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Was Enoch right with his ‘Rivers of Blood’?What does our collective soul believe in? Can it be that we are racialists?The
history of British politics over the last 50 years suggests that
maybe we have a basic instinct more persuasive than our reason.
BNP set to win seats as support surges Left-wing BNP Why Labour is losing the working class See also Daily Telegraph:
22/04/2006
Can it really be that one in four of us wants to classify the population by race? Is it credible that a quarter of us would applaud the deportation of British children solely on grounds of their ancestry? It seems unlikely. While a tiny minority in any society will be attracted by blood-and-soil nationalism, most of us are more concerned about tax, crime, schools and so on. If yesterday's YouGov poll is to be believed, 28 per cent of voters would consider backing the British National Party. But very few of these, we venture to suggest, are motivated by the desire to put Nick Griffin in Downing Street. What we are hearing, rather, is a howl of frustration against the established parties - and, in particular, against their local councillors. This is not entirely the fault of the councillors. As we keep pointing out, British local authorities are the feeblest in the Western world. Councillors are forced either to fight elections on trivial questions or to promise things that are not in their gift. Sensing the uselessness of local elections, many voters treat them as a megaphone through which to shout at Westminster. And what better way to turn up the volume than to vote for the most loathed party of all? This is not to say that voters are ignorant of the BNP's policies. The reason that the BNP, rather than, say, Respect, or the Monster Raving Loony Party, is currently the favoured vehicle for anti-politician protest is that it has focused on areas where the political caste seems to be most out of touch with public opinion: political corruption, rising taxes, Europe, penal sentencing and, above all, immigration. "Feeling ignored, abandoned and forgotten by Blair's regime?" asks the party's website. (Who isn't?) "Feeling exploited, over-taxed but unrepresented on your local council or in Parliament?" (Yes indeed.) The way to address this alienation, of course, is to devolve power on planning, policing, education and social security, and to make local councils self-financing. Since this newspaper hoisted the localist standard last year, David Cameron has taken up many of our ideas; and, to be fair, the Lib Dems are also devolutionists in their fashion. The trouble is that the Government, like all governments, is a defender of the standing bureaucracies that run our country. If only people's ballots were made to matter again, they would surely be less likely to screw them up and hurl them contemptuously at the system. The British National Party is on course to make significant gains in the local elections in England in two weeks time, according to a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph today. It shows that seven per cent of voters are ready to back the far-Right party and that 24 per cent have considered voting BNP in the past or are thinking of doing so now. In the eyes of almost three-quarters of potential BNP supporters, Britain "almost seems like a foreign country". The poll underlines the recent warning from Margaret Hodge, the employment minister, that white working-class families felt so neglected by the Government and angered by immigration that they were deserting Labour and flocking to the BNP. Mrs Hodge told The Sunday Telegraph that eight out of 10 white people in her east London constituency of Barking were threatening to vote for the BNP on May 4. The surge in support for the BNP - which displaced the National Front as Britain's main far-Right party in 1982 - could damage the Conservatives in the local elections, which will be David Cameron's first electoral test since becoming Tory leader. The poll suggests that the BNP draws its support more from the Conservatives than from Labour - and is gaining ground at the expense of the Liberal Democrats and UK Independence Party. It confirms that Mr Cameron's brief honeymoon with the voters is over. Labour remains in the lead despite the damage caused by the "loans for peerages" scandal and the financial crisis in the NHS. It is on 35 per cent (down one point since March), the Conservatives on 33 (down three) and the Liberal Democrats on 17 (down one). The Tories are now no better off than they were under Michael Howard at last year's general election and have lost all the bounce in the polls they enjoyed after Mr Cameron become leader in December. The poll suggests that the new leader has failed to capitalise on Tony Blair's difficulties and is vulnerable to Labour attacks that he is a political "chameleon". A majority still believes that, despite having a new leader, the Conservatives have not changed all that much and even more reckon it is no longer very clear what the party stands for. But the "loans for peerages" row has further damaged trust in Labour. Sixty two per cent of voters agree that it gives the impression of being "very sleazy and disreputable" - putting the party on a similar "sleaze" rating to John Major's ill-fated Tory administration. The strong showing for the BNP, which has already achieved more success than any other far-Right party, will alarm all the mainstream parties. At the general election last year, the BNP won 4.3 per cent of the vote across the 116 seats it contested. It polled 16.9 per cent in the Barking constituency. The poll confirms the fears of Labour MPs that Mrs Hodge's warning about the support for the BNP among white working-class voters has given the party a valuable boost. In recent months, almost no one had been telling YouGov they would vote BNP, but publicity following her comments has highlighted the party's existence. A report by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust this week said that up to 25 per cent of voters indicated they "might vote" for the party. It claimed that support for the BNP from skilled and semi-skilled workers reflected voter "tension" about multi-cultural Britain. The BNP has said it is putting up more candidates than ever before - 356 - for the local elections. At present it has 15 councillors across England and hopes to win up to 40 seats on May 4. Lord Tebbit, the former Conservative Party chairman, in a letter to The Daily Telegraph today, challenges the widely held view that the BNP is an extreme Right-wing party. He said that he was unable to find evidence of "Right-wing tendencies" in its 2005 manifesto. Frank Field: 21/04/2006
