U.K. Diary: Notes on the BNP

Anthony Hilton

January 13, 2009 

Only a short visit under the Queen’s gaze, but enough to calm at least some worries about British nationalism, if not others. A friend, a long-time supporter of the British National Party’s (BNP) goal of protecting Britian’s indigenous peoples and culture, introduced me to several BNP activist friends. I expressed to them my concerns for the BNP’s health.

Exhibit A was a dust-up a year ago, described by Nick Griffin in the Jan. 2008 issue of Identity, in which a handful of dissidents had strenuously disputed the leadership’s actions and morals. The BNP’s membership list was also stolen and made public, a devastating blow it seemed initially.

However, the Party seems to have survived these vicissitudes quite well: The unhelpful members were ejected, and the fact that the membership list turned out to include many thoroughly respectable citizens (doctors, policemen, lawyers, etc.) rather than just people easily categorized as marginal or extremist, constituted a PR victory.

Confidentiality has now been reaffirmed, although in this day and age nothing can presumably be guaranteed. By now, the BNP has acquired much more legitimacy as a perfectly legal electoral party and organization. It has one member on the local London Council (thanks to Proportional Representation) and has come in second in a very encouraging number of recent by-elections.

While not the only nationalist grouping to have arisen in the U.K., the BNP is now the “only game in town”, as noted several members. The BNP are on a roll and its activists seem more determined than ever to make the most of the spring European elections (Parliamentary elections are next year). They feel they are in an especially strong position, given the on-rushing economic collapse and the competition for jobs which rampant unemployment is provoking vis-à-vis Third World immigrants and “refugees.” 

But what other challenges does the BNP or other nationalist parties face? A short list with commentary: 

Personality clashes

A consensus: Personality clashes will forever constitute a problem for any party, but they will be more easily resolved if the party has a large enough group of committed nationalist members. Obviously, good leadership is a scarce commodity. It requires a combination of clear, intelligent thinking, and strong motivation both for achieving the party’s goals and for the exercise of power. Strong egos — “alpha males” — compete for recognition and respect for their contributions to the party’s goals. Their urge for dominance may be somewhat at odds with the principles of democratic functioning, but the best leaders can work constructively with the democratic spirit provided there is enough agreement all around regarding overall objectives and methods. 

The trick may be to somehow get the alpha males into separate activities, each doing his own thing without getting in each other’s hair and creating anarchy in the party. For example, a central organization can be run somewhat separately from regional offices and campaigns. But these clashes can be extremely debilitating for a party and provide enormous pleasure to its enemies. I don’t see a party going anywhere unless it finds a way of preventing such absolutely stupid dissention.

Competence issues 

There are many organizational, legal, and financial matters that a party has to deal with and that require highly competent individuals to take on rather serious responsibilities. Election laws require detailed accounting records kept and reported to the government. For example, the BNP’s publicly available financial statements have raised some concern for their current budgeting and financial situation; and there is concern for possible tension between the regional and central operations because of conflict of financial interests. But at least there seems to be no suggestion of corruption in the party.

Funds have to be available not only for electioneering but also for competent legal defense, as, for example, when charges of “hate” mongering were recently brought against BNP leaders. (They were acquitted.)

These can be very serious matters for individuals. I talked to one person whose legal bills forced into him into bankruptcy. He had knowingly taken on risks in bringing a defamation suit, but losing the case meant paying everyone else’s costs as well as his own. But he nevertheless compared his fate favorably with that of nationalists elsewhere in the world who have lost their lives and families! 

Loyalty and willingness to work

It seems to be universal: The number of people who might favor a nationalist party is vastly greater than the number who are actually willing to work hard for it, especially at election time. In Britain, electioneering seems to be mainly a matter of distributing leaflets door-to-door. But once a person is elected to a local council, which is where the BNP’s main political activities are focused, he must be willing to work hard for very little pay (apart from expenses) for his local constituents: arranging for them to receive “benefits”/welfare checks, employment opportunities, cutting government red-tape, etc.

Clearly, a party has to have some way of vetting members before entrusting them with responsibilities. The BNP has a “summer school” for training activists. But I also heard a suggestion that membership (and hence voting rights concerning policies) be restricted to people who have demonstrated a willingness to work hard over several years as well as becoming well known to core members. “Social capital”, as Robert Putnam calls it.

BNP members are not infrequently the target of physical attack from leftists (“anti-racists”) and minority groups.  They reportedly have not received as much police protection as non-British ethnies. Election work thus requires as many tough and fearless individuals as possible as well as strategies for avoiding being beaten up. For example, in distributing pamphlets in a housing project (where, because of proportional representation, every single vote counts), one begins with the top floor to avoid running into a “welcoming party” when going out the front door.  

