Its what i and many have been warning for many years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4913164.stm


The left have been too preoccupied fighting battles that are meaningless to the anyone other than bloody fringe groups. What you give is what you get to quote a line from a famous song.

At least now someones taking note and having the balls to admit it. (oops excuse my use of the word balls, i except fully that it is a reference to male genitalia and could cause great offence to some of our more militant feminists)

Which battles?

Most people I know on here, including our sponsor have been battling the BNP for years.

Rob if you dont know the misguided battles the left have been wasting there energy on for years then you clearly aint that clued up fella. I aint about to list some of the more stupid irrelevent battles they have waged which have had no support other than from our more extremist friends within the left.

This is what happens when you take your eye off the ball and no longer represent the very people you should be classing as your own natural born supporters.
For too long the left have just taken for granted the very people who are now turning to the BNP. Howver missguided they may be in there judgement one can understand why this has happened.

And heres something for you all to think about. The truth can hurt.

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA870.htm

As ive said before on here keep burying your heads in the sand and denying then the problems grow.

You are talking about a tiny minority Steve. Like I said most people here have been fighting against fascism and the far-right for years.

Like a reformed-alcoholic, a reformed militant often goes completely the other way and actually can't see the wood for the trees anymore from their new position than from their old.

here is one of billy's actions.

Im afraid this is all too little too late, like it or not i think the BNP will do extremely well in some of the more traditional Labour voting white working class areas. The question the left need to ask themselves is why. I think we all know the answer to that dont we if we are honest.

White working class areas have been long neglected while other areas (admittedly also deprived) have seen massive influxes of governement and charity money, these other areas have been the "in thing" to be seen doing good in. Now low and behold an election is on its way and what do we see - suddenly the left beginning to take an interest in whats going on in these areas - had the BNP not been threatening to do so well in these areas would they be bothered..probably not folks. And that is the truth as i see it.

You're really worried about the B.N.P. getting into power?

I don't beleive what i'm hearing. The B.N.P. will never get into power, so chill out.

And don't go blaming "the left" (that expression, in the way it's often used pisses me off) for it, jesus christ, it's not our fault that a couple more racist idiots vote for them.

And that patronising attitude Andy is why there is currently a big backlash by the white community "Racist idiots"..Do you think for one minute that all those voting BNP are Racist? Could it be they are just pissed off with feeling second class citizens in there own country.

There is right now as i type this a big phone in on radio 5 about this subject and up to now none have been what i would call racist/facist or any other label you wanna put on them to just stifle debate and make them appear idiots who have no valid concerns.

Complacency in your attitude is exactly whats wrong Andy and im a bit suprised at you to be honest. The attitude of dont worry they wont get in, we know that they will never get into number 10 but they will win seats at local level and that should make the left sit up and ask fucking well WHY.
Ill tell you what realy pisses me off Andy, its that attitude from the left that just discounts them voting BNP as nothing more than racist idiots.

Without exception the BNP vote is a vote against the PC bullshit currently dominating british politics, its about the white working class population being pissed off and feeling second class citizens, now you and all the others can call me racist which is laughable, but untill we have real debate and let those white communities speak freely without getting slagged off and patronised by middleclass university eductaed fucking liberals then you will get the very thing you dont want.

The choice is yours, free open debate or an ever increasing disfrancised white population more than willing to vote BNP.

oh my god, he's at it again...

keep up the good work steve, and be sure to keep us posted on what the BBC website is saying... cheers.

(plus, lee_tyrrell_bassist's name is LEE, funnily enough.)

by the way, those people migrating to the BNP...
we're not passing them off as racist... we're passing them off as idiots.

At what again you dickhead??? you realy do sound a bit of twat fella. If your gonna join the bedate at least fucking have some bollocks to debate, what have i said thats so shocking and so wrong then. When you can even try to tell me that i will take you mildly serious untill then your a joke.



Yep nice responce Andy, always thought better of you, still cant be right in everything i guess.

?!?!

I'm andy, and so is my wife.

A. And you are debating? Quoting from the almighty BBC? Don't call my brother a dickhead and a twat because he is neither.

B. My name is Lee, not Andy, i am Andy's son. Read my username.



Are you a samaritan?

I don't want any more samaritans around here.

shut up big nose.

I'm Andy too!





It's just more media hype and cage shaking. The bird flu thing wasn't frightening enough, and when it slipped out the H5N1 virus has been here since the '50s, the edge was truely blunted on that scare story, so the next one had to roll around (or be invented...), and it's this pile of poo.

