UK Politics
What's driving the BNP?
Published 01 May 2008
The rapid growth in support at the ballot box for a nationalist party of the right has gone hand in hand with voter cynicism and disillusion with the main parties
On a sunny day in Stanmore, north London, a motley crew of people gathers at the Tube station. An elderly man leans on a walking stick, a faded blue, white and red tattoo saying "Proud to be British" just about visible on his forearm. The tattoo might be older than I am. Bert, a sixty-something retired heavy-machine worker, is inappropriately dressed in a woollen jumper and beige overcoat. He lets out a yelp of approval when a truck with a Union Jack on its side - carrying "British Meat" - hurtles by.
Housewives in jeans and short-sleeved tops talk animatedly about the beautiful weather. Charlotte Lewis, a 35-year-old unemployed woman from Croydon, is wearing a loud gold lamé jacket and black jeans. She speaks with a south London twang: "Sometimes I get on a bus and I'm the only white person on there," she complains. "It's a bit distressing."
A white van swerves into view, beeping at the group of 15 men and women to move out of the way. Out steps Richard Barnbrook, dressed in a khaki suit and with a roll-up between his fingers. He has the look and swagger of an old colonialist. I can picture him leaping out of a jeep in white-ruled Rhodesia in the same manner he leaps out of his white van in multi-ethnic Stanmore. His two helpers, big men in T-shirts, unload boxes of leaflets headlined "The Changing Face of London". They show a group of smiling white women at a street party in the 1940s (the good old days) next to a picture of three women wearing burqas, one of whom is giving a two-fingered salute to the camera (the bad new days).
This is the London wing of the British National Party. Five days before the local and London mayoral elections, it has come to Stanmore and Edgware in north London - which have large Indian and Jewish communities - for some last-minute electioneering. Its members are confident, even cocky, about their chances of a seat on the London Assembly. "We'll definitely get one, maybe two," says Barnbrook, who is the BNP's mayoral candidate.
Barnbrook is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, who worked with the gay film-maker Derek Jarman in the 1980s ("Me and Derek and Tilda [Swinton] hung out together, and there was never a problem," he says). His fiancée is Simone Clarke, former prima ballerina of the English National Ballet and a fellow BNP member, who has a mixed-race child. "How can I be racist when I adore that child?" he says, when I ask if the BNP is anything more than a Johnny Foreigner-baiting party. Barnbrook, who leads the BNP's 12 councillors in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, insists the BNP is "concerned about lots of things".
"If I had to put our concerns in order of importance, I would say: housing, transport, health, education, the environment and law and order." So immigration isn't a concern at all? "Well, immigration impacts on all of those things," he says. "It causes overcrowding in housing, strain on the transport system, more pollution in the environment and it disrupts law and order."
I see. Behind Barnbrook's "respectable issues" there lurks the odious far-right idea that immigrants are the root cause of every social ill.
Cocky leafleteers
Barnbrook and his eager leafleteers have reason to be cocky. At the time of writing, many predict that the BNP will make important gains in the local and London mayoral elections. In London, parties must win 5 per cent of the vote in order to get a seat on the 25-member Assembly. That threshold was introduced by the government to allow minor parties such as the Greens to be represented, while keeping out the far right. In the last London elections in 2004, the BNP won 4.7 per cent of the vote - only 6,000 votes short of the threshold for gaining a seat. This time it is expected to win bigger, especially since the UK Independence Party (which won 8 per cent in 2004) is in disarray.
Around the country, the BNP has grown in local electoral strength over the past ten years. Under its founder, John Tyndall, the party was a racist menace but electorally insignificant, only ever winning handfuls of votes. That began to change with the election of the slick Nick Griffin as party chairman in 1999. He set about trying to improve the BNP's image. The party had won its first-ever council seat in the east London borough of Tower Hamlets in 1993. After the local elections of May 2006, it had over 50 council seats: 12 in Barking and Dagenham, and a smattering of seats in the north of England: mainly in Stoke-on-Trent, Burnley and West Yorkshire.
"The BNP has tended to prosper in segregated poor, white communities in the north, and in parts of the south-east where there have been unexpected infusions of new immigrants," says Tony Travers, an expert in local government at the London School of Economics. The party's vote has grown exponentially at general elections, too. In 1992, it won 7,005 votes; in 1997 it won 35,832; in 2001 it won 47,129; in 2005 it won 192,746. What is behind the growth of the BNP? How has it managed to gain a toehold in local politics?
Many would argue that the party's recent success represents the re-emergence of flick-knife racism, even that "neo-fascism" is on the march. In fact, the expansion of the BNP can be seen as a product of mainstream political failure. The party - a ragbag of ageing skinheads, slick wannabe politicians and ditzy women with chips on their shoulders - thrives on disillusionment with the three main parties.
"There is research evidence that a lot of people who vote for the BNP are not aggressive neo-fascists, but rather are cheesed off with mainstream politics," says Travers. "The rise of the BNP can be seen as a grim indicator of the failure of the Labour and Conservative parties. If the parties functioned properly, then probably the BNP could be contained. Its supporters would be tempted away by old-fashioned Labour values or by the legitimate, centre-right nationalism of the Tories."
But today, Travers says, there is a "clustering in the centre" in mainstream politics, and a "collapse of the ability of the mainstream parties to win new members and supporters". The effect has been to allow the BNP to proliferate.
"If the other parties were doing their job properly, we wouldn't be here having this conversation right now," says Barnbrook. "I know we win votes because people are angry with the other parties."
Far from being a clear-headed neo-fascist party, the BNP comes across as a mess of contradictions opportunistically trying to pick up the votes of the disillusioned. For example, Barnbrook tells me the BNP has "no problem with black people". Someone clearly forgot to brief Bert, an older member of the BNP, who says "mixed marriages are just wrong because both races become denigrated". Bert has "no comment" on the question of whether six million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust, yet Charlotte from Croydon tells me she was "really, really moved" when she visited Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam a few years ago. Barnbrook says the BNP has "nothing in common with the thugs of the NF"; Bert tells me the NF "are decent blokes". Most strikingly, where Barnbrook tried to convince me that "millions of Britons empathise and support our message", Charlotte reveals that a party stalwart advised her to walk to the top of a cul-de-sac and leaflet outwards. "It's safer that way," she says. "You can run away if people get angry."
