Arising out of discussions on several other sites in the last couple of days.
If the BNP is really the left-wing party claimed by some, then funny how it endorsed Boris Johnson. Funny how Nick Griffin’s father is an ex-Tory councillor who gave his phone number as the Welsh contact number for IDS’s Leadership campaign (not that I blame IDS - I rather like his views on Europe, social justice, and the expendability of the Tories) and then answered it with the words “British National Party”. Funny how, of the main parties, only Tories have ever been found to be BNP members on the side. Funny how a lot of things.
Even at the last European Elections, the BNP vote was not very large absolutely or as a percentage of the eligible vote. In the latter case, it was about as many people of that mind as there are in any comparable country, and would come as no surprise to anyone. It was only much larger than before as a percentage of the votes cast. This is the error at the heart of the smug assumption that the BNP could never win a Westminster seat: being the first past the post does not mean taking more than fifty per cent of the eligible vote, but only having the single largest share of the votes cast.
The old Monday Club and Alf Garnett constituencies now matter simply because they still vote whereas all sorts of other people, having no one to vote for, don’t. They can therefore maintain a fairly major party of their own, rather than just having to vote Tory if there was no NF candidate or when (especially in Westminster elections) they felt it pointless to vote NF, in either event rendering them invisible within the larger Tory bloc.
But this only applies while several vastly larger constituencies are disenfranchised.
So let’s re-enfranchise them.
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You are right of course to put the BNP Euro result in the context of a low poll AND a minimal improvement on previous results.
ReplyDeleteIndeed you could also put the No2 Europe vote (pathetically poor anyway) down to a low general turn out.
There are other factors positive and negative. A General Election WILL produce a higher turn out. Governance of the country WIILL be an issue.
The lack of real politics....McMillan embraced the Welfare state. Blair embraced Thatcherism. Cameron embraced New Labour.....all show that there is a lack of ideology but despite the committment of BNP hardcore and the soft nature of much of the big parties support it would be a big step up to actually gain a Westminster seat.
I do not know who actually holds the seat with the lowest percentage of votes cast. Is it Alistair McDonnell in South Belfast with about 33% (helped by an almost even split in Unionist votes)?
I guess Scotland with a 4 party system might actually have the MP with that dubious record.
Either way getting just over 30% of the vote in an English constituency and winning the seat seems impossible for BNP.
"Indeed you could also put the No2 Europe vote (pathetically poor anyway) down to a low general turn out"
ReplyDeleteWho knows what the lack of a media blackout by the BNP-obsessed media may have achieved? That and a sensible name, of course.
Some rural Scottish seats a four-way marginals, the winning candidate's quarter just that little bit bigger than anyone else's in particular. But that's not BNP territory.
"Either way getting just over 30% of the vote in an English constituency and winning the seat seems impossible for BNP"
For now. But at the current rate, just how few people will vote in 2014?
2014....is a different question.
ReplyDeleteNot really. It just requires present trends to continue.
ReplyDelete