By Mike Ion
This is a sad morning for all those in Britain who believe in equality and freedom. For the first time ever Britain has elected members of a fascist, racist party to a legislative body. The reasons for this are complex and complicated and in the past few weeks and months I have been expressing my concerns about the failure of the main parties (particularly my own party, Labour) to address the needs of many white working class men and women. We have known for months that the British National Party has been busy exploiting the economic crisis and that it could end up winning seats in the European Parliament but our campaign lacked drive, focus and energy - for that we must all accept some responsibility.
In the coming weeks we need to continue analysing the the reasons why so many traditional supporters abandoned the party and we need to start looking for practical solutions that will deal with the underlying problems that have caused thousands of ordinary working men and women embrace the far right. As predicted the BNP did well in some (in fairness not all) of the so-called “forgotten” white areas like Burnley, Barnsley and Leeds. Areas where erstwhile Labour supporters say they feel alienated from modern political discourse and that no one in the mainstream is listening to them.
The BNP's tactic was to target those who had traditionally supported Labour, but felt and feel neglected by this Government. Many of these people believed that last Thursday they had only two viable options: not to vote at all or to vote for the far right. Yesterday Gordon Brown spoke about the need for Labour to get back to its core values. He is right - the sad thing is that he did not choose to lead the campaign to counter the BNP's vile manifesto of hate. It is not too late. He would send out a powerful message to Labour’s core supporters if he threw his weight behind a call for a new “coalition of the willing”, constructed to blunt any further advance of the far right, by addressing some of the genuine concerns of white working-class voters, while forcefully challenging those complaints that have no factual or legitimate basis.
The Prime Minister should back the creation of a multi-racial, multi-faith and cross-party movement that could help to unite the great majority of people in Britain who are repelled by the BNP’s rhetoric. Brown should explain that the reasons for Labour taking on the bigots and the bullies of the far right are not purely tactical and strategic. He should make it clear that the values underpinning the Labour movement demand this be done.
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The Conservatives campaigned like mad in Barking and did appallingly, they carried out a prolific campaign that (I am no Tory) was a credit to them though it had minimum impact. Why?
The Labour Party have along with anti-facist groups and celebrities have campaigned against the BNP and as far as I can dertermine at the moment , to little or no impact whatsoever. The Lib Dems have made no progress whatsoever.
Obviously the expenses disgrace has played into the BNP's hands, but there is one central cause for this problem that no political party will or can address. Employment. Due to the seduction and necessity of the global economy come the disadvantages for people who are unable to relocate to find work, who thought that a job for life meant something (not to my generation), and who are afraid (in some cases with good reason) of change. The fact that people are more mobile now across the globe is utterly irrelevant to the perspective of a long term "local".
The disatisfaction is due to the powerlessness that people feel when they see and believe that thier own values have become diluted by those other cultures who practice thier own beliefs and are very different.
We love our history and and our identity and our great strength has always been live and let live, and quietly keep to ourselves.
The older residents in places like Barking have witnessed an incredibly rapid and powerful transformation of thier home.
It has changed dramatically and with such rapid changes come social tensions. The people of Barking have had absolutely no say in this change, no input and no feedback. Thier frustration is increased by the declining economy and political sleaze generated by Tory and Labour parties.
How do you address this? Give them a yellow balloon and tell them to hope not hate. It is sadly laughable.
Therefore the people cannot distinguish between the political parties, BNP are a disgrace, but neither the Labour or Conservative government seemed to listen to them and so what is the difference to the people of Barking?
The BNP is a "nasty" party, well who isn't? in the eyes of the Barking voter, they are taking money off of the taxpayer while condemning them in the media for being unemployed and desperate!
The humiliation and stigma of being unemployed and low paid is endured by people who hate life and themselves for it and feel ashamed, better then to shift the humiliation onto someone else......and so they vote BNP.
No politician has made any extra effort to help these people by offering them something solid, nobody in any Central party has got these people the jobs, dignity and self respect they want. In fact the Governments last act was to plan to build a prison on the site of the now empty Ford Factory.
You could not make this stuff up. Talk about pouring oil onto the fire...