With them for a day, I noticed two things about the BNP: its reliance on mainstream fear about immigration and its opportunistic exploitation of people's disdain for Labour, Tories and Lib Dems. BNP doorsteppers talk about Britain being "overcrowded" and claim immigrants are polluting our environment; they argue that Poles lower British wages. These are thoroughly mainstream ideas. They tell voters, in the words of Bert: "If you're pissed off with the rest, vote for the best!"
All parties should be concerned that the growth of the BNP over the past 15 years - from 7,005 votes in the 1992 general election to 192,746 in 2005 - has coincided with political malaise and cynicism across the UK.
Perhaps the best way to smash the BNP is to challenge the mainstream fear of immigration that it feasts upon and give voters something inspiring to vote for in its place.
Post this article to
58 comments from readers
-
Carl Jones
01 May 2008 at 11:02 Parties like the BNP and UKIP are establishment mechanisms which allows the main political parties to move their agenda to the right. Of course, we are talking a long game and when you consider to pooling of immigrant populations, there were likely to be some predictable outcomes.
Instead of opposing a potential BNP MP, political parties will make up the political devide. Of couse, these policy changes will be subtle. But this is what the establisment wants. Just re-read the last paragraph again...."mainstream fear"...is this not a MSM construct?:)
-
Jonny Mac
01 May 2008 at 11:20 "Perhaps the best way to smash the BNP is to challenge the mainstream fear of immigration that it feasts upon and give voters something inspiring to vote for in its place."
Balls. The best way to smash the BNP is to respect voters' concerns about immigration, rather than try to convince them that they're wrong to have any concerns. In other words, for government to respect the will of the people. But then the left has never been all that keen on democracy when the voters are "wrong" on an issue, has it?
-
rhory
01 May 2008 at 13:26 Is it any wonder that the indigenous population of London has feelings of alienation as they are displaced from their traditional homelands. It is not surprise that the BNP do best in areas where voters have already been displaced once (the old East End) and are in the process of being displaced again (Barking). As much as the Left would like it not to be the case, race matters as much, if not more, than class
-
Hippy
01 May 2008 at 16:09 I would love for all the articles written by learned journalists about the BNP to be part of English Literature courses at universities. The use of certain words and sentence structure could be analysed for the beautifully impartial and impeccably fair treatment these folk use when writing about the BNP. I could stoop to referring their style to political propaganda - but then that would be an entriley different degree wouldn't it....
-
James
01 May 2008 at 16:13 Public opinoin about immigration and race in society are common sensibilities, they are about perceptions. Therefore these issues are very murky and blurred and it is for this reason why essentially non-logic based parties like the BNP can make gains.
The BNP is not a party of policies but one of sensibilities. The paradox here is that becasue of the (logic-based) consensus in mainstream politics all parties are more or less involved in the politics of sensibilities. However the mainstream parties are trapped in a further paradox in that there exist unoffical rules of the game which means that some sensibilities should remain untapped, or at least not tapped with the same zeal.
Whilst there are 'real' structural issues surrounding immigration that could be addressed logically I don't beleive that the mass of public opinion relating to the issue has more than the remotest connection to these.
These issues are so wrapped in mythology and misunderstanding, in sensibility, that it would be unwsie to build policies around them.
Class, although not the only issue of importance, can at least form logical policy foundations becasue it is linked to political economy, to markets, power relationships and so on. It can be linked to more than blurred groupings of sensibility and misinformation.
-
IrritatedofTonbridge
01 May 2008 at 16:28 Hippy, what an utterly stupid point.
-
terence
01 May 2008 at 17:58 lets get some thing straight you talk in distain of the bnp
with its hypothetical hidden agenda lurking beneath the surface/ Ok take a look at the labour party and its communist supporters that's very nasty // lets look at the other party each has its ghost if you look closely at their hidden agendas!! i wont go into it all but who's country is this why did my family fight and die defending its boarders its culture its people!!WHY HAVE I NEVER BEEN CONSULTED ON MASS IMMIGRATION ?? Why haven't we had the promised Referendum on the EU!!Why can I not be part of or have a vote for the Muslim council of Britain?? why can I not join the black police confederation ETC:I trust not the war warmongering liars thieves and cheats in power..WHo would sell our land for a mess of pottage and our children for a pot of money THE BNP is the only honest opposition Racism is irrelevant!! and nothing to do with it
-
Will 3070
01 May 2008 at 20:24 "THE BNP is the only honest opposition" - Terence
Is that comment intended as a joke considering the BNP record. This election they've had their Mayoral candidate cheating on his partner, a member withdrawal for saying “Rape is simply sex” on a pseudonymous Blog and had a candidate unable to prove a series of claims he made in a leaflet including:
"all asylum seekers coming to the UK are handed cheques by the Government to buy a car"
The BNP are the most dishonest party I can think of.
Did your family "fight and die" to be lied too again and again by a party who wave the flag whilst treating them contempt.
-
Sylvie
01 May 2008 at 21:50 I have been a BNP member for some time now. I used to be a Labour voter and activist. I also helped Ken on his campaign for Mayor in 2000. My husband and two sons work in the banking sector, and l am a housewife. The people l have come to know in this party run rings around people l met over time in the Labour party, Yes, the BNP are a mix of people, from all professions. I know an accountant, a lawyer, a builder, a teacher, a cleaner, and a security guard etc; We have a Jewish councillor in Epping, and that looks to expand as many Jews are joining the party. I do not recognise Mr Travers views of the members at all. They are good people who care about this country. Who else speaks for us, the white population? We didn't fight in two world wars, in order to hand this country over a few years later to people from the third world , who are happy to live here with all that entails, whilst not careing a jot about what was once our beautifal land. I for one am not about to let that happen, And thinking of us as a bunch of wierdos Mr Travers, is rank stupididy.
-
Matt J
01 May 2008 at 22:54 While reading this article I saw something that irritated me so much that I have registered to this site just to comment on it.
The author likens Richard Barnbrook, the BNP mayoral candidate, to a Rhodesian colonist as he hands out flyers in London. Forgive me if I am wrong, but I believe Richard Barnbrook and most of his supporters are NATIVE to Britain. Furthermore, British National Party is a political party that is controversal largely because it stands for Indiginous Brits and against immigration. So for the author to describe the native inhabitants of London as foreign colonists (immigrants) is something I found absolutely frightening.
This sort of talk may be intended purely as a random smear against the BNP, but denying the Native inhabitants of a land their Native status is a terrible thing to do. Under international treaty it is a violation of their Human Rights and for good reason, denying Natives their status is normally only done by those intending to persecute those Natives.
