Harry’s Place

I happen to think that the BNP are “Useful Idiots” in the current political climate. I think they can force issues of discussion about cultural integration and perhaps an antidote to Islamist Extremism.

Given Griffin’s statements on Islam (”Wicked and Vicious Faith”) then I regard them as a useful way of stirring debate.

I believe Griffin says he has studied The Koran. He has especially memorised the bits about non-believers etc. I’d like to see him in open debate with MCB, MPAC UK and the likes.

Let me tell you straight. I find the BNP odious and racist. I would NOT vote for, join or support the BNP - except as political leverage. We all have our desired political ideas. I think BNP can perform a useful role in sorting out our multi-cultural hell. They may make it worse at first so we can make it better.

And let me state that I welcome religious freedom and the ability to follow your traditions and cultures in a way that impinges on no-one else. I would welcome all opportunities to join and share someone else’s culture, traditions and festivals - but we should never legislate to accommodate or make mandatory elements that are counter to our Judaeo-Christian ethics and society.

I kinda tripped over your first sentence there, Neil. :)

Ha ha, quite. Now fixed.

Harriet Harman has just given the BNP 1000’s more votes.

Very interesting and accurate piece. I was pleased that it was not a rant against all of the right but clearly focused on the BNP. One of the best pieces I have seen on the subject.

I think The Daily Mail and Express’s reporting of it has done that

The BNP is a racist party

Probably still is under the skin, but it has quite skilfully made a transition to a “pro-British culture” party with strong anti-Islam tendencies. Like it of not, this has traction. You cannot defeat the BNP by simply calling them racist, you have to find out why people vote for them and address their concerns. Such voters will not admit to being racist (even if they are), but don’t like alien cultures (and that 90% means Islam), and don’t like immigrants taking their jobs. The BNP is indeed an alienation party.

As for voting for them, I agree with Maven. I would vote for them only to scare an incumbent who wasn’t listening, and not if the BNP man had a chance of getting in. There are dangers here, because that is that the Germans did in 1933. Given a recession, the BNP vote would increase.

As for being racist, there is far too much hypocritical humbug talked on this issue. It seems that being anti-Semitic (especially on Radio 4) is fine with far too many of the elite, while being anti- brown people is not. Why is an organisation such as the Black Police Officers Association permitted to exist? What would happen if a white officer tried to join? In Broon’s recent proposals for “positive discrimination” (a fundamentally racist sentiment against whites), would Jews count as “white” or “brown”, and what would Arabs be? Is Obama “black” (after his absent father) or “white” (after his mother)? How much “black” do you need to be legally “black”? This really is a can or worms.

*Goes cannard hunting*

At present employers are permitted to encourage applications from certain groups. One form this can take, is advertising in specific places, the Nation, say, to encourage black recruits, or in magazines read by women, or in community centres, newsletters, etc. that is intensely discriminatory, because white males are unlikely to see the ads. (though they can still apply, if they hear about it). The change that’s coming is if there is a tie, a tie mark you, and the candidates are equally as good, then such schemes may be taken into account rather than, as I was told in my EO training, tossing a coin. So an employer would still have to show that in the interview and on paper there was no way of establishing which was the better candidate.

p.s. just to add, in my workoplace men are underrepresented, so this would technically permit us to favour men over women, if that were the policy…

V. interesting piece, with sound conclusions.

I distance myself from the positions expressed by both Maven and Alcuin (whose views don’t seem to be identical, but both of which seem to be dangerous, to varying degrees): i don’t think contemporary Britain constitutes “a multi-cultural hell”, and I don’t think that engaging someone like Griffin in a debate with Islamists would help matters in any way at all, any more than his loathsome far-right equivalents in places like Denmark, Netherlands or Italy help matters.

Dealing with matters on the ground, appreciating and seeking to resolve local concerns (WITHOUT giving into the BNP’s xenophobic agenda), and not engaging in facile posturing (e.g. of the “Don’t vote Nazi” kind) are the key elements.

