Well, look who just got elected to the European Parliament! (BNP members)

The BBQ Pit
1

It’s been a good day for the BNP! 2 Euro seats and lots of money to spend on spreading their racist propoganda.

Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP,, was elected in the North West. I was going to quote the worst parts of that article, but I’d need to quote the whole thing, really.

And he’s just been on Sky claiming that most racism is directed against white people, and that British society will collapse within 7 years.

He doesn’t seem like a nice guy, does he? Seems just a teeny bit racist, even though he’s actually trying to seem, um whiter than white when it comes to racism, and older articles paint him in a much worse light.

Compare him to the other winner, though, and he seems like a saint:

Andrew Brons, elected in the Yorks and Humberside region. (That’s a pretty biased source, so here’s a more neutral one for some of those claims).

A former leader of the unashamedly racist and violent National Front. While on an NF march where slogans included ‘white power’ and ‘death to Jews,’ Brons told an Asian police officer that he was ‘an inferior being.’

This man is now an official MEP.

It shocked me how much this upset me - I almost cried. It shouldn’t have been that surprising, as the BNP have been increasing in popularity over the last few years and have had a couple of local councillors* before (my neighbours - who I considered good friends - voted for the one who got in in Grays, Essex a few years ago). But Brons is worse than I expected. Far worse.

Of course, part of the fault might be in the system whereby MEPs are elected. If voters had been voting for individuals, then they might have heard more about Brons, who clearly is a total fucking Nazi; as it is, they could only vote for the party. I don’t doubt that some of the BNP voters were racist, but not all - at least, not so racist that they’d be up for shouting ‘death to Jews.’

My only hope is that they fuck up so monumentally that they’re shown for the crazy, racist arseholes they are.

*Councillors for a small area, like a part of a town. They’re called district, borough or city councillors, but perform the same role either way.

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Isn’t democracy a marvelous thing?

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This makes me appreciate the two party system we have in America. For all its faults, it works against granting a soapbox to the crazy extremists.

My concern is that it’s not that people didn’t know that the candidates are racist but that they in fact wanted people with these kinds of views. It’s my impression (as an American) that racists are gaining ground in Europe because of tensions with Muslim immigrants.

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We practically have a two-party system when it comes to general elections, too. We will get MPs from several different parties, but the ruling party will always either be Labour or Tory (the LibDems are a credible third party, but don’t have a chance of getting a Prime Minister). European elections are like local elections in that a lot more small parties win, partly because they don’t necessarily have to have a nationwide agenda, and partly because people are more likely to cast protest votes when it’s not as important as electing MPs.

Immigration is part of the reason, though it’s probably more to do with European immigration than immigration from Muslim countries now. ‘Tensions with Muslim immigrants’ isn’t the main reason, though (and many Muslims in the UK aren’t immigrants anyway). What tensions are you thinking of?

Going on what my ex neighbours said, they didn’t really think the BNP were that racist, or, at least, didn’t think the racism was the big bad kind. I know it seems hard to believe, but that was what they thought.

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If Bush was not a “crazy extremist” I just hate to think what an American crazy extremist would look like. How many wars do you need to start, how many people do you need to torture, how many people do you need to kill in America to be considered a “crazy extremist”?

Yes, I am afraid that the world is full if ignorant people. Sad but true.

Well, let us be fair, tension with Muslims has been in the rise around the world in great part because of American policies.

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I’ve realised that my thread title wasn’t specific enough. Would it be possible for a mod to add ‘(BNP members)’ or somesuch to the thread title? Of course, this board is mostly Americans, and I don’t know if most of you would have heard of the BNP or the British National Party, so that might not be terribly informative either.

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The Iraq war was clearly ill-advised, but there are plenty of other ill-advised wars in the pages of history (and while the war is now very unpopular, Congress voted for it originally, so I don’t see it as being an extremist view at the time).

