We must all fight the left wing BNP
This week, I had a brief but very interesting meeting with Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang, Education & Welfare Sabbatical Officer of the London School of Economics, following the Jonah Goldberg event and Free Speech petition (report on those coming soon). Emmanuel, after admonishing a stall holder near to our protest (impressive and impassioned, btw), wanted to meet with me to discuss how to engage students to vote in elections and, in particular, promote an anti-BNP message.
I have some history with this issue and I simply cannot understand why any conservative would even be remotely associated with the BNP; it is a protectionist, bigoted party that has its roots firmly planted on the far left of the political spectrum. The BNP are, indeed, an entirely disagreeable party but they are a legitimately registered political party and therefore we should beat them at every given democratic opportunity. I do, however, think it is folly to not fully understand the justifications for not voting for a particular party. To admonish or castigate an organisation on false pretences is counter-productive.
The consistent miss-labelling of extremist parties is very damaging to liberal democracy, as it creates false tensions and misaligns people with causes they do not understand fully. I’ve yet to meet a Tory who believes in clamping down on free-trade and the nationalisation of private companies. The BNP are both racist and fascist: all fascist parties have left wing tendencies as they predominantly believe in nationalisation, collectivism and forbid free expression, which makes fascism the very antipathy of right-of-centre politics.
I would find it very difficult to authorise a coordinated campaign against the BNP if the terms of discourse and engagement were not properly defined: the BNP are a party of hate and have their roots in the left wing traditions of fascism.
The meeting with Emanuel was also productive as we are about to engage with the LSE on promoting electoral participation and they are slowly catching up with our CFbacksNO2ID campaign: young people should be opposed to ID Cards, it’ll hit the students first! We really should be at the forefront of the student movement against this despicable scheme. Email any member of the NME if we can help with setting up the motion at your SU AGM.
UPDATE: Iain Dale has written on this subject. And so has Shane Greer.
No related posts.
Good post. I think this is something we all know to be true. Chatting this morning to older (oldenugh to remember the 80s) said they recall during the race riots that the NF would argu that they are more Left wing than right when they ask about Mr T.
Spot on Michael – I’m sick of lefties sticking the BNP on our side of the political fence!
Bang on chief.
Someone else who agrees with you that the BNP is a leftist party.
http://tonysharp.blogspot.com/2008/06/bnp-clarifies-itself.html
They were called the National Socialists for a reason. There is a tendency to confuse Authoritarianism with Right-wing and Libertarian with Left-wing – which is a clear mistake. There’s a surprisingly good political quiz that Tory Bear and The Nameless Libertarian have both posted which illustrates the political chart quite neatly. (Find it at http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/political-spectrum-quiz.html)
The BNP are, if anything, Left-Wing Authoritarian. You can throw in protectionist, fascist and socialist as well if you like.
Largely fatuous. The ‘left/right’ dichotomy is irrelevant. Fascism is totalitarian. There have been right- and left-wing totalitarian movements. Unfortunately you misunderstand the meanings of the applicable concepts. The BNP left-wing? Then one supposes that is exactly why they endorse a recapitulation to Christianity, ethnocentrism and nationalism. Ideals that almost all left-wing theorists (though not movements) have rejected. Please, read some history. Acquaint yourself with political theory. Don’t fall into the traditional conservative trap of avoiding engagement with substantial intellectual documents and theses.
They were called National –Socialist- for a reason. They wanted to appropriate working-class votes. It’s PR. Read a book.
[...] Posted on February 1, 2009 by Tory Pier Michael Rock, National Chairman of CF, has blogged today how “We must fight the left wing BNP”. It is about time that this conspiracy was put to [...]
[...] weekly student newspaper, The Beaver, seems to have gone into a right panic about Michael’s assertion that the BNP are in fact an extreme left wing organisation, and not a product of the political [...]
[...] National Chairman Michael Rock hit the nail on the head when he described the BNP as a left-wing party in his article last [...]
I agree we should beat them at every opportunity. Tell that to your young turks in Liverpool where the BNP have beaten the Conservatives in all 20 wards!!!
