This piece relies on the suggestion that support for far-right parties is actually rising, rather than fluctuating at levels between low and very low as it has done for the last 30 years – with a few clowns getting elected to local authority positions in areas where they campaign hard on specific local grievances, and then rapidly thrown out again when the public realise they’re useless thugs.

There isn’t any evidence that that’s the case.

Dan Davies is good on this.

[usual shite about the BNP being left-wing and being exactly like ZaNuLieBore]

high unemployment, deprivation, lack of educational achievement, high crime rates, drugs, and people of different ethnic backgrounds living apparently separate lives

and your answer is…

A rallying call from Brown and, erm, that’s it.
Good luck with that.

I agree with john b though – the UK has never been fertile ground for extremist parties, who make fools of themselves whenever they do win the odd election.

[usual shite about the BNP being left-wing and being exactly like ZaNuLieBore]

The BUF with their emphasis on economics rather than race and desire for a planned economy could arguably be called left-wing. Not so sure about the BNP.

“The BNP often finds support in a context of significant social problems: high unemployment, deprivation, lack of educational achievement, high crime rates, drugs, and people of different ethnic backgrounds living apparently separate lives (which encourages the growth of myths and rumour).”

Maybe even some of those voting BNP are actually racist?

The Labour Party has long argued that, as a nation, we should do whatever we can to tackle xenophobia and racial hatred from wherever it surfaces.

This might have been the case with the Labour Party as a whole but the present Labour government has done many things to stoke xenophobia in its attempts to combat terrorism, if not outright racial hatred.

Any attempt to win back supporters from areas like Stoke-on-Trent should begin by confronting xenophobia among these communities rather than just glibly trying to tell them what they want to hear: unless the Labour government tries to rectify some of the damage it has done to community relations, it will remain too discredited for any crowd-pleasing policy to have the desired effect (British jobs for British workers, anyone?), which in the past has prompted Labour to sound even more right-wing in a desperate attempt to out willy-wave the Tories and now the BNP in a circle-jerk of nationalist anti-immigrant fearmongering.

Don’t repeat the mistakes of the past 12 years!

@3

being sarcastic about unpalatable facts doesn’t stop them being true.

The BNP’s “success” in Stoke is actually fairly limited, & is concentrated in certain parts of the city, whereas areas such as where I live (a fairly wank council estate) don’t register much support.

It is rooted in the fact that Labour, when they ran the city, were a completely hopeless council who always took our support for granted. They have suffered since 1997 from the fact they can no longer blame a Tory government for the woes of the city & attention is drawn to their performance. Those who are generally enraged/disgusted about the government will vote against Labour or stay at home, which further fuels BNP support.

A further problem is the creation of large council estates such as Abbey Hulton & Bentilee, which are uniformly white & lower working/underclass in composition. Accordingly, the state has far more control over housing allocation than in most parts of the country. You end up with certain areas being heavily Asian as a result. (Recent immigrants are generally put here too & the majority of white residents will accordingly not meet any). As these have always been shite areas, their shiteness is associated with being Asian, though they were just as bad when they were white slums. (Many such areas actually were slums, in the literal sense).

Having grown reliant on the state for housing, benefits & just about everyone else, they resent ethnic minorities being given the same level of support. At the root of this city’s problems is the lack of skilled employment to replace those jobs in the mines, potbanks, steel mills etc. for which fucking endless warehouses are no substitute whatsoever. You can, again, attribute this to Labour.

It is also my view that levels of immigration are too high for the country’s infrastructure & natural environment can be met. It seems to me unrealistic that every would-be immigrant (let’s not forget how many there are) could be let in. In my view it is a genuine concern.

I myself would not vote BNP as I don’t share their values, or their “policies”, & I’m not exactly enamoured of those supporters I’ve encountered (A lot of them are quite nice people but I wouldn’t put them in charge of anything). But it is not my way of doing things to vilify those who are considering supporting them. A lot of fucking shhite is talked on the issue.

@3 wasn’t sarcasm, merely puerile

There is also the view that there is a much higher potential well of support, but it goes untapped thanks to the hopelessness of the actual BNP as it exists: that is the fact that having them on the council accomplishes very little & they don’t win over people in general.

They are always talking about how wards such as the one I reside in are their targets, but we do not have any representation on the council.

http://tinyurl.com/chmf89

All 9 of them live on the estates. But there are also estates which do not have BNP representation, & they have not penetrated into racially mixed areas such as the city centre wards, or the less badly off working-class areas.

I sometimes wonder about the agenda of those who mouth off about how there is a massive BNP threat & we must do whatever their favourite policy is to ward it off.

“being sarcastic about unpalatable facts doesn’t stop them being true.”

Calling something that’s not factual ‘a fact’ doesn’t make it true.

Sorry for going off on one, just responding to the fact that you mentioned Sjoke by name, as I have always lived in the city, in various areas (apart from my years at Keele, which is of course in North Staffordshire anyway).

Those BNP activists I know have been campaigning across the border in Cheshire recently. They have stated that the North-West region is their main priority for the Euro elections & accordingly they will not be working at home.

“Calling something that’s not factual ‘a fact’ doesn’t make it true.”

Denying that something is a fact doesn’t make it untrue.

I love tennis.

“I love tennis.”

Well yes, that’s the libertarian ‘debating’ style though, isn’t it? Just keep repeating the same untruth over and over and over until everyone’s too bored to bat it back any longer.

As opposed to denying unpleasant realities or shouting at them until they go away.

See what I mean?

In order not trivialise this charming site – I will let you have the last word you so dearly crave.

Is Neil also the charming “libertarian wankstain” @3?

FAIL!

Great debate guys, you’re really convincing me of your arguments.

Part of the problem is that a lot of the anti-BNP effort goes into vilifying them, making them out to be monsters, etc, instead of actually calmly and coherently demolishing their ridiculous policies with reasoned argument. I mean, when was the last time you actually heard a mainstream politician make the *case* against the BNP rather than just shrilly pleading with people not to vote for them? There is a hell of a lot of anger at the political class right now, and I think there’s a good chance that this approach will backfire in a “well, if Labour are *that* worried about them, they can’t be all bad” sort of way.

More of the BNP = right wing nonsense again. All part of the left’s plan to smear the Tories by association. The BNP support high taxes, big government and socialism. Sounds like left wing to me.

Oh dear oh dear

The soft left have systematically attacked working class culture (physical work, alcohol, smoking, unhealthy diets, competitive sport, various “ists” and “isms”); destroyed their social insitutions (marriage, the church, the pub, the unions), forced them to bear the brunt of failed social engineering projects (everything from comprehenisve schools to multi-culturalism) and now you want them to vote for Brown ???? Ha bloody ha

Perhaps of you stopped seeing them as pawns in your battle against the imagined hordes of the far right and started seeing them as legitimate people with legitimate needs you might be taken seriously, unfortunately (for you) it’s far too late.

What a fucking genuis Matt Munro is. Was it a government of the “soft left” that destroyed the basis of working-class employment in industry? No, it was fucking Thatcher. How the fuck can you blame leftists for the demise of “physical work” or unions?

Unless now Thatcher is left-wing too.

What the fuck do you think the working class make of this 50% tax rate, by the way?

Matt, just to pick the first item from your grab-bag, can you explain to me how ‘the left’ attacked physical work?

I’d have thought mechanisation and globalisation were the culprits there, no?

Perhaps this is a reference to the obsession with putting people into “education” at the expense of apprenticeships etc. This would be a valid point if it weren’t for the fact that the Blair/Brown dickheads aren’t left-wing, and the turning of polytechnics (a once-successful way of training technical specialists etc which, for example, turned my uncle into a highly skilled engineer) into “universities”. But this was done under a Tory filth government, wasn’t it? How the fuck are the left to blame for that?

Perhaps there’s a bit of pavlovian conditioning here – economic collapse breeds political extremism ?

But even in their pomp the BNP vote hardly ever got into double figures – their only use is a barometer of disaffection, rather than any coherent or substantial political base.

No, it’s Blair’s kid brother, Cameron, we will have to get used to – we all know that.

