← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Leveller
Thread ID: 3640 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2002-11-22
2002-11-22 15:59 | User Profile
The BNP win another council seat. Not much but something. The constituencies are small so the barrier to entry is low, unlike Westminster where the electoral system makes not voting for the party with three names almost futile. The BBC report is only averagely Orwellian. Articles like this usually start: "Mother of three Sarah Jones awoke wondering what had happened to her community. 'We'll never live it down' she said...." My comments below in italics
Straw condemns BNP win
A surprise council by-election victory for the far-right BNP means the main parties must do more to promote racial tolerance, says Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The win in Blackburn, Lancashire - Mr Straw's constituency - adds to the three seats the British National Party already holds in the north west of England.
Candidate Robin Evans won the Mill Hill seat in Blackburn with a majority of just 16 votes. The seat on Darwen Borough Council became vacant after a Liberal Democrat councillor left the area.
There were angry scenes even before the count took place at the old town hall in Blackburn. Between 30 to 40 demonstrators shouted insults at the BNP candidate and his supporters as they entered the building.[far left 'anti-nazi league' agitators always heckle BNP candidates, so that the BBC can always report 'angry scenes '] After a tense recount, the BNP took the seat with 578 votes to Labour's 562, the Lib Dems 505 and the Conservatives 154, with turnout at 39%.
The election saw Mr Straw campaigning for Labour. Afterwards he noted that twice as many voters had voted for other parties as for the BNP.[He never notices when NuLab wins by the same process] "This result will not obstruct our efforts to build a more tolerant, multi-religious community in the town," he said. "The politics of racial exclusion can have no place in British society and all mainstream [PC] parties and politicians will now have to work harder to defeat it."
'Neglected majority'
Successful candidate Mr Evans said: "I do not just regard this as a victory for myself and the Blackburn BNP. "It is an important victory for a long neglected majority in other wards in Blackburn who now have a voice in me." Blackburn has a large Asian community but has avoided the racial tensions seen in other parts of northern England.
Politicians, trade unionists and community leaders last month began a campaign to unseat the BNP's three councillors in Burnley. Their election came after inter-racial rioting [there was no 'inter-racial rioting', this is how TV now consistently refers to to the asian rioting last summer] in Burnley and other towns in the North West in summer last year. The BNP still only has a toe-hold in the north-west, but the latest result will worry the mainstream political parties.
The official report into the violence in June 2001 said organised white racists had exploited clashes to exacerbate tensions and fears [Utter crap. If there was a significant outside influence it was the Trotskyist SWP inciting the riots (never mentioned in BBC reports)]. It urged the government to tackle "shockingly" divided communities in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham, which have large British Asian communities.
Previous campaign
But the BNP has said its election success stems from the marginalisation of white residents by the main political parties. The four councillors now in office are the BNP's only success on local councils since the short-lived election of Derek Beackon in Tower Hamlets, London, in 1993. A campaign by politicians and activists helped to unseat the councillor [isn't democracy great]. Elsewhere on Thursday night, the Tories lost their overall majority at Dacorum Borough, Hertfordshire, when Labour gained a Woodhall seat. Labour narrowly kept its overall majority at Bolton Borough, Greater Manchester, when it won at Daubhill.
2002-11-23 03:11 | User Profile
Leveller,
At least the Beeb had enough tact to simply call the BNP "far right."
Conrad Black's Zionist Telegraph outright degenerated to the (usual) "neo-Nazi" canard.
I really wish Taki would quit writing for Black's Spectator so he could take the kid gloves off and name names in The American Conservative. For that matter, I wish PJB would quit the MSNBC gig so he could be more candid in TAC without any threats from the TV network hanging over his head. There comes a time when you get old enough and well off enough that you can speak your mind without needing to worry about future employment.
[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/11/23/nbnp23.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/11/23/ixnewstop.html]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../ixnewstop.html[/url]
Griffin cites Le Pen effect as BNP wins another seat
(Filed: 23/11/2002)
The neo-Nazi British National Party has won a council by-election in Blackburn by exploiting simmering bigotry against asylum seekers, reports Nigel Bunyan.
