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The BNP (British National Party) has just gone another notch up in my estimation. The Guardian has posted the following exchange between the BNP's Nick Griffin and a BBC interviewer who had just spent five minutes trying to get Griffin to say something that could be characterized as racist:
Nick Griffin: The BBC is obsessed with race and immigration. It would be great to talk about something else for once.
Nicky Campbell: What would you like to talk about? What's the thing you'd like to say given this platform to speak to the nation this morning?
Nick Griffin: OK, how about the fact that I believe, along with the Czech politician [Vaclav Klaus] everyone is berating, that global warming is essentially a hoax. It is being exploited by the liberal elite as a means of taxing and controlling us and the real crisis is peak oil. We're running out of proper, real energy. And it is something with an immediate and catastrophic effect in a few years' time potentially — not worrying about floating polar bears in a 150 years.
That about sums up reality in a paragraph. And if he is making sense while the left is doing nothing but making ad hominem attacks, the BNP might find itself on a real upward trend over the next few years. Let's hope they moderate a bit more, though. They may see global warming as a hoax, but, as EU Referendum points out, they have previously said that the Holocaust was a hoax also.
Update: Add to the above this article from the NYT:
The British National Party opposes what Mr. Griffin calls the “creeping Islamification” of Britain, supports voluntary repatriation of immigrants and wants to take Britain out of the European Union and NATO.
. . . Mr. Griffin’s victory is the culmination of a campaign to modernize the party and shake off a reputation for anti-Semitism and the politics of incitement it earned in a previous era.
I don't know about that drop out of the NATO bit. I'll have to read up a bit more on that.
11 comments:
GW
You seem to be under the impression that the EU is a project of the left. This is not the case. The EU's strongest critics are the eccentric left who claim the EU sells out the workers and is in bed with big business. The second biggest critics of the EU is hard core nationalists and the far right who see any concept of harmonising European economies as betrayal of their nations. You will find such people in neo fascist parties and the most nationalist parts of Europe such as Northern Ireland, the Basque region, Serbia and Croatia. The European right is pro EU. Britain joined the EU under Tory leadership. Thatcher believed strongly in the common market.
The EU is an organisation designed to reach a compromise between right and left wing values, the clash of which brought such destruction and dictatorship to Europe. All 27 EU countries are democratic, they protect both workers and investors rights. Separation of powers and the rule of law is a must for membership. Not bad when you consider a mere 30 years ago 13 of the 27 nations were either military or communist dictatorships.
Nor is immigration as uncontrolled as you seem to think. In fact "fortress Europe" is exceptionally difficult for non EU nationalities to enter. There is however a virtually open border between the 27 members leaving many with the mistaken impression that its totally lawless.
Just a few thoughts. I sometimes think the EU is misunderstood across the pond.
Thanks for the comment, Ted. Most of my view of the EU comes from two sources. One, Margaret Thatcher's public pronouncements on her anti-EU stance, and two, EU Referendum, my primary source of information that I have been following for years. I realize that the EU draws fire from the fringes, but unless I am mistaken, there seems to be an equally healthy scepticism in the center.
Looking at the EU's organization, it is not a democratic institution. It gives a patina of democracy, but given the limitations on who can create or recall laws, it is only superficial. That is a structural issue that makes of it a form of bureaucratic socialism. Add to that is that, in practice, there are no checks in balances. There still has not been an accounting of the EU books, even though its been required for .. . what, decades?
Further, if the EU is in fact a democratic institution, then why the Lisbon Treaty rather than referendums. Not that the EU is doing anything to recognize Ireland's no vote - the EU is acting as if Lisbon has been fully ratified and appears ready to have Ireland do revote after revote til you get it right in the Emerald Isle.
Having read Lisbon and all of the other treaties (took me over two weeks given the way it is written, in bits and pieces that relate to one another) I am convinced that the EU evinces a distinctly anti-democratic bent in essentially all of its functions.
