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Unite against racism - stop the BNP
Following the local elections in England in May,
when the racist British National Party (BNP ) won three seats in
Burnley, the BNP are attempting to use this gain as a base to push
their politics of race hate nation-wide. This was made clear the
day after the local elections when the BNP stated its aim of an
‘ all white Britain’.
The high vote for the BNP, especially their victory
in Burnley is an issue of national concern. The BNP is looking to
follow the path of Le Pen’s Front Nationale in France, which started
off with just a few local seats and used this to build a national
movement, receiving nearly 6 million votes in the French presidential
election.
At the local elections the BNP on average received 16% (1 in six
votes) in the 67 council seats it contested. In seats contested
by the BNP in Burnley, 33% of voters cast at least one of their
three votes for the BNP. In Oldham the average vote for the BNP
in seats it contested was 27%. The BNP also received over 20% of
the vote in seats in Sunderland, Wigan, Dudley, Sandwell Redbridge,
and Bexley
Growth in support for extreme right politics represents a direct
threat to the lesbian and gay community and should be opposed by
all those who believe in an inclusive democratic society. The last
time the BNP held elected office, for 6 months in Tower Hamlets
in 1993, racist attacks increased by 300%. The BNP state that ‘homosexuality
is wrong and unhealthy for any community…the flood of homosexual
propaganda to “normalise” this tendency has been both unforeseen
and corrupting’. If elected the BNP would ban what they, in loaded
terms, call ‘the public display and promotion of homosexuality,
including in schools and in the mass media’.
When the far right take power, they target many communities. The
Nazi Holocaust affected Jewish, lesbian and gay and black communities
as well as people with disabilities, trade unionists and those who
opposed fascism. The violence whipped up as a result of their bigoted
policies can be seen in the actions of nailbomber David Copeland,
who attacked the lesbian and gay community in Soho, the African–Caribbean
community in Brixton and the Asian community in Brick Lane. In the
wake of the nailbombings, all these communities worked together
to demonstrate unity against the bombings. It is essential that
this unity is demonstrated now against fascism.
The BNP must be defeated in Burnley and prevented from winning seats
elsewhere. Next May, two of the seats held by the BNP in Burnley
will be recontested. Broad based campaigning must begin now to ensure
the BNP are defeated at the ballot box next year.
The Coalition Against Racism — Unite to Stop the BNP campaign is
a tripartite partnership between the TUC, Oldham Asian organisations
and the National Assembly Against Racism. The campaign sought to
mobilise all mainstream opinion and political parties against the
BNP, focusing on getting the 90 per cent of Oldham voters who did
not vote BNP in the general election to turn out and vote. Its work,
in the months leading up to the local elections, resulted in the
extreme right fielding only 5 candidates, rather than the 11 they
had been planning, and stopped the BNP winning seats in Oldham.
LAGCAR is calling on everyone to get involved in the campaign to
stop the BNP — it is vital that in a climate where any community
is targeted by their policies that all those who oppose the rise
of fascism unite behind a common agenda of anti-racism and anti-fascism.
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