"Why do people support and vote for the BNP?"
 A TABLE OF PUBLISHED EXPLANATIONS:

SOURCE DOCUMENT:	EXPLANATION SUMMARY:	IDEOLOGY:
Out of the Cube.	Because the far-left doesn't engage with the white working class, and is fixated on a outdated "demo's & rallies" strategy. quote...	Left-wing.
Express & Star.	Because the Labour Party has abandoned the white working-class. quote...	Right-wing, British nationalist.
Free Britannia.	Because people are labelled 'racists' for questioning mass immigration [... and so] they come to accept the label and then turn to the BNP. quote...	Right-wing, anti-BNP.
Red Action	Because Labour lazily relies on the assured bloc votes of Asians in 'white flight' areas, which leaves a gap for BNP grassroots activists to exploit. quote...	AFA, anti-fascist.
NORSCARF leaflet	Because the workers live in terrible social conditions, and when they look for someone to blame then "racism is the easy option". quote...	Trotskyist, anti-fascist.
Freedom	Because, if enough people vote for the BNP, Labour then pour regeneration money into the area - to try to 'bribe' voters not to support the BNP in future. quote...	Right-wing, British nationalist.
Spiked	Because the BNP benefited from the media coverage surrounding the race riots. quote...	Libertarian
Spiked	Because electors wanted to make a protest vote, although they don't really know about the BNP's policies. quote...	Libertarian
Mail on Sunday	Because electors who are worried about crime can no longer turn to the Tories, who are now in thrall to political-correctness. quote...	Right-wing, populist.
Direct Action.	Because Labour has abandoned the white working class, while the Left is trapped in an outdated form of protest politics which doesn't arise organically out of communities. quote...	Anarcho-syndicalist, anti-fascist.
Searchlight.	Because local Labour party machines are often weak and feuding, while the BNP can mobilise more & more vigorous activists. quote...	Left-wing, anti-fascist.
Daily Worker.	Because electors were inflamed by Labour and Conservative rhetoric on asylum and immigration before the General Election quote...	Far-left, socialist.
Peterborough Herald & Post, & the IPPR	Because the BNP is the only party addressing the concerns of local people. quote...	Labour.
'Whiteness: endangered knowledges, endangered species?'	Because voting for the BNP boosts their profile, which sets them up as a 'lightning rod' for accusations of racism in society - which serves to obscure the more everyday/covert and widespread racisms in which the voter is immersed. quote...	Sociologist, academic.
Local newspaper columinst	Because some people in poverty want to feel they are at least 'better' than some other group - they choose non-whites for this role - and then feel envious when they see non-whites displaying the trappings of success and seeming to get 'preferential treatment'. quote...	Non-aligned
Letter in The Sentinel	Because people have a legitimate pride in being British, in traditional British culture, history, beliefs & symbols. But this pride is either denigrated or ignored by almost all councils & parties - except for the BNP. quote...	'Working-class'
Tin Man web-log	Because Sept 11th gave the BNP's pre-existing campaign against fundamentalist Muslims a huge credibility boost. The Left's reaction to Sept 11th also shocked many thinking people out of their accustomed support for the left. quote...	Right-wing
Identity	Because a minority of Muslim youths have become actively racist and violent towards their white British & Hindu neighbours (ie: 'no-go zones' for whites), often in an attempt to carve out areas safe for their heroin-dealing. This inflames and radicalises the white communities, who then turn to the BNP. quote...	Far-right, British nationalist
Independent on Sunday	Because the BNP's recent identity and policy makeover has made them much more appealing to the working-class. quote...	Liberal
Spiked & AFA	Because the left has pursued 'an hysterical anti-fascist campaign' which allows the BNP to pose as 'champions of the people' and 'the victimized underdog'. The left's demonising of the BNP is actually a form of 'tireless promotion' of them to the working-class, which is taken up and amplified by the media. quote...	Libertarian / socialist
Verbal	Because of family experience when heroin rips a family apart; people can blame the dealers and pushers, who are often from ethnic minorities - and hence the family turns to supporting the BNP. quote...	'English'
The Blanket	Because the Labour government has undermined an already crippled Trades Union movement, which was a bulwark against the far-Right. quote...	Pro-IRA, Irish Republican
Integral Europe	Because global capitalism, multiculturalism, and the ruling elite's hatred of their own culture, are all undermining the Enlightenment / humanist principles at the core of social democracy - which is creating a space for the development of new forms of fast-moving and opportunistic neo-fascist ideologies. quote...	Anthropologist, academic.
BNP web-site.	Because local Tory party machines are often broken and demoralised, while the BNP can mobilise more & more vigorous activists. quote...	Far-right, BNP.