I do appreciate your thoughts, and admittedly, I could well be wrong in my perceptions. This is a difficult forum in which to argue points, but perhaps it would be easier if we were operating from the same frame of reference. I will make a deal with you Ted. Read the book found here ( http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/05/it-wont-magically-disappear.html ) and then let's have a decent debate on this. Likewise, if you have anything you would like me to review so that we are on the same frame of reference, I will be more than happy to do so.
Its a deal GW
I will read the book and get back to you on this one.
On Global Warming...
Let’s try for some perspective, time-wise.
For those comfortable with the metric (S.I.) system, imagine a line about 4.6 kilometers long (a bit under 3 miles). That would represent the 4.6 billion year age of the Earth at 1,000,000 years/meter; 1 mm (about the thickness of a paper clip) would represent a THOUSAND years.
That line would span the downtown area of quite a few large cities, with some to spare. Here in Houston, the downtown streets are 16 to the mile, making their spacing about 100 meters. Thus, that line would be about 46 blocks.
The dinosaur’s reign ended around 65 million years ago (65 meters, about 2/3 of a city block down that line from today).
The first of our ancestors verging on intelligence may have emerged from 2 to 4 million years ago (2 to 4 meters, say 6.5 to 13 feet; your living room could be around 4 meters in one of its’ dimensions).
What we call “modern” man may go back 40,000 years or so (40 mm, TWO finger-widths on that line).
Written history goes back 6000 years (six millimeters, 1/4 inch on that line).
Fahrenheit’s thermometer is around 300 years old ( 0.3 mm, you’re approaching the thickness of a business card now).
The portion of that time-line during which precise temperature measurements were recorded would be literally microscopic.
And with that pitifully small database, we dare to make really long range climate predictions, and mandate actions based on them?
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GW
Don't big up the BNP, they're not only racist but viciously socialist in their economic policies besides their vote has not improved, the Labour vote has collapsed. They happen to be right about global warming, probably just a coincidence!
That said, you might find this speech by Bill Hague amusing...enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geWERiWP7aA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Farchbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F06%2Fwilliam-hague-on-archbishop-mandelson.html&feature=player_embedded
Pete
"...supports voluntary repatriation of immigrants and wants to take Britain out of the European Union and NATO."
Good on him, both are useless, parasitical institutions that suck the taxpayers dry and lord over them.
The EU might or night not be a leftist thing, but one thing i can tell you, it'll be the left that screams the most if you try to dismantle it.
I don't know about that drop out of the NATO bit. I'll have to read up a bit more on that.
Their foreign policy is just the British equivalent of Ron Paul-style isolationism, for better or worse.
And it's true that opposition in the EU comes from both right and left. In the recent Euro election in the UK there was also a collection of eccentric leftists called "No2EU, Yes to democracy". UKIP did slightly better in the polls though ;)
My comment to Peter Horne...please tell everyone who may be interested why you believe the BNP are racists, and stick with the facts please.
"Without the White race, nothing matters. [Other right-wing parties] believe that the answer to the race question is integration and a futile attempt to create 'Black Britons', while we affirm that non-Whites have no place here at all and will not rest until every last one has left our land."
“I want to see Britain become the 99 per cent genetically white country she was just eleven years before I was born, and I want to die knowing that I have helped to set her on a course whereby her future genetic makeup will one day not even resemble that of January 1948, but that of July 1914. Nothing will ever turn me from working towards that final vision.”
Nick Griffin
Looks like a duck. Talks like a duck, Guess what? It IS a duck.
The British are an original white culture...do you believe it is racist to want to protect your own kind?
Do you also believe that it is governments preserve to choose who should settle in your own nation, or do you believe that the people should decide who settles?
Because, no western government has ever undertaken, through referenda, public consent for
immigration policies.
Rather, immigration policies have been foisted onto every western nation which now threaten the very fabric of western society as we now know it.
If it is racist to combat the colonization of your own nation, via third world immigration, then I too declare myself a racist!
Come on Peter...where's your refutation?
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