Harriet Harman’s latest wheeze is to warn us that querying MPs’ disgusting behaviour will “Play into the hands of the BNP”.
There is an excellent article on the BNP by Jeremy Seabrook in the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/09/bnp-european-elections-labour
It is absolutely true that under Blair the Labour Party abandoned the interests of the White Working Class. That hasn’t really changed. Bankers can have hundreds of billions from the taxpayers, but the Corus steel foundry on Tyneside can go to the wall.
Seabrook’s evocative description of “forlorn estates of liquor shops covered with chicken wire, leaky drainpipes, semi-wild dogs and tattered flags of St George ?” everything that symbolised the last gasp of a disappearing working class” immediately transported me back to canvassing in Mill Hill ward in Blackburn. There was little political downside to abandoning the “sinks”. Voter turnout among the hopeless voters of Mill Hill was down to around ten per cent. But I found the people friendly and engaging. I was frequently invited in for tea. They did not vote, not because they were stupid, but because they no longer believed it would do any good.
It was quite simply true that vastly more of the huge amount of public money which underpins the economy of Blackburn, ended up benefiting the immigant rather than the poor white community. But these essentially decent white people fully shared the strong British dislike of anything associated with fascism. The BNP only got just over 5% in Blackburn – the same as I got as an anti-war Independent.
Meanwhile, there was an incredible 29% of all votes cast by postal ballot in Blackburn. This was over twice the national average, and I believe the highest percentage in the country. As part of New Labour’s plan to maximise the value of their postal ballot vote farming through patriarchal power structures in immigrant communities, these postal ballots were by law mixed with secret ballots before counting, so it was not possible to record any discrepancy between postal and secret ballots. But I learnt from tellers that they looked to be “over 90%” for Jack Straw. (See Murder in Samarkand p. 365). That means Straw only got about 30% of secret, non-postal ballots.
These postal ballots came almost entirely from the Muslim community, and almost entirely went to Jack Straw. So he doesn’t need the white people of Mill Hill.
The mainstream parties exaggerate the electoral threat from the BNP because it is in their interest to do so. The astonishing thing is that the BNP do not have more support from the politically abandoned poor whites of this country. That is a reflection of the British people’s fundamental decency.
What is needed now is a politics of fairness and concern, of work and the dignity of labour, and which respects the values of liberty and toleration that still appeal to working class people as a fundamental part of their British heritage. The Labour Party can never again stand for that. New Labour never did. A radical political realignment is beginning to take place in the UK. How men of goodwill should try to influence that for the better is a grope in a forest rather than a march down an open road at present. I hope a track may be found soon. But getting rid of Brown, Harman, Mandelson and this terrible government is an obvious priority.
“It was quite simply true that vastly more of the huge amount of public money which underpins the economy of Blackburn, ended up benefiting the immigant rather than the poor white community.”
This is only part of the story, Craig. As well as the immigrant community the white middle class community benefitted from the public money.
Think of health, education and other public services. Think of who gets paid for providing these services.
Can somebody explain to me how Labour have only abandoned the white working class, as opposed to the whole working class?
One step at a time. The immediate need is to get rid of this despicable government and replace it with a government of national salvation which transcends party and is pledged to restore honest, transparent government. Under our biased electoral system, the next party in office most likely the Conservatives – will almost certainly have an inflated majority, but this could be kept within bounds by tactical voting.
What is needed is a national tactical voting campaign which will advise which opposition candidate has the most chance of ousting New Labour in every constituency throughout the country, and will then mount a high profile publicity campaign urging everyone who wants rid of New Labour to abandon political tribalism and vote for that person. This can and should be organised primarily through the internet.
The next step would be to campaign for proportional representation to be enacted during the lifetime of the next parliament. If the LibDems were to make it crystal clear that they would only join in a coalition government which pledged to enact PR without delay, a hung parliament and a Tory/LibDem coalition might be the best short-term solution.
Craig is right; he can only wade out into the politically incorrect waters of inner city politics on the soft sand of the decency of the British working class. He is surrounded by dangerous rocks covered by slimy seaweedy politicians like Blears and Straw. There is a feeling in the Muslim community that New Labour has gone too far, both because of immigration restrictions and also the violence in Pakistan. The Tories do not represent the interests of business, although that propaganda has attracted Asians to them. They represent the racist prejudices of the propertied classes.
