Tories choose not to discuss BNP

There are a number of stories in today's newspapers about the BNP.  The Mail on Sunday reports that MP for Dagenham Jon Cruddas - and Deputy Leadership candidate - believes that the language of the war on terror, Jack Straw's veils debate and tough talk over immigration has legitimised the beliefs of the BNP.  Speaking to Searchlight, Mr Cruddas said:

"We have to be honest in saying that the debate over the veil, talking tough on immigration and race or the language used in the 'war on terror' does not reassure people but actually makes the situation worse... "It creates fear, tension and suspicion. It divides communities and plays into the hands of extremism."

Mr Cruddas continues (quoted in The Sunday Telegraph) that the BNP is flourishing because the mainstream parties are neglecting issues of concern to Labour heartland communities:

"The BNP thrive in areas where people feel forgotten by the mainstream parties. There are signs that the fascist party is becoming a home for many disgruntled former Labour voters. There have been countless achievements during this government, but we also have to admit that not everyone has shared in our increasing prosperity.  Some communities have been badly affected by a decline in traditional industries, a shortage of affordable housing and changing migration patterns."

The BNP is back in the news after BNP leader Nick Griffin walked free after jurors - for a second time - had cleared him of race-hate charges (FT).   Tim Worstall has blogged against the Chancellor's reaction to the verdict and the suggestion that legislation might be needed to silence the BNP and the offence its beliefs cause to mainstream opinion.

I have found no Tory reaction to the BNP's latest publicity coup.  Perhaps the party calculates that the best thing is to ignore the BNP and produce policies - like those on immigration - that will address the concerns of those that vote for them.

Comments

[Tory Loyalist]

My personal view is that every time the BNP seem to make an effort to become "respectable" some skinhead thug shows that they haven't really changed at all.

Mind you, pretending you've changed when you haven't is something we Tories are very familiar since "Dave" seized control of our party, so if the BNP want any tips maybe they should talk to him.

But seriously, isn't it so very true that the political left are happy to talk to IRA murderers and torturers and yet adopt a very high moral tone when some common-or-garden "racist" is in their sights.

Of course there are some racists who are at least as bad as the IRA, but people like Griffin aren't in that category. You would have to be talking about someone like that lunatic who blew up the gay bar in Soho after previously planting bombs in ethnic areas.

However, if there were thousands more like him I don't doubt that Blair would be talking to them and that Cameron would either be backing him or saying nothing.

Well we know exactly where these leftists stand. Indeed they have always sympathised with the racist, anti-semitic IRA. They see these scum as the downtrodden victims of British imperialism.

What has always infuriated me is that they have long enjoyed the support of the so-called "Tory" Left, which is really just Left, period.

Unsurprisingly, the only posts on this thread which could be described as "xenophobic and racist" come from this PC left element.

[Londoner]

Responding to TomTom's harrowing account of the travails of litigation, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with a law just because there has been a high profile prosecution that failed. That can happen on virtually any law. Indeed, suggesting that the failure shows there is something wrong with the law is falling into the same trap (with opposite conclusions) as Falconer etc.

However, my praise for Martin Wright's contributions was partly because his account of the history of this prosecution was very telling in terms political interference in the process. If there is a fault, it's perfectly possible for that political interference to have been it, rather than a law which, it turned out, Griffin had not broken.

Returning to TomTom, yes I have been involved in irksome civil litigation (not criminal thankfully). But I have to admit that his reminder of all the pain that Griffin may have gone through does not distress me in the least, as it's very good to know that he paid some sort of price for all the excellent publicity that he got as a result of the prosecuting authorities' folly. That does not justify the folly, of course, but it does not weigh very heavily with me. Just as I don't feel too compassionate towards the one or two Nazis who got acquitted at Nuremburg. That must have been a most distressing process for them too, I'm sure.

