I somewhat missed the full extended fallout from the Grauniad's infiltration of the BNP, but the majority appears to be around the less than interesting news that surprise, surprise, some at least halfway prominent people appear to be members. The most attention has been predictably on the telegenic and least likely member on the face of it, the ballerina Simone Clarke, who just happens to be married to a man of Cuban-Chinese descent. Defending herself, she gave an interview to the Daily Mail:
The reason is summed up in one word: Immigration. It has, she told the undercover journalist who exposed her, "really got out of hand' - and today she maintains the BNP" are the only ones to take a stand' on the issue that she believes troubles the majority of voters, even though such views have led to her being branded a racist and a fascist. "Using the word immigration is now a greater crime than cold-blooded murder," she claims.
Quite right. I mean, the journalists who expunged the huge amount of words over the last couple of days about the ascension to the European Union of Romania and Bulgaria and whether it'll mean a repeat of the mass migration of mainly Poles which happened in 2004, not to mention months of articles in the tabloid press scaremongering about invasions of gypsies and mongrel hordes, have all been charged and are currently waiting in the Tower of London waiting to be executed. Similarly, John Reid, who attempted to impose restrictions on the amount of said Romanians and Bulgarians allowed to come here has been stripped of the Home Office, had his bollocks zapped with a cattle prod, and his head now rests on one of the railings outside Buckingham Palace.
Like Melanie Philips, who spends her time ranting that no one is talking about subjects like Londonistan, before going on to spend 1000 words doing just that, with Michael Gove and others running behind her like dogs chasing a bitch on heat, there are numerous people out there who are convinced that some subjects just aren't talked about. Sometimes, they're just waiting for the chance, like the range of invective which followed Jack Straw's measured comments about the wearing of the veil, which quickly turned into the Express demanding the banning of said garment and Blair and cronies saying it was a mark of separation. When it comes to immigration however, the supposed lack of comment on it is complete nonsense. The tabloids are banging on about it every day almost. Today's Express for instance has another load of lies on its front page about foreigners stealing all our money.
There is a grain of truth in the allegation that politicians themselves are ignoring the issue of immigration. David Cameron, in his efforts to reposition the Tories, has notably put the issue down the party agenda. Yet it's only a year and a half since the Tory election campaign which told us time and again that "It's not racist to impose limits on immigration". Quite right it isn't. Since then John Reid, Ruth Kelly and others have told us repeatedly that we have to abandon "political correctness" about things as various as multiculturalism and immigration. The reality is that the issue has dropped down the political agenda, not just the Tories', in the last few months, probably helped by Reid's imposition of quotas on the new EU member states. If anything, it's been replaced by renewed fear and controversy over Muslim dress, the general integration of "them" into society, with terrorism not too far behind.
But her story has wider implications. When one of the country's principal ballerinas, a 36-year-old woman who spent much of her recent working life as the Sugar Plum Fairy, decides to join the British neo-fascists, there is an argument that something has gone badly wrong with democratic British politics.
Really? Perhaps this is explained slightly more further on in the interview:
"I'd never been a member of any party before, although I'd voted Conservative a couple of times,' she explains. "I'm not a particularly political person but I read the manifesto and I took it on face value. Sometimes it feels as though the BNP are the only ones willing to take a stand.
“I am not too proud to say that a lot of it went over my head but some of the things they mentioned were the things I think about all the time, mainly mass immigration, crime and increased taxes. I paid my £25 there and then”
"I have been labelled a racist and a fascist because I have a view on immigration - and I mean mass immigration - but isn't that something that a lot of people worry about?
Now, it would be incredibly easy to make fun of Clarke because she couldn't even understand the BNP manifesto, as other blogs have. This though is potentially sneering at the dispossessed, poorly educated through no fault of their own, and as the Mail interview describes her, the politically naive. There's a reason why the BNP manifesto documents are relatively easy to understand, while also being written with enough political jargon in order to convince of their relevance and authenticity, not to mention integrity: these documents are targeted at those who have no time for in-depth political discussion, let alone wider knowledge of the intricacies of the legislative process, say. They're meant to appeal without being overbearing, pretentious or full of the technocratic New Labour speech which permeates everything they produce. As such, they're a success, and as Clarke points out, the documents are relatively honest, but only relatively.
Just take a look at the 2005 manifesto: 18 themes set-out straight away, with no room for nuance. Leaving the European Union; Immigration: a crisis without parallel; abolishing multiculturalism, abolition of income tax; tough on the causes of crime: criminals, etc. Your average Joe isn't going to read every single word, so they're only going to look at what appeals to them. For instance, many might miss what is hiding at the bottom of abolishing multiculturalism, if they hadn't already been appalled by the belief in eugenics at the top of page:
10. A massively-funded and permanent programme, using and doubling Britain's current foreign aid budget, will aim to reduce, by voluntary resettlement to their lands of ethnic origin, the proportion of ethnic minorities living in Britain, for as long as the majority of the electorate are willing to fund such expenditure.
