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The BNP’s breakthrough
Observations on Brussels
By Matthew Goodwin... Published 16 April 2009
When the votes are tallied after the elections for the European Parliament in June there is a good chance that British voters will, for the first time, have sent a representative of the British National Party (BNP) to Brussels. Across the political spectrum, many continue to condemn the BNP as a racist and neo-fascist organisation, considering its supporters “knuckle-dragging scum” (Richard Littlejohn) or “ignoramuses and bigots” (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown). Such simplistic stereotypes provide a comforting image of the BNP as a lunatic fringe that may score a few upsets in council by-elections but will never be a serious force in mainstream politics. This is a dangerously complacent view of a party that has grown more rapidly than any other in 21st-century Britain, and is on the brink of an electoral breakthrough that would bring media attention and serious European money.
Public anxiety about immigration may have helped fuel the BNP’s rise, but the party is about more than racism and xenophobia. Under the leadership of Nick Griffin, it has worked hard to develop a full manifesto of policies – a strategy that it hopes will pay dividends by improving its image and broadening its appeal. But who exactly is the party appealing to? A brief skim through BNP manifesto literature brings to light proposals for the following: large increases in state pensions; more money for the NHS; improved worker protection; state ownership of key industries. Under Griffin, the modern-day far right has positioned itself to the left of Labour. Is the strategy working?
In our study (to be published later this year by Routledge in The New Extremism in 21st-Century Britain), we examined a large sample of those who have voted BNP or would consider doing so. We found that the BNP is gaining new support principally from older, less educated, white working-class men – voters from Labour’s historical base who feel they have benefited little from the past decade of Labour government, and whose resentments the BNP has succeeded in articulating.
These voters share the BNP’s hostility to immigrants, seeing demographic change as a threat not only to socio-economic resources such as jobs and housing, but also to cultural values and the national community. Many of these voters are cynical about the main political parties. They gained little from the Blair boom and will be the first to suffer in the Brown bust. Their growing cynicism, distrust and detachment from politics have not been taken seriously by Labour, perhaps because the party’s strategists believed they have nowhere else to go. But many are now beginning to listen to what the far right has to say, and they agree with most of it.
Those who dismiss the BNP fail to appreciate the potential appeal of the modern far right’s fusion of nationalism, xenophobia and economic populism. Our research suggests that roughly one-fifth of white British voters share most or all of the BNP’s views. Most still find it difficult to vote BNP, turned off by the party’s association with extremism, or simply because there is no local BNP candidate to vote for. But even one seat in the European Parliament would provide resources and publicity that could act as a potent catalyst for a party accustomed to operating on a shoestring outside of the media spotlight.
Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National (FN) sets a worrying precedent in France. Founded in 1972, the FN was dismissed as a fringe movement for a decade. But after gains in local elections around Paris, the FN achieved a shock success in the 1984 European elections, obtaining ten seats and transforming its electoral prospects. In the next legislative elections, the party increased its vote from 44,000 to 2.7 million, nearly 10 per cent of the vote. It has been a significant force in French politics ever since. Those who dismiss Griffin’s BNP would do well to remember that no one in France took Le Pen seriously in the early 1980s. Twenty years later he was competing with Jacques Chirac for the French presidency.
Tags: BNP European elections 2009
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40 comments
Spot on.
At last, an understanding of what has taken place over
the past five years.
Give the platform to the BNP. And listen!
Why is the BNP described as extremist and right wing? I got a good idea! The NUJ is one of them, amongst others. Successive pre-war British governments, were not too keen, to say the least, on non-white immigration. As for the BNP's welfare, economic, family policies etc, I would describe them as rather 50'ish Old Labour. On the question of law and order, the BNP simply want a return to a more robust criminal justice system; tougher policing, prisons etc. hardly, radical. In short, they are taking on top down, sixties' cosmopolitan intellectualism which is rapidly taking, this country down the pan. And despite a virtual media black-out, they are winning the ideological battle. Let the long suffering electorate decide at the ballot box, the future direction of this country. They have been disenfranchised for far too long!
Thank you for printing a well-balanced, non-biased factual article on the BNP.
`We found that the BNP is gaining new support principally from older, less educated, white working-class men'
-is the only part I object to. I believe this to be completely false, as the recently illegally released BNP membership list showed and anyone reading the quality, wisdom, common sense and knowledge of many of those posting comments on the BNP website will realise this.
The party has been proved right on so many issues, will continue to do, so and is the only hope for the future of this once great country.
I think Enlightened Patriot should show some caution. The membership list may well represent those behind the party machine but Godwin and Ford are referring to the people who are actually (or thinking of) voting for the BNP in elections. These are two separate things.
I am actually voting for the BNP for the first time in the forthcoming elections and I'm an IT Manager so hardly un-educated. The 3 mainstream parties cannot be trusted with this countries future anymore, the will sell out their own grandmothers for monetary gain. They have got this country a total shambles.
