It’s not just Stoke on Trent where the BNP were hurt in Thursdays election. The right wing party had a torrid time all around the country as there support collapsed. The party won two seats but on the whole lost 11 councillors around the UK.
In Stoke on Trent BNP areas of Meir South, Meir North, Bentelee and Townsend and Addley Green all dismissed the party, retuning Labour members as the city council were cleared of the anti-immigration party. More then worrying for the BNP, saying that they had brought there last two manifesto’s to the city to lurch
Another heartland is Burnley, where they are now down to one council member and they lost another two on the North West Leicestershire council.
Out of the 268 council seats the BNP ran in, they won just two, they were in Queensberry and East Goscote, with a mandate as low as five votes.
They were also in the running for seats in the Welsh Assembly, and pushed ahead of the Libdems in four seats there. 7% of the vote was need to gain any seats, non of them reached the threshold.
They also had candidates in the running for the Scottish parliament and in the Northern Ierland Assembly, but again failed to gain any seats.
It’s a bad time for the party that had seen two MEP elected in 2009, but have in less then 12 months lost 12 seats in Barking and Dagenham Council and in the last 18 months been taken from 9 members to none in Stoke on Trent and have now not won any seats on council since 2008.
Last year, the BNP contested 338 in the general election, but lost deposits in 266 of them.
Locally I have heard moaning from right wingers that all the wards they held seats in had been subject to boundary changes. I have also heard talk that the loss of 16 council seats may have not benefited them. They are also rather upset about some third party leafleting that went on throughout the city as well.
What do you think, have we seen the end of the BNP, can they come back from this, it’s a long time to the next planed vote local or in the UK now. There is talk of them talking with the likes of the EFP, EDL and other groups of that kind to pull together and work together. What do you think will happen.
Don’t be nasty, play fair and we might get a good debate going hear, on a subject the seems to be of some local interest.
It is probably too early for Nationalism in Britain to take off and people start voting BNP in large numbers. 500,000 job cuts have been announced but they have yet to be lost, there will be more support for the BNP when this happens. But what will tip the balance in favour of British Nationalism is a Labour General Election victory in 2015. About three years into that government voters will realise they just keep getting their fingers burned with Labour.
BNP to have talks with the EDL? What a load of ill informed rubbish. The EDL detest the BNP and their racist views.
The BNP was previously drawing votes from Labour when they was in government….now it seems that many of them have gone back to labour now they are in opposition
Although the BNP’s core vote seems to be there, they seriously need a new strategy if they are to make any serious inroads in the near future.
Are they finished? Not at all!
[quote=Guest]It is probably too early for Nationalism in Britain to take off and people start voting BNP in large numbers.[/quote]
It’s actually too late. We live in a global economy where companies transcend national boundaries. Just as we have foreign companies operating in the UK, UK companies are operating elsewhere.
In developed countries nationalism primarily appeals to the poor, the unskilled and that minority of warped individuals who live for the past.
Getting another Labour government won’t see the BNP becoming more popular. The BNP became more popular under the last Labour government because they moved away from spoon feeding people which was what traditional Labour supporters expected.
Besides, if Scotland becomes independent England will end up with a permanent Conservative government.
The party is almost broke, several leading figures like Lee Barnes and Richard Barnbrook have left the party, and there’s almost constant infighting over Griffin’s leadership. These are not signs of a party that is going anywhere. Then add the defections and growing support for the EFP which have fragmented the far-right vote.
The BNP’s performance in Doncaster was feeble too, seeing the number of candidates fielded drop to a mere four, each netting an average of 326 votes, whereas the English Democrats contested twelve of the borough’s 21 wards, taking an average of 642 votes (16.5% in each ward contested). The BNP were also beaten by the English Democrats in the two wards where each put up candidates: http://durotrigan.blogspot.com/2011/05/english-democrats-performance-in.html
Are the English Democrats the face of moderate nationalism that the English so clearly desire?
I think what we’ve seen across the country is that the BNP perform fairly strongly the first and second times they stand in an area, but after that people seem to see through them and begin rejecting them.
Despite their lack of electoral success here in Stoke, I don’t believe that their underlying support has totally gone away, but they have been seen to be ineffective.
As for whether or not we’ve seen the last of the BNP, strictly speaking I would say yes – the Electoral Commission is in the process of launching legal action because the Party has failed to submit audited accounts for the last two years, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission are threatening legal action because they do not believe the constitutional change to allow non-white members of the Party complies with the Equalities Act, and, as David said earlier, there’s a major split, with many members having left the Party. However, my guess is the outcome of all this will be the end of the BNP as we know it (and of Nick Griffin), but they will be replaced by another Party, with similar views, run by those anti-Griffin-ites who caused the initial schism within the Party three years ago.