Reversing preposterous “antidiscrimination” and “equal opportunities” (which only serve to benefit the litigious and, ultimately, the more parasitic end of the legal profession) measures such as those that the Odious Harman is currently pushing through might also help a bit.

But the point is: you have to reach out to the excluded and alienated (ie those who are currently voting BNP), not demonise them en masse

Alciun wrote:

“As for voting for them, I agree with Maven. I would vote for them only to scare an incumbent who wasn’t listening, and not if the BNP man had a chance of getting in”

as you are a perspective BNO voter (remember that you said that more than once), then it’s no surprise that you try to sanitise the BNP’s image, is it?

however, anyone else capable of looking up the output from the BNP, would conclude that they are a racist party, but they’ve learnt to disguise that much of that racism, to put smart suit on it as it were

nevertheless we shouldn’t be fooled by such rather transparent tricks or the gullible right-wing idiots that advance such propaganda

I hope this http://www.boardofdeputies.org.uk/racismnotkosher.php may dissuade you otherwise?

From direct experience, I know that wherever the BNP has flourished, racial violence has arisen. The more I have seen this, the more I am convinced that the BNP must be no-platformed because it eases the door open for violent racism and the tolerance of racial hatred. I don’t believe that the BNP has succeeded where I live because of a sense of white working-class alienation. The area is overwhelmingly white: 97-98% according to the 2001 census. It has excellent public amenities, unemployment is below the national average, people have bought their 1950s council houses, with their big gardens and large open spaces. The reason why people vote BNP is because they are racist and agree with that party’s fascist propaganda. In fact, there is a local consensus that goes well beyond the BNP vote: non-white minorities need to contained both in number and in influence or else the town “will become like Tower Hamlets”. The BNP are the hard racists, but there are plenty of soft racists in the establishment who buy into this bullshit.

I think that anti-sectarianism will be a big idea in the coming decade. That will allow consistent opposition to all identity politics, including the BNP.

That’s what centrist politics will be against, I think. How strong and broad that centreground will be depends on what it is for.

Britain is indeed a multicultural-hell, but I personally would NEVER vote for the BNP. I’d rather stay at home than vote for them, so I do disagree with the normally sane Maven and Alcuin on this.

I’m quite surprised about this post — I kind of see all you Harry’s Place gang of warmongering cheerleaders of murder joining the BNP in the next few years. What a pleasent surprise, you wily gang of Decent Murderers you.

“Britain is indeed a multicultural-hell”

Why do you say that?

“Britain is indeed a multicultural-hell”

Oh go on, don’t be so melodramatic and posturing, just vote for them Morgoth, how is it going to harm the hell that Britain is, think of how it will alleviate some of spunk in your balls to spit back at the satanic people of mult-culture that stalk the Hell of Britain, see it as your taking part in a bukkake party on the face of the Devil himself who is the proprietor of culti-multi Hell that is Britain. You know you want to, you naughty boy.

i don’t think contemporary Britain constitutes “a multi-cultural hell”, and I don’t think that engaging someone like Griffin in a debate with Islamists would help matters in any way at all, any more than his loathsome far-right equivalents in places like Denmark, Netherlands

Why do you think that the normally liberal countries of Denmark and Holland have succumbed to right-wing rhetoric and politicians pushing back against Islamism? One reason is that the percentage of Muslims and Islamists is higher in Denmark & Holland than in the UK. I believe that Sweden is going the same way.

I understand why the Board of Deputies would be worried about the BNP and the rise of Antisemitism BUT the rise is almost exclusively due to Islamists not BNP members.

Why didn’t the Board of Deputies publish “Why we must crack down on Islamism” - because THAT is the main driver for Antisemitism. These sort of comments have been expressed many times by the Parliamentary Committe that meets to combat Antisemitism and a paper produced by Ian Duncan Smith over a year ago. Its also reflected in the EU document on European Antisemitism.

