John Walker's Electronic House

A comment was recently added to my post about the BNP and Nick Griffin’s plans to claim his party represents Christianity. I think it’s worth highlighting here. I’m still very concerned that people think of the BNP as: sure, a party with some bad eggs and left over racist views from their National Front past, but perhaps the only party speaking out honestly on the issues of immigration. It’s an opinion I’ve heard quite a lot, often not directly expressed but implied in more subtle tones. For instance, here’s a question I was asked anonymously on Formspring recently:

“Do you agree that not dealing with immigration sensibly plays into the bnps hands? Will Cameron sort it out in your opinion?”

While I gave an answer explaining why I believe there is no immigration issue, and that Cameron’s plans will further isolate the country, increase nationalism, and therefore hatred, there’s a more serious implication. It’s the assumption implicit in the question that the BNP are the party dealing with immigration sensibly. Sure, the person asking is extremely unlikely to subscribe to the BNP’s opinions on most subjects, but it unquestionably suggests that dealing with immigration “sensibly” (whatever that might be) will placate the BNP. i.e. If we would only employ the BNP’s immigration policies, we would take away power from that dangerous party.

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This weekend, over Easter, leader of the BNP Nick Griffin put out a statement explaining that the BNP is the only party fighting for traditional Christian values. It is part of the BNP’s attempt to redraw its battle lines, recognising that the exposed hatred of other races is not winning them votes, but instead tapping into the increasing fear that our country (whatever that phrase may mean) is being changed, subverted, made not what it once was. And it seems that part of this is to reclaim Britain for the “traditional” Christian. This needs to be unpacked.

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Question Time this evening will be receiving a slight boost in ratings. With the appearance of the leader of the openly racist British National Party, Nick Griffin, it’s clearly going to be the largest audience the political debate programme will have seen in a long time. What’s not known at this point is what the consequences will be.

Many are arguing that giving the BNP a voice on a respected BBC programme legitimises them, and will increase their popularity. Others counter this by saying his views will be exposed and people will become more aware of the party’s racist and fascist nature. Each likes to accuse the other of patronising the population. But the point where everyone gets caught up is in the figure of 900,000 people who democratically voted for them.

One side likes to argue that these 900,000 people are confused about who the BNP really are, and would not vote for them if they really knew their bigoted values and opinions. Another side likes to argue these 900,000 people want a party who’s willing to stand up for Britain against Europe, or bring in real change, and they’re resorting to the BNP in desperation. What almost no one seems to suggest is the possibility that there are 900,000 hateful racist bigots who voted for a hateful racist party.

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