NIck Griffin tells BBC that boats carrying immigrants should be sunk

[spokette]

I think his victory in the EU elections makes him think that he can reveal more of his true true heinous side.

How long before he starts extolling the virtue of gas chambers?

well I don't feel anyone listened to me with regards to labour - but I would never ever vote for a openly racist, misogynist party like the BNP

"it's impossible to reason with you"

pot........kettle........

you've not attempted to reason with me, dp, i've just asked you to go over your concerns again, that's all, as i didn't really catch them with all the fighting before.

i'm not sure that the reason that people voted bnp was because labour were refusing to address immigration: GB, the economy etc etc have made labout lose voters left, right and centre (and far right ).

i thought one of the things that the BNP was doing quite successfully was encouraging non-voters to vote? is that not the case? i don't have figures, i'm sure i read it at the time though.

look, this is the only post you've addressed to me. i was seeking further clarification as to the impact that immigration is having on a lot of people.

By daftpunk on Sat 11-Jul-09 11:44:09
aitch..immigratation isn't impacting on my life much tbh...but i don't have a "ME ME ME" attitude. immigration is having an impact on alot of people, these people (traditional labour voters most of them) feel let down and frustrated.....politicians have to listen to the BNP voters..it's crucial.

"as to the impact that immigration is having on a lot of people. "

ermm impact on me - evidence of that on my profile

FAQ..just because you wouldn't doesn't mean you have to dismiss the 1000's of people who did..i listened to interviews from BNP voters...they feel isolated in their own country,.. if i was a labour MP i would be trying my hardest to win those voters back...and to do that i would have to talk about the BNP....they are not going away.

yes and sadly most of the interviews I've heard it was quite evident that they didn't understand what the BNP really stands for.

it doesn't matter FAQ...how many voters read every word of a parties manifesto before voting for them?
aitch..the BNP have always had votes from the far right ... it's the new votes that are the concern.

Here are the anti-immigrant arguments that have been made so far on this thread:

We'll be 'swamped by the Third World' - effortlessly dealt with by FAQ, who pointed out that most immigrants are not from developing countries. (I would like someone to explain to me why anyone should worry more about immigrants from developing countries than immigrants from, say, Eastern Europe.)

The UK is a 'small country' and we 'don't have enough room': batted away by explaining that in terms of population density, we have some way to go before we're leading the world.

'We can't have people coming here to live off benefits' - as Expat has just ably and amply explained, they don't.

'It's a strain on social services provision' - it's not. Economic migrants bring in far more in tax revenues than they take out in social services. Where local services are stretched too far, it's the fault of the government.

'The UK is seen as a soft touch' - not any more it's not. We've recently instituted some of the nastiest anti-asylum seeker standards in Europe - in fact we've been censured for it by the UNHCR, IIRC. (See FAQ's point that Zimbabwe is deemed 'safe'.) Our standards for economic migrants are no softer than any other European country. Numbers of immigrants and asylum seeker applications are falling.

Furthermore, if anti-migration posters want a reasoned debate, they have to start distinguising between economic migrants and asylum seekers, because they are two very different things, and the arguments are correspondingly different.

I'm all for listening to people's arguments on this topic. Doesn't stop me knowing that most of the anti-immigrant arguments are desperately ill-informed. Democracy is not best served by listening to ignorant opinions and promising to take them seriously.

oh it doesn't matter?

really - I think in the case of the BNP is DOES matter.

because beneath the leaflets they sent to every home that "looked" respectable - their policies are anti just about every group in this country bar a select few.

excellent post, pw. much as i'd read the thread myself.

dp what does 'isolated in their own country' mean, really? do you think it means outnumbered by immigrant populations who are here to stay because they arrived a generation back, such as our asian communities for example? do you really think the problem for a BNP voter lies with the current wave of immigration?

(btw to be clear i'm not interrogating you, just musing... i'm interested to hear what you think ).

aitch.....if i didn't suspect you were taking the piss i'd muse with you all night..

havfe you noticed that dp never gives a proper answer? aitch had a v. valid point. answer it

The 'small island' argument is the same one used to try to prevent much needed social housing from being built and is currently keeping hundreds of thousands of British children in a cycle of homelessness and/or dangerous housing.

And the vast majority of these children have one or both parents working, and paying taxes.

It's an argument that will prove far, far more costly than any amount of housing that might have otherwise possibly been built.

i swear to you i'm not taking the piss at all, truly and whole-heartedly, i'm interested in the issues but don't want the thread to get all aggro again.

my feeling is that the asylum seeker stuff is a smokescreen that allows people to vent their frustrations about past waves of immigration. the numbers don't stack up, imo - people by and large aren't affected adversely by asylum seekers and if they're working legally i don't think they're being affected by economic migrants. unless you have different information? (which is what i've been asking you for).

As far as I can tell, there was nothing definitive about those 'refutations' PW.

Can we try to carve out the main points that are emerging because the hapit of creating false dichotomies is very misleading.

Who are the posters in favour of open boarders?

Which would like to see limits set, like most countries out of the EU? With regular reviews?

Who would like to close the boarders?

I am in the middle camp.

Monkeytrousers lol at reading the Socialist Worker. I left the SWP whilst still a student (too many years ago) when they told me that gender equality would be pursued after the revolution. Luckily, they don't speak for the left, just as the BNP doesn't speak for the right. The Orwellian critique of the left, just like his critique of the right, does not mean that socialism eqates to totalitarianism; that is indeed lazy thinking.

How would I know if DP was left-wing, having come across her here for the first time? I am surprised that you described her views as liberalism as the views expressed here have been far from liberal (we are still not sure which asylum seekers she doesn't like, or why she alluded to sexual assault as a default behaviour for illegal immigrants). Frankly I don't care what her politics are, as long as she can express them using reasoned argument, rather than making personal comments or avoiding straightforward questions.

i'm in the middle camp, i think. with MUCH more transparency as to how the home office conducts itself. cos without more openness i fear it it could get a bit guantanamo bay with those bastards.

i thought most of the refutations were pretty definitive, myself. and there now seem to be two discussions opening up in any case, mt. one on what we should do now, and the other taking us back to dp's point about speaking and listening to BNP voters. who i think, by and large, are venting long held and long repressed racist views.

MT - well if you (or anyone else) doesn't think those arguments are definitive, let's hear what your objections are.

Open borders here (though I don't mind it being open to all boarders ).

Ideally, I'd like open borders - but of course this would only work if every country in the world did the same thing. (Like so much else about socialism .)

So for now, how about international and European-level bodies to set migration policies at the supranational level. National immigration policies play to local xenophobia - leaders across Europe are engaged in a race to the bottom, trying to match their immigration policies to their voters' irrationality. Supranational bodies would stop immigration being such a hostage to fortune.

yyy to the race to the bottom.

not so much fun, this discussion, is it, without all the insults and defensiveness?

i think we killed it.

aitch...i have the same info as everyone else, (i'm not working for thr BNP...)..it's true i don't live in an area with a particularly large immigrant population...but that doesn't mean i don't understnd the frustrations of the BNP voter....immigrants coming here and not respecting our laws...(shouting abuse when our soldiers come home)...money being spent on them that we don't have....

what money - what shouting - what immigrants exactly?

what money? being spent on what? how much? despite not supporting them, you seem to be dealing in generalities of the type that might appear in BNP propaganda, tbh, it's too wafty for words.

what do you think about my point re previous waves of immigrants?

shouting abuse at soldiers? do you have a link? were they recent immigrants or first gen brits?