No Spoilers Griffin/Question Time Thread
- Thread starter bouncer_the_dog
- Start date
claphamboy
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
john x
Well-Known Member
Yes like when people say that "the asylum seekers and pakis get all the houses", the response should be "well lets build more houses".
When they say "These people are taking up all our social, educational and medical services" The response should be "then we need more schools and hospitals"
Unfortunately that can't happen in a modern capitalist economy.
john x
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
what bit shall i get over then? 2 european elections. bbc broadcasting their bile. loads of people voting for them?....Get over yourself.
john x
Well-Known Member
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
i heard it was one million people in the euro elections. that sounds like quite a lot of people to me tbh,,,,
The answer shouldnt be just build more houses though should it john.....Not if your an internationalist it should be to tlk about the driving factors behind migration and the need to do something about them.....
The answer to worldwide inequality is not to build more housing in richer countries its to redistribute wealth.....
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
In which world is a million people not a lot? 200 000 in London alone put their tick next to a BNP candidate last year. That's quite a lot of people too.
Fact is, they, at best, aim to speak to about a 30% segment of the population right now (shirt term aims). Their vote in local elections nationally is averaging 12.3% over the last 6 months. They're averaging even higher in seats they stand in for a second or third time (16%) and they're averaging 10% in wards they stand in for the first time (they did exactly that in Whyte last night as well). That's a sizable section of that 30% they're targetting right now that they are appealing to - and they're achieving that in just about every area of the country. You need to look at the figures in a bit more depth than just writing them off.
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
Agreed.
The notion of racialised politics got a good drubbing, but whilst it was warming to see him getting some righteous stick he got a few punches in of his own. A few people watching will have thought, 'He looks a twat, but I'm glad someone had the bollocks to say that'.
I thought it was poor that the panelists generally failed to link the party to the intimidation that it and its members, under other guises, have been associated with. How much would we care about what they say if their politics was and always had been non-violent?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Yep, sum total of last night - anti-racists definitely won't be voting for the BNP. A few people who would've won't and few people who might've now defineitely will. And Jack Straw gets to pose as human with the backing of people who've argued for him and his Iraq invading mates to tried for war crimes. BNP take their seat in national politics.
Yup.
john x
Well-Known Member
Let's do that then. A million people in a country of 64 million is less than 2%.
They only achieve 10-16% of the vote in certain council wards where the turnout is particularly low and they have a very active local campaign.
They will never get anywhere near reaching 30% of the electorate if for no other reason than they are disorganised, amateurish and lazy. They are riding the crest of a wave at the moment and still have only achieved an average of just over 6%. And look at where this success is. 'White' ghettos and areas bordering areas of mainly asian population. The 'forgotten people'. The white working class outside these areas has largely rejected the BNP and will continue to do so.
To achieve real success in constitutional politics these days you need money, organisation, focus groups, spin doctors, media and business advisers. Shouting 'vote for us, we're different, we care about you' can only have limited success. As I've said before, to make a real breakthrough they have to make significant inroads into the middle classes, whose natural inclination will always be to vote Tory.
Oppose these fascists wherever they appear, yes, but don't over-play their significance.
john x
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
A million people out of an electorate of 45 million looks a bit better. NO, they don't only achieve 10-16 in certain exceptional conditions, they regularly achieve it across wards with all sorts of different and non-exceptional circumstances, That's why the average is that high - it's not just ones offs. Or if it is it's a bloody long series of them one after each other stretching back well over 5 or 6 years now.
Not sure why you mention having local activists, if anything pointing out that activists maange to get the vote out for them is worrying given the rise in the number of just such activists over the same period.
I didn't say they'd reach 30% of the electorate (they won't), i said they were targetting at best 30% for now - that is, they know they'll never have the other 70% but have elements that they can and do appeal to that 30% on. And used figures to argue they've been reaching a not insignificant part of that 30% for some time now. And again, it's bloody long wave this isn't it?
A for being rejected by the WWC outside of these areas and needing to appeal to the middle class - well that's exactly what they've been doing. There best votes have been amongst the C1 and C2s,the top end of the w/c (the skilled manuals) and the lower end of the m/c. In fact, a large number of their first breakthroughs came in leafy middle class suburbs and large villages/small towns. There's two BNP votes - the one you mention in areas bordering areas of Pakistani-origins population (not indian) and the one based in the better off semi-rural areas or areas of fairly well off white flight.
Look, i've argued on here and elsewhere many times that the BNP are never going to form a government, that the real danger lies in their dragging public political debate definitively to the right, racialising social issues and making race based far-right assumptions the default starting point for many people - and the consequent problems this leaves for those of coming from a left-wing approach.
I’ve argued over and over that it’s essential that we don’t overestimate their electoral significances and we actually operate from a basis in reality, but part of that means recognising their strengths and the dynamic of their support. It doesn’t just mean saying they amount to nothing and never will. That’s just the flip-side of that headless running around going ‘the BNP are coming! The BNP are coming!’ you rightly criticise.
