resisting the BNP (Full Version)

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LadyEllen -> resisting the BNP (4/28/2008 2:08:46 PM)

I'm part of a local Midlands chat group - a bit like a Yahoo one, and we all received an invite to join the UAF in protests against the BNP in Birmingham, as they stand for the local elections.

There then followed a discussion of the pros and cons of protesting against them. Most it has to be said were as apathetic as the general public are wont to be - surprising considering the group members are not exactly popular with the BNP. But two in particular had at it, from opposing points of view; one was sure that protesting was the right thing to do - disrupting the BNP as much as possible. The other was sure that involvement in local politics to campaign for a more reasonable party was the answer.

My response was

I believe that in an educated, mature and thinking society we would do best to allow the BNP any platform they desired, so that through questioning they might be exposed for what they are. Smart suits and ties have replaced skinhead chic over the last few years and it was interesting on their recent election broadcast to hear that their website is the most visited of any party - I've looked at it myself and not a single racist or homophobic slur is in sight; in other words, theyve cleaned up their act a great deal and the result is that theyre becoming of interest to an electorate tired of the usual suspects and negative campaigning. The only negativity which attracts to the BNP in fact is that generated by the usual suspects (in whom trust has long since eroded) and the only way therefore to expose them is to give them the platform whereby they can be questioned, put to the test. Given enough rope, they'll hang themselves in short order.
 
But then, we dont live in an educated, mature or thinking society. We live in a divided country, made so by the pursuit of a form of multi-culturalism by the usual suspects, and in which form both right and left of centre have significant investment and find significant reward; also a form which allows the BNP to gain popularity as a reaction to similar philosophies generated in cultural groups who have made this deliberately divided country their home. We live in a country where mindless drivel is the pre-occupation of the majority for whom the education system and the socio-economic environment failed to cater. If the BNP were given every available platform, it is almost certain that they would triumph, since the majority are unable to run the rings around them, required to expose them. All in all, I would say there is little point (apart from personal satisfaction) in actively resisting the BNP since we thereby make ourselves look like the intolerant ones whilst they look respectable in their suits and ties. We thereby drive people to look at the BNP even if only out of curiosity, by providing them with all the publicity they could want, both in nature and in quantity - and when people look, they see nothing of the awful things we said about them. The best way and the only way is to get involved in politics - as a member of a more reasonable party or as a supporter or volunteer at election times; just delivering leaflets is a major task for which any local party chairperson would love to have more help. What do other Brits (and friends around the world who know of the BNP of course - its the British National Party, regarded as fascists from without, patriots from within) think about this? E



Politesub53 -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/28/2008 2:37:00 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

 We live in a country where mindless drivel is the pre-occupation of the majority for whom the education system and the socio-economic environment failed to cater.



You underestimate the general public here. Part of the reason the BNP do so well in Local Elections, is that people vote for them in protest against government policies. Come the one that really counts, the General Election, the BNP dont get a look in. If i recall rightly ( i posted about it a while ago ) The BNP got less than 3/4 of 1% at the last election.

Getting onto the topic of demonstrations, i think its a slippery slope. One of the reasons i love our election, is almost anyone can stand for office. You are quite correct that a demonstration would give the BNP much publicity, so i agree that would be counter productive.



LadyEllen -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/28/2008 2:55:26 PM)

Underestimate? Perhaps - but also, I am deeply distrusting of the general public, when told what they would prefer to hear - something the BNP specialises in. Its so much more attractive to be told that your failures in life are not due to your own shortcomings - nor even due to the shortcomings of those you normally vote for, but down to the interference of ethnic minorities and homosexuals.

E



Politesub53 -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/28/2008 3:14:02 PM)

But you just stated the BNP web site states none of this. I am pretty sure the BNP could not canvas using hate tactics, due to the law. At least someone would pass such a pamphlet onto the police. For many people the failures in life, education and poor housing for instance, are a direct result of government policies. Many poor people, my age and over, didnt have a chance to go to university, due to the need to get out and bring money into the house. Let alone find the fees.



LadyEllen -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/28/2008 10:20:49 PM)

The BNP has cleaned up its act PS53 - such that the truth is there for those who can read it, despite the fine words used to express it.

