POLITICS-BRITAIN: Far Right Party in Tiny but Shock Win

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, May 3 2002 (IPS) - The far right British National Party (BNP) has won only three seats in Thursday’s local elections in Britain, but the result is sending shock waves among anti-racist groups and minorities.

In terms of numbers, the party’s victory was on a tiny scale compared to that of Jean Marie Le Pen in the first round of the French presidential elections. But these are the first victories of the far right in Britain in nearly a decade.

In view of this, a spokeswoman for the Anti-Nazi League said, the result was a setback. “We really cannot afford to be complacent anywhere in Europe,” she said. The BNP had got an “alarmingly high number of votes across the country.”

The BNP contested 68 local council seats in a total of 5,879. This is the first time that the far right party has won so many seats. Its only success earlier was a victory in the Tower Hamlets area of East London.

The success of the BNP came in Burnley in the north, the scene last June of Britain’s worst racial riots in 20 years. The BNP also contested in other towns troubled by racial tensions – Oldham, Bradford and Birmingham .

The party came within 91 votes of winning in Oldham, but its candidates took a record share of the vote.

“Every single member of the minorities is thinking about this, and what it means for all of us,” a spokesman for the National Council of Gujarati Organisations told IPS. “But perhaps we should not be surprised, because this kind of result is in line with the experience of many of us.”

Environment Minister Michael Meacher said after the vote that “although the BNP failed to win any seats (in Oldham), hundreds, in fact thousands, of people voted for them. I am not happy that one person votes for the BNP.”

Labour Party chairman Charles Clarke said: “It is disappointing that any BNP candidates have been elected, but this has shown that they have been rejected in the vast number of seats.”

However, the Commission of Racial Equality (CRE) says it is ” disappointed that mainstream parties were unable to convince some parts of the electorate in the north of England that they could provide a better political alternative.”

The CRE had asked for the main parties to field common candidates against the BNP but all three main parties – Labour, Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – rejected the appeal.

The CRE warned the BNP winners that they cannot defy the law. “Under the Race Relations Act, political parties are legally bound not to discriminate indirectly or directly in the ways in which they provide services and facilities to the public,” the CRE said in a statement.

In a clear warning to the BNP it said “the CRE has specific enforcement powers under this legislation to make sure public bodies deliver on their legal obligations.”

The Anti-Nazi League says that the victory for BNP candidate Derek Beackon in 1993 had served as a wake up call. “His victory mobilised a mass Anti-Nazi movement that threw him out of office in 1994,” the League said in a statement. “We must build that movement again.”

A spokesman for the BNP told IPS that the party is “very pleased” with its success and its elected representatives will work to “keep Burnley a British town.” The BNP spokesman called the victory for Edwards particularly significant because “it’s a very very prosperous ward in Burnley.”

The wards where the BNP won are close to pockets with a high concentration of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. The rioting last year led to series of clashes between Pakistani and Bangladeshi youth on one side and white youth groups on the other.

Of the BNP winners David Edwards (36) is a middle level company worker. Carol Hughes (38) is a manager with a car parts production firm. Terry Grogan, who won by just four votes after five recounts, was a paratrooper in the Falklands war.

None of them made any immediate comment after winning. “They will work with everyone else for the future of the council,” the BNP spokesman told IPS. “If you want to know any more, ask them when they take their place in the council.”

In her election leaflet Carol Hughes said she used to be a committed Labour supporter but believed the Labour party had lost touch with the British people. She said in her pamphlet: “I am totally disillusioned with Burnley council and the Labour Party. Political correctness seems to dominate all their thinking. I am not a racist. I work with members of the ethnic minorities. I just think it’s time Burnley council started listening to the people of Burnley.”

Demonstrations were held against the BNP outside counting halls. Groups of Anti Nazi League campaigners chanted slogans against the party in Oldham and Burnley.

The voter turnout was 34 per cent, considered satisfactory by British standards in local elections. About 34 per cent of the votes went to Labour, an equal number to the Conservatives, 27 per cent to the Liberal Democrats, and the rest to small parties.