I remember being mortified as a child by the expensiveness of my father’s firm car. He was a director of an engineering company. Today’s children would probably just like to have a father in the post feminist world.
An expensive car is not a substitute for a family at all. The decency of Muslim family life and the decency of the working class, combined together would be a serious threat to the scumbags of New Labour and Tory spin.
As backup to draconian laws and enforcement methods and electoral fraud, the BNP and UKIP will be promoted by the powers that be, like scary dogs. However we all now know that the New Labour and Tory parties are going to give us 20% tax rises in the very near future, so we may as well vote for a party with integrity even though it will have to tax us the same. At least some of the army of overpaid government jobs will be axed to reduce our taxes a little.
The white working and middle classes watch whats happening. They are not stupid.
Try to get an appointment at your Doctors and you
Racism is such an ugly thing.
The pot calling the kettle un-white.
Fascism isn’t what you believe in, fascism is what you impose upon others to believe.
If you call a spade a spade, then you may be racist, but you are not a fascist. To be a fascist you would have to make it the law to call a spade a spade.
Chris,
I don’t think Rachel is an instinctive racist. But she has been pushed into adopting positions that are racist from a feeling that her interests have been excluded (sorry, Rachel, I realise that sounds patronising).
So a number of complaints that are perfectly genuine about her own access to healthcare and services, lead into urban myth about robbers disguised in hijab, etc.
Simply dismissing people like Rachel as racist, implying there is no justice behind any of their complaints, is wrong.
There is more information to add which may affect her attitudes – for example asylum seekers are stupidly forbidden to work, which most of them would much prefer to do.
But the stress for public services of added demand from recent immigrants is not mythical. And the racial ghettoisation of areas and schools is very true indeed in Blackburn and many of the post-industrial towns of the North. That has involved displacement of people, and consequent unhappiness.
In four months living in Blackburn, I never once saw a mixed group of Asian and white friends socially in town. Mixed in workplaces, yes a bit. Socially – never. There are real problems to address. A curt dismissal of the complainers as racist doesn’t help.
The BNP has nothing to offer. I believe Rachel is right to say that there are at least a million illegal immigrants. But it is practically impossible without introducing a Nazi state to deport a million people.
More radical approaches are needed than currently on offer. My number one priority would be to make faith schools of all faiths illegal, and to mix state schools forcibly, as bussing did in the US.
OK, I’m politically quite naive, but the neatest solution would seem to be to create a new party in the style of the original labour ethos, to bring democracy back to the country.
Obviously to start from scratch would take a few parliamentary terms at the least to get established to the point of being a contender, and that’s assuming that the established power base didn’t do it’s best to nip it in the bud, which they undoubtedly would do, were it to register on their radar. Absence of proportional representation, lack of media access, lack of funding etc would pose challenges probably too great to overcome.
However, how realistic would it be to utilise an existing organisation to shortcut the process? An organisation like the BNP already registers with the public (negative or not, it’s well known). It has a small but significant base of support already built in.
The big problem is that they are characterised by attitudes that attract odious views like that of the previous poster ‘Rachel’.
Is their membership base so large that a concerted membership drive amongst people who were not aligned with those views couldn’t force a realignment of their more unpleasant views?
The establishment would still try to squash it, I assume, but it would be difficult for the media not to cover a deliberate, and genuine move of the underlying attitude of the party, giving the oxygen of publicity no matter how it was distorted, and an existing party machine would be readily in place.
Although I assume (not for certain) that the BNP as it stands would not welcome Muslims and other ethnic groups with open arms, would/could they actually refuse membership? Would it not be tremendous, were it possible to get significant Muslim leaders and other minority groups to sign up? This would force a change within the BNP and would starve NuLab of much of their voter base.
I don’t entirely agree with Rachel, but most of the points she makes aren’t “racist”, are they? She raises problems unadressed by the mainstream parties – more fool they.
Brave of you to post on this subject Craig. I did this week too with the result that one of my commenters emailed me (twice) with the accusation I was a writer of neo-racism amongst other things. All because I commented on the story in the Courier about the Chinese 22 year old woman.
It’s so easy to shout racism when discussing various community problems and many good people have become too frightened to speak out about their fears.