E



MissMorrigan -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/28/2008 10:59:42 PM)

As Tony Benn once said, frighten and demoralise people and you have an easily led people. And that is why the BNP should NOT be given a political platform. Remove the suits, the carefully worded manifesto and you still have the ugly National Front. They may not be publicly declaring their full intentions, which is what is misleading people, but they make these abundantly clear during their private dinners as documentaries have shown.

Allow such people a political platform and we cannot be surprised should one small ' X ' give them power.



Politesub53 -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/29/2008 1:36:11 AM)

Dont get me wrong, i am not standing up for them, or their views. If we ban people such as the BNP, where do we stop. The Communist Party ? CND ? The Greens ? UKIP ?  The problem you would have is the government of the day being able to ban competitors for spurious reasons. Blair could maybe have banned Reg Keys, remember him ? He got 10% of the vote in Blairs Sedgefield constituency, on an anti war ticket. Everyone knows what the BNP stand for, despite the website propoganda. Banning the far right, or the far left for that matter, is a   slippery slope to dictatorship. The irony is you would ban a party highly likely to ban other peoples rights to stand for elections.



RCdc -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/29/2008 3:00:54 AM)

Lord knows I am not BNP supporter.  But I do believe that those that vote for them in local elections aren't as naive as indicated.  As politeone mentions - I wouldn't underestimate the general public - and yes Lady E that does mean you may be distrusting of the general public because they are inherently selfish and as that stands, homosexual and ethnic groups are in the minority.  When it comes to shit like this, many people ignore the difficulties of minorities in favour of the majority.  It's how the world works unfortunately - and if the BNP are offering something positive for the majority that means some have to be sacrificed or to make a point to the government and their policies?  Then the public will get what they want - and fuck the rest.
 
Horrible reasoning, but reality.
 
the.dark.



MissMorrigan -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/29/2008 10:37:28 PM)

People aren't naive? My mother, for instance, 164 I.Q, accomplished business woman, has a multicultural background, as do I, viewed the National Front with disgust and yet, joined the BNP, much to mine. When I asked her WHY, she stated that they put forth some good arguments in favour of strict immigration controls, among other things, she wanted to send a message to the 'tories' and the 'labourites' by voting for the BNP. She is not alone in this rather foolish ideology. When it was pointed out to her that they were just a reformation of the National Front she was horrified and withdrew her membership. However, they already had her vote by then.

As you say, the public tend to get what they want... The harsh realities are that many do not know exactly what they are voting for. They are swayed by the media and the harsh reality is that people, in general, are easily led. The reasoning you speak of is fine - until you become one of those discriminated against. How on earth do you think Hitler came into power? He exploited Nationalism. His most effective aid? Propaganda.



Politesub53 -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 2:00:30 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: MissMorrigan

People aren't naive? My mother, for instance, 164 I.Q, accomplished business woman, has a multicultural background, as do I, viewed the National Front with disgust and yet, joined the BNP, much to mine. When I asked her WHY, she stated that they put forth some good arguments in favour of strict immigration controls, among other things, she wanted to send a message to the 'tories' and the 'labourites' by voting for the BNP. She is not alone in this rather foolish ideology. When it was pointed out to her that they were just a reformation of the National Front she was horrified and withdrew her membership. However, they already had her vote by then.



I would like to make two points here. Firstly, just because a few people are naive, it doesnt make the general public so. As i posted before, the BNP got less than 3/4 of 1% of the vote. Secondly, the minute your mother found out the true ideals of the BNP, she sensibly left them.  My point still holds that if we ban extreme right wing groups, then we ban all extreme groups. Once that happens we no longer have a democracy. 

Any talk of the extreme right getting control here is pointless, people are just too cute to fall for it. For example, when Martin Webster stood for election in the 70s he got 16% of the vote. Yet in 82, he got around 4%. This at a time when the BNP and NF were maybe at their strongest since WW2.

Edited for spelling.



LadyEllen -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 4:33:25 AM)

Requisite conditions for BNP success
- a population grown weary of more mainstream parties
- declining socio-economic conditions
- popularly recognised scapegoats
- respectability and credibility
- popular distaste and distrust for the world outside the UK
- a sense of injustice
- a sense of the inherent superiority of the ethnic British and pride therein

All of these conditions are satisfied, but for the last one, and the sad thing is that the BNP itself has had to do little on its own part to get us to this situation. The mainstream parties, the newspapers, the City and the global market have done the work for them.

