BNP’s Griffin on BBC’s Question Time (October 22, 2009). BBC Profile | Question Time 22/10/2009 Part 1…
- http://wikileaks.org/wiki/British_National_Party_membership_list_and_other_information,_15_Apr_2009
Analysis of a party – what the BNP list says about its members
Robert Booth, Simon Rogers and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk
October 20, 2009
Typical member is named David or John, has a job, lives in East Midlands and, if married to a BNP member, has a wife called either Patricia, Joanne or Karen.
BNP membership list appears on Wikileaks
Robert Booth
guardian.co.uk
October 20, 2009
List of thousands of names of BNP members, along with addresses and phone numbers, published on Wikileaks.
BNP hit by second leak of ‘members database’
Robert Booth, Helen Pidd and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk
October 19, 2009
The BNP is bracing itself for potentially fresh embarrassment tomorrow when details of the party’s rank and file UK membership are expected to be posted on the internet.
See also : BNP ~versus~ Sadie Graham (August 28, 2009) | BNP vs. Indymedia (December 1, 2008) | BNP Top Ten (November 27, 2008) | Moaron Nick Griffin, the BNP and the APP (November 24, 2008) | Evil paedos are secret BNP thugs!!!1!!; Uncle Adolf is Not. Happy. Nick. (November 23, 2008) | BNP : Roly Poly Fish Heads; BNP vs. 4chan; The Good Ship BNP is a Leaky Vessel (November 20, 2008).
Unfortunately, given what happened last time, I don’t think this leak will have any negative consequences for the BNP other than short term embarrassment and can easily be sold to the membership as yet another example of persecution from the Labour Party.
That may well be the case Duncan. Certainly, a leak of this nature, in and of itself, will do little to harm the BNP — at least, not that I can see. To the best of my knowledge, on the previous occasion, a few members were embarrassed, and one or two found themselves having to explain their membership to their employers (I think a police officer may have been suspended from his job?). And it will almost certainly be spun by the BNP as an attack upon it by the political establishment (Nu Labour). But it should be added that former BNP members were convicted for the prior leak, and who was responsible for this latest leak — as well as its accuracy — is currently unknown.
I think a copper in Liverpool was suspended, not sure if they were sacked or not.
The greatest benefit will be the publicity they get, Nick Griffin and Simon Darby will be in almost every daily paper every day this week, as happened last time.
In the 6 months prior to the last membership list being leaked their average vote in the local elections was 12.3%. In the 6 months after (until the June elections) it was 21.3%.
Nu Labour
Spelt ‘ZaNu Liebore’ I believe.
Hmmm.
Haven’t had a chance to examine the electoral results post-leak, but post-June — and the BNP’s annexation of two seats in Brussels — their results seem to have been less-than-super…
I’d be wary of any article claiming BNP support is declining. I haven’t examined the results from local elections after the European elections in any depth but I would suspect that any lower average is simply because the BNP are standing in more seats outside of areas they’ve stood in before.
In areas where the party is already established they have scored some disturbingly high results, missing out on a council seat by about 16 votes in Lincolnshire last week.
Would be better if list was published in postcode order then we could see who was a member in local community. All lists i have seen seem to be pretty random. 16000 names is a lot to scroll thru.
Duncan,
On Lincolnshire:
Without looking at the electoral history in Boston North-West — for which I frankly couldn’t be arsed — a victory for a Tory in an election with just a 21 per cent turn out, combined with the fact that Lincolnshire is a county with one of the highest concentrations of BNP membership in the country (along with Derbyshire, Lancashire and Leicestershire, apparently), makes it difficult to project on to the national stage, I think. Fwiw, Denise examines the post-Euro election results in some detail, and while I agree with you that, in and of themselves, these do not demonstrate that the BNP is on the wane, it does suggest that the party has had some difficulty in transferring its victory in the Euros to the local level in the aftermath of that victory. From my perspective, while not the only means of assessing a party’s strength, elections are, precisely, popularity contests, so they do provide some indication of a party’s status, if only vis-a-vis its rivals. Otoh, reading election results can sometimes be like reading entrails, and I’m a vegetarian, not a psephologist.
john,
It’s likely that someone is working on ways to better make use of the results, possibly by way of postcodes. If I discover anything, I’ll post it here.
I only normally watch QT occasionally. Last night I made a point of watching to see the usually decent debate shoot Griffin down in flames. Instead, they gave the BNP what they wanted: nothing but a flaming.
This is deserved, but for the most part they fell into the trap of using righteous indignation rather than reasoned, logical debate to show Griffin and the BNP up for what they are.
