To all the English chaps.

[Freiwillige]

How popular or un popular is the British National Party? The reason I am asking is that I stumbled onto there website through a web link bashing them. Now I myself am a rather uninformed American on English politics but it seems to be a popular party or at least growing in popularity. So
even know its obviously taboo and on the political fringe how popular is the BNP?

They had a video that I found shocking that I found again on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZNx0xHe0p0

Is it really as bad as all that? just whondering really as my ancestry is half English and I have family there currently in middle Essex.

And I beleive that if I was English they would get my vote.

[Letum]

It depends what kind of person you ask, to put it bluntly.

They are popular enough to win some local council seats and be in the
running for seats in parliament. Enough in the running to worry some
moderates. That is still less than 1% of any popular vote tho.

The party was formed from more overtly Nazi groups such as the "Greater
Britain Movement" and the "National Front". It's founder called Mein
Kampf the party's "bible". The BNP takes a (relatively) more moderate,
political approach, but still stays true to it's roots, it's leader calling the
Holocaust the "Holohoax" in the late '90s. Since then, however,
anti-sematism has been completely replaced by anti-islamism
and anti-immigration ideals. A prominent party member summed
up the new anti-islam and the BNPs breed of false moderation well:


We bang on about Islam. Why? Because to the ordinary public out there it's the thing they can understand. It's the thing the newspaper editors sell newspapers with. If we were to attack some other ethnic group — some people say we should attack the Jews … But … we've got to get to power. And if that was an issue we chose to bang on about when the press don't talk about it … the public would just think we were barking mad. They'd just think oh, you're attacking Jews just because you want to attack Jews. You're attacking this group of powerful Zionists just because you want to take poor Manny Cohen the tailor and shove him in a gas chamber. That's what the public would think. It wouldn't get us anywhere other than stepping backwards. It would lock us in a little box; the public would think "extremist crank lunatics, nothing to do with me." And we wouldn't get power.
Naturally, this makes them very much despised by the majority of decent folk.

[onelifecrisis]

They aren't popular at all. Like Letum said, they have less than 1% of the vote. But where some parties have 1% of the vote and the other 99% of the population have hardly even heard of them, that's not the case with the BNP; they're very well known, and the 99% that don't support them tend to view them as despicable, or a joke, or both.

I think most countries have some sort of extremist Nazi/Fascist party with around 1% of the vote, and Britain is no different.

[jumpy]

There's a slight possibility that the lowest common denominator will cast their vote for the BNP at a local level, but only because they are too ignorant and bigoted to understand that, for all their talk of a united britain, the BNP are just another bunch of racist fascists hiding under the mantle of free speech and democracy.

They have as much bile and venomous hatred as the radical islamic fool in the beginning of that youtube link. Neither of whom are good or welcome here, but we have to tolerate them all the same.

Sad fact is, I know quite a few lads, from my last job warehousing, who thought (and I use the term loosely) that the BNP was a good party to vote for. Proles - I hate to call them that, because for the most part they were a good bunch of lads, they just have a very limited view of the world. And what vision they do have is shaped by newspapers like The Sun and the Daily Star; whilst I like 'page 3' as much as the next chap, tabloids like them are little more than comics. - But that's what they are: proles, easy meat for dicks like nick griffin and his greasy cadre of monomaniacal mountebanks.

Incidentally, the BNP website is still down due to a DOS attack :rotfl: :rock:

EDIT: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8011878.stm
Says it all really.

[Oberon]

Yeah, I'm pretty much with Jumpy on this one. There is an easy trend for those who are unemployed or down the...shall we say...lower end of the class spectrum (because let's face it, the UK is still a class society even after a decade of New Labour) to blame all their woes on 'those bloody foreigners, coming over here, stealing all our jobs' and of course, 'those bloody foreigners' extends to anyone who isn't of white skin, even if they were born in the UK and their parents were born in the UK. It's a sad state of affairs, but despite the best efforts of millions of pounds worth of equal rights campaigns, it's a state of affairs that persists and will continue to persist as the prejudice is passed down from generation to generation.
The BNP knows this, and it is not above exploiting it, although its latest pamphlet is a barrel of laughs, apparently the Spitfire on it was flown by a Polish squadron, the elderly couple are Italian and the chap on it is American :har:.

[Kapitan_Phillips]

I honestly dont know who I'd vote for. None of the parties have impressed me sufficiently to warrant my support.

Perhaps UK Independence, but their policies arent exactly expansive :O:

[Oberon]

I honestly dont know who I'd vote for. None of the parties have impressed me sufficiently to warrant my support.

Perhaps UK Independence, but their policies arent exactly expansive :O:

:haha: I dunno, Nick Clegg has struck me as being a Lib Dem leader with attitude in the Commons, even if he's as deep in the trough as the rest of them.

Like the poster says, 'Whoever wins, we lose' :haha:

[Letum]

[the BNP's] latest pamphlet is a barrel of laughs, apparently the Spitfire on it was flown by a Polish squadron...

Haha!
It just goes to show; that which is best and most English is so often a result
of our blessings from around the world, especially Europe and the
Commonwealth, which we have made our own. That's what makes me proud
to be British!

