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opinions on last night's question time
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grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: opinions on last night's question time
Oct 24, 2009, 14:44
handofdave wrote:
But are they actually seeing a rise in support?

30 years ago the BNP (or the organisation they evolved from) were little more than skinhead football hooligans with a fanzine. They occasionally assaulted non-whites when superior numbers were on their side and broke a lot of Asian-owned shop windows in certain parts of the country. Once in a while they'd vandalise a curry house or Chinese takeaway for variety.

20 years ago, when I first moved to the UK and encountered them, they were more organised. Rallies, benefit gigs, proper membership scheme and visions of members standing for election. I can vividly recall the anti-fascist actions I went on as the 80s gave way to the 90s and watching as the racists started to don suits and pretend to be reasonable.

10 years ago they started winning the occasional seat in local elections. There was always a big media furore about it, and they inevitably lost the seat again. Nick Griffin was invited to the Oxford Union debate society and he slowly but surely (and with no little buffoonery) started to remove offensively racist language from the BNPs public pronouncements. He started talking about "the indigenous people of these islands" rather than "white people". Nonsense on so many levels, but it appears there are those who get taken in by it.

Because this year's elections saw the BNP secure two seats in the European Parliament and a seat on the London Assembly plus close to 80 council seats nationwide. On top of that, the Minister for Justice and senior opposition politicians are now willing to sit down and debate with them in front of a mass audience. And according to the first poll carried out after the broadcast of Question Time, it has increased support for the BNP. Or rather, it has helped increase the number of those who would now "consider voting BNP" to 22%.

So in answer to your question, "are they actually seeing a rise in support?" Yes they are. Very, very clearly.

What's worse is that the kind of racist scape-goating that the BNP peddle has historically flourished in times of economic hardship. And given that we are going to have to deal with Climate Change and resource depletion over the next 30 years, this is something that should concern us.

I want to reply to the rest of your post too but I've got to head out for a few hours. Later.
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