You have raised an interesting point, 26. If Cameron came to office & reduced immigration, would this dampen BNP support, or would his failure to satisfy the hard right lead to increased support?

It really could go either way. But I suspect they are pinning their own hopes to a Brown victory so that their potential supporters can get even more enraged.

Also, property prices have done far more to kill The Pub than any direct policy. Are high property prices classed as a ‘left wing’ aspiration now? Who knows…

We now have a culture, thanks to nu labour, where anything less than a degree in media studies from a provincial “university” is deemed to be a failure.
Perhaps I phrased it badly, It’s a cutural attack, rather than a economic attack, but there is no pride in working (in the literal sense of physical work) for a living, the working class have lost their place in society and had their self respect taken from them for that reason. Granted this cannot be pinned entirely on the soft left, but they have hardly helped by making what used to be working/lower middle class occupations (e.g nursing, clerical work, sales) into “graduate careers” effectively relagating anyone who can’t afford to spend 3 years drinking cheap beer and catching stds to serving fast food or van driving. Intersting that no one challenged the other targets of latte sipping disdain…………..

I don’t think the working class (or most of the middle class) will give a toss about the 50p tax rate as it doesn’t affect them.

For that matter, what the fuck are the “legitimate needs” of the working class, according to the wisdom of Matt Munro? Do they include housing? Because admittedly, some blame ethnic minorities for the difficulty in getting council housing. But what would his lordship do about that? Because even if there were no blacks or Asians, there still wouldn’t be enough houses for those you deem acceptable unless you fucking build more.

I have yet to see any right-winger advocate more council houses. Anyone?

@27 reducing immgration

My two brothers and father, all bricklayers, voted BNP in the Welsh assembly elections last time round. They did so as a flood of polish bricklayers have forced their hourly rate down from about £10 an hour to the minimum wage.

None of my family are monsters or swivel-eyed racists, they just resent as good as a 50% pay cut for no tangible benefit that they can see, and have decided to vote for the only party who as far as they know will do anything about it.

Immigration is the issue for them not race.

The above was written before I read 29.

Good to see you backing down and admitting it’s not so easy as some sherry-fuelled shouting of abuse. But it still remains the case that just about any shite policy has right-wing roots.

Religion, for example, never meant much to the urban working class, apart from the minority who became nonconformists and the Catholics, both of whom began declining in observance long ago. But its decline can for the most part be attributed to consumer society and fucking shite of the kind Thatcher encouraged.

“Perhaps I phrased it badly”

No shit. Version 2 isn’t much of an improvement, either.

Yes, 31, but I didn’t think the Tories planned to reduce EU immigration (or would be able to if they tried). I recall that they didn’t support these strikers at Lindsey.

If the hostility to Poles is widespread, then it will persist until they leave the country of their own accord, which admittedly some are doing.

I suppose we’d have to wait a couple of years to find out re: this.

“a flood of polish bricklayers”

Again, globalisation.

Perhaps you’d be happier if the Berlin wall were re-erected?

You see “only party who as far as they know will do anything about it”. Because it is true that Cameron has no policy on the issue of intra-EU migration. But these, of course, are different to asylum seekers & the economic migrants from outside the EU’s borders, not to mention British-born descendants of immigrants.

“”Perhaps there’s a bit of pavlovian conditioning here – economic collapse breeds political extremism ?”

There’s no perhaps about it. Economic conditions in Germany post Treaty of Versailles are widely cited as a significant factor in the rise of fascism in Europe. The American concept of “consumerism” was conceived in the 1940s and 50s as a reaction to this – keep people materially content and they will loose the urge to kill their neighbours. It’s not a coincidence that the post war far right peaked in the UK in the late 70s/early 80s,which was the last time the left screwed up the economy this badly.

“But it still remains the case that just about any shite policy has right-wing roots.”

Er Pol pot, Stalin, Mao ? (And I won’t point out that the Nazis were basically left wing, eco-friendly, animal- rights, anti-bourgoise, smoke-free collectivists with some ultra extreme natoinalism bolted on).

Attempts to impose equality have killed far more people than attempts to eradicate it.

And I resent the implication that I drink sherry.

And we don’t “need” more housing, we need fewer people.

@ asquith re. immigration: as mentioned above, if the Poles are coming as part of the free movement of people within the EU, that’s not the same as the BNP’s traditional strategy of blaming people with black or brown skin, regardless of whether or not they were born/raised in then UK…but then UKIP tend not to fight local elections, so they don’t pick up the anti-EU vote at that level. Besides, now that the UK economy’s no longer booming, the Poles will go elsewhere. Moreover, the decline in the support for the National Front in the 1980s was only because Thatcher took over much of their Powellite rhetoric (oh, and the fact that the NF went into meltdown in this period).

MattMunro @ 29 -it’s nice to see the lazy stereotyping of media studies, let alone students in general (in the 1970s it used to be sociology), still continuing as a substitute for an argument about graduate level skills.

“we need fewer people”

Off you go, then.

@34 – that’s kind of the point though, none of the three main parties look like they have an obvious solution to the problem that confronts my brothers so they will slowly be seduced by the siren call of a party that does.

They won’t even have heard the rest of the BNP’s send-em-back message, it just gets lost in a sort of political blah-blah-blah. They hear the headline and that’s enough.

It helps tremendously of course that the voting system for the Welsh Assembly is a kind of proportional representation. They have no intention of repeating the exercise in the General Election as they have joined the anyone-but -Brown stampede and will vote for the party most likely to defeat the sitting Labour MP.

The BNP want an all white Britain. This is a racist policy. Voting BNP is a racist act, never mind smearing up the debate about the so-called white working class. This particular white worker has family members who are black – probably like many white workers today. Suggesting the BNP policies, or the Nazis policies are left wing is ridiculous. Nick Griffin has just confirmed that for the BNP there are no black Britons, these are “racial foreigners”. The BNP is a fascist party. It is an insult to the black communities in Britain, and the memory of the Nazis’ victims to suggest otherwise.

The BNP are a serious threat in the Euro-elections. If the BNP retain their 2004 Euro vote, and if the voter turnout drops to 1999 levels then the BNP will win MEP seats in the North West, North East, West Midlands and even London. Perhaps some of the people on this thread need to wake up to the need to campaign against these fascists?

A brief follow-up:

One factor not mentioned by either Ion or Asquith is the number of ‘Independents’ on Stoke-on-Trent city council: unlike other big cities, the opposition to Labour has not meant a swing to the Tories or the LibDems. Also the ‘Balkanised’ aspect of S-o-T (i.e. the ‘Six Towns’) makes it distinctive in the way that the city’s politics play out – when Labour got hammered in local elections a few years back, Stoke swung the other way. Moreover, when the BNP made further gains here, hardly anyone noticed because of what happened in Barking and Dagenham (probably because it was on the national media’s doorstep in contrast to a Midlands city whose clubs weren’t in the Premiership).

I must also mention the fact that Stoke has managed to select, and then abolish the post of elected Mayor within less than a decade. If you want a look at one attempt to cover all this, try this article by Patrick Barkham in the Guardian last year. There’s a bigger political/economic malaise in there area, of which the BNP is just the most unpleasant symptom.

One of the lessons of German elections in the early 1930′s is that potentially *anywhere* is fertile ground for the far-right, so long as the organisations that might be able oppose them is weak. Some very interesting research has been done on voting patterns in Saxony for example; the area around Leipzig was one of the weakest in Germany for the Nazis (especially when you ignore heavily Catholic areas), while the towns and villages of the Erzgebirge and the Vogtland were amongst their strongest. Both Leipzig and the Erzgebirge/Vogtland were very working class and both were traditional SPD strongholds. But working class employment in Leipzig was dominated by large factories (meaning that the city had very strong Unions) and the city had a very strong SPD organisation (which ran an alternative welfare system and everything), while the economy of the Erzgebirge/Vogtland was dominated by home-working in the textile industry. Unions were very weak and Party organisation was virtually non-existent.

