Thursday, November 20, 2008

BNP Brouhaha

Laban, way back :

"as long as demographic change on this scale continues, banning the BNP from Facebook, harassing and sacking its activists, "duffing them up in the street" (copyright B.Bragg) are in the long run not going to make a difference.

The BNP may have many idiotic ideas. They may also have some very nasty ones at the heart of their ideology and among their senior people.

But that isn't why people are voting for them. The native Brits haven't suddenly become swivel-eyed types with obsessions about black IQ, Jewish conspiracies and the other things that make a BNP ideologues eyes light up. The English don't do fascism. They just don't want to be a minority in their own country.
"
And again :

"a big heave this election might keep the BNP vote down. But the effort needed will be higher each time as the tide rises."
Well, the effort gets higher. Yesterday's news that the entire BNP membership - names, addresses, phones, email - was out there on the internet, along with news that mass immigration continues at historically unprecedented levels, marks a new escalation. It's likely to be very damaging - no-one likes receiving threats, the witch-hunts and sackings have begun, chaps are piteously pleading their innocence of the grave charge of belonging to a legal political party. Early 50s America, or seventeenth century Salem ?

Generally I am a firm believer in Mr Cock-up rather than Mr Conspiracy. But the thesis put forward by Nick Griffin yesterday - that the list was released by a senior ex-member who thought the party were too moderate - seems unlikely. I'm not a guru of BNP internal politics, but I thought last years split was over tactics and personalities rather than strategy.

No, this looks like Labour really are crapping themselves as the economic crisis deepens (seen bank shares this week ? the sector's dropped 20% in three days), the country feels more and more Weimar-ish, and the Govt, having long given up on enforcing existing laws, are passing new ones criminalising men who pay prostitutes. I thought it was not paying them that was the crime.

I'd say State involvement is as likely as not. You would tend to assume that MI5 have someone at a senior-ish level in the party - after all, the late Julia Pirie, PA to the general secretary of the Communist Party, was a State agent. I take it as a matter of course that every visit and email to the BNP site is logged.

But it's a sign of desperation. As I said, the effort needed gets more each time. After this there's only really one escalation left, short of making the party illegal.

As you know, the secret ballot isn't in fact terribly secret. Each voting slip has a number, the number of your slip is noted as your name's ticked off on the register and it's handed to you - it would not be beyond the wit of our rulers (with a major track record on vote fraud) to organise a reconciliation. What happens, I wonder, to the voting slips and polling station returns after the count ? Anyone know ?

If, as I think quite likely, the BNP get Euro seats next May, the only list left to publish will be that of their voters.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Didn't the police seize the BNPs computers at the start of the last election campaign, and return them, with no charges placed, after it.

That stuck me as the type of action you would see in a 3rd world dictatorship. It would have given the police a list of the membership at that time as well.

Anonymous said...

Surely the most effective way to limit the growth of the BNP in the long run would be to cut immigration down to a tiny fraction of its present (and astonishing) level, and have very stringent checks on anyone wishing to work or study here.

Of course it's ridiculous to expect the Labour government to do so, despite a few honourable exceptions in the form of Frank Field and Ann Cryer.

But why aren't the Conservatives making a real effort to address people's concerns?

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

If we are going to go about sacking people for belonging to extremist parties, then let's get the Trots and Marxists at the SWP as well. I can't think of a better way of thinning out staffing levels in the public sector. The BBC would lose 10% of its staff overnight.

Anonymous said...

only 10%?

The Refuser said...

I think you are right with this post. The Labour party are wetting themselves about just how many votes are passing from Labour to the BNP. They are desperate to rubbish them but I fear they will end up doing the exact opposite. I have no time for the BNP but it seems we are drifting into a quasi police state already with the deluded lunatic Brown at the helm. It's just as well the public don't know how bad UK immigration really is.

Anonymous said...

Because Dash they are a bunch of c***s who have sold you and me down the river a long time ago.

Edwin Greenwood said...

It was interesting to compare the performances of Griffin and Jacqui Smith on the Today programme the other morning.

Griffin ran rings round Jim "Smug Bastard" Naughtie. I rather suspect Naughtie had so thoroughly internalized the standard left-wing stereotype of the BNP as knuckle-dragging morons that he wasn't expecting an articulate response.

An hour later Evan "The Gobby Little Terrier" Davis was nipping relentlessly at the heels of a flustered and inarticulate Jacqui Smith who was failing to justify her plan to criminalize prostitutes' punters. She actually admitted in more or less as many words that the Government wanted to follow the Swedish model and make all payment for sex illegal but knew they couldn't get the public to buy into it.

Unknown said...

The Polling Station returns are recorded - legal political parties can request a list of who has voted, (but not, of course, how they voted).

Very useful to know if someone swears blind that they voted for you last time when you know for a fact they didn't vote at all.

(I'm an ex Liberal Democrat, now an English Democrat).

Anonymous said...

The Conservative's support immigration and will do nothing effective to stop it.

Businesses and employers are pretty much universally in favour of immigration.

The CBI supports immigration, therefore the Tories cannot oppose it.