What the rise of the BNP means - and what to do about it

One of the more disappointing (but not unexpected) results from the European Elections was the rise of the British National Party. Unlike both the National Front or even the British Union of Fascists (the British sister group to Hitler and Mussolini's parties), the BNP has now won seats at both Council and European level, and must now be considered a real threat to the established system. Nearly one million British people went into a polling booth last Thursday and put a tick next to the BNP.

Before I go any further, let's have some perspective. Fewer people voted BNP that voted for them in the 2004 European Election. Because of the woeful turnout, a smaller number of votes was able to achieve a much greater result for the BNP. And despite their successes at Council and European level, there did not seem to be anything in the results that the BNP are likely to come within cooee of winning a Westminster seat, or even of winning control of a Council. While there are a sizable number of people voting BNP, they are still a small minority, and there is no chance of the next election bringing a huge number of fascists into the Parliament where Churchill led the fight against Hitler.

So what does it mean for British politics? Well, first it means that there is a very sizable group of people who are very angry. Whether they are simply angry because of the expenses scandal, or whether there is a deeper anger over immigration and so-called reverse racism is a difficult question, and one I cannot hope to answer. However, I would point out that the Conservatives ran in 2005 on a strong immigration platform, and yet seemed to make no headway whatsoever in the North. Indeed, in a number of urban northern English seats the Conservative vote did not increase at all, or even fell from 2001. This would apparently indicate that in 2005 immigration was not the defining issue for large numbers of northern voters. It would be ironic in the extreme if immigration became the major issue for many voters now, just as large numbers of the Eastern European immigrants who came to the UK are going home because of the financial crisis.

But for those who are angry about immigration, it shows two things. One is that the major parties are not appealing or are not even discussing the problems that immigration has brought with it. As the rise of UKIP shows that Labour have failed to make the case in favour of Europe to a large part of the electorate, the BNP vote shows that the government has also failed to make the argument in favour of immigration. And that Labour has failed to spend enough money to make sure public services keep up with the increases in population that immigration brings. When an 'English' person can't get a council house because they are filled with immigrants (one of the main causes of anger against immigrants), the fault lies not with immigration itself, but with a government that has completely failed to either plan for the influx of immigration, or (once these issues became obvious) spend the money required for maintaining public services.

The second point is that over the last fifteen years, the word 'racism' has been so overused that it has lost the power to shape people's opinions. Fifteen, even ten years ago, a party being called 'racist' would probably have been enough to turn normal people away from it. But over that period allegations of racism have been so widespread, and often deployed against the most innocuous targets, that the power of the word has gone. To put it another way, so many things have been called racist in recent years that when something truly racist like the BNP comes along, attacking it for being racist no longer has the same power. It is a real shame that this has happened.

So, what next? Well, the biggest thing that must not happen (and both government and opposition MP's have done very well at this so far) is to paint everyone who voted BNP as racists. They are not all racists. Probably only a small minority of people who voted for the party actually believe in a 'whites-only' party. Labelling all BNP voters as racist will push this sizable minority further away from engagement with the major parties. Following this, there must also be a real look into the effects of immigration on people in the industrial cities of the north, and how they can be alleviated. Rather than looking narrowly at immigration, the conversation must now turn to provision of services so there will be enough for everyone. Major reforms will be required that will make service providers more accountable to the people they provide them to. Council housing stock must be repaired and the government must create conditions to increase the amount of new houses being built in inner city areas. And the major parties must make the argument to the people of Britain that immigration is a good thing. Simply rolling their collective eyes at the ceiling when someone brings it up, or claiming the person raising the issue is racist is not good enough. If immigration is a good thing (and I believe it is), then the major parties have a duty to tell the people of Britain why this is.

Finally, however, the results also show us the dangers of proportional representation. It has allowed a party that would almost certainly never win a seat in Westminster to sneak in in last place in two regions because of the voting system. Proportional representation in Westminster would see similar outcomes. As a matter of interest, I put in the pure vote totals into the New Zealand electoral website (that allows an estimation of a percentage of seats won according to a different proportional representation system, the St Lague formula, which is a favourite of many who call for PR in Britain). It shows that for Labour to form a government they would have to ally with the Lib Dems, the Greens and either the BNP or UKIP. The Tories would have an equally difficult task of forming a government. PR gives fringe and extremist parties both the chance to get into Parliament, and also power over the formation of government far above and beyond their vote share.