New Labour pontificates about multi-culturalism and diversity and screams 'racists' at the BNP whilst it was New Labour who last year went to the House of Lords in order to prevent the indigenous Diego Garcian peoples returning home after they were ethnically cleansed from their own lands by both Labour and Tory governments.
Kicking the BNP is just the media's way to divert peoples attentions from the pig politicians of the mainstream political parties - who are owned by the corporatocracy and the Corporate Media.
We do not have Free Press we have a Corporate Media.
Never make the mistake of confusing the former with the latter.
That way tyranny lies.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6750/
Mick Hume
When all else fails, bash the BNP
In its phoney moral crusade to stop the British National Party, the elite has replaced politics with emotional blackmail.
Sometimes it seems that if the British National Party (BNP) did not exist, the political class might have to invent it.
Reactions to the expenses scandal have exposed mainstream politics at its lowest ebb. A New Labour government many thought had already reached rock bottom has got out its pickaxe and started digging down through the rock to unexplored depths. Yet the ‘new’ Conservative opposition is also in turmoil, standing embarrassed before the media ‘moats and all’. Self-flagellation is the political style du jour, as a New Labour cabinet minister endorses electoral reforms that would stop his party getting into government again while Conservative leader David Cameron assures us that we no longer need be a Tory or even interested in politics to stand as an MP for his party.
Faced with the growing cult of the ‘independent’ MP, spineless professional politicians can now be cowed by the spectre of the ridiculous Esther Rantzen considering standing against them, while the cry from the media goes up to make Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous prime minister by popular acclaim.
In these dark days, what is the one thing that politicians can try to use as a crutch to help them hobble upwards, if not exactly on to the moral high ground, then at least from the drain to the gutter? Bring on the BNP! By warning that the political crisis could lead to the rise of this small far-right party in the coming European and local elections, and calling on virtuous voters to support democracy against the ‘threat’ of neo-fascism, they hope to make themselves appear decent by comparison. It looks like the political equivalent of the morality of the jailhouse, which distinguishes between ordinary decent criminals and sex offenders: ‘However bad you might think we are, at least we are not like them.’
So the major British parties have reportedly held top-level meetings to discuss a joint strategy to combat the BNP, including an ‘early warning system’ to pick up possible advances. Former New Labour cabinet minister David Blunkett has publicly warned of the dangers, while the Gordon Brown-supporting Daily Mirror has launched a ‘Hope Not Hate’ anti-BNP campaign.
The allies of the political class in the Church of England have rallied to the cause, proving that when it matters they remain pillars of the political establishment: the Archbishops of Canterbury and York issued a public declaration that it would be ‘tragic’ if public anger with the major parties led them to commit the sin of voting BNP. And liberal pundits who are normally fierce critics of the church dabbling in politics have defended the archbishops’ moral right to speak out on the apparently pressing theological issue of the BNP’s attempt to get elected on to the local council in Stoke-on-Trent.
Instead of political argument, it appears we now have an election campaign based on emotional blackmail: ‘Vote for us, or else the democrats – and the Gurkhas – will get it from the BNP!’ The choice we are supposed to be offered in a democracy is thus reduced to the moral imperative to vote for what they claim is Good against Evil. Unfortunately for the mainstream parties, many now find the notion that they are a force for good every bit as risible as the idea that the BNP is marching to power.
This circus reveals the underlying problem with politics today. It is not really about MPs’ expenses fiddles, entertaining yet unspectacular as they are. The view that politicians are only in it for themselves has taken such a hold partly because people can see no other reason for their existence, no great principles or causes that could motivate them to fight for political office. The anti-BNP stunt sums up the absence of any positive vision or leadership in politics today. There is a growing backlash against the system of political parties now. But the problem is not that we have parties, so much as they are not political. Hence, all we are offered by way of encouragement to vote is the unedifying spectacle of our alleged leaders cowering behind the archbishops’ robes in a fantasy crusade against the BNP bogeyman.
No doubt, as indicated at the start of this article, this is partly a cynical manoeuvre. (Some observers even claim Labour is cynical enough to want the BNP to do well in the June polls, as a distraction from its own plight.) But it also reflects the real fear of the electorate – and especially of white working-class voters – amongst the mainstream parties.
The idea that people could vote for the BNP is as much a symbol of the isolation and unpopularity of the political class as is the expenses row itself. Whatever appeal the BNP is able to make to voters has far less to do with its crankish policies and personalities than with its status as a receptacle for political (or anti-political) disaffection. Yet to New Labour and Conservative politicians and their media supporters, anybody who could consider voting BNP looks like a member of an alien race. The contempt and loathing for a large part of the electorate within the political-media class was well illustrated on last week’s BBC Question Time, when one liberal newspaper columnist said she might favour a General Election to sort out the crisis, but had decided to oppose it out of fear that people might vote for the BNP. In which case, why not abolish elections altogether? These people’s idea of democracy is revealed as the freedom to vote for parties and candidates approved by the elite.
The only real criticism of the anti-BNP blackmail campaign has been that talking up the ‘threat’ could backfire and lead more people to vote for them – itself a recognition of how little authority archbishops, MPs and columnists command today. The BNP will win some seats, but is highly unlikely to make a major national breakthrough next week. The only certain thing about elections held in a highly unstable anti-political climate is that there will be no winners among the electorate if the choices we are offered are between the BNP, the anti-BNP alliance and some fading celebrities.
A phoney moral crusade against the BNP looks like the last refuge of a discredited scoundrel today. Never mind ‘Stop the BNP’ – stop trying to blackmail us about it and start discussing politics. Few would even notice the far-right fragments today if we were engaged in a proper debate about the future of our society. The fact that the empty shells of our old political parties seem entirely incapable of starting such a debate suggests they are about as relevant to that future as the BNP.
Mick Hume is spiked‘s editor-at-large.
1 comment:
The fact that the empty shells of our old political parties seem entirely incapable of starting such a debate suggests they are about as relevant to that future as the BNP.Well, he got that part half-right,anyway.
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