Those of us, irrespective of Party, who oppose the BNP’s racist positions mustn’t take their lack of success on Thursday as a sign that we have beaten them, and we must continue to remind people that the BNP do not represent the silent majority of this country.
Mr Mullen, Trevor Philips and his ERCH have been well and truly trounced by the BNP.
The sorry part is that the tax-payer was made to foot the bill for their personal vendetta.
They tried to bankrupt the party and failed.
Now they have to pay the BNP, or rather the tax-payer will pay as the ERCH is funded by the tax-payer.
Will the BNP fold?
No it will regroup and move forward.
In the scheme of things the BNP is a fairly new party and will evolve.
Yes we have our bad eggs, and I for one will push to get rid of these.
Name me a party that has not.
The BNP were not the only party to suffer at the polls.
The Lib Dems were hit worse.
The next 4 years will be interesting.
On the point of the English Democrats, this party offers a real alternative for England without any of the non-seance the right wing parties bring. I do think the subject of an English parliament is an important one within the country just as the Scottish, Welsh and Irish ones are, giving a form of country identity and a chance to take better control of governance.
As for Alan’s comments on the BNP/EDL, only passing on the info I’ve got, that don’t seem to far from the truth. It great is’nt it, the EDL are the more bigoted of the two groups I think, yet we have someone hear saying the BNP are racist. I’ll just remind you of what goes on at most EDL public get togethers, you guessed it, out and out racism and a good bit of lawlessness. How come if the EDL hate the BNP, local BNP members were made more then welcome at the riot…..sorry……..meeting in Hanley in 2010, paying for the drink maybe.
I don’t think the BNP are finished, and even if they are, someone will take up there case and run with it, and if they can put the case over without the nastiness the BNP and others show, then it will be a very strong force, and become that very fast. It all depends on the kind of people it can bring in, people tared with the right wing brush would never be excepted by the public.
Warren, a logical post.
The people I have met locally in the BNP are not racists but Nationalists.
We have 4 years to regroup and by then we will have a new leader at the top, when Nick Griffin steps down.
Like any party if we did not change we would not exist.
Mike Coleman did attend the EDL march in Hanley and made it clear that he was there as an observer as was I.
Mike Barnes was also there.
Does that make him part of the problem?
The main problem the BNP have is getting their policies over to the general public.
The perception of violent, racist, thugs is slowly disappearing.
Slowly but surely we are being aloud to disagree with and discuss agendas that not so long ago would have brought screams of “racist” down on our head to halt the debate.
A tactic favoured by those on the left.
Labour have for many years (both locally and Nationally) been oblivious to their supporters, with unbelievable arrogance, and nothing I’ve seen so far makes me believe that they would change now locally that they have no opposition.
You only have to look at the last 10 years of them in power.
Terry, the new council as not even been formed yet, talking to Labour people over the last few days, they know what the pit falls were in the 90′s when the council was 100% Labour, they have taken it into account. I’m happy with what I’m hearing from them.
What you have to remember about the EDL is that it is in reality the far right of liberalism just as the UAF is the far left. In any Marxist-liberal one party state you will invariably end up with these divisions as part of the whole regime.
In all the former communist countries there was a paper like the Daily Mail who acted to let off steam by criticising aspects of the regime but never going too far; it presents the idea of a free press and broadcast media which in truth is not free and is entirely controlled by the communist NUJ and the psychological pressure on journalists to conform or be labelled racist or fascist or whatever.
The EDL is part of the mainstream political system and one only has to read their mission statement to see that.
The badly led British National Party is the only party which stands up for the integrity of Britain and her traditional cutures and history with her components of England, Scotland and Wales; though many nationalists include Northern Ireland which personally from a nationalist point of view I would hand back to the Irish Republic; it is a net drain and loss on our financial resources.
The British National Patrty respects true diversity; England should be respected as England, Pakistan as Pakistan etc, we would not want to force those countries to become us nor force our culture on them and we dont want to be forced as we currently are to become a multicultural monster dominated by the interests of chosen tribal elites such as feminists, radical gays, ethnic minorities, ethnic religions etc who are used as battalions by the left against the indiginous population and who gasin special exemption from the law, i.e. a man who marries more than one wife goes to jail but a Muslim just gets another council house to keep her in .
