Stop BNP or watch racism grow, says campaign

Failing to challenge the British National Party’s appeal to voters will lead to their vote multiplying and increased racism and violence in public places across Britain, a new anti-BNP campaign warned this week.

by Tribune Web Editor
Thursday, October 29th, 2009

by René Lavanchy

Failing to challenge the British National Party’s appeal to voters will lead to their vote multiplying and increased racism and violence in public places across Britain, a new anti-BNP campaign warned this week.

James Bethell, the director of “Nothing British about the BNP” which last week published a letter from former army commanders attacking the far-right party, said that if unchallenged, the BNP could be expected to gain a much bigger share of the vote at the next European election and use this as a springboard to win seats at Westminster.

Mr Bethell told a meeting in Parliament: “A combination of the reaction and the effect of globalisation, and a feeling that the establishment has betrayed people… means that Nick Griffin’s one million votes [at the last European polls] become three million votes and this form of nationalism takes popular root in Britain.”

“If it did happen, we would see a confrontational element enter into politics in a way that we don’t see at the moment. We find racism returns to the playground and the workplace. Violence against minorities would rise.”

The 2008 European elections saw Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons elected as the BNP’s first members of the European Parliament after a collapse in the Labour vote.

Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs this week pledged support for the Nothing British campaign. John Robertson, Labour MP for Glasgow North West, said: “Despite the differences we may have in the chamber, at the general election next year we are united against the likes of the BNP. A vote for any of the parties present here today is a vote against the BNP.”

The Nothing British campaign, with strong links to Conservative politicians and analysts, is seeking to broaden its base of support to other mainstream parties. Mr Bethell is a former Tory parliamentary candidate and press chief for centre-right think-tank Policy Exchange.

Mr Bethell said he did not think most BNP voters were racist, but that appealing to positive values was likely to be more effective than loud denunciation of the BNP as racist. “For the older generation, it’s an appeal to British values and traditional institutions that is going to cut through”, he said. “If we contrast the BNP with British values of fairness, decency, tolerance, I think these sorts of appeals work very well with people who are thinking of voting for the BNP.”

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  • Robert

    I’m disabled I live on the poverty line I pay well over 10% of my heating and i live in fear of this government stopping my benefits, I’m classed as being paraplegic. I cannot vote labour and I cannot vote Tory because your both the same, now you tell me who I can or cannot vote for how bloody dare you.

    If the BNP fits the needs of the people then people will vote for them, who can blame them, with all the other parties moving away from the working class or poor.

    but your OK I know they are a racist bunch of twits, but to show labour I was damn well temped to vote BNP.

  • Robert

    I’m disabled I live on the poverty line I pay well over 10% of my heating and i live in fear of this government stopping my benefits, I’m classed as being paraplegic. I cannot vote labour and I cannot vote Tory because your both the same, now you tell me who I can or cannot vote for how bloody dare you.

    If the BNP fits the needs of the people then people will vote for them, who can blame them, with all the other parties moving away from the working class or poor.

    but your OK I know they are a racist bunch of twits, but to show labour I was damn well temped to vote BNP.

  • http://www.europeantruth.co.uk Rayatcov

    In modern European history, there have been two categories of regime which sought to hound dissidents solely on the grounds of their political affiliation.

    The communist regimes of Eastern Europe formed one group, and most notoriously, Nazi Germany and her Fascist allies formed the other. In Communist Eastern Europe, the tactic of depriving political dissidents of their livelihood and forcing them into menial occupations developed into a finely honed instrument of state policy.

    Now, in 21st Century Britain, Fascist-style political harassment is again back in vogue: the modish preoccupation of government ministers, Trade Union barons, Establishment journalists and Cabinet Office bureaucrats alike.

  • http://www.europeantruth.co.uk Rayatcov

    In modern European history, there have been two categories of regime which sought to hound dissidents solely on the grounds of their political affiliation.

    The communist regimes of Eastern Europe formed one group, and most notoriously, Nazi Germany and her Fascist allies formed the other. In Communist Eastern Europe, the tactic of depriving political dissidents of their livelihood and forcing them into menial occupations developed into a finely honed instrument of state policy.

    Now, in 21st Century Britain, Fascist-style political harassment is again back in vogue: the modish preoccupation of government ministers, Trade Union barons, Establishment journalists and Cabinet Office bureaucrats alike.