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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
Good balanced article - for once
Yes finally labours continual disregard for the british people has finally pushed them to breaking point and they are quite rightly looking elsewhere for solutions to our problems. They can dress it up all they want but their actions over the last decade or so have pushed people towards the BNP, it is ironic that the liblabcon hate the BNP so much yet they have done a fantastic job winning them support
In the EU Parliament, one seat gets you nowhere unless you ally with enough people to form a group as the Tories are about to find out to their cost now they have left the EPP.
Get Jean-Marie Le Pen in proportion. When he contested Chirac for the French Presidency he got thrashed. His opportunity arose because Jean-Pierre Chevènement (nationaliste de la gauche and now MRC) split the left vote and most French people were sickened when they saw the first round result. Le Pen got nowhere in 2007 between Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal.
The French Front National is more dangerous in the EU Parliament than in France. In the last EU elections, France sent 25 FN MEPs and they could do nothing on their own until they formed an alliance with right wingers, mostly from Eastern Europe, to make up the 35-member Independence Tradition and Sovereignty. Then they got EU Parliamentary funding as a group - and lost it again when they fractured among themselves. Think Farage and Kilroy-Silk type temper tantrums.
The BNP's contribution to British Politics will be negligible (except to put the wind up Labour) after 4 June 2009 and their British contribution to the EU Parliament will be nothing unless they form an alliance. Who they chose will then determine their credibility in British Politics because my betting is that they will end up in the same group as the Tories.
Unfortunately, it looks like the BNP cyber-activists have jumped on this informative article for their own purposes.
I will not be voting for the BNP in June because they are a party that represents only white people. If they were a party that represented all the people of this country, regardless of colour, who wanted to control immigration and preserve the culture of this once great country then I would vote for them. I feel that those who have come here and integrated into the British way of life, as many have, are welcome and should be regarded as British. The problem we now face is that there are too many people coming into this small country, many of whom have no desire to integrate and some of whom want to change our laws and culture to suit them
This article is very poor. It briefly mentions some of the nubnp's manifesto; more cash for the NHS, state ownership and an increase in the state pension, but where the hell is the money coming from?
Rather than concentrate on the nubnp's populism and opportunism it should have torn their manifesto to pieces.
And that's before you reach their racism.
Thankfully, I believe that the nubnp will never get any real power in this country. Most people have more sense than to vote for them.
It's quite interesting to see the same old lines about politics trotted out by the nubnp, like 'liblabcon'. I'm convinced that the nubnp indoctrinate their 'supporters' and 'activists' to the extent that they are incapable of thinking for themselves. The nubnp way seems to be just like the nazis.
Of course, the BNP - like their forebears the Nazis - will
have to purge their 'left-wing' elements (a few old
Strasserites from the past?) before they are taken
seriously as a possible protector of the system by the
capitalists.
I'd take issue with the description of the BNP as "extremist" - given the unacknowledged, deliberate transformation of the country over the past 20-odd years, making it an increasingly alien & hostile place to its natives but highly receptive to sullen outsiders, pushy chancers, human resource professionals and readers of the Grauniad's Public Sector Posts section I'd say that what deems itself "mainstream" (ie Westminster and beyond) is indubitably extremist in the extent of its duplicity and treachery.
Wow! Has your site been hacked by the BNP or are they now buying NS?
I note how many people like to display their qualifications like some crude game of IQ poker then say they are voting for them.
The party may seek to distance themselves from the knuckle-draggers but scratch below the surface and the racist and bigoted policies remain.
If those so-called 'educated' BNP voters are not willing to do the necessary research then they run the same risk of being seen as naive as the famous vicar on the leaked list.
It is true that mere name calling and use of the N and F words do more harm than good, but there is evidence of the true nature of BNP beliefs. Just read some of their local sites and see the anti-Semitic comments which stand unaddressed.
Look also at the kind of literature these activists recommend (White Power by George Rockwell for instance).
Part of the problem is that certain sections of the media (Mail, star, express) have editorial lines largely in step with Mr Griffin's whilst at the same time dismissing them. It is a symbiotic relationship seen in the large scale links from BNP sites to their stories.
The major parties have also some failings which has led to people no longer being ashamed to vote BNP or express such views.
If Barnbrook's incoherent performance at the GLA is anything to go on, any seat won in the Euros would be a waste and just a donation to funds.
"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."
Are you being ironic? The party has shown to lie and distort the truth time after time. The racial tension is caused by them, when they will go into an area seed lies and things kick off when race relations were fine before. The BNP gain ground by lying and manipulating. The BNP are a pathetic bunch of idiots so ignorant they front their anti immigration campaign with a polish plane! Seemingly upset that they believe we have lost 'our culture' when they don't know anything about it themselves. Britain has always been a country of mixed cultures.
Finally Some thing of intelligence in the Mainstream Media Although I do not agree that this article was totally balanced, It seemed to me that the Authors were pushing the subliminal suggestion that Griffin and Co had put these Party planks up as a public relations ploy rather than deeply felt principles. I know better having followed the BNP for years even way back emailing Nick ( in those days when he had time to answer American Inquiries) All of You need to read Griffins carefully thought out economic treatise "the third way". As It is the best answer that I have seen on how a nation can thread the difficult course between the Scylla of state socialism exemplified in horrible detail by communism, and the Charybdis of unrestrained international cutthroat capitalism, as typified by the Globalist Banksters who have gotten us into this world wide mess. Nick, Simon, Martin, et al are really the type of people they advertise themselves to be, people deeply in love with the Beauty and culture of Great Britain and determined to do all they can to protect it. As an American with a British Mother, I find the beauty of the traditional parts of GB breathtaking and have on the relatively few occasions when I visited, enjoyed the openness and warmth of the working class culture of my mothers England. Maybe it takes some one who is a bit of an outsider to see just how special it is what you all have got and to appreciate the amount of work that it will take to create a political force that will keep it. Keep up the good work, all you in the BNP!