I see no danger at all in the BNP getting a little bit of success because their success will ring the alarm bells. Just like when Le Pen got a high vote a few years ago so the anti-racists turned out to make sure Le Pen was defeated.

I think it would be a wonderful message to the Government if the BNP won a seat in Bradford or East London. That would set the alarms ringing and bring us back a long way from the brink.

The BNP will never rise like the Nazis but a there may be a few blooms.

“I believe Griffin says he has studied The Koran.”
What seminary did he attend? Al-Azhar or Najaf?

“I would NOT vote for, join or support the BNP - except as political leverage.”
Would you vote for a Communist grouplet like Respect-SWP if it meant political leverage? Or are race-baiting fascists more your kind of protest vote?

“let me state that I welcome religious freedom and the ability to follow your traditions and cultures in a way that impinges on no-one else. I would welcome all opportunities to join and share someone else’s culture, traditions and festivals”
ie - you believe in multi-culturalism.

“we should never legislate to accommodate or make mandatory elements that are counter to our Judaeo-Christian ethics and society.”
We should never legislate to accommodate any religion, including Christianity. Shopping on Sundays, for example, should be a matter for individual conscience and schools should be banned from discriminating on the grounds of religion in their supplementary applications.

“Given a recession, the BNP vote would increase.”
Did the BNP/NF vote increase in the 1991-92 recession? It seems the BNP vote increased during a period of GDP growth, so your claim that the BNP vote follows macroeconomic trends is bullshit. The reason why most people vote BNP is because they are racist.

“Why didn’t the Board of Deputies publish “Why we must crack down on Islamism” - because THAT is the main driver for Antisemitism.”

I would like to know the ethnic and religious backgrounds of those involved in anti-semitic attacks in the UK. I would bet that the vast majority are perpetrated by white non-Muslims. And I would also bet that there are very very few attacks on Muslims by Jews.

“I think it would be a wonderful message to the Government if the BNP won a seat in Bradford or East London. That would set the alarms ringing and bring us back a long way from the brink.”

The brink of what? Media lunacy about asylum seekers raping kittens?

Britain is indeed a multicultural-hell”

Dan, maybe I should have said “is becoming”. We debated the last year that multi-culturalism doesn’t work. Some of us believe it doesn’t.

Multi-Culturalism suggest the right to maintain your culture as a parallel system. Shariah Law would be a logical extension to a parallel culture.

There is ONE culture in the UK and that is so-called “Britishness”. Britishness incorporates what it is prepared to accept as a modification to historical ways of behaviour. If we first believe in Road Beef and Yorkshire pudding but evolve to Chicken Balti, bagels, chiabata, spaghetti carbonara and Crispy Duck then we do so because it appeals to us and hasn’t been forced on us. Its a market force. Open a restaurant, offer food to buy and the British People either buy or it dies.

Multi-culturalism suggests that someone who does not accept this Britishness can suddenly berate us for something that they find offensive towards their religion and culture. No! This is us and we like it like this. Get yourself in the slow-lane integration of ideas pot and it will either sink or swim.

Ruth Kelly last year gave a major speech on multi-culturalism (during which she criticised MCB). She effectively said “This is the way we are and you had better accept it”. She said that being British meant you saw yourself as part of Europe too. If Europe acknowledges The Holocaust then it is anti-culture and anti-integration to avoid attending and using it as a political lever. SHe said that in Britain we have the free speech to criticise ideas and criticising religion was one of those freedoms, so you had better get used to it.

A little BNP might do us some good and like any ‘disease’ we will build up anti-bodies and become immune.

so I do disagree with the normally sane Maven and Alcuin on this. I’m astounded at that accolade. Thanks.

“There is ONE culture in the UK and that is so-called “Britishness”. Britishness incorporates what it is prepared to accept as a modification to historical ways of behaviour.”