Source quotes:

1:
"...the ANL's insistence in organising counter-demonstrations against the NF, whose membership numbers below one hundred, shows their reluctance to face the changed strategy adopted by the BNP. The BNP no longer organise marches and in 1994, after their first election success in 1993, they announced their intention to withdraw from the streets. While attacking the NF and the BNP for being 'Nazi' parties, the ANL do not offer Joe Public an alternative - yet they are never prepared to accept criticism of their strategy. ... [the BNP vote is about] the failure of both the ANL [Anti-Nazi League] and the SA [Socialist Alliance] to engage with the disillusionment of working class people." -- "Summer Of Hate" by Kevin Hind, in Out of The Cube. Date: 2001.

2:
"There are a lot of working class labour people here [in Stoke] who have deserted the traditional Labour Party because of the way they have been abandoned." -- BNP West Midlands Organiser Simon Darby, in The Staffordshire Sentinel. Date: 17th August 2002.

3:
[The BNP is...] "gaining momentum because ordinary people are constantly being labelled racists for questioning the uncontrolled immigration into the UK from cultures bent on its destruction. Brits see this destruction, they know it's happening, and when they turn to legitimate parties like Labour and the Tories for answers, they get called racist. You call people racists often enough and they will come to believe it. They will turn to demagogues who will exploit their fears." -- 'Aerostar' on Free Britannia, 20th August 2002.

4:
[BNP support due in part to...] "Labour's tactic of courting the Asian population over all others, rather than addressing the essential needs of the community as a whole." [which leaves a gap for the BNP to exploit, vis grassroots 'helping hand' politics.] -- Bob Martin, Red Action Bulletin; Volume 4, Issue 7, June/July 2000.

5:
"The British National Party make things happen. Just 14 days after three BNP councillors were elected to Burnley Council the government announced it was giving the town a share of a £25 million housing regeneration project. For the past 10 years both Labour and Tory governments have ignored Burnley's requests for additional funding saying there was no money available. Another town suddenly getting a government hand-out is Oldham, where BNP candidates polled nearly 30% of the vote on May 2nd." Freedom, (no date - article reprinted on BNP web-site).

6:
"the BNP benefited from the media circus surrounding the riots" [...] "When every issue and incident is seen through the prism of race, it is hardly a shock that some people start to see their problems in racial terms - and it is this that created the environment where the BNP could win some votes." -- Brendan O'Neill, 'Why banning the BNP is bad for democracy', Spiked, 12th June 2001.

7:
[Votes for the BNP] .... "were more of a two fingers up to the mainstream parties - not so much pro-BNP, as anti everybody else. But we might never know exactly why some voters in Oldham supported the BNP - because the whole affair has been a debate-free zone." -- Brendan O'Neill, 'Why banning the BNP is bad for democracy', Spiked, 12th June 2001.

8:
"The Mail on Sunday columnist, Peter Hitchens, blames the Conservatives for the rise in support for the BNP, saying that citizens who are worried about crime would once have been expected to turn to the Tories. Their leaders are trying so hard to please the BBC and the London left-wing elite, he argues, that they have forgotten the needs of the decent poor. If a decent and democratic party refuses to speak for the forgotten people of Britain, he continues, then somebody else will." -- BBC News Online, 5th May 2002, 'Sunday Papers ponder BNP impact'.

