You know it, they know and I know it. The BNP will most probably make gains on Thursday acquiring their first seats in the European parliament. Next step Westminster? The despondent word “wrong” springs to mind with the cross sound from Family Fortunes wringing in my head.
The BNP are making gains because of more than a few reasons. However the main ones appear to me to be:
1. They have been trying to rebrand themselves
2. Working class voters were sick of the Tories in power and are now sick of us and don’t know who else to turn to
3. With an economic recession it is easy to blame jolly foreigner for problems in the employment market
4. Combating them in the past was seen as giving them legitimacy and therefore the mainstream parties have all allowed the BNP to grow on false information
5. They are not tainted by the current furore of MPs’ expenses
However as much as I believe through gritted teeth that the BNP will take some seats in the European parliament, I believe this will be their point of inflexion on a parabolic curve that will see their support dwindle. The reasons for this include the countenance of the reasons for their rise as well as the problems they have with their intellectual basis.
The rebranding will fail. As much as the BNP would like us to believe they are now a respectable suited and booted political party, their members are just booted. Their lead candidate for the Yorkshire and Humberside region, like Nick Griffin, is former National Front and as much as they want to purport to not be racist, their members are, and have been, members of racist organisations.
As the Tories grow more prominent under the Cameron, cough, New Labour, project, further councils and perhaps the government will be under Tory control. The old “grass is always greener” mentality will subside leading to an increase in Labour support.
I don’t want to jinx the rise in the pound against the dollar, but the economy will recover, jobs will increase, growth will resume and fear of jolly foreigner will recede.
A lack of willing to combat the BNP has been due to a perception of this giving them legitimacy. I have come to the conclusion that this tactic is wrong (despite having some merits). Moreover, if the BNP have seats in councils, seats in the European parliament and we live in a true democracy, then they are legitimate and we should combat them. I think mainstream parties are just waking up to this.
The BNP are not tainted by the current MP’s expenses furore, but the attendance rate of many BNP elected officials and links to criminality is laughable and worrying respectively.
Successful political parties require an intellectual basis and narrative to hold them together. The Conservatives are learning this with worrying consequences for Labour. The Red Tory project could pull the rug from right under Labour. However what interests me about the BNP is the contradictory nature of their intellectual basis. They look up to Churchill, the Queen and all things deemed in their narrow vision as British. However to be British and to stand up for British values means living up to Churchill’s and the Queen’s hardwork during the second World War and this hardwork was against facism, the very intellectual basis for the BNP. And if to be British is anti-facist then the BNP are doomed to failure.
It is therefore my belief that we will see Nick Griffin in the European parliament and perhaps one day he will get his Dan Hannan moment. However, I think we will not see the BNP or some other far-right guise back to such prominence in a generation. Besides they will embarrass themselves anyway.
James Alexander is Labour’s PPC for York Outer