How then do you address this issue? If you are a Tory you might want to say "slash benefits", but remember the millions taken by bankers, the collective thousands slimed off by our politicians, the hundreds of thousands taken by lazy civil servants for doing very little. Who are the real dole scroungers I wonder? I saw an NHS manager sleeping at a desk at a London Hospital (he was on 35k) and he couldn't even fill out a spreadsheet, I have seen chief civil servents sat at desks enjoying a tipple and reading the Times (he was on over 100k), we all know about the talentless unqualified bankers and the MPs. Also remember these lazy corrupt individuals are the first to condemn people in places like Barking as being "Chavs". So how do you address this issue? How do you bring jobs and dignity to places like Barking?
(I'm not criticising the content as I'm having difficulty reading it).
Too often 'responding' to the BNP appears to be adopting their rhetoric if not their policies. I don't agree with the BNP, and I think that their policies do need to be actively opposed. Yes, that may mean that socially conservative racists won't vote Labour. So be it.
Frankly, there are some people who vote Labour for purely class reasons whose politics are very conservative on everything except economic matters - the classic fascist position. 'Multiculturalism' is here to stay, but it appears that the BNP vote was high in areas which are far from multicultural - Barnsley, for example, is one of Britain's whitest towns.
Action in accordance with letter and spirit will fix the problems, any backtracking and you will be back to square one.
As for 12 years of 'uncontrolled' immigration, also nonsense. There are immigration controls. I assume that you also wish to prevent British people from moving overseas?
Our traditional supporters consider this a major issue therefore the party must face up and take it on-board.
How about bringing to justice all the thieving MP's instead of letting them off the hook.
How about actually listening to the British people for once.
Shout racist all you want, but the people who vote BNP wont be listening. I am not registered to vote as i dont want to have to put my name to validate any of the corrupt politicians.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. Edmund Burke.
If you voted for anyone else, it would have taken two BNP votes to overcome yours. Instead they got an extra vote.
Does that mean by not voting for the BNP that Labour got an extra vote as well?
From what I can see the cross party attempt at dealing with the BNP was to ignore them and the issues they masquaded with. What they should have done is rebutt them point for point, the BNP are a fact and they are here to stay and theehy should be targetted directly and not mocked.
The BNP offer quick answers to the woes of the people, answers which can easily be communicated and appear to make sense, they say they arent racist, they conseal their true ideology. Labours job is to simply raise the level of debate around the issues, I could dismember all of the BNPs talking points in a heart beat - its about time we took the fight to them.
slight point of difference with you Tom (although I am thinking more of why anyone and not just a Labour supporter who would turn to BNP)...
unemployment - yes, immigration - yes, multi-culturalism - no but patriotism - yes!
This is a massive failure of the left who have devalued the term ‘racist’ to such an extent no one any longer care. They throw around the term racist everywhere, terms like institutional racism etc.
Indeed remember it was only a couple of years ago on every Question Time Labour would call the Tories racist because they dared to talk about immigration. Well if you devalue the term ‘racist’ by constantly lying about it don’t be surprised if you’re ignored.
This is a failure of the left who saw their vote decline and go either to the Greens or the BNP.
You are in an evolutionary cul-de-sac - your time ends here.
Socialist succeed on promises of bribing their supporters with the money earned by others - the BNP are even more unprincipled than Labour so they can offer (or at least claim to offer) bigger bribes than Labour can.
As long as people think it is OK to live off money stolen from wealth creators they will be in spiral of greater and greater division and oppression.
Labour can't trump the BNP without becoming the BNP.
The only way out is to end the theft from the wealth creators and end the feather bedding and excess of the wealth consumers.
Slash taxes, slash benefits, allow private enterprise free reign, let people benefit from their own labour instead of making them live off the labour of others.
The mad socialist experiment nears its end.
Policies that people believe in and can get behind will win the day. It is pointless blabbing about facist and undemocratic party politics in one breath, but in another backing disgusting policies such as the ID cards. You have to communicate with people and actually listen to them, and that includes GB.
He has spent the past couple of days telling us what people want, what they want him to do and basically refusing to listen to the clear message people are giving him. The BNP didn't win those seats due to an increase in their vote, they won due to a mass decrease in the vote for the Labour Party.
