ONE OF the most worrying aspects of this election has been the high
votes in some areas for far-right parties like the British National
Party (BNP). Where they stood, the racist BNP’s vote averaged over 4%
and was even higher in some areas. In Barking the BNP won 4,916 votes
(16.9%) while in Keighley, party leader Nick Griffin won over 4,000
votes (9.2%).
Roger Shrives
One reason for these votes is that the Tories and New Labour
concentrated a lot of attention on asylum and immigration. While in some
places this may have squeezed the far right’s vote, it was also a
massive propaganda boost for them.
The New Labour and Tory parties have also contributed to the BNP’s
vote by selling off or shutting down our public services and letting
industries like Rover collapse with huge job losses.
Then when these capitalist parties face opposition, they
hypocritically try to scapegoat asylum seekers, refugees and other
minorities for the problems that these parties’ policies created! The
far-right gained from this.
Trade unionists and socialists must oppose the far-right parties.
They must defend the refugees and migrant workers, who are trying to
escape from the effects of the same profit system that exploits workers
in Britain and which is backed by all the mainstream parties.
At the same time, trade unionists and socialists must step up the
fight against the anti-working class policies followed by all the
capitalist parties. The BNP can only get support because of fears
amongst the population that poverty and attacks on jobs, education and
health care etc. are inevitable.
A vital part of the struggle against the far right is the building of
a new workers’ party to campaign on these issues and to pose a genuine
alternative to the miseries caused by the profit system.
