One of the best things about this election is the total eclipse of the BNP. In Barking, Nick Griffin came a miserable third and he only got around 600 votes more than in 2005. In contrast, the Conservative candidate, Simon Marcus, put on an extra two thousand votes. Margaret Hodge increased her vote by 6,000. And then yesterday the BNP lost all its seats on the local council, despite there being fears that they might do very well indeed.
I interviewed Nick Griffin on LBC on election night and put it to him that his campaign in Barking and the BNP's national campaign had been a shambles and that many in the party were now wondering whether it might be time for him to stand aside as leader. He naturally demurred, but there was something in his voice which made me think he knew I was on to something. Several of his key allies have turned on him.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if people in the BNP were organising a coup.
21 comments:
Will it be a briefcase under the map table?
Will it be a briefcase under the map table?
lol
I think with the BNP it's called a putsch.
Does anyone know how many seats the BNP would currently have if PR was in operation at this election??
Hilarious snipped on the News Quiz today that Griffin blamed his loss on immigrants not voting for him!
Got to hand it to the Labour machine, when they get themselves organised for a pasting they can still dish one out, as in Barking.
...12 seats
of course, with 1.9% of the vote nationwide, under PR they'd have 12 MPs by now...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/
1.9%*650=12.35
LOL @Gallimaufry - with Tom Cruise playing Count Von Darby - Deputy Reichskommisar and ze chosen assasin!
Barking by name and barking by nature.
It seemed such an appropriate constituency for the BNP.
Will we be finding out what percentage of the votes were postal and how it compares to the previous elections, especially in respect to number of votes per household?
re BNP seats under a PR system, it depends on what type of system it is.
For example, the Greens got 4% of the list vote in the last Scottish election, but "only" got 2 MSPs (1.55%). There was a whole bunch of parties who got over 1% of the list vote but didn't get any list MSPs.
The reason for this is that you need at least 5% of the vote in any one region to get someone elected (which the Greens did in the two regions where they were elected). The BNP would have to get far more than 2% nationally to realistically have people elected under a sane PR system.
Much better if NG stays - if they had a smoother, savvier leader the BNP could become much more of a danger
@ Twig said...
"Will we be finding out what percentage of the votes were postal and how it compares to the previous elections, especially in respect to number of votes per household?"
Funny, when I heard the results read out for Tooting and that the oily Sadiq Khan had won, my first thought was along the same lines.
I've noticed the smaller parties performed in varying degrees at the election.
If you combined the total number of seats won by The Democratic Unionist Party, Scottish National Party, Sinn Fein,
Plaid Cymru, Social Democratic & Labour Party, Green Party and the
Alliance Party you'll see they won a total of 27 seats from 1,436,286 votes.
By comparison, add together the number of seats won by the UK Independence Party and the British National Party and you'll find a big difference. They won no seats whatsoever, despite a combined total of 1,481,575 votes.
It's almost an indictment of how unfair our voting system is in this country.
As much as people despise the BNP, they are a legitimate political party whose constitution has had to be changed to a non-rascist one by law.
The total votes cast for the BNP in the 2010 represents a 292.5% increase from that of the 2005 election when 192,745 people voted for them. I'd say they've done pretty well despite not winning a seat.
At the Thurrock election count the BNP candidate Emma Colgate and her merry band of helpers laughed and clapped Nick Griffins terrible result as it was broadcast on Sky and she was heard to shout it served him right for not sending any help to Thurrock.
Their eclipse is both welcome and predictable. Which just goes to show why you should never ban an organisation such as this, or restrict it from giving out it's views.
Good riddance, but I would like to think, (vainly I imagine ) that the fears and concerns the BNP were able to exploiy for a while are properly addressed.
This would be deeply frustrating to those of us who intend to campaign against PR.
The public voted for Tories and Labour who did not fight on a Proportional Representation (PR) platform so it is a bit rich the Lib Dems demanding it and claiming it is somehow the public speaking.
For me however the most important factor against PR is that it will empower fringe parties such as the racist British National Party (BNP). Voters wanting a good local candidate may well have a BNP figure pushed on them because the BNP get enough of the national vote. Local people currently keep the BNP at bay through FPTP, they don't want them locally so don't get them.
I have blogged more on the danger to social cohesion and PR at www.sacredpolitics.com
Hello all, i will lay my cards on the table, I`m from Northants British National Party, I can understand people wanted to get rid of Gordon Brown and his cronies and hangers on. We took enough votes of Labour here in Corby that the Labour have finally been kicked into touch. whilst i was going around the polling booths, the Conservatives had a very well organised campaign ands the agents were very respectable, I only came across 2 labour agents at the polling stations in Northampton North, probably embarassed to come out. just remember folks we will be back at local level at a town near you soon, and the next party in power will be a very unpopular party due to the state the Country is in. all the very best God Bless
Like the NF before it and the BUF before that, it was always talked up by its sectarian Left opponents, in order to make themselves appear more important than they really were. This remains very much the case with the teaching of the 1930s. Mosley was never really terribly important. Nor was the late Nick Griffin.
This should bury once and for all the preachy moaning of people like Peter Hain, who utterly fail to understand what freedom of speech means. The point of freedom of speech is what is said openly can be challenged openly.
To paraphrase, "I don't agree with anything you've said because your a stupid, ugly-hearted, twat; but I would die for your right to say it, even if you do look like someone shoved a cock-eyed pig in a suit and slapped a bad wig on it, you odious shit."
I think that's how that goes?
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