The hope we've gained from the BNP by Sunny Hundal

Nick Griffin leader of the BNP, by Steve Bell cartoonist at The Guardian











The hope we've gained from the BNP:

Instead of the aghast, uncritical scaremongering, we now have a chance to expose the far-right party in a different way



Sunny Hundal
guardian.co.uk,
Monday 8 June 2009


The election of Nick Griffin, leader of the British National party, to the European parliament, will be near the top of the news agenda today, and for good reason: Britain has finally voted in a fascist leader. When I was twittering the results last night the whole system nearly went into an aghast meltdown.

I'm not saying we should be complacent about the threat the BNP, and the National Front, present – I hope it will start a change in the way we approach the party.

1. The BNP is not increasing its votes. In both Yorkshire and the north-west, its total number of votes fell from 2004. This absolutely does not mean that more people are being seduced by the BNP's propaganda. It means that Labour's share of the vote collapsed and went to other parties, thereby helping the BNP under a proportional system. If the party makes a comeback then there's no reason why the BNP will continue to get its MEPs elected.

2. It may stop Labour ignoring its traditional working-class origins, now so comprehensively stomped over that they're migrating to other parties in droves. This is not an indictment of high immigration and multiculturalism, as no doubt some will call it, but of a centralised party ignoring local concerns. As Sarah Ditum points out, our media tell people every day that their crumbling infrastructure is the fault of those dastardly asylum seekers (rather than lack of investment, which might mean higher taxes). Immigration wouldn't be such a big issue if local councils presented information more quickly about population movements, so resources could be poured in or taken out in response, ensuring local public services didn't suffer. This is also a result of the lack of investment in social housing.

3. I hope this result also puts an end to anti-BNP gesture politics. There are those photo-ops where all the parties come together to tell people to "vote anyone but the BNP". If such people gave us a reason to vote and didn't sound like such vacuous robotic idiots on television, then more of us might even be persuaded to vote. These sorts of gestures only reinforce the BNP's anti-establishment credentials and ensure that people who want to vote "none of the above" vote for them.

4. It shows that appropriating the BNP's language doesn't work. The Labour government is full of people who believe that if they occasionally blurt racist dog-whistles then they'll keep the working-class vote on side. This is not only patronising to working-class people, but also misunderstands that they're angry at the party that let them down, not necessarily at their black neighbours. MPs such as Margaret Hodge, Liam Byrne and Phil Woolas (especially) have for a while sounded tough on immigration and asylum seekers in the absurd hope that it will shore up their vote. They don't have an inspirational message that says, as Obama did, "your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams".

5. It might force the media to re-evaluate how their churnalism aids the BNP. Rather than simply asking them inane questions about whether it is the racist party, it would help if journalists put its activities under the spotlight. For example, Andrew Brons, now elected as a BNP member, has an illustrious past as a bona fide fascist. Much of the establishment's attitude towards the BNP is that of derision: that these people cannot be taken seriously. David Dimbleby's somewhat smirking attitude last night was a perfect example. But the BNP has to be taken seriously because it has shown it can win more than 100,000 votes in a region. This is not a party to be taken lightly and should be exposed as the bunch of incompetent charlatans it is, complete with racist histories. The election of the two MEPs may now force journalists to take the BNP more seriously rather than treat them with the sniffiness that only plays into anti-establishment anger.

6. Is the country now going to descend into a racial war? I doubt it. The BNP itself has had to increasingly temper its message as it moved closer towards power (apparently, it is not a racist party any more, which should come as a great disappointment to many of its rabid supporters, who say they're proud to be racist). Most people have enough contact with someone of an ethnic minority to know how stupid racism is. That personal knowledge will always override whatever the BNP says.

All this doesn't mean we should welcome the BNP with open arms. Only that some of the over-the-top scaremongering plays into the BNP's hands.