Bolitics The Future of Europe

[drat01]

In guessing your not going to answer the question as to why they are inward looking when they want unilateral free trade agreements around the globe ?

Im guessing as none of the major parties will ever give us a straight in / out referendum then short term we will see more disillusioned labour supporters moving towards their natural roots in the BNP and a rise in Nationalistic feeling stemming from the North of England ... And then the major parties in the UK may finally open up the debate on Europe and give the people of the uk a choice ... It may be that Europe will be glad to see us go but as one of its biggest customers they will continue to trade with us regardless

I don't subscribe to this vision of nations collapsing the opposite is more likely in all honesty

:-) Tony you are not nothing but consistent with your attempts to deflect the issues being discussed.

UKIP are inward looking look at their manifesto and policies.

Your spouting about a referendum follows their soundbite line with little in the way of what you hope to achieve by it. What exactly do you want from this wonderful referendum? A should we be a member of the EU? or are there far more important questions that need to be asked? Don't politicians get elected to deal with some of those points? Your desire to be out of the EU is well known and xenaphobia is certainly a trait that many of the right and UKIP and BNP share so I really don't understand why you mention the BNP and the North of England unless that was just a joke troll type post? I am laughing at your attempts to try and link Labour and the BNP, surely you cannot still try and flog that idea, or do you honestly believe that Labour and the BNP are in some way related?

I love the idea that you have re if the EU suddenly did not have the UK as part of it how things would be wonderful for us. How come that so many of our small businesses etc rely on EU funding?

But that is all just another deflection on your part as the subject was about Europe in general not your UKIP led ideas now was it? :-) - nice try but one subject at a time eh?

[drat01]

Getting back on topic :-) - with Europe where does it stop? There is a lot of commercial focus on countries such as Turkey at the moment, for many multi-national compacies they are seen as very much a growth market for "europe", but there are some very faded lines between what is classified as Europe and what is ROW. Before the unrest of the past few years countries like Egypt were also mentioned in a similar way. What about Russia is that classed as European or outside of that market-place?

Some political bods and groups will always try and draw up a border and forgetting that many of these countries are linked by 1000's of KM's (see I am European at times :-) ) which invariably ends up with cross trade and policy and social needs.

Having worked around most countries in Europe, quite a few in Africa, North America and some in the ME I just fail to see how nationalist views can survive as the world goes forward

[tonyh29]

not your UKIP led ideas now was it? :-)

I thought I was an ideological Tory , surely I can't be both ?

Your desire to be out of the EU is well known and xenophobia

One doesn't have to be a Xenophobe to not want to be a member of the EU

I love the idea that you have re if the EU suddenly did not have the UK as part of it how things would be wonderful for us

I'm sure to spite us Europe would suddenly refuse to deal with one of / if not their largest customer , they can't even hit us with trade tariffs far as I know as the EU is a member of the WTO .. or perhaps the UK could negotiate a new trade treaty with a 26-member EU just as Switzerland did

the trouble with EU is there hasn't been a proper debate on it , cries of "little Englander" and "Xenophobe" aren't really going to convince anyone of the For Camps cause ..

I really don't understand why you mention the BNP and the North of England

You constantly refer to the Tory party as the Southern party , and as the BNP had 2 elected members in the North it seems a natural conclusion to draw using your yardstick ?

[mjmooney]

One doesn't have to be a Xenophobe to not want to be a member of the EU

But it helps.

[drat01]

.......

You constantly refer to the Tory party as the Southern party , and as the BNP had 2 elected members in the North it seems a natural conclusion to draw using your yardstick ?

The Tory party is stronger in the south and as a result typically looks after "it own" :-) - that scraping noise you can hear is Tony attempting to link the BNP and Labour in some way :-)

[blandy]

Im guessing as none of the major parties will ever give us a straight in / out referendum then short term we will see more disillusioned labour supporters moving towards their natural roots in the BNP and a rise in Nationalistic feeling stemming from the North of England ...

And I'm guessing that you're trolling?

[tonyh29]

And I'm guessing that you're trolling?

wow talk about selective , presumably you're happy for dozens of posts about "little Englanders" and "xenophobic" digs ?