The young man in the green combat trousers knew precisely why his party had won the Mill Hill by-election.
"It's because of them refugees," he said tugging at his baseball cap. "You know, the asylum seekers. They cause a lot of sh*t and take all our money. They get houses, they get cars, they get everything. They get three houses each."
The views of this first-time BNP voter will undoubtedly appal Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, whose constituency office is a short walk away.
But they encapsulate the simmering bigotry that has enabled the neo-Nazi party to extend its foothold in Lancashire. In May, three British National Party candidates were elected to seats in Burnley.
Now, in Blackburn, they have seen off all three main political parties to achieve an outright victory described by the Lancashire Evening Telegraph as "shameful".
Nick Griffin, the BNP chairman, waiting in the Borough Arms as the returning officer made the announcement, was cock-a-hoop.
He confessed to not knowing a great deal about his candidate, Robin Evans, beyond the fact that he was a 38-year-old self-employed builder from Darwen.
But it did not seem to matter either to him or to the 578 people who had voted Mr Evans on to Blackburn with Darwen borough council.
What was seemingly important to those who live in this urban tangle of red-brick terraces was the local row over a proposal, later abandoned, to set up a centre for asylum seekers.
There was also consternation about a plan to have a "curry mile" in Blackburn advertised by a sign showing two crossed scimitars.
"We found out that the original is in Baghdad," said Mr Griffin. "Absolutely whacky. We couldn't have wished for better opponents."
The BNP leader, who claims that Blackburn has at least twice the number of asylum seekers acknowledged by the council, added: "They said Oldham in the general election was a blip because of the riots.
"They said Burnley was a blip, too. How many blips do they want before they realise we're here to stay?
"People have asked whether the Le Pen effect can happen in Britain. The answer is it's already happening."
Mr Evans's victory, albeit by 16 votes, comes only five months after the BNP, buoyed by its success in Burnley, established a party structure in Blackburn.
Activists claim to have widespread support in other east Lancashire towns, most notably Accrington. They are looking to expand into such West Yorkshire centres as Bradford, Halifax and Keighley.
Mr Griffin speaks confidently of further growth in Lewisham, south London, and the Black Country. Mill Hill, he said, was "by no means" the BNP's strongest ward.
"There are a number of others that are easily more winnable. How many we actually win when all the seats come up for election in 2004 will depend on how many good candidates we can find.
"There will be three seats in every ward. We think we can sweep the board in a number of them."
Senior Liberal Democrats have complained to police about a leaflet delivered to homes on the eve of the election.
The first page, designed to look like a Lib Dem leaflet, bore a logo drawn from condoms, needles and cannabis joints. It said: "Why would any person consider voting for a party with such unpopular policies?"
David Foster, the deputy leader of the Lib Dems, said: "People thought it was from us when they first saw it and I can see why.
In my 30 years of politics I have never seen anything so sickening. I have reported it to the police and the returning officer. I believe it cost us the election."
Colin Rigby, the leader of the council's Conservative minority, said he viewed the result with "dismay and horror".
In New Chapel Street, Mill Hill's main shopping street, Darren Disson, 42, a setter at an engineering works, insisted he was not racist.
But he complained: "I'm sick and tired of all these asylum seekers coming in. We've got more than 600 - six in our street at least. Every person I speak to feels let down.
"I don't suppose the BNP can do anything about this problem but it's worth a try." The BNP polled 578 votes to 562 for Labour, 505 for the Lib Dems and 154 for the Conservatives.
Ibrahim Masters, chairman of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said the result had left him "deeply shocked, saddened and surprised".
The Foreign Secretary reacted to the victory by saying it would not obstruct "our efforts to build a more tolerant, multi-religious community" in Blackburn.
Mr Straw pointed out that electors had voted overall more than two to one against the BNP. Good work had been done in Blackburn in building race relations.
2002-11-23 15:28 | User Profile
The young man in the green combat trousers knew precisely why his party had won the Mill Hill by-election.