Rights violations in times of war are nothing unusual either. For example, consider that the far more popular ex-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt allowed Japanese-Americans to be sent to internment camps during WWII - and yet I doubt most would call FDR a “crazy extremist”, or even consider that massive human rights violation a major part of his legacy at this point.

Even with the strong opposition many people have to Bush, I suspect that most people would still see him as being less extreme as, say, David Duke (whose political career was fortunately never able to gain much traction outside of Louisiana).

Probably true that the Iraq War hasn’t helped Muslim relations with Europe or the USA, but I was referring to the anti-immigrant sentiments that I have heard about in other European countries going back prior to the Iraq War. The most prominent example I can think of is the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn (who was assassinated over his anti-Muslim views before the Iraq War had even started). I’ve seen other Europeans expressing fears that Sharia law will be declared in Europe if Muslims become numerous enough there and that they are “taking over” traditional European culture. I suppose the latter complaint is not that different from the anti-Mexican sentiment that one sometimes encounters in America. It just seems harder for those who are openly anti-hispanic to get anywhere with the way America’s system is set up since the vocal minority who are that unhappy with Mexicans are outweighed by the majority who are accepting of them.

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There are some real fuckwits in the European Parliament. One of the bigger parties in Bulgaria is ATAKA, a truly amazing bunch of assholes who have their own newspaper and cable network (I used to watch it to gape at the low production values and occasional documentaries about how the Turks are evil; the newspaper articles, OTOH, seemed to be mostly about how the gypsies are violent uncivilized subhumans who should be sent off to somewhere - probably Turkey, knowing them - where they won’t be allowed to attack ethnic Bulgarians anymore), and some of these morons are in the EP. The charming MEP Dimitar Stoyanov sent out this delightful email about one of his fellow MEPs, a Hungarian woman of Roma background:

Well, gentlemen, I must disagree with you. In my country there’re tens of thousands gypsy girls way more beautiful than this honorable one. In fact if you’re in the right place on the right time you even can buy one (around 12-13 years old) to be your loving wife. The best of them are very expensive – up to 5,000 euros a piece, wow! … So let’s get back to Miss Laroka’s nomination. Believe me, I’ve seen lots of gypsy women, but all that are at her age are much skinnier. Doesn’t she sharing the terrible suffering her people are bearing all around Europe, the poverty, the miserable conditions and the unemployment??? Well, I guess when you’re an MEP you have to put some weight on you. Have to look serious. (source.

CLASSY.

BG’s MEP election was just yesterday, but it looks like he’ll be in again. I continue to stand amazed that the EU allowed BG and RO in at all. (Um, not that I don’t love BG, I do. But is ANYTHING IN IT up to EU standards at all? That would be a big fat no.)

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If you want some vague comfort, consider this from the Guardian (8:37am entry):

So while obviously it’s depressing that Griffin has a seat, it’s not really indicative of a groundswell of pro-BNP feeling. Euro elections do tend to be used for protest votes to a much greater extent than others, largely because people don’t know or care what MEPs actually do. The Greens caught nearly 9% of the vote, too.

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Given that this year’s turnout was around 35%, roughly 175% of people voted last time around.

Or someone made a maths whoopsie. :smack:

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I think that should read “their share of the vote went up by 1.6%,” as this roughly reflects what the counter on the BBC’s front page says.

12

Untrue,
Pim Fortuyn was killed by an animal rights activist, maybe you mean Theo van Gogh (Dutch Filmmaker)? Who was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Muslim extremist

carry on

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E.T.A
Oh seems you were right after all, Pim’s killers says he did because of the anti muslim vieuws of Fortuyn

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This is not a good example, as though Fortuyn probably could have been assasinated over his anti-immigrant views, he was in fact assasinated by an environmental/animal rights whacko. Which makes no sense of any kind as Fortuyn had no extreme animal/environmental positions of which anyone as aware. BUt that was how it was.

A good example of the truly scary inti-immigran sentiment here is of course the win of Geert Wilders of the PVV. I am beginning to think that Wilders will be minister-president in my lifetime. Since I am an immigrant to the Netherlands, I am not particularly thrilled about this.