In other words, as much as we say that if you're here legally you're more than welcome, we actually want you back to your land of "ethnic origin". Hey, we'll even help you out! What kind be kinder than that? How would Miss Clarke like her husband to feel as if he isn't welcome, when he knows that the party that even he apparently supports would really like it if he went back to either China or Cuba?
But oh, she complains, you don't have to agree with all the parties policies to support them:
"As with all parties, you can't agree on all things. You have to take the good bits and ignore the bad bits and that goes for any party. When I think about it I wonder, "Well, who's going to look after people like me?" People who work hard, who like to celebrate Christmas; people who are law-abiding citizens who pay their taxes - more and more of them - but feel that no one is speaking for them."
This though isn't like turning a blind eye to the equivalent of not agreeing with Labour on introducing ID cards or the Iraq war, but still supporting them in general; none of their, or the other party's plans (except the far far left and arguably UKIP on leaving the EU) are so radical that they could result in the break-up of British society or in the reintroduction of capital punishment for instance, as mooted here:
4. We support the re-introduction of corporal punishment for petty criminals and vandals, and the restoration of capital punishment for paedophiles, terrorists and murderers as an option for judges in cases where their guilt is proven beyond dispute, as by DNA evidence or being caught red-handed.
12. While every effort will be made to help addicts to recover, individuals convicted of the importation and large-scale dealing of hard drugs will face the death penalty.
This is only scratching the surface of the document. Hidden further inside it are references to the Iraq war being a neo-con project on behalf of the "Zionists", remarks about "the creeping Islamification" of Britain, and various other nonsenses. What marks the document and most of the BNP's output is just how "moderate" it has become. There is as little openly racist language as possible, masking their views in an air of respectability. As the actual Grauniad investigation found, and others have known for a while, the BNP strategy now is to appear just like any other political party, and hide behind the mask of being merely nationalist and economically to the left of Labour, when in fact their belief is in pure white nationalism. Their actual foot soldiers, rather than the middle class ones they're trying to lure, are the same old racists and hooligans of before, as evidenced by the likes of the Stormfront forum. In fact, let's go over there and see what they think about Clarke etc, shall we?
There's two threads, the first mainly based on the Guardian article published yesterday, and the second on the Mail's article:
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/sack-bnp-ballerina-says-lee-351659.html
Click on the images to see them full-size:
The comments on the Mail thread, are however, far more telling:
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/bnp-ballerina-351496.html
Simone Clarke to the BNP rank and file is a dream come true. She is in essence the archetypal useful idiot: so much so that there's no way she can be accused of racism, as the posters point out. It's a win-win situation for them; if she's sacked by the ENB, then she's a martyr for free speech. Since she hasn't recanted her support, she can be used as a propaganda piece for the "changed party". Yet the true BNP strategy shines through in these comments: moderation while out of power, no compromise once they are in power.
Nick Griffin, in his speech to the white nationalist conference in New Orleans of all places, made clear that they are waiting for a disaster of some sort that reflects the hyper inflation, mass unemployment and economic collapse that occurred in Germany in the run-up to 1933, leading to the rise of both the Communists and the Nazis, which along with the Reichstag fire enabled Hitler to come to power and liquidate his opponents and then democracy. In the mean time, they're preparing the ground for mass support by appearing to be everything they are actually not. That the middle-classes, drip fed the outrage by the tabloids which so often reflects mainstream BNP rhetoric are coming to support them shouldn't be a surprise, nor should they be condemned for doing so. The axis of the Guardian and Lee Jasper calling for Clarke's resignation simply confirms that the elite are against them and their beliefs.
What is so desperately needed is a genuine political alternative that reassures while it listens. Labour isn't doing this, the Tories still aren't trusted, and the Lib Dems are a joke. That the BNP aren't doing immeasurably better should be the real shock. If we don't acknowledge the threat, and move to counter it (ignoring it does not work) then if in a few years the BNP could possess the same amount of power as Jean Marie Le Pen's National Front.
Related posts:
Tim Worstall - Simone Clarke and the BNP
Five Chinese Crackers - Hurrah for the Blackshirts!
Pickled Politics - She won't play the black swan
Not Saussure - The BNP Ballerina
Labels: British National Party, freedom of speech, Ian Cobain, racism, Simone Clarke, Stormfront
Sometimes anti-racist groups can be their own worst enemies. Continuing their campaign against Simone Clarke, their agenda is again presented in the Guardian, which also at times cuts off its nose to spite its face:
