BNP win Swanley by-election
- Thread starter Matt S
- Start date
I think that this is the important question. For me the BNP seem to be the political party who can motivate people who would usually not bother voting into doing so. And seem, and I accept that its just a perception on my part, to be the party that has the biggest working class participation in terms of its activists.
And perhaps it is here that the answer to defeating them needs to be found.
Bald Nasty Pricks.
Danny Rose
New Member
I don't imagine too many people on here would disagree with that statement, but none of the alternatives I've seen proposed on here seem to have taken off either.
Where is the pro-working class, anti-BNP alternative to UAF/searchlight that everyone seems to agree we need?
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
To be honest I dont think there is one. The truth is that the reasons why people vote BNP tend to be ones that the modern British left can never address for all sorts of reasons, not least of all because the notion of multi-culturalness is now so engrained in how it operates and thinks that if can never go against that.
I think people need to accept that the BNP is here to stay because it does almost uniquely in the political sphere represent a part of the British populace who do not welcome the new way of things for all sorts of reasons.
I think the trick now is to minimise its impact by starving the BNP of this idea that somehow they say what others are scared to say. Have Nick Griffin on question time, have BNP spokespeople given air time because I feel that they will hang themselves out to dry if given enough rope. Isolating them merely serves to add to their appeal to a section of the population who do feel isolated from what modern Britain has become. There impact will die out eventually but I think its got a way to go yet before it reaches its peak but the BNP will never represent a mainstream threat in terms of having MP's elected.
Perhaps the one area that the left could have an impact of sorts would be to stop being seen as apologists for Islamic fundamentalism because it makes very little sense to people outside of the main political sphere as to why the left does try and claim common ground with these fundamentalists and gives the BNP some pretty good reasons to encourage people not to vote Labour.
From a Conservative POV I would like to see the party withdraw candidates from areas in which things are a straight forward fight between Labour and the BNP and encourage its voters to hold their noses and tick the Labour box but outside of that I dont see much else that they could be doing.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
Whoooooooosh........
audiotech
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As durruti02 notes, it worked t'other week in Hyde Newton Tameside and it will again.
I suspect there was little anti-fascist work done in the Swanley by-election and every effort put in to winning this seat by the BNP. This, in order to keep their publicity build-up to the Euro campaign on track.
It's also worth noting that it's only their second bye-election win in four years, so the BNP's 'quiet revolution' is meandering along at a pretty slow pace.
However, Butchers prediction of one MEP does look likely on present trends, but as the BNP's Euro campaign grows, so does the campaign against them.
Despite the naysayers, this campaign against the BNP has seen some results of it's work, as already noted. There has also been some roots put down in some communities, not as many as would be liked to be seen, but some nonetheless. Then there is the anti-fascist work done amongst young people, through LMHR and trade unionist involvement.
There are difficult times ahead for sure, but thank fuck some groundwork has been done.
yup
er iwca/hi (runs for cover)
well at least somewhere in that political area .. some Respect ward groups had a go .. bristol i think was interesting .. but really it needs a serious re orienation to community from the left or maybe NOT the left but a new movement that will replace the left
worked? the BNP increased their vote again ..
people who think increasing the labour vote to keep out the bnp, are playing a very dangerous game indeed .. they are simply increasing the pressure in the cooker .. the groundwork that MC refers has been generally entirely wasted as it fails to deal with the cause or effect of the bnp .. it will blow up not just in their faces sadly but all our faces ..
Hyde Newton Tameside
Labour 1,379 45.6% +9.1
BNP 889 29.4% +1.9
Con 485 16.0% -7.8
LibDem 172 5.7% -6.5
Green 69 2.3% n/a
UKIP 33 1.1% n/a
2003: 578 votes (25.2%)
2004: 814 votes (all postal three-vacancy election)
2006: 761 votes (25.9%)
2007: 719 votes (24.1%)
2008: 846 votes (27.5%)
2009: 889 votes (29.4%)
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
Its of no great surprise that this coincides with the recession and more recently the response to the Lincolnshire Strike.
Those individuals with the potential to vote BNP clearly don't believe there is a mainstream solution to their problems, in fact they believe the mainstream will favour others above them.
Its hard to believe that Labour could imagine that Peter Mandelson (bless him) was the person to sell their position on that dispute. Woeful that Labour couldn't manage to show more understanding of the strikers point of view, whilst holding an anti-racist, internationalist line.
Those individuals with the potential to vote BNP clearly don't believe there is a mainstream solution to their problems, in fact they believe the mainstream will favour others above them.
Its hard to believe that Labour could imagine that Peter Mandelson (bless him) was the person to sell their position on that dispute. Woeful that Labour couldn't manage to show more understanding of the strikers point of view, whilst holding an anti-racist, internationalist line.
Grandma Death
Reconfiguring & Reconstructing
There's a degree of truth in it. I live in Kirklees where there are BNP councillors and I know for a fact that:
1. They haven't got a clue about local politics or how to be a councillor.
2. IN council meetings they are quiet as a mouse and certainly don't push on the agenda's they got elected for.
audiotech
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The histrionics don't add anything to your argument.
There was an increase in BNP vote in this election, but at less than 2 percent pretty insignificant. Over the last five years the increase shows a rise in the vote of just 4.2 percent. I suspect most BNP supporters in the area would have thought that they should have gained this seat by now?
Prince Rhyus
Spokesman of King Antonio
Getting involved in community-related things is the way forward rather than having Marxist society meetings on university campuses. Big up to http://www.mysociety.org/projects/
2 pager about the BNP in the Indie today, Saturday,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/alarm-over-rise-of-bnp-1628227.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/alarm-over-rise-of-bnp-1628227.html
This constituency was until recently mostly white could it be the fear of ethnic people rather the settling of ethnic people.were i live there is probably sixty percent ethnic and the bnp do not do that well.but a few miles further north in hertsmere the bnp do better in an area which is still mainly white
No they're not. Check their policy statement.
chilango
Ha! Ha! Armageddon
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Sorry, should have been clearer - the 'damaging myth' is not that they're often inefficient lazy councillors but that they're [so crap they're unable to retain votes or seats as a result and so automatically undermine themselves.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Interesting choice of photo to accompany the article....
Yes, interesting in that they choose to label a group of people from an anti-BNP group as the BNP - presumably on the lazy assumption that this is what fascists are supposed to look like
audiotech
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As the photgraph shows, some fascists do look like that though. Members of the White Nationalist Party, as they were known then, weren't anti-BNP that day stood outside Leeds Crown Court supporting fellow white nationalists Griffin and Collett of the BNP.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Good question.
I suspect that we'd have to address the problem of the SWPs obsession with "entryism" and the taking over of new organisations before such an alternative could be considered viable, and neither UAF or Searchlight would be overly happy with an independent alternative.
They did a full canvass of the ward, that I know, with leafletting as a secondary activity for those who they didnt catch in. Their Sevenoaks activists were helped by activists from their Thurrock and Bexley branches, both of which have experience of ether winning elections as in Thurrock- or coming very near as in Bexley- with the whoel campaign run by Emma Colgate who ran Barnbrooks campaign for the GLA IN 2008
Their candidate Paul Golding is an intelligent political operator, who was responsible for launching the BNPs whole traget ward strategy in 2000 in the first place
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I suspect that point 2 is as much due to "orders from above" not to shoot their mouths off as anything else.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
What the fuck is this meant to mean then?
Turnout was 31.3%- up from 25.6% in the 2007 local elections.
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