Cambridge Labour and Green parties reject EDL views

Cambridge Labour Party and the Green Party have issued a statement rejecting the views of the English Defence League.

The two parties, whose members, who will be joining the counter march, protesting against the far-right group this Saturday (July 9), said: “As Cambridge councillors we do not welcome the decision by the EDL to organise their event in our city next Saturday, a city of so many special and well integrated cultures and faiths and a city that is at peace with itself.

“We reject the views expressed by the EDL and we fully support the right of all Cambridge people to celebrate their cultures, enjoy their places of worship, and be treated with equality and respect.

“We want local people to come to Cambridge as normal this Saturday to shop and to attend the stunning Big Weekend community event. We will join with other residents in showing our peaceful opposition on Saturday to the views of the English Defence League at the counter event, and at other events this week.”

The statement was signed by Cllr Lewis Herbert, Labour city council group leader, and Cllr Adam Pogonowski, Green city council group leader.

Cambridge First

Government urged to ban EDL rally

Bolton Council last night unanimously backed the authority’s appeal to Home Secretary Alan Johnson to ban a planned English Defence League rally later this month.

A motion was tabled in the name of Labour council leader Cllr Cliff Morris, Conservative group leader Cllr John Walsh and Lib-Dem leader Cllr Roger Hayes. It said the council was “very concerned” about the planned EDL rally, which is due to take place in Victoria Square on March 20. Bolton Council is currently putting together a proposal to send to Mr Johnson.

Neither the council nor Greater Manchester Police has the power to ban a static demonstration under current legislation and the council is keen to stress that it does not want to suppress free speech. However, the council is concerned about the associated threat of public disorder on the day and the impact that could have on the town.

These points will be emphasised in the submission to the Home Secretary. Cllr Morris revealed that he is seeking a face-to-face meeting with Home Office ministers to put forward Bolton’s case for banning the rally The motion at last night’s meeting stated: “Bolton has a very strong track record on community cohesion. The council is confident that this will not be harmed by the EDL and urges local people not to be provoked by the prospect of the EDL event.”

Before last night’s council meeting, members of Bolton Against Racism (BAR) and the local Green Party held a demonstration outside, urging councillors to support the motion. BAR chairman Helen McHugh said: “We are united in Bolton and we want the Government to back the calls to ban the rally.”

Today, police and Town Hall chiefs are due to meet with town centre businesses, to update them. It is understood that shops, pubs and other businesses will be given up to date information and then given the chance to make an informed choice over whether to remain open on the day of the demonstration.

The EDL, which says it protests against Islamic extremism in the UK, originally planned to hold the rally this Saturday, March 6. However, it postponed the rally because a Hindu festival was taking place on the same day.

Previous demonstrations in Stoke and Manchester have seen violent clashes between EDL supporters and opponents. In October, 44 people were arrested during a protest by the EDL in Manchester city centre, when opponents held a counter rally.

Bolton Against Racism has already announced it plans to hold a “celebration of unity” event on the same day, although the organisers have said they would be willing to stage the event away from the EDL rally. According to websites, protesters against the rally plan to arrive in numbers, as part of a UAF counter-demonstration.

Bolton News

Grim polling news for the BNP...how sad, how very sad

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Iliacus. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.

A major opinion poll by Ipsos MORI was published at the weekend. Polls, of course, need to be treated with caution, and it's never wise to read too much into a single set of figures, but MORI is a reputable pollster and there is some interesting information to be found - especially in the detailed figures. And the news is pretty grim for the BNP!

The base polling figures for the minor parties run UKIP 4%, Greens 3% and BNP 2%. Of course, when you get down to figures like this there is a significant margin of error. The number of people responding is low, and the risk of sampling error is high, but the basic message is simple. None of these parties have any sort of widespread, national support in the context of a general election.

Regional breakdowns are even more subject to sampling error, since the numbers involved are smaller still. For the BNP their 'best' region is the Midlands (4%), with 1% recorded in the South and the North. Support shown in London was so low that it failed to register - technically it was 0%, though obviously that doesn't mean that nobody will vote BNP in London at the general election. But what it does suggest is that, in the context of a general election, the BNP will struggle to poll above 2-3% across London as a whole. It certainly isn't encouraging news, for example, if you were a prominent BNP member who had decided to look for a London seat in which to stand ... thinking perhaps that the party's best chance was in that area ...