"It's because of them refugees," he said tugging at his baseball cap. "You know, the asylum seekers. They cause a lot of sh*t and take all our money. They get houses, they get cars, they get everything. They get three houses each."
The views of this first-time BNP voter will undoubtedly appal Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, whose constituency office is a short walk away.
But they encapsulate the simmering bigotry that has enabled the neo-Nazi party to extend its foothold in Lancashire. In May, three British National Party candidates were elected to seats in Burnley.
Oh, I'm sure this grammatically-challenged fellow is representative of the typical BNP voter: nothing but a mob 'o yobs - right, Conrad?
Joos Black & Straw must really be enraged.....
2002-11-23 18:05 | User Profile
Centinel,
That Telegraph article is certainly worse. That's the voice of Britains 'reactionary', not-with-the-PC-program, right wing speaking!
If Taki wanted to be more brazen than he is, I don't think a column in the Spectator would be the thing stopping him. Do you think PJB is holding something back? ;) (I can only read the online bits of TAC, because they won't ship it outside of North America.)
2002-11-23 20:37 | User Profile
If Taki wanted to be more brazen than he is, I don't think a column in the Spectator would be the thing stopping him.
Well, I wouldn't put it past Conrad Black to threaten to fire Taki if he pushed hard against Israel or the American Zionist lobby in TAC, something TAC has yet to do in its first four issues.
Do you think PJB is holding something back?
Yes, I do. Pat loves the theatrics of politics, and being a TV host on MSNBC lets him speak to a large audience. The downside to that is he can't pull out all the stops and say what's what and who's who--in any venue. If Pat started hammering Israel and the Zionist lobby in TAC or his syndicated columns, the Jewish lobby would screech at MSNBC (it probably already is anyway) to take him off the air.
Or, say TAC started running Joe Sobran's hard-hitting articles on Israel and the Zionist lobby. Pat and Taki would come under fire, but Conrad Black and MSNBC would also be under tremendous pressure can them. Look what happened to Sam Francis--got the boot from The Washington Times in '95 for comments he made at an American Renaissance conference. Media barons in the modern age are hyper-PC it seems, and fire columnists at the drop of a hat.
For reasons such as these, I would be glad to see both these men abandon their other venues and build TAC into a magazine that speaks the unvarnished truth, no matter who doesn't like it. Both of them are financially well off to the point they don't need to pander to the politically correct media for a job.
I can only read the online bits of TAC, because they won't ship it outside of North America.
Hmmm.....according to their website
[url=https://www.pub-serv.com/sf/AT/paid_subscribe.asp]https://www.pub-serv.com/sf/AT/paid_subscribe.asp[/url]
they take foreign orders....Great Britain is on the list. Though I admit $49.95 is a rather steep rate to pay for 16 issues.
2002-11-23 21:01 | User Profile
Oh, I'm sure this grammatically-challenged fellow is representative of the typical BNP voter: nothing but a mob 'o yobs - right, Conrad?
Yeah, these BNP types sure look yobbish to me < /sarcasm off > "They said Burnley was a blip, too. How many blips do they want before they realise we're here to stay?
"People have asked whether the Le Pen effect can happen in Britain. The answer is it's already happening."
[img]http://www.bnp.org.uk/images/college/college6.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.bnp.org.uk/images/college/college5.gif[/img]
--- ### Leveller *2002-11-23 22:28* | [User Profile](/od/user/61) > *Originally posted by Centinel*@Nov 23 2002, 20:37 ***I can only read the online bits of TAC, because they won't ship it outside of North America.* Hmmm.....according to their website [url=https://www.pub-serv.com/sf/AT/paid_subscribe.asp]https://www.pub-serv.com/sf/AT/paid_subscribe.asp[/url] they take foreign orders....Great Britain is on the list. Though I admit $49.95 is a rather steep rate to pay for 16 issues.** Thanks, that's changed from when I looked (pre 1st issue). --- ### W.R.I.T.O.S *2003-02-08 15:25* | [User Profile](/od/user/290) The same phenomenon occurs in America: the jew approved right is more hostile to whites than the mainstream left. Looks like it's going to have to be white nationalism or nothing. ---