A New Beginning

It is a widely held view that the BNP won their two miserable seats in the European Parliament by taking votes from Labour.
Now it is true that the Labour vote declined dramatically and that the BNP picked up seats because of the lower turnout.That much is true and it is largely the result of the Labour Government fixing the threshold for seats at too low a level.

Could that simply be a result of an extremely generous impulse to assist minority views get an airing or a cynical view that maube Labour itself would need a lower threshold to keep itself in business?
Too cynical a view even for me to contemplate.

But Channel4 research reveals that whilst the large Labour abstentions helped the fascists reach the % points necessary,there was no widespread evidence that large numbers of voters were attracted to the fascist fold.

Firstly their actual vote was down on last time,despite the vast sums that they have claimed to have been able to spend on the election.

Secondly and perhaps more interestingly is the evidence that they attracted that section of the white working class,the manual workers who read the Sun and the Star and were working class Tory voters.
The simple and obvious fact is that the BNP have attracted exactly who has always been likely to vote extreme right anywhere in Europe.
Working class semi-skilled and lower middle class 'aspirational' have always been the targets of xenaphobic bigots and hatemongers.

Think redneck-the sort of mediocrity that always needs someone else to blame for their own failure.
You can bet your life that the average BNP voter blames everone and everything for what's gone wrong in their lives-only happy when they can point the finger and blame someone else.
Preferably of course an immigrant with a dark skin who will have taken "their job,their house,their hospital bed,the food out of their children's mouth,their wife,their children and probably even their pet"

Nick Griffin blames 'red thugs' for lobbing an egg at him, will he also condemn 'red,white and blue' thugs who intimidated a Labour counting agent at a polling station in Northampton on Thursday?
Why do I expect the ill named 'Northampton patriot' to bleat about needing proof and citing lack of Police involvement as proof that nothing happened?

But of course few people are willing to risk fascist intimidation-it has a long and ugly history!

The BNP did badly in Northampton, almost as badly as the Christian People's Alliance,keen defenders of the BNP's right to spew racist ideology, but as long as their is a white underclass determined to plead victimhood,then there is a leechlike political ideology willing to feed their paranoia.