UPI - April 17, 2006
FAR-RIGHT RISES IN U.K.
By Martin Walker, UPI Editor
17/4/2006- The British political scene has just been gripped by a mood
of
near-panic over the ominous rise of the extreme-right British National
Party, after some stunning new opinion surveys and reports that suggest
the
party could make a breakthrough in next month's local elections. The
BNP,
founded by a British Nazi supporter and traditionally the home of a
racist
fringe and skinheads, has recently gone through a makeover under the
leadership of a Cambridge University graduate who has recruited Jewish
members in the hope of building a less neo-Nazi and more acceptable
image. A
new report by the prestigious Rowntree Charitable Trust, based on a
nation-wide survey, says that up to 25 percent of voters now say they
are
prepared to vote for the BNP, largely because of anger and
disappointment
with the existing mainstream parties. A shocked Margaret Hedge,
Employment
Minister in Tony Blair's government, claimed over the weekend that
after
canvassing voters in her own East London constituency of Barking she
found
as many as eight out of ten white voters said they were tempted to vote
for
the BNP next month. "That's something we have never seen before, in all
my
years. Even when people voted BNP, they used to be ashamed to vote BNP.
Now
they are not," Hodge told Britain's Daily Telegraph. She suggested that
disillusioned white, working class voters were deserting Labour for the
BNP
because the pace of immigration and social change had alarmed local
people.
"They can't get a home for their children, they see black and ethnic
minority communities moving in and they are angry," Hodge added. "What
has
happened in Barking and Dagenham is the most rapid transformation of a
community we have ever witnessed."
The Labour Member of Parliament for Dagenham, Jon Cruddas, has echoed
Ms.
Hodge's fears, adding that the Blair government's attempt to win and
hold
"Middle England" (British political shorthand for the middle class and
middle ground voter) had left its traditional white working class base
feeling abandoned. "The BNP is on the verge of a major political
breakthrough," Cruddas, a former adviser to Tony Blair, told the BBC
Monday.
BNP spokesman Phil Edwards claimed the Rowntree report reflected his
party's
own warnings on voters' alarm at Britain's shift towards a
multicultural
society, saying Britain had changed from a "racially homogeneous
society
into one where the cultures are quite alien. That does add quite a lot
of
tensions and stresses. What we are trying to do is preserve the
traditional
culture and identity of Britain." The BNP was founded in the 1970s by
John
Tyndall, a former National Socialist who dressed in paramilitary
uniform and
in his youth traveled to Germany to buy his first pair of genuine
jackboots.
But in 1999, he was ousted in an internal coup by Cambridge graduate
Nick
Griffin, son of a wealthy Conservative party official, who has
exploited
anti-Islamic sentiment since 9/11 and last year's London bombings to
widen
the party's appeal. "On current demographic trends, we, the native
British
people, will be an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty
years,"
Griffin writes in his regular column on the BNP website. "The European
intifada riots in France show that events are moving far more quickly
than
even we predicted a few years ago. The future of European civilization
rests
on a knife-edge, and the balance is tipping against us all the time.
Why? In
part because of continued mass immigration and the high Muslim
birthrate,
coupled with our own suicidal low one."
Senior Labour Party figures are becoming alarmed about the BNP's
prospects
in next month's local elections, when 4,360 council seats are in play,
including London's 32 boroughs and 36 of the biggest towns and cities.
The
BNP is fielding candidates for 356 seats, more than it has ever
contested
before. It currently holds 15 council seats across Britain, including
six in
the depressed northern town of Burnley which has a large immigrant
population. In the 2004 local elections the BNP received around 800,000
votes, not much in a country of 60 million, but enough to sound alarm
bells,
particularly as it forged links with similar anti-immigrant parties
abroad
like France's Front National and the Belgian Vlaams Blok. In the last
European Parliament elections, the BNP won 4.9 percent of the vote. It
tends
to do well in elections where people can easily cast 'protest' votes,
but
its support has usually fallen away in general elections. Launching the
BNP
election campaign on Friday, the party said it was "standing for local
freedom, security, identity, democracy and putting Britain first." Its
campaign manifesto is aimed at white parents, stressing that immigrant
children should not be taught with native English speakers until they
are
competent in the language, that state-funded schools should not have to
teach in Asian languages, and that teachers should be allowed to spank
children, despite the ban on all corporate punishment by the European
Union -- which the BNP wants to leave. Instead of its former insistence
on
compulsory repatriation of immigrants, the BNP is now campaigning for
an
instant ban on all further immigration, compulsory repatriation of all
illegal immigrants or those who commit a crime, and then the use of
Britain's foreign aid budget to encourage 'voluntary repatriation' of
the
rest. It would also ban all affirmative action for ethnic minorities.
The Blair government's Home Office minister Andy Burnham said Monday he
believed support for the BNP was highly localized and was often a
"protest
vote." Areas with high immigrant and refugee populations, and suffering
fast
economic change, are seen as vulnerable. In Dagenham, home of the giant
Ford
auto plant where jobs have been slashed from 25,000 to 3,000 in recent
years, the BNP campaign says, "We stand up for jobs for British
workers."
"Can you just sit there and watch as our country is being ripped apart
by
the forces of multiculturalism? You are not alone," says its new local
campaign for the local elections. "Many good people, just like yourself
are
afraid to make too many comments publicly because it is seen as a sin
to
make mention of one's fears and concerns."
--
>.)
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