Codswallop. Smoke and mirrors to sell newspapers. Very little validity to it.

I'm Spartacus

I shot Ronald Reagan, I shot JFK, I slept with Marilyn she sung me happy birthday.



PS: Looks like Leeds-steve has been spreeding the word on the BBgb.

On Billy's own site !

You realy are a sad twat aint ya to even suggest that.

But this i will tell ya for fucking free, when you wake up after the local elections to find BNP councilors voted in across the nation you can blame yourselves and your own fucking arrogance and complacency.

You get what you fucking deserve twats.

you should lay off the sauce, steve. it makes you a tad aggressive.

When he said "shut up big nose" he was in fact quoting Monty Python's The Life Of Brian with me (I'm Lee by the way, you worked that out yet?), so fuck off.

And Nevski, who i happen to personally know certainly is not a sad twat, he is a fine man (but can often be a n00b - that one's for you Nev), who doesn't shit himself everytime the BBC notice that the BNP have one extra voter.

This thread covers all sorts so here's my take;

The BNP will at best? worse? Go from 20 odd (extremely odd) councillors to 30 odd, thats it 90% of their candidates will lose.

People vote for them because they are a racist party. people see real problems in inner city areas and unfortunately draw the wrong conclusions.

Why have the BNP achieved what the BUF and NF failed to achive (The National Democrats an NF splinter group picked up two councillors in Blackburn in the 70's) and actually get elected?

I sadly think its largely about numbers (they are better organised now and have a brighter leader) since the 70's my childhood census figures indicate a rise in the BME population from 4.5% to around 9% and there is probably a tipping point for many people.

I don't think that the white working class is a homogenous mass I'm from that background and I have actively campaigned for anti racist/fascist groups in my teens and twenties, I do my bit in a different way but I'm still fighting for social justice.

I have read many articles like Steve on Spiked and agree that the attitude to the WWC is ugly and wrong, but the MC is full of snobs is no shock surely.

What to do well as a WC bloke I married a nice MC girl and stopped reading the Daily Mirror and listening to radio 2 and started listening to R4 and buying the Guardian. If you can't beat them join them. After all our country is prosperous and the size of the industrial WC has shrunk.

Last point if you want to beat the BNP you need to vote Labour, it's not rocket science.

fair points...



also true, but i think what steve is (aggressively) trying to get at, is that labour do not deserve our un-conditional support.
which i agree with.

but steve has been saying it for years, therefore everyone here is a dickhead and a twat.
i think there's a definition of the word "therefore" in the Leeds_Steve dictionary, never fully understood it though.

I don't think anyone really thinks that the BNP are going to get their hands on any major levers of power in this country. However for the asian communities in Burnley or Oldham, it can be rather intimidating when significant sections of the community start voting BNP and getting councillors in return.

The other issue is that by saying that this is a result of the white working class being ignored or marginalised, it insinuating that the asian working class somehow gets preferential treatment. (which is the line the BNP thrive on). It's seems clear to me that large sections of the working class whether white or black is being marginalised in the politicians constant pursuit for the middle england vote.

The left has often failed to counter BNP arguments in a way that is clear but that's not the only factor at play here.

Who's afraid of the British National Party?

The BNP's twelve worst councillors
Monday, April 10 2006 @ 07:51 PM GMT-1
BNP councillors have been elected on the promise to be different. Criticising the ‘old gang’, the BNP has benefited from being considered a “new” party. However, the shine appears to be already slipping from their political machine. In every area where there are BNP candidates voters have been let down. The performance of BNP councillors reveals a shocking list of incompetence, absence and general indifference.

Most BNP councillors rarely participate in council business, regularly skip meetings and ignore requests for help from local people.

The BNP currently have just 20 councillors, out of a national total of over 8,000, yet the majority of even this small number have failed. They include the ‘Dirty Dozen’:

Luke Smith (Burnley). Was forced to resign after he smashed a bottle into the face of a Leeds BNP organiser. Despite claiming to be the party of law and order, the BNP failed to call in the police and press charges. Smith had only recently been convicted of football violence when he was elected as a BNP candidate. He has had several more recent convictions and was sentenced to 11 months imprisonment after being caught fighting in Manchester.

