h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There has been much analysis in the British press recently over why people vote for the BNP, who have gained two MEPs, one in my area, the North West and the other in Yorkshire and Humberside.

Some claim that the public are taken in by the BNP's attempts to seem more mainstream and less racist than previously. Others say mainstream parties are "driving voters into the arms" of the BNP, that they don't appeal to the working classes and are out of touch with their constituents,

The underlying assumption of these theories is essentially that the masses, the working classes, the great unwashed, call them what you will, are stupid and therefore incapable of knowing whether they're voting for a bunch of racists or not. This is rather patronising.

Have they not considered that maybe the reason the BNP got 6.2% of the vote (8% in the NW, 10% in Yorkshire and Humberside) is not that people don't understand what the BNP stands for, not that it's a protest vote against the mainstream. Maybe the truth is that 6.2% of the 34.5% turnout actually support what the BNP REALLY stands for? maybe there really are 943,598 racists in the country. Would that really surprise people, in a country where the Daily Star, Daily Mail, Daily Express and the Sun get combined circulation figures of 6.7 million?

The thing about democracy is that applies to everyone, no matter how unpleasant. As much as I would like nothing more than to see Nick Griffin punched in the face very hard, 132,094 of my fellow north-westerners voted for his toxic cancerous tumour of an organisation, and so he is one of our elected representatives.

Also, lets not overstate the BNP's success. From one of the weakest turnouts ever, and at a time that public faith in mainstream politics has tanked, they were the sixth most popular party, behind the conservatives, UKIP (who despite being a fringe party from the right wing got nearly three times as many voters as the BNP), the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party.

One more thing. Andrew Brons, winner of the Yorkshire and Humber seat, portrayed himself in his acceptance speech by saying "I am not what you would have been led to expect as a BNP candidate. i am a lecturer in politics and government".

He was also a member of the National Socialist Movement, an organisation founded on Hitler's birthday and based on the lines of the original national Socialist (Nazi) party in germany. He stood for parliament for the National Front four times and proudly stated that he would not allow blacks to attend National Front meetings.

Sounds exactly like what I would expect from a BNP candidate.

Sources:
http://www.natfront.com/some_of_our_boys.htm#Andrew_Brons
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/euro/09/html/ukregion_999999.stm
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=43611&c=1
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/BNP-wins-Yorkshire-Euro-seat.5343062.jp
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Controversy-over-abuse-conviction-of.5329019.jp
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/andrew-brons-the-quiet-academic-with-a-silly-teenage-nazi-past-1700175.html
http://bnp.org.uk/2009/03/andrew-brons/

Let me start by stating that I know nothing of the BNP. I will read your links and see what I can learn of them. The name of the party makes me think of the nationalist parties in the US, so I assume it's likely that there is a great deal of truth to what you say about them. That said, I am often very uncomfortable when I see the members of a specific party as uniformly labeled as racist. That might be because I am of a conservative bent (on some topics) that I often get lumped in with the religious right in the US as well as other people who are often deemed racist. Could it be that there is a certain segment of the British population that is in need of a party that follows their trains of thought, and that the BNP is the closest party to their beliefs? Might there be more than racism in that party's message? I ask as devils advocate, I am not attacking your positions.

The Labour vote across the north totally collapsed and the vagaries of proportional representation (previously seen as a good thing because fringe parties like the Greens can gain seats) helped the BNP to get elected.

The best thing I have heard on the subject is as follows:

Why don't we conduct a mass protest against the BNP?

We can do it the next time there's an election on.

What we need to do is get off our backsides, go to a polling station and ACTUALLY F***ING VOTE for somebody else.