A vote for the far-right is mostly a protest vote (much more than a vote for the far-left is, even. Surveys in France, for example, suggest that most FN voters don’t actually want “their” party to win anything). That’s why the votes for far-right parties are often subject to particularly extreme swings and why they don’t really link up to demographics as much as “normal” parties. I predict that there’s a very good chance that the BNP will “suddenly” start to do a lot better in certain Tory heartlands if (as seems tragically likely) the Tories win the next election.

Not sure if that made sense. I knew what I meant.

I don’t think protest vote is quite the right term; its more a vote for change. Most areas where the BNP does well have been in labour hands for decades. Regardless of ones party affiliation, long term incumbency without any electoral challenge can be corrosive, especially in local politics. When the BNP show up, people will vote for them because they are there and the only other group actively campainging has been in power for decades.

Whats really needed is for another party to take up a challenge in these areas. Many of the areas that saw the “race riots” a few years ago now have a new, large lib dem presence. This isn’t due to any ideological similarity- its because they turned up. Tories, Greens, whatever- the important thing is that other parties need to get out there on the ground and campaign, creating a healthy environement beyond one-party domination, and some electoral exchange of power.

Of course, this is very difficult to do with ever increasing disengagement; these parties may lack activists, and if they have them they may feel there are more promising areas to campaign, especially looking to build towards MP’s.

However, these problems can be tackled, and will likely prove a much more effective solution than trying to convince people to keep on voting labour forever.

“Suggesting the BNP policies, or the Nazis policies are left wing is ridiculous.”

The New Statesman disagrees.

http://www.newstatesman.com/europe/2009/04/bnp-european-party-british

“brief skim through BNP manifesto literature brings to light proposals for the following: large increases in state pensions; more money for the NHS; improved worker protection; state ownership of key industries. Under Griffin, the modern-day far right has positioned itself to the left of Labour.”

Because it is ridiculous to ignore that those policies are underpinned by racism.

“The New Statesman disagrees”

Hey, here’s an idea: Why don’t you toddle on over to forum.bnp.org.uk and announce your findings there?

Poor Neil – his only line of “argument” consists of abuse

How was that abuse? It was a constructive suggestion. Why don’t you try it?

It was pointed out to me recently that although the BNP look hopeless, if they ever worked up the momentum to get an MEP or two, they would dramatically increase the funding scale of their operation overnight due to the massive communication allowance given to MEPs. This might be there best hope of developing an enclave, and is an interesting unintended consequence of party funding by the EU.

Neil – are you “libertarian wankstain” @2 ?

Why do you ask?

Tinter said:

Whats really needed is for another party to take up a challenge in these areas. Many of the areas that saw the “race riots” a few years ago now have a new, large lib dem presence. This isn’t due to any ideological similarity- its because they turned up.

Precisely. I’m from an area (Devon) where the BNP have almost zero presence.

I’ve moved to an area where they’re very active (West Yorks). I recently helped out at a by election in Dewsbury caused by the resignation from Kirklees MBC of the guy that challenged Griffin for the leadership of the BNP. Labour won, Lib Dems came a very strong 2nd (it was close, I don’t know how close), BNP were far down the list, I think the Tories beat them as well.

The success of the BNP is a factor of the electoral system—’safe’ wards are developed, one party fiefdoms where it’s considered not worth other parties getting involved (in the case of the Lib Dems, it’s frequently they don’t have the money to fight any more wards than they can possibly win, I don’t know what the Tory excuse is).

The BNP move in to some of them, and because they’re actually campaigning on the ground they give voters a different option. They also lie, and say they’re not racist, and a lot of people believe them. Including a colleague of Jennie’s in a former job who was objecting to Polish migrants—Britain should be for the British. Fortunately Jennie managed to let him know that his brown skin ruled him out from being British in their eyes before he actually voted.

They’re a racist party, but they deny this in literature and when challenged. Because they’re “anti-politics”, a lot of people believe them. They have a broadly left wing economic platform, that is designed specifically to appeal to traditional Labour voters. Why is that hard to believe?

Other parties do move into areas where they’re fighting, and tend to see them off—their famous incompetence on the ground contributes to this. Tinter’s right.

They may manage to get an MEP in one or two regions, and that scares me as it’ll give them resources. On the other hand, Barnbrook’s incompetence on the GLA is a good sign, it’s good fodder for the “this is the best they’ve got” style of campaigning, whihc also helps get rid of them.

I know that the academic left-leaning Sheri Berman isn’t afraid to discuss the kin relationship between Social Democracy, Fascism and National Socialism: http://bc.barnard.edu/~sberman/Publications.htm

I am hoping to get hold of her recent book soon. I realise there is a hyperactive conservative Goldberg thesis about liberal fascism that we libertarians just love to latch onto. But behind that argument there is a genuine case for a connection between democratic socialism linked to a nation state, and the more aggressively collectivist political ideologies. The left would do well to take note of this, as understanding potential weaknesses in their own position might allow them to keep a lid on the authoritarians in their own camp who are only too eager to introduce speech codes, ID cards and administrative law when it is convenient.

“Fewer people”, eh Matt?

Which people were you intending to get rid of, and how were you planning to do it? Forced sterilisation? Death camps for “just not our kind of people”?

Do tell…

I’ll take that as a yes!

I don’t see why the BNP are described as ‘right wing’. I believe analysis of results suggests their support comes 2/3 from Labour, and 1/3 from the Conservatives.

@cjcjc – Take it as a yes if you like, but you’d be wrong (ask the mods if you like). Ah well, better luck next time!

“2/3 from Labour, and 1/3 from the Conservatives”

What, and none from anywhere else? Sounds like some dodgy analysis to me.

[57] This island does feel very crowded and EU legislation effectively ended border control – if they wanted to the entire population of Poland (or any of the other EU country for that matter ) could up sticks and set up home in the UK and there is nothing we could do about it (a very unlikely scenario, admittedly, but the PRINCIPLE holds).

Surely there has to be some way of discussing population density without jumping immediately to accusations of death camps, or forced sterilisation ?

I have heard it said that most future wars will be disputes over resources – to my mind Iraqi oil is a very good example of this dictum.

So I am going to say it – the collective quality of life in the UK would improve significantly if we could get our population down by lets say an arbitrary 10 million ?
HOW we do that should subject to proper checks and balances and over an extended time frame with the proviso that if enough people are against the idea then we abide by majority rule.

I would like a referendum on the issue as a starting point – there may be a case for increasing the population, let’s see if anybody here thinks projections of 70 million souls (by 2030) is a good thing ?

One nightmare scenario in my mind is an abrupt escalation of the economic downturn resulting in a dearth of foodstuffs on the high street – very few of us are self sufficient in food and should such a scenario ever emerge life would get nasty, very quickly.

I don’t think the state is in any position to arbitrate on the “correct” size of the population. Unless it is going to start deciding how many children are going to be had. I can see the cultural/fraternal arguments against completely uncontrolled immigration (though in general I disagree with them), but not for “population management”. I think it is exactly what the modern nation state tends towards doing, and that is why it must be resisted.

As ever, its head in the sand time for the lefties. The initial article fails to even mention the integral issue; its immigration stupid. Not the act of immigration, but the unprecedented levels from the EU, outside the EU and illegal immigration in the past 12 years. Labour has been solely responsible for this. Its not just voters switching from Labour to the BNP, it includes those that switch to the Tories who promise stricter control and not just the lies we get from Labour, and also the millions of Labour voters who will not vote at all because of their stance on immigration. This is shown in poll after poll and is evident to anyone who canvasses at the doorstep, bar the white middle-class champagne socialist hypocrite areas. Of course, evident to all but the deluded morons amongst the Left.

My own mother-in-law, who came to Britain from Asia in the 60s is apoplectic about the recent mass immigration. As a state worker she always voted Labour. She’ll never vote BNP, but she’ll also never again vote Labour.

Your see your tactic of branding anyone who even questions such large scale immigration as racist/bigots/xenophobes may work for sections of the inhibited middle-class, but the rest us think you are a load of wankers.

A&E said

the collective quality of life in the UK would improve significantly if we could get our population down by lets say an arbitrary 10 million ?

