How Labour legitimises the BNP
A BNP election poster, 10 April 2010. Credit: Getty Images
The BNP gets a staggering amount of press coverage: columnists queue up to prove their liberal credentials by pasting them, while Nick Griffin is rarely off our screens. Yet he’s the leader of a small, poorly financed, internally divided party that is never going to be a major force in a first past the post political system. So what’s going on?
What is going on is the betrayal of the British working class and a political symbiosis disguised as opposition. The Labour Party no longer pretends to represent working class people: it’s far too busy fluffing our spectacularly incompetent city elite. And into their old role are stepping the BNP, promising not only local jobs, services and communities but that they have changed their old racist ways.
The liberal reaction to this is disastrous. I’ve written a play about the rise of the BNP, called A Day at the Racists, during which I debated Margaret Hodge, MP for Barking (where of course Griffin is challenging her). I was shocked at her argument — basically that the BNP are simple racists and therefore any decent person should vote Labour. That kind of patronising disrespect for the legitimate frustrations of her constituents also gives the BNP legitimacy — it makes them seem like they have something important or original to say, something that mainstream society doesn’t want you to hear.
In discussion with Margaret Hodge MP
So on Wednesday night, your friendly neighbourhood community activist and blogger attended the excellent play “A Day at the Racists” and was in a post-show discussion with Margaret Hodge, Minister of State for Culture and also Member of Parliament for the Barking constituency.
The play to review it briefly, was excellent. It was not describing the exact situation in Barking for this election but a scary glimpse of a possible future where the British National Party moderate themselves to accept a British mixed race Asian candidate. It was well-researched, very funny in the first half and then becomes a visceral emotionally and political rollercoaster in the second half, also it upset Margaret. For a more fuller review look here. Below is a short Al-Jazeera (English) news item on the play: Read more
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What should I say to Margaret Hodge tonight?
This is your one and only chance to use me as a proxy to put your thoughts and feelings across to Margaret Hodge MP for Barking, and Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Tonight I am speaking at a post-show discussion of “A Day at the Racists” at the Finborough Theatre, SW10. I’m going to ask her to apologise for claiming in the Observer in May 2007 that immigrants were the reason that white working class people couldn’t get council housing in Barking & Dagenham.
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