As a person who has experienced violent anti-"White" racism in school and the lack of options "White" people have after such an attack. I know why the BNP are neccessary and why people who would deny people of Native British or European descent the same rights to self-determination and protection from discrimination that all other peoples are granted need to be exposed and stopped. These people often seem to think they are doing the right thing, but they aren't and are blind to their double-standards.
I respect all peoples and cultures and most of my friends are not White. However I recognize the uniqueness of my people and culture and want it to survive. I want to be able to have children and grow old and not find myself a stranger wherever I go. A person with no homeland, like the Jews before Israel was recreated.
For that reason and others I hope the BNP do well in this election to show people like this author that the Native Londoners will not accept being treated like "colonists" and "Rhodesians" in their own homeland!
-
Dickie
02 May 2008 at 03:52 The reason people vote BNP is because they talk like most of the British people! This article in itself is politically correct...too afraid to be open and honest about the mess that Britain is in through over crowding and an infrastructure that can't cope. As for the BNP being some kind of lesser government or beings; who is responsible for the illegal war in Iraq and the thousands of lives that have been lost? Who is responsible for the web of deceit regarding weapons of mass destruction? Who is ripping off tax payers left, right and centre by claiming allowances for second homes and the rest? Who is accepting cash for honours? Let’s not forget some of the other scandals...Major and Edwina, Mellor and his infamous toes sucking antics, Archer and his time serving...and the list goes on. What a load of bloody hypocrites and scoundrels we have in the main three parties. No wonder GB is on her knees. At least the BNP have a love of the country, the rest of them are lining their pockets, bogging it under with immigrants...even our immigrants are sick to death of immigration. And what is being done about violent crime? We have Muslim no go areas, black gang violence. Don't talk to me about the BNP having no values. If something isn't done about GB soon she'll sink under the politically correct BS. There will be no more Great Britain. Wake up for God sakes. This article is no more than the rest of the BS propaganda we're sick to death of.
-
South Africa
02 May 2008 at 08:11 I have read all your comments with interest - looking at the site to see how the BNP have done in the electins of yesterday, all the way from South Africa!
Do not kid yourselves for one moment - the BNP is about the colour of your skin and NOTHING else.
They will support and harbour anyone who has a white skin and will give them a home in the UK based only on their white skin.
One of the major propoganda forces in their party is a white Rhodesian with a serious political background in South Africa - he has no claim to UK citizenship other than his white skin but the BNP see no reason to deny him the right to immigrate.
-
Jonny Mac
02 May 2008 at 09:25 Surely it boils down to this:
(a) yes, the BNP are nasty (though not as nasty as the old NF - eg see Sylvie's post); but
(b) they will continue to advance unless the mainstream political parties start reflecting political opinion and start doing something about immigration. Therefore, articles like this - the BNP are scum, the way to defeat them is to 'celebrate' immigration etc - are part of the problem, in that they increase the appeal of the BNP, and not the solution.
-
James
02 May 2008 at 09:50 South Africa has it right.
The BNP are definately in the business of cornering the market of racist sensibilities, especialy from those sections of the population who feel they are under threat in some way or another.
Many of them are under threat and have little to gain from mainstream policies but these threats are to do with a rapidly globalising world in which the structures and institutions or their youth have been subject to de-emphasis.
The BNP has some very scary foundations and anyone who points to their policies on housing etc and says 'look, it's not about race' is haing their leg pulled, or perhaps more often than not, kidding themselves. Don't kid yourselves, you know what you think and how you feel.
As for those who point to the wars that previous generations have fought, that's the same for most of us but we don't feel the need to use our grandparents as an excuse for peddling lies. Many asians and africans fought in these wars as well, the eastern europeans fought a far more terrible war agaist the Nazis than 'we' did.
Fundemental nationalsim is a relic of the early 20th C and the structures and institutions it rested on are evolving out of generational recognition. So yes, I understand that those who can only frame their thoughts in terms of nation-states and racial hierarchy will feel under threat. And I am sure that you will get in a few violent swipes as you have your swan song but the 21st C is going to be about a lot more than nations and races. This is teh most exciting time to be alive and the excitement is due to change on every level.
-
William
02 May 2008 at 09:59 Political paties in the UK are for Britains involvement in Europe, denigrating the rights of its Citizens. BNP is the only organisation that stands up against this abusive harassment for All not just the Gilded Few. The Government is already setting up the 9 Regional Assemblies which will replace England, notice the lack of clarity on the Map of Europe: Quid Pro Quo.
-
johannine
02 May 2008 at 11:21 All political parties are run by people with adjenda's, we need only to see that party loyalty is the aim [the main measure for getting 'party' nomination [and funding]
The system is completly rotton ,what is needed is a platform of reform that gets everyone representation , this isnt achieved through parties but by banning [as criminal colusion any voting the party line or rather colluding their vote [or trading their vote]
So what is the next step towards a more fair system?
i put forward that the world be divided into school districts [that each school acts as like council does in this day, health regulation , planning serving the houses homes and regulating local industry ,
In affect the school district elects a lord major [who becomes the federal govt local representative ,for their school district,for all govt related services
[representing his or her local voters as public service representatives ie elected public officials; overseeing and coordinating specialists who earn their 'council' positions by a relitive skills base to meet specialised need in their district [as servants of the people not policers]
the trouble with parties is the ammount of supreme empowered but unseen heads currently heading parties
[the party isnt run by the pm and the opposition leader [because the current party system runs them [its the inseen hand moving the puppets [when we only get to vote for the chosen puppet] and party policy in most is only a way to pretend the party members are having a say
[how much labour party was in the end addopted?
why you think that is ?
policy is the smokescreen that pretends the party policy has support of the people behind it
[but when elected its the party heads are revealed to be ruling their party man,[men ;and women] and the other party elected members begin voting the party line
[were brown really labour he would use this term to eliminate the party system ] ie introduce real change , but he is too much the parties man [as are all our other ''elect'] as for the bnp it is the same as many other countries have got [our bnp is the hanson nationals party
ps get ready for the 'family first' the next level of the two party farce [just as bnp is the previous stage , it has become all so predictable , it takes party men topull the show off , get rid of the party machine first
but im dreaming right
has lynton crosby gotten boris johnstone elected yet ?
