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Cameron less popular than Nick Griffin?It came as a shock to me. Griffin of the BNP has greater popular support than David Cameron of the Conservative Party. Such is the result of a sample of a 1,000 voters by BNP pollsters – spoof was my first re-action, but could it be correct? Could the BNP, like the German National Socialists before them suddenly mushroom into England’s largest political party? The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, as is seen below, suggests that such a radically occurrence may well be happening. Vote for anyone but BNP says Cameron Voting for the BNP is about rage rather than race Labour brands Cameron "Dave the Chameleon" Ministers at odds on how to see off BNP See also Main political parties must take note of the message that many people are considering voting for the far-right British National Party, Conservative leader David Cameron said on Tuesday. Research carried out by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust has suggested that 25 percent of the electorate would consider backing the BNP in next month's local authority elections, according to media reports. The study said the figures reflected disillusionment with mainstream parties and concerns over housing, jobs and immigration. "I certainly hope it's not true," Cameron said of the report's as yet unpublished findings. "The BNP is a party that thrives on hatred between races and between people of different colours and backgrounds and religions. "I'd rather people voted for any party other than the BNP," Cameron, who was launching his party's election campaign on Tuesday with a focus on green issues, told BBC radio. "I think there's a lesson for all parties in this including my own. We've got to do more to get into the areas like the east end of London and get into the heart of our cities where people do feel very let down." His comments come after Children's Minister Margaret Hodge said in an article in a Sunday newspaper that the anti-immigration party posed a threat that had to be addressed. She admitted there was a growing feeling of alienation among Labour voters in her constituency of Barking in east London. "It's not simple racism that attracts voters to the BNP. It's frustration and fear," she said. "It's about run-down housing, crime on their estates, disorder in their communities. The government can no longer respond by simply getting tough on immigration." A separate report by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust published last year indicated that the Barking and Dagenham area was the key London target for the BNP. It also found that 24 percent of Londoners would vote, or consider voting, for the BNP, while 17 percent of people across Britain might back them. However, one government minister said the BNP only had appeal in very localised areas and giving the party attention overstated its political importance. "I am worried that if we give them too much coverage it can back up the notion that they are a potent protest vote," Home Office minister Andy Burnham said. However, a BNP spokesman said Hodge's comments showed that major parties were waking up "to the disastrous reality of multi-culturalism". Her revelation showed the party was seen by many "as the only political organisation prepared to address the problems caused by immigration and asylum policies which have made people feel like a minority in their own country," he added. Political analysts are mainly watching the May 4 elections for indications of how Cameron does in his first national electoral test since he took over as Tory leader in December and for signs of voter backlash against Prime Minister Tony Blair. The elections follow weeks of bad publicity for the government about secret loans and the tangled financial dealings of Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell and her husband David Mills. Rachel Sylvester:
18/04/2006
Racism is no longer a black-and-white issue. A taxi driver told me the other day that he was worried about the influx of "people with a European complexion" coming into this country. With immigrants arriving in Britain from Kosovo and Poland, as well as Somalia and Bangladesh, newcomers these days are as likely to have a pink skin as a brown one. And yet fear of change (whatever the colour of its face) remains a powerful force. A report from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, publicised yesterday, claims that a quarter of voters in London are considering supporting the British National Party in next month's local elections. Margaret Hodge, the employment minister, warned at the weekend that white, working-class families in her Barking constituency were deserting Labour for the far Right. Searchlight, the anti-fascist campaign group, said recently that the BNP needs a swing of only five per cent to win as many as 70 council seats on May 4. There is, of course, a danger in talking up the threat from the BNP. Nick Griffin, who likes to claim that he leads Britain's fourth-largest political party, must be basking in his 15 minutes of front-page fame. I find it hard to believe that a sixth of people in this tolerant, decent and middle-of-the-road country really will - as the Rowntree report also claims - put an X in the far-Right box when they fill in their ballot papers in two weeks' time. A few may feel emboldened to do so by the recent coverage. The BNP deserves scorn rather than scare-mongering. Not only is it utterly pernicious (a leaflet distributed by the party after the July 7 bombings said, "If only they had listened to the BNP"), it is also useless if faced with the reality of power. When a handful of BNP councillors were elected in Burnley in 2003, they failed to turn up to the first budget debate, one of the most crucial moments in the local government year. In Barking, a BNP councillor stood down after eight months, telling his local paper: "Those meetings go right over my head and there's little point in me being there." Another elected representative left the party, claiming she had not realised it propagated extremist views - in fact, she said, she had cited Nelson Mandela as her political hero at her selection interview. Meanwhile, Punch and Judy politics appear to be too timid for the BNP. One of its councillors was forced to resign after smashing a bottle in the face of a colleague and another has been convicted, since his election, of attacking his wife and a police officer. And yet the BNP cannot be completely laughed off. There is a new professionalism to its campaigns that is beginning to worry the mainstream parties. It has recently for the first time started to send out carefully targeted direct mailshots. Mr Griffin, the Cambridge-educated