Curry pie anyone?

[onelifecrisis]

I'm not sure you should be taking those 'proles' so seriously. I'm from a proletariat family. I grew up in a proletariat area, about as rough as they come, and I know a lot of people (including members of my extended family) who for years have bitched about islamic people and asian people and even black people, and moan about 'foreigners stealing our jobs' and even joke (yes joke) about voting BNP. I say it's a 'joke' but really I think it's an expression of frustration at the way English people are increasingly feeling like foreigners in their own country. How do I know they don't really vote BNP? Because we 'proles' make up... what? 80% of the voting population? 90%? And how much of the vote do BNP really have? If all the people who say that they might (or do) vote BNP were serious, we'd have a BNP government! As it is we don't have a single BNP seat.

Don't mistake people bitching for more than it is. As a white Englishman who's first language is English (raised by white English people who's first language was English) I can relate to the frustration people are feeling. I worked in one job where I was the only English guy on an all-asian team of developers who all spoke in some language I don't even know the name of. In another job I was the only English developer on an all-Isreali team who all spoke in Hebrew all the time. These were not offshore assignments; they were both desk jobs in British cities, and yet I found myself the "foreigner" who is out-of-the-loop because he doesn't speak the "native" langauge. So I can understand when someone jokes that they might vote BNP, but I never would and so far (if election results are any indication) neither have they.

[Jimbuna]

I agree with jumpy....there are obvious constraints imposed upon me when discussing these vermin in a political context but let me give one small example:

In a recent BNP pamphlet put through peoples letterboxes in the north east of England, one of there leaders was quoted as saying that rape should not be considered a crime because women enjoyed sex.

Below is a link to the trutyh behind one of their leaflets:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1186786/How-BNP-backers-really-foreign-actors-models.html

[Tribesman]

They had a video that I found shocking that I found again on youtube

Isn't it ironic that you post a propoganda piece about nutcases ovrerrunning the streets which is presented by a bunch of nutcases who this weekend ran riot in Britains streets .

[Freiwillige]

Wow i had not realised that they were outright goose steppers. I hadnt taken them for facists or anything. I dunno but I do feel that Englands current policy's are suicidal and eventual you may see some form of Nazi's running your country if you dont find moderation to the current trends of immigration.

Nazism is always a reaction to something as it was in the 1930's in Germany. It is not proactive but reactive to perceived loss of national identity. In Gemany it was the Bolsheviks, In England it is the Muslims.

I guess it boils down to definition of what IS English. Are you English because you were born in England? I know many who would say no.

[Oberon]

I don't think we'll have Norsefire any time soon, the cultural memory of the Second World War and the Nazis is too strong here.
But I could probably see fascist ideals becoming more popular. :hmmm:

[Jimbuna]

Why can't the UK go down the same lines as Australia and only accept immigrants who have a needed skill and are self sufficient?....in other words "you are welcome as long as you are capable of putting into the pot and not just taking from it"

[onelifecrisis]

Why can't the UK go down the same lines as Australia and only accept immigrants who have a needed skill and are self sufficient?....in other words "you are welcome as long as you are capable of putting into the pot and not just taking from it"

I was under the impression that, as a general rule, the immigrants here are putting in more than they are taking out. I thought they were good for the economy? :hmmm: In any case, I'm not sure it's relevant. I mean it seems to me (maybe I'm wrong) that the "appeal" of the BNP has little to do with economics.

[Letum]

Why can't the UK go down the same lines as Australia and only accept immigrants who have a needed skill and are self sufficient?....in other words "you are welcome as long as you are capable of putting into the pot and not just taking from it"

That sounds like a state sanctioned version of flashing a few fifties at the
border guard.

We have a responsibility not to send people back to a country if they
are likely to be badly treated or killed there without a just reason.
It is a bit rich not to allow EU members to settle here when more
Britons live abroad in Europe than Europeans live in Briton.

Besides, there are few convincing arguments that imigration does
more economic harm than good (or vice versa).


Nazism is always a reaction to something as it was in the 1930's in Germany. It is not proactive but reactive to perceived loss of national identity. In Gemany it was the Bolsheviks, In England it is the Muslims.

Nincompoop!
You will find them in any country at any time. They only become popular in
reaction to something (like the German financial crisis of the 20s/30s.)
They are not popular in the UK.

There was no significant Jewish menace in Germany and there is no
significant Muslim menace in the UK.

There are certainly religious and political extremists of all varieties here and
some groups are more active than others, but none of them are reflections
of any larger ethnic or religious groups.

[Jimbuna]

I was under the impression that, as a general rule, the immigrants here are putting in more than they are taking out. I thought they were good for the economy? :hmmm: In any case, I'm not sure it's relevant. I mean it seems to me (maybe I'm wrong) that the "appeal" of the BNP has little to do with economics.

Of that you are correct....but think how much better it could be if the Australian rules were applied to all.

