Oct 23 2009
A defining moment in British politics?
The vanity of the BBC has led to stories that Mr Griffin’s appearance on Question Time last night was a defining moment, a Waterloo in British politics. I don’t think so. As always in Nulabour’s Britain many place media events above real life events which do make a difference and have led us into difficult days.
The two crucial events which made Mr Griffin’s TV appearance possible were the decision of this government to introduce proportional representation to European elections, and the decision of around one million people to vote for Mr Griffin’s nasty party at the last European elections. His party achieved that without Question Time helping them. Without 2 MEPs the BBC would not have issued such a contentious invitation.
One of the worst features of proportional representation is the encouragement it gives to the few to create and energise extreme or nasty parties, and to disillusioned or unpleasant voters to vote for them. We have not had a single communist or neo nazi elected to Westminster. First past the post is too high a hurdle. The European system based on PR regularly elects extremes to Parliaments.
The main parties have to cut the electoral ground from under Mr Griffin. They can do this by removing whatever legitimate grievances have helped lead over one million voters into his camp. They may be able to do so by exposing more of the unpleasant side of his views. They need to do so, as we have a European electoral system which is adding fuel to his fire. His party is now in receipt of taxpayers money through the European Parliament, which helps it publicise itself even more. Commentators say Mr Griffin received a mauling last night. I was speaking at a dinner so I did not see it. What I do see is huge publicity for his party the morning after. Very few uncommitted voters watch Question Time. Many more will read the spin that followed the programme. It is a dangerous strategy the government is following.
38 Responses to “A defining moment in British politics?”
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
The BNP is to Labour as UKIP is to the Conservatives. Those who would normally vote Labour, wish to register a protest but can’t bear to vote Tory will vote for the BNP.
I saw a BBC news interview the other day with a BNP voter. They had found someone whos tattos and piercings made him look like a threatening stereotype, but he was perfectly lucid in his replies to the questions. Labour had lost his vote, so it was transferred to the BNP. The Conservative party was not an option where he came from – it was almost as though the policies didn’t matter.
If the main parties can’t raise their game to encourage voters in, the only alternative is to provide a “none of the above” box on the ballot paper. This would at least allow protest votes to be made in a more obvious way.
You won’t like this: parliament could do with some extremists. As much as I might dislike having Nick Griffin with a seat in parliament, in a democracy you have to accept that people you don’t like get a say too.
If we had a working parliament, it wouldn’t matter anyway, no one MP would be able to control anything — that’s the point of having a representative parliament, for every Nick Griffin there would be (hopefully) two hundred Martin Luther King’s. Just like society as a whole.
First past the post is great for the incumbent, large parties, but all we get is one great sea of grey, there is very little contrast. Despite what the Tories would like us to believe, you couldn’t get a razorblade between 2009 Tories, and 1997 Labour (I’m ignoring 2009 Labour, because they are quite obviously a shambolic mess); and this is made worse because there is no way for the voice of the one genius to be heard. I admit that the Tory party has a few more stand out voices than the Labour party (yourself and Douglas Carswell as examples); but you both still have party loyalty to consider, when really what we need is people who have country-loyalty.
Have a think about all the great scientific discoveries; not one was made by committee. There should always be a way for the lone voice to be heard, and in our parliament, and our system of voting, there is not. If the price for that was that I had to live with Nick Griffin in parliament, I would live with it, in the hope that a shining beacon of intelligence and honour would also find a way to get in.
Being of a scientific bent myself, I would like to see a more academic rigour put into policy making by parliament. Papers should be published with facts and figures and those papers would be reviewed and rebutted by peers. I don’t see that policy making should be any less worthy of the scientific method than science. This constant “let’s try this” attitude, with nothing other than whim as support for an idea has got to stop. Every new law should be supplied with the following: what does it aim to achieve? What evidence is there that it will achieve that aim? how will it be tested once it is implemented to see if has achieved its aim? What side effects will it have? What will it cost? What will it save? I am tired of hearing new legislation talked about in the same way people talk about football teams. I would love to listen to the Today programme and hear a minister say “here are the disadvantages of this new legislation, but we believe these are mitigated by A, B and C, and that the advantages D, E, and F are worth having”.