9:
"Much of the support for the BNP seems to come from ex-Labour Party voters who have felt abandoned by what they saw as 'their' party. Of course Old Labour never really got to grips with the issue of racism any more than it did with sexism, homophobia and so on. It relied on the gut anti-Tory instinct of those working class communities to keep returning Labour MPs and councillors. For these voters, the appeal of the BNP is their emphasis on working-class community issues long abandoned by Labour. Labour effectively ditched any pretence to socialism during the Thatcher years, courting spin-conscious middle class votes while neglecting the concerns of those working class communities seen as traditionally staunch Labour. This transformation was managed 'top down', with no real attempt to include working class communities, whose support was simply assumed. New Labour, its very title symbolising the triumph of spin over substance, has totally abandoned the working class. It also now promotes a curious mixture of multiculturalism and anti-immigration in an unprincipled attempt to appeal both to minority ethnic groups and racists. These mixed messages have actively produced a situation that the BNP in Burnley has shown itself only too able to exploit. Poverty has not been tackled, so scarce resources are competed for by poor communities who are encouraged to categorise themselves according to ethnicity. There is no real unity, appreciation or integration of differing cultures. And catapulted into this situation of deeply engrained racism and grinding poverty are the government's, and the left's, half-baked attempts to force people into acceptance of 'multiculturalism' without any of the groundwork needed to enable people to cross the divide between racism and solidarity. The BNP's success has also resulted from a failure of the anti-fascist strategy pursued by the left. Following the trend of New Labour, it has continued to flog tired old slogans without much attempt to understand the frustrations of the white working class. Anti-Nazi League (ANL)/Socialist Workers Party (SWP) activists are accurately seen as outsiders in those working class communities where the BNP did well. They are bussed in and organised by their full-time officials and know nothing of local concerns and traditions. The ANL/SWP's 'Vote anybody rather than vote Nazi' strategy completely missed the concerns of those who might be tempted to vote for the BNP. 'Don't vote Nazi' was even the front-page headline of the Daily Express the week before the elections. From a white working-class point of view, everyone that didn't understand their local and immediate problems, from the Tory right to the Leninist left, were united against the BNP; this simply gave an added buzz in voting for them." -- 'Racism rising; 21st Century fascism in small-town Lancashire', Direct Action magazine, Summer 2002.

10:
"Today, the local Labour Party finds itself demoralised, elderly and split. It is a sad indictment of the state of the party when it has fewer activists than the local BNP. Internal issues and feuds need to be resolved [...] Only by reinvigorating the local party can Labour hope to fight off the BNP." Anon, 2002 election analysis: 'Developing a coherent strategy for Burnley'. Searchlight magazine.

11:
"SWP [Socialist Workers Party] speakers claimed that the relative rise in support for the BNP resulted from 'New Labour and Tory rhetoric on asylum-seekers'." -- Darrell Goodliffe, Weekly Worker, 'After Bradford', No. 392, Thursday July 12th 2001.

"Labour's tactics [of appearing to adopting some of our policies] have actually helped to further legitimise the core issues on which the BNP has long campaigned". -- Nick Griffin, Identity, November 2002.

12:
"We have problems with begging, prostitution, crime and policing - and the BNP are expressing people's opposition to these serious issues." -- Charles Swift, Labour councillor for North Ward in Peterborough, in Peterborough Herald & Post.

"In places such as Bradford people feel that the mainstream politicians do not talk about their fears, and the BNP seem to reflect these people's genuine concerns... There is a big gap opening up between the political elite and the voters." -- Matthew Taylor, director of the IPPR and former head of the Downing Street Policy Unit. Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR - a New Labour think-tank).

13:
Gabriel, J.
Whiteness: endangered knowledges, endangered species?
(IN: Lee-Treweek, G. & Linkogle, S. (Eds.) Danger In The Field; risk & ethics in social research. Routledge, 2000.) Page 169.