Got some evidence to back that up? It’s highly disputed and of dubious veracity. The study done by Migration Watch that was designed to show immigration hurt our quality of life found the exact opposite, for all the spin they put on it.

In addition, until about 10 years ago, there was a lot of fuss about the demographic time bomb caused by an aging population and a far too low birth rate. Immigration on the fairly small scale we’ve seen over the last ten years has solved that problem.

That the Govt refused to do any counting, and refused to ensure resources were allocated to councils effectively, is an issue that’s caused problems, but immigration in and of itself has been a net benefit to the economy and our quality of life.

I’m a liberal. I believe in free movement of goods, services and people. It’s a shame our Govt is allowing it but not doing well at managing it.

This piece confuses ‘far-right’ with ‘far-left’ (the BNP).

@62

Really? It doesn’t feel crowded at all to me, and I live in an area of the capital that is mostly, after white British, Turkish and Kurdish. It feels good to have some colour other than white and some culture other than British around once you get used to it. This is a shrinking world and it’s not going to go back in Pandora’s box now.

@64
Ah, Chavscum. Bored with winding up Guardian readers today? I’m guessing your mother in law is reading the Mail or the Express, both of which frequently lie and misrepresent the impact of immigration. The figures state that the UK is not taking in any more immigrants than other countries in the EU, and as the Eastern European countries achieve better standards of living, the “rush” that is feared on the RIght will subside.

Immigration is a wedge issue that is being manipulated by the Tory press to further erode support for parties on the liberal left. Nothing more, nothing less.

for Labour to strengthen its appeal to the white working classes as well as to middle England.

100% disagree – what I want to see is the LibDems getting out and attacking the New Labour policy which has STILL left so many in poverty and no hope for a better future.

The people on those estates and general areas need to know that the LibDems have a credible alternative to voting New Labour and should be shouting that from the rooftops and getting their faces in the local rag as much as possible.

Mostly what they need to do is remind people that New Labour is just another Tory party – elect New Labour and you elect Tory policy.

Recent mass immigration has benefitted the wealthy and the middle-class. Its the poor and the lower classes that live with the consequences of your policies. How many white Labour MPs that serve multi-cultural populations send their kids to an ethnic dominated school? Look at that hypocrite, Jon Cruddas.

a&e charge nurse @ 62:

This island does feel very crowded and EU legislation effectively ended border control – if they wanted to the entire population of Poland (or any of the other EU country for that matter ) could up sticks and set up home in the UK and there is nothing we could do about it (a very unlikely scenario, admittedly, but the PRINCIPLE holds).

It’s worth pointing out that if the entire population of the UK wanted to go to Poland for work, the Poles couldn’t do anything about it either, not could the Spanish if we all moved there for the weather. The ‘principle’ works both ways. As for reducing the population by some 10m, who would you kill/deport/sterilise, or would you impose a ‘one child rule’ in the manner of China?

chavscum @64: You’re going to have a hard time explaining to people living in the Potteries how they’ll get all their core industries back if only Britain got rid of all the ‘immigrants’.

chavscum @ 69: the eternal problem of the right re. immigration is the split between those who see it as a means of setting poor people against each other in an attempt to bid down wages, and those who desperately want to preserve some kind of cultural ‘purity’ in the face of social and economic change, and seek to do so by blaming ‘Them’ – Jews, Irish, West Indians, Pakistanis, or even Poles. The latter group will always find it far easier to blame anybody but the former group, especially if that former group happens to include lots of people on their own political side. Maybe that’s why you go after Jon Cruddas rather than, say, past Tory governments at the CBI.

@70
Isn’t it funny how most of the commenters on the Mail and Express sites who bemoan the supposed impact of immigration on our fair isles, including Sturmbahnfuehrer Littlejohn himself – seem to be largely ex-pats?

@Matt Monro & Chavscum
You will never get around the fact that the destruction of the working-class environment was caused initially by Thatcherism – dear old Maggie thinking we could all be the service industry to her utopian society of managers and accountants, then given the death blow by globalisation – when it became cheaper in the short-term to bring those services in from overseas.

Of course, what you’re also missing, Matt, is that your supposed Labour government “failures” were both triggered by the right-wing in the US overreaching at the same time as we had a Labour government in the UK (Nixon and Ford in the ’70s, Bush the Younger this time).

She doesn’t need to read about, she can see her environment changing rapidly with her own eyes. Her local school has gone from minority ethnic to 90% dominated by one ethnic group in 15yrs. You and your Labour friends cannot lie forever and get away with it. Only those indoctrinated with left-wing spiel and those isolating themselves in their segregated neighbourhoods and schools still believe your nonsense.

However, just carry on with the same old pony, it will just make the Left further isolated, which ain’t no bad thing.

@73
“Her local school has gone from minority ethnic to 90% dominated by one ethnic group in 15yrs”

And what’s wrong with that? Surely it’s better that we all get used to the fact that the world is a smaller place rather than futilely trying to keep things racially homogenous?

Incidentally, I’m not Labour per se, just happy to do whatever it takes to keep the Tories out.

bluepillnation – that;s the funniest thing I’ve read in ages – whatever happens it’s always the fault of the eeevil right-wingers, no, not Brown or Healey’s faults at all, no way, no how

chav – what does Cruddas do?

MatGB [65] – can I reframe your query ?

First of all I fully accept it is virtually impossible to quantify the collective experience of 60 million souls then producing a formula to prove in objective terms that things are better or worse if the population is 55 million as opposed to 65 million, say.

Maybe another way of looking at it is asking who does population growth benefit – if you are an unscrupulous employer, for example and have a cowed and unregulated workforce it is very easy to exploit them (I believe this is how the ‘black’ economy works) – while above we have already been supplied with a vignette on how life in Wales has been affected by the Polish labourers.

So no, I do not think there is any irrefutable evidence to easily answer any of these questions (either way).

Incidentally, I am perfectly willing to accept I may be wrong as well – without wishing to sound like a smug bastard life for me is very comfortable notwithstanding the busy roads, jammed tube trains and life and death fight for a place in a decent London school, and so on.

I just help thinking that if you are vulnerable and in need of services then things are hardly likely to improve in the short term – in this sense the recession will probably accentuate certain trends because we have more and more people fighting for dwindling resources.
My gut instinct is that this is a theme that will increasingly play out as the population continues to rise and the pot of public money will be subject to growing scrutiny.

So let me get this right, chavscum: your partner’s school was previously dominated by one ethnic group (let’s say white people), where other ethnic groups(which may include her) were in a minority , whereas now it’s dominated by some other ethnic group,which you don’t specify, but one must assume isn’t that of your partner or yourself (why would you or your partner object to an school dominated by those like herself?). Without knowing the specifics, it just sounds like an objection to the ‘wrong’ kind of people moving in.

@75
Right-wingers aren’t eeeevil, just usually selfish and narrow-minded. And yes, Healey and Brown could have done more, but the fact is that the oil crisis of the 70s and the perfect storm of an illegal war and a thoroughly deregulated financial industry (both right-wing policies) were very hard for any Chancellor of Airstrip One to counter.

You also seem to be forgetting that at the time we were considered to be doing well economically a few years ago, the Tories were not advocating “saving for a rainy day”, but demanding the money be spent on cutting taxes for the wealthy. That policy was a central plank of Hague, IDS and Howard’s campaigns, and depressingly the press seem to have conveniently short memories.

but immigration in and of itself has been a net benefit to the economy and our quality of life

I think the evidence shows that immigration has done nothing on a GDP per capita basis, ie nothing to help those already here

(“quality of life” is subjective/meaningless)

Of course if the existing population are not harmed, while the immigrants obviously benefit, then there is a strong moral case for immigration. There is no question about that.

However the average (zero) benefit/cost is not evenly spread, with the rich benefiting and the poor (including most obviously previous immigrants) being hit, so this needs to be mitigated otherwise the poor will rebel, which is the topic under discussion

No-one can doubt there is *some* limit, so we do need a non-name-calling debate

[70] ‘As for reducing the population by some 10m, who would you kill/deport/sterilise, or would you impose a ‘one child rule’ in the manner of China?’.