who is a great egsample of party machine man . using the great unseen powers of invisability [who works with the neo con right so look for him at the next bnp meeting [who'sss a bit camera shy [but the best party shyster the aussies ever had]
who knows the divide and con-quer better than most. so great at forming the wedge issue party.[that supposed one issue candidate so needed in a tight election.]
any way use your vote wisely
they know we dont like the parties [so are setting up these minority and independants [boy talk about the heads that regrow] thats the party way
-
midenglander
02 May 2008 at 12:11 As an inhabitant of Middle England I am watching closely to see what is going to happen in the elections in London, it is after all, OUR capital city as well as the home town of a very mixed bag of people. My own view is that Londoners have been short changed with the choice of fairly low grade candidates. Livingstone is an unrepentant Marxist who sucks up to Islamist extremists, he also has had a very colourful private life, as have the other two main contenders. Paddick is a sacked, controversial, senior police officer and Johnson comes over as a somewhat befuddled bafoon. It is little wonder that electors are beginning to look elsewhere for representation. I feel VERY disallusioned about all three main parties. They havre presided over the gradual and now rapid ruination of our country, aided and abetted by the media,. They still refuse to address the real issues that most people are concerned with. It simply will not do to constantly dismiss concerns over immigration, law and order and the drastically changing face of OUR homeland. All three main parties have only themselves to blame if others start to fill the void in British politics.
-
PlanetStarbucks
02 May 2008 at 12:37 The only good thing about this article is the commentary it has spawned. The article itself was written in such a bias way that it is almost pointless to read.
As for my own views, I believe fully in egalitarianism and having come from a working class background I am angered that money is spent on ethnic minorities whilst the white working class are left to rot. This however is not for me an issue of race. My black friend wanted to join the Army but refused when he realised that he would be assessed at a lower standard then whites because the Army wanted black recruits at any cost. This purported ‘positive racism’ is sheer racism pure and simple; it is telling that we think that non-whites need our devoted help to get themselves out of their quagmire. Wasn’t this the principle the British Empire was built on, spreading Christianity to the savages who couldn’t look after themselves?
The world is slipping inexorably to the right, we have the far right back in power in Italy, we have a proto-fascism regime in the US, and all the while the rest of Europe is tearing up its socialist constructs and privatising the state. The right are winning; the left is so pathetically caught up in its idiosyncrasies and single issue politics that it is powerless to stop this.
-
Dickie
02 May 2008 at 17:03 South Africa. You are sorely deluded! Have you paid any attention to the slaughter of white farmers that is going on in SA? These same farmers are refused refugee status in Britain but if they were black they'd be welcomed with open arms. Is that not racist? Did you know that by 2009, all white farmers have to hand back their land at a fraction of what they paid for it? Have you taken note of the violence that has exploded since aparteid? South Africa must be one of the most violent places on the planet...and only since Mandella had a say in the running of it. At least before aparteid it was peaceful. The blacks had more than they have now. To say the BNP are racist has become a boring statement by those who do not think. The indigenous in Britain are the ones being abused. Make no mistake about that. I'm fed up of hearing all this clap trap from people who haven't taken the time to read BNP policy or their manifesto. Please Grow up, and wake up!
-
IsThatcherDeadYet
02 May 2008 at 23:15 The Daily Mail and Daily Express coverage of immigration and Islam is an open invitation for people to vote BNP.
-
IndigoJo
03 May 2008 at 00:08 A bit of background on this Charlotte Lewis would not have gone amiss. She is a former BNP candidate who stood for the St Helier seat in Sutton in 2006, claiming to have lived in the borough when she actually lived in Thornton Heath, in Croydon. Merton and Barking/Dagenham councils also reported two incidents each of BNP candidates falsely claiming to live in their boroughs in order to get council seats. So she's not just a "ditzy woman" but a party activist deploying that time-honoured BNP tactic: lying.
I used to live in Croydon, and regularly go back there for both work and other personal reasons, and most of Croydon is predominantly white, except for parts of the north around Broad Green and Thornton Heath. Those areas have had substantial ethnic minority populations for decades. You might be the only white person on the bus there from time to time, most likely when there are not many people on the bus, but it's likely that the non-whites might be outnumbered too. Did Brendan O'Neill not have the time to do a background check on Charlotte Lewis?
-
Dickie
03 May 2008 at 02:47 Indigo jo. I suppose Lib/Lab/Conners are holier than thou? Where did you get your info, was it from the media? Well, it must be true then!
-
Mockneyflip
03 May 2008 at 03:01 Um, just who are you Brendan O'Neill to infer (sic) that women in the BNP are ditzy? So it is OK for you to indulge in stereotyping women but the BNP are evil if they stray into sexist territory? Go back to journalism school as you need to master the basics.
-
steffaction
03 May 2008 at 05:06 Mockneyflip: "Um, just who are you Brendan O'Neill to infer that women in the BNP are ditzy? "
When I read the word 'ditzy', I knew someone was going to make this utterly meaningless point. Ditzy wouldn't be the word I'd choose for BNP women - in fact its rather quaint, evoking images of charming yet steely women in old Hollywood comedies. The word I'd choose would denigrate women to a much greater extent, although not to the extent of that lovely 'rape isn't so bad' BNP ex-candidate.
The BNP's membership (or at least a significant section of their membership) engage in racist violence, lionise Hitler and deny the Holocaust, as well as generally being thugs of a less politically incorrect stripe. The BNP's election manifesto for the General election 2005 says a number of magnificent things: immigrants, even those who have lived her for decades, are not be repatriated, but encouraged to leave (let's all think about how that might be done); AIDS is not to be treated in NHS hospitals as it is a 'foreign disease'. All matters of public record.
-
Richard Michael
03 May 2008 at 11:51 ""Well, immigration impacts on all of those things," he says. "It causes overcrowding in housing, strain on the transport system, more pollution in the environment and it disrupts law and order."
I see. Behind Barnbrook's "respectable issues" there lurks the odious far-right idea that immigrants are the root cause of every social ill."
This is mis-representation. He says immigration IMPACTS on these things, he didn't say that immigration is the root of all evil. While I am far from a BNP supporter, I am irritated and insulted by the continual knife jobs.
Instead of just sounding off about the racist BNP, how about you just prove them to be wrong in good logical argument? How about debating with them in an open forum? If they're so thick, racist and simply fascist then they'll be shown up for what they are. Smear campaigns are ugly and unhealthy in modern political debate.