Being on a Payroll

When a political organization or party gets big enough, some members will get put on a payroll.  However, unless they also have a regular job, they can acquire a vested interest in keeping the job and making good money while on it. Nepotism can become a sub-issue if an important party member gets members of his family on the payroll, as well. Of course, on the good side, these will be people that he can trust. 

In any case, once someone is on a payroll he/she may well become resistant to being replaced by someone better suited for the job. One suggestion was that such people should be constantly reminded that these are not permanent jobs and that they could be replaced at any time.          

Infiltration

There are several types of “infiltration” into a party’s membership. First are hostile organizations, such as the left-wing, anti-nationalist magazine, Searchlight, or the mainstream news media who, for example, might record allegedly “racist” remarks which are then publicized or used to bring charges of fomenting “hatred” toward minorities. The BNP leadership was recently acquitted of such charges, but the process was expensive in time and legal bills. Of course, rogue elements can be ejected from the party and declared not representative of the party’s philosophy (available on the BNP website and regularly publicized).

The second type of infiltration comes from the state. In Britain, MI5 and other security forces can be counted on to keep careful track of all political parties and organizations, ostensibly to keep an eye open for illegal activities, a practice that one can well appreciate when it comes to monitoring the Third World groups responsible for the London Underground bombings.

However, politics can be a rough game, and the current Labour government is thought to be quite capable of dirty tricks against the BNP, and not above using information supplied by the security forces to such ends. Thus, spying is not welcomed by the BNP. They warn members in detail about how, say, the Special Branch goes about getting a person to inform on other members. 

A side effect of spying is that demoralizing distrust can be fomented if prominent members are even only rumored to be in the pay of MI5. Quebec nationalists had a taste of that back when Claude Morin, a prominent member of the separatist Parti Quebecois, turned out to have been a paid informer for the RCMP (Canada’s federal police force which, itself, engaged in a number of dirty tricks at the height of the Quebec separatist movement).            

Kooks

Kooks might be considered a third sort of “infiltration” since they are people destructive of the party’s goal of cultural and ethnic defense. A comment heard: that any fringe group will have a tendency to draw, like flies, a lot of very idiosyncratic personalities, as well as outright nut cases.

Perhaps more importantly, the mainstream media will make the most of this. For example, a columnist for The Independent, Johann Hari (self-described as gay, leftist and anti-BNP), has declared that the BNP is packed with gays. Now, that might give pause to heterosexual nationalists thinking about joining that party. Hari feels that this allegedly rampant homosexuality is shared with Nazi or “fascist” groups (think Ernst Rohm). He also gives favorable mention to the theory that gays are drawn by the thought of nationalist groups containing many tough, macho, and hence (to them) sexually attractive, men. 

But it’s hard to fathom Hari’s agenda apart from a determination to put any nationalism at all in a bad light by linking it spuriously to a combination of homosexuality and authoritarian, Nazi or fascist ideologies — even though he himself surely constitutes evidence against such a causal link!

In any case, it is hard to imagine why in the world there should be a causal relation in either direction between a person’s sexual orientation and his enthusiasm for, and desire to defend, his own culture and ethny — although gays might be expected to be more likely to defend their culture if it was tolerant of gays. It’s a matter of logic: consider that many BNP members undoubtedly drink alcoholic beverages, but that does not establish a causal link between those two, either.

The BNP people I talked to said that there were indeed openly homosexual members of the BNP, but that this was true of all the other parties and society at large — and therefore a non-issue. Jean-Marie Le Pen’s reply to this sort of attack was said to have been simply that his party, the Front National of France, was large, did not vet for sexual orientation, and was “inclusive.”  

Conclusions

The BNP has clearly undergone many trials in recent years but probably has learned a lot. It will go downhill rapidly if they have any more internal strife. It’s bad enough that British society at large should be so suicidal. But all is lost if a party that can see things clearly should also be suicidal. Natural selection is waiting in the wings.

I would wager that the BNP will do somewhat better in the next round of elections — if they can keep the focus on the immigration-induced concrete losses to British people, rather than on their adversaries’ charges of being “racist” “Nazis” and “fascists”. The current economic downturn is regarded as a prime opportunity. And the Labour government may now be frightened of the BNP’s potential. For example, Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, just publicized a report  describing how many poor whites in the UK were irate because of what they perceived as preferential treatment given to immigrants when it came to getting access to public housing and other social benefits. The minister declared that these people were NOT being “racist” but rather were simply expressing perfectly legitimate complaints. Well, isn’t that interesting!