Redpesto – I expect more from you.
Please have another look at my comment – I am not proposing any of the things you are suggesting, and admit I may be wrong about the effects of population growth.

On the other hand there are those that argue that humans behave exactly as all other biological organisms and will proliferate until the environment can no longer sustain them. Nobody can easily quantify these thresholds but in many parts of the world communities have to manage on the bare minimum.

Maybe we should think about that because in the not too distant future it may be out turn to accept certain new realities ?

redpesto – not the “wrong” kind of people, but people whose children’s needs (let’s say language-related) mean that the level of attention / quality of teaching which your child was getting has deteriorated

pretending that this kind of thing is not a legitimate concern plays directly into the hands of the BNP

calling people racist will make no difference if in fact they are, and will only alienate them if they are not

a&e – thanks for the praise, but I sometimes get a virtual red mist when I see the idea of population control crop up during discussions of immigration.

@79
How have the poor actually been hit? And I don’t mean stories of brickies not being able to charge their old rates because of Polish brickies undercutting them. I thought that’s what right-wingers called “Market self-correction”? The Tebbit answer would be that the lazy English brickies had better “get on their bike” and work harder.

I work in an industry that has been serious impacted by outsourcing to the subcontinent, but I don’t blame the workers on the subcontinent for it, I blame the management and bean-counters who were so obsessed by short-term profit-enlargement that they actively sought to outsource as much as possible without looking at the long-term impact. I’ve had to adjust the way I work to keep up. Ideally I’d like a more regulated environment when it comes to these things, or at least management and bean counters willing to look at factors beyong next quarter’s profit margin, but I doubt we’ll see that, so adapting’s the only answer.

chavscum:

redpesto – not the “wrong” kind of people, but people whose children’s needs (let’s say language-related) mean that the level of attention / quality of teaching which your child was getting has deteriorated

Sorry, but you used ‘ethnic’ not, say, ‘foreign’ to describe that group – if it’s a language problem, they could be from anywhere without their ethnicity being the issue. Is there something you’re not quite explaining here?

If you think Britain would be better off with a smaller population you’re a fascist but if you think the world would be better off with fewer people you’re a Green.

Buy British you are a Nationalist; buy local and you’re a tree-hugger.

Sometimes Left and Right are a matter of scale. If your solutions operate above or below the level of the nation state your motivations aren’t subject to the same level of scrutiny.

I’ve read this discussion with interest, because although I’m living in Canada at the moment, I’ve spent a lot of years living in North Staffordshire and intend to return. I’m fond of Stoke which is very underrated as a city. It is often most disparaged by Stokies themselves. Low self-esteem seems to be endemic in the area.

I think Asquith’s comments are insightful into why the BNP has made so much ground in Stoke. But, I think there are two factors which haven’t been mentioned. Firstly, there is not much tradition of voting Liberal or Tory in the city, but there is a history of fascism. The city was one of the centres of Mosleyite support in the 1930′s. Mosley and his first wife Cynthia Curzon both came from local landowning families and before turning to fascism, Cynthia was a very popular Labour MP for Stoke on Trent. In that historical context, it is not so surprising that dissatisfied Labour voters turn to the BNP.

Secondly, there is the role of the local newspaper the Sentinel, which has given surprisingly positive coverage to the BNP. Just one example: an uncritical two page spread devoted to a BNP councillor who had just lost his seat. It is difficult to imagine an ex-councillor for any other party being given that amount of publicity. I left the area in 06, so I don’t know whether the Sentinel has changed its spots in the last 3 years. It is interesting that it is a Harmsworth owned paper — Harmsworth supported the BUF in the 1930s.

@81
Easy solution, hire and train more teachers, and free the existing teachers from the straitjacket of the (Tory-introduced) league tables, the (Tory-introduced) key stages and the (guess what?) National Curriculum.

Teachers are probably the most under-appreciated public servants in the country as of this moment in time. OK, so teacher training would mean more initial outlay from the public purse, but teachers keep the economy running as much as anyone, and the better and more fairly-educated the populace is, the better your economy becomes.

@85 “Buy British you are a Nationalist; buy local and you’re a tree-hugger.”

Yes, it’s funny isn’t it. Counter-intuitive but quite obvious when you think about it. Nick Clegg used both in the same sentence in an announcement about helping local/British businesses just after the banking collapse. Same idea, different audiences.

Why do the left equate “wrong” with “righ-wing”, regardless of who did it? Why is an illegal war “right-wing”? Or not regulating banks?
Also, 12 years is a long time in politics, and you must accept that Labour is responsible for the state of the nation. And don’t just say it’s because Blair and Brown are right-wing!!

Yes, obviously I didn’t say all there was to be said about Sjoke, & have also been offline for almost 24 hours

I cannot make head nor fucking tail of these “independents” on the council. But I know most of them are organised in various groups, one of which in a formal “alliance” with the Tory faction, which is indeed concentrated the few middle-class areas & is unlikely ever to get support outside them.

There is indeed a historical lack of challenge to Labour here & in many other areas, as the Tories appeal only to a few & are hated by the majority of people, while the Lib Dems have never really existed at all. This is reinforced by the fact that the Tory leadership in the city have always been total knobheads, so such support as there might be (because there are indeed some fairly affluent blue-collar voters & right to buy types) is blunted accordingly.

You could study this city or other Lbaour heartlands in great depth. I myself am quite well acquainted with the BNP faction, having sort of become aware of them by living alongside them & having arguments with them in pubs (they are indeed Old Labour types, which is the main reason I do not join in the national deification of Old Labour).

Re: population, it is my view that with restricted immigration, the population will slowly decline without any authoritarian measures being required at all. Worldwide, fertility is very closely linked to education, especially female literacy (see the “World Factfiles” section of the Groan which was recently issued). I do not understand the hysteria of some whenever population is mentioned: do you seriously think there’s nothing between a concern about how many of us the world can handle & gas chambers? Because in fact, given the availability of education & contraception (& the confronting of forces opposed to this, such as Islamists & right-wing Catholics) then people would vote with their feet & have fewer families.

Matt Munro’s comments re: “less people” are actually fairly uncontroversial. Because those who are pro-immigration at all costs have never given an answer as to where these houses, roads etc. are going to be. It puts undue pressure on our natural environment & is quite easily avoidable by having border controls.

The problem for me is that I support some immigration, not none as some do, yet I do not trust the organs of the state to make a wise decision as to who should & should not be admitted, as the Home Office is notoriously wank in this field. But it is the case that having no borders would result in a worse state of affairs.

Those who want to consider the issues surrounding population & that may like to read “Freakonomics” & in particular the bits about abortion & the Romanian experience.

Re: “independents”. Some of them are very left-wing. I believe the Potteries Alliance falls into this category. You would have to study any named “independent” candidate. Additionally, some use sub-BNP language. I remember some of the councillors having prolonged moans about immigrants, in an attempt to convince BNP voters they were on their side, despite their policies obviously having no connection to immigration as it isn’t within a councillor’s remit (& they wouldn’t know what the fuck to do if it was anyway).

Asquith, where global population control is concerned the problem with selective immigration is that it deprives the countries they are leaving of precisely the educated and talented individuals who who would otherwise help keep their population down.

Yes, point taken to an extent. But I advocate such policies as admitting asylum seekers even when they are in no danger, if they are hughly skilled & qualified & that.

The developing world does suffer from brain drains, but foreign countries gain a lot from trade & from remittances home, which in my view are superior to aid for many a reason. I advocate that any aid goes into developing the educated & skilled workforce of the future.

In all honesty, any given immigration scheme is going to have its problems, severe ones. You must choose the least worst.

My natural instincts are to support allowing anyone into the country as I admire those who want to work & better themselves. But I have become convinced that this is untenable.

“we need fewer people”

“Off you go, then.”

If I was a bit younger I would ! (second gen immigrant me by the way, sorry to burst your “he must be a right wing bullgdg owning skinhead because he’s against unmanaged immigration”steroptype)

“And what’s wrong with that? Surely it’s better that we all get used to the fact that the world is a smaller place rather than futilely trying to keep things racially homogenous?”