I tell you this: if we did science and engineering the way you lot do politics, we would have a car with 27 wheels, all of different colours and sizes that ran on hot air and blew up every time it came to a corner.
The establishment (inc MSM & the political parties) will do anything other that debate the issues, or give a clear answer to those issues, which the BNP have very clear responses to.
Hopefully the BBC will now invite an Islamic leader on to be interrogated about their beliefs by a suitably hand picked concerned audience in the same manner – don’t think so too racist.
The BNP don’t stand a chance of obtaining even one seat in Westminster. I’d wager that in twenty years time they still won’t obtain a seat.
It’s only because of the barmy European voting system that they have two euro seats.
But why the fuss about the far right?
I could never get my mind round this –
In the 70’s when I was at university , a bunch of guys were all heading off on busses for London, all paid for by the NUS, of course, for an “Anti Nazi” march and I wondered “Where the hell are all these Nazi’s?”
Mean while the IRA were killing and maiming on the streets of the UK, but there was no protest.
Thirty years on – there are violent scenes outside the BBC, in an attempt to silence Nick Griffin.
Yet what actual danger is he?
He’s not; so far as I’m aware preaching violence …As far as I’m concerned people can preach whatever they wish so long as they don’t advocate violence.
Mr Griffin comes across as just slightly nutty, but he does put his finger on one point – that of the dangers of continued immigration that isn’t being discussed enough by the mainstream parties.
Until governments deal effectively with immigration and other issues that have driven voters to support the BNP, then the party will continue to thrive. There is little doubt that British-born people have been made to play second fiddle to immigrants in many parts of the country; it is no wonder there is so much bitterness. I don’t believe the majority of people have any great difficulty in befriending someone from another country, but when a government stamps on its own people in favour of outsiders and turns a deaf ear to all complaints, then those people need a voice to make themselves heard. Rightly or wrongly, for some, it’s the BNP.
I read Iain Dale’s Diary yesterday with great interest. Fascinating! I was appalled as his remarks about the BBC and the Conservative Baroness too.
I did not watch the programme because I was looking at a film instead.
How about this for a thought: we offer free schools, free houses, free health service and a nice little children’s allowance, among several other benefits, to anyone who happens to be in the country.
More or less anyone is allowed in and the population is about to hit 75 million in a few years’ time.
Meanwhile the country is sliding faster and faster towards bankruptcy.
The housing list seems (who cares if myths are true?) to favour (recently arrived-ed) people over “indigenous” ones.
Wouldn’t you be furious too? Especially if you were on the dole?
JR: “Commentators say Mr Griffin received a mauling last night.”
Another way of putting it was that Griffin was subjected to a form of organised bullying which I doubt would have done anything to alter the views of those who now support the BNP. The problem is this: the three main parties are hopeless at and probably don’t want to explain what they propose to do but just love attacking what they regard as the policies of their opponents. This came across again last night as they attacked their victim like a pack. This was one of the worst Question Time programmes and gave no encouragement to those who don’t find the main parties appealing.
Over 50% of BNP voters come from a Labour background (47/90ths from this poll result excluding don’t knows):
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/10/22/what-do-we-know-about-bnp-voters/
But over a quarter come from a Conservative one, so both major parties are losing out. Since the BNP is a left wing party it is of course much easier for Labour voters to switch. However, the key defining characteristic is immigration policy.
Labour’s easy come, easy go attitude has encouraged many British citizens to emigrate while opening doors in a quite uncontrolled fashion otherwise.
The Conservative policy is here:
http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Immigration.aspx
It needs a lot more flesh on the bones. The cap on net migration needs to be set at a low level (even balanced, as proposed by Soames and Field). We need to ensure that those who come to the UK without a permanent right to remain are in possession of onward or return travel arrangements when they arrive (as the US requires) – that can only be altered by registering the change with the UKBA, and like Brian Hanrahan in the Falklands War we need to count them all out and count them all in. We need to take back proper control of visa issue into consulates rather than farming it out to third parties. We need to be much more discriminating about who gets visas to begin with – especially when they come from countries that are either openly hostile to the UK, or harbour a significant hostile element. We need to ensure that sham marriages are rooted out, and that students pursue genuine academic courses and have the aptitude to do so. We need to control “inter company transfers” that have become a backdoor means to settlement, and are conducted as foreign recruitment rather than an exchange of individuals to broaden careers.
