European Parliament election results

[such_heights]

The BNP has won two UK MEP seats to represent my country on the European stage. One of the seats goes to the leader of the party, Nick Griffin. When asked about the racist policies of his party by the BBC earlier this evening, Griffin had this to say:

"What we should be talking about is why we've been elected. And I can tell you that in huge parts of South Yorkshire there is a problem with racism, there's overwhelming racism against the native, indigenous peoples of these islands who've always been there, the people of the Peak villages, who are put at the bottom of the heap by the government, put to the bottom of the heap by local councils, and whose plight and problems are consistently ignored by the mass media. That's why we've done so well, it's ordinary decent people in Yorkshire kicking back against racism, because racism in this country is overwhelmingly directed at people who look like me."

(There'll be a prize for the person who can identify the most fallacies, lies, and factual and historical inaccuracies in the above, heh.) I won't link directly to the party's website, but you can read about their policies with plenty of direct quotation here on Wikipedia. This is deeply depressing, and more so as I read that both new MEPs will be joining up with other far-right groups from elsewhere in the EU.

I'll tell you what, though, I hope this serves as a wake-up call. Because voter apathy is to blame here, probably more than anything - in Yorkshire & Humber, voter turnout dropped enormously due to a change in the postal voting process. Consequently, all parties received less votes this year than they did in the 2004 elections. The difference for a group like the BNP is that their voter turnout will always drop less, proportionally, because their supporters are hardline and committed. If you were eligible to vote in the UK European election this year, and you didn't, then you are responsible for the increased percentages the BNP received almost across the board, and that's how they gained these seats.

My next point is a little pre-emptive, but I really don't want to see people attacking the two areas that did give the BNP seats on the grounds that their area is just so much better. Tonight, 916,424 people decided that voting for the BNP was a good idea. [source] The reasons for the party's success are complicated - disenfranchisement, Euroscepticism, ignorance, rising unemployment - but none of those are excuses, and you really can't tell me that our country doesn't have problems with race any more. Collectively, we've got to start owning this ugliness, before it gets worse.

Comments

[lyras]

Ugh. I really hope people do wake up to the power they're giving to parties like the BNP after this.

916,424 people decided that voting for the BNP was a good idea

That's such a scary statistic. :(

[copracat]

Fuck. I'm sorry.

[woldy]

And that's without Griffin's astonishing claim that Bradford is an example not of immigration, but of colonialism. Source.

[woldy]

Ok, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Griffin's interview with the Today program was absolutely astounding. As well as the claims above, he also makes a direct attack on BBC for being racist, giving as an example the casting of black actors in Robin Hood where he argues that there were no black people in the UK before the 1940s.

[such_heights]

Oh for FUCK'S sake. And now he is in power and has a voice and can continue his work to erase the history and rights and lives of the people who make up this country and I am SO ANGRY.

[erraticxthought.livejournal.com]

For the record, what does BNP stand for? Because when I see it, I think of the bank. >:/

[magic-at-mungos.livejournal.com]

British National Party. They're nasty racist scum who have been attempting to clean up their acts and campaigning on the grounds that they are the only party left for the working classes. The white working classes in particular as they are the ones who are most discriminated against these days

[glass-icarus.livejournal.com]

i know next to nothing about European politics, but that quote- WOW. boatloads of privilege, right there. :S

[such_heights]

Oh indeed. And holocaust denial and misogyny and white supremacy - they really are keepers!

D:

[mindabbles.livejournal.com]

This is when one feels completely alienated--when you can say, this many of the the people around me voted for these people and seem to believe what they say. I was in a state of shock about the sheer number of people who voted for Bush the second time around. It is distressing. My guess is there's a fallacy and/or inaccuracy in each of the sentences above. Cripes, but it sounds familiar.

[such_heights]

I know - I just can't believe we've let this happen. Dammit!

[ressie-noldo.livejournal.com]

Can I please hurt him? (Also, I don't get to vote because my parents weren't citizens and I'm overseas (either of these is not a problem, but both together doesn't work), but I am very angry. And want to smash something.)

[such_heights]

Oh damn, that really blows! Really, I hope that they are mobbed and followed and protested and harassed until the end of time, because that is the flip side of democracy and I don't think they're going to like it very much.

[bornofstars.livejournal.com]

I know almost nothing about politics, and even less about European politics, but what I've been hearing from you and calapine has sounded really not good. I'm so sorry. It's very scary.

