Labour losing white working class to the BNP?

Posted by Lurker on April 16, 2006, 03:30 AM | #

I think the mainstream parties fear is not just that they might lose votes to the BNP but that previously apathetic non-voters will turn out to vote for them as well.

Posted by Al Ross on April 16, 2006, 03:33 AM | #

A celebratory rendition of Bach’s ‘Sleepers,Awake’ (from Cantata No. 140) is surely in order.

Posted by Desmond Jones on April 16, 2006, 04:13 AM | #

Considering Hodge’s background, something smells really fishy. In 2005, in Barking, Labour won 48% of the votes cast and Griffin is not exactly bubbling over with optimism:

Griffin’s saying, “If we can’t achieve anything in the parliamentary sense, we’ll achieve it in another way, by going into communities in other ways; it’s far easier than fighting elections."’

Something is not right with this picture.

Posted by Guessedworker on April 16, 2006, 07:12 AM | #

Both Hodge and Gable belong to the same ethnically framed faith.  Neither appears to me to be wholly telling the truth.  Hodge, obviously, is crying wolf for political reasons.  Gable is guilty of serial intellectual dishonesty about the BNP.  He knows the BNP is committed to building its voter base through every means open to it, and that this is perfectly legitimate - as legitimate for them as it would be, for example, for Kadima in Israel to seek to build alliances.  But as far as I am aware Gable does not hate Kadima.

Posted by AD on April 16, 2006, 07:39 AM | #

Are these the first elections since the London bombings?

Posted by Guessedworker on April 16, 2006, 08:31 AM | #

Yes, AD.  There have been single council ward by-elections since then.  But the Labour Party is able to target these in a major way.  That kept the BNP at bay in Keighley West, but may hold few implications for May.

Certainly Desmond is right, and there is no excessive optimism coming from the BNP at the moment.

Posted by AD on April 16, 2006, 08:54 AM | #

That quote about not achieving parliamentary success isn’t from Griffin, it’s Gable’s view on what he thinks Griffin is thinking.

I like this though:

Posted by Amalek on April 16, 2006, 06:22 PM | #

In the 1970s the Liberal Party began its comeback by ‘pavement politics’ among the white working and lower-middle classes of cities such as Liverpool and Leeds. Simultaneously it appealed to disillusionment with Conservative government in comfortable southern and outer London areas where Labour was (and is) anathema.

One wonders if Griffin might not try such a two-pronged strategy: going for the disposessed, disgruntled, ex-council house folks on the lines Margaret Rothschild fears, while trying to tap Veritas/UKIP/Thatcherite sentiment in the shires and exurban constituencies of affluent white flight.

David Cameron, George Osborne and their heavily Jewish backers are sounding so wet on the issues where the BNP scores-- Europe, USraeli wars, crime, immigration-- that a gentler, kinder, posher BNP than the brownshirt nostalgics of yesteryear could begin to pick up votes in Devon as well as Dagenham.

The BNP’s candidates look and sound more normal than of yore: more professionals and petit bourgeois Poujadistes, fewer Horst Wessels. The media’s long campaign of demonisation since Beackon’s election has clearly failed in the face of this genuine transformation. Gerry Gable and his crew are more stuck in the past than the party; they don’t know which smears work any more. “They’re still all Nazis at heart” falls flat as the dismal legacy of WW2 sentimentalism recedes.

The BNP’s liking for socialistic economics and protection gives it less of a shot at the disgruntled free-market Tory taxpayer.But you cannot please everyone on everything, and its anti-Muslim pugnacity may make up for its woolliness on fiscal policy.

When Trevor ‘Jones the Vote’ was building big blocs of Liberal councillors in England, the Libs still had a mere handful of MPs, nearly all Celtic. But as Alan Clark noted in his diaries of his Devon constituency, the Liberals proved very hard to dislodge once they got into the council chamber-- pavement politics was, and is, a strong contrast to the Westminster shenanigans and builds respect. In time the Libs’ local power bases, with their swelling crowds of activists, became launch platforms for 50-60 MPs at Westminster, despite the first-past-the-post bias against third parties.

The BNP, if it can become the main opposition to Labour in depressed Britain and a haven for anti-Cameroonie Tories elsewhere, could repeat the trick.

(All subject to the usual caveats about control by the security services, of course.)

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 17, 2006, 12:13 PM | #

Here is an interesting report today.

Quote:

Up to one quarter of voters may support the far right British National Party, a report for a social policy research group will say.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that anger with the main political parties had led to increasing numbers indicating that they might vote for the BNP. It attributed the support to feelings of “powerlessness and frustration”, the BBC reported.