Please define Britishness. Perhaps a 10-point guide to British behaviour. As soon as someone attempts to define “Britishness”, the concept falls apart and those deemed “un-British” are left bemused. Usually such definitions are ideologically loaded in order to impose some form of conformity.

“SHe said that in Britain we have the free speech to criticise ideas and criticising religion was one of those freedoms, so you had better get used to it.”

She doesn’t seem to like it when people question her membership of a shadowy ultra-Catholic sect and whether this means her loyalties are divided.

“A little BNP might do us some good and like any ‘disease’ we will build up anti-bodies and become immune.”

What crap. We have a “little BNP” where I live and with it has come a lot of hatred and even some violence. What do you say I should do? Hoist a fucking flag in the garden?

Would you vote for a Communist grouplet like Respect-SWP if it meant political leverage? Or are race-baiting fascists more your kind of protest vote

Are you asking me to choose between two groups of “Race-Baiting fascists?”

If I HAD to choose then it would be BNP because they don’t like the ‘ace-baiting fascists of SWP-Respect persuasion’ either.

Anyway, BNP are cruder and would get a reaction faster. Let’s be clear, I don’t for one moment think that a BNP member of Parliament is going to be able to suddenly order that Nazis can roam the streets and beat up brown people.

. I would welcome all opportunities to join and share someone else’s culture, traditions and festivals”
ie - you believe in multi-culturalism.

No, my point is that you should keep your culture and religion to yourself and offer any participation like any other product open to market forces. Hence, Indian food made itself available as something directly culturally applicable to Asians and the Brits adopted it. That ISN’T multi-culturalism.

Jews didn’t ask for multi-culturalism and yet we all love bagels, salt beef and latkes. Jews are well-established in British society and great contributors to that society without ever seeking to alter it in any way. To me that is the perfection of Britain with its tolerances of all faiths and races who don’t try and ram their requirements down our throats.

After reading Paul’s comment, I’m beginning to think I’m the only sane one here.

Maven has accuratrely diagnosed the problems with multiculturalism. I do disagree fervently with his remedy though. The BNP aren’t in it for British people (of whatever skin pigment or ancestry) - the BNP are in it for the BNP, and I can guarantee you, if they ever came to power, they’d kill more pink people than darker-than-pink people.

The solution to the current crisis is for people to start growing some balls and making it quite clear that third-world medievalist savagery of all kinds (and especially one kind in particular) is simply not welcome here.

What crap. We have a “little BNP” where I live and with it has come a lot of hatred and even some violence.

Why? Is it at all possible you had hatred and violence which is why the BNP got a vote.

I just can’t see a correlation between a BNP councillor and extra violence. They don’t send BNP stormtroopers out at night to break windoiws - do they?

“Jews didn’t ask for multi-culturalism and yet we all love bagels, salt beef and latkes. Jews are well-established in British society and great contributors to that society without ever seeking to alter it in any way.”

How ironic. For a long time, persecuting the Jews was a very British tradition.

I’m not sure the central message (as I read it that the “white working-class” are lost in a postmodern world and are looking for certainties in the form of the BNP) is true, but I’m a lifelong multi-culti inner-city dweller so don’t have the same insights as those from the areas referred too. However, I think one change is needed and it may sound patronising: I think that when confronted by people for whom you think that life has become meaningless and that they therefore may want to vote BNP (I realise that if what Lowles says is true most people commenting here are unlikely to meet such people as they are being almost “insulated” from them by design) but should you meet such a character then screaming “racist” at them the first time they make reference to Somalis/Muslims/West Indians in a way which you find suspicious is only adding to the problem, and you have a responsibility to society to engage with them (I don’t mean banging your head against the “brick-wall” of a totally convinced BNP skinhead I mean just arguing gently with someone who thinks there are too many “foreigners” and that they don’t all put the age and disabilities of others over aesthetic concerns (to give an example I was arguing with one Lady about last week.)

p.s. just to add, in my workoplace men are underrepresented, so this would technically permit us to favour men over women, if that were the policy…

In the one position I have where I have any country-wide responsibility I don’t kid myself in the slightest I would have got the senior job (amongst 4 females and a female big boss) were I not the only semi-skilled and semi-experienced male amongst a workforce which is 80% female. So it works both ways.

