“I think the author (Sunny) does a terrible job of attempting to tackle the BNP problem by just damning everyone as a racist. We live in a democracy, the BNP have such a profile because they have support from many people. The author is typical of those who stick their heads in the sand and refuse to listen to the concerns of voters….”

Well said.

Apart from the fact that they have nothing in common. As you would know had you done even five seconds of research.

You can argue that NO countries have an “inginous” race (although I think most countries correctly use the word people rather than race), or that all countries do. What you cannot credibly argue is that some countries do and some don’t, as if there is some arbitrary test of “indiginousness”.
As others have said, even under nu labour, a comprehensive education will teach that aboriginees, native Americans, eskimos etc are indiginous, usually just before saying how terrible it was when the Imperial West invaded “their” countries and took “their” land – and yet by your logic they had no more right to it than anyone else and should have just shut up and celebrated the diversity of their complex and ever changing society ?

Please ignore the idiot who was on the Internet at 1.11 this morning.

Rob:

I do agree that unworkable is not a complete barrier but I do feel that unworkable is too kind a word for the quite frankly, mental policies of the BNP, I really do not feel that a BNP voter examines the entire manifesto (Capital and corporate punishment and chain gangs used to strengthen the UK’s coastal defences?) but goes for the hot button issue of immigration, where also, their ideas are unworkable nonsense; just on the issue of racial interbreeding alone, never mind repatriation and all that guff.

Also, defending a return to imperial measures is a wee bit of an odd thing to do, you seem to be justifying silly policy in order to fit reality to your own opinion.

I struggle with the idea indigenous of people also because the British Isles doesn’t have any and the race that the BNP mark out as indigenous is in itself an interbred race with a complex gene pool and was not indigenous at all in the early history of the British Isles.

I mean, when you have to stretch a point that much, it inherently becomes really silly.

To be honest Rob, your approach makes me very, very uncomfortable, it is appeasement and empathy with racists, fascists and bigots; if you replace the word BNP with, for example, the Nazi Party of Germany or the far right political groups in Europe at the moment it would read far worse.

And crucially, you seem to be under the impression that the BNP has a large scale grip on the UK population, when it does not.

So you’ll have to forgive me for not giving the BNP a sympathetic ear.

Yes but the 1.6% of the UK population that vote BNP seem to do so on only a single issue, as surely they must understand that the majority of the BNP’s policies are either unworkable (indigenous cuts, foreign trade only with Australia, New Zealand and Canada) or just plain weird, like all the weights and measures nonsense and the idea that Britain has indigenous people, seemingly failing to acknowledge the complex make-up of any Britain.

Yes, but being unworkable isn’t always a barrier to policy being enacted – the current government has enacted some daft policies and so did the Tories before them. The weights and measures nonsense seems odd to anyone educated after a certain date, but probably not at all daft to anyone educated before that date. People do still talk in terms of pounds and ounces for many things, after all. I think there’s a deeper point here, that whilst metric measurements are more ‘rational’, this only applies if you’re regular called upon to do sums using measurements. Most people aren’t, and if they find ‘5 ounces’ easier to understand than ‘12 grams’ then the advantage of metric measurements is nil or negative.

As for the ‘indigenous’ argument, part of the problem is that there certainly are cultures around the world which do promote the idea of ‘indigenous’ people. Our own history education in schools spends a fair amount of time talking about the indigenous people of various places (certainly I studied the native Americans when I was at school, around 1994 or so). It might be obvious to you or I that Britain has no definitive indigenous population and it wouldn’t even matter if it did, but there are plenty of people who insist that greater respect be shown to various indigenous groups around the world merely by virtue of their status as indigenous people. The idea exists and the BNP want to apply it here. It’s wrong, and it may be nonsensical, but it’s a mainstream idea in many places.

And because they are a minority, it feels disappointing to engage frankly backward and idiotic ideas, doesn’t engaging with an idea sometimes mean a tacit acceptance of the premise and validating the concept?

The only premise that needs acceptance is that the BNP feel their own views to be valid. The premise can still be undermined and countered with suitable evidence, surely?

There seems to be a division here between those of us who want to try to understand the BNP and those who don’t. There’s no point in giving the BNP’s views a totally uncharitable reading because you will immediately conclude that they are nonsensical, weird and idiotic, and there’s not really anywhere you can go from there. The only conclusion that can flow from this is that anyone who votes BNP must be a nutter. I’m trying to view the BNP’s views in a slightly more charitable light, with a bit more empathy. I guess I am accepting some of their basic premises in order to understand where they lead. Bearded Socialist is doing the same thing. If you find this unpleasant or uncomfortable then you’re under no obligation to do it yourself, but I don’t think you’re achieving anything by refusing.

As part of my job, I’ve been on a few courses about sales, and one of the key messages that gets drummed into you is that you must “live in the customer’s world” and “understand their problems from their perspective” in order to persuade them to buy your product. I suspect that the same holds true for political parties, and that in order to figure out how to persuade a BNP voter to vote for someone else, you first need to figure out how a BNP voter might think.

I think the link between alienation and the BNP, to me, comes from the Mail, Express, Telegraph and Murdochs grubby paws.
BNP and non-BNP people that i’ve talked to believe that the British are strangers in our own land, that we’re down trodden and at the back of every queue due to political correctness, liberal elite etc. etc. you know the lines.
They see the BNP as cutting through this, and so are drawn to them. The BNP do have other policies, which tend to be populist and non-liberal. Some say they are far left, some say far right so it’s probably fair to say that they’re somewhere at that end of the doughnut.
Lots of people sympathetic to the BNP were carping about how Griffin wasn’t allowed to talk about their wider policies on Question Time.