I share the disquiet about a Ward Chairman meeting with the BNP. The fact that this sort of thing can go on in odd corners of the party, made it all the more important that our leadership did not play into the Government's hands by commenting on the process in a way that undoubtedly would have been construed as "support for Griffin", whatever some on here may say. Ironically if there had been a civil liberties issue about something said by, say, George Galloway, it would have been much easier to have taken a different view. As this thread demonstrates, there is sometimes a concerning lack of distance between the fringes of our Party and the BNP.

Finally, for the "more serious" concerns from SimonNewman about our poor American cousins who apparently might want to come here spouting racist opinions and find themselves arrested for it, I had to laugh. The only people right now re-assessing their tourist plans are senior executives of British companies who do business with America, lest they be banged up in a US jail with no evidence having been offered under that country's extradition laws. But, judging by his spelling of "criminalize" and "favor" SimonNewman appears to be an American. Best not mention G. Bay either then.

[SimonNewman]

Nick - the BNP don't allow non-white members, so they are certainly racist in the broad sense of being a racially-oriented party. I guess the BNP would argue they were no more racist than groups that did not allow white members, like the black police officers' association. But I don't see how anyone can seriously claim they're not racist as the term is commonly used.

Michael McGowan:
"making unlimited concessions to extremely violent racists in Northern Ireland"

OTOH, I don't think Sinn Fein-IRA can really be called racist. Partly motivated by religious hatred, but their dominant Marxist-nationalist ideology, while fascistic and totalitarian, doesn't have anything much to do with race. They take English and Ulster-Protestant members.

[SimonNewman]

Londoner:
"Finally, for the "more serious" concerns from SimonNewman "

If you'd read my post more carefully you'd have seen I was givine a quote from a US commentator, Steve Sailer, from http://isteve.com/ - hence the spelling!

"about our poor American cousins who apparently might want to come here spouting racist opinions and find themselves arrested for it, I had to laugh."

It's not racist to call a religion wicked & vicious (whatever our government says). And I expect the likes of Ann Coulter have done much worse. So there is a real issue there - plenty of Americans who have eg posted on anti-Islamist blogs like Little Green Footballs could be arrested on the same terms as Griffin.

[Londoner]

The BNP/Sinn Fein comparison is hogwash. Not only is there a difference between talking to people as a Government rather than as a political party (as has been pointed out) but on the question of prisoners a great many Conservatives, including I think the front bench at the time, expressed great opposition to indiscriminate prisoner release.

I do wish these BNP and other political opponents of the present-day Tory Party would go away to their own website instead of polluting this one. Fortunately their tactics in trying to hijack this site are usually as transparent as they are ineffective.

I still remain of the view that a self-reported icon identifying which of us are Conservative Party members, and which not, although also subject to abuse, would be worth considering.

[Michael McGowan]

Simon, I agree with you that any organisation that prevents people joining because of their skin colour must be racist. That is true of the BNP and of the black police officers' association.

While Sinn Fein may not be a racist or xenophobic organisation in that technical sense, its whole ideology is built around (a) hatred of the English; and (b) hatred of Ireland's Protestant tribe. In particular, Sinn Fein in its current form came into being because its members refused to accept the moderate nationalist position that Irish Protestants were entitled to parity of esteem.

[Londoner]

SimonNewman - "it's a fair cop gov", I did not see where your quotation marks ended. My point about the irony of an American being concerned about being arrested in the UK, in view of the extradition law row, nonetheless stands.

The point is that the law agrees with you that what Griffin said is not criminal - because he was acquitted. But I suppose this American is worried about what the Govt might bring in next. But he should look at the mote in his own eye first, as the American extradition law is already in force and people are being deprived of their liberty.

Whatever our own rights should be, actually I would think it rather bad manners for Americans to come over here - say to Brick Lane or Bradford - attacking the Islamic religion, just as it would be for me to go to the US Bible belt and start attacking Jesus Christ. Whatever their law may say, I wouldn't fancy my chances of coming away unscathed if I did that either.

[Sean Fear]

The comparison between the BNP and Sinn Fein isn't hogwash. Very many members of the Labour Party (some of them quite prominent today) were happy to act as their apologists on the British Mainland, at a time when the IRA was killing their fellow citizens.

