Hung

Wow. What a week it's been. I have to admit that this is the most interested I have been in a General Election since I was entitled to vote. I make no secret of my alliances and the fact I've been actively campaigning in High Peak for the Greens has been an experience. I attended my first election count last week and it was a genuine event. We had Tory winner, and sour grapes from the Labour party. We got 2% which although not fantastic was a great start for a new local party. The tactical voting and Cleggmania which has supposedly gripped the nation in the run up to the election never really materialised. The country wanting change never really happened and basically two thirds of the country voted for the two old parties. They didn't really want change, they just mostly want cheaper petrol.

One fantastic result was the first Green MP in Caroline Lucas for Brighton Pavillion and I think we can all thank the good people of Brighton for showing how demanding change and then delivering it is done. I truly believe that one Green MP will make a huge difference.



HUNG PARLIAMENT!

If the scaremongering by the right wing press is to be believed we will be heading towards a Mad Max style breakdown of society by the end of the week if Cameron is not in power. With Sky News reporting that the public are losing patience with the negotiations and are demanding a decision. I'm not losing patience, are you? I am finding the wining and dining of Nick Clegg rather amusing, so far he has got the resignation of Gordon Brown, a promised referendum on the Alternative Vote, tax concessions for earners under £10K and some cabinet seats. All he is waiting for now is once a week with Samantha Cameron and use of the comfy swivel chair at meetings and it'll be a done deal.

On a lighter note. have you seen the Raging Boul.

Nazi punks fuck off

It was the 65th Anniversary of the D-day landings over the weekend. That moment in History when allied forces landed on the French beaches and proceeded to drive the Nazis out of occupied Europe.

So how did we celebrate in Britain? By voting two of them into the European parliament! I am ashamed to be from the North of England this week as the unbelievable happened.

 

That was how I felt Yesterday morning as I did a quick check on the news before I left. How could this happen? Surely there weren’t enough people who would buy into this tripe and vote for Fascists?

 

 

When you look deeper into the voting however, the BNP didn’t actually have any increase in support, in fact in most areas their share of the vote was down. The problem has been that Labour voters stayed at home and didn’t vote, this meant that under the proportional representation of the European Parliament, the BNP got in (beating the Green Party by 0.3%). It is Labours fault and there is no denying it. They have alienated their supporters on the left with the war and privatisation and now they have alienated their Sun/Star reading supporters by not deporting enough Muslims. There has been a lot of debate about whether or not people should be accusing the BNP voters of being racist and that they are perhaps misguided and this is a protest vote. I would like to draw your attention to this Yougov poll, which is summarised here. Some of the more interesting statistics are that almost half of BNP supporters disagree with the statement “Non-white British citizens who were born in this country are just as ‘British’ as white citizens born in this country”. There is also 72% of BNP voters who think the government should encourage voluntary repatriation. I agree with the statement that 100% of BNP supporters are racist.

 

 

The fact that 87% of supporters believe that local councils let immigrant families jump council house queues needs to be challenged. This is where local councils are to blame for not challenging these claims loudly enough to make a point. It’s time to start debunking the myths, challenging the views and legally challenging the constitution of the BNP. Their membership criteria is discriminatory and should be challenged in court. It's not enough anymore for the main campaign against the BNP to be “don’t vote for them, their bad”, people are voting for them and won’t be dissuaded by telling them it’s wrong to vote for a racist party, they want to vote for a racist party and no amount of trying to convice them is going to solve that.

Nick Griffin MEP for the North West