to think that people claiming that BNP voters aren't racists are being disingenuous?

[MrJustAbout]

I don't get the argument "that these people aren't racist, but they vote just BNP".

For me, If you vote BNP, you are a racist. I know this is guilt by association but I think it's fair. What's more, making excuses for those who choose to support these hatemongers makes it more acceptable for them to do so.

I know I wouldn't vote for a party when I didn't know their policies and if I did, I'd feel pretty ashamed that I voted without bothering to find out. To be honest, anyone who votes for the BNP and claims that didn't realise they'd just cosied up to facists needs to give up voting for good.

On the subject of US TV shows, one worth watching from the other side is the first episode from series three of the West WIng. It was written and recorded shortly after 9/11, although it didnlt see much syndicated play over there at the time.

It's a clever framework that does look at it in a more balanced way. The staff are trapped by a threat in the white house with a bunch of kids and get into the whole terrorism thing. I particularly love the commnunications director making them word associate 'Islam is to Islamic Fundamentalists as Christianity is to the KKK'

And then explaining why. It's Fab!

think a lot of the philosophising by others that bnp voters "aren't racist they just don't understand what they're voting for" was one of the worst exercises in political opinion. it's so patronising and is just a sure fire way to get someone who is on the cusp of voting for the bnp to do so.

This whole idea about 'mass immigration' really gets to me. DH and I are both immigrants, who worked bloody hard to get where we are today. It was not a conscious decision from us to immigrate here. It just happened that DH got a job here, and as his wife I was also allowed to work here.

We pay high taxes, and for over 7 years have not taken back anything from benefits (except the NHS). Even today we take nothing from the state, and contribute a hell of a lot more. It annoys me no end when we are lumped into this 'mass immigration' myth and I hate being demonised by rags like the DM and by people who don't know any better!

Its not nice to have been told to 'fuck off home' by assholes in the street either, especially since its probably me who is paying their benefits in the first place!

hellmouthcrusty LOVE the name.

Yes, that was the jist of it - far more succinctly put by you... I ramble endlessly, always.

I vote because to not vote is to throw away a hard won right and to allow the likes of the BNP to gain power through laziness, but I have no clue which 'mainstream' party is honestly better than any other anymore. They all seem ineffectual and out of touch, tbh.

My husband is threatening to start the 'Just f**king behave' party. With the intention that a little less whinging and pandering would work wonders.

And with the intention that no-one who wants to be a 'politician' would be allowed anywhere near it. He's of the opinion that standard pay for an MP should be minimum wage, with the same benefits entitlement as anyone else. No expenses etc at all.

I wonder if he's onto something

Custy I've just been listening to 5live and they're in Hull, talking to some unemployed youngsters and some of them just haven't really thought about training so they have some kind of skill that will help them get jobs. This is probably not entirely their fault - where's the advice from parents, teachers etc? But the impression I got was that they weren't in any hurry to get off benefits and help themselves find work. Depressing.

NickNemo please don't fuck off home, I hope this isn't a common occurrence for you.

So what do we do, cut the benefits so that no able bodied person, because there's plenty of girls with that attitude too, before they cotton on that they need to get pregnant or we have to force people into training, being sat on your arse is not an option, picking up litter in the rain or get into college.

Alana, trust me there have been days when I have been tempted to do just that (and weirdly 'home' for me and DH is Canada!!

Funnily enough I work in Liverpool, where people have been really friendly and I've never been racially or otherwise abused. The majority of the abuse DH and I have recieved has been in London, which is supposed to be the melting pot, yada yada.

And I am not saying its only white people that are racist. DH and I are a mixed race couple, and you should hear some of the comments we have got from the Indian community. Its also scary that the BNP gets votes from the Indian community...!

After watching Mr Griffin last night, I did wonder if anyone's ever traced his family tree back a few generations?

Personally, I went into tracing my family tree thinking that I'd have no trouble going way back, only to hit a wall due to three of my great great grandparents having moved here from abroad.

So, as the descendant of immigrants from Ireland, Germany and Russia, where exactly would Mr Griffin like me to go?

Riven I completely agree with your point about the fact that immigrants are prepared to do low-paid jobs and yes they do work hard where a non-immigrant would not. The problem is though, is that these immigrants are prepared to work for less money, particularly in menial / labouring jobs that require no qualifications.

I have seen how much labourers get paid nowadays (it is barely enough to support one person let alone a family) and in addition they are treated like shit. To me it is no surprise that they don't take pride in their work or even choose to work at all when they could be on the dole. If immigration were controlled (I don't mean stopped / sending people home) this may not be so much of a problem as employers would know that they could not exploit their workforce.

In Australia and the US they have systems which enable well qualified / entreprenuerial people (like the OP) to enter and this is what the UK needs - this is how the economy will improve. Not by allowing more labourers in.

Yes how about having him on the next series of Who Do You Think You Are?