Now this may be completely wrong. We will only find out when the election results are out. However, one rather imperfect indicator would be the little straw poll listed on the page titled “Would you vote for the BNP?”.

Check the percentage that say “Yes”. You are in for a shock.

Posted by Lurker on April 17, 2006, 01:20 PM | #

I couldnt find the thing directly on AOL, but I found this referring to it:

http://www.irr.org.uk/2004/april/ak000015.html

There is a comments section as well…

Posted by Lurker on April 17, 2006, 01:25 PM | #

Ooops - looks like that was from a couple of years ago.

When I click on your AOL link Phil, I just go to AOL UK, not to a specific article, even if I put the URL in directly. Cant stand AOL…

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 17, 2006, 01:39 PM | #

Lurker,

There may be something specifically wrong with your access since fred found the link and it worked.

To me, the shock was the 32% who said “No.”

Fred,

If that opinion poll is anywhere near an accurate measure of what public opinion is in this country right now, you can rest assure we are on the edge of a political revolution in this country and perhaps all of Europe (a massive change here would have knock on effects elsewhere). 

If this is actually accurate, I would be stunned. I really mean that. Tony Blair never got more than 40 percent of the vote, Fred. Now we are talking about a Party that never had an MP elected to Parliament registering this type of vote share.

The CON-servatives and NU-Labour must be losing sleep thinking about this. Don’t be surprised if they come up with some new trumped up charges against Griffin. I expect nothing less from the criminals that form the current Government. 

But I really don’t want to get carried away. I want to see the results first to be convinced.

Posted by Alex Zeka on April 17, 2006, 02:25 PM | #

All the poll numbers indicate is that 68% of a fairly small group are considering voting for the BNP. So, don’t expect 68% at the elections. However, it does suggest that the BNP vote will go up considerably. Up to 10%? That would give the major parties apoplexy, and show Dave “oh, you closet racists” Cameron to be as out of touch with the country as his Etonian background would suggest.

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 17, 2006, 02:49 PM | #

Alex,

How could an online poll register 68 percent in favour if only 10 percent of the country wants to vote BNP?

What gives?

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 17, 2006, 02:51 PM | #

68 percent in favour

I should have 60 percent in favour.

Posted by Lurker on April 17, 2006, 02:52 PM | #

Phil - could well be. I can longer see the Have your say pages on the BBC, a similar glitch maybe?

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 17, 2006, 02:55 PM | #

At the risk of sounding too optimistic, I should offer an alternative theory:

If a pollster rang you up on the phone and asked you, “Mr. Zeka would you consider voting for the BNP?”. Now you might say yes and I might too but a lot of people won’t.

But when the question is put on an online poll and all you have to do is press a button without any fear of revealing your identity, you can state your preference more honestly.

I am no pollster and could well be wrong. But this is the explanation that seems more plausible to me. The only other would be that BNP supporters disproportionately choose AOL as their ISP (for perverse reasons I would never understand!!).

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 17, 2006, 02:58 PM | #

Phil - could well be. I can longer see the Have your say pages on the BBC, a similar glitch maybe?

What browser are you using?

Posted by karlmagnus on April 17, 2006, 08:30 PM | #

BNP supporters disproportionately link to a story about the BNP, so that 60% figure doesn’t mean much.

Having just returned from the UK, I have to say the Cameroonies seem to have sunk without a trace; in a week full of Labour scandals they were getting no traction at all. I think it’s likely the whole Camreron thing has been a ghastly mistake, as I suspected, and in fact they are appeling only to those 10,000 metropolitan leftists who like to take a different position from their close soulmates among Lab and the LibDems.  A big BNP vote would shake the system up, and would be an excellent thing; if we don’t get it, I think the legitimacy of British politics, and participation in elections, would sink to an all time low, since nobody would expect voting to change anything that mattered.

May’s local elections promise to be very interesting indeed. But if you see Nick Griffin, tell him he needs a SERIOUS makeover on economics.

Posted by Lurker on April 17, 2006, 09:06 PM | #

Im embarassed to say *gulp* that Im using IE6 of some sort. (To be precise IE6.0.28800.1106)

Does anybody admit to using IE anymore

Posted by john rackell on April 17, 2006, 09:37 PM | #

May’s local elections promise to be very interesting indeed. But if you see Nick Griffin, tell him he needs a SERIOUS makeover on economics.

Interesting you say that because one of the sources of BNP funding is its commercial operations: newspaper - Voice of Freedom - bookshop, and other merchandising. Nope, they don’t make cars, steel, or semiconductors, unfortunately, but then nobody in Britain does anymore really either. But all in all they might be presumed to know a little about honest business rather than professional politicians and barristers etc, and may have a sounder understanding of economics than many.