E




Politesub53 -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 5:47:55 AM)

We have had all the conditions above before, certainly in the 60s and 70s. And in my opinion to a much larger extent than today. Did the NF get into power... NO, not a hope in hell, or even a sniff of victory.

So once again, should we stop all extremist parties from standing for office, or just the ones we dont like ?  As much as i dislike extremism of any sort, deny them the same rights as everyone else, and you end the democratic process.



LadyEllen -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 6:18:12 AM)

Absoutely not PS - but therein lies the problem. We have to enable the BNP to stand and to preach its message, or otherwise become eventually a one party state by the mechanism to which you allude - albeit that from my view we already are in the forms of the Tories (Conservative) and New Labour (Conservative Lite) as parties become unrecognisable from one another as the power of government to do anything much declines in the face of the true government by way of global markets.

But the educated, thinking, mature minority who would seek to provide them with such freedom are not the ones likely to vote for them, but the majority, and a majority is what is required to win an election. And as we know, in our system a majority doesnt mean gaining 51% of the vote. The BNP has policies and a standpoint which are attractive to many, and certainly attractive to enough that they might secure the 20% or so of votes required to win one or more seats in an election with many candidates standing and the electorate being thereby split.

Now given that we wish to see fair access but do not wish to see the BNP succeed, the question is how do we combat them when all the necessary conditions for their success are present or becoming present?

I reject the counter demonstration, disruption approach for the reasons I mentioned earlier. But at the same time we do not allow the BNP the platform by which they could be exposed, as mainstream politicians and their parties refuse to share platforms with them - which makes it appear that the mainstream is for some reason afeared of being exposed by the BNP, when the reverse should apply. And when mainstream politicians do expound on the lack of virtue of the BNP, I fear they are increasingly less believed due to the general distrust in politicians they have fostered over decades. Distrust which is manifested in the very apathy that might well bring the BNP success when one looks at turnouts for elections; the 20% share of votes referred to above, might well represent only 5% of the electorate who bothered to vote at all in a 25% turnout election.

The only way forward as I see it is to make voting compulsory (with a "none of the above" option), and to introduce proportional representation. PR will no doubt give the BNP (and many other smaller parties) some seats - but by way of compulsory voting these should be diluted since the mainstream parties would have to campaign seriously and make real choice available - and those few seats the BNP might get, whilst lacking much influence over events overall, might well also release the pressure building up behind their cause. And of comedic value would be the question over where they might sit - as nazis, presumably with other nazis, such as the (by these mechanisms) inevitably elected members of Islamic Jihad....!

E



RealityLicks -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 6:24:57 AM)

The comparison between the BNP and the parties of the far left doesn't work.  The BNP are a racist party and as such do not grant membership to non-whites.  I can't think of a leftist group that has anything remotely as abhorrent a condition of membership and suggest what would need to be considered is whether racial discrimination is permissible in any organisation which sought public office, whether of the left, right or centre.  We need to establish whether we believe racial discrimination is anathemic to our nation's ethos or not - as yet we haven't.   Remember, Germany's constitution bars the formation of a new National Socialist party and I doubt many would consider Germany anything other than a democracy today. 

I don't believe that the BNP will ever achieve much at the polls, except for at local level.  But the problem is, wherever they establish a little support, racist attacks increase as their thugs try to increase tensions and thereby gain more ground.  Are you ready for one of your black friends to be seriously injured in such an assault?

I don't believe that the BNP merits a specific ban - the very best of these people really are intellectual halfwits - but I would be very interested in supporting a human rights charter which clarified and regulated some of the current anomalies which allow disreputable groups to pose as serious political parties.

edited for political correctness [;)]



LadyEllen -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 6:37:50 AM)

RL - does it say that on the website? (the bit about whites only membership?) I've looked a few times at their site (and the websites of two other fascist/nazi parties - the English Nationalists and the highly amusing National Socialist Party Of Great Britain - though all five of the members of the latter are in prison right now I believe) and its certainly implied that their membership is somewhat exclusive, but the BNP I didnt notice any implication to that end. Albeit, it would be regarded as somewhat odd for a non-ethnic Brit to join any of the three I suppose.

