butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Vote lib dem, the real alternative 
BNP win Swanley by-election
- Thread starter Matt S
- Start date
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
A lot better than any other far right party in UK history, They have plenty of re-eleted councillors and a regular normal;sed vote of 20% time after time in many areas. I don't think this vote has fully hardened yet but it will have in a few years time.
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
Vote lib dem, the real alternative
I'm suprised they aint cleaning up given that Tories and Labour are both massively culpable for the economic trainwreck. They are of course a neo-liberal party but I think their failure to take advantage of the current situation isnt just a matter of ineptitude, it points towards the same systemic problems that give us revolving door lab/con governments despite their obvious lack of credibility.
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
What about european elections etc? to be honest, i think the last local election we had in my area, only a few hundred people voted, so it's not really any surprise that people who support the bnp will turn up to boost the turnout. with local elections, loads of people just dont care ...
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I think they'll pick up at least one MEP come june = most likely bet is Griffin himself in the North West.
What freaks me out about this result is that it seems to have come out of the blue. I admit to not knowing that much about Swanley but I dont recall it ever being known as an area of ethnic tension ( I would assume its pretty much over-whelmingly white ) and if this is the BNP's first election attempt there what would have caused them to get such a high percentage of the vote ?
I understand about the nature of protest votes and the like but to pull in over 40% of the vote at the first time of asking, well it strikes me as very high. Did they put a lot of people on the ground ?
I understand about the nature of protest votes and the like but to pull in over 40% of the vote at the first time of asking, well it strikes me as very high. Did they put a lot of people on the ground ?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Not sure who many they had out - i do know they got a 20% vote off of a single leaflet with no follow up a few weeks back.
Often people quickly grow bored with BNP councillors on the basis that most of them are pretty shite at doing anything.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
A damaging myth.
Vote lib dem, the real alternative
Mmm.. I often wonder about throwing my lot in with the lib dems simply becuase they are for electroal reform. Although if they ever were to get into power then I suspect they would suddenly start favouring the electroal system that got them in power.
I think i'll just stick to single issue politics for the time being.
http://www.sevenoaks.gov.uk/news/2009/january/3641.asp
At least it's only a local council and not an MP.
I nearly shit myself at the thread title.
The pathetic turnout displays the lack of public interest in local elections but does help the nutty end of politics like the BNP get in as if they can get their members (yes I think they are a bunch of members) to vote en masse they have a chance to sneak into power. (Such as power is in this case).
However it does show that everyone needs to watch this especially dangerous bunch of bastards closely.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
In my (much-stated, I know
) opinion, whether they ever get an MP into parliament isn't what matters. What matters is how their encroachment into electoral politics will act as a legitimating device for the more reactionary and/or opportunist parts of the electorate to vote for parties based on the rightward tilt of their policies. As for expecting something substantive from "Searchlight" addressing the issue politically, the days of them bothering to do so seem long gone.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Yes - i think i've been guilty of over-emphasising electoral stuff around the BNP themselves rather than wider social stuff aside from the stuff you mention about how they can act as a useful tool for other parties/agendas to introduce a position further to the right as the accepted starting point of public political discourse.
nightbreed
Im Bored
20% is a shit turn out. Not exactly 'storming the reichstag' is it?
Maybe not the same level of concern if say a Green or an Independent won (I'm no great fan of the Greens BTW for various reasons) but fash parties like the BNP and similar winning seats especially in a first time run at a seat is a worrying thing.
Yeah they are still there in Barking and Dagenham sadly. People don't seem to have got 'bored' with them there.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
It doesn't have to be though - a worm doesn't swallow an apple whole.
In the past they couldn't get anywhere ven wirth 20% turnouts, now they are. Something has changed.
Really? I've heard it said anecdotally but to be honest not seen any statistics about it.
Most of the other "small parties" don't have an avowedly racist membership policy and political agenda. It's quite easy to agree to disagree if what we're talking about is matters of political ideology; rather more tricky when you're talking about a party who are only ever the thickness of a fag paper from returning to their natural ground state of being, viz. a gang of jackbooted thugs.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
It happens, but only to the same extent as with other parties. The real killer for this theory is that when they've had councillors forced to stand down they've been able to win the resulting eelction with an increased vote (somewhere in south east last year that i can't recall off the top of my head) - which suggests the quality of the candidate is not the primary motivating factor, it's issues.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
Aye, this is the danger. The further right that the mainstream start arguing, the harder it becomes to push a left-wing agenda, and the more right-wing the liberal concessions become.
Yes when you hear the way some Labour Ministers talk, it's not such a leap to the language of the BNP
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
And the consequence of the 'rightist' drift is that pro-workling class politics has yet another hurdle to get over just to get to where we once were let alone advancing in any way. If, or is it 'when', the BNP vote is effectively 'nornmalised' as part of the political 'mainstream' then it will be even harder to argue for pro-working class politics when racialised politics are no longer a 'future' problem but a real life obstacle. As such class politics will be seen as not the norm because politics will have been racialised in some areas that makes the class issues harder to argue. Iirc you used to term 'poison the well', a pretty good term to what is slowly beginning to happen.
The obvious question now is how long is it going to take for 'anti-fascist' (whatever that may be) politics to realise that the they're nazis/don't vote bnp/vote against the nazis/UAF/Searchlight approach isn't fucking working....
Condescending burk
I do think that this entire SouthEast suburb/exurb area might be the next big breakthrough for fascists. Bromley NF beat Bromley Greens in the GLA list elections, and that whole Orpington/Swanley/St Mary Cray area is really ripe for nasty rightwing stuff. 
Matt (who grew up in Orpington)
Matt (who grew up in Orpington)
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Take a look back in history, to Mosley's heyday, and compare the results the BNP are getting at ward level with what Mosley managed.
It may not be "storming the Reichstag", but it's an advance on what has come before, and it's an advance that should be paid attention to, particularly given the social opprobrium attached to voting BNP nowadays as opposed to the much weaker opprobrium attached to voting for Mosley at that time.
who is BNP???
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