Nick Griffin must die

Apparently "academics working for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation [claim] that one in four voters are thinking of voting for the BNP." I say apparently because the report to which the Grauniad seems to be referring isn't available online yet (although I think it will become available here in due course). This is unfortunate, because the claim could be read a number of ways: is that one in four from the population of voting age, from constituencies which will be holding elections in May or from constituencies where the BNP are standing? Whichever is correct, it's clearly one out of four too many. Coupled with Margaret Hodge's suggestion over the weekend that as many as eight out of ten white working class people in her constituency could vote for the party, it shouldn't be surprising that some people are worried.

For what it's worth, I suspect Hodge's assertion is something of an overstatement and that many of those "thinking of voting for the BNP" will see sense - if memory serves, third parties rarely do as well in elections as polls suggest they will (you may be happy to tell a pollster that you'll vote BNP or Green or Stark Raving Loony, but change your mind when you get into the polling booth). Nevertheless, those of use concerned about and opposed to the far-right need to take stock of the current situation and work out where how we respond.

There has been much discussion about the way the BNP has been able to capitalise on Labour's decision to abandon the working-class. As the three major parties compete for a small segment of middle England, it shouldn't be surprising that the rest of the country feel ignored. Couple that with shitty housing, shitty jobs and shitty pay and it's no great surprise that so many people have had enough of the LibLabCon.

That said, I don't just want to point at the failures of others. The BNP's success also constitutes a failure on the part of anarchists, lefties and radicals. Most of the people now expressing support for the BNP have been shat on from a great height by the capitalist system. They are exactly the sort of people who we should be attracting, the people we claim to be fighting for, but instead they are moving towards the racist, fascist prattle peddled by Griff & Co. If we're serious about defeating the far-right than we need to take them on ideologically, anti-racist platitudes just ain't gonna cut it.

File Under: BNP, Far-Right, Fascism, News, Politics, Racism, UK