The BNP aren’t in it for British people (of whatever skin pigment or ancestry) - the BNP are in it for the BNP, and I can guarantee you, if they ever came to power, they’d kill more pink people than darker-than-pink people.

Morgoth, the moment the BNP start to get more than one seat then I will be on the protest line against them. I see BNP as a medicine we need to cure what I perceive ails us. BNP vote tells Conservatives & Labour (Lib Dems ignored!) that there is something happening to us that we don’t like and that THEY need to give us policies that say “No! We like it the way it is and we are not going to make special provisions for religious pressure groups (from whom terrorists emanate)”. Yes, its Islamisation that I fear will destroy us.

“Why? Is it at all possible you had hatred and violence which is why the BNP got a vote.”

It didn’t exist before the BNP came to town.

“I just can’t see a correlation between a BNP councillor and extra violence.”

The failure to mount any response to the BNP and combat its pernicious influence locally allowed it to gain wider acceptance. In doing so, racism is now acceptable. The upshot of racial hatred is racial violence. Those perpetrating the violence may or may not be BNP members, but the BNP has given them a rationale and a target for violent hatred. Make no mistake, violence always follows in the wake of BNP success.

“third-world medievalist savagery of all kinds (and especially one kind in particular) is simply not welcome here.”

This wins the prize for the most racist comment on this thread. Anyone fancy beating this little Nazi in racist rhetoric? Come on, Maven, you can do better.

Maven wrote:

“I see no danger at all in the BNP getting a little bit of success because their success will ring the alarm bells. Just like when Le Pen got a high vote a few years ago so the anti-racists turned out to make sure Le Pen was defeated.

I think it would be a wonderful message to the Government if the BNP won a seat in Bradford or East London. That would set the alarms ringing and bring us back a long way from the brink.”

So there you have it, those arguing that the BNP isn’t as bad as it is painted would either vote for it or welcome it getting an MP?

you couldn’t make up this idiocy?

of course what they can’t admit (or don’t know) is that with the rise of the BNP comes increased racial violence

so really what (unconsciously) they are arguing for is increased racial violence and tension, because that would be the result of the BNP gaining political successes

I would ask Maven and others to re-think their views, before it is too late, or to openly state if they welcome increased racial violence?

which is it?

How ironic. For a long time, persecuting the Jews was a very British tradition.

When and for how long?

If we relate it to modern times then the Jews of East London and other major town ghettos did suffer persecution. But when did that largely change? When they learnt to integrate rather than demand changes in society to accommodate them. Yes, they looked different. Mostly like the Hassidic Jews still look. But they progressed from those environments and in many case excelled to become part of the British scene.

There willl always be White Antisemitism against Jews but it is Islamist Antisemitism as well now.

I will tell you a fact that might astound you. You can confirm this with the Jewish Museum that deals with Jews in the British Forces..

At the start of the First World War a Rabbi in the East End sent a circular in Yiddish and English imploring fellow Jews to join the army and fight for their King and adopted country. I find that amazing because all the while they were also persecuted. Can you imagine that today from other religious minorities of immigrant stock?

“BNP vote tells Conservatives & Labour …”
A BNP vote does tell anyone anything other than the voter is favouring a neo-Nazi party. What does it tell them? That the Holocaust didn’t happen? That black people should be “repatriated”? That homosexuality should be banned? That hanging and flogging should be returned as punishments?

Yes, its Islamisation that I fear will destroy us.

True, but I don’t accept that choosing the Scylla of totalitarian collectivist nuts (the BNP) will save us from the Charybdis of totalitarian collectivist nuts (Islam).

