It’s time for Britain to wake up. Have we really begun to imagine how we might feel on May 2nd with BNP councillors in our towns and cities? A poison in British politics, spreading hatred and division in our communities.
Judging by the level of complacency I have experienced on doorsteps across London in this election campaign, I don’t think we have. And colleagues tell me it is the same across the country. We might just be sleepwalking towards a terrible political reality.
The numbers are worrying enough. In the May 1st elections the BNP can achieve a dangerous swing across the UK if people don’t bother to vote for other parties. And in the London elections, the BNP need only 5% of the vote to get a seat on the Assembly. 8% gets them two seats, and 11% means three.
The party might be about to win the most important platform it has ever had. A BNP seat on the London Assembly means this: bigoted votes on a budget worth £11bn. Racist voices deciding the future direction of our capital. And – most dangerously – a stepping stone to further power. Are we willing to let this be the price of our apathy?
Surely not, people have said to me, they’ll never get that many votes in such a diverse place. But at the last GLA elections in 2004, the BNP polled 4.8% of the vote. In 2006, they got 41% in Barking and Dagenham. And in last May’s local elections, they contested over 700 wards across the UK – receiving nearly 15% of the vote.
Yet numbers don’t tell the full story. The BNP threatens the progress this country has since I was growing up in the 1980s. Racist attacks have fallen by over 50% in London over the last eight years alone. But in areas where they get elected, racist attacks increase.
And as we have seen in this campaign, it’s not just ethnic minorities under threat. Recent comments by a leading BNP member insulting rape victims show that just because the skinheads have put on suits, the same old danger lies beneath. This is not just a party with racism and anti-Semitism at it core, but sexism and homophobia.
It is also anti-British. Our history is a proud one of opposition to this kind of bigotry and intolerance.Last year, communities across the UK came together to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. The Royal Navy led the world in stamping out this racist trade. On into the twentieth century, Britain blazed a trail in promoting religious freedom, ethnic diversity (with Jewish and Indian MPs), votes for women and, on the streets of London’s East End, the battle against Oswald Mosley and his far-right blackshirts.
But that was only a taste of the true fight against fascism we faced at World War II. Then we united as a country, all classes and creeds, against Hitler’s menace. But we also came together as a Commonwealth: infantrymen from India, airforce men from the West Indies, as well as soldiers from East and West Africa were a vital part of the British military effort against the Nazis.
But to listen to the BNP, you would think none of this ever happened. Just as they would have you forget that in the 1960s it was my parents, like many others, who came over to Britain to rebuild homes after the war, to drive trains and buses, or – like my mother – to staff the fledgling NHS.
We must remember that many of our finest British institutions have benefited greatly from new arrivals to these shores – from Ragegh Omar at the BBC to Private Johnson Beharry of the British Army, to athletes like Daley Thompson and Denise Lewis draped in the Union flag. Because this is not a nation of fast-talking fascists, or all the ugly paraphernalia of the BNP. It is one of decency, fairness, and respect for people of differing religions and cultures.
This year, as the health service turns 60, I lost my mother to cancer. What will become of her legacy of dedicated service to others, if bigots are elected to public office? Are we really going to let the BNP have a say in our towns and cities today?
These are serious times. People I meet have real concerns about the housing crisis we face, or the turbulent economic situation right around the world. But serious problems require serious solutions. That’s why, across the country, it’s the serious politicians who are talking about climate change, and ways to ensure all of our young people have the right education, skills and training to succeed in life. Rather than allowing others to divide us, serious politicians are talking about bringing community policing to every neighbourhood in the country.
But the BNP? As their terrible terrible record in local government shows, most BNP councillors don’t even bother to turn up. And with no solutions to offer on any of these crucial issues, the BNP are a dangerous distraction.
I don’t think for a moment that 11% of London or the UK really supports the BNP’s views. Unions, churches and faith groups are involved in the fight against the far right like never before. But now it’s time to prove it. We are kicking extremism off our football terraces; we are kicking it out of our shops and factories. Let’s kick it out of politics too.
(A shorter version of this article appeared in the Daily Mirror on 21st April 2008)
