Tuesday, April 25, 2006
BNP myths help Nazis. posted by Richard Seymour
About time someone dealt with Margaret Hodge's drivel:When employment minister Margaret Hodge said eight out of ten white voters might vote BNP in Barking, it was linked by many in the media to a new report called The BNP: The Roots of its Appeal
This report is produced by Democratic Audit, an academic research unit based at the University of Essex, and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
In fact the report is far more sober and nuanced in its assessment of the BNP threat than the media spin would suggest.
It mentions polls in London in 2004 that found 23 percent of respondents said they “might vote” for the BNP, as opposed to those who “could never vote” for them.
But it also cites poll data that 64 percent of people across Britain expressed a strong dislike for the BNP.
This “seems to confirm the existence of a large majority of voters for whom extremist parties advocating racist ideas are an anathema”, the report’s authors write.
The report cites these figures to argue against complacency over the potential for the BNP to grow in Britain.
Many mainstream commentators assume that there is something special about the “British character” that ensures fascism will always remain politically marginal.
But this is not the case. In a climate of racism and disillusion with all the mainstream political parties, it is quite possible for the BNP to grow significantly – as the “penumbra” of people who say they “might vote” for the party demonstrates.
However, the general potential for fascism to rise in times of crisis should not be confused with an actual rise in fascist support.
The real story recently is not the remorseless rise of the BNP, but its sharp decline in much of east London and, in general, its inability to hold on to seats where it has fooled people into voting for it once.
Labour knows that many of its supporters are angry about the government’s policies, but might be coaxed into campaigning for Labour if the fascists pose a threat.
Talking up the BNP is dangerous – but viewed as useful for Labour. This does not mean the report which was trailed in the media last week is itself warped or useless.
The authors explain how important it is for the BNP to be able to repackage racism in terms of defences of “free speech” or attacks on Islam. “It is this stance that allows them to campaign viciously on race and especially against Muslims while retaining an outward air of respectability,” they write.
Perhaps the most interesting section of the report analyses recent electoral results to determine who exactly is voting for the fascists.
The authors note that the empirical evidence is at odds with much of the “conventional wisdom” about those attracted to the BNP.
It cites evidence that “it is the lower middle classes rather than the poorest social classes which are drawn to the far right” and that in council wards where the BNP stood candidates, “where the income of the ward increases, so the BNP vote increases”.
The report also notes that while the BNP tends to focus on traditional Labour strongholds, it “gains its electoral support from all three of the largest parties, and not just Labour.
“In fact the BNP gains most from the Conservatives and least from Labour.”
Naturally, the BNP hysteria surrounding New Labour's claims, the 'Rowntree Report' and the New East End, has led to a spate of stories and polls asking people if they like the BNP, think they're decent guys, support their avowed policies etc. Sky News did a job for the BNP by claiming that poll results showed support for the far right. In fact, what they did show was support for a number of racist policies (to do with curbing immigration) but that this support was diminished by association with the BNP. No one wants to be seen as a Nazi scumbag, no matter how racist they are. One would surmise from all of this that the UAF campaign in the short term needs to amplify the fascist, criminal background of the BNP while over the longer term tackling head-on the root causes of racism itself. One way to go about this is to look at the class background of what are supposedly issues of 'race'...
By the way, you can download a PDF of the Rowntree report here.