But, you don’t achieve the greatest ever result results for the far-right in this country by accident. You don’t get 50+ councillors by accident. You don’t get a member on the London Assembly by accident. You don’t get two MEPS by accident. You don’t get a million votes by accident. There’s clearly significant crossover between the BNP and the general public in many areas (poll after poll indicates this) which, if their electoral peroformances of the last 5-6 years continues is potentially very worrying in tems of those dangers i mentioned above - not in terms of national government or anything like that though.
Not sure why you mention having local activists, if anything pointing out that activists maange to get the vote out for them is worrying given the rise in the number of just such activists over the same period.
I didn't say they'd reach 30% of the electorate (they won't), i said they were targetting at best 30% for now - that is, they know they'll never have the other 70% but have elements that they can and do appeal to that 30% on. And used figures to argue they've been reaching a not insignificant part of that 30% for some time now. And again, it's bloody long wave this isn't it?
A for being rejected by the WWC outside of these areas and needing to appeal to the middle class - well that's exactly what they've been doing. There best votes have been amongst the C1 and C2s,the top end of the w/c (the skilled manuals) and the lower end of the m/c. In fact, a large number of their first breakthroughs came in leafy middle class suburbs and large villages/small towns. There's two BNP votes - the one you mention in areas bordering areas of Pakistani-origins population (not indian) and the one based in the better off semi-rural areas or areas of fairly well off white flight.
Look, i've argued on here and elsewhere many times that the BNP are never going to form a government, that the real danger lies in their dragging public political debate definitively to the right, racialising social issues and making race based far-right assumptions the default starting point for many people - and the consequent problems this leaves for those of coming from a left-wing approach.
I’ve argued over and over that it’s essential that we don’t overestimate their electoral significances and we actually operate from a basis in reality, but part of that means recognising their strengths and the dynamic of their support. It doesn’t just mean saying they amount to nothing and never will. That’s just the flip-side of that headless running around going ‘the BNP are coming! The BNP are coming!’ you rightly criticise.
But, you don’t achieve the greatest ever result results for the far-right in this country by accident. You don’t get 50+ councillors by accident. You don’t get a member on the London Assembly by accident. You don’t get two MEPS by accident. You don’t get a million votes by accident. There’s clearly significant crossover between the BNP and the general public in many areas (poll after poll indicates this) which, if their electoral peroformances of the last 5-6 years continues is potentially very worrying in tems of those dangers i mentioned above - not in terms of national government or anything like that though.
john x
Well-Known Member
Contrary as it seems, I think you can. The votes the BNP have achieved so far have been 'easy' votes. My point is that those easy votes are close to saturation and that they don't have the ability to progress much beyond that.
And you know as well as I do, that the party is full of wierdos and misfits and could quite easily split and collapse as quickly as it has grown.
I totally agree with you about dragging things to the right. I've never been easy about those on the left saying we should take issues like immigration more seriously. If it is an issue, then it should take its place behind more pressing issues to working-class people.
john x
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Sorry, but i think that's shocking unsupported complacency. If they’re easy votes why has no far right party in history came close to achieving them?
This is what we've been told for the last 10 years - they're on the verge of splitting, they're on the verge of bankruptcy, someone's going to challenge Griffin and bring it all down, someone centrally important is going to be exposed/expose them - all happened and not put a single dent in their growth no matter what figures or approach you choose to judge this. The central fact that people need to take on is that the BNP have today gone beyond that small sect nuttiness, sure they've got nutters, but they are marginalised and do not have their hands on the levers. Their whole recent success in fact has in large part been based around that marginalisation or even expulsion of the nutters and their way of doing politics. People who imagine they a bunch of 20 glue-sniffing skins really need to get up to date. (general point that last one, not aimed at you in particular).
And even if the BNP do by some chance just dissapear in a puff of smoke the social issues that have produced them, their members and their voters will not have gone away
john x
Well-Known Member
Because the conditions are right, just as they were in the 30's in Germany.
After years in the political wilderness the labour party decided that it was going to go after the votes of the middle class and set their agenda in response to Sun/Daily Mail editorials.
As things have become much worse for working-class people many have started to see Labour as class enemies in the way the Tories traditionally were.
A certain number of people will jump at a party appealing specifically to them and playing on a few widely held predudices.
Maybe 'easy votes' was not the right phrase to use but I stand by what I say about BNP votes being more a product of the current situation than any sophistication on their part. I also stand by my assertion that we are coming near to the peak of their electoral success. Yes there is a political vacuum but people are starting to realise that they don't actually have to vote. So what we will see is a decline in turnout generally as well as a receding BNP vote as soon as people realise that the 'shouty men in badly fitting suits' are actually offering them nothing but slogans.
john x
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