After reading Paul’s comment, I’m beginning to think I’m the only sane one here.

Ironically, thinking you’re the only sane one in an insane society is a symptom of insanity. However, the notion that you are mad is probably one most HP readers share

I must admit I’m definitely getting a Franz Von Papen whiff about Maven’s advocacy of the BNP. He may (judging from his other posts, is) coming from a position of wholly good intentions, but voting for a bunch of totalitarian collectivist nuts isn’t a good idea, no matter what the circumstances.

However, the notion that you are mad is probably one most HP readers share

Oh apparently I’m just posessed by demons.

Remarkable comments

‘I believe Griffin says he has studied The Koran’ - I believe he was a third positionist in the eighties and was somewhat enamoured by Islamist anti-liberalism, a ideology ‘next door’ to ultra nationalism, indeed many a comrade of his is now a convert. He has merely realised that by making Islam the main source of decadence to threaten the mythic gemeinschaft and get a wider audience. It seems to have worked.

Will comment more when I have recovered from the shock of the arch-libertarian-fascist cross over

So there you have it, those arguing that the BNP isn’t as bad as it is painted would either vote for it or welcome it getting an MP?

which is it?

How do you prove BNP political success results in an increas in racist violence? Isn’t it that an increase in racial violence shows a disaffected population who see the BNP as their answer?

Isn’t it encumbent on the Government to make sure there ISN’T racial tension and other issues that might let the BNP in?

If the Government can’t heed the warning signs then a BNP member of Palrlaiment might just signal that this is serious. The BNP IS as bad as we think they are. They are racist and with more than a little thuggery around them.

I am only advocating their value as Useful idiots and nothing more. Racial tension has to be dealt with by the police and by the law. If we haven’t got enough police and laws then we are stuffed anyway.

What if there were an Islamists Terror atrocity? I think some of the country might burn. I think we demonstrated our tolerant British society when there wasn’t violence after 7/7. We aren’t like that.

“When and for how long?”
For most of British history - although Cromwell lifted the ban on Jews, a practicing Jew could not sit in parliament until the late 19th century.

“When they learnt to integrate rather than demand changes in society to accommodate them.”

Try drumming up a conversation with a Hasidic Jew and invite them over to dinner on a Saturday. There are members of the Jewish community that are as separatist as Islamic fundamentalists. If they want to keep themselves to themselves, then that’s fine by me. I see no need to force them to be like me.

“Can you imagine that today from other religious minorities of immigrant stock?”
I haven’t actually seen many people urge their sons and daughter to join the army and fight in Iraq, regardless of their origins.

I see no need to force them to be like me.

But you’re quite content to let them continue to mutilate their new-born babies though…

I am only advocating their value as Useful idiots and nothing more.

The road to the Nine Hells is paved with good intentions, Maven. Be very very careful…

I am completely aware of the dangers of voting BNP (as I alluded), but as a liberal commentator on Radio 4 recently said: “The BNP is a perfect protest vote”.

Dan: wherever the BNP has flourished, racial violence has arisen.

And what of Mosques? Action and reaction?

Perhaps if Britain had immigration policies like Denmark’s, we should not have a problem with the likes of the BNP.

If you wish to become Danish, you must attend three years of language classes. You must pass a test on Denmark ’s history, culture, and a Danish language test.

You must live in Denmark for 7 years before applying for citizenship. You must demonstrate an intent to work, and have a job waiting. If you wish to bring a spouse into Denmark, you must both be over 24 years of age, and you won’t find it so easy any more to move your friends and family to Denmark with you.

You will not be allowed to build a mosque in Copenhagen. Although your children have a choice of some 30 Arabic culture and language schools in Denmark, they will be strongly encouraged to assimilate to Danish society in ways that past immigrants weren’t.

“It didn’t exist before the BNP came to town.”