Dr David Selbourne predicted the ascendancy of a nationalist British Right in December 1999. He outlined the role economic populism would play and he critiqued the continual denigration and public ridicule of poor, marginalised, White people, by the forces that represent ' Modern Britain' in terms of the diversity and inclusion agendas. In established diversity and modernism in their Gramscian forms, the New Labour project and its principal agents forgot to 'include' an electoral bloc of several million of the forgotton, the poor and the marginalised. This could be because they despise them or their attitudes are an embarassment to New Labour. However, the arguments are now immaterial. What will define the BNP's fortunes in June 2004 is turnout and nothing else. As long as 90% of the voters reject the BNP and vote for someone else, the BNP will go to Brussels in a number of Euro-regions. There is an awful irony in the way that New Labour played such a deep-rooted and unthinking role in handing this statistical proposition over to the BNP. By its own admission, the BNP knows that it lacks the means (currently) to control or create positive headlines about itself. Therefore, when Margaret Hodge, John Cruddas, Harriet Harman and Trevor Phillips continually keep it in the news near an election, it happily collects the 1+ in 20 votes this creates for it. The BNP only needs to scrape together enough votes to pass the threshold for a PR win in June. That is all it wants. After that, it will be made financially and construct the political public space it requires to reach out to a wider bloc of voters. If this happens, it will establish a national core vote akin to the Front Nationale. The critiques of the BNP are too crude to continue. The political classes have taken comfort in the John Tyndall years and how they kept the BNP far away from the council chamber.
I agree with enlightened Patriot. Every week I man a BNP table throughout South Wales. Many people who are attracted to our policies are retired professional people in their 50's and upwards. First time voters are also eager to find out about us asking searching questions which is most welcome. People all over the UK have listened to the constant negative publicity and most are even minded enough to ignore it. The lesser educated white collar worker that you refer to kept Britain in business for decades until the new class of get rich kids that Thatcher started and Labour has nurtured ruined this country.
A remarkably fair piece. It is a little simplistic - I had the interesting experience during the Tameside by-election a couple of months ago of campaigning for the BNP with Don't Forget to Vote leaflets delivered to 'Yeses' from the canvass returns very early on polling day.
In the 'rough' estates we were delivering to about one in every ten houses. In the smart, nearly new, owner-occupied sections, to one in three or one in four.
When we started, at 6.30 a.m., every house with a works van (self-employed or skilled tradesmen) on the drive was on our list to get a leaflet. A little later, as it was snowing lightly, we could see places where someone had driven to work earlier than their neighbours. The vast majority of these early bird tax-payers were also on our list.
Researchers shouldn't be fooled by the vocal expressions of sympathy on poor white estates, most actual BNP votes come from rather higher up the social scale.
As for why the BNP vote is going to rise so markedly in June, look no further than the headlines about the greed and corruption of the political elite, and of the banker-foxes they allowed, unfettered and unrestricted, into our national economic chicken-coop.
Sir,
I am educated to a postgraduate level, have not been and probably will not be affected by the recession, and will be voting for the BNP for the second time this June. The first time I voted for them was in the London election last year.
I do accept that there may be racist, anti-Semitic or discriminatory elements within the BNP, but when considering the antics and extremism of the other parties the BNP is the lesser evils. In other words, the level of evil within all the major parties I believe is roughly the same, perhaps even skewered towards the Labour Party, and thus by policies alone the BNP wins my vote.
What policies do I find appealing? There are many but some include: the encouragement of patriotism and national pride within the community and schools - I am sick of being looked upon suspiciously for being proud of the nations history and national character; reducing welfare of scroungers, increasing welfare for the elderly and disabled - goes without saying; withdrawal from the EU; withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan; a guarantee not to involve the nation in the affairs of other nations - this is an important one to me, we should let other nations evolve naturally from the inside without being picked at and prodded by more powerful nations; the humane repatriation of immigrants that refuse to integrate into traditional British society with nothing unique or valuable to offer the nation - if they refuse to integrate they cause anxiety to the community which is completely unfair; tougher penalties, especially for minor crimes and yobbish behaviour that intrudes on other people's lives; abolishment of laws that impinge on our freedom of speech and privacy - goes without saying..
Labour failed me, the Conservatives failed me, and I do not trust the LibDems to be different from these two.
John Williams
A good,well balanced article,however,as an older white working class,I did enjoy a better education than most of the children of today and that was only a Secondary Modern School.The Teachers in those days demanded respect,or else!! That is what is missing today. I also know that the quality of members in our local branch is higher than you may think,all and every one of them, thoroughly brassed off with the three main parties. So, as more and more people realise the truth( you cannot trust most of the press nowadays,sad but true)the party will expand and hopefully form a Government,for the people,by the people,in the not too distant future.
D.H.Boater Ipswich.