Bootle UKIP (where we also beat the Tories in every ward)
Dan.
Rubbish.
There are 30 wards in Liverpool and the BNP only stand in the deprived wards of North Liverpool. They don’t go south of Old Swan.
The idea that they would beat us in South Liverpool (Speke-Garston excluded) is laughable.
The same goes for UKIP by the way. Mark Bill has been half way around the place and still hasn’t managed to come close.
I have had a look at their policies and they don’t look very fascist to me. The term fascist is massively overused, I however agree with the fighting against the BNP because they would bring Britain into isolation which is very bad.
[...] I was interested to read a few blogs commenting on the BNP in the last few days. One suggests they won’t win any MEP slots, one suggests gains are likely, and one talks about it being left wing. [...]
Someone’s been reading a little too much Jonah Goldberg.
ironic that mislabelling was in turn miss-labelled
What a stupid and naive thing to say.
The BNP is an extremist, fascist, racist, homophobic, sexist, anti-democratic – extreme RIGHT wing party.
It is right wing because it is nationalistic and opposed to Marxist dialectic theory of class conflict.
Clearly there is a cross-over of ideology between the extreme left and right (we are all aware of the circular theory of the political spectrum), but this does not mean that Tories should draw the dangerous (and simply plain wrong) conclusion that there is no difference between socialism and fascism.
Bradley
your all not thinking in the right way………Nick Griffin of the BNP is the only person who can take this country forward…… just check out there policies and ask your self without prejudice, do they make sence….the answer would be YES!…..every time…… You college students are in for a big shock when you get in to the big bad world, when you find after all the years you ,v studied, that a polish imigrant will work for half the money you expect to earn…. you people should think of our forfathers who spilled their guts on the beaches of dunkirk to preserve the right of freedom of speech@…. and maybe our children who may be forced to live under islamic / sheria law/////YOU ALL NEED TO THINK!
Looky here children.
Your typical un-educated British person.
Eddie, you need to get a grip.
1. Please stop being a sheep and following the typical BNP party line.
Polish people are coming to work in Britain, doing jobs like being binmen and other less glamourous jobs.
I bet if someone said “Hey, you want a job cleaning toilets for minimum wage”, you’d say no. That Polish guy would jump at the chance.
2. Sharia law? It’s struggling to be promoted in Islamist states, let alone in the UK. Get a grip, brain, common sense. Take your pick.
3. The fact that you just referred to ‘our forefathers’ to get across your silly message quite frankly disgusts me. They fought to protect our lives. Freedom of speech came waaay later in the grand scheme of things.
As a final observation, I see you as a twentysomething, working-class (nothing against it, same here), unemployed.
You people reaffirm my idea of moving out of this county.
It is full of people like you.
Lets hope David gives you lot something to do when we get in.
Bradley, due to the collective nature of the BNP, right wing they are not. The BNP are left wing due to collectivism and their view on nationalised industries.
As much as I have a strong belief in the political ideology landscape of this country, I cant help but to think why on earth is the Conservative Party is associated with the British National Party on the political landscape when it is mainly working class left- wing youths and adults who tend to vote for the BNP.This is when I begin to question the political ideological scale of Great Britai.So yes I do agree thatn the BNP is much more left wing that right wing.
I have no problem with nationalism.
I do however have a problem with nationalists.
Nationalism, by its very nature can not harm a soul, simply because ideology is nothing without a force to advocate it. Nationalism only attracts the ignorant, the discontent, and the radical, you will not find within its midst an educated or open-minded figure, or a single person with an idealistic or humanitarian strand to their name. That is why Nationalism has become a problem.
The only way it can be defeated is through the preservation of democracy, and that is why it is up to the current democratic parties to tidy up their act and, for goodness’ sake, look a damn-sight better than the more radical left-wing parties. To battle the BNP with ‘make the BNP illegal’ is, in my opinion, and advocation of their policies to COMBAT their policies! The Conservatives must win the election, they must win it out of their own benefits, through their own merits, and with the promise of radical and beneficial change. I do not want this party to win on the grounds that it is simply the lesser of two evils, because that will not succeed for long. We must cease this fruitless engagement of ‘I told you so’ against the Labour party. Mr Brown has secured his own downfall, he no longer needs our assistance. It is now the duty of Mr Cameron and his Shadow Cabinet to secure the election of the Conservatives by means of demonstrating some real change. Not mere rhetoric.
