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The British National Party in
Oldham
On the Today programme, Friday, 8 June 2001, the leader of the BNP was interviewed by John Humphries who attempted to paint him as a bigot. The replies he got however, did not match that stereotype, maybe because the man who had just got the 6,000 plus votes thought that to oblige him would be a mistake. Nick Griffin even complained about discrimination against Negrids. He said that Puritans from Northern Ireland were given grants to move back, but West Indians and Africans were not aided when they wanted to return home – and that was racial discrimination! Humphries said there was nowhere for most of those that the BNP wanted to expel to go to. They were born in Britain and so were as British as anyone else. Griffin replied that they would only be given this grant to go home if they wanted to do so. If they want to stop then they can do so, he added. He had won just over 16% of the votes cast in Oldham West and Royton. In the neighbour-ing constituency of Oldham East and Saddleworth, the BNP collected around 11% of the votes. The Indianid councillor, Abdul Quayum, whose ward is in the constituency where the BNP came in third, said the result would encourage the extreme right-wing party to stand in next year's local elections. "What they'll do is keep inciting the trouble and I'm sure they will target the local council election as well in Oldham. At the end of the day I think we need to resolve our own issues rather than having external organisations like the BNP coming into Oldham and trying to incite trouble". There is a bit of irony here. He added that although a right-wing backlash had been expected following recent racial problems, many people had been surprised by the size of the vote gained by the BNP candidates in Oldham. The vote in Oldham was down from the last election, as it was in nearly every seat, but at 9% down, this was rather less than the national average. It was the first time the BNP had saved its deposit in an election in the North of England. Labour's Michael Meacher, who held on to the Oldham West, condemned the BNP's performance in the Oldham and Royton seat. Meacher was the fool who set out to sue a newspaper which had said he was not working class – a middle class reaction if ever there was one. He said: "It (the BNP success) has of course been on the back of a systematic campaign of violence, intimidation and bigotry which has been perpetrated on the people of Oldham." He held that the BNP had made most progress in persuading Conservative voters to change to the BNP, but he added that they had made little headway in racially mixed areas. "Where white communities were living at some distance and quite remote, with no Asians in the immediate neighbourhood, that is where the greatest swing to the BNP occurred. This suggests that it is fears and stereotypes and prejudices which have been stirred up terribly in this last four weeks" Griffin held that Meacher was quite wrong and said it was just ‘Labour spin’. It was in the areas where Europid and Indianid people were equally divided that around half the votes had been for the BNP. "In both those areas if you go around there at the moment there are dozens and dozens of white houses with their windows smashed and boarded up. It's those areas, where the people have to live with multiculturalism, that voted for the British National Party", said Griffin.
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One
of the results of the earlier riots in Oldham was haply an increase in the
British National Party's (BNP) vote. It got over 6,000 votes in one of the seats
and over 5,000 in the other. At the count in Oldham West and Royton, where BNP
leader Nick Griffin came third to Labour and the Tories, candidates were banned
from making speeches at the count for fear of sparking racial hatred. It is not
clear whether that is illiberal or not; as this is the sort of decision that
could be freely taken to maximise social liberty. But censorship, voluntary or
not, is not the sort of thing liberals like.