While I personally have no sympathy for Griffin (who was doubtless delighted by this case) it should be seen as part of a pattern of harassment of people whom those in authority deem beyond the pale; e.g George Staunton (charged with racially aggravated criminal damage for putting a UKIP poster on a derelict building), or Robin Page, or the Salford girl who was arrested because she asked not to be put in the same class as pupils who couldn't speak English, or the Fylde Christians who were grilled by the police because they objected to gay leaflets at their local council.

In the same way, the employers of people who are accused of racism - whether BNP supporters - or mainstream Conservatives like Inigo Jones - get put under pressure to sack them.

It doesn't actually take successful prosecutions to make many people think two or three times before saying and publishing things that our "liberal" left establishment take exception to.

[ToMTom]

Indeed, suggesting that the failure shows there is something wrong with the law is falling into the same trap (with opposite conclusions) as Falconer etc.

Nice bit of mis-representation Londoner, must keep an eye on your devious ways !

Returning to TomTom, yes I have been involved in irksome civil litigation (not criminal thankfully). But I have to admit that his reminder of all the pain that Griffin may have gone through does not distress me in the least, as it's very good to know that he paid some sort of price

I was describing civil litigation Londoner and the fact that it seems a very dangerous system to bankrupt people with vexatious criminal action when the case fails the CPS test (I suggest you read the CPS Website and then inquire why they violated their own test of viability)

It can only have been for political reasons to exhaust a defendant financially. This is exactly how The King used to behave in this country until brought to heel in the 18th Century, and why men like John Wilkes were persecuted for daring to publish newspaper accounts of proceedings in Parliament which until the late 20th Century were considered important records of public importance.

I see Londoner you are one of those who believe The Law is a weapon to be using by the ruling elite to suppress opposition..............well every society has to have that type of fanatic

[Michael McGowan]

Just when I thought you might be learning to grow up, Londoner, you lapse into hackneyed abuse of those who dissent from your predictably leftleaning views. Ever thought of joining the Labour Party? Oh sorry,the "present day Tory Party" agrees with them on most things so there's no need.....

[SimonNewman]

Londoner:
"The point is that the law agrees with you that what Griffin said is not criminal - because he was acquitted. But I suppose this American is worried about what the Govt might bring in next. But he should look at the mote in his own eye first, as the American extradition law is already in force and people are being deprived of their liberty."

I expect Mr Sailer would agree with you that the extradition law (and Gitmo) are shameful. Plenty of US conservatives hate what the neocons have done to America.

[ToMTom]

I have to admit that his reminder of all the pain that Griffin may have gone through does not distress me in the least,

That is a very telling statement..........

[Michael McGowan]

Sean Fear's last paragraph at 17.35 sums it up perfectly: the left is adept at using the instruments of "soft censorship". Any lawsuit in which an individual is up against the state is a very frightening and often ruinous experience. Besides, any lawyer will tell you that however well-grounded you think your case is, that is no guarantee that a court will agree with you: they dispense law, not justice. Londoner doesn't seem to be bothered by this encroachment on people's freedom but in the next breath inconsistently criticises the UK-US extradition treaty. That treaty is all about allowing vigilante prosecutors to mount flimsy cases in order to harass and ruin defendants unless they do the bidding of the US authorities.

[Jamie Oliver's Sausage]

Can't Londoner and his idol Cameron bring themselves to "hug a BNP"?

If not why not? Why is it possible for left-leaning do-gooders to feel sympathy for muggers and football thugs but not for "racists"?

This is not just a bit of sarcasm. I'd like to know the answer.

[Londoner]

TomTom at 17.41 - yes, it tells you I thoroughly dislike the BNP. But I have also condemned the prosecution on the basis of the account adduced by Martin Wright of the political interference involved.

Perhaps deliberately in your previous post you also cut off the end of your quote of me "it's very good to know that he paid some sort of price" as it went on "for all the excellent publicity that he got as a result of the prosecuting authorities' folly". Not, as you imply, a price for a statement that turned out not to be criminal.