Why is it “brave” to speak out against twaddle? Do we really already live in such a culture of fear that people are afraid to say what they honestly think in case some thug beats them up? If so, we are far along the road to fascism, because ultimatly fascists of all stripes seek to control through violence and the threat of violence.
The thing is, it is racist to march about the place spreading ill informed negative stereotyping about non whites with no evidence to back them up. Here’s a few from Rachel’s post –
“Try to get an appointment at your Doctors and you
Like the Taliban, the blogger named ‘Rachel’ has delivered a critique of the impact of fundamentalist capitalism on the nation state which is not wholly inaccurate, but like the Taliban her solution is monstrous and she targets entirely the wrong people.
Like so many, she has been a willing dupe.
Does she know that her name is Semitic and comes from a land of brown people?
Perhaps she should join the Taliban.
In fact, the BNP and the Taliban desrve each other. Anyone with a sane mind – of whatever social class – should have no time for either.
I read a lot about BNP fascism.
BNP are to the LEFT of politics – it’s all on their website. They believe in even bigger Government. That’s the left wing, not the right.
And the biggest fascists around currently sit on the Government benches of the UK Parliament. I fear them a whole lot more than the BNP.
Of course I know the origins of my name! You are under the misapprehension that all BNP supporters are thick of course, stereotyping?
I am also trying hard to hang on to my history, traditions, customs and way of life. A way of life I have known for more than 50 years which has slowly been snatched away from me bit by bit. I had more freedom of speech when I was a teenager than I do in these “progressive” times.
I might also add that as I imagined, I’d get called all sorts of names for just speaking my mind, for just writing what I see and hear.
You are making the mistake of assuming I am a racist. I’m not a racist, I can assure you but what I see and feel subsequently is what thousands of people see and feel.. therein lies your problem and calling people racist will drive them further to the BNP. If I’m being labelled a racist anyway, why not just go and join a racist party!
The sad truth is, we were not prepared for so many immigrants to come to Britain so quickly and it’s caused chaos and animosity.
It might not have been so bad if immigrants had made more of an effort to integrate but quite honestly many of them are not interested in becoming British. They create a copy version of their homeland in an area and then expect us to live by their customs if we still have houses that impinge on their “copy homeland”.
There are stirrings of racial hatred on the streets (luton in particular) and the more you deny there is a problem, the worse it’s going to get.
I’m sick of it all to be honest and none of the three major parties are brave enough to do anything.. but the rise of the BNP will make them think!
Andy,
It is complete rubbish that this country got rich off colnialism. This country got rich off industrialisation.
Imperialism was a net cost to our economy. What it did brilliantly, however, was to redistribute wealth from the ordinary people to the “Imperial class” of colonialists, military officers, arms manufacturers and others.
You can see precisely the same thing happening now in Iraq. There is a huge cost to the average American and Briton, but a huge profit for arms and oil companies etc.
The best exposition is Imperialism by J A Hobson.
The truth about immigration is that over 200, 100, 50 or 20 years, more people have emigrated from this country than into it. We don’t have net immigration.
But it is also true that multi-cultural integration has not gone as well as it should. There is ghettoisation, there are separate schools, and well-meaning (sometimes) initiatives to help minoroties leave those at the economic bottom of the white community feeling comparatively unprovided for.
Andy, if you think I’m going to write a thesis with references to back up some of my claims, you’re very much mistaken. I could give you figures but you are obviously a labour supporter and are used to their imaginery bookkeeping.
I do have experience myself of some of the things I have mentioned. I have no reason to lie, you don’t know me from Eve…. and I have nothing to gain.
My Doctor is a white female by the way, so don’t jump to conclusions. They were all foreigners. They either dressed differently to make sure everyone knew or spoke loudly in their own languages. I had plenty of time to listen, I waited almost an hour!
The point I’d like to make is, you can argue with people till you are blue in the face with your holier than thou attitude about how great you think multiculturalism or immigration is, but you won’t convince anyone who has already been affected or suffered because of it.
You notice, the more Labour insult the BNP and call them racists, the more popular they become.
We are sick of being called racist. I am a Patriot!