There was no hatred and violence in Loughton before the BNP gained a few councillors? At all..?

I call bullshit on that.

“And what of Mosques? Action and reaction?”

There are no mosques in my town, but an increasing level of racial violence directed at people of all ethnicities but particularly black men. But even if there were mosques in the town, why should that be an excuse for harming those who attend them?

“There was no hatred and violence in Loughton before the BNP gained a few councillors? At all..?”

I can’t say at all, but certainly racism was not the problem it is now.

Graham: My response to racists is summed up by the song “Racist Friend” by the Specials: “So if you are a racist/Our friendship has got to end/And if your friends are racists don’t pretend to be my friend.”
Alienating and ostracising racists is the best way to ensure that racism returns to being a taboo.

Protest voting, i.e. lying seems to me to be the most perfectly futile way of pursuing politics, wouldn’t it be better to get involved in a political party nea your own politics, argue your case and build up political discussion to acheive your ends?

One thing yopu have to watch out for is “I’m not a racist but…” teh continuation is often “but ….I do think foreigners should be stewed alive in their own juices.” For example, my yank mate was in the barbers and someone went off on an immigration rant, but turned to him and specifically said “Oh, I don’t mean you, mate.” All this defence of British culture bullshit is, well, bullshit.

All this defence of British culture bullshit is, well, bullshit.

All of it?

People aren’t exactly falling over themselves to take up “World Socialism” now are they?

Maven wrote:

“How do you prove BNP political success results in an increas in racist violence? ”

possibly by looking at the history of the Far Right and where they succeed what happens?

as that ever occurred to you? do you think we’re dealing with year Zero here? (without any knowledge of history on this topic)

the New far right have been in Europe since 1945 and their activities are well documented, I would refer you to the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism

read their reports, objectively and make up your mind:
http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/ai.html

again, see http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/ The Stephen Roth Institute

the Extreme Right thrives where there is racial tension, that’s what they want to produce, conflict and in the conflict they grow, but as they grow there will be more firebombings, attacks on individuals, houses, assaults in the street, etc and NO, the police can’t deal with it because they can’t be everywhere all of the time

so the way to stop it is not to encourage the Extreme Right to grow in the first place, you can’t put that particular genie back in the bottle once it is out

Alienating and ostracising racists is the best way to ensure that racism returns to being a taboo.

Doesn’t appear to be working though does it?

Morgoth,

well, what is this thing you call British culture? Other than the experience of living under the same state?

I have friends in Dagenham, and one of them actually voted BNP in the Mayoral elections. When I asked them why, they told me that they were feeling ever more helpless and alienated in their own community and that no one else seemed to be speaking up for whites like the BNP was. It’s this real sense of being utterly screwed over and ignored that drives support for the BNP.

But these people are not monsters. It is easy to just demonise a group of people and then disregard or spit on them - the BNP does this all the time after all, as do parts of the so-called radical left. But when’s the last time any Searchlighter or ANL-type actually knocked on these people’s doors and spoken to them, LISTENED to them?

I abhor the BNP and its fascist them-and-us, statist, thuggish nature. I’ve done my best to argue for a society that repudiates fear of outsiders and which recognises that both immigrants and natives are getting screwed over as cheap labour for those that won’t countenance paying just a little bit more to their builders, au pairs or to the girl at the Waitrose till. Or just going the whole hog and axing income tax for anyone on a low wage altogether. (Wouldn’t want that though, would we?)

But my attempts to argue for the unpopular is bloody hard to do in a run-down, neglected and at times rough place like Dagenham and Barking. A real cynic might even argue that the crappy management of immigration in the last decade was designed precisely to have divided communities at each other’s throats. There’s certainly no difference between Nick Griffin insinuating “wogs out!” and some Hoxton tosser sneering at the white proles and lumping them in with the Chavs. It’s all about pissing on those you know can’t fight back.