MichaelMcGowan - I don't know why I get under your skin so much, but I do rather enjoy it, so you mustn't encourage me! You may not have noticed but my post concerning people who are not, ahem, wholeheartedly pulling in our Party's direction, came soon after (a) someone talked about voting BNP in a local election and (b) someone gave a long account of why he had joined the BNP, together with an account of their policies (none relevant to this thread) of varying degrees of revulsion.

Whilst of course there are many perfectly sincere and proper Conservatives who think the Party should have reacted to the Griffin acquittal, you have to admit that there is an element on here who have given up on the Tory Party for various reasons, including that it is not similar enough to the BNP or UKIP, and yet who insist on haunting us - the said BNP member just mentioned being an open example. I think there are others (not you of course) who are in a similar category but less open about it.

[Nick]

Simon,

To say that the BNP are racist simply because they do not admit non-white members is stretching the meaning of 'racist' to breaking point. 'Racist' means someone who hates people of other races; there is no evidence that the BNP hates people of other races, and indeed, they have had a Sikh speaker at their meetings.

Following the logic of your all-embracing definition of racist, the girl guides are sexist because they do not allow boys to join! What nonsense. The girl guides exist to help girls, and the BNP exists to help the indigenous population of Britain (which was white); let's face it, there is no other organisation that is doing this! But the girl guides do not hate boys and the BNP does not hate non-whites.

[Londoner]

JO's Sausage (18.05) had better ask someone who has said "hug a hoodie". I certainly never have. Also Cameron is not an idol of mine and it's rather silly just because I agree with him on the subject of this thread, and, yes, think he has demonstrated a surer political touch than his immediate predecessors, to assume so. If it's still on here, see my contribution to the blog after his conference speech when I disagreed with what he implied about civil partnerships and families.

The point about muggers etc though, presumably, is that one wants to stop them being muggers (whatever the method). Would offering lots of public sympathy to Griffin (hugging him, so to speak) be likely to make him less of a racist? Even less likely, I'd say than "hugging a hoodie". However, would trying to show some concern for the disaffected white youth that are the recruiting grounds for the BNP do any good, and might it get them to see that their problems might be better addressed by improving themselves than by blaming people of other races? Well, it might. I think it used to be called youth clubs.

[Londoner]

To prove my point about non-Conservatives on this blog, there goes "Nick" again at 18.11, a self-confessed BNP supporter.

[Michael McGowan]

Feel free to have a go at me as much as you like, Londoner. You will certainly get a response. I think that very few people on this thread are overt/covert supporters of the BNP. For one very good reason: it is extremely misguided to think that any good is going to come out of supporting a party which is undoubtedly white supremacist, economically leftwing and tainted by political violence.

Having said that, the BNP is enjoying totally undeserved success because the main parties are tacitly colluding, as George Walden has pointed out, in a policy of uncontrolled mass immigration. At the same time, they seek to suppress debate on the undoubted problems that this is generating, especially for poorer people.

[Tory Loyalist]

the main parties are tacitly colluding, as George Walden has pointed out, in a policy of uncontrolled mass immigration
_______________________________________________________

Michael, apart from his rather dismissive words about Enoch, I thoroughly agreed with what George Walden had to say in the Telegraph last week

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/11/10/bowalden10.xml

I particularly enjoyed his characterisation of David Cameron as a "Left-wing patrician whose chief policy criterion is: would Diana have done it?".

But Walden is spot on about immigration and he is right in the sense that the problem has developed in a way that Powell could never have forseen.

I always admired Walden. He was an cerebral politician who rose head and shoulders above the intellectual dwarfs on the Tory benches, and since he left Parliament the Tory no-brain problem has got even worse.

Perhaps "Dave" should draft him onto an immigration "commission"?

Some hope!

[Michael McGowan]

I don't read the "Telegraph" closely so I missed that article but I am halfway through reading Walden's "Time to emigrate?" While in some ways I find him sour, he is clearly a meritocrat who analyses perfectly the way in which the Tories and Labour have colluded, and continue to collude, in wrecking state education.....throwing social mobility into reverse in the process. I have to say I thought he was right about Enoch Powell whose judgment was often very suspect.