Brian Turner (Burnley). Was convicted of attacking his wife and a police officer whilst a councillor yet the BNP refused to disown him. In fact they even defended him by issuing a statement saying: “we are not in the business of persecuting our members because the state considers someone guilty.”

Dan Kelley (Barking & Dagenham). Resigned from the council only eight months after being elected after admitting that he was completely out of his depth. “There’s meetings that go right over my head and there’s little point in me being there,” he told the local paper even before he resigned.

Richard Mulhall (Calderdale). Is currently facing charges on housing benefit fraud. Despite this the BNP has refused to disown him or demand his resignation if he is found guilty.

Maureen Stowe (Burnley). Left the BNP after admitting that they deliberately told lies to get elected. On leaving the BNP she said: “This is the best thing I could have done. I’ve got a chance to do a lot of good. Now I think we can pull all the people of Burnley together to improve things for everybody. I keep asking myself how could I have been so stupid as to have anything to do with them.”

Robin Evans (Blackburn). Left the BNP after complaining about the drug dealers and football hooligans who dominated his local BNP branch. He also criticised the Burnley BNP councillors as useless.

David Watkins (Sandwell). Dubbed ‘possibly the worst councillor in Sandwell,’ Watkins attended just 10 out of 63 meetings. Gave up after just one year.

Steve Batkin (Stoke-on-Trent). Steve Batkin attended none of a possible thirty committee meetings in the nine months to March 2005. Batkin has only spoken twice in his first two years as a councillor and one of those was to ask what “abstain” meant. Was once told to stop talking to the media after he questioned key facts relating to the Holocaust, including saying that Jewish people refused to debate the subject because they would be exposed as liars.

Angela Clarke (Bradford). Resigned from the council less than half-way through her term after her performance was criticised by fellow BNP members.

Terry Farr (Epping). Was suspended by the Standards Board after writing abusive letters. The hearing also said that it was fair political comment for a rival candidate to call the BNP Nazi.

Ramon Johns (Broxbourne). Was elected on the promise to campaign for free bus passes for all the elderly but then immediately voted against such a plan once elected.

James Lloyd (Sandwell). Campaigned on a ticket to make parents responsible for the crimes of their children. What he failed to tell voters was that his own son was one of the areas worst offenders. Also recently put out BNP leaflets claiming a local library building was going to become a mosque. When it was proved that this was a lie he did not apologise but simply claimed that somebody had obviously made up quotes from him.

Adrian Marsden (Calderdale). The absent councillor. In the six months to March 2006, Marsden has attended just three council meetings and his work record for his ward constituents has been even worse. However, he managed to find the time and strength to act as a bodyguard to BNP leader Nick Griffin during the recent court case in Leeds. But then again, what can you expect from a man with several convictions and a long history with the violent neo-nazi group Combat 18.

Geoffrey Wallace (Calderdale). Wallace jumped ship from the Tories when he thought he could not win a council seat under the blue flag but refused to call a by-election. He too stood on a ticket to help local people but his record proves he has done nothing of the kind. His recent performance in dealing with casework from local residents is truly shocking and clearly demonstrates his inability to work for local people. In the four months to February 2006 he did only 14.5 hours casework, and all but three were in the last few weeks.

So the next time the BNP campaign on how wonderful a BNP councillor will be, just remember the failed record of the recent councillors. No wonder they have earned the tag of ‘the do-nothing councillors’.


http://libcom.org/news/article.php/rubbish...ncillors-100406

ROTFLMAO

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4942886.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4943636.stm

These and the seemily endless cases like them, are the main reason why BNP support is rising.If the mainstream parties ignore, lie, cheat and decieve over immigration and crime.People will start voting for parties that do promise to sort these things out.The BNP's rise is directly the fault of this Government and The Guardianista PC-brigade.You should bow your heads in shame.

Killers and rapists let loose into the community, when they should have been deported.Murders and violent crimes in their hundreds being carried out by people on early reaease licenses and probation orders.Prisoners on average only serving half of their sentences because their are not enough prision spaces.Paedophiles in early release hostels, free to roam amonsts our communities.Mentally disturbed and schizophrenic people placed in the community with inadequate supervision and care,because their arn't enough specialist units to securely care for them.

Makes you proud,doesn't it?

*Bows head in shame while awaiting KLF's next directive. Says to self; "Wait a minute, KLF is a jackass" and abruptly stops feeling responsible for the BNP's hatemongering ways. Thoughts drift as head is raised skyward and wonders aloud whether to rent Crash or Good Night, and Good Luck*

What a waster!

