The BNP's Nick Griffin on Question Time, what are your thoughts?

[overmydeadbody]

link here

Look here's a good piece by Lott - had never heard of him but I think its a good argument

DP the BNP do not define British as someone who was born in Britain. They have stated that the only people who can be really British are white people.

Ashley Cole for example is not British and should not play for England because he is black.

So my OH who fought for this country and and got fuck all thanks for it is not British despite being born here. My DCs despite having ancestory going back generations are not british because they are black.

BNP is about their fecked up idea of what it is to be British. White, male, hetrosexual. You can be a scrounging bastard and beat up your wife and kids but as long as you are white and were born in this country you are ok.

Again - pissed off with people talking about me and for me. I am poor, white working class and if I have heard this term once this week I have heard it a million times. I do NOT feel ignored and pushed aside. I have fantastic access to a brilliant health service, education for my children, welfare benefits when I am in need.

The fact that Turkish, African, Bangladeshi and Albanian people live in my street has not affected my quality of life one bit.

I would hate,hate, hate to live in a county that was entirely made up of one race, one colour, one religion. Hell on earth.

Why is it assumed that all of the poor white working class are disenfranchised and simmering with race and class hatred? Most of us have other things on our minds.

Bloody hell we only get talked about in terms of chavvy child abusers and teenage mothers mugging OAPs with the guns their crack head boyfriends stashed with them or as if we are all voting for dickhead Griffin.

We do normal things as well you know. I went to Sainsburys today, I may even walk the dog tommorow (no he is not a staffie)

I find this talk of empire disturbing and ill-informed. Many people who went abroad at the time of the British Empire did so not out of greed but because 1. they were starving to death (Highland potato famine etc), 2. they were forced to go as they were sent as a prisoner (often political) or were press-ganged into the navy or sent into the navy as their rent agreement was based on agreement to naval service.

It is utter nonsense to claim that people were not encouraged to leave this country or cleared from their land in England as well as Scotland on the basis of overcrowding and population pressure. Their is clear evidence in government reports from the 17th-19th century that people were put under massive pressure to leave. Many people who did then leave died on the journey, or from starvation or cholera when they arrived in the Empire abroad.

I believe nations are important; they are how we organise democratic structures and the social contract. I am proud to be English; that doesn't mean that I am a fascist, or sympathise with the BNP, or disagree with multiculturalism, or consider myself more English than anyone else living in England. Every culture in the world is multicultural; English multiculturalism is different from French multiculturalism or Iranian multiculturalism.

I do not believe that this country ignores the history of the working class in Britain in the past; there are wonderful museums devoted to it, and many teachers cover it in an inspiring way. But there are plenty of people on MN who are discussing the history of this country as if the struggle and achievements of the working class, and their fight for many of the rights we now have, never happened. The entire past population of this country did not spend their time attending Eton and wearing a monocle and debating the 'white man's burden.'

BNP says: "We will abolish the ?positive discrimination? schemes that have made white Britons second-class citizens." What are these, exactly??

Dollius, there are 'positive discrimination' schemes in practice, where companies are trying to recruit people from 'ethnic' communuties.

I would like to think that I was given a job on my performance and not my skin colour.

Good article that. It put into words what I have thought for a while.
What can you do? Educate; Have positive role models.(remember Michelle Obama's speech about getting grade A's) I cannot stand this celebrity culture which is all about the individual's self gain. (look at Jordan)
I could go on but that is for another thread.

Lollopops, I agree with positive discrimination. It is not about fairness to the worker, but about the impact on the public. There should be positive discrimination in the heritage industry (for example) so that visitors feel that heritage is about them, regardless of background, because they see that reflected in the people running historic monuments etc.

Tim Lott is great-one of my favourite authors. Excellent article.
Amazed that you haven't heard of him Vulpusina.

Sorry MillyR but I disagree. I guess the irony is that if such a difference wasn't an issue in the first place, 'positive discrimination' would not exist.

God, I absolutely agree with this: 'WLMC academics at this point like to bring in the concept of "The Other". The WLMC know that the WWC hate "The Other" ? the blacks, the Asians, the Muslims. But it does not occur to them that they themselves are the greatest Other-haters of all, in their revulsion of the WWC who are too close to themselves for comfort, and whom they use to project upon their own sins, their own real and reverse racism. '

Close to the bone, but quite fucking right.

I have a toddler and two other boys moondog, I don't read the papers any more except like this kind of cherrypicking...

Lollopops, I think it is a contentious issue and always will be. I try to look at it on a case by case basis.

I can see it from the other perspective. I went to a university that had (and still has) a high number of private school students. I would hate to be in that position now, and have people looking down at me even more because they would presume that I had got in with low grades under positive discrimination. At least when I went they knew state schools students had to have the grades to get in.

I have two small kids, a f/t job, a business, have just completed MSc and a dh away for 6 weeks at a time, Vulpusina.

I make reading a paper a priority every day. How else can one speak with any weight on topics like this?

I was joking. Like Lenin, I read the online papers every day, in my lunchhour at work. While posting the odd message on MN. But that means I am a tart. So I don't actually pick up on particular columnists anymore.

I know him as an author, not really a journalist.
Voice of reason in all the hysteria.
Britiain full of fucked off disenfranchised WWCmen.

Having had a quick look at the BNP policies linked to earler, I only found one I'd agree with (other than some of the bland no-brainers padding it out) - in the section on Northern Ireland :"We would abolish state-supported segregation in education." I'd want it for the whole country thoug).

I suspect my reasons are different to theirs though - I want increased integration and understanding of all ethnicities and worldviews enriching our land.

Jeez Moondog. We agree about something then, in these hot-headed times. Now, what is the solution? And what should bleeding heart liberals do, while (what was it you said, sipping white wine in their white middle class enclaves )?

I dunno Vulpusina. Aint no easy answer (am similalry consumed with the thorny issue of dependency culture).

But, as I said, first thing would be to stop giving them the oxygen of publicity.
Journalists fan the flames.
(Incidentally one of my best friends is a jornalist for the Telegraph and says NG really is a nasty piece of work.)

chegirl

The interest in the wwc is mainly to do with males - tradition identity of being the male breadwinner eroded - living a country where girls are outperforming boys at almost everything - they're being left behind and lost blah blah.

Even Trevor Phillips admitted they had been abandoned and needed resources.

When things are going well no one cares, the economy slumps and resources are harder to access then we all sit up and point the finger at whoever we can - be it the wwc, single mums, people on benefits - the whole lot.

BNP like other politicians will play on people's fears and we get alot of misinformation. However, they are hateful, have no credible policies and are a complete bloody waste of time.

Those that vote know this I'm sure.