It is very like anti mexican sentiment in the states was by the way, it has the same flavor.

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Continuing the hijack,

Wilders disturbs me too, at first I though he was a clown with outlandish statements and king of the disgruntled small minded thinking people. At fist I thought every vote for him was a vote thrown away, seeing no political party would work with him, but now it seems even better educated voters like him and acording to polls his party would get the most votes, and become the largest party….shudders

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With respect, I think it’s much, much more complicated than that. For one thing, the BNP are today talking about African immigrants who are just as likely to be Christian. Racism in Europe is just as likely be directed against black people whose grandparents moved from the Caribbean in the 1950s, or Hindus or Sikhs. Muslims have been living in Britain for many decades (so they’re not all ‘immigrants’.) I am not aware of evidence that there are ‘tensions with Muslim immigrants’; there might be some but it is in the interest of the BNP for people to get an exaggerated idea of such tensions.

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QFT.

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You know, when I got here in '02, I thought he was quite interesting, a little libertarian spice for the soup if you like. Less regulation looked to me like a fine idea, as an American it sometimes feels as though you have to get a permit (or a diploma) to take out the trash, you have to understand. A bit of limitation on this self directed sudy at high school level struck me as not a terrible idea too. And I certainly was sympathetic to his voiced frustration with the poldermodel (consensus rule, in short for a rough translation) as (again, from a US perspective) it does seem as though all this talking never actually gets anywhere and no one is ever responsible for anything.

Around the time he started advocating for internment camps I began to wonder if that spice was not a little too, um, piquant. And when he proposed doing away with equality under the law I was done.

Sometimes I think, though, that all these years of protective custody have just addled his brain and caused him to lose perspective entirely. In some ways he is as out of touch with Jan Alleman as the elites he so likes to spear.

I think Fortuyn would have imploded had he ever got to power, as his party ultimately did. I cannot even imagine how PVV would behave if they got a majority, their whole platform is dependent on throwing stones from the outside.

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Livia Jaroka. Being half-Jewish and half-Romani, she must get twice the love from the extremists.

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All due respect, and of course I don’t claim to speak for all of Europe, but as far as France is concerned, the racism has little to do with religion or even current events. They’re brownies and immigrants, and they have the same rights as good ol’ boys. That’s it.
Proof of it is, the same amount of hatred is doled out to 100% Christian black immigrants from Africa or the Carribeans, or even to black people coming from French overseas territories in the Carribean. The national front assholes just can’t figure out that one can both be French and not-white. It’s a case of cognitive dissonance.
No one in his right mind is concerned that “they’ll take over and bring Sharia law !” (nor have I heard it expressed by our very own National Front, to tell you the truth, but then I don’t exactly go out and seek their opinion). There really is no difference whatsoever between French anti-immigrant sentiment and US anti-hispanic or anti-black sentiment that I can see.
You’ll hear the exact same rethoric from our good ol’ boys as yours : “they’ll thin out our good blood, they’re a huge burden on the state, they’re all welfare queens, they breed like rabbits, they’re lazy and not productive members of society but they still steal our jobs, they’re all thieves, they don’t speak perfect French and have weird names” etc…

As for why they get more pull in Europe than in the US… well, you said it yourself : it’s the way the US political system is set up, which favors moderate candidates and a two party system. We tend to go for direct proportional representation, and our parties are more representative of their voters. In the US, the Republican party will get votes from all across the right wing, from the most moderate “don’t fix what ain’t broken” people to the most hateful, racist piece of shit you’d ever care to spit at. In France, each philosophical/political subdivision will have its own party, and their members in parliament will vote accordingly from issue to issue.

Hell, we even have a minuscule monarchist party, and an anti-European European party. shrug Take the good with the bad, y’know ? Since the system also allows our Green parties to get a say they don’t seem to have in the US, I’m all for it.