A Britain under the BNP would be a far more united place; not under constant bombardment from immigration and time for those who have come to settle down. All children would learn to value Britain as their home and not the countries they emigrated from.
The aim of the EDL is simply to make Islam respectable. Alan Dershowitz said that “Liberals dont mind Islamism, (rather it has many Marxist qualities they can identify with), what they dont like is the in your face violence because it is simply bad PR.”
The EDL think that they can force British Muslims to renounce Koran and prophet and undergo the same reformation Christians and Jews underwent but this is to totally missunderstand what is in effect a political cult rather than a religion.
The EDL are mainly made up of a whole generation of British youth abandoned in the name of keeping Nick Griffin in a job. This generation is being subtly brainwashed by the EDL (a foreign transnational organisation derived from an international grouping of anti-Jihadists alligned to Geert wilders) to the point that they may become UAF later in their lives.
The strategy devised by Trotsky and Adorno to label anyone who does not believe in the cultural marxist philosphy of the Frankfurt school as ‘racist’ is beginning to wear off; most notably in the United States. It is only maintained by Marxist control through unions and academe of the entire Western media and education system.
I’ve read some half-baked pseudo-intellectual tripe in my time but this comment has topped any of it.
The aim of the EDL is to make Islam respectable? Crap. They’re just a bunch of football hooligans who’ve been turfed off the terraces looking for a fight with one group where the public might sympathise.
This was the best one. “a man who marries more than one wife goes to jail but a Muslim just gets another council house to keep her in”. Er, bigamy applies to everyone regardless of religion!! If a muslim man wants more than one wife he simply doesn’t have more than one marriage in the eyes of the law ie, his second, third, fifteenth wives are technically ‘girlfriends’. A religious ceremony doesn’t count in the eyes of the law if the register isn’t signed!! D’oh. Guess what, you don’t have to be a muslim to do it either, believe me. Council houses? Made up, like a lot of the other crap the BNP put out.
As for the stuff about the NUJ being controlled by communists, ask yourself a question, why do we have a predominantly right-wing media?
It’s unfortunate that they lost council seats however this was the local elections. I frequently look through the internet, daily mail etc and see lots of support for the BNP out there for some reason thought it does not materialise at the ballot boxes. I find it incredible almost obtuse that the electorate would vote in more of the same LIBLABCON, they change nothing, same old lies, debate and procrastination on important issues. UKIP BNP would be an alternative and would have really stirred politics as it is.
[quote=Sy]I frequently look through the internet, daily mail etc and see lots of support for the BNP out there for some reason thought it does not materialise at the ballot boxes.[/quote]
Never heard of sockpuppets?
Could also be that a greater proportion of BNP supporters in spend more time on newspaper sites, internet forums than the population as a whole.
Personally I think it’s a combination of both.
Warren, I will wait and see what they do.
All I am saying is their past history does not bode well for the people of this city.
I still want to know why they are needlessly shutting care homes, swimming pools, Library’s, and farms while wasting money on bloody parking for pen pushers.
I will be pestering them to explain why the tax-payer is forking out for bloody union officials.
I will also be keeping an eye on the DMO “investments” at the ridiculous interest returns.
Yes Terry, as you know =, them two points you rise are on my mind to we’ll see what happens in the coming few weeks.
How were the Lie Dems hit worse? Even they, a right-wing neoliberal organisation (and they were that long before the coalition, as were New “Labour”) polled well ahead of you.
Your “success” in the European elections, still the most you’ve ever “achieved”, was well below the level at which any serious party would consider itself to have failed.
[quote=David Perry]
As for the stuff about the NUJ being controlled by communists, ask yourself a question, why do we have a predominantly right-wing media?[/quote]
The media are only right-wing if you are so far left that Stalin looks like a Liberal!
Did you know it is against NUJ rules to print anything which shows the BNP in a good light?
Talking locally, how can you say the Libdem were hit worse, they were both wiped out, same with the CV. The Libdem will come back, the BNP might, the CV are the biggest losers hear, no way back for them, end off.
Warren, Bernard, Nationaly the lib dems suffered more major losses is what I meant.
The LibDem comeback wil be a damm sight harder after their broken promises on tuition fees and other backward steps they have taken with the coalition.
Clegg will be walking bent double with that much mettle between his shoulder blades.
Don’t know about that Terry, nationaly the Libdems hung on to more then 2 seats on councils.