JR: “Mr Griffin’s appearance on Question Time last night was a defining moment … I don’t think so. ”
Agreed.
The failure of British politics is long standing and cross party, it is the failure to discuss a policy that worries many voters. That of immigration – the last Tory to try it was Michael Howard and he was vilified not only by the Labour party but members of his own party too by example Ann Widdecombe with her repulsive ’something of the night’ remark.
No the success of the BNP is the failure of the mainstream parties, it is your fault.
As an aside I will post a remark another comentator I read today regarding the composition of the Question time panel:
“Nick Griffin – national socialist
Jack Straw – communist (international socialist)
Baroness Warsi – left wing corporatist
Chris Huhne – demented pro-EU illiberal (international socialist)
Bonnie Greer – Marxist.”
So much for balance on the BBCs flagship Q&A programme.
Thanks Pete, sums it up pretty accurately I think.
Last night was the first time I’ve watched QT in years and I have to say, the whole concept of impartiality seems to have been cast into the dustbin.
I find Mr Griffin’s views repellant, but simply engaging in political bear-baiting will not deal with the issue.
Mr Redwood we seem to be agreed that FPTP raises the barriers to entry to British politics in a way that makes it a de fecto Labour/Conservative monopoly. If any private company wanted the field fixed to keep out riff raff you would condemn them & the same applies in political ideas.
The rise of the BNP is purely because of a massive & harmful amount of immigration which the British people have never been asked to support & to which neither of the monopoly parties has ever offered an alternative. The rise of the BNP is a much better alternative to a paternalistic & undemocratic state.
FPTP is not a defence against “extremism” however defined since it is always possible for 1 of the 2 “acceptable” parties to be taken over by entryism indeed that nearly happened to Labour in the late 70s & arguably has happened to all 3 parties on “Green” issues.
Having lots of political options obviouisly leads to the probability of having lots of wrong ones but limiting political access to 2 does not ensure that less than 2 will be spectacularly wrong. The small party I think to be far & away the most dangerous are the Greens, who while caring nothing about the environement (windfarms covering the countryside) combine a Luddite desire to destroy our livelihoods with a blatant fascist desire to control every facet of our lives. By comparison with the eco-fascist warming alarmists Griffin is both rational & moderate.
I think we all know what the “legitimate grievance is”, which has caused a million people to vote for the extreme-left BNP.
It begins with an “i” and continues with “mmigration.”
And Mr. Redwood, I’m sorry to say it, but I am sure you are well aware of that, and you skirted around mentioning it in your post.
Until ONE (any one, really) of the so-called mainstream parties can find a way of articulating peoples’ concerns about this issue, the BNP will continue to flourish.
Over to you guys.
BBC Vanity – I think you are right. Even Newsnight is often so superficial as to be hardly worth the bother. Last night Newsnight has a piece about a music machine that allegedly had some folk in uproar. Some folk liked this Music machine others didn’t. As to what the intellectual point was – I have no idea.
Combined with the weird Panorama effort about Ryanair – which was more of a free commercial than anything else – makes me wonder which of the tabloids the BBC is competing with (or crowding out),
As for Question Time – there is always a home shopping channel- or, for the prudent and or ecological, the off button!
The BNP only exists because neither of the major parties has a coherent immigration policy. Labour since it gained power has allowed border controls to become a total shambles and the Tories if they do have a policy seem reluctant to articulate it effectively.
I suspect that the revolting Griffin did not lose a single vote despite what the chattering classes might think; but Jack Straw, what a ridiculous performance!
David Cameron if he shows he is not frightened of the issue will win widespread support if he insists on proper controls being put in place.
I spend 50% of my time in Australia which has a very difficult problem with illegal migrants but both parties in the government are firmly committed to controlling who has access to the country.
Labour, however, lacks the political will and the Tory party ???
Frankly we despair of the bovine British public – at least those at the BBC Centre last night – and its public broadcaster.