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
Craig,
you make an assumption that my comment was directed at Rachel. It could just as easily describe my personal view (which it does) rather than be an attack on anyone in particular 🙂
Rachel’s new post went up as I was writing the last comment. Rachel, as I was saying, we have net emigration not immigration. But by and large the people leaving are ethnically Anglo-Saxon or Celtic and the people coming are not, so your objection is in fact racist rather than to do with numbers.
Yes, I accept that it is very foolish to pretend no social tensions arise from melding people of different cultures together. And it has not been well handled. But people of different races are just as nice people as any others. We are all the same under the skin. The problems can be solved.
And to vote for a fascist party is really not going to make anything at all get better for anyone, except the leaders of that party who are even worse than the politicians we have already.
However, Rachel must surely know that ‘patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel’.
That in no way diminishes her right to her views. After all – to badly plagiarise Noam Chomsky – “If I don’t believe in freedom of speech for those I despise, I don’t believe in it at all.”
I’ve heard the same things for 45 years, the same puerile arguments, no analysis, no historical knowledge, no critique of economics/ imperialism, no contextualisation, just a longing for the simple dualities of good and evil. Goodies and baddies.
“They don’t eat our food, they don’t dress like us, they smell, they look funny, they don’t have our values, they take our jobs, they take the food out of our mouths (but they don’t eat it), they steal our women, they didn’t fight in the War, you walk into a doctor’s surgery and it’s all foreigners, they speak more than one language…” blah blah blah. Same old, same old. Variations on a theme. It is impossible to stereotype such people, because they are already parodies.
“Let’s go off to Sicily and live in ex-pat condo heaven!”
Those people always say, “I’m not racist, but…”
Yes, you are. Go join a racist party. Blood and soil.
Meanwhile, those with real power and wealth just sit back and laugh. Make people fight one another, that’s always what those in power want to achieve. Divide and rule. It’s the imperial way.
Culturism is conflated within racism too much and not always identified. They are completely separate concepts. I suspect Rachel is more culturist than racist, as are many people deemed racist. Slightly more understandable than racism, in my view at least, but still pretty unhealthy.
Craig, I’m not sure what you mean when you say that multicultural integration has not gone “as well as it should”. How do you think it “should” have gone? How do you think it should have been handled differently? How much assimilation do you think there ahould be, and how much is possible, given the different characteristics and mind-sets of the various groups involved?
I have no difficulty whatsoever with immigration in general. This country has a long and proud history of giving refuge and hospitality to immigrants who have come here to seek a better life – Huguenots, Jews, Chinese,West Indians, Sikhs, Hindus and others. They have enriched the texture of our national life, and contributed notably to our welfare, even though not always welcome (I was a child in the 1930s and remember the almost unconscious antisemitism of those days.)
It cannot realistically be denied, however, that the Muslim immigration of the past thirty years does not fit easily into this pattern. There is undoubtedly less willingness on their part then on that of most other immigrants to blend into traditional British society. This is not a racist issue, even if it suits some of those on both sides of the discussion to distort it as being so; it is about culture, and above all religion.
I certainly don’t expect Muslims to abandon their faith or to reject their own customs (where these don’t conflict with the law of the land). But unless they are prepared to acknowledge that the great majority of non-Muslims in this country would prefer them to be less stridently self-righteous and to cease their endless pushing for special privileges whilst portraying themselves as ‘victims’, we really do have a problem which will only get worse unless new attitudes and policies emerge on all sides to deal with it.
And you yah-boo tribalists out there, don’t bother with the brickbats. The most sensible thing for us all to do would be to stop the name-calling and address each other’s concerns and misconceptions.
Both Mr Murray and anticant have made very valid points. I’ve addressed the Wahhabi-Salafist-Deobandi infiltration of some parts of Muslim communities in the UK (and globally) elsewhere on this site and elsewhere in my journalistic pieces and it is a real phenomenon and I spend half my time arguing with people who don’t recognise its risks to our communities. This particular issue does not really have much to do immigration though. It does need new policies, I absolutely agree.
As I see it, the main way that colonialisation benefitted this country was the cheap availability of raw materials, and then obliging the Empire to buy the goods then made from them in Britain. In Ireland, as one Irishman told me 17 years ago, the rulers stripped the minerals out of the land. Weavers in Bengal had their hands chopped off by the East India company.
