Tackling the BNP

From Liberal Conspiracy
My response:
"In my opinion, this post and the comments to go along with it are a disaster.
I very much disagree with much written in the post, and then the childish-ness and blaming each other of the first two comments is depressing.

Firstly, the BNP is probably a racist party.
So are all the people who support them racist?
I think the author (Sunny) does a terrible job of attempting to tackle the BNP problem by just damning everyone as a racist. We live in a democracy, the BNP have such a profile because they have support from many people. The author is typical of those who stick their heads in the sand and refuse to listen to the concerns of voters.
I'm from south Essex originally, where there is a great deal of support for the BNP from people of middle and lower classes. Sticking your head in the sand and slating people as racists rather than listening to what they have to say is bad for everyone, except the BNP.
The BNP thrives on the idea that Britian is being taken over by foreign-loving liberals who don't listen to/care about the "British" people. This post, to me, reinforces that view"






Original post
David Blackburn writes for the Spectator’s CoffeeHouse blog that the BNP is, No longer a racist party, but a party of racists, in response to the news that BNP membership looks to vote overwhelmingly in favour of allowing non-whites to join the party.
David is highly confused. This is because he says:

The Spectator has maintained that the party’s domestic policies are inspired by racial supremacist ideology and that its economic policies are like Dagenham – that is, three stops beyond Barking.

Yes, I’ll agree with that. The party’s domestic policies are indeed inspired by a racial supremacist ideology. Which is why people should avoid following those policies right? Except, he does on to say centrist parties “must engage with (and I mean engage with, not shout down)” BNP policies. What a muddle. ‘Engage’ is a mealy-mouthed word that usually means ‘follow’.

Earlier this year Tim Montgomerie at ConHome said:

but I do think part of any anti-BNP strategy means addressing popular concerns about immigration, access to housing and championing people’s patriotic instincts… while ALWAYS attacking their racism.


I don’t know how people can take this man so seriously. If a party’s policies are driven by racism then it’s pretty idiotic to say we should slam their policies but take their “concerns” seriously anyway, as if that isn’t what the BNP want. They’ll just turn around later and say, quite rightly, that the other parties are hypocritical for slamming them while doing what they advocate anyway.

This goes to the heart of right-wing stupidity and hypocrisy over immigration and the BNP. Last week this govt announced some even more tightening up of immigration from non-EU countries. The Tories inevitably attacked them for not going far enough. But immigration from non-EU countries make up a small fraction of our immigration – most of it comes from the EU. Any problems that people face in housing, public services, increased labour competition and changing areas people face will be from other European countries not India, Pakistan etc.

And so the Labour Party has essentially moved to the Conservative Party position, which is the same as the BNP Party position, that they want to restrict non-whites coming into the UK as much as possible. That small proportion must be vastly more threatening than the Eastern Europeans because even the Tories are not planning to stop EU-immigration.

The day after the BNP-QT debate a radio presenter on 5 Live asked a Tory MP if he would stop companies from hiring American bankers or Indian software consultants if firms here needed to employ them. Of course not, he replied. And what about if a football club wanted to employ a football player from Brazil? No? The Tories are not against that you see, but they are against cleaners from Nigeria because apparently they’re destroying our culture.

A sensible discussion on immigration would involve pointing out that EU immigration is responsible for the biggest shifts in our population, and that stopping the darkies from coming here wouldn’t have any impact. They should then respond by strengthening rights for workers in the lowest paid jobs so they’re not easily fired and replaced by cheaper Eastern EU workers.

It would also involve saying that globalisation inevitably means increased population mobility, and that if people felt threatened that a sense of community was breaking down: then efforts could be made to develop a more positive sense of national identity that accepts Britain as more racially and culturally diverse than the vision the Daily Mail has.

To drive home this agenda: it’s worth pointing out that even though the Green Party gets much more support and votes than the BNP – you’ll hardly ever see an editorial in a right-wing magazine or website saying we should take the Green Party’s ideas or policies seriously because so many people support them.

No – they’re too busy denying global warming. And yet they want to listen to the concerns of a smaller and obviously racist party.

And so we get two parties saying they hate the BNP while carrying out policies advocated by the BNP, cheered on by a bunch of people who want them to do exactly that.

No surprise then to find that most of the commenters on that Spectator thread are quite annoyed that the BNP is being criticised. After all, why the hypocrisy Speccie writers? You lot helped lay the bed for the BNP. Now you have to lie with their supporters