Debating the BNP

According to the mainstream parties of British Politics the main reason for not discussing anything with the BNP publicly (ie. on weekly platitude fest Question Time or the Daily Politics) is that it gives them a higher profile and legitimises them in the eyes of the wider public. The recent decision to review long-standing Labour Policy of no debate with the BNP is being discussed by Labour Party big-wigs in light of Nick Griffin's invitation as a panellist on QT and the BNP's success at the last European Elections.
It seems that since the last time they looked the BNP now has access to many more funds and an elevated media profile. They are now wondering whether or not they should acknowledge this and go face to face with regular James Blunt and bullshitter Nick Griffin MEP and his circus troupe of performing baboons (no offence to baboons).


I'm not going to do one of these posts about how awful it is that the Blackcoats are Haw Hawing in their cornflakes (witty) at the recent news of their election in a vote which meant nothing to anyone in a parliament which means nothing to anyone. I don't like the BNP, neither do you (most likely), let's move on.


It simply astounds me that so many in the mainstream of British Politics refuse to debate with them. While some in the ranks of the moderate even go so far as to say we should ban them. A combination of ignoring the problem until it goes away and banning/not taking into account those who don't agree with you smacks of the 5 year year old with his hands on his ears shouting LA LA LA at the top of his lungs until the problem decides to sort itself out.

Ask a Frenchman/woman to tell you the effects of ignoring a fringe party and he/she will cite the 2002 Presidential election in which National Front came second in the first round. Ask any Italian or German to tell you the effects of banning a fringe party and she/he will cite the terrorism engendered as a result. Suffice to say history should have corrected the silly illusion that we should ignore/ban the party.

Then why do the mainstream do this? What makes them spout inanities which amount to saying if you wish to debate with me you have to agree with me on this, this and this? Yes the BNP are wrong about race, yes they are wrong about Europe and so on and so bloody forth, but in my eyes the Conservatives are wrong on pretty much everything, why don't we ban the Conservative Party? Should you not be confident/secure enough in the strength of liberal democracy and pluralism that you can defend it against such idiocy?

You can only uphold liberal and pluralist democracy if you let it harbour its antagonists, or at least let them speak. Same goes for radical Imams and Revolutionary Marxists. Something Voltaire said about mildly inconveniencing himself for your right to speak and something else about God granting his wish that his enemies be made to look ridiculous spring to mind. These ideas go hand in hand. If you let them speak, it amounts to them giving you the stick to beat them with. That's the beauty of the system these shy democrats/pluralists represent, they just seem to have forgotten that.

Upon the news that the BNP were elected to the European Parliament the Conservative Party announced that it was glad that we don't have a system of Proportional Representation in Westminster. So they justify an unjust and outdated voting system by saying that it stops the BNP being elected to Parliament. It's not as if we would end up with the instability and centrifugal forces of the Weimar Republic, many of the French Republics or Post-War Italy should we finally be given an opportunity to cast a FAIR and CONSEQUENTIAL vote. I'd rather not be talked to like a moron when in fact it's obvious the Tories simply don't want to change a system which advantages them.

But it's not only the Tories being pathetic about this. Labour have gone from bad to worse. Not only have they dropped plans for PR but they recently proposed (to the delight of the BNP) new legislation to prioritise locals in the council flat selection process based on a MYTH propagated by the BNP itself. Also their near silence on Europe has been infuriating and has played right into UKIP's and the BNP's hands.

Another problem in not addressing the problem of the BNP is that it makes it impossible to acknowledge the isolation felt by many disaffected voters in the outskirts of London and the North of England from the political system. Thus their needs are not taken into account and their misconceptions not addressed. Which is certainly not healthy, nor is it fair.


The problem is that if the mainstream continues in its policy of simply ignoring the BNP and using it as a smokescreen for their own incompetence and lack of imaginative and forward looking policy, the BNP can only flourish as the party of change, albeit regressive unchallenged change.

France 1968/ Iran 2009?

I was re-watching The Dreamers the other night. It is a film, as many of you are probably aware, set during the May 68 riots in France. What started off as localized student protests, spread through the whole country and threatened to topple the Gaullist hegemony. This of course electorally proved to be wrong, yet it is safe to say that despite not being toppled Gaullism certainly was shaken. The film shows symbols such as a tidy middle class girl’s bedroom, a kitchen table, a Delacroix painting, even a toothbrush being appropriated by the idylls of a Revolutionary youth, or at least disentangled from the General’s vision des choses.

Three things sprung to mind upon watching this film when considering the establishment which was being challenged. Firstly France at that period possessed nuclear capabilities. Secondly it was governed by a very conservative figurehead who acquired power in what can only really be called a coup. Thirdly the ideology which underpinned this movement was nationalist, souverainist and sought to redefine France along traditional lines with an emphasis on technological and economic betterment.

When we consider the protest movement it was defined as originating mainly from intellectual and student circles (emanating from the baby boom generation) escalating as time went on to the working classes. Then by its relatively short lifespan and then finally by its lack of structure and coherent leadership. That is to say that despite the various Maoist student organizations and la gauche spontex (as it was rather aptly called) and the trade unions, the fragmentation of ideology and leadership was evident for all to see. It was also defined by its lack of instant results (there was no revolution).

There are incredible similarities which can be drawn with what we saw recently develop in Iran. Obviously I do not have the pretence to assume that I understand the ins and outs of Iranian politics, but I feel I have a fair grasp and the comparison may be flawed in certain aspects (with regards to Iran’s nuclear program, its leadership and of course the rigging), but I feel that it certainly does bear some weight. Many of the descriptions of France's establishment and the protests in 1968 have a striking resemblance to modern day Iran.

