BNP support NOT linked to immigration
- Thread starter gumdrops
- Start date
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Interesting find, gumdrops. But:
...could have a lot to do with the fact that immigrants themselves are pretty unlikely (!) to support the BNP, couldn't it? So even if a large proportion of native-born whites in a certain area support the BNP, but most people in that area are immigrants, then overall levels of BNP support will be low.
Unless the people who did the survey only polled white Brits, on the basis that there's not a lot of point asking Asians, Africans or East Europeans if they support the BNP?
Edit: though I agree entirely with JE about the root causes of support for the far right.
...could have a lot to do with the fact that immigrants themselves are pretty unlikely (!) to support the BNP, couldn't it? So even if a large proportion of native-born whites in a certain area support the BNP, but most people in that area are immigrants, then overall levels of BNP support will be low.
Unless the people who did the survey only polled white Brits, on the basis that there's not a lot of point asking Asians, Africans or East Europeans if they support the BNP?
Edit: though I agree entirely with JE about the root causes of support for the far right.
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john eden
male pale and stale
Also dismissing Barking and Dagenham as an "anomally" is a bit off when the BNP are in a good position to take over the council in May.
But the general angle that mainstream parties would do better to focus on root causes like inequality and deprivation rather than immigration is a good one imho.
But the general angle that mainstream parties would do better to focus on root causes like inequality and deprivation rather than immigration is a good one imho.
Yeah Tea is bang on, that article was written by someone a bit dense, they forgot that immigrants are people who can vote.
Where I live in East London most people are Pakistani, Polish, Lithuanian, Chinese. There are very few white English people around.
Of course they don't vote BNP.
You'll find white people who were born here have moved away in large numbers to places in Essex like Chingford, Epping and Loughton where a lot of them do vote BNP.
I don't think the article linked says anything valid really.
Where I live in East London most people are Pakistani, Polish, Lithuanian, Chinese. There are very few white English people around.
Of course they don't vote BNP.
You'll find white people who were born here have moved away in large numbers to places in Essex like Chingford, Epping and Loughton where a lot of them do vote BNP.
I don't think the article linked says anything valid really.
D
droid
Guest
I'm not so sure. I read something else recently that suggested that BNP support was highest in areas with less visible immigration.
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scottdisco
rip this joint please
bang on John.
the odd non-white Brit would probably support the BNP if they could, certainly w their new tack of anti-Muslim bigotry and their anti-immigrant populism.
i've said this on thread before but remember the naive surprise experienced by George Alagiah when he went to Burnley or Pendle * for the BBC a few years ago and met quite a few local lads of south Asian heritage, builders and such, who were coming out w anti-Polish plumber stuff straight from the BNP playbook. (George tried to meekly, bless him, think aloud to them about how he felt perhaps they could understand the nature of being discriminated against by a wider society. obviously when it comes to competing claims that didn't wash and they were having none of it...)
a mate of mine was in a cab in Brum recently and the (Afro-Caribbean) driver told him he would be voting BNP for the sorts of reasons as above.
obviously i don't want to take anything away from the wonderful fact that ethnically diverse districts of our country as a rule have no truck w the BNP and not many Britons do in general, whatever their ethnic heritage.
to see what gumdrops is saying in action, look at Stoke Central. one of two seats they want to win along w Barking (although they probably won't in Stoke, touch wood, as the campaign is imploding w infighting and Griffin/Darby and co are getting increasingly ridiculous as that ex-member Alby Walker stirs the pot, though Labour are fucking around there too unfortunately). the city of Stoke is 93.5% white British. what gumdrops' report says about social exclusion (or feelings of it, anyway) seems a bigger driver for many floating potential BNP voters than anything else, though i'm not denying an anti-immigrant-cocktail must go hand in hand for many of those prospective BNP floaters.
* i'm fairly sure, incidentally, that Pendle borough is the third least white borough in terms of ethnic/racial background in the northwest (behind Mcr and Blackburn), and certainly more so than neighbouring Burnley, perhaps considerably so, i believe. Burnley has a stronger BNP base than Pendle, i do believe, quite a bit more i think.
my Burnley and Stoke mentions would back up something Droid just said.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
gumdrops' linked report said:
this is Stoke Central, areas of the Black Country where the BNP have a go, and certain parts of Lancashire to a tee, of course.
matt b
Indexing all opinion
You would have to overstate rates of immigration massively for this to be a meaningful explanation.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
give over Matt, the country is full of immigrants.
i read so in the Daily Express.
(who, incidentally, have NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THE RISE OF THE BNP, oh god no, how ever could you suggest such a thing.)
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Yeah, this makes sense. A white person still living in an inner-city borough that's now mainly S. Asian/black/Polish/whatever probably is not going to have massively racist views and support the BNP - it's whites who've fled to what they see as the safety of communities that are still fairly white (except for the ones who prepare takeaway food, of course, they're allowed... :slanted
that will harbour the real prejudice.Scott makes a valid point too about non-whites potentially supporting the BNP, now that they've (nominally) shifted their focus from 'race' per se to 'culture', meaning mainly Us vs. the Islams. A fairly high-profile Sikh guy was in the papers a few months ago saying he was voting BNP for exactly this reason. And there are plenty of towns and neighbourhoods where relations between Afro-Caribbeans and S. Asians are pretty ropey.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Immigration rates for the country as a whole, maybe. Immigration rates for certain parts of certain cities, not at all. White people are in the minority where I live, so even if most of them voted BNP, that party would still not have a majority vote, on the (fair) assumption that Bangladeshis, Somalis, Chinese etc. are probably not going to vote for them.
The flipside of this is that there are small towns and rural areas with hardly any non-white people at all.
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this is standard with loads (but not all obv) of 2nd/3rd gen children of immigrants though. its understandable - this country (not that its alone in this of course) basically teaches us all to take a sceptical view of any newcomers. whats more british than that?! plus, theres few things that allow someone to prove their own sense of belonging/acceptance etc than taking shots at the new immigrants.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
cheers T.
you may be familiar w a few high-profile useful idiot type lads that the EDL use for their turn-outs, these few lads in question happen to be visibly practising Sikhs.
slightly OT but i read a piece on Shiraz Socialist the other day where a Salma Yaqoob campaign bod spoke off the record to one of the Shiraz bods and said for the Brum Hall Green seat their canvassing was totally avoiding the more ethnically mixed districts of Hall Green, Moseley (an area i know well, gloriously cosmopolitan pubs and such) and Kings Heath in the seat, and focusing on canvassing entirely in the areas of Springfield and Sparkbrook which are heavily populated by people of Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage. that is how Galloway got in in BG & B, incidentally, same 'ghetto politics' drumbeat.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
brilliantly put gumdrops.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Well yeah, exactly. GG's tactic was to leave Glasgow, pick a constituency entirely at random (but happening to have the highest %age of Muslim voters in the country, IIRC), vocally oppose the Iraq war/occupation and ta da! instant seat.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
next to where i grew up Mcr Withington is one of the few non-Lab seats in the conurbation, having used to be a fairly safe Labour seat. but Lib-Dem J Leech got in there at the last general and i think at least partly it was Iraq (despite the fact that for all i know the incumbent Labour bod might have been some Old sort totally opposed to it too), not least because of the seat's relatively large amount of student residents.
matt b
Indexing all opinion
There are only 25 parliamentary constituencies where over 40% of the population were categorised as being from an ethnic minority in the 2001 census (source)
The IPPR piece isn't about whether the BNP get the majority of the vote, but the proportion.
In the above 25 seats (and a handful more, I suspect), your point may well stand, but that is a tiny minority of all parliamentary seats.
matt b
Indexing all opinion
Just found a reference to your point in the document, Tea:
"...where people live in mixed race communities they end ,on the whole, to be less agreeable to BNP arguments about the consequences of mixed communities. However, it may also be explained by the fact that relatively few ethnic minority people are likely to vote BNP"
They argue resiliance is a more important factor
"...where people live in mixed race communities they end ,on the whole, to be less agreeable to BNP arguments about the consequences of mixed communities. However, it may also be explained by the fact that relatively few ethnic minority people are likely to vote BNP"
They argue resiliance is a more important factor
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I never claimed otherwise, but 25 seats is 25 seats, and a constituency can have an ethnic minority population that's less than 40% but still "significant". Plus that data's nine years old, and the figures have probably changed a fair bit even since then, especially with the expansion of the EU.
More than half of the new pupils starting at primary schools in inner London now speak a first language other than English. That's a pretty seismic demographic shake-up in what is by far the country's biggest city. (Yes, there's the standard disclaimer that London's-always-been-a-city-of-immigrants, but the phenomenon of white minorities is pretty recent. And as Scott points out, it's not limited to London. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it is a thing.)
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crackerjack
Well-known member
and a female half-Jewish/half-black (pro-war) MP