[such_heights]

It is. I hope that the rest of our politicians get their act together in time for our general election.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Scary, scary stuff. :(

I wonder which indigenous peoples he's talking about? The Picts? The Celts?

It's interesting that he's using that discouse though-- back when our Australian equivalent of the BNP, One Nation, was doing really well, the rhetoric was very much against Indigenous Australians, of course -- while there was a lot of similar stuff in terms of "It's the poor privileged white people who face racism today!" they couldn't use "indigenous" to justify their claims -- because if they tried that, it would soon blow up in their faces.

[such_heights]

I wonder which indigenous peoples he's talking about? The Picts? The Celts?

Right! The total mangling of the history of our country here is very distressing - the majority of us are immigrants, and it's not like it's only white people who have been here for centuries.

[magic-at-mungos.livejournal.com]

This just makes me so upset. It's people like me who would no longer be British citizens. Never mind I was born here, bought up here, my life is here and the the only language I can speak fluently is English, I won't count as I have the wrong colour skin.

How is that representative of the Britain I know? Because me and them sure as hell aren't living in the same one.

[such_heights]

I don't know, I don't know. SO MAD. *stabs things*

[magic-at-mungos.livejournal.com]

Fuckers. Every time I've thought about it today, I've just wanted to weep.

[azelma.livejournal.com]

What I've been thinking about the BNP is that people who voted for them feel somehow failed by the other parties and feel like this is the only way they'll be heard. Which is not to defend the BNP or anything to do with it, but I think there is a serious problem within the UK that goes so much deeper than "simple" racism. There's something very, very wrong here. There's been an extremely nasty feeling in the air for ages anyway but this feels like Doomsday is coming.

[such_heights]

Yeah, there's a lot of fixing to be done. But given the number of small parties and independent candidates in this country, anyone claiming to vote BNP without endorsing their ideology is lying or astoundingly ignorant. Mainstream parties need to win back voters, and we need to start talking more effectively about race and multiculturalism and migration, because it looks like we're really failing to do that right now.

[azelma.livejournal.com]

"given the number of small parties and independent candidates in this country, anyone claiming to vote BNP without endorsing their ideology is lying or astoundingly ignorant"

Agreed. I didn't even want to vote because I have no faith in any of the parties but I had to vote for someone just so it would be one less vote for a party like the BNP. I wish those who didn't vote at all had gone out and voted for someone because maybe then we wouldn't be having this discussion. I think apathy plays a big part in this as well.

"we need to start talking more effectively about race and multiculturalism and migration"

It needs to stop being treated like a taboo subject. By pretending everything is sunshine and rainbows is only allowing the bad feeling to fester and fester...

[kilted.livejournal.com]

Man, they had that guy on the radio while I was driving home tonight. He's completely nuts and it worries me that someone like him is in politics anywhere in the world...

[such_heights]

Woah, really? That's worrying. He's a horrific example of a human being, he truly is.

[kilted.livejournal.com]

It was the BBC World report and I think they were trying to expose him as a the awful person he i, but he was being very careful about his words...

[luzdeestrellas.livejournal.com]

Ugh ugh ugh. I think it would be better if it weren't so easy to see how it happened--if I couldn't see how easily people end up believing the kind of crap he's talking there. If it were some mysterious thing I couldn't get my head around, it maybe wouldn't be so bad, but as it is, it's just apathy and a lack of education, and--I dunno. People believing the easiest story for why things aren't so great for them. I mean, there's something extremely appealing about following a narrative that says, "Your life would be so much better, if all these people weren't getting the benefits that are your right," because suddenly you don't just have a nice solution to whatever problem you have; you also have the benefit of being the victim. All of that is really hard to fight, especially when they keep trying to sell it as reasonable--"It's not racist; it's just logic! It's not politically correct to expect British values to be upheld!"

And yeah, between this and some of the antisemitism I've started seeing a lot more of, even if it's only airing on the comment pages of British newspapers, there's just no way you can pretend we're some bastion of racial or religious tolerance.

[such_heights]

Ugh, yes, the conflict in Gaza brought out a lot of unpleasantness.

The only thing I do hope is that because it is so easy to see the cogs whirring, the way that people get to that point, maybe we've got a shot at changing things, or at least stopping it before it gets worse.

