration into Britain has been a bad thing for the country". Just over half of respondents – 52% – agreed with the proposition that "Muslims create problems in the UK".
Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP who fought a successful campaign against the British National party in his Dagenham and Rainham constituency in east London, said that the findings pointed to a "very real threat of a new potent political constituency built around an assertive English nationalism". The report identified a resurgence of English identity, with 39% preferring to call themselves English rather than British. Just 5% labelled themselves European.
Earlier this month David Cameron delivered a controversial speech on the failings of "state multiculturalism". The speech was seized on by the anti-Islamic English Defence League, which said that the prime minister was "coming round" to its way of thinking. BNP leader Nick Griffin also welcomed the speech as a sign that his party's ideas were entering "the political mainstream".
The poll also identified a majority keen to be allowed to openly criticise religion, with 60% believing they "should be allowed to say whatever they believe about religion". By contrast, fewer than half – 42% – said "people should be allowed to say whatever they believe about race".
Observer
February 27, 2011
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29 comments:
Are Searchlight short of funding again...what a load of shite.
I take it they've missed the demise of the BNP...
Get a grip Gable and Lowles...
Hmmm. So a lot of support for the far right if they weren't so far right.
"huge support for far right 'if they gave up violence'"
Is that like the huge support for socialism ‘if it worked’?
It is not possible to extricate violence from ‘far right’, such an entity can never exist.
Far right ‘politics’ is determinate on implied and explicit denigration of a section of proletariat as a salve for society’s economic ills.
One wonders why Searchlight would conduct such a survey and exactly what the nature of the questions posed by populous where.
BNP and UKIP are currently at 5% of 65.1% turnout, so how does this translate into 48%?
Is it because EDL can mobilise 2000 and have 70 thousand face book fiends? That’s still far to go to extrapolate 48% support for a hypothetical far right ‘if they gave up violence’.
Searchlight doing the far right’s PR now?
A Populus poll found that 48% of the population would consider supporting a new anti-immigration party committed to challenging Islamist extremism, and would support policies to make it statutory for all public buildings to fly the flag of St George or the union flag.
This will be used by those who want to push the EDL in a electoral direction and those in the EDP who want to link up with them. There could be a split in the EDL in the coming months between those who want to remain purely street based and those who want to fight elections.
P.S. It should go without saying that the BNP are too compromised to benefit from the poll's findings what with Griffin doing his 'Gadiffi' act (i.e. hopelessly hanging on).
Good follow up Q&A from Nick Lowles on this on the HnH site
http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/
Just over half of respondents – 52% – agreed with the proposition that "Muslims create problems in the UK".
Given the manic hatred of Islam in the mainstream press i'm surprised it's only at 52%!
It's tabloid newspapers with their constant drop-drip of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim stories that have helped tarnish the British psyche.
Before 2000, less than 10% of young people thought immigrantionn was an issue. Thanks to the Mail, Express and Star, these numbers have quadrupled.
The survey should have also asked the respondents which paper they read for some press accountability, for newspapers DO affect the way people think ad behave.
It's chilling why working and lower middle class people are slaves to the tabliod media, being told what to think and say.
So much for the freedom of the press.
Enough bigging-up of the far right.
The BNP vote is in freefall.
Do the political establishment really want the EDL to renownce violence and become a fully democratic political party?
It makes you wander!
Searchlight doing the far right’s PR now?
No, but if we want to combat fascism then surely we need to know the lay of the land, politically speaking.
Searchlight's poll and analysis is useful in doing that.
Do the political establishment really want the EDL to renownce violence and become a fully democratic political party?
The political establishment feels something stirring in the heartland. With no left-of-centre alternative outside the Labour party, and the BNP a busted flush, they want to promote a new far-right English political grouping made up of existing elements.
I get the impression that the establishment are pushing the EDL on to a electoral road.All this will do is split the right wing vote, is that their aim. Despite its slump a the moment, the BNP is by far a bigger threat than the EDL. The FN in France were in the same situation the BNP is in now, but they bounced back, we must be ready for that, the EDL are a state backed are a flash in the pan and i cant see them having any success
Tabloid newspapers are 99% responsible for all anti-immigrant feeling. Without their endlessn headlines about foreigners and racist headlines about British Muslims being a "threat" to Middle England, racist attitudes would be at an all-time low.
How do racist media barons sleep at night, for hell's sake?
They are pushing evil, by encouraging hatred and division.
