By this time next week the fascist boot-boys will be marching up Whitehall. The British National Party, its support emboldened by the scandal of MPs’ expenses, will have won seats in the European Parliament, and be on its way into tricking the British public, like the Germans in 1933, into voting for fascists in a general election, too.
You don’t believe it? No, neither do I. I can quite understand why the main parties, deeply unpopular and embroiled in scandal, should want to up the rhetoric against the BNP — with David Cameron last week describing them as “Nazi thugs”. But I am struggling to be frightened by Nick Griffin and his pals. Much as I detest the BNP, it is doomed to reach its zenith next Thursday, whereupon it will implode.
Yes, the BNP is likely to have a good European election. Distrust of politicians is at its peak. The BNP is successfully manipulating the situation by sending its canvassers out on to the streets to emphasise local issues. It has reportedly even won support from some black voters prepared to overlook that they would be banned from joining the BNP owing to the colour of their skin.
But what would a good showing for the BNP really mean? Even on the hooves of the current crisis it is unlikely to win more than one seat, possibly none at all. But let’s assume the worst and it wins three. What happens then? Nick Griffin and two of his colleagues go off to Strasbourg — where they will exercise no power whatsoever.
How much influence do the French National Front’s seven MEPs wield in the European Parliament? Or the five MEPs sent to Strasbourg by the anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim and anti-Gypsy Greater Romania Party? Or the three MEPs of Vlaams Belang, the Flemish Interest Party — motto: “Our own people first”? I bet you have never even heard of the latter two. The BNP’s three members will be lost among the 20 Far-Right MEPs who already sit in the 785-strong Parliament. Like the rest, they will be deliberately isolated — in a Parliament that in any case wields little real power.
What we should be worrying about is the impotence of the European Parliament, not the racist views of a few of its incumbents. Next week, a quarter of a billion Europeans will march into polling booths in the pretence that they are engaging in democracy, when as we know the real decisions are made behind closed doors by bureaucrats at the European Commission, aided by a myriad of lobbyists and the odd input from ministers from national governments.
It is precisely because we know the European Parliament is an impotent, pretend-legislature that so many of us are prepared to use it to register a protest vote. But a fat lot of good it does the recipients of those protest votes. Remember the Greens in 1989 or UKIP in 2005? The Greens, in particular. created a political earthquake by polling 15 per cent of the vote. Yet they quickly descended into in-fighting and sank as quickly as they rose: 20 years on they are still as far as ever from winning a seat at Westminster.
That is what tends to happen to parties who do well in the European elections: their apparent popularity leads to hubris, civil war and swift collapse. Even the Conservatives fell for the curse in 1999 when they polled more votes than Labour. Yet two years later they received as big a thumping in the 2001 general election as they had done in 1997. They had no chance of winning in 2001 anyway, but William Hague’s reaction to the “victory” of 1999 certainly did not help: success led him to turn away from his modernising agenda and produce a Little England manifesto based around the issues that had played well on the doorsteps in the European Elections: asylum seekers, and EU farming and fisheries policies.
The same happened to the far-right parties in the European Parliament. In 2007, after the admission of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU, they got together to form the 23-MEP strong far-right grouping “Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty”. Great warnings were issued about the march of the far Right. But the group lasted only ten months before the Greater Romania Party withdrew and caused its collapse.
A significant advance next week will have a similar debilitating effect on the electoral chances of the BNP. A faint whiff of power will lead the party to fracture between the likes of Nick Griffin, who carefully dresses up his racism in suits and eschews talk of white supremacy in favour of guarded references to the “indigenous population”, and the outright thugs. It will split between those who want to stay inside the law and those who do not.
The point about the BNP is that it can only exist as a protest party. If its policies were ever to be exposed to the same scrutiny as that given to the policies of the main parties it would collapse under its own contradictions. Does anyone really believe, as the BNP’s policies declare, that Britain would “strengthen its defences” by withdrawing from Nato and ejecting US bases from British soil? Or that a fantastical BNP government could “end conflict in Northern Ireland” by inviting the Irish Republic and Ulster to become “equal partners in a federation of the nations of the British Isles”. Something tells me that the BNP hasn’t canvassed opinions very carefully on the Falls Road, let alone the Shankill.
That is the way to defeat the BNP. Don’t bark “Nazi thugs” at it. That is where it wants to be: in a corner, were the anti-Establishment vote can coalesce. Treat it like any other party. Get Nick Griffin into the Newsnight studio to explain all his policies. He won’t last five minutes.
The BNP will continue to gather support unless the mainstream parties address the problems that attract voters to them, namely immigration and multi-culturalism. The other parties continue to say a proper debate about immigration is the way to deal with this, but then never have one.
Sean, Dunstable, England
You may or may not be right, we'll have to see. But consider that just over a century ago an essentially similar argument could have been advanced re the Labour Party, but it rose to displace the Liberals as the main alternative to the Tories and has formed several governments since.
Neil, Cranleigh,
I have yet to see a presenter actually question Nick Griffin on his parties policies. Instead the reporter ususally just highlights one area; race. People seem to refuse to realise the effect of being isolated, how much we depend on International trade, where do they think orange juice comes from?
Ralph Baldwin, London, UK
BNP economic policy would ruin Britain. Which country would trade with Britain if they knew that a BNP government might arbitrarily ban imports of an item. Their plan to nationalise any foreign owned UK companies would mean money would flood out of the UK. Britain would become like North Korea.
Rob Smith, St Albans, Herts
"Get NG into the Newsnight studio to explain all his policies. He won’t last five minutes." He will. And already has, in the face of hostility and childish, loaded questions. What would be most refreshing would be sensible debate on issues that really matter , that only the BNP dare mention.
David Hill, Poole, England
I don't know what the previous posters are referring to - Nick Griffin always comes across awfully whenever I've seen him interviewed. The party contradicts itself a helluva lot - and even I (not particularly knowledgeable on politics) could point out the gaping holes and flaws in their policies.
Jane Woodsen, London,
Yes hes actually been on newsnight before twice and allways comes off well no matter how hard the interviewer tries. even better get the BNP on question time for once so that Nick can run rings around his opponents exposing how stupid and out of touch all the other politicians are!!
markus, london, uk
"Get Nick Griffin into the Newsnight studio to explain all his policies. He won’t last five minutes." Please do. The trouble is the media do not like to discuss BNP policies because they know full well they will strike a chord with the majority of British people.
WillMossop, Coventry, England
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