[samincittagazze.livejournal.com]

I want to cry. I actually can't read any more on this right now because I will cry. I can't believe these people have some control in my country.

[such_heights]

It's a pretty awful day, yeah.

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

I know that I'm stuck here until February, but I couldn't find the BNP words anything more than hilarious. Horrifying hilarious, but I did just crack up in (okay, slightly hysterical) laughter.

Also, I work for the Refugee Council at the moment, and an acquaintance from church who's an asylum seeker has just been sent to housing in Coventry, and it so doesn't work like that. Benefits are £35 a week of vouchers for essentials and bah!

The BNP spent more in this election campaign they've ever spent before.

One of the reasons for the party's success, I think, is that mainstream politicians have completely failed in their duty to the electorate. It's not just their job to get power and keep power and run the country, it's their job to lead the country, to make sure that fewer people think the BNP is the lesser of two evils. (I imagine there are many people for whom the BNP's racists policies are something they've forced themselves to ignore because the economy or basic decency in terms of filling out claims expenses are more important.)

[glinda-penguin.livejournal.com]

Abair amadan! I'll give him oppression of native, indigenous peoples! When has his language been outlawed? When has his culture been ridiculed - he doesn't see his culture constantly infantilised and portrayed as either barbaric or romanticised by the very people who destroyed it - and his history been banned from being taught in schools? I don't see him having to campaign to save his language, being mocked for doing so because mockery's a far more powerful weapon, far harder to resist than open repression. Tha mi glé feargach. His words don't need translated to be understood, hate and privilege shines through.

(He doesn't talk about the Asian immigrants to the Western Isles who never learned English but speak damn good Gaelic. Communities in desperate need of young people, as their own drift slowly south. No. Funny that.)

[lorannah.livejournal.com]

Errrrggghhh... this whole thing is sickening.

Even without the BNP seats, the fact that UKIP came second makes my heart ache. I'm intrigued by the fact that watching the news tonight it seems that the places most strongly supporting these far right groups are also areas where immigration is relatively low. Seeing people on TV saying they can't get jobs because of immigrants in areas still predominantly British is maddening and partly I think a sign of how well the media has managed to villainise (sp?) immigrants, not to mention things like the EU. These news articles are nearly always based only on inaccuracies or half truths.

It's horribly institutionalised as well - I found a man breaking into our house a few years ago - and the police asked me three times in the space of one conversation whether he'd had a foreign accent - each time I told them it was a local accent. I felt I was being prompted to blame immigrants.

Mostly I'm absolutely furious about how these elections have been handled - I hate that policy seems to be the least important aspect for the main parties now. I saw a quote from a Tory MP - that basically said not only 'We HAVE a manifesto, but you're not seeing it' - but also implied that only the top level of Tory party members had any idea what was in it. I mean, ok they're holding back for the election - but should there members know where they stand on policies for fuck sake? Now all I can see when I look are vague or blandly inoffensive policies for most parties that tend to blur together - because they're focusing more on the political popularity contest element that seems to be dominating politics.

I think the horrifying offshoot of that is that to some extent it suits them to keep people uninformed regarding politics. I mean in Stratford there has been sod all to tell us about the upcoming elections. I was in Dublin a month ago and you couldn't move for billboard campaigns for the European elections - they were at least attempting to create interest and dialogue in subject. Here, I've seen sod all. And to make matters worse, I know of at least half a dozen people whose voting cards/postal votes didn't come until it was too late to vote.

I would just like to get back to strong, united parties actually based on shared, transparent policies - which actually allow people to make decisions based on something other than voting against a party (someone actually said they voted for a BNP as a protest vote against everybody else).

But I am ill and rambling, so going to stop now...

[wanderlight.livejournal.com]

I've been reading about the European elections in my paper -- although on the third or fourth page, shame on my city, I think it should be front-page news -- and a shift to the right, I can understand, but this! *hugs you* The BNP sounds awful. I hope that this is a wake-up call to voters, and that in the next election, they vote. (Voter apathy is awful in Canada, too. I don't even want to go look up the statistic, because I know it's depressingly low.)

[vegablack62.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this posting. I was sent here by Lyras because I had some questions about the BNP. I've found your quote and all the comments very helpful.

It's interesting how once people lose the assumed privilege created by overt accepted public racism they begin to see themselves as victims, but then Fascists have always claimed to be victims to justify their aggression.