It’s all very well having leafleters outside Chadwell Heath Station, but who’s going to listen to my friend? Or the old man who told me that he could understand some of what the BNP was saying, but that he’d never vote for them because he knew what they were really about? That’s how you beat the BNP - just by listening for once.

“Doesn’t appear to be working though does it?”

There is more tolerance of their ideas, with the readers of popular newspapers fed a daily litany of “asylum seekers are coming over here to bomb your children and rape your women.” And this has been mainstreamed to some extent, assisted by the likes of Margaret Hodge.

Well said Sheepy.

There is more tolerance of their ideas, with the readers of popular newspapers fed a daily litany of “asylum seekers are coming over here to bomb your children and rape your women.”

Well can’t say I have noticed that (which Newspapers are these?) But who is saying their ideas should be tolerated? If someone is getting into crack or hanging around with the wrong people then where I come from you have a word with them. That the British middle-classes are spectacularly ill-equipped to do so is one major cause of the problem.

I don’t think either by the way that you can argue that Jews being unable to sit in the British parliament until the late 19th century was “persecution” without putting this into the context that neither could catholics, nonconformist Protestants or anybody other than a member of the Church of England.

well, what is this thing you call British culture?

Just because you don’t have any culture, Deathy, doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t.

A friend of mine campaigned for UKIP in Dagenham last year(where in 2004 UKIP received more votes than the BNP).
A lot of voters said we agree with you but we are voting BNP because neither of you can get in but they are a bigger protest.
I don’t think many people support the BNP and they will only get votes if we allow discrimination against whites and let muslims who beat up clergymen go free while whites who SAY racist things go away for 6 months………

Oh dear people might vote BNP as all the above happen.
Personally I think they are scum.

Morgoth,

I have human culture, ccheers. But what is this british culture you say you have? You seem to be struggling to describe it…

I have human culture, cheers

*guffaw*

No, what you have is a rod up your arse.

But what is this british culture you say you have?

Try googling “Culture of the United Kingdom”, or “Common Law”, Deathy, you might learn a thing or two.

Re: Napier’s famous saying:

“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours”

What Red Deathy and other multiculturalists are espousing is modern day inverse of this - that suttee is perfectly acceptable as its their culture.

Morgoth: If it is so easy to talk of Britishness, then it should be easy to draw up a 10-point checklist of what being British entails. Please do so.

The culture of the United Kingdom—British culture—refers to the patterns of human activity and symbolism associated with the British people and the United Kingdom. - things done by people who happened to be in the UK? So, that includes Islam then, as there are British people in the UK who as Muslim, Islam and Islamism are part of British Culture. Going quack and shaking an umbrella is British Culture, or Human culture, or European culture, or just something comeone once did. That “culture” is elastic, changeable and changing means that in essence it has no essence, end the British state and you end British culture and the selective invented tradition that surrounds it.

I’m not a multiculturalist.

Off the top of my head, I can think of quite a few ranging from speaking English, respecting British Law (and the inspirations behind it such as the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights), supporting British customs and practises, such as equality of the sexes (which rules Islam out) all the way through to interfacing with the outside world through our history as a great trading nation, scepticism and hostility to authority and the overpowering state (for example, our attitude to Roderick Spode), freedom of speech, pragmatism, pride in our history in civlising the world, ending the slave trade and giving rise to great daughter civilisations (the US), our music, our literature, our language.

And that’s just from 30 seconds thinking about it.

I googled “Culture of the United Kingdom” and got Andy Burnham….

I don’t think you can call hanging people “British culture” Morgy, we didn’t invent it and we haven’t had one for 44 years.

I’d go more for Pooh sticks myself.

Graham: You can worry about reasoning with racists, while I worry about helping their victims, OK? Sorry if that is too middle class for you.

“they will only get votes if we allow discrimination against whites and let muslims who beat up clergymen go free while whites who SAY racist things go away for 6 months………”

Just how much of t