Not sure what to make of this far right poll

A front page story in the Observer today was that "48% of the population would support an anti-immigration English nationalist party if it was not associated with violence and fascist imagery", according to a Populus poll for Searchlight.

I have huge admiration and respect for Searchlight and Hope Not Hate, but I guess there is a real question as to what a far-right nationalist party not associated with violence and fascist imagery. If this means a mainstream party that is anti-immigration, large sections of the Conservative party (and some of the Labour party) meet that criterion already. (Remember Phil Woolas?) If it means a new party that focuses on immigration pretty much exclusively, how is this different from the BNP? Officially the BNP doesn't advocate violence and it doesn't use specifically fascist imagery (it uses the Union Jack a lot but then so do the Tories.)

A far-right party couldn't avoid being associated with violence because it will be challenged by the left at every turn - as the BNP is. And it would be labelled fascist, just as the BNP is.

So I'm not sure what this possible new non-violent far-right party would look like. A greater danger is that the Tory party drifts into an explicit right-wing authoritarianism rather than the strange liberal/authoritarian hybrid which the current Conservative-led administration seems to be going for.

Now 8 million people know that Griffin is a lame-ass punk

Well I watched the episode of Question Time on the iPlayer last night (we were just too knackered to watch it Thursday night) and all I can say is: well done Bonnie Greer. The politicians on the panel (I mean, the non-fascist politicians) were all OK, although they all made the mistake of trying to compete with the BNP by sounding tough on immigration. Whereas in fact, while lack of funds for local authorities to provide services for immigrants in certain local areas is a huge concern, the fact is that without the huge influx of cheap highly skilled labour from the EU accession countries from 2003 onwards, the UK economy would have gone down the toilet a whole lot quicker than it actually did.

But Bonnie Greer showed Nick Griffin up to be the incoherent, preposterous blubbermouth that he really is. Griffin: "we want only the indigenous population that were here 17,000 years ago to be allowed to stay". Bonnie: "what about the Romans, Nick? They had people of every colour in their society and their armies... and when the empire collapsed those people were mostly left here".

Griffin couldn't answer any of the substantive arguments. Worse, he tried to laugh off serious criticism. Worse still, when questioned by a "non-indigenous" member of the audience who asked "I love this country, Nick - where am I supposed to go instead?" he said "you'll be allowed to stay". So he didn't even have the guts to tell someone, face to face, that he wanted them out of the country.

Worst of all, Griffin wasn't even able to give a straight answer to whether he was, or had ever been, a holocaust denier. He claimed that European law wouldn't let him. Bullshit!

I'm really pleased Griffin went on Question Time, and I think David Dimbleby (who I normally think is a pompous right-winger) did quite a good job putting him on the spot. 8 million people saw the show, apparently, and I would be extremely surprised if there was any uptick in support for the BNP as a result of this cringeworthy performance. Griffin has been revealed to be the lamest of opportunistic hack politicians and with any luck, this will be seen in retrospect as the point where the party's decline into irrelevance started.

UPDATE: A poll in the Telegraph conducted immediately after the programme shows that 22 percent of voters 'would consider' voting for the BNP. Meanwhile, support has increased from 2% to 3% over the last month. But that's not even a statistically significant increase. Whilst there's no way we should be complacent about the BNP polling even 1%, these kind of numbers suggest that the Question Time appearance is not going to make the BNP an electoral threat anytime soon.

A little light weekend reading

In advance of the BNP's appearance on Question Time tomorrow, the excellent Wikileaks site has published the party's membership list as of April 2009. Have a look and check if any of your friends, family or work colleagues has a guilty secret.

We need to give the BNP enough rope to hang themselves

An interesting debate has been raging about whether the British National Party should be on Question Time this week. Several prominent politicians, including Peter Hain and Alan Johnson, have said they shouldn't.

Clearly the BNP is the biggest bunch of fascist assholes operating in the UK. Nick Griffin is a fatboy version of Adolf Hitler. It would be funny if millions of people weren't voting for this shit.

But because millions of people are voting for this shit, the BBC is quite right that it has to invite the BNP on to Question Time - it is, after all, meant to be impartial.

I think that if the BNP was kept off the programme they would be able to present themselves as the victims of a witch-hunt, which in the long run would work to their advantage.

Instead, if Griffin goes on the programme and talks what will undoubtedly be a load of fascist claptrap, he will be exposed as one of the most dangerous people in Britain, with stupid and incoherent arguments, and it is unlikely that BNP support will go anywhere but down the plughole. This process will be made easier if the other participants in the programme - Chris Huhne, Bonnie Greer, Jack Straw and Baroness Warsi - are even halfway competent. And I think they will be at least that.

One problem for the major parties, of course, is that their own rhetoric - particularly on issues like immigration and national security when they try to 'talk tough' - often sounds like the BNP, and one can't blame voters for being confused. But that's the major parties' fault. Griffin could quite reasonably claim that Gordon Brown's phrase "British jobs for British workers" sounds like something out of the BNP manifesto. Because, let's face it, it does. So Jack Straw might have a bit of explaining to do there. But if this process helps other parties become less like the BNP that's surely a good thing.

Why on earth would the Queen be embarrassed by the BNP? It's in the family

Interesting news that BNP leader Nick Griffin has decided to pull out of attending a Buckingham Palace garden party in July "for fear of embarrassing the Queen". 

Whilst my main advice to Mr Griffin on his future schedule is that he should flush himself down the nearest public convenience en route to where he belongs - in the sewer - I'm surprised that journalists and commentators should feel the Queen would be embarrassed by Mr Griffin. Fascism runs in the British royal family. The Queen's uncle, Edward VIII (latterly the Duke of Windsor) was a well known Nazi sympathiser, and the Queen Mother was apparently a staunch supporter of the 1980s Botha regime in South Africa. With people like these as ancestors, the Queen would have probably been able to have a perfectly reasonable conversation with Griffin. But instead she will have to make do with the BNP's Greater London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook instead. Oh well. If only the Queen Mother was still alive to say "I like that Richard Barnbrook, he's the kind of fellow this country needs..."

For a Church that supposedly lacks moral leadership, these guys are doing a damned good job

Absolutely excellent intervention by Church of England Archbishops Rowan Williams and John Sentamu on the BNP today. Basically saying "please do not vote for these people under any circumstances". 

The C of E is often accused of lacking "moral leadership" but on this issue the archbishops have grasped the nettle and rightly so. 

The BNP's Nick Griffin says it is time the church "grew up" and started talking to them about issues. 

Well, one issue is that a message of hate for anyone non-British (which is the BNP's basic stance - that's what the 'voluntary repatriation policy' boils down to) seems to my, admittedly not well-informed religious compass, fundamentally at odds with any reasonable interpretation of the Christian message. 

I went to a (C of E) Christening service for a family relative's baby in Halifax a few years back. The priest's sermon was in many ways woeful - he went on a diatribe against gay priests while saying that although he himself had split up with his wife, that was OK because "it's above board and everybody knows about it". It was like something out of a David Peace novel. So the guy was objectionable and woefully inconsistent, but even so, he still spent ten minutes explaining why it was important to mobilise against the BNP in Halifax and encouraging people to attend public marches and demonstrations. 

The Church of England has many faults (although not as many, I would argue, as the Roman Catholic or Orthodox churches, both of which are far more reactionary in most ways)  but putting up with fascism isn't one of them. And Amen to that.

Also big props to Polly Toynbee of the British Humanist Association, who issued a statement supporting the archbishops. If we can get (sane) non-religious people and (sane) religious people pulling in the same direction on these issues, that's got to be the way forward.