A report by Panorama in 2007 shed light on the ‘segregation’ in Blackburn, pointing out that ‘refusal to integrate’ was not necessarily always the problem. Rejection or ‘flight’ by others could also contribute to the situation:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6631541.stm
While social contacts among adults cannot be compelled, in my view the encouraging of contacts between communities, and the promotion of a sympathetic understanding of the different cultures in Britain (including the predominant Western one) is a good thing as a part of education, as part of the solution.
Troublemaking in any shape or form should be discouraged. The BNP is a racist troublemaking organisation. Britain is no longer racially and culturally homogeneous. But it is misleading to use the term ‘apartheid’, which was legally institutionalized and compulsory segregation that deprived whole races of their legitimate rights. If people are afraid to exercise their rights as citizens in a certain area, that is a problem of law and order and should be treated as such, even if contact with members or leaders of local communities may well be part of the answer.
Rachel ?” If you step back a bit, the idea of “white” or “black” or “Asian” etc. might be viewed historically. “They” are here ?” because “we” were there. By way of a single example, the Kikuyu we forced off their land by white settlers and the arable high lands were commandeered by the whites. When the blacks rebelled against the injustice, they were corralled and placed in concentration camps. About 50,000 of them were slaughtered. Barack Obama’s grandfather was one of those who had been tortured.
If one looked at India or the Caribbean the historical narrative is no less harsh. Colonialism brought those people to England, because England did not leave economic opportunities in the lands in which British colonialism had thrived. That the harsh truth.
Fast forward. By setting up some concepts in your mind about white exceptionalism or exclusiveness, does not begin to address the underlying economic realities ?” which are not going to solved anytime soon by retreat into some imaginary “white country” or white world”. This modern round of globalisation is forcing harsher challenges not merely on the white working class in Britain, but is presenting challenges to everyone across the world ?” which problem racism will not solve.Think about it.
Oh, I see, we start talking about immigration and end up talking Muslims.
I agree with Andy. Rachel does not sound quite like a worker whose fears and resentments are being tapped into and fed to monstrous proportions by the propagandists of the BNP. Rachel, although knowing how to sound like a brainwashed victim, comes across as an organiser. And won’t she show those loud-speaking, differently-dressed foreign people who made her wait for an hour what’s what, when she’s in charge. Everyone to wear blue nylon dresses! Everyone to speak quietly! No-one to speak a foreign language in public at all, in fact, or – actually, what would your punishment be, Rachel?
Perhaps you really do believe that St George was ‘white’, Rachel. But I think, more sinisterly, you know full well that he wasn’t, just as you know that Muslim people make up under four percent of this country, and that the 60 million of us are in no danger from immigrants, or anyone else.
Tut tut. Be ashamed of yourself, young lady.
Anticant: “It cannot realistically be denied that Muslim immigration does not fit easily into this pattern”. Well, let me take you by the hand and lead you through my streets, where you will find “Muslim immigrants” (people) laughing and joking about life in the city right along with the rest of us, near the remnants of flower beds started by the Huegenots. A bas with your “patterns”.
PS Well said, Andy.
Oh, I see, we start talking about immigration and end up talking Muslims.
I agree with Andy. Rachel does not sound quite like a worker whose fears and resentments are being tapped into and fed to monstrous proportions by the propagandists of the BNP. Rachel, although knowing how to sound like a brainwashed victim, comes across as an organiser. And won’t she show those loud-speaking, differently-dressed foreign people who made her wait for an hour what’s what, when she’s in charge. Everyone to wear blue nylon dresses! Everyone to speak quietly! No-one to speak a foreign language in public at all, in fact, or – actually, what would your punishment be, Rachel?
Perhaps you really do believe that St George was ‘white’, Rachel. But I think, more sinisterly, you know full well that he wasn’t, just as you know that Muslim people make up under four percent of this country, and that the 60 million of us are in no danger from immigrants, or anyone else.
Tut tut. Be ashamed of yourself, young lady.
Anticant: “It cannot realistically be denied that Muslim immigration does not fit easily into this pattern”. Well, let me take you by the hand and lead you through my streets, where you will find “Muslim immigrants” (people) laughing and joking about life in the city right along with the rest of us, near the remnants of flower beds started by the Huegenots. A bas with your “patterns”.
PS Well said, Andy.
So you are saying that the only problem about Muslims in Britain is the people who see them (or, rather, their attitudes) as a problem?