News that the BNP are standing a candidate in Sittingbourne & Sheppey at the next General Election made the front page of Your Swale this week.¹
It follows the BNP’s performance in the European and County Council Elections in Swale earlier this year when they secured 7% of the vote in the borough – in the process helping the Tories to gain the Sheerness Division on the Isle of Sheppey for the first time in living memory with a shovel load of votes (21%) shifting away from Labour.
The BNP have been making the headlines recently following Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time – a decision the BBC sanctioned following the election of two BNP MEPs in June including Griffin himself.
The BNP have changed the way they present themselves and their policies since the 1980s when the National Front stood candidates in the old Faversham parliamentary seat. But much has changed in politics and the world in general has moved on since then.
There are three key realities of our times.
The first is that while the BNP as a Party are ‘racist’² the vast majority of people who feel sympathetic towards or even vote for them are not. Many people feel that mainstream political parties haven’t listened to their concerns about shortages in public services especially in the areas of housing and health and that (rightly or wrongly) immigration is “out of control” and that this is linked to the inequalities they experience in their lives.
Secondly, while the BNP party is racist the image they project is not. Indeed, they claim to reflect the views of the majority indigenous white population who, according to their constitution, heralds from the last Ice Age.
The third reality is that, left unchecked through a lack of old fashioned campaigning and community politics and engagement on the doorstep, they will successfully exploit the legitimate concerns of local residents and grow in popularity as a ‘protest vote’, particularly for those between the ages of 25 and 55.
But not everything is a question of race. That’s what the BNP don’t get. The BNP come unstuck when their ideas are challenged. And they have some pretty wacky ones.
Here’s the trick.
The BNP has changed its appearance and become respectable on the back of legitimate resentments.
But in changing its image, the BNP has become a ’split personality’. They continue to foster some of the strangest and most bizarre policies and they harbour extremist individuals in their number – both of which are very unBritish traits.
Shine the light of public scrutiny on them and they come unstuck.
The challenge first however, is to acknowledge why they attracted the ‘protest’ voters in the first place.
I would encourage any resident in Roman Ward who is tempted to vote for the BNP to contact me.
¹http://www.kentnews.co.uk/kentnews_signup.aspx?version=2066
² They were forced into reconsidering their policy of excluding non-white people as members recently by a legal injunction lodged by the Commission for Equality & Human Rights.