I used this map , which clearly shows a northern bias to the BNP support

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/maps_and_graphs/2009/10/20/BNP940.gif

and I could give you various web sites and polls that showed a lot of BNP voters were disgruntled Labour voters who felt let down by the party , but why not take the word of a Labour candidate

Labour candidate for Heanor East, Phil Hill, said: "I would hope people would vote for Labour rather than the BNP."

Mr Hill said his aim was to "swing the vote back to Labour away from the BNP".

I think his use of the word "Back" is very telling , don't you ?

So , trolling ... No just showing we can all play games

[tonyh29]

But it helps.

Perhaps you could tell my Hungarian wife that ?

All along her intuition was confirmed and I do in fact fear her and her culture

[drat01]

Tony stop it now you are looking more and more sillier with your weak attempts to try and link the BNP and Labour.

Have a read of article showing BNP and UKIP policy similarities and then say why the BNP and Labour are alike?

This chap did a comparison between the two parties link

You can try and IMO fail to link the BNP and Labour as much as you like (and using just because they are from the north so they must be ex-labour is smiley time) but this article shows that there are some similarities in Tory thinking and BNP as you would expect considering both are supposedly right wing link

Anyway back on topic .......

[leviramsey]

BNP largely draw from Labourites disaffected with that party's position on the EU, immigration, etc.

UKIP largely draw from Tories disaffected with that party's position on the EU, immigration, etc.

Not surprisingly, they agree on EU and immigration, but disagree on much else (BNP largely advocating Old Labour economics; UKIP largely advocating hyper-Thatcherite economics)

Of course, I could be wrong, being an ocean away and all that...

[Awol]

Tony stop it now you are looking more and more sillier with your weak attempts to try and link the BNP and Labour.

Just in the interests of balance, do you consider Channel 4 to be a decent source of impartial news?

From 2009 after the last European elections:Who voted BNP and why?

Channel 4 News has been given exclusive access to a unique YouGov poll on BNP voters and their attitudes. Here YouGov President Peter Kellner gives his views on the poll's findings.

.........

But perhaps the most startling finding came when we tested anecdotal reports that many BNP voters were old Labour sympathisers who felt that the party no longer speaks up for them. It turns out to be true. As many as 59 per cent of BNP voters think that Labour "used to care about the concerns of people like me but doesn’t nowadays".

What is more worrying for Labour is that this sentiment is shared by millions of voters, way beyond the ranks of BNP voters. Overall, 63 per cent of the British public think Labour used to care about their concerns – and only 19 per cent think it does today.

In contrast, just 29 per cent think the Conservatives used to care about their concerns; this figure has climbed to 37 per cent who think they care in the Cameron era.

Yes, Labour has a problem with voters deserting the party for the BNP. But its far bigger problem as it heads towards the next general election is to extinguish the overwhelming public view, reinforced by the scandal over MPs’ allowances, that today’s Labour Party is no longer on the side of ordinary voters. And that, more than anything else, is why its vote collapsed to just 16 per cent in the Euro election.

The article is worth reading in full and the link to the full YouGov poll results is on it so you can see the raw data.

BTW Drat01, how does a party (UKIP) that advocates making free trade agreements all over the world get labelled by you as "inward looking"? Your comments on that point have been demonstrated as being factually incorrect, yet bizarrely you just keep on repeating them. Why?

[peterms]

Looking at a different study, here, many of the findings are similar to the yougov one.

There is certainly an overlap between the demographic of their support, and Labour's. But it doesn't follow that BNP supporters are mainly ex-Labour supporters.

...Extreme right voters in contemporary Britain express exceptionally high levels of anxiety about immigration and disaffection with the mainstream political parties...The BNP has succeeded in mobilising a clearly defined support base: middle-aged working-class white men anxious about immigration, threatened by local Muslim communities and hostile to the existing political establishment....While we cannot be sure that the BNP is drawing support from Labour, the social and geographic contexts where BNP voters concentrate also show elevated support for Labour. We conclude that the BNP has succeeded in establishing itself by mobilising a distinct population of white working-class voters threatened by immigration and ethnic change and profoundly dissatisfied with the political status quo.

(I take it that the authors mean the BNP is not drawing support only from Labour, not that they don't draw any from there).