He reckons he can trace it 300 years.

Thing is, I can trace a lot of my family back- we significantly fucked up the battle of sedgemeoot, for a start. And so can Grandad on the other side, to Wales for eternity.Or so we thought. Until my Aunt dug and researched every strain and found yep- an african bloke. Which significantly and wondrously pissed off my Grandad who is as racist as they come (and yet doesn't cote BNP becuase he likes his party to have policies that work).

FIL is similarly racist yet it is rumoured his father was a black airman in WW2 (war baby, adopted).

Which goes to show that reality and racism and very, very far apart indeed.

Rasputin your post reminded me of something.

Does anyone know what the British nasty Party's policies of SN are?

(reminded me becuase of a simialr beate I heard of where several prominent voices were advising to minimise the research into genetic causation as that can be used to suggest that people with LD are different species)

300 years? So clearly no-one invaded/immigrated before that point then!

My family also turned out to have an interesting past - my grandad had something of an attitude towards the French - turned out he was the descendant of some Norman noble.

And as for DH, we don't know who his grandfather was (his dad was another war baby), but due to skin colour and features, he certainly wasn't the 'white ideal' espoused by the BNP.

I think if you are going to put a cross on a ballot paper, you should have some idea of what the party you are voting stands for. And I think the vast majority of BNP voters - although perhaps lacking in a full understanding of the party's manifesto - know full well who and what the BNP are.

They may be voting as a protest against Lab/Cons, they may be voting over concerns about immigration / unemployment/housing/Europe etc. They may be voting for all sorts of reasons.

But if you vote for the BNP, you are voting for a racist, xenophobic, anti-semitic party. Very few people in this country are ignorant of that fact. If they choose to ignore that and vote regardless, they are racists. If they are so easily dazzled by the pathetic schmooze and the spin, I pity them. They are racist by default. But racist they still are.

I can't get over the mindless laziness of blaming immigrants for all your country's ills. I work in an industry that is notorious for its early morning starts, hazardous conditions and being outdoors in all weathers. If it wasn't for the Ukranians, Indian, Pakistanis etc etc we would be in a diabolical state. Almost anyone could do the job, but I have laughed loudly at some of the people who have enquired for vacancies and then cried off when they hear the pay/conditions. One man said it wouldn't be worth losing benefits for. Yes, a healthy, white, working class indiginous Briton.

Makes yer proud.

you are being completely unreasonable...

the BNP are the only party talking about immigration, and thank god they are.....they have forced the main parties to admit they have got it wrong....(although labour will never totally admit it)...he wants to put British people first.....why is that wrong..?

NG did brilliant on QT...he will have gained so many votes...

LOL at 'well we are all different, but if you live in this country you should fit in with our ways.'

British expats generally make very little effort to fit in with the ways of the country they move to. Should they be sent home too??

I'd like to emmigrate to Canada, but unless you have the right qualifications or lots of money then forget it.

Ginnybag. I take your point about the education system (hell, I've worked in it for over a decade) but how do you explain the children of immigrants who go to those same schools and yet somehow manage to leave literate and numerate.

My experience of teaching in inner city schools has been that many children of the white underclass have a sense of entitlement. In many ways it's similar to the attitude you get in many men who feel entitled to the best jobs and get quite upset when they are forced to compete with women or, heaven help them, have to work for one. We've all encountered these blokes, they are the same ones who think housework is woman's work. The ones SolidGoldBrass always refers to as thinking women aren't quite human because they don't have a willy. Anyway, my point is, a similar attitude can be seen in white underclass children. They seem to assume that jobs will just happen after they finish school. They get annoyed when the asian/black/immigrant children do better than them claiming it's 'racist' These children are no less intelligent than their classmates. In many cases they have advantages their classmates don't like English as their first language for example. And it is by no means all the children who have this attitude. Yet somehow, somewhere some of them have absorbed the idea that they are entitled to the best of everything without having to work for it. You can't, however hard you try, get through to some of them that there is a correlation between effort and result. As far as they can see, if things go wrong for them then it is always somebody else's fault.

It's just so frustrating. These attitudes are entrenched very early in life. The danger of the BNP and their ilk is that they legitimise and reinforce these beliefs.

The BNP on rape:

"I've never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime ... Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal. To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that forcefeeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched. The demonisation of rape is all part of the feminazi desire to obtain power and mastery over men. Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors."

ndon.co.uk/ standard- mayor/article- 23470426- women-more- troubled- by-bag-theft- than-rape- bnp-candidate- claims.do

Rasputin it's the way people casually say this kind of thing with no real thought that shows the BNP's messages do get through. All back to the ingorance described in detail above isn't it. How many Brits who work in Saudi try to fit in there? They can't even move to the Dordogne without getting the supermarkets to stock HP sauce and Heinz beanz.

Oops, try this link.

I think anti-Islamic feeling is a major factor in people voting for the BNP, yes.