This was the danger of allowing the BNP on such a mainstream show. The problems with effectively banning the BNP from airing their views and allowing people to judge for themselves are manifold:
1) Many people are sick of having someone think for them, as they are apparently too dim to do so for themselves (it’s where accusations of the ‘Nanny State’ come from);
2) I might be wrong, but was Hitler not ignored and marginalized, his policies laughed at, his ambitions treated like a joke? What happened there? If someone had engaged in reasoned debate with the man, his arguments and ideology would have been exposed and his credibility would have fallen apart. By trying to ‘stick it to him’ where they could and deny him at any other time, the mainstream politicians in Germany only succeeded in making him seem like a victim, pilloried and shafted for speaking the truth. Only too late did many realise their error;
3) Denying Griffin and the BNP the opportunity to speak, in addition to the issues raised in point 2), would invalidate any reason at all for going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How can you parade around the Middle East preaching free speech and democracy, when you deny the same at home because you don’t like what might be said?
Just for the record, I’m white, working class, and grew up on an estate in the Midlands. I saw the industry gush out 20-30 years ago and what remained trickle out since. According to some middle-class talking heads (some in ‘New’ Labour), that means I’m witless fodder for the BNP and will blindly vote because my ‘class’ has been disenfranchised.
We have, but not by immigrants. Not even LARGELY by immigrants, come to that.
I also find any form of fascist or socialist dictatorship abhorrent. The BNP is exactly what British soldiers in WWII died fighting against, not for. By the same token, a state of watchers run by a mistrustful, control-obsessed, self-important and self-aggrandizing Government is equally abhorrent, and equally what British soldiers across many decades have fought and died to defend against.
I will not vote New Labour; another term will probably see them form a British Stasi. I will not vote Conservative, given their right-wing ties elsewhere in Europe. I don’t fully understand what the Lib Dems are for or against. But assuming I can’t vote for any of the ‘Big Three’, that does not automatically mean I’d vote BNP because I’m a white working-class bloke. Maybe the reason why the BNP appeals to some is because they DO appeal to ‘my’ type. Everyone else seems to think we’re mindless scum that have to be thought for.
If the other political parties spent less time making life harder than it already is, re-engaged with everyone in the country, and asked ‘We’re your Govt. What can we do to redress the (real and perceived) imbalances?’, it’d be a start to making millions of people feel like they mattered again.
Last night, there was an opportunity to show the ordinary people of the UK that they mattered to the big political parties. There was the chance to really get at the BNP and show them for the nasty bastards that they are.
What happened? Kids in the playground in place of adult debate, point-and-counterpoint. When it needed a pin of piercing, adult wit and insight to utterly deflate Griffin in the eyes of all but the most blinded zealots, we got the cudgel of childish name-calling and unreasoned, polarised ‘we’re right and you’re wrong’ bullshit.
I suppose I shouldn’t have expected better.
G’day Rojminih,
I’ve watched ‘QT’ exactly once, and it was this episode. It very much resembles a program, ‘Q&A’, broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. ‘Q&A’ can sometimes be entertaining, if not especially enlightening or informative, but it suffers from the same faults as I suspect ‘QT’ does: a surfeit of boring bloody politicians, and a tight format. In general, serious disco on contemporary politics is best presented — on free-to-air-TV at any rate — by a handful of ‘current affairs’ programs on state television — ‘4 Corners’ (ABC) and ‘Dateline’ (SBS) are the best examples — where particular subjects can be examined at greater length.
With regards Griffin’s appearance on ‘QT’, it seems to me that at least three issues present themselves: one is the fact of his appearance; secondly, the subsequent disco; and thirdly, the effects his appearance has had on public opinion inre the BNP.
With regards the first, I’m not sure I care all that much. That is, I understand that it is part of the BBC charter to occasionally allow members of minor political parties to appear on such programs. Given that Griffin is now a MEP, it would seem that there is therefore some grounds to allow for his ugly mug to appear on TV. In terms of opposition to this proposal, it seems to me that it’s based on a view that the BNP is simply an illegitimate party — a fascist party — which therefore falls outside of some notion of a spectrum of legitimate political opinion. Further, that his appearance constitutes a normalisation of fascist politics, and that this should be resisted.
As for the ‘debate’ itself… I’d have to watch it again to get a better fix, but like most such debates it was a mixed affair. I thought it was useful and germane to highlight the fact that Griffin and the BNP have engaged in some effort to ‘de-Nazify’ the party, the better to attract some wider degree of popular support. Secondly, that, like other political manoeuvrings, this has been done for quite cynical reasons. Where the debate ‘fell down’, so to speak, was precisely in those areas you’ve identified: blaming immigrants for unemployment, for example, is fucking daft, and can only gain legitimacy in a context completely devoid of any real understanding of the operations of contemporary capitalism.
Finally, based on at least one account, the debate does not seem to have shifted public opinion much at all.
(Oh yeah: I think that the evolution of the Nazi Party is hugely more complicated than your thumbnail account, and the historical and social context in which this evolution occurred vastly different to that in which the BNP has emerged.)
This too: