BNP voters

Nick Lowles has a fascinating, if rather foreboding, blog on Hope not Hate, about a set of polling done on the attitudes of BNP voters.

Next month’s Searchlight will carry a full analysis of the polling results, but it appears to confirm that the BNP vote is not simply a protest vote. This has been apparent for a while; in CST’s analysis of last year’s local election results, we wrote that:

[There are] several councils where the BNP vote is not simply a one-off protest vote that it can be assumed will disappear in future elections. Where the BNP do pick up a protest vote, it appears that this tends to be a protest against all mainstream politicians, based on a general cynicism about politics that the BNP is happy to encourage. They have proven adept at converting a protest vote into a positive BNP vote, which can only be overturned by sustained and focused campaigning; but, it is a vote that can be won back as voters generally still prefer to vote for one of the mainstream parties, if they feel their concerns are being addressed.

There are many parts of the country where voters have been casting a ‘protest’ vote for the BNP in successive elections for some years now. It is time for the mainstream parties to stop dismissing it as simply a protest that can be mollified, and come up with serious political alternatives to win back those votes.

The polling also threw up this:

The research also reveals the many BNP voters share a belief that they are victims of modern society, a theme that is cleverly exploited by the BNP. Linked to that is their belief that outside forces are conspiring to undermine them and their society. A shocking 34% of BNP voters agreed that there was an international Jewish/Communist conspiracy to undermine the Christian values of British society.

Only 2% of BNP supporters believed that the Holocaust did not happen but a further 18% said that while the Holocaust occurred the number of deaths had been exaggerated.

The BNP like to play down their antisemitism nowadays, although it is easy to find if you scratch a little below the surface. Nick Griffin has only authored one book in his BNP career: Who Are the Mindbenders?, an exercise in listing every Jewish-sounding name he could find in the media, publishing, broadcasting and other ‘mindbending’ industries.