The thing with the BNP, like any party, is it can sometimes be swings and roundabouts. I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of their policies but, at the same time, I disagree with a lot of their policies too. I actually think if the BNP dropped their racist stance on issues that they may well challenge the major parties. But with regards to their ideology, they are essentially the labour party but racist and homophobic – that’s them in a nutshell. Really, the only thing right-wing about the BNP is their nationalistic and anti-immigration stance. They play the race card to drum support, like UKIP plays the anti-europe card to drum support. In a way, the BNP is good for us because they may well have people voting for them that would normally vote Labour. But, as a gay man, I have seen their views on gay people and they dont seem to be any different from how we are perceived in the Muslim world – the Muslim word which they profess to hate. At the end of the day, though, as long as they keep taking votes off Labour; it’s all good for us Tories.
Personaly as much as i dont like the BNP they don’t seem to be doing anything illegal compared to the U.A.F (Unite Against Facism), who’s protests often turn violent and most disturbingly they have been flying communist flags at their latest protests. David Cameron has signed up as a supporter of the UAF but i think after recent events he should withdraw if he wants to keep his right wing voters from looking to the BNP for a voice against these very aggressive socialists.
Why the BNP are far right, not left-wing:
It was Enoch Powell (Conservative) who made the infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968. This has haunted the Tories ever since, and has been used by the BNP and NF to back up their racist policies.
He quotes a constituent: “I have three children, all of them been through grammar school and two of them married now, with family. I shan’t be satisfied till I have seen them all settled overseas. In this country in 15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.” . . . As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood.”
The right wing have always used the race card to divide and rule the working class.
More recently, the BNP tried to do a deal with the right wing party UKIP for the European elections in order that they would not stand against each other. UKIP refused.
The only way to stop the far right is to have a credible party who stands up for the working class and for people of all colours to unite in taking industrial action and fighting to defend their jobs in this coming recession. Then they will realise that we all need to band together to win concessions from the bosse and that no one race has any right to greater privileges than any other – we are all human beings after all.
It is the left wing, in trade unions and in the socialist parties – the SP and the SWP – that have been most active in opposing the BNP. If they ever got into power, the BNP would smash trade unions and the idea of socialism, as happened in Nazi Germany. We are fighting for our very survival.
Finally, Stalinism, which does share elements of the far right, is not true socialism. Socialists stand for freedom from this awful capitalist system, and a redistribution of wealth across the globe. We stand for freedom of speech and government would eventually be non-existent in a socialist world.
The BNP wouldn’t smash trade unions. As I have previously said, the BNP are essentially the Labour Party but racist and homophobic. I think if you asked BNP voters who their second preference would be, I bet most would say Labour. I imagine very few would have us tories as their second choice. But we shouldn’t be backing any group that embraces communism – that ideology would take us back 200 years. Yes, equality is good, but not being equally poor – and that’s where we’d be under communism. Socialists are so obsessed with this gap between rich and poor that they’d rather we were all equally poor, which is something I can’t agree with. Reagan was right when he said “How do you tell the difference between a communist and an anti-communist? A communist is someone who reads Marx and Lenin, and an anti-communist is someone who understands Marx and Lenin.” Under capitalism everyone has the chance to make something of themselves. Under communism we’d all be equally poor with nothing to aim for in our lives. Also, to be properly equal we’d all have to drive the same cars, wear the same clothes etc – how boring would that be? I suggest these people that like communism so much move to North Korea, I’m sure they’d be welcomed with open arms.
Hi a little laughter please,
BNP are little confused in general the policy is to leave europe and foreigners home you must go hummm…..