If the EDL do become a big force at the ballot box, the Daily Star will be to blame.
I hope anti-racist activists never forgive Richard Desmond for bosting the fortunes of the British Far Right amongst younger voters if the EDL become a popular party at the ballot box.
I am absoutely disgusted with shitty rightwing tabloid media.
"This will be used by those who want to push the EDL in a electoral direction and those in the EDP who want to link up with them"
You can bet your bibby that Richard Barnbrook is one of those who would link up with the EDL given half a chance, even though they did initially reject him.
He's in it for an ego trip is old Dicky Bumbrook.
“No, but if we want to combat fascism then surely we need to know the lay of the land, politically speaking.”
Is the ‘lay of the land’ measured with leading propositions like "Muslims create problems in the UK" or is it landscape gardening?
How about “Bankers create problems in the UK”, “Warmongers create problems for the UK ”, “Alcohol abuse creates problems in the UK”, “Poor people create problems in the UK”? What next, Jews?
Another far right PR exercise is breaking up respondents into racial categories. Is this the new post modern antifacism?
Nevertheless, given that the survey does, why is the information presented thus:
“39% of Asian Britons, 34% of white Britons and 21% of black Britons wanted all immigration into the UK to be stopped permanently, or at least until the economy improved”?
According to math: 61% of Asian Britons, 66% of white Britons, and 79% of black Britons DO NOT want all immigration to be stopped permanently, nor cite immigration as the primary cause of economic downslide. That averages 68.6%.
Yet Searchlight spins in the opposite direction based on the lesser percentage.
Is Daily Mail running Searchlight? Might as well be.
This strikes me as a bit of irresponsible scare-mogering to generate donations to fight islamaphobia, but what is clear is that scum like the Front National or the Partij Voor de Vrijheid, (Geert Wilders' party), would get votes here and this is something that we should be worried about.
There's too much arrogance and back-slapping in the anti-fascist movement, which is just the sort of complacency that will see a far-right resurgence. Whilst we all laughed at the incompetence of the BNP, we were caught completely off-guard by the EDL and, aside from sneering at their illiteracy and incoherence, we still haven't developed an effective strategy to handle them.
These things should be seen in their context, but the far-right is on the rise because there simply isn't a left-wing in British politics anymore. New Labour's shift to the right forced every other party to shift their political focus and left us with a choice of different shades of right-wing political parties.
The Netherlands and France both have strong Socialist parties, so whilst their far-right parties have made a lot of progress it is still in the context that their far-left parties get an equal number of votes, (although, in classic leftist style, that vote is often split between a few parties).
When the cuts really start to bite there will be a massive rise in support for the far-right, and whilst the UK's "activists" piss about in misguided and ineffective protests outside high-street "tax dodgers" and occupying branches of high-street banks for a couple of hours, (like it's actually going to achieve anything), the average worker looking for solutions is going to find solace in fascist groups like the EDL...due to the lack of any credible leftist opposition, unions organising or solidarity.
Whether we like it or not, Searchlight/Hope Not Hate do have a point about recession politics and I don't see any effective organising in the UK anymore. We either have the newspaper vendors of the SWP, who most workers will reject as clowns with their own agenda, or UKuncut who most people reject as clueless middle-class kids whose hearts are in the right place but who's heads are up their own arses!
What people aren't understanding is the need to support each other when times get tough, and only the far-right are currently offering a credible solution by blaming the immigrants! Of course they're wrong, and in normal circumstances no person in their right mind would accept it, but desperate times call for desperate measures and desperate people often aren't in their right minds...
This is like those stories about the BNP website being the "most popular" in UK politics. In fact what the BNP website had was the most number of Denial-of-Service attacks, giving it millions of "free" hits which the mainstream press were gullible and stupid enough to misinterpret as evidence of genuine popularity.
I've spoken to a few Asians who can't see the irony of immigrants moaning about immigration etc, but spoken to far more who know perfectly well the far-right are a complete bunch of..., so I'm not saying this isn't a real problem, but Searchlight achieved these results by spinning the interpretation of responses to highly loaded questions, and frankly Searchlight (who I've often defended in the past) go down in my estimation for scaremongering like this.
BTW I'd urge activists to make much more use of the photo of Stephen Lennon at a BNP meeting, as featured on Lancaster Unity.
