UK uproar against British ultra-nationalists
Published: 26 October, 2009, 20:12
Edited: 28 April, 2010, 19:06
Posters depicting a distorted photo of British National Party leader Nick Griffin are displayed at an anti-BNP rally in central London, on October 21, 2009 (AFP Photo / Leon Neal)
(16.5Mb) embed videoTAGS: Election, UK, Protest, Human rights, Mass media
Hundreds of UK citizens brought politics back to the streets by calling for denying a voice to the right wing British National Party, which is accused by many in the UK of pursuing racist policies similar to the Nazis.
There’s no such thing as bad publicity. The old saying looks to have proved true for the British National Party. Since leader Nick Griffin’s appearance on the BBC’s flagship question and answer program last Thursday, a poll shows 22 percent of those questioned would consider voting for the far-right party. The BNP says 4,000 new people have inquired about membership.
Angry scenes preceded the program with 500 anti-fascist activists gathering outside Television Centre to protest the appearance of the far-right party on Question Time.
Leader Griffin appeared nervous and was frequently shouted down, but 8 million people watched the show – half the night’s total television audience.
This was just the culmination of weeks of priceless publicity for the party. The BNP has come under fire from a wide range of institutions for its views and associations.
At the end of last month, there were renewed calls for a ban on its members working in schools – a move supported by Britain’s second largest teachers’ union, NASUWT.
 Leaflets depicting British National Party leader Nick Griffin (AFP Photo / Leon Neal) |
A teacher by profession, Mark Walker was suspended after declaring his intention to stand in local elections as a BNP candidate.
“To me it’s a case of freedom of association. I don’t espouse my politics, I teach my subject and I had the best results in the county, which goes to show they’re not bothered about the results the kids get, it’s about politics,” says Walker.
BNP members are already banned from the police and prison services, and now a review on schools will take place. But Hugh Lanning, of the Public and Commercial Services Union, says it's still not going far enough.
“They don’t believe in the fair delivery of public services, there’s an equality duty that public bodies have”, says Hugh Lanning, Deputy General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union. “You cannot be a fascist at the weekend and be a good civil servant during the week.”
The BNP says mainstream politics is running scared, following its EU election victory in June when the party won 2 seats in Strasbourg. And even its detractors admit that the government’s failings have left a gaping hole that the BNP is more than happy to fill.
Poet and activist Michael Rosen believes “The BNP is a Nazi party, and we know what the Nazis did. Mainstream politics fails because it does not do what it’s supposed to do, and that’s look after everybody. The job of government is not to govern, but to provide, so that’s the way the main parties have failed.”
As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. And it looks set to continue for the BNP. Following his Question Time appearance, Nick Griffin called the audience a lynch mob and has demanded a rerun.
26.10.2009, 15:31
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27.10.2009, 02:10
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The british National Party are never given fair press when you consider the government in power chooses the head of the BBC, or when Rupert Murdoch controls the alot of the media here in the United Kingdom, The conservatives are supported with Big Funding From Business and the Fiends of Israel (see channel 4 despatches ) , then there is the Labour Party which is practicably Bankrupt financially and definately Bankrupt Morally, The B.N.P. is the only Party here Reprosenting the Indigineous population here, they are a real threat to the Old Established Parties, as they themselves are funded directly by the goodwill of the public and do make every penny count, one only has to look at the B.N.P. website, it gets more hits than any the other parties in the uk.
So, Russia Today is, after all, just another tabloid. What a pity. The BNP are widely unpopular? Fact: BNP policies had majority public support when put to the public anonymously. There is widespread opposition to the BNP? Fact: The hundreds of demonstrators that the far-left can assemble to protest at any BNP appearance, hold political views that would horrify the majority of British people. It's a pity that RT's "groundbreaking" brand of journalism doesn't extent to going to the areas of Muslim dominance in the North of England and actually asking the historical population why they are electing nationalist councilors. It's obviously far more comfortable to sit in an air conditioned studio with a university diploma, a notebook and a collection of class prejudices and lame nineteen thirties stereotypes.