This was an orchestrated format which will prove to play into the hands of the BNP. Most Brits have an innate sense of fairness and a support of the underdog and those showing guts in the face of the bully boy.
We support conservative values and are no supporters of Mr Griffin’s party but we, at least, wanted to hear his views on the mainstream topics of the day so the electorate can judge for itself and sift the best of his ideas – as we do with those of all parties – and use them for the common good.
Shame on the producers and shame on the usually excellent David Dimbleby for stooping to this pathetic pandering to bigotry!
John,
I would usually agree with most of what you write. However in this instance, I am saddended to see the usual ‘big party’ response.
How dare the big party politicians and the media assume that people only vote for parties like the BNP as a ‘protest’. Here’s a radical thought: people vote for the BNP because they agree with what the party says!
This is a democracy, and it would be entirely wrong to stifle debate and try to crush alternative ideas. I simply cannot believe the arrogance of the establishment.
The other parties should be closely examining the minority party policies and speaking to their voters. Perhaps lessons can be learned, and policies can be improved?
I am not a supporter of the BNP, will not vote for them and do not like Griffin, however I thought his treatment last night was the television equivalent of a lynch mob. The panel was useless and Dimbleby and the selected audience could hardly be descibed as balanced. My guess is that a calmer and more rational panel would have had difficulty in disagreeing with him on immigration, EU, Iraq whilst finding some of his other alleged comments and opinions loathsome. In short a win for the BNP.
As regards PR, I used to agree with you about hung parliaments and coalitions but Labour and Conservative Parties have become dictatorial and unrepresentative of the electorate – back to the BNP – and regrettably your view shows the depth of denial. We have the situation were 70 or so marginal seats with a total swing vote of say 500,000 voters decide the government. Then we have safe seats with party leaders or constituency party branches deciding on the MP. 22% of the electorate in 2005 voted for NuLabour – 66 seat majority. All very democratic and the political classes wonder why turnouts are dropping signicantly.
Then there is another bete noir of mine – Scotland. They seem to run their affairs reasonably on PR and of course their vast over representation at Westminster means their MPs run Britain too.
“This Parliament is dying”. “One of the worst features of proportional representation is the encouragement it gives to the few to create and energise extreme or nasty parties, and to disillusioned or unpleasant voters to vote for them.”
You give an answer to why parliament is dying in the second quote. The Commons lacks energy, authority, spark, real debate and opinion, not whip, driven voting. If we had the European election split in the Commons it would be dynamic and more honest than increasingly having career, lobby fodder MPs.
The MPs expenses scandal is a clear indication to me of the demise of our system of government and maybe that is why it has created such a public furore – the people are fed up with the way we are governed.
Time for a change – the Brits are a good people they will not vote for extreme parties en masse except in desperation – maybe we are reaching that point.
As expected, a distasteful feature of the programme was that BNP opponents and even Mr Griffin himself tried to tar Enoch Powell with the BNP brush. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he gave up a professorship in Sydney to enlist as a private in the British army. Not his uncle, Mr Griffin, but the man himself. And he revealed his thoughts in this poem, written shortly after 3rd September 1939.
“The fisher lays aside the hook,
The farmer leaves the plough,
The student rises from his book:
Their day and hour is now.
Their faces all, both man and boy,
With a lover’s flush are fired;
They haste with swinging steps of joy
To meet their long desired;
And every eye is glistening
With hope no more denied;
For now the marriage-morn will bring
The bridegroom to the bride.”
“With hope no more denied” – the end of appeasment
“The bride” – the British army
First past the post is an unfair electoral system. It conflicts with the basic principle of our democracy, that everyone should be treated fairly. I live in a constituency which has only ever elected one party. The MP was chosen by a small group of members of that party. None of the rest of us had any say. This is not right. It is corrupt. It should be got rid of.
Whatever you think of the people it allows to be elected the European elections have allowed us to discover what the voters actually want. The sooner we have a similar system in England the better. As it is the European Parliament has more democratic legitimacy than the UK Parliament.
