There is something fundamentally disingenuous about Nick Griffin, the racist fascist leader of ultra right-wing party the BNP. Since his election to the European Parliament we are expected to believe that the BNP are a credible party in British politics. The fact that they have exploited the same classic fears of countless fascist organisations by portraying of a country being "swamped" (Margaret Thatcher's term in 1978) by immigrants. A cheap way to legitimise their existence, which is based on hatred and discrimination. The other benefit was that they faced an electorate who took apathy to a new level. The upshot was that the BNP got fewer votes than in the previous European Elections but still ended up with 2 MEPs. So the upshot is we're stuck with them for a while longer.
Last Thursday Griffin got his grinning facade onto Question Time, the political discussion programme on the BBC. His performance was muddled, foolish, and predictable. There were the usual bashing of Islam as he tried to portray every follower of that faith who resides in the UK as a dedicated follower of Sharia law. I'm not fan of any religion, but this is his usual approach. In the process he alluded to being a friend of feminism by siting their views on adultery, conveniently forgetting that The Bible treats adulterous women no better. There were also the rather hilarious attempts to claim he didn't say things he's been filmed saying, or people he's shared platforms with being not quite as nasty as we think they are. Then there was his disputing of the figures of the Holocaust - stopping short of a flat denial - but still the words of a fascist fantasist. Listening to him I was reminded of the people who say, Hitler was a vegetarian, who liked children and animals. I should point out he was also a genocidal monster but that truth, like so many in the life of Nick Griffin, is a little too much to admit.
Watching his performances in the media I'm always reminded King Lear who, upon being thrown out by his two treacherous daughters Goneril and Regan, rages at the storm shouting "I am more sinned against than sinning". That is Nick Griffin's approach in a nutshell. He complains that the ordinary British working people are under threat by masses of immigrants who are either not white or don't speak English, that the liberal elite are undermining our morals, that he doesn't get a fair hearing on Question Time, the list of simpering goes on and on. If we are to believe him, then the poor chap really is as hard done by as the people he misrepresents.
The truths are somewhat different. The population of this country is still not exactly overrun by people who are not indigenous to this country. According to the Institute of Race Relations website:
- The 2001 census figures to show that out of just under 60 million people living in this country there are just over 54 million white people.
- The white population is attaining the third highest number of A* to C grades at GCSE in 2004 out of a list of 9 defined racial categories.
- The Cabinet Office concluded that, of the 44 most deprived local authority areas contain proportionally four times as many people from ethnic minority groups as other areas
- The English Housing Survey revealed that ethnic minority households are three times more likely than white households to live in a poor neighbourhood.
- The unemployment rate for ethnic minority groups has traditionally been twice that of whites.
Whilst no one is denying that some white people live in bad neighbourhoods, face difficulties in the education system, and with opportunities for employment in the current recession hit employment market, it is a myth to say that they are doing worse than anyone else. It is ridiculous of the BNP to insinuate that white working class people are becoming a persecuted minority. There are simply to many of them to make that claim seem even remotely credible. Gaining a voice by aligning with the far right isn't the way to bring about the changes needed, it merely reduces the amount of credibility to the majority of who people view those demands, however legitimate they are. It brings us back to the Lear quote.
There are many who feel that Nick Griffin should be silenced, that he has no place in mainstream politics, and should not have been asked onto Question Time. I sympathise with this view. I suspect that Griffin and the BNP view their opponents with utter contempt. The same kind of contempt that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pinochet, Saadam Hussien, Pol Pot, and countless other despots viewed legitimate opposition. If they were elected to govern they would silence the free press, round up and imprison, deport, and probably murder their vocal opponents. Yet we live in a democracy, and so I have to let them have their say. In return they have to let me have mine, for what it is worth. That's the function of a democracy.
The telling moment last Thursday was the man who stood up from the audience and proclaimed that he was proud to be born and bred in Britain. He had brown skin, I'm not sure where he was from. He asked Mr Griffin what he would do with him and got no reply. The next day Nick Griffin claimed that London was no longer British, and I think the man in the audience probably got his answer there. I misread the headline on the paper stand and thought Nick Griffin was no longer British - which would do us all a favour if he and his vile sycophants departed these shores for some Caucasian utopia.
These are people who consider multi-cultural societies as something to be feared. They forget that we live on island which is full of people from all over Europe who came here and conquered. It's all in our DNA. We, and our wonderful culture, are a product of this if the BNP think that white people have been here in this pure unadulterated form then he is gravely mistaken. I long to live in a society where I can use another of my favourite Shakespeare quotes to describe the BNP, "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".
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