MORI also breaks down responses by age group. The BNP polls 4% in the 18-34 age group, 2% among the 35-54 age group. For over-55s their share is less than 1%. Their apologists might claim this as evidence that the BNP was "the party of the future", but there are two flaws to such an argument.

Firstly, the under-35s are far less likely to turn out to vote; turnout is highest among over-55s, the very group where BNP support is weakest. Secondly party loyalty is weakest among young voters; strongest in older voters. So the BNP is strongest among voters who are less likely to vote, and most likely to change their minds and perhaps drift away. The BNP is weakest among voters who are most likely to vote, and who are less likely to switch (e.g. to the BNP).

There are some further interesting findings:

• Social Group : BNP support is 1% in Social Groups A, B and C1 - professional, managerial and skilled; 3% in Social Groups C2, D and E - unskilled, unemployed, economically inactive.
• Housing Type: In social rented housing BNP support reaches 5%; it's 3% in the private rented sector, 1% in owner-occupation.

There is no categorisation for educational achievement, but there is a breakdown by newspaper readership. I've not noticed such a breakdown previously and it's worth listing in full:

• Amongst tabloid readers: Con 41%, Lab 34%, Lib Dem 14%, UKIP 5%, Green 3%, BNP 2%.
• Amongst broadsheet readers: Con 42%, Lib Dem 25%, Lab 24%, Green 4%, UKIP 3%, BNP 0%.

Yes, that's correct. They couldn't find a single BNP supporter who read a broadsheet newspaper. Are we surprised? No.

So, to summarise (with tongue firmly in cheek!). For success the BNP needs a constituency in the Midlands; with a high proportion of under-35s; who live in social rented housing; are in social groups C2, D and E; and only read tabloid newspapers. And even there they would only just climb above 5%!

Seriously, there will be areas where the above demographic combines with one or more of the following - an active local BNP group; incompetence/ idleness in the mainstream parties; a particular local issue which benefits the BNP. And where that happens, on a very local basis, the BNP will poll well above their national levels.

None of this polling means that we can relax, or that we can ignore the danger of BNP progress at the general election. But what it does mean is that despite the election of two MEPs, despite Question Time, despite all the boasting, despite the lies and distortions in the popular press playing to the BNP agenda; despite all this the BNP have failed to make any significant progress in winning the hearts, minds and - especially - votes of the vast majority of the British people.

Griffin TV appearance fails to lift BNP support in latest polls

The public is more balanced about the British National Party than Peter Hain and other alarmists. Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time last Thursday has had no effect on the BNP’s rating. There is a big difference between public anxieties that the BNP seeks to exploit and voters’ willingness to back the party.

Two polls since Question Time show no evidence of any BNP bounce. Its support remains in the recent 2 to 3 per cent range: and between 1.5 and 3 per cent over the past year according to Populus. (These ratings are below those recorded by the Greens and the UK Independence Party.) Small fluctuations at this low level do not mean anything because of the margin of error. Moreover, the number having a positive impression of the BNP has fallen from 11 to 9 per cent since June.

Anthony Wells, of UK Polling Report website, concludes: “Despite all the hoo-ha and protests, despite the millions of people who watched Question Time, it doesn’t seem to have made any significant difference to how the public view them, or how likely they are to support them (at least, not yet).”

Not yet is an important caveat. The alarmists have focused on last Saturday’s YouGov poll in the Telegraph identifying 15 per cent who say it was possible that they would vote BNP in a future local, general or European election, and the 7 per cent who say they would “definitely or probably” consider doing so. But the same poll showed BNP support still at just 3 per cent.

An analysis on the Political Betting website of a mass of polling data shows that two thirds of BNP supporters did not vote for any of the big three parties in 2005, and most did not vote at all. Only a fifth are former Labour voters. Overall, they are more likely to be working class than other parties’ voters. The BNP’s real success is in mobilising previous non-voters.

This is not, however, an argument for complacency. There are high levels of support for issues championed by the BNP. An ICM poll for the News of the World had two thirds believing that recent immigrants get more favourable housing and state benefits compared with “Brits”. Three fifths say mainstream parties have “no credible policies” on immigration but only 44 per cent agree that the white working classes have been abandoned by the mainstream parties, with 52 per cent disagreeing.

The BNP matters because it articulates and distorts the fears of the disaffected about being squeezed out of public services. The party will probably win votes in a few areas but it is not a serious electoral threat nationally.

