The irony of ironies was delivered over the weekend, sixty five years after the brave men and women of the Allied armies successfully breached the Atlantic Wall to fight national socialism, the UK decided the time was right to send national socialists to represent them in the European Parliament. The two regions, Yorkshire & Humber, and the North West, were those that 'successfully' elected MEPs from the British National Party despite the party actually losing voters in these two regions. (In Yorkshire & Humber their vote fell by 5.1% and in the North West by 2.1%). They were of course supported via a substantial drop in core Labour voters who decided that their non-appearance in the booths would show the party leadership in Westminster exactly what they thought of them.
The whole political system is to blame for this debacle. The destruction that has been wrought throughout the latter part of the 20th century by Westminster and Strasbourg/Brussels has allowed for the BNP to establish a firm foothold on the political ladder. The creation of the nationalized industries, the centralization of power firstly in Westminster and then to a lesser extent in the European parliament, the stripping of power at the local level and the end to oppositional politics has meant that the rise of smaller parties was inevitable. This has lead to apathetic voters who wish to protest at how they feel forgotten by those they traditionally vote for and also to political minorities across the whole spectrum choosing to vote for seemingly extreme/single issue political organizations.
The rise of groups such as UKIP, BNP, Plaid Cymru, SNP and the Greens is merely reflective of how out of touch Westminster and the parties have become. The fault for the election of the BNP lies squarely with the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems. Voters may not fully understand what/who they vote for but they will vote for someone who listens to them. That is all the BNP did in this campaign. In these enlightened times it is difficult to believe that there are nearly 3 million racists in Great Britain, as this Channel 4 survey shows .