If you've got nothing to contribute.Keep quite.You only make yourself look foolish otherwise.

Oh... you disapprove of my post? Do you dismiss the fact that I think you're wrong for blaming the so-called left for the BNP? Think I should keep quiet? Should I refrain from posting what I think about your misguided beliefs? Like that, would ya? My dissent is a waste of time, is it? Too many question marks in this post perhaps? Hmmm?? Nine question marks and counting and you consider that to be mighty excessive, do you? Well fuck off.

So you do not think that the rise of the BNP has anything to to with the mainstream parties of Britain being week and ineffective on immigation and crime.Or anything to do with the PC-brigade who try to stifle and shout down any sensible debate or action plans to help the situation.

You are very naive if you think that.Ask anybody on the streets of Britain,and they will say that crime and immigration are the two biggest problems that need to be sorted out in this country.These very people can see that this government has lost control of both of those issues,and they can see that the other mainstream parties do not have any proper plans to control them either.In that situation people will undoubtable be drawn to a party that offers to deal with those things that most concern them.People would much rather the mainstream politicians dealt with their concerns.Extremist parties will always benifit, if that doesn't happen.And shame on the politicians and PC-brigade for letting that happen,and they must take responsability for every cross placed for a BNP candidate in the upcoming elections.

KLF: Let's set aside for a moment the nebulous "PC-brigade" that you blame for the rise in the BNP's popularity and answer for me a couple of simple questions. Do you considerer the BNP to be genuine in their pursuit for seats, or do you think they're issuing false promises and hiding their true beliefs to win elections? If you think they're being disingenuous, please say so. Your feelings on immigration are well know, but unless you intend to vote for the BNP, I'll assume you're just whistling in the dark.

People are rightly wary of the BNP.Sky News produced a survey this week and asked people questions like: Do you think we should limit futher immigration.Do you think British families should take priority is housing over migrants...etc. The questions were getting 70-odd% agreement.When the BNP was mentioned in the same question.Support for the same questioned dropped buy an average of 10%.

SAD, No very SAD

"We believe that as much industry as possible should be owned by those who work in it-
the workers should own and the owners should work. Strong trade unions are vital to
protect workers from exploitation"
"It is time to take our soldiers home from Americas Iraq war"

Who is reported by the Independant (21st April 06) as using these sentiments in their manifesto?
Nick Griffin!!! It's no wonder Margeret Hodge found so many people considering voting BNP. Lets make
sure they don't get any seats on the 4th.

I think this article is about as good as anything I've read on the 'rise' of the BNP.
Barking: the land that Labour lost.
It's sort of saying: Don't panic, things on the ground in Barking and Dagenham are not really so bad.
People in the streets were not showing much (strong) feeling about the BNP, or any other party.

That’s an intriguing article. Cheers Damon. I do appreciate your posts, truly.

It’s an odd one: at “my end” of London (primarily due to proximity to Heathrow) we have a massive mix of races and cultures. Probably two-thirds of the people on my estate are from Eastern Europe.

We have Somali cafes up the road. It all works. The BNP wouldn’t even think of putting up a candidate here.

Move to Brentford is the moral

How many of your multi cultural Brenford 'community' do you see at Brenford FC home games,Pete?

I'm afraid that these communities are living parallel lives with yourself.The only contact they seem to have with the wider community is to provide services in exchange for money..Ie.shops,cafes,or in the case of Eastern Europeans,providing driving/building work in exchange for money.Is this a real community or just seperate ethic groups living mostly peacefully (but totally seperately) in the same areas.

But isn't that how communities work anywhere KLF?

Growing up I remember that we all "knew" the local greengrocer and the butcher but aside from chit chat and talking about the weather we could never have described them as close personal friends. The butcher is still here. His name's Max and he knows my name and how my parents are doing yet beyond that there is nothing other than the financial transactions that take place when I pop in for the odd bit of fresh veg when I can't get to Sainsbury's. (The greengrocer gave up a few years back so Max does everything now).

I drive (drove, *sob*) trucks and get paid for doing it but I don't have any overwhelming desire to spend out of work time in the company of the people with whom I work or our clients.

Following a depot closure I'm still in regular contact with only two drivers since they left the company. One's afro carribean and the other is sikh.

Communities are a bunch of people all living and working together for mutual gain and satisfaction. Their ethnicity is a side issue unless you choose to make it otherwise and it seems to me that Pete is descibing just what any peaceful community can and should be.