So to advertise this they put winston churchill a pro european in there posters, and a spit fire made in poland by polish people.
thankyou to Winston Churchill for saving Europe to be a market place.
thankyou to Poland for your wonderful help in the war.
thankyou for reading.
[...] Michael Rock has written about the BNP being left wing before: http://www.conservativefuture.com/2009/02/01/fight-left-wing-bnp/ [...]
[...] should all fight the BNP but Labour have to wake up; the BNP are left wing and are taking Labour [...]
All serious historians and political thinkers would characterise the BNP as far right – their anti-modernist impulses, virulent anti-communism, racial views, all mark them out as far right.
Similar to many other fascist parties, however, they are also anti-capitalist, which does confuse matters somewhat.
Whilst it is true to say they have taken root in traditional labour-voting areas, this distinction is mere point-scoring.
They are abhorrent and must be opposed.
If the BNP are left wing and they appeal to me, who has voted Tory for the Last 30 Years, how can that be. If the BNP are picking up votes then it’s because of Tory and Labour policies, People are sick of the merry go round for the last 50 years, they want stability and the 2 main parties don’t offer it I’m afraid, therefor people will vote for stability and anyone who offers it will see a rise in their vote. Don’t blame people for voting BNP, blame the politicians. Lets be honest, the BNP didn’t dream up the idea of ID cards, they didn’t install 14 million cameras, it’s not the BNP who want’s a massive database on us all, and it certainly isn’t the BNP who’s eroding freedom of speech. Sorry but if people are voting BNP it’s because most of them are fearfull of the future. Who are the real fascists, the BNP or the EU.
Peter, the BNP want more state control, though, that’s the whole point. I don’t know why the BNP appeal to you as a tory. Maybe it’s their nationalistic and anti-immigration stance – I have no idea. But, in my opinion, no true conservative could ever embrace a party who are against the free market, want more state control and want to nationalise industries. As I’ve said, the BNP are essentially the old Labour party but with racist and homophobic attitudes. The Nazis weren’t called the National ‘Socialists’ for nothing and this is essentially what the BNP are – I certainly would never vote for them. A vote for the BNP is as bad as voting Labour or the Lib Dems.
I suggest you concentrate more on you’re studies than politics, since you clearly can’t analyse results. LESS people voted BNP in this election than in the 2004 eu election.
As to the comment that the BNP are left wing, lol they’re about 1/10th of a cm to the right of you lot.
all the conservative party has to do to win a land slide victory is to make the following statement.
when in goverment the conservative party will stop all immigration and work visas for the life time of the conservative goverment and start to balance great britains books.(job done )
This post is a callow attempt to make the Conservatives look even holier than they actually aren’t. One thing the majority clearly believes in is that the BNP is in evil and authoritarian party. But the accusations that they are left are completely flat. People assumed for example that the Nazis were left wing because of the National ‘SOCIALIST’ bit but socialism is democratic and the Nazis were anything but. But let’s not dwell on the past.
The BNP are opposed to any immigration and the Conservatives are closer to them on this issue than the left is (Labour don’t belong in the left anymore because they decided they wanted to appeal to the rich). The BNP would bring back corporal and capital punishment which the left wing is entirely opposed to.
Most Conservatives tend to hold the military in high regard. Well, guess what, the BNP love the military. In fact, all you young Tory men, whether you like it or not, you’ll be part of it because the BNP would reintroduce conscription. Again, the left wing (socialists specifically) is staunchly opposed to conflict.
You can also run another parallel with the BNP and the right wing (Thatcherism in particular). The BNP would actively encourage physically adept, white men to take the world and have many children (much like the Aryans in Nazi Germany). Infamously, the membership of the party is 100% white and all other ethnicities are turned away. This shows that in the BNP’s hypothetical government, people who just happen to not be white or conscientious objectors (objecting of course to conflict; see previous paragraph) will not get an equal deal. This, I find, follows a very similar principle to Thatcher’s vile neo-liberalism model that encouraged people to become greedy, sated with cash. She advocated wealth and those who happened to come across it were rewarded with an irresponsibly neglected free market. This was her monetary equivalent of the BNP’s ‘survival of the whitest’. If the rich took advantage of the poor in Thatcher’s Britain, anyone in any form of power would turn a blind eye. The same would happen if a butch, white man beat up a black man in the street under the guise of a BNP Britain. Money and violence are in my opinion, both forces. As Rousseau wrote: “to yield to force would be a necessity, not a will”. A responsible government (for example, a socialist one), would be against the side of the force.