I think this is a good time to rethink our tactics. We spend far too much time mud-slinging against the PEOPLE of the far-right and not nearly enough time refuting the ARGUMENTS of the far-right. What kind of message does this send to the public? It sends the message that the main reason not to support the far-right is because of the awful people representing it, and not because of their awful political stances. This is exactly what the article concludes ie. that if the same stances were represented by more 'respectable' people, they would gain support.
I warn everyone here: sooner or later our enemies will find someone 'respectable' to sell racism and Islamophobia. In other words, our old tactics are not going to work forever. We need to start focusing more on ARGUMENTS, not on PEOPLE. We need to refute, systematically, one at a time, every argument espoused by the far-right. We need to show that we have the BETTER WORLDVIEW.
It may come as a shock because it is so obvious to ourselves, but we may even have to explain from fundamentals why racism is immoral, how Muslims and immigrants are being used as a scapegoat for everything, who benefits from internal division within a country, and so on.
Remember this: whenever we ignore the arguments of the far-right, the far-right will claim this is because we lack counterarguments. Our primary task now is to prove that this is not and has never been the case.
I hope to start seeing on this and other anti-racist blog less focus on the idiotic antics of the BNP and EDL and more powerful, watertight ARGUMENTS against far-right positions.
To Anon 12:12 pm, what do you think of the Respect Party?
The head-in-the-sand attitude of the UK left is getting increasingly absurd. After years of denying the widespread anti-Islam and anti-migration sentiment in Britain, they have now had it confirmed from within their own ranks. And what do they do? Accuse Searchlight of being a right-wing propaganda tool.
The stupidity of some of the comments here is unfortunately typical. Two standard responses are
* "the EDL / BNP is tiny, they only have x thousand members, this country is not like France / Belgium / Netherlands, etc."
and
* "the tabloids are to blame".
There is no arguing with people who think like this.
The tabloids are to blame for spreading race hate.
I'm black and I work in a newsagents, and you can see people's different reaction to me after reading the front cover of the Express or Mail.
After years of denying the widespread anti-Islam and anti-migration sentiment in Britain
-------
Widespread thanks to Rothermere and Desmond.
In the 1930's, newspapers could have argued that everyone hates Jewish people cos of all their racist anti-Semitic headlines that were pumped into peoples heads like toxic lead exhausts.
This thread is being linked and trolled from the cretins from British Democracy Forum.
Divide and conquer, lol.
Anon @ 2:00 PM, February 28, 2011
Agree completely with the first paragraph.
"Shoot the Messenger!"
* "the tabloids are to blame".
The "popular" press tends to reflect currents already evident in society. Though the media aren't the instigators, it does tend to be a vicious spiral.
Just to be clear for those who struggle with reality;
The newspapers put the spin on this, not Searchlight.
This report is the greatest wake up call to serious antifascists everywhere. We are not winning in the long term if we are not listening to and addressing the concerns of so many people. No £8k ad in the Guardian is going to convince anybody that we are either.
Those of you less serious about figting fascism can go back to painting slogans and burying your heads in the sand while the rest of us get on with what we have been doing properly for a very long time; figting racism and fascism.
This thread is being linked and trolled from the cretins from British Democracy Forum.
I think that bunch of weirdos could teach as all about back-biting and sectarianism!
"Those of you less serious about figting fascism can go back to painting slogans and burying your heads in the sand while the rest of us get on with what we have been doing properly for a very long time; figting racism and fascism."
If that's really a response from Searchlight. it's shameful and insulting. Your way of opposing the far-right isn't necessarily the only way and believing it is, is pure arrogance.
“The stupidity of some of the comments here is unfortunately typical. Two standard responses are * ‘the TABLOIDS are to blame’…”
2:00 PM, February 28, 2011
“Just to be clear for those who struggle with reality; the NEWSPAPERS put the spin on this, not Searchlight.”
4:38 PM, February 28, 2011(Searchlight info)
Apologies to 'Searchlight info', as it turns out, the survey is a useful tool, and not the reactionary tat it what was made out to be in the… er… papers.
As for the going back to painting “slogans” and the "£8k ad in the Guardian" (???), point taken. Hope not Hate.
"Searchlight info" said:
"The newspapers put the spin on this, not Searchlight."
This is false. The article in the Guardian on 26 February by their spokesman Nick Lowles says: "48 percent of Britons say they would consider supporting a new far right-wing party, if it shunned violence and fascist imagery."
No such question appears in the survey, it is Lowles's spin. Nor does he report that a mere 3 percent said they identify with the BNP.
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