-
Londonistan
03 May 2008 at 12:37 I have met Charlotte Lewis and she is charming and intelligent. If only there were more women like her in Britain. Sadly, many Britons these days are more interested in celebrity tittle-tattle than political activism.
-
maine_seadog
03 May 2008 at 13:11 As an American with deep British heritage, but also socialist tendencies, I was disheartened by the worrisome rise of the racist BNP in your nation's politics. However, I think, with full sadness and indignation, that the BNP should continue to gain power and win seats until the immigration policy is radically changed.
I will be frank- it is immoral to destroy the culture of a nation, whether through force or peace. Beginning in 1492, European imperialists spread their wings and flew across the globe- to the detriment of hundreds of millions of peoples, This imperialism, driven by that satanic doctrine known as Social Darwinism, lead to the usurpation of native cultures and caused the downfall of many societies.
It is no more evident than in my own country, the United States of America, where indigenous tribes along both sea boards and the heartland were subjugated to brutal colonial, racist rule. They lost their identities because of this "Manifest Destiny"- supposedly God's bidding. As an Episcopalian, I don't believe God would condone such virulent actions, but it was done in God's name nonetheless.
I think we would all agree that Britain's imperial sins were entirely UNJUST, and that the destruction of Native cultures is INDEFENSIBLE. It was WRONG then, and it is definitely WRONG now. If you upport what is a happening to Britain now (the eventual replacement of English identity), then you indubitably endorse the horrid actions of centuries of white European advancement onto and anear annihilation of countless native cultures.
AN EYE FOR AN YE IS NOT JUSTIFIABLE.
Until the immigration policy changes to reflect this, I welcome, with a heavy heart, the unfortunate victories of the BNP. It is clear that average Britons feel eschewed by the corporate parties, and that until they are heard, they will support these extremists.
-
lyn898
03 May 2008 at 17:10 This article is so biased and actually seems designed to further put people off the smug political correctness of the left. I am a second generation immigrant, but that doesn't mean I welcome the immense surge in immigration to the UK in recent years. As far as I can see, it's to do with numbers and integration, not race. I would not vote for the BNP, particularly as I feel it would be a pointless protest vote, but I sympathise immensely with their supporters. There has been increased segregation of different cultures, no one can honestly say multiculturalism is a successful reality and this has caused immense tension and the lowering of the quality of life for innumerable people. I have many second generation immigrant friends and we all agree (whether black, Arab or Asian, etc) that it has gone too far. We all identify with and are proud of being British. I don't see this in the country around me when it comes to relatively recent immigrants and this is partly due to the dilution of British identity that this government has fostered. I see ingratitude and a demand for more and more rights without responsibility.
This article just indulges in name-calling and expresses just as much prejudice as the far-right is accused of exhibiting. Why is it so hard to find, within the leftist factions and the government, some understanding of how immigration has negatively impacted on so many people, primarily due to the failure of immigration and the over-stretching of resources on a tiny island? A wiser journalist would try to analyse and explain these voters' anxieties rather than write them all off as racist, ditzy or uneducated.
This has been one of the major failures of this government - it's absolute denial of voters' concerns about immigration and its continuous assertions that immigration is 'good' for us. Well, good for those who benefit from cheap labour but not good for those who are directly and negatively impacted by it, i.e. the working classes as opposed to the sheltered upper classes living in Kensington , not the East End.
I used to read the New Statesman a few years ago but it bores me with its right-on, insular views that ignore so many others' realities. I'm glad I stopped after reading this article due to some random surfing on the internet. I prefer reading something less snobbish, that respects what I perceive as a majority view on these issues, i.e. DEMOCRATIC.
-
D.Rowlands
03 May 2008 at 17:49 (James) The BNP does not propose a 'racial hierachy ' but it does fight for the sovereignty of our nation state as well as respecting the sovereignty and ethnic and cultural identities of others. Your excitement that the 21C is going to be 'a lot more than races and nations' is revealing about the arrogant and tyrannical agenda of those who are most fervid in their opposition to the BNP;
The 'one world' consensus view shared by marxists and global capitalists alike who seek to organise political and economic structures on an international basis is what the BNP stands in opposition to. There is an erroneous arrogance among these same internationalists that their aims are both inevitable and universaly beneficent to humankind. Whereas, history has shown - and current political trrends indicate - that their global vision leads only to a tyrannical and iniquitous concentration of political and financial power and the erosion of human diversity throughout the world.
-
Cassandra
03 May 2008 at 21:26 ‘midenglander’ calls Livingstone ‘an unrepentant Marxist’ - which must explain why he introduced a PRICE MECHANISM to reduce traffic in London.
And why he PRIVATISED much of public transport in London, eh?
Twit.
As for the points about the BNP being ‘the party concerned for all of us’ - it's sheer bloody nonsense.
They are blinkered (and/or bigoted) fools who have literally no idea about the challenges involved in ‘running’ a country.
That *none* of their apologists on this thread are capable of spelling common words correctly should tell everyone everything that they need to know about the BNP.
The BNP & their supporters ARE capable of seeing that unrestricted immigration drives DOWN the price of hiring labour for Corporations, and drives UP the price of housing, education, and everything else for that unimportant entity called ‘the ordinary taxpayer’.
But the BNP & their fellow-travellers then jump to the *wrong* conclusion - that immigrants are to blame.
And they also think that all of society's ills could be solved by ‘repatriating’ those whose skin is the wrong colour, or who profess the ‘wrong’ religion.
Never mind that they do not have the first idea of HOW they are going to persuade other countries to accept the resultant tide of exiles from Britain.
But this is getting away from the main point - the people who they SHOULD blame are the people who profit from unlimited immigration.
Want to know WHY the main Parties are so keen on immigration?
It's because Corporate Donors are so keen on immigration - and they are the ones who pay for the electoral campaigns.
And Corporations would run rings around the ‘intellectual giants’ of the BNP if it were ever elected.
All the capital would be removed by the Corporations, and those of us without sufficient wealth to escape would be left in a bankrupt third-world state off the north-western coast of Europe.
And, I suspect, with a totalitarian racist government, and an island dotted with forced labour camps for ‘crimethinkers’.
So ‘thanks’ BNP, but NO THANKS.
-
part_time_infidel
03 May 2008 at 22:20 A lot of the problem is perception. Immigrants tend not to be widely dispersed across the country and are concerntrated in specific - largely urban and working class - areas; thus breeding resentment and fear amongst the native population and leading people to think that the situation is the same nationwide.