About 10 years back I seriously gave consideration to immigration whilst my kids were still young enough to adapt to the initial educational upheaval and was suprised to be informed that my skills/talents were a sought after commodity but if I'd left it 10 years later, despite my skills/talents still being of value, I would need to rely on my UK pension to live upon reaching retirement age (coupled with the fact I would have enough to purchase a property....but only through funding it with the proceeds of my UK residence).

[onelifecrisis]

I guess it boils down to definition of what IS English. Are you English because you were born in England? I know many who would say no.

National identity has been discussed a lot here in recent years, and while I can see that it's interesting (in an academic sort of way) I can also see that it's a pretty stupid debate. I mean, how do you explain to a child what a table is? You point to it and say "that's a table" of course.

I'm English and I don't need it defined for me because I am the definition. Anyone who does need it defined for them? Isn't English. End of debate AFAIC.

[Jimbuna]

That sounds like a state sanctioned version of flashing a few fifties at the
border guard.

We have a responsibility not to send people back to a country if they
are likely to be badly treated or killed there without a just reason.
It is a bit rich not to allow EU members to settle here when more
Britons live abroad in Europe than Europeans live in Briton.

Besides, there are few convincing arguments that imigration does
more economic harm than good (or vice versa).


I'm unaware of the Australian Immigration Authority taking bribes.

I have never suggested returning anyone to wherever.

I'm confident you'll find that expatriates living abroad rarely qualify for welfare benfits from the country in which they reside.

The overlying principal I adhere to is a one of....'We have more than done as much as we can, if you want to come, fine, but you must have the means to support yourself'.

The alternative is that they will become the victims of widespread suspicion and ridicule....fueled by vermon such as the BNP and the resultant consequences could be potentially very serious for the population of this country in the decades to come.

Anyone currently residing in the UK must, as an absolutely bare minimum, be valued, respected and treated with dignity and also be encouraged to live a meaningful life and make as positive a contribution to society as a whole.

[Letum]

I'm unaware of the Australian Immigration Authority taking bribes.

I was suggesting that by having a minimum amount of cash to support your
self and pay tax before you come in to the country the state is accepting
your potential tax money as a bribe.

It's not a point I find entirely convincing tho.

I have never suggested returning anyone to wherever.

It's a bit of a dud policy if you don't return any one once they get here!
I'm all for returning plenty of people if it is safe to do so.

I'm confident you'll find that expatriates living abroad rarely qualify for welfare benfits from the country in which they reside.

That would surprise me more than a little.

Anyone currently residing in the UK must, as an absolutely bare minimum, be valued, respected and treated with dignity and also be encouraged to live a meaningful life and make as positive a contribution to society as a whole.

I disagree. There are plenty of very nasty people who no one should value.
And a few of them should be sent packing so long as it is safe to do so.

[Jimbuna]

Hehe...you sound like a former inspector of mine, if a call came in about ANYTHING that might have a racial theme or connection to it a few of us would purposely be slow to respond, the shift inspector would eventually call for precautionary backup and we'd have a right royal laugh watching him struggle to be equitable and keep a cool head.

Not that he was a racist mind you....he just appeared to be blinkered at times.

Seriously though, if anyone fails to conform or adhere to the law of the land then yes, away you should go to whence you came.

Too many bleeding hearts in society nowadays I fear and this will always be one of the hottest political potatoes to handle.

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Seriously though, if anyone fails to conform or adhere to the law of the land then yes, away you should go to whence you came.

Hey, we dont want them here either! :stare:

[jumpy]

Sadly our immigration 'boarder agency' shows a distinct lack of sensibility paralleling some of the nonsense that you hear from the BNP - the letter is absolute and inflexible, with as little regard for individuals and their merits or rights.

The perception is that any old tom dick or akbar can come here and start living off state benefits; if my local jobcentre and DSS office is anything to go by (compared to about 6-7 years ago, I observed a large bias towards the number of eastern european/somali/african claimants, often with 4 or 5 children in tow) then that view holds out some truth.

But it does not stop those who choose to come and live here and contribute to all that they hold in high regard as 'britishness', being treated with disdain and bureaucratic imbecility: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7996900.stm

I don't know what is worse, supposed foreign free loaders, or blind adherence to legislation - yet another nulabour legacy.



@ Freiwillige - 'goose steppers' :rotfl: nice turn of phrase ;)

[Jimbuna]

Hey, we dont want them here either! :stare:

I said nothing of the Welsh...after all, you lot keep the noodle mines running and ensure the sheep population never becomes extinct :rotfl:


Welsh is a language invented by someone who was sh!t at scrabble.

[Kapitan_Phillips]

I said nothing of the Welsh...after all, you lot keep the noodle mines running and ensure the sheep population never becomes extinct :rotfl:


Welsh is a language invented by someone who was sh!t at scrabble.

I'm not Welsh ;) My parents moved here because the houses were cheap :haha:

[jumpy]

^^

yer, that's how it starts, all innocent at first... :O:

[clive bradbury]

Actually, UK policy towards immigrant labour has already gone through some radical changes, more along the lines of Australia:

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/employers/points/sponsoringmigrants/employingmigrants/residentlabourmarkettest/

Of course, this does not make for good copy in the press, who far prefer to play the racist 'english for the english' card. As such the rules have been introduced with little publicity.