The rise of the BNP?

As we approach the Euro elections, media focus seems to be concentrating on the possibility of the first BNP Euro MP being elected in the North West England region. The Observer notes yesterday that the far right only needs 80,000 votes to win a seat in Brussels in an area covering Manchester and Liverpool. The Independent reports today that perhaps the best way of keeping the UK fascist free in terms of professional elected representatives is to vote Green in June - if you live in the North West.

This blog has already focused on the manner in which the body politic in Wales and the UK are increasingly becoming detached from the electorate. The human cost of the recession is devastating, and the more our elected representatives squabble over petty point scoring and their expenses the greater the opportunity for the anti politics of the far right and their message of hate. In reality, if Nick Griffin and his thugs stopped blaming minorities for the troubles of the country, and turned their attention on the political elite they'd be on to a winner. The rise of Nazism in Germany wasn't fuelled on hatred of Jews and Slavs, rather a coordinated attack by both the extreme right and left on the failings of the Weimar Republic.

New Labour, in becoming a Shadow Tory party have opened up a political vacuum which the far right are positioned to exploit. Even in the last Assembly Elections in Wales, the fascists nearly won a seat on the North Wales region. If the BNP entered the political mainstream, it would be a tombstone on the epitaph of the 'project'.