A lack of planning on the part of the government has played into the hands of reactionary organisations like the BNP, by creating the impression that the problem is worse than it actually is.
The media had also done little to assuage the seige mentality promulgated by the likes of the BNP by dwelling on the negative and ignoring the positive aspects of immigration, favouring lurid scare stories over the reality - that the majority of immigrants are hard-working and law-abiding, are filling a gap in the labour market and have no desire to settle permanently in the UK.
Lowering wages and lack of job security are a result of global capitalism, not a result of mass immigration.
'New Labour' are truly the heirs of Thatcher with their privatisation and deregulation agenda. These policies, above all else, have contributed to a drop in living standards for the world's poor - it is not exclusive to the UK.
-
D.Rowlands
04 May 2008 at 01:50 Cassandra and part -time infidel - you're hoary leftist critiques of the BNP rest upon the falsehood that the BNP blames immigrants themselves, not the political and economic causatory powers behind immigration. The BNP fully recognises that immigration is driven by global economic and political factors and agents. The BNP, however, opposes gloabalised political and economic structures and ,whilst recognising that these are powerful forces, does not resignedly accept their being 'inevitable' as the Left now seems to have done.
The greatest challenge to internationalist economics will be posed by the inevitable peak oil crisis which will see optimum economic self sufficiency as being not just the basis of British nationalist ideology ( as it has always been) but as a political strategy adopted out of necessity by many developed nations.
In light of this the U.K might not by then be such an opportune coumtry for immigrants and recent immirant communities.
-
WelshPatriot
04 May 2008 at 10:02 The article is just the usual leftist smears. Let readers decide for themselves about BNP policies, go to:
-
RosaLuxemburgII
04 May 2008 at 17:01 I can't help noticing that almost all the comments left on this article seem to be pro-BNP. This is strange, seeing that this is a Left-wing magazine. How many of you are BNP members launching a smear campaign on the New Statesman website. It's just I couldn't help noticing that all the pro-BNP comments are left by New Statesman users with either usual names like, D.Rowlands and Matt J, or use other names like "Truth". I don't think that accusing a left-wing paper of being leftist is going to do the trick and accusing New Statesman of launching a smear campaign, well, isn't that what you (BNP members) and of course all political parties regularly do. The point is, you'll all go, oh, it's a user who is calling itself Rosa Luxemburg 2nd, why don't we go burn that users house down (after all, it's what you usually do to political opponants when a fascist party gets into power.) By the way, one of these users talked about the left not being to keen on democracy when it believes the public are misguided, but them, it suddenly occurred to me that a right or even far right government has never listened to the people when it is "in the wrong". What amused me more was that there are BNP members trying to convert hard-left and social democrats to join their cause when we all hate you anyway and don't give a fuck what you say. You'll never gat to power, neither will we, unless the public are seriously indoctrinated and, judging by your pour attempt to smear New Statesman journalists, your not going to be the ones that are going to be successful in indoctrinating a people.
-
RosaLuxemburgII
04 May 2008 at 17:04 Several corrections: but them - but then, never gat - never get, your pour attempt - your poor attempt
-
Matt J
04 May 2008 at 20:05 Rosa Luxemburg II.
In your post you accuse me by name as a person who would want to burn down your home because I support the British National Party and you are "hard-left". I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth, but I suspect you know that already.
When you falsely accuse someone of being violent or having violent intentions you simply end up shutting down debate. If you have proof that I am violent or that the BNP is a violent organisation then you should include some of it in your post, but don't name me and then invent fantasies about me burning down your home. If you want to contribute to this debate then fine, but don't say that I hate you because I DON'T hate you. Even if you hate me and "don't give a f**k" what I say.
Finally, my intention in making my earlier post was not to smear the New Statesman but to complain about something that really did bug me and to make my opinion clear. That's all, thank you.
-
maine_seadog
04 May 2008 at 23:14 I am no BNP supporter. First of all, I am an American. Second of all, I would best describe my self as a Social Democrat.
I just do not agree with the downfall of any culture, whether it occurred 400 years ago, no thanks to the imperialist ethnocentric tendencies of Europe, or today, with the gradual replacement of a national culture through peaceful means.
It is immoral, and until the mainstream parties alter their plans and respect human diversity, I welcome unfortunate BNP electoral successes with a heavy heart.
(If you don't believe who I am- I will gladly show you my American credentials).
-
Matt J
05 May 2008 at 06:16 Oh darn. It seems that if you change your name on this website the name on your old posts changes as well, so my earlier post defending myself from Rosa Luxemburg II accusations no longer makes sense because she changed her name to Student Union Member 101. Just to clarify, my earlier post (number 35) was in response to posts 33 and 34. Thanks.
-
Laura Fox
05 May 2008 at 11:41 Our naïve Benefits system has attracted 5 million Britons and trapped them (plus their three million dependents) in poverty. Millions of immigrants came to fill millions of job vacancies. These immigrants are now doing much better than the natives on benefits. This humiliates the natives, and is generating resentment, xenophobia, violence, and the surge in vote for the BNP.
-
Laura Fox
05 May 2008 at 11:48 The best way to deflate the BNP is reforming the benefits system, and pushing people into jobs – good jobs. Tough love needed.
But how can we create so many good jobs? Ireland is today 20% richer than Britain in income per head. They showed the way: a small government, and low tax economy will generate a lot of good jobs.
Sounds “right wing”? I know. But if it is the best way to reduce poverty, shouldn’t we do the right thing and accept it?
-
RosaLuxemburgII
05 May 2008 at 12:01 Sorry Matt J, but I was in a bad mood yesterday. Please accept my apologies. It's just you can't expect people to be warm hearted to a nationalist party when they have such a bad track record. We don't exactly have a good one either, but the fact still remains that when it comes to the extremes of opinion, there is much conflict. Nationalists and Socialists have never got on politically, but socially they can. I myself have a friend who is a nationalist and some of our aims are basically the same. I'm sure you wouldn't burn my house down, and I understand that I was extremely provocative but the fact remains that the BNP are not the only alternative and that it's not just the public who have lost faith in our leaders, but back-benchers in the House of Commons. I have to say that I would never, ever vote BNP. I watched an election broadcast by them and it wasn't encouraging to me. Apologies for my comments yesterday.