Today a Daily Telegraph YouGov poll reports that as many as 24 per cent of the population would consider voting for the British National Party if there were an election tomorrow. Some of my Labour colleagues have confirmed worrying levels of BNP support in their constituencies. At the last election, for many working-class former Labour voters, the only means of protesting against the hostile social values they see imposed on their lives by the aloof metropolitan elite of both parties was not voting at all. Next time round - and at the local elections on May 4 - many have found a party they can vote for. This is not about race. Immigration and bogus asylum seekers act like the barium meal of an X-ray, showing up the weakness of the body politic. Yet the revolt of working-class voters is not limited to areas of high immigration. Race merely acts as a flashpoint. In my constituency, Birkenhead, where black faces are still a rarity, the revolt is just as fundamental as in London and other multicultural centres. Many on the Left imagine that support for the BNP and other extremists represent a cry for the reinstatement of Old Labour values of nationalisation and high state spending. In fact, the objection is much more fundamental. It represents a clash between people's sense of fairness, grounded in a collective social ethic, and what they see as the foreign idea of individualised rights. In medieval times, the Bible was chained to the wall of churches to prevent a populace hungry for knowledge from running off with it. Now Whitehall departments should have chained to the wall the latest publication from the Young Institute, and Labour ministers should be made to read it out loud. The New East End, by Geoff Dench and Kate Gavron, starts by asking poor white East Enders what they object to as they witness their community being taken over by Bangladeshis. Their answers should be the starting point of any Labour revival of community. For Labour's elite will also find that many of the Bangladeshis' objections are along the same lines as those of traditional white Labour voters. Housing remains a flash point. The working-class sense of fairness is mocked by allocation policies that put at the top of the list groups who, in the local community's eye, have less claim than other groups. A policy of housing the homeless is noble. It is the way it is carried out which is so objectionable. I have never heard a constituent - even one who has waited in the housing queue for decades - argue against a policy that looks after the homeless. What so many of my constituents object to, as I do, is the way the homeless jump to the top of the queue and are able to choose the best homes. This policy strikes at the very sense of fairness that working people hold. Fairness demands that those who have striven longest should rise to the top of the queue and take the best housing. The accommodation they vacate should then be offered to the homeless. In parts of the East End, the housing flashpoint is colour. In Birkenhead, it centres on the advantage that single parents or the homeless have in sweeping the weekly housing jackpots. The objection is the same. Dench and Gavron detail the ways current social housing policy favours the family in crisis against the family that has strengthened the local community. The values that welfare preaches are equally objectionable to decent poorer families of any colour. Within the living memory of many voters, welfare has been reshaped from a system whose values reflected a working-class collective culture to one based on individual rights. In place of effort and contribution, a welfare system has been rolled out preaching and practising inalienable rights that individuals gain simply by turning up and asking for help. Dench and Gavron record how surprised Bangladeshis were at receiving free access to welfare. At home, those who do not work risk not being able to eat. Poorer whites were equally amazed and angered that a welfare system could offer rewards before anyone had made a contribution. That was their understanding of the welfare state they thought they were building up. You paid in contributions, thereby ensuring your family against hard times. There was no payout before contributions had been made. Political correctness on individualised rights now runs deep in the Parliamentary Labour Party. It will take a considerable amount of courage to realign welfare with the collective values that are crucial to underpinning strong and sustainable communities. Moreover, altruism is sustainable in the longer run only if it is buttressed by a widespread sense of fairness. Three moves would show that the Government is intent on radical reform. Move one would be to instruct all housing authorities that length of service as good tenants should be the crucial determinant of housing allocation. Other groups would be afforded the accommodation thus released by those tenants with a track record of good citizenship. Move two would be a partial freeze on the benefit levels for single people until the rate for a couple equalled twice that of the single person. The welfare system would then be seen to cease discriminating financially against those who lived together, particularly so if they have children. The third reform would be to impose a contributory period before welfare can be drawn. The debate should centre on how long the period should be. Linked to this should be the roll-out of ID cards so that NHS treatment was strictly linked to people's residency in this country. On this front, the metropolitan Left will argue that such views are incompatible with human rights legislation. Again, the Government would be reconnecting with its once bedrock supporters by insisting that the collective rights should come first and that, if need be, exemptions from the human rights legislation would be insisted on. See also Rivers of Blood speech British nationalism Notable Names from Britain’s far Right British ‘Neo –Nazi’ Parties Cameron less popular than BNP? BNP - 'going forward' ? Beware - neglected voters are angry Sex, Drugs and Cameron British Nationalist Party BNP's Nick Griffin Political corruption: sleaze Is Multiculturalism doomed? Multiculturalism |
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