Both situations arose from public disapproval at an injustice/abuse of power and they also both represent a generational change in civil society’s approach to the individual and the role of the government's relation to said individual. They both escalated and were brutally repressed. The dust seems to have settled and it seems pretty clear that Ahmadinejad will remain in power, much in the same way that De Gaulle did.

It will be interesting to see the reverberations of this popular upheaval in the years to come. Despite the fact that De Gaulle remained in power for the following 2 years and that his dauphin became President after him, the foundations of the society which he sought to build and transform had been shaken and inescapably altered. Thus can we say that l’esprit de 68 which changed the way many people in France approached their leaders, and in fact themselves, will be present in Iran as l’esprit de 09 (if you will)?

Iran's leaders may have won the physical battle but it certainly lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iranian people (well most of them). It’s not so much about Mousavi not becoming President (he was not that much of a poster child for liberalism anyway), figureheads rarely capture the movement they represent, they merely ride it, it’s about what the protests represent and their reflection upon civil society. The vast underbelly of popular discontent which swelled in the streets of Tehran and other cities across the country will have to be dealt with. Considering the overwhelming youth of the movement and the loss of legitimacy of the Government and the Ayatollah, tear gas and snipers on rooftops will not quell such a societal demographic shift in attitudes and convictions. The appropriation of symbols such as the Azadi Square and the idea of Martyrdom with the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan further shows the potency of this movement.

Progressive change does not come quickly nor easily. That platitude is evident enough. But Governments faced with strong civil societies can only survive upon legitimacy whether by force of their argument or the force of their weapons. It remains to be seen whether the latter was enough, and I remain hopeful that, as in France, it was not.

Personality Politics

Barack Obama on a recent television interview was said to be choked up and evidently angry (wagging finger and solemn air noted) at a decision, or at least a possibility, that the insurer AIG was going to give out big juicy bonuses to its gluttonous fat cats who lost all our money and are seeking to steal our tax money (*duly shakes fist at evil system in which he took part*). Anyway more to the point I couldn’t help notice that it was said as part of a joke (he coughed you see) and how it made the audience laugh, and us chuckle and feel warm inside. This level of showmanship, or oratory as it is more neutrally called, is reminiscent of many such greats as Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. We can acknowledge the importance of personality in Politics. Some of us go as far to say inanities like Winston Churchill won us the Second World War, or Barack Obama has cured America of its institutional racism or absolved the US of all its sins (me included, I remember crowing that Gordon Brown was the savior of social-democracy). It can lead to gross errors of judgment or pseudo personality cults whose effects we fall more often then not victim to.

Firstly it seems to me that the fore-front of personality in politics has become more pronounced due to mass media development and the deepening of individualism. The entrenching of Presidentiable in French politics, the smooth managerialism of British and German politics, attest strongly to this. As does the comic but occasionally affable style of George Bush II or the soaring preachy rhetoric of Obama. Personality politics has always been around, these are just modern depictions, but the call of the hand of history, has never seemed so wide in possible repercussions.

A small example of this would be Boris Johnson. Pure persona, you think of Boris (note first name terms, like Tony or Cherie or even Dave) you think mumbling tit, rides a bicycle. At least in the past we had nicknames like the Mac, the Iron Lady or something of the sort, but they were just as bad really. Ultimately they give you a show which is within the narrative of the latest political soap opera, or personality interplay. This is of course a touch overly dramatic and selective, but the trend is undeniable. As we can see that showmans such as Mitterand, Schroeder or Clinton, were simply maintainers of the status quo, delivering little more but the same as the parties on their right. While thundering showmen such as Thatcher, Reagan, De Gaulle, and so on, use their tremendous personalities to project their mostly unsound policy agenda. A perfect example of this was one of the campaign posters of Segolene Royal during the last election which was entitled La France Presidente. Her incompetence was not made apparent until the PS decided to shun it's reasonable candidate DSK for an emotive egomaniac who ended up losing to someone of the same emotional exuberance.



This can be noted as one of the long stream of personality aggrandizement which can only further legitimize personal rule, or certainly centralize power further behind a series of masks. While it’s increased legitimacy will further chip away at the authority of the elected legislative figure, or the less media savvy of the political bunch, until all we're left with is only one democratic organ to take on the executive and a media who more often then not share the same agenda as the man or woman in charge. Robin Cook for example was a perfect candidate for Labour leadership, but most wouldn’t even consider him because he didn’t fit the persona (while it would seem his credentials and his beliefs would have more say in this). Some could argue the same for Gore, DSK, Kinnock, but the fundamental point is that it helps to have a larger than life personality or an ego the size of the tundra. Ultimately can we say that Gore, Kerry, Smith, Bayrou, Kinnock would have been better? I could place a fair wager that they would have been (this is of course only pure speculation).


Not to say that Pol Pot, Stalin or Hitler await us. Yet we can’t overlook the fact that the smooth salesmanship of political power is there solely to convince us when in fact it should be there to serve us. It is the modern equivalent of blue blood or brute force, which coerce us into accepting authority. That we can justify things which are clearly so reckless by saying that history will judge us shows to us that the current constellation of political power within our democratic systems is flawed and that we should be wary of its concentration. And it seems unlikely that Cameron, Obama, Sarkozy or even Zapatero want to change that.