But even if Griffin follows through on the his party’s manifesto can the BNP do any greater damage to the British economy that hasn’t already occurred and is occurring by other governments - Labour or Conservative. The British economy is a shambles - 25% of the British economy is in the financial services sector (owned by foreigners). That and North Sea oil what does Britain make (ok, James Dyson and his vacuum cleaners - very worthy). It’s just a question of Britain re-equilibrating to how poor it really is - a process that’s got its own momentum - a radical alternative is the answer - so long as it is free market based, as its distributism is.

Posted by Guessedworker on April 17, 2006, 09:43 PM | #

Dyson is in Korea, John.  The BNP are in Chestertonia.

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 17, 2006, 09:43 PM | #

BNP supporters disproportionately link to a story about the BNP, so that 60% figure doesn’t mean much.

Possibly. But AOL is a major ISP in the UK now and it has thousands of subcribers.

In addition, even if the 60 percent figure is a mistake, even a 15 percent vote for the BNP (the survey predicts 17 percent considering to vote for the BNP) would be a major political breakthrough. Then depending on how well (or badly) Labour continue to make a mess of running this country, they should be in a very strong position for the next General Elections.

Too many people are thinking about Barking and Dagenham. The fact is that the London bombings and the Muslim cartoons protests (with their bloody posters calling for revenge) is what has really given the BNP a boost across the country. How well this translates into Electoral gains remains to be seen. In any case, it is our only hope. Voting for any other party is a waste of time and space. This coming from a City guy who would be expected to vote Tory.

But if you see Nick Griffin, tell him he needs a SERIOUS makeover on economics.

I have sent them e-mails about this. What the BNP says about Economic Policy will be naturally determined by the fact that most (if not all) of its new voters will be former Labour people. And those people are struggling economically. Socialism may not work but we will inevitably get some of it.

If the price of fixing the multicultural mess in this country is a bit of socialism, so be it.

Posted by Phil Peterson on April 17, 2006, 09:46 PM | #

Lurker,

Get Firefox.

Posted by karlmagnus on April 18, 2006, 01:14 PM | #

Britain’s very near the tipping point at which a majority of the voters gret their main income from the state, at which point it becomes like France and change in a free market direction is impossible. So socialism from the BNP, if it doesn’t change is in the long run a disqualification from supporting it.  Not in the short run, though—the bigger a whack BNP successes in local and Euro elections can give to the conventional parties, the better.

The big potential support base for the BNP is Thatcherite Tories, many of whom are working class and may have defected to Blair out of disgust for John Major and his successors.  BNP is a far bigger threat in the long run to the Tories than to Labour, which is why today’s Telegraph is positively hysterical on the subject. There is not a significant voter base that thinks labor’s economics aren’t loony enough, and if there were, it would vote LibDem.

Griffin and the BNP can thus achieve success if and only if they sort out their nonsense on economics.  Do that, and the great mass of Tory middle and working class support is open to them.  Fail to do that, and they’re trapped between people who like their economic rubbish, but also like Labour’s statism and freebies and people who like their nationalism, but have enough sense and experience to know that their economics doesn’t work.  There is no long term niche for a nationalist, socialist party, whatever some BNP supporters may have “learned” from Adolf.

Posted by Alex Zeka on April 18, 2006, 01:48 PM | #

An English national socialist party is nonsensical. Socialism was always an alien presence in England, as evidenced by the sheer peculiarity of the SWP, etc, etc. The Old Unionist Left was anti-intellectual to its core, and most certainlly did not believe that the man in Whitehall knew best.

As such, to become the first choice of a sig. number of people, the BNP has to abandon its integral nationalism. This is something it is already doing. Has Karlmagnus looked at its income tax proposals?

Posted by karlmagnus on April 18, 2006, 02:52 PM | #

Their tax proposals, of abolishing the income tax and replacing it with a consumption tax, don’t add up.  To replace income tax with a consumption tax levied only on luxuries, the rate you’d have to levy would be impossibly high. In 2004-05, VAT yielded only 73 billion pounds, in spite of the very high 17 1/2 percent rate, compared with income tax of 127 billion pounds.  VAT is levied on pretty well everything except food or books, so a “luxury” tax would yield correspondingly less. With a 50% rate, evasion would be astronomical and the yield low.

It’s this type of arithmetic that the BNP needs to do.  Reassuring the electorate that it is not “Thatcherite” as if it’s trying to appeal to the same dozy social democrats as everybody else is simply not enough. If the British economy is to work in the long term, large cuts in public spending must be made, and services such as schools and the NHS transferred to the private sector.  Without this, fantasies such as abolishing the income tax are pie in the sky; there simply isn’t the revenue to do it.