That is why the BNP are on the right wing.
[...] and bounds. But what he and his party stand for is appalling. They are fascist and extreme (though not so clearly aligned to the right as is commonly perceived). We should not use the tools of fascism to close down the debate. Let’s rise above that, [...]
[...] Unless, of course, you’re Conservative Future. [...]
I have said it once and I will say it again. Do you have an opinion on the BNP?
http://stevehynd.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/do-you-have-an-opinon-about-the-bnp/
The idea that the BNP is left wing is bizzare. They are far right and have always been.
“Left wing traditions of facism” ? Talk about trying to smear the left. Stalin and Mao were never left wing. They used the discourse of Marx but never implemented it. Marxists believe in an unltimate goal of NO GOVERNMENT and neither Stalin or Mao even attempted this.
The BNP are left wing? well, on reading its election manifesto, it contained the typical rabble of national socialist (a la NAZI) rubbish. Fascism is the bigoted version of the socialist ideology hence the “SOCIALISM” element, littered with protectionism and re-distribution. This would explain why “Labour” voters turned to them. A return to strong family and community values, coupled with enterprise will finish off the BNP, a rather “simple-slacked jawed” bunch of simpletons.
regardless of whether they are left wing right there is no place for them in this country. Labour have not controlled immigration for many years which has angered people and as each year went the BNP was gaining support, this was inevitable if it wasn’t BNP it would’ve been another party. This is a lesson that will be remembered for many years, all I hope is that people can live in peace with eachother instead of people blaming eachother and creating divisions when we are stronger as one.
Immigration should be controlled to the country’s needs not the other way around. Unemployment is so high now for i really feel for any one who is just leaving university.
I guess as I was born in London I’ve had the privelage of growing up around people from different backgrounds cultures etc to mine, i can understand why people from ethnic minorities feel alienated and stick together as many feel mis representated and stereotyped, engaging with all communities and cultures should happen all over the UK, many people just don’t simply understand other religions or cultures and draw analyses of people through media representation or of what they hear or are told. Communication is the key to all people from all backgrounds feeling part of this country.
PEACE
The BNP are an extremely racist and bigoted party. I personaly feel that these debates are needless, the BNP have such little political imapct, they hold two MEP’s and some councillors; we as a nation cannot deal with controversial right wing politics, were to affraid of Nazism rising again (even though BNP policy is not quite the same).
Going back to what i said about these debates being needless; what i mean is, is that we as a nation seem to have a certain amount of fear of the BNP, we seem to feel that the BNP can sway a majority of the nation, truth is we are not that naive. They have very little political success, although their % of the votes did rise this election it still is not enough. We should focus on stopping the ridiculos, corrupt and failed socialist, red sufficating blanket that we thankfully have gotten rid of.
Regardless to whether BNP follow left wing ideology or right wing, it does not change the fact they hold extremely small and insignificant opposistion, lets focus on Labour, the strong and potentually successful opposistion. We shouldent let the likes of the BNP take our eye of the political ball game, lets focus on the needs and the benefit for the people we are governing.
The notion that the BNP is left wing is certainly not new. The whole idea of spectrum politics is based on the understand that the spectrum is in fact a circular structure. Nazism being the perfect example of how a heavily right-wing agenda became so extreme that it became left-wing. Clearly with the socialist agenda this was always going to be the case, but let it be known that there are those on the extreme left of politics who may well find strange and yet good friends just across the extreme ideological divide. Still, I do agree with Jacob C-F (above) in that we all (the whole of the UK) should continue with mainstream politics and let the BNP continue on as a minority party (we have to as this is our moral standing) and let them continue to whinge on about things that they don’t really know much about… much like the Socialist Labour Party.
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