Is one in every four Brits a racist?
According to a new survey 25 percent of British voters are considering voting for the far right British National Party (BNP) in the forthcoming local elections. Now, the BNP is really unpleasant. One telling indicator of what motivates its members: they refused to support England at the last football World Cup because there were black ...
According to a new survey 25 percent of British voters are considering voting for the far right British National Party (BNP) in the forthcoming local elections.
According to a new survey 25 percent of British voters are considering voting for the far right British National Party (BNP) in the forthcoming local elections.
Now, the BNP is really unpleasant. One telling indicator of what motivates its members: they refused to support England at the last football World Cup because there were black players on the team.
So, why are they suddenly doing so well? There are a whole set of reasons being put forth today. Some argue that it is because white working class voters feel neglected. Others say that it is because the main parties are all fighting for the centre ground. While yet another set of people point to the fact that this is the first post 7/7 election.
The last point seems the most salient to me. All the other factors have existed before to an extent. 7/7 removed a lot of people’s inhibitions about race, culture etc. It is remarkable that one in four people are prepared to tell a pollster that they’re prepared to vote for the BNP, because this is probably an understatement. It's reasonable to assume that many voters telling pollsters one thing and doing another in the privacy of the ballot booth. All those people who have been quietly muttering the anti-immigrant slogan “Enoch was right” feel vindicated.
For the other parties, the way to combat this is to make it crystal clear that voting for the BNP is not going to solve Britain’s community relations problems. A strong BNP performance would be the greatest spur to extremism imaginable.
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