Times Online

Holding back the BNP

The British National Party (BNP) sees the European Parliament elections as a key opportunity to advance its influence. Andy Bowman of Red Pepper reports on the campaign to keep them out of their target seats in the north-west of England

For better or worse, the UK’s first past the post electoral system largely prevents smaller parties gaining a serious role in government, at both local and parliamentary levels. For the EU elections, however, the UK uses a version of proportional representation that ensures representation of minority opinions. While the legislative influence of a single MEP is relatively minor, the position can – as amply demonstrated by the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas – dramatically enhance the public profile of individual and party. The job also brings £250,000 of funding.

With this in mind, the BNP has picked the North West out of the 12 UK constituencies, as its primary target for concerted electioneering. The party won 6.4 percent of the vote here in the previous European Parliament elections of 2004 – compared to 0.7 per cent nationally in the last general election – and hopes to make serious gains this time round. It has certainly started work early. The European elections are already central in BNP campaigning and publicity, with activists out on the streets canvassing around the region. Buoyed by the recent acquisition of a council seat in Swanley, Kent – ending a 40-year Labour incumbency with 41% of the vote – the BNP claims it is about to mount ‘the largest and most sophisticated campaign in the history of patriotic politics.’

The party’s lead candidate is its leader, the holocaust denier and former National Front member Nick Griffin. If successful, he would become one of eight North West MEPs, drawn from the UK’s allocation of 72. The voting system means Griffin is practically guaranteed a seat if he wins 9 per cent of the vote. Depending on the spread among other parties, he could get one with only 7.5 per cent.

Keeping the BNP out will be a challenge. Anti-fascist campaign organisation Searchlight sees low voter turnout – 41.1 per cent in the North West last time around – as a boon to the extreme right. Searchlight’s ‘Hope not Hate’ campaign aims simply to get people out to vote – for anyone but the BNP. Based on the 2004 results, it calculates that an additional 35 non-BNP voters in every council ward (on average comprising 6,000 people) would be enough to stop the BNP.

The key battlegrounds will be the densely populated conurbations of Greater Manchester and Merseyside. Renowned BNP strongholds such as Burnley have seen declining activity and lost council seats (down to four in Burnley from eight at the party’s local peak). However, in some of the more deprived areas in north and east Manchester, such as Blackley, Charlestown and Miles Platting, there has recently been an upsurge in BNP campaigning. The BNP’s Derek Adams received 27 per cent of the vote in last May’s council elections.

‘You’ve got to be creative’

A Blackley resident speaking to Red Pepper (she asks not to be named), who has lived in the area for the past 20 years, described her shock on seeing a BNP leaflet drop through her letterbox prior to the elections. In response, she ordered £30 worth of Searchlight’s ‘Hope not Hate’ leaflets and distributed them around the neighbourhood, speaking with people about the issue. She likes the non-divisiveness of the campaign. ‘Most people here have switched off, so you’ve got to be creative,’ she says. ‘Even if I managed to change one person’s mind it would be worth it.’

She feels efforts such as hers are hampered by the distanced attitude of her local Labour representatives. ‘What really incensed me was that not one of our local councilors even bothered to come round,’ she says. She emailed to complain, but received no reply. ‘Whatever I think of the BNP, they were out there speaking to people. People here feel hard done by and not listened to, and the Labour government doesn’t seem to care.’

Other anti-racist campaigners in the area attribute the BNP’s rise to loss of faith in the main parties, and in electoral politics more generally. The BNP does best when turnout is low, and attracts protest votes more than committed supporters. If it’s anywhere near as difficult for residents here to speak with their political representatives about these issues as it was for Red Pepper, it’s easy to see the problem. Repeated attempts to talk with a range of Labour Party councillors in Manchester were ignored, forgotten, prevented by holidays abroad, or outright refused.

One Labour politician who was willing to speak was Theresa Griffin. Already a North West MEP, she is running for re-election, and considers the BNP ‘a very real and present threat’. Griffin feels the recent experiences in the London assembly provide ample warning: ‘They’ll use it as a platform not for serving constituents, but for promoting the BNP.’ She states that the Labour Party’s anti-BNP campaign strategy is underway, as constituency parties around the region attempt to spread the word about the benefits of the EU parliament, and the ‘fair, inclusive and prosperous society’ New Labour is building.

Responding to claims that New Labour’s distancing itself from the working class has aided the BNP, she says: ‘We’ve got to embrace those criticisms, and make sure we campaign and speak to our constituents all year round. Actually, we are doing a shedload of fantastic work for deprived communities, we just need to be able to communicate that clearly.’