[quote=Warren Lloyd]On the point of the English Democrats, this party offers a real alternative for England without any of the non-seance the right wing parties bring.[/quote]
Not according to this chap http://tacitus-speaks.blogspot.com/2011/04/deviousness-amongst-far-right.html
Yes, people are realising that a vote for the BNP (or any extremist party) achieves about as much for the city as a vote for a block of cheshire cheese. But also, don’t forget that almost all of the party’s (now very limited funds) are tied up in the courts. The case itself being arguably anti-democractic (but under the guise of ‘human rights’), as much as I disagree with virtually everything they spout out, its a shame that judicial meddling may have cost them the chance to have a fair fight. Whether you agree with their abhorent ideology or not, everyone deserves the right to stand if democracy is to properly function.
Also, this whole right v left argument is getting a bit tired and doesn’t really stack up. ‘Racist’ (or “nationalist” as the racists call it) does not equate to ‘right wing’. A lot of BNP policies (and I use the term ‘policies’ very loosely) are quite socialist-looking. Lest we forget the NSDAP (NAZIs) were “National-Socialists”. We live in a post-right/left world where populist policies happily coexist with extremist rhetoric in order to create an atmosphere of fear and animosity – ‘VOTE FOR ME, I WILL SAVE YOU FROM THIS EVIL’.
The mainstream parties are just as guilty of this as the BNP, just less obviously so. If anything, Labour’s ’97-onwards gov’t created a perfect climate for the BNP to exist.
[quote=fairplay]Yes, people are realising that a vote for the BNP (or any extremist party) achieves about as much for the city as a vote for a block of cheshire cheese. But also, don’t forget that almost all of the party’s (now very limited funds) are tied up in the courts. The case itself being arguably anti-democractic (but under the guise of ‘human rights’), as much as I disagree with virtually everything they spout out, its a shame that judicial meddling may have cost them the chance to have a fair fight. Whether you agree with their abhorent ideology or not, everyone deserves the right to stand if democracy is to properly function.
Also, this whole right v left argument is getting a bit tired and doesn’t really stack up. ‘Racist’ (or “nationalist” as the racists call it) does not equate to ‘right wing’. A lot of BNP policies (and I use the term ‘policies’ very loosely) are quite socialist-looking. Lest we forget the NSDAP (NAZIs) were “National-Socialists”. We live in a post-right/left world where populist policies happily coexist with extremist rhetoric in order to create an atmosphere of fear and animosity – ‘VOTE FOR ME, I WILL SAVE YOU FROM THIS EVIL’.
The mainstream parties are just as guilty of this as the BNP, just less obviously so. If anything, Labour’s ’97-onwards gov’t created a perfect climate for the BNP to exist.[/quote]
Whilst I would agree with you on a lot of issue the term ‘racist’ is bandied about far too often without being challenged.
Can you please tell me which BNP policies you consider racist?
Anything that refers to:
- repatriation, voluntary or otherwise, based on skin colour. I’ve never heard them mention repatriation of people of Italian or East European descent who’ve been here only as long as people from Commonwealth countries. Last time I checked Italians, Poles and Czechs aren’t indigenous either.
- miscegenation as not being moral or normal. We’re talking about the mating of two homo sapiens for f**** sake, not a rabbit and a chicken. If people want to do it with people of other ‘races’ then that’s their business. The cat and the kennel analogy used by BNP members is pretty pathetic. Again, not talking about different species, and national borders are merely man-made lines on a map.
That ‘Guest’ wasn’t me by the way, but I would agree with that.
Also, having met with BNP party members in my work and social life, its rare to have a converstion with them that doesn’t involve the phrase “effin pakis” or “swarming with ‘em”, or similar derogatory terms cropping up. Some of the stuff that a former councillor for Meir Park and Sandon used to come out with was truly disgusting.
I would agree with you though Roland that the word ‘racist’ is not always what people are alluding to when they use the word. Same goes for the word ‘multiculturalism’; a nice well-meaning liberal policy of segregation in all but name.
Guest, volountry repatriation has been a practice used by both Labour, and the Conservatives governments.
Why is it different for the BNP to have it in their policies.
It is volountry not “forced” repatriation as the scaremongers claim.
I have never used either of them terms fairplay.
I have moaned about the numbers of immigrants never their race.
I believe that if they pay their way and integrate into our culture (as many have) I don’t give a damm.
I think its unfair on Cheshire Cheese, its a very nice cheese is Cheshire, and it cooks better then Chedder on your Oatcakes in the Microwave. Its all inportant that.
Are you referring to section 29 of the 1971 Immigration Act? If so I think you’ll find it is substantially different to the voluntary repatriation the BNP proposes.