-
fairplay
05 May 2008 at 14:11 the bnp are lucky that the other parties arent drumming support on the same issues as they are yet otherwise they wouldnt get the publicity they are doing at the moment and the votes they need.
however, many of their arguments speak for the majority of british people today. its unfortunate but true. and i cannot believe the tories havent gone full pelt with it too. its a landslide election winner. no one cares for this excuse of a country that labour has trashed any more. and that includes older more established ethnic communities who are also getting their noses pushed out. enough is enough. they feel the backlash too and this gives the bnp fuel for the fire.
its like opening your 3 bedroomed house to all and sundry, having 20 lodgers in there and feeding them first before you fed your own family who you have moved to a shed at the bottom of the garden as they simply cannot take it any more. madness. welcome to great britain!
-
Mockneyflip
05 May 2008 at 23:34 Charlotte Lewis was once in the Question time audience and stunned the entire audience with her logic by suggesting a total block on immigration with perhaps 50 asylum seekers per annum being admitted to the UK. Viewers must have been cheering from John O'Groats to Lands End! We have all had enough of being invaded. Go girl!
-
Matt J
06 May 2008 at 10:04 Thank you Rosa Luxemburg II, you meet very few people online who show such decency.
As for the BNP, I know that they are not perfect, but I believe they are doing the right thing over-all and that most BNP supporters are good people. I think that a person's cultural identity is as important as their class identity and that the best way to influence the main parties on this issue is to support the BNP.
I don't expect the BNP will win the elections any time soon but they serve as an excellent civil rights pressure group and that they will become more-and-more necessary if things continue as they are and the Native British become the minority. Without the BNP I don't think there would be ANY open discussion of the rights of the Native British people right now (such as the fact that racism can go both ways); at least the BNP bring the issue up.
-
RosaLuxemburgII
06 May 2008 at 17:22 I think it's good to have pressure groups, but I can't support a party which has such a right-wing leaning agenda. It's not so much the immigration question, I believe immigration is a very important issue and that it has to be capped, but it's the whole white supremacy thing I'm not comfortable with.
-
redtakesy
07 May 2008 at 13:38 I like the way the BNP "tells the truth" about immigration, and then any argument trying to set the record straight is "just left-wing Political Correctness" (undertone "GONE MAD"). Every time a minister or a writer writes about the benefits of immigration, did it strike anyone that maybe they're trying to address peoples' concerns, and that the statistics they use mean they base their ideas on evidence rather than fearmongering?
Immigration is an emotive issue, but people are right when they say it's probably actually a marginal one. The talk of "invasions" and waving of "indigenous" identities, meanwhile, depends on some pretty gross misreadings of histories: comparisons to native Americans, for example, are meaningless, as immigrants don't come in believing they have a mandate from God to populate the land (well, maybe a few do, but they're pretty nutty and margnial however much the right wing press loves to publicise them).
Mockneyflip: why do you think she stunned the audience into silence? Because her ideas were ludicrous! A cap of 50 asylum-seekers a year (I bet she has no understanding of the difference between a refugee and an asylum-seeker, and I'd be surprised if you did too) and ignores the whole purpose of the refugee regime whichis designed to help people who have nowhere left to turn. The idea it's easy? While the EU erects visa barriers and turns people away before they even get on planes? While cases are undertaken by understaffed, overwork, demoralised solicitors, often without even a translator so the applicant can know what's going on, and can turn on the slightest inconsistency in a story? And as for a ban on immigration... Good luck with that one.
DRowlands: self-sufficiency sounds nice, but I'm afraid the world doesn't work like your ideology wants it to. It's big and totally interdependent, and it has been for a very long time. I don't like the direction of globalisation, but on the other hand I don't want to be cut out of the material, cultural, intellectual benefits of being a part of the world. Frankly if we had, then where would we be? Probably still somewhere in Africa, for starters. Stories about a past where everyone knew their place and didn't move from it are fairy tales. You might as well bring your children up to believe in the Tooth Fairy, and angrily reject any evidence to the contrary. And cultures aren't fixed: never have been, never will be. Always been influenced from outside (I hope you're having a nice cup of tea while you're reading this)
I'm not usually a realist, and I don't like to sound like I'm being arrogant and don't care about people's concerns, but please: immigration is a marginal issue and doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Some immigrants might well be criminals; some people might be playing the system; but they're people, doing what people have always done and will do. And frankly, it's probably better that we treat immigrants that way and reject the politics of fear than to try and raise up the drawbridge and take on a siege mentality and reject any implication that we're wrong.
-
RosaLuxemburgII
07 May 2008 at 19:12 It's true that immigration is a marginal issue, but sooner or later it's one that has to be addressed. I believe that green issues were totally sidelined by the parties a few years ago, now, their manifestos are bristling with green "promises". The BNP do have a point, immigration is too high and it must be reduced. The reason this is, is that UK is the only country in the E.U (except Portugal) that doesn't have a cap on immigration i.e we will take as many as will come. France, Germany, Spain etc. all kept their immigration barriers to a degree but here, if you go to Dover, there is minimal immigration control at all. However, electing the BNP on one issue is totally stupid. How will the BNP deal with an economic recession, what will it do about the public services (i.e no selling off), does it intend to ban left-leaning parties, will it adopt an NF stand-point on other cultures, will it deport all immigrants, will it abolish democracy, does it intend to indoctrinate all children in education through the curriculum, will it set up political camps in the mould of Gauntanimo Bay (it happened in America, land of the "free", there's no reason why it can't happen here.), will it centralize or de-centralize government, will it suppress Welsh and Scottish nationalists and will it stop the power-sharing in N.Ireland, will it withdraw troops from the middle-east etc. etc.
-
Peter
08 May 2008 at 02:14 I would say that more and more people share BNP ideas about immigration, losing national identity, not working democracy, not listening what people want but rather changing people minds to fit what big businesses want through media owned by the same people and people suffer. It is not difficult to understand that none of big three parties would respect what I want rather they would be telling me what I want is wrong and what I want is wrong and the way I think is wrong. And who they are to say that to me. I want somebody who is not going to put me to jail for saying it is enough of immigrants here, we have got to the stage when they are more problem than help, that multiculturalism is not working for people but for corporations, that I have right to know A truth but B side as well. I want democracy where I can say the truth and if it is going to cause problems than there must be something wrong. I dont have a feeling than any of big three could represent me and make Britain what I want it to be.