An urgent information war

One non party-political organisation attempting to stop the BNP filling the political vacuum is North Manchester Against Racism. NMAR activist Bernie Murphy feels they are engaged in an urgent information war. ‘The welfare state has been shrinking, and so has all the security we had,’ she says. In such situations, scapegoating outsiders has extra purchase. The group holds community meetings tackling the BNP’s pet issues, such as housing, Islam and immigration.

The extreme racist and nationalist views of the BNP are, they stress, divergent from mainstream opinion in the BNP’s strongest areas. The far-right capitalises upon apathy, they explain, and attempts to harness the anger of communities still reeling from de-industrialisation. ‘We need to find ways of making people feel positive and having a bit of pride in their area,’ Bernie asserts.

The NMAR’s efforts have attracted BNP attention, with activists arriving to disrupt meetings in large groups. Denise McDowell experienced this at an immigration workshop she ran. She feels migration into the area isn’t the principle cause of the BNP’s rise, and disagrees with the strategy pushed by immigration minister Phil Woolas, of ‘getting tough’ on migrants to draw attention from the BNP. ‘Most people think the arrival of migrants here is fantastic,’ she says. ‘It’s a more vibrant and interesting area,’ with more people occupying houses and setting up businesses. The BNP myths, she explains, are fuelled by the opaque procedures of government: ‘Nobody came to explain why such rapid changes in the area were happening in such a short time. People react to changes in negative ways when they’re powerless. There was no support for the community to adapt, and people are treated as if they can’t have these conversations.’

Similar concerns proliferated at the Convention of the Left recall in January. In a packed public services seminar, the BNP was a hot topic. Many agreed the decline and commercialisation of social housing provision was a key factors behind the successes of the BNP, which has pinned the blame for housing problems onto immigrants. Speakers stressed the need both to refocus on community engagement and issues of everyday concern, and to provide a voting alternative to Labour. Could the Green Party represent this? In the spirit of cooperation fostered by the convention, Respect North West has backed a Green vote for the European elections. The combined Green and Respect vote in 2004 was 6.8 per cent, higher than the BNP’s, so this is no empty gesture.

Crucial percentage points

Peter Cranie, Green Party candidate for the North West, explained to Red Pepper that these percentage points are crucial. Contrary to Hope not Hate, he claims defeating the BNP requires similar levels of tactical analysis used against the BNP on a local level in first past the post. A draft Green Party election strategy document given to Red Pepper, based on projections from previous European elections, claims the deciding factor will be the tussle between the smallest parties.

By winning between eight and nine per cent of the vote, the Greens argue, the party finishing fourth gets the seat. To shave a crucial single percentage point from the BNP total, they say, Labour’s vote would have to increase by four per cent, compared to the Green Party’s one.

Recent polls and past projections show that if the elections were held tomorrow, the BNP would finish fourth by a narrow margin, and win a seat. However, the failed attempt to form an electoral coalition with UKIP and results in the London mayoral elections suggest the BNP won’t experience a surge in support like the five per cent it achieved between 1999-2004.

Divisions remain over how to deal with the BNP, both at the ballot box and on the streets. Each party, of course, makes the case for its own vote being the best. Recent demonstrations in Liverpool, and at the ‘Red, White and Blue’ festival in Derbyshire over the summer, show that disagreements over the levels of militancy appropriate in confronting the BNP remain entrenched. However, the spectre of the BNP in a position of high office should be enough to make a divided left focus on what it has in common to prevent it happening.

Article first published in the April/May issue of Red Pepper

Main parties unite to tackle BNP threat in European elections

The three main political parties will meet tomorrow tomorrow at Westminster to try to agree common ground rules on how to fight the British National party in the European election on 4 June.

The meeting will look at a loose code of conduct, including an early warning system if any party finds a rival candidate is resorting to semi-racist remarks or literature. The idea of imposing a blanket policy of refusing to share a platform with the BNP, something the Tories oppose, will also be discussed.

The meeting will be held between the Tory chairman, Eric Pickles, the Labour deputy leader, Harriet Harman, and Lady Scott, the Liberal Democrat president.

The BNP launched its European election manifesto today, hoping that it will be able to exploit public anger over MPs' expenses. Its leader, Nick Griffin, said the party would threaten "tired, corrupt old politicians".