The Act enables financial assistance to be given
towards the travel costs of persons (if this in their best interests) who are neither:
– British citizens, nor
– Commonwealth citizens with the right of abode
who wish to leave the country permanently. Unlike with the BNP there is no mention of repatriating British citizens, just foreign nationals.
The BNP on the other hand would like to repatriate British born non-whites, remove citizenship from those who choose to stay and relabel them “permanent guests”. That is why what you refer to as practised by Labour/ Conservatives is markedly different.
The question has to be asked but where would you repatriate people who are third generation and further removed who have little to no connection with whereever it is their family orginally came from?
[quote=terry turbo]I believe that if they pay their way and integrate into our culture (as many have) I don’t give a damm.[/quote]
If you genuinely believed that, you wouldn’t be involved with the BNP. That, or you haven’t a clue about the party’s policies nor a lot of it’s members.
Yes but who actually approves what the papers write and how many of their journalists belong to the NUJ? I doubt Murdoch, Desmond, or Rothermere pay the blindest bit of notice to what the NUJ has to say on the matter. The press in this country is only on the left if you’re to the right of Hitler.
“This chap”? If Dave down the pub told you the same about the English Democrats, would you believe him? It’s someone’s opinion and having read it, it isn’t really backed up with any hard facts.
No, what Terry is doing Guest is giving himself a way out, he makes his mind up if they have paid their way and integrated into our culture and its a negative response 99% of the time. Talking of paying there way, putting it like that, Mr. Pond needs a one way trip to somewhere then, because he’s never done that for years.
[quote=Roland][quote=David Perry]
/quote]
The media are only right-wing if you are so far left that Stalin looks like a Liberal!
Did you know it is against NUJ rules to print anything which shows the BNP in a good light?[/quote]
You stupid, stupid man. The media, in the form of their owners and their editorial policies, are overhwelmingly right wing.
As for the NUJ, perhaps you would quote the ‘rules’ you mention about the BNP.
And how would you gauge integrating into “our culture”? And I’d be even more interested to know how would you define “our culture”? I would class myself as an individual rather than belonging to a particular culture, I very much doubt that even as (I’m presuming) 2 white brits we share the shame culture.
I would imagine it’s along the lines of ‘do they look like me, do they like the things I like and do the things I do’.
[quote=bobbystar]You stupid, stupid man. The media, in the form of their owners and their editorial policies, are overhwelmingly right wing.
As for the NUJ, perhaps you would quote the ‘rules’ you mention about the BNP.[/quote]
What do expect from a grown man who plays with kid’s toys and hasn’t learnt to shave yet! The BNP obviously haven’t grasped that the media, like other businesses, are run by their owners, not the unions. Never mind.
[quote=Roland][quote=David Perry]
As for the stuff about the NUJ being controlled by communists, ask yourself a question, why do we have a predominantly right-wing media?[/quote]
The media are only right-wing if you are so far left that Stalin looks like a Liberal!
Did you know it is against NUJ rules to print anything which shows the BNP in a good light?[/quote]
However, how many journalists are actually in the NUJ? Secondly, who decides what’s printed/ broadcast, the owners or the union? Can’t see Rupert Murdoch allowing the union to dictate the content of his papers!!
It seems I have a few questions to answer.
Well lets see,
The question has to be asked but where would you repatriate people who are third generation and further removed who have little to no connection with whereever it is their family orginally came from?
Why would I or anyone want to repatriate these people, unless they “volountry” requested it?
terry turbo:
I believe that if they pay their way and integrate into our culture (as many have) I don’t give a damm.
If you genuinely believed that, you wouldn’t be involved with the BNP.
I dont, and I am.
And how would you gauge integrating into “our culture”?
Well examples of this are all around from people that came to this country and intergrated and they learnt the language.
Given the number of people round here who seem to go about how they hate “them P*k* b*****ds” would it be fair to say that no matter how hard they try and integrate they not being allowed to?
“Well examples of this are all around from people that came to this country and intergrated and they learnt the language.”
Is that the most vague answer you could muster up? What would be the measure of integration? If the BNP by some miracle were elected in to Westminster, and this was to become government policy, then surely there must be some sort of criteria.
So British culture is about learning the language? So if every immigrant was fluent in English (as fluent as the average Stokie anyway, which the majority are) then you’d be fine with that, no more problem with immigrants?
I’m still interested to know how you’d define ‘British culture’, as this seems to be the basis of your beliefs. Surely if you and the BNP are serious about what you believe, you should be able to articulate exactly what it is that makes us so British. From what you’re saying, Britishness seems to be a pretty bloody important sticking point.