Many of these people may have previously supported Labour. But they may also be ex-Conservative voters, as many people in that demographic do vote conservative (Disraeli called them "angels in marble"). They may also be disproportionately people who haven't previously engaged with politics, if the thing about feeling alienated from the poltical establishment is a big factor. Did this alienation follow having previously supported a party, or previous abstention? I don't think we know.

What seems to be the common feature is disillusion with politics and political parties (including, but not limited to, the feeling that Labour "used to care about the concerns of people like me but doesn’t nowadays"). Linked with that is fear, and specifically the willingness to make other races the focus of their fears.

[Awol]

The most disturbing far right scenario with reference to Europe is found through an appraisal of Golden Dawn in Greece. Unashamedly fascist (to a degree that would make that chimp Griffin mess himself sexually) and increasingly popular, even taking over the role of the police in some areas - by which I mean acting like Brown Shirts pre '33.

Five years ago would anyone have predicted the fully fledged rise of jackbooted psycho's in Europe? If other EU countries (as seems very likely) are forced over a fiscal cliff, what risk that a similar situation will be replicated elsewhere?

[Chindie]

The rise of the Right has been happening in Europe for a while, in fairness, although in places in Greece it's now got the real ire to stoke it's growth. It'll spread, of course, fastest through the south of the Union as they've got it worse than the northern countries.

Same old story really, thins go bad and fear sends people to the right, the right makes hay with sweet nothings.

[bickster]

BNP largely draw from Labourites disaffected with that party's position on the EU, immigration, etc.

I think your assesment of UKIP is spot on, both party members and voters are by and large disaffected Tories but your BNP assessment is a little off. Sure some of their voters are disaffected Labour voters, there's not really much point denying that but I'm not entirely sure its the EU that they are disaffected with, they might even say it is that but it isn't. What they have a beef with generally is anyone not white and not British doing anything. they are a bunch of xenophobes, they know what the BNP really stand for (which these days is never as overt as it once was) and they vote for them as representing them, it is all in the subtext. As for the actual Party members and activists, they have never been Labour anything on the whole, they've always been a bunch of braindead neo-nazis and I can say that in full knowledge that I have actually had dealings with at least a couple of the local party hierarchy here in Liverpool. One of them I even had to use as a witness in a theft case I was forcing the Police to pursue. They've in the main always been racist bigots and neo-nazis, it's been a lifetime cause for most of them, they are evil, there isn't much else to say about them. It might appear on the surface that they are dissaffected Labourites but the party members and most of their hardcore voting support are just racists and always have been. They may come from traditional Labour backgrounds but that is where it stops

[Chindie]

I agree with Bicks on that - UKIP generally are just Tories disaffected with Tory actions with the EU, and the BNP are just neo-Nazis trying to hide it best they can.

I would add though, that the BNP know what demographics to appeal to, and they certainly gun for Labour voters. They've pinched loads of their 'manifesto' that isn't about hiding how much they hate non-whites, from what you would probably think of as bottom of the class teenagers idea of what Labour stand for (loads of NHS/benefit stuff - funnily enough they don't ever seem to have cottoned on to the idea that taking all the foreigners and non-whites out of the NHS would see it collapse overnight).

[bickster]

Yes I'd agree with that CHindie

[Mantis]

It can't be denied though that a significant portion of BNP voters are ex-Labour voters. Just look at the two areas where they won seats in the European elections a couple of years ago. Labour heartland.

Don't disagree with anything else though. The BNP are thankfully a nothing party that will never get any sort of power and that's why it baffles me that they get talked about as much as they do.

[bickster]

Mantis, its only a significant proportion in those shock BNP win something places like Burnley and there you'd be right, of course it is disaffected Labour supporters but their core support in the majority of constituencies number a couple of hundred and those cuple of hundred have never been Labour anything, they've more than likely voted National Front or whatever other white supremacist type candidate was standing. Failing all that, they'd probably actually vote Tory

[Mantis]

If the core BNP support would vote Conservative over Labour then how come BNP support is stronger in Labour areas (i.e. the north) than in Conservative areas (the south)? The BNP have more in common with old Labour than the Conservatives. Not much in common, but still more.