There is an interesting article by Steve Boggan on the BNP in Barking and Dagenham in the Guardian.
The staggering thing is the lies they have told in that area:
They "leafleted the electorate, telling them grants of up to £50,000 were being given by nearby Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney to encourage people to move into Barking and Dagenham, thus helping them to buy the cheapest housing stock."
Truth: This is described by the deputy mayor of Hackney as "utter fabrication"
The "party focused its efforts on promulgating the claim that the borough's housing stock was being given to people from outside its boundaries, mainly asylum seekers and refugees."
Truth: "According to Barking and Dagenham Council, of its 20,250 council homes, just four are occupied by asylum seekers or refugees."
"Before the election the party put out leaflets claiming that burglaries were up 79%, robberies up 80%, violent crime up 61% and that 33% of the borough's residents were now from minority ethnic groups."
Truth: "The Barking and Dagenham Post checked the figures and found that burglaries were down 11.7%, robberies up by 5%, rapes were down 10.8%, violent crime was up by 1.2% and around 15% of residents were from an ethnic minority."
When you see the allegations and the truth so starkly contrasted like that, it provokes a number of thoughts. How do they get away with it? - is the first thought. Why are people, by all accounts, so ready to swallow such lies?
One thing is clear. If we ignore the BNP, or more correctly, some people's readiness to vote for them, they will not go away. Exposing their lies seems a very good place to start in fighting back.
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Paul
ReplyDeleteThe lies are only part of the reason for the BNP's rise.
A very large part of the problem comes from the words and actions of our 'Labour' Government.
Ahead of the election we wrote
"The message of fear has repeatedly been fuelled by the actions of this Labour government. Since September 11th and the July London bombings the Home Office has with much publicity attempted to take for itself drastic powers which allowed them to deal with a oft claimed threat from non-British terror suspects.
The poorly considered ID card scheme was sold to the public on the lie that it would protect them against terrorism. Now we're told that it will protect the NHS from 'healthcare tourists'. The casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that the foyer of every NHS hospital is packed with Johnny Foreigner and his family all demanding their free operation.
No matter that Ministers can't quantify the cost of the problem, let's not worry that even the highest estimates "put the cost at anything between £50m and £200m each year" - a tiny amount compared the billions the ID card system will cost us all. All that matters is that Blair gets to sound tough without needing to consider the consequences.
Whenever a Home Office initiative on security is questioned the justification from the Prime Minister and his Home Secretary is that these people pose such a threat to our way of life that the only the most drastic action can save us. How much simpler the BNP message of 'send them all home' must sound on the doorstep."
That remains true.
For anyone who might want to read the rest - and hoping this doesn't look like spam - the whole article can be read here:
http://www.mayorwatch.org.uk/news.php?article_id=235
Martin
ReplyDeleteThank you for that excellent point and thank you for the link to my blog on your recent page about Bob Neill/Graham Tope.
This is all part of what Searchlight magazine calls the 'Big Lie' technique. The 'Homes for Africans'lie follows previous stories about asylum seekers and erroneous claims about building of mosques et al.
ReplyDeleteAs for Mr Barnbrook,in Barking and Dagenham, one of his first acts was to try to introduce a ludicrous ammendment to the council's equal opps policy by outlawing what he called 'anti-white' discrimination. Pity the dimwits that make up the BNP were too clueless to vote for their own equally stupid proposal.
The BNP, in virtually every council, have poor attendance records, rarely speak and virtually never put forward proposals of their own.
Paul
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome on both points. In fact I'd meant to add you to our blogroll - an oversight I've since corrected.
The BNP are taking advantage of the fact that the real working class, those who have no prospect of a council home, whose kids are 3 to a room, who see their neighbourhoods become 'gentrified' are feeling abandoned by the parties who all seem to want to occupy the so-called 'middle ground'.
Personally I'm of the opinion that this 'middle ground' is to the right of most people. The first party to to appeal to those dissafected 'left' voters will make huge gains at the GE.
The questions is do we have the ambition to reach out to them?