I think that the problem is of politicians making. For some years now they have all lied to the people they are supposed to represent especially over the EU which even now they will not debate. On top of all this governments have scrapped the protection of our ancient rights and liberties without a by your leave, so we now live in what is almost a totaliterian state. No party will listen to us, they live in their own little bubble surrounded by “yes men”. Worst of all they have dismantled the U.K. by devolution and relegated England to a non-State, apparently on the orders of this same EU. We in England are treated as intruders, even those born and bred of English stock. All the time we are followed by state appatchiks intent on fining us for the most petty of mischiefs without “due process” to say nothing of the “thugish” attitude of the police. In my youth the police were local, approachable and fair above all, strictly non political, now they are an agent of government policy. So do not blame some fringe party for taking votes you consider are yours, look rather within your own party at it’s failings
Sorry, silly little spelling error, should read “apparatchiks” of course,but I’m sure you get my meaning.
Derek
I think there have been one or two Communist MPs in the past ( at least 50 years ago ), as opposed to just closet Communists in the Labour party.
I defend Enoch Powell. He was not racialist as events in India bear witness and his representing Northern Ireland when Ted Heath kicked him out of Government and that in my opinion was more to do with his views on the Common Market than the infamous speech in Birmingham?
Nick Griffin got an unfair mauling, I don’t support him or his party, I expect fair treatment by the BBC. He was set up, he knew that was the anti, so he has no complaint. The whole thing was get Nick Griffin when had questions addressed other subjects and had he been allowed to hear his views on them it may just have been more balanced?
I thought the two panelists who came out of it best were Baroness Warsi and Bonnie Greer, Jack Straw was a disaster.
The one issue, briefly mentioned, is the elephant in the room, the EU and that together with our duplicitous politicians ceding our right to self governance is the reason behind why people vote for the BNP and until parliament address this issue it will remain just a monkey pen at Westminster.
I am 70 in just over a months time and have waited for a free and honest vote on the Common Market/EEC/EU since the 1960’s and we haven’t had one. Much as I want this lot out and a Tory government I will not vote again until I get one. With the exception of 1975 I have voted Tory all my life.
Most of the bloggers here seem to think the same as all those to whom I have spoken today.
It was a pre organised set up against Nick Griffin.
No he did not come across well, No I do not support his party in any way, but at least he is prepared to air his views on immigration, the only topic which had some sort of part sensible discussion last night, approaching a debate.
Baroness Warsi (Conservative) and Chris Hulme (Liberal) even ventured to suggest that the present immigration policy had failed. So perhaps there is some hope for proper discussion if there is the will.
As for the rest of the programme, it was bear baiting at its worst, and the worst Question time I have seen.
Man In A Shed is right. Willie Gallacher was Communist MP for East Fife 1935-1950, and Phil Piratin for Mile End (London) 1945-1950. In 1945 Harry Pollitt came close in Rhondda East. I do not recall much excitement about it.
Perhaps we need a real risk of extreme parties in order for our deaf politicians to start listening to us – most notably the Tories.
Haven’t you heard ? Uncontrolled immigration is the issue keeping most of us awake at night. Why isn’t it top of the Tory party manifesto ?
Your policies must be baloney. How can you possibly plan if you have no idea how many people are going to be here ?
Having voted Tory all my life I will not do so again. I can see that you’re part of the problem and not the solution.
You are of course right that we haven’t had a communist elected to Westminister – or rather, somebody honest enough to admit he or she was a communist. I think most of us remember the time when a policy would be tabled at the Communint Party conference one year, be adopted by the TUC the year after, and then by the Labour Party the year after that. There was also the Independent Labour Party, who worked for a broad coalition of the left, including communists.
A former ILP MP was Oswald Mosely, who was expelled for his views and founded the New Party, indicating the much-ignored link between socialism and fascism – both of which raised their ugly heads on last night’s Question Time in the person of Nick Griffin, head of the BNP.
BNP have also elected local councillors under first-past-the-post. Don’t blame the voting system.
With proportional representation you get what you vote for. PR will let more voices in, but will also ensure they get no more power than they deserve.
John,
I cannot but echo some of the previous comments. Much as I detest Griffin and the BNP they were legally elected within our democratic system and as such have every right to be heard. The furore created by the media and the politicians means nothing more than publicity for the BNP. You wish to kill off the BNP – then debate with them and talk about subjects that appear to be taboo to you .
