The resistable rise of the BNP

From Unite Against Fascism:

'the latest polls make sobering reading. YouGov has the BNP on 7 percent among those who say they are certain to vote. That could win them up to four Euro MP seats – North West England, Yorkshire & the Humber, West Midlands and London – if turnout stays low. A slightly higher turnout, in contrast, would prevent the BNP from winning any seats at all. This underlines how close this election is, and how wrongheaded premature declarations of victory are. If we can get the anti-racist vote out in the next few days we can strike a blow against the Nazis. The alternative scenario is the grim prospect of four fascist MEPs representing Britain in the European parliament. What we do over the next couple of days will make all the difference. If you want to help stop the Nazis, you should join UAF's eve-of-poll campaigning on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. We need to get the message out far and wide: we can stop the BNP if people come out and vote against them on Thursday.'

While Lenin has penned a reasonable piece on the Euro-elections already, I thought I would share with you my own experiences of anti-fascist leafleting in a multicultural, working class area over the gloriously warm weekend - or rather the gist of two conversations I had with two older working class people (both white).

First conversation - a woman.
Me: Hiya, can I just give you a leaflet, its for the Euro-elections and about why you should vote against the BNP...
Her: Are you from the BNP?
Me: No, against them, because they are a fascist party...
Her: [a little disappointed, but taking a leaflet] Oh. I'm going to vote BNP - I've voted Labour all my life but now I'm voting BNP. I worked as a cleaner, but fell over and hurt my arm, and so was off work. I got incapacity benefit for several months but all the time Labour harassed me to get me back into work, and after five month's they have now cut off my benefit.
Me: That sucks, particularly in the light of the expences scandal. But a vote for the BNP is a wasted vote - they don't care about ordinary people, they just say whatever people want them to hear.
Her: That sounds like most politicians then.
Me: Yes, but the BNP are not an ordinary political party - their leadership admire Hitler, deny the Holocaust and they just want to go around stirring up racism.
Her: Are you in a political party?
Me: Well, I'm a socialist, but I'm not a member of New Labour, indeed I have campaigned against them for the last ten years or so.
Her: Aren't Labour socialist? Isn't that the same thing?
Me: Tony Blair, Peter Mandleson - these people are not socialists...
Her: [disapprovingly] But you are on the Left?
Me: Yes.
Her: Well I'll take a leaflet for my daughter. [Conversation ends, her reading the leaflet, but I guess still probably going to vote BNP]

Second conversation, with an old bloke walking his dog.
Me: Hiya, can I just give you a leaflet, its for the Euro-elections and about why you should vote against the BNP...
Him: I think the BNP have a lot of good things going for them...
Me: Well, they also have a lot of bad things going for them as well - their leaders are fascists who admire Hitler for example...
Him: Well I think a lot of people are going to be voting for them...
Me: Yes, I guess you are right there...
Him: The main parties are running scared of them and the more they attack them the more popular the BNP are going to be...
Me: Yes, but the mainstream parties are right to condemn the BNP because they are not an ordinary political party...
Him: Well I still think they are going to do very well...
Me: Yes, but if you care about democracy you would be worried about them doing well...
[Conversation ends with him walking away reading the leaflet]

On the one hand, I guess it is very worrying that of the two white people I got into a serious conversation with that afternoon, both of them put the case for voting BNP to me. On the other hand, neither were offended by being offered an anti-fascist leaflet and neither used racist arguments which is what I was expecting to justify why they were considering voting BNP. What was striking however from the conversations I had was that when you put the fact that the BNP were fascists out there, it was kind of taken on board without challenge, but this in itself did not seem to be of decisive importance - for the Euro-elections at least. The mainstream parties - not least Labour - are so hated, so maligned for their corruption and arrogance, that some people think that voting BNP is fine as a clear 'protest vote' - and one they know all the mainstream parties will hate. Since the Euro elections are not about state power - voting BNP is seem as something almost acceptable, regardless of their fascism. Yet if the BNP do get MEP seats in Thursday's elections, then it will be, in part, a mass 'protest vote' that is not altogether about race and more about complete and utter despair with the current morally and politically bankrupt Labour Government, one not just steeped in sleaze but also hypocrisy, a Government which promised 'no return to boom and bust' and then promptly delivered both. The need for a united socialist party to act as a real voice of the voiceless who have been betrayed in Blair and Brown's Britain will be greater than ever after June 4th.