Spend your time productively, get the mad meglomaniac who is deaf to the electorates cries out of Downing Street, then set out some policies that will invigorate those who are feeling left behind. Re-engage with the people who matter, stop ignoring their concerns because it doesn't effect you and at the very least grant them the intelligence of being able to see through the relentless spin coming from the government at this moment in time.
Debate with them.
Or is it that Labour are frightened that they will lose the debate?
Look at Cameron at the moment, he isn't really saying what he's going to do when he appears on the television, but he's becoming more and more popular because he isn't Labour. People have a blind faith that the Conservative Party will fix the things that Labour have got wrong. The Conservatives come up with campaigns like 'Save the Great British Pub' but fail to connect with the real reason for the pubs closing, so thats not really connecting or listening to people either is it?
I've said for weeks that all the shouting about the BNP wasn't going to do any good, but article after article has banged on the drum saying we must persuade people not to vote BNP, but very few have said why we should vote Labour. Now there are those crying that its the expenses issue, but I repeat what I said before, the BNP vote hasn't increased, the Labour vote has decreased and decreased a lot.
Same goes for the Conservatives for that matter. It proves that the expenses issue is a crock because their share of the vote hasn't increased that much, it has remained pretty much the same, but they have benefited because people haven't voted Labour. It doesn't shine through that everyone understands the Conservatives at the moment, but they at least have held their ground.
We need to be much more aggressive in the areas that our traditional supporters care about. Not the trendy stuff of 'New' Labour.
I think Gordon Brown touched on them a while ago:
1. British Jobs for British Workers
Brown uttered this phrase a while ago. Why did he do it? Did he mean? Was it a stunt?
2. More house building
Rising population (among other things including unregulated lending) has caused excessive house prices. The government have no real social housing strategy.
Gordon created a post in the cabinet for a Housing Minister. Since then we've had 4 housing ministers (Cooper, Flint, Beckett, now Healey). House building has fallen. Money has been given to banks in the hope that consumers will mortgage themsleves up to the hilt to generate demand for housing. Money has been printed by QE. Money could have been spent directly on housing while land prices are falling.
Here are a couple more:
a. What Gordon has missed (unless you know better) is that uncontrolled rising population puts a general strain on public services.
b. The government estolls the benefits of cheap foreign labour but never admits to the adverse effects. Worse still the government hasn't planned for the rise in population.
c. The government indequately regulates employers who employ illegal immigrants and EU citizens to ensure they are paid a fair wage that doesn't undercut others in established communities.
* Not knowing who was coming into the country at any given time
* Underestimating immigration numbers by such an extent I can only conclude they had 6 year olds providing the estimates
* Employing illegal immigrants in the Home Office of all places
* Not removing illegal immigrants once in
* Not funding local authorities for the increased strain on services due to the immigrants they dumped on councils all around the country
Labour has got what it deserves with the rise of the BNP in its heartlands
The Tory party and voters are appalled by the BNP support but don't place any of the blame anywhere but at Labour's door.
Maybe then, when Labour's core vote complain about immigrants taking their jobs, Labour might not call them racists.
As for Labour's policy of non-engagement with the BNP in debate - Labour's appeasement has royally bitten them back.
You guys must be so proud today.
they are too busy trying to cobble together a credible economic policy to worry about much else.
Utter rubbish, we've been taking the BNP to pieces in all Tory literature.
Look at the results in the Tory shires, the BNP didn't get close to the same percentages in the Labour core vote NW & NE England.
Please keep up the Toff line.
Your friendly working class Tory.
Is that the posh way of saying "Tory Toffs"?
I went to state schools and have no problem with Cameron's and Osborne's schooling but then I don't have a class chip on my shoulder like you do.
As for the economic policy as Pickles has said the manifesto is ready to go. Call an election and you can have a good read.
At least then they might get some good jobs and start being able to create wealth to pay for the horrible debt that GB and his NuLabour cronies have inflicted on us all.
I had an email this week from Labour it said Dear Robert,
many new people are joining New labour, is it not time you came back to fight the BNP. I looked because I thought it said BNL Bloody New Labour. The fact is Labour have given in, they know the Tories are going to win, so they are trying to keep second place by telling everyone we have to fight the BNP rubbish.