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More immigrants = less BNP. Yay!
The Institute for Public Policy Research have been analysing support for the BNP and trying to determine what causes communities to turn towards the far-right. You can see their findings here.
The BNP would have us believe they are supported by people whose communities are over-run with immigrants and asylum seekers. But they’re lying. The more immigrants living in your community, the less likely you are to vote BNP.
Our findings suggest that areas that have higher levels of recent immigration than others are not more likely to vote for the BNP. In fact, the more immigration an area has experienced, the lower its support for the far right. Rather, the evidence points to political and socio-economic exclusion as drivers of BNP support.
We therefore urge mainstream politicians to strongly resist the notion that people have been driven into the arms of the BNP by the harm immigration is causing to their communities. Instead, they must focus on building strong communities and strong education systems, and on rebuilding trust and confidence in democratic politics, so that marginalised people do not feeling so disconnected. This should allow them to both better serve the interests of these communities, and undercut support for the BNP.
We couldn’t agree more.
This just goes to show that anti-immigrant feeling is not rooted in reality, but is shaped by the racism of the policians and the media. People who actually live next to immigrants know that they are no more evil than any other part of society.
There is a big anomaly to their findings though, which is Barking – there is a higher immigrant population in Barking than average, and it’s where the BNP are trying to take over the council/win an MP. It is worth mentioning though that the BNP get support in areas with barely any migrants – in Scotland they appear to be putting most of their cash into running a campaign in Aberdeen instead of Glasgow.
Just skim read the report, didn’t seem to offer a reason why Barking was an anomaly. However, leaving that aside I think the findings definitely are significant. I think it’s really important for us to acknowledge that the rise in anti immigrant, working class racism has fundamentally been driven by the policies of government and media coverage. I think there’s a tendency by some people (and it in fact reflects the class make up of some of the left) to just unthinkingly put the blame for racism on the heads of the working class, without thinking about how and why they’ve been pushed in that direction.
The real reason is the fact that capitalism doesn’t think it can afford social democratic policies any more, and so the Labour party (and similar parties across Europe) have abandoned any pretence of reforming capitalist society. They are also fundamentally concerned with preparing the ground for the mass movement of people escaping the huge economic and ecological collapse taking place in other parts of the world, due to capitalism. This is only going to increase over the next few years.
It really pissed me off to hear people talking about “bigotgate” saying that Brown was “spineless” for apologising, and that Labour “pander” to the far right. It’s as if Labour haven’t driven the rise of post-fascist politics in the UK with their own policies. They’re not “pandering” to the far right, when it comes to immigration they are the ones driving the agenda! It’s what you could accurately call extremism of the centre. My problem isn’t so much with Brown apologising to the woman, as his hypocrisy in calling her a bigot in the first place, when his own actions reveal a much more pernicious (because it drives government policy) bigotry. That’s why I thought Sarah’s article on here was so much better than most of the initial reactions I saw of lefty people I know.
yeah what I’ve witnessed on stalls in different parts of the city during this election would support this, I think it has a lot to do with integration – for instance in Govanhill, where the Asian community is well established, we haven’t really encountered much of the casual racism/nonsense about asylum seekers that comes up almost constantly elsewhere, esp. in the north east of the city where most of the asylum dispersal is.
Although thinking about it, I have heard a few people on the southside complaining about ‘the slovaks’ and ‘eastern european gypsies’ being the cause of trouble, gangs etc – quite clearly because the eastern european population has only been there for a few years and is less well integrated, much like the asylum seekers in sighthill/red road.
I very much think, that you will not let me say any thing , , since we now live under a left wing, ring wing, star chamber,You indirectly state that you agree with the BNP , as to the dumping of ethnics, on the english natives, in these areas, in an inverted sence.I think the lady dos protest to much?.
You cant stop the British, NATIVES FROM THINKING?. maths wise , = matter + mind = maths= goodness = balance in all things, genes, rasial, facial ,form,
We are not nazism, we are something beyond what you know as normal politics, read the works of PLATO,FOR STARTERS morons?
Was originally annoyed a BNP member’s comments made it on to the comments here but this is comedy gold – left wing, right ring MATHS = PLATO STARTERS???