14:
NORSCARF (Socialist Party front organisation), 'The Stoke-on-Trent Citizen', leaflet, 2002.

15:
Paraphrased from a private conversation with a local political columnist. Asked not to have his name/paper mentioned.

16:
Unpublished letter to The Sentinel (the main North Staffordshire newspaper), letters page. Passed to the researcher by a correspondent, 9th September 2002.

17:
Tin Man weblog, 28th September 2002. (Asked not to be linked to or quoted directly).

18:
Identity [BNP magazine], Summer 2001.

19:
"We live in the age of makeovers with gardens, houses, and people transformed by a battery of experts before our very eyes most nights on television. No more thorough a job though has been done than with the BNP. It is clearly marketing itself as a party working-class people can relate to. Providing they are white, of course." -- Michael Prestage, Independent on Sunday, 18th August 2002.

20:
"The more the left has pursued an hysterical anti-fascist campaign, the more its emphasis on 'no platform' [for BNP speakers] has revealed a snobbish distrust of the electorate - and the more the BNP can bogusly pose as champions of 'the people'. As Today programme editor and Guardian columnist Rod Liddle put it: 'The image that the BNP promotes there is of a brave, campaigning party. ... Like the people they claim to represent, they are the victimized underdog, excluded from the political process.' It is doubtful whether many would even have been aware of the BNP's existence without the left's tireless promotion. [...] The left's anti-fascist campaigning has also made the BNP newsworthy. Having built the BNP up as a terrifying threat, it's hardly surprising that press and TV are curious to see what all the blather is about. But with race now centre-stage of political discussion, you'd expect this to be a big opportunity to challenge the far-right and racism. Not a chance. The left lacks confidence in its arguments on race and racism, and is convinced that the far-right have enormous powers of persuasion. Consequently, it hides behind 'no platform' [policies] to evade political contest." -- Neil Davenport, Spiked, 10th May 2002, 'Doing fascists a favour'.

"It is [...] unlikely the ANL [Anti-Nazi League, a Socialist Workers Party front organisation] will continue to get unconditional Cabinet Minister endorsement when it is perceived to be acting as a recruitment sergeant for the BNP. Labour MP Marsha Singh for one, has called for the "ANL to be banned" insisting the "price is too high". Another Labour MP Sion Simon, also denounces the role of the ANL: "one might have thought the supposed anti-Nazis would recognise their own leading role in bringing it [recruitment to the far-right] about, as counterproductive. [...] Ever so reluctantly even Searchlight [anti-fascist magazine] have come to recognise that it is the BNP - and only the BNP - who are benefiting from the NF-ANL political play-acting." -- Bradford: 'The day the ANL-NF pantomime horse bolted', Red Action Bulletin, 9th July 2001.

21:
Not a published explanation, but one given verbally to the researcher.

22:
"[...] by continuing to undermine organised labour - a movement which might be expected to be at the very forefront of resistance to Fascism - Blair's government is making it far easier for Fascists to operate." -- Mark Hayes, 'The BNP, Anti-Fascism And The Libertarian Dilemma', The Blanket (Pro-IRA magazine), 8th September 2002.

23:
Douglas Holmes.
Integral Europe: Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neo-fascism. (Anthropologist examines Brussels and the Isle of Dogs, London)
Princeton University Press, 2000.

Also the core argument of philosopher Roger Scruton in his new book The West & The Rest - Globalisation and the Terrorist Threat, who also adds the rapid decline of belief in God within the English Church.

24:
"...only a couple of decades ago the Tory party was described as - and indeed was - 'the most formidable election-winning machine in Western Europe.' Its accelerating collapse is one of the most important factors in favour of the BNP." -- 'Death of the Tory Party' - BNP web-site, December 2002.

 "WHY DO PEOPLE SUPPORT
 & VOTE FOR THE
 BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY?"

 An artist's investigation into
 people, identity, and place.

Project supported by: PUBLIC ART WEST MIDLANDS, c/PLEX and JUBILEE ARTS.