What’s wrong with it is that your kids don’t fucking learn anything because the teachers spend all their time trying to make themselves understood to non-english speakers (encouraged not to leant English by childless/hypocritical left wing wankers who think “forcing” people to learn an indiginous language is somehow colonial)

Kids only have one education why should it be sacrificied for a communist political agenda

Actually, immigrants’ children fare much better in school than the “white working class”, because the former want their children to do well whereas the latter are fucking bone-idle chavs who’d rather blame someone else for their own stupidity.

Otherwise, how do you explain the fact that schools without any immigrants at all do so badly year after year?

You shouldn’t have children if you can’t manage the issues around raising them. Use the fucking pill.

@89
‘Why do the left equate “wrong” with “righ-wing”, regardless of who did it? Why is an illegal war “right-wing”? Or not regulating banks?’

As to the first, you only need to look at who steamrollered the world into that conflict : George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle etc. with the blessings of Scaife and Murdoch. You show me a liberal left-winger who supported the invasion. As to the second – deregulation of business and finance, and allowing the rich to do whatever they like is the central plank of Thatcher/Reaganism. Again, you find me a left-winger who got four-square behind it and I’ll be more inclined to consider your point.

‘Also, 12 years is a long time in politics, and you must accept that Labour is responsible for the state of the nation. And don’t just say it’s because Blair and Brown are right-wing!!’
Blair and Brown are and always were on the centre-right of the Labour Party. And the reason no real rollback of the Thatcher/Major era policies was allowed was because leaving them alone was a central condition of Murdoch’s support. Whether Major stuffed things up so badly that Blair could have won without Murdoch’s support is a moot point. What we ended up with was a halfway house where public spending was restored to a sane level, but the rich got to keep their tax cuts. Not ideal, but it would have worked if the hard-right Bush Administration (and the Republican Congress of the second Clinton term) hadn’t removed the last chiffon-thin regulations binding business to honesty, dragging the world into turmoil with them.

Yes – right-wing ideas are uniformly awful unless you’re willing to lie,cheat and steal to remain on top of the pack – but to those fuckers such things are just good business sense.

You show me a liberal left-winger who supported the invasion

Tony Blair. If that’s not acceptable, Paddy Ashdown (if he was a right winger he’d have accepted the invitation to join the Tories).

Liberal Internationalism has a complicated history as an outlook, and as with all forms of liberals, not all that subscribe to it agree on every issue; I believe the invasion was wrong, done for the wrong reasons, without sufficient planning, and at the wrong time.

Doesn’t make the principle underlying it (removal of a vicious tyrant) incorrect, nor does it mean that every possible overseas intervention should necessarily be blocked.

Blair and Brown are on the right of Labour. But by British, let alone world, standards, Labour remains left wing.

Many bona fide left wingers supported the objective of removing Hussein. They were, in my view, wrong to support that specific method of doing so. Doesn’t mean they automatically become right wingers just because they were wrong.

The “left” and the “right” are broad terms that include liberals, authoritarians, isolationists and internationalists. Attempting to assert that anyone that disagrees with you must therefore be right wing is pig headed tribalist stupidity that destroys your argument.

@98

Tony Blair a liberal left-winger? The only reply I can think of to that involves pulling and bells.

And when did I say that anyone who disagreed with me was right-wing? All I said was that taking the evidence into consideration, right-wing policies are bad news for almost everyone except the elite and the unscrupulous.

Tony Blair a liberal left-winger? The only reply I can think of to that involves pulling and bells.

He certainly was one in most respects before he bacame PM and during his first term, many, globally, think he remained one throughout, I disagree however.

But that’s, specifically, why I also named Paddy Ashdown.

And you said that all those who supported or steamrollered the war were right wing. Palpably false, both Blair and Ashdown supported it, as did others ont he left in the UK and globally. You might dislike this (I do), you might think they were wrong, but it is wrong to say all bad policies are right wing.

The war was favoured by many on left and right, and opposed by many on left and right. Saying all those in favour of it must be right wing is factually wrong.

And that was the point you were making in your comment.

If, on the other hand, you’d said authoritarian policies were bad for everyone, you’d be correct and I’d not argue with you. I think that’s what you actually mean, but you’re equating the right and authoritarianism, which is a palpably false linkage.

Bluepillnation, please list some succesful and popular left-wing policies, and the countries that benefited from them.

“You shouldn’t have children if you can’t manage the issues around raising them. Use the fucking pill.”

My “issues around raising them” involve my sceptisim that the state are the right people to do it – it’s a political issue, and in a democracy my solution is to get rid of a government that thinks all kids are the same and that ” a representative sample of society” (LOL) is any kind of basis on which to populate a school.
When you have your own kids you might see it differently – although I expect you local comp in leafy Islington is very good or mummy and daddy will take care of the fees when you decide (after much hand wringing at left wing wank off dinner parties natch) to go private.

You really are fucking vermin, Matt Munro. When are you going to drop this fucking myth of all lefties being well-off Islingtonians? If that’s the fucking case, why the fuck is it only filth like you who are moaning about the 50% tax rate? You’re the ones who whinge about the “talent” being driven out of the City of London, whereas I’d be quite glad if banker scum all fucked off and ruined somewhere else, if any country is stupid enough to take them.

Fuck off- if I became prime minister I’d persecute fuckers like you so you’d have to seek asylum in another country, where you could be vilified by everyone that lives there.

@102
Including liberal policies, in the UK we have the National Health Service, Fare’s fair, universal free education, equal voting rights, and in the States you have the New Deal (which was a pretty liberal-left policy for that country). There are more, but these are just off the top of my head.

And David Brough, I’m with you.

To those squabbling over whether the BNP is left-wing or right-wing:

They are neither. Their only principle is racism, but they know they need a broader appeal then that to actually get enough votes to hold even minor office, so they get a mish-mash of populist ideas no-one else is using and wave them around. Hang’em and flog’em and don’t privatise the Post Office (etc etc).

The real debate for me is HOW you combat the BNP. Many people, including the government, seem to think the way to combat the BNP is to go halfway to meeting them, finding covert ways of saying to this ‘white working class’ that the government ‘understands their concerns’ – by endlessly talking of how everyone has a duty toward ‘Britishness’, by talking meaninglessly of ‘ending multiculturalism’ (a dog whistle if I ever heard one), by public chestbeating at Muslims etc.

But in reality none of this makes the BNP any weaker. All this type of PR appeasement conveys to those thinking of voting for the BNP is that their argument that blacks and asians are responsible for everything from housing shortages to the decline in swan populations is correct – otherwise the government wouldn’t be making concessions to it, would they? The real message this type of activity sends to would be BNP voters is that racism is justified, but the government is too scared of the anti-racism police to do anything serious about it.

The real way to fight the BNP is not to cede the argument on these things. It’s an easily winnable argument that immigrants (let alone blacks) are barely the cause of any of the problems the tabloids or BNP blame them for.

The bed shortages in the NHS are not because of immigrants – their contribution to filling NHS staff shortages is probably equal or larger. Some council houses may be lived in by non-whites, but the real reason for the shortage is just that no-one has built any. Non-whites are not any more likely to be criminal than whites. Traditional British culture is not being destroyed by Muslims but by globalisation and shopping malls. Immigrants are not motivated by a desire for conquest or by hate of British people.

And the single most important fight to take to the BNP is to challenge that the working class have to be split into being white and non-white, something the government has just meekly accepted from the tabloids for fear of being seen as ‘out of touch’. In fact it’s their unquestioning acceptance of this idea of a separated out ‘white working class’ living in fear of blacks and asians that demonstrates just how out of touch they are.

Jungle, you cover something I was considering a few days ago.

“The bed shortages in the NHS are not because of immigrants – their contribution to filling NHS staff shortages is probably equal or larger. Some council houses may be lived in by non-whites, but the real reason for the shortage is just that no-one has built any. Non-whites are not any more likely to be criminal than whites. Traditional British culture is not being destroyed by Muslims but by globalisation and shopping malls. Immigrants are not motivated by a desire for conquest or by hate of British people.”