-
petroleum
23 May 2008 at 16:19 I vote for the BNP - solely because I believe in most of their policies. No party is perfect by any standard nor entirely honest at every turn, but I do believe that as a country we have some serious issues to contend with that demand realistic solutions. Unfortunately, the mainstream parties are far too idealistic - more concerned with creating positive images about Britain - rather than focusing on the cold truths that balance and moderation require in most things. A wise man once said 'that the truth has a significant cost implication and that this is the sole reason why the truth gets exchanged in favour of its opposite'.
-
langs57
25 May 2008 at 11:12 .I miss walking down the street and saying hello to people and getting a reply in my own language,I miss going to a shop and having a chat and laugh with the shopkeeper who shares my culture,sense of humour and basic values.I miss buying a pint of beer in an old English pub and being served by a British barmaid,I miss having a talk over the garden fence with neighbours who understand what I am saying,I miss the freedom of free speech and being allowed to have an opinion,I miss feeling at home in my own town.
If that makes me racist then so be it.
I will keep voting BNP until somebody listens to us,the British that is.
-
Mr Average
26 May 2008 at 11:13 A number of contributors here - and on other sites - suggest that the way to beat the British National Party is for mainstream parties to address the issues that affect so many peoples' lives (housing, immigration, crime etc...) Well........they don't, do they? That's why the British National Party is gaining popularity...because IT DOES. It exists PURELY because the unrealistic, pampered dreamers who run the country do not take a blind bit of notice of popular opinion! Do the public's bidding - as per democracy - and much opposition fades away...
-
Nick Griffin
26 May 2008 at 11:50 Just a note to thank the New Statesman for at least having the decency to allow pro-BNP posts on this discussion - a refreshing change from the PC censorship regime run by publications such as the Daily Mail and Telegraph.
As for the 'anti-' posts, am I alone in detecting a certain amount of southern middle class snobbery in criticism of organised English working class resistance to the new colonialism now being foisted upon the poorest sections of our society?
-
Mr Average
26 May 2008 at 12:00 Cassandra, 3rd May: Your shots are very cheap. Look at any contributory web-site and you'll soon see that a large minority of varied opinions are poorly expressed, incorrectly spelt and subject to appalling or non-existent grammar - evidence of this country's abysmal schooling. I have found the British National Party's website to be astonishingly honest and straightforward, well-informed, educative, fair and plain, good sense. It's contributors are, clearly, from all walks of life and passionately concerned for the future of this - their - country. With endless gun and knife crimes in areas which the media continually informs us are 'vibrant' and 'enriched' it is unsurprising that 'thinking' people are looking to a pro-active party to sort out the depraved mess we're in. Oh! And about those 'crimethinkers' (sic)...wake up, Cassandra! It's virtually impossible NOW to voice an opinion without being labelled 'racist', 'sexist', 'xenophobic', 'homophobic' or some other equally tiresome description.
-
G Jeffreys
26 May 2008 at 16:52 The way to beat the BNP is to return to what was the Old Labour roots, to support the working class. There should be a concern about jobs, housing, education, health, public services and the environment. We should not have to pander to middle class wallies to get votes and to stay in power. The Labour Party will not go wrong if they return to their true roots.
-
D.Rowlands
28 May 2008 at 01:32 Scanning the latter comments' the oft repeated hysterical and unsustantiated one that the BNP will idoctrinate schoolchildren and ban democracy etc - like, this isn't actually happening already under New Labour - 'celebrating diversity' and 'values' of tolerance - (of mass immigration! ) classes in the national curriculum, 'hate' speech laws, banning of BNP members from employment in public services! You Labour lot shouldn't throw stones in your glass houses.
-
streetlegal
02 June 2008 at 06:10 White working class people are beginning to realise that they too can gain a voice after being marginalised and villified (as in "chav" or random articles by the likes of Yasmin Alibhai Brown) for so long. The BNP did not create racism. It is intrinsic to positive discrimination. It is intrinsic to the hundreds of lobby groups and federations designed around "blackness" with exclusive membership to black people. It is a central feature of identity politics which usurped class as the central tenet of the left and neoliberalism since the 1980's. Ultimately, the ideology of multiculturalism, thrust on an unwilling populace, propagates such allegiance to race, culture and ethnicity. So far, us working class whites have been excluded from this club. We have seen enough now that to know that the creaky wheel in Britain gets all the oil. We are now getting very creaky.
-
MadBadger
07 June 2008 at 14:24 The BNP is a racist party, of that there is no doubt. The way that they can take an incindent and always try to place an angle on it. I've lost count of the number of times at work that I've had someone say to me if "I was black/paki I would get it". And the stories about immigrants getting cars bought for them by the state. All tosh. The BNP are opportunistic liars who twist facts to put the 'right' spin to their story. Their supporters endlessly post on websites with their rubbish to try to convince people. Witness one particular person who tried to spin on the 'This Is Nottingham' /Evening Post website that there was someone called Shaun Middleton from Stoke who had been beaten up so badly he was in a coma bu quote "asian muslim taxi drivers". The only places on Google that this is reported are white supremacist websites. No where else at all, not even a report in newspaper or the BBC of an attacj let alone a description of the perpetrators. The whole story was a hoax and this is what I've come to expect of the BNP. Lies and distortion. It's funny how three councillors in Wales recently resigned as the BNP was not the party they thought it was once they has been elected.
-
sebastian
13 June 2008 at 17:17 Fascinating to read these things. MadBadger, you are more wrong that you could probably understand. The facts about black and Asian violence (something like 100 times/ 30 times per head than white) are kept hidden, probably because people wanting cheap labour aren't interested in the side-effects. [The best site on this issue known to me is www.iamaneglishman.com]. The facts about the benefit system are hard to get at - remarkably really considering the huge sums and large bureaucracy, and fairly clear laws, dealing with it. The fact that immigrants with no money and no skills end up housed and fed and 'educated', with free health, and subsidised children, and some free information and advice, is in itself proof that they have benefited and continue to do so.
There seems to be some mythology here about the 'New Statesman'. Like the 'Labour Party' it is for want of a better word an 'elite' outfit. If you look at their treatment of war crimes and atrocities in eg. Vietnam, and up to the present in say Africa, they frankly couldn't give a sh*t. The Labour Party - look at old news footage, if you can find it - was run by public school types - (in a similar way to the Tories, who also have professional politicians not at all like their voters)- as Labour voters weren't the types who could operate in Westminster.
G Jeffreys thinks Old Labour's roots were the working class, but since the days of mass steelworkers, miners, shipbuilders, agricultural labourers have gone they must reconsider. It's probably too late. NuLab are the most repellent hypocrites and liars.
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
