British party with 'Nazi' connotations wins seats in (European) parliament

[Turborama]

Source: 3 News (New Zealand)

A British far-right party won its first-ever parliamentary seats in European Union elections as the extreme right advanced in several countries across the continent on a volatile mix of apathy, anger and economic uncertainty.

The British National Party, which does not accept nonwhite members and calls for the "voluntary repatriation" of immigrants, won two of Britain's 72 seats in the European Parliament, final results showed Monday.

The BNP took about 6.2 percent of the vote, a modest rise from the 5 percent it won at the last such election in 2004. But it made stronger gains in economically battered industrial areas that are traditional strongholds of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party. Labour saw its share of the vote collapse to less than 16 percent, its worst national electoral performance in almost a century.

BNP leader Nick Griffin said his party was "not a racist party" but praised the result as a victory for "indigenous" Britons. "There is a huge amount of racism in this country," Griffin said Monday. "Overwhelmingly it is directed against the indigenous British majority, which is one reason we have done so well in these elections."

Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/British-party-with-Nazi-connotations-wins-seats-in-parliament/tabid/417/articleID/107860/cat/61/Default.aspx

---

Video of this story: http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/World/tabid/313/articleID/107860/cat/61/Default.aspx#video

[MADem]

1. Geeeez. So much for those "tolerant" folks across the pond!

This is not a good trend:

The far right made gains across Europe in a poll marked by low turnout. In The Netherlands, Geert Wilders' anti-Islamic Freedom Party won 17 percent of the votes, taking four of 25 seats and becoming the country's second-largest party in the European Parliament.

Wilders has seen his popularity rise in recent months as he has cast himself as a champion of free speech following a Dutch court's order that he be prosecuted for hate speech. He has called Islam's holy book, the Quran, a fascist text and made a film that linked images of terrorist attacks to Quranic verses.

Austria's Freedom Party, which also campaigned on an anti-Islam platform, more than doubled its share of the vote to 13.1 percent. Hungary's Jobbik party, which describes itself as Euro-skeptic and anti-immigration and wants police to crack down on what it calls "Gypsy crime," won three of the country's 22 seats and almost 15 percent of the vote. The Greater Romania Party - which is, among other things, pro-religion, anti-gay and anti-Hungarian - made surprise gains, winning almost 9 percent of the vote and taking two of Romania's 33 seats.

[western mass]

2. Actually, British BNP would feel at home in the American GOP

BNP rhetoric and policies aren't much different from what regularly spews from the mouth of Rush, Coulter & company.

[PassingFair]

13. Hey, you forgot Lou Dobbs!

Can we just ship them over to them?

[struggle4progress]

3. I wonder how much American funding these extremists got during the * years

[dipsydoodle]

4. This getting tiresome

There's no way I'd ever say anything positive about the BNP but the reason for them winning those seats is actually rooted in unemployment not racism. It goes back to the debacle at the Total refinery and the use of non UK contract labour from Poland etc by Jacobs of CA's Italian contractors.

So you wanna blame someone go back to the root ..........Jacobs of CA et al.

see also : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x454767

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. You're right.

Being upset about losing your job totally justifies voting for borderline fascist racists.

[dipsydoodle]

6. When push comes to shove

people put their jobs and families first for their own selfish reasons - it's called human nature. I'm not justifying the issue - merely commenting. As mentioned elsewhere the outcome was predicted by our trade unions ages ago and our government chose to ignore them.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. You can't have EU membership without allowing EU citizens to work in your country.

And voting for the BNP puts nobody's job or family first. It puts racism first, because racism is what the BNP is all about. Getting angry at poor people who have legally emigrated in order to make a better life for themselves and their family is not acceptable. And if the trade unions and the BNP are in agreement on this issue, than we are in serious fucking trouble.

[dipsydoodle]

14. There's a difference

as far as I'm aware , between those with consent and registered to work here and contract workers which seems to be a backdoor. The issue of foreign workers isn't actually universal across the EU - different countries have different policies. I think we may now have restrictions on job types. Bulgarian and Rumanian workers do have free access at all.

[cali]

16. nothing borderline about the BNP.

[LeftishBrit]

7. I doubt that's the main reason..

Might explain some of the anti-EU, UKIP etc. protest vote; but not the BNP.

It's true that bad economic times create scapegoating, and it's also true that the episode you mention was disgusting and all part of the trampling on the trade unions in this country. But there were neo-Nazi types elected in other Europaean countries; it can't all be reduced to one issue.

[dipsydoodle]

8. If racism related to colour was the issue

would've happened before and it hadn't. The racial balance here hasn't changed much for years. The only signifcant change has been imigration from the EU itself.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. Well, the BNP is ultranationalist in addition to being racist.

In other words, anyone who isn't from Britain can fuck right off. I don't think it's even racism that they're feeding on right now so much as foreigner hatred. Hell, just read DU these days and you can see the same thing happening in the United States - the only difference here being that there is no such convenient outlet as the BNP through which to vent this bile. But there have been plenty of people on DU suggesting that all immigration should be halted, or that foreigners on work visas should be thrown out of the country. This isn't something that is specific to the UK, or even to Europe. It is a reaction born of fear. It is stupid and lazy, but it makes an easy scapegoat.

[Ian David]

12. Tom Tancredo would be right at home in The BNP. n/t

[LeftishBrit]

21. Too true, from all I've heard of him.

[No Elephants]

19. For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whold world and lose his own soul?

Mark 8:36 KJV

Jobs v. racism? Didn't Germany make a similar choice about 80 or so years ago?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

20. And if the economy wasn't horrible, the Nazis wouldn't have been able to take power

[Ian David]

11. No wonder. They're so ignorant, they think "Labor" is spelled "Labour." n/t

[dipsydoodle]

15. Spelling for idiots

You forgot the sarcasm gismo and also the background as to why the US considered it necessary to simplify the spelling of established english words.:sarcasm:

[dipsydoodle]

17. I hadn't realised this

see reply #8 here : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x27239

Looks to be a bi-product of a number of us being totally pissed off with our government - apparently BNP won those two seats as a result of the low turnoput of Labour Party voters.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

18. this is disturbing