son of a farmer, has toned down the extremist rhetoric and prefers to surround himself with pretty, long-haired women, rather than tattooed, skinheaded men. Campaign leaflets in white working-class areas describe the BNP as "the Labour Party your grandfathers voted for". Other literature says the party is "people just like you making a difference". To the irritation of some members, the BNP has recently selected an ethnic minority candidate - Sharif Abdel Bawad, who is described by the party as a "totally assimilated Greek-Armenian". The BNP's website now sells Make Poverty History-style wristbands (printed with the slogan "English and proud") and T-shirts emblazoned with the words "cool to be white". The party even has a fund-raising campaign that urges supporters to donate the price of a pot of Earl Grey tea - which is, its advertisement says, when combined with a Garibaldi biscuit, the "perfectly British way to warm up a winter's afternoon". The aim is to make the BNP unthreatening in a Coronation Street sort of way. There may be some exaggeration of the BNP's appeal, but it is likely that the far-Right party will win at least some extra seats in next month's council elections. And there is a danger that any victory, however small, will be used to try to force the mainstream parties away from the centre ground. Right-wingers will urge David Cameron to blow the immigration dog whistle, used to such disastrous effect by his predecessor Michael Howard; Left-wingers will tell Tony Blair to do more to appeal to Labour's white working-class core voters, who feel neglected by their public school-educated leader's love of Middle England. It would be a mistake for either of them to follow the advice. The truth is that support for the BNP is not really a protest vote against a racially mixed society: it is a cry of rage about the quality of life in some of the poorest areas in the country. There is not much cheerleading for the far Right in the streets of Chelsea. The BNP is exploiting a growing sense of frustration with genuine problems: the lack of affordable housing, the increase in low-level crime, the failure of inner-city schools, the loss of a sense of identity among white working-class men following the collapse of traditional industries. These failures are not really anything to do with race - although, of course, the more people come to live in an area, the more stretched local resources will be - but the BNP has diverted a general sense of grievance into a specific feeling of unfairness based on a perception that there is "us and them". It is true, for example, that asylum seekers in a way "jump the queue" for council houses because they are destitute when they arrive in an area, whereas those on a waiting list for a bigger home are not. The solution is not to try to recreate a homogeneous white population but to find more affordable housing, and speed up the way in which homes are allocated to local people. The Government, and the Opposition parties, should not try to ramp up the rhetoric on race, they need to deal with the often appalling way in which too many people have to live their lives. In some white working-class areas, Labour has, as one Downing Street adviser admitted to me yesterday, effectively run a "one-party state" for too long. With no effective challenge from the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats, it has become complacent and its councillors have resisted public service reform. The rise of the BNP should shock the mainstream political parties out of their torpor. But it must not be allowed to change the direction or the tone of British politics. That really would be a victory for the extremists. Tony Blair's Labour Party branded Conservative leader David Cameron a chameleon on Tuesday and unveiled an image of a multi-coloured reptile on a bicycle in a party broadcast for next month's local elections. In an attempt to depict Cameron as a leader whose views change according to what his audience wants to hear, the broadcast features a blue and green scaly creature with the slogan "Dave the Chameleon". Deputy Leader John Prescott first characterised the 39-year-old Tory leader as a chameleon, a lizard which changes colour according to the surroundings, at a party conference in February. "We keep seeing different versions of him - Liberal Cameron, New Labour Cameron, Green Cameron. He may change his colour at will, flip-flopping from one position to another, but underneath he is Conservative to the core," said Prescott. The May 4 elections, where over 4,000 local authority seats in England will be decided, are a big test for Cameron who is under pressure to show his strategy of rebranding the Tories as a modern and caring party can win votes. Cameron, launching the Tory's local election campaign under the slogan "Vote Blue, Go Green", said his party broadcast would deliver a positive message. "Labour are clearly showing that they have run out of steam, run out of ideas, run out of positive things to contribute either at the local level or the national level and this would seem to be the evidence," he told reporters. Cameron pointed to Blair's words in 1997 when he said positive policies, not negative campaigning, won elections. Graeme Wilson: 18/04/2006)
Labour ministers have disagreed on how to combat the British National
Party as a study suggested that one in four voters would consider
supporting the far-Right group. The report by the Joseph Rowntree
Charitable Trust said the BNP was tapping into growing feelings of
"powerlessness and frustration" in white working-class communities.
Researchers found that up to a quarter of those they questioned said
they might be prepared to vote for the BNP. Margaret Hodge, the
employment minister, made headlines at the weekend when she said that
thousands of white working-class voters were deserting Labour for the
BNP in her constituency of Barking, east London. Anger over immigration
and asylum seekers was a major factor.However, Andy Burnham, the Home Office minister, said yesterday that it would be wrong to exaggerate the importance of the BNP. "They pose a very localised threat and I am worried that if we give them too much coverage it can back up the notion that they are a potent protest vote," he told Radio 4's Today programme. Labour's confusion was underlined when Phil Woolas, the local government minister, said later that no politician should underestimate the BNP threat. See also Cameron: An upmarket yob? Sex, Drugs and Cameron Samantha Cameron David Cameron BNP - 'going forward' ? Beware - neglected voters are angry British Nationalist Party BNP's Nick Griffin Political corruption: sleaze Is Multiculturalism doomed? Multiculturalism |
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