But I’m not denying any of this. The only way the Labour Party can deal with this is through community organising, better engagement on a local level, and focusing on helping deprived communities.
People feel let down by mainstream politicians, but that goes across the board. And that is not something ethnic minorities helped bring about. Some people are voting BNP because they are the anti-establishment… but to then tie that explicitly with immigration is not always the right link.

LAstly, why aren’t people talking about the growing Green vote?

And because they are a minority, it feels disappointing to engage frankly backward and idiotic ideas, doesn’t engaging with an idea sometimes mean a tacit acceptance of the premise and validating the concept?

And thanks Sunny for getting rid of the impostor.

My own views on this come (in part) from a conversation I had in a pub in south Essex with some mate’s mates who were BNP supporters. At the time I was pretty unpleasant to them, in a down the pub in Essex sort of a way.

I think it was good to talk like that, and we were each pretty clear where we all stood. It’s an area where the BNP came 1st, 2nd or 3rd in each council election that set of elections.

Some of their supporters are racist, but some feel abandoned by politics and politicians. One said that Labour used to be the party of the working man but now no-one was. So to some extent their is a link with Labour supporters. But Labour don’t have a monopoly on the working class, and the BNP is a problem for all.

But the BNP is a legal political party so we have to accept that and engage with their supporters’ concerns or they will feel that “the liberal elite” is not listening to them, reinforcing why they support the BNP in the first place

Which is what I pointed out above, and you say I’m damning all BNP sympathisers and the post is sticking my head in the sand etc etc.

First, BNP voters are NOT ex-Labour voters.

Secondly, most BNP voters do not come from areas with a big percentage of racial mixing – but come from areas with the lowest percentage of ethnic minorities in the area. So it’s time to recognise that a LOT of them do vote for the BNP on the basis of fear about ethnic minorities.

Trying to white-wash BNP voters by saying all of them are not racist isn’t good enough – a significant proportion are.

Thirdly, I’m all for making the case for immigration, and all for the govt recognising that immigration has made life difficult for people who need access to public services etc.

Fourth – I already addressed the point about non-whites coming here with their culture and religion etc. I’m happy to prmote a stronger sense of national identity and more strongly dismissing any sign of sharia law (in criminal law) or other things that destroy cohesion.

I’m already on the record as opposing religious discrimination in faith schools and going further in ensuring everyone speaks English and knows the rights and responsibilities as a British citizen. But I’ve said parts of it above.

Rob: That’s a bit incoherent. Surely giving British workers more rights will make them less attractive to employers than footloose EU migrants?

No, it would make it harder for employers to fire British workers just to replace them enmasse with Polish workers for example.

For what (little) it’s worth, my ideas on challenging the BNP are:
1) make the case for immigration
2) attack the myth that being British is a crime and that we’re under attack from foreigners, liberals etc.
3) make the case for others. The BNP don’t do well when other parties do well. They have a number of supporters that seems unlikely to rise above a certain point. If other parties do well they will have their share of the vote squeezed.
4) don’t insult everyone who votes for them.
5) try to ensure that politicans don’t so stupid things the public will hate e.g. duck houses

The author is typical of those who stick their heads in the sand and refuse to listen to the concerns of voters.
I’m from south Essex originally, where there is a great deal of support for the BNP from people of middle and lower classes. Sticking your head in the sand and slating people as racists rather than listening to what they have to say is bad for everyone, except the BNP.

No one can miss what numpties who vote BNP say. Their voices are shrill and over reprsented in the press. It is the detatchment from reality of those numpties that is the problem. The gap is created by the press who shockingly inhuman coverage of the issue of immigration creates the divisions and by the government who pandered to all the bull written up in the press.

I cannot understand this kind of pandering by professed liberals to the stupidity of a few people in BNP voting areas (whether working class or middle class).

What is the government supposed to do? Pull up the drawbridge and damage not just internal social cohesion – leaving the field open for racists to make hay and others’ lives a misery, but also irreperably damaging the reputation of this great country in the eyes of all other major – civilised – nations?

That must never happen.

Britain is not alone in dealing with modern migration flows. All other advanced nations are experiencing the same kind of phenomena as travel becomes easier and cheaper and education expands the horizons of those in the developing world.

No wall has ever been built high enough to keep other human beings out. Humanity is too intelligent and too resourceful. The xenophobes are just going to have to be told to get real.

And that starts with government pushing back the hysterical anti-immigration tide.

When the non-white population becomes bigger it gets harder for the BNP to win, because there is a larger pool of voters who won’t vote for them, while their ceiling of support among white voters is pretty low. This is why, when they do get elected, they tend to scrape in on split votes with shares of around 35% or lower.

You are to be congratulated again. So far it’s been well below par.

My view is that it’s not so much an issue of the BNP’s traditional core supporters but rather the potential large support they might be drawing upon at the next election. So, there’s no point in talking about the BNP on this board if people are just going to dismiss their potential voters as racist thickos.

In the past year the financial meltdown has caused people to question the assumptions upon which the banking / credit / valuation systems were based. All well and good the orthodoxy was challenged at last.

With regard to UK politics I suspect we might be entering a new phase of political voting partly as a consequence of the financial turmoil / personal indebtedness / changing population / expenses. This phase will not be understood by considering the drift away from the left and shouting “racist!” at every possible opportunity – it just misses the point.

For all I know Nick Griffin may do well at the next election – I certainly hope he doesn’t and hope that he can’t hide behind the cover of a ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ who will ony challenge him on a single issue. Although the people of Daganham and Barking are well used to the ‘Essex Girls’ insults lets spare them the racist stereotype as well.
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