We need to deal with the BNP now!

25/06/2009

Billy Bragg says we need to beat Nick Griffin's lot with a real debate

"I think the people who voted for the BNP in the European election were looking for the best way to punish Labour, and the BNP are the bluntest object to hand.

What has happened is exactly what we were trying to tell people when we were doing some work with Searchlight anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigners: if people don't go out and vote, the BNP vote will be magnified.

And that's exactly what happened - Labour voters didn't turn up.

It's not just apathy. We have to accept that people are very angry with politicians in general, but particularly with Labour. They feel betrayed.

And out of many millions who live in the north west of England, where the BNP took two European Parliament seats, you can't help but feel that perhaps if Hazel Blears had held herself back [the former communities secretary quit the cabinet on the eve of the European election] for a couple of days, there's a possibility that Nick Griffin [BNP leader] wouldn't have been elected.

But, even given the economic situation and the people's utter dismay at politicians, the BNP still didn't increase their vote.

All those pissed off Labour voters didn't rush off to vote for them, they just stood back instead.

So, to me, this says - yes, people do know what the BNP stand for, and don't want to support it, but also that those people can be won back by a party with progressive ideas.

My bricklayer brother has been finding it very difficult to get work.

If local people don't get work, the BNP will take the genuine concerns of people like my brother, who is not a racist, and they'll say, 'Look, the government aren't doing anything for you, they're letting other people come in', and they will get to people that way.

Was throwing eggs at Nick Griffin a good way to protest? I think, if you look in our history, that you'll find that throwing eggs at politicians is a fine old tradition that stretches back into our past.

In fact, I nearly did it myself once. I was on the High Road in the London suburb of Chiswick in 1992, and I saw Douglas Hurd. I was outside Marks & Spencer and I thought to myself, I could go into M&S and buy some tomatoes and throw them at him, 'cos he had no coppers with him or anything, except one guy who I assume was his agent. So I went in to Marks & Spencer but the queue was too long.

By the time I came out, he had gone. And the terrible thing is, that night, I was on Newsnight to talk about the election and I was in the make-up chair getting ready, and who should walk in but another guest - Douglas Hurd.

Can you imagine if I'd done it? I would have pelted him and run away and I'd be in that chair and he'd have pointed and shouted, 'That's him, that's the man!' I'm not even sure that I would call Nick Griffin, a person who questions the holocaust, a politician.

He is someone who would give the benefit of the doubt to Adolf Hitler. I'm not sure that's a reasonable position. 

I think we have to defeat them through debate because, ultimately, the kind of universal ideas that we believe in, such as liberty, have to apply to everyone.

When I saw that the Royal British Legion asked Griffin to stop wearing a poppy badge [he wore one repeatedly throughout the European election campaign], I was very proud that they would stand up to him like that.

Where I live, in Dorset, the BNP leaflet that came round the door before these elections had a Spitfire on the front and talked about the new Battle of Britain.

That Spitfire on the front was one that was flown during the Battle of Britain by a Polish pilot.

So I think that the more we can argue with them and debate with them, the more opportunity we have to show them up for what they are."

Billy Bragg will perform at the Wickerman Festival, near Dundrennan, Dumfries and Galloway, on July 24