The Polite British Far-Right

It's a tragic fact, that the mechanisms of capitalism swing every-closer to 'disaster' setting, political extremism on the right flares up. In Europe, which is straining most under the weight of the ongoing economic crisis, it has been the most noticable. Greece is the obvious example, where Golden Dawn, an openly violent facist party are currently polling third. In France, in Italy, all across Europe, the ugly head of facism rises, spouting Islamophobia.

What about in Britain? Our premier far-right party, the BNP, have disinegrated, but the individual splinters still protrude; the EDL, the British Freedom Party, the National Front - all offering a slight variation on the same old hatred (the EDL claims to be welcoming to non-whites and non-Christians, so if that ain't your thing, you might what to head by the openly white-supremacist NF).

If you look at the trends in the last few years, the rise of the extreme right-wing in Europe has been marked by parties that do embrace a form of facism, but in Britain, where, despite a flurry of electoral successes a few years ago for the BNP, they have made very little gain. Has the UK been spared, the trend passed it by? Not quite.

In Britain it's currently all about Ukip. They've been slowly building on successes in European and council elections, working towards calling themselves the new 'third party' in British politics, taking the place of the Lib Dems (this despite them never actually having won a seat in parliament - their only representation coming after a defection from the Tory party).

Ukip's rise in popularity has worried the Conservatives. They feared that Cameron was too close to the political middle ground to secure the traditional Tory voter base - he was, and many of them defected right to Ukip. In some places the popularity of Ukip has even been blamed for splitting the Tory vote, causing them to lose an estimated 40 seats at the last election. Michael Fabricant, who does something for the Tory party (he's high up, I don't care any more than that) has proposed an election pact between the two parties, as they increasingly seem like star-crossed lovers, split over a need to appeal to the centre vote.

The problem here is that Ukip represent the same ground as the BNP and their ilk - they just have a greater grasp of political PR. Ukip supporters and BNP supporters largely agree on the parties' main electoral points - immigration, British superiority, anti-Europeanism (unless they want to buy our stuff).

From the Guardian article 'Ukip shares more with the far right than it admits':

While they also appear deeply concerned about immigration and Islam, Ukip supporters are less intense and less hostile than their BNP rivals. They are also far more likely to consider violence as "never justifiable".

At the same time, however, Ukip critics tend to ignore the fact that their party does have considerable policy overlaps with the extreme right. Like the BNP, at the last general election Ukip demanded an end to uncontrolled immigration, tighter border controls, the expulsion of illegal immigrants, the removal of benefits for remaining immigrants and an "end the active promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism by local and national government and all publicly funded bodies". This radical right pitch to voters included an end to political correctness and a ban on the burqa, and led Ukip to invite Geert Wilders to show an anti-Islam documentary in the House of Lords.

Ukip is not a rightwing extremist party, but on the doorsteps of voters it is often pushing the same message as the extreme right.

 What Ukip are able to do is exploit the British love for decent, honest 'chaps' who have little time for the political establishment (which Ukip claim to be outside, but are earnest supporters of). Their leader Nigel Farage smokes and is known to drink pints at lunch (probably British bitter). He is the walking embodiment of people who are just a little bit tired of political correctness and health and safety, and the liberals who push them on society.

Not mentioned in the article is Ukip's homophobic record - during the recent outcry in Rotherham, when the local council removed foster kids from the care of Ukip members because of the racist views of the party, Ukip were playing the victims. The actions of the council were perfect political fodder for the party, who used it to present a case of them being victimised and attacked by 'liberals' for their beliefs, in exactly the same way any far-right party would. (The BNP used to pull the 'they're trying to silence us because we know The Truth' card on several occasions.) What was hardly mentioned was the views of the Croydon North by-election candidate for Ukip, and the party's culture, media and sport spokesman, who said that it was wrong to allow gay couples to foster children. It was the usual stuff about the destruction of the 'traditional' Christian family, of course. Pinknews.co.uk has a further article it's worth reading about several other cases of homophobia in the party.

  Ukip supporters burn picture of openly-gay Lib Dem politican Brian Paddock

 

Listing the idiotic views of Ukip could be an enternal, Sysiphsian task. The crux of this article is this - Ukip differ from the BNP only in style and media presentation. They are slick, unencumbered by the Doc Martin-ed skinheads which are associated with other far-right movements. This makes them more dangerous. They are able to move, clandestine, into the wider political arena, trading on their created identity as a moderate party to come close to securing a place in government, as part of a Tory-Ukip coalition. They exist under the cloak that all 'protest vote' parties use - no one actually pays attention to their policies, they just want an alternative. An alternative Ukip certainly may be, but they are not even better than the Tories.