Ukip are in the same position in that no-one wants to debate with them and, like the BNP, they are not going to go away. As I have posted before David Cameron has been invited three times to publicly debate the UK’s membership of the EU and declined on each occasion. That type of attitude does him and his ilk no good whatsoever.
Unless the Con/Lab/LibDem parties do start this process of debate you may well find that each of you have a few nasty surprises come the General election.
There is a large of underclass and disaffected in Britain and Griffin determined to build a pyramid using these people. The main political parties and their supporters have forgotten the fundamental political fact that whoever controls the streets has made the first step to controlling the country. He appeals to people of limited intellect, education, and middle class numb skulls …….. Looking stupid on question time is not a problem. Like a comedian learning his trade, getting slaughtered and then becoming master crowd baiter he will find more fans and become more sophisticated offering easy solutions that work to crimes like vandalism and alcohol problems.
I’m no admirer of the BNP
If it wasn’t for the euro election system, we wouldn’t be talking about them now.
But if you invite Nick Griffin onto the programme, then the BBC should have afforded him the courtesy of having a structured discussion on current events, with one question on the BNP.
Instead we were subjected to a bear pit of a debate.
They may as well have put Griffin in the stocks, Mr Dimbelby seemed quite content to devote the entire hour to attacking Griffin, and the questions were incidental.
The panel put on a display of “I abhor racism, more than you abhor racism”
What we witnessed wasn’t fair play.
“They may be able to do so by exposing more of the unpleasant side of his views.”
Living in an area where there are a fair few BNP voters, I doubt it. These aren’t the sort of people who really have any interest in politics. Most of them just seem to like the ’send (“foreigners”-ed) home’ central plank of BNP policy. There are a lot of ‘unpleasant’ voters, but there are also some very thick voters who voted for them because their mate told them to.
The latter category of voter probably couldn’t tell you who the Chancellor of the Exchequor is or what he does.
Regular contributer Alan Jutson has summed up well.
It would be interesting, John, to hear your own summation of the views of your supporters here following your initial thoughts published above.
It is probably as well this story had not broken in advance of Question Time:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html
The BBC QT show was a Great success, they managed to beat him over the head so many times with past quotations they kept him from talking about policies.
Mission accomplished for the BBC.
Nick Griffin and the BBC think that a country should have a manufucturing base and coin its own money, and get out of he EU, I have to agee.
Any Idea how many British public sector jobs been moved (abroad-ed), and (foreign-ed) nationals in this country on inter company transfer visas, this year via contracts to (various companies-ed)? and similar with other outsourcers
any idea how many of their back office jobs the banks have given to (overseas-ed) nationals since they were nationalised?
and folk wonder how the BNP are gaining ground?
interesting policy of the government to borrow money to prop up jobs (elsewhere-ed)
Coming in at about No.37 on this topic, it is fascinating, and encouraging, to read the reasoned and balanced prior contributions.
I would like to comment on one aspect not so far raised, that Nick Griffin said he was “unable” to say why he has changed his views on the Holocaust. He was not allowed to explain this properly, but it seems that it was not that he did not know why he has changed his mind but that to give voice to his reasons would make him liable to prosecution in France and/or Germany. Jack Straw jumped in, and reminding us he is Justice Secretary, told Griffin he had nothing to fear.
Is it true that things have reached such a pass that an individual does not have the freedom of speech to explain himself when subjected to criticism?
What credibility does an undertaking from the Justice Secretary have in the face of the European Arrest Warrent? Griffin certainly felt himself to be gagged for fear of his liberty.
My reaction after QT was that, if I were the BNP management, I would get rid of Nick Griffin at once and replace him with someone who has no adverse history and who is more articulate. Then the BNP would be in a much stronger position to get its points over.
My wife and I both voted BNP in the last EU elections, we would rather vote Conservative but despair of waiting for the party to provide us with strong policies on:
1. Immigration (stop it).
2. EU (join EFTA).
3. Cut welfare (that would also be a way to reduce 1.)
Mr Redwood, perhaps someone in the party could tell us that at least you have heard our voice and set out how you would propose to deal with these issues. I think that, if you are brave and made some sensible proposals, you would be surprised how your share of the vote would skyrocket.