This shite spewed forth over the “white working class” highlights the fact that identity politics is reactionary in nature & rooted in reactionary shite. You’ve got things like Galloway’s attempts to create a voting blog of brown people to further his own ambition. You’ve got this racial obsession in America, talked up by those who seem to think only blacks can be poor, which pushes white working-class voters into the arms of a party (the GOP) that despises them, fucks them over & uses culture war toss & racism to blind them to their true interests.

Because what is the Southern Strategy if not a form of identity politics? You can find the mirror image of what the BNP do amongst some “community leaders”, self-styled. Fuck it ALL off & replace it with solidarity, as I hope has recently come to pass in America.

Excuse me for articulating this quite badly. But I have decided that it’s all the same really & should all be rejected.

It also pisses me off that those right-whingers who speak of the “white working class” in generalisations take the view that we must all be thick tossers whose world revolves around lager, football & hating pakis. Right-whingers who talk this shite do not realise the enormous diversity of the working class. Which isn’t surprising when you consider the fact that they never, ever encounter us.

Few things enrage me more than a fake man of the people.

@ 103 – It’s like the spirit of Oscar Wilde on the internet listening to you…

When exactly did I defend/attack the 50p tax or express any opinion on it whasoever ? I doubt I’ll ever pay it so why should I give a toss about it ? Its a token gesture that will raise very little money, and in case you hadn’t noticed the rich don’t “live” here any more (to the extent that they have ever lived in any one country) and the bright, the ambitious and the young are leaving the country in droves.
I violently agree with you that bankers have no “talent”, they are a product of privelidge and/or luck. But thats hardly the point, Gordo could have allowed them to go to wall as I would have. But that would still leave a huge hole in the public debt caused by repeated and failed attempts to impose “social justice” (whatever the fuck that means) and centrally dictated “management” of ublic services which equates to more money in for less/the same output. 12 years of labout govt and we will be left with high taxes, crap public services and a huge debt.
The left have shafted the economy however you look at it.

And btw I consider myself to be white (which isn’t important) working class (which is).

Soooo… Have any of you brave “BNP-are-lefties” lot gone over to the BNP messageboard to tell them how and why they’re actually lefties?

And if you haven’t, why not?

@107
Right-whingers who talk this shite do not realise the enormous diversity of the working class. Which isn’t surprising when you consider the fact that they never, ever encounter us.

Oh come on, many or most working-class people actually are right-wing.

I see what you did with the “right-whingers” gag though, pretty neat that!?

@110
In my experience, most working class people are so concerned with keeping their heads above water that the left-right argument is so much esoteric wank.

Why would “traditional Labour supporters take refuge in the policies of the far right” ? Might it be because the majority of BNP policies are in fact left-wing?

Protectionist trade tariffs, “breaking up monopolies”, full commitment to the welfare state, centralised command control, state owned businesses, higher taxes, “restoring land to British ownership”, ect ect.
There are frequent grumblings on the BNP website about “privatization” and “rich fat cats”- in fact they recently appeared to criticise the Labour governments increased taxes on the rich as too little too late.
Sounds just like traditional Labour indeed, so why are we still calling them far-right? I would say “far-right” would mean a party which advocates very decentralised markets, and is focussed on individualism, rather than collectivism.

The “reasoning” behind the “bnp=far right” seems to be with regards to the BNP’s policies on race and immigration. But a focus on any kind of collectives such as class, gender or race, is once again a very left-wing charactaristic.

It is left-wing policies which seek to give people certain advantages in employment, housing or access to benefits on the basis of ethnicity, or gender or some other collective. What differs is merely the collective that is chosen, be it enthnic minorities or ethnic majorities.

Yes David, very good, but have you told the BNP they’re left wing yet?

And if not, why?

Hi Neil,

I’m happy to debate with anybody who is a BNP member. From the BNP folkes I have spoken to in my local area- most of them are aware of their left-wing policies and openly court the votes of “traditional Labour supporters”. The “right-wing” label that is tagged onto the BNP is just that- a label. Those using it -critics or BNP members alike- rarely define their terms in much detail.

No links, then. Guess we’ll just have to take your word for it.

Neil, I’m getting this straight in my head. Your target for judging whether someone is entitled to their opinion is whether they’ve signed up for an account on a BNP forum and told them something you don’t think is correct?

Why would I want to sign up to a BNP forum? Reading the comments on their public website (which, by the by, uses the same software as LC) is bad enough.

I have no desire to engage with BNP activists at all (there are enough in my neighbourhood). I’ll engage with voters who’ve been conned into believing they’re something they’re not though.

The BNP are putting out leaflets in various parts of the country saying stuff along the lines of “we’re what Labour used to be like”. They’re doing that for electoral advantage, but that’s what they’re saying. Does it matter beyond that?

If you want to keep on denying it, perhaps you could furnish us with a definition of what you think “left wing” and “right wing” are? Because I think it’s an outdated simplistic spectrum that’s far too crude for anything above a pointless point scoring analysis.

“I have no desire to engage with BNP activists at all”

Well that’s the rub, isn’t it? There seem to be any number of people who are prepared to tell us all about what the BNP might or might not be on this site. But for some reason they’re not prepared to go and say it to the BNP’s faces.

Why could this be do you think? Perhaps for all the ‘no, you lefties are the real fascists, uh hur hur hur’ rhetoric, they know who’s actually going to push dogshit through their letterboxes.

Neil? When you’ve learnt the basics of campaigning and figured out the difference between a partisan activist and an actual voter, then you might have a point.

I want to make sure that the BNP don’t get any more Cllrs on my local MBC. That means knocking on doors, delivering leaflets and persuading people that my party is a better choice.

Going out specifically to find BNP activists? Waste of time, I know who they are, that’s all that’s necessary. Now change the fucking record, because it’s getting repetetive and pointless.

…and what the hell does that have to do with my criticism of some knuckle-dragging commenters on Liberal Conspiracy? Are you actually replying on the correct thread, Mat?

Neil, perhaps instead of calling people “Knuckle-draggers” you would like to challenge and debate what is being said. What is your definition, if only in brief terms, of left-wing and right-wing and could you explain how the BNP is placed on the far-right of the political spectrum?

Okay, I give up: They’re not right wing, they’re doubleplusungood.

Next.

Neil, you gave up rather quickly didn’t you? It’s a fair point to ask: in what ways are the BNP right-wing? Don’t say racism, because that is neither and afflicts both sides from time to time.

No Neil, correct thread. You’ve decided that anyone calling the BNP left wing is a knuckle dragger.

I’m a psephologist, even if I don’t actually make a living doing it. I assert that in electoral positioning, the BNP are attempting to appeal to traditionally left wing voters by putting forward a broadly left wing policy platform.

You seem to think that’s wrong, but won’t give any reason other than “it’s obvious” or similar.

But if you want to just drop the subject, go ahead.

The late and much-missed Chris Lightfoot sorted all this left-right stuff out years ago. Tragically, very few people seemed to notice.

Lightfoot’s work showed that political opinion in Britain organises itself along two axes, one much more important than the other. The most important axis has pro-EU internationalists who believe in rehabilitation of offenders at one end, and Eurosceptic advocates of hanging and flogging at the other. Supporters of different political parties line up along this axis: Lib Dems at one end, Labour in the middle, Tories at the other (with quite a bit of overlap among the groups).

The second, less important axis is the traditional left-right economic axis. It does have some explanatory power, but it’s inadequate for explaining the UK political landscape, and treating it as the most important axis is a serious mistake.

So, if we’re going to talk sensibly about British politics along a left-right axis, we would choose the first of these axes. In these terms, the Lib Dems would be left, the Tories would be right, and Labour would be in between. (Note that this analysis precedes the 2005 election: some movement may have happened since then. It does, however, very clearly account for Labour’s electoral success since 1997.) In this account of politics, the BNP are clearly on the far right.

I recommend Lightfoot’s website for more details of this analysis. The fundamental point is that trying to figure out whether the BNP or any other party is left or right wing by looking at their economic programme is futile. It’s their alignment along the Europhilic-rehabilitationist / Eurosceptic-retributionist axis that is most important and meaningful in real politics in the UK.

