Categories: uncategorized
Date: 27 May 2009 03:35:19
Nick Cohen has an interesting article on the Guardian website claiming that the "BNP's rise is a fantasy created by anti-democrats". The central argument of the argument is that the BNP is not increasing their share of the vote, and that concerns about the rise of this party are being promoted by those who want to stop "people power", (for that one assumes you should read proportional representation).
It's an article which probably has aspects of truth to it. However, it also fails to recognise two elements....apathy and activism.
I'll take activism first. Up here in the North East it is apparent that the BNP are putting in effort. As one, horrified, person I know who lives a few miles away from here put it they've not had any political leaftlets for years round their way, but they've had three BNP leaflets recently.The fact is the BNP may be short of credible candidates, but they do have people willing to put in leg work when other parties appear to be growing short of this resource, or are becoming increasingly unwilling to use it. The rise of the technology for canvassing is all well and good and most of us do treat activists on the door step and their literature in a similar way JW's, but ..... it still makes an impact.
The second aspect the article fails to recognise is apathy...and this is the key one. The BNP may not be making sweeping advances, but they may advance by default if apathy continues to grow. As someone once says "all it takes is for good men to do nothing". The sub-text of the recent pronouncements against the BNP by Archbishops Williams and Sentamu is that people need to bother voting in the European elections. Thus, the thrust of their argument is not anti-democratic rather it is seeking to get people to engage with democracy. There are many of us who fear the BNP will win more support not because we are scared of people power rather because we are worried about a lack of it. We are worried that the numbers of people feeling disenfranchised and distrustful of politicians is growing by such a rate that the numbers of people who can't be bothered to vote or who feel they have nobody to vote for will be such that far smaller increases in support by the BNP will appear to give them a disproportionate increase in support. What would have been interesting for Cohen to have included in his article is how the figures for the proportion of the electorate voting had changed, if at all.
I agree with Cohen people power is what politics should be about. That power lies in the ballot box and is a power we should be encouraged to believe in...not become so cynical about that we don't bother.