Incidentally you won't find me at the Blues or the Villa either. It's not because I'm ethnically excluded by choice or design it's because I can think of a guzzillion other more enjoyable ways of spending my money and leisure time.

It works well mate. Sorry if you can’t take it. My local shop is run by Sikhs, and they predominantly sell Polish goods. I don’t have a problem with that. And neither does anyone else.

And my neighbours are Russian.

And, um… you should come to a Brentford game and see for yourself, mate.

I'm intrigued that anyone really thinks we still have local communities - particularly in large conurbations. Irrespective of ethnic differences most people in London don't even know the name of their next door neighbours.

Community these days is centred around people's activities - be it work, their unioin or political party, a church or mosque, a local sports team, a school or college or a gym or even an online forum.

Even outside of conurbations people are very wary of each other - I'd bet most people's peer groups on here are composed mainly of work and school/college friends.

The fact is ,rightly or wrongly, that the majority of ethnic groups wish to socialise and live amonst their own 'people' .Be they Asian,East European, English.Its only natural to want to live in communities who share your traditions,culture and values.

Unfortunately this leads to all sorts of problems.A community must be much more than just seperate ethnic and social groups who just happen to live in the same area and will trade with eachother.We have seen mass migration by the established white community OUT of Cities and large Towns in the last three decades.This has coincided with the mass migration of ethnic groups INTO those Cities and Towns.

Pete is right about one thing.The BNP will not stand it areas where the white popluation have already been overwhelmed by 'multiculralism'.They will stand in areas whith still have large working class white communities,but also have seen mass settlement from large migrant communities in recent years.East London is their prime area,but also more worryingly, areas outside the large cities have also seen a rise of BNP. Areas that still have a very high majority of white people. Take Cheshunt in Hertfordshire.Most of its population are white and have moved there from inner city areas 10/15 miles away in the past three decades.Places like Tottenham/Edmonton/Enfield.They moved 'out' because their traditional communities have been swallowed up and broken apart by the large migrant settlement that enveloped their areas.They are now seeing this ever expanding migrant urban-sprawl moving ever close to them again.They don't want to see their commuiny overwhelmed and swallowed up again.They are concerned.What did they do? They elected BNP candidates in one of their wards and BNP support around the whole area has risen sharply.

Martyn seems to be underestimating or ignoring the problem.This attitude will directly lead to increased support for extremist parties.In not wishing to accept or address white communities genuine concerns and fears,he is directing those communities straight into the arms of the BNP.





As Robin Day would have said 'answer the question'


Does your fanbase in anyway represent the community and ethnic make-up of the City of Brenford.

Are you trying to suggest that the fan-base of any football club is representative of the local area???

No.I'm saying the complete opposite.No inner-City Footall club draws their support from their own communites.They draw their support from families that,in the main, used to live in the City to whom the football club is supposed to represent.

You know, a lot of Manchunians must have moved to the south of England. I wonder when that happened?

It isn't that simple KLF.

I seem to be underestimating or ignoring the problem?

That may be what I seem to be doing but in fact I am addressing a point made by you, KLF, about the nature of communities.



My feeling is that throughout history communities made up from people of whatever disparate ethnic background rub along reasonably well until a group not unlike the BNP turns up and tells them that they have a problem.



Why?

Barmy Rob made an excellent point about neighbours in London. I've lived here, 6 or 8 miles south of Birmingham city center, for most of my life and in my current home for over ten years and it is ironic that just as I am about to leave I've become aquainted with a bloke who lives just a few yards away and with whom until now, I've barely exchanged more than an odd "Mornin'". The whole of south Birmingham might be seen as a community but in fact it is nothing of the sort. It is a sprawling collection of middle and working class homes to which numerous people who work in and around the west midlands conurbation retire each evening to eat, watch big brother and sleep, before returning to work the follwing day. At weekends they "go away". No community such as the one you envisage has existed like that since 1955. My friends are few but extraordinarily close and I feel more a part of the Billy Bragg Forum community than I do of any other. Were this supposed "community" in which I curently reside to be, as you put it, overwhelmed by 'multiculralism' then I doubt that anybody round here would notice much less care. There wouldn't be a problem until some poisonous narrow minded BNP supporter fetched up on our doorsteps telling us we had one.

How utterly patronising.How deluded and in denial do you have to be?People know and can see whats happening to their own communities.