And I agree; a charter such as you mention (perhaps as part of a proper written constitution) would be a natural thing for us to have and to employ given the rest of our legislation in these matters. Whilst it could breach "freedom of association and assembly" to determine that no one may be excluded, every right must be balanced by the effects it has on others and the whole. And it would entirely prevent a British National Party from being anything other than a party which seeks to represent the country and its people - all of Us, and maybe take the wind out of their sails?

E



RealityLicks -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 6:55:05 AM)

I believe their charter bars from membership those who are not of the "indigenous Caucasian" group.  They do have one member who claims Jewish descent and another with a Turkish grandfather but the admission of both of these led to takeover attempts from disgruntled members - and the formation of the groups you cite, no doubt.

The party's policy of voluntary repatriation for non-white Britons - even those born here, laws banning mixed marriages and the expulsion from Britain of any non-white person convicted of an offence regardless of being born here are clearly racist policies - intended as the "acceptable" first steps toward a fully-racialised state.  Homosexuality would also be recriminalised under the BNP. 

In my view, it is the duty of a modern democracy to enshrine human rights as central properties to any future incarnation of that state.  Our own human rights charter would put Britain in the vanguard of freedoms and rather than making us a repressive state, would acknowledge the debt owed to those who fought in WWll.



LadyEllen -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 7:05:08 AM)

Thanks RL - its been some time since I last looked in detail at their website.

Incidentally the other two I mentioned; the one was set up and is organised by a nazi with whom I've tackled in the past. Not to be confused with the English Democrats.

The NSPGB meanwhile are literally a handful of people and obsessed with the third reich; sad, amusing and troublesome all at once.

E



MissMorrigan -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 9:59:52 AM)

Your points are noted, however, I work in the community and see many examples of lack of conscience, so apply this same mentality to the voting system once parties such as the BNP have blindsided them with their proganda and you potentially have a lot of people voting for them. Today's 1% could well be the next general election's majority.

While my mother did withdraw her membership, there are many more of her generation who haven't and the reason being that at the height of the Thatcher fiascos, followed through by Blair's, my mother's generation are exasperated at the failures of previous governments, so their ideology is to teach mainstream parties a lesson - by voting for malevolent groups such as the BNP. People tend to take things at face value, Politesub. Whether the extreme right are in a position to gain control should be a moot point.
quote:

ORIGINAL: Politesub53

I would like to make two points here. Firstly, just because a few people are naive, it doesnt make the general public so. As i posted before, the BNP got less than 3/4 of 1% of the vote. Secondly, the minute your mother found out the true ideals of the BNP, she sensibly left them.  My point still holds that if we ban extreme right wing groups, then we ban all extreme groups. Once that happens we no longer have a democracy. 

Any talk of the extreme right getting control here is pointless, people are just too cute to fall for it. For example, when Martin Webster stood for election in the 70s he got 16% of the vote. Yet in 82, he got around 4%. This at a time when the BNP and NF were maybe at their strongest since WW2.

Edited for spelling.



Politesub53 -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 10:26:43 AM)

RL while you are correct about left wing parties not being racist in the UK, communisum itself has not stopped state sponsored racism, In China and Russia for example. I cant see anywhere that states either race or nationality, when refering to membership. That would break the current laws and be dealt with as such. Thats not to say they wont use other means to deny membership. Below is thew link for the BNP manifesto.

http://www.bnp.org.uk/pdf_files/minimanifesto2007.pdf

While i agree they are likely to do better at local level, it will be interesting to see if the vote share has altered or not, hopefully its much lower than last time in places like Burnley. The one advantage they hold is as follows, they are willing to address many situations, which the mainstream parties avoid. Unless such issues are addressed then there will always be people willing to vote for parties such as the BNP.



LadyEllen -> RE: resisting the BNP (4/30/2008 10:36:55 AM)

All thats needed is a catalyst - a minor one wont do it, such as the report on BBC1 Midlands Today at the moment about 30 positive tuberculosis tests at an independent girls school in Aston, Birmingham; a mainly Muslim school catering for girls of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage. TB was wiped out in the UK - mass migration has brought it in, and mass migration from the ISC, Africa and so on.

What may well do it is the oncoming depression (not recession) provoked by the bankers dabbling in dodgy financial instruments, increasing fuel prices, currency depreciations, increasing food prices, increasing job losses and mortgage foreclosures and homelessness and our vulnerability to global markets.

E





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