Behind the scenes, the Tories are angry that it has taken so long to set up the meeting and claim it has been cancelled twice at short notice by Harman's office. One source claimed it even looked as if Harman would not mind if the BNP did well because it would provide Labour with an alibi if it came third in the elections.

Privately, MPs from all sides recognise that they are likely to be victims of an anti-politics vote in the European and county council elections. They can only hope other minor parties such as the Green party, Ukip or Libertas benefit, rather than the BNP. A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times at the weekend, put Ukip on 7% and the BNP on 4%.

Guardian

'Best way to beat the BNP is to vote Green'

Peter Cranie is campaigning against the BNP's Nick Griffin

Respect candidate urges public to back rival at European elections

An anti-racism campaigner has emerged as the candidate who could stop the British National Party chairman Nick Griffin winning a seat in the European Parliament next month.

Peter Cranie has been chosen by the Green Party to stand in the North-west, where the BNP's hopes of winning its first seats in a nationwide election are highest. Respect, the left-wing party headed by the Bethnal Green and Bow MP George Galloway, has stood aside in the region and is urging its supporters to vote Green to stop the BNP.

The Greens, who already have two MEPs, are making a major push in the North-west. They are convinced that that the proportional representation (PR) system used in the 4 June elections makes voting Green the best way of denying the BNP victory and the significant boost in funds from the Strasbourg parliament that would follow.

Under the PR formula, all votes received in a region are added up and the first seat is given to the party with the highest number. The votes for that party are then divided by the number of seats it has already won in the region plus one (for example, if a party has won one seat, its remaining votes would be divided by two). The party which then has the highest number of votes gets the next seat. This process continues until all the seats are allocated.

At the last European elections five years ago, Labour and the Tories each won three of the North-west's nine seats, the Liberal Democrats two and the UK Independence Party (Ukip) one.

Ukip's fortunes have declined since and election experts believe the crucial battle affecting the BNP's chances will be the one for fourth place behind the three main parties. The region will elect eight MEPs this time.

Mr Cranie, a 36-year-old father of one, has been preparing for next month's fight with the BNP for three years. A leading member of the Merseyside Coalition Against Racism and Fascism, he stood down from his job as a lecturer so he could devote more time to the European elections. He now works for the parenting support charity Parentline Plus.

The three main parties insist that the voting system is such a "lottery" that supporting them is the best way to beat the BNP. But the Greens are appealing over the heads of the three parties in the hope of encouraging tactical anti-BNP voting. They are also working hard to mobilise the ethnic minority vote.

Mr Cranie told The Independent yesterday that he could not "guarantee" that a vote for the Greens would prevent the BNP from winning a seat, but insisted that it offered the best hope of achieving that. In the 2004 European elections, the BNP won 6.38 per cent of the votes in the North-west and the Greens 5.55 per cent, so the Greens claim they are the most likely party to overtake the extreme-right group.

Mr Cranie, the Green Party's national spokesman on children, schools and families, has jobs as his main campaign theme. "A Green vote is a vote for jobs," he said. Accusing the BNP of "dog whistle politics", Mr Cranie added: "In an environment of economic fear and insecurity, the seeds are being sown – racism and intolerance – by a party that in its constitution bars any person because of the colour of their skin and the home of their ancestors."

Independent

High IQ Greens, Low IQ BNP voters

The Guardian has got hold of the following academic research:

"On a party-by-party basis, the average (childhood) IQ scores for 2001 voters were:

Green - 108.3
Liberal Democrat - 108.2
Conservative - 103.7
Labour – 103
Plaid Cymru - 102.5
Scottish National - 102.2
UK Independence - 101.1
Did not vote/None of the above - 99.7
British National Party - 98.4"

Tory Diary

BNP by-election fear means Green candidate withdraws

A Green Party candidate has withdrawn from a by-election in an attempt to prevent the BNP from gaining a Sandwell Council seat.

Vicky Dunn, aged 30, made the decision not to stand in the Princes End, Tipton, by-election called in response to the sacking of BNP councillor James Lloyd. Elected in 2004, Mr Lloyd had not attended council meetings for six months and had failed to give an explanation for his absence. He was told he would face crippling legal costs to win back his seat by going to the High Court and decided not to contest the decision.

Ms Dunn said her move was an attempt to prevent a split vote at the election on December 6. She said: "The BNP have put up a candidate, but it's best for the people of Princes End if any other party wins.

"The Greens don't want to split the vote and let the BNP in, so I have withdrawn."

Birmingham Post