Ghost of a flea: The helpful party

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May 28, 2009

The helpful party

Fraser Nelson considers the electoral strategy of the British National Party: Represent your constituents and fix local problems; do your job, in other words. Much as with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas or Hezbollah, the BNP can advance whatever agenda they please under the cover of an Establishment utterly indifferent to the lives and concerns of working people.

Jamaican immigrants, for example.

But what strikes me is that the letters BNP are not in themselves off-putting. I wonder why until we meet a lady in the next house. ‘Only ignorant or illiterate people think the BNP is about black vs white,’ she says. ‘The BNP principles are absolutely fine. The issue is about immigration — and this government is soft in letting everyone in.’ To hear this from a swing voter is disarming, to say the least. But what makes the remark so staggering is that the woman who utters it is black.

She immigrated from Jamaica aged three, and proudly considers herself British, ‘which is why I wasn’t happy when they sprayed “NF” on my car.’ Mr Dunne sympathises. ‘My parents came here when they said “no dogs, no Irish,”’ he said. ‘But you work your way up, obey the laws.’ The lady nods. The question of racism and anxiety about immigration — so often conflated in Westminster — are totally separate matters in her mind. Not only does she not regard the BNP as racist, she believes this to be a slur.

A bodyguard for the last leader of the BNP went on a bombing spree including the high street in Brixton (and he was not the only BNP nail bomber). How then have we come to this pass and what can "mainstream" political party do to stem their hemorrhaging vote (and particularly those of white, working class voters)?

The answer to the problem, it seems to me, is simple. The Labour party and the Conservative party need to start representing their constituents and the national interest. If they had chosen to do so instead of having their moats cleaned at tax payer expense - all the while ceding British culture and sovereignty to a socialist and authoritarian European super-state - we would not now be faced with the spectre of a latter day British Union of Fascists taking elected office in Brussels.

Studies show that the BNP derives no electoral advantage from an influx of Indian settlers to a neighbourhood, and do badly in areas where there are many Britons of Afro-Caribbean descent. It is in places with Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities — that is, Muslim areas — that the BNP does well. Its focus there is not how people look, but how some act.

The trick is to take the minority of veiled or bearded Muslims as a proxy for Islam as a whole. If a (mainly white) local authority bans Christmas lights, so much the better for the BNP.

So stop it. Just. Stop it. It is that, some latter day Spode or something altogether more sinister.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at May 28, 2009 06:28 AM

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Spode? The Neo-nazis make fine china?

I kid, I kid...

Posted by: dpatten at May 28, 2009 08:57 PM

Ghost of a flea

May 28, 2009

The helpful party

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