Election of two BNP MEPs

The election of two candidates standing for the racist and anti-immigrant British National Party (BNP) has attracted a lot of attention in the media in the UK. Politicans have reacted with a mix of horror and resigned acceptance that many of the BNP votes may have come from disgruntled Labour voters. Harriet Harman's horror seems to be based on concern that Britain's image abroad will be damaged. As she put it to BBC reporters.:

"I think it's a terrible thing that we've now got representing Britain in the European Parliament a party that is a racist party, a party that doesn't believe black people should even be allowed to join this party". 

This electoral breakthrough for the BNP, however, is not so much a breakthrough as a gift donated by the corrosion of mainstream political life in Britain. The BNPs share of the vote has increased, but their actual vote has declined. It appears that they have not gained from the dissafection from mainstream political parties. It is more that they have not been hit as badly by this disaffection. In many respects it is surprising that they did not actually gain some votes. ALL of the main political parties (and a range of other lobby groups, from trade unions, and anti-racist organisations to student unions) have promoted the message 'whatever you do, DON'T VOTE BNP'. If a disaffected voter really wanted to show their disaffection then voting BNP was one sure way of guaranteeing that you could stick up two fingers at the main political parties. The fact that so few chose to do so indicates that racism is not a factor which, by and large, motivates the electorate.

The other problem with the coverage of the BNP election is that it presents the party as being outside of the mainstream of British politics. Harriet Harman, for example, went on to say that:

"The British National Party have played on people's fears ...and we'll have to work to tackle the fear that lead to people to vote BNP."

Which fears is she referring to? It has been the Labour government, in which she is a leading member, which has promoted slogans such as 'British Jobs for British Workers', which has overseen the racial profiling of passengers at airports and ferry terminals in the UK, which has promoted scares about 'mad mullahs' threatening Britain, which has overseen the tightening of immigration controls, which has made it increasingly difficult for refugees to seek refuge in Britain, which has introduced a points system for labour migrants, which has made it increasingly difficult for overseas students to come to the UK to study, which has attempted to promote greater surveillance of foreigners (and Muslim youth) in the UK today, which has ... (I could go on, and on).

The one feature of the BNP's policy agenda which is genuinely distinctive, its 'whites only' membership policy, is one which is completely irrelevant - both because it only applies to the Party, and thus has no consequences beyond the membership of the BNP, and because non-whites would not want to join theBNP anyway. This feature of the BNP is convenient, however, because it permits the other parties to present the BNP as a manifestion of extremeism, rather than what they actually are - a party which promotes substantially similar policies to those promoted by the government (and the other main parties) but does so in an anacronistic ('whites-only') form.