[Archbishop of York]

Blessed be he who votes BNP.
Wise be the man whose thoughts are unfettered and free.

[Martin Wright]

Did any one else hear the Attorney General at 7.50 on the Today programme? I found it by turns oily and chilling, if that's possible. Oily in his sweet reasonableness that, of course, they weren't challenging the jury, dear me no.

Chilling because he said that the prosecution showed "there is a gap in the law." Now that makes a big assumption and it is a pity that the interviewer didn't challenge and test the assertion. There's only a gap in the law if you think new offences should be created. If you think the status quo is reasonable then there is no gap. What I find chilling is the sort of proposition being postulated: "Well no, you didn't actually break the law, but you would have done if we had had our way." So we have a new category: the prospective criminal, some one who hasn't actually broken the law, but has transgressed those yet to be enacted, or indeed yet to be thought of.

There was also this gem: "I think what has happened is not that anybody is...in any sense challenging the verdict of the jury," he said. "The question is whether or not particular conduct...is the sort of conduct which we want in this country or not."

Here we have a senior lawyer who is supposed to work by objective considerations indulging in almost sentimentality. It's the comprehensiveness of the phrase "conduct in this country". It gives the impression of wanting total control, not just of public discourse but every nook and cranny of our lives. This ties in with Gordon Brown wanting to "root out" (his phrase on Friday) anything that general opinion finds offensive.

Listen again. I'd be interested in your reactions. There's also some shifty footwork on his role as AG in the cash for peerages issue.

Sorry to have come back to this, but Labour just get more and more preposterous. Also I find it intellectually more interesting than questioning each other's credentials.

[John Irvine]

I have no time for fascists, but I have no time for traitors either.

The Labour and LibDem parties stink of treason. They always have. Treason on immigration; treason on Europe; treason on Ulster.

What I don't like is the whiff of treachery one senses round the Conservative Party these days. It's only a minority, but a few rotten apples can polllute the whole barrel.

It's something we need to put a stop to.

[Fish and Chips]

The altermedia.info website a sort of conservativehome set up for Nationalist parties across Europe has I noted a great quote as its tagline;

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. (George Orwell).

(Whats the money worshipping, selfish, snobby tories quote?
"Let them eat cake" Queen Vic)

So a decent local chairman meets face to face with another political party member and finds that despite media reports the man is not a three headed lizard that goosesteps, and then mentions it on a website and commits a "revolutionary act of telling the truth" and is screamed down by those that prefer to rely on deceitful fairytales. Dear oh dear!

[Jamie Oliver's Sausage]

Some real common sense being talked by Amanda Platell on BBC this morning. She said that while Cameron was trying to be a "nice Tory" (lip curls) there was a wide open goal for Labour.

Platell said we should simply be asking how big the country was and asking whether we could take any more. She made mincemeat of pinko celeb Shami Chakrabarti.

Good for Amanda. This BNP publicity has highlighted the febleness of the Cameron line. The vast majority of Tories want a massive crackdown on immigration so let's speak out about it.

[John Irvine]

I fully agree JOS. This country has come to a sad state when it takes a fascist to teach the leader of the Conservative Party the value of freedom.

[AgainsTTheWall]

There is an inability to recognise that the old politics is dying and a new one is emerging. Those who hurl labels such as Nazi and fascist do not recognise that ethnic identity politics is on the march in Britain. This is inevitable and cannot be halted - it is nature's way. A lid may be kept on it by repressive State measures but eventually the state itself will disintegrate as the people withdraw their allegiance and transfer it to their own community. The gloves will then come off. The Moslems and Black communities are way ahead of white Britions in recognising this. They have a powerful group identity and are increasingly well organised to support themselves. However slowly whitey is waking up to the falsie promise that is the Rainbow Nation and the increasing support for the BNP is one manifestation. As it grows the old parties will merge in a desperate attempt to retain power but they will eventually be squeezed by the BNP, Respect and any other ethnicly based parties which emerge.