Is BNP beyond the pale?

12 April 2005

It is easy to demonise the British National Party (BNP) but it is more useful to view it as an increasingly sophisticated and well-organised social movement, Professor Stuart Weir told a meeting on the rise of the right last week.

Weir, Visiting Professor at Essex University and Senior Research Fellow at the Human Rights Centre, said that it was important that the frustrations and anger which the party was tapping were represented in the political process.

Id prefer them to lose heavily in the [forthcoming] local elections, but for them to stand and get in is not the worst thing that could happen, he told a meeting of the Friends of Le Monde Diplomatique in London.

Research indicated that about one person in five had voted for or considered voting for the BNP, and that there was an overlap between supporters of the BNP and of the United Kingdom Independent Party said to be the BNP in blazers.

Both parties prioritised immigration as the biggest issue facing Britain, he said: Immigration is the rock on which both parties were based.

Demonisation of Muslims was the most pronounced bias in all BNP campaigns. The BNP was unscrupulous, for example, in claiming that Muslim men were preying on white women. The party also fomented violence on the streets theres no doubt about that.

But Weir emphasised it should not simply be dismissed as a Nazi party, as barbarians at the gate. In Burnley it had campaigned on a fair play platform, capitalising on popular grievances; it listened and talked to people, established local credentials and was effective at presenting itself to voters as being like us.

Its successes were attributable to a view that the government had lost the plot, was in thrall to Europe and failed to speak up for Britons.

A second factor was the popular sense of a broken contract that the Labour Party had dropped its fundamental position of trying to protect the interests of working people: With this protective shield abandoned, [people] feel frustrated, vulnerable and abandoned.

The BNP also presented itself as telling truths about asylum-seekers and immigrants unlike the liberal elite who wont let us say what we want because of political correctness. This argument was exacerbated by the popular press, which perniciously exaggerated asylum issues.

The party did not, however, stress ideas of racial superiority; instead, it exploited the idea of racial difference, that the English were becoming a minority in their own country.

Weir noted that the BNP was able to exploit real problems over the legitimacy of the political process in Britain and over the neglect of some public services, such as 25 years neglect of public housing.

All this amounted to a protest vote that was racialised, he said, and it was vital to respond in a positive and constructive way.

Weir said that the BNPs target was not more MPs in the forthcoming general election but to increase its representation in next years local government elections in London, where they stood a better chance partly because the turnout was smaller.

Links:

* Friends of Le Monde Diplomatique