The Queen and Extremists

Jonathan Gabay has written this piece in the Soultraders Ning group:

The current spate of scandals surrounding MP expenses may leave the electorate voting at the upcoming European elections with more than just clouds in their coffee.

The recession has already given an edge to BNP spin-doctors who, in the words of Harriet Harman, has cranked up the credit crunch climate to ‘spread division and despair’ among hard hit middle as well as more traditional lower class margin voters. Her voice wasn’t a lone one: the Archbishop of Canterbury warned that Britain needed to heed the lessons of Nazi Germany and accept “a very high risk of financial stringency leading to political extremes - anger finding its expression in xenophobia.

Just a matter of months before the current fiasco surrounding member claims, the anti-fascist body, Searchlight estimated that BNP only needed 8% of the vote to secure seats in European Parliament. This week a Guardian/ICM poll carried out in the aftermath of the MPs’ expenses scandal found that some 27% of voters plan to support a minority party. The poll also uncovered evidence that more could soon join them. This week, in a joint statement for the Church of England House of Bishops, Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu said it would be “tragic” if people chose not to vote, or to register a protest vote, (for the Far Right) at the European parliamentary and local elections on 4 June.

However, many political pundits have cast aside worries about the BNP capitalising on the current national distrust in our leaders. They point to the fact that new poll suggests that The Greens are set to take 9% of the total vote, Ukip is on 10%, leaving the BNP on just 1%.

Maybe the British public is more resilient than the classic textbooks would suggest. Take for example the voters of Salford’s Irwell Riverside ward - perfectly placed to give the BNP a landslide win. Most of the ward’s white, working-class voters live in run-down terraces. Salford’s MP - Hazel Blears lives a very different lifestyle, claiming for three different properties in one year, along with Generation Game’s conveyor belt of goodies including, TVs, beds, mattresses, curtains, pots, pans and even the mandatory overnight stay in posh London hotel.

Yet, despite it all Blears held her Labour seat. The BNP stayed stuck in third place, its share of the vote up a mere 3.8% on last year.

So should moderate voters be allowed to let go of their anguishes over a Neo-Fascist rise? Perhaps not, in my new book Soul Traders, I discovered that it only requires a pinch of carefully placed propaganda added to an already generally unsettled public, at precisely the right moment, for the status quo to become unnerved. That is usually down to timing of announcements which conveniently coincide with a series of fortuitous events leading up to a decisive date (election).

Voters with growing multi-cultural communities at constituencies such as in The Midlands, still need to be on their guard from xenophobes as well as slick double-talk by BNP’s marketing machine producing campaigns including slick videos (on their website) . Such shrewdly written pieces of propaganda can for some voters teetering on the edge, appear to make sense.

Then there is the BNP’s ability to seize on headlines,such as the recently announced £1.7bn stock piled budget. This was driven home to me today whilst listening to the chit-chat on talk radio shows. Callers were calling in, citing the NHS surplus headlines and then combining the news with facts such as one quarter of all babies born in NHS hospitals are delivered to mothers who are not British nationals. Chat show hosts chipped in with quips such as: “what a cheek, the NHS is keeping money for themselves, cutting back on essential health-care but letting foreigners abuse our system…” Or … “ It took 80 million years for the planet to have 1billion people. Thanks to over population, we now have one billion more people every ten years….” This all spurred callers to complain about “her next door” from Eastern Europe or India or just about anyway north or south of Lands End or John O Groats, “bleeding the social dry by having too many kids which we will have to educate, clothe etc..”

The other piece of news was the (very short-lived) possibility of Nick Griffin having tea (Earl Grey no doubt) with the Queen. That turned out to be a storm in a tea-cup. However, as the UK continues to grow and prosper thanks in a great part to its multi-cultural society, the chances of a division within the country may become more noticeable. (This is not just down to good old racism or anti-Semitism - but the even older fear of anyone or anything that can be perceived as a threat on personal property and prosperity).

Who knows, maybe years or just decades down the road, the tabloids could indeed feature a picture of the far right enjoying a digestive with whoever is residence at the house with the biggest back garden in central London. Once the initial shock of it all fizzles out, in time such a picture opportunity will no doubt be considered as simply an example of British fair play and equality to all.

(Ah the irony of British fair play).



Jonathan Gabay

Author Soul Traders

www.soultraderstruth.com