What Iain said.

Also, you might want to reflect on the wisdom of attempting to re-define the BNP as left-wing. It might be a clever dinner party trick, but take a glance over the Atlantic and you’ll see how badly it backfired for the Republican Party…

First of all, it might be worth pointing out that it is the BNP themselves who have positioned to appeal to traditional Labour voters- which is the topic of the original article. All I was doing was challenging the curious statements about old Labour voters “finding refuge in the far-right” (something which simply doesn’t make sense).

I’m afraid I cannot agree with Iain who said “It’s their alignment along the Europhilic-rehabilitationist / Eurosceptic-retributionist axis that is most important and meaningful in real politics in the UK.”

A political parties position on Europe- THE most important factor? The issue surely comes back to a political parties general political/economic principles. For example, two parties can both be “pro-EU”, but have entirely different visions concerning structure and policy and scope.

I believe the economic policies of a political party (contrary to what you say) are central to determining where they are placed on the political spectrum. On the left,-wing you have a government which is larger in scope and a more planned economy (the extreme example being Communism). On the right-wing you have the opposite- a smaller government and a free market economy (an extreme example of being being, laissez-faire libertarianism). This places Fascism not on the far-right, but on the far-left, as a precursor toward Communism.

Most British political parties hover just to the left or right of centre, advocating a mixed economy.
BNP policies lean to the left of the political spectrum.
In my opinion it is true to say that the three “big” political parties in Britain today are very similar on a lot of issues- something which parties like the BNP are using as part of a left-wing populist stance to appeal to voters who feel “abandoned” by the Labour party. New Labour, although not right-wing, has indeed moved to the right of old labour.

“I’m afraid I cannot agree…” “…I believe…” “…In my opinion…”

…and facts (such as Iain presented) be damned.

I speak to BNP activists, actually. A lot of them are very agreeable people. But hearing them speak about their beliefs & the policies they’d like to see enacted only reinforces my opposition to the party itself.

“I’m afraid I cannot agree…” “…I believe…” “…In my opinion…”

…and facts (such as Iain presented) be damned.”

Neil, what I’m offering is simply an opinion. What Iain offered was also his opinion- an opinion I respect, but an opinion which I personally disagree with.

It’s a shame the same cannot be said about you. You have offered nothing constructive to debate with, other than to insult, nitpick or latch on to other peoples viewpoints.

Neil is the male Sally!

@cjcjc – didn’t you already make a cock of yourself upthread, insinuating I was someone I’m not?

@David – sorry for not debating properly. I obviously need to aspire to the lofty standards of, say, Matt Munro.

Iain, thank you for a constructive answer, and indeed for giving a definition I do find it hard to argue with, given how valid I think Chris’s analysis was.

However, his left/right spectra was based on polling data on opinions and importance of issues based on 2004 data, and as you rightly say, opinions do change over time.

Two years ago I was arguing that the old left/right economics divide was no longer a significant issue in British politics, I think events of the last few months no longer mean that’s true, there’s an increasing disparity of opinion on how to deal with a number of issues of economics now—reaction to Darling’s 50% tax, for example.

David

I believe the economic policies of a political party… are central to determining where they are placed on the political spectrum. On the left,-wing you have a government which is larger in scope and a more planned economy (the extreme example being Communism). On the right-wing you have the opposite- a smaller government and a free market economy

I actually disagree with this left/right analysis of the economic spectrum. I believe, strongly, in competitive markets, but I also believe in strongly redistributive taxation concentrating on wealth over income. The latter is traditionally a hallmark of a left winger, but by your definition the former makes me a right winger.

I prefer to assert I’m a liberal socialist, as utterly opposed to the state socialists that frequently dominate the left as I am to the idiot Tories and capitalist fundamentalists on the right.

If we give up the idea of withering the state away, then what’s the point of socialism at all?

I tend to agree with analyses that put fascism (including the BNP) in a strongly authoritarian position roughly on the economic centre—Hitler’s Germany favoured private capital for business for example, but it was within a command/control economy.

So on the political compass spectrum also favoured by Mori, fascists generally are at the top somewhere in the middle, whereas on Lightfoot’s analysis they’re on the right.

Iain, I wonder if it were done again based on more recent polling data whether the same two axes would apply? I’ve thought about proposing it be done myself, but I’m not a stats guy, might be worth talking to Tom and seeing if it’d be possible to get more up to date data. Last I discussed it with Chris he was clear it wasn’t based on the more philosophical analysis of the compass (based on absolute positionings that I take some issues with), but on pure analysis, and he didn’t start with any predetermined position.

Neil, if your position has always been that the best definition of left/right completely ignores economics, when the rest of us were talking about economic policies, why didn’t you just say that and answer the question put to you?

There you go…maybe Sally’s husband then!

It strikes me as slightly strange to base the most important axis on the EU which can barely decide for itself whether it is a neo-liberal animal or a social democratic animal. Views on Europe are quite subject to change as a consequence. On criminal justice, I think that misses out the important distinction between administrative punishment and the rule of law. There are plenty of retributionists who believe in the rule of law (though not the BNP) and plenty in Labour who are rehabilitationalists but aren’t that fussed about trial by jury or a strict habeas corpus.

Having said that it is an interesting axis, and Chris Lightfoot was a genius from what I know of his many works, notwithstanding Neil’s ridiculous attempt to argue from his authority.

@MatGB: “why didn’t you just say that”

Don’t you think that’s what I was trying to allude to when I suggested speaking to some if the Internet’s actual BNPers rather than staring at the fluff in your bellybutton? ITYF the one thing they all really, really hate is “cultural leftism”, for want of a better phrase. Which is why I said, go and tell ‘em they’re lefties. You’ll soon find out which ‘axis’ is most important.

I absolutely agree with MatGB that it would be v ery interesting and instructive to carry out an updated version of Lightfoot’s analysis, not least to see whether the economic crises has had a significant effect on the axes.

Some people seem to find the importance of the EU-rehabilitationist axis surprising or implausible. Well, I’m afraid it’s what comes out of the data. Lightfoot’s website, which I linked to above, gives a good, readable account of the analysis. I would heartily recommend taking the time to understand it.

“it’s what comes out of the data.”

As Lightfoot himself seems to acknowledge, there is no such thing (least of all in social science) as brute data. You don’t have anything until you have a theory and an interpretation. Looking around the site, his methodology, without delving into his source code, still seems a bit opaque. Is he essentially just correlating responses that fit together? That is certainly an interesting approach, but I am not sure how he can show that these correlations demonstrate underlying causes and connections, or whether they are contingent. The results may indicate the bias of the questions asked commonly as talking points and surveys in this society than anything else. As he says himself, the questions are located at specific point in history and so might not indicate very stable opinions anyway.

MatGB- “I actually disagree with this left/right analysis of the economic spectrum. I believe, strongly, in competitive markets, but I also believe in strongly redistributive taxation concentrating on wealth over income. The latter is traditionally a hallmark of a left winger, but by your definition the former makes me a right winger.”

Your position sounds to me one of a “social democrat”- which is a just left of centre ideology, because whilst you do not advocate the end of capitalism, you do advocate its reform to attain certain socialist aims, through- as you put it- the redistribution of wealth through taxation.

Actually David, I do advocate, and predict, the end of capitalism. I’m a liberal, market, socialist. I believe in competing worker-owned co-ops as the ideal economic units, and not privately owned/joint-stock (ie capitalist) units. But I believe that, if we level the playing field, the co-ops and mutuals will win by outcompeting the capitalists.

Social democracy seeks to ameliorate the excesses of capitalism and markets by controlling the markets (a mixed-market economy). I don’t want to control markets, I want to point them in the right direction and let them go, knowing that’ll give us the best chance of removing capitalism.

That’s liberal socialism. Completely different credo to social democracy (with a much longer intellectual heritage as well). I am, however, crpa at explaining it, Chris Dillow is better when he can be arsed. JS Mill was, naturally, best, but he died before he finished.

I like the fact you use the term “far right” FIVE times. Is it a a compulsion amongst leftoids when talking about the BNP?

Fuck off, George.