Aftermath

[peredur_glyn]

As is noted here, if 2500 or so more people would have voted BNP they would have secured an Assembly seat. At least 4% of the Welsh population voted for them. I don't know if it's just me who finds this unutterably apalling.

Comments

[echoesreturn]

I'm gutted - when i went to bed last night it looked likely that Plaid were going to take Carmarthen West. Sadly, when i woke up this morning, the Tories have got it. Gutted (2% between the top 3 candidates - with Plaid third). Still at least Gwyther is out.

Also, i'm incredibly pleased that the ridiculous ALun Pugh is out. WOOHOO!!

[peredur_glyn]

My friend's dad was standing for Plaid in Cardiff North, but it won by a big Tory majority. My mate's going to wake up to both a hangover and this bad news!

Also, i'm incredibly pleased that the ridiculous ALun Pugh is out. WOOHOO!!

Indeed, but isn't his replacement Conservative? Maybe we won't notice the difference ...

[echoesreturn]

The Tory winner in Clwyd West (?i think, Pugh's old ward) is an advocate of creationism, and has apparantly said in public that 'homosexuality is a sin'...

[peredur_glyn]

Hurrah for progressiveness.

[dyddgu]

There are quite a few essays out now in re Welsh racism. It's an odd thing.
It's the "B" bit of the equation that puzzles me in re Wales...

[peredur_glyn]

It's odd, and yet it's not something that struck me particularly until I cane back from University. Most people in Cambridge were tolerant, or at least the students were, and then I came back to Anglesey to find people making jokes about "niggers" and being really quite homophobic etc. I try to remind people to sound rather less bigoted when I can, but it's clearly symptomatic, probably since the Welsh countryside has always been predominantly white. There was only one black kid in my secondary school, and maybe three or four who were of Asian descent.

It's the "B" bit of the equation that puzzles me in re Wales...Well, maybe the majority of BNP voters in Wales would count themselves as British, and may well be of non-Welsh extraction anyway. Or maybe some of them are just stupid/gullible/both and think the BNP will have one iota of respect for Welsh cultural identity if they get into power. I suspect the general upfucking of the three main political parties over the past few years have made people drift to the sideline parties. "

[knirirr]

You may be interested to know what the chairman of the National Front had to say about the BNP in a letter to the Sunday Telegraph:

National Front has no wish to be
identified with the BNP. The NF is a Racial Nationalist party, which stands by its original policies o
f "Stop immigration, Start repatriation". The BNP, for imagined short term political gain, has reneged
on its original policies. It now advocates that coloured immigrants be allowed to remain in Britain.
It even allows coloured membership and has coloured candidates. It allows homosexual membership of the
BNP and fawns on the "gay" vote. It has a Sikh columnist in its newspaper and a Sikh appeared on its
television broadcast. These are hardly the policies of a bona fide Nationalist party. No wonder many genuine nationalists are being sacked by the BNP hierarchy and many more leaving for genuine White Nationalist parties. The BNP is no longer a genuine White Racial Nationalist party and the National Front
entirely disassociates itself from it.

Of course, even if

[peredur_glyn]

The NF don't like the BNP, the BNP don't like UKIP, and UKIP doesn't seem to like anyone much. It's all one big happy family, isn't it?

Thanks for ref'ing the letter. Seems the NF are even more naiive than the BNP. It also literally astonishes me that there are people living in 2007 who can write about "coloured immigrants" and worship Aryan ideals. The NF, however, is never likely to attract anyone other than a moron, whereas 'ordinary' people who admire the BNP's stance on immigration and the statist policies you rightly revile may side with them. I'm sure, in actuality, there's less of a chasm between the BNP's and the NF's ideals than the above letter writer would like to believe.

[stonedsamurai]

At least we can take heart that in Britain and Ireland the number of people voting for far-right parties is still a hell of a lot lower than in, say, France and Germany.

[peredur_glyn]

Indeed. It worries me that any country in Europe (let alone further afield), who've seen at first-hand the shit far-right fascism has caused in the past 100 years, can still have its citizens vote for people with similar aspirations. Whlst Le Pen in France has apparently lost popularity now, it's amazing that he ever had a chance at all. But it wouldn't surprise me if, within the next 20 years, France or (and?) Germany will have a far-right government on its hands again. A terrifying thought. I think I'll go and lie down now.

[dyddgu]

It's because it hasn't happened in the majority of the voting public's lifetimes anymore, I guess...

[peredur_glyn]

Probably. Which means we should make sure we have a really big war every fifty years or so to remind people. Mr Blair, over to you.